The Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses: A Complete Guide to Answering the Tough Questions

by Josh McDowell, Sean McDowell

Josh and Sean McDowell, masters of practical Christian apologetics, team up in this trustworthy resource that helps readers understand and gain assurance about difficult Bible verses and passages. The McDowells’ way of boiling down topics and explaining them clearly helps dispel questions that can confuse people about Christianity or frustrate them in their spiritual growth. Readers will appreciate features such as This is a resource readers will turn to for help in everyday life―one that will help them gain confidence in all of Scripture. Excellent for individuals, churches, and church leaders, as well as personal and pastoral libraries.

Genres: Christian, Religion, Reference, Biblical Studies

352 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Josh McDowell is a bestselling Christian apologist, evangelist, and author of over 150 books, including Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter. Once an agnostic, he converted to Christianity while investigating its historical claims. He went on to earn degrees from Wheaton College and Talbot Theological Seminary. For decades, McDowell has been a prominent speaker with Campus Crusade for Christ, addressing issues of faith, character, and youth culture worldwide. His work emphasizes historical and legal evidence for Christianity and tackles challenges posed by skepticism and non-Christian beliefs. He lives in California with his wife, Dottie, and is the father of four children, including fellow apologist Sean McDowell.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FATHER/SON APOLOGETIC DUO CONSIDER THE “HARD” PASSAGES

The introductory section of this 2013 book states, “We won’t be answering every possible question there is about what the Bible teaches. What we will do is offer answers by trusted scholars … to many of the tough issues of the Bible… we will, at times, provide differing opinions and interpretations by various scholars on both sides of the issue… We will tackle passages that are difficult to understand, some that have commonly been misinterpreted, and portions of the Bible that some believe contain mistakes, errors, or contradictions.” (Pg. 9)

They acknowledge, “Because there were no printing presses at the time Scripture was being written… men had to handwrite copies to preserve the copies from one generation to another… some errors were made. But just because there were copying mistakes does not mean the Bible is full of contradictions and errors. Because when you examine the ‘errors’ it is often clear how they were made and that they do not alter the intended meaning of the text.” (Pg. 13)

Of light being created on the 1st day of creation, but the sun, moon and stars not being created until the 4th day, they comment: “On the very first day of creation God may have very well brought into existence the miraculous phenomenon of light… Then on the fourth day… God formed the sun, moon, and starts to warm Planet Earth and radiate light throughout the visible universe. The other possible response to this question involves asking a question about the nature of Genesis---‘Was Moses trying to offer a scientific chronology of the creation event?’ … If yes, then some explanation such as the above is necessary. If no, then this difficulty disappears.” (Pg. 27)

About the age of the Earth, they state, “We recognize there are well-meaning, thoughtful, and Bible-believing Christians who disagree about the age of the earth and how Genesis 1 is to be interpreted. While these are important matters, they are not essential questions that should divide Christians. The most important truth Genesis 1-2 offers is that the personal God is the Creator of all and that humans are his special creation with whom he wants a relationship.” (Pg. 37)

Of the Flood, they observe, “With the evidence of fossils in different areas of the world does suggest a global flood, some still raise difficult questions like these: *If the Flood was global, how to you explain the receding of the water> How did so much water drain away or evaporate in such a short period of time? *How could plants, trees, and other vegetation survive salt water from the oceans? *How could many of the marine life survive the mingling of salt and fresh water? These and other questions lead some to believe the Floor was very extensive and destroyed those who God wanted killed, but that it was not global… But clearly there was a flood that accomplished God’s purpose. Additionally, an extensive flood is written about in practically every ancient culture… The parallels between the many stories from practically every culture are amazing… The fact that the biblical account of a flood, whether local or global, is shared by so many cultures is added evidence that the Flood was indeed a cataclysmic event as described in Genesis.” (Pg. 58-59)

Of God ordering the destruction of entire nations (e.g., Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, Jebusites in Dt 20:17), they explain, “any killing by God in the Old Testament was not arbitrary. God was motivated by moral concerns, not race. So this was actually NOT genocide. Mass murder is not within God’s nature… God could not be a perfect and loving God without equally being a just God who judges perfectly. To act differently would be less than who he is… [The Canaanites] were a depraved people. Yet God was patient and he extended mercy to them even in their despicable sin… Yet God was willing to save those from within Canaan that were righteous. In fact he saved Rahab in Jericho because she was a righteous individual.” (Pg. 104)

They acknowledge, “The writers of the Old and New Testaments referenced various source documents… The ‘Book of the Kings of Israel’ [1 Chr 9:1] is one such source document, which the writers of Kings and Chronicles used. In fact this book is references 17 times in 1 & 2 Kings. Yet at some point ‘The Book of the Kings of Israel’ was lost. This doesn’t mean an inspired book of the Bible was lost. It simply means the inspired writers of the Bible used source documents that at some point in time were lost.” (Pg. 125)

About the problem of suffering, they say, “To a degree it is possible to craft a theological or philosophical answer for why there is suffering and why free choice has in effect allowed it. Yet in many respects the intensity of human suffering is simply too emotionally overwhelming for reason for logic to provide a thoroughly satisfying answer. And actually, the Bible by and large doesn’t directly address the question of why there is suffering. However, from the first book of Genesis to the last book of Revelation it does tell us what God is doing about it. He has not ignored suffering; he is working to bring an end go it.” (Pg. 153)

On modern “healing” miracles: “Christians remain divided on how God is using miracles today. There is general agreement among evangelical Christians that God is miraculously transforming people today by bringing them into relationship with him. But people don’t fully agree that God intends to exercise his healing powers today as he has in the past.” (Pg. 190-191)

About Mark 16:9-20, they state, “Nearly all biblical scholars agree that Mark did not write either the shorter ending … or the longer ending… There is a clear difference in style and vocabulary. And the oldest and most reliable Greek manuscripts, most notably the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, do not have these endings. However, most scholars doubt that Mark would have ended his Gospel with the one sentence of Mark 8… Many scholars believe that Mark’s original ending was torn out accidentally or lost. Others think Mark simply didn’t get it finished. Whatever the case, the other Gospels fill in the ending and nothing in this added ending contradicts the other narratives.” (Pg. 209)

Of the wine at the Wedding at Cana (Jn 2:9-10), they assert, “Typically a wedding host would serve the good wine at the beginning of the wedding feast. The good wine would numb the senses a bit so that the less expensive wine served later would tend to go unnoticed. What Jesus produced was good, expensive wine … It was undoubtedly an aged wine that did have alcoholic content. Some would say that Jesus would not have created an alcoholic beverage because the Bible is against drinking alcohol in any manner. However, what the Bible speaks about is drunkenness… While wine was a part of society in biblical times and was drunk at practically every meal, the overuse of it to the point of drunkenness is what the Bible speaks against.” (Pg. 222)

On tongues, they say, “There is not a consensus among evangelicals on Christians’ speaking on tongues… Many Christians today believe that speaking in tongues… is evidence of receiving the Holy Spirit… Others say that being gifted by the Holy Spirit to speak in a language that is not naturally familiar to the person was necessary for the first-century church to evangelize. But they would contend that this period or dispensation of miraculous giftedness of speaking in an unknown language (tongues) is over… It would be wise for Christians to read up on the issue and study the Scripture with a sound interpretive process.” (Pg. 244-245)

Of the command in 1 Cor 14:34-35 for women to keep silent in church, they observe, “There are those who contend that Paul’s prohibition of women speaking in church is universal and applies today. Their point is that women need to respect the authority of man as God’s spokesmen of truth and should remain silent at church. However, it seems that Paul was addressing a specific problem in the church of Corinth unique to them, with application for all of us. This would then be interpreting the passage in light of its cultural context… Some recount historically how new women converts in the early church were hungry to know more about their faith and were asking questions in formal meetings. Others say it was perhaps uneducated women raising irrelevant questions. Regardless of what was causing [it]… it was resulting in disruption and chaos… A prohibition for women to keep quiet in which then is not for all women in every age in every church… this was a particular problem in the Corinthian church in the first century…” (Pg. 246)

Of baptism for the dead in 1 Cor 15:29, they advise, “Apparently some first-century Christians were getting baptized either for believers who had died before they were baptized or for dead unbelievers they wanted to be saved. The idea was that a living believer could be baptized in place of someone else who had died---as a substitute. This is the only place in Scripture that refers to this apparent practice. And Paul is neither condoning it nor condemning it… It is unwise to base a doctrinal position on an obscure and isolated passage of Scripture. Without other passages to clarify this one it is risky to interpret this to mean that a person can be baptized for another person… [this interpretation] for a deceased person would contradict how Scripture teaches us we are made right by God.” (Pg. 248-249)

About whether 1 Tim 2:11-12 prohibits modern women from teaching in church, they suggest, “one must understand [the passage] within the cultural context of that day… Ephesus had the largest temple … that was dedicated to … the goddess of fertility. Women … fulfilled the role of ‘sacred’ prostitutes… Paul warned Timothy about these false teachers… With that as a context, it was necessary that ‘women should learn quietly and submissively’ from the orthodox teaching of the men in the church… this would not appear to be a timeless prohibition for all women in all churches in every age… Additionally, Paul’s involvement with women as co-workers in the gospel would have precluded him forbidding ALL women to speak or officially serve in the church. In the church at Philippi, Paul cites two women… .as his co-workers [Phil 4:3]… Paul refers to [Phoebe] as a deacon… Junia, a woman, was either recognized by Paul as an apostle… or at least exercising certain authority within the church [Rom 16:7].” (Pg. 270-272)

Of 1 Pet 4:6, they comment: “it is unlikely Peter is explaining that the dead have a second chance of repentance… A clearer translation… means people who have died had the gospel preached to them so they would be saved. However, some scholars believe this passage might be referring to Christ offering salvation following his death to those who died accepting the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament… But scholars point out that these verses still do not claim that Jesus offered salvation or ‘evangelized’ the unrepentant dead. Some contend that he preached or announced the victory of his resurrection but with no opportunity to repent.” (Pg. 294)

Of Jude 14-15, they point out, “Jude quotes from 1 Enoch 1:9, which was part of Jewish literature at the time. No doubt most of the early church was familiar with the book of Enoch. It was not uncommon for the apostles to quote from sources other than in the Hebrew text, which was the accepted Scripture. Not everything in Enoch was accepted fully by Jewish scholars. But that doesn’t mean that men like Jude couldn’t quote from it. He obviously felt certain portions were valid.” (Pg. 305)

This very useful and “objective” book will be “must reading” for Christians wanting interpretations of such problematic biblical passages.

[Tackman Babcock · Rating 1 out of 5]

Demand better.

You: "I don't feel comfortable with this part of the bible in Leviticus 20:9 where it says "Anyone who dishonors his father or mother must be put to death.". Doesn't that mean killing people for something mild? Even killing .. children?"

Josh McDowell: "Murdering your kids is cool and good actually (p.94). *Especially* if they're homosexual. That'll be $10."

You: "I didn't know God was so ok with murdering kids... I mean because I had some questions about that bit where God orders genocide."

Josh McDowell: "If you mean murdering an entire race of people, that's not 'genocide'. Murdering every last man, woman and child of a given race only counts as 'genocide' if you murder them all because of their race* (p.103). When God said kill all the Jebusites, God wanted all the Jebusites murdered, but he also described them as immoral too! And we know that villains who plan to commit a genocide would never describe their targets as immoral. See! It's totally different."

You: "That... doesn't sound very convincing."

Josh McDowell: "It turns out murdering an entire race or six is fine, you just have to name it something else. That's all I've got on not-technically-genocide today. If you still think there's any problem here, you can buy my other book on it, for another $10."


Now, if it seems revolting to you that someone could rephrase genocide so that it suddenly doesn't matter, the vast majority of the scholars and legislators who study or write laws around genocide agree with you; they're deeply suspicious of attempts to allow genocide-excusers to get off on a technicality, and their definitions of genocide are pretty hard for people like Slobodan Milošević or our man Josh to squirm out of, eg check the UN convention on Genocide, 1948 to see if you can take Josh at his word on what counts as genocide.

---

I began with a joke, above, partly because it's hard to figure out what an appropriate reaction would be to the sorts of horrific claims you will find in this book. It really is full of a kind of cruelty it is hard to convey. Feel free to check McDowell's answers to the above two questions, to see if I'm characterising him unfairly here.

More seriously, it's rare to come across a book that is quite so purely evil as this one. This is the polite, bureaucratic, banal face of evil, the kind that decides that a couple of paragraphs of asinine, mealy-mouthed blather ought to be plenty to paper over each of the countless piles of stacked corpses that this book wants to downplay, from the children whose murders he justifies, to the dead gay men and women executed at God's instruction, to the slavery that McDowell wants us to believe was not-so-bad (by conflating God's two sets of instructions for slavery of Israelites vs slavery of members of foreign nations, neat trick man).

It's important to ask what McDowell's real function is here. This book is written for Christians or mostly-Christians, who are reading scriptures. There's plenty of nice messages in scripture too, but this book isn't about those. This is for people who while reading scripture -or perhaps while trying to proselytise- encountered some of those many parts of scripture that could make a decent person recoil in horror.

Do we wish our author Josh McDowell, then, to be some sort of understudy to provide some bland paragraph—any paragraph really, lorem ipsum if need be—to offer us reassurance that at least someone else noticed those and then decided somehow (who cares how?) that those passages didn't really matter? And to assure us that we can walk on by whatever bloodthirsty or vicious commandment we noticed and still believe it mouthed by God, and still think ourselves a decent person?

Or do we ask McDowell to be something else: a capable man, searching for genuine answers, a sort of battle-hardened veteran who has grappled with the hard issues and come back stronger for it? If it is this kind of man you're hoping for, the "not-technically-genocide" escape pod McDowell tries to build for himself above should be far more than enough to convince you to look elsewhere. Readers of McDowell's work need to honestly ask themselves: if I don't draw the line at McDowell excusing actual genocide based on a made-up technicality, exactly how bad would a book of apologetics have to be exactly? What possible deep flaw could it contain that I would consider it trash, if I overlook excusing basically the worst crime imaginable, as McDowell does here?

This book offers no answers that could satisfy anyone who values their integrity. Somewhat ironic given how some of the most valuable and precious contributions Jesus makes in scripture are his emphasising genuine hunger to do whats right and true instead of offering empty words, gestures, rituals and technical-objections to escape from our moral obligations.

McDowell's earlier work 'More than a Carpenter' was propagandist nonsense that provoked me—at the time a creationist Christian in college—enough to ask how could a book that had such a terrible attempt at scholarship still be so wildly popular among all the largest Christian outreach groups..? Didn't they have much better to choose from? I wondered, maybe, if this famous book was so glaringly far below adequate, does my faith, which I was brought up in and which I loved actually have any defensible basis? Is this daily relationship with Jesus, my constant companion, these precious scriptures, the moral guidance, the exultation of worship, does this all fall apart like a wet paper bag as soon as you start asking "Do we have good reasons to believe this is true?"

Encountering McDowell's earlier book began a long journey for me, one of examining my Christian faith and trying to find better informed apologists for the faith, I wanted people with integrity who had looked into the reasons why we should believe it and came back with something solid. I looked through C.S. Lewis, Lee Strobel, Tim Keller, WLC (just listing protestants here) and finding each and every one of them deeply insufficient to the task, the slowly uncovering, glaring shortfall in Christian scholarship was devastating to my faith, and after a year or two, eventually led to me rejecting Christianity entirely. It is embarrassing to say this, but it was only then, after rejecting my faith because I could not find good reasons to think it was true, did I start to understand how dangerously wrong it was that my faith had asked me to excuse all these atrocities, and to put a polite face on treating gay people like there was something wrong with them, to treat divorce (even in the case of spousal abuse!) as something outside of God's plans. To find people of other faiths inherently lesser, or to imagine they're less moral.

If anything, reading McDowell's recent apologetics here make me feel just heartbroken, really, because if I hadn't spent years learning before concluding that there were insufficient reasons to think the Christian faith was true, maybe I'd be right there along side him, like my family, nodding along, eyes glazed, while his politely-written pamphlet implores you that murdering kids, murdering gay people, murdering people of other faiths shouldn't bother you, and that you can walk right on past and still be a good person.

I wish to communicate to you, dear reader, how much of a horror-story ending that seems to me now.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 4 out of 5]

This should be admitted that this sort of book often varies widely based on what verses are considered to be difficult by the author and the situation.  It is impossible to understand the Bible if one has no particular abiding interest in obeying it, but the amount of ways that one can go wrong in interpretation are nearly infinite and a book like this, written as it is, cannot help but show the way that the authors think of some scriptures and clear and others as unclear.  This book does not cover what I consider to be some basic and obvious scriptures that present difficulties to the author's worldview, which mainly makes a book like this an attempt by the authors to explain away those scriptures which have frequently been brought to their attention, and does not account for all of the Bible difficulties that even an ordinarily biblically literate person could be expected to find simply by being attentive to the questions and concerns that people have about the Bible and what it says.  This book is certainly suitable for a relatively superficial audience, but there are way more difficulties and tough questions that the authors simply do not engage with at all.

This book is divided into seven parts based on the authors' sevenfold division of scripture.  The book begins with an introduction on how to use this handbook.  After that the first third or so of the book is taken up by the five books of the law (I), with fifty of those pages devoted to Genesis alone and more than ten pages for Leviticus, which predictably presents some difficulties as well.  After this the author breezes through twelve books of the historical prophets (II) in less than 30 pages, showing that they do not consider these books to be especially troublesome, likely because few enough people know them to ask tough questions about them.  After that the authors spend only ten pages dealing with difficult passages from Job (!), Psalms (!!), Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (!!) and Song of Solomon (!!!), all of which demonstrate that people need to seriously ask some tougher questions about wisdom literature.  The literary prophets from Isaiah through Malachi present some challenge that are well worth looking at (IV), and the Gospels + Acts provide more than 40 pages of questions so it is clear where the authors' focus mainly sits.  The letters of Paul also provide enough challenges, though not necessarily the ones that I would consider most obvious (including the non-Trinitarian start to all of Paul's letters).  After closing with the general epistles and Revelation, the book ends with some notes as well as an index by scripture passage as well as by topic.

In reading this book I got the feeling that I was looking at a reasonably competent but by no means spectacular look at difficult scriptures.  The authors can be commended for looking at all scripture--and they spend a large portion on the law since the laws of God present the most problems for contemporary antinomian Protestants like the ones the authors are presumably most familiar with.  If my own experiences in studying the Bible are far different and the verses that have been presented as problems to solve different, I always appreciate seeing what other people wrestle with even if my own conclusions and interpretations are quite different.  The authors, for example, seek to downplay the importance of the Johannine pericope while simultaneously struggling with the question of where the Trinity is mentioned otherwise in scripture, although the authors aver that it is a genuinely biblical idea and not a postbiblical innovation.  Whether or not the reader views the author's discussion and interpretation of various verses, anyone who writes a book willing to wrestle with tough questions is to be commended even if the results aren't always as successful as one would hope.  

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good breakdown of verses that may trip us up.

[Heather Proske · Rating 5 out of 5]

So many questions answered

[Sergio Alonso Méndez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Faltó dedicar esfuerzo a los versículos muy difíciles. El resto está bien.

[Roger Leonhardt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always loved reading books on bible difficulties. They actually strengthen my faith and help me in my daily discussions about the gospel.

Josh McDowell is the quintessential apologist. He has written dozens of books defending the faith. This one looked very promising and it did not disappoint.

Josh and Sean take us through the bible touching on each major verse that has been used to discredit Christianity. It is very readable but does not oversimplify. He touches on every thing from science to the Biblical inerrancy.

He answered the obvious questions like, "Where did Cain get his wife" to "was the flood universal". His writing is so convincing that you want to study more on each topic that was considered. If you or someone you know has question about the Bible in general or even a specific verse, this is the book to turn to.

I highly recommend this book and give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

*I received this book free of charge from Harvest House Publishers and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Patricia North · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I thought it would be interesting to study with the Bible. I do not believe in blind faith and this book did a good job of pointing out some major issues people may have with the Bible itself (and how the Authors reconcile those issues with other verses, etc).
I am sure I read this book much differently than how the Authors intended it to be read (and used). I have to say it definitely helped me study- and helped me solidify why I did NOT believe some things stated as “Truth”. That being said, it is written from a fundamental Christian perspective and if a person reading it just wants confirmation of what they believe and why- then it certainly serves this purpose well. I don’t think it will convert anyone- but it definitely was an interesting read:)