Read the Bible Faithfully, not Literally

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Last week I talked about how I don’t think anyone who says they believe in what’s known as the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy truly holds that belief. I shared my experience of a fundamentalist Christian who, when presented with two texts from Scripture that treat the death of a fetus differently than a born child, said that he didn’t care what the Bible said because he knew he was right… clearly not a believer in the literal inerrancy of the text. And I promised last week that I’d try this week to offer a more robust way of reading Scripture than the one so often presented by the Christians. So this week I’m taking a few more swings of breaking the myth that just because the Bible says it you have to believe it. First, just a very basic reading of the Bible makes it clear that you cannot believe every literal word of the Bible to be perfect command for all times and places and perfect history. I mean, from the very beginning that’s impossible. In Genesis one, humanity (male and female) is created on the sixth day of creation after the animals and the rest of creation. However, in Genesis two the man is created first and then the animals and then the woman. If you believe in verbal inerrancy, you are in trouble. If, however, you believe that the Bible consists of many genres and those genres can sometimes be history, sometimes be myth, sometimes be parable and poetry, then what you are given is two different stories of creation written in two different styles, each to communicate divine truth. The fact that each story is different (and even contradictory) isn’t a problem, in fact it becomes a beautiful way of engaging with the tensions present in creation itself, in our own experience of the world. Then you see how in Genesis one the story of creation is told through a beautiful ritual song, one that moves with rhythm and pacing through each day of the world coming together until it reaches a crescendo as humanity is created in the very image of God, male and female, all genders and sexualities flowing out of God’s very being. It’s poetry. And it’s true. In Genesis two, then, you are given a beautiful story rich with myth and imagery and parable. God walks through a garden, creating some of humanity… but not all of humanity. God comes to a realization (what a wonderful thing for God to do in this story!) that a person cannot live alone and so creates another person. Then there is a sneaky serpent, and sin, and fall… but a God who continues to love, to forgive, to care for humanity no matter their choices. It’s a beautiful story and it’s true. The point of Genesis isn’t about the exact specific and historical timing of the first moments of humanity’s existence and the existence of the world. Even ancient readers clearly didn’t take it that way. The point of these chapters is how we, as created beings relate to God and the world around us. By being attentive to the genre of the literature you are freed from a bizarre modern fascination with literalism and instead can plumb the depths of our reflection on own relationship to the divine. St. Augustine actually touches on this in book twelve of his Confessions, where he says, “The poverty of human understanding so often makes for an abundance of speech, for seeking says more than finding, asking takes longer than obtaining, and the hand that knocks has more to do than the hand that is open to receive.” As a friend of mine (who actually did that translation of the Confessions that I’m quoting from points out, “We would like for there to be a single, correct reading of the world, a single, correct reading of the Book of Genesis. But there is no such thing; multiple interpretations are not merely possible but even desirable.” Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.