The Power of Thou

I am convinced that if you write anything with enough “thous,” people will believe it. The prophet Raël, for example, founder of the Raëlian movement, author of Intelligent Design: Message from the Designers, and favored earthling of the alien Elohim made use of the King James Bible in his books and in his dealings with extraterrestrials. Big deal, you might say, everyone knows or uses the KJV at some time, why not the guy with the aliens? And that’s just the point: everyone knows or uses the KJV at some time, so of course the guy with the aliens would. It’s one of the best (and only) ways for someone with a message like his to demonstrate some kind of authority and relate to “sane, responsible Frenchmen.”

Anyone can say “we were made by aliens,” and most anyone could write a book about it as well. But believers have found the message of Raël so convincing because of its basis in an accepted, classic piece of literature. Claiming Biblical relevance was what secured an interested audience for him, and the choice of the KJV brought the whole concept together. There is, after all, something very authoritative about the words “ye” and “shall.” Just ask Monty Python – in goes outdated English and out comes something like scripture.

You’ve seen the language of the KJV in multiple contexts, from dramatic to comedic, and even in formats similar to the one used by Raël. It always does its job, making a text sound older and more authoritative than it is, and the writers who employ it then take that effect in the direction they will whether it be serious or ironically humorous. Across new religious movements like Raëlianism, the language, formatting, and tone of the Bible, particularly classic and wider known editions like the KJV, adds weight to the voice of the writer. That kind of authority goes a long way towards anchoring the new and often incredible messages of Raël and similar writers, thus giving a kind of stability to radical new ideas.

Proselytism Problems

In Reading, Writing & Religion II, Mark Chancey details the struggles which Texas public schools have faced in attempts to introduce courses on the Bible. From lack of established curriculum requirements to untrained and biased teachers, the problems are many and have proved difficult to address. And as expected from a southern American area, any bias has pointed in the direction of Protestant Christianity while tending to minimize or erase the beliefs of other traditions like Catholicism, Judaism, or Eastern Orthodoxy. Such bias raises obvious problems with alienating non-religious and minority religious students, and while improvements have been made, the state still have a ways to go before its Bible courses are largely unproblematic.

This tendency toward bias makes me wonder, however, if courses on other religions would be taught differently, particularly because of Protestant Christianity’s emphasis on conversion. That is, many of the biased courses which Chancey describes are taught by Christian teachers trying to push Christian agendas on students. But what about the possibility of another class taught by an instructor of another faith? Imagine, for example, a Jewish teacher offering a course on the Hebrew Bible in a Texas public school. Even if she used the phrase “we believe” in her lessons, odds are her class would be less like a Sunday school than many which Chancey tells us of simply because Judaism is not concerned with conversion in the way that Christianity is. Such a course would be less like sermons and more like history and culture lessons from an insider.

I do not mean to say here that Christians shouldn’t be teaching courses on Christianity, but in a religion which values conversion, instructors in public schools would do well to stay on secular side of the line between informing and proselytizing. An interesting experiment, though certainly not the most practical to implement, would be offering courses on multiple world religions and observing how their instruction unfolded, especially if by teachers who identified with the faith traditions they taught. Offering such courses could give us data on how world religions compare in presenting themselves in public, scholastic sphere, and it could give us a more nuanced idea of how best to present religion as academia to young people of varied backgrounds.

Confirmation Bias in Trump's Campaign

I remember in elementary school when some obnoxious kid in the class would check out the biggest book they could from the library and make a show of reading it just to impress everyone. The sound of the book thudding against the desk as they opened it was more important than anything inside, except, of course, the lack of pictures. That was always a bonus. By now that kid is grown up and presumably grown out of that phase as one would hope to be the case for most adults. However, it seems that Donald Trump never picked up on the social cues and eye rolling that dubbed this behavior uncool. And he’s still using what is arguably one of the “heavier” books in the library, the Bible.

Perhaps somewhere along the line Trump heard that books impart knowledge and that knowledge is power but was always a little foggy on the details of how that was supposed to work. That is, Trump has been using his Bible to gain power, but as a prop instead of a book as evidenced by his impressive ability to hold it aloft followed by a lapse in memory regarding what it actually contains. This behavior is not so shocking on its own, but what is surprising is the amount of support he has received from conservatives who believe the Bible to be the divinely inspired Word of God. My home state of Georgia, though I am not surprised by its vote for Trump in the primaries, is overwhelmingly Christian and would presumably take issue with Trump’s biblical bluffing, but it didn’t. Even with the option of evangelical Ted Cruz and his dominionist father, Georgia chose Trump. This decision forces me to ask the question: why hasn’t the Bible failed Trump? I believe the answer lies in what he already believes.

Imagine, for contrast, Pat the Liberal running for president and brandishing a Bible in the same manner as Trump. Will Pat’s Bible be winning conservative Christian supporters? Most likely not. If anything, they would see Pat’s use of the Bible as disrespectful, a perversion of its messages. Trump is so successful even with his tactless Bible flailing because he already shares many of their beliefs, so the inclusion of a Bible in the mix is just an added perk. Classic confirmation bias. In fact, the only part of the whole ordeal which is surprising is that he hasn’t backed himself into the same corner Todd Akin wound up in. And the more the confirmation bias for Trump grows, the less likely such an end seems for him.

The Problem of Anachronisms in Biblical Translation

I have heard it said that claiming to know the will and intent of God is wrong, that there are some parts of the divine plan which humans are neither meant to know nor capable of understanding. I assume that people with more traditional views of the Bible as the inspired word of God would probably agree with this statement, and they might begin to accuse some translators of disrespect along these lines. People with such a traditional mindset often find the amount of interpretation, addition, and summary which go into some translations to be upsetting, believing that one can’t call something the Word of God if it is not in God’s words. This viewpoint constitutes a major argument against meaning driven translations.

I’m talking here about the idea of functional equivalence in Bible translations. Such translations give the translator’s understanding of the text instead of one based on words and phrases, a distressing concept to more traditional minds. This type of translation removes ambiguities and often promotes the views of the translator, but at the cost of introducing anachronisms and losing some the language itself. We see an excellent example in Leviticus 18:22 which many cite as Biblical prohibition on homosexuality. However, a functional equivalence translation of the verse introduces the very concept of homosexuality into the language of an ancient world which did not have an understanding of or equivalent to such a complex term.

The problem I see here is not necessarily translators imposing their views on the text, but the erasure or at least alteration of history. That is, saying that one believes homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God is understandable, but implying that the ancients had a concept of homosexuality is problematic, especially since we know that it is only a recent construction. And surely this is not the only relatively modern concept introduced by such interpretations. Respect for history and the characters and events of the text thus becomes another issue to raise when talking about functional translation. While I am in no position to make a judgment call on how important accurate portrayals of Biblical times are in translation, I suppose this concern does add another point to the argument in favor of formal equivalence translations.

Shieldmaidens for Christ

In their book Enticed by Eden, Linda Schearing and Valarie Ziegler explore gender relations in the conservative evangelical tradition, including the role women are expected to play as subservient helpers to men. Schearing and Ziegler use the metaphor that these women, both daughters and wives, are “weapons in [men’s] battle to transform American society into a realm of exclusive male privilege and power” (33). An interesting analogy, to be sure, and perhaps one which we can elaborate on in an attempt to better understand the role these women play. The logical extension of this metaphor is to ask what weapon these women function as, and to me, the answer seems to be the shield.

While extensively comparing conservative evangelical women to weaponry may get silly quickly, the idea of the women in this community as points of defence is not so far fetched. These women play a major role as transmitters of culture, particularly because as wives they will be encouraged to stay home and raise children. Therefore, protection from the encroachment of modern immorality on the evangelical community relies heavily on how these women interact with and socialize their children. The father may be the head of the biblical household, but if his wife does not agree with him theologically, it will show in her sway over the children.

The community’s preoccupation with the influence of mainstream western culture on its members is a kind of boundary concern for the group in which women also play a part. Women function as both marriage candidates and temptations within the community, and as such they could make or break the line of defence against secular immorality. Furthermore, they could do considerable damage to the community if they decided to rebel against its teachings. Thus, women’s willing acceptance of the doctrine of gracious submission reinforces the messages of the community by shoring up a potential weak spot (that is, women themselves) in the group’s defences. If the subservient party happily accepts its role, then the movement gains strength.

Therefore, by handing over their independence in exchange for biblical womanhood, these ladies really are helping to protect the community. They shield it from outside influence starting in individual homes and extending throughout the church by way of their sincere acceptance of doctrines on gender hierarchy. In short, they become tools, weapons even, in a men’s fight to ensure the power of biblical manhood over the conservative community.

Feminist Value in Liberal and Conservative Writing

The creation of The Woman’s Bible, a book published by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1895, marked the entrance of women into the field of exegesis, that is, interpretation of scripture. Whether or not other women of her period agreed with the points she made therein was irrelevant; any commentary or creative writing by women which involved the Bible was necessarily a kind of feminist work. After all, though men’s Bibles exist today, the Bible itself has always been The Men’s Bible, and thus any text which looks at it through a woman’s eye celebrates Stanton’s feminist milestone.

Stanton’s work immediately tries to put women on par with men in the context of the Bible, starting with the first chapter of Genesis in which man and woman appear to be created at the same time and as equals. Her interpretation is nuanced and contains contributions by various scholars, though readers must be mindful that placing feminist value in the ancient texts of patriarchal cultures can quickly become anachronistic. Furthermore, The Woman’s Bible was often too liberal for the Stanton’s contemporaries, being rejected by the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. Therefore, readers must also give credit to conservative female writers of Stanton’s time for their place in women’s literature.

A notable example of a conservative, religious female writer is Sigourney whose poetry contained traditional and domestic motifs as seen in her poem “The Ark and the Dove” in which the speaker tells the flood story to her daughter. The simple act of exposing a woman’s relationship to the Bible in her private life is innately progressive. Sigourney’s speaker even goes so far as to make the dove a brave female character, thereby giving her daughter a relatable character in the story. Though the tale maintains a traditional view of Bible and household, Sigourney’s character insists that the Bible as is contains inspiration for women and proper guidance for young girls.

Though figures like Stanton and Sigourney were at opposite ends of the interpretive spectrum, their status as female commentators brings them together. Each demonstrated through an honest and faithful representation of her feelings about and engagement with the Bible in personal and private spheres an example of the variety found in women’s religious experiences. Regardless of their feelings on feminism, each exercised her agency by openly expressing unique thoughts on the Bible.

Bible Translation and Church Fragmentation

In order for the famous King James Bible and the numerous subsequent English Bibles to exist, English-speaking church and state officials had to accept that such a cause was neither blasphemous nor dangerous. Initially, the idea of translating the Bible into English brought with it controversy and difficulty. Bibles were printed out of the country at first, sold illegally, and William Tyndale, the first person to begin a Bible translation project, was killed for his work. With time and the unique situation of Henry VIII establishing the Anglican Church, however, the idea was accepted. Then the above issues became mere bumps in the road in comparison to the broad changes which Bible translation would bring about.

The effects of widely available English Bibles are felt even (and perhaps especially) today. One of the concerns which figures of authority had at the time was about how the laity would interpret the Bible, and official attempts were made to discourage or restrict interpretation. Such attempts failed, and different people ended up reading the text differently as expected. Variety in interpretation led to a number of changes. At the most basic level, the Bible’s availability encouraged reading and therefore resulted in increased literacy rates. More people reading led to more people forming opinions and discussing. Sometimes these discussions turned sour and ultimately led to schisms in the church. Groups broke off then and continue to do so today, allowing for the vast range of Christian denominations. On the other hand, debate also encouraged studying the Bible with a scholarly eye. The advent of Higher Criticism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the Bible treated as a historical document rather than a sacred text. Secular Biblical scholarship has obviously proceeded from there.

In the end, Henry VIII and the church leaders of his day were right to be suspicious of the implications of English Bibles. The spread of the English Bible ended up causing problems for the preservation of the English Church as it was because of the internal disagreements and availability to criticism which necessarily came along with it. However, without the English Bible and the interpretations of the English-speaking world, we would not see today the same diversity of Protestant Christianity.

Adaptability and Influence in Medieval Judaism

Early medieval Judaism faced the problem of the Bible becoming a “closed book” for most European Jews due to the spread of Jews through Europe and therefore the loss of Hebrew as a spoken language, as well as the fact that some biblical doctrine did not coincide with rabbinic teachings. However, this problem did not last due to the increasing popularity of biblical exegesis during that time and the ability of medieval Judaism to absorb aspects of contemporary culture. In fact, Judaism's response to the cultural changes around it demonstrate an enduring adaptability.

We see both extensive commentary on the books of the Hebrew Bible from this period as well as Christian, Muslim, and secular influence in the preservation and evolution of the text. Among the medieval Jewish exegetes, figures like Rashi (Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac), whose work is still valued by today’s Orthodox Jews, and Abraham Ibn ‘Ezra, a wielder of healthy skepticism and rationalism, stand out prominently for their long and nuanced commentaries. Commentary and understanding, alongside the needs of women and the uneducated to understand scripture, prompted the beginnings of translation into vernacular languages. We see outside influence here also as in the case of the Bible of the Duke of Alba, a Spanish Jewish Bible which was translated from the Vulgate but with preference for the Hebrew text when differences were noted. The nature of the work and the rabbi's willingness to do it show the harmony which existed between Jews and Christians of the period in Spain. Codices containing the Bible and other texts like the Haggadah also began to be decorated, some with sacred objects and symbols, others with knights or animals, and still others with script and illuminations inspired by Muslim art.

These developments mark the adaptability of Judaism and, indeed, religion itself in medieval Europe. Not only was this a time during which scholars were exploring questions about faith and scripture, but it was also a time in which ideas from secular life and competing traditions could be integrated into part of one’s religion. While the Middle Ages were certainly no bastion of religious tolerance, this idea does stand in opposition to thoughts of medieval religion as completely intolerant of outside ideas.

Divisive Portrayals of Sacred Characters

Today we see around us interactions of world religions on a grand scale, sometimes tolerant, sometimes destructive. In the United States in particular, there exists much disagreement over the treatment of different religious groups. The suspicions felt by some Christian groups toward Islam come prominently to mind in the light of extremist terrorism. Some of these tensions come undoubtedly from the fact that the two groups believe different details and stories about the same religious figures and events, and there is nothing new here. Centuries ago, while Christians and Muslims were acknowledging their similarities, they were also speaking in confusion about what they saw as incorrect interpretations of the sacred stories and characters they had in common.

One such story is the Childhood of Jesus as it is presented in both the Qur’an and apocryphal Christian texts such as the Pseudo-Gospel of Matthew and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which were popular in the Middle Ages. In each tradition, Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, created birds from clay and brought them to life, but differences were present in details such as Mary’s suffering at the birth of Jesus and the way Christ spoke as an infant to comfort her in the Qur'an. Medieval Christians, on the other hand, believed in a peaceful picture of the birth of Christ and did not believe he spoke during infancy.

Each group found the other strange for telling "untrue" stories about familiar figures, but ultimately, as seen in the fourteen-century writings of Sir John Mandeville, similarities were exploited for the purpose of conversion. The point here is that for one reason or another, suspicions have always been present and can hinge on even slight details of belief. Even tiny differences in portrayals can be used by one group to demonstrate sacrilege in the other. In her article "Jesus and the Birds in Medieval Abrahamic Traditions," Mary Dzon states that the story of Jesus and the clay birds was "a multivalent trope used by different faiths to undercut competing groups perceived as challenging to the integrity of one's own religious tradition," (230) and such rhetoric can be used across religious in a wide variety of tales regarding sacred characters and events.

Constantine and Law in Developing Christianity

The story of Constantine's influence in the development and establishment of Christianity is one with which most are familiar. He prayed to the Christian God for military victory, fought a surprisingly successful battle, and then championed the religion until his death. He thereby lifted Christians out of persecution and permanently changed the religious landscape of Europe. However, there is more to his story than this, particularly in the way in which he set the stage for Christianity's interaction with politics. After giving Christians his support and openly praising their God, Constantine continued to heavily involve himself with the affairs of the Church to the point of being the deciding factor in establishing significant aspects of the beliefs of today. In his book Constantine's Bible, David Dungan tells the story of Constantine's relationship with Christianity and the impact his politics had on the idea of canon.

Without Constantine's intervention in the Church, the shape of modern Christianity would probably be considerably more varied. Constantine solved theological disputes among bishops, such as the argument over whether Christ was the same as or subordinate to God, by careful use of his political power, wealth, and understanding of social nuance. Moreover, he effectively eradicated "heretics," groups like the Gnostics, the Marcionites, the Montanists, etc., which could have survived without his imposition and perhaps contributed to a more diverse Christian history. He outlawed heretic teachings, of course, but his masterful use of scripture on this front solidified the trajectory of the religion. He commissioned fifty Bibles from Eusebius of Caesarea according to the books which Eusebius declared universally acknowledged by the Catholic Church. During his time, this move set the standard for acceptable Christian texts and forced any Christian official who wanted to keep his standing to fall in line with and make use of this public grouping.

In the long run, Constantine's standing within the church as well as his political power brought legality into the equation. Like the law, the Bible and Christianity became black-and-white under his influence, and thereby he removed much flexibility and replaced it with force. Intertwining Christianity and the law led to the idea of the religion as solid, definite, and without variations. Constantine's marriage of political office and Christianity was therefore one of the deciding factors in the religion's organization and consistency.

The Simultaneous Rise of Christianity and Its Texts

While the modern Bible and Christianity are highly organized and institutionalized today, such a situation was not always the case, and much variety and disorder necessarily preceded the present state of order. The early Christian movement as it was in the first century CE was disorganized for a number of reasons, such as physical separation and doctrinal differences, and the latter of these was due in no small part to the multitude of texts circulating and being written at the time. As Timothy Beal states in The Rise and Fall of the Bible, Christian writing was broad, varied, and perhaps most interestingly, contemporary.

Naturally, the many Christian texts of the time were being written by authors of different beliefs and backgrounds, so they reflected different ideals as seen in the now-canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, versus texts like the Gospel of Thomas, a sayings gospel which lists 114 sayings of Jesus, making it a different genre of Gospel entirely. While many variations on the life and times of Jesus and company existed, we must understand that they were not and could not have been considered scripture. They were being written right and left by mortal hands, and seemed to contradict some message of the last. Instead, because Christianity, at that time “the Jesus movement” as Beal calls it, still considered itself a form of Judaism, texts like the Torah, some of the Prophets, and perhaps Daniel and some Psalms would have been considered scripture (99).

The texts which we now consider the New Testament, on the other hand, were still making their way. Paul’s letters were merely letters. The various Gospels and Acts were trying to find their ways as histories and explanations. The early groups would not have had access to all of the texts as they were being written either, and the texts they could access were often used to write newer ones more in line with what the writers believed to be true, just as the author of Luke readily admits at the beginning of his Gospel. Like the Lukan author, many of these writers were concerned with the idea of composing an “orderly account,” not having the divine truth revealed to them (Luke 1:3).

Rewritten Scripture in the Gospels

When we talk about ancient religious texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, we see exotic, wild texts which some isolated fringe group held dear. Such texts, of course, were dismissed by the larger communities of their time as unauthoritative in or contrary to the slowly forming lists of accepted mainline scripture. Indeed, such texts, like Jubilees, a book only accepted today in the Abyssinian Orthodox Church, are considered pseudepigraphical by scholars, meaning the authorship they claim is most likely false. In the case of Jubilees, the actual author based his writing on the stories of Genesis through the departure of Moses from Egypt, thus giving Jubilees a genre which author Sidnie White Crawford calls Rewritten Scripture in her book Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times. Jubilees and the process of rewriting scripture are seemingly far-removed from most modern audiences, and thus they come across as strange and perhaps even blasphemous to some when compared with the texts on which they were based. However, by using White’s description of the types of rewritten scriptures and motivations for making them, we can bring this process a little closer to home. 

The idea of rewritten scripture probably seems strange in large part because texts like Jubilees are not widely used and were lost to history in most traditions. The New Testament, however, particularly the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, provide an application for the idea of rewritten scripture which will be more familiar and relevant to many modern readers. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the three Gospels which are called synoptic due to the fact that they contain many similarities in their content and wording, while John tends to tell different stories in different ways. Scholars believe Matthew and Luke to be based on the shorter Mark as well as other sources and the ideologies of their authors. For example, Matthew’s author portrays Jesus as a good, observant Jew and a fulfillment of Hebrew Bible scripture while Mark is not concerned with such a portrayal. 

To compare these texts with Crawford’s theory, we must look at the typical features which she proposes rewritten scripture has: “addition, omission, re-arrangement, anticipation, changes for clarification, and harmonization (as well as translation)” (126). The non-specific example of Matthew’s observant Jewish Jesus already addresses both addition and harmonization, meaning that its author added content and tried to line the story up with the his own worldview. Other examples from this list include the clarification seen in Matthew and Luke when they describe the birth of Christ as well as omission in that there are pieces of Mark which are included in neither. However, despite some amount of alteration and rewriting before the New Testament entered the form in which we know it today, these texts still hold great authority unlike Jubilees which never gained their widely accepted status. As such, Matthew and Luke seem to fall along Crawford’s spectrum of rewritten texts at the point where manipulation of the original is extensive enough for a new work to be formed, but the base text can still be identified, and the author still claims the same derivation of authority as the base text. Such manipulations demonstrate the relationships which authors had with the texts of their times and the gradual process of coming to understand a text as unalterable and authoritative scripture.

Biblical Figures and Their Places in History

In the first part of his book How the Bible Became Holy, Michael Satlow discusses the idea that the Bible has not always been a book of reverence and absolute authority. As such, he explains the likely historical events, as well as the people behind them, which paved the way for the Bible's current status as a holy and authoritative text. This facet of the book, the treatment of religious figures as strictly historical, opens space for discussion of how biblical characters dealt with the social and political climate of the ancient Near East, and how history, displacement, war, and power all shaped the Bible as we know it today.

One point of Satlow’s book which emphasizes the idea of the Bible’s creation and sanctification as a process is how he discusses the various successes and failures of Biblical figures. He includes Ezra and Nehemiah as prime examples, and these characters, each boasting his own book in the Bible, were not as successful as the finished product paints them. The authors of their books were sympathetic to their causes, so naturally they appear to accomplish much while their failures are more ambiguous.

Ezra the scribe, who was confrontational towards the settled community when he returned to Jerusalem to re-establish the law, ultimately saw little success in his endeavors and then proceeded to drop off the map. That is, we do not know what became of him or his legal rulings after the ending report of his book. In such a case, “one would think that the author, who was certainly sympathetic to Ezra, would have informed us if Ezra was successful” (83-84). Nehemiah, a Persian functionary, came with similar goals in mind. However, he was rivaled by Biblical enemies who worshiped the same God in different ways. Against such established individuals and the customs they represented, Nehemiah saw failure as well, and “it is very easy to imagine that as soon as Nehemiah leaves the scene the people revert right back to what they were doing” (91). He and Ezra had only so much political power and could not go about splitting families or destroying the social order without negative personal and political consequences.

The major take-away here is that biblical writers had personal agendas, too. Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah implemented enduring reforms, yet their ambiguous endings and the interested authors of their stories give more hope to these records than seems to have been available. Though Ezra and Nehemiah were almost certainly pious, devout individuals, wrestling with established political and cultural customs was out of their depths.I find such a discussion of biblical characters refreshing and useful in that it encourages readers to consider them as real people with complex social and political agendas. Understanding them as such also brings about greater appreciation for the historical condition of the ancient Near East and the place of the Jews within it.