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Book Share: “Rescuing the Bible from Frundamentalism
I had to take a break from all of my reading do focus on school, but some events over the past week have taken that pressure off of me (I may delve into those at a later date, but not now) and I’m again able to spend my free time reading for pleasure.
This new found free time ended up in a trip to Borders where I got a few books for the next few weeks. The first one I am diving into is "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" by John Shelby Spong. While I thought that "Misquoting Jesus" would be the most challenging book I ever read in regards to the way I look at the Bible, this book takes it several steps farther. I’m talking a complete smack in the face on how I think about things.
If you enjoyed “Misquoting Jesus” then I’ll say you certainly need to read through “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,” and even if you don’t agree with all of it (I certainly don’t even a hundred pages into the book) it’s a needed read.
For now here are a few of my favorite quotes thus far.
"Those whose religious security is rooted in the literal Bible do not want that security distrubed. They are not happy when facts challenge their biblical understanding or when nuances in the text are introduced or when they are forced to deal with either contradictions or changing insights. The bible, as they understand it, shares in the permanence and certainty of God, convinces them that they are right, and justifies the enormous fear and even negativity that lie so close ot the surface in fundamentalistic religion. For biblical literalists, there is always an enemy to be defeated in mortal combat."
"There is always a danger in believing that you and your people are somehow God’s specially chosen. The obvious corollary is that your enemies are God’s specifically “unchosen,” and very soon they are thought of as God’s rejected…. Every nation, including the United States, when it operates under a theory of divine election or manifest destiny, can be especially distorted.”
"Unless theological truth can be separated from pre-scientific understandings and rethought in ways consistent with our understanding of reality, the Christian faith with be reduced to one more ancient mythology that will take its place alongside the religions of Mount Olympus. Those who insist on biblical literalism thus become accomplices in bringing about the death of the Christianity they so deeply love. Ironic though it may seem, the success of fundamentalism in many ways guarantees the death of the very things these Christian folk affirm.”
whose apologetics?
This has been on my mind for a couple weeks now, it was something that Becky and I talked about during one of our somewhat famous Taco Mac conversations (ok, they’re really not that famous, but we love them anyways, if anyone ever wants to join in just tell us, seriously, we’re starved for good conversation at times). We were talking about the upcoming “Truth Project” thing, as well as the previous apologetics lesson we had sat through, and she interposed something that severely bothered me (she has a tendency to do such things).
She stated, essentially, that to grasp a “true” apologetics course, then all sides should be discussed. I think we, at the time, were mostly discussing evolution, so this has some pretty deep ramifications. It would require those hosting said forum on apologetics acknowledge both sides of the argument, at least in their core, legitimate, which either side seems loathe to do.
We were not addressing, by the way, the issue of an atheistic perspective of evolution, but a wholly God inspired vision of evolution.
The question in my mind remains, is it really possible any sort of apologetics forum to host both sides of this particular issue? Would there be any church willing to legitimate both sides of the argument?
** This will seem kind of disjointed, but I began writing this two days ago, and after thinking about it, I’ve picked it back up. **
After giving it some time, I don’t really think it’s possible to really do this sort of things, at least in the normal church setting. I think within a smaller grouping context, IE a cohort, or house church, then such discussion would be possible, but I would seriously doubt both the willingness of any institutionalized church to do so, or the ability even if the desire was there.
So my question is then, would there be any benefit to this sort of thing? I’m really curious as to everyone’s thoughts on apologetics, so lets have it out.
misquoting jesus
**edit** So I completely misspelled misquoting. Wow… that’s just sad, and it took me two days to catch it!
So I finished the book today, it took me three and a half hours at the coffee house to knock out the last half of it (reading intermixed with eavesdropping on other conversations as well as occasionally looking something up online). Anyways, here’s my thoughts.
The book was great, well setup, accessible, and of course very thought provoking. I said thought provoking, which is not necessarily disturbing.
You see, while I have always recited the manta “Inerrant work of God,” I’ve questioned the idea of a perfect error free book. I guess the first contradiction I knew about is the one that made me begin to think about it, How did Judas die? (Hanging or throwing himself off a cliff?) Of course the first time I heard the question, the response was “The rope broke causing him to fall and have his guts gush out.”
Never quite did it for me.
Then of course there was the “apologetics” lesson provided to the college group at my church. That really didn’t solve it either, in fact it made me do a bit more research and question the whole thing even more. (I think it was intended to answer the question for us, and ensure that we wouldn’t have to go through the process of thinking through things on our own.)
Anyways, back onto Ehrman’s book. It’s chock full of information about various reasons the text was changed, various locations where the text was changed, and various ways in which scholars try to ascertain what the original text looks like.
While the information presented could be overwhelming, I’m honestly just not feeling it.
I believe we do have an adequate enough text with which we can understand enough about God and Jesus and essentially the faith. The place where Misquoting Jesus does throw some issues for me is in supplementary issues, like what I should use to teach off of and what I should study off of.
The most interesting part of the book was towards the end, where Ehrman discusses various reasons why scholars are believed to have changed the text due to other forms of Christianity springing up. The changes represented here would, to me, be the most likely to alter many beliefs we hold today.
Forgive me for it must seem like I’m glossing over the book, but I don’t want to get into too much detail because I think that the book should be read by everyone. If you’ve read it and want to talk about it I’m up for it, iChat me, or email me.
And as previously stated, I bought Timothy Paul Jones’ work “Misquoting Truth” today, and I’m looking to start reading it tonight or tomorrow, depending on the distraction level this evening. I’ll post my thoughts on it when I’m done.
As always, let’s hear your questions and thoughts.
a question
I’ve spent something like 12 years attending churches, that may not be a lot to most but since it’s about half of my life, it’s some time to me. In all of those years, I have heard just one lesson on apologetics, and it wasn’t until this past year that the lesson was taught.
Really, I probably couldn’t tell you which languages the Bible was originally written in just a few years ago. This all despite spending a year in a private Christian school that prides itself on the Bible. Along with bible thumping churches throughout that period. Why was the history of the Bible never actually taught? Sure we’d get in depth as to the history presented in the Bible, but getting to the actual textual history just never came up.
Of course I didn’t really think to actually ask the question regarding the text, so I guess I’m partly to blame, but I don’t really buy into that idea. The church should be educating it’s laity as to different aspects of their faith. I’m not talking about systematic theology (which is just plain awful) nor theology itself. Really, I think, before we dive into theology we should get some grasp of what we’re reading.
The greatest irony of all the time that I spent in church, the general theme that I got from the influential characters in my church life was essentially to question everything via the Bible, yet never question the Bible itself.
So all of these thoughts have been brooding in my head over the past few months (since the whole crazy emergent train ride began), when the proverbial straw that broke the camels back came in the form of a podcast.
About a week after the plague I was listening to the Nick and Josh Podcast from March 22nd interviewing Timothy Paul Jones. Jones had written a book discussing and in some cases refuting an earlier work written by Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus.
Lets just that this interview didn’t help my displeasure with the lack of knowledge passed down by the church.
So, I went about and bought Misquoting Jesus, and I do plan on giving fair time to Misquoting Truth when I get a chance.
But the actual issues with Biblical texts isn’t want I want to discuss here, what I want to know is why the church does not educate it’s laity fully on issues of the faith. Sure, I guess occasionally we get [sarcasm] wonderful [/sarcasm] pieces like this, but nothing in depth is offered.
What are they afraid of? Laity running away because maybe, just maybe, there are some inaccuracies with a text that billions have based their life on? What happens when someone does find out potential problems, without being adequately prepared for such issues?
It’s like (warning: baseball analogy coming) a veteran failing to tell a rookie hitter about the nasty slider the pitcher they’re going up against displays.
Essentially it’s a system set up for failure. It must not go on.