An Ongoing Epiphany

[wlotus]

I am going to change how I read the Bible. I was trained from a small child to read and consider it God's perfect, infallible, literal word to humankind. For the past few years I have not known what to think, except that it was mostly written and compiled by males for males, who deliberately excluded women in many ways. But this morning I realized I could read it for what it is: certain writers' understanding of the divine, a record of certain people's experiences, and one which was interpreted from the original languages by people (usually male) far removed from the cultures and times in which the original writers lived. I would read any other collection of religious or philosophical writing that way (Upanishads, Koran, Lotus Sutra, etc.). Why not the Bible? Only because of indoctrination, that's why.

I am not a Christian because of the Bible....

Comments

[untied.livejournal.com]

if you have an opportunity to take or audit a "bible as literature" class, you may really enjoy it. not sure how hard it is to audit at the colleges near you, or if taking a single class for fun is an option, but it really is a fascinating semester if you've the time.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I would also like to take a class (or series of classes) on comparative religions. I am fascinated by the fact that some of the stories in the Bible (the virgin birth of an important person, for instance) are found in religions far older than Christianity.

[untied.livejournal.com]

i took an anthro 169 class (magic, witchcraft and religion) which was WONDERFUL. in addition to exploring individual religions, we discussed the nature, value, and development of both faith and deities in human cultures, and talked about the development of creation myths as well as other religious mythologies.

it was one of those classes that the fundies walked out of, but i loved the material and had a wonderful professor. it was both enlightening and refreshing.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I'm amused, because when I was a fundie, I would have walked out of such a class! Now I find myself wanting to take one. How my mind has broadened in the past 20 years. :-)

[untied.livejournal.com]

yeah, one of the things people took issue with was the even when i WAS a fundie i would have stayed :)

also, i don't get signing up for a class called "magic witchcraft and religion" then getting affronted when you show up. it seemed pretty clear to me what we were getting!

[(Anonymous)]

Wanda, you so inspire me, especially b/c our spiritual paths often mirror one another. Thanks for being so open with your journey... -Elizabeth

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Some people just do not read. :-)

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth, I had no idea our paths were so close. Thank you for this!

[tively-split.livejournal.com]

love the icon you picked there...

It's true that the Bible is very by-males-for-males-ish... OTOH, there's also other things to notice, if you look for them... For example, in one of the OT books about the laws / the description of the journey of the Israelites thru the desert towards Israel, there's a bit about how certain people had only daughters as inheritors, so those daughters asked if they could keep their late dad's name (or whatever it was exactly) so that that their dad's name wouldn't die out in the promised land... And God agreed to those requests, which shows that at least God isn't "gender biased"... And then there's that one law about if a woman was ravished in the city but didn't cry out for help she was deemed an accomplice or something, but if it happened in the country where it was likely there was no one around to hear her screams for help, she was presumed innocent... So the idea of a presumption of innocence isn't as new-fangled as it's made out to be, sometimes...

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

And if the woman in the city screamed for help, but no one admitted to hearing her screams, or if she did not scream because her attacker had knocked her unconscious or sufficiently cowed her into submission, then Moses' Law would have presumed she was an accomplice to her own rape, since no one (admitted they) heard her scream.

As a woman, that does not give me warm feelings about the god Moses supposedly served.

no warm feelings

[tively-split.livejournal.com]

No, I don't imagine it would. On the other hand, God isn't the person (or group of people) committing the crime, so I don't think it's too fair to blame such an event on Him... And there are other laws, such as thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not bear false witness, etc. Hmmm... First one of those isn't one of the commandments, even, I'd thought it was.

Anyway, if you're open to it, I think that many commandments and whatever in the Old Testament do have their points. Having said that, it's also true that there are certain descriptions of events and even whole books in the OT that either turn my stomach and/or I just plain hate...