Scan barcode
A review by tajeip
A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths by John Barton
5.0
If ever you have interacted with a theologically motivated argument in support of a certain position, you will probably have come across a biblical citation as evidence for the claim. One thing you might notice in that is how oblique these biblical references tend to be. For instance, the entire institution of the papacy and the overwhelming power it wields are based on the single following line:
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
The Catholic interpretation is that the church and papacy are the "rock" Jesus describes, hence legitimating its power in the practice of Christian believers. While this is a possible allegorical interpretation of the passage, it does not really strike us as the most likely meaning of the text nor its intended message. This is the phenomenon that this book seeks to explain, by way of detour through the entirety of biblical history and interpretation.
The first problem the author accounts for is the problem of genre. The Bible, despite being seen as a set of instructions on Jewish and Christian practice, is not a list of laws. Most of it is narrative, concerning the travails of Israel and the prophets (Old Testament) or Jesus (New). In the best cases, it is hard to extract concrete prescriptions from narrative text, and this problem is compounded in the Bible's multiplicity of narratives. The NT presents particular problems in this regard. It is easy to forget that the NT is kind of a frame narrative: one level are the recorded sayings of Jesus, and another is the prose description of the events given by the author. There is evidence, the author argues, that early Christians viewed only the former as important, and would quote the sayings of Jesus in the NT but not the text of the NT itself (sort of like a History SBQ where the author of an interview is the person being quoted not the one who conducted the interview). The modern churches, however, have canonised both of these narrative levels, which is an interesting departure from early Christian practice.
The second problem is that the Bible is not an entirely rigorously self-consistent text. The most famous example of this is in the question of how a believer is saved: whether through faith alone (Luther and subsequent Protestants) or through faith and good works (Catholics). The book of James in the OT seems to endorse the Catholic position, whereas Paul's letters to the Romans in the NT argue for the Protestant stand. Similarly, the various letters of Paul seem to offer different views on the question of the trinity which is now central to Christian belief: in contrast to the orthodox trinitarian position, some letters show a subordationist tendency, which holds that Christ the Son is subordinate to God the Father, while others express an adoptionist view, which suggests that Jesus of Nazareth did not become the son of God until the point of crucifixion. The clearest example of this incongruity is the four canonic gospels accepted by all Christian denominations. The gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John all claim to be authoritative accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, but differ in clear and important ways (John, for instance, claims that Jesus made multiple trips to Jerusalem where the prior three account for only one).
These two problems lead the author to claim that Christianity is not exclusively a scriptural religion. There are many key church doctrines that cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, or are found in such a tangential way as to seem suspect. The doctrine of the trinity, for instance — which holds that God is one entity in three co-equal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — receives only two mentions in the entire NT (in Matthew and John), and both are widely agreed to be subsequent additions by medieval authors not present in the original text.
The author's argument on non-scripturality, however, is importantly not an indictment of Christianity (or Judaism). Plenty of religions are non-scriptural, finding basis for their faiths in tradition and custom, rather than (solely) in holy texts. The author merely argues that Christianity needs to recognise itself as such. In fact, at the time of the writing of the NT (c. 2nd century AD), non-scripturality was seen as a strength, and it was believed that Jesus' sayings were more important than the writings of the OT precisely because they were not captured in those books. Fundamentalist claims to practise Christianity sola scriptura (according to scripture alone) are thus untenable and problematic.
One other section of the book I found interesting discussed the differences between Jewish and Christian approaches to the OT. Often, it is thought that the two faiths agree on the OT, with Christianity simply "adding on" the NT, but this view is highly misleading. For one, Jews tend to see the OT as a historical record, which documents the life and times of the Israelite kingdoms and prophets, thus forming the national literature of Israel. In contrast, Christians tend to strongly allegorise the OT. One particularly striking example is from the Book of Psalms:
"Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (Psalms 137:8-9)
This, quite clearly, is a denunciation of Babylon by the Israelites (between whom there was strong enmity because of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem) and Judaism regards it as such. Christian writers, however, have never quite been comfortable with the implication of infanticide the Psalm suggests, and thus read it in an allegoric mode. To Christians, Babylon represents the Devil, and its infants, the seeds of sin, which must be dashed against the rock (Jesus) before they grow in evil. This highly metaphorical reading of the OT is carried through several other places, replacing the rather more literal Jewish interpretation.
Jews and Christians also differ on the overall meaning of the OT and which parts they emphasise. Some key Christian stories, such as that of Adam and Eve, are present in the Jewish Hebrew Bible, but not given nearly the same level of importance (hence why Judaism does not preach the doctrine of original sin which Christianity derives from this story). Similarly, Christians tend to see the OT as a prediction of the coming of Jesus which the NT fulfils, while Jews see the messianic prophecies as remaining unfulfilled. Christians likewise see the OT as having an overall thematic message — of sin, hope and redemption — while Jews do not read any overall meaning from the text. Finally, while Judaism sees the books of the OT as being part of a clear hierarchy, with the Torah (the first five books) as primary, the books known as the Prophets as secondary, and the Writings as tertiary, Christians make no such distinctions and see the whole of the OT as equally important. Functionally, then, the Hebrew Bible and Christian OT might as well be seen as separate works in the way they are interpreted.
If that very long and slightly meandering review sort of obscured the point, this is a very good book which I would highly recommend.
"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18)
The Catholic interpretation is that the church and papacy are the "rock" Jesus describes, hence legitimating its power in the practice of Christian believers. While this is a possible allegorical interpretation of the passage, it does not really strike us as the most likely meaning of the text nor its intended message. This is the phenomenon that this book seeks to explain, by way of detour through the entirety of biblical history and interpretation.
The first problem the author accounts for is the problem of genre. The Bible, despite being seen as a set of instructions on Jewish and Christian practice, is not a list of laws. Most of it is narrative, concerning the travails of Israel and the prophets (Old Testament) or Jesus (New). In the best cases, it is hard to extract concrete prescriptions from narrative text, and this problem is compounded in the Bible's multiplicity of narratives. The NT presents particular problems in this regard. It is easy to forget that the NT is kind of a frame narrative: one level are the recorded sayings of Jesus, and another is the prose description of the events given by the author. There is evidence, the author argues, that early Christians viewed only the former as important, and would quote the sayings of Jesus in the NT but not the text of the NT itself (sort of like a History SBQ where the author of an interview is the person being quoted not the one who conducted the interview). The modern churches, however, have canonised both of these narrative levels, which is an interesting departure from early Christian practice.
The second problem is that the Bible is not an entirely rigorously self-consistent text. The most famous example of this is in the question of how a believer is saved: whether through faith alone (Luther and subsequent Protestants) or through faith and good works (Catholics). The book of James in the OT seems to endorse the Catholic position, whereas Paul's letters to the Romans in the NT argue for the Protestant stand. Similarly, the various letters of Paul seem to offer different views on the question of the trinity which is now central to Christian belief: in contrast to the orthodox trinitarian position, some letters show a subordationist tendency, which holds that Christ the Son is subordinate to God the Father, while others express an adoptionist view, which suggests that Jesus of Nazareth did not become the son of God until the point of crucifixion. The clearest example of this incongruity is the four canonic gospels accepted by all Christian denominations. The gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John all claim to be authoritative accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, but differ in clear and important ways (John, for instance, claims that Jesus made multiple trips to Jerusalem where the prior three account for only one).
These two problems lead the author to claim that Christianity is not exclusively a scriptural religion. There are many key church doctrines that cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, or are found in such a tangential way as to seem suspect. The doctrine of the trinity, for instance — which holds that God is one entity in three co-equal persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — receives only two mentions in the entire NT (in Matthew and John), and both are widely agreed to be subsequent additions by medieval authors not present in the original text.
The author's argument on non-scripturality, however, is importantly not an indictment of Christianity (or Judaism). Plenty of religions are non-scriptural, finding basis for their faiths in tradition and custom, rather than (solely) in holy texts. The author merely argues that Christianity needs to recognise itself as such. In fact, at the time of the writing of the NT (c. 2nd century AD), non-scripturality was seen as a strength, and it was believed that Jesus' sayings were more important than the writings of the OT precisely because they were not captured in those books. Fundamentalist claims to practise Christianity sola scriptura (according to scripture alone) are thus untenable and problematic.
One other section of the book I found interesting discussed the differences between Jewish and Christian approaches to the OT. Often, it is thought that the two faiths agree on the OT, with Christianity simply "adding on" the NT, but this view is highly misleading. For one, Jews tend to see the OT as a historical record, which documents the life and times of the Israelite kingdoms and prophets, thus forming the national literature of Israel. In contrast, Christians tend to strongly allegorise the OT. One particularly striking example is from the Book of Psalms:
"Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks." (Psalms 137:8-9)
This, quite clearly, is a denunciation of Babylon by the Israelites (between whom there was strong enmity because of the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem) and Judaism regards it as such. Christian writers, however, have never quite been comfortable with the implication of infanticide the Psalm suggests, and thus read it in an allegoric mode. To Christians, Babylon represents the Devil, and its infants, the seeds of sin, which must be dashed against the rock (Jesus) before they grow in evil. This highly metaphorical reading of the OT is carried through several other places, replacing the rather more literal Jewish interpretation.
Jews and Christians also differ on the overall meaning of the OT and which parts they emphasise. Some key Christian stories, such as that of Adam and Eve, are present in the Jewish Hebrew Bible, but not given nearly the same level of importance (hence why Judaism does not preach the doctrine of original sin which Christianity derives from this story). Similarly, Christians tend to see the OT as a prediction of the coming of Jesus which the NT fulfils, while Jews see the messianic prophecies as remaining unfulfilled. Christians likewise see the OT as having an overall thematic message — of sin, hope and redemption — while Jews do not read any overall meaning from the text. Finally, while Judaism sees the books of the OT as being part of a clear hierarchy, with the Torah (the first five books) as primary, the books known as the Prophets as secondary, and the Writings as tertiary, Christians make no such distinctions and see the whole of the OT as equally important. Functionally, then, the Hebrew Bible and Christian OT might as well be seen as separate works in the way they are interpreted.
If that very long and slightly meandering review sort of obscured the point, this is a very good book which I would highly recommend.