UPDATED (10/6/18) – The Misquotable C.S. Lewis is my book that examines 75 quotations attributed to Lewis that I caution you not to share. Some are falsely attributed to him, others are paraphrases of his words, and a few have context issues. Don’t share a quote attributed to Lewis unless you can confirm he wrote it and the meaning is clear without the context!
The following is a quote I examined that led me to write The Misquotable C.S. Lewis. I had been calling quotes like this “questionable” because I wanted people to question whether or not Lewis wrote it. This led me to come up with three main categories, or types of misquotes. You can learn about that in the INTRODUCTION to this series. There is also an “at a glance” page to see what quotations I’ve covered in the online series. Please note that the book has revised entries and provides more details about the expressions examined.
“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him.”
Of all the quotations that I’ve questioned so far, this one is by far the one that most would object to calling into question. If you have followed this series closely, you know that Lewis DID write these words, so why caution against sharing them? As you might have observed in the picture above, the key reason is the context issue. While many will read the above statement and agree with it, there are some who would take issue with it. Clarity is provided when you discover the more complete thought Lewis wrote.
Thus, this quote suffers from leaving out other parts of Lewis’ statement on the issue. Interestingly there are some versions of the quotation that provide more from Lewis, but it skips over several words and so it doesn’t provide enough clarity. Here is the most common variation, which again is incomplete:
“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. We must not use the Bible as a sort of encyclopedia out of which texts can be taken for use as weapons.”
Before revealing the more complete context, let’s consider where Lewis wrote these words. They come from a letter to Mrs. Johnson on November 8, 1952. They were in response to several questions that she asked of him. As noted in The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. 3 she had inquired “Is the Bible Infallible?” and what you see below is his complete response (words in RED are what is found above).
“It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is Myth (but of course Myth specially chosen by God from among countless Myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention to the whole nature & purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.”
Finally, while the above, unedited version, does bring the issue in sharper focus, I hesitate to encourage the sharing of even this lengthier passage. Why? That’s because these comments were in response to a direct question found in a private letter. I point this out because while this statement can be useful, had Lewis decided to write an article on the topic then material from it would have been better suited for sharing. This is especially true when considering what Lewis means when he spoke of “myth,” which is not in the sense most commonly used today. That is, Lewis did not mean “myth” in the sense that something is false. If you are not familiar with Lewis’ views on the topic then consider consulting this online article, “The Gospel as C. S. Lewis’s ‘True Myth'” by Joshua S. Hill.
The next article is:
Related Articles:
Surprised By Misquotes (2018 Taylor Talk)
Exploring C.S. Lewis Misquotes and Misconceptions (2017 6-part podcast series)
What Lewis NEVER Wrote (Podcast)
Not Quite Lewis – Podcast Version
Not Quite Lewis – Questionable Lewisian Quotations (Conf. Paper)
Updated 10/6/2018
Originally posted 8/5/2017
