Different Ways of Looking at the Bible

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When editor Hershel Shanks invited me to be a regular columnist in Bible Review, I asked him what kinds of subjects he had in mind. “Well,” he said, “you might approach it this way: Here’s what occurred to me while I was shaving this morning.”

Though his response showed a remarkable confidence in early morning thought processes, it was not very helpful. As one who has had a beard for over 25 years, I do not shave. But it did suggest that the range of appropriate subject matter is broad, to say the least.

And so, in my inaugural column, I decided to talk about a very basic but vitally important matter: the difference between two images of the Bible, two very different ways of seeing the Bible, and the difference that difference makes. And I shall do so in part by telling some of my own story, thereby introducing myself as well.

To begin that introduction, I live in two quite different worlds. On the one hand, I live in the world of the secular academy. I teach religious studies in a state university supported by public funds, and my specialized discipline of research on the historical Jesus is carried out in the context the academic discipline of biblical scholarship. In both of these activities, it is inappropriate to allow the beliefs of a particular religious tradition to shape one’s approach.

On the other hand, I live in the world of the church. As a committed Christian, I am deeply involved in the life of the church. Indeed, I am married to an Episcopal priest, which, I must admit, was not one of my childhood fantasies.

Each term, as I begin my introductory course in biblical studies, I tell my students about these two different ways of seeing the Bible. The first—the most widespread in our culture—sees the Bible as a divine product that therefore has divine authority. Many Christians and Jews hold this view, and many people who do not believe this themselves nevertheless think that this is what Christians and Jews are supposed to believe. The second—a more “secular” image of the Bible—sees the Bible as a human product, as one collection of “sacred books” in a pluralistic world consisting of many religions and many collections of sacred books.

The first image is the one that most of us who grew up in the Jewish-Christian tradition learned in childhood. Though it grants that the Bible is written in human languages and comes out of particular human cultures, it nevertheless affirms that the Spirit of God “inspired” the Bible, or “supervised” it, in such a way that its truth is ultimately guaranteed by God. It is “God’s story” in the sense of ultimately being told by God. Thus the Bible is different from other books; indeed, it is the unique revelation of God.

The second image is the view of the Bible that has emerged in the academic discipline of biblical scholarship since its birth over two centuries ago in the Enlightenment. This view sees the Bible as a human composition produced within two ancient cultures, namely ancient Israel and the early Christian movement. It is not God’s story (a story told by God), but ancient Israel’s story and the early Christian movement’s story. As such, the Bible is not the unique revelation of God, but is like any other collection of sacred books: historically conditioned, related to the cultures out of which it comes and subject to the limitations of knowledge, expression and vision of those ancient cultures.

These two views of Scripture have been responsible for much confusion and conflict in our culture and within religious communities since the time of the Enlightenment. When rationally and consistently developed and tied to notions of inerrancy, the first becomes fundamentalism, the claim that the Bible is infallibly and literally true.

Conflicts between fundamentalists and other Christians continue within many churches. Indeed, the conflict is found in the pages of BR itself (especially in the letters column). But even many Christians and Jews who would not call themselves fundamentalists are uncertain about how to view Scripture. Seeing it as a profoundly human product seems to threaten its status. How does one reconcile this view with being a Jew or Christian?

To return to my own story: I hold the second view of Scripture, and I am a Christian. But putting the two together was not easy; reconciling this view of Scripture with being a Christian was a long and arduous journey.

I grew up with the first view. Though my family and church were not fundamentalist (we were Lutherans in a small town in North Dakota in the 1940s), I took it for granted that the Bible as “the Word of God” came from God in a unique way, and that I was therefore to believe it. When I was a child, that was not a problem.

But there came a time, beginning in adolescence, when I found I could no longer believe it. My experience of doubt and disbelief was guilt-laden and anxiety-ridden. I thought I was supposed to believe the Bible, but I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried. I became a closet atheist.

That struggle went on for a decade and 013more. What made it possible for me to become a Christian again was a deepening understanding of the second view of Scripture. I began to understand that seeing the Bible as ancient Israel’s and the early Christian movement’s story of their experience of and relationship to God, and as one of many such stories in the world’s religions, did not need to involve any denial of the reality of God or of the vision of life to which their story bears witness.

I came to see that the Christian life was not about “believing in the Bible” but about “living within the story,” namely, living in relationship to that to which these very human words and stories point. I realized that Paul’s famous words applied to Scripture as well: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels” (2 Corinthians 4:7). That is, the Bible is an earthen vessel—a finite human product, made of clay—that points beyond itself to the treasure that is God. And thus, for me, the second view of Scripture, rather than being the enemy of biblical faith, has enabled me to find my home once again within the stories of the Bible.

When editor Hershel Shanks invited me to be a regular columnist in Bible Review, I asked him what kinds of subjects he had in mind. “Well,” he said, “you might approach it this way: Here’s what occurred to me while I was shaving this morning.” Though his response showed a remarkable confidence in early morning thought processes, it was not very helpful. As one who has had a beard for over 25 years, I do not shave. But it did suggest that the range of appropriate subject matter is broad, to say the least. And so, in my inaugural […]