Bible 101 - Union Syllabus and Readings

Transcription

“IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD” (Bible 101)
Thursdays, 6:15-7:30pm  1/17, 1/24, 1/31, and 2/7
Syllabus
Facilitator: Rev. Jay Williams
Lead Pastor, Union United Methodist Church
PhD candidate in Theology, Harvard University
Course description:
Did God write the Bible? Can I believe in the Bible and science? Why is the “Book of
Revelation” so scary? Are the numbers “7” and “3” divine? Are “666” and “13” evil?
This introductory study will begin to answer these questions, and raise many others important
to Biblically-based Christian faith in the 21st century.
The study is open to everyone (from those who read the
Bible every day to those who are curious skeptics)--no
experience required. Each session will consist of a brief
presentation by Pastor Jay, followed by group discussion.
Session 1 - What is the Bible? Bible Basics
(January 17th)
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Some thoughts before I start reading the Bible…
What is the “Word of God”?
The Organization of the Bible (Old and New Testament, Sections, Books)
The Languages of the Bible
Translations of the Bible
Key Bible verses
Read for next week (Session 2):
 Isaiah 40
 Acts 2 (Book of Acts, chapter 2)
 2 Thessalonians 2:13-16
 Handout: “Excerpts from the Doctrinal Standards of the UMC”
 Handout: “When and Why the Bible Was Written” – Sessions 1 & 2
 Handout: “African American Traditions and the Bible”, Vincent Wimbush

http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=cgu_fac_pub
Article (Handout): “Who Wrote the Bible and Why It Matters”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/the-bible-telling-lies-to_b_840301.html
“IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD” (Bible 101) Syllabus
Session 2 – Writing the Bible: Authority and History (January 24th)
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So Who Wrote the Bible?...Formation of the “Canon”
“The Apostles’ Teaching” and Councils
Apocryphal and Noncanonical Texts
 Psalm 119:105-112
 Jeremiah 31:31-34
 2 Corinthians, chapter 3
 Handout: John Wesley, “How to Read the Scripture” from Preface to Explanatory
Notes upon the Old Testament, http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/bible.stm
 Handout: “What is the Lectionary?” And “Frequently Asked Questions about the
Revised Common Lectionary”
 Article (Handout): “What You Know Before Reading the Bible”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-m-swenson-phd/reading-the-bible_b_874242.html
Session 3 – Reading the Bible: Lessons and Lections (January 31st)
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Lectio divina (“divine reading”)
Lectionary Study
o Genesis 19:1-29
o John 14:1-14
o 1 Corinthians 14:26-37
o 2 Timothy 3:10-17
o 1 Peter, chapters 2 & 3
o Handout: Collection of articles on the Bible and race, gender, and sexuality
 “Why Read the Bible” (Ronald Hendel, Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronald-hendel/why-read-the-bible_b_2007129.html
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“The Bible Hates Homosexuality. So What?” (Kate Blanchard, Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-blanchard/the-bible-hates-homosexuality-so-what_b_2118043.html
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“Abortion: What the Bible Says (and Doesn’t Say)” (Rick Lowery, Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-lowery-phd/abortion-what-the-bible-says-and-doesnt-say_b_1856049.html
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“5 Common Misconceptions About the Bible” (Christine Hayes, Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-hayes/5-misconceptions-about-the-bible_b_2173965.html
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“4 Good Reasons Not to Read the Bible Literally” (David Lose, Huffington Post)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/4-good-reasons-not-to-read-bible-literally_b_919345.html
Session 4 – The Bible…So What A Controversial and Relevant Text
(February 7th)?
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Key themes in the Bible
Dealing with controversial texts in the Bible
Questions about race, gender, sexuality, class, religious plurality…
Readings for Bible 101 Session 2:
“Writing the Bible: Authority and Histor y”
Excerpts from the Doctrinal Standards of the
United Methodist Church
The Articles of Religion of the Methodist Church, V-VI
Article V—Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation
The Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be
proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought
requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those canonical books of the
Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the church. The names of the canonical books
are:
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, The First Book of Samuel, The Second
Book of Samuel, The First Book of Kings, The Second Book of Kings, The First Book of Chronicles, The Second
Book of Chronicles, The Book of Ezra, The Book of Nehemiah, The Book of Esther, The Book of Job, The Psalms,
The Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Cantica or Songs of Solomon, Four Prophets the Greater, Lamentations,
Twelve Prophets the Less.
All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive and account canonical.
Article VI—Of the Old Testament
The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to
mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are
not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the law given from God
by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites doth not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity
be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the
commandments which are called moral.
The Confession of Faith of The Evangelical United Brethren
Church, IV
Article IV—The Holy Bible
We believe the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, reveals the Word of God so far as it is necessary for our
salvation. It is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice. Whatever is not
revealed in or established by the Holy Scriptures is not to be made an article of faith nor is it to be taught as essential
to salvation.
From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church - 2008. Copyright 2008 by The United Methodist
Publishing House. Used by permission. Full texts of the Doctrinal Standards of the United Methodist Church
can be found: http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.4846073/k.6B5F/Our_Doctrinal_Standards.htm
Readings for Bible 101 Session 2 – Page 1
Who Wrote The Bible and Why It Matters
Posted: 03/25/11 09:38 PM ET
Bart D. Ehrman
Apart from the most rabid fundamentalists among us, nearly everyone admits that the Bible
might contain errors -- a faulty creation story here, a historical mistake there, a contradiction or
two in some other place. But is it possible that the problem is worse than that -- that the Bible
actually contains lies?
Most people wouldn't put it that way, since the Bible is, after all, sacred Scripture for
millions on our planet. But good Christian scholars of the Bible, including the top Protestant and
Catholic scholars of America, will tell you that the Bible is full of lies, even if they refuse to use
the term. And here is the truth: Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people
who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle -- Peter, Paul or James -- knowing
full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by
someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.
Most modern scholars of the Bible shy away from these terms, and for understandable
reasons, some having to do with their clientele. Teaching in Christian seminaries, or to largely
Christian undergraduate populations, who wants to denigrate the cherished texts of Scripture by
calling them forgeries built on lies? And so scholars use a different term for this phenomenon
and call such books "pseudepigrapha."
You will find this antiseptic term throughout the writings of modern scholars of the Bible.
It's the term used in university classes on the New Testament, and in seminary courses, and in
Ph.D. seminars. What the people who use the term do not tell you is that it literally means
"writing that is inscribed with a lie."
And that's what such writings are. Whoever wrote the New Testament book of 2 Peter
claimed to be Peter. But scholars everywhere -- except for our friends among the
fundamentalists -- will tell you that there is no way on God's green earth that Peter wrote the
book. Someone else wrote it claiming to be Peter. Scholars may also tell you that it was an
acceptable practice in the ancient world for someone to write a book in the name of someone
else. But that is where they are wrong. If you look at what ancient people actually said about the
practice, you'll see that they invariably called it lying and condemned it as a deceitful practice,
even in Christian circles. 2 Peter was finally accepted into the New Testament because the
church fathers, centuries later, were convinced that Peter wrote it. But he didn't. Someone else
did. And that someone else lied about his identity.
The same is true of many of the letters allegedly written by Paul. Most scholars will tell you
that whereas seven of the 13 letters that go under Paul's name are his, the other six are not.
Their authors merely claimed to be Paul. In the ancient world, books like that were labeled as
pseudoi -- lies.
This may all seem like a bit of antiquarian curiosity, especially for people whose lives don't
depend on the Bible or even people of faith for whom biblical matters are a peripheral interest at
best. But in fact, it matters sometimes. Whoever wrote the book of 1 Timothy claimed to be Paul.
But he was lying about that -- he was someone else living after Paul had died. In his book, the
author of 1 Timothy used Paul's name and authority to address a problem that he saw in the
church. Women were speaking out, exercising authority and teaching men. That had to stop.
The author told women to be silent and submissive, and reminded his readers about what
happened the first time a woman was allowed to exercise authority over a man, in that little
incident in the garden of Eden. No, the author argued, if women wanted to be saved, they were
to have babies (1 Tim. 2:11-15).
Largely on the basis of this passage, the apostle Paul has been branded, by more liberation
minded people of recent generations, as one of history's great misogynists. The problem, of
course, is that Paul never said any such thing. And why does it matter? Because the passage is
still used by church leaders today to oppress and silence women. Why are there no women
priests in the Catholic Church? Why are women not allowed to preach in conservative
evangelical churches? Why are there churches today that do not allow women even to speak? In
no small measure it is because Paul allegedly taught that women had to be silent, submissive
and pregnant. Except that the person who taught this was not Paul, but someone lying about his
identity so that his readers would think he was Paul.
It may be one of the greatest ironies of the Christian scriptures that some of them insist on
truth, while telling a lie. For no author is truth more important than for the "Paul" of Ephesians.
He refers to the gospel as "the word of truth" (1:13); he indicates that the "truth is in Jesus"; he
tells his readers to "speak the truth" to their neighbors (4:24-25); and he instructs his readers to
"fasten the belt of truth around your waist" (6:14). And yet he himself lied about who he was. He
was not really Paul.
It appears that some of the New Testament writers, such as the authors of 2 Peter, 1 Timothy
and Ephesians, felt they were perfectly justified to lie in order to tell the truth. But we today can
at least evaluate their claims and realize just how human, and fallible, they were. They were
creatures of their time and place. And so too were their teachings, lies and all.
Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the New York Times bestselling author
of 'Misquoting Jesus' and 'Jesus, Interrupted'. His latest book, 'Forged: Writing in the Name of
God -- Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are', is now available from
HarperOne.
Claremont Colleges
Scholarship @ Claremont
CGU Faculty Publications and Research
CGU Faculty Scholarship
1-1-1993
African American Traditions and the Bible
Vincent L. Wimbush
Claremont Graduate University
Recommended Citation
Wimbush, Vincent L. Oxford Companion to the Bible, s.v. "African American Traditions and the Bible." New York, Oxford University
Press, 1993. 15-16.
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the CGU Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion
in CGU Faculty Publications and Research by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact
scholarship@cuc.claremont.edu.
12
AFRICAN AMERICAN TRADITIONS AND THE BIBLE
(Jer. 36.14). The prophet *Zephaniah is called
"son of Cushi" (Zeph. 1.1) in his genealogy,
which extends back to Hezekiah.
Solomon as patron of wisdom opened the door
to Egyptian proverbs and poetry as evidenced in
segments of the book of *Proverbs modeled upon
the Egyptian "Instructions of Amen-em-ope"
(Prov. 22.17-24.34), and in Psalm 104, which
echoes an Egyptian hymn to Aton. Hezekiah,
who aligned himself with the Cushite Dynasty,
is also listed as a royal patron of Israel's prover
bial wisdom (Prov. 25.1). The maiden in Song
of Solomon 1.5 proclaims, "I am black and beau
tiful, 0 daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of
Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon." The dual
imagery is clear: dark hue is paralleled by the
black goat-skin tents, and beauty is matched by
the sumptuous royal curtains. (The Hebrew con
nector we is taken in its normal sense as a con
junctive "and" rather than the less usual disjunc
tive "but").
Africa in Israelite Worship and Messianic
Thought. Among those known to God under the
imagery of *Zion as mother of nations is Cush
(Ps. 87.4), who also brings tribute to the Temple
(Ps. 68.31). This concern for Cush and the other
nations may extend from the formative experi
ence of the *Exodus and wilderness sojourn,
where Hebrews were accompanied by a "mixed
multitude" (Exod. 12.38), including Phinehas
(Exod. 6.25) and *Moses' Cushite wife (Num.
12.1).
In prophetic literature, after God's wrath is
vindicated on the nations of the earth, God will
change their speech so all can worship God, and
"from beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my sup
pliants, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall
bring my offering" (Zeph. 3.10). This refers to
the African diaspora, to Israelite exiles in Africa
returning with gifts of thanksgiving to God. Af
rica then with its people seen as converts shall
come to worship God in Zion, along with dis
persed Israelite exiles. It is in this context of
God's universal reign that the prophet Amos
proclaims, "Are you not like the Ethiopians to
me, 0 people of Israel? says the Lord" (Amos
9.7). God is judge and ultimately redeemer of
all nations.
The New Testament proclamation of Jesus as
*Messiah continues in the early mission of the
apostle Philip who baptizes the African official
in Acts 8.26-39. It is significant that in this
incident the term "messiah" is interpreted in
light of Isaiah 53.7-8 as God's suffering servant.
That the African was reading Isaiah suggests
AFF
that the emissary was a recent convert or a *pros
e1yte.
In the light of the Psalms and the prophets,
then, Africans can be viewed both as diaspora
and as proselytes among Israel's dispersed peo
ple, and also as forerunners of the conversion
of all the nations of the earth.
ROBERT A. BENNETT
African American Traditions and the Bible.
=
Introduction: Reading the Bible
Reading
the Self and the World. African Americans' en
gagement of the Bible is complex and dynamic.
It is a fascinating historical drama, beginning
with the Africans' involuntary arrival in the New
World. But as sign of the creativity and adapta
bility of the Africans and of the evocative power
of the Bible, the drama continues to the present
day, notwithstanding the complexity and contro
versies of intervening periods. Thus, there is in
African Americans' engagement of the Bible po
tential not only for an interpretive history of
their readings as a history of their collective self
understandings, visions, hopes, challenges, and
agenda, but also-because of their singular ex
perience at least in the United States-for sig
nificant, even singular challenges for critical bib
lical interpretation in the late twentieth century.
First Reading: Awe and Fear-Initial Nego
tiation of the Bible and the New World. From
the beginning of their captive experience in what
became the United States, Africans were con
fronted with the missionizing efforts of whites
to convert slaves to the religions of the slavers.
These religions or denominations-especially
Anglicanism-were for the most part the estab
lishment religions of the landed gentry; they did
not appeal much to the slaves. Numerous testi
monies from clerics, teachers, and missionaries
of the eighteenth century register frustration
and shock over the Africans' lack of understand
ing of and uneasy socialization into their reli
gious cultures. The formality and the literacy
presupposed by these cultures-in catechetical
training and Bible study, for example-dearly
frustrated the easy or enthusiastic "conversion"
of the African masses. Not only were the Afri
cans, on the whole, according to custom and law,
deemed (and made) incapable of meeting the
presupposed literacy requirements, but they did
not seem emotionally or psychically disposed
toward the customary sensibilities and orienta
tions of the establishment religions. These mis
sionary efforts were not very successful.
The Bible did have a place in t
missionary efforts. But that place w
mary: its presence was indirect, embee
catechetical materials, or muted an,
cated within doctrinaire or catechetical,
formal, preaching. But it needs to I
that the Africans' introduction to "the
"the scriptures," by whatever agency, \
been difficult, according to available
Cultures steeped in oral traditions al
erally find frightful and absurd the ce
religion and religious power circumse
book, then certainly difficult to accept al
later, perhaps, they may find it awe
fascinating.
Second Reading: Critique and AC4
tion. It was not until the late eighteent
with the growth of nonestablishment,
cal, and free-church and camp-meetir
istic movements in the North and S,
African Americans began to encounU
gage the Bible on a large scale and c
intimate basis, minus the bewildermen
themselves directly appealed to by the.
gelicals and revivalists in vivid, emotior
language, and noting that nearly the en
world explained its power and author
peal to the Bible, the Africans could t
to be drawn closer to it. They embl
Bible, transforming it from the Boc
religion of the whites-whether aristoc
ers or lower-class exhorters--into a l
psychic-spiritual power and of hope, a
inspiration for learning and affirmal
into a language capable of articulatir
hopes and veiling stinging critique. TI
tives of the Hebrew Bible and the s
Jesus, the New Testament's persecutee
torious one, captured the collective
imagination. This was the beginning 0
rican American historical encounter wit
ble, and the foundation for the cultivati,
phenomenological, sociopolitical, and
presupposition(s) for its different, even
ing historical readings of the Bible to 0
From the late eighteenth century thrc
end of slavery, the period of ReconstruCi
into the modern Civil Rights era of tt
and 1960s, African Americans continu
engagement with or readings of the Bibl
readings reflected major dynamics in
understandings and orientations of a ffil
ment of African American culture, if
majority. The founding of the inde
churches and denominations beginninl
The Bible did have a place in these initial
missionary efforts. But that place was not pri
mary: its presence was indirect, embedded within
catechetical materials, or muted and domesti
cated within doctrinaire or catechetical, and mostly
formal, preaching. But it needs to be stressed
that the Africans' introduction to "the Bible," or
"the scriptures," by whatever agency, would have
been difficult, according to available evidence.
Cultures steeped in oral traditions at first gen
erally find frightful and absurd the concept of a
religion and religious power circumscribed by a
book, then certainly difficult to accept and fathom;
later, perhaps, they may find it awesome and
fascinating.
Second Reading: Critique and Accommoda
tion. It was not until the late eighteenth century,
with the growth of nonestablishment, evangeli
cal, and free-church and camp-meeting revival
istic movements in the North and South, that
African Americans began to encounter and en
gage the Bible on a large scale and on a more
intimate basis, minus the bewilderment. Finding
themselves directly appealed to by the new evan
gelicals and revivalists in vivid, emotional biblical
language, and noting that nearly the entire white
world explained its power and authority by ap
peal to the Bible, the Africans could hardly fail
to be drawn closer to it. They embraced the
Bible, transforming it from the Book of the
religion of the whites-whether aristocratic slav
ers or lower-class exhorters---into a source of
psychic-spiritual power and of hope, a source of
inspiration for learning and affirmation, and
into a language capable of articulating strong
hopes and veiling stinging critique. The narra
tives of the Hebrew Bible and the stories of
Jesus, the New Testament's persecuted but vic
torious one, captured the collective African
imagination. This was the beginning of the Af
rican American historical encounter with the Bi
ble, and the foundation for the cultivation of the
phenomenological, sociopolitical, and cultural
presupposition(s) for its different, even conflict
ing historical readings of the Bible to come.
From the late eighteenth century through the
end of slavery, the period of Reconstruction, and
into the modern Civil .Rights era of the 1950S
and 1960s, African Americans continued their
engagement with or readings of the Bible. These
readings reflected major dynamics in the self
understandings and orientations of a major seg
ment of African American culture, if not the
majority. The founding of the independent
churches and denominations beginning in the
13
late eighteenth century historically postdates and
logically presupposes the cultivation of certain
identifiable African diaspora religious world
views and orientations. The Bible played a fun
damental role in the cultivation and articulation
of such worldviews and orientations. It was dis
covered as a type of language world full of
drama and proclamation such that the slave or
freed person could be provided with certain pow
erful'rhetorics and visions that fired the imagi
nation.
The most popular reading of the Bible was
one in which the Protestant *canon provided the
rhetorics and visions of prophetic critique, the
blueprints for "racial uplift," and social and po
litical peace (integration) as the ultimate goal, in
addition to steps toward personal salvation. This
reading of the Bible reflected the dominant so
ciopolitical views and orientations among Afri
can Americans in this period. The "reading"
both of the Bible and of American culture
expressed considerable ambivalence: it was both
critical and accommodationist: on the one hand,
its respect for the Protestant canon reflected its
desire to accommodate and be included within
the American (socioeconomic, political, and re
ligious) mainstream; on the other hand, its inter
pretation of the Bible was on the whole from a
social and ideological location "from below," as
it were, and reflected a blistering critique of
Bible-believing, slave-holding, racist America.
Important personalities-from Frederick Doug
lass to Martin Luther King, Jr.-are among the
powerful articulators of the reading. But the
popular sources, some anonymous, some by not
very-well-known individuals-the songs, conver
sion narratives, poetry, prayers, diaries, and the
like-are a truer, more powerful reflection of
history.
That this reading reflected considerable am
bivalence about being in America on the part of
a considerable segment of African Americans
over a long period of history is indisputable.
That it reflects class-specific leanings within the
African American popUlation is also indisputa
ble. Those who continued to "read" the Bible
and America in this way continued to hope that
some accommodation should and could be made.
Those most ardent in this hope on the whole
saw themselves as close enough to the main
stream to make accommodation (integration) al
ways seem feasible.
The great interest in the dramatic narratives
of the Hebrew Bible notwithstanding, it was the
motifs of a certain cluster of passages from the
14
New Testament, especially Galatians 3:26-28 and
Acts 2 and 10:34-36, that provided the herme
neutic foundation for this dominant "main
stream" African American reading of the Bi
ble-and American culture. These passages were
important because of their emphasis on the
themes centering around the hope for the real
ization of the universality of salvation and the
kinship of humanity. The passages were quoted
and/or paraphrased in efforts to relate them LO
the racial situation in the United States by gen
erations of African Americans-from the fa
mous LO those known only in statistics, stereo
types, and generalizations, in settings ranging
from pulpits and lecture halls LO nightclubs and
street corners, in the rheLOric of the sermon and
in the music of the streets.
That this reading continues LO reflect the ethos
and orientation of a considerable number, per
haps the majority, of African Americans, can be
seen in its institutionalization in most African
American institutions and associations--from the
churches LO civil rights organizations. Further,
some of the most powerful and influential voices
among African Americans continue to accept the
ethos reflected by the reading. This suggests the
continuing power of the ethos, even if it be
argued that it is no longer the singular dominant
ethos.
Third Reading: Critique from the Margins.
Another reading was cultivated in the early de
cades of the twentieth century, primarily in the
urban centers of the North and South. It re
flected the sentiments of displaced and disori
ented rural and small-LOwn residents who moved
to the big cities in search of better job opportu
nities. These individuals formed new religious
communities that gave them a sense of belonging
and solidarity missing in the established "main
line" churches and communities. A very differ
ent reading of the Bible is in evidence among
such groups, one that was also reflective of a
different attitude about society and culture. It
was a more critical, even radical attitude about
America; there was little hope of full integration
into the mainstream. America was seen as racist
and arrogant; its "mainstream" religious groups-
including the African American groups-were
seen as worldly and perfidious.
The engagement of the Bible and of religious
texts in general more clearly reflects and artic
ulates this attitude. The latter was not held by
one single group; it was held by a number of
groups-the Garvey Movement, Father Divine
and the Peace Mission Movement, the Black Jews,
the Nation of Islam, the Spiritual churches, the
Pentecostal movement, among the most promi
nent. What they had in common were sensibili
ties, attitudes about the world, which were re
flected not only in their more radical (Afrocentric
or racialist) interpretation of the (Protestant
defined and -delimited) Bible, but also in their
acceptance of other esoteric authoritative texts
that, of course, justified their sensibilities and
agenda. Whether through the radical reading of
the (Protestant) Bible, the rejection or manipu
lation of its canonical delimitations, or through
acceptance of other esoteric authoritative texts,
these groups expressed their rejection of the
racist and worldly religious ways of America and
of the accommodationist and integrationist agenda
of the African American religious mainstream.
Many of them focused, LO degrees far beyond
anything on record among the African Ameri
can establishment churches, on the utter perfidy
and hopelessness of whites (e.g., Nation of Is
lam, Garvey movement) as well as the destiny
and salvation of African peoples (especially Black
Jews).
Fourth Reading: Leaving Race Behind. An
other African American reading of the Bible and
American culture is emerging as a dominant one
in the late twentieth century. It is in many re
spects a reaction LO both the integrationistlac
commodationist and the separatist readings dis
cussed above. Its use of the Bible is a sharp
departure from the traditional African Ameri
can engagement of the Bible. To be sure, Afri
can Americans have historically been evangelical
in their religious sensibilities, including the at
tachment of primary importance to the Bible as
guide. But there has heretofore generally been
a looseness, a kind of playfulness with the Bible.
The letters of the Bible and its literal sense were
less important than the evocative power of the
stories, poetry, and prophetic proclamations.
What generally mattered most was the power of
the Bible to function as a language, even a lan
guage world, inLO which African American vi
sionaries, prophets, rhetors, and politicians could
retreat in order to find the materials needed for
the articulation of their own and their commu
nities' views. Now there are many African Amer
icans whose engagement to the Bible is more
doctrinaire and literal, even fundamentalist. And
the hermeneutic foundation or presupposition,
too, has shifted from historical and cultural ex
perience, from being race-specific (as with the
mainstream groups) or radica
and "cults"), LO being (as it
based," that is, focused upo
the letters of the Bible, relati\
and experience.
I n this reading of the (Prot,
is considered the deracializel
quest for the truth and salva
ical criticism of African Amel
munities and culture is expre
Protestant canon is not ques l
as the foundation or presuPF
the canon is claimed LO be 0;
experience, then a LOtal re
American existence is expre
same way that the rise of fund
whites in the early decades oj
tury represented a rejection
within the world of African
LOward fundamentalism repn
African Americans' special hi:
and claims. That in religiOl
American religious communi'
doned or are being transform
talist camps on the orderofwl
camps, that religious truth c
to be unrelated to experieno
cant development. The proliC
damentalist churches and den
among African Americans, ;
alliances with white fundam
astounding.
The phenomenon begs fl
sive investigation. But it is
represents a most significan
American religious and cultu
Women's Reading. In evi
this history of African Ame!
the Bible are the special rf
American women. From PI
modern "womanist" and (
women are part of each of th
guished above. But across eac
differences in hisLOrical perio(
and other facLOrs notwithst;
women have for the most
emphases. Especially poigm
the radical challenge of consi
communal self-judgment as
religious communities apply
tive to define the universalit~
of salvation.
See also Africa; Slavery an<
VI
AFTERLIFE AND IMMORTALITY
mainstream groups) or radical (as with the "sects"
and "cults"), to being (as it is claimed) "Bible
based," that is, focused upon true doctrine in
the letters of the Bible, relativizing racial identity
and experience.
In this reading of the (Protestant) Bible, which
is considered the deracialized and depoliticized
quest for the truth and salvation, the most rad
ical criticism of African American religious com
munities and culture is expressed. Insofar as the
Protestant canon is not questioned, and insofar
as the foundation or presupposition for reading
the canon is claimed to be other than historical
experience, then a total rejection of African
American existence is expressed. In much the
same way that the rise of fundamentalism among
whites in the early decades of the twentieth cen
tury represented a rejection of modernism, so
within the world of African Americans a turn
toward fundamentalism represents a rejection of
African Americans' special historical experiences
and claims. That in religious matters African
American religious communities are being aban
doned or are being transformed into fundamen
talist camps on the order of white fundamentalist
camps, that religious truth can now be claimed
to be unrelated to experience, is a most signifi
cant development. The proliferation of new fun
damentalist churches and denominational groups
among African Americans, as well as the new
alliances with white fundamentalist groups, is
astounding.
The phenomenon begs further comprehen
sive investigation. But it is very clear that it
represents a most significant turn in African
American religious and cultural history.
Women's Reading. In evidence throughout
this history of African American "readings" of
the Bible are the special readings of African
American women. From Phyllis Wheatley to
modern "womanist" and other interpreters,
women are part of each of the "readings" distin
guished above. But across each of these readings,
differences in historical periods, locations, classes,
and other factors notwithstanding, collectively
women have for the most part added special
emphases. Especially poignant among them is
the radical challenge of consistency in prophetic
communal self-judgment as African American
religious communities apply the moral impera
tive to define the universality of God's economy
of salvation.
See also Africa; Slavery and the Bible.
VINCENT L. WIMBUSH
15
Afterlife and Immortality. This entry consists oJ
two articles on views oJ life aJter death within the
historical communities oJ Ancient Israel and Second
Temple Judaism and Early Christianity. For re
lated discussion, see Death; Israel, Religion of.
Ancient Israel
Israelite views of the afterlife underwent sub
stantial changes during the first millennium BCE,
as concepts popular during the preexilic period
eventually came to be rejected by the religious
leadership of the exilic and postexilic commu
nities, and new theological stances replaced them.
Because many elements of preexilic beliefs and
practices concerning the dead were eventually
repudiated, the Hebrew Bible hardly discusses
preexilic concepts at all; only scant and discon
nected references to afterlife and the condition
of the dead appear in the texts. A few passages
from late-eighth through sixth-century sources
are illuminating, however, because they attack
various aspects of the popular notions about the
dead during that period. With these data, a
general though sketchy picture of Israelite views
can be proposed.
Like all cultures in the ancient Near East, the
Israelites believed that persons continued to exist
after *death. It was thought that following death,
one's spirit went down to a land below the earth,
most often called Sheol, but sometimes merely
"Earth," or "the Pit" (see Hell). In the preexiJic
period, there was no notion of a judgment of
the dead based on their actions during life, nor
is there any evidence for a belief that the righ
teous dead go to live in God's presence. The two
persons in the Hebrew Bible who are taken to
heaven to live with God, Enoch (Gen. 5.24) and
Elijah (2 Kings 2. I I), do not die. All who die,
righteous or wicked, go to Sheol (see Gen. 42:38;
Num. 16.30-33).
The exact relationship between the body of a
dead person and the spirit that lived on in Sheol
is unclear, since the Bible does not discuss this
issue. Many scholars assume that the Israelites
did not fully distinguish between the body and
the spirit, and thus believed that the deceased
continued to have many of the same basic needs
they had when they were alive, especially for
food and drink. Unless these needs were met,
the dead would find existence in Sheol to be
unending misery. Such a close connection be
tween feeding the dead through funerary offer
ings and their happiness in the afterlife is well
attested in Mesopotamia and Egypt. It is as
“Reading the Bible: Lessons and the Lectionary”
“How to Read the Scripture?” by John Wesley
If you desire to read the scripture in such a manner as may most effectually answer this end,
would it not be advisable,
1. To set apart a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose?
2. At each time if you have leisure, to read a chapter out of the Old, and one out of the
New Testament: if you cannot do this, to take a single chapter, or a part of one?
3. To read this with a single eye, to know the whole will of God, and a fixt resolution to
do it? In order to know his will, you should,
4. Have a constant eye to the analogy of faith; the connexion and harmony there is
between those grand, fundamental doctrines, Original Sin, Justification by Faith, the
New Birth, Inward and Outward Holiness.
5. Serious and earnest prayer should be constantly used, before we consult the oracles
of God, seeing "scripture can only be understood thro' the same Spirit whereby it
was given." Our reading should likewise be closed with prayer, that what we read
may be written on our hearts.
6. It might also be of use, if while we read, we were frequently to pause, and examine
ourselves by what we read, both with regard to our hearts, and lives. This would
furnish us with matter of praise, where we found God had enabled us to conform to
his blessed will, and matter of humiliation and prayer, where we were conscious of
having fallen short.
And whatever light you then receive, should be used to the uttermost, and that immediately. Let
there be no delay. Whatever you resolve, begin to execute the first moment you can. So shall
you find this word to be indeed the power of God unto present and eternal salvation.
John Wesley
Preface to Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament
EDINBURGH, April 25, 1765.
http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley/bible.stm
What Is The Lectionary?
The lectionary is a pre-selected collection of scriptural readings from the Bible that can be used for
worship, study or other theological uses. Some congregations of the United Methodist Church use
the Revised Common Lectionary which follows the liturgical year in a 3-year cycle and provides
scriptural recommendations that complement the current season of the liturgical year.
Liturgical Seasons and Colors
The colors of the lectionary are representative of the Liturgical seasons of western Christianity.
These seasons are Advent, Christmas,
Ordinary Time (Time After Epiphany), Lent,
Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time (Time
After Pentecost). The liturgical year begins
with Advent.
Each season is represented by a color:

Advent - Violet or Blue

Christmas - White

Ordinary Time – Green

Lent - Violet or Blue

Easter – White

Pentecost - Red
Although it is customarily observed, congregations in the United Methodist Church are not required
to follow the liturgical seasons or the lectionary.
Adapted from
http://www.disciples.org/Home/ForLeaders/Lectionary/WhatIsTheLectionary/tabid/232/Default.a
spx
Frequently Asked Questions about the Revised Common
Lectionary http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/faq2.php
What is the Revised Common Lectionary?
The Revised Common Lectionary is a three-year cycle of weekly lections used to
varying degrees by the vast majority of mainline Protestant churches in Canada and
the United States. The RCL is built around the seasons of the Church Year, and
includes four lections for each Sunday, as well as additional readings for major feast
days. During most of the year, the lections are: a reading from the Hebrew Bible, a
Psalm, a reading from the Epistles, and a Gospel reading. During the season of
Easter, the Hebrew Bible lection is usually replaced with one from the Acts of the
Apostles. The lections from the Hebrew Bible are sometimes chosen from the
Apocrypha.
The seasons of the Church Year reflect the life of Christ. Consequently, the gospel
lections for each Sunday provide the focus for that day. The other lections for a given
day generally have a thematic relationship to the gospel reading for that day, although
this is not always the case. In Ordinary Time, the Revised Common Lectionary offers
two sets of readings for the lessons from the Hebrew Bible. One set proceeds
semicontinuouly, giving the story of the Patriarchs and the Exodus in Year A, the
monarchial narratives in Year B, and readings from the Prophets in Year C. In the
other set of readings for Ordinary Time (shown in italics on this site) the readings from
the Hebrew Bible are thematically related to the gospel lections. Denominations or
local churches generally use either the semicontinuous readings or the thematic
readings during Ordinary Time. They do not typically move back and forth between
the two over the course of a single season.
The gospel readings for each year come from one of the synoptic gospels according
to the following pattern:
o
o
o
Year A - Matthew
Year B - Mark
Year C - Luke
Readings from the Gospel of John can be found throughout the RCL.
Is there an in-depth discussion of the Revised Common Lectionary that is easily
accessible?
An introduction to the Revised Common Lectionary can be found:
http://www.commontexts.org/rcl/RCL_Introduction_Web.pdf/ here.
Who compiled the Revised Common Lectionary?
The Revised Common Lectionary was produced by The Consultation on Common
Texts(CCT). At the time the RCL was compiled, the CCT was composed of
representatives from the following denominations (taken from Consultation on
Common Texts. The Revised Common Lectionary. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992):
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
The Anglican Church of Canada
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Christian Reformed Church in North America
The Episcopal Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
Free Methodist Church in Canada
International Commission on English in the Liturgy (an Agency of 26 Roman
Catholic National or International Conferences of Bishops)
The Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod
Polish National Catholic Church
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
The Presbyterian Church in Canada
Reformed Church in America
Roman Catholic Church in the United States
Roman Catholic Church in Canada
Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship
The United Church of Canada
United Church of Christ
The United Methodist Church
What is a lectionary?
Generally, a lectionary is a list of scriptural texts (called "lections") recommended for use in
worship or study on a particular day. Christian lectionaries are usually built around the Church
Year, but they are sometimes centered on the secular calendar (as with programs that guide a
person through reading the Bible in a year). Christian lectionaries generally include a reading
from the Hebrew Bible, a Psalm, a reading from the Epistles, and a Gospel reading.
How is the Revised Common Lectionary structured?
The RCL offers a three-year cycle with four readings for every Sunday in the Church
Year. These readings are:
o
o
o
o
A Lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures (or Acts during the Season of Easter)
A Psalm
A Lesson from the Epistles or Acts
A Lesson from the Gospels
During Ordinary Time, there are two sets of Hebrew Bible readings. One set
progresses semi-continuously through the Patriarchal/Exodus narratives (Year A), the
Monarchial narratives (Year B), and the Prophets (Year C). The other set is related
thematically to the gospel lections for those dates. Likewise, during Ordinary Time,
there are two separate Psalm readings, one that corresponds to the semi-continuous
Hebrew Bible lection and one that corresponds to the theme of the gospel lection. The
Hebrew Bible lections during the rest of the year are thematically related to the gospel
lections, which are in turn connected to the seasons of the Church Year. Additional
readings are provided for special feast days.
What You Should Know Before Reading The Bible
Posted: 06/ 9/11 02:17 PM ET
Kristin M. Swenson
This essay might, alternatively, be called "On Not Reading the Bible." But then I must hastily
add: I'm not against reading the Bible. Not exactly, anyway. Thing is, the Bible doesn't lend
itself to reading straight through for understanding in the ways that modern books do. It is a
wildly unusual book, and there is a big difference between simply reading it and knowing about
it.
Simply reading the Bible (really reading it, in any of its three main forms, all the way through)
without any background information results more often than not in bewilderment and
confusion, leaving readers at the mercy of others to interpret for them. Why is there so much
concern about dermatological conditions, so little about homosexuality, and nothing explicitly
about abortion? How many animals did Noah take into the ark -- two of every kind, or seven
pairs of some kinds? Where is Zion in relation to Jerusalem? Was the Last Supper on Passover
or not? Why does Isaiah prophesy, "they shall beat their swords into ploughshares" and Joel
prophesy, "they shall beat their ploughshares into swords"? Does God disapprove of, or demand
divorce? Why would Paul praise Phoebe as a deacon and also say that women shouldn't teach or
have any authority? And what's with the "whore of Babylon"?
Without any background information, simply reading the Bible is not only really hard (Leviticus,
anyone?), but also it can lead to all sorts of problems. Some are innocuous misunderstandings,
such as today's Ezekiel 4:9 breads and cereals -- cheerfully confident that the recipe is biblical
and their preparation mandated by God. Trouble is, God did not urge people to make the bread
out of righteousness or anything healthful and good. Rather, God forced the prophet-priest to
make it by mixing things that were supposed to be kept distinct in order to show how bad things
would be for the sinful people in Babylonian exile. Made by breaking the biblical
commandments that respect God's ordered universe, the original bread was meant to
communicate uncleanness and disgust. (The modern versions are delicious nonetheless.)
Other uninformed readings can have terrible effects. Take, for example, the Bible's assumption
of slavery as an acceptable, normal human institution. A quick review of the challenges facing
abolitionists in antebellum America reveals how many God-fearing Christians appealed to the
Bible to justify keeping slaves. Then again, there is Jesus' command to pluck out your eye or cut
off your hand if said anatomy leads to sin; and there's the mandate for Israelites to kill all the
people who lived in the land they understood to be promised to them. Most people today have
seen the ways that flatly reading Bible can lead to supercessionism, misogyny, and a devastating
environmental ethic.
Sure, there's some overlap between reading and knowing -- just by reading, you'd observe that
the Bible includes both a seven-day creation story and a Garden of Eden creation story, for
example. But just by reading, you also might think that "LORD" is emphatic for "Lord," or that
Jesus was at odds with the Jews. Knowing about the Bible, though, you'd understand why there
are two different creation stories, that "LORD" is a convention in English translations for the
Hebrew four-letter name for God (and not the translation of a word meaning "lord"), and that
Jesus himself lived and died as a Jew.
Knowing something about the Bible -- its historical backgrounds and development, its languages
of origin and the process of translation, and its use within religious communities as well as
secular contexts -- enables readers to make sense of biblical texts and references for themselves.
For religious people, such knowledge can enrich their faith; and nonreligious people may
appreciate better why the Bible has endured with such power and influence.
Now, I know that many Christians, relying on biblical texts, maintain that the Holy Spirit will
make the meaning of biblical texts clear to believers. And I don't deny it, but maybe you know
this story: The Church decided to establish a monastery in a wild, rural area. Some time later,
the bishop paid a visit, to see how things were going. After reviewing the buildings and activities,
the bishop wandered admiringly in its lovely gardens. To the monk toiling there, he said, "My,
my! The good Lord and you have made a beautiful place." The gardener monk replied, "You
should see how it looked when the good Lord was taking care of it by himself."
One of the things that I love about the Bible is its resistance to reduction. By way of a few
examples, there are several stories of creation and four different narratives of Jesus' life, death,
and resurrection. Consider the coexistence of explanations of suffering as punishment and the
book of Job. Yet declarative and absolutist statements beginning, "the Bible says," and bumper
stickers such as "God said it. I believe it. That settles it" are commonplace.
When people urge others first to read the Bible, it's usually because the recommender assumes
that they'll come away sharing the same beliefs as the recommender's. Knowing some
background information (the more, the better) about the Bible is bound to lead instead to
fruitful discussion. Maybe it's there, in the spaces of informed conversation about a multifaceted Word of God, in the dynamism of humble learning and listening, that the Holy Spirit
pulls up a chair and the Bible reveals its richest meanings.
Follow Kristin M. Swenson, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kristinswenson
“The Bible…So What? A Controversial and
Relevant Text”
Why Read the Bible?
By Ronald Hendel
Posted: 11/09/2012 11:29 am
Bill Nye, the Science Guy, is right to say that the Bible is not a science textbook. It is
a collection of religious writings from a small ancient Middle Eastern country called
Israel. The Old Testament (or Hebrew Bible) consists of many different texts, written
between roughly 1000 and 100 B.C., by a variety of authors, who often disagree with
each other on issues of religion, philosophy and politics. The stories of creation in
Genesis are derived from older oral traditions, some of which have roots in Canaanite
and Mesopotamian traditions. The cosmology of the Bible is a product of the Iron Age,
not the Computer Age.
Why, then, should we still read this book, if many of its ideas about the world are
outmoded? Well, lots of people believe that we shouldn't read this book anymore, since
many of the things in it are old-fashioned or didn't really happen. But I think that the
test of historical or scientific accuracy is overrated. Even if some of the stories in it didn't
happen, the Bible itself -- as a central influence in western culture -- did happen. This
book has long been a central icon in western culture, and continues to be a source of
controversy, belief and honest searching today.
If we think about the book of Genesis (which I enjoy doing), it is worth remembering
that many aspects of our laws and culture are rooted, directly or indirectly, in debates
about the meaning of Genesis. The Civil War, for instance, has been described as the
result of a crisis in biblical interpretation, in which the biblical position on slavery -- for
or against -- was settled at the cost of massive bloodshed and trauma. Slave owners used
a (mis)interpretation of the story of Noah's curse of Ham to justify slavery.
But the last and best word was spoken by Abraham Lincoln, who referred to the
Garden of Eden story in his Second Inaugural Address: "It may seem strange that any
men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of
other men's faces." In Genesis 3, God says to Adam: "You shall eat bread by the sweat
of yourface." Lincoln relied on Genesis to say that slavery violates this rule of the human
condition. Lincoln was thinking with and through Genesis, consulting it as a register of
cultural and religious values. And by invoking Genesis, Lincoln sounded the mystic
chords of religious memory, which bring a larger vista onto daily reality.
This is why we should still read the Bible. It's not a newspaper or a history book or a
science book. But it is a book that lies at the heart of western culture, and it still has a
claim on us, whether we believe in it or not. We still define ourselves and our world in
relation to it. Even if we reject it, we are taking a stand and acknowledging its presence.
It's like the 800 pound gorilla in the middle of the room. You can try to ignore it, but
you still have to walk around it.
In recent times, religious conservatives have claimed that their interpretation of the
Bible is the only valid one. This is incorrect. The idea of biblical inerrancy is a relatively
recent idea, an anti-modern reaction against the rise of science and biblical scholarship.
It's time to reclaim this book as a cultural icon that belongs to all of us. It is still our root
and branch, a book of magical realism in whose shadow we still dwell.
Ronald Hendel is Norma and Sam Dabby Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies,
University of California, Berkeley
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ronald-hendel/why-read-the-bible_b_2007129.html
5 Common Misconceptions About the Bible
Posted: 11/26/2012 4:22 pm
Christine Hayes
When it comes to the Bible, modern Americans are at a distinct disadvantage. They
know both too much and too little.
They know too much because they live in a society in which references to the Bible -positive and negative -- are frequent, creating a false sense of familiarity. They know too
little because they have not read it, or have read only selected portions of it, or have
allowed others to read it for them through the filtering lens of later theological doctrines
or political opportunism. And that's a pity because the Bible, by which I mean the 24
basic books common to all Bibles (equivalent to the Jewish Tanakh or Hebrew Bible and
to the Protestant Old Testament) is deserving of the same careful attention and close
reading that we regularly bestow upon other classic texts.
It has been my experience teaching a university course on the Bible, that a close
reading of the Bible is often hampered by several misconceptions. I ask my students -as I ask readers of the book based on the course -- to correct five common
misconceptions in order to encounter the Bible as if for the first time.
Correction #1
The Hebrew Bible is not a book. It was not produced by a single author in one time
and place. It is a small library of books composed and edited over nearly a millennium
by people responding to a wide range of issues and historical circumstances. Because it
is not a book (the name "Bible" derives from the plural Greek form ta biblia, meaning
"the books") it does not have a uniform style or message.
From narrative texts to legal texts, from cultic instruction to erotic love poetry, this
library contains works of diverse genres each of which sounds its own distinctive note in
the symphony of reflection that we call the Bible. As is true of any collection of books by
different authors in different centuries, the books in this collection contradict one
another. Indeed, they sometimes contradict themselves because multiple strands of
tradition were woven together in the creation of some of the books. The compiler of
Genesis placed, side by side, two creation stories that differ dramatically in vocabulary,
literary style and detail (who is created first -- humans or animals?). A few chapters
later, two flood stories are interwoven into a single story despite their many
contradictions and tensions (does Noah really take the animals on board two by two?).
Proverbs extols wisdom, but Ecclesiastes scoffs at its folly and urges existential pleasure.
Deuteronomy harps on God's retributive justice, but Job arrives at the bittersweet
conclusion that despite the lack of divine justice (in this world or any other), we are not
excused from the thankless and perhaps ultimately meaningless task of moral living.
That such dissonant voices were preserved in the canon of the Bible, their tensions and
contradictions unresolved, says something important about the conception of canon in
antiquity. Ancient readers viewed this anthology as a collection of culturally significant
writings worthy of preservation without the expectation or requirement that they agree
with one another. Just as an attempt to impose harmony and consistency on the short
stories collected in the Norton Anthology of English Literature would do great violence
to those stories, any attempt to impose harmony and consistency on the diverse books
collected in the Bible -- to extract a single message or truth -- does great violence to
those books.
Correction #2
The Hebrew Bible is not a book of systematic theology (i.e., an account of the divine)
delivering eternally true pronouncements on theological issues, despite the fact that at a
much later time, complex systems of theology would be spun from particular
interpretations of biblical passages. Its narrative materials provide an account of the
odyssey of a people, the ancient Israelites, as they struggled to make sense of their
history and their relationship to their deity. Certainly the Bible sometimes addresses
moral and existential questions that would become central to the later discipline of
theology but then so do Shakespeare and Frost and that doesn't make them theologians.
The Bible's treatment of these questions is often indirect and implicit, conducted in the
language of story and song, poetry, paradox and metaphor quite distinct from the
language and tenets of the post-biblical discipline of theology. To impose the theological
doctrines of a later time that not only do not appear in the Bible but are contradicted by
it -- creation ex nihilo, the doctrine of original sin, the belief in life after death -- does
another kind of violence to the text.
Correction #3
The Hebrew Bible is not a timeless or eternal work that stands outside the normal
processes of literary production. Its books emerged from specific times and places.
Reading the Bible alongside parallel materials from the many cultures of the Ancient
Near East shows the deep indebtedness of the biblical authors to the literary heritage of
the Ancient Near East. The ancient Israelites borrowed and adapted literary motifs and
conventions from their larger cultural context and an awareness of those motifs and
conventions produces richer, more coherent readings of the biblical text than are
otherwise possible.
Correction #4
The narratives of the Hebrew Bible are not pious parables about saints, nor are they
G-rated tales easily understood by children. Biblical narratives are psychologically real
stories about very human beings whose behavior can be scandalous, violent, rebellious,
outrageous, lewd and vicious. At the same time, like real people, biblical characters can
change and act with justice and compassion. Nevertheless, many readers are shocked
and disgusted to discover that Jacob is a deceiver, Joseph is an arrogant, spoiled brat
and Judah sleeps with his daughter-in-law when she is disguised as a prostitute!
The unfounded expectation that biblical characters are perfectly pious models for
our own conduct causes many readers to work to vindicate biblical characters, just
because they are biblical characters. But if we attribute to these characters the
reputation for piety manufactured by later religious traditions, if we whitewash their
flaws, then we miss the moral complexities and the deep psychological insights that
have made these (often R-rated) stories of timeless interest. Biblical narratives place
serious demands on their readers. The stories rarely moralize. They explore moral issues
and situations by placing biblical characters in moral dilemmas -- but they usually leave
the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.
Correction #5
The character "Yahweh" in the Hebrew Bible should not be confused with the god of
western theological speculation (generally referred to as "God"). The attributes assigned
to "God" by post-biblical theologians -- such as omniscience and immutability -- are
simply not attributes possessed by the character Yahweh as drawn in biblical narratives.
Indeed, on several occasions Yahweh is explicitly described as changing his mind,
because when it comes to human beings his learning curve is steep. Humans have free
will; they act in ways that surprise him and he must change tack and respond. One of the
greatest challenges for modern readers of the Hebrew Bible is to allow the text to mean
what it says, when what is says flies in the face of doctrines that emerged centuries later
from philosophical debates about the abstract category "God."
Setting aside these misconceptions enables readers to encounter and struggle with
the biblical text in all its rich complexity -- its grandeur and its banality, its
sophistication and its self-contradiction, its pathos and its humor -- and to arrive at a
more profound appreciation of its multi-faceted and multi-vocal messiness.
Christine Hayes, Author, 'Introduction to the Bible'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-hayes/5-misconceptions-about-the-bible_b_2173965.html
4 Good Reasons Not to Read the Bible Literally
Posted: 08/ 6/2011 10:06 am
By David Lose
Cards on the table: 1) I read the Bible -- not as much as I should, I'm sure, but still
pretty regularly. Moreover, I get paid to talk about the Bible with folks all across the
country and have written a popular book to help people read the Bible with more
confidence and enjoyment. So, you could say, I'm a pretty big fan of the good book. 2) I
was a little shocked to discover that three in ten Americans read the Bible literally. That
is, about a third of the American populace takes everything the Bible says at face value,
reading as they would a history or science textbook. 3) I don't read the Bible this way,
and can't imagine doing so. Here are four reasons why:
1) Nowhere does the Bible claim to be inerrant.
That's right. At no place in its more than 30,000 verses does the Bible claim that it is
factually accurate in terms of history, science, geography and all other matters (the
technical definition of inerrancy). "Inerrant" itself is not a word found in the Bible or
even known to Christian theologians for most of history. Rather, the word was coined in
the middle of the 19th century as a defensive counter measure to the increased
popularity of reading the Bible as one would other historical documents and the
discovery of manifold internal inconsistencies and external inaccuracies.
The signature verse most literalists point to is 2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is
inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness." But one can confess that Scripture is inspired by God without resorting
to claims that it contains no factual errors. We normally use the language of inspiration
in just this way, describing a painting, a performance of Chopin, or even a good lecture
as inspired. What binds the various and sundry texts found in the Bible together may be
precisely that they are all inspired by the authors' experience of the living God. There is
no hint that the authors of the Bible imagined that what they were writing was somehow
supernaturally guaranteed to be factually accurate. Rather, biblical authors wrote in
order to be persuasive, hoping that by reading their witness you would come to believe
as they did (see John 20:30-31).
2) Reading the Bible literally distorts its witness.
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus drives the moneychangers out of
the Jerusalem Temple in the days immediately preceding his crucifixion. In the Gospel
of John, he does this near the beginning of his ministry, two years before his death.
Similarly, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the day Jesus is crucified is named as the
Passover, while in John it is the Day of Preparation; that is, the day before Passover.
Inconsistencies like this are part of what undermines claims to inerrancy of not just the
gospels but also many other books in the Bible.
But if the primary intention of the biblical authors was not to record history -- in the
post-Enlightenment sense we take for granted today -- but instead to confess faith, then
these differences are not troubling inconsistencies to be reconciled but rather helpful
clues to understanding the confession of the author. So rather than ask who got it right,
we might instead wonder why John describes these events differently than the other
Evangelists. As it turns out, both of these examples stem from John's theological claim
that Jesus is the new Passover lamb. For this reason, once he begins his ministry there is
no need for Temple sacrifice, and he is crucified on the same day -- indeed, at the exact
hour -- at which the Passover lambs were sacrificed on the Day of Preparation.
You can attempt to reconcile these and other discrepancies in the biblical witness, of
course, and literalists have published books almost as long as the Bible attempting to do
just that. In the case of the different timeframes for the cleansing of the Temple, for
instance, one might suggest that Jesus did this twice, once at the beginning of his
ministry and then again, for good measure, two years later. But far from "rescuing" the
gospels, such an effort distorts their distinct confession of faith by rendering an account
of Jesus' life that none of the canonical accounts offers.
3) Most Christians across history have not read the Bible literally.
We tend to think of anything that is labeled "conservative" as being older and more
traditional. Oddly enough, however, the doctrine of inerrancy that literalists aim to
conserve is only about a century and a half old. Not only did many of the Christian
Church's brightest theologians not subscribe to anything like inerrancy, many
adamantly opposed such a notion. For instance, St. Augustine -- rarely described as a
liberal -- lived for many years at the margins of the church. An impediment to his
conversation was precisely the notion that Christians took literally stories like that of
Jonah spending three days in the belly of a whale. It was not until Ambrose, bishop of
Milan, introduced Augustine to allegorical interpretation -- that is, that stories can point
metaphorically to spiritual realities rather than historical facts -- that Augustine could
contemplate taking the Bible (and those who read it!) seriously.
The point isn't that pre-modern Christians approached the Bible with the same
historically conscious skepticism of the Bible's factual and scientific veracity that
modern interpreters possess. Earlier Christians -- along with almost everyone else who
lived prior to the advent of modernity -- simply didn't imagine that for something to
be true it had to be factually accurate, a concern only advanced after the
Enlightenment. Hence, four gospels that diverged at different points, far from troubling
earlier Christians, was instead seen as a faithful and fitting recognition that God's truth
as revealed in Jesus was too large to be contained by only one perspective. Flattening
the biblical witness to conform to a reductionist understanding of truth only limits the
power of Scripture. As Karl Barth, arguably the twentieth century's greatest theologian,
once said, "I take the Bible too seriously to read it literally."
4) Reading the Bible literally undermines a chief confession of the Bible
about God.
Read the Bible even for a little while and you'll soon realize that most of the major
characters are, shall we say, less than ideal. Abraham passes his wife off as his sister -twice! -- in order to save his skin. Moses is a murderer. David sleeps around. Peter
denies Jesus three times. Whatever their accomplishments, most of the "heroes of the
faith" are complicated persons with feet of clay. And that's the point: the God of the
Bible regularly uses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.
Why, then, treat the Bible itself differently? Rather than imagine that the Bible was
also written by ordinary, fallible people, inerrantists have made the Bible an otherwordly, supernatural document that runs contrary to the biblical affirmation that God
chooses ordinary vessels -- "jars of clay," the Apostle Paul calls them -- to bear an
extraordinary message. In fact, literalists unwittingly ascribe to the Bible the status of
being "fully human and fully divine" that is normally reserved only for Jesus.
So why, then, would so many people read the Bible literally? Perhaps that's the
subject for another post. For now, I'd be interested in your experience with the Bible and
sense of its nature and authority.
David Lose, Author, 'Making Sense of Scripture'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-lose/4-good-reasons-not-to-read-bible-literally_b_919345.html
The Bible Hates Homosexuality. So What?
Posted: 11/16/2012 8:01 am
By Kate Blanchard
A student recently asked me for some advice about how to defend same-sex marriage
biblically to people who insist that the Bible is against it. My basic response to such
questions is, "Don't."
First of all, there is no "the Bible." It is a collection of texts spanning millennia,
recounted orally for centuries in multiple languages, finally written down in Greek and
Hebrew by countless anonymous authors over the span of several more centuries, then
further collected and translated into hundreds more languages in hundreds of stylistic
versions. What we think of as the Christian Bible thus encompasses different things for
Catholics, the Orthodox and Protestants. And second, there was no such thing as a
"homosexual" identity or same-sex marriage when the various parts of the Bible were
written (despite what some English translations say), so they can offer no explicit
direction about it.
But putting such details aside, the Bible does, in fact, present a consistently
disapproving picture of men having sex with men, or women having sex with women.
Hebrew Scripture makes it clear that the job of human beings is to "be fruitful and
multiply," which necessitates genital contact between males and females. The Christian
testament is much more ambivalent about the usefulness of genetic multiplication, but
Paul's letters nevertheless make it crystal clear that he saw male-male or female-female
sex as something for pagan idolaters, not for Christian Jews or Christian Greeks. There
are some fairly complicated and sophisticated theologians who make the case that Paul's
arguments about God working "against nature" might allow for same-sex marriage, but
these interpretations surely fail to persuade thinkers who prioritize the plainest meaning
of scripture.
This begs the question as to why we care what Paul thought, or would think, about
same-sex marriage. Yes, Christians consider the Bible (whichever version they prefer) to
be the inspired word of God, useful for teaching and training in righteousness. But Paul
lived 2,000 -- TWO THOUSAND -- years ago (Moses another 2,000 before that), in
what might as well have been a galaxy far, far away. Why, then, is it so important that
biblical writers agree with us?
Most Christians today disagree with and openly disobey the Bible every single day:
We see slavery as a crime against humanity, lend and borrow money at interest, don't
force our raped daughters to marry their rapists, wear mixed fibers, don't cover our
heads, eat bacon and sometimes even mix it with cheese, and -- perhaps most
shockingly, given its high priority in the Big Ten -- trample the holiness of the Sabbath
with reckless abandon. (Fans of "The West Wing" will remember similar observations
beautifully immortalized by Jed Bartlett.) A few authors have recently conducted highprofile experiments in living biblically and found it to be much more difficult than many
"Bible-believing Christians" would have us believe.
Christians with a more nuanced understanding of biblical authority may find a
different type of biblical support for the dignity of same-sex marriage, such as in Genesis
chapter 1, when God creates human beings "in our own image"; or from Paul's argument
that, while celibacy is the ideal for Christians, "it is better to marry than to burn." And
then there are always the overly generalized love-not-hate kinds of arguments. But all of
these approaches take for granted that biblical rules can no longer be taken at face value.
It is utterly futile to imagine that the biblical writers would be pleased with the concept
of men marrying men or women marrying women -- akin to arguing that the founding
fathers of these United States would be excited to see women and African Americans
voting and serving in congress. They probably wouldn't. But so what?
Those folks, those human beings, were ahead of their time in many ways, and we can
be deeply grateful that they pooled the best of their wisdom together for the benefit of
posterity. But like it or not, even the most inspired human authors are still only human;
not only did our intellectual and spiritual ancestors get some stuff dead wrong, but they
also never thought of many of the questions that we have to deal with. When such
questions arise, we must courageously stand in our own time, trusting that inspiration
and wisdom are renewable resources (that "God is still speaking," as one church puts it,
even if some of us do have longstanding tradition on our side).
We must also accept that others in the future will surely decide that we, too, were
wrong.
Follow Kate Blanchard on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@blanchard_kate
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-blanchard/the-bible-hates-homosexuality-so-what_b_2118043.html
Abortion: What the Bible Says (and Doesn't Say)
Posted: 09/14/2012 10:16 am
By Rick Lowery
Todd Akin and the Republican platform have highlighted the "personhood" movement to
legally define fertilized eggs as human beings with the same constitutional rights born children
have.
Proponents argue their case on religious grounds, so it's worth asking what the Bible says
about it.
The Bible doesn't talk about abortion, but it does say when a human being's life begins.
Genesis 2:7 is clearest. The first human became a "living being" (nefesh hayah, "a living
breath") when God blew into its nostrils and it started to breathe. Human life begins when you
start breathing, biblical writers thought. It ends when you stop. That's why the Hebrew word
often translated "spirit" (ruah) -- "life force" might be a better translation -- literally means
"wind" or "breath."
But what about babies in the womb?
A few passages talk about someone called by God before birth: "The LORD called me from
the womb. From the innermost parts of my mother, God named me ... and said to me, 'You are
my servant Israel, in whom I'll be glorified" (Isaiah 49:1-3).
Here, the one called is the nation Israel, not an individual. A nation of course can't occupy a
womb. The language is figurative not literal. It isn't describing prenatal biology or pinpointing
when human life begins. It's affirming God's power and Israel's calling to a special mission in
the world.
Other passages make the same point by saying someone's called by God before they're even
conceived (Genesis 18:9; 1 Samuel 1:17; Luke 1:31). I've not heard anyone make the case, based
on these texts, that human life begins before conception.
It's hard to ask biblical texts the modern question, "when does human life begin?" because
the Bible has a very different understanding of human reproduction. Biblical writers don't talk
about sperm fertilizing eggs. They talk about male "seed" planted in fertile female ground. Just
as a seed becomes a plant when it emerges from the ground, so too a man's planted seed
becomes another human being when it emerges from the womb.
The only verses I know that address the legal status of "seed" in the womb come in a brief
section of case law.
Exodus 21:22-25 describes a case where a pregnant woman jumps into a fight between her
husband and another man and suffers injuries that cause her to miscarry. Injuries to the woman
prompt the normal penalties for harming another human being: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a
tooth, a life for a life. Killing the woman is murder, a capital crime.
The miscarriage is treated differently, however -- as property loss, not murder. The assailant
must pay a fine to the husband. The law of a life for a life does not apply. The fetus is important,
but it's not human life in the same way the pregnant woman is.
My impression is that most Americans have a more nuanced and conservative view than the
Bible does on this, though we're getting at the same idea: an important moral and legal line is
crossed when the fetus can survive outside the womb.
For the Bible, that's when a child is born and starts breathing. For many of us today, it's
when a fetus becomes "viable" -- somewhere between 21 and 27 weeks into the pregnancy,
thanks to our amazing medical technology.
If something goes wrong late in the pregnancy and the fetus dies, we call it "still birth" and,
by law, issue a death certificate.
If the pregnancy ends early on, we call it "miscarriage." It's traumatic, a terrible loss, but
most of us think of it differently than we think of a still birth. We don't require death certificates
for miscarriages.
Recognizing this difference, the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade created the "trimester"
system to sort through the legal implications of the constitutional "right to privacy" they said we
all have as Americans.
The justices ruled that the early and late stages of pregnancy are morally and legally distinct.
Early on, in the "first trimester," the embryo undeniably is human life, but it's not "a human
being" in the normal sense of the term. At this stage of pregnancy, a woman's right to privacy
trumps any responsibility the state might have to protect the embryo by interfering with the
woman's decision to terminate the pregnancy.
Late in the pregnancy, certainly by the "third trimester," however, the child has reached a
stage of development that changes its moral and legal status. To protect the rights of the viable
fetus, states can put serious limits on a woman's right to abortion, though they must continue to
respect her right to self-defense, to terminate the pregnancy to save her own life or prevent
serious injury.
In the ambiguous middle of the pregnancy, the "second trimester," the state has to balance
the right to life of the unborn with the right to privacy of the woman, a balance that continues to
tip toward the fetus as the pregnancy progresses. In this stage, our constantly improving medical
technology plays an important role in the moral-legal equation.
Roe doesn't require "abortion on demand" until the moment of birth. Rather, abortion is
illegal in most states once the fetus is viable (normally 24 weeks into the pregnancy), unless it's
necessary to save the life of the mother or prevent serious physical or mental harm.
I think the moral reasoning of Roe and subsequent Supreme Court decisions reflects what
many of us actually think: the moral status of the fetus changes over the course of the
pregnancy.
Advances in medical technology affect our opinions about when exactly the line is crossed.
But most of us think there's a difference between a recently fertilized egg and a late-term unborn
child.
I think that's true even of many people who consider themselves "pro-life." It's implied in
their willingness to allow abortion in cases of rape or incest.
No one would argue that a mother can kill the child she just bore because it was conceived
through rape or incest. If we really think a recently fertilized egg is morally and legally exactly
the same as a child recently born, how can we possibly allow these exceptions for abortion?
Whatever Mitt Romney's reason for supporting "personhood" legislation, his argument that
abortion is OK in cases of rape and incest implies that he doesn't really believe that a fertilized
egg is morally and legally the same as a born child.
I long for a world where unintended pregnancies and abortions are rare, where every woman
controls her own sexuality, contraceptives are easily available for those who wish to use them,
and couples make reproductive choices responsibly, with mutual respect and love.
I respect, though I disagree with the conviction of many Americans that a human being's life
begins at conception. And I share their belief in the sanctity of life.
I appreciate the biblical view that a human being's life begins at birth. But modern science
and medical technology give me a more nuanced and conservative conviction.
The moral view that underlies Roe v. Wade -- that a line is crossed when a fetus becomes
"viable" -- seems most plausible, morally defensible, and consistent with the spirit of the biblical
view.
I hope that view continues to prevail.
Rick Lowery, Ph.D., Writer, Bible scholar, Disciples of Christ Minister
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-lowery-phd/abortion-what-the-bible-says-and-doesnt-say_b_1856049.html

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