The Bible Tells Me So… Because I Already Believe It
Research shows existing attitudes toward gender inform readers’ understanding of scripture
Depending upon the survey, about a quarter of Americans say the Bible is the literal Word of God. This can be a complicated position, given that words have variable meanings, those in the Bible are translated from Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and derived from multiple sources redacted and compiled over centuries. It’s also tricky because so often people turn to religious texts to confirm what they already believe to be true.
A study published in The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion tested to what degree readers’ view of a particularly controversial Bible passage was shaped by their pre-existing outlook on gender and religion.
In the study, co-authors Samuel L. Perry and Elizabeth E. McElroy, sociologists from the University of Oklahoma, note that two schools of thought tend to dominate perceptions of how people interpret the Bible: the scholars who focus on the precise wording, syntax, and literary structure of the text and those who assume readers view the Bible through their own ideologies and biases. The reality is likely in the messy in-between, a mix of drawing from what is exactly on the page and what readers bring to it. However, as Perry and McElroy note, “Slight adjustments in lexical forms or…
