[Dialogue] Spong 3/5/08 Bible Origins

[KroegerD at aol.com]

Publisher's Note: Last summer John Shelby Spong began a series of  lectures 
at the Highlands Institute for American Religious and Philosophical  Thought in 
Highlands, North Carolina, on how the Bible came to be written.  Originally 
intended to be completed in four presentations, the material proved  to be so 
complex that the series will be continued next summer on August 4, 5,  11 and 
12. The response of the audience convinced Bishop Spong that there is  both a 
general hunger and a general ignorance about the history of biblical  formation 
among people who are seeking integrity in their spiritual lives. For  that 
reason, the decision was made to turn the theme of those lectures into a  series 
of columns that will run periodically over the next 12 months or so,  
interspersed, as always, with commentary on timely events of the day. Waterfront  
Media is pleased to inaugurate this series this week. As usual we invite your  
response through letters to _support at johnshelbyspong.com_ 
(mailto:support at johnshelbyspong.com) .  Subscribers may also participate by corresponding with other 
readers on the  Message Boards (_sign in to read and  post_ 
(http://johnshelbyspong.com/) ). We hope you will enjoy this series.  
March 5, 2008 
The Origins of the Bible, Part  1: Examining the Aura Created Around the 
Bible  

How did the Bible come to be written? Does it reflect a single point of view, 
 even a single inspiration or has that been an idea imposed upon it by 
religious  devotees? Since what we now call the Bible was written by many authors 
over a  period of about 1000 years, what were the particular circumstances that 
prompted  the writing of each piece? What was the process by which these 
individual pieces  got designated as "Holy Scripture?" Were there other works that 
competed for  inclusion in the Bible, but for some reason were not chosen? If 
so, who made  those decisions and on what criteria? Are all parts of the Bible 
to be regarded  as equally holy, equally valid or does the Bible embrace 
concepts that are  demonstrably untrue and proclaim attitudes that modern 
sensitivity and an  expanded consciousness now find both repellant and repulsive? 
Amazing as it may  seem, these perfectly obvious questions are seldom raised in 
the various  churches of the Christian world and indeed are regarded by some 
Christians as  hostile, faithless and inappropriate. In the great theological 
centers of  learning, however, these inquiries are routine and commonplace. Yet 
when one  leaves these theological centers for a career as a pastor serving 
people who  occupy the pews of our churches, there appears to be almost a 
conspiracy of  silence about biblical knowledge. In the heartland of religious life, 
these  newly minted clergy confront a Bible that has been covered with an aura 
of  sanctity, which is so powerful that it blunts critical questions, 
regarding them  not as a search for truth, but as attacks on holiness, upon God, on 
the Bible  itself. So before beginning to look at the Bible itself, I want us 
to look first  at this defense shield erected over the centuries by pious, but 
not well  informed people, and designed to protect the Bible and its "revealed 
truth" from  erosion.  
One runs into this biblical defense shield almost everywhere. It is present  
in the propaganda emanating from religious fundamentalists. Television  
evangelists like Albert Mohler, Pat Robertson, and the late Jerry Falwell  
constantly refer to the Bible as "the inerrant word of God." They quote from its  pages 
to attack evolution, the rise of feminism, homosexuality and even  
environmental concerns. These contemporary fundamentalists have their roots in a  group 
of Evangelical Protestants who, between 1910 and 1915 in America,  published, 
with the help from the Universal Oil Company of California (Unocal),  and 
spread across the world, a series of tracts called "The Fundamentals," which  in 
fact produced the word "fundamentalism." This tractarian movement proclaimed  
that the only true Christian position on the scriptures was to regard every 
word  of the Bible as both revealed and inerrant truth.  
If one looks further back in history, one discovers that this mentality was  
present even at the time of Galileo in the 17th century, when representatives 
of  Roman Catholic Christianity condemned Galileo's idea that the earth was 
not the  center of a three-tiered universe and that the sun did not rotate 
around it.  What was the proof that they offered for this condemnation? It was a 
passage  from the Book of Joshua (10:12-14) in which God, in response to 
Joshua's  prayers, stopped the sun in the sky to allow more daylight in which Joshua 
could  pursue his military rout of the Amorites. This, the church fathers 
argued, was  clear proof from the "inerrant word of God" that Galileo was wrong.  
This defensive shield around the Bible is also daily constructed even in  
those mainline churches that would be embarrassed to be called fundamentalists,  
since they regard themselves as more learned and sophisticated than those they 
 think of as fundamentalists. Yet at the end of biblical readings Christian  
churches of all denominations still use some version of the phrase "This is 
the  word of the Lord," to which the people dutifully reply with some version of 
the  phrase "Thanks be to God." This common liturgical usage reinforces 
attitudes  that the Bible's origins are not to be the subject of the questions we 
might  apply to any other piece of literature.  
In the more formal liturgical Christian traditions, when the gospel is read  
there is normally some kind of procession into the congregation with the 
gospel  book elevated, presumably for the adoration of the people. Then the reader  
announces: "The Holy Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ according to" 
 and then identifies which gospel provided the reading for that day. While 
this  is going on, the appointed reader might well make some magical sign of the 
cross  on the gospel text itself as if to bless it again and, not 
coincidentally, to  remove that text from any critical analysis. Next the reader might 
also cross  himself or herself as if to say that only a holy person can read 
these sacred  words. In many churches the reading of the gospel is in fact 
reserved for one  who is ordained, which suggests special status for the gospels 
themselves.  
When the gospel passage is complete, the reader then proclaims: "The Gospel  
of the Lord," to which the people once again dutifully respond, "Praise to you 
 Lord Christ." The clear message communicated by these pious acts, which 
occur  Sunday after Sunday and year after year is to reinforce an attitude toward 
the  Bible in general and the gospels in particular that any critical 
questioning of  biblical content is deemed inappropriate. The ancient biblical defense 
shield is  thus regularly made more solid. Those who seek to remove it, to go 
around it or  beneath it, raise the threat level of believers and so they 
proceed at their own  peril. Clergy, especially newly ordained clergy, are loath 
to attack this  "Maginot Line." A pattern is thus set.  
This defense shield is also revealed in other far more subtle ways. Until  
relatively recently, Bibles were generally printed on gilt-edged tissue thin  
pages inside a floppy leather cover, sometimes with a gold cross on the front,  
all of which served to designate this book as different from all other books.  
The Bible was to be given the place of honor on the book shelf or to be  
prominently displayed on the coffee table as it was in my childhood home. One  
learned quickly in that pious age not to place any other book on top of that  
Bible for that would be a desecration. These "family Bibles" were seldom opened  
and then primarily not to be read, but to record the family history of 
baptisms,  marriages and deaths. This book thus served as the repository in which all 
of  the solemn, sacred moments of a family's transition were recorded. One 
did not  trifle with the content of its pages.  
Yet another mark of the Bible's special claim on truth is found in that this  
book was normally printed with two columns of text on each page. That seemed 
to  be standard. Even today, both the Harper Collins Study Bible and the 
Oxford  University Study Bible still use the twin-columned format. Most books that  
people read are not laid out this way. Have you ever wondered how this custom 
 developed or why it has become so uniform? When the Revised Standard Version 
of  the Bible was published between 1946 and 1952 in three volumes (two for 
the Old  Testament and one for the New Testament), this two-column format was 
abandoned.  However, this RSV was so mightily resisted by evangelical churches 
that book  burnings were held in various parts of America. There were several 
reasons for  this, some located in the way various texts were translated, but 
making the  Bible appear like any other book was clearly, if subliminally, 
another source of  irritation.  
The only other books normally published in a two column per page format are  
reference books like encyclopedias and dictionaries. Both are sources of  
authority. One goes to an encyclopedia to get facts that are assumed to be  
accurate. One goes to a dictionary to get definitions and meanings that are the  
last word. By printing the Bible in this authoritative way religious propaganda  
appears to be implying that this book too is a source of ultimate and inerrant 
 answers. The format itself was part of the aura of sanctity, which served,  
albeit unconsciously, to make it quite difficult for people to relate to the  
Bible in any other way except as beyond questioning. Someone at an early date  
must have consciously made this decision.  
Recall that for most of history, universal education was not commonly  
available so the vast majority of people in the pre-modern world could not read.  
Even with that barrier to knowledge firmly in place, for centuries the Bible was 
 still kept in Latin that the masses did not speak anyway. In parts of 
Christian  history it was a crime punishable by death to translate the sacred 
scriptures.  In this manner the biblical defense shield was constantly reinforced.  
By translating the Bible into the vernacular, the Reformation in the 16th  
century began the process of eroding ecclesiastical authority. That erosion has  
yet to be stopped. That same Reformation, however, also produced a Protestant 
 tradition that no longer had a central authority like the Papal office to  
determine truth for all believers. Feeling the anxiety of that lack quite  
deeply, Protestants began to treat the Bible as a paper Pope, investing its  words 
with the same infallibility that the Catholic tradition has claimed for  the 
Papal office, thus powerfully reinforcing the defense shield around the  Bible 
even as expanding knowledge tore it away.  
So the first step in studying the origins of the Bible is to navigate a  
pathway through this biblical defense shield in order to examine the text of the  
Bible itself without the presuppositions of religious propaganda. That is what 
I  plan to do in this protracted series of columns. I hope the result will be 
 salutary not just for modern faith but for intellectual integrity.  
– John Shelby Spong  
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Bill Blizzard, via the Internet, writes:  
First let me say how much I enjoyed reading Jesus for the  Non-Religious. It 
was extremely insightful, debunking the myths surrounding  Jesus to bring out 
the humanity of the man. I particularly enjoyed your thesis  that Jesus' 
crucifixion might actually have occurred in the festival season of  Sukkoth. You 
explained that, for liturgical reasons, the crucifixion was moved  by Mark to 
the time of Passover and attached there so that the commencement of  the new 
faith story would align with the commencement of the old faith story.  This 
allows Mark to tie his stories to the Jewish Holy Days and be read on every  
Sabbath from Rosh Hashanah to Passover. Matthew then expands Mark's text to fill  in 
the balance of the Jewish calendar, beginning with Jesus' genealogy and the  
birth story. My question is this: Since Matthew's birth story would have been  
read sometime during late April, how did the birth of Jesus come to be  
celebrated in December rather than late April? Did it have to do with the  Emperor 
Constantine blending the birthdays of Mithras and Sol Invictus (both  
supposedly occurring on December 25) with that of Jesus in order to unify the  people 
and various religions? Or is there another reason, perhaps tied to Jewish  
rather than pagan cultures?  
Dear Bill,  
Thank you for your comments on my recent book.  
To respond to your question, do note that the liturgical year developed  
slowly over the centuries and the celebration of Christmas was not fixed until  
some 300 to 400 years after the life of Jesus.  
Matthew, who introduced the birth narratives to the Christian story in the  
9th decade, would have used those narratives to provide Christian readings for  
use in the synagogue on the Sabbaths between Passover and Rosh Hashanah, 
which  represented the five and a half months of the year for which Mark made no  
provision. In that part of his gospel, Matthew has given us the genealogy, the 
 birth narratives, the expanded baptism and temptation story, and the Sermon 
on  the Mount, none of which Mark included. It is only when Matthew gets to 
Chapter  13 that he tracks closely with Mark. So the birth story would have 
originally  been read in the synagogue in mid spring.  
When Christianity entered the Gentile world, it seemed to make sense to  
celebrate the birth of Jesus, who was known as the "Light of the World," at the  
darkest time of the year in the northern hemisphere. There were great pagan  
celebrations at that time to mark the end of the sun's seemingly relentless  
march into darkness and its return to light. Part of that celebration was called  
"the Saturnalia," and was marked with parties, gifts, great festivity and  
sometimes with overeating and overdrinking. When the birth of Jesus became  
identified with the Saturnalia, then its complex combination of the sacred with  
the secular entered our practice and defines it to this day.  
John Shelby Spong 



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