Wednesday,
December 19, 2012
This morning, for a change, my creative juices are flowing in a positive
direction, although some might interpret these thoughts as negative. The subject, once again, is the Bible and the contention that those who
view it as inerrant, infallible or literal, do so at the expense of distorting the message, the true meaning
of the most precious “Word of God”.
The contention, mine of course, is shared by a multitude of real scholars—real scholar being defined as one who approaches the study of the
literary and historic aspects of this all time best selling book, without the
prejudices or bias of believers seeking proof that their interpretation is
true. Those believers who claim to
be unbiased in their scholastic study
of the Bible, who claim that their scholars do not have a predisposing
prejudice, are unaware of the definition of the word “bias” when applied to
areas of research and statistics.
The debate over truth, authenticity and history of the Bible with inerrant, infallible
believers is futile. Every
question, every challenge can be met, legitimately, to them, by reverting to
their principle that the Bible is the inerrant
Word of God, and therefore cannot be interpreted any other way despite
irrationality, mythical resemblance, contradictions, scientifically obtained
information demonstrating knowledge of true authorship, and changes made during
decades and centuries of oral tradition, and proof of changes made by a
multiplicity of interpretations or whims of scribes. Scribes were people who could read and write who penned the
original and copied the “Word of God in biblical and pre-modern times.
When an inerrant believer cherry
picks a Bible passage to challenge a true, modern student, a common
practice is to ask of the student (for whom the passage does not contain
immutable information for either side), “What are you going to do, tear that
page out of the Bible?” The student’s response is that the
believer has transformed this beautiful Word
into an image of worship, an engraved image, in direct violation of the second
commandment, and in so doing has exalted the sacred text into impotent
meaninglessness. (Talk about inflaming them, that statement will take them over
the top).
What’s left for the believer is their belief in magic, acceptance of
obvious mythological analogies as literally true, and rejection of any theory
or proof of the results of true scholasticism which question any fundamentalist
view of any book, any verse, any author which are available to be rightfully
studied by a legitimate, contemporary scholar of the Bible.
The charismatic literalist does not understand that it is his approach,
his dogmatic insistence of being right about things not believable to logical people,
is what’s driving people away from the church today. Fundamentalism builds a
blockade that keeps modern man from finding and knowing the real, living Jesus.
Are these thoughts negative?
Depends on which side you are on—truth, or being right.
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