[This is one in a series of devotional reflections prepared for Horley Baptist Church during June 2023]
Do you ever get the feeling that maybe you are not getting the whole story? It’s not that you are being lied to or deliberately misled; rather that something doesn’t quite add-up in what you have heard. Maybe it’s simply that what you thought you heard was not what I thought I said. Somewhere along the line of communication some part of the context of the message got lost.
Here is an example. I used to work as a traffic analyst in London and part of my analysis showed that “buses moved 17% faster in those bus lanes that were being actively enforced”. A subsequent press notice reported that “bus journeys are now 17% quicker”. The figure was accurate but the statement no longer reflected the correct context. Were those writing the press report aware of the limitations of the full context or was it a case of ‘why let the truth get in the way of a good story?’[1]
To what extent is partial truth still truth? In American crime movies witnesses swear to ‘tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’. Obviously, those legislators who originally drafted that requirement decided that the context is an essential part of a true account of events.
Is it the same in some of the Bible accounts? As Christians we believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, delivered by the Holy Spirit through the medium of accurate writers and diligent translators. Yet, do we think that there are bits missing, that there are aspects that appear to not add up?
In the account of the woman at the well in Samaria,[2] we infer certain aspects of her lifestyle from her solitary visit to the well and her relationships history, but this is at odds with the enthusiastic way in which her neighbours received her report about her encounter with Jesus. Surely, if the image that we have of her is true then her story would have been dismissed as just the start of yet another ‘fling’.
One reason why Bible stories can be short on detail is that some things can be taken as read. Certain aspects of every-day life in Bible times would not need to be spelt out – the original readers would be familiar with the details of family relationships, daily life and religious practices. The implications of a solitary woman drawing water at midday would not have been lost on them but neither would the significance of the location, close to where Jacob was buried.[3] Societies change, languages evolve; living in a different culture means that we might miss out on the full context or overlook the significance of some of the details.
Do the gaps in the Bible accounts mean that it is only a partial truth? Are we tempted to speculate about what might have been omitted? For example, we are not told how the Jewish disciples felt about having to stay two days in a Samaritan town. Did they rejoice about the success of a new outreach or did habitual perceptions of a strained relationship persist?
Towards the end of his gospel the apostle John explained that not everything that Jesus did had been recorded and surely the reason that he gives is valid for all scripture:
… but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20 v31 [NKJV]
Are you tempted to read between the lines or even add a few lines of your own? Surely the simplicity of John’s statement provides all we need to know.
Resources:
[1] Mark Twain, after satirist Jonathan Swift
[2] John 4 v1-42
[3] Joshua 24 v32
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Last week’s reflection: It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum
Contributed by Steve Humphreys; © Steve Humphreys
These are perceptive points and important to understand in our modern world of mass communication. Thank you Steve for sharing them.
Hi Steve,
Thank you for your interesting reflection.
I am not sure that we can infer much about the woman who was the woman at the well. She had had five husbands. Perhaps some or all of them had died or maybe some of them had divorced her. Divorce was not necessarily very “frowned upon.” The only “scandal” that we are sure about is that she was living with a man who was not her husband. We don’t know how how the Samaritans thought about such matters or even for certain that they knew. Perhaps they thought he was a lodger or a relative. There is no suggestion that she was a prostitute. WE can infer I think that she was well known and probably living in a small town or what we would regard as a village.
For a point of view which differs from our handed-down presumptions, have a look at “The Samaritan Woman Reconsidered” by Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg, Ph.D.
(Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg is the head of school at Israel Institute of Biblical Studies and founder of Israel Bible Center)
It is available from Amazon as a Kindle Edition.