A Strange Mix - Part 2b

At the end of my last post I refer to biblical authors (plural). This characterization is intentional as there are those who, while acknowledging that different individuals penned the various biblical books, are explicit or implicit in affirming that there is a singular author – God. Some take the view that God dictated the precise words we encounter in the Bible.¹ Others are slightly more subtle, arguing that God worked through the individuality of the human writers, yet still conclude that the resulting message is fully attributable to God. From these approaches come views about the Bible being absolutely accurate in all that it states – about history, science, psychology, etc. because, if it comes directly from a perfect God, it obviously cannot contain any errors.²

Now, I admit that this understanding creates serious problems for me. Here are three examples: When I read in the Bible that God created a flat earth and a domed sky over it with lights traveling their courses within and over the dome (Genesis 1), as a person of the 21^st Century I am confronted with a credibility problem. Similarly, when I read a story in which God appears to approve of a man protecting visitors to his home by offering his own virgin daughters for the sexual pleasure of his neighbors (Genesis 19), I am shocked and offended at the suggestion that this is somehow a good deity. Or again, when I read a passage where women are told that they are not to have authority over men, not to braid their hair or wear pearls or gold or expensive clothing, and where women are held responsible for the origin of evil in the world (I Timothy 2:9-15), I must conclude either that God is a sexist or that this teaching does not come from God.

Staying with the theme of the Bible and picking up again on my first “strange mix” posting – something else I really value in liturgical worship is the cycle of biblical readings (the lectionary) that includes four  readings each Sunday: normally one each from the Jewish scriptures, the Psalms, the New Testament letters, and a Gospel. Following each reading on Sunday morning, the reader proclaims: “The Word of the Lord,” and the congregation responds: “Thanks be to God.” And I have no problem affirming this each week, but in doing so I do not mean that the words we have heard are a direct, unmediated communication from God. Rather, for me the connection between the biblical narrative and the affirmation “The Word of the Lord” has to be much more nuanced.

In this regard, I have found most helpful the writings of Marcus Borg, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University.³ He states directly – and, again, this will cause some of my Christian friends to gasp – that the authorship of the Bible is not divine but fully human. More precisely, the two “testaments” of the Christian Bible are the literary product of two diverse groups: the ancient Hebrews and early Christian communities. To see the biblical authorship in this way though does not in any way deny the reality of God. God (or “the Sacred” or “Spirit”) is a reality attested to in human experience, that cannot be relegated to being simply a human creation or projection.⁴ And, of course, as in anything we say, whatever we say about the Sacred will be a human creation. We cannot talk about God except with words, symbols, stories, concepts, and categories known to us, for they are the only language we have. Nevertheless, when we have experiences of “the holy,” “the numinous,” “the sacred,” these experiences go beyond, shatter, and relativize our human language and categories. From the perspective offered here, the Bible – as a fully human product – originates in such experiences.⁵ And so it is “the Word of the Lord,” not in terms of origin or authorship but in the sense that the biblical narrative constitutes a human response to the experience of the Sacred, of God. And, to the extent that we are open to this dimension of the Bible, it can be a channel through which we encounter God in our lives.

1  Clark H. Pinnock. Biblical Revelation: The Foundation of Christian Theology. 1971: Chicago. Moody Press. pp. 89-95.

On p. 90 Pinnock quotes J.I. Packer who says: “If the words (emphasis added) were not wholly Gods, then their teaching would not be wholly God's.

2  Ibid., p. 94: “Because Scripture is a divine Word . . . we insist on its truthfulness in all that it teaches.”

3  Marcus J. Borg. Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally. 2001: San Francisco. Harper San Francisco. I highly recommend this book in its entirety. On the present topic though, see especially chapter 2, pp. 21-36. I have also found very helpful the writings of retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, especially his book Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture. 1991. San Francisco. Harper San Francisco.

4  On the question of God I recommend Marcus J. Borg. The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith. 1997. San Francisco. Harper San Francisco.

5  Much of my argument (and language) here comes directly from Borg (op.cit.) p. 22.