6 Reasons the Bible Sucks (but is Essential as well)

Ever pick up a full Old-and-New-Covenant Bible lately?  It’s pretty heavy.  Now, think about how big and weighty it would be if the book had normal pages, instead of the thin ones you can’t turn and single columns with normal margins and a normal font size instead of the tiny-omg-who-could-possibly-read-this-text monstrosities?  By the way, you know that complaining about text size is the primary sign of aging? 

Anyway, the point is, the Bible is a big, big book.  Bigger than we generally think.  And that’s because it’s not a single book. It is a bunch of books, a library of ancient texts, collected over a thousand year period of time. We don’t actually know how many authors it had, because many of the texts had a number of writers and editors.  The book divisions have a complex history, as some books are clearly a number of shorter texts (Genesis and Psalms, for example) and some books wouldn’t have been divided if they could have fit on a single scroll (I and II Samuel).  These texts are thrown together because of their history of being read together in synagogues and churches and because of a general theme of people influenced by Jewish culture and their experience of God.

Not creepy at all.  Thanks for the flowers, though.

The Bible isn’t exactly unified in theme, though.  While each text seems to present God as a unique person, when put together, God seems like a schizophrenic nation-abuser.  He speaks of his loving  kindness and mercy in one chapter and in another he is killing off masses of people because they ate the birds he gave them to eat. Sounds like God should be walking around in boxers and a wife-beater some of the time and at others he is dressed in a tux, waxing eloquent.

Perhaps we just don’t understand God’s ways?  Perhaps we need to look at God throughout the Bible to get the whole picture? Or perhaps each writer is just expressing their opinion of God, based on their limited experience?  And perhaps the authors of the Bible only understood the bits and pieces of the spirit world that they could comprehend in the midst of their difficult, struggling existence?

I think we need to give the Bible a break.  Putting on it such words as “inerrant” or “infallible” are heavy words to a text that we tend to see in it the likeness of our own opinion.  That’s the convenience of having such a big book written over a thousand year period of time, is that we can find most opinions somewhere hidden in there, both loving and racist, both philosophical and inane.

I have intensely studied the Bible as the word of God and the source of devotion for almost 40 years now, and I have studied it enough that I have a few concerns that I just can’t shake.  Like these:

1. The Bible Teaches that No Woman is Good
Ecclesiastes is a pretty on-the-edge text, one that’s tough to accept in the canon at times, but this passage is really disturbing:

“I have searched and found one upright man out of a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.”

Certainly the viewpoint that people generally suck is found occasionally in the pages of the Bible, and especially in the pages of patriarchal theology.  But we don’t find this point of view very often: Men generally are pretty bad, but every single woman is just plain evil.  “A hundred percent of women are the dust of the ground that I walk, but I found seven and a half million men that are pretty okay”
This theology is disputed in other parts of the Bible, which have people like Tamar, the daughter in law of Judah, and of course Mary the mother of Jesus, but it is just crazy to say that women are absolutely worse than men.  But there it is, right there in your Bible.

What did Luke REALLY do?

2. The Bible says a Woman’s Hand should be cut off
If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts, you shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity.  (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
Again, it’s not if anyone touches a person’s genitals in a fight, but if a woman does it.  According to the Bible, women are special.  Here’s another example:

3. The Bible Says its Okay to Rape Women after Battle

In Numbers 31, the Israelites were battling the Midianites and whooped their butt.  But they kept all the innocents alive, you know, the people who weren’t fighting.  Moses smacked his generals around, “What were you thinking of?” He gave very specific instructions.  “Kill off all the boys and all the sluts… I mean women who have been with a man. But any virgins—go ahead and keep them.  Sleep with them for a while.  If you want to keep them permanently, then marry them.  Otherwise, send them away to do… whatever.”  According to this passage, there were 32,000 young women who were raped and then treated this way.  In general, this is the policy for women of an opposing nation in every battle, according to Deuteronomy 21.

"These are real beards, yeah, sure they are"

4. The Bible says prove a bride is a virgin or kill her
In Deuteronomy 22, there are some regulations about marriage.  One of the first is that right after the “bridal night” the couple must present “proof of virginity” to the community—meaning, blood from a woman’s genitals due to first intercourse.  We now know that the hymen can be broken in everyday activity and that intercourse does not always result in a bleeding hymen.  But even so, the consequence of a non-virgin bride is the death of the bride.  “The community shall stone her to death.”

5. The Bible says genocide is required

The Bible doesn’t only abuse women, although they are their most frequent target.  The Canaanites were also supposed to be killed, without exception.  The Canaanites were descendants of Canaan, a huge portion of the world, as he was the grandson of Noah.  So there were a number of peoples who fall under this blood pact, including the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.  These nations were supposed to be burned, every man, woman, child, cattle, building… not even the virgins were spared, so they must be pretty bad.

Of course, if these folks looked back in their own history, they’d see that their own genetic line was full of Canaanites (wives of Judah and other sons of Jacob).  So if they’d kill all the Canaanites, they’d have to kill themselves.  And one nation that they are sometimes friendly with, Edom (decendents of Esau and his Canaanite wives).  But hypocrisy didn’t seem to be a big deal in the early part of the Bible.

6. The Bible has a hard time distinguishing between God and Satan

In II Samuel 24, David is tested by God putting the desire for him to take a census so he knows how big his army could be.  It’s a minor sin of a king to number his army, a sign they are not trusting in God to defeat their enemies.  So, according to Exodus 30:12, any census must include a ransom for the life of the person counted, the money, it is assumed, would go into the priestly treasury.  But David, it seems didn’t take the tax, and his conscience pained him, so God gave him an option of punishments, all of which results in a massive loss of life.  David took a plague. But that’s not the point.

The point is that the same story is told again in II Chronicles.  That’s not unusual, as Chronicles and Samuel/Kings often tell the same tales with few variations.  But the variation here is that in Samuel it was God who tested David, while in Chronicles it was Satan who tested David.  Same sentence, different subject.  Now, theologically it isn’t such a problem because Satan is the prosecuting attorney of God.  But it feels weird that in Chronicles, as well as Job, that Satan, the enemy of God, is the representative of God in some places.  It’s a part of the Bible I wish would just go away.

***

The point is this: there are many parts of the Bible which disturb me and just about everyone in our modern society.  Parts of the Bible that feel very tribal, very hateful and about as unloving as one can get.  There are aspects that feel that they would reflect the worldview of a serial killer rather than the God who is Love.  I’m not using this as proof that the Bible is wrong or evil.  I’m saying that a clear look at the Bible recognizes that we can’t just accept it, point-blank, for what it says.  That idea, if truly pursued, goes into some very dark pathways.

I think that the Bible shouldn’t be accepted, swallowed like a multi-vitamin, as if it will all be good for you.  Because even if most of it IS good, there’s still the cyanide put in the mix that is destructive.

Why I Still Accept the Bible

I accept the Bible, but not as a whole.  I pick and choose what I like.  And frankly, so does everyone else.  I haven’t seen any religious group march on Washington demanding their rights to rape virgins (only virgins, mind you).  In fact, that seems pretty monstrous.  Even though it was a pretty common right in the ancient world, post-battle.  Today, slavery seems generally counted as an evil, and no one is demanding that their slave submit to them, despite both biblical and legal precedent.   Jews follow the Rabbinic interpretation of the Bible, which is a softer, more kind version of Moses.  Catholics follow church teaching, which even softens the ten commandments (like pointing out that wives aren’t possessions, for example).  This is just what Muslims have done with their Qur’an, providing a layer of teaching which helps us interpret the Scripture in a kinder way, which is easier to fit into modern morals.   This doesn’t compromise the basic teaching of the Scriptures, but it does strip away the stuff we can clearly see as evil.

For me, I don’t go for complex teachings over centuries.  I’ll just stick with Jesus, and work with his interpretation of the Bible.  Which is exactly what the New Testament says to do, anyway.

“No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him..”

“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things…”

“You are not to have teachers, for you have only one teacher and this is the Messiah.”

“Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son.”

In summary, these passages are saying that the Bible, as a whole, is inadequate to represent God.  Only Jesus accurately represent God.  Which is why I think that having a general Bible approach to theology or truth about God is misbegotten.  The Bible is a bunch of people like us, writing down their experiences of God.  Only Jesus-- the gospels, the teachings that tell us what Jesus did and said while on earth-- can show us who God is really like.  The rest is all guesswork.  And sometimes pretty shoddy guesswork at that.

Some will say, at this point, that I’m using the Bible in a willy-nilly, non-objective manner.  And I am.  I’m okay with that. As long as I keep Jesus central. 

 I have Jesus as my savior, not Moses, David or Paul or John.  And so I might ignore some things you might think I should pay attention to.  On the other hand, you might ignore some things I think are essential.  But that’s one of the great things about life.  We get to figure things out.  I’m trying to understand and follow Jesus, not anyone else and certainly not the Bible as a whole.

I’d be happy to have you join me in this quest. 

Is the Bible One?

A codex-style book

In the ancient world, the Bible was not a book that one carried around.  

The codex form of book making—book as a volume— wasn’t broadly used until 300AD, developing at the same time as the Latinization of Christianity.    Although the idea of “bible” accompanies the use of the codex form, a single volume made up of 66 “books”,  before 300, there was no Bible, only a collection of books that were commonly read in a synagogue or church.   There was a basket or two, owned by the community, which contained a collection of scrolls which were used for liturgical reading.  These baskets couldn’t contain 66 books, so they held what was most important for the community.  Local schools might contain quite a number more books, and these books were read aloud and discussed even louder.   But the idea of a “canon” or officially recognized set of books by a religious group isn’t to be found early on.  There were books that were found to be true and books that were found to be false, and false books were avoided.

An ancient book.  The reason why Samuel had to be split into two books.
It was one book that couldn't be fit into  a single scroll.

When Jewish or Christian leaders got together, what they were surprised at is what books they had in common, what they all read.  They made lists of what they had in common, and was surprised at this list’s length.  These lists of common books are the first canon.  An idea of an official list became more common as the idea of heresy became more common.  The gospels could not be read in the synagogue, and gnostic gospels could not be read in orthodox churches. 

But what really created a list of official Scriptures was a Christian teacher named Marcion.  He was a bishop of the second century that taught that the God of the Hebrew Scriptures was a different God from the God of Jesus.  Most importantly, he taught that the only official Scriptures to be read was the book of Luke and Paul’s thirteen letters.  It was after this, that a list of common writings were collected by Christian leaders in order to say, “These are completely acceptable to read in church as well.”  The original idea of canon was less to exclude, but to firmly include a much broader range of Scriptures.  While Marcion excluded the entire Old Testament and half of the New Testament, the Christian leaders accepted a much broader range of Scriptures.

Up to the time of the Reformation (around 1500), there were just a bunch of books that people read, some Jewish, some Christian.  A solidified canon only became more important after the Protestants began speaking of Sola Scriptura, or “Scripture alone”.   By this the Reformers didn’t mean that Scripture was the only book to read, but that the official teaching of salvation was to be found only in Scripture, and that all else was tradition that was not to be official church teaching. 

The democratization of the Bible: A bible for every hand

"Sola Scriptura" is really the motto of the democratization of Christianty.  In the middle ages, only those who knew Latin and were education could read or interpret God’s truth.  Bibles were available, but most people couldn’t read them, not just because they were not literate, but because they did not know Latin.  There were movements of the popularization of Scripture, such as led by Peter Waldo in Italy and John Wycliffe in England, but the idea that anyone could understand God’s word wasn’t widespread until Martin Luther and his attempt to reform the church.  He translated the Bible into German, and printing presses made his Bibles so widespread they could not be hidden.  Soon Bible translations in other languages appeared and to tame God’s word was like sweeping back the ocean with a broom.  Now there was a theologian in every home, and the knowledge of God’s word could never be limited to a limited intelligentsia again.

Of course, this didn’t put the scholarly theologians out of work.  For the “sake of the people” they had to help folks understand what Scripture really was.  The Protestants limited their Bible to Hebrew Jewish texts and to 27 New Testament Greek texts.  The Roman scholars also accepted some Jewish books that were only found in Greek, such as the books of Maccabees, Tobit and some Greek additions to the book of Daniel.  The Roman scholars kept the original idea of opening official writings to a broader set.

It is the Protestant scholars that gave us our modern idea of “the Bible”: an established unit of books contained in a single volume containing the entirety of God’s word.   This idea was very popular because each man could hold in his hand the word of God and read it for himself.  It was empowering to be able to speak truth that the scholars or priests did not teach yourself.

The Anabaptists took the second step to affirm to each person that it was unnecessary for a person to hold a degree or to know the ancient languages to form official teachings that the church should follow.  Of course, they were killed by both Catholics and Protestants, but that didn’t stop the popularity of their idea.

Many canons or one?

Interestingly enough, the idea that the Bible be a unit that contains the whole of the word of God is not found in the Bible itself.  Yes, there is talk about “Scripture” and quoting of texts as veracity of truth, but nowhere is there found the necessity to have an official collection of books that are “scriptural”.  Instead the ancient authors quoted a widespread set of texts, including many Jewish texts in Greek of dubious origin, such as the Books of Enoch and The Assumption of Moses.  (Enoch is quoted by Jesus, the Assumption of Moses is referred to by Jude). 

At the same time, Jesus and Paul occasionally disagree with Moses, even while proclaiming the books of Moses to be Scriptural.  Jesus marginalizes Moses’ teaching of the Sabbath by saying that it need not be followed consistently (Matthew 12:1ff).  Paul declared that Moses was a “tutor” necessary only to lead us to the Christ, the true teacher, and then he may be discarded (Galatians 3:23-26).  Jesus questions Moses’ motivation for writing one scriptural law, while affirming another portion of Moses’ law (Mark 10:1-9).  

It seems as if having an official unit of Scripture isn’t necessarily a Scriptural point of view.  Certainly having a Scripture that cannot be disagreed with isn’t Scriptural.  

But it is foolish to say that there isn’t a canon.   There is a canon (or a number of different canons) of Scripture that is read by millions of people daily, trusted by them and loved by them.  To have a canon is not a limitation, but it is empowering for the everyday person to have access to the official teaching of God.  But it need not be a mark of salvation.