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Bamboozled
Channel 4 boldly, and in the teeth of protests, gave over their prime-time Christmas slot to a show about how the Bible was written and edited by a succession of power elites and how anybody who thinks it's the unmediated word of God is stupid and/or dangerous.
I was taught this stuff at theological college thirty years ago, but it seems to be no more common knowledge now than it was then. The churches give the information to their clergy (fore-warned is fore-armed) but they don't encourage them to pass it on to the folks in the pews.
I find this mildly scandalous. It's nearly a hundred and fifty years since scholars first began to take the Bible apart. Their conclusions ought to be as much a part of the common culture as Darwin or Dickens.
And so should their methods. If we're awed by one text we'll be awed by others- and politicians, leader writers, newscasters, gurus and advertisers will continue to be able to manipulate and bamboozle us.
I was taught this stuff at theological college thirty years ago, but it seems to be no more common knowledge now than it was then. The churches give the information to their clergy (fore-warned is fore-armed) but they don't encourage them to pass it on to the folks in the pews.
I find this mildly scandalous. It's nearly a hundred and fifty years since scholars first began to take the Bible apart. Their conclusions ought to be as much a part of the common culture as Darwin or Dickens.
And so should their methods. If we're awed by one text we'll be awed by others- and politicians, leader writers, newscasters, gurus and advertisers will continue to be able to manipulate and bamboozle us.
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sigh.....
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The programme last night informed us of the existence of a hip-hop Bible and (my particular favourite) a Bible specifically tailored to the needs of teenage girls.
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I don't know about books. The ones we read in theological college are almost certainly out of print by now.
But I see that Amazon are selling a couple of recent titles together at the knockdown price of $23.06.
They are- Who Wrote The Bible by Richard E Friedmann
and
Whole Wrote the New Testamant by Burton L. Mack.
These seem to be the kind of texts you're looking for...
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I always think of the dear old Bishop of Middleton (and he was genuinely a dear) who told me he never read radical theology for fear of it destroying his faith.
But I always think that a faith that won't stand up to the facts isn't worth having.
As John Lennon said, "Just gimme some truth!"
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Once thing that strikes me - it's still considered a big No-No in the orthodox community, so I'm amazed to learn that you were taught about it at theological college! Then again, maybe it is taught to the more advanced students, but my feeling is that if it taught, it is taught as an example of lies that are out there.
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The programme made the point that the big divide is not between Christian and Jew, but between those scholars, of either faith, who are prepared to follow the evidence wherever it leads and those, again of either faith, who refuse to consider anything that might challenge their beliefs.
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I had already studied this in a public university class on the New Testament. My experience was that finding out how the NT was put together made it easier for me to understand the differences and the reasons for the differences in the gospels, and etc. But a lot of my classmates (most of whom were young undergrads) were freaked out by the thought that it hadn't all been dictated by an angel whispering into someone's ear.
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She told me that the true meaning of many things was hidden, even from those who spent their lives translating in the Vatican. I remember distinctly her comparing two bibles and showing me that one had translated a certain word to "love" and the other to "charity."
"Question everything," she said. And I do. Perhaps that makes me a better Catholic than most. That or we are both raving heretics. I don't think it matters as long as one realizes that there are more "Mysteries" than any creator could ever have intended.
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Heretic or... saint?
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The Bible is, on the whole, fairly positive about sex. You would hardly think so from the way the preachers carry on, but Jesus has almost nothing to say about it. He is much more concerned with issues of justice.
And, of course, he notoriously prefered the company of prostitutes and low-lifes to that of the religious elite.
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I keep thinking that as a writer I should do something about this issue, but I still do not know how. Although I have had my chats with Mary on the issue. That is a story in itself: a few months ago, when I was desperate and weeping, I ran into the cathedral without regard for those present and threw myself at her feet, I screamed--in Spanish because we always come back to our essences when we are distressed, that I would give her everything if she gave me sanity.
She did: three weeks later, the tests for incurable horrors came back negative. And I went back and asked a friend, a history professor, how to make something immortal, how to give it the whole world and he told me, "write about it."
She is in my book. In her own strange way. But not just as I want it. How does a historian re-write history? How does one explain the difference between story and truth when one is also an author of fiction?
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If Our Lady wants it to be written She will send the inspiration.
And maybe it will turn out to be the work of a lifetime.
Do you know the work of Luis Bunuel? Deeply catholic, deeply erotic. I have a feeling you'd love him (if you don't already.)
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