Deconstructing the Bible, Part 3
Three Fresh Ways of Thinking About the Bible That've Gotten Me Looking at Scripture A Little Differently
“Who Do I Identify With?”
It happened one evening when I was thinking about my insecurities and how they hinder me— on mental autopilot, I began to consider all those “men of old;” you know, the chosen dudes whom God called and used… and my psyche sorted through them, trying to find one to identify with.
Wait a minute, I thought. What makes me think I ought to identify with them, per se? Why was I so quick to think of myself as, one, an ancient Israelite dude, and two, someone whom God had specially chosen?
While I touched on why this (identifying with Israel as a white-skinned American) could be problematic in my last post, I did not share how the question of who I identify with as I read the pages of scripture changed me.
The first thing I realized when I imagined myself as one of “God’s chosen dudes” (when I’m a white American middle-class woman) was that in all the years I spent in evangelicalism, I was nearly always invited to identify with “God’s people” in the pages of scripture. Even when I was a kid, most Bible story curriculums focused on Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David (heck, most of our Sunday school songs were dedicated to these men, too), as were the majority of Hebrew Bible sermons.
What does it mean about evangelicalism if it, in the way it renders Scripture, sees itself mostly as God’s chosen people, specifically men?
What is evangelicalism (at least as I know it) assuming about itself when it says, “We are exactly like Moses or Abraham or David?” If, as its churches seem to be implying, anyone who is Christian is “God’s people,” then what is it telling itself about anyone who does not identify as Christian? Are they “Canaanites”? And does the label “Canaanite” justify antagonism towards people of other religions or no religion at all? (As an aside, DNA evidence would suggest that the Israelites and the Canaanites one and the same people.)
On a personal level, when I think of myself as one of God’s special people, where am I placing myself socially? Is it above someone else?
What is evangelicalism saying to women and girls and children when it centers the men in the scriptures— and fails to talk about the women and children— or the sometimes stark lack of them…?
It gives me gooesbumps to imagine myself as a child hearing someone tell me that Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me;” or as a single mother who has had to do what it takes to survive hearing the story of Hagar or Tamar.
When I read scripture and identify with the men, whom the scriptures do often center (again, this is why I can’t say God is the author of every little word in scripture), am I subtly placing myself above all the silenced women within its pages, pretending that I too, have not from time to time been a silenced woman? Am I participating in these women’s erasure, I wondered.
When I realized which characters in scripture I was choosing to identify with (I credit much of this insight to Dr. Gafney, one of my first professors) and which ones I was failing to notice, I began to be more careful about how I approached the Bible.
In becoming more thoughtful, I have first had to take a long hard look at who I am as a reader: What is my social location? What past experiences do I bring to the text? What is my gender identity?
Understanding myself has helped me to take notice, both of how I react to certain texts and also where I place myself within them. Nowadays, when I read a Bible story, I’m often humbled— my social location means that I do not understand the hardships some of the characters in the scriptures have had to endure; understanding it has helped me look outside of myself and realize that God is for/with/about the poor and the marginalized, the unnoticed and unrecognized (this shines through the pages of scripture, in my opinion, in spite of the fact that the writers and compilers of the Bible were human and influenced by the culture of their time, which was often misogynistic and patriarchal).
I have also become more cautious about elevating the main characters in a given passage of scripture; instead, I am training to look for the ignored folks. For example, I notice that when “Israel” marched into battle and won or lost victories, the women and children are not mentioned— what were they doing, and what effect did war have on them?
When you read the scriptures with an eye towards identity (both yours and the characters you are reading about), you will end up digging up thoughts and ideas which may surprise you.
Here is one example from a paper I wrote about the Witch of Endor from 1 Samuel 28:7-15. If you want, try reading that text through a few times for yourself before you dive in to my notes— who knows what you might find or what questions may emerge?
Portrait of an Unnamed Woman
If the woman was tricking Saul, then he is a laughing stock at her hands, similar to how Sisera becomes a laughing stock at the hands of Jael; both men asked these women for favors, and both of them ended up dead. This brings me to confront a very real issue in this text: the way that this woman is flippantly used. In verse 7, it is clear Saul is desperate for help. I find it odd, then, that Saul tells his courtiers not to find just anyone who consults with ghosts, but a woman who does. Why would he do this? Was he assuming, as so many misogynistic men do, that she would be easy for him to overpower, intimidate, and control? One thing I know for certain is that there was no need for Saul to specify a woman when it comes to art of consulting ghosts; both men and women practiced the magical arts.
Though the woman is used and discarded by both Saul and the narrator, her character is impossible to supress. Not only is she confident in her abilities (she never says, “okay, let me try to bring him up;” she just does it), but she is also savvy enough to know that Saul may be setting a trap for her, and she does what she needs to do to defend herself (perhaps even by screaming loudly). At the end of the chapter, she displays both grace and strength by feeding Saul, who has been rendered incapacitated from hunger and shock (vv. 20-25). Not only that, but she gives him actual orders, I “listened to you,” so now “you listen to me” (v. 21). What beautiful irony that in a passage which seeks to erase this woman that in the end, she is the only character who brings life and healing, while the Almighty God remains ever silent.
Why I No Longer Refer to the “Old Testament” as the “Old Testament”
Words matter, right? They imply things. When you, for example, hear that one product is “old,” while something else is “new,” which one do you want to spend money on?
How about when you’re talking about the Bible? Does “old testament” imply anything to you? How about “new testament”?
I used to think Christians called the first “half” of the Bible the Old Testament because it was ancient and because some of the things in it, like the laws, were done away with when the New Testament came about. I also thought (I say this with chagrin) that God had replaced Israel with the church (out with the old, in with the new).
But, my friend, you and I both know that the Old Testament is actually a complete scripture for a religion that is alive and well (and to this day discriminated against)— Judaism.
Jesus wasn’t a Christian, he was a Jew. When Jesus read the “scriptures,” he wasn’t reading from any “New Testament,” either. He was reading from texts the Jews considered sacred. And in fact, as the epistles testify so clearly to, early Christianity knew all about its Jewish roots (remember how Paul had to fight to get the “Gentiles” to be included in the early church?); at its earliest inception, Christianity would have been a Jewish sect— Jesus was a rabbi, after all, and he never invited people to stop being Jews.
So, if Christianity grew out of Judaism, half our canon belongs to the Jewish religion as their primary text, and anti-semitism is still alive and well, then we ought to be careful about what we are implying when we call the Jewish scriptures the “Old Testament.”
Many scholars and theologians today have chosen to call those first books of the Bible the “Hebrew Bible” as a remedy to “Old Testament.” I have adopted this practice, and I challenge you to do so, too. Try it, and then go read a story from the Hebrew Bible followed by one about Jesus, remembering that Jesus was a Jew. How does it affect you? Does it shift your perspective a little bit, or help you notice something knew?
The Story of the Bible Isn’t Actually That Simple
Most scholars today would tell you the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the Pentateuch) were not actually written by Moses. They would explain to you that the Hebrew scriptures actually began as oral tradition, with stories being passed down from parent to child, stories which helped them figure out who they were and who God was.
Later, these stories were collated, edited, and redacted (multiple times by multiple people) to serve the needs of the Israelite community, first when it became a monarchy, and especially when it’s people were taken captive and displaced (by Babylon). Even the writings outside of the Pentateuch were not cleanly written by single authors; at least that is the current majority scholarly consensus.
As to the New Testament, most scholars would agree that at least some of the epistles of Paul were written prior to the gospels, and that the gospels were actually not penned by disciples of Jesus (they were written after those disciples had died), although they likely relied on early Christian oral traditions and writings.
How does learning these things affect the way you think about the Bible? How does it impact your image of God? Are God and the Bible the same thing, or are they separate? How do they relate to one another? These are all questions I’ve been asking myself. The main conclusion I’ve come to? The Bible is mostly a compendium of people trying to figure out God (Jewish and later Christian people), and God is a beautiful mystery (we really haven’t gotten Her figured out, but we’re trying to).
If you would like to explore these topics in more depth, I recommend the books, Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey and The People’s Companion to the Bible. To deconstruct the scriptures more without losing your mind, I highly recommend Pete Enn’s informative and helpful podcast, The Bible for Normal People; and for a refreshing new way of relating to scripture, Rachel Held Evan’s book Inspired is a must-read.
Friend? Thanks for coming with me as I consolidate my thoughts about “the Bible.” I’m excited to be on this journey with you! If my content is helpful, I’d really appreciate a share, a follow, a like, or a comment— and be sure to check your email in two weeks for more prismatic impressions.
All the best,
Carissa