Freighting in the meaning
A very common Bible-reading fallacy involves giving a meaning to a word in one place by noticing what it means somewhere else. At first glance, this might sound like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you're trying to work out what any word means, you have to look at all the ways it is used. This is how the Oxford Dictionary was compiled: an army of word-hounds found usages of words in real sentences, and sent them in so that all the different senses and connotations of a word could be listed and illustrated by quotations.
The problem comes when we take how a word is used in one place and then arbitrarily drag that meaning into its usage in a different place. So imagine that on page 3 of the newspaper we read, “The thieves broke into the bank, and made off with a million dollars”, and then on page 47 of the same newspaper, we read, “The coach said that he wouldn't bank on Wilson being ready for the match on Saturday”. Imagine that some learned person then made this comment:
What is the author trying to say about the thieves and their forceful entry into the ‘bank’? Given that on page 47 in the same newspaper, the word ‘bank’ is used in the sense of ‘rely upon’ or ‘trust in’, it is very possible that the author's real point is not that an actual financial institution was robbed but that the thieves have destroyed our trust in financial institutions. This is what they ‘broke into’ in reality.
This is laughable. The context of the page 3 article makes it very clear what sort of ‘bank’ is being talked about—a real bricks-and-mortar one. And the fact that the same word is used in a different sense on page 47 has nothing to do with it.
However, somehow, when we come to the Bible, we don't find this technique so hilarious. In fact, it has a kind of scholarly ring to it. Christians perpetrate this fallacy quite often—usually out of a commendable desire to read Scripture in line with other Scripture, and to understand God's word more clearly.
For example, here's one I quite happily accepted myself for many years. When trying to work out what ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ means in Genesis 3, some commentators have noticed that the same phrase ‘know good and evil’ is used by Solomon in 1 Kings 3:9: “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern [literally, ‘know’] between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”
Solomon seems to be asking for the ability to ‘decide’ what is good and evil in particular cases as he judges the people. So, the argument goes, what Adam and Eve are really grasping for in Genesis 3 is the right to decide for themselves what good and evil are—the right to declare moral autonomy from God and make up their own rules. From seeing that ‘know good and evil’ can have the connotation of ‘decide what is ‘good and evil’ in one place (1 Kings 3:9), it is argued that it has this same meaning in another place (Gen 3).
Now, theologically, I love this. To say that ‘knowing good and evil’ means making up my own rules and declaring moral autonomy from God—this is exactly what sin is all about. But even if ‘knowing good and evil’ means this in 1 Kings 3:9 (and it might), is that what the phrase means in Genesis 3?
Well, no. The context shows decisively that ‘know’ in Genesis 3 means what ‘know’ means in most of its contexts (both in Hebrew and English): to perceive or apprehend something. Before they eat from the tree, Adam and Eve do not realize they are naked (Gen 2:25). But they eat the fruit of the tree, their eyes are opened and they ‘know’ (same word) that they are naked (Gen 3:7). And so they cover themselves. Then God comes along and says, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree?” (Gen 3:11). The meaning of ‘know’ in this context could not be clearer. There was something they were ignorant of before. They ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then they perceived or understood it.
Now, working out the implications and significance of this new-found knowledge is no simple task. What sort of knowledge have they come to exactly, and how does it relate to ‘wisdom’ and morality in general? Why is nakedness such a big deal? These are not straightforward questions.
But we can't evade them by freighting in what the word ‘know’ might mean somewhere else, when it clearly doesn't mean that in this context.
Have you ever fallen into this trap?