The Freethinkers Forum meets once a week, and although I rarely have a free night to attend, I’m glad when I can be there. The Freethinkers live up to their name, they always set me to thinking. Last evening the presenter was a young man who was addressing the question of whether the Bible can be used as moral guide. He did a very good job sharing his thoughts on the topic, as evidenced by the fact that I’m still mulling over my perceptions of the Bible and morality.
First, I wonder what Bible are we addressing, and in whose hands is it being used as a moral tool? The Hebrew Bible? The Catholic version which adds both the apochrypha and the New Testament? Or, the stripped down Protestant version? The presenter took his examples of immoral behavior from the Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the Old Testament. But, he discovered in conversations with conservative Christians that they hold the ‘moral truths’ of the Old Testament as equal to those in the New Testament. At least one person commented that he’d been taught that the teachings of Jesus supplanted the Old Testament, reflecting my own experience. Choosing to elevate to Old Testament as a moral guide allows conservative Christians to lend the moral weight of the Bible to God-approved wars and laws that deny civil rights to gays.
The Freethinkers agreed that war, rape, and homophobia were sanctioned by the Old Testament. We agreed that those three were immoral. But, we didn’t address the question of Judaism. Jews, of course, rely only on the Hebrew Bible for their religious formation. Yet, Judaism is in many ways a religion of ethical behavior. I was left wanting to discover how the Hebrew Bible interacts with the moral development of believing Jews. That led me to wonder how any version of the Bible affects the behaviors of Christians whose actions for peace, freedom and justice inspire my own hopes for moral behavior.
My acquaintance with the Protestant version of the Bible leads me to believe that it is almost infinitely malleable — that I can bend it’s words and stories to my whim and will. Yet, I’m still intrigued to know what happens when people go to that source and find there inspiration for moral behaviors of the highest order.
The Freethinkers offered something to think about, and an impetus to further research. A rare ‘free evening’ well spent.
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March 17, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Hazel Blumberg
Obviously, I need to come to Freethinkers!
I can’t even conceive of the Bible as any sort of moral teacher or arbiter. It seems like such a confused jumble to me. For me, “the Bible” equals the Old Testament (the only Testament, if you were raised Jewish, as I was). And that was loaded with tales of seemingly helpless people in the hands of a seemingly angry, vengeful, and arbitrary god. Sacrifice your son? Sure. Sacrifice animals? Sure. Get punished for astonishing lengths of time for no particular reason? Sure. Pick one or both of two creation stories at the very outset? Sure. Send your lover’s husband to the front lines so you can covet the woman and then be praised as “god’s man”? Sure.
Whenever I hear someone say, to bolster his or her worldview, “The Bible says that . . .,” I cringe. Not only is the Bible a mess, and not only do we have to ask whether we’re looking at the Protestant or Catholic or Hebrew Bible, but we also have to ascertain which translation or translation of a translation we’re talking about. Which language? Aren’t we losing something every time we translate and re-translate? Does anyone really know what the original Bible–is there such a thing?–had to say? Isn’t every language so nuanced that, across the centuries, we may have no idea what the original writers meant?
For me, the Bible is something I was forced to read in Hebrew school (in English translation, of course), something I had to read for biblical allusions when I majored in German and English. It never meant anything real to me. It was never anything upon which to base my own actions. I remain astounded that anyone finds moral and ethical guidance in such a book.