On Two Problems from the Bible

 

On Two Problems from the Bible

January 29, 2022

 

The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

Both when I was an active pastor and now in retirement I’ve spent a lot of time with the Bible. I’ve written nearly seven hundred pages on it, now available in three volumes. I have some rather unorthodox, but I’m convinced totally correct, ideas about the Bible. I don’t believe that it comes from God. It is a human document not a divine one. It is however the foundational book of our Christian faith. It is, among other things, the source of our information and beliefs about Jesus Christ. Christianity is inconceivable without it. The Bible contains a lot of error, but it also contains some of the deepest wisdom we have available to us. I love the Bible in many ways. Yet these days the more time I spend with it the more I find things in it that seem to me just to be wrong. I use a Presbyterian daily lectionary. Today it gave me two readings I want to discuss here. They are Galatians 3:23-29 and Mark 7:1-23. I find significant problems in both.

I’ll start with Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It is the earliest of Paul’s letters in which he develops his theology of justification by faith through grace. It is therefore one of the most foundational documents of the Christian religion. Yet Paul, for all his deep theological insight, is nothing if not inconsistent. His letter to the Romans is considered to be his most thoroughly considered and developed statement of his theology. It is that indeed, but it will also drive you nuts with its many inconsistencies. Contradictions even.

Here’s the contradiction in Galatians 3:23-29. In this passage, as he does so often, Paul is trying to explain his understanding of the relationship between Torah law and faith. In our passage here he tries to explain that relationship this way.

 

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. Galatians 3:23-26.

 

The problem I have with this statement is that Paul seems to be saying that people had no faith until Jesus came. But of course the Jewish people had had faith in God for well over one thousand years at least before Jesus came. They didn’t have faith in Jesus Christ, who after all hadn’t come yet. They still don’t have faith in Jesus Christ, but they had and have faith in God, and isn’t that what really matters? We Christians live out our belief in God through Jesus Christ. Jews don’t, but so what? Two thousand years of destructive Christian claims to the contrary notwithstanding, Christianity is not and cannot be the only valid way of faith in God. The claim that it is never made any sense, but it is particularly absurd to proclaim that it is today in a world we know to be full of good, loving people who practice their faith in God through some other faith tradition. So, sorry Paul. Jesus coming was not the beginning of faith. Of faith in Jesus yes, but not faith in God.

Consider this. If justification (Paul’s notion here) or salvation comes only through Jesus Christ, it means that before a specific time, in a specific place, and before some event took place, no one was saved. Then all of a sudden God decides, ‘Well, I guess it’s time to save people, so I’ll incarnate myself in a guy named Jesus of Nazareth. Then people, unlike anyone who lived before him or anyone who lives after him but doesn’t believe in him, can believe in me through him.” It makes absolutely no sense that God would do such a thing. I am sure that God in fact never did such a thing. So no, Paul. There was indeed faith before Jesus.

Then we have Mark 7:1-23. In this passage some Pharisees see Jesus’ disciples eating without having washed their hands. We’re told that Jews wash their hands, food, and utensils before they eat. Jesus’ disciples weren’t doing that. So these Pharisees ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” Mark 7:5. It seems a legitimate question in its original context, but Jesus’ reply isn’t exactly civil. He starts his response by saying, “Isaiah prophesized rightly about you hypocrites….” Mark 7:6a. He quotes Isaiah at them this way:

 

‘This people honors me with their lips,

     But their hearts are far from me;

In vain do they worship me,

     Teaching human precepts as doctrine.’ Mark 7:6-7.

 

The quote is of the Septuagint version of Isaiah 29:13. Jesus adds, “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human precepts.” Mark 7:8. Jesus goes on to say to the people present, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” Mark 7:14b-15. He repeats this point to the disciples alone later on.

Jesus is simply inconsistent here. First he accuses the Pharisees of abandoning “the commandment of God.” Then he throws out the Jewish dietary laws. But Judaism considered in Jesus’ time and considers in ours that the laws of kosher diet in the Torah are commandments of God. So first he criticizes others for abandoning what he calls the commandment of God and calls them hypocrites. Then he abandons what his faith tradition considered and considers to be important commandments of God. I want to say to him, “Jesus, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t call others hypocrites for doing what you do yourself.” Yet that is precisely what he does in this passage. I’ve read commentary that says this passage is attacking legalism. I suppose it is, but it seems Jesus here attacks legalism he wants to attack and  attacks the Pharisees for not being sufficiently legalistic because they abandon the commandment of God. Sure sounds like a contradiction to me.

Elsewhere of course Jesus tells us what the most important of God’s commandments is. We call it the Great Commandment:

 

“The first is this, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31.

 

The Great Commandment is I suppose Jesus’ ultimate rejection of Torah legalism. Jesus wants us to love, not to be legalists. So let’s not worry too much about Jesus’ inconsistency in our passage from Mark. The Gospel of Mark is a human document not a divine one. We can, I hope, live with that truth.