Hostility toward religion is certainly understandable in current American
culture, especially given the outrageous behaviors of of the most "newsworthy"
monotheists (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) of late, but there is one consequence
of that hostility that should concern even the most militant atheists: the
neglect of the Bible as a literary, historical and cultural resource. The
literalist Christian fundies, with their absurd insistence that the Bible
should never be read as anything but an "inerrant" account of historical
reality, have already done their part to destroy our ability to appreciate
its value. But educated American society's furiously negative and somewhat
hysterical reaction to that kind of dumb-cluckery is
equally troubling.
Like it or not, the Bible was a crucial founding document of Western culture,
and no one who lives in a current version of that culture can consider themselves
intelligent or sophisticated if they are ignorant of the Bible and have
no understanding of the Bible's contributions to the world they're living
in.
A fundamentalist reading of the
Bible refuses to take the difference between Reality and Truth into account.
Ironically, this distinction can also be a major problem for atheists!
Capital "R" Reality is the whole of what is, the universe as it exists. It's
out there chugging along, atoms spinning, gravity gravitating, matter mattering
and energy energating, whether or not there is any consciousness in it to
sense any of its activity. The tree falls in the forest and when it hits
the ground certain rhythmic compressions are propagated in the air around
it. Small "r" reality is that small portion of Reality that can be apprehended
by human senses. It's the sound we hear when the tree falls over, the color
of the leaves, our perception of our heart beating faster after we hear the
crash.
Since humans, by definition, cannot genuinely see or understand the whole
of capital "R" Reality, they can only experience an abstraction from it.
Small "t" truth is any honest attempt to describe and understand what
our senses are telling us. Given that it would be impossible to describe
every split-second of any given sensory stimulus, small "t" truth is another
abstraction or selection from reality as we experience it. Small "t" truth
is ultimately subjective. It is reliant upon our own perceptions of our attempt
to tell it. If we have any sense that we are shading, slanting, re-emphasizing
or otherwise not making a genuine attempt to describe reality as we perceive
it, we are, according to my definition, dishonest. We are lying.
And then there's Truth with a capital "T." People who believe in God understand
capital "T" truth as the description and understanding of Reality
that God wants to convey to them. They believe he wants to convey that Truth because
he is benevolent and wants what is best for them, both as individuals and
as a social group.
People who don't believe in God have a concept of capital
"T" Truth, too. The atheist's concept of Truth leaves out the middleman,
the purposeful Being in the sky who is promoting a particular view, but in
the end an atheist must also embrace an idea...let's call it an Organizing
Principle...on which to base his understanding of what is "best" for him
and his fellow humans. Where the humanist sees human consciousness of the
principle of The Good, monotheists see God, creating and conveying The Good.
The Bible is a fantastic mixture of all these concepts. It contains some people's
honest descriptions of what they experienced of Reality and what they thought
those experiences meant ("truth"), and others' attempts to convey a consciousness
of what God wanted humans to see and understand about their world ("Truth").
Let's assume, then, that the people who wrote the Bible, just like honest
journalists or novelists in the world today, were either genuinely telling
the truth as they perceived it, or attempting to demonstrate capital "T"
Truth.
A Word on Translations
The Bible as the Western world generally understands it today is
composed of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible of the Jews), the New
Testament (the Christian addendum to the Hebrew Bible) and the
Apocrypha, texts that are currently considered canonical
by Roman Catholics and/or Greek Orthodox Christians, but generally not
by Protestants. The Apocrypha were commonly included in published
Bibles (usually placed between the Old and New Testaments) until about
1600, when the Puritan influence in Holland and England prompted many
publishers to discard them as heretical.
The texts of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew and the texts of
the New Testament were written mostly in Greek, with some passages of
Aramaic, a Semitic tongue that is a cousin to Hebrew. Aramaic is the
language Jesus of Nazareth spoke, and some of his direct quotes are
preserved in that language. Jesus was an educated Jew and very
conversant with the Hebrew Bible, the "Scriptures" that he frequently
referred to when speaking of his people's laws and traditions.
The venerable King James Version of the Bible (KJV), which many
fundamentalist Christians seem to believe is some kind of "original" or
ur-text, was published in 1611 and reflects the English usage of the
time, which is different from our own in countless ways. Since then,
science, archaeology, linguistics and other kinds of scholarship have
shown that there were many significant
errors of translation incorporated into that version, which, ironically
enough, is most commonly used by Christians who consider the Bible
"inerrant."
Although the Jacobin English of the KJV is undeniably beautiful, and
its conventions of addressing the deity as "thee" and "thou" and using
archaic verb forms ("hadst," "wilt," etc.) are imprinted into the
cultural memory of millions, for our less poetical purposes here only a
contemporary translation will do.
Translation is a tricky and imprecise business even when we are
translating from one contemporary language to another, and is even more
fraught with danger when we are attempting to translate the meaning of
texts written in ancient (or even extinct) languages.
One example from English usage might make the dilemmas clear. In the
early to mid-teen-hundreds of the Common Era (C.E., the more generally
agreed designation for those years Christians call A.D.), English
speakers used the term "doubt," as in "I doubt that is true," to mean,
"I believe that could be true." In essence, the most common, everyday
meaning of the word "doubt" has changed to its exact opposite over some
hundreds of years. When we start talking about thousands of years, or a
language no one living has ever heard, there are bound to be mistakes.
All we can realistically hope for is a very close approximation to the
ancient meanings of a given text.
Muslims, by the way, get around this problem (to some extent) by
holding that ONLY the original Arabic text of the Koran is the real
deal. Whereas translation of the Bible into native languages has always
been considered a crucial tool of evangelism for Christians, there is
deep and often violent disagreement among some in the Muslim world
about allowing any kind of translation of the Koran at all.
In this discussion I will be using the New Revised Standard Version
(NRSV), a Bible published in 1989. A largely American committee of
scholars and translators made use of the research and archaeology of
the 20th century to correct and refine an English translation of the
Bible into as accurate a version as possible. Thus it is the closest
current approximation to a literal translation, although some very
minor paraphrasing was undertaken to universalize the language in those
instances where a phrase referring to "men" or "mankind" was obviously
meant to apply to all humans. Where ancient sources disagree, the NRSV
notes the discrepancy and offers the alternative wording to the reader.
Some literature fans might mourn the loss of poetic turns of phrase
from earlier translations, but the NRSV is best if you're looking for
the most up-to-date and authoritative English version of the material
at hand. Although I own many editions of the Bible (because of my
interest in its history and influences), the one that I turn to first
when I need to research something is The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha. There is also an "Anglicised" version of the NRSV that incorporates British linguistic conventions.
Read more about the NRSV's history and translation processes here.
The Old Testament
The Jewish Scriptures, known to Christians as the Old Testament, were
written in Hebrew, and in their earliest textual forms the Hebrew words
had no vowels. So the name of God (Yahweh, meaning, more or less,
"I am") as it was written in those ancient texts would have looked like
the equivalent of YHWH. Given that it is possible for different words
to be made from the same consonants, it is also possible to dispute the
meaning of some of the ancient Hebrew words, adding one more layer of
challenge to the task of translation.
(Over time Jews came to pronounce the consonants YHWH as Adonai,
"my Lord" when reading the Hebrew texts, so as not to actually say the
holy name of God. This is why the word "Lord" is often capitalized in
English translations, to indicate that it is a substitute for the word
Yahweh, and why English-speaking Jews will sometimes write the word
"God" as "G-d" as an act of reverence.)
The Old Testament consists of several sections. The first five books
(Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) are known as the
Pentateuch (a Greek word meaning "a work in five scrolls"), and to Jews
they constitute the Torah, "The Law" (or "Instruction"). Although their
authorship has been traditionally attributed to Moses, they are in fact
a compilation of several traditional sources, none of which is likely
to have been from the hand of Moses himself.
Virtually all Biblical works are redactions: compilations and
interweavings of earlier source documents (which themselves were
derived from oral tradition) to form the finished texts we have today.
Modern scholars examining the language and internal references of the
Old Testament have been able to detect four main documents whose
distinctive features are still recognizable: the Yahwist, probably from
the 10th or 9th century BCE (also called "J" or Judean, a "southern"
text) which used the term Yahweh or Jahveh for God; the ~8th century
BCE Elohist, ("E," Ephraimitic, "northern") which used the word
"Elohim" ("Majesties") for God; the "D" or Deuteronomic text, which may
have been the basis of the "Book of the Law" found in Jerusalem in 621
BCE, and finally the "P" or Priestly source which seems to have been
written/compiled around the 6th or 5th century BCE when the Jewish
people were conquered by Babylonia and their elites were carted off to
exile. Much of what we know as the Biblical canon today was assembled
and finalized during the Exile, perhaps to help preserve the
community's history and traditions in challenging circumstances.
The Pentateuch is followed by the so-called "Historical" books
(Joshua,
Judges, 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah),
which purport to tell the history of the Jews from the death of Moses
to their return from Exile centuries later. Biblical authors and
editors worked and reworked the community's sacred stories and family
narratives over several centuries, and it is often hard to know where
genuine historical detail leaves off and legend begins. It is, however,
unlikely that all the events described are entirely fictional. There is
a backbone of fact behind these stories, which scholars have been
attempting to uncover for centuries. Studying how these early writers
handled their pasts and redacted their documents is a valuable
historical study of its own, leaving aside all religious considerations.
In any case, for our particular kind of interest in the Bible as a
founding document of Western culture, it doesn't really matter. The
people who used these narratives to instruct themselves in their shared
values over the millennia found them "true" enough to be worthy of
preservation as literature if nothing else. Although it will be fun to
look at some historical problems and parallels as we go along, we
should probably approach these books mostly as repositories of Western
cultural fundamentals and not concern ourselves too much with their
historicity.
The third segment of the Old Testament is known as "the Writings":
Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon. This is
an extraordinary collection of poetry, sayings, folklore, wisdom
literature (the precursor to today's "self-help" genre), and additional
stories that purport to continue the history of the Jewish people. The
Book of Esther, for example, supposedly takes place in Persia during
the period of the Exile, but some scholars call it "the world's first
romance novel."
Finally, the Old Testament contains the "Prophetical Books," Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, and what are known as the "The
Twelve": Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habbukkuk,
Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. How should we approach these
books, which are so varied, divergent and difficult, and clearly not
actually written by their supposed authors?
This is how the Oxford Annotated NRSV puts it:
There is no doubt that behind the prophetic literature were powerful,
generative personalities called prophets. ... We can conclude that they
were, over a long period of time, passionate, extraordinary persons who
refused a domesticated version of reality, and who dared to voice their
particular discernment of their life.... Because they are imaginative
and sometimes irreverent in their utterances, the speech of the
prophets is daring and unpredictable, and often confronts and even
affronts the present-day reader, much as it would have done the
original hearers. ...
On the one hand, their powerful influence brings about the preservation
of their words and the remembrance of their acts. Around these awesome
figures there must have been loyal friends, allies and disciples who
remembered and cherished their words and who regarded them as having
enduring authority and pertinence. It is this residue of remembered
words that became the core of the several prophetic books.
On the other hand, the prophets not only left their words behind them;
they also left behind a vision of reality that continued to inform and
empower others after them. These others continued the rhetorical,
interpretive tradition of the generative personalities, so that in the
wake of the prophetic person the prophetic tradition continued with new
prophetic speech that was faithful to and congruent with the originary
personality. ... Consequently all the words in a [prophetic]
collection, even those from a derivative tradition, are ascribed to the
prophet himself. ... Clearly the original prophetic person did not
intend to create scripture, but scripture has resulted from the ongoing
theological reflection of the religious community.
(We'll find this discussion interesting again when we come to the prophetic person of Jesus of Nazareth.)
The extra-canonical books known as the Apocrypha are: Tobit, Judith,
Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Jesus ben Sirach,
Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah (aka Baruch 6), Additions to the Greek
Book of Daniel (Prayer of Azariah, Song of the Three Jews, Susannah,
Bel and the Dragon), Prayer of Manasseh, 1-4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, 1
and 2 Esdras.
For those who maintain that the Bible is "inerrant" and that every word
should be taken as literal historical truth, it is something of an
embarrassment that the Book of Genesis, the primeval mythology on which
creationists base their beliefs regarding our origins, contains two differing accounts of human creation.
The first is the more familiar "Seven Days" story, in which God creates
humans on the sixth day of a progressive process. Religious people who
are not
literalists regarding the creation story nonetheless think it is
significant (and have encouraged me to point out to new readers) that
evolution as we understand it today is essentially recapitulated in
this creation story, thusly:
God begins with uncreated chaos, the triumph of entropy, the vast,
primordial, random stuff of the universe, understood by the ancients to
be "waters" -- probably because to desert dwellers floods and seas
seemed like the ultimate in dangerous, mysterious and disorganized
matter. God hovers over and "breathes" on this undifferentiated mass
(the word "wind" or "breath" can also be translated as "spirit").
One Jewish tradition has it that God can only do this
"breathing on" trick by withdrawing himself from the stuff of his
creation, so they hold that Creation is therefore something separate
from God, a corner of the Everything that he deliberately holds outside himself.
Then, what with all that windy stirring and rippling going on (or after
the formation of an empty spot for creation to happen in) comes the Big
Bang ("Let there be light"), followed by the consolidation of stars and
planets (the creation of the "dome separating" the primordial matter, or "waters"). The
earth cools and water precipitates into seas and rivers separated by
dry land, and God calls forth vegetation (beginning with primitive bateria), then parts the primeval cloud
cover so the sun and moon and stars can be seen.
Next up, water creatures and birds. Interestingly enough, although
earlier scientists might have put the development of birds farther
forward in evolutionary history, many believe today that birds as we
know them are the descendants of dinosaurs, so they seem to be coming
into the story at the "right" time here!
Then we have the land creatures, and finally, at the pinnacle of
creation, after all else was created, we get humans. What's interesting
about this account of creation is that God seems to create both flavors
of humans at once:
Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness ... So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
And notice, too, that in this version of the story, God is portrayed as
using the plural when talking to himself: "Let US make..." . Scholars
disagree on what this means, some believing that the storyteller was
attempting to portray God as consulting with the court of heaven, the
host of angels and his right hand man, Jesus.
Some think he was just using the "royal we," to indicate his grand and
multiple powers, and to illustrate that he is acting in his official
capacity as the lawgiver for heaven and earth.
Yet others believe that the mythologer was attempting to portray God as a being who "contains
multitudes," including both "male" and "female" aspects and
characteristics -- an idea that is emphasized when the "image of God"
that humans are made in turns out to have two sexes. The implication
here, of course, is that God's image in humankind is incomplete without
both, and that the two together are what God calls "good."
Then comes another story entirely, which not only differs in language
and character, but contradicts the first one right off the bat (my
emphasis):
In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up
... then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a
living being.
So in the first version we have all of creation finished, including
vegetation, before humans are made, and in this version, the older, and
some feel, more "folkloric" one, humans are made before plants. That's
what the words say: "NO" plants or herbs are made before Adam.
How to resolve this difficulty? The literalists make much of the fact
that the plants and herbs referred to are called "of the field," and
they claim that it was only AGRICULTURAL or cultivated plants that are
being talked about here (unlike the wild "lilies of the field" spoken
of later, I guess). So, the literalists' story goes, God made more,
extra special plants specifically for the Garden of Eden after he made
Adam.
That, of course, is problematic in that Genesis 1:12, the account of the third day of Creation, reads (my emphasis):
The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it.
Any way you slice it, the words of this passage mean ALL the plants
were made before the people. Our literalist friends always insist upon
exact meanings of the actual words...except when those meanings are
inconvenient.
The first, more poetic -- and with its sonorous repetitions, almost
liturgical -- creation story, is the more recent ("Priestly") one,
probably composed during the Babylonian Captivity (Exile), as a
justification for maintaining the Sabbath, the central Jewish
observance that differentiated them most strongly from their captors'
culture. Although it contains echoes of other, much earlier
Mesopotamian mythologies, it is a more sophisticated and custom-made
narrative, designed for accurate transmission down the ages.
The older folk tale of the second account was probably assembled or
constructed from a variety of very early stories and seems to have been
meant to reinforce societal norms regarding marriage (and all its
attendant problems of power, sex, reciprocity and purity). So it was
often quite explicitly used -- as it is even to this day -- to justify
the subordinate role of women in the culture.
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