Archive for July, 2008

“How The Bible Got Its Verses”

Welcome back!

Bible verses were added to the Bible by a French printer, Robert Estienne, for his Greco-Latin Testament, which was first published in Paris in 1551. The book was printed under the Latin version of Estienne’s name, Stephanus. “Stephanus” is often anglicized to “Stephens,” so that history also knows him as Robert Stephens. The notable fact about Stephens is that he divided the Greek New Testament into 7959 verse paragraphs.

And as is usually the case in such matters, there is a widely told legend about this division into verses, and there is also the less colorful version, which is probably closer to the truth. Read more…

“Meet Your Enemy: The Bible Verse”

After years of observation, I have come to this conclusion. The greatest enemy of the Bible is the Bible verse. But why? My conclusion flies in the face of the dominant method of religious education for Sunday schools and churches.

The reason goes back to the adage I learned in my first preaching course in theological seminary.

“A text without a context is a pretext.”

The first fact to recognize is that a Bible verse is an artificial thing. Nothing in the Bible originated as a Bible verse. (In another post, I’ll tell the story of how the Bible got its verses.)

Bible verses were imposed long after books were written, by chopping whole books into little pieces, suitable for memorizing.

So far so good, but then the little buggers took on lives of their own. People forgot the books and focused on the verses. When this happens, the verses become little islands of meaning, totally disconnected from the context around them, the way a desert island is simply a speck of dirt with a few palm trees in the midst of the ocean.

Far too often, especially with children in Sunday school, memorizing Bible verses becomes part of a Bible Trivia game, where children learn Bible verses based on meaningless categories, such as “What is the shortest verse in the Bible?” The correct answer–which will win you a prize–is John 11:35. “Jesus wept.”

Let’s look at this verse. What on earth does “Jesus wept” mean? Did he stub his toe and start to cry because it hurt? Was he cutting onions and his eyes watered? Did his best friend die? How do you know? The only correct answer is: You can’t know from these two words. There is no context for them.

The only way to figure out this verse is to go back to the context of these words. Now it makes more sense. Jesus wept because Lazarus died. But even this is not enough. Why is this story about the death of Lazarus important in the Gospel of John? And so you have to back up farther. And before too long, you realize that this a story full of important topics, such as resurrection from the dead, and you realize you have to read the whole book to begin to understand why Jesus wept.

And when you read all of this, you might begin to think: If there was ever a case of missing the forest for the trees, this is it. Why bother measuring the length of Bible verses when the real issue is life and death?

(By the way, even the idea that this is the shortest verse doesn’t apply to all translations of the Bible. “Jesus wept” is two words in the King James Version. The New Revised Standard Version translates with four words: “Jesus began to weep.”)
 
But you might also be thinking: “Well, of course you have to put this particular verse in context. What about all of the other Bible verses where the meaning is clear?”  The assumption that other verses are clearer is exactly the problem.

In the case of “Jesus wept,” anyone who reads the words knows there is something missing. The real problem with Bible verses comes with other verses that have more words, but no more context. In these cases, people think they know what the words mean, but in fact, they have no more clarity about the meaning than they do with the words, “Jesus wept.”

Here’s an example about money. “Blessed are the poor.”

So what does this mean? You have to be poor to be blessed? (See Going Broke With Jesus, Chapter 8 for more on this particular verse.)

Or let’s get even more controversial. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (KJV, Ephesians 5:22.)

Can you really build an entire biblical understanding of marriage based on these words (which by the way are a substantial mistranslation of Ephesians 5:22? You might be surprised to learn that the word “submit” does not occur in this verse in Greek. Read  Why Ephesians 5:22 Does Not Command Wives To Submit To Their Husbands.)   

How about, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (KJV, 1 Timothy 2:12.)

(I will demonstrate in a later post that the Greek of this verse doesn’t even use the word “authority,” despite the fact that every English translation I know uses the word “authority” in this verse.) 
 
What all of these statements have in common is that they are Bible verses without contexts, and the last two are serious mistranslations. In other words, they have become pretexts, distorting the actual intent of the words in their own biblical contexts.

And now I will make an even starker statement.

Every time you hear someone say, “The Bible says…” about a particular topic…it probably doesn’t.

Nothing–and I mean, nothing–causes more hurt and confusion than religion doled out in Bible verses. Too often, Bible verses become weapons to be used against people, to proclaim that women may not lead, husbands must rule, slaves must submit obediently to their masters, and gays have no place in the church.

You can find Bible verses that seem to proclaim these rules. But when these verses are put into their own contexts, the strident clarity of the Bible verses turns into something else. The verses become pieces of a larger whole. And very frequently, the Bible verse that is so confidently proclaimed as the very word of God turns out to be a distortion of the original intention behind the Bible verse.

And once again, I will mention my experience on my first day of theological seminary. What did my angry inquisitor throw into my face? He hurled a Bible verse.

This what people do. They use Bible verses as if they were rocks, spears, or Uzis. The Bible verses become assault weapons used against people who have no defense, except maybe to quote other Bible verses. Such battles cannot be won. They can only be fought, leaving casualties along the way.

The only way to get beyond such battles is to stop using Bible verses as weapons. And the only way to do that is to put any Bible verse into the context of the larger story, and the story into the context of the book, and the book into the context of the society which produced the story.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

(My next post will explain how the Bible got its verses.)

“What Is The Story You Are Seeking?”

I have addressed this blog to seekers…people who are looking for something, often without quite knowing what they are seeking.

What do seekers seek?  Why do people go from church to church, and from churches to ashrams, from temples to yoga studios, from Presbyterianism to Scientology?  Why do Christians convert to Islam?  Why do black Baptists become Black Muslims?  Why do Catholics stay home and Lutherans consult tarot cards?  Why do people join cults? Why do people flock to evangelical megachurches?  Why do they replace the Bible with “The Course In Miracles?”  Why do seekers put their hopes in “The Secret” and purported revelations from channeled entities?  What are people seeking to find with all of this coming and going?  Read more…

“Did God Authorize The King James Bible?”

The King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is also called the “Authorized Version” (AV) (spelled “Authorised Version” using British spelling.) This leads to an important question: Who authorized the King James Bible? Read more…

“Which Bible Is ‘The Word Of God’?”

Evangelicals often refer to the Bible as “The Word Of God,” which is abbreviated even further as “the Word.” This practice easily turns multiplicity into singularity. A collection of books becomes one book, with a unitary voice. But this tendency to treat the Bible as the singular “Word of God” opens up a series of questions. Let’s start with the first one. Which Bible is the real “The Word Of God?”   Read more…

“Where Is God’s Authority?”

Of all of the differences–large and small–that separate various Christian groups from each other, the most crucial difference is the location of God’s authority. If we compare the Roman Catholic Church and the multitude of Protestant traditions, the fundamental difference between them comes down to the location of God’s authority. Read more…

“The Relentless Cruelty of Claims To Authority”

Claims about authority are always personal, because they either increase or take away take personal power. And so rather than begin with an abstract study of authority, power, and persuasion, I will tell you a personal story. Read more…

“In The Name Of God: Authority, Persuasion, and Power”

What are the big theological questions? Is there a God? Who are you? Why are you here? What is the meaning of life? What happens when you die?

There is another big theological question that doesn’t get as much attention as these more obvious questions, but it is foundational to every religious ideology and every religious group: Who has the authority to speak in the name of God?

The question of authority is crucial to every religious discussion on any topic you can imagine.

This is the first article of what I intend to be an in-depth exploration of religious authority, especially related to the Christian Bible.

Before we can go any further, we need to look carefully at the word, “authority.”

I know that citing dictionary definitions of words tends to be the dullest possible way to start anything, but until we get clear about what the word “authority” means, we can’t get too far in recognizing claims to authority IN the Bible and claims to speak with the authority OF the Bible.

According to Merriam-Webster, “authority” is derived from the Latin “auctoritat,” which means “opinion, decision, power.” (It is also related to the English word, “author.”)

“Authority” has a range of meanings in English, but the one that I want to focus on is: “the power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.”

Merriam-Webster also identifies these synonyms: “influence,” and “power,” In the vocabulary of this blog, I will often use the word “persuasion” as a synonym for “influence.”

The most critical point I want to make concerns the interrelationship between the three words: “authority,” “power,” and “influence.”  These words are synonyms, with meanings that overlap and intertwine. In other words, every claim to authority is simultaneously a claim to power. And every claim to power carries with it the power to influence thoughts, opinions, and behaviors.

This focus on the interrelationships between authority, power, and persuasion goes back to two specific intentions for “Impolite Topics. Religion, Power, And The Bible…For Seekers.”

• Impolite Topics: is about techniques of persuasion as weapons of power. It demonstrates how you are persuaded to believe what you believe. And it also reveals how the powerful benefit from your beliefs.
•  Most of all, “Impolite Topics” is a blog about how the Bible is used in our contemporary world as a tool of persuasion. Words are the most powerful weapons on earth. Words from the Bible are often used to persuade people to be silent and surrender their power.

At the outset of this exploration, I want to acknowledge my mentor and teacher, Dave Lakhani of Bold Approach, who knows more about persuasion than anyone I know. He encouraged me to address the question: “Where does the authority for the Bible come from?”  Thanks for the suggestion, Dave.  Let’s see where this question takes us.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

“Why Religion and Politics Matter To Tony Blair…In Ways That American Politicians Rarely Talk About”

In the United States, politicians had better be overtly religious. They travel a razor’s edge of demonstrating their faith, while being careful not to offend those whose religious beliefs are different. Read more…

“Does Religion Matter?”

For many years, I subscribed to a newspaper that had a “Religion” section once a week. The Religion section was location on the last page or two of the “Home and Garden” section. Some weeks there was only one page, with one or two articles. Other weeks, there were two pages. The articles themselves tended to be human interest stories about religion. These minor articles followed pages devoted to helpful hints about redecorating your house or tending to your rose bushes. Read more…