Stephen
Terry, Director
The Origin and Nature of the Bible
Commentary
for the April 11, 2020 Sabbath School Lesson
" Bear in mind that our
Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also
wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in
them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand,
which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other
Scriptures, to their own destruction." 2
Peter 3:15-16, NIV
In
the latter part of the 19th century, Thomas Edison invented and
refined the phonograph for marketing to the public. Unlike the later recordings
on flat disks, Edison preserved his recordings on wax cylinders. While these
early recordings were, by nature, very fragile, a few remain playable to this
day. While the human ear can discern the material recorded, the recording
quality was a far cry from the modern recording methods that have surpassed
entirely the need for either cylinders or disks. Music, narratives, and even
visual media have all been reduced to the binary ones and zeroes of the
computer age. While audiophiles debate the fidelity of analog recordings versus
digital, there is little question that modern fidelity
greatly surpasses that of the 19th century. A collector may see
value in possessing original Edison cylinders, but we won't find today's
Billboard Top Twenty appearing on them. Rather than seeking a faithful Edison
rendition of popular music, most would prefer something relevant to modern
experience. Someone who maintained that we should only use wax cylinders in
order to remain faithful to Edison's original plan would probably be thought anachronistically
bizarre and would rarely find support with those who understand the benefits of
modern recording methods.
We
can see and understand this in relation to the amazing advances in this
technology that continually touches all our lives in multiple profound ways,
but when it comes to our relationship to God, we can sometimes have difficulty
in making the transition that allows us to mine from scripture the essential
elements capable of speaking into our lives with the technology of today. When
I say this, I am not referring to the ability to read the Bible on a
smartphone. I am referring to using the tools of today to bring greater depth
to our Bible study, plumbing the text for meanings that go much deeper than the
literal accounts we find there. For example, too many of us feel that the Bible
can only be properly meaningful if we receive it on the "wax cylinders"
of the King James Version. For these, the grammar is more important than the
message. It cannot be considered holy without the relevant "thees"
and "thous." They do not understand that while the message is indeed
there, the text itself may be a hindrance to fidelity, just like those wax
cylinders. It is surprising that those who make such demands do not insist that
everyone learn biblical Hebrew, for if the holiness is only preserved based on
the syntax and grammar, surely the ancient Hebrew has the claim for that. But
by their own preference for the King James Bible instead of the Hebrew, they
tacitly admit that the text itself contains no mystical holiness. Instead, the
same principle that governed the rendering of that version of the Bible into
English in the 17th century is the principle that has produced a
multitude of modern translations of the Bible in hundreds of languages all over
the globe today, four centuries later.
This
preference for certain versions of the Bible tend to be based on a very literal
approach to the text. But that implies a perfection that simply does not exist.
We may feel this way because the Bible reveals something of God to us, and God
by definition is perfect. However, limited by our tools of cognition and
rendition, the Bible is not a perfect revelation of God. This does not mean it
is not adequate, for it certainly is. Nothing more faithfully draws us to God,
outside of God himself, than reading the Bible. But it is a road map to heaven.
It does not fully depict everything en route or even what is at the end of the
trip. That would be impossible, for it would indicate that it is possible for
the fallen human mind to fully understand and perceive God in all his glory. But
the Bible tells us that we cannot even stand in the fullness of that glory.[i]
How then could we describe it? Obviously, the Bible must fall short to the
level of adequate to our need without being literally perfect in its narrative.
Representing the Bible as literally perfect may actually create a form of
idolatry where we claim for it the same perfection that should belong only to
God. It may also hinder us from seeing the progression of mankind's relationship
to God.
It
can be hard to write an anthology like this over a period of many centuries and
expect it to always speak literally to mankind as our cultures advance and
social relationships become more complex. Even Jesus recognized how much things
needed to change by the time of his incarnation. When teaching about the ideas
of eye-for-an-eye justice and divorce, he said those biblical values, straight from
the Pentateuch, no longer applied. Substituting instead the idea of a kingdom
based on love and compassion for one another. He represented these as actual characteristics
of God. Ironically, putting him to death on the cross displayed just how
unwilling the religious were to abandon that literal understanding of the
biblical text in favor of compassion and service to others. We see similar
ironies today when perfectionism based on obedience to a literal understanding
of the text is allowed to trump compassion and love for others, and condemnation
becomes a twisted, loving substitute. We can easily lose sight that what was
written for a semi-nomadic herding society may not be literally applicable to
those settling in towns that became cities that became megalopolises, or when city
states became nation states that became empires. Such dramatic changes seem to
demand a reinterpretation of the text in a more metaphorical manner than those
early nomads may have needed or understood.
We
are farther now from the incarnation than Jesus was from Moses. If he felt the
need to reinterpret then, how much more may that be necessary now even
regarding his teachings? We have cities now where hundreds of thousands of
people live who have never seen an actual sheep nor adequately understand their
personalities and habits. It is difficult for us to fully relate to all that
Jesus' parables may have originally meant. When Jesus talked about the lost
sheep, many of the people listening may have had just such a sheep in their
flock that may have perpetually insisted on wandering off and could visualize
and name the animal in their minds. But today, without that experience, we are
almost compelled to look for the metaphorical elements of the parable rather
than a literal understanding. Often we have little problem with this,
understanding the need. Perhaps this should lead us to look for the
metaphorical elements elsewhere as well, in order to relate what is truly
essential to modern civilization.
Even
if we upgrade our understanding from a literal approach to the Old Testament
only to the time of Jesus, how much would change in our understanding of God's character
and our faith if we substituted the idea of harsh retribution by either man or
God with the compassion, love and grace taught by Jesus as we sought out those
in need and served them with a similar compassion and humility. Too many see
the Bible as a yardstick for measuring the worth of one another. When we do
that, we excuse ourselves from caring for those who are deemed biblically
unworthy, the modern lepers, tax collectors, and political zealots. Whom does
this leave for us to serve? Those who are most like us? How then are we any
better than those who have never known Christ? The Bible was never meant to be
an excuse to avoid caring about one another, and if our demand for a literal interpretation
allows us to separate the sheep from the goats, or the weeds from the wheat,
with us being the sheep or the wheat, and everyone else being goats or weeds,
then the Bible we claim is saving us has been made, by our hands, into a tool
to lead us to perdition instead.
The
Bible tells us that all have sinned.[ii]
How then can we dare to use the Bible in such a way that makes us look better
than others and minimizes our own failings? Should we not instead humbly admit
our flaws and find expiation through a Christ-like service to the needs of
others, flowing from a Spirit-filled heart that legitimizes the welfare of
others as having validity equal to our own? Does a person need to believe in a
literal six-day Creation to be worthy of our help? If not, then why aren't we
helping them? Does a person need to believe in a literal, global Noahic flood
to be worthy of help? If not, then why aren't we helping them? Does a person
need to accept the Bible literally regarding the foods we should eat before we
will help them? If not, why aren't we helping them? If we put a literal
understanding of the Bible before the example of Christ's love for others are
we not using a different understanding of the Bible than Jesus? Maybe we can
take a clue from the late Mr. Rogers in our approach to the Bible, and instead
of looking for the judges, we can be "looking for the helpers." That's
where we will most likely find Jesus.
