The Bible as it is
I’m leading a formation group right now called “Reading the Bible Like Jesus,” a workshop adaptation of my book, All the Way Down: Rebuilding Christianity from the Rubble of Evangelicalism, while also reading a book with our staff entitled Separation of Church and Hate, a humorous critique by comedian John Fugelsang of how fundamentalist evangelicals misuse the Bible and how you, the sane Christian, can respond should you ever find yourself in conversation with one.
This, of course, has me thinking a lot about the Bible (as if that were odd).
And by that, I mean the Bible as it is.
No one who was taught the Bible growing up was the taught the Bible as it is. Since the time the stories we currently have in our Old and New Testaments began circulating, people received them alongside (and often mediated through) interpretive traditions.
Take, for instance, stories like “the fall” in Genesis 3. The content of Genesis 3 does not contain the title “the fall” and nothing in the story itself directly indicates that it is communicating how humanity “fell” from a state of grace into a state of sin. But that is how some early Jewish interpreters made sense of it. They proposed that the talking snake was Satan, that Adam and Eve’s consequence for their disobedience was the “death” of mortality, previously created to live forever.
In ancient Jewish communities, those interpretations were sometimes written into the sacred texts themselves so that when they were passed along to the next generation that generation was receiving not just the story but an explanation as to what it means.
We do the same thing. Children who learn about Noah’s Ark in Sunday school aren’t just receiving the story. They are receiving an interpretation of the story (what it means) from their well-meaning Sunday school teachers. What results, however, is that they grow up believing the interpretation of the story they heard is the meaning of the story.
And that is often despite details in the story itself.
This is not to say that interpretive traditions are bad. They are unavoidable. But it is to say that part of taking the Bible seriously is understanding the difference between an interpretive stance on the Bible and what the text itself says. Genesis 3 does not say the talking snake is Satan. That is a common way the faith community has understood that character, and it may be the best way to understand it. But it is an interpretive move nonetheless and many Bible readers don’t seem to appreciate the distinction or its implications.
Because while the content of the Bible may be inspired by God, relevant for life, and ultimately harmonious (three of the four fundamental assumptions that governed all ancient Jewish interpretation), it is also cryptic (the fourth assumption that governed all ancient Jewish interpretation). So, as Christian Smith points out in his book The Bible Made Impossible, even if the Bible were a perfect book, the same can never be said for the person interpreting it.
And if you’re always receiving an interpretive tradition alongside the Bible (or worse yet receiving a Bible that has already been filtered through an interpretive tradition), you’re receiving the Bible as the person who interpreted it has taught it to you rather than the Bible as it is.
Again, that is not to sew suspicion or skepticism regarding the Bible. I happen to believe the Holy Spirit is perfectly comfortable and capable working in and through flawed human beings to communicate what God has for us. The point is to begin as a Bible reader to differentiate between what the texts themselves claim or reveal from how those texts have been handled by the faith tradition. Not for the purpose of throwing out the tradition. That would be pretty arrogant. Perhaps the tradition has very good reasons for the interpretation is has passed along with the story.
The purpose is rather so you can more deeply and thoughtfully engage the Bible as it is, not just the Bible you think you have because someone else did the work for you. You may, of course, discover that what you received as a “tradition” and simply accepted as “what the Bible means,” actually represents a more recent invention, not at all in keeping with more common and time-tested traditions.
I have this experience every time I lead my formation group: many of the people who attend our church and take my formation group are shocked to learn that what they always believed “the Bible meant” because that’s what they were told growing up or what their pastor taught them way back when, stands in direct contradiction to the better part of church history and scholarship on that particular topic.
I’ve said this many times, but historic Christianity can be thought of as a very broad river that has produced many tributaries over time. Most Christians grow up in a tributary mistaking it for the river. So, when it comes to the Bible, they believe the specific interpretive tradition they received regarding pick your topic represents the truest or best way to think about that topic, or the way all faithful Christians have always thought about it.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Bible you have is an interpreted Bible. That isn’t bad. There is no other way to receive it. It just means if you’re not careful you can mistake it for the Bible as it is. Thank God for the interpretive traditions we’ve received alongside and about the Bible. But one of the keys to reading the Bible well is to begin to make the distinction between the Bible as it is and these interpretive traditions, understanding where the traditions came from and why, and then trying to locate yourself within them.
Most of Fugelsang’s critiques of fundamentalist evangelicals can be traced back to them defending an interpreted version of the Bible (one that happens to reinforce their interests) rather that dealing honestly with what it says.
And in my experience, that is the source of most people’s struggles when it comes to the Bible. Interpretive traditions and good and necessary. But interpretive traditions are just that; takes on the Bible. They are not the Bible themselves and as Christians we have the freedom to enter into those interpretive discussions and ask if they best serve the faith community they propose to be for.
That’s taking the Bible seriously…as it is.
This, of course, has me thinking a lot about the Bible (as if that were odd).
And by that, I mean the Bible as it is.
No one who was taught the Bible growing up was the taught the Bible as it is. Since the time the stories we currently have in our Old and New Testaments began circulating, people received them alongside (and often mediated through) interpretive traditions.
Take, for instance, stories like “the fall” in Genesis 3. The content of Genesis 3 does not contain the title “the fall” and nothing in the story itself directly indicates that it is communicating how humanity “fell” from a state of grace into a state of sin. But that is how some early Jewish interpreters made sense of it. They proposed that the talking snake was Satan, that Adam and Eve’s consequence for their disobedience was the “death” of mortality, previously created to live forever.
In ancient Jewish communities, those interpretations were sometimes written into the sacred texts themselves so that when they were passed along to the next generation that generation was receiving not just the story but an explanation as to what it means.
We do the same thing. Children who learn about Noah’s Ark in Sunday school aren’t just receiving the story. They are receiving an interpretation of the story (what it means) from their well-meaning Sunday school teachers. What results, however, is that they grow up believing the interpretation of the story they heard is the meaning of the story.
And that is often despite details in the story itself.
This is not to say that interpretive traditions are bad. They are unavoidable. But it is to say that part of taking the Bible seriously is understanding the difference between an interpretive stance on the Bible and what the text itself says. Genesis 3 does not say the talking snake is Satan. That is a common way the faith community has understood that character, and it may be the best way to understand it. But it is an interpretive move nonetheless and many Bible readers don’t seem to appreciate the distinction or its implications.
Because while the content of the Bible may be inspired by God, relevant for life, and ultimately harmonious (three of the four fundamental assumptions that governed all ancient Jewish interpretation), it is also cryptic (the fourth assumption that governed all ancient Jewish interpretation). So, as Christian Smith points out in his book The Bible Made Impossible, even if the Bible were a perfect book, the same can never be said for the person interpreting it.
And if you’re always receiving an interpretive tradition alongside the Bible (or worse yet receiving a Bible that has already been filtered through an interpretive tradition), you’re receiving the Bible as the person who interpreted it has taught it to you rather than the Bible as it is.
Again, that is not to sew suspicion or skepticism regarding the Bible. I happen to believe the Holy Spirit is perfectly comfortable and capable working in and through flawed human beings to communicate what God has for us. The point is to begin as a Bible reader to differentiate between what the texts themselves claim or reveal from how those texts have been handled by the faith tradition. Not for the purpose of throwing out the tradition. That would be pretty arrogant. Perhaps the tradition has very good reasons for the interpretation is has passed along with the story.
The purpose is rather so you can more deeply and thoughtfully engage the Bible as it is, not just the Bible you think you have because someone else did the work for you. You may, of course, discover that what you received as a “tradition” and simply accepted as “what the Bible means,” actually represents a more recent invention, not at all in keeping with more common and time-tested traditions.
I have this experience every time I lead my formation group: many of the people who attend our church and take my formation group are shocked to learn that what they always believed “the Bible meant” because that’s what they were told growing up or what their pastor taught them way back when, stands in direct contradiction to the better part of church history and scholarship on that particular topic.
I’ve said this many times, but historic Christianity can be thought of as a very broad river that has produced many tributaries over time. Most Christians grow up in a tributary mistaking it for the river. So, when it comes to the Bible, they believe the specific interpretive tradition they received regarding pick your topic represents the truest or best way to think about that topic, or the way all faithful Christians have always thought about it.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The Bible you have is an interpreted Bible. That isn’t bad. There is no other way to receive it. It just means if you’re not careful you can mistake it for the Bible as it is. Thank God for the interpretive traditions we’ve received alongside and about the Bible. But one of the keys to reading the Bible well is to begin to make the distinction between the Bible as it is and these interpretive traditions, understanding where the traditions came from and why, and then trying to locate yourself within them.
Most of Fugelsang’s critiques of fundamentalist evangelicals can be traced back to them defending an interpreted version of the Bible (one that happens to reinforce their interests) rather that dealing honestly with what it says.
And in my experience, that is the source of most people’s struggles when it comes to the Bible. Interpretive traditions and good and necessary. But interpretive traditions are just that; takes on the Bible. They are not the Bible themselves and as Christians we have the freedom to enter into those interpretive discussions and ask if they best serve the faith community they propose to be for.
That’s taking the Bible seriously…as it is.
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