Tuesday, February 15, 2011

People's Bible

People think the Bible is about God, about Creation, about Christ: Jesus, the Messiah.

Well, sure; or at least maybe. But what I see the Bible being most clearly about is people: stories they tell, stories they edit, without even knowing they're doing it: stories they change over the centuries: stories that start off saying we don't know what because we don't have any original MSS, but which wind up censoring, sometimes reversing old messages: about women's status in the early Christian Church, for example. Older scribes indicated high status for women, later redactors reverse the position back to low status: victims of systematic misogyny.

People show off their (revised) Bibles: intend them, take them, as proof (ha,ha) that they, the people, are receptive to God.

I say it shows the opposite: in many, if not all, things.



On editing the Bible to alter messages about women's status in the early Christian religion, see Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, 178 ff, 183 ff. For example, Romans 16.7 tells of a woman powerful in a Pauline church, in Paul's lifetime, named Junia. Some copies of Romans alter the name to Junias, suggesting that she was a he!

(And these Christians think God is going to put them into heaven?!?!?)

No comments:

Post a Comment