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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