Quakers and the Bible
Michael Wright puts the case for Friends engaging more with the Bible
The Bible seems to be much neglected in British Quakerism these days. It is largely a foreign rather than a familiar book to many of us. We mostly seem to hear of it from ‘Bible believing Christians’ who take it at face value, as literally the word of God. Many of us Quakers are uncomfortable at the prospect of discussions with such eager beavers. They have a ready familiarity with chapter and verse, and a clear black and white view of how the material is to be treated, which puts us at a disadvantage. Unfortunately we rarely discuss the Bible among ourselves either. We also tend not to discuss the Bible with those who are drifting away from the practice of the Christian way because they can no longer accept a biblical literalism. Sadly most do not realise there is any sensible alternative between that and the Dawkins view.
Advices and Queries 5 and 7, and Quaker Faith and Practice 27.27-34, point us to a very different, and very positive approach to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Our Quaker approach is both intellectually and spiritually liberating for many people. It will be very sad if we are so unfamiliar with the biblical material that we are unable to offer this positive approach to scripture to those who are searching for just such a way of understanding and drawing on the Bible.
The Bible is our bridge between the Quaker way and that of other Christian traditions. Without it we have no common language to share our concept of the Christian way with them, or indeed with the majority of Quakers world-wide who are focused on the Bible.
We will be in danger of speaking about our religious tradition almost entirely in sociological or secular language, and will find it difficult to place our vision of the Quaker way within the traditions of the three Peoples of the Book – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Karen Armstrong in The Bible – the biography shows how the scriptures have been expounded down the centuries by Jewish and Christian teachers. She explains current biblical scholarship, and gives us a picture of the wide variety of ways in which the Bible has been used and understood.
She begins with looking at how the different threads of material were woven together to provide the biblical material we now have. That gives us insights into understanding the books, making some discernment about their historical value, but, much more significantly, the religious value of their various writings.
The great Hebrew prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos and Hosea spoke truth to power during periods when the wealthy few abused and impoverished the poor and focused on lavish religious ceremonies entirely divorced from the ethical ideals of the Moses tradition. Quakers draw many of our ethical values from the Hebrew prophets, as well as from Jesus’ teaching.
Karen Armstrong illustrates so well the Quaker position of looking not to the letter but to the spirit that inspired the writings. Her book empowers those of us who may feel a little uncertain of our ground in dealing creatively with scriptural material.
There are other ways of drawing meaning from the great themes of the Hebrew scriptures, one of which Marcus Borg in his book Meeting Jesus again for the first time draws out: the macro-narrative. The Exodus is one such example.
As Borg puts it, ‘it is a story of bondage, liberation, a journey, and a destination’. We might add ‘inspiration’ somewhere in there too. Many people have experienced such stages in the story of their own lives. The bondage may have been a loveless or stifling relationship, a rigid mind-set, a job that didn’t satisfy, or an environment that didn’t feel right. To break out requires courage, effort, and we will experience difficulties on our journey to a better place.
Our understanding of much in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures has been enhanced in recent years by the knowledge and insights gained from the archaeological findings in Israel, as well as the texts found in Jordan (Dead Sea Scrolls) and Egypt in the 1940s. There has been much to learn too from anthropology, sociology, history of the Roman empire and the Middle East generally, as well as fresh perspectives from scholars of Judaism.
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan offer us a fresh look at the life and teaching of Paul in The First Paul – reclaiming the radical visionary behind the Church’s conservative icon. Paul is often a controversial figure, sometimes regarded as homophobic and misogynistic. These two scholars show that the books commonly acknowledged to have been written by Paul reveal an engaging man whose approach is very faithful to that of Jesus in the gospels. Other books that carry Paul’s name, but were written by other people, are either conservative or reactionary, which distort and contradict Paul.
These three very readable books are available to help us to value the Bible afresh in the light of modern knowledge, and apply the wisdom of the approach to the scriptures found in Quaker Faith and Practice.
