[Dialogue] Spong 3/19/08 Bible part 2

KroegerD at aol.com KroegerD at aol.com
Wed Mar 19 18:53:27 EDT 2008


 
March 19, 2008 
The Origins of the Bible, Part  II Biblical Contradictions, Discredited 
Attitudes and Horror Stories  

The aura of holiness, the defense shield that endows the Bible with an  
unchallengeable authority, can exist only so long as people do not bother to  read 
its content very closely. That is, of course, what has happened during most  
of Christian history. Few people in medieval history other than the clergy 
could  read and even if they could the Bible was available only in the Latin 
language  that most did not understand. Prior to the invention of the printing 
press in  the 15th century, books were scarce because they were prohibitively 
expensive.  Books had to be hand copied, which meant that they tended to be 
community  property and not individual possessions. This meant that it was only at 
Sunday  worship services that the words of scriptures were actually heard by 
the people,  and even there the leaders of the church were quite judicious in 
their  selectivity, so that none of the Bible's contradictions, discredited 
ideas or  horror stories were ever read on public occasions in worship services.  
Lectionaries can be quite effective in controlling access to content.  
Biblical contradictions begin, however, in the creation stories found on page 
 one. In the opening verses of Genesis (1:1-2:4a), God first creates the fish 
of  the sea, then the birds of the air and then the beasts of the field. 
Finally, in  the crowning achievement of divine creativity, God makes the man and 
the woman.  They are created together and instantaneously, this narrative 
suggests, and both  in God's image. In the second creation story beginning in 
chapter two (2:4b-24),  God creates first the man, who alone is in God's image, 
and God places him into  a garden uninhabited by any other living creatures. The 
loneliness of that  garden, however, becomes quite unbearable for Adam. Then 
the Bible tells us that  God decided that "it is not good for man to dwell 
alone," so God fashioned all  the animals of the world in an attempt to make an 
appropriate companion for  Adam. When none of these creatures satisfied the 
man, God "took a rib from  Adam's side and made Miss Eve to be his bride." The 
woman, therefore, was not  assumed to have been made in God's image. She was 
rather fashioned out of the  male for the primary purpose of being the male's 
"helpmeet." Her second class  status was both signified and guaranteed when Adam 
named her, as he had named  all the animals, as a sign of his authority over 
all living things. The two  stories are immediately contradictory. We need to 
inquire as to which version  should be called "The Word of God."  
There are also the contradictions found in the three versions of the Ten  
Commandments contained in the Bible (Exodus 34:1-28, Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy  
5:1-21). How can all three versions be true if they are not the same? The 
oldest  version (Exodus 34) is from the pen of the "J" or Jahwist writer and is 
not one  of which many have ever heard. The final commandment in this earliest 
version  reads "You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk." Why, we are 
led to  wonder, was this original set of Ten Commandments rejected or replaced? 
The  second version (Exodus 20) was from the pen of the "E" or Elohist writer, 
but  was greatly expanded about four centuries later by a group of people 
called the  "P" or priestly writers. Did these writers, who added so much to the 
entire body  of the Jewish Scriptures, do so because they judged the original 
version to be  so woefully inadequate that it required major additions and 
editing? Does one  alter or tamper with what one believes to be "The Word of 
God?" The third  version (Deuteronomy 5) was from the pen of the "D" or 
Deuteronomic writers  composed somewhere between the original writing of Exodus 20 and 
the expansion  done on that same text some 400 or so years later. For example, 
the version in  Deuteronomy did not offer as the reason the Sabbath must be 
observed the fact  that God rested on the Sabbath, for the version of that seven 
day creation story  had not yet been written. So this author states that the 
Sabbath is to be  observed because the people of Israel must remember that 
they were once slaves  in Egypt and even slaves must have a day of rest. Which of 
these versions of the  Ten Commandments, we might ask, can qualify as "The 
Word of God?"  
There are also many pre-modern and outdated concepts in the pages of this  
supposedly divinely inspired book. Divine inspiration does not appear to  
overcome God's apparent lack of knowledge. "The Word of God" assumed that the  earth 
was the center of a three-tiered universe and that God lived above the  sky. 
According to the Book of Genesis (Chapter 11) that is why people wanted to  
build a tower so tall that it could reach beyond the sky into heaven where they  
could commune on a one-to-one basis with God. That is why Moses met God on a  
mountain top, since the top of a mountain was as close to heaven as a human  
being could climb. That is why the story of Jesus' ascension into heaven (Acts 
 1) proclaimed that Jesus simply rose into the sky and traveled beyond the 
roof  of the earth to the abode of God above the sky.  
The authors of the Bible also knew nothing about weather fronts, low pressure 
 systems or why rain and wind, hurricanes and tsunamis happen, so they 
treated  weather patterns as acts of divine manipulation designed by God, the judge, 
to  reward good people or to punish evil people. Knowing nothing about germs 
or  viruses, tumors or coronary occlusions, these writers also assumed that 
sickness  was divinely sent punishment for sin, and therefore the way to treat 
it was with  prayers and sacrifices. It is hard to regard these narratives as 
"The Word of  God" since the presuppositions on which these stories rest are 
believed by no  one today. Why, we must wonder, was God so badly informed when 
the Bible was  written, if this book is "The Word of God?"  
The most difficult revelation, however, that challenges the traditional  
belief comes in those passages, which in the light of modern sensitivities, are  
brutal, wrong, insensitive and even immoral. The Bible, for example, calls for  
capital punishment for a willfully disobedient child who talks back to his or 
 her parents, for worshipping a false god, for being homosexual, for 
committing  adultery and even for having sex with one's mother-in- law! Would anyone 
today  salute these laws as moral norms? Then there is that strange story about 
the  concubine in the book of Judges who is first gang raped and then thrown 
on the  porch of her master's house, barely breathing, but presumably still 
alive. Her  master then proceeds to cut her into twelve portions, sending one to 
each of the  twelve tribes of Israel as a call to war (Judges 19). If that is 
not  sufficiently grotesque, there is the story of Jepthah murdering his 
daughter to  keep a vow to God (Judges 11). No one can read these stories in 
church and say,  "This is the Word of the Lord."  
The Bible contains stories that reek with vengeance, like the account in the  
book of Psalms (139:9), where the psalmist fantasizes about the desire to 
dash  the heads of Babylonian children against the rocks, or the story in which 
the  prophet Elisha is portrayed in the Book of Kings (II Kings 2) as greeting 
the  taunts of some little boys making fun of his bald head by calling some 
she bears  out of the woods to tear these boys apart and to eat them. Can anyone 
claim that  these narratives are "The Word of the Lord?"  
In chapter one of Romans, Paul argues that homosexuality is God's punishment  
on those who do not worship God properly. When talking about women, Paul 
and/or  his surrogates forbid allowing any woman from having authority over a man. 
This  means, if taken literally, that no woman could ever walk the path that 
leads to  economic, political or ecclesiastical power. I have four daughters. 
One is the  managing director of a major southern financial institution, one 
is a lawyer  working in the office of the Virginia attorney general, one has a 
PhD in Physics  and is the Chief Information Officer of a west coast high-tech 
startup company,  and one is a veteran of a nine year tour of duty in the 
United States Marine  Corps, with 21 months of active duty in the second Iraqi 
war to her credit. Will  these women or countless others like them ever be able 
or willing to call the  Bible the inerrant "Word of God" so long as these 
grossly discriminating verses  are in that book?  
Both the Old and the New Testaments endorse slavery as a morally acceptable  
institution. The Torah prohibits slavery, but only among fellow Jews. "You are 
 to take your slaves from neighboring countries," is its exhortation. I 
suppose  that if citizens of the United States were to call these verses "The Word 
of  God," it would put Canadians and Mexicans at risk.  
In Paul's epistles to Philemon and Colossians (if he actually wrote  
Colossians), this apostle seems to think that slavery is quite legitimate, but  that 
Christians have a duty to make slavery "kinder and gentler." There is no  doubt 
that a kinder and gentler slavery is better than a cruel and hostile  
slavery, but does anyone today really argue that slavery in any form is not  
demeaning, life destroying and evil? Yet of a book that contains these  directives, 
there are many who still say, "This is the Word of the Lord!"  
Once people could read the Bible for themselves, the claims that the church  
has made for these scriptures over the centuries became tempered by reality.  
Many things in the Bible are clearly not "the Word of God." They are immoral,  
unjust, uninspired and evil.  
No religious institution or individual believer can today deny these facts.  
No one should want to and the convoluted reasoning employed by trapped and  
exposed fundamentalists is no longer a sufficient cover for profound ignorance.  
A literally understood Bible is fated to be abandoned by all educated,  
thinking people. Does that mean there is no value that can still be attached to  
this ancient text? No, but it does mean that literalism must be exposed and  
expelled. What then? We continue next week.  
John Shelby Spong  
Question and Answer
With John  Shelby Spong 
Susan from Austin, Texas, writes:  
I have been an excited student of yours since the first time you came to our  
church in Austin, Texas. You affirmed the beliefs I held from childhood while 
I  "served" as a daughter of a Baptist minister. I knew I didn't buy what was 
being  sold, but I had no way, short of blasphemy, to express my feelings.  
I have a cousin in his mid 60's who has had a stroke, making his life hell on 
 Earth. He is a person whose beliefs consist of seeing God in the beauty 
around  him and has always expressed a lot of gratitude for his simple, joy-filled 
life.  He has made the decision to take his life, because day by day it 
becomes more  unbearable. His life has little "quality" right now. He is alone. 
Friends have  scattered and I'm the only connection he has with the outside 
world. Now that he  has faced the fact that he really does want to go on to 
whatever is next, his  childhood fundamentalism teachings of hell keep cropping up 
and he becomes  riddled with fear. While I want him to be in full control of his 
decision to  stay or go, and I do not share with him that I couldn't live the 
life he's in, I  would also like to assist him in getting beyond this fear of 
hell and a  punishing God. What do you say to people who want to control the 
process of  their death?  
Dear Susan,  
I am on the board of "Compassion in Dying" in Oregon and believe very  
strongly in a person's right to determine how and when he or she dies when the  
quality of life disappears. I believe it is a life-affirming decision for people  
facing situations like that of your cousin, to say "what I am now living is 
not  life and I do not choose to participate in this charade any further."  
Had modern medicine not advanced as rapidly as it has over the last century,  
the probability is that we would not have to make this decision. A century 
ago  your cousin would have already died as a result of the stroke. Those who 
argue  that suicide violates God's power over life and death do not seem to 
realize  that so does all modern medicine. If left to "God's Plan" most of us 
would be  dead by age 40.  
The issue about the fear of a punishing deity is quite another situation. It  
is little more than bad theology, clung to in ignorance and based on medieval 
 practices of behavior control. Those ideas should be dismissed out of hand 
for  being the superstitious things they are. If your cousin is still under the 
 control of that kind of mentality, it will be hard to help him into a new  
understanding at this point in his life. That needed to be done while he was  
healthy of mind and body. It is probably too late now. My advice since you live 
 in Austin, Texas, would be to consult someone at the Austin Pastoral 
Counseling  Center, which is affiliated with the _Episcopal Theological Seminary of 
the  Southwest_ (http://www.etss.edu/index.shtml)  there in Austin. I don't 
know the people who are there now but I  knew the founder of that counseling 
center and I don't think that institutions  wander too far from their own history, 
so I would tend to trust its leadership.  
I wish you well.  
John Shelby Spong 



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