(Continued)
One way to describe “biblicism,” in contrast to “Bible,” is to say that what the former does, in effect, is flatten all the biblical books. It makes the rough places plain, certainly — just as plain as a checkerboard. But what happens in the process is that the mountains and valleys of the Bible disappear entirely, the variety of its landscapes goes unperceived, and we are left with the wholly mistaken notion that the Bible is a single book by a single author (God), in which every passage is to be received as of equal value and understood literally. In other words, a Biblicist reading of the Bible could conceivably require one to regard, for example, a passage in Leviticus (let’s say one that gives instructions about the high priest’s undergarments) as of equal worth as the Sermon on the Mount. Both are, it is believed, “God’s word,” and therefore must be treated with equal seriousness.
Another difficulty, one frequently raised by friends and foes alike of biblical religion, is how we can line up the violence and bloodshed of the Old Testament, sanctioned supposedly by God himself, with the message of Jesus, who preaches non-violence and love of one’s enemies, in the New Testament. A fundamentalist will have many unconvincing ways to hold such things together, never admitting that they simply can’t be held together in any rational fashion (and, if pushed, a thoroughgoing fundamentalist may go so far as to deny the value of “human reason” itself in this matter).
Reading these ancient texts literally, a fundamentalist will anachronistically insist on the scientific and historical accuracy of even the most transparently poetic and mythological portions. By any standard, of course, the Bible can be a confusing mixture of genres: fable, legend, history, parables, sayings, prophecies, letters, hymns, and so forth. Shockingly (for some), it includes irreverence (Ecclesiastes, Job), humor (Jonah), and even a dash of eroticism (the Song of Songs). In one unexpected instance, for example, it tells an intentionally hilarious tale about a “wise man” scolded by his talking donkey, right in the middle of a book of law and sacred history (Numbers 22). In another, even more familiar story, all the woes of human history are traced back to another talking beast, the serpent in the Garden; and — at the other end of the Bible — the end of the world is depicted in a dizzying display of apocalyptic images. One thing the Bible most clearly is not: it is not a single, flat book with a single, flat picture of God.
**The Bible, as already said above, is really a collection of many books written and edited over a span of centuries. In Christianity the “canon” is made up of two canons, that of the Old Covenant (the Hebrew Bible) and that of the New. The word “canon” literally means “measuring reed,” which is a standard of measurement like a yardstick. In this instance, the canon of Scripture provides the dimensions of a revelation as it evolved over time, so that those who carry on its legacy into their own times may do so faithfully. The Bible isn’t the entirety of the revelation. It is a standard that sizes up the authenticity of the life and tradition of a community of Christian disciples. **The two canons within the overall biblical canon define the identity of the communities that gathered, preserved, edited, and published them in the forms we have received. This is a vital feature to which we shall return. For Christians, both canons taken together provide the essential conceptual context for understanding Jesus and his message. For us, then, Jesus is the key to unlocking the Scriptures, and the Scriptures — in all their variety and occasional contrariness — lead us to a more lucid interpretation of his teachings.
