The Bible - The most misunderstood and abused book in history.
PREFACE
Ah… a provocative title. I don’t mean it to be, but rather to set a frame of mind for this writing - one that hopefully gives you, the reader, a glimpse into how the Bible should be read. It will surely go against many of the historical and social norms in relation to how the Bible is viewed and interpreted, but I am confident that this is closer to the intended or purpose; or more importantly, confident that this is the correct way to read it.
Since the Bible has been used to teach, correct, admonish, humiliate and scare people for centuries, an incorrect usage of the book would surely indicate abuse, whether intentional or not.
This perspective is by no means, an exhaustive review on the subject, but it serves as a few bullet points to document my stance and to provide any wandering soul some further points of interest along their journey.
I will also say that I don’t believe myself to be an expert on the matter, but I rest with immense peace at the conclusion. This hasn’t come lightly or overnight but as a result of over 12+ years of research, reading, discussion and deep, deep thinking and meditation.
If you feel that this writing drips with a bit of frustration or is biting at the perceived incorrect usage of the Bible, you’d be correct — I’ve spent the greater part of my life experiencing the abuse of this book first hand and I’ve seen countless people spiritually beat down because of it, so it is quite personal to me.
If you take anything out of this blog, please take continue to ask this question when reading or considering any passage in the Bible:
WHY DID THEY WRITE IT DOWN?
Writing (ironically, as is the case with this blog) is a method for one to express one’s thoughts, feelings and sentiment about a particular feeling, conviction or life event.
The Bible, as it were, has around 35 traditional noted authors. To say that they supernaturally all share the exact same perfectly anointed and timed conviction and perspective would be an ignorant statement.
So… in other words:
WHY DID 35 PEOPLE WRITE THINGS DOWN?
35 people, from thousands of years ago, saw, felt and experienced things and wrote them down. Sure, some said they were “inspired by God” or even attributed a God TO the things they wrote, but hasn’t that continued to happen for thousands of years, good and bad? And yet THESE writings are the one true “inspired by God” writings and then there were no more? The book is shut and God stopped revealing Himself and inspiring people? There was “version 1”, “version 2”, and NO further updates? Humanity changes and evolves, yet the manual for this religion has somehow been sealed in a granite vault (with a chastity belt for good measure)?
While many modern day Christians (especially the more conservative variety) take the Bible as some oddly (but hey - divinely) concocted 66-booked collection of instruction, you really should just take the Bible at its word — pun intended — while respecting what each section was/is.
Here is what the recognized sections are, in a nutshell, along with my personal commentary:
Old Testament - men wrote things down, depicting how they saw things - overall a very barbaric and detrimental way of life, focused on “smiting enemies”, works, sin and sacrifice to atone for sin. Not to mention, very mysogynistic and sadly endorsing of slavery.
Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) - four men write — ok, no they didn’t; for the first three, it was other men, or anonymous, or maybe them… but somehow these guys all get the credit — about their first-hand perspective with the divine - someone who did things completely different - someone they call Jesus. Frustratingly, Matthew/Mark/Luke are somewhat noted to have copied each other and altering the perspective based on their audience. John’s account is vastly different in tone and in fact, from the other three. Did I mention that nearly all of them were written in 60-100 AD? Why did they take so long? Would you retain information accurately after 100 years? Hmm… Either way, read it for what it is — take it at face value and find the message lying underneath the incongruity.
The rest of the New Testament - more men write about how they were impacted by Jesus (and/or stories/teachings of Jesus) and how they attempted to further His work, making progress and tripping up along the way. However, their accounts and letters are somehow elevated to a status that even they never intended. PS - the book of Revelation is so incredibly misunderstood in Christianity; a diatribe over current political overlords and abusive empires was somehow sensationalized into a prophetic apocalyptic novel.
The Bible was never intended to be some divinely architected collective that was destined to be intensely scrutinized, word for word, that would in turn provide supernatural instruction for all people for all time; however, if you can understand and read it through the correct lens, then it all makes sense…. you’ll see what was happening and you’ll see a people being called forward.
INTERPRETATION
When I hear people say that somehow, the 1611 King James Version of the Bible is the one true version, it makes me cringe. Aside from being absurd and having no logical reasoning, it should come as no surprise that people who thump their AV 1611 Bible at you as being the “one true Bible” are usually the self-righteous Hellfire & Brimstone type that get off on telling you how wretched you are and how you need to “turn or burn”.
The fact that there are around 60 English Interpretations FOLLOWING the AV 1611 version should prove in and of itself that people have a wide array of views on how this thing should be worded, read and digested.
To be completely honest, if you want to go after really understanding the original text, you need to read the language that it was written in - get your Indiana Jones on and dig in to understand the Greek and Hebrew text via Blue Letter Bible. Many times there are entire phrases and contextual meanings behind thoughts that were tritely translated to a few words or just one word. The meaning becomes lost. So, despite still being a bunch of books written by mere mortals, at least try to understand what they were really saying.
Keep in mind that however you decide to interpret these archaic texts, you are still examining these words under a microscope - I suppose this method can prove beneficial, but it should not be the only approach to truly understanding what is going on here… what is going on just beneath the surface — what the big story is.
For what it’s worth, I spent many years reading through a lot of the controversial texts in their original language, painstakingly looking to prove/disprove certain beliefs or ideologies. This can prove quite beneficial, but once the man-made controlling methods in Biblical history are dismantled and you see that the core tenets that you’ve been taught — well, they just don’t exist — , then stepping back at a 30,000 foot view really puts things into context.
APPLICATION
What do you do with all of the really gross and morbid passages? After all, it’s in the Bible so it must be some weird part of God that we just have to sweep under the rug, right? Or do we just excuse it away as being part of His “righteous anger”?
OLD TESTAMENT
I mean… it’s pretty cool that Israelites were given the God-approved go ahead to go and slaughter their enemies… you know, those enemies that God somehow changed His mind about years later to then tell us to forgive unconditionally?
HUH?
In the Old Testament, men wrote stuff down.
They documented their thoughts.
They felt and experienced things.
They lived, loved, fought and wrote about it.
Some attributed God as being the force behind the pen (er… quill?), and some just wrote it down.
Since society has traditionally packaged up the Old Testament as part of the 66-booked version of the Bible, then I guess the writings are holy and the stuff that makes us squirm is just something we have to stomach. “God’s righteous, murderous wrath is just higher than our ways, so respect it!” Sense the dripping sarcasm?
Instead of reading these passages as ones intended to bring divine instruction, what would it look like if you viewed these stories as what humans were experiencing and how they saw the divine (what they referred to as God) as being an integral part of it — humanity and all?
Historically, humans have been moving (unfortunately, much like the EKG of a poorly functioning heart) OUT of barbaric behavior and INTO something better. It is the human experience, to recognize, grow and hopefully not keep repeating the lower of human impulses.
I’ve heard it said many times and have felt it myself — that it looked like Jesus was sent to protect us from the “God of the Old Testament” — that thought alone should give you pause. The “God of the Old Testament” was how these humans viewed the divine working and moving and calling them forward. In all of their desires to do what they thought was right, it is rife with missteps in selfish ambition. It (very, very gradually) was a step forward — THIS God was doing something more. Something deeper. Something better.
All of a sudden, when read from the perspective that the writers were writing with their own motives, desires and a flawed view of their creator, then the gross, weird, scary and barbaric stories make. perfect. sense. We see and treat others the way we all “feel” our God would do so as well.
Get in an airplane, lift up to around 30,000 feet and you’ll see what is actually going on here. Stories of humans trying to understand God, doing what they thought God wanted and making a mess of it as they went along.
But they were moving forward… they WERE making progress.
GOSPELS
The reason that the retelling of the life of Jesus is so different than the Old Testament is that it is actually contradictory in form. The man called Jesus called for abolishing the barbaric and sacrificially-obsessed nature of the OT and instead, showed people a “new way to live”. The teachings were dynamic and life altering as they were completely different than what everyone was believing and how everyone was living.
/rant on
I do find it interesting and almost morbidly entertaining that the one group of people that Jesus admonished and couldn’t tolerate were the Pharisees - a “religious right” group that enjoyed taking “scriptures” (ie - the “Bible” of that time) and law and pointing out to Jesus the error of his way.
I can’t help but visualize that Jesus had a deep mission to dismantle the current church system, the organized and barbaric religion that for thousands of years, had so focused on a set of rules that they completely missed the point.
In fact, Jesus seemed to discourage the rule-obsessed works of the “church busy-bodies” in that time, and yet “church busy-bodies” are still using the Bible to do the same thing today. How absurd.
/rant off
With the “God of the Old Testament”, the attribution to God behind behind their writing, these books can make you cringe and offer a defeated shrug as to what is going on there; something inside is screaming that this is not right and that God is not like this. We either enter into morbid acceptance ourselves or look the other way.
But when a humble and unassuming man gently encourages all to love, forgive, give of themselves… well, this is just a beautiful message that can’t help but drastically change lives.
Many churchgoers have joked that Jesus was like, “Dad… hold off, let me save them.” Instead, it is more like, “You’ve completely misunderstood and misrepresented the divine and true living — THIS is what it is like to live fully.”
When Jesus shares a message on a hilltop (found in the beginning of the book of Matthew, chapter 5), it is one that is so universal that it applies so well today. Here it is, in The Message translation, so you’ll easily understand it in English words. :)
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God (the divine) and his rule.
“You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.
“You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God (the divine). He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat.
“You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.
“You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God (the divine) in the outside world.
“You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family (divinity).
Doesn’t that just ring with truth and love? No judgment, just amazing insight and advice.
THIS is a message I can get behind.
THIS is a timeless message the whole world can benefit from.
THE REST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
Have you ever spent time with someone that you were so impressed with that you later attempted to retell their point of view?
Were you perfect in doing so?
I’m guessing it would be safe to sat that “you were inspired by them” — but perhaps your own perspective and neurosis still painted YOUR perspective on that person’s original intent?
Of course! It’s who we are as humans - it’s what we do.
The remainder of the New Testament was written by men that witnessed either firsthand, or read/heard about, the beauty of love lived out. However, they were still human beings that generously applied their own perspective, personality and foibles into this message.
To their credit, many of their letters were written to new church plants in various cities, citing encouragement and admonishment to these churches, many times addressing issues they were experiencing at that time.
Please read that again.
They were addressing cultural and situational issues to that church — issues that happened thousands of years ago. They took it upon themselves to speak up when they saw something that they THOUGHT was awry and offered instruction that they THOUGHT was correct.
To blindly take those passages and somehow attribute universal instruction to all churches everywhere is juvenile, damaging and wrong. It was never written to be global instruction for all people for all time. That was NEVER the writer’s intent.
It was written for them, then. Not for us, now.
That’s not to say that you can’t read it and find some sort of encouragement or that you can’t learn something from it. But it was not written with the knowledge and intent that it would be given to you, today as a rule-book for your life’s situations.
It was still written to a different recipient. It was written in a different cultural time.
It was written thousands of years ago.
Respect it for what it is.
Read it the way it should be read.
DIG DEEPER
Most conservative Christians call the entirety (all 66 books) of the Bible, “The Word of God” as if the collection is somehow endowed personally by the divine. They indicate that every chapter and verse is somehow divinely pulled from the heart of their God and communicated directly to us.
They call it inerrant.
How do they justify this?
Well, they say the Bible itself claims itself to be the Word of God. And that’s why you need to believe it. This graphic depicts this notion well:
And even with this self-defeating reasoning, nowhere in the Bible DOES the Bible in fact call the Bible (all 66 packaged books), the Bible/Word of God. The Bible never knew that The Bible WAS The Bible! (my brain hurts now)
In fact, the man Jesus was referred to as the Word of God — not a word that you read on a page, but a living word/voice — a vessel and voice of the divine.
I find that the best way to understand this description is to reference The Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King. Remember the “Mouth of Sauron”, the creepy mouth-creature that spoke FOR Sauron? Kinda like that… just not… evil… and creepy. You get the picture.
To give the Bible the level of notoriety that it current has is highly absurd. It becomes such an idol that the actual experiences of humans are missed and life-giving words and encouragement are never lived out — just read — over and over.
It becomes a Holy Grail to search for and the plot is lost on the journey.
I liken it to going to Disney World for a week and spending the entire time reading the map instead of going out and enjoying the park.
Understand the Bible for what it is.
Understand the words of Jesus and apply them.
Go out and live loved.
Do you have a desire to dive in and learn more about this? I highly suggest that you read this next:
..and then - dive into the divine, with this: