OUR PROPENSITY TOWARD PRECISION

Sherlock Holmes once said, "To the logician, everything must be exact." He said this indignantly when Watson referred to Holmes as "modest." He meant that what he had just said about the superior skills to his own in the observation and retention of facts that were possessed by his brother, Mycroft, was a matter of accuracy, not modesty.

In this age of scientific and engineering precision, we admire accuracy and precision in everything. Yet, I think in the process we have lost the ability to appreciate generalities.

Some would ascribe verbal precision to the scriptures as a part of what is meant by "verbal inspiration." After all, doesn't God speak precisely? No! I believe that precision is not a prerequisite of accuracy. God is always accurate, but is not always precise. The two words, "accurate and precise" do not mean the same thing.

On the original Star Trek Series, "Bones" was correct when he said it was three minutes after six o'clock. But Spock countered with the fact that it was actually three minutes and 20 seconds past six. Who was accurate? Who was correct? Both! Spock was more "precise" than Bones, but Bones was just as right.

Precision has its place, as in the "bore" of a cylinder. But precision is over-rated and often misunderstood in communication.

For instance, God's Word says in Exodus 1:5 that 70 persons went down to Egypt from Jacob's family. But, Acts 7:14 says it was 75. Mockers have often seen this as a contradiction in the Bible. After all, which account is correct? I sat both! As a round number, 70 is accurate, even though 75 has greater precision, but is no more correct.

I've read books that do some mathematical gymnastics to reconcile these two numbers. I just don't think they need reconciliation any more than "Bones" and Spock's different numbers needed reconciliation. In both cases, both numbers are correct. It's only because we require the Bible to have a "precision" that it makes no pretense to have.

In general, what I am trying to say is that the level of precision that we have become almost addicted to in the 21st century, in science, history, reporting, medicine, etc, leads us down paths of confusion when it comes to reading the Bible.

How many persons went down to Egypt? I think Deuteronomy 26:5 states what God accurately is seeking to communicate: "…few in number, and there he became a great nation.…" Ah, the beauty of the general!