How To Read The Bible

Larry posted a list of 10 Book Questions, such as what book would you want on a desert island, what book do you wish was never written, etc. Larry gave us his answers, and freinds wrote in to give theirs.

My friend Allen read the blog and sent his answers to me. He didn't know if his answers would offend Larry. Because lots of Larry's friends included the Bible. And Allen did too: as the book he'd wished had never been written. I assured Allen that Larry would love his answers and post it.

I put down the Bible as my desert island book. I am grateful for the Bible. I'm grateful God prompted people to write the stories down. I'm grateful my ancestors passed on their faith to me. I'm grateful I grew up in a home that read the Bible.

But I'm NOT grateful for some of the ways that the church taught me to read it. Like believing that everything in it is literal (the universe was created in six days) Or thinking that you can take any scripture out of the Bible (and out of context) and apply it as God's word for you right at that very moment. Hmm, let's open at random! Malachai 2:3 ... "Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread excrement upon your faces."

Whoa.

Larry, his friend Doug and I have had a recent exchange about these sorts of questions. How literal is the Bible? What about evolution?

Larry blogged about it. I wrote this to Doug. ...

I recommend you read phycisists Sir John Polkinghorne and Hugh Ross. Christians who support evolution aren't saying that God wasn't involved at all. In fact, neither are the scientists. According to Polkinghorne, the leading physicists admit "the universe is a put-up job:” designed and manufactured by Someone. Polkinghorne is the President of Kings College Cambridge and was knighted for his work in physics. He’s not a nut job.

The second law of thermodynamics states that "matter left unattended moves toward disorder." Matter gets less complex and less durable over time. Mutations are less durable. A mutation compromises the organism's integrity and it will die off. So an amoeba (or a reptile mutating into a... bird?) can't mutate into something more complex, unless ... the matter was ATTENDED, being shaped by Something. That's the gist of Intelligent Design.

God took materials and built upon them, one by one. You see the record of that process when you look at the evolutionary record. You're watching things be created.

Genesis One is a poetic account of that process. Let there be light and darkness. Then there was water and dry land. Then there were plants, then animals and then ... Man. Interesting, the order of creation, as told from Day one to day Six, is the same order as we see in the fossil records.

I faith in God and evolution can be compatible. What's really no longer believable is for scientists to insist that it all happened without Outside Help. And it's no longer believable for fundamentalists to insist that the earth was created in seven days.

WAIT: the sun and moon weren't created until Day Four, then what were they using to count Days One Two and Three?

I was taught that everything was inspired by God, every jot and tiddle was right and correct and literally true. And if I didn't believe that, I wasn't a real Christian.

Funny, how had to believe it was all literal ... Except the Song of Solomon! that lurid, steamy sex poem that goes on for chapters and chapters!

"Uh, no it isn't REALLY about sex. It's about ... uh, it's about, the rapture we shall experience when we are united with Christ as his bride for forever."

So who decided one was literal and the other figurative?
Who was interpreting these answers?
Where was I getting my scholarship from?
Oakie Tent Revival preachers?

Reading Biblical Jewish texts from Baby Boomer Glasses

It was a rude awakening when I realized I was reading the Bible from a different POV than the age in which it was written. We have been influenced by the Enlightenment and the Age or Reason. Which are great. But why are we applying the Scientific Method to a piece of LITERATURE, and demanding that a poem or a prophet's vision stand up to a scientific proof? Would you try to prove an algebra problem with a psalm? You can’t read Beowulf and try to extrapolate a scientific formula or a news article out of it.

It was sobering when I realized my faith was influenced by 20th century Pentecostal Oakie literalists. And of course I'm influence by consumerism: eat up the Bible, digest it and get what I can out of it FOR ME AS AN INDIVIDUAL.

Well, how did people interpret scriptures 500 years ago? Or in Jesus' day? It was an eye opener when author Rob Bell explained that Genesis 1 is structured as a Hebrew poem. Any Hebrew scholar would recognize the structure as a poem, not as a factual account to report in a newspaper.

It's been hard to face, but I realize t my faith is made stronger by testing it. The Bible isn't a
math problem, where if one part of it is found to be off, the whole math problem is wrong. Instead, it's a story. Maybe the details get mixed or viewed different ways, but the story is still the same and still true. Did David kill thousands or tens of thousands? Or did the writer just mean A LOT? Did Eve tempt Adam with an apple, or was that a parable, created to
illustrate how we came to be separated from God? It doesn't matter to me.

I think the line has to be drawn when people want to throw out the entire Bible as allegory or poetry. Clearly parts of the Bible are accounts of the history of the Jews. I & II Kings, Samuel, etc. The Epistles were written to churches, they were Paul’s opinions of how the new churches needed to clean up their acts. Paul argued with some of the apostles, they had different opinions and such. He wasn't God, he was just one guy.

I knew a woman whose church refused to allow musical instruments because they weren't mentioned in the Epistles. Forgetting that, uh, the Epistles were written to address PROBLEMS! Maybe the music was just fine.

Imagine how Paul feels now, because people made all sorts of extrapolations on what he wrote. Forget Paul, Imagine how Jesus feels.

I realize that we can go to the extreme and discount the entire Bible as poetry or story telling, and then get out of any repsonsibility we have to its content.

But I undersand just a little why my friend Allen wished the Bible had never been written.

I'll never go that far. But there are a few christian theologians I wished I'd never been influenced by.