What is the Bible?
By Mark Oakley, Sunday 10th February, 2008
This is the text of the first Adult Sunday School talk, given on Sunday 10th February.
PART 1
It is the best-selling book of all time, 21 million copies sold in an average year. It is translated in 2,212 languages and, though, perhaps unread, sits on the shelf in millions of homes. The Bible. What is the Bible? This important question, a rather basic one for people of faith but also often a very sincere one from those who are intrigued about Christianity, can be approached in two ways. First, what is the Bible from a factual point of view as regards its history, its contents, its dates, its author, its themes. Answering this question is similar to answering What is Treasure Island? Answer – its an adventure novel by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson who later died at the age of 44 on a Samoan island, and which narrates a tale of buccaneers and buried gold, published in 1883, a coming of age story and one of the most frequently dramatised of all novels. We can ask a similar question of the same type when we ask What Is the Bible?
But also, as people who believe in God, we can ask the same question and mean something different. What is the Bible to faith? What spiritual, sacred origins and purpose might it have? How should we read and interpret it? How should we use it in our thinking and talk about God, belief and ethics? How does it differ from Treasure Island, in other words? It is frequently called the word of God but how should this word be read and understood? How do we approach and listen the texts as we might do the newspaper (Here is the news..)or a poem or a fairy story (Once upon a time…)or as a divine inerrant email? Do we look to it for facts, as we might search on the internet, or do we look for wisdom as we might in a conversation with a friend? Is the Bible full of knowledge, as an encyclopedia is, or full of wisdom captured in ancient forms? (The difference between knowledge and wisdom is nicely caught be observing that knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it into a fruit salad). There are the related issues of the proper use and appaling abuse of the bible, the inspiration it has and does bring and the things that people may say about it that we can´t accept. It maybe easier to conclude what the bible isn´t than what it is.
So, in a few minutes let me look at these two sides of the same question and then we can talk about it together.
Well, the first obvious things to say is that although the Bible is one volume it is made up of many books (Rosemary Bohr can sing them all!) – 66 with some variations. Bible actually comes from a Greek word meaning The Books. So it is better to think of it, when you look at the Bible, as being more of a bookcase than a book, a portable library, a collection of texts. The other obvious thing to say is that this bookcase of the Bible has two shelves as it were: the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Sunday service we have three readings. The first is always from the Old Testament, the Second from the New and then the last reading is always from one of the 4 Gospels that are part of the New Testament. We travel, as ti were, from our roots, into the thought of our early Christian ancenstors, and then into the heart of the Gospel itself.
The Old Testament is, basically, the Jewish Scritptures, the Hebrew Bible. All the books of the Old Testament are written in the Hebrew alphabetic script of 22 letters. Some parts of the OT are as old as the 10th or 11th century BC (the poem in Judges 5 is usually thought to be the oldest text in the Bible) whilst the latest, Daniel, comes from the middle of the second century BC (160 BC). The Old Testament is traditionally divided into three parts: 1) The Torah (or Pentateuch) which is the first 5 books and contains a mixture of narrative stories and legal texts. Narrative can predominate in books such as Genesis, Exodus and Numbers, in others, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the legal material predominates. Deuteronomy is cast as the last testament of Moses to the people, prior to his death and the entry of the people into the Land under Joshua. 2) The Prophets, books of narratives and oracles, preceded by some ancient histories found in Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings. Wonderful stories are found here but they are not objective history as we think of it, perhaps, but written with a strong theological persepctive. 3) The Writings � contains a mixture of psalms (hymns), proverbial material, and other historic books. Song of Songs is a good example of us not always knowing some of these texts an erotic poem that never mentions God once!
The New Testament is a collection of early Christian texts that quickly became important and authoritative in the early Christian communities. There are not so many authors though in the NT as Paul writes many of the texts and so does Luke as well as he is thought to be the author of the Acts of the Apostles as well as his Gospel. The NT is written in a type of Greek that was the everyday language of educated people of the time. The earliest text in the NT is probably the First Letter that Paul wrote to the Thessalononians, around 49 AD, and the latest probably the 2nd Letter of Peter around 100-130. Now the forms of literary texts we get in the NT differ a bit from those in the OT. We have Gospels, similar to ancient biographies (not like ours) Mark written first, Matthew and Luke copying him and editing and adding, and John; letters, varying from short personal communication (Philemon) to elaborate treatises of 16 chapters like Romans; Acts a form recording the deeds of famous exemplary early Christians; and an Apocalypse, Revelation, a form of writing that was popular in 1st century Judaism.
Now Jesus and his first disciples were Jews, their context, belief, worship and culture was Jewish. Their Bible was our OT and so it is vital that Christians immerse themselves in the stories and world of the OT as it is often the key to understanding the thoughts and world found in the NT. There is a lot of interplay between the OT and the NT, when the new writers were working they drew inspiration from the Hebrew scriptures. The events of the past affect the way the present is experienced and the future dreamt of.
So, we have one volume made up of a number of texts of lots of different types, different ages, different authors and purposes. So how did they come to be put together in one book?
The process of collecting and fixing the scriptures of a particular community is often referred to as the canonisation of scripture. The Greek word Kanon means a rod or a measure and to create a canon of sacred writings is therefore to create a body of works that will be in some sense normative or authoritative for that community for which it is intended. If you like, these are the words by which the community measures itself, the Kanon. You then have the later problem of translation into different languages and you only need to reflect on all those favourite passages of the bible you like and all the different versions you have heard it either beautifully or horribly put, to realise that translation is a live issue.
The Old Testament was slow and gradual in coming together. There doesn�t seem to have been one authority that finally decided what was to be included and what not but there was a gradual consensus that these texts were the ones that spoke from faith to faith and it may even as have been as late as the C2th A.D. that the old testament that we have now was finally agreed upon. Jesus refers to the Law and the Prophets. The discovery of what are known as the Dead Sea scrolls in some caves in Wadi Qumran in 1947, revealed a lot about how these texts were known and used amongst certain groups in the C2th B.C. Also the Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek translation is known as the Septuagint because the legend is 72 elders in 72 days � and some other books are discovered in this translation that are not found in the Hebrew versions. It therefore appears that there was a certain fluidity as to what was included.
The Christian New Testament also came together gradually. Collections were made of early Christian writings and by the end of the C2th such collections were used by church leaders for teaching and inspiration. Four Gospels emerged and although there were attempts to compose just a single narrative out of them by the end of the C2th it was agreed that there ought to be a four-fold Gospel because they couldn�t agree to which should stay and which go. The long process of acceptance of texts as being scripture was eventually concluded by a series of decisions made by Church councils in the C4th. There was a general rule, books were included which were judged to have been written by one of the apostles, to have been addressed to the church at large and from early times and which were believed to be orthodox. These criteria were applied flexibly (Hebrews, Philemon, Jude, Revelation).
PART 2
Now let´s turn to the second question of what is the bible for faith. And I think the easiest way of looking at some ways forward here is to take a look at two views of the bible that you will find today amongst Christian people. First there is the view the bible is the inerrent norm of faith because the bible is the only source of information about Jesus on whom Christianty is founded. Many Christians believe that it must be protected from error by God so that the revelation of God in Jesus will not be corrupted or distorted. Traditional Christians of all denominations hold that the bible is inspired by the spirit of God and that that inspiration entails that it is without any mistakes. Some Christians believe that is the only norm of faith so that any church teachings that contradict what´s in the bible must be rejected and any teachings not found in the bible must be regarded as optional. We will discuss this more next week when we look at how Anglicans tend to differ from this singular approach. There are problems with this view as I´m sure some of you are aware – what do we make of contradictions and how do we read stories such as Genesis 1 and is it only inerrent in the original language or are all the translations inspired in the same way? Also, if all the bible is inerrently inspired why do Christians not follow it all to the letter?
Secondly, a great many Christians do not insist on such strict and total inerrancy, so that Genesis 1 is mythical and not scientifically accurate, for instance but are no less important for that. Here, it is believed that the word of God is Jesus himself and that the bible is a witness to that revelation and so Jesus is the norm of faith and particular attention must be given to the gospels that witness to him. These Christians still believe the bible to be inspired but also believe it to be full of humanity marked by both the glory of God and the fallability of human writers. In fact, this is believed to be essential to avoid us from bibliolatry, worship of the bible rather than the God of whom it speaks. There is no need here to place the bible on a pedastol. It is a friend, a resource and the primary source of insight into the nature of God but, depending on your position, there are also other insights given to us in different ways and these also need to be taken seriously. Problems here are: what criteria do we use to judge what is still authoritative and what are culturally influenced negotiables? Does the Church belong to the Bible or the Bible belong to the Church?
I suppose you might summarise these two approaches as normative and formative. The first tends to look to the bible to make decisions, understand the world, maybe differing from scientific or modern views, and to give rulings in matters of belief and practice. The other approach, tends to see the bible as formative, giving shape and momentum and insuring that there are tracks on which the Christian community travels but which also demands of us our own imagination and reflection as we seek God´s will in our own day. This is Bible as compass, rather than manual; light house rather than rescue boat.
I suppose one of the issues that faces all Christians whichever approach they take on the bible is how we deal with the tricky bits, all the bits we don´t much like � these will include warfare and blood spilling, the passing remarks about women, divorce, homosexuality, for others it will be the extra miraculous stories like virgin birth or ascension. Some are for simply accepting them and saying that whether or not they make sense, the fact that they are in the bible means that they reflect God´s mind and are true. The other approach would be to say, well they believed that then but frankly times have changed and we are seeking to be faithful in our own day with our own knowledge and all the developments in science and culture, not necessarily better, but just different and that there some bits which can be laid aside even if we don´t remove them. Most Christians do this up to a point, just in case you think you don´t in that for instance, St Paul says that women ought to have their heads covered in church, Leviticus that you shouldn�t eat shellfish.
Another approach would be to say that sometimes there are things in the bible which we don´t like which nevertheless confront us with something from which we are running away and that the bible is not there so much as to answer our questions and make us feel right but to question our answers and x-ray who we are and what we have become. There are passages with which we need to argue with, debate with and look at from different angles and that this process itself is part of our spiritual growth. God calls us into a dynamic, not a static, relationship with him and being confronted with discomfort from time to time ensures we do not stagnate into simply using the bible to back up our own ideas. The quote of your sheet from George Bernard Shaw: no man ever believes that the Bible means what it says, he is always convinced that it says what he means.
The final thing I want to say before we talk about this more is this issue of the use and abuse of the bible. We need to be on our guard as to how we can pick bits and bobs out of the bible for our own ends. The bible can be made into bullets which we fire off at each other in a very unholy slanging match. As we heard this morning in the Gospel reading even the devil can quote the bible! The bible can be used to justify opposing views and so Martin Luther King used it as an inspiration to lead people out of exile into a promised land where human God given dignity would be universally embraced, and on the other hand the Dutch reformed churches supported apartheid in south africa believing it was biblical and therefore justified.
Priests are asked to “unfold the scriptures”. Other images are “to read, learn, mark and inwardly digest” and “breaking open the word”, the “symphony of scripture”. All these are engaging, dynamic images, requiring work from us, serious and joyful work.
Whatever our conclusions, I think as Christian people we can usually agree on a few things: first that the bible is a primary source of inspiration and knowledge about God (“containing all things necessary for slavation”), secondly that it is a tremendous library that gives witness to God´s love relationship with the world and our faltering attempts to be faithful in that relationship and lastly that whether we believe in its messages literally or with non-literal understanding we can together try and discern what one early theologian said, was the love between the lines. He said that when we read the bible we must not be concerned about the puntuation or each particular word or phrase, beautiful though they may be. We are he said, to read the love between the lines and the translation of that love is to be made into the lives that you and I live.
