Oklahoma, tornadoes, Pat Robertson, God, and James Imhofe

Pat Robertson supposedly stated that the deadly tornado that destroyed homes and killed people in Moore, Oklahoma was because people didn't pray enough.  See "God and the Moore Tornado", Roger Talley, Examiner, 2013-05-25.  This in turn cites "Pat Robertson: Tornadoes Could Have Been Stopped If People Had Prayed", Huffington Post, 2013-05-20, which in turn uses a video from other sources.

What exactly did he say?  If you watch the video, both the Examiner, which seems to have a bias toward religion, and almost all the other "short quote" media, didn't give the full context of Robertson's statement.  In the video, Robertson gives a scientific explanation of tornadoes, stating that this is the way God set things up to provide thermal balance for the earth.  He then asks why people build in places with known dangers.  He does state that God could have stopped the tornado if enough people had prayed.  That is quite a different statement than God punished Moore because not enough people prayed.

This pokes a bit of a hole in the joke that I have, but I'll push on anyway, partly because the Examiner article put this spin on it.  What if the Moore tornado was a warning from God?  Could it have been a warning not about prayer but about re-electing James Imhofe to the U.S. Senate?  After all, Sen. Imhofe is one of the chief global-warming deniers in Congress.

All kidding aside, the data is not in on the connection between global warming and tornadoes.  As usual, we have the usual suspects jumping to draw their own conclusions.  On one side global warming doesn't exist because scientists have not found a definitive link between tornadoes and global warming, and on the other side tornadoes must be increasing in severity because of global warming. Actually, global warming could increase them or global warming could decrease them.  For a balanced view on the research in progress, see "Tornadoes and Global Warming", Robert Kunzig, National Geographic, 2013-05-22.

The Bible is unerring?

When the royal printers, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, released their 1631 King James Bible, they dropped a "not" - "Thou shalt commit adultery".  See "To Err is Human: Typos in Literature", ABE Books.

"The Great He Bible" of 1611 has "and he went into the city" in reference to Ruth - Ruth 3:15.  However, if you check http://bible.cc/ruth/3-15.htm you find that some versions use "he" and some use "she".

If typos creep into printed Bibles, how often do mistranslations creep in?  How many mistranslations were done in ignorance and carelessness?  How many mistranslations were done deliberately to put forward a certain viewpoint that was not validated by the original text?

I think the point of Bible study should not be to take every word as literally true but to look for the greater truths among conflicting points of view.  For example, adulterers shall be put to death (Deuteronomy 22:22) compared to "he who is without sin cast the first stone", John 8:7.  One might say that forgiveness is more important than strict punishment for every act that is considered a misdeed.