Happy Codex Sinaiticus Day!

Not many people have ever heard of Codex Sinaiticus…even fewer are excited that 1/4 of it is now available online.  Let me say that I, for one, am excited.  Cheers.

Codex Sinaiticus Online!

Wikipedia

Spe Salvi

I just finished reading the Pope’s new encyclical, Spe Salvi and, even as a lifelong protestant, I have to say that I’m quite impressed. In this letter, Benedict XVI (henceforth B16) boldly handles the difficult subject of Christian hope with impressive sharpness and enviable grace. This blog post will not come anywhere near doing it justice.

In the first page, B16 strongly asserts that hope is not simply a part of living a life in God. On the contrary, he claims, “To come to know God – the true God – means to receive hope” (§3). Hope, in his mind, is the center of Christian faith and it is from our hope that all else springs. He then goes on to elaborate on what he means by hope. Is this hope in the present? Hope in the future? His answer is that it is a little of both. Christian hope does involve a looking forward towards things to come, but it also involves a vision of the future in the present. “Faith draws the future into the present, so that it is no longer simply a “not yet”. The fact that this future exists changes the present; the present is touched by the future reality, and thus the things of the future spill over into those of the present and those of the present into those of the future” (§7)

Basically, the hope that we have for the future should not simply be confined to the future as something that we cannot grasp now. We hope that social injustice will be brought to an end and that suffering and death will be defeated, but this hope must (at least in part) materialize in the present if it is truly good news.

How do we learn and obtain this hope? His answer is threefold. First and foremost, prayer is essential. It is a communication between us and God, “something very personal, an encounter…” (§34) As well, he cites “action and suffering” as essential for the learning of hope. Action is understood as the ways that “we…strive to realize our lesser and greater hopes” (§35). Suffering, “like action…is a part of our human existence. Suffering stems partly from our finitude, and partly from the mass of sin which has accumulated over the course of history” (§36). Lastly, judgement is essential to our learning of hope. Our vision of God’s judgement, while sometimes terrifying, must be seen as “the decisive image of hope…an image that evokes responsibility” (§44).

There are, of course, some difficulties inherent in his arguments; however, the difficulties do not necessarily arise from him per se. Rather, these difficulties are naturally connected to the subject matter that he addresses. Namely, the topic of suffering…the age-old question of theodicy. If God is good, and all that God created is good, then why do we suffer? These are difficult questions with no sufficient answers.

I’m slightly concerned with the way that B16 addresses the issue of suffering as a means to learning hope. He is politically correct in his acknowledgment that we, as Christians, should work to alleviate suffering; however, he is less than optimistic that this can be accomplished this side of the eschaton. By naming suffering as one of the means by which we learn to hope, he implies quite powerfully that it is not going anywhere anytime soon. As well, this statement attempts to answer the theodicy question by saying something along the lines of “God allows suffering to bring about a greater good.” A classic view, but one that I ultimately find unconvincing and problematic.

I do not believe there to be a good answer to the theodicy problem, but I find the use of suffering as a means to a greater good to be dangerous. For starters, it legitimizes and romanticizes the suffering of millions (perhaps billions) of persons around the world. While I do not think that B16 is saying that God causes these persons to suffer or that we shouldn’t do anything about it, his conclusion does help to at least maintain the status quo.

As Christians, I think that we must be more optimistic about the possibility of social justice. Rather than say, “That is something that God will work out in the end,” we need to work harder for it in the present.  There are those like Reinhold Niebuhr who maintain that humanity is simply too corrupt, and others who hold that it is all God’s business and that all will eventually be well. True, our faith proclaims a hope that Christ will come soon, but the reality of the world begs us to take our present situation with more seriousness.

SBL San Diego

Well, tomorrow evening I am off to San Diego to attend the annual meeting the SBL (Society of Biblical Literature).  This means that for the next few days I’ll be rubbing elbows with (and drooling over) some of the brightest minds in the world of biblical scholarship.  I also get to spend time in San Diego, which I’m really looking forward to!  There will hopefully be frequent updates, depending upon how accessible the internet is.

Reading in Communion

There are not many books on my shelves that I would refer to as ‘required reading’ for Christians. Granted, there are a few possibilities; Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard, Fred Craddock’s commentary on Luke, Faith Seeking Understanding by Daniel Migliore, and perhaps The Corinthian Body by Dale Martin. It is not often that I find myself wanting to add to a list such as this, already meager and, dare I say, ‘questionable’ in most eyes. However, today I finished a book that I think should be at the top of any Christian’s list, especially those who are involved in any sort of decision making or are curious about ethics.

Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life is a fascinating read by Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones. It addresses many of the issues surrounding contemporary Christian ethics, but it is not just useful for those in the field. On the contrary, this book is useful and powerful for anyone who reads their Bible with any regularity. As well, it is especially apt for those who have stopped reading their Bible because they have become disenchanted with attempting to ‘apply it.’

During my last year or so in seminary, I became introduced to and intrigued with the field of Christian ethics. My first ethics class, taught by Dr. Timothy Jackson, was a truly eye-opening experience. I found myself in agreement with the majority of Dr. Jackson’s conclusions, which were arrived at from his reading of the New Testament’s presentation of agape, or self-giving love. However, while I agreed with his conclusions, as a Biblical Studies guy I did not agree whole heartedly with the way he used the New Testament to reach them. Something about it just seemed to ‘easy’ for comfort. Since that class, I have been searching for a better way and have read close to 20 books claiming to base their ethics off of the New Testament. None of them really satisfied my search, until I found this book by Fowl & Jones.

The main premise of the book is that the reading of scripture should always be done communally. Similar to the point that Stanley Hauerwas makes in his Unleashing the Scriptures, they argue that the text of the Bible can only be rightly interpreted in the context of the community. Pragmatically, of course, this does not mean that one should only read the Bible when there is a group of people around, although they may agree that this is a good place to start.

As well, Fowl and Jones insist that only a properly formed character is central for a responsible interpretation of the text. The character that is required is produced largely by the work of the Holy Spirit, as well as through the practice of witness and conversation. It is incorrect to thing that those will character will always interpret faithfully, and it is possible that someone without a well-formed character will interpret faithfully. Their point is that ‘the character of interpreters and Scriptural interpretation are bound up with one another” (85).

Scripture, they argue, must always be read ‘over against’ the community that is attempting to interpret it. In this way, they consider the Bible to be a sort of outsider that calls our practices into questions and leads us to live and function differently in the world. Hearing and being in conversation with ‘the outsiders’ is absolutely essential to a right understanding and interpretation of Scripture. Their specific example deals with the homosexual community, which has been alienated by the church for some time. The current situation with the homosexual communities is, as they write, a sinful one. “Our desire to see the body of Christ united must lead us to act in ways that will rectify the situation. Only then can a community hope to arrive at a faithful reading and performance of Scripture” (116). In short, the church can not rightly interpret the message of the Gospel if they are characterized by alienation rather than reconciliation.

The book concludes with a chapter on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was arrested and executed by the Nazis for helping the Jews and for plotting to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer, they claim, was a living example of what it meant to live and embody the message of Scripture. He continually struggled with his pacifistic beliefs as well as what he thought was his Christian responsibility, a responsibility that was calling him to the possibility of violence against evil. Up until the time of his hanging, he was deeply involved in a dialogue with the Biblical texts, and was constantly open to new interpretations and ‘readings’ of himself. Bonhoeffer, as he himself wrote of someone else in an unfinished novel, ‘paid for the Word of God with his life and taught it with his death.’

The Meaning of History

In one of my classes today, we touched on the issue of the Bible’s historicity.  Namely, what do Christians believe (or what should they believe) concerning the historical nature of the Bible.  Should we believe that every word is historically accurate, even in the face of dissenting scientific/archaeological/common sense evidence?  Is the belief in the historical accuracy necessary for a rightly oriented faith?  The class ended, for the most part, on questions like these, although the conversation continued with a few of my classmates.

Shortly after I began my religious studies major at SMU, I took the first class that really challenged my faith.  Throughout high school and most of college, I maintained a fairly conservative, fundamentalist stance towards the Bible and Christianity in general.  If the Bible said it, we had no right to question it.  If the Bible didn’t say it, we probably shouldn’t worry about it.  My Hebrew Bible class changed all of this, however.  As most Hebrew Bible classes do, we began with an analysis of Genesis.  Our professor made a point to show us that there were, in fact, two different creation stories and that they didn’t agree with each other.  He then moved on to say that neither of them was meant to be read as a historical account of the earth’s formation.  Needless to say, my conservative sensibilities were a bit shaken.

Towards the middle of the class, I found that we had covered a lot of ground.  Abraham may or may not have existed; there was never a worldwide flood; Moses probably didn’t exist; there is no evidence to support the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites; the first person in the Old Testament who is supported by outside evidence is David, and he is only mentioned once.  I had almost reached the point where I was going to dismiss my professor as a hack.  He was clearly a dirty atheist and didn’t know what he was talking about.  Then, for a reason still unknown to me, I decided to try and take him seriously and see where it got me.

Throughout that semester, I continued to wrestle with what he taught, and the questions kept piling up in my head.  Toward the end of the class, I found myself surprisingly comfortable with questioning the historicity of the Bible.  Perhaps I just discovered that I am a cynical person by nature, but the main reason for my comfort came from a reorienting of my faith and a redefinition of what I meant when I said “history” with regard to Christianity.

All religions have stories of origin, there are no exceptions.  It is, after all, important to know where you come from.  Most of these stories, however, are mythic in character and do not present themselves as what historians would call “good history.”  Christianity is no exception to the rule.  However, it would be wrong to simply dismiss these stories as “false” or “misleading.”  They are not intended to give an accurate portrayal of history (as if there is such a thing), they are intended to give an accurate portrayal of history as it pertains to the faith.

The stories that we find in the Old and New Testaments paint a vivid picture of God’s work in the world, they do not provide a wonderful means of reconstructing the past.  They are stories that are told from the memories of the faithful, memories that are shaped and fueled by experiences of God and a love for God.  We all tell stories, and even our stories change as time goes on.  This is especially true when our stories are about someone or something that we remember or think of fondly.  The stories I tell of my grandfather, for example, are drastically different now than when he was alive.  I have not altered them on purpose, but I am aware that they have changed because my memory of him has changed.  This is a characteristic of memory…it changes with time and emphasizes certain things while ignoring others.

So, in this regard, the question is not “Is the Bible historically accurate?”  Rather, our question should be, “What do we mean by historically accurate?”  If by historically accurate we mean that the Bible should be read like a history textbook then I would have to say that no, the Bible is not historically accurate.  If it is to be read as a history textbook, then it is a bad history textbook.  However, if by historically accurate we mean that the Bible is an accurate source of information that tells the story of our faith, then I would have to say that yes, the Bible is historically accurate.  Just because it isn’t factual doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Something to Read

Dr. April DeConick is a Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University in Houston, TX.  I have been reading her blog for the past couple of months, and today I ran across this post that I feel needs to be shared.  It is a response to Joel Osteen, the pastor of a Houston mega-church.  Definitely worth your time.

Here it is

Why the Rash?

I was in my office the other day (the coffee shop), and I overhead an interesting conversation between two people.  It wasn’t difficult to tell that they were Christians…they had their Bibles open on the table, and each of them sported an impressive gotee.  Even more telling was the way that they talked to one another.  They talked as if they knew all of the answers, and that finding the answers was as simple as picking up the Bible and reading it.

From what I could gather, their conversation centered on the Old Testament figure of Job.  For those unfamiliar, let me give you the five-second rundown.  Job was a righteous man, in fact he is called blameless before God.  A shadowy figure (possibly the devil) appears in Heaven one day and challenges God.  He says that Job will curse God and that he just needs to be pressured in the right way.  God is doubtful, but intrigued.  Ultimately, the shadowy figure is allowed to torment Job, which he does by killing his children, his livestock, destroying his stuff and giving him a rash.  Job remains surprisingly upright through the entire thing, and does not once question or blame God for what has happened to him.  Then, at the end, he questions God, who appears in a whirlwind and, in short, reminds Job that he is not God and therefore cannot know the answers or rationales behind all that happens.  It is then that God disappears and, in the original chronology of the Old Testament, He does not speak again.

The book of Job is fascinating, and the discussions that it has provoked are equally so.  It raises some serious questions about the nature of God, and has done much to keep the question of theodicy alive and well.  Scholars are divided as to what is actually happening, and many have searched for the answer to an age-old question, “Why do bad things happen to good people.”   Now, back to the coffee shop.

In reference to Job, one of the men said something along these lines.  “Don’t you see, the whole thing was a test, and Job almost passed.”  The other replied, “Thats ridiculous, God doesn’t test people.”  The rebuttal, “Of course he does!  He tested Abraham didn’t he?”  The respondent looked stunned.  “Well, thats different, in the book of Job we’re talking about Satan tempting Job.”  Again, the response, “Thats true.  I guess I had never thought of it like that.  I guess Job was being tested just like Jesus would be tested in the wilderness.  Only Job didn’t pass the test, and in the end he made God angry.  But Jesus, he passed the test because he was perfect.”  The other said, “Yeah thats right, although Jesus couldn’t have failed if he wanted to…because he wasn’t able to be tempted.”  The end, “Thats true, because he is human, but he is really God, so the human part doesn’t really count.”

This was the point that I put my headphones back in.

I sometimes wonder about the future of Christianity.  Recent trends have shown that more and more people are flocking to non-denominational “churches,” which is not in itself a bad thing.  The problem arises when you consider what is being taught at these churches, which happens to be “not much.”  Christianity is quickly becoming a program rather than a confession, and the Bible is quickly becoming some sort of self-fulfilling prophetical self-help guide, rather than a collection of writings that are meant to interpreted by the community of faith and, as a result, inspire a sense of awe.

There is not a whole lot of awe left in churches today, in my opinion.  Modern Christians are perfectly content in throwing tradition out with the rest of the garbage, and relying solely on the Bible and their feelings as a guide.  In this age of the church, you can say things like “Jesus is human, but he is also God…therefore the human part doesn’t matter.”  In the early days, a statement like this would earn you the title of heretic and would insure that your next stop would be exile.

We need to rediscover the greatness of God.  It is a greatness that defies all knowledge and all comprehension.  It is a greatness that cannot be spoken of, precisely because words cannot do it justice.  It is a greatness that the mystics describe as “darkness shrouded in light.”  Namely, at the end of a mystical vision, you may see light, but never assume that you have seen or comprehended God.  If you understand it, it isn’t God.

Pandora’s Box

Over the past week or so, the critical study of the Bible has been a hot topic in my classes. Thus, I thought it might be nice to write a little post about it. Before I go any further, however, let me first clarify what is meant by “critical study.” Biblical criticism does not involve, as I understand it, a berating of the content of Scripture. It does NOT involve reading the Bible only to step back and criticize saying, “See, isn’t that stupid?” On the contrary, Biblical criticism involves a critical look at the text of the Bible from many different angles. Historical critics would say that perhaps the Bible isn’t the best sort of history book to be found. Literary critics would examine and compare the stories of the Bible with similar stories from the ancient world. Redaction critics examine the gospels as collections of material and ask questions like, “Why did Mark put that there, between this and that?

The question that has arisen more than once this week goes somewhat as follows:

“Is the critical study of the Bible a discipline helpful to the church? It is a fairly recent phenomenon, and the church existed for over a thousand years without scholars prying in the nature of the text, so why do we feel that it is so great now? What is to be gained by returning to a ‘pre-critical view’ of the Bible?”

Of course, the situation is more complicated, but that is the gist of it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’ve been reading a book that I believe is trying to address this very question. In Unleashing the Scripture, Stanley Hauerwas writes about what he believes is the correct way to read the Bible. He concludes that we, meaning North Americans, should not be allowed to read the Bible on our own, namely because we are far too corrupted by senses of entitlement and individualism. He asserts that the Bible should only be read and can only be accurately be read within a community whose unity is constituted by the Eucharist. The critical study of the Biblical text, he maintains, has effectually cut the church out of the equation and has created a sect of scholars who are guilty of the same heresy as Fundamentalists…sola scriptura.

Sola scriptura is a well-founded tenet of the reformation and, as it is widely understood, implies that the Bible is, by itself, the sole source of authority for the Christian life and that it is self-authenticating. I am in complete agreement with Hauerwas that this is a heresy. I was raised in a non-reform tradition, in which I was taught about the “quadrilateral” of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience. These four are held at equal levels, and they must all be used in every situation. One cannot trump the other, all are important.

Anyway, to get back to the topic of critical study, Hauerwas states quite vehemently that he does not have any interest in the historical critical method. He doesn’t know much about it and he doesn’t believe it is useful for the Church. I sometimes feel the same sentiment coming from my colleagues, although not quite as strongly as from Hauerwas. But still, the idea is there that the critical study of the Bible somehow prohibits you from being a “faithful Christian.” If you dissect the Bible, what are you left with?

Part of the problem is, in my mind, the way in which critical studies have been undertaken in the past. For the most part, scholars work alone amidst piles of dusty books, only surfacing once in a while to present their new research or respond to criticisms of their work. Part of the problem is that Biblical scholars often find themselves isolated from the Church which, ironically, birthed the very material that they are studying. This seems like a problem.

The reasons for their isolation remain many, but here are a few possibilities. First, I feel that persons in the church feel threatened by critical scholarship because they have been taught about the “inspiration” of the Bible without being taught what that means. The doctrine of inspiration seems to fall apart as soon as someone suggests that there might be an “error” in the text, punctuational or otherwise. Second, they feel threatened because critical scholarship seems largely inaccessible to them. Cutting edge scholarship is, for the most part, found in university libraries, not Barnes and Noble. Even if you can find a good book, half of it will be in Greek and German, so most people won’t be able to read it anyway. Scholars write for scholars, not for laypersons. Third, scholars isolate themselves because they feel as if the information they possess is too fragile, or too complex, for the “common person” to understand. They assume that they are smarter because there are more initials following their name, and that normal people just can’t quite grasp what it is that they are trying to say.

Before I risk becoming too cynical, let me say that the trends described in the preceding paragraph are slowly starting to shift…but there is still much work to be done. The questions still remain:

1. Is it possible to return to the days of pre-critical studies?
2. Even if it were possible, is it necessary?
3. Is the critical study of the Bible like a Pandora’s Box?
4. Even if we could, do we want to put the lid back?

(to be continued)

The Frailty and Promise of Grace

In the first creation account of Genesis (1:1-2:4a), we read:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.”

We then move on to read in Genesis 1:6-9

“And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.”

What strikes me as odd about these two passages is the fact that water seems to be the only thing in this account that is not created by God. God creates the heavens and the earth, as well as the firmament, but water takes on an almost pre-existent quality in this story. It is not created by God, but rather tamed or controlled by God. The firmament that God creates, while acting as the sky in ancient theology, was primarily created to hold back the waters of chaos.

Later, in Genesis 6, we find the familiar story of Noah and his sons. Out of the entire population of the earth, they were the only ones who found favor in God’s eyes. Because of this favor, God decides that they should be spared from what is about to take place. The waters of chaos are about to be released so that they can consume the earth. Noah and his family build an ark, which acts as a sort of temporary creation, its hull and roof serving as the firmament which holds back the waters from destroying them along with the rest of the earth.

The end of this story is also a familiar one…the waters recede and God promises never to allow the waters to come up and destroy the earth again. This story is not as much about destruction and wickedness as it is about Grace. The creation that surrounds us is a product of God’s grace. It was and is created not out of obligation or boredom, but out of the grace that defines the creator. We are not here because of any effort that we have put forth, but because God’s grace sustains us.

Just as Noah and his family, we are surrounded by chaotic waters. Whatever form these waters take, they are constantly there, swirling and threatening to undo our very existence. We sometimes catch glimpses of these waters as they seep slowly through the cracks in our hull. We experience these leaks in many ways, from financial difficulties to relationship troubles. Whatever form the leak takes, the promise of God remains.

God’s promise is not that our hull will not have leaks and that we will never experience anything negative. God’s promise is that the waters of chaos will never again be allowed to overtake and destroy us. This is a promise made by a God who is bound by nothing and responsible to no one. Grace is given as a gift and one that, because of God’s freedom, can be taken back at any time. This freedom, however, is overshadowed by the love that God has shown to us and to those who have come before.

Grace is a promise we can count on, not because God is obligated to give it, but because God wills to give it.