The Bible Tells Me So

The Bible Tells Me So: Uses and Abuses of Holy Scripture by Jim Hill and Rand Cheadle was published a dozen years ago. In a nutshell, their thesis is that ideologues and provocateurs of every ilk have always used the Bible as a "proof-text" for their political, moral, or philosophical positions. They city dozens of themes ranging from slavery to pacifism to demonstrate that people on every side of every issue have attempted to appropriate the Bible to help both authorize and explain their point of view. And, of course, they are correct.

But they leave the most basic question unanswered, probably because there is no real way to answer it. That question? What does the Bible really say about issue x, y, and z?

For most every issues the answer is "not much." In order to get a sense of how a biblical writer might respond, say, to an inquiry about a woman's proper role in family and society, you would have to collage together a wide range of opinions, stories, anecdotes and admonitions, and depending on whether you were Rush Limbaugh or Nancy Pelosi, you would be thrilled or appalled by what you found. But our approach is most often just the opposite. We are already either Limbaugh or Pelosi or somewhere between on the spectrum, and we appropriate what we like and dismiss, or worse, try to explain away what we don't like. For example, there is no denying that during the millennium and a half that biblical materials were being collected, edited, translated and canonized (great comment, Steven!), the world, particularly in the west, was a patriarchal world. To deny that is ludicrous, but many do.

So who do we listen to when it comes to all these different strands and threads and attitudes in the Bible? When the Bible can't seem to agree with itself, which voice to we believe to be most authoritative? Paul? The prophets? Moses? Jesus?

For me, the answer is Jesus. And, of course, much of what is attributed to Jesus is the work of editors and the like, but that's why the work of the people we're studying with on this journey is so important. Focusing on the Jesus part (Becky, the whole "red-letter" thing) seems to be the most dependable to me as far as ethics and community and personal behavior are concerned.