Thank you so much for this. I agree we need to educate laity in how to read the Bible. The need is there in the UK as well as the US. People are so vulnerable to the attacks of Dawkins & the other new atheists unless they know how to read the Bible properly.

About 1/3 of our adults (and two children) participated in Bible in 90 Days. It has instilled a keen desire to actually study the Bible, learn the historical background and find out about the canonization process leading toward the Bible we read today.
I should point out that the program is one of reading the Bible, not studying the Bible. One of the things that came through for most was the repeated exhortation to care for the needy.

thanks for commenting Sampson Dk -- please sign your names next time. ~ed.

So many problems...
1. Are you suggesting that regular people shouldn't read the Bible? That there should be an elite class of educated, ordained ministers who explain to the unwashed masses what the Bible actually says?

2. Are you suggesting that the Word of God is SO FOULED UP by translations that the Holy Spirit has no power to work through the texts and touch people's hearts and minds?

3. Early-world Scientific issues aside (Creation, the Flood): Are you suggesting that the Bible is essentially non-historical? Yeah, okay- maybe it was a few thousand in the Exodus and not a few hundred thousand. Okay. But you included water-walking. So- what, then? The healing miracles, too? The resurrection?

4. What you're saying is that when people read the Bible by themselves, they might come to the wrong conclusions. But that's not really accurate. The thing is: they might not come to YOUR conclusions. It's pretty arrogant of you to assume that someone disagreeing with you is wrong- particularly considering not just how much is unknown, but how much is truly unknowable.

5. I've been fighting and arguing with conservatives and fundamentalists all my life, because they believe that their understanding of scripture is the only right one. (Many of us have).
That trait is no more tolerable coming from a liberal or a progressive.

I'm afraid this post is another example of the either/or reasoning that seems to be popular in critiques of how church people do things: if it isn't Bible study informed by education, it must be naive. Are there not many ways to read a text, and many reasons to do so? Maybe the first study that readers should do after reading this post is to find out what lectio divina really is and aims for.

[Editor's note: Thanks for the comment. Please sign your full name next time.]

Very true, and another indication that the church needs to find a way to bring a seminary education to the laity at the local level. I think there are probably many who go off to seminary in preparation for ministry, when actually what they really needed was instruction in the faith that was not being offered at home. I found seminary studies in a mainline Protestant seminary to be invaluable, but Mr. Clifford is right – studying the Bible presents many challenges. Often more questions and doubts arise, but the wrestling is what is needed for a vital faith. The other factor is that scripture is but one aspect of the faith that we hold. There is the process of living in a community, there is tradition, there is the practical application of ethics and morality in our daily life, there is time given to public worship and prayer, there is the sharing of joys and sorrows.

Years ago I heard a rabbi explain to a group of Christians that you cannot understand Judaism just by reading the Old Testament scriptures. That was a monumental revelation to me at the time, but I came to realize that it is also true that you cannot understand Christianity just by reading the Bible. We have a long history of dialogue and action whereby we continue our attempts to affirm the divine presence among us and in the world. Sometimes I have described poetry as our “open canon” in which each generation adds its written witness to the struggles, the joys, the heartache and wonder of living in the world and in the presence of life.

If the priests were reading the Bible devotionally and it inspired them to go to seminary, I'd say they were, in fact, hearing God speak through the text. (IOW, you've got quite a large contradiction right at the heart of your thesis here.)

When I first joined the church, I remember ignorantly believing that the Bible was pretty much irrelevant, and offering the opinion that I thought it a "dusty old book." I did eventually realize I needed to read it, though - it's our source book, after all - and I decided to because I heard (of all things!) the Samson story read at Lauds at a local monastic community. After that, I signed up for EFM. (And it turned out that I really did love the book of Judges! I keep wondering when they're going to make the movie.)

Anyway, I think Sewanee should offer a mini-EFM course tailored to weekly all-parish Bible study.

I agree with much of what Adam Wood has to say about this piece, though. " These good people considered themselves Christians in spite of both their theological ignorance and (being kind) eccentricities. " I find especially off-putting.

Just one question for you, George: Exactly how do you think the church managed to survive the eighteen centuries before the rise of modern biblical criticism? Was all that just a holding pattern until German scholarship figured out how to do it right?

It's always surprising (and disappointing) to me to hear the howls of protest that arise when someone suggests that scholarship is important to Christian faith, although I suppose it must be conceded that, without it, it's difficult to know how much you don't know; but most people don't go to their doctor assuming they know as much or more than she does or that her knowledge is unimportant to her understanding of their condition or its treatment. My sense is that Fr. Clifford's intended audience is those who will immediately know, from their own experience, that he is right on target. I frequently have conversations with other clergy that would not be understood by persons outside of that group.

As far as the Bible being "essentially non-historical," to reach a different conclusion is to prove George's point...

As a graduate of EfM and current co-mentor of a group, I'm grateful to see the program mentioned in a favorable light. But I think George Clifford is (as many respondents have mentioned) entirely too dismissive of the capacity of lay people to examine and inquire into texts. Many good materials and programs exist, including (but not limited to) editions of the Bible that have helpful notes and footnotes. Helpful guidance from church leaders about choosing these materials (rather than thinly-veiled disdain) would be welcome.

Once upon a time (I don't remember where, how or in what context now) I heard that the Bible was intended to be read in community. I suspect that's one of the keys to transcending the either/or mentality at work in the world and reflected to some extent in this article.

I am a strong advocate of regular/daily Bible reading myself and so can't quite find it in me to not promote that (Mission St. Clare has a very good Daily Office app that I think works on most smartphones). However, I do understand that people struggle. I also suspect that those attempting to follow any sort of spiritual path should be grounded in community along with their individual spiritual disciplines.

I am increasingly confident that no 'expert' is needed in such communities and that the Holy Spirit really is present. I other words, I do and will continue to recommend daily Bible reading indiscriminately - although perhaps I will also begin to add the caveat that being grounded in a faith community can help you sort out what you encounter in the text.

What I appreciate about this article is its emphasis on "substantive religious education" which I call 'formation' or even the making of disciples that Jesus commands in Matthew 28. We definitely do need more of this (full disclosure: I am both an EFM mentor and a graduate student in religious and theological studies) in order for all the baptized to discern and live fully into the ministries given to us by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the church. So thanks for raising the issue.

I can only speak for myself, but I have found online EfM invaluable to understanding what works for me as far as the truth of the Bible--and I'd like to believe it is a piece of what it's been about all along--to simply enter into the stories in it with an open mind, a healthy imagination, and allow the stories to change me.

Our tendency in the modern scientific world is to dissect, parse, hypothesize, and debate. Entering in the stories and asking, "Who am I in this story? What am I supposed to take from it?" seems more important than worrying about seven literal days and the sun standing still.

I grew up in a family of storytellers. The Bible is filled with family legends, written for people thousands of years ago, not me, and these are the family tales. Learning about my family and finding my DNA in the stories seems most important.

My personal feeling is being alienated in the process is probably part of the acceptance of the family, just as I, as an adult child in an alcoholic family, have to accept that people pass on their pain or become transformed by it. Being angry at my family and alienated from them was part of the process of healing. Why deny people the same healing in their church family under the guise of "they can't handle it because they're not educated enough?"

I am somewhat bemused by this post. It is objectionable on many levels, but I will stick to two.

First, by the author's standards, people who studied or read the bible prior to the development of modern biblical scholarship could not have read the bible with any sort of "informed comprehension." Simply put, Jews who studied the Torah, and Christians who studied the Old and New Testaments couldn't possibly understand the bible because they hadn't gone to seminary (in a form which didn't even exist at the time). Not even monasteries, the seat of most knowledge contained in the church, would meet this criteria.

Julian of Norwich, Hildegaard von Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Meister Eckhart, Bonaventure, Aquinas, et al, none of these great mystics and theologians of the Middle Ages had the benefit of modern biblical scholarship, and yet, somehow, they came in touch with the divine.

Even without "proper" context, for well over 1500 years, people devoted to God somehow managed to build and sustain a great Church (imperfect to be sure, but the Documentary Hypothesis will not cure the human condition.)

Second, as an EfM mentor myself, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study the modern methods of scholarship and its findings, and to help others understand it. And like the author, I believe they are important in understanding so much of the theology in the bible.
But unlike him, I do not suffer from an illusion that upon proper education, people simply leave behind the ideologies they bring with them into the EfM seminar.

I would think that Clifford would understand that as well as anyone. He himself found a way to accept the dissonance between his faith and the rest of his life by serving the military. I am absolutely not arguing that he was wrong to do so, but the documentary hypothesis doesn't help to solve the issue of Christ against culture vs. Christ in culture. There are absolutely valid arguments on both sides and several in between and he chose one, not because of the modern methods of scholarship, but because his ideology is married to his theology in a particular way.

As someone who grew up within the Roman Catholic tradition, I am well-schooled in the notion that only those who are trained, in another word -- priests -- should read the bible. We were actively discouraged from reading scripture for ourselves. The Church was worried about people thinking for themselves. (To give the Church its due, this is no longer the case as Bible Study is a large part of Roman Catholicism today.) But Clifford's problem seems to be much the same sort. People will read the bible without the tools for proper understanding and come to conclusions contrary to what he believes (because scholarship says so) is the truth.

The fundamental error in this argument is the quaint belief that when presented with the documentary hypothesis, everyone will simply come to the same theological conclusions. Leading people to understand the documentary hypothesis does not guarantee that they will stop believing in the historicity of certain aspects of the Old and New Testaments, nor necessarily should it, despite what I might believe in guiding them. The best that I can hope for is that people will have some understanding of context.

The clergy and those of us in lay positions in the church who help guide the faithful in their knowledge of scripture need to understand that we will always be faced with conflicting theological amongs believers. The ideological makeup of human beings commands it.

The question becomes, NOT how do we fix this horrible problem, with Cliffords answer being to quit telling people to read the bible until they are well-acquainted with historical-critical methods of scholarship, which in my opinion is an impossible, while laudable, goal.

The question becomes: how do we live in peace with those with whom we disagree? How do we get liberals, conservatives, moderates, anarchists, libertarians, and all the rest to come to the table together to worship God, despite the differing ideologies we all bring to our theology? That question is not answered by the Documentary Hypothesis either, and it is the most important question of all.

I am currently in the middle of year four of EFM. I am a cradle Episcopalian. However, I spent many years in non-denominational charismatic churches. I have read the Bible from cover to cover several times, and I have read the New Testament even more times. Reading the Bible devotionally is important to me. However, reading it critically so as not to fall for unchristian beliefs by taking it all literally is also important. I too like the idea of a distilled EFM program that could be used for Bible study in local congregations. There is a lot of contextual material in EFM that could be left out in order to write such a curriculum.

I am somewhat bemused by this post. It is objectionable on many levels, but I will stick to two.

First, by the author's standards, people who studied or read the bible prior to the development of modern biblical scholarship could not have read the bible with any sort of "informed comprehension." Simply put, Jews who studied the Torah, and Christians who studied the Old and New Testaments couldn't possibly understand the bible because they hadn't gone to seminary (in a form which didn't even exist at the time). Not even monasteries, the seat of most knowledge contained in the church, would meet this criteria.

Julian of Norwich, Hildegaard von Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Meister Eckhart, Bonaventure, Aquinas, et al, none of these great mystics and theologians of the Middle Ages had the benefit of modern biblical scholarship, and yet, somehow, they came in touch with the divine.

Even without "proper" context, for well over 1500 years, people devoted to God somehow managed to build and sustain a great Church (imperfect to be sure, but the Documentary Hypothesis will not cure the human condition.)

Second, as an EfM mentor myself, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to study the modern methods of scholarship and its findings, and to help others understand it. And like the author, I believe they are important in understanding so much of the theology in the bible.
But unlike him, I do not suffer from an illusion that upon proper education, people simply leave behind the ideologies they bring with them into the EfM seminar.

I would think that Clifford would understand that as well as anyone. He himself found a way to accept the dissonance between his faith and the rest of his life by serving the military. I am absolutely not arguing that he was wrong to do so, but the documentary hypothesis doesn't help to solve the issue of Christ against culture vs. Christ in culture. There are absolutely valid arguments on both sides and several in between and he chose one, not because of the modern methods of scholarship, but because his ideology is married to his theology in a particular way.

As someone who grew up within the Roman Catholic tradition, I am well-schooled in the notion that only those who are trained, in another word -- priests -- should read the bible. We were actively discouraged from reading scripture for ourselves. The Church was worried about people thinking for themselves. (To give the Church its due, this is no longer the case as Bible Study is a large part of Roman Catholicism today.) But Clifford's problem seems to be much the same sort. People will read the bible without the tools for proper understanding and come to conclusions contrary to what he believes (because scholarship says so) is the truth.

The fundamental error in this argument is the quaint belief that when presented with the documentary hypothesis, everyone will simply come to the same theological conclusions. Leading people to understand the documentary hypothesis does not guarantee that they will stop believing in the historicity of certain aspects of the Old and New Testaments, nor necessarily should it, despite what I might believe in guiding them. The best that I can hope for is that people will have some understanding of context.

The clergy and those of us in lay positions in the church who help guide the faithful in their knowledge of scripture need to understand that we will always be faced with conflicting theology amongs believers. The ideological makeup of human beings commands it.

The question becomes, NOT how do we fix this horrible problem, with Cliffords answer being to quit telling people to read the bible until they are well-acquainted with historical-critical methods of scholarship, which in my opinion is an impossible, while laudable, goal.

The question becomes: how do we live in peace with those with whom we disagree? How do we get liberals, conservatives, moderates, anarchists, libertarians, and all the rest to come to the table together to worship God, despite the differing ideologies we all bring to our theology? That question is not answered by the Documentary Hypothesis either, and it is the most important question of all.

I am an EfM graduate and I'm doing the Bible in a Year challenge at my church. There are definitely issues coming up in the group but we are all wrestling with them, including getting together as a group to discuss.

I don't think there has to be an either/or to the discussion of scholarship vs devotional reading. It's both/and. I agree with Adam Wood's comments. Just because we don't have seminary educations doesn't mean we don't know how to read, to research,and to ask questions.

.... but the Documentary Hypothesis will not cure the human condition

This is by far the best comment I've ever seen on EC. Thank you, thank you, Elizabeth Higgs.

;-)

In response to comments, here are a couple of clarifications and additional comments:
• People in previous generations found an uneducated approach to reading the Bible less troubling because less dissonance existed between the Bible’s worldviews and their worldview. That is reason to think moderns might find the Bible more difficult, not less difficult, to understand.
• The dissonance is not exclusively a function of documentary theories of scripture composition. The dissonance also results from scripture’s pre-scientific premises and outlook, scripture’s tendency to view life in terms of the Middle East cultures, etc.
• When I read Genesis, I read mythological accounts of creation not easily harmonized with science. When I read the gospels, I read mythological narratives with no modern analogue. I believe that God moves in the world today as God has always done (a sound theological premise). Taking the past as normative is impossible not only because of the disparity between my knowledge and that of the authors, but also because God, on a prima facie basis, no longer seems to act in the same way as two thousand years ago. Theological knowledge, like all forms of knowledge, has increased over the millennia.
• I’m tired of people wanting to dumb down religion or to make it easy. God gave us great intellects. Religion is vital. Expecting people to engage with God intellectually is not too much to exist. Psychoanalytic research has repeatedly found that people tend to create God in the image of their dominant (usually male) parent. Engaging in conversation with Biblical scholars and theologians through their writings can help to challenge that image and to move the conversation beyond the blind leading the blind.
• If some people prefer an uninformed reading of the text helpful, naively trusting the Holy Spirit to guide them into the truth, that is their choice. But this approach has led many to adopt strange, even destructive practices (e.g., think of the Branch Davidians).
• This is not a call for dependence upon the clergy to interpret the Bible; this is a call for educating the whole Church of God.

It's always surprising (and disappointing) to me to hear the howls of protest that arise when someone suggests that scholarship is important to Christian faith, although I suppose it must be conceded that, without it, it's difficult to know how much you don't know; but most people don't go to their doctor assuming they know as much or more than she does or that her knowledge is unimportant to her understanding of their condition or its treatment.

If you'll take time to notice, you'll realize that most of the people commenting here are not objecting to scholarship at all - never mind "howling in protest" about it.

Most of us who've commented have explicitly stated that we've engaged in Bible study and found it useful; some of us here are Bible scholars by training.

Perhaps it would help read the comments again, in order to understand what the objections actually are?

I found www.enterthebible.org/ to be another wonderful study tool.

"naively trusting the Holy Spirit to guide them into the truth"

Now you're insulting both the uninformed laity AND the Holy Spirit.

Awesome.

"Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
-MT 12:32

(Not that we should really believe in such ridiculous mythological stories like the Gospel of Matthew).

I'm glad to see as much passion in this comment thread as in the debate about executive council last week. Perhaps there's hope for the Episcopal Church after all.

I think there's a great deal of truth on both sides. We don't do enough bible study. We don't educate our laity (or clergy) well enough on how to read, interpret, and teach scripture.

We make assumptions about the way people read and interpret scripture and the biases they bring to the text. But I would caution against creating "straw men" on either side of the argument. It was a very "naive" reading of scripture that motivated St. Francis in the 13th century to follow Christ, and a very "naive" reading of scripture that inspired sixteenth-century Anabaptists (among others) to become convinced that Jesus taught an ethic of nonviolence.

The Word of God always stands in judgment of us (to use Luther's language) whether we read it with the eyes and education of a peasant or those of a professor of New Testament.

I'm all for Biblical scholarship. But it's neither necessary for everyone to approach the Bible in an academic context, nor is it reasonable to expect that every lay Episcopalian has the time, money, or natural gifts to do so. This post has the suggestion of clericalism to it, frankly, in the suggestion that lay people are incapable of muddling through on our own without the learned clergy taking us by the hand and showing us how to read the Bible the Right Way.

Yes, reading the Bible can lead people to draw wrong - even dangerous - conclusions, as David Koresh did. It can also produce good and decent Christians like my Aunt Beulah, who read the Bible regularly and yet never once, to my knowledge, thought God wanted to her to go out in a blaze of glory during a firefight with the Feds. There are far more people like Aunt Beulah in the history of lay Bible reading than there are people like David Koresh. Or, for that matter, Paul Jennings Hill, who went to seminary and still managed to conclude that the Bible was instructing him to kill doctors who performed abortions.

Mr Clifford,

I know that it's rather tempting to believe in modern science as nearly infallible. However, you have to keep in mind that science changes rapidly; God does not. When Evolution theory first entered the agora, it was 100% substantiated by white supremacy. In the early 20th century, a Congolese man named Ota Benga was put on display in Brooklyn since he was supposed to represent a bridge between us and the primates. He ended up killing himself. Does the Christian Gospel offer this type of despair? I don't think so. To do this day, Evolution is unequivocally led by Anglo-Saxon scientists that still promote a human progression that cannot logically separate itself from racist conclusions. Besides the racism, Evolutionists still have yet to empirically prove their primary claim, that we evolved from primates.

It is theologically dubious to say that an all-powerful God cannot walk on water, separate water into walls, heal people, and rise from the dead. The materialist God is not one capable of saving anyone and he's really not designed to. Instead, post-Enlightenment religion is meant to give us more trust in human knowledge and less faith in the unseen. Yet, we all say the Nicene Creed every Sunday, in which we claim to believe in the "seen and the unseen." Do we all? Sorry, I want a God that can save me, not some good happy feeling of self-realization. One can only realize themselves in God's kingdom, not by seeking material wisdom. To me, modern religion seems to imitate the Gnostics' errors and heresies.

About the six-day Creation, it also seems to be that many liberals attack this belief in order to antagonize the conservatives. What is so hard about believing in a God that is powerful enough to speak the world into existence in six days as Moses and John claim to? Is it not harder to believe that our world was created coincidentally by a random collection of mass? Where is God's design in that? Wake up, liberal Christians! Evolution and science is out to rule out the existence of God, not to further the Church's commission to save people. There is no salvation in modern science. To further ally yourselves with science is to aid the enemy. Or do you really believe that God has no purpose for our existence?

James Pirrung-Mikolajczyk

Not surprisingly this was a hot topic of the 16th,17th,18th, 19th and 20th centuries too! Deciding what is actually authoritative in the Bible is not just a post Form Critical discussion.
I appreciate George raising the issue again from the 19th century more scientific investigation of the scriptures and suggesting that we make all or more of these scholarly tools accessible for the laity. The internet is a great resource for this, as is EFM.

But underlying that is still the question of its authority and how we discern that. Richard Hooker responded to the ultra-Calvinists of his day by rejecting the notion that scripture was authoritative in all things simply and he further rejected the notion that only Preaching is the appropriate vehicle for educating people about God's word. Despite their non to a church led by the laity, the Puritans actually believed it was the Preacher who was most important. This led them to attacking the plain reading of Scripture in the English Liturgy.

Hooker's reply was that the regular Joe and Jane had sufficient reasoning tools to figure out the plain meaning of scripture. But he was also clear that Scripture was only supremely authoritative in teaching those things necessary for salvation and that was a very small bit.

Our solution was to open scripture to people to read, but have it in conversation with the Church which could keep the focus on those things needed for salvation, actually restricting the amount of doctrine to be drawn from scripture.

The fragmentation of American Christianity based on the derivation of necessary things from "inspiried" individual reading of scripture is more than sufficient proof of the Roman Catholic withholding of scripture in favor of traditions. One need only look at the 26 branches of the Church of God (and now the 8 or so of American Anglicanism) to appreciate the dangers of individuals or small groups believing that they can derive doctrinal surety from idiosyncratic readings of the texts.

I believe that balance is well found in Hooker and those who intellectually descend from him. Those who tack too close to Scriptural Supremacy end up perpetually arguing and fragmenting, those who tack too close to Tradition Supremacy can end up betrayed by their leaders. By submitting scripture to both a reasonable reading open to all, put in conversation with scholarly work can we do what Hooker had confidence we could: Reason out what is necessary for salvation and not and then choose to adapt our faith into our time based on the spirit of scripture rather than the text. Hooker allowed us to set aside scripture that was time or culture bound, he believed reason could help us do that, he believed we could choose to do more good things than scripture includes!

It is claimed that uninformed reading of scripture leads to destructive practices. But this also occurs from "learned" reading of the scriptures. Is Bishop Spong not extraordinarly well-schooled in the Documentary Hypothesis? And yet, I would argue that his reading of the bible is as enormously destructive to the faith as any possibly could be.

I would also argue that the great mystics and theologians of the Middle Ages (those of previous generations) were hardly uneducated. Their education was based upon a different worldview than ours. But it is no less true now than is was then, that theology is NOT a science (in the modern sense). Maybe their ability to approach scripture outside of this idea that technical reason is of paramount importance is what actually led them to the great insights they had.

I am still finding it really hard to believe that the writer of the original post believes that historical-critical analysis of the bible will trump the average Christian's ideology. The person whose theology trumps his ideology is extremely rare. If he weren't, then there would be no need for quite so many denominations, nor would you find pacifists and warmongers in the same faith.

While I am not sure that I agree with everything that Fr. Clifford has said, I do think that he has a valid point that the study of the Bible is not necessarily "easy." How the modern "higher" criticism of the Bible relates to practical faith and practice is a more difficult matter. I would think that most persons know of the story of Dr. Bart Ehrman, a U.S. New Testament teacher and scholar who finally left the life of faith having fully understood modern biblical criticism and perhaps somewhat because of it. His scholarly knowledge of the Bible did not (as of yet), it would seem, translate to a better life of faith. I fear that, if we think that higher biblical criticism can be enough in itself (a sort of "educated" version of "sola scriptura") to be the base of religious life, then we are just as likely to fail as those with a facile/literalist reading. At the same time, going to a local bookshop, the shelves are populated with all sorts of ridiculous versions of the Bible (along the lines of the pomegranite version with helps for those growing daisies) packaged for popular appeal that make me embarrassed to admit to reading the Bible, at times. On the other hand, the "scholarly" versions, such as the Oxford Annotated or the Harper Collins are often so "dry" that they offer little fruits for inspiration.

Our ancestors in religion used the Bible in many different ways over time to greater and lesser profit for themselves and others. I personally found Karen Armstrong's book, _The Bible: A Biography_ to be a fascinating and informative chronicle of our historical experience with these often-difficult texts. I would highly recommend it for anyone struggling with the "place" of the Bible in religious life.

I think that a central problem is that we value the Bible, but we recognize how difficult it may be to study it in a scholarly fashion. In this light, we have to ask, how much does the "ordinary" person "need to know" to incorporate the Bible productively into a religious life? Also, given the many ways that, even today, persons of faith approach the Bible (is this not the root of much of TEC's and the Anglican Communion's controversies today ?), is there any "principle" that could inform our reading and form a ground from which to start? Although I am not ultimately sure how well it would work out in the longterm, Karen Armstrong insists that the Bible should be read and interpreted first and foremost through the lens of compassion, and she gives a reasonable and historical basis for this insight. Any interpretation or reading, whether based on higher criticism, literalism or ecstatic vision, that is not "compassionate" should be denied as invalid. Such a "foundation" would not denigrate high scholarship or inspiration of the Spirit, but would at least set a practical ground from which it would be harder to err in the most important ways. It might help to provide a "common ground" from which persons of faith in conflict over the Bible and its meaning, could begin to dialogue.

As a coda, I feel that I should also make a brief defense of "Lectio Divina." I do not necessarily think that Lectio Divina is a "naive" strategy that hopes that the Holy Ghost is going to miraculously insert the best interpretation into my cortical neurons. Lectio Divina is a tool (one among many), informed by scholarship, study, the life of prayer and practice, by which the Bible becomes a vehicle for personal and corporate inspiration. In my own practice, I often restrict myself to a verse or two, maybe just a sentence, occasionally just a phrase or a single word. I spent several productive sessions recently just on the first verse of Matthew 5, "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountain. He sat down, and his disciples came to him." (CEB) My reflections and insights, however, were not necessarily ones that would be for "public consumption" nor would they need to be. I will admit, however, that, without what probably sounds like spiritual pride, Lectio Divina practice is neither for "beginners or sissies." It is a tool to challenge our deepest assumptions and views. It is not how I would introduce a "newcomer" to the Bible.
One thing that I think _would_ be helpful would be to perhaps begin by making it clear that, in the religious life, we do not value all scripture equally. On one level, "all scripture is equal" but "some scriptures are more equal than others." What we need, perhaps, is our own "Primer." This could be a selection of scriptural passages that might be presented with enough commentary to get across the "essentials" of how we view the religious life. In Buddhism, which has thousands of scriptures, the Dhammapada is often viewed as one such "central" text. How about the "Sermon on the Mount" or the "Sermon on the Plain" for us? I could think of worse places to start to try to "get it" than that. Perhaps we should be saying to the general public, not "Read the Bible" but "Read the Sermon on the Mount" and then "come and see" what we are doing?

" It was a very "naive" reading of scripture that motivated St. Francis in the 13th century to follow Christ, and a very "naive" reading of scripture that inspired sixteenth-century Anabaptists (among others) to become convinced that Jesus taught an ethic of nonviolence."

Lord, please give me the gift of naivete. :-)

The reasons George Clifford gives for keeping the Bible out of the hands of the unlearned were the same in the pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church. Thus, after attending 16 years of RC schooling, I reached adulthood largely ignorant of the Scriptures.

Greatly to the benefit of my faith life, I began reading the Bible devotionally on my own, and I also sought out teachings and lectures on the Scriptures, because I was embarrassed about my ignorance.

Of course, what little I did learn of the Bible in my RCC schooling did not tend toward a literalist approach, which was a blessing, indeed.

June Butler

The fragmentation of American Christianity based on the derivation of necessary things from "inspiried" individual reading of scripture is more than sufficient proof of the Roman Catholic withholding of scripture in favor of traditions. One need only look at the 26 branches of the Church of God (and now the 8 or so of American Anglicanism) to appreciate the dangers of individuals or small groups believing that they can derive doctrinal surety from idiosyncratic readings of the texts.

I would say this is all rather a cautionary tale about egotism, personal agendas, and lack of accountability to anybody else. The basic failings to which all humans are prey, in other words. From what I can tell, the Catholic Church avoids this problem by means of its high regard for obedience to authority, not by privileging Tradition over Scripture. (I'm willing to be corrected on this, of course! But today's Catholic Catechism - I've been reading it lately - is full to the brim with Scriptural quotations. Don't know if it's always been that way, though.)

But in any case, I think this is mainly a quarrel between (alleged) Biblical literalists and the "cultured despisers of religion," who together are using religion as a football as they play a very tedious game of "hooray for our team." Because I think most fair people realize that since the Bible and what it talks about has given comfort to many people in distress - from slave girls in Imperial Rome to slaves in America - it might just have something going for it.

I like Dr. Shy's idea about a Bible "Primer" containing the Sermon on the Mount, though. Great idea!

I sympathize with the spirit of what you're trying to get at, but I can't share this view at all.

For openers, Jews and Christians both bring historical criticism to bear on their reading of the Jewish Scriptures, but they couldn't possibly read them more differently.

Most disturbing, however, is your appeal that basically asserts we need to return to an age when only a select group can "interpret" the bible for the masses. I think the masses are quite capable of doing it themselves. I know of countless organizations founded by relatively uneducated people who get the jist of the bible quite well and live it out through social service, loving their neighbor, caring for the poor, etc. Often far, far better than the experts. Likewise, I know a lot of educated theologians I wouldn't leave my children with for a moment.

In closing, let me just ask this. Do you have to be a scholar to read and appreciate Shakespeare, Hemingway, Faulkner, or any of the other literary giants of the ages? Of course not. These writers, like the writers of the bible, continue to be popular because they touch directly on the human condition. The problem comes when so-called experts suck the life out of these rich texts by heaping mounds of insight that are not necessary to understanding what the texts themselves are expressing.

This is not the argument of a luddite. I have spent years in language and religious studies, earning degrees from North Carolina and Chicago. I love what I learned, and I value it greatly. But to think that only I understand the text because of my training? I can't carry that burden. I prefer to learn from those who experience it on whole other plains of understanding.

Dear A Facebook User - please sign your name next time you comment. ~ed.

(It is true, though, that our culture - which used to be, as far as I can tell, very, very familiar with the Bible and its contents - does not really know it at all anymore, except for people already involved in the church.

I don't think that wide knowledge had much to do with the Documentary Hypothesis, either, though. People have turned to the Bible because it's full of crazy stories in which many people of all eras have recognized themselves and their own lives - or perhaps simply been interested in and entertained by, as I was. So I'd want to include some of the better and crazier stories in the Primer, too.

And Psalms, too, of course: Always Psalms, which pretty much need no explanation (and a good thing too)....)

I would never discourage teaching "ordinary Christians" (as though there is such a thing) the academic background for rigorous Bible study. But for two thousand years, "ordinary Christians" read the Bible without benefit of college or seminary-level training, and did just fine. The late Donald Juel makes this point eloquently in his writings about the Gospel of Mark, for example: it is a book that, arguably, suffers when subjected to the critical microscope -- or, rather, our hearing of and encounter with it suffers. Let the church make such education available in the parish, by all means; but don't make it a prerequisite for Bible reading and study.

michael.poteet

The Psalms need no explanation?

Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rock. .... That takes the infants from their mothers' breasts, or out of their arms, and dashes out their brains against ... Her infants were dashed to pieces at the head of every street.--Psalm 137

Gary and I attended one vestry meeting at the Church of the Ascension in Greenwich Village. The new rector opened the meeting with "Bible study" (we wondered why they didn't join Evening Prayer being read at the same time by the choir). He read the parable of the Good Shepherd and then had everyone around the table recall the meaning of the text from their Sunday school days. End of Bible study.

At Hillspeak we read the daily offices and celebrated the Eucharist; the 1928 Prayer Book lectionary had us read the Old Testament through every year, the New Testament twice, and the Psalms once a month. Familiarity was enhanced, if not understanding. Through most of church history, people heard the Bible read in church and explained from the pulpit. At the Church of St. Ignatius of Antioch on NYC's Upper West Side, Canon Richard Norris would begin his sermons by placing the text in historical context and citing scholarly difficulties, then he'd apply it to the present. His was the best preaching I've heard; much better than simply drawing morals from a lesson to illustrate the preacher's point.

I fear that George Clifford's proposals sound elitist -- church cannot be just for scholars and intellectuals. It can be more a place for study and action. Gary attended a Quaker meeting in Paris in the 80s, a small group but busy helping immigrants (even forging identity papers as necessary). When I was new in the church, children's and adult classes used the Seabury Church Teaching Series to provide background for the liturgical services. Now, resources seem lacking for concerted teaching programs. The parish's social function is basic, but some sort of intellectual core is needed if it's to offer more than music and coffee hour.

Someone suggested reading the Bible through the lens of compassion. Good choice, although as arbitrary as reading through the lens of authority or vengeance. We necessarily read the Bible (and everything else) through the lens of our experience and knowledge. We cite the Bible to back up our understanding more often than we read it to learn. The Bible is very various -- we take from it what seems helpful. Yes, people derive great comfort from devotional reading. But I noticed when touring theater companies played Indiana University, that I was getting insights and inspiration from every play, as though the Spirit was speaking in the way that was promised in church. All stories can speak to us, connect with our experience.

The problem with the Bible, as George Clifford implies, is that it's not what we take it to be -- a three-thousand year historical record of Divine action. The Hebrew scriptures were compiled (and perhaps largely written) in sixth century BCE Babylon by Canaanite exiles inventing a history and ethnic identity. (Abraham to Solomon is a great national epic unattested in other records -- not to mention the Creation myths, which would not be so impressive placed back with Jonah and Job.) The Christian scriptures were written in the late first and early second centuries CE by writers unknown except for Paul (and half the letters attributed to him are after his time). Tradition gives great resonance to Scripture, but it also enshrines a sort of Authority now losing credence. The Spirit (our need to make connections and meaning) guides all our reading. Church and scripture are not the places to start in understanding the present world of physics, biology, and evidence. Not to throw them out, but to consider what the church nowadays is for, what it actually offers, and what needs in the world it can and should address.

"The Psalms need no explanation?....

We remember what comports with what we believe."

Interesting that you left out the "pretty much" qualifier I deliberately put into that sentence. Next time, could you at least quote me correctly, if you're going to?

Sorry, Ms. Snyder, I didn't think that "pretty much" adequately excluded passages such as the one I cited.

Sorry, Dr. Shy -- I searched and searched for where I'd seen the "lens of compassion" proposed, and I missed it in the middle of your posting. I do question the utility of the Sermon on the Mount -- very suggestive, great poetry, but not practical ethics.

Yes, Ms. Higgs, Francis of Assisi's naive reading of scripture has produced great effects through the centuries. But the Franciscans pretty much ("pretty much"!) locked him up when they got going because no organization could survive on his pure principles.

And Mr. Wood, was your question about believing the Gospel according to Matthew an ironic endorsement or was it snark? The two Nativity stories are notoriously mutually exclusive, so both cannot be correct. They don't seem to figure in the rest of the Christian canon.

I really think it's important for people to read the Bible and to learn as much as they can about the different ways that it has been read in the tradition and different ways that people have heard it "speak." I've been quite taken by accounts of the rabbis' tradition of "midrash" which regards the engagement with Scripture as a spiritual practice -- it's OK, even a desirable thing, to wrestle with the meaning of a text of Scripture, and this is part of the understanding of God as a God who is engaged with humanity. I think that fits with the way that postmodern Christians could be invited to read the Bible -- not seeking definitive readings but recognizing that there is enormous richness in our traditions of reading the Bible -- and the more we know about scholarship and history, the richer it becomes. I am surprised that no one has weighed in with a "literary" defense of the Bible as a text that carries such an enormous fullness of meaning that interpreting it on any level becomes a creative activity. In Christianity, the monastic traditions of lectio divina and Ignatian reading of Scripture certainly invite ordinary people and scholars alike to engage with Scripture. The enemy of all this is the idea of a "single meaning" of Scripture rather than a faithful "listening" to what we hear in the story and an openness to what others in the community hear. This includes scholarship but not exclusively.

I'd like to see us all reading Scripture much more consciously and faithfully, with as much education in how to do it and in the traditions of how the Church has read Scripture as possible. It is one of our treasures, and I think in the Episcopal church, partly through EFM, partly through some good preaching and practice, in my experience, we are producing people with a good sense of the Biblical story -- but it could be much more at the center of our mission and identity. I'd like to see that.

Sorry, Ms. Snyder, I didn't think that "pretty much" adequately excluded passages such as the one I cited.

Too bad about that. FYI, the basic problem is that you've decided you want to talk about a completely different subject. I'm not required to go off the rails with you, though.

Of course, you have brought up an interesting point anyway, and relevant to the topic here I think. Obviously citing that Psalm is a way to say you think it's really, really bad. But I don't know why a "Holy Book" can't deal with "bad thoughts" as well. Should this passage have been excised so the Bible can be "nicer," "sanitized" so we can all pretend that these sorts of thoughts don't exist in people in time of war and imprisonment?

In fact, we've had a number of discussions about this Psalm, and how to understand it. One thing that does require maybe a bit of explanation - even though most of the situation is described right in the Psalm itself - is that that Psalm was written after the destruction of Jerusalem by a person taken into captivity and in exile. It pays to think about that for a moment or so: Who can know what happened to them, and to their families? The Psalm talks about weeping for one's homeland, and about the captors as "tormentors."

We came to the conclusion that one way to understand this Psalm is to recognize that people really do feel these things in that kind of adversity. We came to think it was an object lesson in what sorts of furies are unleashed when people are hurt extremely deeply - and to remember that holding that kind of power over others kills and destroys them. (We also came to realize that it was just by sheer, sheer dumb luck it wasn't us feeling those sorts of things because somebody'd killed our families and destroyed our lives - and to be grateful for that.)

So, no: I wouldn't put this Psalm into our Primer for newcomers - but I would want to discuss it in a Bible study. Not on the basis of an "explanation," because it needs only the barest one, one of the few Psalms that might need some background information provided - but on the basis of empathy and identification.

I think, IOW, it's not a bad thing at all to have "bad thoughts" in the Bible. The Bible talks about the way the world actually is and was, for real people. Good for the Bible.

But of course, basically I was saying that the Psalms could be understood, for the most part, by anybody, without needing a lot of background explanation. A simple point, really; sorry you couldn't see it.

All I wanted to say is that much of the Bible (including the Psalms) needs a lot of explanation and analysis, such you offer here. It's not "pretty much" understandable without the sort of historical and psychological framing you bring to it. The "bad thoughts" you explicate have been taken on occasion as basis for bad actions. Please, continue to bring your modern, compassionate understanding to your reading -- it will help counter anti-social agendas being pushed by right-wing exploiters of religion based on their clear reading of scripture.

St. Francis wasn't naive, of course. But in so saying, would any of you really want to just delete what we know now from our collective storehouse of knowledge so that we can go back to the good ol' days? Or say that all the work that has been done is really unimportant because we got the Holy Ghost to help us out?

Just like I don't want to throw out the hymns, liturgy, vestments, etc., I also don't want to ignore the linguistic, archaeological, historical and critical work done either, because that's holy work that has been done and is not be ignored. If one really thinks the Scriptures are that important, then do the intellectual work necessary. Why wouldn't you? There's no good reason not to. If there is, I want to know. If the study of the Scriptures is as important to Christianity as, say, pharmaceutical research is to medicine and wellness, then why are the standards in this day and age allowed to be so low, and questioning of low standards a mark of elitism? We simply have a lot more knowledge about the world that produced the Scriptures, and if you don't think this knowledge is important, then I guess you don't think the people who told the stories and then later the people who wrote them down are important. I'm certainly not going to tell St. Paul that he's not important enough to learn about, "Hey St. Paul, lemme just use the stuff you wrote to make me feel better, but you can rot in your grave for all I care about you and where you come from, like you and your life really matter to me anyway." Really? No wonder modern economic systems treat workers so impersonally, when even our religion cares more about the output than the person and environment that produced it!

The real contention is, what are the Scriptures really for? That's the scary question, and there will be much disagreement about that, as there always has been. This is where the rubber really meets the road, and everyone seems to think that those who disagree with them are caught hopelessly under the tire. But the foundations of individual and corporate faith are laid upon the answer to this question, there's no way around this.

Clint Davis, very much like your last post. Historical context, etc. so important to understanding the Bible. Caring enough about our faith and its primary document to engage in a critical study of it--what a no-brainer. I just don't see how anyone could argue with this and everything else you said. As an Episcopalian I value our tradition that honors questioning and intellectualism. I may not be an intellectual, but I like learning from the experts. However, I am also a very emotional person. Thus, I do like engaging my emotions too. I also, in my own experience, see the Holy Spirit marginalized. I do not want to do anything to create a barrier between me and the Holy Spirit. So, for me, there is a balance to be found and lived.

There are a number of very thoughtful comments posted, I won't be reacting to those, but to the original article. George hit a nerve with me as well, but a thoughtful and positive one. As an LCMS Christian until my mid-twenties, I was encouraged to read the Bible daily, and further told that God dictated the Bible word by word. Learning that things were quite different through study and staggering historical evidence was quite a shock. I am now in EFM at the age of 50, and fully appreciate the need for serious study of the Bible, and the need to understand it through the light of scholarship. Luther believed all should read it for themselves, and I hold firm to that, however, everyone should have access to a truthful history and background of the book as part of that daily reading. EFM accomplishes that.

EfM grops around the country have been reading and discussing this essay and the comments. Here is an response by Don Kivell, shared with permission:
Because the Bible’s story is written for all ages and all times, it can be a unique help
to what the individual needs and can relate to. The story can adjust itself to what can be understood. Jesus’ caution is also included: “anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it” (Mark 10/15). Although stories may bewilder, God told Isaiah: “My word will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire.”
The power of the Bible is in its stories.
Thus, one need not be a scholar to follow the overall story from Genesis onward as it dips in and out of history, “pre-modern science”, unexplainable miracles and situations, visions and genres, and arrives at a glimpse of things going on in heaven. Point? It may not be all that understandable, but along the way one must think about God... the reason for everything and whose story it is.

Consider this. Suppose a dear friend sits down with you in a relaxed atmosphere, and in a personal way says, “I have a story to tell you. Some time ago I knew someone who.......“ The story that follows probably has something for you to think about. Did the “story” really happen? Not important. Important is what your friend is telling you.

That’s the Bible; a huge and often perplexing story. Did The Flood really happen? Maybe. What might the story intend? how powerful God is? how God used a man worthy of knowing and
implementing God’s plan? how God dealt with human wickedness while preserving humans, animals and birds? Bible stories are meant to immerse one in situations and questions designed to start one thinking.

Take stories like Job and Jonah. To a friend of mine, Job was such an “off-the-wall” story that I had to ask my friend to imagine Job sitting at a casino gaming table with a vast pile
of chips in front of him. The croupier then, officially, confiscates all of Job’s chips.
Having gotten Job’s attention, he then tells Job all about his friends and about God. Later, Job’s chips are returned.

My conclusion: expect the complex. Scan the Bible and read its stories. Save Leviticus for later, as well as genealogies and questions about who wrote what and when. Read the explanatory footnotes in something like “The ESV Study Bible”. Ask and discuss lots of questions with church people with whom you feel comfortable. Make up your own mind, and be ready to adjust it. Then read the Bible again and ask/discuss more questions... in fact, read
the Bible once a year. What a difference it will eventually make in your life and the lives of those around you.

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament." - Soren Kierkegaard

Just read the following in Year 4 of EFM. It seemed to fit this discussion.

"The scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages discovered that Christian theology could not be reduced to a few simple clear statements without distorting the very realities of God and human salvation to which it sought to witness. They saw that theology is formed by the affirmation of faith and by critical reflection. Theology grows out of the life of the church as a community of faith. Its sources and norms come from scripture and tradition, the life of faith and prayer. Without the rich witness to revelation given in scripture and tradition, theology would quickly be reduced to a barren philosophical abstraction. . .Theology is formed by the interplay of passionate faith and critical reason. The technical way of saying this is to recognize that theology is dialectical."

I'm with Jesus, who "rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.'"

Scholarship is a gift of God, and God has given us this and many other gifts to use in reading and understanding the Scriptures. More actual "infants" have revealed truths from Scripture to me than scholars have - they tend to use easier words, too! :)

Angie Forde.

I would like to caution against the "either/or" approach to the Scriptures -- either they are literally true or they are all myths.

I had, as an adult, believed that many of the Bible's miracle stories were myths, until I encountered the "Jewish Study Bible."

Its commentary is written mostly extremely secular Jewish scholars. But to my astonishment, they pointed out that a number of the miracle stories in the OT have a factual basis.

For example, the story of Moses striking a rock and water running out? The limestone in the Sinai contains stored water that can be extracted by striking the rocks.

The flock of quail sent to feed the wandering Israelites? Turns out quail migrate across the Sinai and often fall in exhausted groups to rest, where they are captured for food.

The crossing of the Reed Sea? A group of engineers analyzed the weather conditions described in the Bible, and said it could have occurred as written under certain wind and tide conditions.

Many other stories that I had dismissed as sheer fantasy turned out to have a scientific or archaeological basis.

Many peoples' view of the Bible as 90 percent myth is, I believe, based on outdated Biblical critical studies from decades ago.

The Bible has myths -- Jewish scholarship for many centuries believed that the six days of creation represented eras in the earth's history -- but I don't think we should dismiss the Bible as entirely composed of fairy tales best interpreted by a scholarly elite.

I think the average person can and should make his or her way through the Bible, aided by good commentaries if they wish to read them.

Interesting that details of the Moses story are possible. Does it matter that the whole Exodus story is myth? There's no historical or archeological evidence for the Exodus. Yes, African-American slaves in North America made much of it -- "Let my people go!" -- but Zionists are using it to appropriate land in the Middle East that's been Muslim for 1300 years. Sometimes facts matter.

Once again: "The Bible" is not one thing -- it's a collection of writings, each with its own viewpoint and problems. Anybody can read it. What they get out of it depends on what they bring to it. Beauty and meaning both are in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, African-American slaves in North America made much of it -- "Let my people go!" -- but Zionists are using it to appropriate land in the Middle East that's been Muslim for 1300 years. Sometimes facts matter.

Neither use of the story affect in any way its historicity. Either it happened (I'd be willing to put the story in rhis category if it has some kernel if truth around which the strory was built) or it has no basis in fact,, no matter what purpose the story was used for later. Facts matter, but their use has nothing to do with whether or not they are, indeed, facts.

Story is one thing used as inspiration and model -- the slaves use of the Exodus story bolstered their cause, whether or not it was historical. The Zionists use of the national epic as a real estate deed is another thing: dubious if Abraham and Moses are literary creations. It's the latter case where facts should matter.

After reading the Jewish Study Bible -- written by exceedingly secular, cynical, skeptical Jewish academics, who probed each statement of the Bible -- I'd be inclined to believe that Exodus did happen in some manner.

I was astounded to find out that manna actually exists -- an insect in the Sinai dines on sweet fruit and excretes edible white, sweet-tasting flakes during some months of the year.

I think that the lack of historical and archaeological evidence for Exodus -- a parchment, a monument -- is easily explained -- few Egyptian historians would have bothered commemorating the escape of several thousand slaves.

And slaves who become nomads typically don't leave behind big monuments and temples with their side of the story.

With regard to the use of Exodus in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- actually Israeli claims rely far more heavily on Jewish history in Israel in the years before the Babylonian exile and the Second Temple era, for which there is scads of archaeological evidence.

I don't personally accept the use of the OT or archaeological evidence by some Israelis to take land away from the Palestinians.

By that token, the Italians, as descendants of the Romans, could claim Israel and the Palestinian territories as a historically verified part of the former Roman Empire.

I would urge that we not let our analysis of the Bible be drawn into the cross-fire of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, difficult though that is to avoid.

Otherwise we analyze stories on the grounds of whether they will 'help' or 'hurt' the Israeli or Palestinian sides -- we fall into the same historical distortion trap the Israelis and Palestinians are in where they spend a lot of time denying each others' histories and destroying each other's archaeology.

I would suggest we are best served by looking for the mixture of truth and legend in the Bible for our own study.

But Murdoch, surely the slaves wouldn't have found hope and inspiration in the Exodus story if they thought it was a literary creation. It was important to them to know that the same living God who had led Israel out of Egypt was the God with whim they had to do with in the 19th century. Without that assurance, I don't think the story would have been nearly as inspirational.

At any rate, those Jews most likely to use the promises and land acquisitions related in Genesis and Exodus are utterly immune to the idea that Moses and Aaron are anything but historical figures. Facts do matter, but not in the way you seem to imply. Even if archaeologists found the first draft of Exodus, complete with editorial notes ("Twenty commandments are just too many - cut these down to half that"; "Rewrite this part about Abraham acquiring the Cave at Machpelah to make it agree with Canaanite title transfer regulations"; "Boring! Jazz up these plagues!") the use of the Bible by Orthodox Jews and literalist Christian supporters of the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza would continue uninterrupted.

Not much more to be said here. Those who find the story meaningful will rationalize the inconsistencies and errors, and wave away the lack of evidence for most of it, because believing that It actually happened confirms the values they find in the story.

It's a truism that the problem with even the nicest religion is that it trains people to believe without evidence. The right-wing in the US has a whole disinformation industry crafting lies, and then getting them repeated often enough and by people with authority to distort the public discussion. But the church tradition is all too similar -- poorly sourced events, proclaimed and elaborated from all quarters, backed up by authority. The right-wing maneuvers to divide, the church to do good, but the strategies are similar.

In any event, fewer people are finding meaning in the tradition, turning instead to present-day experience and knowledge. These discussions of our source documents are attempts to identify the values in them that may continue to speak in an age of evidence.

Some basic things must be rethought. "Be fruitful and multiply" and "Exercise dominion over the earth" look like bad advice as seven billion human beings crowd other creatures off the planet and poison the atmosphere to an extent that threatens the survival of all larger animals (like us). And the creation story should read: God created woman, then adapted her basic form into a mate to support and protect her and her offspring. But the mate, impressed by the strength and cleverness he was given for his purpose, decided that He was the Big Deal and subjugated the woman and her children. However, the boys never feel quite secure on top and lash out at strong women and less macho males.

Since Galileo, Newton, and Darwin, our understanding of the physical world has changed fundamentally. The churches are straggling behind, trying to transport their treasures down the new roads. At some point, they'll have to shed some baggage -- probably by attrition rather than design.

Murdoch, I love the reworking of the Creation story; does it come in a Rite One version?

I find this article sadly misrepresenting various ways of reading, praying, and studying the Bible. It presumes the worst of "devotional" reading and the best of "scholarly" reading. Neither of which is necessarily the case. The reality for me is much more nuanced, especially among Episcopalians. I would rather say scholarship is essential -- and just by participating in the worshiping community we are exposed to lots of scholarship! -- and devotional reading in which the Holy Spirit "speaks to me" is essential. I would add that I think devotional and scholarly reading in a context where genuine sharing and listening occurs within the faith community provides the most holistic context for hearing the story and being transformed by the story and the God of the story.

Thanks, Bill. I'll work on a Rite I version. To refresh my memory, I started to look at Genesis 1 and 2, and naturally, being at my computer, I went to Google rather than to a Bible. Google pointed to a fascinating Wikipedia article: The Genesis Creation Narratives. Lots of fun stuff, including the writing in sixth century Babylon and after, and analysis of the implications of word choices.

One thing Genesis gets absolutely right for me is the creation of the universe out of chaos by language. God creates order by naming things, and that's what human babies do, starting with "Mama" and "Papa." Everything around us is a meaningless confusion; we sort it out by naming and narrative. (John's Gospel should have stopped with the first sentence.) Anyway, the Wikipedia article is lovely; read it if you like that sort of thing.

Concerning the original discussion, it occurred to my husband, Gary, that North American slaves may have valued the Exodus story less for its historicity than for its usefulness in screwing the Master: Turn the slave owners own narrative against him. Here in New York State recently, a preacher actually was barred from working in prisons because guards noticed that his talk about "Pharaoh" sounded too much like "Pataki," the Republican governor at the time.

When he was dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal, Michael Pitts preached helpfully
on this topic:

I believe it is the function of the homily to interpret the narrative of the liturgical drama in ways which speak to people involved in the world of the present day, sometimes in general, sometimes in more specific ways.

Today I am, as you might, say hoisted on my own petard. I have looked at these readings for Lent 4, especially the Hebrew scripture reading and the epistle, time and time again over the last three or four weeks, and I find very little in the first two which speaks to my faith, or which I believe is helpful for faith today.

. . . most of us in the West read these texts as members of communities, either secular and religious, which for centuries have been majority communities, which have possessed most of the wealth and power of the world and which have been the dominant force in shaping the culture, society, economics and politics of that world. We simply cannot take most of these texts and apply them directly to our situation. We cannot draw directly from them, moral, political, social or even religious and theological lessons for our own times and churches and societies. Such a process may work for the liberation theologians working with the poor of South America, but even the least powerful in our society are touched by the power of our society as a whole, and this must be taken into account in our hermeneutical method.

I've read Romans many times for example, I read it when I was 15, 16, all the way up to 25. I understood it when I was 15, and I understood it at 25. 15 was before college and 25 after. My understanding was the same. (I cite Romans as it is our best textbook-like representation of the gospel).

Should we discourage young people from reading Tolstoy, Milton, Bunyan, or Eliot because students might misinterpret the language. And as devotionals are written by man and not God inspired it is important to back them up with Scripture as to guard against improper interpretations.

Of course, scholarship amongst the laity should be promoted as other have stated but to discourage Bible reading is abhorrent. Yes, let us place yet another barrier between man and God after the Father sent his Son to die on a cross to eliminate the obstacle of sin and provided us with the Holy Spirit.

And ultimately unless the Holy Spirit opens our minds to the Word of God we will not see success in our study.

For as Ecclesiastes 1:18 says "For in wisdom is much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Knowledge without the power of the Holy Spirit is pure chasing after the wind.

[Emma09 please sign your name when you comment - thanks ~ed.]