THE HOLY BIBLE
The Holy Bible is an unique collection of diverse writings that contains the story of humanity's journey with the God of Abraham. Some of these writings are almost three thousand years old. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts, the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament) and the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). There is, in my mind, a considerable difference between the diverse literary styles found in the Hebrew scriptures and the more thematic style found in the Christian Scriptures. For example, the Hebrew scriptures contain stories, laws, history, wisdom literature, poetry, and prophetic writings. All of them rich in meaning.
The New Testament's canon appears more contrived. It too contains stories of Jesus' teaching and stories about Jesus. It also contains letters from the apostles and prophecy, but all these writings appear carefully selected. This became obvious with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi documents in 1945. The Christian world was shocked to find there existed actual writings regarding Jesus and Christianity that were thought to be destroyed and lost forever. Prior to this discovery any information about these other writings had to be deduced from orthodox writings that denounced them as heresies. After their discovery, it became clear that what was placed in the canon of the New Testament was done so to present a consistent orthodox understanding of Jesus as the Christ.
I do not view the Bible as the Word of God as much as I view it as words about God. I do not treat the Bible as an idol. I think liturgies that declare the end of a scripture reading, "The Word of the Lord," get it wrong. I realize that this has a nice liturgical ring to it, but the older and more time honored tradition of saying at the end of a reading, "Here ends the reading," gets it right. Church's should avoid saying anything that can be interpreted as stifling questions about what scripture saying.
The point of any book or collection of writings is to tell a story, provide information, and to give meaning to what it is to be human. Fact or fiction, all writing, all literature (no matter how sacred) is the product of human creativity, including the Holy Bible. Having said that, the writers of these scriptures were very serious and committed to the truths they were trying to express. Almost everything in the these writings has multiple levels of meaning. Fundamental and literalist interpretations all but render the Holy Bible unusable. The Bible comes alive for me when one doesn't treat it uncritically or as a self-validating resource; that is, when one questions and compares it to whatever else is out there to compare it to. The Bible is not so much a book of answers as it is a book that invites one to mine its riches and question the theologies that have been distilled from it.
MYTH
Myth is a term Christians tend to shy away, if not, run away from. The fact is, all religions, including Christianity have myths. I'll go one step further and say any ideological belief system can and will foster mythic creativity. Since we have such an aversion to the term myth, we may not always recognize it as such in our contemporary world. The fact is mythic creativity is so obvious, that we miss it. Consider the novels of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Albert Camus, and Ayn Rand, for example. How about Star Wars and Star Trek, and almost any science fiction that deals with concepts that might otherwise be above most of our heads? Myth is a literary device that allows us to talk about and grasp abstract concepts or ideas that are better understood if explained in a story.
Not everything in the Holy Bible is a myth, but a great deal of it is. A main criterion for identifying myth in the Holy Bible is that the story talks about phenomenon which has never been experienced or replicated in a scientifically verifiable way. What makes this a bit challenging is that myths may have been developed around historical events, but if there is a historical element to it, any verifiable fact within the story appears secondary or even irrelevant to the story itself. For example, we know the Red or the Reed Sea exists, that Egyptian kings where known as Pharaohs, and that slavery existed in Egypt. What we can't verify is the Israelites walking across a divided Red Sea that should have been wet but was miraculously dried out to enable them to cross without getting bogged down while the Egyptian army foolishly chases after them down the same divided sea path and gets caught in mud and then is drowned as the sea encloses them.
Another important criterion in defining myth, is if the story has applicability. In fact, myths may have multiple applications. The beauty of myths is that they are always current, in any age, and are multifaceted in meaning. They can be applied to any number of circumstances.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are several myths: The Book of Genesis, the Book of Exodus (the ten plagues, Passover, traveling in the wilderness for forty years, etc.), the Book of Job, the Book of Ruth, the Book of Esther, the Book of Jonah to name a few. The Hebrew scriptures are extremely powerful, and many Christians overlook their value thinking they are only included in the Christian Bible to back Christian scriptures. The Hebrew Scriptures can stand on their own and possess their own life-giving richness apart from Christianity.
Mythic stories found within the Christian scriptures are: The Nativity of Jesus, some, if not all, of the miracle stories of Jesus, (the Feeding of the Five/Four Thousand, Jesus walking on Water,) the Transfiguration, The Resurrection of Jesus, The Ascension of Jesus, and the story of Pentecost. The Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation contain allegorical elements but tend to be theological works rather than mythic. The epistles are all theological works.
Truths in mythic usage are not facts and do not explain why something occurred or how it happened. Truths in mythic form serve as markers to help us identify our experiences. Mythic truths are not always blatantly apparent. Sometimes they have to be extruded. For example, the Book of Genesis, which, in my opinion, is most important and influential book in the Bible, contains the creation myths. The creation myths are so rich in meaning and application that whole books have been written on what they mean. Those who have turned this story into a one time, historical event that is about the root of all the problems we human face, totally miss the value and richness contained in them.
To demonstrate this let me provide a very short excursion into the mythic applications of the Creation Myth:
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The Creation Myth is a universal story that applies to all people. It tells us that people of every race and background are spiritual and physical manifestations on this small outpost of the universe of the very creative source of all life in the universe. It tells us in poetic and thought provoking language that we are related to the stars, made of the very substance of the universe, hand-crafted by God, and breathed to life by God with the very essence of the creative forces that brought the universe into being, God. Within each of us is a microcosm of the macrocosm. Nothing could be more intimate or meaningful than that. This myth teaches us the truth that we are endowed with the ability to become knowledgeable and to learn that knowledge is always dualistic and yet made of the same fabric. To know life is to know death. To know good is to know evil. To know joy is to know sorrow Education always comes at a price.
Undoubtedly, God wanted us to choose knowledge, to know God and to know that in choosing knowledge it would come at a price, dualism: "The day that you eat of it (the forbidden fruit of knowledge) you shall surely die." What did that even mean to someone who never experienced death? Why did God warn Adam and Eve? God could have left them ignorant of the fact there was a tree of knowledge. God could have removed the tree of Knowledge, like God did the Tree of Life, but God didn't. Adam and Eve were enticed through God's own permissive warning to let them experience temptation they did not know how to resist. Now we do. There is so much meaning here.
In my opinion, the creation myths are not a sad story. It is not about original sin, it is about liberating the human mind to comprehend our actions and to feely and willfully love God in spite of what we know. They are a beautifully rendered and thoughtful stories about who we are in so many ways, and they affirm both the goodness and the divine nature in being human along with the challenges we will always face. It describes the loving nature of God who "walks" with us and who lets us choose our course, but who is there to guide and shape us along the way. When God sends Adam and Eve out of the garden, it is loving act. God sent us knowledgeable creatures into life to experience it and to become increasingly knowledgeable. This story is not history. It is not science. It is far deeper than all of those. This story is a myth, and, as all myths do, it is applicable to any number of personal and communal experiences. It has held true throughout the centuries and continues to hold true today. If all that remained of the Bible were the first four chapters of Genesis, we could deduce that God is love.
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MYSTERYWhen I talk about religion, I like to stay away from the term, mystery. It's not that I'm against there being mystery or feel that "mystery" is a bad word. Mystery abounds. What I try to avoid is using the term to describe something as being totally beyond our comprehension and understanding, as if to say, "Don't bother. You can't get it. Be content. Let mystery be mysterious." "Mystery" should not become a road sign saying, "Dead End - No Outlet."
Does that mean, that I can know and understand everything?
Obviously, not. I don't understand and know a great many things. After all, I claim agnosticism by virtue of the fact that I don't know much of anything with certainty.
What I mean by not letting mystery become a dead end is that mystery should invite us to explore and probe its meaning, and above all to question what is termed mysterious.
In Christianity, for example, mystery sometimes is applied to transcendent concepts, like "the Body of Christ." I understand it as an invitation for me to think and ponder the meaning of that concept. At other times mystery is applied dogmatically, as something that cannot or "should not" be question, as in the phrase "The Mystery of Faith: - Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again." I find it interesting that this phrase has become part of the Eucharist liturgy in many mainline churches. It seems to me to be an attempt to ferret out those who would question it as giving them pause to think twice before participating in the Eucharist. Although I can probe the meanings of faith's mystery, that phrase in Eucharistic liturgy is not so much used to describe a mystery as it is used as an article of faith that one has to believe in order to be considered worthy of the Eucharistic table. Everything defined as mystical or mysterious, should be questioned and probed. Mystery should always be seen as an invitation to explore, not a dead end or a keep out sign.
THEOLOGY
Anything written about God and our relationship with God is automatically a work of theology. As a whole, the Bible can be considered a theological work in itself. There are, however, parts of the Bible that are pointedly more theological than others. In the Hebrew Scriptures, theology is clothed in the stories found there. Theology is not always straightforward in the Hebrew Scriptures, but rather has to be distilled from the stories and writings found there.
While the Hebrew scriptures contain whole books that are devoted to law, such as Leviticus and Deuteronomy and ethical perspectives, such as, Proverbs and the Prophets, there seems to be less dogmatism in the Hebrew scriptures. In part, I suspect that given the laws and ethical literature are some 2500 years old that they have lost the value of their original intent and literal application. If they were to be literally applied today as when they were formulated 2500 years ago, Judaism would be seen as draconian. The relevancy of the Hebrew Scriptures to the age and situations in which Jews found themselves throughout the centuries and find themselves in today had and continues to be distilled.
Judaism, it seems to me, is far more limber and advanced in this type of theological application and understanding than its progeny, Christianity and Islam. One can see in the Hebrew Scriptures the evolution of Judaism and monotheism, as a whole. Judaism recognizes that things change and as things change, people ask questions, people take God to task, debate and argue with God, and amongst each others as to "What does this mean?" In fact this process of theological debate is evident throughout both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, but it is honored in the Hebrew scriptures, whereas it is not in the Christian scriptures.
The Christian scriptures were designed to be dogmatic. Debate and questioning God or Jesus is not encouraged. The new Testament is more contrived in order to present a consistent theology about Jesus and what it means to be a Christian. As solid as the Christian scriptures appear, however, they too are affected by the passing of time. There are fissures in its doctrinal consistency as it too is subject to the age in which it is being applied. It seems to me, however, that it is more difficult for Christians to question things about God and Jesus without becoming disorientated and experience a sort of spiritual vertigo. Faith has become fact for many Christians and it is difficult to navigate through the shoals and rocks of dogma and dogmatism in what should be an open stream of theology.
The Protestant Reformation did little to change this. In fact, I think there an argument could be made for saying the Reformation only resulted in placing more rocks in an already difficult to navigate theological stream. For example, Luther is famous for pronouncement of his three Solas: Sola Scriptura, (Scripture alone) Sola Fide (Faith alone), and, Sola Gratia (Grace alone) was trying to make some rock solid theological points. This list of solas has been expanded to include Sola Christus (Christ alone) and Sola Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone) in the 20th Century, and the list seems to be growing. I could simplify all of them by stating what in essence they all represent, the biggest rock of them all, Sola Doctrina (Doctrine alone).
There is an increasing number of writers and theologians who are trying to forge new pathways within Christianity. This is not an easy task. Christians are not comfortable with flexibility and open-mindedness. It's been beaten out of us over the generations. For centuries our ancestors have been taught to believe that, whatever their Christian tradition was, it was the right one and not to wander off track or risk damnation. I remember my own grandmother, a devout Lutheran, who took regular exception to my questioning things by periodically and sincerely telling me for my own good to "Stick to what you have been taught." At times I tried, but over time sticking to what I was taught led me to experiences that argued with what I was taught and which, in turn, caused me to doubt and questions what I was trying to hold on to. In the end, I found myself prompted to find or forge new channels.
One of my reasons for writing this blog is to keep Christianity relevant, limber, and meaningful by questioning it at every turn. I believe that Judaism has survived throughout centuries of persecution and attempts to wipe it from the face of the earth primarily because it has always been bold enough to question God and to questions itself. As a result it has stayed limber and viable. Christianity can learn a great deal from its parent religion. Theologies should not be allowed to stagnate, they must be stirred afresh by constant question and debate.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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