What is it?

Should I worry about my wife keeping this in the bedroom?

Jesus Knew the Old Testament

Some years ago, around the time of widespread changes to liturgy, I came across a cartoon of a man in church turning to his neighbour and saying “When we used to say ‘We believe…’ I thought we all believed the same thing but now we say ‘I believe…’ I think we all believe something different.”

The problem with saying Jesus knew the Old Testament is that it didn’t actually exist at the time. The Jews all ‘knew’ which books they regarded as scripture but as it hadn’t been formalised there is more than a suspicion that everyone had different ideas about what they meant. However because ‘everyone knew’ and most of the Jews were still in Palestine there didn’t seem to be any reason to define what they meant.

This all changed after the Second Jewish Revolt against the Romans (or the Third Jewish Revolt depending if another revolt is counted as the second) in AD 132–136 when the Jews were dispersed from Palestine and it became important to define what books ‘everyone knew’ to be scripture. Since this is around 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus it is possible that the books Jesus regarded as scripture during his earthly life are not the same as the ones we have in the Old Testament (with or without Apocrypha.) This could explain why Jesus (and Paul) appears to quote scripture that isn’t in the Old Testament, he was quoting what he believed to be scripture but that hasn’t made it into our Bibles!

Now this becomes a big problem if you believe the Bible to be the literal, infallible Word of God as instead of a set text we have something of a more fluid nature. However viewed as a book telling God’s story and the story of his evolving relationship with mankind it doesn’t matter – what matters is the book we have now. Let me explain that point – I believe we have the Bible that God intended us to have; the right books with the right text we need in them (I’m thinking about things like the end of Mark’s Gospel and the story in John’s Gospel of the woman caught in adultery neither of which seem to be original.)

So do we have the Old Testament that Jesus knew? It seems unlikely but it doesn’t matter if we read the Bible as God’s story and not ours.

I believe that God the Holy Spirit can speak to us through the Bible in ways we cannot understand or foretell, surprising us and pointing us to Jesus, God in human form, and guiding us to live our lives like His. It is the book God intended us to have telling the story of His relationship with the Jews leading up to the climatic moment of the crucifixion. In view of this I believe that reading and studying the Bible are an important part of the Christian life.

Iran Police 'Target Mannequins'

One of my on-going concerns is the way we muddle Christianity with our culture and then try to impose cultural standards as part of our religion. I know that it is a problem for Christians in the UK and USA but hadn't thought about it being a wider issue until I reads this article about the Irainian police clamping down on what they saw as un-Islamic clothing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8270034.stm

Is it really un-Islamic or is it just their traditional culture that they are defending?

Computer

Blogging has taken a back seat to upgrading my computer over the last week or so. I was beginning to get the 'Blue Screen of Death' with increasing frequency so I decided that the internals of my PC needed changing before it stopped working completely.
A nice company called Novatech does bundles of motherboard, CPU and memory pre-assembled and tested which I had used in the past and found to be quick to install. However this time the change was so great that I had to completely re-install Windows and all my programs, a 2 day job on its own.
With any luck I will be back to the Bible blogs next week – assuming I can get the wireless router working!!!!!

The Bible - Infallible?

I have noticed that Christians who insist that the Bible is the Literally True Word of God say that the Bible has to be infallible or their interpretation of it falls down; it’s either right or wrong. This is a very modern way of looking at the Bible and of defining truth which is not how the Bible has traditionally been interpreted.

The Bible contains various types of books and they need to be read in different ways. Whilst the history books should be generally accurate (but don’t forget ‘spin’ is not a modern invention) the books of prophecy and poetry have to read in a different way and problems come when people muddle them up – a lot of Genesis is a poetic book about creation and not history. The main issue with reading the Bible is to read it as God’s story and the story of his interaction with mankind, in particular, but not always, the Jews. I know I have said this before but it is something that I have come across many times and, when I remember, I always find it helpful.

If the bible is infallible it shouldn’t, by definition, contradict itself so let’s look at couple of examples where I think it is clear that it does.

Firstly in Ezra 10 you find the Jews who have returned from exile in Babylon expelling the foreign wives they had taken along with any children as they believe that this is what the Law commands them to do. However the Law may not have been as old as they thought and was probably written down during the exile, from earlier oral traditions, and was being written by a people who saw themselves as a persecuted people who were the only ones loyal to God. I had thought that the book of Ruth (and Noah?) was written as a counterblast to this showing that David was descended from a “foreign wife” but modern scholarship has put the Book of Ruth well before the exile and so the Jews should have realised that God was for everyone and not just them. Certainly the Law and the Book of Ruth do not seem to be in agreement.

The other passage I want to look at in Matthew 5 where Jesus gives a series of “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” statements; in particular v 38 to 42.

You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Here Jesus directly contradicts a command given in the Old Testament (Exodus 21:24, Leviticus 24:20 and Deuteronomy 19:21) and replaces it with his law. So who is right? On the face of it they contradict but if you read this as God’s story and of his interaction with mankind you get a different picture of a growing awareness of God’s character. An eye for and eye comes from a time of tribal tensions when if someone from one tribe insulted or injured a member of another tribe they would see it as a matter of tribal honour and not just go after the person concerned but the whole tribe and inflicted considerably more injury than they had suffered. In this context “an eye for an eye” is a moderating influence (to stop the tribes of Israel wiping each other out?) but read as part of God’s story it is a partial revelation and the first step towards Jesus command to “Love your enemy.”

Is the Bible infallible? It doesn’t appear to be because of internal contradictions. However if it is read as God’s story and of his interaction with mankind it becomes the story of how we respond, including getting it wrong, and how God’s revelation is partial until fulfilled in Jesus. At that point, and only then, does it become infallible.

I believe that God the Holy Spirit can speak to us through the Bible in ways we cannot understand or foretell, surprising us and pointing us to Jesus, God in human form, and guiding us to live our lives like His. It tells the story of God’s relationship with the Jews leading up to the climatic moment of the crucifixion. In view of this I believe that reading and studying the Bible are an important part of the Christian life.

The Bible - The Word of God? Update

Since writing about this my thinking has undergone a slight change. The sharp eyed among you may have spotted that might have noticed that my finally paragraph has gained another sentence: “It tells the story of God’s relationship with the Jews leading up to the climatic moment of the crucifixion.”

This comes from a slightly different way of looking at the Bible. We often look at the Old Testament as telling the story of the Jews and the New Testament as telling the story of Jesus, a Jew. However if we look at the Bible as telling God’s Story (something that I have recently found helpful) we in effect have “The Word’s Story” which I think I prefer to The Word of God.

I believe that God the Holy Spirit can speak to us through the Bible in ways we cannot understand or foretell, surprising us and pointing us to Jesus, God in human form, and guiding us to live our lives like His. It tells the story of God’s relationship with the Jews leading up to the climatic moment of the crucifixion. In view of this I believe that reading and studying the Bible are an important part of the Christian life.

Star Struck

Last night I saw a shooting star - only the second or third I've ever seen. Living in London it is hard to see the stars due to the glow of streetlights, security lights and illuminated buildings so I didn't see it in all its glory.

I have often wondered if not being able to see the stars is behind the drift away from faith in the UK. People don't look up at the glory of heaven and wonder; instead they look down and into themselves.

The Bible - Literally True?

I have changed the order and decided to tackle literalism next.

One of the things that really annoys me is when people claim that the Bible is literally true – every word directly inspired by God and absolutely correct. It annoys me for many reasons but mainly because a literal reading of the Bible gives rise to 7 day Creationism which, in my opinion, damages the Church’s witness by making us look stupid and old fashioned.

Of course the first question is which Bible? The Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Slavonic all have different books in the Old Testament so if you say the Bible is literally true you need to say which Bible you mean. Besides what we have are only translations and even then we don’t have a single original text. This in itself puts the idea of a literal Bible on shaky ground.

The really odd thing is that taking the Bible literally is a relatively modern idea that wouldn’t have occurred to earlier generations. As far as I can tell people who unwitting brought this about are John Wycliffe, the Reformers, Robert Raikes – who isn’t as well known today as he should be – and, oddly Islam.

John Wycliffe had the dangerous idea of translating the Bible into English and the translation that bears his name is the forerunner of the King James Bible – the first official translation made available to those who could read. Of course this wasn’t many of the population in the 17th century and this is where Robert Raikes comes into the story as he is regarded as the founder of the Sunday School movement. Now this wasn’t Sunday School as I remember it but it also included teaching all the children to read and write leading to a situation where the common people could increasingly read the Bible.

The Reformers, as I mentioned in looking at the Bible as the Word of God, decided that scripture alone was the guide for the Christian Church (Sola Scriptura) and promptly threw out books in the Old Testament which they didn’t think came up to scratch; Martin Luther even questioned some books in the New Testament. They had placed the Bible at the centre of their faith and encouraged everyone who could to read it in their own language while ignoring the historic tradition of what constituted the Bible.

The Reformers were, generally, educated men who had been taught to read The Bible as literature and to read the truth within the literature not within the words. Let me explain that; in my dictionary there are 4 consecutive words; literal, literary, literate and literature which all stem from the same Latin word ‘littera’ – letter. When the reformers talked about truth in the Bible they, as literate men of letters, were talking about it being literarily true (truth contained within the literature) and not literally true (truth contained within the words.)

I think Islam comes into the picture at this stage as they believe the Koran was literally dictated to Mohammad and, somehow, this idea has moved into Christianity with some Christians believing that the Bible is, in effect, dictated directly by God word for word – despite most of reading a translation.

Since the Enlightenment the Bible has been read as it was a text book full of facts which is not the way the Jews or the Early Church would have read it. The Old Testament is a story about the relationship between God and the Jews; a love story that, in common with a lot of love stories, it is written in poetic, not literal language. The story of the creation, to the Jews, is just that, a story, but one which contained the truth that God created and that He saw that it was good. Talking of the creation stories I have never worked out how the literalist can explain man and woman being created in Genesis 1 and then again in chapter 2.

The Bible should be read as a story which tells God’s story (not ours) and, like the parables of Jesus, isn’t meant to be literal – what would the bride look like in the Song of Solomon if it was meant to literally true! Beside do you really think the Pharisees walked round with planks in their eyes?

I therefore do not believe in the Bible literally but literarily – looking for the truth intended by the original writers to tell God’s story – and using this to guide us on our walk of faith.

I believe that God the Holy Spirit can speak to us through the Bible in ways we cannot understand or foretell, surprising us and pointing us to Jesus, God in human form, and guiding us to live our lives like His. It tells the story of God’s relationship with the Jews leading up to the climatic moment of the crucifixion. In view of this I believe that reading and studying the Bible are an important part of the Christian life.

Chest Infection

I have a chest infection. A few years ago this wouldn't be news as I was having 8 or more a year but since the NHS diagnosed bronchiectasis, something 10 years of a private health scheme had failed to pick up (any from the USA please take note), I have been doing much better. However from the day we got back from our holiday my chest has been tight and my peak flow slowly dropping.

A doctor had checked my chest when I went to have the dressing on a cut in my leg changed but couldn't hear anything wrong but when I went back on Tuesday there was clear evidence of an infection in my right lung. It isn't bad but this is how my last 2 infections started and they became worse within a week so this time we are using oral steroids from day 1 in an attempt to sort it out before it gets worse. I'll let you know if it works!

The next instalment on the Bible is nearly ready. It's a longer piece than I originally envisaged so I'm looking for some pictures to break it up.

Dilemma

Here is one for all pedants that I found on the wonderful BBC H2G2 site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/)

Imagine you're travelling via British Rail to reach some sunny destination (yes - it can happen.) You've left your suitcase/holdall/internal frame backpack in the luggage rack at the end of the carriage where you would imagine it to be safe – that is, until you hear an 'important announcement':

Please do not leave unattended luggage anywhere on the train. Any unattended items may be removed without warning.

Without too much thought, you head down to the end of the carriage to attend to your bag. It's still there, but it's not doing anything particularly interesting, and you begin to wonder what all the fuss is about. Then you realise what the message actually meant: you must not leave unattended luggage. As you're standing there, your bag is by no means unattended. You are fully free to leave it, and do so immediately.

On the way back to your seat, however, you notice that someone has left their bag entirely on its own. You must not leave unattended luggage, so you stand next to it awaiting the owner's return. Unfortunately, the train reaches your stop before anyone comes to claim it. You panic about leaving the bag, but recall that 'unattended items may be removed without warning'. It's clear that you have no choice, so you take it with you as you head to pick up your own luggage. Fortunately enough, the police come round your house a week later to reclaim the unattended bag. However, some great misunderstanding ensues and you end up having to explain the above to an unsympathetic jury.

If only they'd had an announcement telling the bag's owner not to leave their luggage unattended.

Keep Right?

Glad to see I'm not teh only dyslexic who can't tell his (her) left from right!