Reading the Bible - looking beyond the words

 There are different ways of approaching how we read the Bible. This isn’t to say any way is better than another. I merely offer a view that you may want to consider. Or maybe it is a way you have been looking at the Bible for a while.  Some times it can help to know that there are different ways of relating to the Bible that are equally faithful, and still inform our relationship with God.

There are those who consider the Bible to be inerrant – this can refer to the original languages or for others the translated words too. This view believes that God has protected the exact words down the ages and the translations. However we don’t have any original texts, only a range of manuscripts that are multiple copies down the line, and with differences between them.  Translation is also tricky (see over)

There is also the approach that the Bible is Inspired by God – this gives a very wide approach, from the writers being guided directly by God, to it being their own choices to write and record things and God uses what they wrote to speak to us.

Then there is the matter of what we do with the stories we find in the Bible. How do we deal with 2 different stories of the Creation – the first poetic where everything created was good, and the second a narrative to explain why there is badness in the world, the animals in Gen 1 are created before people, and in Gen 2 there are created after Adam who is asked to name them.   Likewise there are multiple points in the Old Testament where stories are repeated, or 2 versions run together like the flood.  Scholars think that what we have today is an amalgam of different writers (eg each creation story uses a different term for God).

As well as who wrote what, there is also when. It is generally agreed that the version of Genesis we have was mostly compiled when the Jews were in exile in Babylon, many years after all the kings such as David.  It is when people are away from their roots that the need to affirm their distinctiveness as a people seems more important. This opens up a way for the early events in Genesis  - creation to flood – to be influenced by even older stories from Mesopotamia, which predated the Babylonians in that land.  Does the fact that the Epic of Gilgamesh has a flood story with a man on a boat with animals mean that Genesis has nothing to say to us? I believe in the evidence for evolution and that the world is older than 6000yrs, and recognise that cultures with written records (writing began with balancing accounts and taxes – predictable?) have noted time before and after the flood with no record of a disaster. That and the geological evidence.

Do these stories have to be historically true for the Bible to carry meaning for us? I don’t think so, and actually I think that the message behind why these stories were told, what the writers wanted to say about God still has a message for us, and changed to a different message than the version of a flood story told in Babylon.

At some point after King Solomon’s descendants the list of kings are picked up by records found in other nations around them. Before that we have no archaeological evidence for eg mass slavery in Egypt; nor the great city massacres during the book of Joshua as the Israelites conquer Canaan.  For me that insight has been really helpful since those wars against the existing residents of the land are some of the most troubling parts of the Bible for me.

We read stories of cities being attacked and all the people being slaughtered, including children and even all animals, and this is cited as some kind of offering to God.  Reading this as written leaves us asking why God is asking for that total violence. Reading it as people writing about something that happened and they thought it was what God was asking for so they wrote in that he told them to do it. But if this was part of a national origin myth, then that is a very different point from which to ponder the points being made by the authors.

In the New Testament too there are questions. The gospels were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – those names were added later. Whilst only some of Paul’s letters are considered genuine. The letters to Timothy being among those written in his name but the style of Greek is different and they talk about a church that has developed further and is more structured with ministers and overseers/bishops. Hence the commands about how church should be governed.

There are many more aspects to this, for some what I am writing is abhorrent, a denial of God’s word. For the strictly inerrant believers I am already invalid as a woman preaching and a church minister. Others may say that if I accept this range of scholarly questioning of the Bible, then do I even see it as God’s word at all.

For me these insights actually invite me to seek deeper meanings, why is the writer saying this? What is hidden under the story or poetry? How does the timing of the writing affect the meaning to the immediate culture? (The book of Ruth is dated before King David but thought to be written around the return from exile – at the time were there were issues about separating from foreign wives for national purity a writer tells a story of a foreign woman marrying into the line of David himself).

This may not be your approach, but there are many ways of hearing God’s voice through the Bible, and being a faithful disciple is possible across many ways of seeking inspiration through the Bible.

However you read it, may you find deeper knowledge of God 

Letter to my biology teacher

Dear Mrs Evans,

You inspired my interest in the wonders of life. I had long since exhausted my parents with my ‘why?’ questions, and here in science class there were answers and insights.  I cherished getting the New Scientist magazine at a special rate. Reading that and watching TV on a Thursday night – for ‘Tomorrow’s World’ rather than many classmates wanting the update of ‘Top of the Pops’ fed my curious mind.  Chemistry was cool , whilst physics never starched the itch, biology however fascinated me. I would read ahead in the textbooks. Had I been a student in the internet age I would have been devouring science content, as I do now.

However, I was ‘that child’, the one who came to you proclaiming that I wanted to opt out of the evolution classes because of my faith. I even gave you a book that suggested the fossil record merely reflected the drowning sequence of creatures during the flood of Noah’s day.   Looking back I am not sure where my anti evolutionist stance came from – it was not part of the general message of my Methodist Church I had attended since infancy. Perhaps it was the books I was reading, and my young in faith enthusiasm.  It reflected my limited understanding of faith and of science. You responded with grace and I sat in the prep room during those classes. In reality I was reading up on evolution anyway should it come up in any exams!  I guess it was my way of ‘making a stance’ from my faith.

You continued as my biology teacher for years beyond that, through GCSEs and A level, and saw me depart for a degree course in Biochemistry with Microbiology.  And such is the nature of teaching, that you work with us closely and then set us loose into the wider world, without hearing back from where we end up.

I am not sure where or when I embraced the scientific evidence of evolution, or at least when I stopped fighting it.   I suspect it was when I was still in your classes, but I just didn’t recognise it at the time, like someone wandering in the borderlands. At Uni I embraced the wonder of life without trying to define how it came to be.

You may not be surprised that I ended up as a church minister, I hope you will be affirmed that I do so as someone who affirms the beautiful insights of scientific discovery.   That discovery was something that was rooted in what you taught.

Lost in translation - What does the Bible say?:

 In a visit home earlier this year, Mum asked if I knew about this 'new translation' - a few of her facebook friends had started to share Bible quotes from something called The Passion Translation (TPT), and she felt uncertain about  how things were worded.  I looked up their website and examples they showed of their version compared to others and we agreed that the TPT seemed to add bits that were not in any of the mainstream translations and seemed very skewed. 

Well time passes and I didn't hear of this version again, until this week.  I often listen to either an audiobook or a youtube video/podcast walking the dog or now in the car (since new to me car can play from my phone).  An internet 'rabbit hole' - a reference to Alice in Wonderland - can lead to unexpected places, and so I stumbled on posts about the same translation that my mum had mentioned months earlier.

(I started on one youtube video, then the playlist, but there is a combined collection here which includes the the written papers from the professional translators on their books of expertise, as well as the video interviews - which include clips from public sermons by TPT the author)

So with pricked up ears I started to listen. and various alarm bells rang loudly -

1. The author Brian Simmonds (an American preacher) claims that he had a visitation by Christ commissioning him to write, and he named the work after 'an angel named Passion', who looks after his ministry.  (clips then listen on to a translator/scholar's summary)

2. He claims that this is the most true translation, and with angelic help he has been given divine inspiration to allow him without language expertise to have 'downloads' from God about the meaning. (including God hiding meanings) 

3. He claims to have had revealed to him specific hidden secrets from the text that have not been available to readers and translators over the past 2000 years.  (first few minutes and then 16min 33sec)

4. He claims to be more true because he uses the 'Aramaic texts' and that Jesus spoke Aramaic. However scholarship is clear that that the books of the New Testament began in Greek. Whilst the writers may have had access to sources in Aramaic, the books we now have were in Greek - from having to explain the Aramaic terms included and playing with language, ( Eloi to Elijah at crucifixion; the pun in Greek in John 3 conversation with Nicodemus, that only works in Greek).

There are Biblical texts in Aramaic - eg parts of Daniel - which shows how this is not as old as claimed  since Aramaic was a later development than Hebrew. (Imagine modern English appearing in Chaucer)  But there is no 'original' Aramaic new testament.(see here re Ephesians) Rather the Greek was translated into a form of Aramaic and found in later Syrian texts, later than our earliest manuscripts in Greek.
___

However we approach the Biblical texts, whether as those who see it as infallible, or those who see the hands of editors and reflections, there is still a core transmission. Generally modern translations use committees of scholars, who can be a check and balance to how the final version emerges.  There are paraphrases - be it The Living Bible or The Message - these are openly admitted to be such. Apparently Peterson did not want his reworking to have verse markers as he did not want to imply equality with the translations, but as something that makes them think.

In contrast The Passion Translation - despite expert translators saying it is even more creative than other paraphrases - claims for itself a direct, perfect for today,  revealing secrets from God for this age and should be people's primary Bible for study. link

Yet this Passion Translation is endorsed by big-crowd gathering preachers in certain corners of American Christianity. And it seems is gradually appearing in British contexts.

There is no translation that is free from interpretation; but this is interpretation claiming to be a translation, and claiming singular insights and special knowledge hidden to the rest of us over centuries. 

Whenever I hear - 'I have the only and best Word of God', then my instinct is to run. Whilst we each value our understanding of the Bible, most of us acknowledge that we can only see 'through the glass darkly' and that we have much to learn or relearn. This is why I preach and talk about asking questions, thinking about our faith, and comparing different views in forming our own.

 

Faith and politics part 5: when belief faces covid

The vaccines 

Rather than celebrating a major combined scientific achievement we see the lack of trust in science combine with growing strength of belief that ‘They’ are out to get us.  Whether the religious claim that the vaccine is ‘the mark of the beast’, and closing buildings in lockdown was anti Christian persecution; or the New World Order cabal that Hilary Clinton was accused of being part of when Trump was campaigning 2016; or Bill Gates and the microchip or nanobots.  Lack of understanding of science leads to confused ideas about the vaccine changing DNA.   No no no it doesn’t.

The vaccine uses messenger RNA technology. RNA is not DNA. DNA is the master copy, RNA is a print out to take out to the bits of the cell that use it to assemble whatever is needed.   The mRNA in the vaccine is a delivery system to give us the code for the protein spike of covid 19, not the illness bit of the virus but just a landmark. The idea is that the mRNA of the protein will mean our body briefly makes some of this inactive landmark until the mRNA breaks down.   The Immune system will recognise the protein as foreign, and create antibodies to attack them and break them down. The end result is an immune system that is primed with antibodies ready if they face the virus, whilst the vaccine mRNA and the proteins made using it are both metabolised out of your body.  Some of the symptoms of an immune response to something foreign – soreness at the area, inflammation etc can occur as the system learns to make the antibodies. Same as with other vaccines – it is symptoms of your defence system acting, not of the illness itself.  Yes you can get covid after vaccine – but your immunity has a head start so less dangerous.

Vaccine take up in the UK in 70% double jabbed and 40% boosted, with 96% for adults.

In US it varies state to state from 78% to less than 50% in 4 states, and half the states are less than 60% vaccinated. (at late Jan 2022 and does not account to county wide variations)

Vaccines work for individuals but also as the ‘herd’ – when enough are vaccinated there becomes a shortage of places for the virus to reproduce.  When the herd immunity levels are reached they offer protection for those who for medical reasons can’t have the vaccine themselves, and cut the recirculation of the illness. 

The mix of trends in parts of the US population do have impacts on the lives of others, not just in rejecting the herd effect, but also where alternative ‘cures’ and ‘protections’ are marketed some of which may be dangerous in themselves. Strange how those who claim the vaccine is untested experimentation, are happy to buy actually untested snake oil solutions.  Then there is the aggression towards medical professionals, retail workers enforcing mask mandates, and death threats to Dr Fauci  ( America’s Dr Whitty ).   And calls for conspiracy believers to dominate elected school boards and other local democracies with their anti science extreme right views.

I am on the left, medical care and welfare safety nets for the poor and the rich can afford to pay more tax and not see any dent in their wealth; others are conservative and see different ways to structure society. We are in a democracy and I support whatever you chose to vote for if you have carefully considered the party policies. No single party will be the perfect fit.  However the extreme right wing is a different matter, it trades in hate for minorities, and feed on the insecurities of people who have lost trust in normal society, rising conspiracies make fruitful recruiting grounds for these extremists. And the idea of them gaining dominance in any place is scary to me, especially somewhere as large and influential as America.

So between 6 day creationism,  conspiracies inc flat earthers, to anti vaxxers, these have become more than just personal belief or choice but something that has real world dangers in our covid world. Effects that will follow us post covid across world politics, as well as the impact on individuals. 

Faith and politics part 4: Covid conspiracy crisis

 

Covid control conspiracy crisis

The majority of the world population when faced with Covid had grown up with every advancing medical science. Just a hundred years ago before antibiotics, when so many conditions could not be ‘cured’ only nursed people would be astonished to look forward to hospitals and medicine today. Meanwhile science and technology opened up so many things that we (at least in the richest countries) could barely imagine living without. 

I don’t like the idea of dividing populations into generations (I am a late Gen x-er apparently), the post war generations, baby boomers, whilst fearful of the abuse of science (nuclear bombs) largely saw science as positive and hopeful, that it will in time have all the answers. In the move away from religion was there a trend to see science as the new faith?

Well in the new millennium doubt came into the faith in science. We started to wonder more often whether what can be done should be done.  Not that the question was never asked before, but the voices got louder. At the same time we face the limits of science and medicine – antibiotic resistance, few answers for the dementia that more people live long enough to develop – and the implications of our previous technologies on the climate.

So now we move on from the proclamations that ‘God is dead’ to ‘Science is playing God’ and adverts that used to see someone in a lab coat as reassuring to a mindset that scientists are playing with fire and not to be trusted.

Enter a pandemic and a time when there is a need to follow guidance, and listen to the science. 2020 populations are used to deciding for themselves, and whilst most of us may follow the guidance as our choice to care for the community and limit the spread etc, others rebel against anything. This is magnified in the USA where the faith related anti-science was already more widespread, and then the vaccines…

Faith and politics part 3 : Flat earth and other theories

 

Flat Earthers and beyond

Yes this view is making a comeback - despite the earth as a globe being proposed centuries before Christ –an idea proposed by Pythagoras (6^th century BC) and affirmed by Plato (4^th century BC) and Aristotle suggested empirical evidence. Whilst around 240 BC the Greek Eratosthenes made a very accurate estimate of the circumference of the earth, by comparing shadows in different cities.

I confess that I was surprised about how early this understanding was, in my imagination it was a medieval insight linked to Copernicus – but it seems his addition was about the planets circling around the sun rather than Earth being the centre of the universe. The globe earth was well established among the learned and through the Middle Ages the churches and emerging universities took a globe world as a given fact.

It was in the 19^th century that stories arose that claimed the middle Ages European view was of a flat earth. And it was linked to the development of the myth of conflict between faith and science. In Britain Samuel Rowbotham (1816–1885) published theories of a flat earth and was a charismatic speaker. Others took up the baton in the years that followed. Things subsided although in 1956 The International Flat Earth Research Society was formed, in the face of the space race and images from orbit the claims of conspiracy and deception began.  In was under new leadership in the 1970s that the membership of the society grew to several thousand. Decline in the 1990s has been followed by another resurrection in the internet age with youtube channels focused on flat earth theories – fed by and feeding into to the rise of both anti science and anti government worldviews.

Of course the number of those committed to the flat earth viewpoint will still be small, more widely though the rate of conspiracy believers seem to be higher, with QAnon as a movement that seemingly binds together a wide range of different groups that were once seen as extreme. And when a former president makes unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud, and followers storm Congress, then this conspiracy becomes widely accepted and encouraged by key right wing communicators, and invites people into other conspiracies – especially in the uncertainty of covid times.  

Faith and politics part2 : Creationism to covid anti-vaxxers

 

So what does it matter if a small group of people spend their lives gathering donations to promote unworkable theories of how the laws of physics and biology can fit their need to prove a 6 day creation?   If it was just about that I would live and let live – people are free to believe and interpret their faith however they wish to – until it becomes harmful to others.

The climate in the American Bible Belt has become very literal in its expression of faith, here they have campaigns seeking to teach creationism in science classes, or even to have evolution taken out, here is the heart of Christian home school curricula that reduce science and claim that poetic language in various parts of the Bible are claims to scientific fact. 

The same people who promote creationism as the only valid Christian view of the beginnings of life, are part of the Moral Majority, the Religious Right – the process by which evangelical Christians have been recruited into co-dependency with the Republican party.   A journey that has led many of them to see Donald Trump as almost messianic, despite much in his lifestyle that would be condemned by their moral values. Meanwhile any Democrat is evil, despite Biden being in church much more often than Trump ever would – but then Biden is Catholic and many of them don’t consider catholics as part of their faith.

The attack on Evolution has morphed into a general anti science stance, enforcing the idea that scientists are trying to edit out God, and that science and faith are incompatible.  Science goes back to prechristian thinkers, whilst a lot of mathematics and astronomy was advanced by Islamic scholars whilst Christendom was said to be in the ‘Dark Ages’.   Time moved on and much of scientific study for centuries was linked to the monasteries – this people set aside from regular labour in the fields, more educated, scribes of the ancient Greek texts preserved by the Islamic scholars, and the desire to seek out more understanding of God’s creation – the world around them.  The idea that science is at war with faith is relatively recent, and yes Darwin’s theory was a landmark in that, though Darwin was a man of Christian faith.

So parts of the church responded by proclaiming that evolution and the geology of an ancient earth could not be true, leading them to cling more and more to a literal view of the earliest stories of the Bible.  They became sceptical of science, whilst happy to benefit from uncontroversial aspects -computers, internet, medical progress. This contradictory mindset has been ripe for those rebelling against the science of these Covid times – the anti vaxxers who protest against even others getting the jab; the anti maskers who complain that their rights are being infringed; the church leaders who see requests to avoid gathering in crowds as persecution from the atheist scientist cabal.

Christian literalism has contributed to situations where people are told what to believe, taught to fear science and to expect persecution from the big bad world. Leading to a context where to some it is seen as Christian to defy the scientific advice about covid. - leading to huge variations in state % of vaccinations. Okay no authority or country has had a perfect response to the pandemic, we all have to consider what is best at any point in this journey, and I am sure that hindsight will judge the flaws. However where vast parts of a population have already been conditioned to see science as bad, as anti-christian, then the ability of any authority to seek co-operation in protecting lives and limiting the spread of illness is neutered. This is what we see in the extreme parts of American evangelicalism, running churches that ban the wearing of masks, and prophesy about Trump– until he said he was vaccinated and boosted, when new theories grow.

So yes our view of Genesis may be a private faith matter, however the militant young earth creationists do affect others lives, and in Covid that has become very clear.