What Does the Bible Teach? Part 2 of 3

The short answer is: a lot!  It's not too complicated or difficult to understand ... really!

It’s important to let the words of the Bible speak for themselves; to read and study it outside of a dogmatic (meaning holding certain principles as incontrovertibly true) perspective, otherwise you may be adding bias.   Christianity has certain foundational beliefs that influence how a christian perceives what s/he reads, even what s/he considers ‘the Bible’.  Judaism does too.  Even humanism and atheism can be dogmatic, as they also include a bias. 

It’s really hard to read without a bias!  It’s pretty much human nature to want to believe we have things quite figured out, and so we tend to read looking more for confirmation for our own beliefs, than reading to discover.

Here are some things I’ve discovered in my own study, that I didn’t know before:

Genesis 1 doesn’t actually say that God created the world out of nothing.  It uses language to say he ‘formed and filled’ a shapeless mass.  It neither says God made the original mass … nor does it say he doesn’t.  Its focus is instead that God’s word (think ‘law’) caused actions, which made something formerly without use or purpose … useful and purposeful.  It can be seen as a teaching that this is what mankind (who carries the ‘image’ of God) is also to do … to act according to God’s word, to ‘cultivate’ what was received, to keep and maintain it, to bring out its purpose.

These first few chapters of Genesis also teach that God gives freedom (you may eat of any tree in the garden…this included the ‘tree of life) yet within boundaries (but not of the tree that is in the middle of the garden).  This wasn’t a hard thing to do.  It didn’t require ‘faith’ or ‘belief’ it required trust that God meant what he said, the kind of trust that would result in an action of voluntarily remaining within the boundary.  The ‘six days work, seventh day rest’ is also a boundary, this one on time and authourity.

It’s not hard to understand, in looking around us at creation, that we didn’t make it; that instead we received it.  It came from outside us.  In reading through history, there are no claims that mankind or any other creature created itself or anything else.  Neither historical or current evidence offers anything  different.

The idea that creation ‘evolved’ through a process requires too much blind faith, faith that isn’t supported by evidence.  If someone leaves a mess in a room, even many years later, it’s still a mess in a room.  What is in the room is more likely to have ‘devolved’ into more basic components than ‘evolved’ into something greater.  It requires even blinder faith to believe that somehow a process of ‘evolution’ also just happened to end up with a creation that works together so marvelously. And not only works together, but acts according to some sort of pattern, some sort of predetermined order.  There is significant and logical evidence for a Creator.

So what’s written in these first few chapters of Genesis as a ‘given’ makes logical sense.  A power (an ‘el’ in Hebrew, a mighty one) formed and filled and ordered things to run the way they do, according to a planned purpose. To me, this makes the most sense, that this writing is referring to that mighty power outside ‘us’, outside even the universe (as even the universe is subject to it).  One way to understand these chapters is to see the point primarily as being to introduce the order of creation, the purpose within which things are intended to be managed.

Mankind is intended to be the ruler of creation, as the ‘el’ is the ruler of mankind.  If the purpose of the el is to produce, to cultivate and to enhance, to manage benevolently, then this should be the purpose of mankind.

But there is a choice given to humanity, that isn’t given to any of the other creatures.  This choice is to willingly submit to this order … or not to.  Consequences are given for both actions.  ‘You shall surely die’ if you turn away.  And instead of trusting the el, humanity trusted in the interpretation of a created being.  And they ‘died’.  More on that in the next post…

Who Wrote the Bible? Part 1 of 3

God did not write either the Hebrew or the Christian Bible!

People did.  Moses is said to have written the Torah, and prophets, teachers and historians wrote most of the rest.  Interestingly, no claim is ever made that Jesus wrote anything (except on sand…John 8:6). 

It is recorded in the letter of 2 Peter (though the verses where this phrase is included are difficult to translate) that ‘holy men of old’ were ‘carried along by the Holy Spirit (of God)’, but its not said even here that God gave the words to write.  Instead, it’s claimed that the prophets were ‘moved’ or ‘carried’ (Greek phero G5342) by the spirit of God, to ‘use words to describe their thoughts’ (Greek laleo G2980). 

Did God write any of it?  Well, it says this in Exodus 31:18:

He (God) gave Moses two tablets of testimony when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, tablets of stone written by the finger of God.

This appears to be a strong expression claiming that the Law came directly from God.  This is further reinforced by Exodus 24:12, 32:16 and Deuteronomy 4:13 and 5:22:

The LORD said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”

The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.

And he (God) declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.

(Note that the covenant is the ‘ten words’ or commandments…this is what was written on the tablets)

These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

Did you notice the phrase 'and he added no more'?  That's often somehow overlooked...

These are the only claims to God writing anything, and they all refer to what people today call the ‘ten commandments’, though in Hebrew it is the ten dabar, meaning ‘words’ or ‘utterances’ (a commandment is a different word - mitsvah)

So if God didn’t write the Bible, where did it come from?  Who put it together?  The simple answer is people wrote down teachings, interpretations, history, warnings, accounts…far more than just what is included in ‘the Bible’. 

According to Moses, God gave him legal rulings on these ten utterances (ten commandments) that is, the ways to apply God’s Law to situations that would come up.  Much of what Moses is said to have written includes such rulings; rulings on what constituted idolatry, adultery, murder, lying etc. 

Over time, whatever Moses originally wrote has been lost.  We have copies of copies…and these don’t exactly match other copies of copies (though they are remarkably close).  And of course, the originals weren’t written in English, they’ve been translated, so we are even further away from the ‘original’ words and their meanings. 

(It’s not hopeless though!  God’s teachings can be quite clearly understood from reading the ‘whole thing’, from the beginning.  More on that in the next blog entry…)

The Torah was ‘canonized’ (officially declared Scripture, or ‘holy writing’) about 500 BC, the writings of the Prophets were canonized about 350 BC and the ‘Writings’ (including Psalms, Proverbs) not fully till about 100 AD.  The Christian ‘New Testament’ was canonized about 350 AD, and eventually added to a modified Hebrew Bible (some books were removed). 

So read whatever you call your Bible, cover to cover, its good reading and great teaching.  But be careful not to ascribe qualities to it that it doesn’t even claim for itself