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eBible Questions 1-What is the Bible? |
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We find, spilling out of the pages of the Bible, a mind-boggling mixture of all kinds of materials, something like the Sunday morning newspaper: before Church, pick up your paper in the driveway and you'll find stuffed inside news, opinion, ads, features, comics, stories, advice, games, obituaries, lists, horoscope, coupons, reviews - and you're not sure you'll ever get to it all. What do we find in the Bible? Stories, historical narratives, genealogical tables, legends, erotic love poetry, songs, somebody else's mail, prayers, jokes, utterly biased biographies, inexplicable visions, excerpts of sermons, tales of dysfunctional families, legends, legal statutes, cooking directions, ballads, a child-rearing manual, and more. How loving, how tender, how wise was God not to give us antiseptic shining tablets with timeless truths, but something more real, more human, so we might comfortably slip inside the pages and discover that God is not found in some ethereal, invisible realm just above the clouds, but right down here in the reality of mundane life. The Bible's diverse, earthy contents tutor us in the way God pokes around relentlessly and finds us in the middle of our family squabbles, our falling in love, trying to get some sleep, humming a favorite song, making supper, our wobbly attempts to pray, our plodding efforts to be good.
And like the morning paper, the Bible really is news. It's not the same old same old. This news isn't the monotonous repetition of what we hear all the time in this world; this news isn't a mirror that reflects back to me my biases and preferences. Something decisive has happened; the world has shifted on its axis, and you miss it until you immerse yourself in the pages of this seemingly haphazard clump of writings that are the Bible. Nothing is ever the same, and when we get it, we won't even notice the screen door slamming behind us as we take off after the God who chose such a clever way to connect with us.
eBible Questions 2: How was the Bible formed? |
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Words were inadequate at first. Are mere words ever sufficient to capture what it was like to come face to face with God? Mary's settled life was totally disrupted by an angel, and an unexpected child was born. She didn't grab a pen, or type up anything. Like 95% of the population, she probably was illiterate. Instead, she "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Jacob wrestled all night, and could not fathom what had happened for a long time (was it a man? an angel? God himself?) - and nothing was ever the same (Genesis 32). Time passed; more pondering. Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth; Jacob found his estranged brother Esau. They whispered what had happened. Years later they repeated a maturing story, more deeply understood, to others. Rumor spread. Inquirers asked. The story spread further, by the campfire, during long days of work out in the fields, as parents tucked their children into bed, when worshippers gathered. Letters were written.
So, how was the Bible formed? God formed it, but not via dictation. God formed it by being God, by getting involved with people for whom God's presence in life was dizzying, transforming, healing. The Bible is not some author imposing his ideas on others, but a report of people who knew God, and what they pondered, passed along word of mouth for years, centuries, and then finally committed to writing - as we will see in eBibleQuestions 3.
eBible Questions 3: Who wrote the Bible? |
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So, the Bible reports what happened with God decades or centuries before
anything was written down, and we don't have "authors" who got clever ideas and
decided to write about them - so the question of who did the writing seems
relatively unimportant. Jesus wrote nothing (except in the sand!). Abraham,
Ruth, and Solomon never published anything. Paul dictated to a companion (with
the exception of the end of Galatians when he picked up the parchment himself
and wrote "See the large letters I am now writing with my own hand!").
The
writing of the Bible materials was almost an afterthought, and we are grateful
that some flash of insight (provoked by God?) nudged people to get it down in
print for posterity. Imagine a world before the internet, before newspapers,
before the printing press. In ancient times, very few people could read or
write. The printed word was expensive: materials like papyrus had to be imported
from Egypt; scribes labored long hours applying ink by hand. Ancient people were
a bit suspicious of the written word: Socrates once complained that words on
paper get into the hands "not only of those who understand it, but equally of
those who have no business with it... When it is ill-treated and unfairly
abused... it is unable to defend or help itself."
Back then, no one had ever
heard of (much less expected) a verbatim transcript of exactly what happened.
And yet, since people had no printed record on which to rely, memories were
strong. Studies show that in pre-literature cultures, the ability of the average
person to remember with great clarity exactly what was said or done would amaze
us. So the fact that stories and poems were passed word of mouth for decades and
centuries before finding a home on a scroll is no criticism of their
reliability. What is a scroll? Papyrus was fashioned into long rolls, maybe 10
inches high but up to 25 feet long (like the famous Isaiah scroll, found among
the Dead Sea scrolls). A "book" could only be so long, because the technology
was limited, and a scroll had to be manageable.
When Jesus stood up in the
synagogue of Nazareth to read from Isaiah (Luke 4:16), he lifted a rather heavy
object, and it took him a while to unroll it to the proper location for the
day's reading! Little wonder Christians were the first people in the world to
begin making the codex: a stack of individual pages, stitched together like a
book, for they were eager to flip through from one passage to another. Since few
could read, most Bible writings were read out loud when people gathered for
worship. Israelites thronged into the temple precincts, and heard a priest
trumpet in his loudest voice the story of God delivering the people from Egypt.
The first Christians huddled in the home of a member, and listened enthralled as
a letter from Paul, or the vision of Revelation was read. Perhaps for us to
"get" the Bible, we need to hear it spoken out loud, and in the company of
others.