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Here’s my helpful tip: never trust a journalist who gives “biblical” advice. In the most recent issue of Time Magazine, Joe Klein makes this statement about what Barack Obama “should have said” to Pastor Rick Warren at the “Civil Forum” at Saddleback Church.

But Obama seems not to have fully assimilated what should be the message of his campaign: It’s the economy, egghead. The economy was almost entirely missing from his dialogue with Pastor Rick Warren at Saddleback Church – and there were more than a few opportunities to insert it. When Warren braced him on abortion, Obama fumbled around, attempting to sound reasonable. He should have said straight out, “We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven. Now, that’s a metaphor – but it’s also good tax policy. Unlike John McCain, I want to make it easier for rich people to go to heaven.”   Where’s Obama’s Passion?

Joe Klein authoritatively quotes Jesus: “He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.”

With this statement, a lazy journalist has once again misquoted the Bible without taking the time to verify the accuracy of his quotation. 

This particular Bible verse is misquoted so often that many of the most devout Bible readers don’t pay attention to the actual quotation.

In the three biblical versions of the story about Jesus and a “rich young man,” Jesus made a statement about a rich man entering the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven. He didn’t say anything about entering Heaven.

“How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”  (Mark 10:17-31, Revised Standard Version.)

“Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:16-30, Revised Standard Version.)

“How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:18-30, Revised Standard Version.)

The gospel stories of Mark, Matthew, and Luke share a common underlying metaphor—the idea of the Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Heaven.

Klein is right to refer to metaphor here, but he has missed the point of the metaphor.The critical idea that most people simply don’t understand is that the Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven. Jesus is not referring to an afterlife. Instead, he is referring to the idea of the rule of God on Earth.

“When Jesus says that the rich cannot enter the Kingdom of God he is not talking about an afterlife. And he’s not saying that if you have money, you can’t get into Heaven. He is talking about the overthrow of the existing order of things in which those who are rich and at the top of the social system will lose their advantage.” Going Broke With Jesus

In fact, Jesus really did have a lot to say about government, religion, money, and abuse of power, but it was not this kind of simplistic notion about whether or not rich people can get into Heaven.

I wrote my book, Going Broke With Jesus, precisely because of such Bible misquotations, which turn into what I call, “biblical urban legends.”

I have created the term, “biblical urban legend,” for at least three reasons.

The first is that the phrase gets to the essence of what urban legends do. Urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on a life of their own, as they are perpetuated. In the same way, Bible verses turned into biblical urban legends might start with an element of truth, but they take on lives of their own as they are told and retold.

The second reason is to call attention to our own era. When Bible verses become disconnected from their original story and social contexts, they take on meanings in our own time and place. This is when they become strange new creations—”biblical urban legends.”

I can think of no better description of so many of the contemporary stories told about Bible verses about money. The core of truth becomes false as it takes on a life of its own apart from the original context of the story, turning a gospel story into a warning about money, as if the words of Jesus could be applied directly to a different time and place as if time and place don’t matter.

The most important reason to use the phrase is to make clear that Bible verses cut off from any connection to original context very quickly turn into cautionary tales, rather than heroic stories. Biblical urban legends do what urban legends do. They create fear, anxiety, and confusion in the minds of believers, as they warn against the dangers facing anyone who violates the rules.  Going Broke With Jesus

Of all of the biblical urban legends about “what the Bible says,” my candidate for the most destructive and misleading of all the biblical urban legends is this assertion that “Jesus said that a rich man can’t get into heaven.”

This one verse—as much as any other Bible verse—has made millions of believers afraid to have money, out of fear for their own salvation.

The focus of much Evangelical, Protestant religion has been on personal salvation. This misquotation simply reinforces this idea that religion is all about a personal relationship with God and getting into Heaven. 

With this focus on getting into Heaven, much of the Evangelical world has missed that Jesus was talking about life on Earth. He was talking about his vision of a just world on Earth.  By making these words say that rich people cannot enter heaven, this misquotation has often robbed people of the capacity to use money effectively and wisely.

The two major points of Klein’s criticism of Obama is that Obama is not sufficiently passionate to win the election and that Obama missed the opportunity to talk about the economy with Rick Warren. 

“One of the great strengths of the Obama candidacy has been the sense that this is a guy whose blood doesn’t boil, who carefully considers the options before he reacts—and that his reaction is always measured and rational. But that’s also a weakness: sometimes the most rational response is to rip your opponent’s lungs out.” Where’s Obama’s Passion?

It could very well be that Klein is right on both points.

• Obama is not passionate enough to connect with voters.
• It’s about the economy, egghead.

But that is not what “gets my blood boiling” about Klein’s article. By nature, I also tend to be careful and measured—probably much too careful and measured for my own good. But if there are ever times when I would like to rip someone’s lungs out, it is when I see this kind of careless misquotation of the Bible.

One of the principles of responsible journalism is to verify your sources and check the accuracy of your quotations. All Klein needed to have done was consult a Bible before he so confidently quoted Jesus. But he didn’t. Instead he used a misquoted Bible verse to tell Obama how he “should have” misquoted the Bible to talk about the economy. And in the process, he reinforced distorted notions about the Bible and money.

Since Klein is putting words into Obama’s mouth, let’s see what might have happened if Obama had followed Klein’s suggestion, and quoted the verse correctly. This is what he might have said.

“We’re gonna disagree on this one. I respect your view on abortion, but I’m pro-choice … And you know, Pastor Rick, Jesus never mentions abortion in the Bible. He did say, though, that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter [the kingdom of] heaven. Now that’s a metaphor [about economic justice for everyone---not just record profits for oil companies.]

By using the actual biblical metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, instead of Heaven, Obama could have talked about the economy in biblical terms. If Obama had put the current economic situation in terms of the metaphor of the Kingdom of Heaven, he could have reframed the entire discussion, from a single-minded focus on issues such as abortion to matters of government misuse of power, taxation, and waging war with borrowed money. 

He could also have engaged Pastor Rick on Warren’s newly found efforts to deal with poverty and disease in Africa. Based on the metaphor of the Kingdom of God, Obama would have had plenty to say about the Bible and the economy. 

Of course, this reframing of the conversation assumes that Obama knows the Bible well enough to know that Jesus was not talking about a rich man getting in heaven. I have no idea if he does or not. 

Klein is right. “It is about the economy, egghead.” And misquoted Bible verses about money don’t help Christians—or anyone else affected by misquoted Bible verses—to get the economy right.

And so Mr. Klein…..If you are going to write about the Bible, it’s about getting the Bible verses right, journalist.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

written by Kalinda \\ tags: Barack Obama, Bible, bible verses, biblical urban legends, economy, heaven, Jesus, Joe Klein, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, kingdom of God, rich man and kingdom of heaven, Rick Warren, Time Magazine

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.

The legend is that Stephens did all of the division into verses while riding on horseback between Paris and Lyon. According to Stephens’ son, the real story wasn’t quite so dramatic. He reported that his father didn’t do the work on horseback, but in the evenings, at inns along the road.

In either case, the location of the work goes a long way to explaining the result. Whether we can blame the choices about verse divisions on many bumpy miles on horseback or too many glasses of wine in front of the fire at wayside inns, some of the divisions into verses make no logical sense, and some are downright illogical.

But sad to say, we’re stuck with them. Stephens followed the 1551 Greek and Latin New Testament with the Latin Vulgate of 1555, in which he divided the entire Bible into verses. These two editions–prodigious undertakings–created our current division of verses.

This division into Bible verses was by no means the first division of the Bible, but it was the last, and set in stone the current division of the Bible into chapters and verses.

Before Stephens, Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, divided the Latin Vulgate into our current chapter divisions in 1228.

And before this, there were innumerable systems of divisions of Hebrew, Latin, and Greek versions. The whole story is tremendously complicated, far beyond my capacity to outline simply here.

The relevant point is that the Bible we know is divided into chapters and verses, in ways that often make no logical sense. This means that our Bible-verse oriented approach to the Bible is also very often illogical.

I return to the idea of my last post, “Meet Your Enemy: The Bible Verse.”  Too many battles about the Bible are based on discrete Bible verses that were so badly divided that the real point of a story was lost.

The story of the poor widow who gave away everything she had to live on is one of the most obvious examples I know of a chapter and verse division that turns one story into two disconnected parts.

In both Mark and Luke, Jesus speaks about the scribes “who devour widow’s houses” immediately before he makes the comment about the widow who gave away all she had to live on. Anyone who reads these comments without chapter and verse division can recognize easily that they belong together. The clear implication is that the widow is poor because of scribes who “devoured” her house.

But chapter and verse divisions obscure this connection. At least both pieces of the story are in the same chapter in Mark (Mark 12:38-44.)  In Luke, they are separated into two chapters (Luke 20:45-47; 21:1-4.)

When the scribes who devour houses are treated as a topic that has nothing to do with the poor widow with two tiny coins, the real point of the story is lost. Jesus was not telling poor people to give away everything they have. He was condemning the abusive practices of the religious leadership. (For a more complete discussion of this story, see Going Broke With Jesus, Chapter 12.)

The only remedy for such misinterpretation is to read whole books and whole stories, not the badly divided fragments of books and stories called Bible verses.

Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson

 

written by Kalinda \\ tags: bible verses, chapters and verses, Greco-Latin Testament 1551, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, poor widow, Robert Stephens, Stephanus, Vulgate 1555

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.)

 

written by Kalinda \\ tags: 1 Timothy 2:12, bible verses, blessed are the poor, Ephesians 5:22, Jesus wept, Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Kalinda Stevenson, wives submit to your husbands