How Do We Choose?

How Do We Choose?

May 25, 2020

As you’ll know if you’ve read much of my writing, I’m a liberal progressive Christian. I take the Bible seriously but not literally, which you’ll know if you’ve read many of the posts on this blog or if you’re read my book Liberating the Bible.[1] I find much in the Bible to be profoundly true, and I find much in the Bible to be profoundly false. I read the Bible critically. I don’t think God wrote it or even necessarily inspired all of its authors. I am what some conservative Christians like to call a “cafeteria Christian.” As I go through the Bible I take parts of it and leave parts of it. I want here to make some observations about how I do that and more importantly how every Christian does it.

Every Christian really does do it. We can’t not do it. The Bible is so big and more importantly so complex that if you take it seriously you can’t possibly accept all of it because, among other things, it is full of contradictions. Yes, I know. Biblical literalists insist that there are no contradictions in it, but there are. Here’s a simple one many biblical literalists haven’t discovered:

But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark….And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark…two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Genesis 6:18-20.

Then the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household….Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate, and seven pair of the birds of the air also….Genesis 7:1-3.

The contradiction here may not be very important to us, but there’s no doubt that it’s there. First it’s two of every kind of animal that Noah is supposed to take into the ark, then it’s a pair of the unclean animals but seven pair of the clean ones and seven pair of each kind of bird—and obvious contradiction.

Here’s another that is, I trust, more important to us. At Matthew 1:20 an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says that the child Mary is carrying is from the Holy Spirit and will save his people from their sins. There are wise men following a star in this story. They come to where baby Jesus is. Than “on entering the house, they saw the child with Mary.” Mary and Joseph don’t travel to Bethlehem. They live there. In a house not in a stable. The only other people who come to see Jesus are some wise men. There’s nary a shepherd to be seen.

In Luke the angel Gabriel comes not to Joseph in a dream but to Mary while she’s wide awake. A bit later Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth where they live to Bethlehem so that Jesus the Messiah may be born there, which is where the Messiah is supposed to be born. While they’re there Jesus is born not in a house but in a stable. There’s no miraculous star and no wise men. There are instead angels and shepherds. Matthew and Luke are the only books of the Bible that have stories of Jesus’ birth, but they don’t have the same story. Yes there are similarities between them, but they quite clearly contradict each other in significant ways. We don’t solve that problem by combining them into one story that actually isn’t in the Bible at all like we do every Christmas. So much for there being no contradictions in the Bible.

Here’s another one, this time one over which different Christians of different types of faith differ in which one they choose or prefer. In Mark after his last supper with his disciples Jesus goes to the Garden of Gethsemane. There “he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.” Mark 14:32-36. We’re told that he was “distressed and agitated.” Mark 14:33. Jesus is arrested when Judas identifies him with a kiss to “a crowd with swords and clubs from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders.” Mark 14:43-46. On the cross he cries out in despair “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34.

Now compare John’s version of the story of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. In John he goes to a garden after the last supper but not one called Gethsemane. He doesn’t throw himself on the ground. So far rom being distressed and agitated he is in complete charge of what happens. Judas appears but with different people than in Mark. In John he comes with “a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees.” They come with torches and weapons. John 18:1-3. The temple authorities John identifies would have had neither soldiers nor police at their disposal, but never mind.

We’re told that Jesus knows everything that’s going to happen. He asks the armed force that has appeared who they are looking for, as if he didn’t know. They say Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus then says “I am.” Your English translation probably has him saying “I am he,” but in the Greek original of John he only says “I am.” “I am” is the sacred name of God in Judaism. See Exodus 3:14. As soon as Jesus said “I am” the armed crowd come to arrest him “stepped back and fell to the ground.” In John Jesus on the cross doesn’t cry out in despair. He just says the very controlled “It is finished,” then simply gives up his spirit. John 19:30. In Mark Jesus is on the ground praying in anguish. In John the armed men who come to arrest him are on the ground before his divine majesty. As a factual matter (not that the facts matter that much here) these stories can’t both be true. They could both be false, but they can’t both be true. Once again, so much for there being no contradictions in the Bible. There are contradictions even on very significant theological points like is Jesus a man in anguish or is he God Incarnate in complete control.

So like I said, everyone picks and chooses which parts of the Bible to accept. I prefer Mark’s version of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion to John’s. Most conservative Christians, I suspect, prefer John’s. The important point here is that we both pick and choose. The issue is not whether we do it, it’s whether we’re honest about it and whether we can specify what our criteria are for making our choices.

On the matter of criteria for making the choices it seems to me there is only one clear criterion to use when accepting or rejecting any part of the Bible. I have heard it said that some Jewish rabbis teach that everything in the Bible is about love and that if you can’t make a particular passage be about love keep working at it until you can. The criterion I think we Christians must use is similar. It is what Christianity calls the Great Commandment. Versions of it appear in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (though not in John). Here it is in its form in Matthew:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment of the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ Matthew 22:34-40.

For us Christians and it seems for our Jewish brothers and sisters too, anything in the Bible that  commands love of God, neighbor, and self we must accept. Anything that does not we must reject.

The way Jesus states the Great Commandment in Matthew actually suggests to us that we are to use it in this way as a filter and guide when reading the Bible. Jesus says that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” It isn’t apparent to many Christians perhaps, but by “the law and the prophets” Jesus means the sacred scripture of Judaism. Judaism today sees the Hebrew Bible, which is the same as the Protestant Old Testament, as consisting of three types of texts. They are the Torah (the Law), the Prophets, and the Writings. The Torah, also known as the Law or the Law of Moses, is the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Prophets are the books known by a prophet’s name plus Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Everything else is the Writings. Jesus mentions the law and the prophets when he gives the Great Commandment in Matthew. He doesn’t mention the Writings. That’s because in his day the law and the prophets had attained the status of sacred scripture in Judaism, but the writings hadn’t. So when Jesus says that the law and the prophets hang on the two parts of the Great Commandment he means that all of scripture hangs on them.[2]

What does he mean by hangs on them? I think he means that they are a support without which none of scripture can stand. These two commandments support everything else in scripture. Without them nothing in scripture will hold up. I think Jesus means here something very like what the rabbis mean when they say all of scripture is about love. If something in the Bible contradicts the love of God, neighbor, and self it isn’t sacred scripture for us. It’s in the Bible, but for us it doesn’t count as sacred. The Great Commandment truly can function as an effective and appropriate filter for us when we read the Bible. It is a filter that keeps us Christians faithful followers of Jesus.

I’m honest about picking some parts of the Bible as true and rejecting other parts as false. Yes, God is love. No, God never told King Saul to kill every living thing among the Amalekites. Yes, the peacemakers are blessed. No, not every governmental authority comes from God. Yes, God so loved the world. No, Jesus is not going to open some arcane seal that unleashes massive destruction on the earth. If anything in the Bible speaks of love it is true. If it doesn’t it isn’t. Let’s all be honest here. We read the Bible selectively. Everybody does. When we do the law of love must guide us. May we follow it well.

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[1] Sorenson, Thomas Calnan, Liberating the Bible, A Pastor’s Guided Tour for Seeking Christians, Revised Edition, Volumes One, Two, and Three,. Coffee Press, Briarwood, NY, 2018-2019.

[2] Both parts of the Great Commandment come from Jewish scripture. For loving God with your whole heart, soul, and mind see Deuteronomy 6:5. For loving your neighbor as yourself see Leviticus 19:18.