Sep 9, 2014

#104, Good Modern Uses of the Bible

Fundamentalists are often loud bullies because they are afraid but in their aggression they tend to gab the headlines while moderate and progressive scholars work quietly away before they get major recognition and then the fundamentalists ignore or condemn them.

Modern biblical scholars have tried to revive traditional biblical spirituality in a more peaceful spirit. Jewish scholars have provided some of the most wholesome thought. Jewish philosopher, Martin Buber (1878-1965) believed the Bible witnessed to God’s presence at a time when he seemed absent. Study and interpretation of the scriptures could never stand still because the Bible represented an ongoing dialogue between God and humans. A transformed lifestyle must come from Bible study. To truly open the Bible we must be ready to be changed by what we hear. Buber pointed out that the rabbis called scripture a miqra, “a calling out.” We are to hear from the Bible a call to become involved in the world’s problems and determine to stand fast and be tuned in to the undercurrent of events.

Franz Rosensweig (1886-1928) was also a Jew and a friend of Buber. He agreed that the Bible pushes us to face the crises of the present. Readers of the Bible must respond to its “calling out.” We are to hear from the Bible a call to become involved in the world’s problems and determine to stand strong as we tune in to the undercurrent of events.

Franz Rosensweig (1886-1929) was also a Jew and a friend of Buber. He agreed that the Bible pushes us to face the crises of the present. Readers of the Bible must respond to its “calling out” as the prophets and cry out “Here I am”- volunteering to face the reality at hand. He concluded that the Bible was not a preordained writing. “Our daily lives should illuminate the Bible, and in turn the Bible will help us to discover the sacred dimension of our day to day experience.” He taught that modern people could not respond to the Bible as those generations before them. Each of us needs the new covenant described by Jeremiah wherein the law of God is written within our hearts. Each of us must appropriate and internalize in patient, disciplined study the core message of scripture which is “get involved in loving the world to betterment.”

Michael Fishbane, a Chicago Jewish scholar, pointed out historical criticism is good, helpful scholarship but it is not enough to transform the heart. Each person’s inner world is created by fragments of many different texts from the Bible and other great works of literature. These different fragments fluidly group together and react to one another and form a system of thought. The Bible does not exist in our minds in its entirety but in fragmentary form. We each create our own canon within a canon. And if we insure that our collection of texts is good, helpful, love centered then our thinking is full of power and good to bless others and ourselves.

This is how all the great helpful systems of Christian thought have been created throughout history. They are collections of synchronized fragmentary texts such as Norman Vincent Peals’ wonderful system of Positive Thinking that has bettered the lives of millions and ministers today through its literature, caring and prayer programs to 89,000 people daily. Systems of helpful thought like this have always been built by synchronizing a selection of benign texts to teach love, joy, hope and overcoming power. In all these systems the negative aspects of the Bible story are rightly skipped over. Historical criticism helps to distinguish the benign texts from the destructive ones. The selecting of the benign texts comes simply then from a devotional reading of scripture as Dr. Peale did.

The historical study of the Bible shows that there were many different aggressive competing visions of the Lord’s main agenda. But we can read the Bible as a prophetic commentary on our world of raging orthodoxies and find a compassionate distance from destructive strident dogmatism, substituting for it a loving pluralism. Also, we can, from selecting fragments of scripture build a liberating, loving and creative personal philosphy of life. We do not need aggressive dogmatism.[/private[