Unholy Sh+t: Merry Christmas, the Bible is not the Word of God

When I was little, my parents would send me and my brother down to Florida to visit my grandmother for a few weeks during the summer. Eventually, Grandma turned these into little solo adventures she would call “The Great Adventure.” Before you say, “Aww, that’s so sweet!” The great adventure typically consisted of us driving around listening to Rush Limbaugh and being indoctrinated with Republican propaganda about the Clinton Affair, but she had good intentions, I suppose.

Anyway, one summer, we were at my grandmother's house. A bunch of the relatives were over, so I’m assuming it was at the end of summer, or maybe it was a funeral; I honestly can’t f+cking remember. That isn’t the point. The point is that I was carrying something around the house, and I set it down on a coffee table in my grandmother’s home. I set it atop a large Bible on the coffee table to audible gasps from others in the room.

My uncle lifted the object from the Bible, saying, “Show the Word of God a little bit more respect.”

That day, I learned about the Bible being the Word of God and that we were supposed to venerate it like a sacred text. What I didn’t know as a little kid, that I fully understand now as an adult for so many reasons, is that my uncle is full of sh+t.

Unholy Sh+t: An Irreverent Bible Study

Third Sunday of Advent

Today’s Reading: John 1:1-28

The Bible is not the Word of God. I tried to find an easier way to say that, but I couldn’t think of one. I wanted to let y’all down easy here. Frankly, it feels like heresy to write it down, but I promise it really isn’t. If you grew up in evangelical Christianity, like me, you probably spent the majority of your life hearing pastors rant and rave about the Word of God while holding up their Bibles. It is a scene seared into most of us, eliciting a specific response; we must fear and respect this inanimate object because it contains the sacred scriptures.

I am here today to tell you that is horse sh+t.

The myth we were given growing up is that the Bible is comprised of sixty-six books (seventy-three books if you are Catholic and between seventy-six and eighty-one if you are Orthodox, though some Orthodox Christians also leave room for the possibility of more books, but who’s counting?). Those books are broken down into The Old Testament and the New Testament. Comprised together they become the Good Book: The Bible. God inspired the entire thing, whispered into the ears of everyone from Moses to John of Patmos, and the book ends with a warning, “If anyone adds or takes away from this book, you are going to Hell.” That is a paraphrase, but it's the point I took away from Sunday school, so I am sticking with it. But here is the problem: everything you think you know about the origin of the scriptures is a lie, at least if you grew up Protestant.

Here is an interesting bit of history: it is generally believed by most scholars that John wrote his Apocalypse before penning his Gospel. So, if when John wrote about how no one was supposed to add or subtract from this book (scroll), then he was clearly not talking about the entirety of the canon, but simply changing anything in the Apocalypse because he wrote his narrative of the life of Jesus after his release from Patmos.

The Bible does not stand for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth; it is derived from the word Biblia, which means school or book. It is not a mystical word by any stretch of the imagination; it just means book. It was also never designed to be read front to back as if Genesis is the first chapter and Revelation (Apocalypse of Saint John, if you’re nasty) is the end. Sure, they make good bookends because Genesis starts with “In the beginning…” and Revelation is supposed to be about the end of days. Still, the books were placed this way to be chronological, not to be interpreted as chapters. Each book in the Bible should be viewed as an individual text. The Bible was supposed to be more like a library than one cohesive thought.

Moreover, the debate concerning which books should be contained in the Bible is ongoing. In the early days of the Christian Church, different jurisdictions and dioceses had other locally relevant texts that were read on Sundays. For example, First and Second Clement were considered sacred texts for hundreds of years but were ultimately dropped from the canon, not because they weren’t regarded as valid scripture, but because they were considered too similar to First and Second Corinthians; so Clement got the boot for redundancy, not irrelevancy.

The same is true for the Apocalypse of Saint John; a huge debate happened in the early church concerning its inclusion within the canon because some bishops were concerned it could be too confusing for lay people and that they might interpret it literally *looks directly into the camera*

The Jewish community generally considered the Tanach to consist of 24 books. Still, the Protestants have 39 in the Old Testament, which is nothing compared to the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, who have 46 and 49, respectively. The debate over the canon of scripture has been ongoing, making the folks argue about Star Wars canon almost seem tolerable. Almost. For most of Christian history, the canon of scripture was essentially open. Yes, you are correct with your one bit of canon history that the compilation of the original canon happened during the Council of Nicaea under Constantine. However, it wasn’t a closed canon by any stretch of the imagination. The Protestants began to cut books under Martin Luther, but even the original King James Version of the Bible contained the Apocrypha. The closing of the canon has not been a quick process, and most of it has been reactionary. For example, the Roman Catholic Church didn’t fully close the canon of scripture until after the Protestants began monkeying around with the scriptures. Even then, there is still a process by which the Catholic Church could, with substantial evidence, add another book to the Bible (or back into it.)

As much as it feels like heresy to say that the Bible is not the Word of God, we’ve got it backward. It is the heresy to say that it is. Moreover, it is not just heresy but idolatry because we are placing our faith in and toward an inanimate object instead of the actual recipient of the title of the Word of God: Jesus.

I have repeatedly argued throughout this book that the Bible is poorly written, and it is, for the most part. However, I am always willing to give credit where credit is due, and the literary device used by the author of the Gospel of John is one of the most brilliant intros to any book ever written, “In the beginning… “ What the author is doing here is possibly one of the first-ever call-backs in recorded history! John is literally pulling from the book of Genesis, word for word because he is trying to make a point that Jesus was at the creation of the universe. John knew that folks would have many questions about that: "How is that possible? He was a man!” Well, yes, John concedes that Jesus was a man but was more than that. The word John ascribes to Jesus is logos: the Word of God.

The argument being made by John is that Jesus was present from the beginning of time, not as a man but as a pre-incarnate spirit known as the Word. Therefore, anytime in the Old Testament, when someone converses with God, they are likely talking to Jesus, not the Divine Parent. Jesus is the voice that spoke the world into existence, the breath of life that breathed into the nostrils of humanity, and the still small voice whispering to Elijah. That is the claim that John is making here, that Jesus is the Voice of God, the Word of God, and God Himself because He is not created but untreated and has been around since “the beginning.”

The Bible is meant to be the story of humankind attempting to understand God; it was told by word of mouth, memorized, penned down, printed, and, occasionally, might have some kid place a cup or something on top of it. All of that is okay because it's just a book, a little library. It is full of stories, some good, some not so good, and a few that are monstrously messed up. They tell stories about humans trying to understand the world around them. I don’t think any of them were intending to write sacred text, minus maybe Paul, but he was kind of an ass like that. But most everyone else just thought they were telling stories that would be told around campfires and to children, the histories of their people, the wars they fought, and the times that they felt saved by the Divine Force (no, not that force). The reverence often given to these texts had less to do with them being mystical and simply that having a copy of a book was rare and expensive. Now, we print an average of 100 million Bibles per year. Each one contains a different number of books depending on the denomination, and not one is unique, has power, or is deserving of veneration. They are just stories.

The Word of God is not a book. He was a man, born in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes to be the Light of the World and to promise us that if we can find love; love for ourselves, for our neighbor, and our enemy, then we too can be children of God, just like him. He came to be our brother and reminded us that he has been with us since the world was formed in the beginning.