The Bible is a Dangerous Book!

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the Winnipeg Free Press, August 2001, with a headline:  “Applied Literally, Bible is Dangerous Book,” article by Karen Tool.  “My roots with this book we name Bible are, I think, similar to many readers.  We had all kinds of Bibles in our home, all inherited from dead relations.  It was somehow bad luck, a sin, to throw a Bible out.  Like many school children I received my very own pocket-size, maroon, minute print, Gideon New Testament in grade 5.  Good thing I wasn’t Jewish, however most of my classmates were.  It joined the other Bibles on a shelf.  The next Bible I received was from my mother when I was baptized and joined a Christian church at the age of 21.  It was white for my idealistic hopes and safely zippered.  However, the next Bible I bought myself and it looked like a textbook because that’s what it was.  My real and serious introduction to this book, named Bible, came through two University of Winnipeg courses conducted by Carl Ridd, titled:  “Religious Quest and the literature of the Bible.”  What I do with my Bible began in those courses.  I read it for its images, its essence, its questing.  I wrestle with its dark violent, vengeful history.  I marvel at its awesome timelessness of changing truth.  I can still get caught up in its beautiful myths, inspiring poetry, and penetrating parable.  I have written on this page before that I think it is the most dangerous book in the world and that it should come with a warning on the front cover that says something like:  ‘Read at your own risk and do not attempt to apply literally.’  If you treat this book as literal code for conduct, it will destroy you and all your relationships.  Do I believe that the Christian canon of scripture, which we call the Holy Bible, is the Word of God?  Yes, I do.  Do I believe God dictated this Word verbatim?  Not a chance!  I believe the Bible is the Word of God, just as I believe every book which seeks to get in touch with a spiritual meaning of life is the Word of God.  It is our human reality seeking the source and soul of divine wisdom.  Sometimes we see it; sometimes we don’t.  What I do with my Bible is, look for the words, the stories, the images that connect to my sacred seeking.  And, then I attempt to the best of my divinely given ability to understand them, claim what I need from them, and turn the words into my flesh of everyday living, hopefully sharing them in ways that will offer healing and make the world more whole.  What do you do with your Bible?  Karen A. Tool has a Masters of Divinity Degree; she is self-employed in Soul Seasons, a counseling and consulting partnership.

Tom:

Dave, I don’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or get angry.But this article is from a Canadian newspaper in Winnipeg and lots of people are reading this, and oh yeah, that makes sense.This is as confused as anything I’ve ever read, but I’m sure it has impressed a lot of people.

Dave:

Well Tom, first of all we noticed that she didn’t read the Bible.  She says the one she got in the 5th grade, it joined the other Bibles on a shelf, and so did the other Bibles that she got.  And why she was baptized at age 21 and what that meant, I don’t know.  But she claims then her real serious introduction of the book came through two university courses at the University of Winnipeg.  Now, wait a minute!  The lady doesn’t know the Bible, she talks about,—well, do I believe this is the Word of God?  Yes.  Did he dictate it?  No.  So God gives us a Word, but it isn’t true—

Tom:

But he gives us lots of other books and by other people, on lots of other subjects.

Dave:

Right.  “They are all words of God, coming from my divine within.”  I’m sorry; the lady doesn’t make any sense.  Now is God going to give us a word that comes from anybody and anywhere?  It doesn’t matter whether it contradicts, it doesn’t really mean anything, and God leaves it up to each one of us to interpret this uncertain Word that he has given?Tom, this is not God.  Furthermore, if she knew anything about the Bible she would know that we can prove the Bible is the Word of God.  I mean, we could quote people,—like Simon Greenleaf, one of the preeminent authorities on legal evidence that this United States has ever seen.  The Supreme Court quoted him as authority.  He was an agnostic until he read the Bible and he wrote a book to his fellow lawyers and he said, “Any lawyer who reads this book and examines the evidence must come to the conclusion that this will stand up in any court of law.”  I could quote you other lawyers or historians—

Tom:

Dave, she’s not going to get that from a professor of literature in a secular university or even—

Dave:

Yeah, but see, I’m not asking her to read Simon Greenleaf, but all I am saying is, if she had read the book herself like Simon Greenleaf did, she would have found prophesies by the dozens that have been fulfilled in detail that were given thousands of years before they were fulfilled.  You cannot explain it away.  You have hundreds of prophesies about Jesus. You have prophesies about Israel.  We have evidence, we have proof.

Tom:

Dave, we’ve talked about this before.  You go through the Book of Ezekiel, almost every chapter begins:  “The Word of the Lord came to me.”  We have talked about, over four thousand times, the Bible says: “Thus saith the Lord.”  Now, what is she going to do with something like that?  You know, how can you take a book seriously at any level when you are thinking:  This is just straight myth, this is a lie, and God’s not speaking:  Thus saith the Lord, these are not his words which she denies.

Dave:

Tom, let’s just put it very succinctly:  the lady does not want to hear from God. She wants to hear from herself, she wants to take her own path, she wants her path to be honored by some myth, or some picture, or whatever she says, from this book or that book and so forth.  But this lady is devoted to herself; she is not willing to know the true God.  Now God says, “You will seek for me and find me, when you seek for me with all your heart.”  And, I would say yes, it’s a dangerous book. It was so dangerous that they banned it from the Soviet Union.  I have taken Bibles in, in the Iron Curtain days, and God blinded the eyes of the guards.  It’s so dangerous that they didn’t want it.  It’s so dangerous that—well, the Chinese Communists find it a dangerous book.  They find it a dangerous book in Vietnam, and so forth.  Yeah, it’s a dangerous book because it will open people’s eyes to the truth and it will set them free.  And, this lady, I am sorry, is bound—

Tom:

Well, she has a Masters, I mean, this is the sad thing here, this is why this is so grieving, and she has a Master’s of Divinity Degree.  You would think she would have a heart for truth.

Dave:

Yes.