Biblical “Literalism” and Interpretation
Because I hate myself, sometimes, I've started to read Anne Rice's Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. I am doing this because, well, when I heard that Anne Rice had become a Christian and written a Jesus book, it is one of the things that inspired me (out of sheer disgust) to write Simon Peter. So, I figured I should eventually actually read the book. Also, one of the ways that I keep focused on a long project like Simon Peter is to read books that are related to the project – so, after reading something cool, I don't get distracted by plotting in an unrelated subject (like, for instance, thinking about science-fiction while writing a historical novel). Also, I am reading it because I clearly hate myself, hehe.
The book is supposed to contain “dazzling scholarship”. I'm not seeing it. This isn't surprising. The amount of legitimate scholarship a person can do about Biblical characters is basically zero. You can read the Bible, you can read a few passages from guys like Josephus, and that's it. She, apparently, did enough research to know who Philo of Alexandria was. Color me unimpressed.
What is is pretty clear she is doing, however, is something very common amongst Christians. To take the Gospels, in particular, seriously requires some heavy duty mental gymnastics. Because it's the word of god or whatever, everything in the Bible must be “true”. Which would be easy if the Bible contained only one story of Jesus – people would say that is true and be done with it. However, the story of Jesus is told roughly five different times, four times in the Gospels and once in Acts. Now, if the story was the same story, it wouldn't really bear repeating five different times, right? So the truth is that five different versions of a similar story are being told. What most Christians do is blend them together into one narrative – a narrative that is not in the Bible.
The most obvious example of this is Christmas. Our vision of Jesus' birth is Jesus, in Bethlehem, being visited by both wise men and shepherds. Try finding that in the Bible. It's not there. What is there is this:
In Matthew, chapter 2, Jesus is born in Bethlehem in a house and is visited by three wise men who bore presents. But in Luke, chapter 2, Jesus was born in a manger and visited by shepherds.
The familiar Christmas story of the wise men finding Jesus in a manger did not happen in the Bible. So, how is it that Biblical “literalists” can claim that the familiar Christmas story is true when there is no story in the Bible where such a thing happens?
You might have noticed I'm putting “literalist” in quote marks. That's because they're not literal. If you take the Gospels literally, for instance, you just have to say that there's some contradictions. You have to say that in one place Jesus was born in a house and visited by wise men, and in another he was born in a stable and visited by shepherds. When confronted with contradictions in the Bible, Bible literalists go straight for interpretation.
They say that everything in all the books of the Bible happened, and there is no contradictions. It's just, they go on to say, that different writers noticed different things. The discrepancies between the Christmas narrative in Matthew and Luke, then, are because the writers of those books noticed different things. Matthew didn't notice the shepherds, nor Luke the rich wise men. Tho' what a manger is doing in a house isn't, really, every answered.
(If you then wonder why a book made perfect by their god contains such contradictions, and you've figured out the justifications, please tell me. I have asked and I have looked. I get bizarre things such as the curious omissions and contradictions are meant to test faith, or they're just not important, but none of them are sensible to me and feel like pure justification. You'd think a perfect book would be written better, but apparently you'd be wrong. Writing books that are internally consistent is, apparently, a vanity of mortal writers.)
The key thing to remember, I think, is that Bible literalists are nothing of the sort and are full of interpretation. Because the actual Gospels can't be consistently interpreted literally, what Christians do is invent a narrative in their mind – a narrative not found in the Bible – and call that the “real truth”! This is, I think, reasonably important to understanding how Christians, in other areas of their life, can shrug off massive inconsistencies. They're already used to it, they've trained, as Christians, in a level of interpretation that would make a post-modernist blush.
I'm sure that reading this soul punishing Anne Rice novel will generate more of this sort of wit and wisdom from me, as well as motivate me to put even more sex, violence and treachery in Simon Peter.
The book is supposed to contain “dazzling scholarship”. I'm not seeing it. This isn't surprising. The amount of legitimate scholarship a person can do about Biblical characters is basically zero. You can read the Bible, you can read a few passages from guys like Josephus, and that's it. She, apparently, did enough research to know who Philo of Alexandria was. Color me unimpressed.
What is is pretty clear she is doing, however, is something very common amongst Christians. To take the Gospels, in particular, seriously requires some heavy duty mental gymnastics. Because it's the word of god or whatever, everything in the Bible must be “true”. Which would be easy if the Bible contained only one story of Jesus – people would say that is true and be done with it. However, the story of Jesus is told roughly five different times, four times in the Gospels and once in Acts. Now, if the story was the same story, it wouldn't really bear repeating five different times, right? So the truth is that five different versions of a similar story are being told. What most Christians do is blend them together into one narrative – a narrative that is not in the Bible.
The most obvious example of this is Christmas. Our vision of Jesus' birth is Jesus, in Bethlehem, being visited by both wise men and shepherds. Try finding that in the Bible. It's not there. What is there is this:
In Matthew, chapter 2, Jesus is born in Bethlehem in a house and is visited by three wise men who bore presents. But in Luke, chapter 2, Jesus was born in a manger and visited by shepherds.
The familiar Christmas story of the wise men finding Jesus in a manger did not happen in the Bible. So, how is it that Biblical “literalists” can claim that the familiar Christmas story is true when there is no story in the Bible where such a thing happens?
You might have noticed I'm putting “literalist” in quote marks. That's because they're not literal. If you take the Gospels literally, for instance, you just have to say that there's some contradictions. You have to say that in one place Jesus was born in a house and visited by wise men, and in another he was born in a stable and visited by shepherds. When confronted with contradictions in the Bible, Bible literalists go straight for interpretation.
They say that everything in all the books of the Bible happened, and there is no contradictions. It's just, they go on to say, that different writers noticed different things. The discrepancies between the Christmas narrative in Matthew and Luke, then, are because the writers of those books noticed different things. Matthew didn't notice the shepherds, nor Luke the rich wise men. Tho' what a manger is doing in a house isn't, really, every answered.
(If you then wonder why a book made perfect by their god contains such contradictions, and you've figured out the justifications, please tell me. I have asked and I have looked. I get bizarre things such as the curious omissions and contradictions are meant to test faith, or they're just not important, but none of them are sensible to me and feel like pure justification. You'd think a perfect book would be written better, but apparently you'd be wrong. Writing books that are internally consistent is, apparently, a vanity of mortal writers.)
The key thing to remember, I think, is that Bible literalists are nothing of the sort and are full of interpretation. Because the actual Gospels can't be consistently interpreted literally, what Christians do is invent a narrative in their mind – a narrative not found in the Bible – and call that the “real truth”! This is, I think, reasonably important to understanding how Christians, in other areas of their life, can shrug off massive inconsistencies. They're already used to it, they've trained, as Christians, in a level of interpretation that would make a post-modernist blush.
I'm sure that reading this soul punishing Anne Rice novel will generate more of this sort of wit and wisdom from me, as well as motivate me to put even more sex, violence and treachery in Simon Peter.
Labels: anne rice, bible, bible literalism, hypocrisy
6 Comments:
I am an ex-catholic, ex-atheist, tottering agnostic exploring Wicca, but I still return to the trough of atheism to get my fix of common sense and logic.
I knew Eric Clapton wasn't God when I discovered that it was possible to contact him directly WITHOUT any intervention by a priest, lawyer, or other such middleman.
But Jesus never made a guitar gently weep, now did he?
Stop ruining Christmas!
Also, other areas of the bible apparently hold some pretty gross contradictions in the old testament. My fingeres itch if I touch a bible so I haven't double checked the source myself (plus I don't own a bible!) But this was a pretty comprehensive list of inconsistencies that was cited very well. It's a list of 101 inconsistencies in the old testament.
http://www.sdsucollegian.com/messageboard/index.cfm?event=viewtopic&umessage_id=9c818b66-5115-4f19-b8f8-f2a166a84cdd
But Jesus never made a guitar gently weep, now did he?
If he did, I'd be more likely to worship him as a god, hehe. For some reason, I wanna listen to George Harrison, now. ;)
Shane,
Oh, yeah, I wasn't trying to say that only the New Testament had inconsistencies -- just that they're a little balder, there, because they place five stories about Jesus right next to each other. ;)
"they've trained, as Christians, in a level of interpretation that would make a post-modernist blush"
That's very good.
Another thing they are trained to do (as an ex-christian, I know) is to not critique any explainations. When the pastor throws out some guff about "In hebrew society slavery was a means to employ the poor who preferred slavery because of taxation, and lack of emloyable skills. Nothing compared to what was done to African Americans." They all go "wow, really? OK"
That bullshit about cuddly, fluffy hebrew slavery was actually posted as a comment to one of my videos at YouTube
Stew,
No kidding!
I went to college in Charleston, South Carolina, and I took a couple of black history classes (I am lily white, but the subject fascinated me -- interestingly, in both classes I was the only white person; I was treated great in the class, tho' to a certain extent I became the representative of all whiteness in the class, which was also an interesting experience). Well, a fair bit of the class was talking about white apologia of slavery, past and present. It was shocking to me the number of people in SC who still believe that slavery was good for the slaves, even in America.
Of course, when talking about ancient Hebrew slavery there are similiar apologia, even though the status of slaves as chattel property that could be disposed of as one wished, is clearly stated again and again. When I was reading the OT, I lost count of the number of times the writers of the Bible talked about how the Jews were treating slaves poorly, killing them, raping them, enslaving them without cause, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, as a Christian and they'll say that those ancient slaves loved their slavery. It's depraved.
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