I have often wondered--quietly and usually to myself--what would happen if we could edit the Bible. After all, textbooks get edited and publishers bring out new and improved versions that are more in tune with how things are, instead of how things were. Wouldn't it be good if some ecumenical committee could go through the Old Testament and take out all the language about stoning people to death for breaking various rules? Or maybe soften that passage where the Psalmist talks about bashing the heads of the babies of his enemies against the rocks? We could also fix some of those New Testament misquotes of the Old Testament.
Suggesting this is heretical, of course, but it seems to me that it would be better, in some ways at least, to edit the Bible than to ignore it (as we do when it speaks of stoning or divorce), or to reinterpret it beyond all recognition (when we suggest that social justice is anti-Christian), or to selectively lift out phrases that serve our selfish interests (when we preach that God wants us all to be rich but first we have to donate to a televangelist). An editorial process would at least be upfront about what was going on.
This problem is especially acute for Protestants who don't have a tradition of companion theological reflection--what the Roman Catholics call the magisterium--to place the Bible in a larger context informed by ongoing reflection and dialog with our changing understanding of the world. In extreme--but broadly accepted--cases, we hear claims that the literal statements of the Bible trump all other forms of knowledge, even in science. By these ancient lights, the world is ten thousand years old and humans were contemporary with dinosaurs.
The "science" in the Bible poses especially difficult problems that call out for editing, or at least supplementary reflection. I put the word in quotes because there really is no "science" in the modern sense in the Bible--science was born in the 17th century--but the Bible, like most ancient documents, does refer to the natural world. And when it does, it creates serious problems for those millions of Christians who want to interpret it literally, or are unsure how the interpretative exercise works.
The creation story in Genesis, to take the most important example, is embedded within an ancient worldview that contains primitive scientific ideas that we have rejected. The account says, for example, that a great dome or "firmament" resides in the sky and holds back the waters that fall as rain. The stars are attached to this dome. It states that humans were contemporary with all the animals, which would include dinosaurs that we know went extinct long before we arrived. The first verse of the Bible - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" -- claims that the earth was created at the same time as the "heavens." We know, however, that the universe is billions of years older than the earth. Humans were created within a few days of all other life-forms according to Genesis, but we know, for example, that life existed for billions of years before we arrived on this planet.
Many biblical ideas don't fit with our contemporary scientific understanding. Unfortunately, as we have seen all too often through the previous century and into the present, many Christians insist that we have to accept all the details of the biblical story of creation. The Creation Museum in Kentucky contains, among its many exhibits, beautiful dioramas of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with friendly dinosaurs looking over their shoulders--a delightfully impossible scene, but one implied by the Genesis story.
Millions of Americans love the strange story told in the Creation Museum. Polls show that about half of all Americans--and most evangelicals--accept these ideas. However, young people raised to believe this story are leaving the church in droves, according to recent surveys, when they discover, usually in college, just how untenable these views really are.
In my newly published Seven Glorious Days (http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Glorious-Days-Scientist-Creation/dp/1557259283/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1347921049&sr=1-1&keywords=seven+glorious+days) I explore this question of what the Genesis story of creation would look like, if we updated its ancient science to match what we know today. Interested readers can engage the subject on at Patheos.com (http://www.patheos.com/Books/Book-Club/Karl-W-Giberson-Seven-Glorious-Days.html)
Follow Karl Giberson, Ph.D on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gibersok
So you would rather pretend not to know what your religion is than stop believing in it. There's a lot of that going around.
But why? At some point 2000+ years ago, every word of the Bible was written by human authors, and you can bet they edited those books repeatedly before settling on the form we have today. Bible scholars have even identified different groups of editors who contributed to the Pentateuch and traces of their editorial decisions (such as including two different accounts of Creation). Why would editing done by an unknown religious tribal zealot in the Middle East 2000 years ago be any closer to God's truth than editing by a modern scholar?
I hear the answer: "The Bible was inspired by God, so those old writing aren't just the words of men." What, God can't inspire people anymore? Did he lose that magical power when he gave birth to Jesus or something?
Modern Christians accept that God's ability to inspire also covers the people who:
- assembled the New Testament ca 300 AD
- translated the books from Hebrew and Aramaic to every other language
- created the King James and more modern versions
It seems that the Bible is like laws and sausages -- people like them, but nobody wants to see them being made.
I think this is because the Bible only seems authoritative if its exact origin is both ancient and mysterious. Because its authors can't be identified we can pretend they were different from every other human.
"After all, textbooks get edited and publishers bring out new and improved versions that are more in tune with how things are, instead of how things were."
Yes, change the books to support whatever the Social Agenda of the age is pushing...rather than the intent of the books being education.
So you would like to edit out things like "bashing in heads" and "stoning;" except those things did happen in history. Other texts and tablets of the period tell us so...but often not why. To edit them out of the Bible for the sake of 'modern culture' does a dis-service to the historical record.
And this may well be one of the reasons our schools are failing today. For the sake of political expediency we edit our books; dumb them down; rather than stick to the facts of the subject matter.
The Bible isn't exactly a historical record. Too heavily fictionalized; it's like calling the movie "300" an historical account of the Battle of Thermopylae. In any case, the creation of a new edition doesn't make all the old ones disappear from the record. So fear not, the head-bashing won't be forgotten. It just won't be *revered* as a sign of God's love.
I get hassled for saying it was a stone-age god, but then I doubt that Abraham actually invented someone new, many of the cultures in that area at that time had similar religions and Abraham seems to have reworked them.
The story of Isaac points to a previous and almost universal set of religious reasonings that are clearly stone-age in origin.
Modern revisionism might be necessary to maintain a belief in God but it does not make that belief true, better to err on the side of caution rather than wake up someday and find that your outlook is based on stone-age fears and subsequent revisionist propaganda, but deep down, who dosen't suspect it.
www.conservativemormonmom.blogspot.com
No, it is not possible that God used evolution to create anything he had in mind a priori, neither is a god necessary for that process.
Also, please explain why a god is not necessary for a process of evolution.
As for gaps, a good example to illustrate the difference and proper use of theory and fact would be Mendeleyevs early table of the elements.
He understood the properties of material but did not know them all.
He predicted the existence of certain materials even though they were unknown
he did not have ‘god’ or saints names written in place of Einsteinium or Radium, even though there were clear gaps.
Theory is an abused word these days, abused to the point where society is now demonstration quite a serious intellectual disability.
Making things up is not filling gaps but investigation and understanding is.
As Laplace said to Napoleon when he asked Laplace where god was in his explanation of planetary motion involving gravity and centrifugal force, ‘I had no need for that hypothesis’
Laplace saw no gap and no contradiction.
Chuck Missler is no Lapalce nor is he a Mendeleyev
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZFG5PKw504
nor is he a Shakesphere-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBBqjMgPmYo
Perhaps I’ve misunderstood you
>>>>In the NT, the most glaring example of textual manipulation is the notorious “Johannine Comma” of 1John 5:7 whose “ Trinity” section is conterfeit. The “Father, Son and HG” section was inserted into scripture by 4th century Latin Trinitarians during a religious feud that was intended to discredit Arians. The KJV picked up the insertion from latin Vulgate manuscripts that were manipulated, and this is known because more reliable manuscripts--eg Codex Sinaiticus--were found after the KJV was released which exposed the deceit of the Vulgate manipulators.
The spiritual teachings are out there by many advanced spiritual teachers; it is living by their words that lies the path that is less traveled.
The american culture is soooooooo different than the teachings of jesus one could hardly see if they looked even a trace of the teachings of jesus being lived out in america.
A nation that on going wars for corp profits and calls itself a christian nation. you gotta love that aspect of denial. or not.
"Important-----if true."
Give me liberal democracy any day, bad and all as the right-wing tell you it is.