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.

Top Ten Things

The next time our group gathers face to face (Tuesday, March 24^th, 6:30 – 8 PM in Room 1 at First Church of Lombard) the focus of the presentation will be, essentially, on a different set of “lenses” through which we look at and relate to scripture. Some of us around the table have been working at this with uneven success for a long, long time.

5 or 6 years ago I led a 5 week bible study I called The Top 10 Things You Should Know About Reading, Understanding, and Finding Meaning in the Bible, making it very apparent that I do not have an alternate career path as a headline writer. The idea for the study was that we would shamelessly steal David Letterman’s signature bit, and over the 5 weeks we would “countdown” a “Top Ten List” of thing those of us who want to take the bible seriously without taking it literally could keep in mind to help us with that endeavor. Remember, this is all my stuff, titrated down from who knows how many teachers and books and lectures and papers and random ideas. That means, it is where I have “settled” on this stuff at this stage in my “journey,” and that the more I think about it as time goes along, the more likely the possibility that I will continue to change my mind a little here and there. Here, summarized and with only a little commentary is that list.

10. Even the newest material in the Bible is very, very, very old.

The “newest” material in the Bible (the very late pieces of the New Testament) are 1,875 years old (give or take a decade, and the oldest is more than 3,000 years old. And when you think of the utter lack of communication technology one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five years ago (doesn’t it seem longer when you “spell out” the numbers?), particularly when compared to the present, it isn’t all that tough to imagine that the material there as being “normative” without necessarily being “historical.”

9. You can’t make an apple taste like a T-Bone, and won’t “get” the Bible when you try to make it be something it’s not.

There are all sorts of things we say the Bible is out of respect or deference to it that become quite challenging when and if we look at them closely. We get into trouble when we try to make an apple taste like a T-Bone, when we try to make the Bible be something it’s not. Five pairs of “is/is not” things about the Bible, at least as I am continuing to learn it

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by different authors, mostly about their experiences of or their ancestors’ memories of “the Holy” (God). The Bible is not a single book written from only one perspective that tells only one point of view about God.

The Bible is a source that describes how ancient people thought about the important things in their lives. The Bible is not a “science book” with objective, dependent on reliable data descriptions of unfathomable phenomena.

The Bible is a collection of writings, letters, stories, songs, and memories that span more than 2,000 years. The Bible is not a “history book” that describes in chronological order the historical details about the events it describes.

The Bible is a source that reveals how faithful people in antiquity responded to what they perceived to be God’s will for their lives in their day and time. The Bibl is not a “law and rule book” designed to instruct people how to act and think in every possible imaginable circumstance.

The Bible is what faithful people have come to call “God’s Word” because it is among our most important and revealing tools helping us understand how God relates to us, and vice-versa, The Bible is not the only possible way God can communicate God’s will to faithful people, nor the only source of God’s comfort, guidance, and strength.

8. Everything in the Bible came from someone, somewhere – nothing in the Bible simply “appeared” in a vacuum.

There is not one thing in the Bible that wasn’t created, remembered, written, and then treasured in one context or another. That context is everything. The greater our understanding of the context of any given piece, the deeper our understanding of what is being communicated

7. Always ask this question: “Why is this (story/song/memory/et.al.) in the Bible?

The material in the Bible is certainly not the only remaining literature from that 2,300 year period during which the Bible was compiled and then canonized. So it’s important to ask not only why any given text is remembered and treasured enough to “make the cut” for the Bible, but also to ask who was doing the remembering and treasuring and arguing for its inclusion.

6. Songs are songs, stories are stories, memories are memories, visions are visions; things make much more sense when we know what they are.

Material in the Bible always makes more sense when we let it speak for itself, and not try to turn it into something it’s not (I know this sounds a lot like number 9 above, but this is more about individual texts than about the Bible as a whole). Example one: biblical prophets were not so much “fortune tellers” as they were people of discernment. Their poetry is not so much “predictive” as it is “indicative,” meaning that rarely if ever are the visions Nostradamus-like prognostications, and that their “timbre” is more like a riff on “logical consequences” (“Thus says the Lord: if you keep up this nonsense, things will not end well for you” rather than “Thus says the Lord: on the 3^rd of April 2010, your favorite baseball team will begin an undefeated season.”) . Example two: the Apocalypse of John (the Book of Revelation) is not at all a prediction of end times, but rather a dramatic and symbolic portrayal of the evil and corruption of empire gone mad, the paralysis of faithful people, and the ever-present love of God. Example three: Jesus’ parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25: 31-46 (sheep and goats, right and left hand, paradise and punishment, caring for the least of these). It is a parable, a story to make a point not so much about how the Son of Man in all his glory will be given barnyard duty, but the kind of attention, intention, and response expected of those who claim to be followers. Things are much clearer when we accept them for what they are.

5. Repetition = importance

When the Bible says something again and again and again, and then says it again, it is probably a pretty big deal.

4. The Bible was originally written in either Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament), and every translation in every other language has its own “agenda.”

There are over 500 different English translations or paraphrases of the Bible. Were I a better linguist and student of antiquity, even the translation I came up with be colored by my theological, philosophical, sociological and ideological biases. That’s why the “best” translations are done by teams of learned scholars who are in relatively constant dialogue during the translating process. I most consistently use the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible because I respect the scholarship of its teams of translators. Still, even with my limited knowledge of the original languages, I find words and phrases that I would have most certainly translated differently. If you want an interesting discussion of biblical translations, visit Rev. Ken Collins’ website at http://www.kencollins.com/.

3. A “critical” approach to Bible reading doesn’t mean you’re “picking the Bible apart;” it means you’re being thoughtful and reflective and open to new learning about something you think you have always known.

“Critical” as in “developing a critique,” as in “reading for understanding,” or as in “reading to learn something new about the piece or about yourself or both. Not “critical” as in “you never fold the towels the way I want you to fold the towels.”

2. Not everything written, said, or taught about the Bible, even if it sells well, actually “gets it.”

Bookstores, libraries, universities are loaded with all sorts of things written about the Bible. And some of the most literate, well-written stuff misses all the important stuff. If it doesn’t take great notice of context, if it declares that every English word you read is inerrant, if it doesn’t invite you into further conversation with and exploration of the text, then the piece, no matter how attractive, well-written, or famously endorsed on the back cover, simply doesn’t get it.

1. What’s “holy” about the “Holy Bible” is not the book itself, but the God it reveals and remembers and teaches.

Enough said.

A. J. Jacobs and The Year of Living Biblically

A.J. Jacobs is a funny and provocative writer. Much of his stuff has appeared in Esquire, New York Magazine and he's been a frequent contributor to Weekend Edition on NPR. In his book The Know-It All, Jacobs chronicled his determination to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover. In The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, Jacobs, who grew up in a very secular family (he says he's Jewish in much the same way as The Olive Garden is Italian) tells the often funny, often compelling story of his effort to live an entire calendar year following the Bible as literally as possible. It is a great read! And he treats his subject matter with great respect and his quest to understand and follow the Bible as literally as possible is both hilarious and eye-opening.

How do we take these ancient texts, stories, songs, memories, prophecies seriously without declaring that they are completely historical accounts? How can we take the "goal" of certain ritual behaviors seriously without embracing the cultural practice? If I think it's ok to eat a well-cooked pork chop (there's a rule against that), or if I simply don't like to iron and therefore buy and wear mostly cotton shirts with just a bit of polyester thrown in so I don't have to (there's a rule against wearing clothes of mixed fabrics), what keeps me from ignoring the rule about "loving the LORD my God with all my heart and mind and soul and strength?"

And if we are free to pick and choose (obviously I think we are, at least to some extent) just what are our criteria for picking and choosing? My guess it has something to do with "loving the LORD my God with all my heart and mind and soul and strength and my neighbor as myself," but that's my guess. What's yours?

Here is a link to a brief (15 minutes or so) presentation Jacobs gave about his year of living biblically. Depending on your computer system, you may have to cut and paste the link into your browser. Watching and listening is well worth your time.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/a_j_jacobs_year_of_living_biblically.html

Getting Over Ourselves

Thomas Moore (not Thomas "one- O" More, who wrote Utopia and had his head removed by King Henry VIII) is a former monk and a former psychology professor, and the author of more than a dozen well received books about the relationship between what most of us would call something like "psychological" or "emotional" wholeness or wellness and what most of us would call "spiritual" wholeness or wellness. In his 2002 book The Soul's Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life, he argues (pretty persuasively, I think) that if we can just get over ourselves (my phrase -- he would more likely say something like "breaking through the anxiety of the ego") we have an opportunity to approach something that could best be described by the word "holy."

To get the whole argument, you really should read the book, or anything else that he has written (some of which you can find at careofthesoul.net), but here are some "bullets" from The Soul's Religion to hopefully get our juices flowing:

...We become most who we are when we allow the spirit to dismember us, unsettling our plans and understandings, remaking us from our very foundations.

...one of the many definitions of"religion"..."a constructive means for being open to the influence of mystery."

...Avoiding life in the name of pure spirit may look like religion, but it is defense against God...God is to be found in the thick of life, or not at all.

...God is as much in the mess as in the beauty.

...Religion in general is the most intelligent and least rational way of making sense of life.

...I don't want my intuition to eclipse other kinds of intelligence, but to compliment them. In matters of meaning and values, though, I put more faith in the nonrational. Nonrational is not the same as irrational.

...You can't get it perfect every time, but you can certainly be intelligent and inspired simultaneously.

...Personally, I am wary of mass enthusiasms

(from The Soul's Religion: Cultivating a Profoundly Spiritual Way of Life (New York: HarperCollins, 2002)