How Has Modern Science Changed How We Understand the Bible?

by Steve Kindle

“By identifying the new learning with heresy, you make orthodoxy synonymous with ignorance.”
~Erasmus

What follows in this post is my personal reflection on Dr. Vick's post which ran yesterday on the Energion Publications blog (for which I am the editor). Although I hope he finds this compatible with his own view, he may not. He is only responsible for prodding me to think through some of the implications of what he wrote.

The heliocentric model of the universe changes everything.
Since the Copernican revolution, we can no longer accept the Ancient Near Eastern three-tiered universe with heaven “up there,” and Sheol “down below.” Paul’s vision of a man transported to “the third heaven” reveals a psychology steeped in that worldview. Elijah taken to heaven in a fiery chariot, and even the ascension of Jesus, can no longer be taken literally. Given the vastness of the universe, the psalmist’s question, “what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” takes on deepened meaning. Can we still speak of God “in the heavens,” or literally understand that “The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built.”? I think not.

The biological Theory of Evolution changes everything.
No longer can we think of the world as created in six days, or Bishop Ussher's 6,000 years ago, or the Creationist's 10,000. The creation narratives in Genesis can no longer be taken literally, but as a poetic ode to creation and the Creator. Adam and Eve can now be seen as a primordial myth that speaks to the human condition, not of the actual First Parents. The Flood has shrunk to the area surrounding the Black Sea about 12000 BCE. (The universality of flood stories can be traced back to the melting of the great ice sheet that covered most of the northern hemisphere at the same period, and how it affected its people.)

The only answer that literalists can give in response is that the Bible is the word of God and must take priority over any other presumed authority…regardless of the overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. “The Bible says” trumps scientific findings.

Literalists do claim a kind of science on their side, Creation Science. They marshal “evidence” that no scientist in the academies supports, even continuing to cite long overturned arguments from John Whitcomb, Henry Morris, and George McCready Price. The Creation Science movement proved too embarrassing for many scientists of faith, because it was tied too closely to biblical arguments. They began the Intelligent Design movement and eschewed any taint of religion in their deliberations. However, virtually all are aligned with some form of Christian Evangelicalism or Fundamentalism, which drives their efforts, not pure science. They have yet to make significant inroads into the wider scientific community.

So what does the consensus scientific worldview do for biblical interpretation and theology?

• It removes biblical supernaturalism as an explanation of events.
• God’s transcendence is not physical (out there), but “wholly other.”
• Literalism is no longer the first and preferred reading.
• The biblical notions of sin and salvation (atonement) need to be understood as arising from the ancient milieu, and not appropriate today.
• The Bible, rather than being a scientific textbook, can be recognized as the record of a people trying to understand their world and their place in it. It is the people’s record, not God’s.
• The apocalyptic undergirding of the New Testament needs to be seen as a yearning for hope in a world gone mad, not as a timetable for the ages.
• It ends the dualism that turns the world into a battleground instead of a paradise.

What are some of the applications that can be made from these assertions?

It removes biblical supernaturalism as an explanation of events.
God can no longer be seen as acting from outside the cosmos upon the Earth shaping events and suspending natural law at will. Things have proceeded over the past 14.5 billion years in a natural fashion and continue to do so. We know that the Earth rotates about 25,000 miles per hour and orbits the sun, which is stationary (relative to the earth). The story of the battle for Jericho includes God causing the sun to stand still in the sky to allow for more daylight. This is a perfect example of the ancient worldview’s explanation for how Israel wins battles: God intervenes for them. This, for me, serves as an archetype for all such interventions.

God’s transcendence is not physical (out there), but “wholly other.”
By removing God from beyond the cosmos (heaven), we have not demoted God, but made God immanent—within all things. In certain ways, God is closer to humanity than before. Gone are such notions as “the Man upstairs,” “the Old Man in the sky,” and other figures of speech that make God remote and far removed from human life. God being intimately related to and involved with every aspect of life, from the smallest subatomic particle, to the fullness of the cosmos, makes everything sacred and gives humans motivation for proper care of creation.

Literalism is no longer the first and preferred reading.
Knowing that we are reading ancient documents that are informed by a worldview vastly different from our own, we can no longer accept their understanding at face value. Taking the text literally is to overlook this fact. We begin interpreting by asking what informed the author to understand the text in this way, and then compare it to how we find things in our world today.

The biblical notions of sin and salvation (atonement) need to be understood as arising from the ancient milieu, and not appropriate today.
Can you imagine anyone operating out of the modern worldview attaching the remedy for sin to blood atonement? The gods of the Ancient Near East were capricious and vengeful. In agrarian societies, the only thing they had to offer the gods to appease them were what they grew or the livestock they raised. They saw these things as an extension of themselves, and, in a way, the offering of themselves. Blood, life, in exchange for their lives.

Even the Bible comes against this notion from time to time. From Amos: I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. 

 Even the pagans such as King Nebuchadnezzar found peace with God away from blood atonement. From Daniel: Therefore, O king, may my counsel be acceptable to you: atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged.”

Not all the atonement theories arising from the New Testament and later required a blood sacrifice for efficacy. Specifically, Luke sees salvation arising out of being faithful to the end, even as was Jesus, who models our means of salvation.

The Bible, rather than being a scientific textbook, can now be considered a record of a people trying to understand their world and their place in it. It is the peoples’ record, not God’s.
Rather than this being woeful, it is an amazing realization. Humans are capable of spiritual insights and profound realizations about the world and themselves. God will be seen as a participant in this, but the record is from humans. Therefore, for humans to engage the Bible as human to human is to do precisely what the ancient people were doing that resulted in the Bible. The tradition continues into our own time and much spiritual good is reaped in the process.

The apocalyptic undergirding of the New Testament needs to be seen as a yearning for hope in a world gone mad, not as a timetable for the ages.
Apocalyptic theology, that is, the understanding that God shapes all world history according to God’s will, and that good will ultimately triumph over evil, arose out of a need, indeed, a longing, that this is the case. I believe that God will ultimately prevail in securing a world typified by shalom, and I recognize this as a faith statement. But the notion of God superintending history, much as a mother hen, doesn’t give free will its due.

The Hebrew Bible is full of instances where God is depicted as “changing his mind.” First, with being sorry, actually repenting making humankind, and rectifying this by the genocide of the race. Then there is Moses pleading with God in the wilderness not to destroy Israel. God relents when Moses argues that the Egyptians will laugh at him. These and many other examples suggest that not all things are set in place “before the foundation of the world.” That the future is unknown and not predicable, as apocalyptic would have it.

It ends the dualism that turns the world into a battleground instead of a paradise.
Religious dualism is the idea that there are two supernatural forces diametrically opposed to one another vying for dominance. For nearly 4.5 billion years of the formation of planet Earth, down to our own day, dualism was irrelevant. Actually, the idea that there is God and an anti-god (Satan), is very new to humanity. In fact, the Hebrew Bible’s recording of the history of Israel from creation to the return from Babylonian exile got along without it. Satan, as known in the New Testament is absent. Dualism emerges in the Intertestamental period and flourishes in the New Testament. Many scholars believe that Jewish theologians were introduced to dualism during the Babylonian captivity with their exposure to dualistic Zoroastrianism. Dualism tends to divide people, institutions, and things into good or evil. Monism (the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, that there are no fundamental divisions) promotes world unity and peace and is the basis of Shalom.

Conclusion
We in the 21^st century have been given a marvelous inheritance in the Bible. If we can learn to view it as a human enterprise encapsulating the wisdom of a people who earnestly sought to find answers to the human predicament, we, too, will find our way out of darkness and into the light. But only if we are not imprisoned by an outmoded and now harmful worldview that would keep us from finding our own way.

Gays and The Problem of a Flat Bible

One saying that circulates among the more conservative biblical interpreters is "Let Scripture interpret Scripture." This is codified in such statements as "verses must be in harmony with other verses on the same subject." It's based on certain assumptions that prove false, such as the notion that all the biblical writers mean the same thing when using the same terms. So that once a particular understanding is made, it is transported, intact, across the entire Bible. This has led some to describe this method as reading a flat Bible.

The reality is that there is much argument going on in the Bible. Job argues with Deuteronomy. 1 and 2 Chronicles argues with 1 and 2 Kings.  James argues with Paul. One topic that appears throughout the Bible is the nature of God. Is God a God of mercy or of vengeance? Many would say both, because the Bible depicts God as both. Yet it is clear that Jesus, by his life and death, rejected a God of vengeance. Yet the notion of a God of vengeance persists and is the staple of conservative Christianity. It's their basis for a fiery hell, legalistic judgment, and retributive justice.

This is not a new issue for Christians. The first attempt to deal with it was the radical proposal of Marcion (2nd century CE) who claimed that the father of Jesus Christ was not the God of the Old Testament, and excised it from his Bible. He was (of course) declared a heretic. Yet the notion of a god wholly other than that described in Jesus persists.

A new book from John Dominic Crossan, How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian, offers a fresh answer. Briefly summarized, it is that God is a God of distributive justice whose egalitarian dream for the world gets co-opted by human greed, which turns the biblical story (often) into a god who justifies vengence in its name. Crossan's challenge is to help us distinguish how the story gets corrupted in human hands.

Here’s a quote from the book that puts much into perspective for me:

If the Bible were all good-cop enthusiasm from God, we would have to treat it like textual unreality or utopian fantasy. If it were all about bad-cop vengeance from God, we would not need to justify, say, our last century. But it contains both the assertion of God’s radical dream for our world and our world’s very successful attempt to replace the divine dream with a human nightmare.

What Crossan attempts is to separate out the dream from the nightmare, even though both are couched in the name of God. How successful he is awaits a critical assessment.

So, why is a blog dedicated to LGBT themes and issues dealing with this? Simply because (whether Crossan's approach is right or wrong) the reading of a "flat Bible" has proved harmful, over and over again, to LGBTs. So when certain texts that purport to condemn homosexuality are used to justify vengeful behavior, some believe they are acting with the approval of a vengeful god.

Once, Mel White, author of Stranger at the Gate, was being interviewed on the radio. A caller quoted Lev. 20 to him and stated that, since Mel is gay, he should be executed. Annie Dillard's quote is particularly apt: "You know you have created God in your own image when it turns out he hates the same people you do."

Although I am happy Crossan has tackled this subject with his usual scholarly detail, there is a simple way to cut to the chase. In my book, I'm Right and You're Wrong:Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, I propose using a "canon within the Canon." Jesus basically reduced all of the Old Testament to two useful propositions we term the two Great Commandments. Love God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. If we use this to judge the value of any biblical statement, story, or conclusion, we will never be wrong.

Jesus used it himself on several occasions. When a dispute arose over whether his disciples violated the Sabbath by working (harvesting corn for a meal), Jesus simply said, "The sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the sabbath." In other words, when a law, even as sacrosanct as the Sabbath, conflicted with human need or dignity, it need not be observed. Human rights trump any law that would subvert human need, whether it's in the Bible or not.

Today we are beginning to understand that same-sex love is no different in quality from opposite-sex love. And that those who are attracted to those of their own sex are incapable (for the most part) of any meaningful relationship with one from the opposite sex. To deny them the right to love the one of their own choosing is to deny them of their human dignity and need. It is to deny them of their humanity. I don't think Jesus would approve, nor would his Father, regardless of how much you may want the god of vengeance to prevail.

A Reader's Selection of Noteworthy Snipits

 A reader of my book, I'm Right and You're Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, submitted some of the remarks that are especially meaningful to him. I'd like to share them with you.
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No, the world is not set up with us in mind. The child’s whine that “It’s not fair!” is our first recognition of this reality. 

Pluralism encourages understanding and celebrating differences rather than anathematizing them as in the past.

None of us is born with perfect vision; we all suffer from worldview myopia, and unlike physical eyesight, there is no corrective lens that can make us comprehend the world perfectly.

Regardless of the theological positions held, they mostly spring from one or more of the areas expressed in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, experience, and reason. How one finally interprets the Bible is determined by which of the four is most emphasized.

Experience, for Wesley, was the verification of biblical teaching in the lives of believers.

Among liberals was the belief that God is love. That is to say, that love is not simply an attribute of God’s nature, but that the essence of God’s being is love. This love means that God is primarily immanent, close to the creation, rather than transcendent and remote. This produced a belief in universalism, that God would not condemn anyone to a literal hell. A God who is love would not, therefore, condemn all at birth (Original Sin), either. But it is the idea of progress, that “every day, in every way, the world is getting better and better,” that typifies liberal Christianity through the 19th century. There was great optimism that a truly Christian society could be created. Prosperity was at its highest, the Theory of Evolution was seen as progressive and continuous improvement, the world was largely at peace, nature was being subdued, medical advances were ending many diseases with the promise of ending many more, and humanity was on the way to perfectibility. Sin, it seemed, was no longer a useful description of the human predicament.

Fundamentalists often fall prey to the notion that, “Since I derived this meaning straight from the Bible, it is equal in force to the Bible itself.”

Liberalism, they argue, lost contact with the heart of the Christian story in an effort to accommodate Modernism. It defined Christianity in such a way that it became undifferentiated from a social movement, and transitioned from a religion into a philosophy of religion.

The Progressive corrective is to reclaim the heart of the biblical story as our story (admittedly reinterpreted), ground our theology in the incarnation of God in Jesus, and return the church to be servants of the world. It also sees the Bible and tradition as authoritative voices that must be listened to critically, while understanding that both are human products, full of wisdom as well as fraught with danger. The foundational belief that the incarnation holds the interpretive clue to understanding ourselves, our world, and God, leads many Progressives to Process Theology. 

So our disagreements are less about what the Bible means than with the various milieus from which they spring. Since there is no such thing as a certifiably perfect milieu, we should welcome another’s interpretation as a necessary contribution to the whole. The foregoing chapters are intended to make this clear. Given this reality, we are better able to address one another as an equal rather than as an “other.”

“When in Doubt, Shout!: Paradoxical Influences of Doubt on Proselytizing.” [Note 3] Disagreeing can be either a learning experience for one or both, or another way of missing the point of loving one’s neighbor as one’s self. As Henry Neufeld put it, “You are never more God-like than when you open your heart’s door to another person. The more different they are, the more God-like that action is.” Neufeld’s understanding of God makes possible such an outcome. Another view of God, much less grace-full, might wish for a more violent outcome, as for those who want gays and lesbians executed in the name of their God. Once again, what we take to the Bible informs what we take out of the Bible.

Not getting the Bible right in some of its particulars is hardly on the level of not getting our lives right. It seems that some in Matthew 25 got their lives right without knowing the particulars of why.

The best that we can do is choose wisely among the options and live with humility in the presence of others. Another way putting this is that we listen to what to us sounds like the voice of God and subordinate all other voices to it. We may as well, because that’s what we do anyway. Now it’s official!

Yes, the Holy Spirit is our teacher, but we can easily slip into the error of believing that anything we think we understand is a direct imparting from the Spirit.

Follow the Golden Rule. Don’t allow differences of outcomes to come between you and another created in the image of God. Always bear in mind that you are not the one another is called to please.

Martin Buber taught us the difference between treating a person as a human being (a Thou—one like yourself) or an object (an It—a thing to be used). If our purpose in biblical discussion is to win someone over, we no longer treat our conversationalist as a person, but as a thing to dominate. If, on the other hand, our objective is to discover something valuable and give our conversation partner an opportunity to teach us, we and our partner are one, or I/ Thou.

We learn not to appear scholarly, or erudite, or to win arguments, but to follow Jesus as a faithful disciple. That’s the difference between being right and righteous. It’s also the point of why we study the Bible in the first place.

Blogger Bob Cornwall Reviews My Book

I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it (Topical Line Drives Book 16).  By Steve Kindle. Gonzalez, FL: Energion Publications, 2015. 44 pages. 

                Why are there so many different Christian denominations and sects?  The easy answer is that while Christians generally affirm the authority of the Bible they disagree among themselves as to the meaning and the application of that text. While Billy Graham would often declare that "the Bible says" in reference to something he was trying to say or prove. The fact is, whatever it was he was trying to say it reflected not what the Bible “says” but his interpretation of the words of the Bible. Issue after issue has come up through the centuries and Christians have appealed to the Bible against each other.  Paedobaptists (those who baptize infants) have their texts, while believer Baptists (those who baptize persons upon confession of faith) have their texts.  Since I’m part of a denomination that practices the later, I’m a bit biased toward the biblical defense of believer baptism.

So, why do we disagree?  We can’t we just all read the Bible and agree to its meaning and move on?  Life isn’t that easy—just look at the different ways in which Americans read the U.S. Constitution. If you think that the Supreme Court simply reads the Constitution and applies it as it was originally intended without any bias present, then you may find it difficult to understand why we have all these 5-4 decisions that tend to be decided along ideological/partisan lines.  What is true there is true of the Bible. 

Steve Kindle takes up the challenge of trying to make sense of all of this in a very brief book that comes in at forty-four pages. While Kindle can’t cover every issue, he does provide the starting point for an important conversation about how we have come to read the Bible the way we do and how we might have more fruitful conversations as Christians.  He does this in two ways.  First he briefly takes us on a historical journey through attempts to read and interpret the Bible, introducing us to Origen, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, and more—all the way to the present.  He brings to the reader’s attention the various ways scripture has been read, from literal (face value) to allegorical methods. He also notes the development and influence of historical critical methodology. 

Having shared this history with us, he moves on to the question of why we so often disagree in our interpretations. With this he lifts up the question of world views.  Again he must do this briefly, but one’s world view will have important implications. Thus, if we accept an evolutionary understanding of the universe’s beginnings and development, including our own evolutionary development, then that will influence how we read and understand creation stories and texts, among other things. In this section he also notes theological starting points—from evangelical to progressive. Of course, these categories often breakdown when applied, but they give us a sense of theological foundations and the way they influence our readings.  Fundamentalists may read the Bible with a greater degree of flatness than progressives, who differ from liberals in that they may not be quite as committed to the dominant world view of the day.  Of course, there are Denominational differences to take into account.  Conservative Presbyterians and conservative Baptists will differ on certain issues, despite their conservative, even fundamentalist understandings.  The same would be true of liberals in both streams.

The final chapter addresses the important question of how we might address these differences in a way that will facilitate more conversation and better understanding.  The starting point here is humility and a willingness to listen to the other.  Steve writes:

Truly listening to each other is a difficult task because it makes us vulnerable. Listening at its heart is opening up oneself to the possibility of change. If we are not vulnerable, we are not really listening. Humility is the willingness to learn, the acknowledgement that not all is known, and the mark of a true disciple. [Kindle Locations 562-565].

If we start with humility, then the next step is to commit one’s self to reading the biblical story in its complete context. With this in mind, Kindle offers these suggestions as a guide to our conversations:

•  Adopt a prayerful attitude of listening to scripture: you are the disciple, it is the teacher. 
•  Be open to discovery: Don’t tell the Bible what’s there; discover it for yourself. 
• Leave assumptions aside.   
• Reserve your judgment: Hold your conclusions tentatively and mull them over for a period of time before camping on them.  (Kindle Locations 616-627). 

If we can keep in mind these guidelines, then the final thing is to agree to live together despite our disagreements.  It is easier, of course, to be part of a denomination or congregation where everyone agrees on everything, but that may mean missing out on important insights. Serving as I do a congregation that has a pretty wide array of views makes for an interesting life, but perhaps that is a healthy place to be. 

It is important, as Kindle makes clear, that we acknowledge our biases when we come to the text. If we can do that then we might be able to move forward in fruitful dialogue. That might not end the differences, but at least it might lead to understanding. It may also allow us to be more attentive to the text of Scripture and its implications for today.

Steve Kindle has done us a great favor by putting together this book.  It’s brief, as are the other books in this series (I’ve contributed three of my own to the series), which are designed to be under fifty pages in length. Because it is brief it doesn’t exhaust the topic. There is plenty of opportunity to explore these issues further.  That said, it is a good place to start.

In conclusion to this review, let me say that I’ve known Steve Kindle for more than a decade. We don’t agree on every issue, but we’ve had many fruitful conversations. We’ve wrestled with texts together, suggesting different ways of reading the text. Sometimes I’ve offered a convincing perspective, sometimes he has. Often we end up agreeing to disagree. Steve and I both started out in very conservative contexts – he among the conservative wing of the Churches of Christ, while I was a conservative evangelical/Pentecostal. We both moved left, though in some ways he’s moved further left than have I.  Both of us agree that we need to listen to a wide spectrum of views, even as we hold to our own deeply held convictions.  So, what Steve and I have done in our conversations down through the years, he is suggesting that others can do as well.  In the end, we do need each other. Take and read; you will be blessed as a result. 

Dr. David Alan Black Reviews My Book

I just finished reading Steve Kindle's new book, I'm Right and You're Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it.

"The current landscape of biblical disagreement is literally worldwide," bemoans Steve, adding, "Many of us think our way is superior to most, if not all" (p. 1). He's right of course. I often ask my students this question: "If we have a perfect source [the Bible] and a perfect teacher [the Holy Spirit], then why do we disagree among ourselves so often?" The answer is obvious: It is we who are not perfect. None of us ever thinks perfectly logically, nor is any one of us ever completely filled with the Spirit. As Steve notes, "Reason is never 'pure' reason; it is always a product of how we perceive logic" (p. 17). 

What to do then? The book concludes with many helpful suggestions, a few of which I mention here (my words, not his):

• Be aware of our own attitudes and presuppositions.
• Recognize that some disagreement is inevitable.
• Let humility guide the discussion. Always.
• Read Scripture in light of its historical context.
• Let the Holy Spirit be our guide.
• Be open to change and even correction.
• Be willing to agree to disagree for the sake of the Gospel.

Steve notes that the goal is "...not to appear scholarly, or erudite, or to win arguments, but to follow Jesus as a faithful disciple" (p. 36). And that is a point, I think, on which all of us can agree. 

[Enegion Publication's] series is called Topical Line Drives. This one hits it out of the park.
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Dr. Black is a world-class Greek scholar and author of one of the most popular texts in seminaries.  He teaches at Southeast Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.  His interest in my book is humbling.  Here's the link to his blog: http://daveblackonline.com/blog.htm. You'll have to scroll down a ways, or use Ctrl f and search for Steve Kindle.

Check Out My Latest Book--Please!

As of last week, my new book, I'm Right and You're Wrong: Why we disagree about the Bible and what to do about it, was published by Energion Publications. Although it isn't specifically about LGBTQI issues, it goes a long way in explaining how people can, and do, differ on major biblical issues. Here's a little of the Introduction:

How many times have you had a conversation with someone that involved a disagreement over the Bible? And how many times have these conversations led to interruptions of friendships or even extended family disputes? Some of these disputes have split congregations. Even the more mild disagreements can leave us perplexed.  Why is it that something so plain to one is so obviously unconvincing to others? This often leads us to search for ways to convince others through honing our interpretive skills, doing elaborate word studies, consulting scholarly commentaries and the like.  In the end, however, people don’t easily change their minds, and we are left to wonder why. 

This book differs from most in that rather than looking at how to interpret the Bible properly, we’ll examine the sources of disagreement among interpreters.  We all have our own ways of trying to understand the Bible and they are close to our hearts.  Many of us think our way is superior to most, if not all.  But we will not venture into who is right and who is wrong in our interpretations.   What concerns us here is why we interpret the way we do and what our attitude should be toward those with whom we disagree.

It's a short book. The average reader will finish it in about two hours. It's part of the Topical Line Drive series. The publisher describes books in this series as "direct and to the point...designed to demonstrate a point of scholarship or survey a topic directly, clearly, and and quickly."

There is now and always has been serious disagreement among Christians. This will likely never change. Disagreement isn't a bad thing; it helps us think through our own positions, and reminds us that no one is capable of getting everything right. The problem with disagreement comes when we are so convinced of our own rightness that we diminish and even disdain all other interpretations. This book is an effort to understand how disagreements can be useful in bringing people together, not tearing them apart. It explains why we disagree, that it's almost impossible for any two people to see things exactly the same, and why humility is our best partner in interpretation.

To see more about the book and how to order, here are a few links:
Energion Publications
Amazon Books
Barns and Noble and Nook

It's available in softcover ($4.99) and in the Kindle Reader format. ($.99)
Let me know what you think.

Let's Not Try to Pretty-up the Bible

Although I will comment on timely issues that affect the LGBT community, mostly I flatter myself by contributing what might be called (at least by some) "think pieces." These are efforts to reframe or clarify issues of importance. By providing a different angle or detecting a nuance, we might be able to rethink a formerly held belief or position. At the very least, I hope to generate comments from other thinkers for our mutual benefit. Today's post is a case in point.

Ever since translating the Bible began, from the Septuagint to modern translations, translators have obscured certain passages for a variety of reasons. Euphemisms abound. In the Hebrew Bible, the penis is referred to as "thigh," and of course, we're all familiar with "knew" as the substitute for sexual intercourse. In the New Testament, you'd never know that menstrual rags or castration are meant by "filthy rags"(Isa. 64:6) and "I would they were even cut off which trouble you." (Gal. 5:12)  The NRSV actually says, "castrate themselves."

There has always been a sensitivity by translators to tone down for propriety sake the very earthy parts of the Bible. But when it comes to actually changing the meaning of the texts, I will protest.

Inclusive language, that is, the intentional use of "gender neutral" language, has generally been around since the 1960s. It first showed up in the churches as efforts to take the masculine meaning away from the concept of God. So instead of "God, when he...," for example, we hear "God, when God...," and the like. This is a very important move as we know that 1) God has no gender, and 2) worlds of meaning are created by words. The world created by "God, he..." easily became a world in which the male is elevated over the female. I am all for the use of gender neutral terms for God in all church settings including sermons, liturgies, and conversations. But when it comes to inclusive language in Bible translations, I must object.

Inclusive language efforts try to take the offending aspects of gender and neutralize them. This goes beyond pronouns for God and includes "Parent" for "Father", substituting "members" for "brothers" when the entire congregation is meant, "they" replaces "he or she," and the like.

Certainly this is a wholesome effort, but it actually makes the Bible less understandable and much less useful. How can that be?

Since these efforts generally come out of the more progressive side of the church, the interest goes much farther than merely inclusive language. They recognize that Jesus' message of a God of love often gets lost in the mix of competing images. So they go about "helping" the Bible represent good theology. We'll see how the Inclusive Bible does this in a moment, but first here's 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: (New American Standard Version)

The women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak, but are to subject themselves, just as the Law also says. If they desire to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is improper for a woman to speak in church. (NASV)

I chose the NASV here because it is a well-known word-for-word translation to the point of being wooden. Anyone reading these verses would come face to face with biblical patriarchy (the family/state system of male dominance and subjection of women). Patriarchy is a biblical fact that runs "from cover to cover." Occasionally there is pushback such as Galatians 3:28, yet patriarchy is the dominate setting. Elders and deacons must be the husbands of one wife, making women ineligible to hold church offices in the "Pastoral Epistles." When the original 12 disciples had to replace Judas, the qualifications made sure a man was chosen. On and on we could go, but you know all this.

So, in an effort to combat the patriarchy of the Bible,and especially its negativity toward women, the Inclusive Bible takes it head on. Here's their translation of 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:

Only one spouse has permission to speak. The other is to remain silent, to keep in the background out of respect, and to wait his or her turn.

Surely this is the way we wish the Bible really had it, but it isn't. This is not how the original audience heard this text. Paul explicitly demands that women remain silent in church; this says exactly the opposite  Even though the original sense offends many modern sensibilities, it's the real Bible. The Inclusive Bible is merely wishful thinking. Unfortunately, most of the recent translations offend in this regard to one degree or another. The intention is honorable, but the result is devastating to biblical understanding.

Perhaps a couple more illustrations of how some translations obscure troublesome passages would be helpful. Here's Matthew 18:15-17 from the New Revised Standard Version:

If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. (NRSV)

"Member" here is literally, "brother." "Member" suggests that Matthew's church made no distinctions in disciplining males and females. This is, of course, how many would like for the church to conduct itself in all things. However, "brother" displays the actual situation where men stand in judgment of men. The disciplining of women fell to their fathers, husbands or brothers. But all of this is lost in the cleaned up version.

One more. One of the arguments that literalists make to oppose the Theory of Evolution is that Genesis 1 uses a phrase meaning reproduction is "after their kind," which is correctly translated. They take this to mean that all the species were created at once and that there could be no evolving of one into another. (Which, by the way, segregationist used "after their own kind" to argue that the races shouldn't intermarry.) So the NRSV translates it as "of every kind," which opens the door for natural selection.

We don't want to leave people with the impression that the Bible is not a worthy companion to help us find God and lead worthy lives. But we do want to warn that reading the Bible is not an easy thing, like reading the morning newspaper. We must learn to differentiate between the culturally derived aspects of the Bible that made sense in that day, but no longer makes sense for us. Someone once said that reading the Bible is like eating watermelon: you have to spit out a few seeds along the way.

When Paul said to "greet one another with a holy kiss," it's perfectly fine to give a hug or handshake today, instead. When in their culture women were subordinated, they are now free in ours. We are living into Paul's inclusive vision of Galatians 3:28 that

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 

So, let's not try to pretty-up the Bible.

First, it's always better to deal with reality than what we would prefer reality to be. Sweeping the problems of the Bible under the rug accomplishes nothing. If you think that cleaning up the offending passages will cure literalists from enforcing patriarchy in their churches, think again. There will always be the King James Version.

Second, if we don't know that the Bible encourages patriarchy, tolerates slavery, subordinates women, and generally represents an outdated worldview, scientifically and otherwise, we lose the fact that it is the product of human beings. Yes, human beings who wrestled with what it means to be human in the presence of the Divine, but human nevertheless. That we can stand in judgment over the Bible comes from listening to all of it, warts and all, and learning to pick the wheat from the chaff. It doesn't take much to see that the "inerrant Bible" is a fiction, but not if it's cleaned up before we get there.

Third, the answer to the problem is not rewriting the Bible, it's in doing good theology. Perhaps knowing that even the original didn't always get it right will help us to understand our human attempts are also fraught with error and subject to revision as others look over our shoulders and make our paths straighter.

So let's live with the Bible as its authors intended. We can handle the seeds just fine.

What the Bible Really Says: NOTHING

(Okay, I cribbed this from my book. Maybe this will make you want to read more of it. 

Just click on the book's cover on the left of the page and you will find it on Amazon.)

The ultimate recourse for those who want to keep homosexuality on the sins list is, “My Bible says....” The sentence generally ends with “...homosexuals are an abomination,” or, “...gays are going to hell,” or “…God hates gays.” This is intended to be the final word on the matter; the Bible has spoken, the issue is clear, we can move on to other things. How so? Because the Bible has spoken.

The Bible, of course says no such thing and I will prove it to you. Go get your Bible. (Yes, really--go get it.) Now, take it in your hands and bring it up to your eyes. Say to it very clearly, “Bible, tell me, what do you have to say about homosexuality?” If you don't hear anything, repeat your question; maybe louder this time. If there is still no answer, shake it; it may be taking a nap. Still hearing nothing? Well, that's all right, because if you do hear the Bible answering you may be on your way to a psychiatric hospital.

The Bible “says” nothing. It is an inert object, words on paper. It can’t utter a sound. Of course, you knew that all along, yet you may still want to repeat that the Bible says something. What is really going on is that people say the Bible says something; people speak on behalf of  the Bible. The Bible is deaf and mute.

Unfortunately, people too often make what “the Bible says” what they want it to say. You see, there is no such thing as an uninterpreted reading of anything, from the daily newspaper to the Bible. All of us read (or “hear what it says”) though a filter or a lens. No one can read without one. Your filter/lens is everything that you have learned through your culture, ethnicity, gender, nationality, education...you get the point...that shapes how you perceive meaning. Every word you read or hear is processed through this filtering system. Everyone reads or hears the same word or words differently. Depending on how far apart our systems are, we can basically understand each other or totally misunderstand. In explaining this to an adult Sunday School class, one member said, “I can think of something we both read that needs no filtering, that is straightforward and immediately understood.” “Okay,” I said. “Let's have it.” He responded, “God is love.” I replied with, “What do you mean by 'God' and what do you mean by 'love'”? He got my point.

When it comes to reading the Bible, we have a two to three thousand year old bridge to cross. We need to be able to “hear” as though we were an immediate member of the culture of those ancients who created those biblical words. This is virtually impossible. The best we can do is approximate this; we will never actually achieve this. And even for those who were contemporaries, they had their own problems. Here's Peter’s comment on Paul's letters: “There are some things in them hard to understand.” (2 Peter 2:16) Indeed.

So the next time you are tempted to tell someone what the Bible says, why not be honest and tell them that you think this is what the Bible, properly interpreted, means. You will have achieved two things. First, you will have admitted that your interpretation is open to opinion (and that it is your opinion), and that you might be, dare I say it...wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-Equality-Same-sex-marriage-church/dp/1484967127/ref=

for those of you reading this post by email

Steve Kindle

www.clergyunited.org

info@clergyunited.org

Biblical Ambiguity Is Our Friend

One of the findings of Bible publishing marketers is that people don’t actually read the Bible. Any pastor can verify that. America is biblically illiterate. Try as they might, their initial attempts to read it are met with elaborate argumentation (Romans), boredom (Leviticus), or the bizarre (Revelation). Some just stick to the tried and true (Psalms, Sermon on the Mount, John 3:16), or simply flip to a random passage and hope for a blessing. Most just give up altogether. But even though they no longer study the Bible, people think they should own one, which is the edge these marketers are exploiting.

Let’s face it, reading the Bible is not easy. It’s not arranged in a way that logically unfolds it meanings. We have to master biblical timelines, grapple with differing genres that require differing modes of interpretation, decipher unfamiliar practices, and try to understand foreign cultures and peoples. Add to this that the King James Version’s Elizabethan English is increasingly foreign territory to modern Americans, but still remains the bestselling Bible. Then there is the nagging problem of ambiguities in the text. We don’t like them.

Have you noticed that most of the translations in the last 25 years focus on “readability”? It’s a given that the Bible is just too complicated to let it remain complicated. So our beneficent translators set about to make the Bible understandable. Today a prospective purchaser has over 30 English translations to choose among.

Then there’s the “value added” Bibles that are marketed to specific demographics to solve their unique problems that the plain Bible can’t seem to provide. Here’s a great example of one directed to men (and it appears, manly men). The publisher writes:

Every Man's Bible: A Bible for Every Battle Every Man Faces

Finally, a Bible that every ordinary guy—from truck drivers to lawyers—can call his own.  This is a guy's type of Bible—straight talk about the challenges of life.  Notes cover everything from work issues to relationships with women to common temptations guys face....Whether on your dashboard or on your desk, you'll want to keep the Every Man's Bible close at hand.  It gives you real answers, real fast.

No demographic goes without its own specific issues resolved. There are study Bibles for teens, women, the addicted, athletes, minorities, college kids, defenders of the faith, Fundamentalists, Evangelicals, Liberals, children, and many, many more. All promise "real answers, real fast." Just what the doctor ordered. In this case, is it Dr. Faust?

People who depend on this approach to biblical understanding are exchanging their own search for personal truth for the tidy explanations that someone else delivers in a palatable package. They claim to make sense out of that confusing Bible for you. The end result is that people think they are getting biblical truth when, in fact, they are simply served up someone else's opinion. And they are still not reading the Bible. They are reading the sidebars, tables, charts, and "How to apply this to your life" explanations, but rarely the Bible. It's perfect for Americans who have lost patience with patience.

Biblical ambiguities are our friend. There is no need to explain them away. For when we do so, we lose touch with a necessary aspect of biblical and lived life. Not everything is easy, or immediately available. Often the explanations involved that "clear up" ambiguities are nothing more than veiled attempts to force theological or ideological opinions in the name of "Thus saith the Lord."  I will provide just one example.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is a notoriously difficult passage to translate.

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. (NRSV emphasis mine)

In an earlier post I dealt with the anachronism involved with"sodomites," a word not invented until 1000 years after the Corinthian letter was written. Nevertheless, some of the more recent translators are not content to let stand the ambiguity of just what or who these people, male prostitutes and sodomites, are. So this is how they clear it up, from the Common English Version:

Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse, thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. (emphasis mine)

There is a perfectly fine translation alternative to this speculation that now serves as a proof-text against homosexuality. "Male prostitutes and sodomites" can easily be translated "male temple prostitutes and those who use them." The ambiguity inherent in this and other passages forces us to dig deep into the biblical text for our answers. It reminds us that all our findings are of our own making and subject to all the restrictions and restraints humanity must bear. We are finite beings only touching the hem of the garment of absolute truth. To pretend otherwise is to dishonor not only the Bible, but the God who created ambiguity in the first place, to make us searchers after God, not imprisoners of the Divine Truth. Ambiguity is our friend; it keeps us human.

Steve Kindle
www.clergyunited.org
info@clergyunited.org

The Problem with an Infallible Bible: You're Not!

The late Harold Lindsell, a prominent Evangelical leader, stated that, "The very nature of inspiration renders the Bible infallible, which means that it cannot deceive us. It is inerrant in that it is not false, mistaken, or defective". (The Battle for the Bible. Zondervan, 1978, p.31)  The key phrase, "it cannot deceive us," is the source of the problem. Couple this with biblical literalism and the problem is compounded. For those who believe in infallibility and literalism believe they can read it essentially without error. "The Bible cannot deceive me; therefore, I am not deceived."

You may have wondered why conservative Christians (mostly the leaders) are so sure of themselves. Well, this is part of the explanation. "I understand (literally) what the Bible says, so I have every right to conclude that it is the truth, and those who disagree with me are wrong."  Wrong, even though they come from the same two understandings and approach the Bible the same way. Those who don't come from the same a priori starting point are wrong by definition.

Simply put, the problem with an infallible Bible is that for it to have any value, you need to be an infallible reader. Many have tried to wear the mantle of (practical) infallibility and crown their hubris by consigning to hell (in the most excessive examples) those who would disagree. The Roman Catholic Church relies on an infallible pope, although papal infallibility has been used only once since it was proclaimed in 1870 to make the Assumption of Mary into heaven an Article of faith.

The notion of Absolute Truth is also subject to the same problem of identifying just what it is. Since we are all, as humans, finite beings, we cannot comprehend Absolute Truth. We can only approach it. The absolute cannot dwell in the finite. This is not to say there is no Absolute Truth; only that it is not a helpful notion so long as we think knowing it is possible. So approaching the biblical text must be done in great humility, our conclusions must be open to adjustment at all times, and our openness to other points of view must be observed with respectful consideration. You may not end up with The Truth, but you will be practicing Christian charity. And that's a pathway to a more expansive understanding of the Bible than thinking you have already arrived will ever take you.