I haven’t read the Bible in a long time. Sure, I listen to the passages read on Sundays and other occasions, but half of me says, “Been there, done that.” and the other half simply cannot read scripture without hearing those old voices telling me what it’s supposed to mean and what I have to believe about it before I’ve even had a chance to think. Those who know me know that I spent my teenage and young adult years in fundamentalist churches. I will say this for them: they know the Bible! In that culture Bible-reading is a high priority and preaching is strictly Bible-based. Unfortunately, they also often use the Bible as a weapon – with all the subtlety of a bazooka – to manipulate obedience to church authority and its selected social and political choices.
That’s why it was a really, really big deal for me to commit to the “Read the Bible in a Year Challenge” at the beginning of Lent. Neither the size of the Bible nor the year-long commitment scared me; I was scared of my own reaction to reading it all again. But the years since my involvement in fundamentalism have not been idle; I’ve been studying a number of other approaches to the Bible and the work of modern scholars such as Borg and Crossan. I made the commitment in the hope that I would be able to read – and hear – the scriptures with fresh eyes and ears.
I am delighted to discover that reading the Bible again (“again for the first time” as Borg would say) is proving to be a very positive experience. The questions I keep in mind as I read are: “Why? Why are these things recorded in this way? What is so important that the writers wanted us to remember this?” For example, the Mosaic Law seems tedious as best and punitive at worst. But consider the situation of the Hebrew people: they had been slaves in Egypt for around 400 years. There is no evidence – at least not in scripture – that they had a structured religion.
They were from the clan of Abraham and followed the clan’s religious beliefs and traditions, but there are no details about what those were. They were slaves; they had nothing – twenty generations of nothing. Then they became free and had to create an entire polity from the ground up. So, verse after verse describes the decoration and ornamentation for priestly robes. To me this is saying, “You CAN have nice things. This is important. You deserve it.” Priests cannot touch dead bodies. What did the Egyptian priests do? They made mummies. “You are different; you will not do what they did.” Egyptian priests also shaved their heads and often their whole bodies. Those dedicated to the Lord were to let their hair and beards grow. It seems that many of the laws “given to Moses” stem from defining a new society and religion in opposition to the Egyptian culture from which they came.
As of this writing, the Old Testament reading schedule has progressed from the days of Moses to King David (approximately 300 years later). As events move closer toward the time that the stories were written down, details become more specific. The stories are often violent and bloody, with almost bigger-than-life emotions and battles and struggles. But through it all we can see these people’s faith in God, even as their understanding of who God is and what God wants changes through the generations.
I’m so glad to be reading the Bible again!
Janet Fischer, Sr. Warden
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