Questions from Confirmation Class (Question #1):

For the next few posts I would like to address some of the questions that our confirmation youth have asked over the last year or two. 

How can we believe in the Bible when it was written 2,000 years or more ago?

While we accept the Bible as the “authoritative source and norm of [our] proclamation, faith, and life” (Article C2.03 ELCA Constitution), we don’t actually believe in the Bible.  The Bible is a witness, a written witness to the Word of God.  The living Word of God is Jesus.  Understanding the Bible as a written witness stops us from worshiping the Bible or considering it as something supernatural or superhuman.  It is not infallible and it can’t always be read literally.  The Bible was written over many centuries (10^th century bc to 2^nd century ad) and by a variety of human authors from differing times, cultures, and social classes.  It also contains many different genres of literature (including works of fiction, Jonah, Esther, and parts of Daniel for example).  Reading such fictional stories literally doesn't make it the most faithful reading, it means misunderstanding it.  None of this means that we take the Bible any less seriously than someone who considers the Bible to be infallible or demands the only reading is a literal one.   

So how can we read the Bible and still finding meaning in it, when it was written 2,000 years ago?  By reading the Bible contextually and modestly.  We read the Bible modestly because neither the Bible, nor ourselves are infinite, we are limited in our understanding, biases, and perspectives.  We can only posit a text’s interpretation tentatively, knowing that both the biblical text and our reading of that text have been culturally conditioned.  So we test our interpretation against other biblical passages and/or books.   We commit ourselves to reading and discussing our interpretations of the Bible in a community (i.e. the church).  We seek dialogue partners from outside our own community and social class in the hopes of broadening our perspectives and improving our interpretations.  Reading the Bible isn't always, if ever, easy. 

A large part of the meaning and relevance of reading such an old library of scared literature (essentially what the Bible is) is found in struggling with Scripture.  A struggling that often involves a direct challenge to the status quo, our treasured doctrines, and preconceived notions.  Any interpretation that affirms our own ideology, a little too nicely, is one that was doubtlessly made too easily and should be suspected.  While still tempted to read the Bible as a book of answers, I have come to believe the Bible is more a book of questions than answers; a book about asking the right questions rather than finding ‘right’ answers.    In affirming the inspiration of the Bible, we need to recognize that inspiration doesn't just apply to the Bible’s authors, but to its readers and interpreters, as well. 

So we read the Bible contextually, modestly, and as “the written witness to God’s Word.  But of course we really do hope that the reading of Scripture…will stir the minds and hearts of the hearers so deeply that they will in fact ‘hear the Word of God’ and not just words, words, words.[i]”

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[i] Hall, Douglas John. What Christianity is Not: An exercise in “Negative” Theology.  Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2013.  p. 52

God's Story Can't be Confined to a Single Story

I have always enjoyed reading. There are times when I will get so caught up in a story that I lose all sense of time. The best stories are the ones that are able to transport us into a different world, allowing us to escape reality even if only for a chapter or two, while at the same time exploring and critiquing the current situation of our reality. But in our society today we often don’t have the patience for such stories, and instead prefer movies that are more about their stunning visual effects, adrenaline rushing action, or the hot star, than the story.

I can’t help but wonder if our loss of stories has contributed to our society’s increasing polarization. Stories not only help ground and form us, they also open us up to other possibilities. Unfortunately, there are too many places in our society that demand a single story (e.g. only black or white, no other perspectives…). Single stories tend to make a caricature of people and ideas, especially those we disagree with or who are different. Those caricatures can be dismissed as simply wrong or worse. There is danger in a single story. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts of the church, is its many stories.

The Bible is a book of stories. There are wisdom sayings, prayers, letters, and poetry, but it is the stories that form its center. The Bible tells the story of many peoples’ experiences of God’s activity in the world over many centuries. Inspired by their experiences of God, they are also the stories of ordinary human beings with all their cultural biases, limitations, and imperfections. As a result the Bible is a book of stories that can’t be reduced to a single story. It begins with two distinct stories of creation (Gen 1:1- 2.4a, and then Gen 2:4b-2.25). The book of Chronicles tells its own story about David and the monarchy, the books of Samuel and Kings tell a different one. The Prophets (Amos, Hosea, Micah, or Isaiah) yet another. The New Testament begins with four stories of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection (the Gospels). The Letters of Paul are not the Letter of James. The Book of Revelation and its story of the church is different than the Book of Acts. While I affirm the Bible as inspired by God, that inspiration has led to the telling of multiple stories as people of different times and places told the story of how they experienced God’s activity in their world.

Unlike our current society, the ancient world understood the value of multiple stories. We risk
missing what is most important in the Bible, a witness to the truth of God’s activity in the world, when we try to reduce it to a single story. The story of God’s on-going transformation of the world is too complex to be contained and dismissed in just a single story. And if God’s story can’t be confined to a single story, then neither can ours.