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God did not write the Bible, thank God
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When we were children, and somebody opened a Bible for us, we didn’t have to worry much about where the words fit in history. So, Adam and Eve came into our lives through the lovely garden. Noah collected the animals, two by two, and it rained long enough for the ark to float for forty days. Moses climbed up Mt. Sinai and received two tablets of the Law. God parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could flee to freedom; the Egyptians drowned in their own chariots.
On that last one, even the Jewish fundamentalists admonish us to feel the woe of the Egyptians—“for they were also God’s children.” So much for God being the author, if the pious must edit. Not to mention the two consecutive conflicting accounts of Creation, the significant pattern of chronological mistakes, the clear differences in writing style that permeate the text. Deuteronomy reads a lot like Isaiah (who lived much later); the Gospels have a variety of differences in terms of narrative and detail.
Thank God! I don’t want the most sublime literature to have been imported to earth from heaven. Why can’t folks feel comfortable—no, feel exalted—by the notion that God didn’t write the Bible? Men and women inspired by God wrote these stirring and sacred stories that need moral follow-through much more than factual verification.
Why would God create a world in which there is no poetry, no imagination, no healthy rebellion and spirit in the souls of people? Don’t get stuck on the divine authorship; let your reaction and good works to these holy dramas be divine. Remember how the human soul works: The power of story transcends the literal value of what is being told or taught.
People need instructive legends to help religion fly (without anybody getting hurt)—this has been true from Egypt to Greece to Israel to Rome to America. If we accept, as grownups, that George Washington probably did not cut down a cherry tree, but still accept the national fatherhood of our first president, why would we accord less to Moses the lawgiver or to David the King or to Deborah the prophet-commander?
Whether or not Moses actually made footprints on Sinai takes nothing away from what Sinai teaches us. Whether or not David composed all of the Psalms takes nothing away from their rhapsody, their painful beauty, their healing consolation. God is my help, not my author. I give human beings too much credit for creativity, ideas, anger, reconciliation, to make us all into robots when it comes to the most venerated literature of all time!
Did the Bible really happen? Better to make sure it is simply happening.
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