THE BIBLE — Jim Pons

When you are confronted by evidence that the faith in which you were brought up no longer provides an adequate explanation for your life, you have three choices. You can refuse to accept the evidence and preserve your faith as it was. You can abandon the faith because it has proved to be inadequate. Or you can accept new knowledge and develop a more mature understanding of your faith. Diarmuid O'Murchu

I’ve always been fascinated by a book that claims to be the Word of God. I go back to it from time to time to refresh my memory, or maybe find something I didn’t understand before. It is full of beauty and inspiration. But I continue to wonder about it’s historical accuracy and ambiguous authorship.

I’m well aware of the Bible’s claim of divine inspiration. But in truth, it is a collection of sixty-six books, by different authors from different countries, some written as early as 1000 years before Jesus lived. Their stories had been passed down by oral tradition over the centuries and finally recorded by scribes who could write, and others who could remember what they were told.

We have no original version of the Bible. What we have are copies of different pages, and sometimes copies of copies. Is it possible there are passages that were honest mistakes of memory? Worse, were some of them modified to say things the authors thought more important for the faith of believers?

It would do us well to remember that much of the Bible was written near the end of the Bronze Age, when the sky was an inverted bowl and the Ocean of Heaven above it was the dwelling place of God.

I have no doubt that men of those times were hearing from God. We all do. Throughout history, humankind has attempted to explain the supernatural world within the framework of knowledge possessed at any given time. But God can’t reveal more to us than we are able to receive, and he couldn’t for those who wrote the Bible. So wouldn’t that mean there could be more to learn about God and about life than was first written?

Even if nothing new is written and scriptures are deemed final why can’t our understanding of scriptures change? Why, for instance, must a person in the 21st Century believe the creation story the way Moses told it 3,000 years ago? Why? Because once we start examining the evidence we might need to make a correction in God’s Word. That can’t happen. It could lead to inquiries about other portions of scripture. An old earth suggests the evolution of life which raises questions about a “fall” of man. And that can’t happen either. So, stuck in our circular reasoning, the Bible becomes less and less applicable to our lives. It’s sad. I’ll never forget when, in the sixth grade, Father Harris told me the Bible was my roadmap. All I had to do was follow it. But I read this the other day. Trying to live your life according to the Bible is like driving from St. Louis to Portland with a map of the Oregon Trail.

The tragedy is, if we allowed it, our understanding of life and the amazing discoveries of Quantum Physics could show us a perfectly unified world and a God who enables us all with the power that Jesus had. We say we want it. The Church says we get it by believing Jesus died for our sins. 30% of the world’s population does that. How has that been working for us?

The first thing we need is a desire for truth that is greater than preserving our beliefs. There were other books besides the bible that told a very different kind of Christianity. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus said, “I am not your master”. And, “He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am, and I myself will become him.” And, “When you come to know yourselves you will realize that it is you who are sons of the living Father.” That book was among many destroyed by the early church so that no one could read them.

What Jesus meant was, God is in us the same way he was in him. It is the great truth the Bible doesn’t teach. Too bad. It’s the truth that Jesus said would one day set us free.