6 Details Everyone Gets Wrong About Common Bible Stories

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Regardless of whether someone is Christian or not, just about everyone in the Western World is familiar with at least a handful of Bible stories. They may not know why those stories are so important or how they fit into the larger Biblical tale, but most people in the West are aware that the Bible talks about a guy named Noah who built a really big boat and filled it with every kind of animal. They know that the Bible states that humanity started with a man named Adam, a woman named Eve and everything went wrong because they ate some fruit a snake gave them. The person may be wondering why the fruit was important or why the couple listened to a talking snake, but they know the gist of the story involved the first humans, some fruit and a talking snake. Such is the case for many of the best known Bible stories. Ironically, however, many of those well-known stories are the ones that people mess up the most. Everyone and their grandmother may know the basic framework of the tale, but the devil is in the details. Here are six details everyone gets wrong about common Bible stories.

The Apple in Eden

If you ask someone who is not overly familiar with Genesis to summarize the story of Adam and Eve, you will get something that sounds like this: the first man and first woman ate an apple because the talking snake said to and screwed everything up for everyone somehow. Frankly, most Christians will recite a similar summary. They may add in more detail, such as explaining that the apple was forbidden fruit and that it brought about the original sin, but the basics of man, woman, apple and snake will largely remain unchanged. One of those specifics, however, is not like the others. It is incorrect.

In the case of Genesis 3, the detail that is wrong is the word “apple.” Though the fruit Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden is most commonly identified as an apple, the fruit is never named. In the past, some people believed that it was actually a pomegranate, but that is not correct either. All that is said is that the fruit was from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and it was “good for food, and…a delight to the eyes.”

Satan the Talking Snake

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The fact that the word “snake” is shorthand for someone who is untrustworthy but cunning and manipulative is due, in part, to the serpent that appears in Genesis 3. Most Christians, however, will tell you that the snake was not just a snake but Satan himself.

This is such a common belief that if you state that the snake in Eden really was just a snake, most Christians will look at you like you have just declared that the sun rises in the west and the sky is pink with purple Pokka dots. The idea that the Devil is responsible for the original sin is simply too well entrenched in Christian thought for it to be easily cast aside. The fact of the matter is, however, that there is nothing in the actual story of creation that claims the serpent in the Garden of Eden was anything more than a troublesome reptile.

Adulterous Bathsheba

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The story of David and Bathsheba is one that many people probably believe they know. Bathsheba was another one of those biblical temptresses who get perfectly good men into trouble, and David was the innocent, godly man captured in her schemes. The reality, however, was the other way around. David began lusting after Bathsheba despite the fact that she was of high rank by both marriage and birth. He sent multiple men to bring her to him where he then proceeded to rape her. In order to cover up his crime, David had her husband betrayed, abandoned and left for dead on the battlefield. Far from being a cunning temptress who lured a besotted man to her bed, Bathsheba was a woman in a patriarchal society who was corned by her king and the greatest warrior of the generation. She was, essentially, the original #MeToo story. In a motion that was centuries ahead of its time, the original Hebrew text recognized this. It was later translators and interpreters who missed the point.

Into the Ark, Two by Two

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Perhaps the most famous story in the Old Testament is that of Noah’s Ark. The image of every animal in the world paired up and boarding a massive boat is simply too interesting of a picture to resist. As a result, the moment when the animals boarded the ark is depicted in numerous places. The vision has invaded everything from children’s decorations to the names of veterinary clinics and from water parks to the Shania Twain song, “If It Don’t Take Two,” that states “Noah knew what he had to do. He sent us out in the world walkin’ two by two.”

Sadly, everyone is wrong. Noah did not have two of every animal on the ark. God actually commanded him to take “seven pairs of all clean animals…a pair of the animals that are not clean… and seven pairs of the birds of the air.” It was the idea of pairs that was remembered, and admittedly, it sure is a whole lot easier to draw several pairs of animals than to try and fit 14 giraffes into a single image.

The Hard Heart of Pharaoh

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The story of the Exodus is another classic Bible story that most people could sum up rather easily thanks both to its popularity and the success of the DreamWorks movie “The Prince of Egypt.” The Egyptians enslave the Israelites, and when Moses demands that Pharaoh let the Israelites go, Pharaoh shows nothing but contempt for Moses. Pharaoh refuses to give up his pride and his slaves despite the ever increasing devastation being inflicted on the Egyptian people. In Exodus, however, Pharaoh’s heart is not simply hardened by his “stubbornness and pride” as the DreamWorks’ film claims. Instead, the Bible states that God Himself hardened Pharaoh’s heart in order to show the Israelites and the Egyptians alike “signs and wonders in the land of Egypt…[so] the Egyptians [would] know that [He was] the LORD when [He] stretch[ed out His] hand against Egypt and [brought] the Israelites out from among them.”

Moses the Lonely Prophet

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Once again, thanks in part to the success of DreamWorks’ film, most people forget that Moses did not act alone in the Book of Exodus. His brother, Aaron, was also heavily involved in the events of Exodus. He “spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the [Israelite] people.” When Pharaoh sends for the source of all Egypt’s trouble, both Moses and Aaron arrive at his palace. God is repeatedly stated as having spoken to both Moses and Aaron and given them tasks and signs to perform.

Ironically, the fact that people in the future would largely forget about Aaron shows up in the Book of Numbers when Aaron and Miriam are angry that the Israelites have focused all their energy on Moses. “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” the two ask. The truth is that God spoke to and through all three of the children of Jochebed and Amram, but then as now, people only really remember Moses.