The Bible and "Lying"

To be precise the Bible never describes what lying is, so the reason it can't be said to condemn lying is because, "The bridge should stay up," doesn't count as civil engineering.

Like yeah okay the bridge should stay up, but with what? Do I use wood? Steel? Stone? Mortar? How many bolts do I need?

Further, it's one thing when a whole book allegedly on civil engineering is "Chapter 1: the bridge should stay up. The end." It's quite another when the rest of the book is a series of detailed instructions for saboteurs. Yeah the topic is bridges, but it seems that "staying up" is there for misdirection. "See we want bridges to stay up!" Do you now? Then why do you have so many instructions for bombs and strategic places to drill?

This is a book which includes specific instructions about how to weave fibre into cloth. It includes precise geneologies. It says if a man slaps you, to turn the other cheek. When it all of a sudden retreats into foggy abstracts when it comes to lying, you should become suspicious. At best they didn't much care for the topic. Not interested.  The Bible's heroes lie repeatedly and "God" rewards them for doing so. The term [neighbour] is meant rather literally.

In the context of bridges, the smokescreen is a bit odd. In the context of deception, of course the first thing a liar is going to do is condemn lying and claim to be particularly honest. Of course! Naturally! I'm pretty sure it's mandated directly from physical law, like gravity! 

Indeed if you're honest you should almost always go out your way to avoid the topic of your own trustworthiness, precisely because liars are so obsessed with claiming especial virtue. On the contrary, it should be taken for granted that you aren't trustworthy. The honourable thing to do is make it as easy and as quick as possible to verify what you're saying. 

You do the opposite of saying you're infallible, especially if you really are infallible. If you're wise, you don't have to fear anyone checking your work. Show your work and take the risk, because you're claiming it's not much of a risk. If the reader isn't themselves a liar or crazy, they will find that you have reasons for the things you say. 

Plus, if you're a temporal being and thus not infallible, getting your readers into a habit of checking your work will mean they catch the error when you inevitably make an error. Don't be so weak you fear being debunked. First, do no epistemic harm or something along those lines. Turns out scribes did in fact mis-copy the Bible. Haha, whoops. There goes your perfect infallibility - which was obviously fake in the first place because it claimed to be infallible. 

E.g. the Bible does say not to bear false witness against your neighbour. The hyper-Christian Woke take this to heart: they bear false witness against themselves instead. Fully Biblical. 

E.g. Christians everywhere admire technical honesty. "I didn't say I was going to open the window. I just asked if you wanted it open, lol!" Meanwhile they condemn novels and plays as [lying]. The sin, however, is not exactly bearing false witness. The sin is successful deception. Novels and plays do not deceive anyone who isn't asking to be mislead. It doesn't say up front it's all a lie, it's only implied so heavily literally nobody doesn't know; the term 'novel' refers to the fact you made it all up. Technical honesty is deceptive; the liar phrases it that way because they know it implies things they didn't strictly speaking say.

Christians who behave this way are being strategically autistic. Pretending to not know things they in fact know; bearing false witness against themselves.