Pretzel Theology

In my read through of the bible I have finished Genesis and I’m well on my way through Exodus. I probably will go back and pick up some individual stories and make a few observations here, but not replay it blow for blow. It really is a great narrative. I like epic tales and Genesis really gets it going.

When I first began, I was really trying to pick it all apart. I still am. But in the short, but intensive, time I have found myself changing my views toward the Bible.

I was taught to see the Bible as something that is of divine inspiration. Really, even more than that. I was told, and still hear, how it is the perfect word of God. Infallible. Error free. It is the truth. The picture I had was that of God standing over someone’s shoulder, dictating it word for word.

And it really leaves you with an all or nothing choice. You have to swallow it whole. This is when it gets tricky. Because there are certain passages in the Bible, many in Genesis alone, that are tough to a make fit in a “perfect” revelation. They make God sound nuts or the people following him a bit unbalanced. These passages are often ignored or watered down and twisted around until everyone is comfortable in their inerrant world view.

Now I see it much differently. It doesn’t all have to be true. It doesn’t have to be complete historical fact. I don’t need for there to have been an actual flood, worldwide or localized. I don’t need for there to have been an actual man named Abraham. There is room for me to accept truths or the truth behind the stories based on a fictional/mythological character or combination of characters. I don’t need to say, yes, I believe God tried to kill Moses right after he appeared to him in a burning bush and sent him on his way to Egypt, but his wife saved him when she cut off their son’s foreskin and touched it to Moses and saved him.

It doesn’t mean that I believe it anymore than I did before.

~ by bart on January 19, 2008.