What Do We Know About the Bible?

I was spending time this a.m. preparing a new Sunday School lesson, and thought this might make a good blog for discussion. What do we know about the Bible? It is fair to say that opinions and attitudes about the Bible have changed dramatically in my life time (the last 50 yrs., oh my!) Yet, belief in the Bible as "God's Word" remains very strong. Why?

1. Part of the answer to these questions comes from recent finds in the world of ancient literature. From the findings of the scrolls at Qumran through the great finds in Iran and and Iraq, we now have new information about the ancient Middle East. Further, those texts are starting to be translated--leaving us new "food for thought."

Biblical archeology has also been hard at work. We know much more about ancient cities, encampments, old battle grounds etc. Many of these finds help us understand that there are many historical places "that are actually there in all point of fact!"

Our attitudes about the Bible have also changed. As I went to seminary years back now, we were wrestling with "JEPD", the "death of God movement," "biblical, critical interpretation of the Bible", etc. One of my favorite seminary memories came from a day when a student asked my old New Testament professor why Paul was so hard on women, asking them to be quiet and subservient. She quoted the now infamous text in the book of I Timothy as proof of point. My professor's response: "Paul didn't write Timothy!" That was the end of the discussion. It was much later when she found out that he held women in high esteem! We just wanted to get on with the lecture!

2. So, how was the Bible created? Unfortunatetly, we will never know the full answer to this, because we don't own some original, ancient text called "The Bible." In actuality, the Bible is made up of a serious of "books" or "texts" that span thousands of years of ancient history. To make matters worse, we do not have original copies of any of these texts either! Budding archeologist unite! The quest continues!

We also depend on the "traditional interpretations" of the Bible for help to understand them. These stories and texts on "how to interpret" the Bible are critical to meaning. Modern scholarship tried to strip the old interpretive messages away, in order to find greater meaning. Hence, a new problem was created! Once stipped of any traditional meaning, the Bible became a "scrap quilt' of little pieces of text that shared little in the way of meaning. There was no great secret to "the meaning" that was found in Biblical, critical disection. The tradition came hand in hand with the texts!

3. So, who wrote the Bible? The answer is simple: a lot of people! Having said that, we ought to take note of some other points: most the so-called "authors" of the Bible were illiterate, and would have required help to write anything down. In addition, ancient cultures did not abide by our idea of "ownership." We copyright everything. Ancient cultures would attribute "authorship" to the main characters of a story! Whether or not a biblical character actually penned a story is irrelevant, from their standpoint! Finally, it also seems apparent to me that these ancient books contain actual, remembered "sayings" of the characters! So, that was another reason ancient cultures could have attributed "authorship" of a text to it's main character! "Who wrote it" is, at the end of the analysis, a rather hollow question to ask of any book in the Bible. The meaning is much more critical to understanding.

4. What does all this mean? Again, we are confronted by the "mystery' of Scripture in the asking of the question! Meaning is in the eye of the beholder! However, this is true only to a point!

Modern scholarship cannot, with any final authority, tell us what is "divine" or "not divine." That role cannot, and will never, belong to the field of modern academic research on the Bible. This role is left to the reader.

From the point of faith, we can also realize that the true authority and meaning of the Bible comes from a living God that reveals truth in the words written down. I don't intend to offend my brothers and sisters in the "biblical inerrancy" camp! Even if God dictated every word of Scripture to those who penned the words, it does not mean the reader would "get the message right!" Indeed, the Bible is full of stories of people who "just didn't get it!" You have to have a God behind Scripture, revealing truth, to help it make sense! No sense of modern scholarship can take this away either!

We also need the traditions of biblical interpretation to remain. We need these stories and lesson to help us make sense of the Bible. They are a package deal! To divorce tradition from Scripture is to risk being lead down paths best left untraveled.

That's what I need to "know" about the Bible.

slainte,

Ray Province
The Celtic Ozarkian
www.celticozarkian.com