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I think God on occasion looks down at us and things to himself, "You know, that planet is really noisy. The universe would be so much quieter if I just stopped giving them life every moment."

Then he shakes his head and says, "Yeah, they're irritating. But I like 'em."

And he lets us continue on.

Badassssssssss Bible Quiz

So you got top scores on all the other Bible quizzes.  It’s time for a real challenge this time.  And you get to find out just how much you don’t rate compared to the tough guys (and gals) in the Bible.

How many Philistine foreskins did David cut off (that means he had to touch them) to marry Saul’s daughter?  Extra credit: Write an essay about what you think Saul did with them after he received them.

1. 100
2. 50
3. 1000
4. 200

Who had every male descendant of Ahab killed, and just how many children did he do away with, before he had their heads piled up in two heaps?

1. Manassah, 200
2. Jehu, 70 
3. Elisha, 100
4. James, 97

Who boasted to his wives that he would kill a boy for hitting him (temper, temper…)?  And how many wives did he have?

1. Lamech, 2
2. Philemon, 3
3. Jacob, 4
4. Solomon, 1000

Who invited a neighboring king to dinner, laid him to rest on a comfy pillow, and just after he fell asleep, hammered a tent peg through his skull?  Extra credit: What kind of pain reliever should you give him for his headache in the morning?

1. Jezebel
2. Jasmine
3. Jael
4. Zipporah

Which judge stuck his short sword into the king’s noble blubber and the rolls of fat swallowed it up, then he got away by telling the guards outside the door that the king was taking a dump?

1. Barak
2. Gideon
3. Sampson
4. Ehud

Who got ticked off at a neighboring prince for raping their sister, so invited all of his town to get circumcised, waited till they were good and in pain and wiped out the lot of them by the sword?  Extra credit: Guess which body part they cut off first?

1. Levi and Simeon
2. Ruben and Naphtali
3. Joseph and Benjamin
4. Judah and Dan

Who beat up a group of shepherds so the pretty girls could get the well water?  Remember: “Wells don’t kill people, hormonally-enhanced shepherds kill people.”

1. David
2. Joseph
3. Moses
4. Jacob

In what book is the verse, “Jesus wept” and who made him cry?  After all, there’s got to be a special circle in hell for the one who made Jesus cry.

1. Matthew, Peter
2. Mark, James
3. Luke, John
4. John, Mary

Which prophet got irritated at a group of young gangstas for calling him “baldy”, so called a bear to come and gore them?

1. Elisha
2. Elijah
3. Jeremiah
4. Obadiah

Jephthah, the son of a prostitute, vowed that he would sacrifice the first thing he saw when he came home.  What did he end up sacrificing?

1. His wife’s breasts
2. His daughter’s virginity
3. His son’s… um…
4. His Star Wars Action Figures had to be taken out of their boxes

What did the Levite chop into twelve pieces in order to send a message to the twelve tribes of Israel?

1. His oxen that he had just used to plow his field
2. Each of his toes, plus a couple fingers for good measure.
3. His wife’s raped body
4. None of the above

Who killed Ananias and Saphiarah in cold blood, in a closed room for lying to the Holy Spirit?  Extra credit: Which detective would you choose to solve the crime? (I’d choose Batman)

1. Peter
2. James
3. John
4. God

Eschatology

Our vision of the future motivates us and compels our actions today. We work not because work is good in itself, but because our work produces something good, if only some finances to help us and our family survive.

Many of us are also motivated by our vision of the world's future. We not only see how the world is, but what it could be and work toward that ultimate goal. In doing this, we expect the world to improve. This is hope.

Here is my vision of the future:

That those who remained kind and generous and merciful and forgiving through poverty, pain, brokenness and betrayal will lead the world to become a society of love.

It is also my prayer that I could see this society begin today.

Dad Jokes for Father's Day

My son and I drove past a well-kept cemetery. I said, "I hear that people are dying to be buried here. But," I continued, "they won't let me be buried there."

He asked, "Why not?"

I said, "Because I'm not dead yet."

***

My wife is always wanting my help in cutting up the fruit salad. It's enough to make a mango crazy.

***

My daughter, when she was young, would play with my beard. She asked if my beard was itchy and hot. I replied, "At first I didn't want a beard. But then it grew on me."

***

When I was young, one of my teachers was concerned about my vision (rightly so!). One of the tests I took determined that I was a bit colorblind. When I found out about this I said, "Well, that certainly came out of the purple!"

***

My daughter always has fascinating dreams. It's a bad night when she doesn't have a creative dream to share the next day.

I was so jealous, I said, "Last night I dreamed I was a muffler. I woke up exhausted."

***

After I went to jail, my son asked if they took a mugshot.

"Actually, there's a new program in the jail. They let you take your own mugshot. They're called cellfies."

***

My daughter wanted to make some homemade ice cream.

I said, "Wait a minute. Have you ever gone to sundae school?"

Why is the Bible so Hard to Understand?

I have a friend who is frustrated at the Bible.  He has a hard time remembering things, and though the reads the Bible daily, he gains no real comprehension. "If the Bible is God’s word," he says, "God’s communication to humanity, then why is it so hard to understand? Why so many interpretations?"

The simple answer is that it was written thousands of years ago, to people who lived thousands of years ago, giving words to thoughts that rarely anyone thinks anymore. 

It was written in genres we don’t read anymore, except in the Bible. 

It is an example of a form of historic thought modern scholars don’t trust. 

It is filled with a style of storytelling that doesn’t communicate. 

It is communicating to people who lived in cultures we just don’t understand most of the time. 

Times have changed, people have changed.  The Bible is part of that change, and many of the changes have been for the good.  I am glad, for one, that we don’t stone or crucify people anymore.  I am glad that gentleness can be an acceptable way of life for some.  I am glad that we no longer live in a predominantly paternalistic culture (even if the dregs of it still remain)—and the Bible has been significant in helping to make these changes, even as it is also significant in keeping the bad parts of older cultures alive.  But there have been so many changes in 2000 years, it is difficult to understand the original contexts and cultures that wrote the Bible in the first place.

But his question is less practical and more theological.  If the Bible is the primary mode of communicating to humanity, then why hide that communication in genres and language we cannot understand?  Why not give us a sign, like neon?  Why not send out an update every once in a while?

Of course many believe that God does exactly that.  Some believe that God continues to write books and give messages: through His Spirit, through creation, through His church, through visions, through the imaginations of men.  I cannot deny this, nor can anyone.  If God is alive, and personal, and loves us, then He must communicate to us still.  I think there is clear indication that He does.  Not only through these means, but also through life experiences, through human education, through personal insights… heck, even through blogs.

But the massive number of texts and ideas are like the internet—the truth is out there, but how are we to know what is the true truth? How can we pick and choose?  If it is science, we can experiment, we can go through a rigorous process of understanding.  But we cannot use science for an individual personality.  What evidence is there that my friend Bill exists?  Or that my wife exists?  There are documents, or you can interview them personally, but science can’t do much for you in that regard, other than give you a picture of their DNA.

The Bible, through Jesus’ understanding, doesn’t give us a whole picture of God.  Nor does it tell us who to marry or whether we should quit our job, specifically.  But the Bible, through Jesus, gives us the basic principles.  It doesn’t tell us whether this latest prophecy is from God, but if the prophecy is opposed to Jesus’ principles, then we can say clearly that it isn’t from God.  And knowing what is not from God, gives us a much better shot at trying to determine what IS from God.  Jesus’ Bible is a foundation on which we can build all other communication that we receive from God.

But how do we use the Bible?  How can we get past the shell of thousands of pages and ancient society to get across a real truth?  What about that the Bible says one thing at one time and another at another time?  How can we obtain any meaning from the Bible?

Well, it isn’t easy.  It takes work.  We can do this task ourselves, or we can let others do it for us.  But even if others tell us what the Bible says, that doesn’t mean that we can’t ourselves go back and see if it is true.  

This is what I’ve found to be the best ways to understand the Bible:

1.  Discover themes that develop through the Bible

A graph of connections between Bible books

This is easier than it sounds.  It requires one first step—read the whole book.  Not something you can do in one sitting, but it is a fair thing for every literate person to do.  For the average reader, you can get through it in a half hour a day.

We should all have a reading of the Bible, even if we don’t believe in it, because the Bible is a foundation for much of our society and thought.  Once you’ve read it through, you will see similar themes, or perhaps contrary ideas or the development of ideas.  Spend a little bit of time thinking about these things, write them down.  The Bible is all about themes and how they develop, ideas that begin as a seed and grow.  They may be communicated in different ways, but the same ideas are there, and that is where the power of the Bible really is.  We can also see ideas as they develop over time.

2.  Apply Jesus’ principles and actions to the whole of the Bible

If you are only reading through the Bible once, I’m going to give you a strange idea: begin at the middle.  The Bible is not a novel that must be read from beginning to end.  Rather it is a collection of stories and books that have a purpose in its order, but can be read out of order.  My suggestion is this: begin with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Then go to the beginning and start again.  If, as I hypothesize, the entire Bible is about Jesus, then it will only make sense if Jesus is kept in mind from the very beginning.   You will see that Jesus’ ideas and actions are right there in the first chapter of the Bible, and it only grows from there.  You will see actions and ideas that Jesus seems to oppose, and that he approves.  But the Bible will make more sense if you keep him in mind as you read it.  

The Bible doesn't stand on it's own as a solid block of truth.  Rather, Jesus interacts with the book, sometimes disagrees with it and often explains difficult passages.  Not all of them, some passages are just plain mystifying.  But Jesus is there to be our teacher, to show us how to live life in a way none of the other characters of the Bible do.

3. Create cultural bridges from Bible themes to our lives

The Bible will use similar ideas that we use, but communicate them differently.  For instance, the Bible speaks about widows and orphans as objects of pity.  But what is the reason for this pity?  Because in the firmly patriarchal society, those who were not citizens nor without connection to citizens had no legal standing, and so could not worship, go to court, or have justice in any way.  They were vulnerable and dependent on mercy.  So we apply such ideas to today: who are the ones who have no legal standing today, who cannot get justice, have a fair standing in court or be welcome at church?  Perhaps the extremely poor, the illegal immigrant, the “sinner”?  We take the ancient ideas and apply them today and thus give the Bible a place in our lives.

The purpose of the Bible isn’t to give us a bunch of stories.  Nor is it to give us theology.  It is there to change our lives, to help us consider a better way to live, and a better way to connect with God.

Is the Bible God's Word?

If this were an orthodox evangelical Christian blog, the introductory question would just be a perfunctory way of this post saying, "Of course it is!" and giving some lame reasons why the Bible IS God's word.  If you've read the previous two posts, then you probably know that I have some deep questions about the nature of the Bible and it's existence as a unit.

This question is not just rhetorical.  This is a question that even the most fundamentalist Protestant Christian should take seriously, and understand their answer clearly.  Romans and other ancient orthodox churches have their answer very clearly: The Bible is God's word, but so is the thrust of church tradition, of which the Bible is a part.  Thus, the bastions of orthodoxy don't see the Bible as "God's word" in the sense of being unchanging, inerrant and foundational, like the most fundamentalist churches do.

The real reason that we need to bring up this question, is that the Bible doesn't make this claim for itself.  Nowhere does the Bible claim for itself inerrancy or perfection.  This is actually the claim of Islam for the Qur'an, when they say that the Qur'an came from heaven perfect and unchangable (although the historic records might ask them to reconsider that theology).

What does the Bible claim for itself?

a. It claims inspiration for the Hebrew Scriptures

An excellent example of this is I Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness."  Inspiration means led by God or by the Holy Spirit, but is far less than perfect or without fault.  Rather, it speaks to a partnership between God and the author, but where the human element ends and the divine begins isn't determined.  Also, since (we assume) Paul is writing I Timothy, our historians guess that the NT, for the most part, wasn't written.  So Paul was pretty much speaking about what we call today the Old Testament.  Yet Paul also says that "the law"-- another way of him talking about a portion of the Old Testament--  that "the law caused sin to increase," which is a strange thing to say about something that is perfect or infallible  as some theologians claim of the Bible.

b. The OT and some New Testament passages are called "Scripture"
II Peter (included in the canon) claims Paul's writings as "scripture", and Paul speaks of a word of Jesus as "scripture". (II Peter 3:15-16; I Timothy 5:18)  "Scripture" is a term that is used often in the NT to speak of a  passage of the Hebrew Scriptures.  What does this mean, really?  The term "scripture" is just a form of the term "writing", although in context it implies some kind of authoritative writing.  But this doesn't necessarily say divine writing, just authoritative for the community.

c. The Bible contains human history of what is God’s word
When we speak about "God's word", in the form of Scripture, we are really talking about God's speech.  And the Bible contains much of this.  The words of the prophets are full of "The Lord says", and we have recordings of God speaking to people, as well as giving law from Mt. Sinai.  If we want to claim that the Bible is "God's word", this is the portion of the Bible that seems to most directly fit this claim, that which the Bible itself speaks of being God's speech.  Prophetic speech is directly called "the word of YHWH" (II Sam. 22:31; Isaiah 1:10).  The ten "commandments" are in scripture called the ten "words" which came directly from God (Exodus 34:28, where the word "commandments" is literally "words" in the Hebrew).  But most of the Bible is not made up of speech of God, as opposed to the Qur'an.

(The following points will just be summaries, which will be expounded upon at a later time, hopefully)

d. Jesus is God's Word

One of the most remarkable statements in Scripture is that Jesus is God's word (John 1:1-14).  This is fascinating because Jesus is a person, not a word or a speech.  In what sense is he the "word of God"?
First, that Jesus is the mediation of creation.  Just like God's spoken sentence "Let there be light" was a mediator to creation occurring, so does Jesus take the place of that creation. (John 1:3; Col 1:16)
Second, that Jesus only speaks what God the Father has given him to speak, making each word of his a word of God (John 7:16; 8:28)
Third, that Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing, so this makes his every action a word of God as well.  God reveals all things to Jesus and thus Jesus is the perfect conduit for God's communication. (John 5:19-20)
Fourth, Jesus is granted knowledge of God that others do not have, and communicates that knowledge. (Matthew 11:27)
Of course, most of these claims are self-claims.  If anyone came to us and said, "I am the word of God: everything I say and do is God" we might think about a loony-bin, but we wouldn't be ready to worship him. Unless of course, he came to us doing miracles never seen before and ended up getting resurrected from the dead by no one's hand but God's.  The claim of Jesus is ludicrous, of course, unless one accepts the fact of the resurrection.  If one accepts the resurrection, however, these claims are food for thought.

The rest of the points are made on the assumption that Jesus IS the word of God, which is the crux of the New Testament, and of the Christian interpretation of the Bible.

e. The OT is fulfilled in Jesus
According to the NT, the Hebrew Scriptures' primary purpose is to be fulfilled in Jesus.
The OT sets up a legal standard, which has never been obeyed, but in Jesus the Law is obeyed and surpassed (Matthew 5:17-22; John 5:46-47;
Every individual in the OT failed in some way, whether prophet, king, priest, judge or the nation Israel as a whole, but Jesus fulfills their potential (Matt 2:13-15; Acts 2:25-32; Hebrews 4:1-11);
Prophecy partially or left unfulfilled is fulfilled in Jesus (Luke 24:44, and many passages);
Jesus says clearly and acts clearly what was opaquely expressed in the OT (Hebrews 1:1-3; I John 1:1-3; John 1:16-18)

f. The NT is the witness of Jesus, especially the gospels

Paul is the earliest writer of the New Testament, and his work was to promote the lordship of Jesus, as he showed in his introduction to his seminal work, Romans (1:1-6).  His writings were centered around the Lordship of Jesus, which he indicates in his favorite title for Jesus, Christ.
But in reality, although put down to paper later, Paul's writings are footnotes to the gospels, the oral versions of which were the heart of the first century church.  These oral traditions and the four (or five) existent early gospels are the central scriptures of the Christian church.  These are the texts that not only describe Jesus' teachings, but in detail lay how how Jesus' death and resurrection is the ultimate fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptures.  Jesus as Messiah, or Christ, is the heart of the NT, and all other NT writings follow the gospels in that theme.  To include the NT as the proper conclusion of the OT is to claim that Jesus is the conclusion of the matter of the Bible.

g. The Bible is not perfect, but Jesus’ interpretation of it is
As is noted by the NT authors, there are difficulties in concluding the Hebrew Scriptures with Jesus.  Jesus welcomed all through faith, but the Hebrew Scriptures limited welcome to God to those who were male, Jewish and circumcised (the theme of Galatians and Romans).  Jesus changed the center of the Law from a literal understanding of the ten commandments to a more flexible code of love and mercy (Matthew 12:1-13).  A literal understanding of prophecy is to be changed to see Jesus as the fulfillment of all Hebrew prophecy.  The NT writers liberally allowed for errors to be in the OT especially, not because the Bible isn't inspired, but because Jesus is the correct teacher and interpreter of the Bible.  The Bible won't be properly understood without Jesus. (Matt 23:8; Luke 24:25-27; John 1:17; I Timothy 6:3-4; 2 John 1:9)

Even so, this biblical theology will follow the interpretation of Jesus.  Jesus is the Teacher, we are the students.  Of course, we will be following a particular interpretation of Jesus, that of the anawim (which will be explained soon).  But Jesus is the core of understanding the Bible, whether Hebrew or Greek, whether Old Testament or New Testament.

There shouldn't be any surprise here.  Every person who approaches the Bible must have an interpretive key, for otherwise it is 66 books with very little to connect it.  After all, how do we connect ancient Mediterranean love poetry, family history, religious history and apocalyptic?  How do we see a unity between authors that are removed by possibly a thousand years or more?  Many scholars have seen no unity but that which is imposed upon it.  I think that if we look at the Bible as distinct books, with no connection, I think we are missing something that millions of readers have understood.  I also think that if we impose our interpretation on the text, we do damage to the text.

It's okay, dear, no one does.

Every religious group has imposed an interpretive key over the text of the Bible.  Modern Jewish scholars do not read the original text without their rabbinic scholars and the hermeneutic principles they created in the first centuries BC and AD. The Eastern Orthodox churches use the first centuries of church fathers to understand the Bible.  The Roman Catholic church uses their church tradition to understand the text.  Many Protestants use a form of Luther's interpretation of Romans to understand the Bible.  New interpretations of the Bible as a whole abound because the materials are so complex that they ask for multiple interpretations.

In this theology, I am less trying to discover the Bible (as much as I love it), as I am trying to discover Jesus. I want to see the Bible as he saw it, and explain reality in the way he explained it.  And this is where we begin.

The Bible is NOT God's Word.  Jesus is. 

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.