What Are Good Questions About the Bible? A Three-Faith Comparative Guide

In Jewish tradition, questioning scripture isn't just permitted — it's practically a commandment. The Torah itself models this impulse when it anticipates a child asking about the meaning of God's laws: "And when thy son asketh thee in time to come" is treated by rabbinic commentators as an invitation to lifelong learning Deuteronomy 6:20. The Passover Seder, for instance, is structurally built around four children asking four different kinds of questions about the Exodus narrative.

Good questions in a Jewish framework tend to be historically grounded. Deuteronomy explicitly encourages the faithful to interrogate the past: "ask now of the days that are past" and consider whether anything like God's revelation has ever occurred elsewhere in human history Deuteronomy 4:32. Scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) argued that biblical questioning is itself a form of worship — the mind reaching toward the infinite.

Jewish inquiry also has an ethical dimension. Questions about discerning good from evil, about the nature of God's commands, and about communal accountability all appear throughout the Hebrew Bible Deuteronomy 13:14. Even suffering becomes a productive question: the Psalmist reflects that affliction led to deeper learning of God's statutes Psalms 119:71, a sentiment central to much of Jewish theodicy.

Christianity has a long tradition of treating questions about the Bible as spiritually generative. In the New Testament, Jesus himself is frequently shown asking questions of those around him — including, pointedly, asking what dispute the scribes were having among themselves Mark 9:16. Theologians from Augustine of Hippo (354–430) to N.T. Wright (b. 1948) have argued that honest intellectual engagement with scripture deepens rather than threatens faith.

Good questions for Christian Bible study typically include: Who wrote this text and when? What is the literary genre? How does this passage relate to the life and teaching of Jesus? The prophetic texts of Isaiah, for example, raise profound questions about the nature of moral formation — "Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good" Isaiah 7:15 — a verse Christians have historically read as messianic, prompting rich interpretive debate.

Christian hermeneutics also prizes questions about continuity and fulfillment. Isaiah's rhetorical challenge — "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 40:21 — is the kind of question that Christian preachers and teachers have used for centuries to connect Old Testament revelation with New Testament proclamation. Disagreements exist, of course, between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions about canon and interpretation, but the value of questioning is universally affirmed.

Islam's relationship to the Bible is complex but not dismissive. Muslims believe the Torah (Tawrat) and the Gospel (Injil) were genuine divine revelations, though they hold that the texts as currently preserved have been altered over time — a position articulated by classical scholars like Ibn Hazm (994–1064). Good questions from an Islamic perspective therefore include: What does this biblical passage reveal about the original, uncorrupted message of the prophets? How does it align with or diverge from the Qur'anic account?

The Qur'an itself models the kind of probing, rhetorical questioning that good Bible study requires. The challenge "Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning?" Isaiah 40:21 resonates deeply with Qur'anic passages that repeatedly ask humanity why it fails to reflect on clear signs. Islamic scholarship encourages believers to engage the earlier scriptures critically and comparatively.

Questions about prophecy are especially valued in Islamic engagement with the Bible. The prophet Jeremiah's question — "What hath the LORD answered thee? and, What hath the LORD spoken?" Jeremiah 23:37 — mirrors the Islamic emphasis on prophetic transmission and the integrity of divine speech. Muslim scholars like Ismail al-Faruqi (1921–1986) argued that interfaith Qur'anic-Biblical dialogue, grounded in honest questioning, is a legitimate and important intellectual enterprise.