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Of late, certain developments have helped me realize that I need to clarify my position on the Bible. People sometimes write me and ask why I have such a "rigid," or "wooden," interpretation of the Bible. The reason is simple: I use the Fundamentalist's literalist approach to show how wrong it is to interpret the Bible in this way. That's not to say that Fundamentalists always use a literal approach, or that all other Christian sects--and I include in that Roman Catholicism-- always use the literal approach. They recognize that there is allegory, hyperbole and symbolism in the Bible, but on the whole they view the Bible as being the word of their god, and that us such the Bible is his infallible word. This method of interpreting the Bible is wrong and leads to some serious errors on their part.
Why do I bring up petty little details in my essays, which anyone could figure out are the product of ignorant minds who didn't know any better in the age in which the Bible was written? Because the Fundamentalist position is that the Bible contains no errors, either scientific, historical, geographical, medical, or... well, you get the picture. Here are a couple of quotes from two of the more well-known Fundamentalist Bible defenders:
"The Bible is the inerrant... Word of God. It is absolutely
infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and
practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.. (emphasis
mine)
-- Jerry Falwell,
Finding Inner Peace and Strength
(p.26)
"If the statements [the Bible] contains concerning matters of
history and science can be proven by extrabiblical records, by ancient documents
recovered through archaeological digs, or by the established facts of modern
science to be contrary to the truth, then there is grave doubt as to
its trustworthiness in matters of religion. In other words, if the
biblical record can be proved fallible in areas of fact that can be verified,
then it is hardly to be trusted in areas where it cannot be tested
," (emphasis mine)
-- Dr. Gleason Archer,
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties
(p. 23)
The above are only a brief sample out of the many I could have cited, but they show the mentality of certain Christians where the Bible is concerned. They will, in order to defend the Bible's divine inspiration, come up with the most outlandish apologetics one can imagine in order to safeguard this doctrine.
The point I'm trying to make is that the Bible is the work of a primitive people who were superstitious and ignorant and who believed in such things as talking snakes and asses, a man calling down fire from heaven, another parting a sea, God feeding a multitude of over two million people in a desert with "bread from heaven," a man being swallowed by a fish only to be regurgitated three days later, men resurrecting other men, a man-god feeding a crowd of five thousand with a basketful of fish and bread and this same man dying on a cross and then, of all things, resurrecting himself. Give me a break!
My bone of contention is with Fundamentalists--and Evangelicals--who take
this book so literally. Some of these people would dearly love to impose this
book and its morality on us. I, for one, believe this to be dangerous; a
threat to both secular and religious freedom. The Bible is not
the work of a god, infallible and absolutely without error. It is the work
of a primitive and superstitious people who thought that the god they had
dreamed up was "The One True God"(tm). I beg to differ. I'll leave you now
to ponder the words of Robert Green Ingersoll:
"All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention -- of barbarian invention -- is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would of any other, get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition -- then read the Holy bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity to be the author of such ignorance and such atrocity."
