Thoughts on the Bible

I've had quite a lot of "thoughts" recently, which aren't terribly systematic, I'm afraid... Hopefully that should be an invitation to contemplate (or to post a comment!)

One of the most common questions I am asked when people hear that I'm a Christian is, "Do you believe the Bible is literally true?"

Now I think this question reveals a lot. It shows what those who either (1) would not identify themselves as Christians, or else (2) would say they were Christian, but don't identify themselves with me, think you have to do in order to be the kind of Christian I am : i.e. they think you "have to" believe the Bible is literally true.

It is - at least as far as I can see - almost always a hostile question. The thrust of it, and the implication behind it, is: There is no way I am going to believe that - in fact I think that believing that is intellectually/morally irresponsible/stupid. And so I certainly couldn't become a Christian [of the type that you are].

And I always answer no to the question anyway. Which tends to throw people a bit.

Let me ask some questions of my own: Do you believe that the phone book is "literally true"? Do you believe that your marriage certificate is "literally true"? Do you believe that your grandmother's autobiography is "literally true"? Do you believe that what your wife said to you this morning before you went to work is "literally true"? Do you believe that this blog is "literally true"? [of course it is ;-)]

Now that's put the cat among the pigeons, hasn't it? Except that it hasn't. It's not literally true.

But what do I believe about the Bible? If it's not "literal", whatever that means, what is it? Why is the Bible important?

Well, first of all, the Bible is my book as a Christian. Christians who don't - for whatever reason - much read or much care to align themselves with - the Bible, miss out on their heritage and their possession. As a Christian I am part of the people of God, and the Bible is my charter, my ancenstral record, my lineage, my cultural reference, my family story. Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Rahab and Mary matter to me because they are part of my history. We are the people of the Book.

And the God of the Bible is my God. In that sense, the Bible wasn't written to me, but it was written for me. I get to know God through the Bible, as three persons in interaction with others, and in involvement in the world. I find my own place in space and time in the Bible's story and its spirit, and I understand myself to be part of the story as it continues to unfold. I see past, present and future in perspective. The Christian who neglects the Bible cuts herself off from her past - she is disconnected and rootless.

Sometimes people are fearful that they need to accept (whatever they mean by that) the whole Bible before they can become Christians. But most Christians have never even read the whole Bible. God doesn't ask us to fully read and understand the terms & conditions before we click 'OK': he asks us to join his redeemed family as those in desperate need of being rescued from sin and death, and then to become in a community of Bible-readers or Bible-listeners.

Or - conversely - some people don't want to become Christians because they feel that they can't accept the whole Bible. This usually means there are bits of the Bible they (think they) know about that they feel they can't take "literally". There are two aspects to this - (1) the Sodom and Gomorrah factor ["how can God destroy 'innocent' people, and say he hates homosexuality?"], and (2) the Dinosaurs in Genesis & Jonah in the Big Fish factor ["what a load of rubbish.."]. Supplementary to this, there's the whole thing about the Bible "contradicting itself."

Now this is difficult to respond to.

Let me try.

The standard evangelical "answer" to these questions in the last hundred years or so has been to begin with the doctrine of inerrancy. This says (in summary) that the Scriptures as originally given are true in everything they affirm. There are no "errors". But the problem with this "answer" is that it doesn't really deal with objections. It's a put-up-and-shut-up, Go-to-hell-and-do-not-pass-serious-thinking response: The Bible doesn't contain "contradictions" because by definition it can't. Sex outside of marriage is wrong because the Bible says so. Thank you and goodnight.

Traditional Protestant and Evangelical systematic theologies have almost always started with the doctrine of Scripture. We set out our stall with this as our main selling-point. And we're surprised when people don't buy it. That doesn't mean that I haven't found it helpful in the past, but as a Christian, and as an apologetic to myself.

At this point I need to stop and say I am extremely wary about moving away from inerrancy. I recognise here more than anywhere else in theology the danger of starting off a slide into a liberalism, whereby Christianity ends up watered down to nothing more than happy humanism with a bit of God-talk thrown in. I've been there. For Christ's sake, let's not go there.

But I have to wonder if we really need inerrancy - formulated (as it was) as an anathematizing response to those with a liberal agenda, to bat over the heads of those who come to the whole question of God and Jesus Christ with a liberal approach.

I think I would rather begin with tension - with plurality of voice - with (and OK, let's use the word) "contradiction" and seek revelation there - in contemplation at least as much as in systematization.

Sometimes I've thought that the concept of perfection can be more helpful than inerrancy for explaining Scripture and what our approach to it should be. Inerrancy just needs too many qualifications - it's based on original manuscripts that don't exist, and most of us couldn't read even if they did, it allows for unquantifiable theological bias and "spin", it permits the conventions of unspecified different genres... all to the point that you end up wondering what inerrancy actually stands for. I'm happy to accept that God does not err, but the danger with teaching Bible inerrancy is that all Bible-readers [you & I] do err from time to time, no matter how much we pray for God's Spirit to teach us.

The Bible is perfect. This has nothing to do at first with the vexed [modernist] question of whether the Bible has any factual "errors" in it or not: it's to do with source and spirit. The Bible is given by God to his people, and is breathed out by him. The Bible is perfectly human, perfectly divine.

The Hebrew word perfect describes something that is complete, something that totally fulfills its purpose. Like the Bible: intended thoroughly to equip us for every good work, it will not return empty to God, but will achieve the purpose for which he sent it. As befits Christian theology, Christ is the paradigm: perfect human, perfect God. Getting sick, stumbling over his words, telling bad jokes, getting misunderstood, treading on Peter's foot, apologising for making a bad smell... If any of these things run against our understanding of perfect humanity, we have surely misunderstood what redemption means, for none contradicts the perfect love of one who is fully entered into the human condition.

Here is the authority of the Bible: its voice the polyphony of human authors perfectly attuned to the words of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit spoken "at many times and in various ways" (Heb.1:1) and yet for us, that we should hear, respond, and be saved.

Returning to the questioners, have I anything better to offer them than have the proponents of inerrancy? I believe so.

Contradiction is part of life and is the situation into which God speaks. The God who declares his hatred of sinners nevertheless loves them with an undying love, which in the end proves to be ("literally") a dying love. The "literality" of Jonah's experience in the Big Fish is not a sine qua non of my faith in God, so much as its truth is a part of my story which only has meaning if it is perfect, and appropriated as such by me. If we doubt the Bible, rather than being pushed away from it, we are invited into it, with all our fears, questions and pain, to add our voice to the covenant community and to grow in faith. This approach is a "Come and see", "Faith seeking understanding", way into the Bible. It allows doubts and questions, and suggests that the Bible meets them, not necessarily that it resolves them. And above all, it takes us past any possible narrow biblicism to relationship, engagement, and the prospect of growth.