What many Hodlers may not understand is how Christians view their Bibles. Perhaps one way to think of it is like this: the Bible is source code. Not in the sense that it is deterministic of everything that comes after it, but in the sense that it is a bedrock layer of truth on all matters to which it speaks.
The Bible is a collection of history, poems and law written by about 35 authors over the course of around 1500 years. Some of the Bible is prescriptive (ie. it tells us what we should do) and some of it is descriptive (ie. it just tells us how people did things in their day). There are whole fields of study attempting to answer the questions of what the Bible is. For now, let me say this: The Bible is an ancient, intelligently written book that reveals to us both who God is as well as the nature of humanity and the world around us.
In other words, the Bible reveals to us timeless truths. Note: It’s not always obvious, and much studying and consultation of experts is often necessary.
I often attempt to read through the Bible once a year. In December I determined to get a head start and opened the book of Genesis. While reading, I came across the story of Abraham’s attempt to purchase a burial site for his late wife, Sarah (Genesis 23). Abraham was from out of town, and didn’t own land on which to bury Sarah himself, so he needed to buy some. He gathered his money and went before the people of the land, the Hittites, at a designated meeting place at the city gate.
Now the city gate was an important place in these times, the equivalent of a towns square. It was where kings gave decrees and important social and business transactions took place.
There, Abraham inquires about a plot of land with a cave owned by a guy named Ephron. He approaches the group of elders, and Ephron happens to be present among his peers. Maybe as a cultural curtesy, Ephron offers him the land for free, but Abraham insists that he pays. In the end, they settle on 400 silver coins in exchange for the property.
Now for that part that is really interesting. Notice how Abraham’s purchase is verified: Genesis 23:18 says, “it [the land with the cave] was transferred to Abraham as his permanent possession in the presence of the Hittite elders at the city gate.” Did you catch that? How was the payment made valid? There was no contract written. No lawyers present. No signing on the dotted lines. No… What validated the payment, making it permanent, was that all the elders of the people saw it happen. That meant that if later on, someone called into question Abraham’s ownership of the property, they could easily verify with one or several of the elders and discover that he actually owned it.
One way to think of this is that the elders who witnessed the transaction had a ledger in their heads (called memory) of that and all other transactions that happened among their people. Being an oral culture, this information was continually passed down to others. This meant that no certificate was necessary for Abraham. His purchase was valid because everyone saw it and remembered it. So long as at least one elder remembered, he could remind the others, jogging their memory and the truth could be determined. If one, or even a few elders had a grudge against Abraham, they would theoretically need to convince a majority of the elders to change their minds so that a new false narrative could be passed on. So long as there are enough good elders, who want to truthfully verify their people’s transactions, this was unlikely to happen.
This is just like Bitcoin, because Bitcoin is fundamentally a globalized ledger system. Every computer that runs Bitcoin (called a ‘node’) keeps a record of all transactions that have ever happened within the system. This is called the Blockchain. The Blockchain contains the entire history of Bitcoin. Without getting technical, when a new transaction occurs, computers all over the world are made aware of it and they add it to the blockchain. This essentially makes Bitcoin transactions permanent.
Why am I drawing this comparison? Because this means that Bitcoin uses a kind of system that has existed since the time of Abraham (about 4000 years ago). It is a monetary system of de-centralized verification. This means that, in Abraham’s case, as the number of elder’s who witnessed his transaction increased, the security and validity of his transaction becomes stronger. So long as more than 50% of the elders agreed, nothing could be changed. This is the same as Bitcoin. As the number of nodes increases, the concrete hardens, making transactions permanent.
Reading this story of Abraham and drawing this comparison to Bitcoin was a big turning point for me. It caused me to investigate things further – to listen to podcasts and order books. Why? Because I realized that Bitcoin is running on a timeless principle: a way of being that is natural for us as humans because it speaks truth about our very essence. We all know Bitcoin gets bashed in the media for being a trendy, speculative trade, but what most people fail to understand is that behind all the flash, there is a layer of bedrock.
As you dive into discovering Bitcoin (or Christianity for that matter) you too may be surprised to find arguments from first principles.
HODLing Jesus 