Cracking a book: Elizabeth Coleman on how Quakers should approach the Bible

‘You cannot use all of it as a moral guide.’

Some Quakers have little knowledge of biblical criticism. So how should we read the Bible? It is a collection of books that say many different, often contradictory, things.

Consider one example: do children suffer for their parents’ sins? Numbers 14:18 refers to God ‘visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generation’. But Ezekiel 18:20 says: ‘A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent.’

Or take a New Testament example: did Jesus advocate obeying Jewish law? Matthew 5:17 says that ‘whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments… will be called least in the kingdom of heaven’. Whereas in Mark 7:19 we have ‘he declared all foods clean’, meaning that Jesus rejected dietary laws.

Where does all this leave the ordinary reader? Clearly, you can’t take a verse out of context and say: ‘The Bible says this.’ So what can you do?

First, be honest about your reactions. Years ago I studied the Bible at Woodbrooke. It was the first time I had studied the Bible with adults, and it was a memorable time for me. I remember us reading the passage from Matthew (16:18-19) where Jesus says: ‘Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever though shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’

One member of the class said, ‘What an appalling thing to say to the founder of a church!’ This really took me aback – but they were responding intelligently and honestly to Jesus’ words, rather than with uncritical reverence. That is a good starting point.

Next, be aware that Jesus was a first-century Jew, not a Christian. Jesus was speaking primarily to other Jews, within the mind-frame of first-century Judaism. The Jewish academic Hyam Maccoby wrote that: ‘The Gospels tell us that when Jesus used expressions such as “kingdom of God” and “Messiah” he meant something quite different from the meaning attached to them by all other Jews of his time. This is inherently unlikely. If he meant something entirely different why did he use these expressions at all? Why say “dictatorship of the proletariat” when what you really mean is “God bless the Tsar”? If Jesus wanted to say that his kingdom was not of this world, that he had no political aims and that he had nothing to say against the Roman occupation of the Holy Land, why would he use expressions which were understood by the entire body of his compatriots to be political and revolutionary in meaning?’

So, be suspicious when people argue that Jesus used words like ‘Messiah’ (which is ‘Christ’ in Greek) in a way his audience would not understand.

When you read the Bible you learn not only from what is there, but also from what is not there. Much Christian doctrine developed after the time of Jesus. You will find very little in the Bible on the trinity, for example. For the first 300 years or so of Christianity, the norm was to see the Son as obedient to the Father, rather than an equal part of the Trinity. The idea of the Son’s equality with the Father became the orthodox view later on. Reading the Bible, you realise that Jesus’ hopes and expectations were not those of the producers of the Nicene Creed. He would have been very surprised by their thinking.

Jesus would have been even more astonished by the thinking of twenty-first-century Quakers. So don’t read the Bible expecting Jesus to be like us, and do not expect to agree with all that he says – he comes from a very different world from ours.

There are also contradictions between the different Gospels. Scholars argue as to which words are most likely to come from Jesus, and which are later additions. It is not easy for the ordinary reader to form judgements on this. I have come to the conclusion that, if you read the Gospels, a picture of Jesus’ life and teaching emerges, and you need not worry too much whether any one passage is true or not. Rather, take his teaching as a whole – in particular, his call for love of God and neighbour, and even of enemies. (One sidenote is that I believe Jesus was expecting the imminent end of the present world order, and the coming of the kingdom of God, and his teaching needs to be understood in this context.) Jesus’ teaching came from Judaism, and you can find it in the Hebrew Bible: see Deuteronomy 6:5 (‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might’) or Leviticus 19:17 (‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’) or Deuteronomy 10:19 (‘You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt’).

But you do have to be very selective to find these texts. If you open the Hebrew Bible randomly, you are unlikely to find them. There are other horrific bits. Take Deuteronomy 7:1-2: ‘When… you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show no mercy.’ I suggest that you just skip these bits. There were two streams of thought in the Hebrew Bible: the Deuteronomistic stream, which advocates separation from other cultures; and the Priestly stream, which advocates getting on with your neighbours. You cannot use all of the Hebrew Bible as a moral guide. Some of its teaching goes completely against our Quaker morality.

While it can be inspiring and shocking, much of the Hebrew Bible may just seem uninteresting and irrelevant. There are long lists of names, stories about obscure kings and battles, and detailed laws about temple worship or leprosy. Skip these. But do pick out the poetry and the beautiful parts, such as the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and parts of the book of Isaiah. Perhaps that is all you can do if you do not have the time or inclination for deeper study. But the Bible is part of our culture, and without it there is much art and literature that you cannot understand.

Turning to the New Testament, how do you deal with the letters of Paul? He had visions of the resurrected Jesus, having never met him during his lifetime, and considered that these visions were every bit as good as the memories of what Jesus actually said: ‘the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin; for I did not receive it from a human source… but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ’ (Galatians 1:11). How you approach these writings depends on how you feel about this claim.

I cannot come to a very satisfactory conclusion. It is not easy to read ancient texts, and they cannot be fully understood without knowing quite a bit about the context. I think the main point is this: do not take a verse and say confidently ‘the Bible teaches this’. Realise that church traditions and creeds developed much later. Read the Gospels, and whatever else fascinates, inspires or comforts you. Do not expect to agree with everything, but be grateful for the teaching that comes to us from the Bible, through Jesus.

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