Hello, my name is Rachel, and I'm a recovering Bible snob.I haven't always been this way. As a child, the stories of the Bible enthralled me. I believed in them the way one believes in dinosaurs, Camelot, Abraham Lincoln, and other magical things that happened once upon a time.
As a teenager, the Bible evolved into a collection of affirmations designed to ease my angst-riddled existence (a hermeneutical shortcut Scot refers to as "morsels of blessings and promises" in The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible
), and in college, it served as my favorite answer book (Scot's "big puzzle" shortcut). How has your approach to the Bible changed over the years? Have you ever found yourself behaving like a Bible snob? How do you engage Scripture analytically without losing your childlike fondness for its stories?
It wasn't until my early twenties that I began wrestling with the blue parakeets--those troublesome passages of Scripture that didn't fit my theological grid, that seemed primitive and suspicious in light of modern science, that bothered my conscience, or that appeared contradictory. I went from loving the Bible to hating it for all the doubts it raised in my mind.
Thankfully, and by the grace of God, I learned to read the Bible in a new way. With the help folks like Scot, N.T. Wright, and Eugene Peterson, I began to think of the Bible as a collection of stories, stories that God uses to tell a grand Story in a variety of ways and expressions. Because language is always shaped by context, God spoke in Moses' days in Moses' ways, in Jesus' days in Jesus' ways, and in Paul's days in Paul's way. This approach--(what Scot refers to as the "Wiki-story" approach)--helped me make peace with the Bible.
But there was one problem.
It seemed I had very little patience for folks who read the Bible differently than I did.
"He's reading WAY too much into the relationship between Adam and Eve," I'd think to myself during a wedding ceremony. "She did NOT just use the story of Abraham and Isaac as an example of true faith without acknowledging the implications of God's rejection of child sacrifice." I'd grumble after a devotional. "Am I the only one who's read anything about ancient Near Eastern cosmology?" I'd wonder after a frustrating conversation about evolution.
In my conversations and writing, I couched my references to Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, and the Tower of Babel with an acknowledgement that for ancient Israelites, a story could be true even if it wasn't scientifically or historically true. I didn't want anyone, especially my progressive friends, to peg me as a literalist.
In short, I became a Bible-reading snob.
My sin became apparent one day when I was reading through the gospels and happened upon Matthew 10, where Jesus tells his disciples "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Then, quoting from Micah 7, he adds, "For I came to 'set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household.'"
Before I could stop it, this thought flew through my head: "I think he's taking those verses a little out of context."
Oh, snap. I was nitpicking Jesus.
As I prayed for forgiveness and contemplated my pride, I saw that it was time to take a page from the Jewish culture I was so fond of referencing and lose myself in the shared Story of my faith community. I was not above my own context. The narratives of Scripture, despite their various interpretations and implications, informed my worldview and infused it with meaning. The one thing I had in common with liberals and literalists alike was a common Story, a sort of shared language with which to communicate, connect, and debate.
Jesus referenced Bible stories the way good poets reference literature--in an effort to conjure shared images and shared feelings, shared reactions and shared memories. He wanted his listeners to shudder together at the thought of Jonah waiting for three days in the stinky, damp belly of a fish (Matthew 12:40), to be overwhelmed together by the image of a world covered with water (Matthew 24:37-39), to collectively relive the gratitude of their ancestors as they remembered the sweet blessing of manna (John 6:31-49).
We can conduct healthy debates about the degree to which Jesus was separated from the Father at the moment he cried, "Eli Eli lama sabachthani," but we miss the point when we fail to marvel that, in his greatest moment of agony, Jesus quoted one of our poets, forever connecting his suffering to our own. God, wrapped in flesh, wrapped himself in our story.
The best cure for Bible-reading snobbery is a humble reminder that we share a common story. And it's a good one.
Thankfully, and by the grace of God, I learned to read the Bible in a new way. With the help folks like Scot, N.T. Wright, and Eugene Peterson, I began to think of the Bible as a collection of stories, stories that God uses to tell a grand Story in a variety of ways and expressions. Because language is always shaped by context, God spoke in Moses' days in Moses' ways, in Jesus' days in Jesus' ways, and in Paul's days in Paul's way. This approach--(what Scot refers to as the "Wiki-story" approach)--helped me make peace with the Bible.
But there was one problem.
It seemed I had very little patience for folks who read the Bible differently than I did.
"He's reading WAY too much into the relationship between Adam and Eve," I'd think to myself during a wedding ceremony. "She did NOT just use the story of Abraham and Isaac as an example of true faith without acknowledging the implications of God's rejection of child sacrifice." I'd grumble after a devotional. "Am I the only one who's read anything about ancient Near Eastern cosmology?" I'd wonder after a frustrating conversation about evolution.
In my conversations and writing, I couched my references to Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, and the Tower of Babel with an acknowledgement that for ancient Israelites, a story could be true even if it wasn't scientifically or historically true. I didn't want anyone, especially my progressive friends, to peg me as a literalist.
In short, I became a Bible-reading snob.
My sin became apparent one day when I was reading through the gospels and happened upon Matthew 10, where Jesus tells his disciples "Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword." Then, quoting from Micah 7, he adds, "For I came to 'set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household.'"
Before I could stop it, this thought flew through my head: "I think he's taking those verses a little out of context."
Oh, snap. I was nitpicking Jesus.
As I prayed for forgiveness and contemplated my pride, I saw that it was time to take a page from the Jewish culture I was so fond of referencing and lose myself in the shared Story of my faith community. I was not above my own context. The narratives of Scripture, despite their various interpretations and implications, informed my worldview and infused it with meaning. The one thing I had in common with liberals and literalists alike was a common Story, a sort of shared language with which to communicate, connect, and debate.
Jesus referenced Bible stories the way good poets reference literature--in an effort to conjure shared images and shared feelings, shared reactions and shared memories. He wanted his listeners to shudder together at the thought of Jonah waiting for three days in the stinky, damp belly of a fish (Matthew 12:40), to be overwhelmed together by the image of a world covered with water (Matthew 24:37-39), to collectively relive the gratitude of their ancestors as they remembered the sweet blessing of manna (John 6:31-49).
We can conduct healthy debates about the degree to which Jesus was separated from the Father at the moment he cried, "Eli Eli lama sabachthani," but we miss the point when we fail to marvel that, in his greatest moment of agony, Jesus quoted one of our poets, forever connecting his suffering to our own. God, wrapped in flesh, wrapped himself in our story.
The best cure for Bible-reading snobbery is a humble reminder that we share a common story. And it's a good one.
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Hi, This is my first look at this blog -- recommended by my son. You have so succinctly said exactly what I've thought over my many years of Bible reading. Thank you!
I want to relate a true story of how that childhood belief in the Bible stories actually saved my life. (Brief background. 1. I grew up in Sunday School from babyhood in a church that allowed no teaching aids except the Bible, even for children. A talented teacher would hold the Bible in her hand while she told the most marvelous stories from it that kept us enthralled. 2. From babyhood my mother took pictures with a box camera -- pre-flashbulbs -- and she counted the time exposure seconds by saying rhythmically "Stand still, don't move, stand still, don't move"; I was trained to stand stock still when she said that.)
The true story: While visiting my grandfather's farm, I wanted to watch the hogs eat. I was leaning on a low rail fence watching real animals grunt and gobble up their food. Fascinating to a little city girl. I then heard my mother, from the porch of the house, saying, "Stand still, don't move. Stand still, don't move, stand still . . . ." I did move my eyes to the side and out of the corner could see my grandpa running toward me quite fast, with an ax raised over his head. The only thought I had then was a vision of a picture in my Bible Story book, of Isaac laying bound on the altar and Abraham's hand raised with the knife, and an angel stopping him from killing Isaac. That picture kept me from moving, because I "saw" that angel protecting me like it protected Isaac. Grandpa got to me and began chopping at the ground by my feet. He was killing a cottonmouth snake that, my uncle tells me, was poised to strike me. That snake is a viper and very poisonous. My uncle said that he was sure I was as good as dead, for we were miles away from any antivenom and I was a small child. And when he heard my mother say "stand still, don't move," he was sure I would start to move and the snake would strike. But that didn't happen.
That's how that Bible story from childhood literally save my life!
I read your post Rachel (very excellent by the way) and immediately thought "Hi, I'm Terry and I'm a Bible Snob." Then I set out to read some of the comments and find that I am in good company. I still cringe at my former level of arrogance, and even in that I know I wasn't among the worse. Sigh. It is a disease I have sought to be cured from as the idea of forever being a recovering Bible Snob, to extend the metaphor, is disheartening. I have found some of my way with the same authors that you mention, and some friends from the Jesus Creed community.
The beauty of this is that we can reject Biblical-snobbery, and not replace it with another flavor. May we all have the power and grace to do so.
Maybe we should start a group on Facebook...
Great post.
My name is Jeremy. And I am also a recovering Bible Snob. And I've taken the liberty of creating a Facebook group....because that's what youth pastors are good at. =)
Join our support group at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=189722333435
Great post Rachel!
Yes. Excellent post, Rachel. I can identify. We can be so "right" and yet at the same time so wrong. God's Spirit uses all of God's people, and we need to humbly remind ourselves of that. While at the same time, seeking to wisely share our own faith and gift among God's people, but not as those who think we have the final or best understanding.
And the emphasis on story has helped me immensely as well, and I'm still working on it.
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