"And the Bible says!"

But the Bible tells us!"

"Is it Bible based?"

We hear questions like this, read them in letters to the editor and - if we tune in - get them on radio and TV. It's no secret these days that a vocal segment of our population takes the attitude expressed on a bumper sticker:

"The Bible says it! I believe it! That settles it!"

I don't know if the influence of the Bible has ever been stronger. New versions fill bookshelves. Different translations have different slants, paraphrase Bibles try to use contemporary language to deliver the message and a recent version of the Christian Scriptures aimed at teenage girls takes a magazine format. But Americans actually hold quite a variety of opinions about the Bible and about its use, interpretation and significance. Some of these ideas are announced widely, others remain quieter or are isolated in their own circles.

Fundamentalists and some other conservative Christians take the position that every word of the Bible is the Word of God and literally true. More liberal Christians see symbol and allegory, consider Biblical scholarship or the work of the Jesus Seminar as aids to interpretation. They honor the Bible as a source of inspiration and guidance. Jews have a long history of commentary on the Torah and the Prophets. Still others among us find the Bible problematical enough that we'd rather do without it, except perhaps to recognize references in literature. And followers of the world's other religions mostly hope the Bible won't be used against them. Despite these differences, no one denies the impact of the Bible on our culture and our public conversation.

Here at the Fellowship, we probably don't include that whole range. I don't know of anyone among us who holds the opinion I recently heard reported,

"I believe every word of the Bible and the words of Jesus just as He said them in the King James Version."

But many of us do find comfort, inspiration and guidance in the Bible. We struggle with ways to understand it, knowing that these Scriptures are more like a library than a single book, that versions really are different in important ways and that an awful lot has changed in the world since the Biblical authors were at work. We know that scholarship has raised questions about nearly every aspect of the Bible. We don't necessarily know what to do with all that. Some of us are acutely aware of the importance of the Bible in Western European history and literature. We believe that cultural literacy requires us to at least be conversant with its images and stories. Some of us find the abuses based on Bible passages or the supernatural events they record so outrageous that we'd rather not deal with the Bible at all.

No one sermon can address all these issues. Actually, no sermon series can address them all. People devote their lives to just a few. We've had classes on the Bible here at the Fellowship and I'm sure we'll have them again. It is interesting work. And in our area, some familiarity with the Bible, its origins and interpretations is pretty important. We are confronted with some strongly literal interpretations here. We need to understand some of the problems that come with that and know about different ways of seeing Biblical texts.

This summer, I had the opportunity to explore some of the issues. I heard Elaine Pagels, who studies ancient Christian writings, speak at our General Assembly. I took a week-long summer course with John Spong, who's the retired Episcopal bishop of New Jersey and a member of the Jesus Seminar. I also read a couple of his books. I want to share some of what I heard. Both Pagels and Spong are prolific authors with definite viewpoints. They offer information and interpretation that is quite unorthodox, yet both remain actively committed to Christian churches. Sometimes we forget that's possible.

Elaine Pagels is probably best known for her work with the Gospel of Thomas and others of the Nag Hammadi texts, which were discovered in Egypt in 1945. She talked about the surprising number of different texts that circulated in the early Christian period. The discoveries revealed that, rather than being a simple, unified theological community, early Christians engaged with a complex interplay of competing interpretations. That ancient Egyptian jar held fifty-seven different scrolls - attributed not only to Thomas, but dozens of others, including Phillip, John, and Mary Magdalene. It also included a message from Athanasius, the archbishop of Alexandria, which authorized a list of 27 texts and ordered the destruction of all the others. Yet most Christians are taught there were just four gospel writers - Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. A third century condemnation of heresies proclaimed four as the legitimate number because four pillars supported the heavens and four winds blew across the earth. In addition to being skeptical about that rationale, I can't help but wonder about the twenty three that didn't make the cut!

What's more, Pagels explained, the competition between interpretations became embedded in the texts themselves. Scholars now believe that the Gospel of Thomas may well have been written very early, even before Mark. Much of the material is familiar, because it also appears in the synoptic Gospels or in John, but a good proportion is unique. Reading through those sayings reveals the view that Jesus manifested the divine light, the essence of creative power. The sayings of Jesus as recorded by Thomas explain that we too have that light within us and must bring it forth. In other words, we have some piece of divinity within us. The Gospel of John, in contrast, sees Jesus as the only true child of God, far different from any ordinary person. These are very different ideas.

Pagels also notes that only one of the four standard gospels has stories of the apostle Thomas. That one is the Gospel of John. You may know that all the stories are negative. Thomas is the one who doesn't understand that Jesus is 'the way.' He misses the Pentecost gathering and gifts of the spirit. He doesn't believe that Jesus has appeared to the other apostles. His faith is so weak that he has to be shown. The image of "doubting Thomas" is familiar to us because of the stories. Interesting isn't it? Did any of those things happen? Or are they simply the 'put-down' of a competitor? This theological antagonism was lost to us all those centuries. Finding it changes our understanding of familiar texts. We are left to puzzle about its impact and to wonder what else is hidden from us.

Bishop Spong emphasized the idea that literal approaches to the Bible mean ignoring some very serious and important questions. First, we have no original texts. Even if we did have original Christian scriptures, fragments they were written in Greek, not Aramaic, the language the Jesus spoke. You have to go from that through the Latin Septuagint to get to the version in the 'King's English.' Rephrasing, translation, and assembling the message favored by one or another "school of interpretation" all affect the texts. Then, the Bible contradicts itself. This means that everyone who talks about the Bible chooses passages that reinforce the themes they see as most important. Just one example: If you believe that there are many paths to God, you remember the passage from John 14: "In my Father's house are many mansions." If you believe that Christianity is the only possibility, you quote from the same chapter, just a few verses later, "No one comes to the Father except through me."

Then, too, many Bible stories and passages are based on pre-scientific views of the world. A relatively small, flat world can be completely covered by floodwaters. One can approach God by ascending to the mountaintop or building a tower if the dome of His heaven is not far off. Medicine is a vastly different enterprise if disease is caused by demons, curses or divine displeasure rather than by viruses, bacteria, parasites or nutritional deficiencies.

Worse, some parts of the Bible embrace acts that we understand to be clearly evil. God instructs Samuel that the Amalekites are to be destroyed - "do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey." (1 Samuel 15) When Saul mercifully takes King Agag captive, and spares the best of the sheep, cattle, and lambs, God is incensed! He rejects Saul and replaces him as Israel's king. This same God suggests that the children of the Edomites should have their heads dashed against the rocks for the things their fathers had done (Ps 137) . How could these things be the actions of God? Spong shows that environmental degradation, the abuse of women, mistreatment of children, anti-Semitism, slavery and homophobia have all been buttressed by Biblical texts. He details all that in a book titled "Sins of Scripture."

Yet Bishop Spong remains committed to the Biblical tradition. "I do not despair . . . of the . . . faith that has guided me for a lifetime . . . " , he writes. "I see in Jesus one so radically human and free, so whole and complete, that the power of life, the force of the universe - that which I call God - becomes visible and operative in him and through him." (Sins of Scripture, p 180) In fact, the bishop claims to love the Bible and to read it daily. This does not mean he is a literalist. It does not stop him from analysis and criticism. It does mean he sees the Bible in a different way.

For Bishop Spong and others, the Bible is a chronicle of a people's understanding of their relationship with the divine. Its early sections reveal a tribal God, one who chooses favorites, promises them good things and hates their enemies. Remember that ancient writers didn't have archives as we know them today. They didn't really write history. They wrote explanations of how things got to be the way they are. They wrote about what they thought would be ideal features of a God who would protect them. Who cares about anyone else?

But gradually, the picture changes. The bringers of these changes are the prophets, starting with Nathan's confrontation of David over his scheme to take Bathsheba from her husband Uriah. This is the beginning of the power of conscience, of moral standards for the powerful. Each of the minor prophets adds new elements to the portrait of God. Hosea explains that God loves you no matter what you do. Amos claims that justice, not ceremony, is the worship God requires. Malachi introduces the idea that God will be recognized by people beyond Israel. Micah reminds us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly. This is a very different picture than the one we see in Genesis, Numbers and Judges, and even in the Psalms. It's a different understanding of God and what God requires.

The Wisdom tradition adds more elements - the different images, the irony, even cynicism of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs; the sensuality of the Song of Solomon. They don't fit with the pattern of stories in the earlier books. It's not hard to see why they almost didn't make it into the canon. And then there's the Book of Job, with its insistence that God is beyond our understanding, that our formulas are too limited, our images off the mark. It's a book that explicitly challenges some earlier molds.

The Jesus stories initiate the Christian Scriptures, and again we see an expansion. Jesus is a boundary breaker. He eats with publicans and outcasts, makes a Samaritan the hero of a parable, lifts up the poor, the widows. He summarizes all the Law with two sentences that command us to love. In Acts and the Epistles, we see the struggle of Jesus' followers to understand his message clearly and to offer it in the synagogues and then in Gentile communities. "God is love and love is of God," say the words of 1 John 4, "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us." How far we have come from the God who ordered the destruction of the Amalekites!

The tragedy, according to Bishop Spong, is that the establishment of the canon meant that the progress of our understanding was cut off. Revelation became sealed. Searching the old passages for meaning might be accepted, but nothing new has been added for centuries. Theologians and religious writers continued their work, of course, but at a different level of significance. Some became nearly undisputed - Jerome, Augustine and Aquinas come to mind; then Luther and other figures of the Reformation. But nothing has been added to the Bible - except perhaps small phrases that crept in from the margins during copying, or some addition that wasn't checked against the early manuscript. And those are a whole other story.

How different things might be if some process for adding new material had been devised! What if some older material was replaced as new learning developed? How can Christians continue to progress in their understanding of the divine, in the expansion of the message of inclusive love?

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi texts are opening up new areas of study and conjecture about early Christianity. Sixty years have gone by since their discovery. Partly because of the time required for preservation, transliteration and analysis, scholars ar only now beginning to develop ideas about the weight these texts might have for believers. Institutional Christianity is in no hurry to consider making significant gestures to include them or to make adaptations because of them. The anxieties of our times, along with the authority of the church make claims for certainty appealing. These new texts challenge that certainty.

Pagels is one who asks questions about how these recovered scrolls may impact our understanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Spong urges us to reclaim the voice for continuing growth in our understanding of the Divine. The message of inclusive love and abundant life is still uncertain in our world. We are only gradually seeing that all people are worthy children of creation. And I would add, all parts of existence interconnected, interdependent. Spong says we can talk about our experience of God, but not describe what God is. We know that message has yet to reach a good number of folks in religious communities. Many good conversations and explorations might lie before us if we could open up the content of Scripture.

But a word to the wise: Don't expect that these factors and discoveries will be convincing to a Biblical literalist. Be gentle as you interact with those of more conservative faiths. Their defenses and fears are easily awakened. Several people asked Bishop Spong about how to respond to fundamentalist's claims about the Biblical message. His answer was different from any I'd heard before: "Just love them and try to reduce their anxiety levels." Maybe he's on to something. Not that he - or I - think their conclusions and policies should be left unchallenged. Far from it. But direct and assertive opposition about the Bible is unlikely to persuade them to reconsider particular beliefs.

One more thing. As I listened to Spong's lectures - two a day, plus extensive question and answer periods - as he listed examples, chapter and verse; some problematical, others indicating changes in understanding, and especially as he took up the Christian Scriptures, I kept wondering why a particular verse was never mentioned. It seemed to be one that encompasses, the message of Jesus; opens it to all. "Well," I thought, "he's the expert, not me." As it turned out, I was on to something. The bishop saved it for the very end. "Let me give you my favorite verse, he said. It's from the Gospel of John. Do I think Jesus really said it? Not a chance. I don't think that anything in John was said by Jesus! But to me it expresses the message of Jesus perfectly. It's John 10:10 "I come that you may have life, and have it abundantly." That message, he said, is for all people without regard for age or gender, ability, sexual orientation or any other dividing feature. It's just been taking us an awfully long time to understand that.

I don't claim to read the Bible rigorously, or to study it deeply. I do find it valuable and honor the progress in understanding it records. I'll certainly never be an Episcopalian. I do count myself as one who honors the teachings of Jesus. And that message of life and love, the hope that we "may have life, and have it abundantly," is one that inspires my religious journey. May that day come, for all of us.

28 August 2005

(Copyright by Rev. Grace Simons. Contact the author for permission to use.)

This is one in a collection of Minister's Sermons. We also have a collection of Guest Sermons, a brief Welcome and Biography from Rev. Simons, and the latest edition of Grace Notes, a column Rev. Grace writes for our newsletter.