I’ve been reading some books praised by Ben Spackman. I reviewed one last week, in a way, and I’m on to the next, which has the same title as this post. Below, I borrow some from Amazon.
- When Western readers hear Paul exhorting women to “dress modestly,” we automatically think in terms of sexual modesty. But most women in that culture would never wear racy clothing. The context suggests that Paul is likely more concerned about economic modesty–that Christians not flaunt their wealth through expensive clothes, braided hair and gold jewelry.
- Some readers might assume that Moses married “below himself” because his wife was a dark-skinned Cushite. Actually, Hebrews were the slave race, not the Cushites, who were highly respected. Aaron and Miriam probably thought Moses was being presumptuous by marrying “above himself.”
- Western individualism leads us to assume that Mary and Joseph traveled alone to Bethlehem. What went without saying was that they were likely accompanied by a large entourage of extended family.
- Grace and Faith, as talked about by Paul, probably modeled the Roman Patron system (familiar to us from the movie The Godfather).
One of the best examples of how we misread the scriptures by looking at them through our modern, western lenses, is the story of Moses and Miriam and Aaron when his Cushite wife shows up. Many think of that as a reaction to his having a second wife (other than Jethro’s daughter) or to the fact that by being from Cush she was Black and he was Hebrew (with the implication that by being Black she wasn’t as good).
However, look at how Aaron and Miriam react. It isn’t, “look how he demeans himself” or “look how evil he was as a polygamist” — instead it is “hey, we are just as good as Moses.” In the ancient society Moses was in, the Cushites were much higher status than the Hebrews, the heart of upper Nile civilization and society. Moses was a prince once, and by his marriage to the Cushite wife he creates an image that he is taking up that position again that Miriam and Aaron react against.
The book itself is limited. But the concept, that we read the scripture through a lens of our own culture — and that the people in the Bible lived their lives through a lense of their own culture — and that both of us sometimes miss the gospel and what God wants for us as a result — is worth understanding.
Abraham is not out home teaching. When Deborah the prophet judges Israel for years, she isn’t acting as the backroom counselor for her assumed husband. When Isaiah is a nobel and in the court of the king, he isn’t an outsider. When Jeremiah is a goat herder and God calls him, he really means it when he asks God “why me a nobody?” Sometimes the flaws presented in the text are the flaws that the writers intend to talk about, sometimes what we see as flaws, the authors do not or see as different flaws than we do.
That is a step to seeing the scriptures and learning from them what God intends us to understand.
Questions and thoughts:
- What story in the Bible do you think most people get wrong?
- How often do you notice others reading into the Bible things that are not there from their own backgrounds or thoughts?
- How often do you notice yourself reading things into the Bible?
- When you looked at the four examples from Richards and O’Brien (who wrote the book I’m referencing) did any of them surprise you?
- If you were teaching the Old Testament this year, what is the one cultural mistake “everyone” makes that you would want to correct in how they approach the text?
In some of Greg Prince’s interviews, he says that we are a hundred years behind on biblical scholarship. Not only are we clinging to a literal interpretation of everything, we also view it through a restoration lense. We see Old Testament as predicting both New Testament, Book of Mormon and Restoration. We’ve chosen to cherry pick verses and stories that confirm these things and we are not very interested in reading what the text actually has to say and what linguists, archeologists and scholars can teach us about what’s been going on during the last 100 plus years. I wish we could acknowledge that Joseph Smith recognized the problems with the King James Bible and his translation was an effort to fix those problems, but was not perfect. There are so many good translations out there and we stick with the King James, which I think is unfortunate. During Young Men’s last week we were reading the parable of the talents from Matthew. Each young man read a verse and the language of the KJV made it virtually incomprehensible. I was following along on my NIV app and was amazed how much better the young men would have understood it and grasped the message if it was acceptable to use another version. I also think that there are complex and beautiful messages in the Old Testament that we usually miss because we use 90% of them to teach the importance of obedience. Job discusses the perplexing question of why bad things happen to people who are checking all the boxes and we don’t get easy answers. There are puns and word plays that make it clear this is a metaphor and presented to answer the question of why the Jews were not saved and went into captivity in Babylon. There are also a lot of euphemisms in the KJV that go right over people’s heads, i.e. “uncovering feet” in Ruth. People in the OT were seducing and tricking to get ahead and drinking to celebrate. Also, a difficult reality for Mormons in the OT is that certain doctrinal elements are virtually absent, which makes scholars point to them as later theological developments. This throws a wrench in our restoration spokes. Satan is barely mentioned and is featured in the Book of Job as more of an advisor in God’s court. There is little or no theology about an afterlife. All evidence seems to indicate that the Pentateuch was not a history, but something written much later, synthesizing different sources to make a story about the founding of Israel. These things all raise tough questions for our theology and I think that is the reason why we have totally avoided them and stuck our heads in the sand. If we could learn about the bible and these problems, I think it would give people the tools to handle difficult LDS historical issues that are weighing on the minds of so many members.
Also, I wish we could be more realistic about the temple in the OT and acknowledge it was NOTHING like the temple rituals we practice today. I remember being shocked when I actually read what they did in the ancient temple and realized it was not like an endowment session. Both cultures placed an emphasis on the temple, but I think a lot of people come away thinking that the OT temple was exactly like ours without the film.
The significance of copyright issues and Bible versions is huge and often missed. It is why published sermons often have KJV when the oral versions did not.
https://bible.org/netbible/index.htm?pre.htm
To quote from that link:
The Problem: It’s difficult to quote a modern Bible translation legally
Bible.org’s ministry objective is to be used by God to mature Christians worldwide. To accomplish this we needed to quote a modern Bible translation in the production of thousands of trustworthy Bible Study resources that could be offered on the Internet for free.
We predicted in 1995 that the number of Bible verses quoted in these studies would soon surpass available legal permission limits. We tried for a year, but could not obtain the necessary permissions.
Lack of a legal ability to quote the Bible online makes online Bible studies impossible and threatened bible.org’s “Ministry First” model.
Quite simply the only way we could secure permission to quote a modern Bible was to sponsor a new translation – the NET Bible. We now want to ensure that other ministries and authors don’t experience the same roadblocks.
The NET Bible is not just for bible.org, but for everyone.
You may ask (as we have): “Why not just make the NET Bible public domain? Wouldn’t that solve the problem?” It does solve the permission problem but stifles ministry another way. When a publisher prints a public domain KJV they pay no royalties to anyone, but they still make millions of dollars in revenue – and don’t have to spend any of that money on ministry or charity.
We didn’t create the NET Bible to save royalties for such publishers. We think a better approach is to leverage copyright laws to ensure that anyone selling NET Bibles must support ministry.
That link is grossly overstating the issue. All of the modern translations I am aware of have extremely liberal fair use policies–allowing 500 verses is the norm, and some allow 1,000.
I was about to say some of what felixfabulous said, so I will just give a nod to him/her.
I find this very interesting. Thanks for sharing Stephen. It does lead me to think the church pushes so hard for constantly reading the scriptures, but doesn’t really give much “training” on how to interpret. Seminary and Institute do a bit, but not enough it would seem for an adult. I don’t see any hint of where to go find more scholarship and in fact I would say it is discouraged to look beyond anything at Deseret Books.
Thanks for the nod, Happy Hubby. I agree that we push for people to read the scriptures, but shy away from textual scholarship. What I would say is taught, encouraged and practiced is a modified form of bibliomancy, where the reader seeks an answer, opens to a random verse and applies that verse to his or her current need. I’m not saying that God cannot speak to people this way, but I think we are really missing out by not engaging with the scholarship.
Felixfabulous: yes yes indeed. I shocked someone once by not only pointing out that the Jewish temple was not for sealing (or marriage of any kind), but that even if it were, Solomon would have been sealing himself to pagan wives.
And count me in for another side-eye glance at literalist interpretation of scripture. I realize this isn’t everyone’s experience, but I taught a GD lesson on Job where I flat out said it was allegory/parable, and that the alternative of our God literally conspiring with Satan to torture a believer was monstrous. Didn’t get released, so it must have gone over ok with leadership.
The most obvious mis-reading in my experience with others is the “add to/take away” from Revelation; as well as “only 12 Apostles”.
Great post and discussion. felixfabulous is right about all of the richness and complexity that we miss. I think orthodox Mormonism has evolved (note the ironic use of that word) into a religion where any kind of complexity, doubt, subtlety etc. is frowned upon and regarded with suspicion, rather than welcomed and regarded as providing depth and context. I’m sure we’ve all noticed how simple leadership likes to keep things. I’ve got two questions for the commenters at large, if they’ll indulge me:
1) Do you think that Mormon literalism (when it comes to scriptural interpretation) is aligned with, or even the root cause of, the church’s traditional anti-intellectual stance? When I hear folks not wanting to study or work out the complexities or contradictions or paradoxes of scripture, my first response is: What are you afraid of? And then my second response is to wonder if the emphasis on obedience is designed to minimize/dismiss whatever questions we may have. I know that sounds kind of Orwellian, but I’m just wondering what other folks think.
2) Why do so many historical inaccuracies (like the ones about the temple mentioned above) seem to persist so strongly? Clearly, as some have mentioned, it’s part of the whole restorationist rhetoric. But if the church really is the restored church of Christ, why WOULDN’T we be interested in and committed to learning all we can about his time, his life, etc.? Because it seems to me that we have a very sanitized (ergo false, or at least incomplete) view of things as it stands. And is that really the problem? Do our leaders themselves believe that members couldn’t deal with the truth and so try to obscure or oversimplify it? Just sort of wondering what folks are thinking about this.
Begging the question much?
In “The Bible Tells Me So,” Peter Enns (which I also saw recommended by Ben Spackman) says that the Canaanites weren’t the worst sinners ever. Many others were just as bad. So condoning God’s command to destroy them all – men, women and children – on the basis of their outrageous wickedness (including child sacrifice) doesn’t really work.
“Eventually we must confront the truth. However immoral the Canaanites were, the real problem isn’t what they did, but where they did it.”
And the modern impulse to “get God off the hook” with a justification doesn’t work. Enns says, “we need to step outside of the Bible and into the world of the Bible.”
Well, the original individual suggesting the books is active LDS. I heard from the wife of a seventy that she had read and enjoyed this book several years ago.
I think much of the resistance comes from a lack of interest.
FARMS used to stock and resell books like these. They eventually gave up and the books were a steal on clearance.
Some people find the material interesting. Many are just “meh” and n it.
I own and have read this book. It had a lot of good points. Studying the scriptures in context and in light of the cultural time of when written really adds so much. Several years ago I gave a talk in stake conference about the parable of the prodigal son and used many of the insights gained from this article: https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-parable-of-the-benevolent-father-and-son/ It wasn’t just a recitation of the parable and interesting facts but a real plea for mercy in our lives (extending it) using the insights from that parable. I remember when I first starting studying the parables through eyes of that time I learned more about that parable from that one article than my entire life studying it through correlated material. It was exciting and is exciting to study the scriptures when you open it up so much.
I echo what felixfabulous said. Well done.
One problem we have with moving away from the KJV and diving into Biblical scholarship is that some of our core doctrines are dependent upon KJV wording or Joseph’s misunderstanding of the Bible. Our Elias/Elijah separation, baptism for the dead, eternal marriage, Satan as Lucifer, and pre-mortal existence come to mind. We support these doctrines through tortured readings of the Bible, taking scripture out of context, and not engaging with modern Biblical scholarship. Were we to modernize, the Biblical scriptural support for those doctrines would vanish, leaving us with only modern support, which was built on the outdated Biblical understanding.
Serious problems.
Well. We are in really good company with some of the readings.
http://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-29.htm
From the NET Bible notes:
sn Many suggestions have been offered for the puzzling expression baptized for the dead. There are up to 200 different explanations for the passage; a summary is given by K. C. Thompson, “I Corinthians 15,29 and Baptism for the Dead,” Studia Evangelica 2.1 (TU 87), 647-59. The most likely interpretation is that some Corinthians had undergone baptism to bear witness to the faith of fellow believers who had died without experiencing that rite themselves. Paul’s reference to the practice here is neither a recommendation nor a condemnation. He simply uses it as evidence from the lives of the Corinthians themselves to bolster his larger argument, begun in 15:12, that resurrection from the dead is a present reality in Christ and a future reality for them. Whatever they may have proclaimed, the Corinthians’ actions demonstrated that they had hope for a bodily resurrection.
I can’t see that as good support for your position Cody.
What story in the Bible do you think most people get wrong? Going to go with Job and Jonah; both are excellent examples of OT metaphor/allegory/parable style found throughout the Bible. They are not real events. Also the Five Books of Moses were not written by Moses and were most like written long after the time of Moses.
When you looked at the four examples from Richards and O’Brien did any of them surprise you? Yes, the whole Moses and the Cushites wife. Never really gave it much thought, not much to work with but was interesting.
“If you were teaching the Old Testament this year, (O I wish I was), what is the one cultural mistake “everyone” makes that you would want to correct in how they approach the text” I would remind people that we are talking about bronze age people in a bronze age world, a world very different from what we have today, and to not put modern values and morals onto those people. And to remind people we are only getting the Cliff Note version of events that took place hundreds of years before they were put to paper, by people with political and social agendas.
I have read several of Enns’ books — he does a great job presenting serious scriptural scholarship to a popular audience. Most of the problems he sees with the way conservative Christians and Evangelicals misread the Bible apply directly to how LDS misread the Bible. So his books are great reads for Mormons trying to up their scriptural game.
felixfabulous, I disagree that Mormons are one hundred years behind on biblical scholarship. I think we are three hundred years behind.
I am by nature a story teller, a fan of folklore. Like Mark Twain I never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Especially at church.
People have different agendas. Some of a scholarly bent want to get as close to reality as possible even if it takes 300 years. (But reality sucks). Others want to entertain or else teach principles in line with their own bias. Others want money or power or the popularity of being thought of as smart or informed.
I love the Old Testament precisely because it is next to impossible to comprehend. We are free to make it say anything we want. Look at the list of ~ 40 specific translations of the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham and compare them with what modern scholars think they mean. Joseph Smith didn’t even guess one of them right. It is safe to say there is not a single word that is true in all of his explanations.of these facsimiles, We could take “follow the prophet” to a new level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_appraisal_of_the_Book_of_Abraham
What is my agenda? To help people get through the difficulties of life and prepare the next generation for them. People get plenty of concrete instruction in school or elsewhere. What is missing is folklore and story telling, far more powerful motivating forces. And it builds community better than instruction. Does the literal meaning of the Bible do this? Maybe not. So who gets to generate the new folklore for each generation? The artists and poets? TV and Hollywood?That also could better be the job of the prophets. But our current batch of prophets do not seem to be up to (or down to) the job. Paul Dunn was the last one to try but he got his folklore too personal and all tangled up in literalisms. He did keep the youth of my generation in the church, something that is not happening now. So we are stuck with the tedious, boredom, pablum, whatever you call it..
My favorite misunderstood or neglected story in the Bible is the one about Balaam’s ass. One can take it in so many directions with generous allegorical helpings, some light and humorous and others mockingly profound. A second favorite event is King Saul’s seance when he uses black magic (necromancy) to summon the ghost of the dead prophet Samuel who tells him the awful truth of his impending death and that of his son.
FabFelix
I have to disagree, My Harpercollins Study Bible has dozens and dozens of references to restored LDS temple.
Stephen, you’re on my reading list. I also blogged about this book here: https://wheatandtares.org/2013/10/15/rules-vs-relationships/
The most frequent LDS biblical interpretive error is our tendency completely to ignore the poets, because they never yield easy doctrinal nuggets, and because they are sometimes too racy. That style of scripture is unique to the Bible (in our canon), and it’s a real shame it gets only occasional, sidelong mention.