How can we ever attain unity of the Spirit when there is so much intolerance, certainity of doctrine, and known prejudicial bias that goes into so much of a Christian’s reading of the Bible? Or is it just me? Well, if it is, let me confess my known prejudices and maybe, just maybe therein, you might see one for yourself and we could make some headway to accepting that none of us is righteous- only God is GOOD as Jesus reminded us.
Pride and arrogance goes before the fall you know.
Over the years we who read the Bible find “groupings” that seemingly have more meaning for us. It’s simply a matter of us growing in spiritual matters. At one age and in one stage of life certain things matter for us more than others. The bottom line is that we READ VERSES WE LIKE! If we don’t quite understand a verse, we shy away from it, or at least we don’t put it on the outside of the refridgerator door or commit it to memory.
We all READ VERSES that we agree with and seemingly understand.
Secondly, we have our OWN INTERPRETATION to whatever verses that we’re reading. We can try to be as objective as possible, but it is in the mere reading of a Scripture that we interpret it. There’s no way of getting around the fact that we comprehend and understand verses based on our vocabulary, intellectual achievement, presuppositional bias and teachings, and from the culture from which we grew up.
A verse can mean one thing if read from the deep South and another if read from Seattle, Singapore, or South Wales.
Thirdly, my view of God and the Bible is affected by which TRANSLATION I decide to use. There’s a world of difference between the King James Version and the Amplified Bible for instance. The are subtle but big differences in the NIV and Ferrar Fentons version. I prefer the Revised English Bible because it’s drawn from one of the oldest manuscripts (Codex Sinaticus) and where the existing manuscripts contain mistakes (yes errors), they are fote-noted (such as Mark 3:26 and Matthew 23:35). And where older manuscripts don’t carry what newer and altered ones do (John 8:1-12 as an example), it’s noted and put at the back of the book of John.
And so on.
Fourth and finally, there’s the ATTITUDE and paradigm that one takes towards the Bible overall. I do not take all of the stories as LITERAL. Many are metaphorical and as a result richer and more meaningful than the facts render. I see the Bible as a SACRED document but I do not fall into Bibliolatry.
So much for my Biblical bias.
How are we then to decide what is metaphor and what is to be taken literally? Truly the poem of Genesis is more valuable when viewed as metaphor than as literal truth, but what happens when we get to the Gospels, or Joshua, or the Acts of the Apostles? In Joshua, God is violent and destructive and is meant to be read quite literally, the Gospels were canonized because they were considered recorded, witnessed accounts, in Acts, God kills Herod and even members of the early Church who “hold” out on him. These examples do not resonate with me on God’s nature and attitude toward his creation, but they are, never-the-less, right there in the bible for our reading pleasure. If we take them out or nullify them based on attribution or the consistancy of “our box with God in it” (as Crossan would say), then we are guilty of what you described before as having our “OWN INTERPRETATION”. How are we to handle this?
Therein has been the problem-paradox for Christianity. We have wanted to have “others” interpret for us. We’ve wanted formulas so we wouldn’t have to think and thereby we’ve missed going inward and seeking what it is that the SPIRIT would tell us regarding a matter.
If one approaches the Bible as a sacred document for Christians, but not infallible, written by man, man’s perceptions of history when written, and from a Bibliolatry mindset, there’s a freedom to just let things BE.
Like Marcion, it’s near impossible to see how the God of the Old Testament matches up with the God of the New Testament, unless you see the Bible as the “progressive understanding” of man about God.
The BOX that most people have put the Creator in (even with the name God- as a HE), is empty of reality and thus power.
A key for each person is to discover God personally, intimately, and allow each person their view(s). I have mine and I am willing to share with anyone without pretense that I am right or they are wrong. It’s called LOVE! Kingdom! And may the mysteries excite us!