From polygamy to the apocalypse, the Bible is full of stories that sometimes make Christians uncomfortable. Yet many believers are taught they shouldn't question scripture.
Jennifer Grace Bird wants to change that. In her latest book, the Beaverton scholar invites readers to investigate their conceptions of the Bible, raising tough questions about sex, violence, marriage, Judgment Day and more.
"When people tell me, 'Dr. Bird, I just believe the Bible,' I'm either terrified that they would say that or I need to believe they haven't actually read it and thought about it all," said Bird, who holds a doctorate degree in New Testament and Early Christianity from Vanderbilt University. She now teaches at the University of Portland and Portland Community College.
Bird was raised in the Methodist Church and had what she calls a "conservative swing" during her high school and college years while she was involved with Young Life, an Evangelical youth organization.
Scripture was of the utmost importance during those years, she said, and that passion eventually led her to Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned a master's of divinity.
"I wanted to study that for myself instead of trusting what somebody else was telling me," Bird said. Learning to read scripture in the original language and understanding the cultural context changed her perspective dramatically.
Now, through a new book titled "Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands," she tries to help readers consider tough issues for themselves, too. She wants people to think about the Bible before they live by it.
Reporter Melissa Binder sat down with Bird for a Q&A at the University of Portland to talk about the book. Bird's responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
The first issue you tackle in this book is belief in the inerrancy of scripture, which is the idea that every word in the Bible is as God intended. You say your experience with scripture is richer now that you no longer believe in inerrancy. Why?
If we are trying to see the Bible as telling us history and events as it literally took place, then we're kind of expecting it to do something that it can't actually live up to.
I think accepting it for what it is frees you up a little bit to see what's there instead of having to do these mind-bending gymnastics to make sense of these kind of blatant contradictions.
Some Christians who believe the Bible is inerrant fear a slippery slope—like if you start doubting one part of the Bible, you might doubt it all. If each story isn't accurate, how do Christians know what's true and what's not?
It's a really good question, and I don't have a quick, easy answer to that one.
I think there's an element of trusting that God is with you in that. That's what you do already—you ask God to guide you. It actually puts more of the trust on the God you know and love, versus the words on the page. I think that's freeing and actually more rich than being tied to the words.
You poke a few holes in the modern, conservative concept of Biblical marriage in this book. That usually means one man and one woman, forever. Where does that idea come from?
When people today talk about 'Biblical marriage' they are usually referring to three specific passages, and that's it. Genesis 2:24 says 'therefore man shall leave his parents and cling to his woman and they become one flesh.' That passage is drawn upon in two different New Testament passages. Jesus quotes it in Mathew chapter 19, and that gets pulled out of context. Same thing in Ephesians 5.
I don't even think that passage in Genesis 2 is about marriage, per se. I think it's about human relationships and this need for humans to leave their families and strike out on their own. Every English translation uses 'his wife,' which directs our focus to marriage. But the Hebrew doesn't justify that any more than it does 'his woman.'
What does Jesus say about marriage?
Jesus, in Matthew 19, is approached by Pharises who are interested in whether they can divorce their wives. The question itself isn't about defining marriage. The question is about this bigger complex of men marrying women and women being dependent upon them for their survival. Is it ethically OK for men to divorce their wives? That puts the women in a bind. It has way more to do with economics and justice than it does defining marriage. So Jesus references this passage from Genesis 2 to say people join together and shouldn't separate.
But what's interesting to me is that that piece is all people talk about. But the next eight verses go into Jesus about men making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom if they can handle it.
Pulling those few verses out of context do Jesus's words a disservice. There's so much more going on.
What do you make of those verses about castration?
I think it says, 'Hello people! What Jesus was talking about in the first century isn't the same as what we're dealing with today.' If Biblical marriage involves men castrating themselves, then the Christian line is going to cut off really soon. That's just silly. Different context, different time. It's not so simple.
Let's talk about Paul's letters in the New Testament, given that those are especially important books to many Christians. What surprised you there?
So, there are 13 letters attributed to Paul, seven of which we have confidence he and his buddies wrote. Of all the writings of the New Testament, those seven were written before anything else. Before we even have the gospels, we have Paul's ideas about how the Gentiles are brought into the covenant through Christ.
I feel like I have to do a mental backbend. Paul is defining Jesus's execution and resurrection as something that is salvific for Gentiles before we ever get Jesus's story in writing. Paul never met Jesus, that we know of, and yet he's the primary messenger—more so than any of the disciples of Jesus. That was shocking for me.
Before we wrap up, do we want to get into the book of Revelation?
[Laughs.] Sure. Let's go there.
This is apocalyptic literature. An apocalypse is a dream. It means 'a revealing.' We have a whole genre of apocalyptic literature in the first century. It's not trying to predict with specificity what's going to unfold at some point in our time. It was written for people in the first century, and it was written to give people who were suffering great oppression a bit of hope. That is very different from how people tend to use it.
-- Melissa Binder
mbinder@oregonian.com
503-294-7656
@binderpdx
