The Challenge of Biblical Interpretation: How Scripture Is Read, Remembered, and Applied
- Ash A Milton
- Jan 16
- 7 min read
The Bible stands as one of the most influential texts in human history, shaping law, culture, and moral frameworks across millennia. Yet its interpretation remains a source of ongoing debate and reflection.
At the heart of Christian teaching, Jesus offered two commandments that he described as the greatest: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:37-39).
These principles provide a lens through which many readers approach scripture. However, the Bible contains thousands of pages spanning different historical periods, cultural contexts, and literary genres. Which passages receive emphasis, and which are set aside or reinterpreted, often reveals as much about the reader as about the text itself.
This article examines two contrasting biblical narratives to illustrate how selective reading and interpretation can lead to vastly different understandings of divine will, human dignity, and moral teaching. By placing a disturbing account from the Book of Judges alongside a story of mercy from the Gospel of John, we can explore the ongoing challenge of deriving consistent ethical guidance from an ancient and complex text.
The Concubine in Judges 19: Violence and Dehumanization
The nineteenth chapter of Judges presents one of the most harrowing narratives in scripture. A Levite man travels with his concubine and arrives in the town of Gibeah, where they are offered hospitality by an old man. As night falls, a mob gathers outside the house, demanding that the male guest be brought out for sexual assault. In response to this threat, the host offers his own virgin daughter and the visitor's concubine to the crowd, saying they may do whatever they wish with the women if they will leave the men alone.
The concubine alone is sent outside. She is raped throughout the night and left at the doorstep, where she dies. The following morning, the Levite man finds her body, takes it home, and dismembers it into twelve pieces. He then sends these pieces throughout the tribes of Israel as a call to action, which leads to a devastating war.
This account raises profound questions. The narrative portrays women as expendable—offered as shields to protect men from violence. The concubine has no voice, no choice, and no name in the text. Her death becomes a rallying point for war, yet the war is not fought to honor her dignity or seek justice for her suffering. Instead, it becomes a conflict over tribal honor and religious authority. The story could be read as illustrating a reality of ancient patriarchy, or it could be interpreted as condoning the idea that male lives hold greater value than female lives. Different readers have drawn different conclusions, but the text itself offers no explicit condemnation of the host's or the Levite's actions.
The Woman Caught in Adultery: Mercy and Human Dignity
In contrast to the violence of Judges 19, the Gospel of John Chapter 8 presents an account in which Jesus intervenes to protect a woman facing execution. Religious leaders bring before him a woman caught in adultery, a crime for which Mosaic law prescribed death by stoning. They ask Jesus whether the law should be carried out, testing whether he will contradict either Roman authority or religious tradition.
Jesus responds not with a legal argument but with a challenge to the accusers themselves: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7). One by one, her accusers leave. Jesus then tells the woman that he does not condemn her and instructs her to go and sin no more.
This narrative establishes a precedent of mercy over judgment, dignity over condemnation. The woman is not silenced, dehumanized, or treated as expendable. Instead, she is addressed directly, offered forgiveness, and given the opportunity for a new path. Jesus does not dismiss moral standards, but he refuses to allow them to become instruments of violence or dehumanization. His focus is on restoration rather than retribution.
Two Stories, Two Ethics
When placed side by side, these two passages reveal sharply different visions of justice, gender, and human worth.
In Judges 19, a woman is sacrificed to protect a man, and her death becomes a catalyst for war rather than a cause for mourning or moral reform. In John 8, a woman facing death is protected, shown compassion, and invited into a transformed life.
One story reflects a world in which women can be used and discarded; the other reflects a vision in which every person, regardless of gender or past, deserves dignity and a chance at redemption.
These contrasts raise essential questions about how scripture is used. If both texts are considered equally authoritative, how should they be reconciled? Some religious traditions resolve this tension by treating the teachings of Jesus as a fulfillment or correction of earlier texts, emphasizing the New Testament as a lens through which the Old Testament should be read. Others argue that each passage must be understood within its historical and cultural context, recognizing that ancient narratives often describe rather than prescribe behavior.
Yet the reality remains that readers often approach the Bible selectively. Passages that affirm existing beliefs or cultural norms may be emphasized, while those that challenge or disturb may be set aside, explained away, or allegorized. The story in Judges 19 is rarely preached from pulpits, while the account in John 8 is widely celebrated. This selective emphasis is not inherently wrong, but it does illustrate that interpretation is an active, subjective process shaped by the values and priorities of the interpreter.
The Role of Interpretation in Moral Teaching
The tension between these narratives highlights a broader challenge in religious and ethical life: how to derive clear moral guidance from texts that are diverse, ancient, and sometimes contradictory. The Bible is not a single, uniform book but a collection of writings spanning centuries, written in different languages, by different authors, for different audiences. It contains law codes, poetry, prophecy, history, gospel, and apocalyptic vision. Some passages call for justice and mercy; others record acts of violence and oppression without clear condemnation.
For many believers, the teachings of Jesus serve as a hermeneutical key—a principle by which the rest of scripture is interpreted. The commandment to love God and neighbor becomes the standard against which other passages are measured. Actions and teachings that align with this principle are affirmed; those that contradict it are questioned, contextualized, or set aside. This approach allows for continuity with tradition while also making room for moral development and reform.
Others argue that such selectivity undermines the authority of scripture, suggesting that it allows readers to create a version of the text that simply reflects their own preferences. This critique has merit, as there is always a risk that interpretation becomes merely a tool for justifying preexisting beliefs. However, the alternative—treating every passage as equally binding regardless of context or moral content—creates its own problems, as it would require affirming practices and values that most modern readers, religious or otherwise, find abhorrent.
Conclusion: Engaging Scripture with Honesty and Humility
The Bible is a text of profound depth and influence, but it is also a text that demands careful, critical, and compassionate reading. The contrast between the concubine in Judges 19 and the woman in John 8 reminds us that not all passages teach the same lessons or reflect the same values. Readers make choices, consciously or not, about which stories to emphasize, which to reinterpret, and which to let recede into the background.
Acknowledging this reality is not an attack on faith but an invitation to engage with scripture more honestly. It means recognizing that interpretation is shaped by culture, context, and conscience. It means being willing to wrestle with difficult texts rather than ignoring them or pretending they are not there. And it means allowing the highest principles—love of God and love of neighbor—to guide the way we read, teach, and live out what we find in these ancient pages.
A particularly striking irony emerges when these stories are considered in light of the Ten Commandments themselves.
The woman in John 8 had committed adultery, explicitly violating one of the commandments given to Moses. Yet Jesus forgave her, protected her from execution, and offered her a path forward.
In contrast, the homeowner and the Levite in Judges 19 violated none of the Ten Commandments in their actions.
Owning a concubine—a form of sexual slavery—was not prohibited. Offering a virgin daughter to a violent mob was not forbidden. Actually sending the concubine out to be raped and killed broke no explicit commandment. Starting a war over her death violated no divine decree. By the letter of the law as codified in the Decalogue, these men were blameless.
This contrast reveals a fundamental truth about ethical and religious life: moral codes, even divinely revealed ones, cannot account for every human situation. The letter of the law may permit what the spirit of love condemns.
Jesus demonstrated this principle repeatedly, healing on the Sabbath, dining with outcasts, and challenging religious authorities who weaponized scripture while missing its deeper purpose. His treatment of the adulterous woman shows that mercy, dignity, and restoration can matter more than strict legal compliance.
The silence of the Ten Commandments regarding the treatment of the concubine shows that even sacred law can fail to address profound injustice if it is not animated by a commitment to human dignity and compassion.
In the end, the question is not whether the Bible is misinterpreted, but how. Every reading is an interpretation, and every interpretation reflects choices about what matters most. By bringing these choices into the open and subjecting them to moral scrutiny, believers and scholars alike can work toward a more just, compassionate, and truthful engagement with a text that continues to shape the world.
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