Being Honest About the Bible, Pt 4 - Reliable Sources

Reliable Sources

I think I got my first personal copy of the Bible when I was in fourth grade. I still have it although now the copy generally sits on a shelf. It served me well through high school. In college I bought my first Oxford annotated. Later, I was introduced to JB Phillips translation and somewhere in those years I first met Clarence Jordon and his Cotton Patch renditions of the Gospels. In the 80s, I was first introduced to the inclusive language lectionary. I was in seminary before I got my first copy of the Tanakh. Frankly, I didn’t even know it existed, which is sad, but bespeaks of the general lack of Bible knowledge among most Christians.

All this is to say that scripture is very important to me. While my training per se during graduate school years was in theology and not Biblical studies, as I grow older I return more and more to the classic texts. I am struck how in the gospels, the religious leadership of the day keeps asking Jesus, “by what authority do you teach what you teach” and I am constantly asking myself the same question. At the same time I am constantly amazed at what my study finds and I love to share those learnings.

One recent comment about a post concerning the continued discrimination in our denomination against our LGBTQ sons and daughters, friends and colleagues was quite telling. He (am I surprised that it came from a man?) said, “Those pro-gay (interesting label) forces see the Bible as un-reliable.”

He’s got that right! At least sort of…

Concerning the discernment of the sinfulness of sexual identities other than straight folks, the six odious verses don’t further the conversation one bit and they become repeated justifications for very negative behavior.

Frankly, I am simply not willing to causally ignore the findings of the American Psychiatric Association, the witness and service of GLBTQ people, and the emerging consensus in mainline academic and ecclesiastical circles.

There are many places where the Bible is un-reliable. Just as there are several approaches to its interpretation that are un-reliable as well.

The Bible is not a helpful place to learn about “the birds and the bees.” Folks who wrote the Bible had not a clue about sperm and eggs. Babies were planted just like barley. The man’s seed was sown into the woman’s womb and you waited until the harvest! If no heir was produced, it must mean that the woman’s field was barren. No hint that the man’s sperm count might be low, it is all her fault. So, it’s time to sleep with your slave girl!

The Bible is apparently not a very reasonable source for understanding the details of the “historical Jesus.” One might think that such a quest would be important. We know more about Paul than we know about Jesus. Albert Schweitzer, in his famous study on this subject more than 100 years ago examined all of the various “lives of Jesus” published at that point in the academy and he reached the conclusion that the portraits looked a lot like what the authors wanted to find in the first place.

Who is Jesus’ grandfather? Luke says Heli, Matthew says Jacob!

I’ve been doing a study on the Gospel of Mark. It is on hiatus for a while as I do additional research. But I will be back soon. Geography is very confusing in Mark. Jesus and his entourage travel across the lake. They put into shore and they step onto solid ground at the Geserene cemetery. The problem, of course, is that the territory is really thirty kilometers inland. That is a pretty big step. I find it interesting that the translators of the King James Version of the Bible dealt with this anomaly by simply re-naming the town, the territory of the Gaderenes.

So if you really want to learn about who the Pharisees were and what they believed, you might want to go to a different place than the gospel accounts which are at best caricatures.

Hebrews is not finally the place to figure out the Jewish temple systems, for what one finds there is polemics.

So…must we jump to the conclusion that scripture is completely un-reliable? Completely useless? Mere fable? I’ve not heard anyone saying such a thing, at least not in the progressive circles to which I relate.

But isn’t it fair to say that if we don’t take it all as true, then we can’t take any of it as true I don’t think so.

I would hope that the motto guiding the studies that emerge on this blog and the conversations that follow would be in Reinhold Niebuhr’s words, that We Take the Bible Seriously, But Not Literally. Anglican Bishop and noted Evangelical scholar, N.T. Wright, has this to say about the Bible.

[The Bible] is not, for a start, a list of rules, though it contains many commandments of various sorts and in various contexts. Nor is it a compendium of true doctrines, though, of course, many parts of the Bible declare great truths about God, Jesus, the world and ourselves in no uncertain terms. Most of its constituent parts, and all of it when put together (whether in the Jewish canonical form or the Christian form), can best be described as story. This is a complicated and much-discussed theme, but there is nothing to be gained by ignoring it.

Our children sing (and I hope we join them singing), “Tell me the stories of Jesus.” I take this to mean, not only the stories of what Jesus did that the hymn begins to describe, but the stories that Jesus told like the “Good Samaritan.” I would also add the stories that Jesus was told as well. Why do you think he went “awol” from his family on the trip to Jerusalem when he was 12 years old? He wanted to hear the rabbis make arcane arguments about legalistic stuff? Right - or did he really want to hear about the heroes of faith and learn about their great deeds?

That tale in itself is an interesting story. The gospel writers don’t tell us what happened when Jesus and his family got home, they just said that in the future he did get taller and he developed more wisdom than was exhibited on that first bar mitzvah trip.

The relationship between the oral and written tradition is complex, but many scholars have pointed out how the written texts reflect oral strategies. For example, the Synoptic passion narratives with their repeated sets of three scenes represents well known story telling formats.

I have heard people quote 2nd Timothy more times in my last six months on 7 Villages than I have heard it referred to in my last several years. Scripture “is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” Of course, this was not about the Bible as we know it, but Paul was voicing a general consensus that these more widely accepted texts are pretty helpful. I don’t disagree.

There has been some squirming lately, when one points out that what is in our canon is there because of a series of votes. I am not interested in re-opening that question. But it is important to remember that the canonical list represents the minimal resources, not the only texts that a congregation should own.

We are learning how the non-canonical materials also help us to understand more fully the canonical materials. For example, I find it interesting that the new Judas text seems to raise questions about the practice of constantly seeking martyrdom in the early church. In today’s world, we might be all advised to reflect on the argument that is presented.

In truth, while there was a series of votes. We all cast our votes for what has been called the “canon within the canon,” i.e. key texts that we use to interpret other texts. Luther considered Paul’s letters central. He put Hebrews and Revelation at the end, because he thought they were flawed. Wesley voted for “the Sermon on the Mount.”

And finally, we add our vote to the consensus every time we pick up a text and seriously study it.

But back to where we started, didn’t Paul condemn homosexuality?

Well, Paul is a pretty uptight guy. He seems to condemn anything other than the missionary position. But, scholars who do serious theology not pseudo researchers who spout ideology tell us that Paul is not talking about the issue as we know it today.

What I find interesting about Paul is less about his concrete advice to congregations and more about the story of his struggle to affirm that Gentiles might actually be considered righteous. Stanley Hauerwas spoke at a conference on Wesleyan theology several years ago that I attended. Late one night, we were sitting around and the question of homosexuality came up. Hauerwas told the informal group that in spite of all the supposed Bible sanctions, the one thing he could not do was to ignore the witness of gay and lesbian Christians that he encountered.

It seems to me, that Paul is in the same boat. In spite of what tradition says about righteousness, he can not ignore the faithful witness of the Gentile brothers and sisters he encounters, so in his treatise in Romans, he finds a way to re-image scripture.

If Paul were writing today, might he not say in addition to his belief that in Christ, there is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free? Might he also say in Christ there is no gay or straight?

Sallie McFague has written many fine books, but her first one Metaphorical Theology continues to be, for me, a place to return over and over again. To talk about the narrative character of scripture is to affirm the insight drawn from literary scholar’s work with metaphors that suggests that religious discourse uses myth and poetry to communicate ideas and truths that can not be communicated with simplistic literal conversation. Myth is not less truth, but more truth.

McFague’s model suggests two criteria that inform our discussion of metaphors (and in their extended form, narratives) in scripture. First, our religious stories and images can become idolatrous. Given that metaphors always include both a yes and a no – for example, war is chess – yes, it requires complex strategic thinking to win and no, chess is just a game, war is not – our metaphors deteriorate when they are assumed to be literal. The ongoing discussion of the fatherhood of God is a classic example.

The second criterion has to do with the danger of irrelevancy, i.e. they no longer speak in changing times. When particular metaphors take on a sort of hegemony, they can become dangerous. The reduction of women’s functionality to propagation, the subsequent solitary raising of the next generation and housekeeping, while some women chose this, it is certainly not understood anymore as ordained in heaven.

Both criteria stand in tension with each other and that is what makes this all so interesting. For example, in her recent book on prayer, In God’s Presence, feminist and Process Theologian Majorie Suchocki looks at the image of God as Father. While acknowledging that for many women, this image is either obsolete, or at least must be balanced with more feminine models, she finds Jesus’ identification of the divine as Father to facilitate liberation. In contrast to a more hierarchical social register based on the status of one’s family, to be able to say that I am an heir, a child of God, is to wipe out discriminating images of social distinction.

The late Fred Gailey discussed the narrative character of scripture and pointed out that how in a reading, one might identify with a variety of characters. Additionally, one will find oneself identifying with the various dialogues that typically go on in the story, between one’s self and God, one’s self and one’s neighbor, one’s self and one’s self. On any given day, depending on the existential questions that the reader brings to the text, the text might speak in entirely different ways.

Scripture does not interpret itself, but we bring the best available resources from the academy to the task. The tools of history, literature and sociology serve as resources to interpret the dialogues we find therein between ourselves and others. Psychology and the study of spirituality inform our understandings of the dialogues we find within ourselves and theology gives depth to the understandings of the relationships found between ourselves and God.

In summary, Taking the Bible Seriously, but not Literally means:

• taking the narrative character of the texts seriously,
• taking the metaphorical nature of the narratives seriously,
• taking the tendency for metaphors to become either idolatrous or irrelevant seriously,
• taking the best available resources from other academic disciplines seriously
• and finally taking seriously the fact that one can see ourselves in the scripture.

When we do, the study of scripture can become a vehicle for hearing the living Word in our lives.

Grace and Peace,

John

Photo Used by Permission: I-Stockphoto.com

See Also:

Being Honest About the Bible, Pt 1 - Irony

Being Honest About the Bible, pt 2 - Two Books

Being Honest About the Bible, Pt. 3 - One Book, Two Views