The Curse of The Bible (CH3PT4/5)

The first Christians were Jews. This is a historical fact. At one point a small sect within Judaism wanted to separate itself from the exclusivity of the Jewish religion and have table fellowship with Gentiles. They wanted to practice their faith in clear violation of the Jewish Law. At that point they could no longer be Jewish. What we call the Bible, was pretty much the same for the first century Jews as well. They had the Old Testament, but by then it was canonized and it was a norm for all Jews. It was called, "The Law".

Just as the word "bible" is widely diverse today, the term "the Law" was widely diverse in the first century. Today we put our hand on the Bible, when we swear an oath in court. Why do we do this? I can't say completely, but I am sure that it has nothing to do with any belief that the church has on the Bible. In some homes the Bible is displayed prominently as though it were a decoration. And that is all it really is. I'm not sure why we use the Bible as living decor, but I am sure that it has nothing to do with what the church believes about the Bible. When we want to express the seriousness of our claim we will call it the "gospel truth". Of course, there is no mention of "gospel truth" in the Bible, and it is unclear how this phrase relates to the Bible. But it certainly adds to the diversity in which we think about our Bible in culture.

Jews believed that the Law was given by God. The mechanism of inspiration can be debated over, but the property of inspiration remains the same for both Jews and Christians when it comes to their Bibles, and the Jews believed that their Bible was inspired. The Law was given by God. So it seems a very pertinent question to consider, especially in the review of literalism and symbolism. How were first century Jews, who believed in an inspired text, able to literally defy their Bible in order to develop their spirituality in a new direction and yet retain that Bible in their belief system?

Christians of the first century could have easily just abandoned the Bible. It was clear that they did not believe that they had to follow the Law. (Acts 15:28,29 Gal. 2:25). But what was the reason to keep the Old Testament in the corpus of Christian scripture? After all, had not Christians of the first century heard the argument that if you are not going to follow all the Bible then why follow any of it? The only reason that these Christians were able to retain their belief and devotion to the Old Testament is because they saw their scriptures symbolically, and not literally. If the first century Christians were literalists then we would simply not have a Christianity today.

But there is more then just this simple fact. For all intents and purposes it seems that the writings of the New Testament hold in contempt those who would attempt to claim that literal interpretations of the Old Testament applied to this New Testament Church. In Galatians Paul instructs Christians who feel that they have to read the Old Testament literally that we are free because of faith (Gal. 5:6). The conflict arose that Christians should be circumcised. This makes sense, of course, because it is what the Old Testament says, but Paul makes sure to put the kibosh of this line of thinking and even calls it sin to think this way, "A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough" (Gal. 5:9). He even tells those who would read the Bible literally to emasculate themselves (Gal. 5:12)! What does Paul do? He interprets the Old Testament symbolically, "The entire law is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'." (Gal. 5:14).

Opposed to what most fundamentalists think it was this literalism pattern that the author of 1 Timothy says is "contrary to sound doctrine" (1 Tim. 1:10). Later in 1 Timothy the author expounds further and lists some other things contrary to "sound doctrine". They are an overemphasis on "words" and "controversy" and those who use "godliness" as a means for profit (6:4-5). 2 Timothy tells us that sound doctrine is encapsulated in "faith and love" and that it conforms to the teaching of Jesus (2 Tim. 1:13). But Titus gives us the greatest insight into "sound doctrine" when it says that those who oppose it are of the "circumcision group" (Titus 1:9-10). The Circumcision group here are the group of pharisaic Jews who in Acts 15 were trying to get Gentile Christians to be circumcised and follow the Mosaic Law. They were the literalists of that time.

But that is not all Paul has to say against those who read the Bible literally. He actually curses those who obey the law, "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse" (Gal. 3:10). Observing the law means reading the Bible of the first century literally. Imagine if a pastor went up to a pulpit in any Evangelical church and said, "All who rely on reading the Bible literally are under a curse!" Why would Paul use such drastic language?

Paul sees something in Biblical literalism that I do not think the Church has fully realized in its two thousand years of existence. It is embodied in the book of Colossians, "Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!'?" (Col. 2:20-21). In this pericope, the author of Colossians is grouping the Jewish law with all other pagan rituals, "having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross" (Col. 2:14). And it is here that the true danger of Biblical literalism is exposed.

When we read the Bible literally what ends up happening is that the Bible takes the place of God in our lives. The Bible becomes an idol! This was seen above when we saw some of the hermeneutical absurdities of literalism, and how in every case the Bible was elevated to a point of near absolute un-interpretative-ability. The only possible way to interpret the Bible in such a way would be to establish some mediating devices, like dispensationalism, harmonies, or authorial intent. And though we can see how ridiculous it is to engage in these activities as an expression of faith, what becomes terrifying is when we see how we are elevating something to divine status.

V - The Errancy of Inerrancy

But shouldn't God's word be elevated to divine status, if we claim that the Bible is inspired? This is

definitely a valid claim, but is it one that necessitates literalism? Hence, do we elevate the Bible as divine by reading every word as though it were grammatically represented by the words or God, or do we elevate the Bible as divine by making it the center of our lives? I think we have come far enough in this book to suggest that the former is but a mere superficial representation of inspiration, while the latter is a truer representation of what it means for a text to be inspired. Now, these two are not mutually exclusive, but they are different from one another. It could be, and most likely is, the case that people who have made the Bible the center of their lives feel that this means that the Bible is grammatically representative of the words of God. This being the case, from all the information we have studied thus far, it is prudent and wise to consider that there is a very real possibility for the Bible to be the center of a persons life, and for there to be no grammatical representation of the words in the Bible as the Word of God.

Thus, there is no de facto mode of interpreting inspired texts as literal. It is doubtful if there is any de facto method to interpret an inspired text, that will have to be explored later. What is important to realize is that because this is so, the claim of inerrancy is utterly devoid of meaning. Whether or not the Bible has errors, is erroneous, because our belief in an inspired text should not compel us to make assertions concerning what the literal meaning of a text is as it concerns our faith. It should not compel us to make any literal assertions what-so-ever. Even in the CSBI itself, this is realized when they say how inerrancy is not disproven by any errors believed to exist in the Bible. This is what is says in article 13, "We deny that it is proper to evaluate Scripture according to standards of truth and error that are alien to its usage or purpose. We further deny that inerrancy is negated by Biblical phenomena such as a lack of modern technical precision, irregularities of grammar or spelling, observational descriptions of nature, the reporting of falsehoods, the use of hyperbole and round numbers, the topical arrangement of material, variant selections of material in parallel accounts, or the use of free citations". It says it right there, "Inerrancy is not negated by falsehoods". 

The fact of the matter is that the Bible has errors. Scholars have known this since the dawn of reading the Bible began. They harmonized and synthesized as many combinations as possible to form whatever structure they could to eliminate those errors, but their process only revealed the existence of the errors, it did not eliminate anything. If our belief in inerrancy allows for these errors to exist, then what is the point of inerrancy, except to create cognitive dissonance?

With literalism out of the way, it now seems like Christianity is open to a very serious attack. And rightly so. If we remove the privileged status of a literal word of God from our devotion of faith then what is left of our faith that is any different than any other religion? Here's where the bricks fall on our head...

When a literalist considers the religions of the world he figures that the founders of that particular faith could not have possibly been writing the words of God, because only the God of the Bible did that. So this means that the founders would have had to of written down their own thoughts on a piece of paper thinking that this would be something God would say. It is then to the advantage of such founders to say that the words of this "holy book" were symbolic. He would want his message to be understood "spiritually" so that any burden of consistency and unity could be displaced unto the foundations of faith that the founder established through his own narrative.

Thus, when we remove literalism out of the way we open Christianity up to being just another religion open to the same criticisms that all other religions are open to. And we invalidate our own doubt concerning the authority of other spiritual beliefs on the lives of the believers of those separate faiths. When we can't hide behind the walls of spiritual certainty we have to admit that the source of our faith very well may be just like everyone else.

What is a testimony for our faith is not how certain we are of the literalness of our sacred text, but of how devoted we remain to our own particular faith while claiming no unique advantage to our beliefs over others. When we have every reason to be a Christian it seems that faith only means the obedience of the commands which is clearly outlined, but when every reason to be a Christian is no different then the reason to be anything else then faith becomes a means of spiritual identity and significance. Literalism is so dangerous because it distorts faith, our God, and our Bible which invites us to experience the Gospel. The threat of a wide open Christianity is that it is wide open for attack, but the great hope for this is that it is also wide open for reconciling.