[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
**************Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL
Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom00030000000001)
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