No. 3. Misconception about the Bible

(This is the third in my series of Bil’s ideas about ten misconceptions in Christianity today. This post suggests that the institutional church thinks the Bible is inerrant. It’s not!)

Over and over, I hear the claim, “God wrote the Bible!” I always have to ask “Which god? The Old Testament (OT) one, the New Testament (NT) one, or your version of god?” I don’t have anything to do with the Old Testament god who commanded the “Chosen” to obliterate over sixty thousand Palestinians. He is meaner than a junkyard dog, will smite anyone anytime, loves vengeance, adores the law, and lives above the third filament of the flat earth. I don’t like this monster god!

My second question is “In what language did your god write the Bible?” Many think it was written in King James English.

Occasionally, a biblical literalist will admit that men wrote it, but that they were God-fearing men.

“Do you think they might have changed words, phrases, or paragraphs to suit their biases?”

“Well, maybe.”

Thus ends the conversation because the Bible is extremely complex and requires a great deal of study to understand it.

Having been a student of the Bible for sixty-seven years, I can assure you of these facts:

• The Bible is a collection of books (sixty-six in total: thirty-nine in the OT, twenty-seven in the NT, but these numbers change according to biases). It was written almost exclusively by Jewish men, each with a definite point of view. Some of the writing in Exodus goes back to the late thirteenth century BCE.
• The Bible is religious history. This means it was not written to give us accurate historical facts but rather to tell a story (usually not true) and to invite the reader to enter the story to find the truth it is telling. These truths vary according to the reader’s viewpoint.
• The books of the Bible are full of contradictions, historical errors, translation errors, copying errors, and human errors. It is not inerrant. In the 1990s, scholars of The Jesus Seminar suggested that only 20 percent of the sayings in the NT came from the mouth of Jesus, while the other 80 percent are sayings the NT writers wanted Jesus to say.

Many say the Bible is sacred. I have no idea why. For me, the Old Testament is just that: the old one. I sort of believe in the New Testament because it is about Jesus and the early activities of the Jewish religion called Followers of the Way, from which the Christian church grew three centuries later. What makes it sacred, other than the church saying so?

I have no interest in worshipping a book, especially an old, outdated one. (Jesus is hard enough to follow.) I’m not going to kiss it like some clergy do, swear on or by it, or pretend some god wrote it.

It’s two thousand to fifteen thousand years old. I don’t really care what this book says about marriage, divorce, living together, one’s sexuality, etc. I live in the twenty-first century. Life has advanced and will keep advancing. The Bible is stuck in time.

My main thrust is to live agape like Jesus told me to. I don’t preach the OT (though I’ll teach about it). And I don’t preach some of the NT, such as Revelation, Hebrews, and much of Paul’s writings. (Maybe I’ll teach about it.)

The OT and even some of the NT doesn’t help me live agape, unconditional love for all.

PeaceLoveJoyHopeKindness

Bil

P.S. Here’s an appropriate old joke:

A pastor was making his annual visit to one of his families. Everyone was dressed up, sitting at a table, sipping tea, on their best behavior, and talking about their spiritual lives at home, when the father decided he would really impress the pastor. So, he said to his son, “Billie, please go upstairs and bring down that book your father loves so well.” Of course, the father was implying that it was the Bible.

Billie, being very obedient, left the table, ran upstairs, and a few minutes later came down with a copy of Playboy.

Get my book at Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon!

P.S. People often ask me provocative questions about current events, both religious and secular. I have found that some of these questions are being asked universally. I’ll be periodically alternating regular articles with one of those questions and my answer. I invite you to send me your question to bilaulenbach@yahoo.com.

 

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