study the Bible more

I found it very valuable to have a small group of open-minded, intelligent, critical folks to read the Bible with. We met nearly every week for a year and worked through most of the Bible. We learned to trust each other and speak our minds about the readings as the course went on and hearing the thoughts of others made me feel better about the creative perhaps nonstandard readings I have of some passages.

This time through the Bible, I was struck again by how many of our common cultural references are drawn from the text. Even from a purely literary perspective, it’s an interesting read.

But I was looking for more than just literary insight; I wanted spiritual peace and I’m pleased to say that I found much of that too. There’s plenty in the Bible to disturb the comfortable, as Bonhoffer said, but I’m glad to say that it’s no longer just a book of puzzles and problems for me.

Job is such a fascinating read. Delicious imagery, challenging thoughts, real nitty gritty examination of suffering. It just feels rich, like I could have spent more time re-reading it. Basically it wasn’t a cheap, easy answer; it was more like an anti-easy answer. All the “comforters” of Job, who try to tell him that somehow he deserves the calamities he’s endured, in other words, the folks who blame the victims, they’re depicted as pious dolts.

I can’t believe we’ve read so much. Only another session or two and we start into the Gospels.

This week was mostly the high points of Joshua and Judges. Maybe the storyline of these books, especially Judges is a little formulaic (Israel strays, gets taken captive, repents, a “Judge” is called to deliver them, things are cool for awhile until the whole cycle goes around again.) But the characters are so compellingly human. Actually READ the whole story of Sampson. I know he’s supposed to be a Nazirite monk but he’s a rambunctous, wild man too. And Gideon’s unsure, tenuously-trusting faith seems so real to me, much more than the contemporary hypocrites of the religious media. It’s also great to see that a couple of these deliverers are women (Deborah and Jael.)

The world of Judges felt so familiar. Folks today stumble around without spiritual direction, easily attracted to so many different fads which are dropped equally quickly when a charismatic leader comes along—only trouble is that it seems so much harder to discern who the true deliverers are now.

And is there a way to hear this language without empire and “manifest destiny?” I’m thinking right now that the specific terms for God’s blessing change based on our needs. In the time of Abraham and Sarah, blessing was in terms of many descendants. In the time after Exodus, blessing seems to be in terms of land and in particular, land that had previously belonged to someone else. At the end of Joshua, there’s a sense that God’s blessing is in military conquest. The terms we use understand to God’s blessing probably always change based on who is in the “we” and what context blessing is being sought but the important thing is to remember that descendants or land or conquest isn’t what’s most important. Rather, it’s God who is blessing us with these things.

Maybe?

The weekly Bible Study is going quite well. A couple weeks ago, all the readings were thematically about Creation (that God did it; that God pronounced each part of Creation to be “good” except for humans which were “very good;” some Psalms about the human experience of a good Creation…) All warm and cuddly passages that remind me of those moments when we are surprised by wonder or when things are going right and further, it feels like that’s the way they were meant to go.

Last week the unifying theme to the readings was rebellion (sin, the “Fall”) so we had the tale of the Eden Apple, Cain’s murder of his brother, Noah’s Ark (and the rainbow that God puts in the clouds as a sign to remind GOD not to try to wipe us out again) the Babble Tower… that kind of thing, the events that show humans trying to second-guess God. I think we were all uncomfortable with these tales, especially because they didn’t always go the way we thought they did or “should.” Anyone read the WHOLE story of Noah recently? It basically starts with a guy who walks righteously with his God and ends with that same guy getting so drunk he falls down naked in his tent and ends up cursing one of his children and his descendents. And the Cain and Abel story—these seem like two good church boys. They don’t come to blows because of greed or lust but rather because God prefered one of their sacrifices to the other’s. So the first murder seems to have been a religious dispute. Wild stories. Deep meanings.

It’s a lot of reading… well, I confess, it’s a lot of reading because I don’t do it bit by bit everyday. I leave it all for the night before the meeting. I’m off to read about “The Called People.”

I also read Jonah last night. What a strange little book. I think most folks get the story mixed up with the Disney version of Pinocchio. Y’know where he gets swallowed by that whale? And there are all the bits of furniture and lamps and stuff inside?

Remarkable stuff though. That sense of a calling that’s pulling you to a place you don’t want to go, so you run away and end up stuck someplace dreadful. It’s also a striking book because Jonah literally prays to God, asking to die. That gesture of a suicidal death prayer is so vivid to me because I’ve also been in a place of depression like that. I’m still trying to piece out all the discussion of what has brought Jonah to that point—he’s at least partially pretty upset that the mission he didn’t want to perform is actually quite successful and that anger seems to be directed inward. I’m still wrestling with what’s going on with the book, even though it’s only 2 pages long. It’s a good struggle though, worth the effort, I think.

That I am a stubborn and contrary sonofagun?

Tonight was the first session of the (9 month long!) Bible study I signed up for. There are a half dozen really nice folks, a young couple who are getting married next August, an energetic retired woman originally from the Phillipines, a very active retired college professor, me (the sonofagun) and the nice “boy preacher” I swear, he looks like he MIGHT be old enough to start college. This’ll be a serious time committment: 30 minutes of reading and study, 6 days a week. But we work through the entire Bible and it also looks like it’s not going to be a quick run through, that is, that might be a little meat, not just fluff and “inspirational” BS.

I am scared, though, really scared about this. I am offensive even foul-tongued by my very nature and these seem like such nice, pleasant, earnest folks. I am afraid I’m going to start disagreeing with people just to be disagreeable. At about a dozen points tonight I could have started heckling, literally heckling. Maybe it was just first night jitters.

I am going to let this play out awhile before I start getting too worked up. Week by week, page by page. That’ll get me to June.

I was really grinding down hard on the word “study” when I added this goal to my list. Imagine a table groaning under the weight of dusty commentaries, concordances, dictionaries to the original languages and me bleary-eyed, leafing through them late into the night. Clearly I was setting myself up NEVER to complete this task or at least to never complete the task like I wanted to. Plus I think I was setting up the Bible to be a puzzle-book, something that it takes more brains than heart to interpret.

So yesterday I just sat down and read the book of James. Why James? Because the preacher’s sermon yesterday morning came from James. It didn’t hurt that the book was short.

I also signed up for a 32 week-long Bible study on Wednesday nights. I am setting myself up for frustration/ disappointment/ anger here, I JUST KNOW IT, first of all because I am a stubborn and contrary sonofagun and secondly because I so rarely see what other people seem to see when they read the Bible. (Maybe those are actually the same thing…) But at least this study group will give me the impetus and structure I need (perhaps) to work my way in and around the Bible again. I miss it.

...regardless of what your friendly neighbourhood evangelical likes to think. Nor is it a bag of hammer to hit folks over the head with. The Bible never ceases to amaze me with it’s awesome unexpectedness. (OK, I suppose I shouldn’t really be amazed. That’s consistent with the way folks describe it as the living Word of God.) It doesn’t really matter how many times I read the Bible, there is always something fresh. And compelling. And insightfully critical. Perhaps I find it difficult to study the Bible more because I have to open myself up for introspection on such a primal level. Reading the Bible, for me at least, is a HOLY experience.

And am I the only one out here who REALLY REALLY RESENTS having such an important book torn into contextless little chunks of chapter and verse? Personally, I refuse to cite passages like that because for one thing, it makes the Holy Word of God appear to be a series of interchangeable bumperstickers.