Tag: difficult Scriptures

Title AKA – inadequate answers.

A flat cannon?

I think it is fairly obvious that we are not asked to place all texts at an equal level. This is why to force a pre-determined doctrine of Scripture on the text will eventually lead to issues. Of course there is always the fall-back position of ‘as originally given’… but we do not have the original manuscripts from (say) Moses (or rather the ‘editors’) hands. If we hold to truth is told in the narrative to which we seek to live out under the inspiration of the Spirit in community we do not need to revert to superimposed doctrines that heavily depend on the in- words such as inerrant or infallible.

Those who insisted on being involved in the slave trade had the Bible to defend them, but from where we are today they did not have the trajectory of liberation on their side. The narrative / trajectory gave an greater authority to certain texts over others.

There is an intra-canonical debate

Not all Scripture is in agreement with all other texts. Take three wisdom books. Proverbs give us nice statements and there are any number of texts to choose from should one wish to embrace a ‘blab it and grab it’ theology. But put alongside it Job and the blabbing does not fit too easily. The righteous do suffer. Then jump along to Ecclesiastes and – with few exceptions – we have a somewhat pessimistic presentation: all is vanity and the most fortunate human is a dead one! Agreement – no. But the scene is set with the implicit invitation to enter the debate. The value of Scripture is not simply seeking to understand what does it mean, but how do I read it? What does it mean to me is key. The ‘final exam’ will not be on my biblical knowledge but somehow will relate to the measure to which I embodied what I understood. ‘All Scripture… is useful’; it is to be used / lived out.

Law – a direction (for Israel) not a terminus

There are laws in other ancient cultures that have similarities to the ones we read in our Scriptures. But virtually at every point of comparison the Torah moves the instruction further in a positive (humanitarian) direction. The slavery laws are one example; the ‘lex telionis’ (an eye for an eye…) is another example, limiting the level of response. But a) they are laws given to Israel and as such are as much a constitution for societal government as they are for their worship and b) they point in a direction but they do not arrive. The destination is Jesus, and the summary of the termination is ‘love’ which the New Testament makes clear includes love for the ‘enemy’.

Those aspects above help me enormously for they underline that it is a ‘Jesus lens’ through which we must read all Scripture, as for those who see Jesus as the express image of the invisible God he is the embodiment of the instructions of God. He is the true human one.

And then…

Archaeology is an ongoing activity.If something new is uncovered then at times previous readings of history have to be revised. At the current time not all archaeology accords with what we read in Scripture. Jericho had walls – just not at the time of the Conquest by Joshua; there was an Exodus, just probably not completely as we read. So…?

We should try and avoid putting on Scripture what we consider are the correct criteria, particularly regarding history that is written. We have a phrase that ‘history is written by the victor’ and ancient history was often written with a ‘bias’ (our perspective) to explain how things are as they are currently or to give a defence of who they were as a people. The level of genocide recorded is almost certainly exaggerated and (maybe I am now going to be controversial but it is hard to see it any other way) the words that we read that says ‘God spoke’ are at times more words put in the mouth of God than those that came from God’s mouth. God is misrepresented at times, and inadequately at others. But fully (and only) represented in Jesus, to which the Scriptures keep stretching to witness to.

 Coming to the ancient literature (the Bible) we can see even within the same book (by our criteria) that there are contradictions. Did they conquer the whole land? Early in the book of Joshua clearly they had:

So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes and all their kings; he left no one remaining but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel had commanded… So Joshua took the whole land (Jos. 10:40; 11:23).

But a few chapters later we read,

Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and very much of the land still remains to be possessed (Jos. 13:1).

Not easy to reconcile those two statements, and it would not have escaped ancient scribes (had we pointed it out) that those statements are not easily reconcilable. Uncomfortable as it is we have to sit with it that we don’t always have history as we think of it, with dates and figures.

Story telling, recounting the past, is so part of ancient culture and it does not simply follow our norms and expectations.

We are invited to read and enter into the story without being under pressure to justify nor to agree with what we read. We run with the narrative for the Scriptures point to Jesus. The cross does not change God (anger to mercy) but reveals God. Yes, I do challenge that God said ‘wipe them out’, and certainly don’t sing songs with arms raised about bashing the brains out of young children of those I have decided are my enemy (and in modern warfare that is fast becoming an ever increasing reality).

These are inadequate answers and could be challenged, corrected, improved or replaced. Whatever solutions we come up with, if we read Scripture through a Jesus-lens we will come across some tough texts but will not come under them and come out the other side as ‘I can’t believe in God’. We have to read Scripture – even those tough places in a way so that they are useful. And useful for me is to be shaped by the God who is revealed in Jesus. The goal of Scripture is not Scriptural knowledge or even understanding, but knowledge of God by the Spirit through Jesus.

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A final little note. The biggest issue for the Christian faith is that of suffering. It is compounded by a pre-set of beliefs that come without adequate explanation. God is all-powerful and all-loving: there the issue is increased. A mystery – yes. But I question whether we have a presentation of God as ‘able to do anything that he (and it is a male God at this point) chooses’. Not in this world. Suffering within creation is down to us and the work of liberation is down to us who follow the Lamb. We do need to revise what is meant by ‘sovereignty’ and ‘omnipotence’.

Suffering for the Christian faith is a challenge. For the non-theistic evolutionist the big issue is that of the incredible balance and combination of factors (close to infinite) that have to come together for life to exist. The probability? Add to that all of this came from nothing (something from nothing) and the statistical probability is staggering.

For both Christian and atheist a further challenge. Both love to speak of ‘time began’ – that I consider is an oxymoron!

For the Christian we might come up with better answers than I have, but they will still remain inadequate. Thank God that even in the midst of a lack of understanding we have a God who entered into the pain and suffering of the world – not for God’s sake but for ours… but to express that the Creator God is the redeemer God.

Jesus went beyond the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. Consider for a moment, the animals were not sacrificed on the altar, but were killed humanely outside. They did not ‘suffer’ as they had to be presented without blemish. The Old Testament points forward… but we have to journey forward. Yes there are Scriptures that ‘fall short’ of a Jesus expression.

I hope I have provoked. I have so much more to read, for,

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.

There are more than an odd verse here and there that cause us as we read them to raise an eyebrow as to what they record, or go beyond recording to indicate that God approves of the behaviour described or even indicate that he commanded the action recorded.

Today I will indicate some of them – a little stark and in your face when listed like this, but maybe by doing so we might realise that this is not a minor bump on an otherwise smooth trajectory. It will also probably indicate why so many see God as a well-grumpy ancient one who is just waiting to give expression to some built up anger (spelt ‘wrath’).

Let’s start with a Scripture that is easily ‘defended’. Lot’s offer to give his two virgin daughters to the men to rape,

Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” (Gen. 19:6-8).

Easy to defend because Lot’s offer is indefensible and there is no mention of God giving such instruction or advice. There are a number of texts that are like that. They record indefensible behaviour often because of a twisted view of the God they serve.

Jephthah makes a vow and ends up sacrificing his daughter (Jud. 11:29-40). This is well screwed up and all stems from a wrong view of God, of doing a deal with God. (Thankfully this is not set in the context of Jephthah did the right thing.) Vows taken, the Torah says, can be annulled if a wife makes one and the husband says ‘null and void’, or a daughter does and the father cancels it. A sigh of relief… but ever so hierarchical and patriarchal. That is a continuing issue that comes through in the law- a cleansing offering to be given after the birth of a child, just the mother is unclean for twice the length of time if the child is female. That patriarchal bias is not removed throughout the Old Testament and some see it not removed even in the New – another post needs to be done to knock that on the head!

So many examples of the patriarchal bias (understatement!) of the laws given. Two men arguing – the problem – a wife intervenes – to solve it – and she can have her hand cut off! No mention of any punishment for the men. OUCH.

Slavery is not critiqued and not even overturned in the New. There are so many texts that can be quoted,

When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment, for the slave is the owner’s property (Exod. 21:20,21).

Slaves are ‘property’ and the text below not only refers to them as ‘property’ but allows for the obtaining of slaves from within families in the land (‘human trafficing’?).

As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you and from their families who are with you who have been born in your land; they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property (Lev. 25: 44-46).

There are numerous instructions from God that classify as advocating genocide or ethnic cleansing. Maybe the horrendous nature of it can be seen in this text from Psalms (the hymbook!):

O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
    Happy shall they be who pay you back
    what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
    and dash them against the rock! (Ps.137:8,9).

OK God did not command this, but there are those Scriptures where God commands the wiping out of whole communities, including children. And this text above to be recorded as a song to be sung! Yes we could spiritualise it, but the ‘meaning as originally intended’ was not spiritualised.

I was reading a couple of days ago about the ‘man after God’s own heart’. He lays out Moabites head to foot (easier to count) and then allows every third one to survive – killing the others; and of course as always as he grew in governance and made Jerusalem his capital he ‘then perceived that the Lord had established him king over Israel and that he had exalted his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel’, so as God blesses him he goes out to take ‘more concubines and wives’ (2 Sam 5:13).

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There are some challenging Scriptures. As I have noted some at least do not attribute to God the action described; we are left with some such as Jephthah’s vow that we have to answer as to what the right thing would have been to do. We have a bunch within the Torah that simply don’t stack up! And we have the genocidal instructions that are hard to reconcile with the God that is revealed in Jesus. At least Marcion opened a door, but the door he opened was beyond one we can simply go through.

I will return to this issue in the next post.

A few posts about to come. And if I was the reflective type, I am sure an all-but infinite number if I were to follow through on the title, but not being too reflective (strength: I look forward; weakness: I learn next to nothing!) and I am narrowing these posts down to Scripture – so nothing close to an infinite number about to be written. For sure most of us would be more comfortable if certain parts of Scripture were simply erased. I will probably miss out huge parts I don’t get cos I will try to write as things come to mind and am not working from a list that I have kept over the years.

Scripture…one can almost get from it what one wants. The death penalty – there it is. Slavery – clearer than abolition. Male supremacy and ‘headship’. The list is endless. I often say to Gayle that of the three Abrahamic faiths I am so glad we have a ‘New Testament’. Imagine simply having what we term the Old Testament or the Quran. Take for example Paul who writes a hefty part of the NT prior to his ‘conversion’. His pinnacle of righteousness was that of persecuting the church, approving of deaths. And he has Scripture defending him, nay endorsing him – the Levites were just one of the ‘ordinary’ tribes until they rose up and slaughtered 3000 of those who deserved to die(!), once they had done that they were rewarded for their zealousness (an aside: contrast the 3000 who find salvation on the day of Pentecost, the feast when the giving of the law was celebrated, that being the context of the zealous slaughter carried out by the Levites).

Marcion of Sinope (85- 160) was always held up as a heretic because he went full-blooded with the god of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament. A radical solution… but if push comes to shove I would rather that approach than a case built on OT Scriptures that are used to justify violence (such as with the Crusades… and has that ‘crusade mentality’ ceased?).

I will have to have a go at how I (currently) handle those texts that I would rather be eliminated(!!), but will go a little slower over the next few posts till I get there.

Labels are a challenge. Gayle was with a very soft-hearted Sikh a couple of days ago who was part of a workshop. The person in private said ‘I can see you are spiritual, are you a Christian?’. Shorthand answer would be ‘yes’, but that kind of answer does not help because it depends on what the hearer has in mind. So we often answer obliquely with something along the lines of ‘I don’t use that term as it can mean so many different things…. but Jesus…’ And that ultimately is where it will become evident that I land. I do not understand loads of Scripture but if it is to point me to Jesus I have to centre there (the well thought through term that Norman Krauss used of ‘a Jesus hermeneutic’).

Anyway labels. In common with the evangelical world there are a minimum of two elements that are at the centre of my faith – an approach to Scripture which I claim is the authority by which I believe what I believe, and that the cross of Jesus is the pivotal point of all history through which people are reconciled to God. Others might wish to add much more than that at the centre. I was glancing at a YouTube video of someone I met years ago declaring how anyone who embraces ‘open theology’ is heretical; I might wish to suggest that anyone embracing Reformed Theology is incorrect in their approach! The person on YouTube had a few more than two points at the core… and I think he would not be happy if I were to suggest that I fit within certain ‘orthodox’ theological houses!

Ah well I am so glad I can go to sleep every night knowing that I am correct at every key point of interpretation!