Errors in the Bible?!
Have you ever checked the Statements of Faith of churches? Chances are that you will have seen that the first line says something about the Bible being the Word of God with descriptors including ‘inerrant’, ‘infallible’ or ‘inspired’. It is no surprise to anyone that the Bible is interpreted differently by many people, but what isn’t so commonly known is that translations of the Bible have had real typographical and grammatical errors, not to mention errors of bias.
A classic, and probably most famous typographical error occurred in 1631 when the Crown Printer, Barker and Lewis’s translation of the original KJV incorrectly wrote the seventh commandment. Instead of saying “You shall not commit adultery”, it said “You shall commit adultery“. At least that error is quite obvious and the Bible (which became known as the Wicked Bible) was quickly republished with no effect on spiritual faith or practice.
An example of an error of bias is the earlier renaming of Junia (female) as Junius (male) in the 13-14th Century and used prominently after the Reformation. The Church of the 1st millennium universally used the female name Junia, but it wasn’t until the 20th Century that translators stopped using Junius, and reverted to the original text. It seems that the period between the 14th and 20th centuries did not approve of women in leadership in the church.
Pope Gregory the Great is famous for mislabeling Mary Magdalene as a prostitute in his Easter sermon in 591 CE, regardless of the fact that the Bible makes no reference to Mary’s sexual activities. That negative slur has remained as the Church’s collective view of this woman up until the last few decades.
In 1946, the editors of the Revised Standard Version, conflated two Greek words “malakoi” and “arsenokoitai” into one, which they translated as “homosexual”. The Greek words actually mean “pervert” or “sexual pervert”, believed to refer to non-consensual sex. The inclusion of “homosexual” in the text was not quickly removed, and became the predominant thought for all Western Christianity to this day. In the 1st Century, Roman culture made extensive use of slave and child prostitutes for the pleasure of the Roman men. The slaves and children were compelled to perform these activities, and Paul describes the compulsion as perverted.
All this to say, we need to be careful about how we interpret scripture. The Bible does not define God, it points us to God. We must recognise that it was written in a different era, to a different culture and in a different language from our Western culture. The Bible cannot be read through western eyes with western beliefs or cultural bias. We do a disservice to Scripture when we try to attach our beliefs to the text without first trying to understand the context of the message to the original audience.
Post Script: When checking the Statements of Faith of Churches, I suggest you look for statements that put the authority of God, the reality of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit ahead of any comments about the Bible. The two major creeds of our faith (the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed) make no reference to the authority of scripture at all. Perhaps there is something in the wisdom of the ancient Fathers of the Church that we can learn from today.
For further reading, see Big Questions:
- Ch 6 (Is the Bible Open to Interpretation),
- Ch 19 (What about Sexual Preference and Gender Identity),
- Ch20 (Intrinsic biases)
Faith should be lived out in practice
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- In Christ Daily – Day 3 - 2 November 2025
- In Christ Daily – Day 2 - 2 November 2025