The Single Most Important Document in Western Culture
Since I began to study the origins and evolution of Abrahamic religions, I have encountered what are to me, two extreme views of the Bible as it has come down to us.
The first of these views is that the Bible, whether the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible is the absolute word of the God of creation, emancipation, and salvation for the world and that it is inerrant, unchanged, and cannot be challenged in its historic and theological accuracy. This view might be best represented by such people as Kenneth Ham, the creator of the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. The Ark Encounter is a tourist attraction that explains and illustrates one of the flood narratives in the Book of Genesis (there are two). It features a life-sized ark, built of wood, and inside contains exhibits such as one showing how dinosaurs were included among the passengers of Noah's Ark. An interesting side note here is that the dinosaurs depicted appear to be the Quetzalcoatlus species which stood 17 feet tall and had a wingspan of 30 feet. I wonder what they fed them.
The second view is that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of stories that have no real significance beyond being, at best, a historical curiosity.
I believe that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes and I will attempt here to explain how I believe one might respond to these views.
My response to those who hold the first view is to ask "Which Bible version in which language is inerrant and unchanged?" There are thousands of them. Many people in the UK and the US believe that the King James Bible is the correct choice here. My simple response is that it is doubtful that the Biblical authors were writing in Elizabethan English. These fundamentalists will argue that God has inspired the translations and transliterations and that they are all correct. A simple look at the many ancient versions of Biblical books to which we have access, in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, will show that thousands of changes were made even in ancient times. Manuscripts copied in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance which have been preserved show the same kinds of differences as well as some of their actual corrections, omissions, additions, and what they believed were improvements in the text. My recent post on the King James Bible discusses the political and social motivations behind this translation. (https://uncommonsense705.blogspot.com/2023/09/two-stories-christian-bible-and-jewish.html#more)
There simply cannot be a perfect and inerrant Bible. Inspiration is nothing more than it is. Until someone can show how the hand of God wrote every translation and version, the argument is ridiculous.
There are many reasons why the Bible is as important as I claim it to be.
First and foremost, the Hebrew Bible and the (Christian) Holy Bible have provided religious guidance to millions of Jewish and Christian worshipers for thousands of years.
Since at least the times of the Babylonian captivity and the Second Temple period in Israel, the Bible, in one form or another has provided religious guidance to Jewish and Christian communities in the Near East, in Africa, in Asia, in Europe, in the Americas, and around the world. Since at least the third century CE, the (Christian) Holy Bible, in one form or another, has provided religious guidance to millions of Christians in many cultures, and in many languages.
It is important to note that in the earliest times, few people were literate so the stories, laws, poetry, and history contained in the Bible had to be translated or interpreted by a special class of priests, rabbis, preachers, theologians, and scholars. These people were seen, at times, to possess what Christopher Hitchens referred to, with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, as "the mystery of celestial decoding."
As time passed, more people became literate and in the middle of the fifteenth century, the printing press came into more general use, first in Europe, and later in an expanded world, and the Bible became accessible to more and more people. This was, in many ways, a blessing as well as a curse. More people could read the word of YHWH for themselves which enabled them to make theological decisions based on their own interpretations. This presented two problems, however.
First, the language in Bibles was sometimes archaic to the reader and required interpretation by others.
Second, there have surely always been plenty of priests, rabbis, and preachers who would willingly interpret the Bible for others and of course, being human, they each interpreted the Bible the way they saw it or the way they were taught to see it, two very different things. Whatever complications might have been a part of this expanded use of the Bible, it has remained, in its many forms, the foundation and guide to faith and practice for millions of Jews and Christians for hundreds of years.
Second, the Bible has provided spiritual guidance to believers, seekers, and non-believers.
Using the Bible or parts of it as a spiritual guide is not confined to confirmed believers in either Judaism or Christianity. Agnostics, those seeking a spiritual connection, and even atheists can use the many lessons contained in the Bible to guide or accompany their spiritual journeys as well. There is a wealth of material suitable for spiritual exploration and growth that could be a benefit to anyone.
Third, while the Bible is a document best used by individual believers, it has also served to establish and maintain theological doctrine in churches and synagogues.
Those whose responsibility it has been to establish centers for worship practices (churches and synagogues) for communities of worshipers have used the Bible in large and small ways to guide them in their establishment of norms and limits for worship practices within those communities,
Fourth, the Bible has provided a historical record that can be studied and used in order to learn more about the history of the times and places in which the Bible accounts are set.
Without any religious or theological interpretation, the Bible has been used, together with millions of other sources, to establish some understanding of the times in which it was written and about the geographical locations in which its history is placed. The Bible contains books whose writing spans a period of more than 500 years and narratives that cover a period far longer than that.
Fifth, the Bible has provided a source of moral and ethical guidance to Kings, heads of state, legislative bodies, courts, and other social and legal institutions for many years.
In many countries, and most certainly in the United States, civic and political leaders have relied on the Bible and its lessons like the "Ten Commandments," and the Sermon on the Mount, for example, to establish or bolster many concepts in jurisprudence and government.
Sixth, the Bible has likely been the single most often cited source for those things in literature, art, sculpture, music, and other cultural and artistic works, which unite people in ways that are difficult to fully understand, let alone explain. I think it is best here to cite examples for clarity.
Actually, it is difficult to know where to begin to discuss this topic with appropriate care. It is a vast topic.
I believe I will begin with Shakespeare. William Shakespeare is known to have used more than 1300 identifiable references or quotes directly from the (Geneva English) Bible. The King James Bible was first published just five years before Shakespeare's death. (Gray, Emily, "The Bard and The Word: the influence of the Bible on the writings of William Shakespeare" 2018. Honors Thesis.)
The Cambridge Companion to Dante shows a similar dependence on the Bible for source material:
It is not surprising, then, that when Dante's writings are considered as a whole, the Christian Scriptures should be the source of more reference and allusion than any other work: by one count there are 575 citations of the Bible in Dante, compared with 395 to Aristotle and 192 to Virgil. Calculations of this sort, however, do not suggest the degree to which Dante absorbed the world of the Bible. This is most notably true in the Commedia, where the Old and New Testaments, both in Latin and in vernacular translation, so permeate his language as almost to become one with it. Sometimes the poet will quote the Bible or openly draw attention to its relevance; far more often, however, he will allow its presence to go unannounced, relying on the reader to catch the biblical resonance and make something of it. (The Cambridge Companion to Dante , pp. 125 – 140 Cambridge University Press 2007)
It is impossible to cite any number of examples of Biblical influence in literature that would even approach a majority of existing cases. Here are a few examples.
Piers Plowman by William Langland
Paradise Lost by John Milton
"The Sacrifice" poem by George Herbert
The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross
"Holy Sonnet 11" and "Holy Sonnet 12" by
John Donne.
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt
Beckett by Jean Anouilh
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevksy.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience by William Blake
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.
In the world of visual arts, there are, without exaggeration, thousands of paintings and sculptures which depict Biblical themes. These works range from Biblical times up to the present day.
In music, we can identify many hymns and sung prayers in churches and synagogues.
In addition, there is a wealth of sacred music by secular composers down through the years.
The Messiah by Frederick Handel
"Requiems" by many composers
A Love Supreme by John Coltrane
The Stone by David Olney
Gospel music in the African-American tradition
Gospel music in the American Bluegrass tradition
Gospel music in the American Country and Western tradition
An Atlantic article called singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen Judaism's bard, citing his frequent allusions to the Hebrew Bible.
Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, Allen Konigsberg became Woody Allen, but Leonard Cohen stayed Leonard Cohen. Coming of age at a time when showbusiness demanded Jews not make their background too obvious, Cohen was happy to be named less like a folk icon than a senior partner in an accountancy firm. It seems an obvious point, but it nods to a larger one that was either overlooked or underplayed in the extensive obituaries that followed Cohen's death last week. Put simply, Cohen was an intensely Jewish artist—along with Philip Roth, perhaps the most deeply Jewish artist of the last century. (Freedland, Jonathan, Leonard Cohen, Judaism's Bard, The Atlantic, November 19. 2016)
In film, the examples are numerous. An editorial note here would be a serious caution in expecting Biblical films to be Biblically or historically accurate. They are not.
Images: Google
In our everyday lives, we constantly encounter phrases and sayings that come to us from the Bible. In the US, most of these are found in the King James Bible which reflects several previous translations. Here are a few:
It should be clear that there are far too many references and interpretations of Biblical themes and events to provide anything that approaches a comprehensive survey of examples.
Seventh, the Bible has provided a rich basis for scholarly inquiry.
From the very beginning, scholars have been looking closely at the Bible in its many forms and its many sources from theological, textual, historical, linguistic, anthropological, sociological, psychological, philosophical, and political points of view. Outside of the natural sciences (and sometimes within them) there are few human artifacts that have been studied and written about more than the Bible.
Scholars such as Karen Armstrong, Richard Friedman, Joel Baden, John Barton, Joseph Campbell, John Collins, Bart Ehrman, Israel Finklestein, and Bruce Metzger and countless others have provided us with a wealth of sources of examination and interpretation of the Bible from practically any perspective one could imagine.
Eighth and finally, the Bible has provided a basis for social causes both helpful and injurious to the human race.
One does not have to look too far afield from American history to see examples, both positive and negative, of how the Bible has been used and misused in social causes.
The Bible was used extensively and cited by the drafters of the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
The Bible was waved and pounded by the proponents of temperance.
The Bible was cited by both the proponents and the opponents of the enslavement of human beings in America (https://uncommonsense705.blogspot.com/2023/09/two-stories-christian-bible-and-jewish.html#more)
The Bible has been a fundamental pillar of the American Civil Rights movement.
The Bible has been misused, without any basis, as a weapon against the LBGTQ community and other minority groups in the US and other countries.
The uses and misuses of the Bible in a social context are far too many to include here.
As we have seen, uses and references of and to the Bible are numerous and ubiquitous in our culture. It would be impossible to even make an attempt to cite them all. We can clearly infer that in every aspect of life in Western civilization, we are never far from a direct influence on our lives by one or another interpretation of the Bible.
It is truly the most important document or artifact of any kind we possess.
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