BOOK:
False Prophets: A Minister Reveals What is in the Bible
(and What is NOT) on Today’s Political Issues
False Prophets goes beyond the handwringing about the separation of church and state found in many political books.
It questions the legitimacy of the conservative Christian
agenda. It reveals that the agenda is based on human
prejudice – not Divine Revelation or the Bible.
False Prophets: A Minister Reveals What is in the Bible
(and What is NOT) on Today’s Political Issues is written for those 75 percent of Americans who are confounded when the religious right claims the moral authority. This book is for anyone concerned about what is happening in politics but may be ignorant of the Bible's content.
This book bravely tackles the hot button topics: abortion, stem cell research, abstinence programs, gay marriage, teaching creationism, leading prayers in public schools, and displays of the Ten Commandments on government property.
This book examines the intentions, and religious beliefs, of our founding fathers as they framed the constitution. Bob also briefly looks at how the Bible was compiled, why its various books were written, and why the widespread ignorance of the Bible's history could get the USA into deep trouble.
False Prophets will give the reader:
1. A point by point dissection of the conservative Christian agenda:
- What is in the Bible, and what is not, on each issue
- How did the GOP become enmeshed with the religious right
2. A guidebook to discussing public policies proposed by conservative Christians
3. A primer on how the separation of church and state evolved over 229 years.
4. A primer on how the Bible was compiled.
5. A guide to the belief systems that influenced the Bible writers.
Table of Contents
False Prophets
by Bob Uhlar
Part I: Our Foundation
Chapter 1. Learning Where to Place Our Faith
Chapter 2. What Did We Believe Before the Bible?
Chapter 3. How Did We Get the Bible?
Chapter 4. What Did Our Founding Fathers Believe?
Part II Components of the Conservative Christian Agenda
Chapter 5. Abortion
Chapter 6. Stem Cell Research
Chapter 7. A Right to Die: End-of-Life Issues
Chapter 8. Gay Marriage
Chapter 9. Ten Commandments
Chapter 10. Our Public Schools
Sex Education
Prayer in Schools
Creationism and Intelligent Design
Part III Who's Zoomin' Who?
Chapter 11. Why the Sudden Urgency?
Chapter 12. How the GOP became God's Own Party
Chapter 13. How to Be a Good RepubliChristian
Chapter 14. Conclusions
SAMPLE CHAPTER
Chapter 3
How Did We Get the Bible?
“What an awful place!” said Maureen.
I was shocked. I had just told Maureen I was from Chicago. “Why do you say that,” I asked.
“I visited some cousins in Chicago and it was awful.”
“Do you remember where they lived," I asked?
“It smelled like rotting potatoes,” she said. “I remember a tall bridge, smoky steel mills, petroleum depots, and a grain elevator.
“It was right near the border with Hammond, Indiana,” she recalled.
I had driven through the neighborhood she was describing. It is sandwiched between the industrial district that includes the Port of Chicago with freighters entering off Lake Michigan under the tall bridge. The air is tinted brown as various manufacturing plants belch fumes. It is probably the most ugly façade of both Illinois and Indiana.
Yet, that was Maureen’s impression of Chicago. She could claim that she had seen Illinois, Indiana, Chicago and Hammond. But she had not seen the countless venues that lie beyond that neighborhood.
Unfortunately, many people have had a similar experience with a book we call the Bible. Someone presented an ugly façade of the book. And their presentation “stank.”
As a result of the unpleasant experience, these people have rejected the Bible.
I realize that the vast majority of people are not familiar with what is actually in the Bible. Many have trusted other people to tell them what is in it. And others have sought to dictate public policy based on these claims.
One of the reasons I have written this book is to share information so that we can have a healthy debate about public policy. If someone is claiming that we need to follow the Bible in forming public policy and he or she is misquoting or misinterpreting the Bible, we have a problem.
Who Wrote the Bible?
Who wrote the Bible? Nobody knows for sure. But Bible scholars have figured out where and when much of its content was written.
The Bible is a collection — a bibliography — of 66 books written over a span of 1,000 years. It was compiled in two sections (Old Testament and the New Testament) by two committees meeting 235 years apart.
When fundamentalist leaders claim that the Bible was dictated by God, they display one of two things: 1) an ignorance of how the Bible was compiled, or 2) a desire to deliberately mislead and manipulate their followers.
Let’s take a quick tour of the Bible.
Most people know that the Bible is divided into two main sections — the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The Hebrew Bible, commonly known as the Old Testament, has 39 books. The New Testament has 27 books or letters. Bible scholars tell us that the authors of these books did not know that these books would be published as a collection.
The Old Testament has three main groups of books known as “Law, Prophets, and Writings.”
Aficionados of the teachings of Jesus will remember that he sometimes referred to, “the Law and the Prophets.” Jesus was apparently a rabbi who was well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. But these books would not become the Old Testament until the year 90 – approximately 60 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.
The books known as the “Law” are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They are also known as the “Torah” (law) and the “Pentateuch” (five scrolls). For many centuries, people believed that Moses wrote these five books. But modern scholars dismiss this claim.
The “Writings” are Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Nehemiah, and the two books of Chronicles.
The “Prophets” includes the rest of the OT, especially the three major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Scholars say that Isaiah combines the writings of three people. Whoever edited these books combined the three writers who wrote about common themes.
There is also a subset of books gleaned from “Prophets” and “Writings” that is sometimes referred to as the “History” group: Joshua, Judges, the two books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the two books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
The New Testament has four gospels – books about the life and teachings of Jesus.
The Acts of the Apostles, also known as Acts, is placed after the gospels. This book reports the activities of the apostles after Jesus’ crucifixion.
Then come the letters written by early church figures. These letters are also known as “epistles” and were written to organize the fledgling Christian movement. The first 13 have been attributed to Paul of Tarsus. There are another eight letters after those 13. There is the anonymous letter to the Hebrews. Then come the two letters of Peter, the three letters of John, and the letter of Jude.
The last book in the New Testament is the Revelation to John, also known as Revelation. The book is written in the apocalyptic style — almost entirely in metaphysical symbolism.
Who Decided What Would be Included in the Bible?
The Hebrew Bible, commonly known as the Old Testament, was collected and authorized (canonized) by a council of rabbis in the year 90. They were trying to reject the quickly growing cult of Christianity. They declared which books should be read and which ones should not.
The New Testament was collected and canonized by a council of bishops in the year 325. These bishops started with the Old Testament. Why? They recognized that a reader needs to understand the Jewish paradigm of Jesus’ life to understand the foundations of Christianity. Then they added the Christian books and letters that would become the New Testament.
In many modern versions of the Bible, another group of 15 to 20 books, called the Apocrypha, is sandwiched between the Old and New Testaments. The councils excluded these books. However, elements of these books are helpful in understanding the context of both the Old and New Testaments. So, later editors included them.
The Emperor Constantine summoned the bishops during the summer of 325 for the “Council of Nicea.” He chose the up-and-coming religion of Christianity to be the official religion of his empire.
But he had ulterior political motives. Constantine was more interested in domestic tranquility than a healthy theological debate. For years, governors under Constantine resolved theological disputes among Christians according to political expediency.
It was obvious that there were major differences in the teachings and practices of Christians around the Mediterranean Basin. The main split was between the teachings of bishops in the east and west ends of the Empire. The eastern end of the empire, including Egypt, was the last conquered and had the least clout with Constantine.
He sought to codify the standards and practices of Christianity. So, he called approximately 300 bishops together. By the time the Council was convened, Constantine had a list of declarations that he demanded be codified by the council.
For example: for centuries, emperors had to cope with prophets emerging and declaring that the emperor was “doing evil” and encouraging people to rebel. Constantine forced the bishops to declare that the age of the prophets had ended. Constantine (and all the emperors after him) was now infallible.
Christianity or Paulism?
As the summer wore on, it became obvious that the council could not come to consensus on many issues. So, some of the bishops were expelled from the proceedings.
One of the compositions produced by the council was the Nicene Creed, which would influence the Apostles Creed used later by the Catholic Church. The council also settled on the concept of the Holy Trinity – a concept never taught by Jesus. Bishops hoped to end the arguments about the divinity of Jesus.
The council decided that Paul’s letter to the Romans should guide the selection of books in the New Testament. Paul’s main theme in that letter was that Jesus died for our sins. People should focus on the death of Jesus, not the teachings of Jesus.
Records of the event showed that the group rejected dozens of gospels and chose the four we have in our Bible. All four gospels were written after (and influenced by) Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Supposedly, the bishops came up with the list of 27 books and letters that were canonized as the New Testament. Ironically, the list of books chosen was lost.
The earliest surviving recorded list of New Testament books appeared in 367. Athanius, a bishop in Alexandria, Egypt, wrote an Easter letter to his underlings. It included his list of 27 books of the New Testament.
Athanius had been at the Council of Nicea. However, in the years between 325 and 367, there was much grumbling about which books were chosen and which were excluded. Bible scholars are concerned that in 367 Athanius published a list of his preferred books, not the ones chosen at Nicea. But we will never know for sure.
A new emperor would convene a new council of bishops in 381. That council recorded Athanius’ list. But the Catholic Church would not officially canonize the list until the 1500s. The King James Version of the Bible would be completed in 1611.
The Original Manuscripts
We don’t have the original manuscripts of any of the books in the Bible. As original manuscripts wore out, somebody would create a fresh book, copying the text by hand. Once the copying was done, the old manuscript was destroyed.
As you can imagine, many mistakes were made in the tedious copying of the books. We now are left with 5,400 manuscripts of the New Testament. Some of these are as short as fragments of one page. Others include the entire New Testament.
No two copies are exactly alike. By cross-referencing the manuscripts, it is apparent to Bible scholars that deliberate changes were made by editors to match their biases.
In the years that followed the 325 Council of Nicea, there would be wars, inquisitions, persecutions and other disputes about the many books that were excluded from the Bible. Most of the excluded books were destroyed.
There are three reasons that we know that these other books existed.
The first is the writings of early church bishops and authors. They wrote scathing arguments telling followers not to read these books. These letters survived even though the target of their anger did not.
The second was a remarkable discovery in 1945.
Six Bedouin camel drivers were digging for fertilizer near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, approximately 40 miles north of Luxor. One of them found a human skeleton and large jar containing 13 ancient leather bound books. These books contained 52 anthologies written on papyrus.
The books were subjected to scientific testing and Bible scholarship. It was discovered that the books were bound in approximately 350. But the papyrus documents were much older. One of the documents, the Gospel of Thomas, was dated to approximately 150, making it the oldest surviving manuscript.
The Nag Hammadi documents contain the scriptures of the Gnostics, a branch of early Christianity, which was centered in Alexandria, Egypt. Apparently the books were buried to save them from being destroyed. Historians know that a Gnostic monastery nearby was invaded and destroyed.
We now have more than 20 other gospel manuscripts that were excluded from the Bible. None were written earlier than the Gospel of Thomas.
The third reason that we know these other books existed is the esoteric, mystical, and secret societies that kept these teachings alive for 1,700 years.
After the Enlightenment, and the establishment of free societies, many of these secret societies felt safe enough to reveal these teachings to a wider audience.
When Were These Books Written?
Now that we know how the books of the Bible were compiled, it’s important to know that the books of the New Testament were not placed in chronological order.
The four gospels were placed first. But they were written after most of the letters in the New Testament.
This is important because it means the letters were written before any of the four gospels. These four gospels were influenced by Paul’s views, rather than Paul being influenced by the gospels.
You will notice that the first of the letters was not written until about 51. Jesus was crucified in approximately 30. That means that 20 years had passed. And the first of the four gospels was written 35 years after the crucifixion.
So, there are many questions about the accuracy of these accounts. Think about it. If you had to research and write about somebody who died 20 years ago, and you had no libraries, no newspapers, no archives, and no internet, how accurate could you be?
Each of the four gospels was written for a specific audience.
The Gospel of Mark was written first (between 65 and 70), but was placed second in the New Testament. This gospel reports that virtually nobody comprehended Jesus as the Son of God until the crucifixion. It also argues that Jesus died as a payment for the sins of humanity.
It is the shortest of the four gospels. And there is evidence that somebody later altered it. Bible scholars believe the original manuscript ended with Mark 16:8. It appears that a later scribe added verses 9 through 20 to the end of the manuscript.
Matthew (80-85) was written to convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah they had been waiting for. He makes many references to Jewish scriptures and traditions to prove his point.
Luke (85-100) was written for the non-Jews (Gentiles) of Europe. His main theme was that Jesus was the savior of all humanity – not just the Jews.
John (90-100) was written to address the Gnostics, who focused on the teachings of Jesus rather than Paul’s emphasis on the death of Jesus.
The author of Luke, apparently also wrote the Acts of the Apostles, which was placed after gospels in the New Testament.
Jumping ahead to the last book of the New Testament, Revelation was written in approximately 95.
Now let’s look at the letters inserted between Acts and Revelation.
Bible scholars now believe that Paul did not write many of the 13 letters attributed to him. The bishops at the Council of Nicea included all 13 because they thought they were genuine or they thought that the letters were important to the history of the organized Roman church.
Modern scholars believe only seven were written by Paul – Romans, I Corinthians, II Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, I Thessalonians, Philemon.
The other six attributed to Paul were written by other authors. However, three may have had some connection to Paul – II Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians. Paul may have authorized the letters. But the writing style is different.
The other three are now known to be forgeries – Titus and both letters to Timothy.
The letters of Paul were not placed in chronological order. Rather than print them in the order in which they were written, they were published according to the length of the letter – longest to shortest.
This makes it difficult for us to examine the evolution of Paul’s thoughts and attitudes as the years went by. Paul altered his assertions over his lifetime, especially regarding the Second Coming of Jesus.
Here is the order in which scholars believe that they were written: I Thessalonians (51), II Thessalonians* (51-52), Galatians (53-54), I Corinthians (54-55), II Corinthians (55-56), Romans (56), Philippians (54-56), Philemon (54-56), Ephesians* (54-58), and Colossians* (54-64).
An * marks the letters that weren’t written by Paul. Paul died in 64. The three obvious forgeries, I Timothy, II Timothy, and Titus, were written between 100 and 130.
If you were to assign numbers 1 through 13 to the chronological order of the letters, here is the order in which they were placed in the Bible: 6-4-5-3-9-7-10-1-2-11-12-13-8. Keep in mind that the ones that are underlined were written by other authors.
Why is all this important? Because much of the dogma of Fundamentalist Christians is derived from these letters, especially the forgeries!
When the teachings of Jesus conflict with the teachings of these letters, fundamentalists choose to ignore Jesus and follow the letters.
Translations and Motivations
The people of Israel spoke the Semitic languages Aramaic and Hebrew. But the official language of the Roman Empire was Greek. Conquered people were expected to learn Greek.
The Empire also liked to record the religious traditions of the people they conquered. If something worked well for the people, the Empire wanted to learn from it.
So, the books of the Old Testament were translated into Greek. This is not as easy as it sounds. The cultures were different. Trying to find the right words in translation was difficult.
The books and letters of the New Testament were originally written in Greek because it was the official language after the Roman occupation.
The authors had to be cautious not to rile the Roman authorities. New Testament writers who shifted blame for the crucifixion from the Romans to the Jews were trying to placate the Romans. This placation led to 1,900 years of anti-Semitism.
Our English Language Bible has been translated through several languages. We must understand that the meaning of words have changed over 2,000 years.
We also need to understand the traditions and culture of people who lived back then. We had a Jewish/Middle East culture being filtered through the eyes of a Roman/European culture.
For example: Paul, and some early Christians, focused on the crucifixion of Jesus because the Jews were anticipating the arrival of “The Messiah.”
There were four conflicting concepts of "The Messiah" floating around Jewish traditional thought before the time of Jesus.
The first was the image of a Deliverer who would save or redeem the people. The second was a Warrior King who would establish an independent Jewish State. The third was a Servant who would be willing to suffer in serving the people. The fourth was a High Priest who would purify the people.
The conservative Christian tradition is an amalgam of these four concepts.
Considering that the Jewish people were under brutal occupation by the Roman Empire, they coveted a Warrior King – somebody who would chase the Romans back to Italy and establish an independent kingdom of Israel.
Imagine their shock when Jesus of Nazareth was arrested, charged with treason and executed by crucifixion.
That is why there was (and still is) an emphasis on the crucifixion of Jesus. Writers had to explain how a Warrior King was crushed so easily. They had to reframe it as a positive thing.
So, Paul and some early Christians had to shift the definition of Messiah from the Warrior King to the Servant/Deliverer/High Priest.
Do You Know This Man?
A precursor of his birth was an odd star in the heavens. He was born of a virgin. He went into the wilderness to prepare for his calling. He was tempted by the devil. He resisted the temptation and was ministered to by angels. He would teach the Ultimate Truth to his fellow man. He was murdered. He then resurrected and became the figurehead of a religion.
I am describing Zarathustra.
That’s right, Zarathustra – also known as Zoroaster (the Greek translation of his name).
Zoroastrianism was the religion of the Babylonians when the Jews were forced into exile in 587 BCE. The Jews remained there for about 70 years before they were allowed to return to Palestine.
Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism in profound ways. The Zoroastrianism concept of Satan, or the devil, was not found in Judaism before the exile. Before the exile, Jews believed God was responsible for everything. Babylonians were the descendants of the great Mesopotamian cities mentioned in the last chapter.
There is a mountain of evidence that the stories throughout the Bible were borrowed from other mythologies.
The records of the Greco-Roman eras of dominance recorded many stories of leaders who had miraculous births, perform miracles (including healing of the sick and raising the dead), deliver divine messages to their followers and ascend to heaven at the end of their lives to live among the gods for ever. Some examples are Apollonius of Tyana, Dionysus of Greece, Tammus of Mesopotamia, and Osiris of Egypt.
But the motif also appears in other cultures far removed from the Greco-Roman cultural tree like Quetzalcoat in Mexico.
And Roman historical records from that period make no mention of Jesus.
About 100 years later, a Jewish Historian, Flavius Jospehus, wrote an encyclopedia of Jewish history. There are a few sentences mentioning a wise man named Jesus who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. But the few sentences are dubious because they appear to have been added to the manuscript by a scribe during the Middle Ages.
These facts have led some atheists to claim the entire story of Jesus was conjured in somebody’s imagination.
I once recited the above facts to a congregation and posed the question, “What would it do to your faith, if you discovered that Jesus never existed?”
I answered that it would not matter to me. I believe that the teachings attributed to Jesus are the finest guide we have to living an awakened, enlightened and spiritual life.
I also admitted to the congregation that I believe Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth. I believe that he was a great spiritual teacher.
But I also believe that artistic license was used in writing the books and letters of the New Testament (and the rest of the Bible). And if Jesus never existed, we are still left with a great guidebook to building spiritual consciousness.
In order to build consciousness, we need to release our emotional attachment to religious traditions that no longer serve to advance humanity. We need to look at the underlying spirituality that is being taught in the Bible.
This requires us to strip away the layers of “artistic license.” We need to understand why they were added.
Bible Scholarship advanced by leaps and bounds through the 19th and 20th centuries. Scholars were able to apply new technologies and scientific discovery.
In the 1980s, the Westar Institute commissioned a project called “The Jesus Seminar.” This project invited Bible scholars, advanced students, and scientific specialists to study the historical Jesus.
The institute certified more than 200 fellows for the project. Would it be possible to decipher what was actually said by Jesus and what was added later? Here are some of the early findings:
Jesus did not claim to be divine, the Messiah, a product of a virgin birth, or the founder of a religion.
Jesus did not ask people to believe that his death would have any significance nor that he would return physically to the planet.
Jesus did not ask people to believe “in him,” or that he arose from the dead and walked out of a tomb.
Even before the Jesus Seminar distilled these observations, Bible Scholars noted that the early Christian doctrine had changed as time went by.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he apparently never heard of a virgin birth. He writes that Jesus was declared the “Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection.” So, Paul believed Jesus became Divine at his resurrection, not his birth.
The Gospel of Mark never mentioned a virgin birth either. But the author claimed that Jesus was declared “holy” as John baptized him.
In the Greco-Roman mythology of Jesus time, all the heroes experienced a virgin birth to signify their Divine nature.
Early Christians who incorporated the story of a virgin birth into the Christian tradition found a verse in Isaiah 7:14. They hoped it could back up the mythology of a virgin birth. Unfortunately the verse was mistranslated. Isaiah 7:14 does not refer to a “virgin,” but to a “young woman.”
These writers also wanted to apply the tradition of the Passover sacrificial lamb to the crucifixion of Jesus.
These additions to the Christian tradition were designed to convince certain constituencies that they should convert to Christianity. But as the years unfolded, and the motivations for these additions forgotten, it has become more difficult to modernize Christianity.
The One True Church
After the Emperor Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church emerged as the enforcer of Christianity. Discontent with the “official brand” of Christianity led to many breakaway groups over 1,700 years.
Considering the current friction between Islam and Christianity, many people are shocked to discover that the two religions share a common heritage.
Mohammed was born in 570 in Mecca. He entered the caravan business as an adult. As he grew to the age of 40, he was uneasy with the lawlessness of the area. He also observed the impotence of Christianity and other religions to impose order on debauchery.
In 1610, meditating on the situation, he described being guided by a vision from God leading him to start writing the Koran. He would spend the next 23 years writing the book until his death.
He worked on the assumption that readers were familiar with the Bible and that he was correcting the Bible’s errors with the Koran. Of course, Muslims now see Mohammed as the last great prophet and his writings as infallible.
Mohammed embraced the legend that the Arabs were descended from Abraham. When Abraham’s wife was unable to conceive, he had a son with her Egyptian maid Hagar. In the 16th chapter of Genesis, the writer says the son was named Ishmael.
In the Koran, Mohammed tells us that Ishmael migrated to Mecca and became the father of the Arabian people.
The next major split came in 1054. Soon after establishing Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, Constantine moved the capitol of the empire to Istanbul.
Over the centuries, friction grew between the prelates of Rome and Istanbul. The church split into what is now Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox.
Eastern Orthodox includes the churches of Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Sinai. It has more than 250 million followers.
In 1517, Martin Luther posted his “95 Theses” on the door of the castle church in Germany to express his discontent with policies and expression of the Roman Catholic Church. But many other leaders besides Luther claim a role in the birth of Protestantism.
During the next few decades, other theologians would join the European movement that broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. The movement would lead to hundreds of Protestant denominations. The four main divisions — Anglican, Baptist, Calvinist, and Lutheran — fractured into more than 900 denominations in the United States alone.
Despite Roman Catholic claims that it is the one true church, its dogma and policies have precipitated the anointing of many dissenters.
Religion and Science
As I mentioned in the last chapter, mythology evolves with the scientific discoveries of society. When the Bible was canonized in 325, it would set an unhealthy precedent. The organized church would stop adapting to scientific discovery.
Scientific discovery consistently conflicted with the Biblical view of the earth and the universe. A schism between orthodox Christianity and science has been widening over 400 years as science has given us a new view of the world.
The writers of Genesis assumed that human beings lived in a bubble or terrarium. The earth was flat and held down a water table. The sky was a membrane holding back another table of water. At night we could see the holes in this membrane appearing as stars. God lived above the sky membrane and toyed with us, sometimes releasing a torrent of water.
Christopher Columbus proved the earth was not flat in 1492. Ferdinand Magellan would circumnavigate the globe in 1520. Nicolaus Copernicus published his paper on a heliocentric universe in 1543. Galilei Galileo used a telescope to prove Copernicus correct in 1610.
These men proved that the Bible’s concept of the earth, and what lay beyond the sky, was now invalid. The Vatican was not amused. In 1633, the Office of Inquisition imprisoned Galileo. His life was spared but he was excommunicated.
In 1795, the Rev. Timothy Dwight became the president of Yale University. He was concerned that medical science might thwart god’s will. He claimed that it was a sin to get vaccinated for smallpox. “After all, it might be God’s will that you die from smallpox,” he said.
He would later change his mind and establish a medical college at Yale.
In the 19th century, the Enlightenment encouraged people to scrutinize religious dogma. Free societies of the 20th century helped esoteric groups feel safe enough to reveal their teachings – including the underlying symbolism in the Bible. Christians were shifting their focus from the death of Jesus to examining the life and teachings of Jesus.
American Fundamentalism
But as the 20th century emerged, there was a backlash by conservative Christians. The Fundamentals, a 12-part series of pamphlets, edited by Rev. A. C. Dixon, was published by the Testimony Publishing Company in Chicago starting in 1910. The pamphlets were designed to combat the “infidel” infiltration of Protestantism by science and scholarship. They encouraged people to reject the symbolism of the Bible and interpret the Bible as literal and inerrant.
The five fundamentals were:
1. The Bible is the literal, inerrant Word of God.
2. Jesus was literally born of a virgin.
3. The only meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion was atonement for the sins of humankind.
4. The miracles recorded in the New Testament are real – they literally happened.
5. Jesus literally rose physically from his grave, literally ascended into the sky, and would return someday in the “second coming.”
Contemporary Fundamentalists assume that their movement stretches back to Jesus of Nazareth. Actually, the Christian Fundamentalist movement is less than 100 years old.
The literal interpretation of the Bible is a relatively new phenomenon – only 250 years old. Before the printing press was used to mass-produce the Bible, the only people who owned a Bible were clergy. The clergy would filter and interpret the Bible for the congregation.
Before you jump to the conclusion that fundamentalist ministers deliberately mislead their followers, you need to know that many of them are simply ignorant.
Many fundamentalist ministers have no training at a seminary or ministerial school. They have learned what they know by studying with one or two ministers who may also be ignorant of modern Bible scholarship. Fundamentalist Bible schools, colleges and universities also ignore Bible scholarship and scientific discovery.
Some prominent fundamentalist leaders have received honorary degrees from these fundamentalist colleges or universities, further blurring the line between the learned and the ignorant. The sad reality is that many people prefer to be told what to think.
But if they were to take classes at a divinity school or seminary, they would be shocked. Most teach that the Bible literalism must be discarded. The Bible contradicts itself in too many places to be taken literally.
When we examine the metaphysical symbolism of the Bible’s narrative stories, the contradictions drop away and a guide to spiritual growth emerges.
Joseph Campbell, the late professor of mythology and comparative religion, had wonderful comment on this. He said that Bible literalism is a “popular misunderstanding of poetry.”
John 20:11-13
But Mary [Magdalene] stood weeping outside the tomb. And as she wept, she stooped to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.”
Fundamentalist Christians who are confronted with the reality that the mythology of Christianity is symbolic, often find themselves sharing the lament of Mary Magdalene. If you take away “my Lord” what shall be in its place?
In the next few verses of the gospel of John, Mary finds a new vision of Jesus Christ – one she does not recognize at first.
Oddly, the belief in outdated Christian dogma is similar to a child’s belief in Santa Claus.
The story of Santa Claus teaches a child to obey authority figures. It teaches a child to be aware of something omniscient. But a day must come when the child outgrows the need for Santa Claus.
When the parent reveals the truth about Santa Claus, some children lament. But many children admit that they already doubted the validity of Santa Claus.
The fear of losing “my Lord” can be scary. But I believe it is something we crave at an intuitive level. We don’t need the Santa Claus “crutch” anymore.
We learn how to enjoy the spirit of giving and compassion without clinging to the childhood mythology.
The Evolution of Dogma
Many aspects of conservative Christian dogma were contrived hundreds of years after the life of Jesus. The organized church often chose to add the dogma so that it could manipulate and control its followers.
The image of the crucified Jesus was originally meant to evoke compassion. Mystics teach that compassion is the gateway to spiritual growth.
But church leaders morphed the image into one of guilt. “Jesus died for your sins. You didn’t ask him to. But you now hold the IOU.”
In Biblical times, people believed in reincarnation. The church declared reincarnation to be an invalid concept in the year 533. It was hard to get people to fear spending eternity in hell when people believed in reincarnation.
The Church was often pressured by governments that were more interested in crowd control that a cogent discussion of God.
The Church taught people that it was noble to be poor and suffering. Corrupt clergy taught that you would find favor with God if you lived in poverty. These teachings preempted insurrections against the aristocracy – including the Church.
It would not be until the First Vatican Council in 1869, that Pope Pius IX would declare that the pope is infallible.
The church did not ban abortion until the 19th century. The church decided it was advantageous to increase the population of Catholics to increase political clout – especially in the United States.
It Says in the Bible…
The sad reality is that you can find a Bible verse (out of context) to justify any prejudice. With 66 books to choose from, it’s easy to do.
While rabbis and ministers marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., many more fundamentalist ministers were quoting Bible verses to justify the separation of the races and tribes.
One hundred years earlier, conservative Christian ministers were arguing in favor of slavery, citing Bible characters who owned slaves.
Bible scholars know that the New Testament letter “I Timothy” is a forgery. But conservative Christians use the following passages to justify the oppression of women:
I Timothy 2:8-15
I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; also that women should adorn themselves modestly and sensibly in seemly apparel, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly attire but by good deeds, as befits women who profess religion. Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, modesty.
The New Christianity
Death throes get our attention. The last gasps of an outdated and ineffective form of Christianity are getting a lot of attention.
We can comfort our friends who cling to the old way. But we must not let them drag this moribund interpretation of Christianity from its deathbed again.
Many people who claim to be perpetuating Christianity are actually killing it. The late Jerry Falwell was considered by many fundamentalists to be an expert on Christianity and an authority on the Bible. Yet he wrote:
“The Bible is the inerrant…word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.”
As we’ve already seen, scientists, historians, and Bible Scholars have proven many items in the Bible to be in error.
It is not the scientists, historians, and the Bible Scholars who are killing Christianity. It is those who demand that the Bible must be read literally.
Each of us has been given the Divine gifts of wisdom, understanding, and a mind that can reason. We are presented with the evidence of errors in the Bible. Yet, Bible literalists claim that we should ignore the evidence. Or they claim that Satan is trying to confuse us.
We are given a choice between rejecting 1) the Bible as a whole or 2) reality. Given those two choices, more and more people are rejecting the Bible as a whole.
As a Christian minister, I feel sad because the Bible contains many lessons on living an enriched life in the 21st century. These lessons can be discovered by going beyond the literal, beyond the physical Bible, to the metaphysical approach.
The metaphysical approach recognizes that the Bible’s narrative stories are full of symbolism. By comparing the Bible to mythology found in other religions and spiritual belief systems, we find the themes and lessons that can feed us spiritually and helps us find the meaning in our lives.
Conservative Christians who criticize symbolism as being a newfangled distortion of the Bible need only read a passage from their beloved Paul in the Bible. In the letter to the Galatians 4:21, Paul explains how Abraham could favor Sarai over Hagar by writing, “Now this is an allegory: these two women [represent] two covenants.” Paul declares that Bible stories can be allegories!
Scriptural symbolism was around before the Bible was written. Symbolism appears in the earliest manuscripts of all the world’s religions.
We will explore symbolism in many chapters of this book. Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or space to examine Bible symbolism in depth. But let me start here with a few of the basics.
Each character in the Bible represents an aspect of our human consciousness. Whatever a character in the Bible experiences is similar to what we experience during our lives.
Every male character in the Bible represents our intellectual or thinking nature. Every female character in the Bible represents our intuition, emotional or feeling nature. As the first male and female mentioned in the Bible, Adam and Eve are the most undeveloped level of thinking and feeling.
The Bible is a journey from Adam & Eve consciousness to Jesus Christ consciousness. We progress from the most simple awareness to the most grand.
The most grand awareness comes when we realize that each individual is a part of the omnipresent God.
Colossians 1:27
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
