THE BIBLE AS HISTORY

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As far as I remember, we (my peers) who were raised Roman Catholics did not get much direct exposure to the Bible (as we rely more on our priests); Protestants do. 


With regard to the Bible (Hebrew and Christian Scriptures), the belief system of many religious conservatives, mainstream Protestants, Evangelicals and some Catholics, may be said to fall into four inter-related principles, that: the Bible is inerrant (no errors); the meaning of biblical passages is clear and unambiguous; its authors inspired by God and the bible is the word of God and thus reflects accurately the will of God. Further, many religious conservatives believe that the Bible is to be interpreted literally. 

Many mainline Christians believe that the Bible contains the will of God. Fundamentalist denominations, such as the Southern Baptist Convention, and other conservative evangelical Protestant denominations generally teach a strict view on the inerrancy of the Bible. It is a belief that is tied with their understanding that God directly inspired its authors. The writers largely played the role of a secretary taking dictation.


On the other hand, Many liberal/progressive Christians believe that the Bible was written by individuals to promote their own evolving spiritual beliefs, and that many of the authors were severely limited by their tribal culture and by their lack of scientific knowledge.  Many progressive Christians believe that it is important to recognize that many biblical passages contain factual errors and that many do not reflect the will of God.

Many reject what the Bible's authors have to say on topics such as: genocide, human slavery, oppression of women, transferring sin from the guilty to the innocent, etc. (In Vietnam, some American soldiers "quoted from Joshua to condone the My Lai massacre. They claimed that butchering babies would purge Vietnam of the 'commie stain,' and that they [the soldiers] were on God's side." During the " 'ethnic cleansing' of the Muslims in Bosnia. [some Serbian Orthodox Christian believers]... quoted the book of Joshua to justify slaughter. They saw it as 'god's will' to slay the infidels.")

Below is a short essay by Prof. Anthony C. Grayling about the Bible and its being miscontrued as true/real history.


[Speaking of my perspective on religion, I say that I  have been raised in the Roman Catholic tradition; and spent almost 3 years in a Salesian of Don Bosco seminary. I was a practicing Catholic till I was 18 years where I came of age to gradually question all my so-called religious beliefs, immersing myself in readings about: other Christian denominations, non-Christian religions, writings of Catholic and non-Catholic theologians, philosophers, psychologists, and talking with a few open-minded friends (mostly believers), even attending post-grad philosophy and psychology courses; etc. I estimate I have spent a good 4 years of my early adulthood in pursuit of claimed "truth or truths" (whatever they are as traditionally thought). Of course I do not believe in such now. ]
- Bert


"Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning." - Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)


"Moses' law cannot be valid simply and completely in all respects for us. We have to take into consideration the character and ways of our land when we want to make or apply laws or rules, because our rules and laws are based on the character of our land and its ways and not on those of the land of Moses, just as Moses' laws are based on the ways and character of his people and not those of ours." Martin Luther's Works, Volume 46, p. 291. - Martin Luther (1483-1546)


"The Bible has been used for centuries by Christians as a weapon of control. To read it literally is to believe in a three-tiered universe, to condone slavery, to treat women as inferior creatures, to believe that sickness is caused by God's punishment, and that mental disease and epilepsy are caused by demonic possession. When someone tells me that they believe the Bible is the 'literal and inerrant word of God,' I always ask, 'Have you ever read it'?"
- Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong (1931-present)
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THE BIBLE AS HISTORY

If you conduct a search of the internet on the subject of biblical archaeology, one of the first entries you find welcomes you with the claim that"amazing discoveries are being made daily which prove that the Bible is historically accurate and that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God."  Most people, whether they are religious or not, accept that much of the Bible is historical, even if it is history glossed from the viewpoint of a particular tribe's uneasy relationship with its god. It is precisely this view that Thomas Thompson contests in his controversial analysis of the Bible as a collection of literary, philosophical and apologetical works (The Bible In History: How Writers Create A Past).

Thompson's thesis is that the Old testament is not a record of Israel's origins and early days, but a later attempt to provide Israel with a heritage. To construct a heritage is to construct an identity, such writing of "history" is in large part an attempt to explain and justify not the past but the present.  By examining all  the evidence --literary and philosophical as well as historical and archaeological --Thompson shows how deliberately the Bible texts were aimed at fulfilling that task. The implications are dramatically controversial.

One is that there was no United kingdom of David and Solomon. Another is that the story of the early wanderings in exile of God's chosen is the record of a spiritual not an actual journey. Similarly, Nehemiah opens with Jerusalem in ruins as a figurative way of presenting Israel's need for rebirth. And Thompson demonstrates how the biblical texts are woven out of metaphors, as when the waters of the Red Sea part for Moses, of the Jordan for Joshua, of the Jabbok for Jacob, and as when David goes up to pray on the Mount of Olives in desperation of heart, which the New Testament writers represent Jesus as doing so.

When Thompson first advanced these views 30 years before he published his book on the subject, the result was academic ostracism and a stalled career. The standard view then was that because the Bible record is basically sound, archeological and other textual remains can be explained to terms of it. But an increasing weight of evidence calls this premise so far into question that there is now an increasing divergence between biblical studies and theology. Many scholars have come to agree with Thompson, and on good grounds. For if you seek external evidence to corroborate the biblical texts, extremely little exists for the period of the bronze and Iron Ages, in which the history of old Israel falls.  And when what looks like such evidence is found --for example, the Mesha stele referring to "Omri, King of Israel" --research shows that the inscription, once interpreted in the light of the Bible rather than vice versa, is far later than its biblical interpretation says it is.

Even more tellingly, there are great events in the record of Palestine on which the Bible is amazingly silent.  it says nothing about the great droughts that influenced Palestine's history.  It is silent about the immense battles of Megiddo, Kadesh, and Lachish, which determined its course. It says nothing directly about four centuries of Egyptian dominance of the region. And the reason is simple: "The Bible's language is not," says Thompson, "an historical language. It is a language of high literature, of story, of sermon, and of song. It is a tool of philosophy and moral instruction." As such its aim is to offer a spiritual history for a particular people, not the actual history of a time and place.

Secular reinterpretations of the Bible's historicity might now be more accepted in scholarly discussion, but it also remains a standard reflex for archaeologists of the region to speak as if the Bible is still part of their interpretative evidence. The city of Hazor, for example, once the greatest city of the region, has been extensively studied in recent years, and digs yield evidence of its violent destruction. Naturally, archaeologists relate this to Joshua's attack on Hazor --the Bible tells us that he slaughtered all its occupants and burned it to the ground. Solomon is said to have built a gate to the city, Thompson shows that the "Solomonic gates" there and in other cities were not, after all, not built by Solomon.

There should be no regrets over these intelligent reappraisals of the Bible character. The Bible is an extraordinary work of literature: it contains poetry, epic narrative, angry moralizing, celebration of virtue, and a spiritual history of Israel's quest  for a place in the universe. Those who see it as a work of factual history --even if they concede that it is polemical and tendentious in its anxiety to justify God to man, and to coerce the latter into proper observances toward him-- miss its higher metaphysical purpose. And that is: to give Israel an origin, securely rooted in divine ordinances.

Thompson's account shows how biblical texts express the period in which they were written. They come from an age of empire building, which suggested to those who lived through it that God should be an emperor too, and should rule over more than just one tribe.  And they come from an age in which philosophers thought that it is a criterion of what is only truly real that it should be transcendent and eternal, not merely temporary, as things in this world are, and this belief changed the very idea of deity. The result is a collection of writings which, although they are NOT history, made history.

Source: THE MYSTERY OF THINGS by Anthony C. Grayling ( professor of philosophy at Birbeck College, London and a Fellow of St. Anne's, Oxford. he is a Contributing Editor of Prospect Magazine and write a weekly column for THE TIMES Saturday review.)

Purpose Driven Life - When Our Religion Becomes Evil (updated)

WHEN OUR RELIGION BECOMES EVIL (updated)

WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: Just received a friend's email of an interview with Rick Warren, author of the recently released bestseller book entitled "Purpose-Driven Life." Anyway, Rick stated the usual "... life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven" etc.. and....".If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centered-ness; which is my problem, my issues, my pain....and "But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others."Frankly, if I were a self-proclaimed Christian, it would behoove me to take care of myself, so as not to be a burden to anyone and thus be able, with the best effort and/or power I can have, to focus on others. I would not focus on God nor be expected to because I do not see God as selfishly desperate for my(our) attention; God is not KSP "kulang sa pansin" as some of us are. 

I would be honoring God by acting for the good of others, in my surroundings, my community, my homeland. That is what I expect of so-called Christians in our homeland, whether of the Catholic or the Praise-The-Lord variety. It is with such thoughts that I rewrite and re-post about our religion and our peculiar Filipino norm of Christian morality.
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Our homeland, the Philippines, is recognized as the only Christian country in Asia. However, whether we Filipino Christians can claim to be truly following, imitating Jesus Christ and living as "good Christians" is arguable. (Am not covering Muslims here).

Functionally speaking, religion is supposed to give meaning to one's life and to be a source of moral/ethical behavior, in the personal and social (socioeconomic and political) areas. Unfortunately, it seems that we Filipino Christians in the Philippines and abroad can not claim to be really leading such expected Christian lives -most especially with regard to ethical behavior in our homeland's sociopolitical arena (government, business and military) as exemplified in rampant corruption, killings of journalists and activists, etc.

Filipino Catholics are a majority, but unfortunately, as such we generally do not seem to think and behave as truly good Christians in Philippine society. Filipino Catholics tend to focus on pure religiosity, to be mainly observants of Catholic religious rites and church-made rules, to overspiritualize despite the Second Vatican Council's (1962-1965) agenda of "aggiornamento," of the church "bringing up-to-date;" that is, of encouraging Catholics to attend more to social concerns, of applying righteousness in the treatment of the poor and most vulnerable in our society.

To date we so-called Christians in the Philippines still practice, knowingly or unknowingly, "split-level" Christianity. When we or someone err, we dismiss it by easy escape clauses such as "we're only human," or " whoever has not sinned cast the first stone," or "it's hard to be an authentic Christian," I say you bet. So let those among us who are self-proclaimed Christians ask themselves, why proclaim, if we can not live it or even try to emulate the life of Jesus Christ? Maybe Christianity is just a social club we joined without understanding its humanist mission.

Sure, the rites and church-made rules underwent changes, for example, how the Mass is performed; or when to observe Friday abstinence. But these are all mainly symbols of Catholicism and are externalities. Greatly missing in our Catholic Christianity are changes that define attitudes and behaviors as they might impact and shape how we, its members -the clergy and laity- engage in the world [i.e.Philippine society] or how to put our Christian faith to work in improving ourselves and society. Our present and urgent need is: Social action rather than purely selfish, self-centered, personal piety for social transformation.

I think and believe that social concerns and actions are more relevant and much more important to our homeland's present predicament versus that when one's Christian practices emphasize only the attainment of great personal piety and/or following church-made rules.

One Catholic Christian teaching which seems to continually and negatively impact Philippine society is the pronouncement of the Beatitudes that says "How blest are the poor...those who hunger and thirst for justice...Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven." By repeatedly stating such, the impoverished Catholic Filipinos are made complacent and content, discouraged to fight for even a "small place under the sun", that is, for decent living beyond their mere existence and survival.

Such teaching that emphasizes other-worldliness is to disregard and exhibit callousness towards the present hell of the poor. It is the major reason why Karl Marx more than a century-and-a half ago has stated that ".....religion is the opium of the people." I think and believe that the Catholic Church [the catholic hierarchy, its bishops, priests and active laity] should stop this kind of preaching and thinking.

The same can be said of mainline Protestants and evangelicals/fundamentalist varieties. The latter concentrate and devote their attention on the Bible, give themselves to its literal interpretations, and thus wittingly or unwittingly, make a book, the object of their idolatry [do they realize this?]. By stressing that personal salvation is only between himself and his God, the fundamentalists practice detached or escapist pietism, and generally tend to withdraw from involvement in sociopolitical activism in society [recently a few of its ministers ran for political office, which I think should not be entered into by church people].They withdraw into detached pietism because their Bible says "enough of worrying about tomorrow and let tomorrow take care of itself. (Matthew 6:31-34)"

These words of contentment are great to hear and read if one is a member of the ruling class or the fortunate few who have money to afford conspicuous consumption, convenience, luxury et al., and thus be able to go on with one's merry ways. For them to proclaim or imply that the impoverished should not worry about his food for tomorrow, about his child's need for unaffordable medicine, to pursue his child's education, or his grandchild's future, etc. is by default to be in cohorts with the selfish among the ruling elite and their foreign partners (TNCs) who want to perpetuate ignorance and therefore exploitation of the impoverished majority. By indirectly supporting the oppressors, they become evil and "bad"Christians themselves.


Thus, the overall effect of Christianity in our homeland is to perpetuate a populace that is characteristically too passive, too submissive, too preoccupied with otherworldly and spiritual matters, which result in their inability to function effectively in worldly politics, to assert, claim and exercise their rights. These Christian "virtues" invite tyranny as Marcos has demonstrated and encourage selfish/hypocritical leaderships among the 

Two centuries ago, Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote with obvious contempt: "True Christians are made to be slaves, and they know it, and do not much mind; this short life counts for too little in their eyes."  I think and believe Filipino Christians, Catholic and Protestant, should do more than attend to their churches as institutions; they should do more than proselytize; they should do more than daily pray and praise the Lord (is the Lord that insecure and thus need constant laudatory attention? ).

It is time for Christians to actively work to change Philippine governance, to make and pressure the government to be truly responsive to its suffering citizens, i.e. help free them from extreme poverty which consequently robs them of their human dignity. Christians should make their religious faith alive by not wasting time on, but discarding instead, their old-Reformation debate about "scripture or tradition" and instead work together to create a Filipino society that will materially and decently sustain the majority, if not all, of Filipinos and thus accord them with dignity and destiny as persons.

Whenever we Filipinos gather and talk among ourselves, we all agree and lament about the sorry state of our homeland and our fellow countrymen. We fail to realize that we ourselves can do something, more than just being observers --if you can use the computer and access the internet, you can do "something". Specifically, we can contribute and/or work to educate or "conscienticize" (ourselves and) the impoverished, i.e. to raise our social consciousness, thus understand the social institutions, economic and political systems that oppress them; to enable them to do critical thinking as they interact in society with the sources of their oppression and to make them aware that they are important and of equal worth as persons [served well by the Basic Christian Communities during the martial law years].

All Filipino Christians should seek to understand their religious beliefs/religion, to go beyond the preaching of their pastors or priests and ministers, to give but at the same time not be content with charity (which may sometimes only foster dependency on the recipient and breed arrogance on the giver), and to work to improve Philippine society, to reform it and if necessary, to revolt against their oppressors because society, more specifically - its state or government, is ultimately responsible for promoting the common good of its native citizenry.

(see also: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/02/god-and-revolution-fr-conrado-balweg.html,
http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/02/religion-and-asian-development.html,
http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/02/cbcp-and-revolution.html,http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2006/02/brown-americans-of-asia.html)


"Many Filipinos are what I call Sunday-religious, that is they go to church every Sunday, take in confession and communion, but the rest of the week they bribe and do corrupt deeds..." - Mrs. Pura Santillan-Castrence, nationalist Filipino writer (1905 - present)

"To the degree that organized religion has decayed and the attachment to the Judeo-Christian tradition has become weaker, to that degree capitalism has become uglier and less justifiable." - Irving Kristol, 1979

"As capitalism rose, the idea of the poor being dear to God changed to the idea of the poor having lost favor with God. " - S. Prakash Sethi, 1980

“There is no higher RELIGION than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.'' - Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965, German Born Medical Missionary, Theologian, Musician, and Philosopher

"I helped the poor and they called me a saint, I asked why they were poor and they called me a Communist’ – Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara

“Nations whose NATIONALISM is destroyed are subject to ruin.” - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-, Libyan Political and Military Leader

"We shall be better and braver and less helpless if we think that we ought to enquire, than we should have been if we indulged in the idle fancy that there was no knowing and no use in seeking to know what we do not know..." - SOCRATES

"Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" --Apolinario Mabini La Revolucion Filipina (1898)