9.  Why do religious scriptures have multiple interpretations?

Summary:

•	Stories are powerful: they make us feel, think, and imagine.  As we grow older and gain more life experience, we may read the same story and understand it differently than before.

•	Some people feel uncomfortable when they discover that multiple interpretations of a religious scripture exist.  They want clear, simple answers about right and wrong—but most scriptures are not rulebooks.  They are stories, poems, teachings, and moral puzzles.

•	Every reader brings their own background, fears, and way of thinking.  Even religious scholars may disagree about what a scripture teaches.

•	The Torah, the most sacred text in Judaism, has been studied for more than 2,500 years, but Jews still disagree and debate what it teaches.  The Torah even contains contradictions, which require interpretations to resolve.

•	Even a seemingly simple commandment such as “You shall not murder” can be interpreted in different ways.  Jesus, for example, taught that hateful insults and anger break this commandment because they harm a human relationship.

•	Christianity is the world's largest religion, and every Christian church claims to follow Jesus, yet they frequently disagree with one another.  The parable of the Good Samaritan shows how a single story can reveal more than one valid lesion, some of which are not stated outright.

•	Muslims believe the Holy Quran is the literal word of God in Arabic, meaning that any translation is already a human interpretation.  Yet, despite sharing the same Arabic text for more than a thousand years, Muslims still disagree over what it commands.

•	Asking “Which interpretation is wrong?” may miss the point.  A more useful question is: Does this interpretation encourage love, kindness, and respect—or does it encourage cruelty?  How you interpret scripture matters less than how you treat other people.

People love stories.  Stories evoke our emotions.  Stories encourage us to think, to imagine, to discuss. 

As you grow older, your thoughts and emotions about a story may change.  The story has not changed.  You have changed.  You have more experience.  You may interpret the story in new ways.  Other people may interpret it differently.  

When a story comes from a religious scripture, some people react with fear or anger when they encounter multiple interpretations.  Which interpretation is correct?  Is only one correct?  Could several be correct?  And if so, which ones?

Nobody wants to make a mistake.  Some people are so afraid of making a mistake that they treat religious scriptures like legal codes.  They want ethics to be extremely simple—simpler than daily life.  They want religious laws to decide every possible situation as either right or wrong, good or evil.  But even lawyers and judges interpret laws in multiple ways.  And most religious scriptures are not law codes; they are stories, teachings, poems, and moral dilemmas.  Their lessons may not be obvious.  To find all of those lessons, you may need to read a story several times.

Every reader brings personal experiences, fears, desires, and ways of reasoning.  These influence interpretation.  People disagree.  Even experts disagree.  As a result, multiple interpretations emerge.

And there is plenty to interpret.  The Holy Bible, for example, contains more than a thousand pages of text.  The Bible is often called a book, but it is actually a collection of books.  Jews refer to the Bible’s first five books as the Torah— תּוֹרָה —and those five books are the most important scriptures in Judaism.  The Torah is lengthy and complex, and studying it encourages the study of topics within topics.  Jews prefer to read the Torah in its original language of Hebrew.  Judaism emphasizes education, study, discussion, and debate.  In that scholarly tradition, Jews have been studying the Torah for more than 2,500 years. 

You might assume that after so many centuries of study, Jews would have reached a universal interpretation of the Torah.  They have not.  Instead, multiple sects have developed, generally grouped into Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, although in practice there are more than three.  Jews have disagreed about the Torah for as long as anyone can remember. Many Jews say that debating scripture is part of what it means to be a devout Jew. 

According to Jewish tradition, God communicated the Torah to Moses the Prophet more than 3,000 years ago.  A modern theory suggests that, instead, the Torah was written by many authors across several centuries.  This controversy about the origin of the Torah complicates its interpretation.  Is every word in the Torah from God?  Did God dictate the words?  Did humans make any changes?  Did they make mistakes?

The stories in the Torah do contain contradictions.  If at least some stories were composed by people, then those contradictions have a simple explanation: different writers contributed different ideas.  If every word in the Torah comes from God, then no contradictions should exist—but they do.  This means those contradictions must be explained and resolved, which means they must be interpreted.  Otherwise, many contradictions would portray God as negligent, unfair, erratic, hypocritical, or cruel.

Thus, despite thousands of years of study, there are multiple interpretations of the Torah—even among people who believe that God dictated every word because they disagree about what those words mean.

In addition to stories, the Torah contains hundreds of religious laws, including the Ten Commandments.  The Hebrew word torah— תּוֹרָה —means “teaching” or “instruction” but also “law.”  Jews debate which laws are still in effect, including ancient laws that discriminate against women and sexual minorities.  The Torah also prescribes severe punishments, such as death for adultery.

People talk about the Ten Commandments, but are there only ten?  The Tenth Commandment says:

If you count the people and things you must not covet, the list is at least seven.  The Tenth Commandment is one commandment, but it contains multiple commands. 

The Sixth Commandment says: “You shall not murder.”  The meaning may appear to be simple: do not murder a human life.  But in Christianity, Jesus taught that anger and cruel insults also violate the commandment because they murder a human relationship.  (Holy Bible, Gospel of Matthew 5:21-22.)  Should the other commandments be interpreted so broadly?  Who should interpret them?  Jews or Christians or both?

There are more than two billion Christians, making Christianity the world’s largest religion.  It also has thousands of dominations.  Every Christian church says it follows the teachings of Jesus Christ, yet they disagree with each other.  Christians within the same church sometimes disagree.  And these disagreements are not always about right or wrong, true or false.  Sometimes multiple interpretations are accurate, or at least worth pondering.

To teach about morality, Jesus often used stories known as parables.  In a parable called “the Good Samaritan” (Luke 10:30-37) a man walking on a road is attacked by robbers and left half dead.  Later, a priest of the Jewish Temple walks by and sees him lying there.  Instead of helping, the priest crosses to the other side of the road to avoid him and walks on.  Later, a Temple assistant walks by and does the same.  Then a Samaritan comes by.  (Samaritans in the time of Jesus were despised by most Jews.  Jesus presumably chose a Samaritan for this parable to emphasize the contrast with the two clergymen.)  The Samaritan helps the unconscious man, treats his wounds, carries him to an inn, pays the innkeeper to care for him, and promises to pay any additional expenses when the Samaritan returns.  After telling this parable, Jesus asked his audience which of the three men was a good neighbor to the man?  (Holy Bible, Gospel of Luke 10:30-37.)

The answer is the Samaritan, and Christians today sometimes refer to a very helpful stranger as a “Good Samaritan.”  But this parable has an additional meaning.  Jesus did not say it, but his audience of devout Jews would have realized it immediately.  When the clergymen approach the unconscious man, they do not know if he is dead.  If he is dead and they touch him, then Jewish religious law would require them to spend days conducting ritual cleansing of themselves before they could re-enter the Temple.  So, when they see the man, they decide not to touch him.  They remain clean but fail to help the man.  One of the lessons of the parable is that strict adherence to religious law can sometimes violate the spirit of the law.  Jesus didn’t state this additional meaning because he didn’t need to: he was a devout Jew speaking to other devout Jews. 

This additional meaning is another interpretation of the Good Samaritan parable.  Is this interpretation wrong because Jesus did not state it directly?  It is not inaccurate.  It is an interpretation that Christians would not realize unless they have some knowledge of ancient Jewish religious laws. 

In Islam, devout Muslims believe that the words of the Holy Quran are literally the words of God, spoken in Arabic by the Angel Gabriel on behalf of God.  And because God chose those exact words, Muslims contend that the Holy Quran cannot be translated because we cannot know for certain which words God would choose for a foreign translation.  So, if you read the Holy Quran in a language other than Arabic, you are reading only a human interpretation of the Quran. 

The Holy Quran has existed in its original words for more than a thousand years.  Yet, Muslims have long disagreed about what the Quran teaches and—in God’s own words—commands believers to do.  Only one language is used, Arabic, and yet multiple schools of Islamic theology exist.  There are different sects of Islam, the two largest being the Sunni and Shia.  The Holy Quran preaches unity, compassion, mercy, and charity, and in God’s own words.  Nevertheless, Muslims as tribes, ethnicities, and nations have sometimes waged war against each other.  And so have Christians.

“Which interpretations of religious scriptures are wrong?”  Perhaps this question misses the point because what does “wrong” mean?  Religious scriptures ought to encourage morally good behavior, expressed as love, respect, and kindness.  If an interpretation is not accurate according to some traditional beliefs but does encourage morally good behavior, is it morally wrong?  If a different interpretation is considered to be accurate because it fits some traditional beliefs but encourages cruelty, is it morally good?  Religious behavior is not always moral behavior.  Victims of religious persecution can be religious, and their persecutors can be religious.  When an interpretation encourages love without coercion, then you have found some morally good guidance.  Otherwise, if it suggests that love is conditional, something to be earned, then you have found a moral trap that people will use to justify cruelty.

Every person is an individual, and a variety of individuals interpret religious scriptures in a variety of ways.  Some wonderful insights can come from multiple interpretations, but remember this: how you interpret religious scripture is less important than how you treat other people, other living beings, and your own soul.  Do not allow your ego to cite scripture to justify cruelty.