Ask the Question 3: The Bible

 

 We ran out of time for a number of questions asked in worship on February 19. Here are responses to those questions.  Red questions were submitted on line.  Blue questions were hand written submissions from Sunday.

A quick reminder that these are my opinions. They do not represent any "official" position of First Congregational Church of La Grange, or of the United Church of Christ. 

Three questions came in about the content and permanence of the content of the Bible. 

• Why haven't new books been added? Dinosaurs, and the Holocaust all existed/happened.
• The Bible has evolved over time. Should the Bible continue to be changed, or is consistency more important?
• The Old Testament is full of the worst aspects of humanity and few mentions of love.  It is superseded by the New Covenant.  I understand the Old Testament's value as a historical record, by why are we taught to revere it? 

What we call "scripture" has indeed evolved over millennia.  As is true of other faith's sacred writings, our Bible is a compilation of many writers representing communities of faith. Most of these writings were oral traditions before they were committed to ink and parchment. And, many of these oral traditions were appropriated from the cultures, religions, mythologies, and narratives of the people with whom the faith community interacted.  These texts, once committed to parchment, were then edited, tweaked, intertwined, and subjected to community scrutiny before being deemed "sacred."

To save time and space, I recommend you see this video about how the Bible came to be.  

I view the Bible as a library of narratives that reflect human experience with God over time.  I don't believe that any portion of the Bible should be "revered." Please save your reverence for God and God alone.  The Bible simply recounts what some in history have experienced.  When these ancient texts were written -- particularly the Old Testament -- there was not a sense of "history" as we understand it today.  The narrative was not written as a history text book. It was not intended to be a fact based or official account of any kind.  It was shared as an old family story is shared.  Picture a conversation a traveling band of wayfarers is having around a campfire at night: 

Kid: Ms Elder, can you tell us again the story of how the world was created? 

or 

Elderly member of the tribe: Children, gather around and let me tell you the story my elders told me about how Job suffered (or Jonah was swallowed by a whale). 

or

Jesus, tell us again about how to pray.

The Bible did indeed evolve over a long period of time.  There was a long debate in the early centuries of Christianity about what should be and what shouldn't be included in this collection.  And like all things involving humans, that debate was more than a little political.  It was influenced by the involvement of the Holy Roman Emperor, Constantine, who used the new division of Judaism as a tool to consolidate the empire.  Read that again.  A political figure -- an imperialist, colonizing, emperor -- played a key part in what became the sacred text for that developing faith.  That text then became the supporting documentation for the crusades, the pogrom's, and the forced conversions of other cultures.  

Is this a book that should remain unchanged? The Bible has been used to justify the holocaust, slavery, the slaughter of Armenians and so many other cultures, the forced removal of indigenous children from their communities, and, frankly, so much other evil. 

Personally, I believe that we have replaced the intent of the narratives -- to express a community's experiences of the holy -- with worship of the narratives. I don't believe we should eliminate any parts of this collection; but it might be wise to ADD to this other writings.  Why not consider the writings of Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa?  What about those writings that were NOT included by the third and seventh century councils such as the Gospel of Thomas, or of Mary, or of Judas? 

As for dinosaurs and the holocaust, yes they did indeed exist and happen.  One happened because someone insisted that their beliefs were right and all others are wrong -- as if the truth is binary. 

The truth is that nothing in any of life is binary; there are as many points of view as there are people witness the experience. Until we accept this diversity, we have missed the point of (name the religions)'s sacred texts. 

There are 4 Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But why isn't there a Gospel written according to Jesus?  Why didn't Jesus leave us something written my him, instead of leaving it to others to write various and at times conflicting versions of the Gospel?

Well, since we can't ask Jesus why, I can only speculate.  Here are some of my thoughts about this. 

• Jesus did not consider himself to be all that extraordinary.  He was just a local rabbi (like I'm a local pastor) who taught what he had been taught by those who went before him.  Most of what is in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) and credited to Jesus' teachings originates in the Jewish writings -- the Talmud, Mishnah, and the writings of the rabbis.  Jesus was a conveyor of traditional faith teachings who had the chutzpah to confront the religious leaders with their hypocrisy and name their political motives.  Why write down what is common knowledge?
• Did Jesus know how to write?  While we have one account of him sitting with the teachers in the temple when he was 12, we have no record of him attending any formal education -- and most people did not in that time.  Only the wealthy were educated.  We have a narrative of Jesus reading the passage from Isaiah when he was in the synagogue at Nazareth (ref Luke 4:16ff) but was he reading or reciting what he memorized for his bar mitzvah? Or, since this story is not in the other gospels, is it an account that historically happened, or is Luke making a point about a prophet not being accepted in their hometown?  We don't have a record of him writing words on a page or in the dirt, and we never see a reference to him reading anything outside of that one scripture. 
• Did maybe Jesus write something and it got lost?  Or, the early church fathers rejected it as authentic? 
• It was not until long after Jesus' death that anyone wrote any of his teachings.  Mark wrote the earliest version about 40 years -- a full generation or two -- after Jesus' death.  There were likely other writings that were earlier, but we only know of them what is copied into the Synoptic Gospels. Paul wrote about the movement that became of Jesus' teachings around 65 or 70 AD, but again, Paul never encountered Jesus in the flesh. Even the writings that were not included in the canon were written by people who likely never sat at the feet of Jesus.  You've likely played telephone with a circle of friends.  One starts a short narrative whispered into the ear of the person sitting next to them.  The narrative then gets passed from person to person in the circle until it returns to the one who originated the story. Then it is repeated aloud.  It is rarely the same story that comes back after generations of retelling it.