It is hard for me as a preacher’s son to even estimate how
many hours, how many years I spent in church, Sunday school, adult classes,
summer church camps, etc., etc. I
learned wonderful stories: Adam and Eve, Joseph, Moses, Noah, the burning bush,
the parting of the Rad Sea, Jacob, David, Solomon, the birth of Jesus, his
early visit to the temple, John the Baptist, recruiting apostles, water to wine, walking on water, nets full of fish, fish and bread feeding 5,000, the
death and the resurrection, etc., etc.
Wonderful stories. Stories that
enriched my faith. Those stories were
all there in the Bible. My picture was
that the Bible was really epistles of love, grace, forgiveness, acceptance, the
omnipotence of God and the sacrifice of His Son to save us mere mortals. All good things. All great things. All the gospel truth.
Seems I have only recently had to confront the other side;
the dark side of the Bible. Included in
this new found knowledge is a host of discoveries that have rocked me deeply.
The earth was not made in 6 days but over millions and
millions of years. The earth is not
flat. Evolution is real and has never
been disproved. The historical evidence outside
the Bible for Moses, Abraham and Jesus is sketchy at best. There is no evidence that the Jews were ever
slaves in Egypt. There is no evidence
that Caesar demanded a census at the time Jesus was born. So what is going on?
The Bible was written by men, not God. I do not think God dictated to men who wrote
it all down. Inspired, perhaps, but not
dictated. In fact, it was men who
decided what would be included in the Bible.
Around 150 years after Christ the New Testament had pretty much come
together, at the Council of Trent in 400 AD it appeared to be finalized, but
the current version with 66 books was not finalized until the 1500’s. In other words, at best, we have conflicting
oral and written history of the New Testament that lasted for a 150 years, and
at worst 1500 years. In finalizing the
21 books of the New Testament over 3,000 books were considered. Three thousand? The Old Testament took shape around 600 years
BC, but was not finalized until 200 BC.
For each testament that is a huge amount of time. Not knowing exactly what was in the Bible
took longer than the United States has even existed.
And there is stuff in the Bible that horrifies me. Slavery is totally condoned in both the old
and new testaments. Jesus even advised
both slave owners and slaves on how to support each other. It is very clear that wives should submit to
their husbands. Yes, husbands have a
duty to their wives as well, but the Bible says men are the boss. Tell that to my wife. In fact, the Bible supports polygamy. A man could have as many wives as he
wished. Death by stoning was prescribed
for a host of behaviors. Adultery got
you stoned. A new bride who was not a
virgin got her stoned. Divorce could get
you stoned. Lust for another could get
you stoned. Worshipping other gods. Working on the Sabbath. Children who disobey parents. Interacting with wizards and witches. Being a homosexual. And being critical of the king (somebody
better tell Fox News). All these
behaviors could result in being stoned to death. I do not support slavery, I do not support
polygamy, and I do not support stoning to death. In fact, the Old Testament is tougher on
divorce than it is on homosexuals, and it says virtually nothing about abortion
though many try to say so via the transitive property. We surely do not hear the battle cry against
divorce and for polygamy from the fundamentalists who are anti-homosexual and
anti-abortion. If those folks had credibility they should stand up for all of that.
It would be easy if we could just write off the Old
Testament. Let’s just say that Jesus
brought a new covenant and all the old is swept away. He did save the prostitute from stoning by
telling the crowd that anyone who is without sin can throw a stone. He did say he was here to fulfill the Old
Testament prophecy. But dad gum it, He
also confirmed and endorsed the rules found in the Old Testament. What are we do to with that?
It is comforting to know that many of us who grew up in a church with no question of anything else, now have questions.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there were no questions from the pulpit of Spring Branch Baptist Church where we were told that we should not vote for Kennedy because he was Catholic.
My parents fairly faithfully polished shoes, spit polished and shined us and took us to sit in Sunday School and in the pew. They even taught Sunday School.
When I asked where the wives for Adam and Eve's children came from, they replied, "there HAD to be some other people". Yes the Earth is millions of years old, there IS evolution, Jesus may have been married ( it would have been odd for a Jewish man to be unmarried). I have friends who think that even thinking these things disqualify me from being a true Christian, ha. I was taught to question, what can I say.
My mother told me that a distinguished professor at Mary Hardin Baylor had told her class that he suspected that the book of Revelation had been " tacked on" to the end of the Bible because it didn't seem to belong with the rest of the chapters.
Then on to Baylor where my professors pointed out scripture that seemed to have been written by men who could be fallible! Then the big split in the Southern Baptist convention about the infallibility of the Bible. President Jimmy Carter and even Baylor decide that they do not agree with these conservative fundamentalist perfect Christians.
My first marriage, we became Methodist and took our children to church there because we couldn't make up our minds what to do?
Now, my husband and I met in a church Singles Class, but still do not think that we have found the " perfect" church. Should we just sing the old hymns and listen to the safe sermons or be up waving our arms, chanting the 7-11 praise worship songs and going into a deep prayerful spirit filled trance. Some of our children seem convinced and many of our friends.
Help is needed... I know that Jesus is still there, but where should we be? or are we OK?