The Bible as AUTHORITY

Okay, I just can't pass this up. My wife April has been posting on some interesting issues concerning women and "biblioblogging." Two recent posts "Gender Inequality: Is the Problem the Bible?" and "Gender is on my Mind" have resulted in some very strange and strongly worded reactions. The discussion began as being her thoughts on the fact that such a small percentage of the popular and visible "biblioblogs" are written by men - there is a very small percentage of women bibliobloggers on the Biblioblog Top 50 list. It then has expanded out to broader issues of discrimination against women and the Bible's role in it.

This part of the discussion has gotten a lot of reaction from the biblioblogging world that illustrates a point I was making in the last few days here. When discussing whether the Bible is a part (or even a focal part) of the problem of discrimination against women folk have argued against the Bible being the problem in at least of couple of ways.

One thing that comes up frequently is that other, non-biblically based cultures also discriminate against women so it is not just the Bible's fault. This misses the point completely - just because people find ways to discriminate against women in all cultures doesn't change at all the point that in western culture the Bible could be the means by which the discrimination is achieved and sustained. April writes "[m]y suspicion is that much of the male domination continues because deep in our communal psyche the bible reigns, where women are dominated by men from chapter 2 of Genesis, and depending on your interpretation of Genesis 1:27, perhaps even from chapter 1 itself." Other cultures have different things in their "communal psyches" that allows the domination to continue. But that is hardly unexpected - obviously different cultures would be expected to institutionalize this in different ways. We all have our own particular irrationalities to fight in our different traditions.

Another common reaction is to say that an apparently misogynist passage in the Bible doesn't really mean what it appears to say or has been simply "mistranslated" or "misinterpreted" to be misogynist. April says that "[f]or women to ever achieve equality in our society, our understanding of the bible and its interpretation must change." I think that is right and very important. The problem, it seems to me, boils down to the absurdity of saying that a book made up of a variety of books written by men over two thousand years ago is some "eternal Word of God" or "inerrant." That this book is a product of human culture is so obvious it is not worth arguing about. But it is so ingrained into our collective consciousness that this book has to be "right" or "true" that it truly infects our reason. Absurd claims and beliefs lead to equally absurd conclusions.

The fact is, it is okay to just say that in certain respects the Bible can be wrong. Dead wrong, about facts and morals, and even world views. People can read into the Bible pretty much anything they want, but think of this: if someone could prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Bible truly taught that women should be subordinate would that make it true? Of course not. It would mean that the Bible was WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Why is that so hard for folk to understand? The Bible is here for us - we are not here to serve the Bible. (To paraphrase a wise saying...)

Yes, it may be that liberal Bible scholars can put together translations and interpretations that decrease the amount of misogyny therein. But there will always be ambiguity. There are enough eyebrow raising passages to keep the conservatives armed forever. This attitude permeates other aspects of our society as well. No matter what biologists say Genesis will always be there for the Creationists to obsess over. It all stems from this ridiculous notion that the Bible cannot be WRONG. April is right. That attitude simply has to change. Or else Christians end up seeming like the pointed haired boss in Dilbert:



This doesn't make the Bible useless or unimportant. The Bible will always be a classic expression of human beings trying to sort out their place in world. There are powerful stories in it and passages of great truth and beauty. But there is also a fair amount of garbage. We must learn the difference. When deciding an issue we cannot rely on looking up what men 2000 years ago wrote about it and adopting their positions as "eternal" or "objective" or "Divine." We must instead look around us and use our reason, our experience, and the knowledge and wisdom we get from all kinds of sources. These sources can include the Bible, yes, but the Bible cannot be the final word. To make our way to the future we must read it and all the other great classics of humankind, but ultimately we have to look past it. We have to grow up and set down the Book.

Update: To see the Dilbert strip in full you have to click on it. I thought the thing would scale to the size of the blog entry, but I was WRONG. (See, how hard is it to admit that?)