Another Popular Mistake In Biblical Interpretation

Introduction

Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. One of the most well-known facts about his life is that he taught Sunday School at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. I am not sure that he still teaches Sunday School there, given his current health. However, his teaching at Maranatha Baptist Church spanned several years.

While I respect Jimmy Carter, he is not immune from error, even when it comes to interpreting the Bible. A statement from Jimmy Carter has been circulating around Facebook. The statement comes from a 2012 interview Jimmy Carter gave to the Huffington Post. This statement is shown below:

This argument didn't originate with Jimmy Carter. It was around before Jimmy Carter's interview. We will examine in a subsequent post whether or not this argument is accurate. For the purposes of this post, I think it is necessary to share why the interpretive method used by Jimmy Carter here is not solid. Despite its lack of merit, this interpretive method is accepted at a popular level by far too many today.

The  issue with the interpretive method former President Carter uses to reach his conclusion is that he is arguing from silence. It is logically fallacious to argue that, because someone or something is silent about an issue, that he, she, or it approves of the practice of the issue. This is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at things. After all, Jesus also never condemned gladiatorial combat. That doesn't mean that he approved of the brutal sport. Romans at the time were heavily involved in infanticide by leaving unwanted infants out in the elements to die. Jesus doesn't directly address this. His teachings indirectly addresses it by the value he ascribed to kids, but he never uttered the phrase "Infanticide is wrong." No one in their right mind would think that Jesus approved of infanticide. Jesus also never directly condemned the military aggression of the Romans, as brutal as it was. Yet I don't know of anyone who could successfully argue that Jesus wanted Romans to continue to be brutal to those they were trying to conquer.

The fact is that multiple factors need to be considered before it can be determined whether silence involves approval, disapproval, or something else. There are multiple reasons why the silence of Jesus on an issue (and, as we will see in a subsequent post, Jesus wasn't exactly silent on the issue) might not necessarily indicate approval of a person, subject, or behavior.

The Question May Never Have Arisen

We have to understand that the Bible wasn't written to the 21st Century Western world. It was written for us, but not really written to us. Certain questions that are asked today simply were not asked by the original audience to which the biblical books were written. Someone who lived without cars would not have asked questions about whether such vehicles should be gas-powered, electric, or some kind of hybrid. Other questions may have been asked which have a bearing on this modern question, but this is an example of a question that the biblical authors simply would not have asked.

To be sure, biblical principles definitely have implications for today's world. In the case of vehicles, for example, several biblical teachings have a bearing on the responsible use of vehicles. The prohibition on murder tells us that our vehicles should never become weapons. When Jesus takes this prohibition one step further to prohibit hatred toward others in our heart, the principle can be applied in a modern context as a prohibition of road rage. This is a reasonable and biblically-grounded application of the words of Jesus, despite the fact that Jesus said nothing specific about road rage, since the issue never actually arose during his earthly ministry.

The Question May Never Have Needed To Be Addressed

When we examine the life of Jesus, we note that he rebukes the things that were wrong, not the things that were being done correctly. For example, Jesus never attempted to challenge the institution of marriage and the family. Specifically, he never directly raised the question of whether or not marriage was a good institution. He addressed issues related to divorce, drawing an even harder line in the sand than most of his contemporaries. In his critique of divorce, we see that he did, in fact, hold a high view of marriage. He addressed eunuchs, which may have a bearing on discussions of celibacy, singleness, and marriage. However, he did not directly raise the question of whether or not marriage is good. He didn't need to raise this question. Marriage was generally seen as a good thing by those around him. Therefore, he would not have needed to raise this question. It was already answered in the minds of his audience, and the generally high view of marriage was a good thing.

We can also imagine other things that Jesus could have spoken about, but didn't. The example, given above, about the military brutality of the Romans is a good example of this. Jesus never addressed it directly. He didn't need to. The Jewish people, to whom Jesus primarily preached, already hated the barbaric acts of the Romans. There was no need for Jesus to even raise the question of whether these actions were moral or in line with what God desired for people. It was already understood by his audience that the acts were immoral.

Given that Jesus generally addressed things that were wrong, the supposed silence of Jesus on any topic cannot be taken in a way that runs contrary to the culture around him at the time. In the case of marriage, Jesus never had to raise the question of whether it was good, since the Jewish culture of the first century understood marriage to be a good thing. In the case of Roman military brutality, Jesus never had to ask whether such things were wrong. His audience already knew that they were. We cannot take the silence of Jesus on this question as an affirmation of the goodness of military brutality any more than we can take the silence of Jesus on marriage as an indication that all marriages are bad.

The Question May Already Have Been Addressed

Sometimes an issue may not have been raised by Jesus because the question had already been addressed. A prominent example of this is the issue of monotheism and idolatry. Jesus didn't have to provide an extended sermon on the issue of monotheism and idolatry. The issue had already been addressed throughout the Old Testament. It had been addressed by other rabbis. It had been addressed regularly in synagogues. It had been addressed repeatedly by the religious leaders of the day. The fact that there is one God who does not share his glory with idols had been addressed so often that Jesus didn't really have to address it directly. While some of his teachings relate in a general way to the prohibition of idolatry, this wasn't something that Jesus addressed in a very direct way. He had no need to.

The same could be said about blasphemy. Jesus did not directly address the issue of blasphemy because it was already prohibited, and had been addressed ad nauseum. He had no real need to tell those who heard him teach to not blaspheme. They already knew not to.

Conclusion

It is simply an overly simplistic argument from silence to say that the silence of Jesus on an issue indicates his approval of said issue. The fact is that there are multiple reasons why Jesus may not have addressed a particular issue. In this post I have listed three, but honestly, there are more possibilities than this. Good exegesis requires that we understand the context of the passages and how that may have influenced the words that Jesus has spoken (or not spoken).

We cannot allow ourselves to draw incorrect inferences from silence. We need to be careful that we don't misrepresent the words of Jesus, or the silence of Jesus, as a means of scoring a quick political point. We cannot allow arguments from silence to drive our understanding of the teaching of Jesus. As we will see in a later post, the supposed silence of Jesus on this issue is actually an argument against the affirming position, not for it.