Finally, I found myself where I can enter the Bible as a library, a literary collection containing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and other genres, and where I have complete freedom to ask questions about the Bible's sources, development, internal tensions, biases, accuracy, cultural context, and genre. I call this the personal/critical/literary approach.
I have continued to read it personally - seeking meaning, hope, guidance - because I still feel myself deep in the mysteries, dangers, and wonders of the human predicament.
From this nuanced position, I don't need to presume agreement among writers. I can allow them to make statements and counter-statements, to agree and to disagree.
Similarly, I don't need to assume every detail in the library is factual. Instead, I can read with the assumption that ancient storytellers had aims other than journalistic objectivity, scientific accuracy, or even absolute clarity.
This personal/critical/literary approach has freed me from the need to defend the violence found in the Bible, often attributed to God. It has also freed me from the opposite extreme: the need to throw out the Bible because it contains this violence. It has allowed me to trace how violence and the idea of God are gradually disentangled through the course of the biblical narrative, leading to a radically gracious and nonviolent vision of God.
With a personal/critical/literary approach, I can see how our ideas of God have always matured as we matured, which challenges me to keep maturing now.
The Bible—like any other sacred text—is too good and too important to be left to those who won't think critically about it. And frankly, it is too dangerous.
The full article is available here
The Bible—like any other sacred text—is too good and too important to be left to those who won't think critically about it. And frankly, it is too dangerous.
The full article is available here
