Why
I am not a Fundamentalist
Ian C. McKay, November 2004
I was brought up in Glasgow among
Exclusive Brethren, whose perception of Christian doctrine was unequivocally
fundamentalist. When I was about five years old my older brother, then aged
about 10, told me that everything in the Bible is true. I was startled by this
concept, and thought about it for a long time. I never forgot it. Even at the
age of five, I could see that this principle, if true, was rather important. I
did not doubt my brother’s word: he was usually a reliable source of
information.
The label Fundamentalist
dates from the early 20th Century, when a series of 12 volumes were
published in Los Angeles under the collective title of The
Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, edited by a board chaired by R.
A. Torrey. These volumes set out a meticulously detailed account of Christian
doctrine, broadly similar to what the Exclusive Brethren believed at the time.
A version of the volumes has been reproduced on the Internet at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/6528/fundcont.htm
The most
distinguishing characteristic of fundamentalist doctrine, as exemplified by
these twelve volumes, is that it is based on a more than usually literal
interpretation of the Bible. Most mainstream Christians and most Bible students
regard the book of Job, for instance, as a brilliant epic poem that delves into
deep and dark dilemmas of faith, and grapples passionately with the perennial
problem of why God allows evil to exist. By contrast, fundamentalists read it
as both poetry and as literal history. Even the passages in which God and Satan
make wagers about how Job will react to disaster, are construed as literal
verbatim transcripts of actual historical conversations.
Figurative
language
To be
fair, of course, even fundamentalists do make some small concessions to the
existence of figurative language. When Jesus says he is a door, or a road, or a
vine, then they all accept that these are purely metaphors. When he describes
how a mustard seed grew into a tree, some of them concede that this may not
actually have happened in a literal sense, and when the Bible says that the
earth cannot be moved (Psalm 93:1; 1 Chronicles 16:30) and that the Sun moves
round the Earth (Ecclesiastes 1:5), they are now mostly agreed that this is a
description of what appears to happen, not the best astronomical account of
what actually happens.
Nor do
fundamentalists such as the Exclusive Brethren ever make the mistake of
assuming that the literal historical meaning is the only meaning. Indeed, they
are much more ready than most Christians to see several meanings both literal
and figurative in the one passage.
Fundamentalists
also mostly accept that the Bible contains some transcription errors. None of
the original manuscripts has survived: the earliest of the known manuscripts
large enough to be studied by textual analysis are third or fourth generation
copies.
At the
time of the translation of the King James Version, the translators knew of
about 2000 New Testament Greek manuscripts sufficiently old to be relevant to
the job of trying to reconstruct the most probable original text, but no two of
these manuscripts agree exactly.
More than
a third of all verses in the New Testament contain variants, according to
Aland, The Text of the New Testament, with the variants being
particularly concentrated in the Gospels and the Revelation. Stroebel (The
Case for Christ) mentions having seen estimates of about 200,000 variants
in total, which sounds rather a lot, when you consider that there are only
about 138,020 words in the Greek New Testament.
By
contrast, the Old Testament, despite having been through far more generations
of copying than the New, contains fewer transcription errors. Until the
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the earliest Old Testament manuscripts known
dated from the 9th Century AD, and showed relatively little
variation among manuscripts. Owing to the discoveries at Qumran, we now know
that some Old Testament books changed very little in 1000 years.
There are
now more like 10,000 ancient New Testament manuscripts known, and these have
shed further light on what the original sources may have said. From these we
know that some of the verses in our current New Testaments were probably not
written until about the 5th Century, because they are absent from
all of the earlier manuscripts. Among the late additions discussed
in The Text of the New Testament, by Kurt and Barbara Aland, are Matthew
5:44, 6:13, 16:2b-3, 17:21, 18:11, 20:16, 20:22, 20:23, 23:14, 25:13, 27:35;
Mark 7:16, 9:44, 9:46, 11:26, 15:28; Luke 4:4, 9:54-56, 17:36, 23:17, 24:42;
John 5:3b-4, 7:53-8:11; Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:6b-8, 28:16, 28:29; Romans 16:24
and 1 John 5:7-8.
An extreme
case of very late addition is seen in the words in heaven: the Father, the
Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness on
earth. These words occur in no Greek manuscript earlier than the 9th
Century, and yet they are still found in the King James Version, the New King
James Version and the 21st Century King James Version (1 John
5:7-8). The obvious suspicion is that they may have been inserted to provide
support for the doctrine of the Trinity.
The story
of the woman taken in adultery (John 7:53-8:11) is an intriguing example. In
our modern translations it occurs only in John, but it is not in any of the
earliest manuscripts of John. It is also absent from the Codex Vaticanus, the
Codex Sinaiticus and most of the later Greek manuscripts. Nor is it in any of
the earliest translations of the Bible (Syriac, Coptic and Armenian). On the
other hand, it does occur in a few early manuscripts of Luke, coming after Luke
21:38. It is written with a style and vocabulary characteristic of Luke.
This
example creates problems for people who think that the Bible derives its
authority from the direct divine inspiration of the original authors,
faithfully preserved by copyists. But it creates no problem at all for most
Christians, because the story carries its own moral authority, and its own
hallmark of divine compassion, regardless of its authorship or its date.
The
earliest versions of Mark’s gospel finish with the women finding the empty
tomb, and do not mention Jesus’ appearing to his disciples, or his ascension
into heaven.
Fundamentalists
also mostly accept that the Bible contains some translation errors. If the consensus
opinion among Hebrew scholars is that A virgin shall conceive is more
correctly translated as The young woman is with child, then so be it. If
the King James translation of Job 21:24, His breasts are full of milk, and
his bones are moistened with marrow, was changed in the revised
version to His pails are full of milk, and the marrow of his bones is moist,
then most people can accept the change without a major crisis of faith.
A few
examples are given by Bruce M. Metzger, a textual scholar of Princeton
Theological Seminary, in his book The Bible in Translation. Many other
examples can easily be found by comparing different translations of the many
verses that pose problems for fundamentalists.
Jeremiah
seemed to be aware of deliberate attempts to falsify the Bible: How can you
say, `We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But, behold, the false
pen of the scribes has made it into a lie. (Revised Standard Version,
Jeremiah 8:8)
To be fair
to the NIV, I should also say that it incorporates some useful new insights and
meanings that have arisen from modern bible scholarship and are absent from
most other translations, and it has achieved a commendable beauty and dignity
in its style of prose.
It is
universally agreed that printing errors also occur. One edition had, in Exodus
20:14, Thou shalt commit adultery. So perhaps there was just a touch of
justified irony in the misprint of another edition, which said Printers
(instead of "Princes") have persecuted me without a cause, Psalm 119:161.
But apart
from transcription errors, translation errors and printing errors, the Bible,
according to fundamentalists, contains no other errors. The original
manuscripts when first written were perfect and infallible. The authors were
not merely motivated or inspired by God: what they wrote were the very words of
God.
The text
most commonly quoted in support of this doctrine are the words in 2 Timothy
3:15-16, And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which
are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness
(King James Version).
What
exactly were these scriptures that the author was referring to? The fact that
Timothy had known them from childhood tends to rule out the New Testament. Most
probably he was referring mainly to the Septuagint, which was the best-known
version of the Old Testament in 1st century Palestine. When Jesus or
the Apostles or the Evangelists quote from the Old Testament, the version that
they quote from is usually the Septuagint.
But the 66
books that most fundamentalists recognise as perfect and infallible do not in
fact include all the books of the Septuagint that the author of 2 Timothy was
probably referring to. When Martin Luther was preparing his German translation
of the Bible, and later some other translations, he decided to relegate to an
appendix all those Old Testament books that were not available in the Hebrew
language; in some cases because their original Hebrew text had been lost, and
in some cases because they had originally been written in Greek or in Aramaic.
The appendix was described as containing books good to read, but not equal to
holy writ. Nearly all fundamentalist churches and sects took this a stage
further and entirely excluded from their Old Testaments all those books that
Luther had classified as apocryphal.
If
fundamentalists insist, as most of them do, that 66 books and only 66 books are
divinely inspired, they must explain why the Epistle writer did not qualify his
advice to Timothy. He did not say All scripture is given by inspiration of
God, except for those written in Greek or Aramaic. They must also have some
reason for believing that Martin Luther made the right decision. Was Martin
Luther also in some sense inspired?
If so, it
seems a frail and inconsistent sort of inspiration. He also wanted to exclude
from the canonical section of his bible the books of Job, Jonah and Esther; and
in the New Testament he and his followers also excluded Hebrews, James, Jude
and Revelation for more than a century, on the grounds that they were not in
fact written by apostles, and had no apostolic authority. Some of his followers
for years also excluded from their canon the second Epistle of Peter, and the
last two Epistles of John, but eventually they decided to restore some of them
to full canonical status.
In view of
the fact that nearly all churches have accepted the reversal of some of the
decisions of Luther and his followers, it is worth perusing the Old Testament
books that he excluded to see what sort of books they were. A collection of
them have been published several times under the name of The Apocrypha,
and most of them have always been part of the versions of the Bible used by
most Christians, including members of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox
Churches. You can read most of them in the New American Bible, available online
at http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/
Some of
these apocryphal books, to me, do not ring true. The first book of Esdras is
attributed to Ezra the Scribe, but clearly was not written by him. It contains
some rousing language, some beautiful and uplifting sentiments and some
poignant allusions, but the best parts of it have just been copied from other
Old Testament books. It is almost as plagiaristic as the Book of Mormon. The
second book of Esdras is apocalyptic in style, rather like the Revelation, but
I would describe it as imaginative rather than inspired.
Most of
the apocryphal books are written in much the same style as the other Old
Testament books, incorporating history, legends, poetry, exhortation, prophesy
and doxology. In places they get a bit dreary. But a few are unequivocally,
stunningly, awesome. I challenge anyone to read the Book of Wisdom, or the book
of Ecclesiasticus (also known as Sirach) and tell me truthfully that they are
not as beautiful, uplifting and inspirational as any books of the Old
Testament.
Do you
remember that wonderful poem in Proverbs 8, where Wisdom reminisces about her
early existence before the World began?
The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
I have been established from everlasting,
From the beginning, before there was ever an earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields,
Or the primal dust of the world.
When He prepared the heavens, I was there,
When He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
When He established the clouds above,
When He strengthened the fountains of the deep,
When He assigned to the sea its limit,
So that the waters would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth,
Then I was beside Him as a master craftsman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
Rejoicing in His inhabited world,
And my delight was with the sons of men. (new King James Version)
If you
appreciate this kind of poetry, then you will enjoy reading the Book of Wisdom
and the book of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach), which contain much that is written
in the same style and is just as hauntingly beautiful.
The book
of Judith is another apocryphal book that I would recommend as well worth
reading. It is essentially a short historical novel, written with reverence,
and portraying vividly the virtues of piety and courage. As its drama unfolds,
it becomes more and more difficult to lay the book down; and the same may be
said for the additions to the book of Daniel. The First Book of Maccabees is of
considerable historical importance, and it provides the only scriptural basis
for the Feast of Dedication, or Hannukah, which Jesus appears to have attended
(John 10:22).
The main
relevance of all this to fundamentalism is that if you are simply going to
accept by faith a particular set of books, and regard them as in a unique class
of their own, then you first have to decide which set of books to accept. And
if you are honest, you will admit that some of the people who chose the various
different canons may not have chosen very well. The boundary line between inspired
and uninspired books is not actually as obvious as we would like it to be.
Do the
books of the Bible claim to be the actual words dictated by God? Well, some do
and some don’t. Many of the Old Testament prophets repeatedly used the phrase, Thus
saith the Lord, as in 1 Samuel 15, for example, Thus saith the Lord of
hosts ... go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare him not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep,
camel and ass.
One has to
ask whether God was really inciting his people to conduct a campaign of
genocide, or whether Samuel just thought so. Can we really feel comfortable
about attributing to God the same sort of policy as was instigated by Adoph
Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Genghis Khan and other mass murderers? Is it not
wiser to assume that Samuel, along with the authors of Deuteronomy, Joshua,
Judges and Jeremiah, was merely using God’s name to lend support to military
campaigns and slaughter of children?
The author
of Luke’s Gospel, on the other hand, seems to indicate that he did not get his
gospel directly from God. He begins by describing how he researched the written
records and verbal accounts handed down to his generation by those who witnessed
the ministry of John the Baptist and Jesus. And we know from studying the rest
of the gospel that his account of events is, as he indicates, based partly on
earlier documents. One of these earlier documents that he probably used was
Mark’s gospel, many verses of which he reproduces or paraphrases. What he does
not say is that he just wrote what God told him to write. If this gospel were
simply written to miraculous dictation, there would have been no need to
research the evidence, and he would not have needed the written and verbal
accounts handed down from eyewitnesses.
Many other
biblical passages also contain evidence of having been derived in part from
earlier writings. The "sayings of the wise" (Proverbs 22:17-24:22)
consist of extended proverbs, each introduced by a preface. This section
contains several sayings that appear to have been derived from a piece of
Egyptian wisdom literature, The Instruction of Amenemope, (about 1100
BC). The Hebrew author appears to acknowledge this existing work as a source
that he quotes from. The Egyptian work comprises 30 chapters, and the Hebrew
text refers to its thirty sayings. (Proverbs 22:20 Have I not written thirty
sayings for you, sayings of counsel and knowledge, New International
Version). The same Egyptian work appears to be a source of several other
Biblical passages. You can read a detailed, objective, scholarly study of the
Egyptian-Hebrew influence at http://www.jvlnet.com/~jrblack/diss.html
If the
writer of Proverbs were writing simply to direct divine dictation, would he
have used an earlier Egyptian document as source material? Did the Egyptian
writers have direct divine inspiration too? Is it not more likely that his
inspiration amounted to something rather less direct than verbal dictation?
The story
of Noah’s ark closely parallels a much earlier story incorporated in the Epic
of Gilgamesh, which is possibly the oldest work of literature ever discovered.
It is written in the Accadian language in a cuneiform script on clay tablets.
Tablet XI, which contains the story of the flood, is usually on display in the
British Museum. It and the story of Noah in Genesis undoubtedly had a common
source, and that source, whatever it may have been, existed many generations
before the book of Genesis was written.
A history
book, a scientific textbook, a book of poetry, a novel, a drama, a hymn book, a
discursive essay, a book of practical advice, a book of collected letters, a
book of statute law, a recipe book, an inventory of goods, are all quite
different in style and in purpose. All of them except the scientific textbook
are represented by passages in the Bible, and all of them can be used to
communicate truth.
Tolkien’s
novels about hobbits, elves and other mythical creatures portray vivid truths
about the epic battle between good and evil; C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia
contain deep spiritual symbolism: what Christian can read about Azlan without
recognising who is really being portrayed?
Most of
the Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Job, and large parts of Isaiah and Jeremiah are written in the form of poetry.
In translation, this is not always obvious to the modern reader. Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes are of the genre known as wisdom literature, which was well
established in ancient Palestine, Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Song of Songs is a
love poem. The Psalms are a hymn book, intended to be sung to music. The Kings,
Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah were intended to be read as history. Leviticus
and Deuteronomy are largely books of law. And many of the books are clearly
prophetic.
What would
happen if we accidentally put some of the books in the wrong category? What if a
misguided librarian put Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the History section, and
an equally misguided teacher used it as a textbook of history? It would only be
a matter of time before someone noticed that the book mentions the sound of a
clock striking, long before striking clocks were invented. After sufficient
research, other internal and external discrepancies would be found, and the
historians might decide that this Shakespeare guy was a fraud, and his books
were sheer rubbish.
What if a
book of poetry was wrongly classified as a science textbook? Consider the lines
from Shakespeare’s 33rd sonnet, describing the morning sun,
Kissing with golden face
the meadows green,
A literal
interpretation of this beautiful verse would imply that the sun makes physical
contact with the meadows, and causes a chemical change in the water of the
streams, coating them with a layer of gold. A misguided scientist might
conclude that the book was riddled with error, and this Shakespeare guy was an
impostor pretending to understand chemistry.
These
absurd misclassifications are to me no more absurd than what fundamentalists
have done with parts of the Bible, and the consequences have been that some
masterpieces of literature have been brought into disrepute. Lay members of the
public have been left with the impression that many parts of the Bible were
written by impostors and fraudsters.
Much has
been written by others about misinterpretation of the early chapters of
Genesis, so I shall not weary the reader by going over old ground, save to say
that in these chapters Adam and Eve are symbols of early humanity, and their
story vividly depicts several salient messages, notably the creative power of
God, the essential brotherhood of man, and the role of sin as a source of human
suffering. It is not a history book, any more than it is a recipe book telling
you how to make humans.
Nor is it
a literal physical description of the structure of the Universe. The firmament
of Genesis 1: 6-10 can hardly be regarded literally as an inverted bowl over a
flat earth, as the ancients imagined, keeping out the water except when its
windows were opened and the water fell as rain.
Jesus
himself is on record as teaching people not to interpret biblical passages too
literally, materially or physically.
For
example, on the basis of Old Testament prophecy (Malachi 3:1; Malachi 4:1-6),
the Jews expected Elijah to return to Earth before the coming of the Messiah.
Most of them probably expected him to look like Elijah, speak like Elijah and
answer to the name of Elijah. They almost certainly expected him to arrive as a
fully-grown adult, and be received with public acclaim. Some of them probably
expected him to return to Earth in the same manner as he was taken up into
Heaven, riding in a chariot of fire. But what they got was John the Baptist,
who arrived as a baby via his mother’s womb, lived rough, probably looked
scruffy, and denied that he was Elijah (John 1:21).
But Jesus
taught that the coming of John the Baptist was in a spiritual or figurative
sense a fulfilment of the promised return of Elijah (Matthew 11:13-14;
17:12-13; Mark 9:13). Elijah and John both spent a long time in the wilderness,
both wore a hairy garment and a leathern girdle about their loins, both began
their ministry abruptly, and both were known for the sternness of their
reproof; so the metaphor was apt. But the fundamentalists of Jesus’ time made
the mistake of expecting something more literal, more spectacular, something
more like magic.
Similarly, Jesus taught that the central theme of his ministry, the coming of the Kingdom of God, was to be interpreted spiritually, not literally, physically and materially. His followers made the mistake of interpreting Old Testament prophecy (Zechariah 9:9-10; Micah 5:2-6) as meaning that the Messiah would take military and political power, establish himself as King in Jerusalem, and lead a military campaign against Syria.
But in
Luke 17:20-21 it says, And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the
kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God
cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there!
for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Similarly,
in the Gospel of Thomas, 113, His disciples said to him, "When will the
Kingdom of God come?" It will not come by watching for it. It will not be
said, 'Look, here!' or 'Look, there!' 'Rather, the Kingdom of God is spread out
upon the earth, and people don't see it."
There are
also numerous passages where Jesus taught his listeners that the Kingdom of God
would be established during their own lifetimes (Matthew 10:23; 16:28; 24:34;
Mark 9:1; 13:25-30; Luke 9:27; 21:32), which all help to confirm that the literal,
physical, material, political kingdom expected by literalists was not the kind
of kingdom that Jesus was talking about.
In 2
Samuel 7:16, God promised that Solomon’s kingdom would last for ever. Well, in
the literal, physical sense, it did not. It is in a spiritual sense that the
kingdom has continued to this day.
Let us
turn now to some other important biblical passages that fundamentalists and
sometimes Catholics have taken too literally, thereby bringing them into
disrepute.
The
nativity stories in Matthew and Luke conform with what was a well established
literary genre. Similar nativity stories had been told about many religious
leaders, including Krishna, Buddha, Dionysus, Mithra, Horus, Adonis and Attis.
Common elements often found in these stories include the appearance of a new
star, the birth of a child to a virgin mother and an adoptive father in humble
surroundings, often on a journey away from home, on a date equivalent to our 25th
of December, visitors who come to pay their respects to the new child, a wicked
king who plans to kill the infant, the adoptive father being warned in a dream,
an escape from the wicked king, and the slaughter of other innocent children.
But is it
possible that the nativity stories in the gospels, although showing more than
accidental resemblance to earlier stories, could also have been historically
accurate? Couldn’t the earlier stories merely have been like prophecies,
forerunners to a real epoch-making historical event?
It is difficult to take this view, because if the nativity stories are construed as literal history, it is very difficult to reconcile Matthew’s nativity story with Luke’s. At most one of them could have been literal and historical. Matthew’s nativity story is set in the year 4 BC, since the birth according to Matthew occurred shortly before the death of King Herod (who is known to have died in 4 BC), whereas Luke’s story is set in the year 6 or 7 AD in the year when the first census was held while Cyrenius was Governor of Syria. It is known that Cyrenius became Governor of Syria in the year 6 or 7 AD and in the same year there was a census held throughout Judea, which by that time was annexed to Syria.
It is also
very difficult to reconcile the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Both
genealogies comprise a long list of men’s names, tracing Jesus’ ancestry back
to King David and Abraham or beyond, via the male line. The two lists of names
show a fair measure of agreement from Abraham down to David, and this part
agrees not too badly with the Old Testament. But from David down to Joseph (the
father of Jesus) the two genealogies are very different in length and, apart
from David, Joseph and Jesus, there are only three names that occur in both
lists – and these three names do not occur in the same order. In other words,
in this section of the genealogies there is no more agreement between them than
could have occurred by accident.
Other
aspects of the two nativity stories are also rather difficult to reconcile.
Matthew has the Holy Family fleeing to Egypt immediately after the birth, and
they remain there until King Herod dies, whereas in Luke they are in the Temple
at Jerusalem only days after Jesus’ birth, and go from there to their home town
of Nazareth. Matthew gives the impression that Joseph and Mary’s home was in
Bethlehem before the birth: there was no mention of a journey before the birth,
and the wise men visit the newborn child in the house, not in a stable or an
inn. Matthew explains that after the death of King Herod, Joseph heard that
Archelaus was reigning in Judea, and so was afraid to go there, so they went to
live in Galilee in a town called Nazareth. Luke, by contrast, says that
Nazareth was their home town even before the birth, and describes their journey
to Bethlehem for purposes of the census. But he makes no mention of a journey
to Egypt, or the slaughter of the innocents. In Luke they went to Nazareth not
as refugees, but simply because that was their home.
External
historical evidence is also difficult to reconcile with the nativity stories.
King Herod was certainly a brutal character, and his misdeeds were well
documented by historians, but none of them mentioned the slaughter of the
innocents, which, if it were historical, would probably have been deemed worthy
of mention.
The
requirement for Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem to register their names
seems historically implausible, since the purpose of the Roman censuses was to
enable the Government to raise taxes. For this purpose they would need each
citizen to register in the town where he lived, not in the town where a distant
ancestor lived.
I could go
on and on, but I think I have made my main point. It is that the nativity
stories belong to a literary genre that is quite distinct from history, and I
don’t imagine that their original authors intended for a moment that anyone
should construe them as history. The nearest type of literary genre in modern
times is the historical drama, whose purpose is to depict in a vivid and
stirring way just how important were the events on which the drama was based.
To the authors of the nativity stories Jesus’ birth was an epoch-making event
comparable with the creation of the world – an event to be treated with awe and
reverence. And their writings depicted this as vividly as they knew how.
Their
purpose may be compared with that of some great paintings of the Nativity – an
expression of the emotional and spiritual impact that the event had, as
perceived by the artist. Historical accuracy is not what a great religious painting
is about; nor is it what the gospel nativity stories are about.
A more
modern work that may illustrate what I mean is Milton’s Ode on the Morning
of Christ’s nativity. This poem is not his best known, but for sheer
quality and beauty I doubt that there is any poem in the whole of the English
language to match it. He depicts as no other English writer has done, feelings
of exhilaration, wonder and reverence; and he portrays as no other English
writer has done the sheer immensity of the event. But he would probably be
dismayed and distressed if anyone tried to interpret his poem as literal
history, for this would surely be to miss its whole meaning and purpose, and
potentially bring it into disrepute.
We have
seen how Luke, as suggested by his own opening words and confirmed by textual
scrutiny, made use of earlier documents when composing his gospel. There are
indications from textual analysis that the nativity story may have originally
been written not by Luke, since its literary style and vocabulary differ from
the rest of the gospel. Nowhere in the rest of the gospels or the epistles does
Jesus or anyone else refer to the nativity stories, which might indicate that
they were a late addition to the gospels. In a version of Luke’s gospel thought
to be a copy of the version used by Marcion around 140 AD, there is no nativity
story, and the gospel begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. Another
distinction between the nativity story and subsequent parts of Luke’s Gospel is
that the latter appear to be based on history more that the nativity story was.
The
ministry of Jesus, unlike the earlier parts of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke,
did not conform with an established literary genre. It was so original and so
immensely moving that it hardly seems possible for four rather ordinary men,
the authors of the four gospels, to have merely made it up.
There are
linguistic clues too that indicate historical authenticity. Where the words of
Jesus and John the Baptist are quoted verbatim, there are clues to indicate
that, unlike the surrounding narrative text, the direct speech has been
translated from Aramaic to Greek. For instance, when John the Baptist says that
from these stones God is able to raise up children, it seems a strange choice
of words in Greek or in English: why stones? Why children? However, in Aramaic,
the native language of 1st century Palestinians, the word for stones
is almost identical to the word for children, and so the Baptist’s choice of
words gave his preaching a memorable impact.
When Jesus
teaches his disciples to pray, the words in Greek do not form any discernible
pattern of rhythm or rhyme, but in Aramaic they appear to make use of both
rhythm and rhyme. Would Greek writers who just made up the story of Jesus’
ministry have bothered to engineer such clues? I hardly think so.
The Gospel
of Thomas is not well known among Christians, since it was not discovered until
1945, long after the canon of scripture had been put together, but its original
version is now thought to be about as old as the four canonical gospels, and
this means that it carries some weight as a possible source of historical
evidence. It only survives in the Coptic language, apart from a few fragments
of the earlier Greek version, and even the Coptic copy is incomplete.
It is
largely a collection of the sayings of Jesus, and it serves consistently to
confirm the general tenor of Jesus’ teachings. Many of the sayings in it are
more or less the same as in the other gospels, but there are other sayings
unique to the Gospel of Thomas, and they all sound like the sort of things
Jesus might have said. They have an authentic sound to them, and they include
some deeply thought-provoking remarks. Their possible historical authenticity
makes them intensely interesting to anyone who wishes to follow the teachings
of Jesus. You can read them, along with other ancient Christian documents, at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/bible/noncanon.stm
While I
know of no reason to believe that all the details of words and deeds attributed
to Jesus in any of the gospels are accurate, there can be very little room for
doubt about the tenor of his ministry and his main messages: they are just too
consistent to have arisen from transcription errors or from diverse authors,
just too original to have been made up or plagiarised by the evangelists, and
just too precious to lose.
When we
come to events surrounding the crucifixion, a comparison of the four gospels
gives much the same picture of partial but not complete agreement. This is only
to be expected if the four accounts were based on real historical events but
not written down for several decades. But some of the discrepancies appear to
be more than simple lapses of memory: they sometimes appear to have symbolic
meaning.
Take for
instance the day and time of crucifixion, which all the gospels record relative
to the Feast of the Passover. To refresh your memory about the Passover timetable
you may wish to look at Exodus 12. The Passover was celebrated once a year on
the 14th day of the month Abib (later known as Nisan), and the week
from the evening of the 14th to the evening of the 21st
was known as the feast of unleavened bread. The Passover lamb was chosen and
segregated on the 10th day of the month and slaughtered and roasted
on the 14th day, which was called the day of Preparation of the
Passover. On the evening of the 14th the whole household or group of
households would then eat the Passover feast, which would include the roast
lamb.
Now, the
three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, record unambiguously that Jesus
ate the Passover feast with his disciples and was crucified the next day: to be
precise, they indicate that he was crucified at the third hour of the 15th
day of Nisan (about 9 a.m by our clocks), and he died at the 9th
hour (about 3 p.m.)
John’s
gospel (chapters 18 and 19), by contrast, emphasises by repetition that Jesus
was crucified on the Day of Preparation of the Passover, i.e. on the 14th
day of Nisan. To be precise, John indicates that he was crucified shortly after
the sixth hour (midday) on the Day of Preparation. The symbolic significance of
this timing is that Jesus was crucified at the time allocated for the sacrifice
of the Passover Lamb. Thus the theme of Jesus as the Lamb of God, which was
introduced early in John’s gospel, now reaches its climax, and its terrible
meaning finally becomes clear.
None of
the synoptic gospels mentions the title Lamb of God and none of them draws the
analogy between Jesus’ crucifixion and the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb. Thus
there appear to be spiritual and symbolic reasons for at least some of the
historical discrepancies between different gospels.
The Old
Testament too contains hundreds, and perhaps thousands of factual
discrepancies, many of them in passages that were probably intended to be
factual and historical. For example, according to 2 Samuel 24:1, God caused
David to number the people. Yet in 1 Chronicles 21:1 it is Satan who causes
David to do this most evil thing. And from that point onward, these two
accounts of the same events continue to contradict each other.
But
factual and historical errors in the Bible are not by any means its only
hallmarks or even its most important hallmarks of human weakness and
fallibility. According to the Old Testament authors, God instituted numerous
laws, commands and practices that hardly anyone today would see as morally
defensible. It is well said that the Lord gets the blame for a lot of things,
not only among today’s Christians, but also among the prophets, lawgivers and
chroniclers of the past. And there are also many evils that appear to be
condoned by the Bible, without being positively prescribed.
Today’s
standards of morality in the Western World may leave something to be desired,
but at least most of us regard as morally indefensible such acts as genocide,
infant sacrifice, selling your daughter, the death penalty for children, and
the death penalty for relatively minor offences.
It is
therefore disturbing to find in the Old Testament that the death penalty is
mandatory for anyone who curses his father or mother (Leviticus 20:9, Exodus
21:17), strikes his father or mother (Exodus 21:15), does any work on the
Sabbath (Exodus 31:15), for example gathering sticks (Numbers 15:32-36),
blasphemes (Leviticus 24:16), goes near the Tabernacle (Numbers 1:51),
approaches the Sanctuary (Numbers 3:10), charges excessive interest on a loan
(Ezekiel 18:13), is found not to be a virgin when she is married (Deut
22:20-21), fails to seek the Lord God of Israel (2 Chronicles 15:13) or looks
into the ark. On the other hand, if a man beats his servant so badly that he or
she dies a day or two later, he is not to be punished at all (Exodus
21:20-21).
If a child
curses his father or mother, wouldn’t it be better to try some milder form of
correction, short of the death penalty? I do not wish to imply that the death
penalty was in actual practice inflicted on children who cursed their parents:
in Matthew 15:1-4, when the scribes and Pharisees criticise Jesus’ disciples
for transgressing the traditions of the elders, Jesus quotes this Mosaic law as
an example of a law that even the scribes and Pharisees did not obey. I am just
suggesting, as I think Jesus was, that it is unthinkable to take this
particular Mosaic law literally.
According
to 1 Samuel 6:19 God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting
50,070 of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. The
people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them. Was this
the same merciful, loving and forgiving God as was revealed by Jesus, or was
the Bible just wrong about the reason for the terrible death toll?
The
campaign of genocide, including the slaughter of children, incited by God
according to 1 Samuel 15:3 has already been mentioned, and seems by today’s
standards to be morally indefensible. But there are many similar passages. For
example, in Deuteronomy 20: 16-17 we read, of the cities of these people,
which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive
nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the
Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites,
and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee.
Our armed
forces today sometimes disgrace themselves by mistreating civilians and
prisoners after a military campaign, but the breaches of the Geneva Convention
are usually the work of a minority of relatively low-ranking officers. It is
rarely that the command to commit an atrocity comes from the top, and on those
occasions when it does, the commander is usually prosecuted for war crimes.
It is
therefore disturbing to read that Moses treated prisoners with atrocious
cruelty, and apparently with total impunity, and the biblical record does not
contain so much as a hint of disapproval. Numbers 31:14-17 (King James Version)
tells us that Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the
captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the
battle. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold,
these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit
trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among
the congregation of the LORD. Now therefore kill every male among the little
ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for
yourselves.
Perhaps
cruelty to children is the crime that provokes the most extreme revulsion in
most of us. So can we consider the prophet Hosea to be divinely inspired when
he wrote Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her
God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and
their women with child shall be ripped up (Hosea 13:16), or was the
Psalmist divinely inspired when he wrote O daughter of Babylon, who art to
be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones?
(Psalm 137:8-9)
The
mistreatment of children is particularly disturbing when the deed is committed
by the children’s own parents. But Exodus 21:7 appears to condone selling one’s
daughter into what was effectively slavery, And if a man sell his daughter
to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do, and Judges
11 appears to condone Jephtha’s sacrifice of his own daughter. And then, of
course, you have Lot, a just and righteous man according to the Second Epistle
of Peter. On one occasion (Genesis 19:8) he offers his virgin daughters to a
crowd of rapists and on another occasion (Genesis 19:32-36), when drunk, he
gets his own daughters pregnant.
Have you
ever noticed just how often drunk men tend to repeat themselves? Well, so do
careless editors, if they accidentally incorporate the same source document
more than once into an anthology. This can also happen if one of the documents
used as a source was plagiarised by its author from one of the other authors.
All of these things can arise from the weaknesses and errors of fallible
authors, but you do not expect it to happen in a divinely inspired book,
especially one comprising the very words of God. God does not get his needle
stuck in a groove, or accidentally press the photocopier button twice.
There are,
of course, many examples of repetition used very effectively in the Bible for
emphasis, and as part of a poetic structure, as in Psalm 136. Some verses occur
as many as twelve times, quite deliberately (see Numbers 7:12-83).
But there
are other examples of passages that occur twice without any such plausible
excuse. In most instances the repetition does not look like the result of
infallible, direct, verbal inspiration: it looks more like a simple human
error. For example, Isaiah 37 (the whole chapter) is an exact copy of 2 Kings
19; and Isaiah 38 is an almost exact copy of 2 Kings 20:1-8. Also, 2 Chronicles
9:11-26 are a repeat of 1 Kings 10:12-27, as are several passages in Chronicles
and Kings. Psalm 53 is an almost exact copy of Psalm 14. The last two verses of
2 Chronicles are the same as the first two and a half verses of Ezra, and the
Chronicler ends the last verse abruptly in mid-sentence.
It has been suggested to me that a
study of predictive prophecy and its success rate would be a test of biblical
infallibility. There are three serious limitations to this kind of study.
First, many prophecies are
open-ended, with no time limit set for their fulfilment. In a sense, such a
prophecy is safe to make because it can never be conclusively falsified by
subsequent events. For example, Isaiah 19, in the prophecy against
Egypt, predicts that the waters of the Nile will dry up completely. As far as I
know, this has never happened, and it would create mayhem, or possibly
annihilation of a whole population if it did happen, but a fundamentalist could
always say that we just have to wait a bit longer and it will happen
eventually. Given global warming, maybe he would be right.
Another prophecy against Egypt that has not to my knowledge
ever been fulfilled is seen in Ezekiel 29:9-12. Again, maybe we just have to
wait a bit longer. Mind you, where there is an open-ended prediction that a
certain event will not happen, then this is a bolder prediction than
saying it will happen, because it is potentially capable of being falsified by
events.
Secondly,
where prophecies appear to have been fulfilled, we sometimes have to depend on
bible scholars and archaeologists to tell us whether the prophecy was written
before or after the event predicted, and this may lead to irresoluble argument.
This is a particular problem with the prophecies in Daniel, which was possibly
the last of the Old Testament books to be written.
A third
thorny problem for the proposed test of inerrancy is that many prophecies are
written in somewhat figurative language, so it may not be possible to agree
about what event or person the prophecy refers to. This is a particular problem
with the Old Testament verses referred to by the author of Matthew’s gospel.
Although Matthew very frequently quotes Old Testament verses and applies them
to the Messiah, which is reasonable enough if done in a metaphorical sense, a
close examination of the context of the verses that he quotes shows that their
immediate, or literal, application is nearly always to someone else.
Despite
these three limitations, there are still, in fact, some prophecies that could
perhaps be used as a test of inerrancy: namely those prophecies that are fairly
unambiguous in their meaning and are accompanied by an explicit or implied time
limit for their fulfilment, and were probably made before the event predicted.
And there are also those prophecies that predict that a certain event will not
happen. But when I study these, my impression is that they weaken rather than
strengthen the fundamentalist’s case.
For instance,
when Ahaz the King of Judah was faced with the task of defending Jerusalem
against a combined assault by the Kings of Israel and Syria, Isaiah gave him a
reassuring prophecy, which he said was from God, to the effect that the
attempted conquest would not succeed (Isaiah 7: 1-7).
1 And
it came to pass in the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, king
of Judah, that Rezin the king of Syria, and Pekah the son of Remaliah, king of
Israel, went up toward Jerusalem to war against it, but could not prevail
against it.
2 And it was told the house of David, saying, Syria
is confederate with Ephraim. And his heart was moved, and the heart of his
people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the wind.
3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to
meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the
upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear
not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for
the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah,
have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let
us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the
son of Tabeal:
7 Thus saith the Lord GOD, It shall not stand,
neither shall it come to pass. (King James Version)
But
according to II Chronicles 28: 5-8 Ahaz was in fact defeated in
the attack by the kings of Israel and Syria, with more than a hundred thousand
men slaughtered; and the assailants took hundreds of thousands of prisoners and
plunder back to Samaria and Damascus.
5 Wherefore
the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria; and they
smote him, and carried away a great multitude of them captives, and brought
them to Damascus. And he was also delivered into the hand of the king of
Israel, who smote him with a great slaughter.
6 For Pekah the son of Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred
and twenty thousand in one day, which were all valiant men; because they had
forsaken the LORD God of their fathers.
7 And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, slew
Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the governor of the house, and Elkanah
that was next to the king.
8 And the children of Israel carried away captive
of their brethren two hundred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took
also away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to Samaria. (King
James Version)
Ezekiel 26:7-14 prophesied that
Nebuchadnezzar would destroy the city of Tyre.
7 For
thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and
with horsemen, and companies, and much people.
8 He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the
field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee,
and lift up the buckler against thee.
9 And he shall set engines of war against thy
walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.
10 By reason of the abundance of his horses their
dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and
of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men
enter into a city wherein is made a breach.
11 With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down
all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong
garrisons shall go down to the ground.
12 And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and
make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and
destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and
thy dust in the midst of the water.
13 And I will cause the noise of thy songs to
cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.
14 And I will make thee like the top of a rock:
thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I
the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
But
historians, if they are to be believed, tell us that Tyre did not in fact fall
to Nebuchadnezzar. Eventually the siege was lifted and a compromise peace
settlement was agreed (Asimov, Guide to the Bible, p587-588); but 240
years later Tyre was destroyed by Alexander the Great and, in contradiction to
the prophecy of Ezekiel, it was in fact rebuilt (Howell-Smith, In Search of
the Real Bible, p40-41). I am not a historian, so I cannot give an expert
assessment of the accuracy of these facts, but I know of no historians that
contradict them. Indeed, the New Testament confirms that Tyre existed during
Jesus’ ministry (Mark 7:24) and at the time of Peter’s escape from prison (Acts
12:20). And according to the Association for Rural Development Aid, Tyre still
exists and had a population of 132,111 in 1996.
Moreover, in Ezekiel 29:17-20 the
prophet seems by implication to admit that his prophecy had not been fulfilled.
17 In the
twenty-seventh year, in the first month on the first day, the word of the LORD
came to me: 18 "Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
drove his army in a hard campaign against Tyre; every head was rubbed bare and
every shoulder made raw. Yet he and his army got no reward from the campaign he
led against Tyre. 19 Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
I am going to give Egypt to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will carry
off its wealth. He will loot and plunder the land as pay for his army. 20
I have given him Egypt as a reward for his efforts because he and his army did
it for me, declares the Sovereign LORD .
In the process of making this
admission, Ezekiel has made another prophecy: that Nebuchadnezzar would conquer
Egypt, an event that we would almost certainly know about if it had ever taken
place.
I sense that this is getting a bit
tedious. There are dozens of other examples that I could quote. But let me just
add a very brief example from the New Testament. Matthew 12:40 says, For as
Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of
man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
The most
natural interpretation of three days and three nights is a
period of about 72 hours, whereas the most natural interpretation of the gospel
accounts of burial and resurrection imply that Jesus was in the grave from the
evening of Good Friday to very early in the morning on Easter Sunday – a period
of about 36 hours. I have seen people indulging in verbal acrobatics and
ingenious chronological models in an attempt to reconcile these figures, but
their arguments always appeared artificial, contrived and ad-hoc. The simplest
explanation is that Matthew, as was his wont, was just applying Old Testament
verses inappropriately, even to the extent of putting words in Jesus’ mouth.
What does all this mean for
fundamentalists?
I once was
a fundamentalist myself, and I ate, drank, breathed, prayed, worshipped and
preached among fundamentalists, so I know how they think. One of the fears that
lurk in their minds is that if we concede that the Bible is only a human and
fallible attempt to record the history of God’s relationship with man, then
what grounds do we have for believing anything, such as the existence of God
and the resurrection of Jesus?
The fear
is that their faith may crumble away to nothing, leaving them with no purpose
in life and no guidance on how to live it. Roman Catholics do not have quite
the same fear, because their criterion of truth is what the Church says, and
particularly the Pope. The Taylor/Symington/Hales branch of the Exclusive
Brethren similarly need not worry about fallibility in the Bible, because their
criterion of truth is what their leader says. But for most fundamentalists the
fear is very real, and I have no wish to distress them.
Let me
offer some constructive suggestions therefore to those fundamentalists whose faith
is built, not exactly on rock, nor on sand, but on a thin, brittle crust of
certainty, a crust that is liable to crumble if you probe it ever so gently
with the sword of truth.
First, you
don’t need a perfect and infallible Bible in order to have a living, active and
fulfilling faith. Most Christians have one without the other. There are reasons
for belief that do not depend at all on a literal interpretation of the Bible,
and there are reasons for disbelief that do arise from a literal interpretation
of the Bible.
I once
heard a Sunday School teacher expressing dismay at a lesson in which children
were being taught a very literal approach to an allegorical bible story. She
said, with a shake of the head, “This is the sort of lesson that breeds young
atheists.” She did have a point. Fundamentalism can bring the Bible into
disrepute. Fundamentalism has sadly been successful in convincing many people
that large sections of the Bible pretend to be history, when clearly they do
not pretend to be anything of the sort.
So what
are the reasons for belief that do not depend at all on a literal
interpretation of the Bible?
After
allowing for the insertions, deletions, confusions and maulings that the gospel
records have suffered, there remains a hard core of the teachings of Jesus.
While historical accuracy is no longer available to us, there can be little
doubt about the tenor of his ministry. It is consistent, it is stunning, it is
liberating; in places it is awe-inspiring. If you are convinced that it is right
and have experienced its power, and you feel drawn by the words “follow me”,
then do you need any more justification?
Some
readers may feel that they do in fact need more justification for belief. The classical philosophical arguments have
largely failed, and the argument from design has largely been demolished. The
Bible is no longer totally reliable, so where is the evidence for God now?
Try
looking deep within yourself and, as far as feasible, deep within others. Have
you ever encountered examples of sheer, pure, unconditional goodness? Have you
ever felt inspired to spread and communicate the love of God to someone? Do you
ever experience the Wisdom from above, which is pure, peaceable, gentle, open
to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere? Do you ever
have a sublime experience of love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness,
goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control?
If you
have experienced these things, then you are not alone. The Bible, with all its
frail human imperfections, contains many records of people who have experienced
the same power guiding them, motivating them, acting in and through them.
Admittedly,
none of these experiences could be presented to a sceptic as a proof of the
existence of God. They are not a proof. Nor could you present to a sceptic
proof of the existence of love. Love is something that you have no doubt about
if you have experienced it, and no knowledge of if you have not experienced it.
I know of no way in which I could prove the existence of love, or even describe
it, to someone who had never experienced it.
In the
Epistles of Paul, most of which are probably genuine, Paul repeatedly refers to
such experiences and attributes them to the indwelling presence of the Spirit
of God. He describes the Spirit as bearing witness with our spirit. He
describes our unvoiced prayers as the Spirit interceding with groanings that
cannot be uttered.
Isaiah
57:15 describes a God who dwells both in heaven and in people. For thus
saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy [place], and with him that is of a contrite and
humble spirit.
In Matthew
18:20, in a passage that appears to refer to the future, Jesus is recorded as
saying that he will be with his disciples wherever they are gathered together.
In Revelation 3:20 he is also seen as promising to dwell with anyone who hears
his voice and opens the door.
In the New
Testament we read the words and observe the deeds of Jesus’ disciples after his
departure. Some of their words and deeds are noticeably Jesus-like. It is
almost as if Jesus was still alive within his followers. We get the same
impression in some non-canonical writings, such as Clement’s Epistle to the
Corinthians. In ways that are not easy to define, he seems to breathe and exude
and communicate the love of God. And we can see that the history of the world
was radically changed by these people. Something very powerful was at work.
Again,
none of this could be presented to a sceptic as a proof of anything. It simply
suggests that in some sense the spirit of Jesus is still alive in his
followers. It does not tell us anything about what happened to the atoms and
molecules that made up his body. But then, maybe atoms and molecules are not
very important. Our atoms and molecules do not define our identity. Even the
atoms and molecules that make up a living body are continually being lost and
replaced.
Resurrection and life after death are not very consistently depicted by the Bible. Some Old Testament passages appear to contradict the doctrine. For example,
Job 7:9 As
the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he that goeth down to the grave
shall come up no more.
Psalm 6:5 For
in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee
thanks?
Ecclesiastes
3:19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one
thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all
one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast.
Ecclesiastes
9:5 The dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward.
Ecclesiastes
9:10 For there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the
grave, whither thou goest.
Isaiah
26:14 They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased they shall not
rise.
Isaiah
38:18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death can not celebrate thee: they
that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth.
On the
other hand, other passages give examples of people who have been raised from
the dead. Elijah was said to be instrumental in the resurrection of a child;
Elisha in the resurrection of a child and a man; Jesus in the resurrection of
Lazarus and Jairus’s daughter. And we also have the report in Matthew 27 that the
graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came
out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared unto many.
Maybe some
of the conflicting passages could be reconciled by accepting that resurrection
does occur in some sense of the word, but not in another sense. The exact
nature of resurrection is not made entirely clear to us in the New Testament.
Paul’s account of what resurrection means differs somewhat from other accounts.
In 1 Corinthians 15 he says it is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body. And in 2 Corinthians 5 he says, For we know that if our
earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this we groan, ardently
desiring to have put on our house which [is] from heaven.
In these
passages Paul indicates a difference between the body that is buried and the
body that is raised. The body that is buried is destroyed, and the resurrected
body is a spiritual body, a building from God, a house not made with hands …
our house which is from heaven.
On the
other hand, other descriptions of resurrection depict it in a much more
physical sense, as in the quotation from Matthew 27 in which the bodies came
out of the graves, not out of heaven.
When the
Bible appears to deny resurrection in some passages, but depicts it as a
physical event in other passages and as a spiritual event in yet others, it is
not surprising that different Christians have differing conceptions of what
resurrection means. But do we really need to enforce a uniformity of
interpretation? The early church
leaders disagreed about some very fundamental principles, such as whether
gentiles could be accepted into the church, but they did not split into two
churches merely because they disagreed.
The Bible
is a wonderful human record of the relationship between God and man. Much of it
is justly described as inspired, in the sense that its authors were inspired
and motivated by their faith, or by God. Parts of it have great power to
instruct, uplift and inspire the reader. But its text cannot possibly be
regarded as the actual words, perfect and infallible, dictated by God.
The Bible
contains many different literary genres, including allegory, poetry and drama,
which were probably never intended by their authors to be construed as literal
history. Their allegorical or poetic style can often communicate complex ideas
and feelings more vividly than plain prose could. But they are not history. To
insist that the authors intended them as history has given many people the
impression that they were written by fraudsters and impostors. Fallible the
authors may have been, but fraudsters and impostors they were not.
According
to the gospels, Jesus taught that the prophecies concerning the return of
Elijah and the coming of the Kingdom of God were to be understood in a
spiritual sense, not in the immediate, literal, physical sense that most people
thought. If Jesus did not interpret prophecies in their most literal sense, it
ill behoves us to be more fundamentalist than he was.
The Bible
also contains a great deal of literal history, intermingled with the marks of
human frailty, fallibility, and error. The errors are too great and too
numerous to be explained away by ingenious, contrived, ad-hoc explanations. It
is better just to accept that the errors are there, and learn how to
distinguish truth from error, just as we have to do daily in everything else
that we read.
Different
churches recognise different books as worthy of inclusion in the Bible, and
many different canons of scripture have been compiled in different ages. Some
of those books not included in the Protestant bibles and others not included in
Catholic bibles have great spiritual power, in no way inferior to those that
are included. So the content of any particular canon of scripture cannot
reasonably be regarded as final, God-given and perfect.
An
infallible bible is not needed in order to have a living, active and fulfilling
faith. Indeed, the alleged infallibility of the Bible has often been seriously
damaging to the credibility of Christian teachings, seriously damaging to the
reputation of the Bible, and seriously damaging to faith.
If we do
not have a universally accepted criterion of truth, of course, there will
inevitably be diversity of understanding of divine truth. But it is acceptable
to disagree. Separating from everyone who disagrees with you is only a
convenient way to avoid having your views exposed to scrutiny. And an enforced
unity of belief is only a sham unity. The early church leaders disagreed about
many things. Let us allow free and open discussion.
The human
species is exceptional in its capacity for speech and thought. To suppress
freedom of speech and freedom of thought has a dehumanising effect and is just
not acceptable. I shall even allow fundamentalists to disagree with every word
I have written, and still regard them in the spirit of brotherly love.
If you are
a fundamentalist and are happy with your version of the Christian faith, then I
have no wish to persuade you to change. Persuasion is no part of my personal
mission.
My target
audience are those who already feel that there is something seriously wrong
with the fundamentalist teachings in which they have been brought up, but
cannot find the words to explain to their friends exactly what is wrong. I am
writing this to provide support to those who wish to escape from
fundamentalism, either as seekers after truth, or as fugitives from oppression;
those who are in the same vulnerable, stressful condition as I was in 1968,
faced with the agonising choice between losing their friends, family and home
or losing their commitment to truth, wisdom and enlightenment.
The above
essay is a revised version of one published in October 2004 at peebs.net, where many contributors took part
in constructive discussions about it, which helped to make it clearer, fuller
and more accurate. I am grateful to all of them. My daughter Phyllis gave excellent
advice on how to improve the structure and style of the first draft, and Google
did a marvellous job in tracking down sources of information for me. God bless
them all.
Copies of
this document can be downloaded in PDF format from http://www.discourses.org.uk/