Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayer
...6. What is your view of the Bible and what role should it play in our lives?...
|
What does anyone's "view" of the Bible matter, when our understanding of what the Bible is is extremely inaccurate?
There are two sides, generally, of this debate: on the one hand is the opinion that the Bible is a meaningless collection of fairytales with no bearing on the present. On the other hand is the conviction that the Bible is a narrative retelling of the universal history, and that it is completely accurate and it is normative for everyone, everywhere, at every time.
Both are patently false.
The Bible is most certainly a broad collection of religious myths, but this is different than ancient fictions or "fairytales". Ancient myths contained within them important interpretations of history, and thus, much of the material from the Bible is important historiographically. The Bible's primary importance, however, is felt religiously and culturally. It is perhaps the single most important "literary work"—and I use this term with some caution—of Western culture. It is the foundation, like it or not, of the legal and moral practice for the vast majority of Western civilizations, and for this reason, it is an important book to know. Also, the Bible is the surviving collection of sacred Scriptures for the largest religion on the face of the earth; the Hebrew Scriptures are foundational for Judaism and were a formative part of the religion of Islam. I do not care what your opinion is of these religions or religions in general, but the very fact that so many people take the Bible seriously makes it meaningful. More often than not, critics of the Christian and Jewish faith have failed to take account of the Bible's special significance.
On the other hand, the Bible is not a narrative work (although it does contain narrative); it is not linear, and it is not uniform. Itr is a collection, and by nature it is frequently chaotic in its presentation and organization. Among the sacred stories and legal codes are ancient prophecies, songs, oracles, dirges, apocalypses, wisdom teachings, proverbs, and even erotic poetry. It has long been regarded sacred mostly by virtue of its age and its own claim to authority. It was assembled over thousands of years and according to a variety of social, political, doctrinal programmes. Too often, religious people and Christians of a certain ilk have failed to account for the Bible's many foibles, falsehoods, and inconsistentices, and have ascribed to it an authority and a purpose that is entirely misplaced.