The Bible Against Itself
Posted by
tgirsch
This came from the Skeptics Society, and could be quite interesting. Reprinted in its entirety:
NEWLY published by the Skeptics Society…
The Bible Against Itself is a witty and well-informed work of revisionist Bible scholarship, a courageous exercise in the deconstruction of Holy Writ and a healthy corrective to anyone who still thinks of the Bible as the revealed word of God.
Before the Bible was the Bible it was a lot of little books written by many writers with many different viewpoints.
If you open up the Bible and read it straight through, you will notice two things that should not be true if it had been written as a coherent whole and with a single purpose. First, the Bible is quite repetitious; second, the Bible frequently seems to contradict itself. Readers have often ignored these contradictions, and apologists have long tried to reconcile them. Randel Helms chooses a third course — to understand the contradictions by looking at the cultural and historical factors that produced them.
All books are written for or against some point of view, and the books of the Bible are no different. Bible book authors were often motivated to write because they wanted to challenge or correct those who had written before them. As Helms explains, “The Bible is a war-zone, and its authors are the combatants. Paul said of Peter, ‘I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong (Gal. 2:11).’” Helms notes that Jeremiah condemned the entire religious establishment of his time — the very same people that other Bible authors held in highest esteem: “prophets and priests are frauds, every one of them” (Jer. 8:10). Luke felt the need to write another gospel even though “many writers have undertaken to draw up an account of the events” (Luke 1:1). Luke obviously felt that Mark’s gospel was filled with errors and edited it freely. Not even Mark’s account of the words of the dying Christ was left unaltered.
Dr. Randel Helms, author of
The Bible Against Itself
The Bible Against Itself reveals:
- how the author of Chronicles I & II white-washed earlier historical accounts of Saul, David, and Solomon
- how the Book of Ruth was written to challenge the growing racism of religious reformers of its time
- how every apocalyptic book in the Bible struggled to reinterpret some earlier failed Bible prophecy
- the war of “Wisdom” between religious teachings, pagan proverbs, and practical advice
- the centuries-long battle in the Bible between prophets and the Law of Moses, and even between prophets and prophecy itself
- how first and second century Christians interpreted the Hebrew Bible in a new way, to change it into a book that had “really” been written about Jesus
- Jesus of Nazareth’s philosophical conflicts with Jesus the son of Sirach
- the battle between James and Paul — and their followers — for control of first century Christianity.
As Helms concludes, “Before the sacred authors were declared sacred, they were fair game for attack or revision. Not without reason did John the Revelator threaten with ‘plagues’ anyone who ‘adds to’ or ‘takes away from the words of ’ his book (Rev. 22:18–19), for such was all too often the fate of the ‘ little books’ that eventually became our Bible.”
Dr. Randel Helms is a Bible scholar and professor of English at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. He is the author of Gospel Fictions and Who Wrote the Gospels?
eSkeptic is a free, public newsletter published (almost) weekly by the Skeptics Society. Contents are Copyright © 2006 the Skeptics Society and the authors and artists. Permission is granted to print, distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. Contact us at skepticssociety@skeptic.com.
The Bible is not the revealed word of God. It is the printed word of God.
What else do you want it to be?
If you don’t believe in that God, then fine, but this is nothing new at all, just another American ripping off Europeans and getting away with it because theologians in this country don’t read theology.
This is all standard boilerplate from German hermeneutics, tarted up with TV-like plot lines. For example, everybody knows that late classical and medieval Biblical interpretation had a hard time reconciling the New Testament with the Old. But looking for “testimonies” to the New Testament in the Old is just as legitimate as looking for similarities in two books by the same author.
What does everybody WANT here? Some kind of ultimate exposé, wherein we find out what Christianity was REALLY all about (i.e., some sort of conspiracy)?
I can never get used to the idea of otherwise intelligent people thinking that inconsistencies in the Bible somehow constitute a body blow to Christianity. To the cockamamie Protestant American interpretation of the Bible, absolutely. But to the millennial effort to make sense of the Bible, no. It makes lots of sense, not as a secret blueprint, not as a 12 step plan, but as part of the history of the Jewish people over a period of about 1500 years.
If you don’t like Christianity, attack it on other grounds. If you don’t like Southern Baptists, you can perfectly well demonstrate that their interpretation of the Bible has been out of date for 500 years> But arguing against the Bible when what you really want to do is confound the Baptists is like analyzing the logical non sequiturs in Bush’s policy statements. He knows they’re there, and he is not gonna go “Oh, I see your point.”
Some Americans have this like distaste, even fear of the Bible like Euros have a psychological fear of the Catholic Church. I don’t understand either one. If religion was the most evil thing in this world we’d be in a hell of a lot better shape.
Comment 12/14/2006
Gee, Jeff, why not tell us how you really feel?
As to why inconsistencies in the Bible are important, it’s because such inconsistencies tell us that if God exists, then the Bible is not the be-all and end-all of God’s word, and in fact, is a flawed representation of God’s word. So if the Bible isn’t authoritative, then what is?
It’s not a body blow to Christianity per se; it’s a body blow to both fundamentalist Christianity (which itself is only a small subset), and to Biblical literalism. Christianity can survive (and, indeed, has long survived) without ascribing to those beliefs.
I, for one, have long been fascinated by the Bible, not so much from a religious perspective, but from an academic and historical one. And that’s why I found this interesting. I didn’t see it as an attack on Christianity, but rather as an honest attempt at an academic assessment, based on the text coupled with the historical and archaeological evidence, rather than on dogma.
Comment 12/14/2006
It’s a shame that Christians and Muslims can’t see the bible and Koran for what they are in the grand scheme of things. At best they are future landfill material, cheap toilet paper, or a waste of resources. At worst they are a plague upon mankind that should be cast aside before they destroy us all. Wake up religious people, you’ve been had.
Comment 12/15/2006
I wonder if he’d be brave enough to write a similar book about the Quran and Islam?
Comment 12/15/2006
The problem with Dr. Helms thesis is that he assumes that there was no orthodoxy either in Jewish antiquity, or in the early Church. It is an assumption that is out of wack with the history.
The I and II Chronicles thing bugs me… no one has found the “Annals of Judea or Israel,” so to say that the author white-washed the accounts of Solomon and David is kind of audacious.
Comment 12/15/2006
None of this criticism is new. I wish some of these people would at least try to come up with something that others haven’t tried. The Bible will remain long after its critics are dead.
Comment 12/15/2006
So will cancer.
Comment 12/15/2006
You’re right. The cancer of liberalism will remain.
Comment 12/16/2006
Gads Jeff…
I love the way you think. “Tarted up”- what a great phrase. And I think you’re entirely accurate in your assessment. John W. Haley wrote in the late 1800’s when German theology was in its higher-criticism hey-day concerning the alleged discrepancies of the bible. He was largely ignored. Then came the crash of the golden-haired theologians with World War I. Then Barth, Bultmann attempted to rescue it with neo-orthodoxy- much like shooting the patient to cure cancer.
I am amused at Dr. Helms’ ideas of vying for control (how about the Pharisees who want the early Christian gentiles to get circumcised?)yet curiously DIED for their positions.
Jeff- take two blessings out of petty cash. You’re spot on.
Dr. Chris
Th.M, M.A., D.Min, Ph.D (So you’ll know that I know that I know).
Comment 2/8/2007
The Bible is fiction.
The Jesus myth was borrowed from countless previous superstitions in the region.
It’s time to put childish ideas aside.
Religion has given us nothing worthwhile in all of its’ history.
get over it.
Comment 5/20/2007
For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the SMELL OF DEATH; to the other, the FRAGRANCE OF LIFE. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, WE DO NOT PEDDLE THE WORD OF GOD FOR PROFIT. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, NOT being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
ENJOY YOUR PENSION AND ROCKING CHAIR WHILE YOU’RE HERE FRIEND.
Comment 12/26/2007
Oh ye of little faith, you have know idea of the wonderers of this great and wild earth upon which you tread, after more years than I care to count and more travel than I can recount the reality of the saving grace that comes with the truth and understanding, far outreahes all your learning, you should become as little children and the ways of the world will be revaled, if omly you had the ability to see. I would rather live life in the standard that Jesus set down and find I was wrong ,than not to and find out it was so. God have mercy on you foolish children.
Comment 2/4/2008