Readers Reply

BR’s Cover Has Been Stolen

My immediate reaction on glancing at BR’s April cover was extreme sadness. I last saw Rembrandt’s painting of “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” just two weeks before it was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum several years ago. The painting remains at large.

All too often after a major art work is stolen, media attention very quickly dies down and people forget that a major work is gone. Unfortunately, this fact must be a great incentive to those who steal.

Although BR correctly attributes the painting to the Gardner, no mention of the theft was made. I realize the article talks about understanding Jesus’ miracles and not about the painting or art theft, but it would have been a courtesy to the Gardner and a service to the public to let readers know that the painting was stolen. Sadly, a miracle may be what is needed to recover this exquisite work of religious art.

Joan Norris, marketing director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, replies:

We are always pleased to see images from our collection like the one on your April issue of the Rembrandt painting, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Unhappily, this painting, along with 12 other art objects, was stolen from the museum in March 1990, and has not yet been recovered. The investigation remains very active, however, and we have every hope that one day this marvelous painting will again grace the walls of the museum.

Recommends Rebuttals

I have been a subscriber for over two years, and I have observed the full spectrum of emotions from my fellow subscribers. They’ve ranged from kudos to disagreement to absolute outrage, with the latter seeming to be a growing group. As an evangelical, I have also experienced this same spectrum of emotions about BR and am finding myself more and more a part of that growing group. Before I exercise the “power of the purse,” as so many of them have, I have a suggestion. Perhaps alongside a [Stephen] Patterson “Gospel” or a [Marcus] Borg “opinion” (or any other piece of liberal scholarship), you can include a rebuttal column or article from a noted conservative scholar demonstrating why such a liberal viewpoint does not stand up to the facts. Conservative scholars should not be difficult to find. There are J. I. Packer, R. C. Sproul, Norman Geisler, Gleason Archer and John MacArthur, just to name a few. Certainly BR values all of its subscribers and does not wish to lose single one. Give all of our readers a good reason to continue subscribing. How many subscribers can you afford to lose?

We will invite their contributions.—Ed.

How About Giving Us the Other Side?

“Readers Reply” particularly interests me, partly because I often sympathize with the conservative readers who don’t agree with some of the not-so-conservative conclusions expressed in some articles. I was particularly interested in the letters concerning the review of Burton Mack’s book The Lost Gospel (Stephen J. Patterson, “Q—The Lost Gospel,” BR 09:05). I am presently doing some graduate work and I find that the Q Document Hypothesis may have some legitimacy. However, I also find that the conclusions that many scholars reach have little to do with objective research and much to do with speculation and perhaps are even motivated by a desire to undermine scripture. I think your conservative readers have a legitimate complaint in that an entirely one-sided presentation of this subject is a little biased. Perhaps you could review a book that clearly propounds an alternative position to the Q hypothesis, better yet an article written to that effect. May I suggest the book Is There a Synoptic Problem? by Eta Linnemann? (Baker Books, 1992).

Thanks for the suggestion.—Ed.

The Arian Controversy

Christ No Earthly King in Church Mosaics; More on the Accuracy of Oral Transmission

Although Dennis E. Groh’s “The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01, summarizes Arianism with no originality that could draw complaint, it does repeat the characterization of Christian art of the period as art derived from an imperial iconographic idiom. This view, at least, does not fit the illustrations of the article, and I believe it has been successfully contested by Professor Thomas Matthews’s book of last year, The Clash of the Gods (Princeton Univ. Press, 1993).

Groh describes the Church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo as a “ruler’s church dedicated to a ruler.” The mosaics of the church, he tells us, show saints progressing to “Christ the King.” Yet, in the accompanying illustrations, Christ healing Lazarus (p. 32) seems similarly dressed as when he is among the angels (p. 24). In neither case does he wear anything similar to the earthly ruler (pp. 28, 29). Christ does wear purple, but not the gold and jewels of the emperor’s crown, robe and sandals. Further, Christ sits on an ornate chair, as might be reserved for a dignitary or a god, whereas emperors were carefully depicted on a stool (sella curulis) in literature, commemorative art and coinage. Christ’s hair also lies on his shoulders, unlike any of the other persons’ in the illustrations, all of whom have carefully cut hair, a fashion that had prevailed for centuries with all but a few philosophers, eccentrics and gods.

There are reasons for the way this Divine Word Incarnate is depicted here, and it is not to draw us into an analogy with earthly governmental power. These reasons have been amply presented by Professor Matthews.

On another matter, I note that Stephen Patterson, in his reply to the thoughtful letters of your readers (Readers Reply, BR 10:01, p. 10), states that “in a culture in which even the simplest technology, such as writing, was largely unavailable, verbatim accuracy was little valued.” How then did students learn from a teacher, or for that matter in the Temple? Part of the answer is that memorization was the socially shared technology of the day. It was valued and respected for its accuracy in the ancient world, just as it is today in some parts of the Middle East, where members of the group (young and old) can occasionally be heard to correct each other’s recitations. It is a community art, doubtless as subject to error as modern transcribing, but it is not hearsay!

Dennis E. Groh replies:

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my article“The Arian Controversy—How It Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01. You are mistaken when you insist “… the article summarizes Arianism with no originality that could draw complaint ….” The view of Arianism presented therein was drawn largely from the Gregg/Groh hypothesis, first put forward in print in 1977 (with almost no predecessors for this interpretation in the history of previous scholarship). The hypothesis was developed and fought over in the 1980s. It has generated almost as much complaint as it has groundbreaking scholarship.

I also stand behind my insistence that this is a ruler’s church dedicated to rulers. Christ may not be exactly dressed like the reigning emperor precisely because he is raised and reigning while emperors are mere earthly mortals. But the enthroned figures of Christ and Mary at the front of the nave on either side clearly indicate their rulership. The healings/miracle cycle you allude to should probably be interpreted as part of the (heroic) life of Jesus cycle and not related to the rulership imagery.

Thank you for introducing the readership to Tom Mathews’s book. You might also want to look at the items cited in the footnotes that actually accompanied my article to check up on the accuracy of the points I was making.

Stephen J. Patterson replies:

As I have already noted in my original article and again in replies to subsequent queries on this matter, the popular notion that cultures with very low levels of literacy come to value verbatim accuracy in oral tradition is false. I am not aware of any studies that challenge the research of Milman Parry, Albert Lord and Walter Ong to this end.

Literalism

Battles with his Family

Just a short letter to express my appreciation for Martin E. Marty’s “Literalism vs. Everything Else,” BR 10:02. Coming from a literalist background, and having had my fill of battles with family members who berate me for my skepticism, it did me good to have all the things about literalism that I have struggled to say written in such a clear and sympathetic style.

Non-Literalist Comes Out of the Closet

As usual, when BR appears in my mailbox, everything else is dropped while I consume the issue from cover to cover. I found the article by Martin E. Marty simply engrossing.

I am going to admit right up front that I am a recent convert to “Southern Baptism,” if that can be deemed a separate religion from the rest of Christianity, as Will Rogers maintains. (When asked if he was a Christian, Will quipped back wryly, ‘No, I’m a Baptist!”)

I joined that sect not because of its fundamentalist viewpoint, but because of my own spiritual needs, and the church I joined has immeasurably filled those needs for me personally. Indeed, if anything, I am a “closet non-literalist” Southern Baptist. I do not stress that point in my individual church, however, because I believe the issue is irrelevant.

To me, the whole debate over stressing literalism and inerrancy is unfortunate and wholly un-Christian. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day and the strict literalists of today have much in common, and Jesus speaks out against them both. The Pharisees had raised the observance of the law to such a degree so as to completely conceal the love and mercy and hope that is God. The literalists of today, by demanding inerrancy, raise God’s word above God himself, making exactly the same mistake.

Somewhere, in all the fighting and bickering, Jesus’ own words have been forgotten. When asked what the most important commandment was, He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:36–40).

The term “the Law and the Prophets” in ancient Israel and the term “Bible” to Christians today mean the same thing, the written word of God. But as both Jesus and Paul point out repeatedly, strict observance of the Law (i.e., inerrancy of Scripture) is useless in the absence of love. Jesus taught repeatedly about focusing on the spirit of the Law and not the letter of the Law.

If Jesus were to come today, I am convinced He would just shake his head at the literalism debate. “I thought I told you guys to love God and one another,” He would say. “Where’s the love?” We need to stick to the main issues as Christians, and the little issues will take care of themselves.

At a personal level, some Christians need inerrancy, and for them it is fine. Some need non-literalism, and for them that is fine. There is such a vast amount of belief and faith that we all agree on, why elevate the differences to such a degree? We should just allow God to move within the spiritual life of each individual believer and trust Him. If some point of belief is critical to an individual, then let God in His own infinite wisdom correct that person. If one believes that God can create the universe in six days, surely one must also believe that same God can change one person’s mind. We should just encourage that person to seek God and His will.

For me personally, the Bible has what everyone needs, but when any one person reads it, he will receive his own personal revelation. After all, it is God who speaks to me when I read the Bible, and not some convention or synod. And it amazes me how the Bible could have been written so perfectly as to fill the needs of everyone, literalists and nonliteralists alike.

Unfortunately, not even the words of God Himself can stop mere men from finding something to argue about.

The Errors are Irrelevant

We are indebted to Martin Marty for a most interesting and helpful article. It is splendid how Dr. Marty takes both sides to task and yet appreciates what both have to offer.

I have one small criticism of Dr. Marty’s response to the question “On what do the non-literalists then base their faith?” He seems to imply that it is based on things other than the Bible.

It seems to me that a non-literalist can have faith in the Bible as the Word of God without believing it to be infallible and inerrant. As a seminary student, my life was changed by reading Karl Barth’s lecture on “The Word of God and the Word of Man,” in which he sets forth his own faith that while the Bible was written by human beings and is, therefore, capable of errors and inaccuracies, it is also wholly and completely the Word of God. This view, I think, is one of the great paradoxes in which one is justified in having faith. Thus, a non-literalist can freely use historical and textual criticism and benefit from archaeological discoveries and at the same time accept the Scriptures as wholly and truly the Word of God.

I sometimes wonder if the god of some literalists is not simply the Bible itself.

I seem to remember that after one of his lectures Barth was asked whether he really believed that a serpent could speak. He replied that he did not, but that it was very important to pay attention to what the serpent said.

One further thought: I commend you for your department “Readers Reply.” In it we can enjoy both the madness of readers and their wisdom.

Literalists Insult God

The article by Martin Marty (“Literalism vs. Everything Else,” BR 10:02) and Marcus Borg’s column (“Thinking About Easter,” BR 10:02) in the April 1994 issue provide interesting insights concerning different methods of biblical interpretation. However, as an English teacher and writer, I regret that neither scholar directly addressed one of the most vexing aspects of this subject. Why is the issue of whether the Bible is the word of God (generally inspired by God for the sake of human spiritual development) so often confused with the issue of whether the entire Bible should be interpreted literally?

Literalists commonly seem to fear that recognizing metaphor and symbolism in Scripture somehow undermines it as the word of God. This view betrays their own lack of imagination and insults God by assuming that God shares the same deficiency. Yet Jesus scarcely opened his mouth “without a parable.” Clearly, if God had any influence in the composition of the Bible, God has a strong preference for literary language over the language of the average instruction manual. If God had wished us to have a handy reference work where we could readily look up the divine opinion on issues A, B and C, I am sure He could have arranged for it. Why insist that the literal use of language is automatically “better” when the evidence of the Bible itself suggests that God thinks otherwise?

On the other hand, the fact that a great deal of figurative language is used in the Bible does not mean that everything therein was intended to be interpreted metaphorically. Ultimately our decisions about how to interpret a given passage frequently must rest as much on common sense and personal faith as on external historical and scientific findings, valuable and interesting though these may be. As an example of applying common sense, most readers do not take literally the recommendation to cut off one’s right hand if it has committed an offense (Matthew 5:30). As an example of applying personal faith and experience, I find it necessary to believe in Christ’s Resurrection in order to endure living my life from day to day, whereas I do not find it necessary to believe that the Book of Job literally happened in order for its themes and message to be absolutely true. The Resurrection is a central event that must be literally true in order for it to be fully meaningful as myth.

Borg quotes Crossan’s remark “Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens.” I suggest that Emmaus happened and Emmaus always happens. The Christian proclamation of the Incarnation unites history with myth, affirming that God chose to enter the world to live out the patterns described in various mythologies and symbolizing human spiritual experience. God is the supreme artist; the fact that God frequently communicates through art should not be taken to undermine the existence of God, the reality of divine action or the value of the Bible.

The Word of God vs. Literal Interpretation

It seems to me there are two aspects being addressed as if they were one in Martin Marty’s article. This is particularly evident in the wording of the 1989 Gallup poll cited in the text, which asks whether Americans believe that the Bible is “the actual word of God and is to be taken literally ….”

When Jesus speaks, because He is part of the Trinity, He produces “the actual word of God”; however, when He tells parables, I don’t think He intends “to be taken literally.” These are stories that are supposed to teach, not recount history. Therefore, one may conclude that God is capable of the telling stories for their allegorical value, and one should be free to believe that, although the Bible contains the actual words of God, not all of His words need to be taken literally.

No Truth Without Revelation

Martin Marty’s discussion of literalism (“Literalism vs. Everything Else,” BR 10:02), like all of his writings, is illuminating and nicely expressed. The conflict between scholars and believers is not a conflict between literalism and “everything else.” Nor is it only a conflict between literalism and scholarship. It is also (and I think most crucially) a conflict between those who believe they have heard a commanding revelation that demands their obedience, and those who give their first allegiance to academic “freedom” and scholarly “objectivity.” “Freedom” is just another word for “nothing left to lose”; there is no truth without revelation.

Literalism Debate is Producing Warring Camps

“Literalism vs. Everything Else,” BR 10:02, reminds me of one of the parables. “A man had two sons; and he went to the first and said ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered ‘I will not,’ but afterward he repented and went. And he [the father] went to the second [son] and said the same; and he [the second son] answered ‘I go, sir’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of the father?” (Matthew 21:28–31) So with Literalists and Everybody Else. We are not, we cannot be, justified by our abstract beliefs or by that to which we give lip service, but by what we do and who we are.

James addressed this point in his letter: “Someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith” (James 2:18). Again, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead” (James 2:26). As it is said, “You will know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:16).

I believe that the sum of the above is that faith bears fruit it in good works, we will be too busy to argue the issue. If our faith does not bear fruit in good works, then all our arguments are, as Paul put it, “as a noisy gong or a clanging symbol” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

The main problem I have with this, as with any other controversy, is that it tends to divide the Christian faith into warring camps and deplete what energy there is. And, in the end, such arguments lead nowhere.

Exposing Presuppositions

Thank you for Steven Buller’s letter (Readers Reply, BR 10:02). I was pleased to learn that there is at least one other reader who has recognized the inherent flaw of the historical-critical method as used by most of the scholars who contribute articles to BR. Their conclusions are often mere reflections of their presuppositions. I would add that those presuppositions are typically those associated with post-Enlightenment modernity and include such notions as the impossibility of miraculous events (as mentioned by Mr. Buller); the assumption that any theological motive of a biblical writer necessarily precludes, or at least severely restricts, his ability to give an accurate and reliable historical account; that apparent contradictions in biblical texts are in fact real contradictions that undermine the authority of the Bible; that the use of phenomenological and mythopoeic language somehow distorts biblical truth and must be stripped away in order to make that truth acceptable to the “modern” individual; and that the historicity of events in the life of Jesus—particularly the pneumatic conception and virgin birth, miracles, atoning death, bodily resurrection and ascension—is irrelevant to the exercise of saving faith. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it does represent those presuppositions that seem to be most frequently encountered in BR.

One might legitimately ask, as I have often asked myself, why do I not join those who cancel their subscriptions? The answer is that if I did, I would be depriving myself of one of the great sources of humor in my life. Who could fail to be amused when it is realized that Marcus Borg’s thoughts about Easter are little more than a rehash of Schleiermacher’s, which were soundly refuted years ago by philosophers and theologians alike? Who doesn’t laugh at Jacob Milgrom’s unconvincing defense of the idea that “God hates the sin, but loves the unrepentant sinner?” Who isn’t laughing at Jarl Fossum’s inconsistency in saying that Jesus’ miracles do not demonstrate his divinity, but that they are intended by analogy to reveal him as the Lord of salvation and creation?

Another reason for not canceling my subscription is that I am comforted by the indications that some higher critical scholars may be beginning to recognize the bankruptcy of that method. Martin Marty is a notable example of one who has recognized the failure of both Fundamentalism and Enlightenment Rationalism to do justice to the biblical texts, though I wish he would explore and expound more thoroughly the position of those like myself who maintain an Evangelical understanding of inerrancy as described in The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. Although I do not agree with Dr. Marty on every point, his views are at least worthy of serious consideration, and I would encourage you to publish more of his work, as well as the works of those like him.

Male Feminist Bible Scholar

Her Work Is Never Done

Marc Brettler’s acknowledgment (“My View: On Becoming a Male Feminist Bible Scholar,” BR 10:02) that teaching a Women’s Studies course made him aware that the Ten Commandments were not addressed to women parallels the experience of John Bright, the eminent Old Testament female scholar. A female student asked Bright why the Sabbath Commandment prohibited work for the patriarch, his children, slaves and livestock, but not for his wife (Exodus 20:8–11). Bright admitted that this had not come to his attention before. The student suggested that the wife, like that ever-active one in Proverbs 31, was not given a day of rest because she had to feed all the non-working household!

Borg

Is the Bible Fact or Fiction?

BR and Biblical Archaeology Review often dance around what are for me critical issues. Namely, are the stories in the Bible fact or fiction, and were they written as fact or fiction?

Marcus J. Borg begins to address this issue with “Thinking About Easter,” BR 10:02. He asks whether the Easter stories should be regarded as reports of events or “are they fabrications made up to legitimate early Christianity?” Unfortunately, he executes a pirouette over the very issues he raises by finding “another way of understanding them.” In concluding, Mr. Borg comes to regard the Easter stories “not as straightforward events” but as stories that “seek to express something on the edge of the ineffable, namely, the mystery of Christ’s continuing presence in the lives of Christians.”

While there is a certain attractiveness to Mr. Borg’s metaphysical approach, I do not believe, as Mr. Borg seems to suggest, that the biblical writers’ presence “on the edge of the ineffable” would excuse fabrication and manipulation. I would like to know if Mr. Borg would be willing to directly confront these basic questions: Are the Easter stories (and other biblical stories for that matter) fact or fiction? Were the biblical authors deliberately misleading their readers? If not, what was happening? If they were, why? Were they incapable of expressing the truth literally? Indeed, if the biblical authors were ‘using the language of time and space,” as Mr. Borg states, how much license did they take? And what can be said about this approach?

I agree that it can be most beneficial to seek “another way of understanding” the Easter stories and other biblical accounts. However, as one who prefers truth to fabrication and manipulation, I also feel that it is important to examine the motives of biblical writers and ask how they intended their words to be taken.

Marcus J. Borg replies:

Mr. McMahon’s questions might warrant a column (or more). For now, I will respond with two brief points. First, the radical either-or between fact and fiction is too limited a set of alternatives. It ignores a major category of language: metaphorical and symbolic language, which can be true, even though not literally (factually?) true. For example: “My love is a red red rose.” Is that statement fact or fiction? Of course, my love is not a red red rose, but it would be a narrow literalism to insist that the statement be put into the category of fiction, or to claim that the lover is guilty of fabrication because the statement is not factually true. To move to a New Testament story, I do not see the author of the Emmaus road story as guilty of fabrication simply because the content of the story could not have been captured on a videocam.

Second, beyond this observation about language, I will simply add a few comments about the “factual” content of the Easter stories. I doubt that there was an empty tomb. I doubt that anything happened to Jesus’ corpse. But, as my column suggested, whether there was an empty tomb or whether anything happened to the corpse of Jesus has nothing to do with the truth of Easter. The truth of Easter is grounded in the on-going experience of Jesus as a living reality in the lives of Christians. Is that a fact? Does that happen? My answer is yes, but it may or may not be the kind of fact that McMahon has in mind.

Ancients Did Not Dispute Empty Tomb

Regarding Marcus Borg’s “Thinking About Easter,” BR 10:02, we do not have a pre-70 A.D.situation in which Jerusalem proto-Christian Jews were claiming a missing body and other Jerusalem Jews were denying it. There was a physical tomb out there and everybody in town knew what was or was not in it. Even if we can’t know firsthand what that tomb status was, we know they knew. Either everybody in Jerusalem knew it was or had been empty, or nobody in Jerusalem had ever heard the claim made.

When, within a few years of the alleged event, Saul got religion, he didn’t change his opinion on the missingness of the body, he changed his opinion on how it got missing. Every proto-Christian recruit in the early years in Jerusalem is a separate guarantor of the missing body, and you have to warp early Christian history utterly out of shape to deny their existence. Later Jewish sources (Toledoth Jeshu, etc.) in no case deny this missing body; they explain it, along the lines of Matthew 28:11–15.

If John Dominic Crossan hopes to sustain his suggestion that Jesus’ body may have been eaten by dogs, he might begin by explaining how the above data (for a start) exists today without an empty tomb in Jerusalem then.

Questioning the Resurrection Puts Him Over the Edge

I have tried to be patient. In my last letter I said that, in spite of my disagreement with so many articles, I am not canceling my subscription. Marcus Borg’s article on Easter, however, has put me over the edge.

Not only is he wrong theologically, he is not even honest about scriptural data. In regard to a physical resurrection he states, “Paul, of course, refers to the resurrection … but he does not mention an empty tomb.” Has Borg intentionally forgotten 1 Corinthians 15:3–4? “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again third day according to the scriptures.”

Does Borg mean that because Paul does not use the literal phrase, “empty tomb,” he did not believe in a physical resurrection? Come on—I thought this was supposed to be scholarship! Frankly, I prefer the witness of the apostles and Josephus to the dreams of Borg and Crossan that “Jesus’ body may have been devoured by dogs”! How people today can be so arrogant as to reject the testimony of eyewitnesses in favor of their farfetched ideas is incredible! To hold to such absurd views is their prerogative—to publish them in a supposedly reputable magazine is evidence of your own irresponsibility.

I don’t need this any longer. I would rather be faithful to my Savior than display “openmindedness” to such unscholarly, unbelieving and irresponsible writing!

Marcus J. Borg replies:

As Varner’s own letter states, Paul does not refer to an empty tomb, but says Jesus “was buried and rose again.” To say Jesus “was buried and rose again” is different from saying, “And they found the tomb empty.” The first may simply underline that Jesus was really dead before the Easter experiences began; the second says more, indicating that Easter involved something happening to the corpse of Jesus. As explicitly noted in my column, I do not know whether it is significant that Paul does not mention an empty tomb; but honesty about Scriptural data requires recognizing that fact.

More important is the larger disagreement between Varner and me. He sees Paul as teaching a physical resurrection, and reads 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 within the framework of that conviction. Conviction becomes a lens through which the text is seen. But this approach ignores what Paul says in the rest of the chapter, especially verses 35–50. There Paul explicitly denies that it is the physical body that is raised; rather, it is the spiritual body that is raised. Does Paul believe in a physical resurrection? According to his own words, no.

The tone and content of Varner’s letter imply that much is at stake in our disagreement. I do not see it that way. Indeed, it seems to me that we agree on what is most central: Jesus was raised from the dead. His followers continued (both then and now) to experience him as a living and present reality after his death. Our disagreement concerns whether this involved something happening to the corpse of Jesus. Varner insists that it did, and apparently sees the truth of Christianity at stake in this claim. I do not know whether it did, and I do not think the truth of Christianity is affected one bit by one’s position on this issue.

Homosexuality

Milgrom’s Courage

Because of columnist Jacob Milgrom’s courage (“How Not to Read the Bible,” BR 10:02), I will keep my subscription to BR. I am not a scholar, just a 65-year-old grandmother with an open mind.

Look Who Quoted Scripture

The homosexuality issue is a thorny one for the church today and one that will not be solved anytime soon. To put the struggle in historical perspective, however, I cannot help but remember similar struggles in the Church’s past. For hundreds of years great and respected Bible scholars and men of deep and sincere faith told us that people of color were unacceptable to God. They saw the skin pigment of African Americans not as God’s gift to protect them from the harshness of their environment, but as God’s curse for something or other. No one who was not a Nazi would say that today.

The history of biblical interpretation also reminds us that men sincerely believed for hundreds of years that women were less acceptable to God than men. St. Augustine asserted that women were deformed men with incomplete souls. He was generous, for some scholars of the time believed that women did not have souls at all. Charles Spurgeon, in one of his Easter sermons, told his congregation the “good news” that it was a great sin to be born female. Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene was indeed a miracle, not because his resurrection was miraculous, but because he demeaned himself by speaking to a woman, who, in Spurgeon’s words, “had seven devils cast out, but still had plenty left.”

All these hundreds of years, these folk pointed to Scripture to support their views. In the 1850s, Dr. Thornwell proclaimed that the abolitionist movement was demonic. He sincerely believed that slavery was God’s divine will. When ether was discovered, well-respected faithful pastors proclaimed that the use of this substance during childbirth disregarded God’s command that women suffer giving birth.

This all leads up to this simple question: Is the Church doing the same thing to homosexuals today that it once did to African Americans and women?

I don’t know the answer to that question.

Disappointed by Scholarly Vitriol

The letters responding to Jacob Milgrom’s article on homosexuality and scripture appalled me. Living as a lesbian clergywoman in Oregon, I’m accustomed to hearing hatred and judgment from the political-religious right. What a blow and a disappointment to hear that same vitriol from the community of scholars who read your magazine. I treasure the Bible as a book of life. By God’s grace I live a life of honesty and compassion, faithful to my female partner, serving God and my neighbors through my congregation. I have a difficult time convincing my lesbian and gay friends that the venom and judgmentalism we suffer at the hands of organized religion here is not representative of the majority of faithful people; reading April’s letters, I wonder if their view of most religious people as self-righteous and hateful has more basis in reality than I would have liked to believe.

Rev. Wagener asked us to omit the name of her church in the interest of reducing harassing responses.—Ed.

Hate Is Not a Christian Message

As a gay Christian, I want to thank Dr. Milgrom for courageously putting the biblical injunctions against homosexuality in context. There is as much biblical basis to condemn holding seances, cutting the beard or tattooing, but somehow these don’t come in for the same treatment as homosexuality. The emphasis on homosexuality of many Christian groups is not in fact biblical, but rather is prejudice in search of a biblical excuse. More importantly, teaching others to hate a specific group is completely contrary to the real message of Christianity.

Yes, I have heard that these people “love the sinner and hate the sin,” but I can say without qualification that I have never felt love for me (the sinner) coming from any of them, and the recent letters to the editor in BR on this issue offer more proof if it were needed. Contempt, disgust, revulsion and fear all seem to be popular emotions, but I see very little of the compassion and acceptance that were the essence of what Jesus taught.

The Bible and the Holocaust

Having just read Jacob Milgrom’s response to readers’ replies to his last piece on homosexuality and the Bible, I must applaud his sense of justice. It was especially moving to read the closing paragraph, “But when the Bible is distorted to make God their enemy, I must speak out to set the record straight.” If more men and women had done this throughout the ages when people preached anti-Semitism using Christian Scripture, maybe six million men, women and children wouldn’t have died in the Holocaust. Thank you again, Dr. Milgrom.

Milgrom as Comedian

I never write letters to the editor, but this issue is too good to pass up, or is it pass over? I’ve gotten high entertainment from letters to the editor ever since I began subscribing to BR. It wouldn’t be a really good issue if someone didn’t indignantly demand that their subscription be canceled. It’s good comedy, and it plays.

But I think for sheer convoluted delight, Jacob Milgrom’s defense of homosexuality for the masses is the best satire I’ve read lately. At least we may hope Dr. Milgrom had tongue squarely in cheek, else God may get a mite tiffed at such hogwash.

Don’t cancel my subscription. You’ve got some great comedians there.

The Ten Percent Fallacy

It will have come as no surprise that Jacob Milgrom’s thoughts on homosexuality should have produced an extensive response from correspondents.

The exchanges have been interesting, and I was taken by Dr. Michael Anbar’s response addressing the frequency of homosexuality among the children raised by homosexuals as being “more than 10%.” His claim that this is a higher frequency than would be expected on statistical grounds is rebutted by Milgrom’s claim that “approximately 10% of the entire American population can be considered gay or lesbian.”

If true, then Milgrom makes his point well. Unfortunately he had to add the rider, “Although this figure has been contested ….” Indeed it has, to the point that even the former colleagues of Alfred Kinsey (where the ten percent claim comes from), now acknowledge this was a badly inflated figure. Dr. Paul Gebhard, co-author with Kinsey and Director of the Kinsey Institute, 1956–1982, now says “[Kinsey] introduced a lot of errors into the data. Kinsey’s 10% figure is almost meaningless when you stop to think about it.”

A whole array of studies of the last five years has converged to indicate that more like one to two percent of adult males are actively homosexual. The popular media have now taken this up by referring to “The Shrinking Ten Percent” (Time, March 26, 1993), or “Homosexuals and the 10% Fallacy” (Wall Street Journal, March 31, 1993).

Under these circumstances, Milgrom needs to acknowledge that the frequency of homosexuality among children raised by homosexual parents is at least five times greater than would be predicted from a biological contribution alone. Michael Anbar’s contention cannot be so lightly dismissed.

Jacob Milgrom responds:

Recent studies, such as those by two professors of psychiatry at UCLA, testify that, all other factors being equal, there is no difference if a child is raised by heterosexual or homosexual parents: See C. Patterson’s “Children of Lesbian and Gay Parents,” Child Development 63/5 (October 1992), pp. 1025–1042 and R. Green’s “Best Interests of a Child With a Lesbian Mother,” pp. 73–83 in Lesbians and Child Custody: A Case Book (New York: Barland, 1992). For statistics different from those cited by the media, see M. Kirpatrick, et al., in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 15 (1981), and R. Green, et al., in Archives of Sexual Behavior 15/2 (1986).

How does Dr. Court account for the fact that almost all homosexuals stem from, and/or were raised by heterosexuals? Isn’t that enough to suggest that something other than environment may be responsible?

Kinsey’s Hoax

Dr. Jacob Milgrom, replying to Dr. Anbar’s letter, quotes A. C. Kinsey for support in stating that ten percent of Americans are homosexual. Given the information that has come out in the past couple of years concerning Kinsey and his research (including his bias to hire only those who supported his views and to select groups that have higher than normal instances of homosexuality, including prisoners—many of whom are opportunist homosexuals but revert to heterosexual ways when freed—sex offenders and child molesters, to name only a couple of problems), it is obvious that this work is no longer credible! Even Dr. Paul Gebhard, one of the researchers who worked on Kinsey’s study, has come out and shared how invalid the study and its conclusions are.

If this were not enough to dismiss the ten percent myth, the Allan Guttmacher Institute has recently released the results of their study—which show nowhere near the ten percent figure quoted by Kinsey and those who follow him. Numerous other unbiased scientific studies in the United States and Europe have shown similar results—somewhere between one and three percent, at most, of people in America, Britain and other Western countries are homosexual. This is a great deal lower than the American public is often misled into believing.

Once realistic percentages are used for the homosexual population in the United States, Dr. Anbar’s position becomes more credible. Dr. Anbar’s sociological considerations of homosexuality added a good perspective to the issue.

Why is it then that the homosexual commmunity and some others view the ten percent figure as so sacred? Is it not because they are thinking, “If the public is led to believe that the homosexual population is so widespread, then the public can also be led to believe that our homosexuality is normal?” As for me and my house, we will accept the Bible’s position, that homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God, never forgetting though that while God hates sin, he loves all of us sinners.

Jacob Milgrom replies:

I agree with Rev. MacDonald, especially his final thought. As I wrote: “I am not for homosexuality, but I am for homosexuals.” I only take exception to the way the Bible is being distorted in order to pillory homosexuals and discriminate against them. Would Rev. MacDonald also apply the death penalty to homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13)? I am sure he has no such genocidal intentions. Luckily, even if one follows the Bible literally, this provision applies only to an infinitesimal fraction of the human race.

Potpourri

InReaders Reply, BR 10:02, we published a letter by Rabbi Roy Rosenberg on Dale Allison’s article on the Magi. The edited version of the letter and of Allison’s response omitted some hey points. The full texts of both appear below.

The Old Testament Prooftext of the Star That Guided Magi

“What Was the Star that Guided the Magi?” BR 09:06, by Dale Allison, was a valuable article, but it omits mention of the biblical proof texts that gave rise to the tradition of a messianic star. Numbers 24:17 reads, “A star will come forth from Jacob.” Isaiah 41:2 is even more important because it identifies the star by name. This reads, “Whom has Sedeq roused from the east and called to his feet; he gives nations before him and subdues kings.” The prophet was speaking of Cyrus of Persia, who came from the east to conquer Babylon; the rabbinic interpreters refer the verse to Abraham. Sedeq is, however, the planet Jupiter, and those who watched for heavenly signs in their own day to divine the time of Messiah’s coming could easily take this verse as referring to those who came from the east under the guidance of that star. Jewish astrology was based upon that of the Babylonians, in which Jupiter is the royal star (the star of Bel or Marduk). The word sedeq is most often translated “righteousness” or “victory,” but the context of this verse indicates that the planet is what the author, as well as later interpreters, had in mind.

Dale C. Allison, Jr. replies:

Rabbi Rosenberg is correct in suggesting that early Christians would have associated Matthew’s star with Numbers 24:17 (“a star will come forth from Jacob”). The translators of the Septuagint gave the verse a messianic meaning and the covenantors of Qumran identified the star with the levitical Messiah. There is the further circumstance, for whose proof I can only direct attention to the commentaries on Matthew, that Numbers 22:1–24:25 seems to have helped shape the entirety of Matthew 2:1–12.

I am, however, quite doubtful that there is any link with Isaiah 41:2 or with Jupiter. Not only does the “star” of Matthew not behave anything like that planet, but modern commentators on Isaiah prefer to translate the sedek of Isaiah 41:2 as “victory,” and I an am unaware of any pre-Christian text that associates the phrase in Isaiah with a messianic star or planet.

BR’s Cover Has Been Stolen