Alex’s Heresies - embracing a physical reality

As part of countering “you don’t know enough about Christianity to criticise” argument I have embarked on studying the Christian Bible, Christian theology and Christian beliefs and practices. Even before starting I had to make a number of decisions and commitments.

Firstly, what am I trying to understand? Is it simply looking at the Bible text for its inconsistencies and appalling moral prescriptions (and there are many in both testaments)? This is a favourite pastime of fellow critics of religion. However I don’t think that moves the argument forward. I believe a more useful approach initially was to familiarise myself with the Bible and associated beliefs in a fairly non-critical way.

At times this becomes difficult when reading some Bible commentary that accepts all the Bible text as absolute truth even when you know that historically the events never happened. An example is the birth of Jesus. All evidence suggests that his birthplace was in Nazareth and not Bethlehem. Luke’s birth story was more about linking Jesus’s birth to Old Testament prophesy than any historical fact. Also I’ve found many of the evangelical style analyses particularly unpalatable to rationally-based secular thinking. There’s only so far that I can “willingly suspend my disbelief”.

How to go about learning more? Reading articles at random does not give a foundation that necessary for subsequent study. So I’ve started with audio lectures from the Teaching Company. Each lecture series is discounted once a year and that’s the time it’s worth buying with transcripts preferably. I’m working through Philosophy of Religion by James Hall now. Each lecture series is produced and delivered by a university professor and provide a good introductory coverage of the subject. My next topics will be Old Testament and New Testament. Again, wait until the series is on special.

Are there any interesting books? There are books by biblical scholars who take a more academic approach to examining the historical Jesus. There are many books. Here’s a good one to start with: Who Is Jesus? by John Dominic Crossan and Richard G Watts. The book is structured along question and answer lines and presents a historical view of Jesus very different from the one from the Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament, for example.

I hope that helps if you want to study the other side.

Alex McCullie

I needed a bible or, to be more precise, a Christian Bible. I haven’t opened one for years nor have one at home, so I think the ‘ignorance’ criticism of theists provides some room for attack against critics like me. So this is part of my self-education on Christianity today. Even with the revisionism of the Christian progressives, the Bible’s two libraries of books - Hebrew or Old Testament and Christian or New Testament - are still the cornerstone of Christian belief so I started there.

Why not visit Christian bookshops to get my bible? Traditionally I avoided these places and treated them like adult bookshops - too embarrassing to be seen entering or leaving. I went to The Word (two branches), the Central Catholic Bookshop and The Uniting Church bookshop. Here are my observations on choosing a bible was well as the styles of these Christian bookshops.

I never appreciated the variety of bible versions. I expected one correct English translation of the inerrant Word of God and it used to be the King James Version (KJV). Now you have word by word translations from Greek or Hebrew or, perhaps, Aramaic. There are thematic thought by thought approaches to translation as well as “hip new age” street language translations. Most versions now have gender inclusive updates with person, mortal and the like replacing man, such as the New Language Version (NLV) to Today’s New Language Version (TNLV). There’s mixed support for this with some expressing disquiet about destroying the lyrical appeal of the bible. By the way the latest version of the venerable KJV is NKJV (N for new). Now within each range of bibles you can buy anything from compact travel editions to large-print editions as well as study and student versions with extra explanatory notes. Your next choice is paperback, hard cover, budget edition, fake leather and real leather covers. Then believing becomes really expensive. I liked the idea of specialist versions dedicated to different members of the family - grandmother or grandfather - presumably their access methods to God are different. As you can imagine all explanatory bible commentary assumes its literal truth, so don’t expect any secular criticism here.

The bookshops are interesting too. All staff were very helpful, especially when I mentioned my non-believing status. The Word bookshop had a more evangelical feel with gospel music playing and peachers on video display. There was little or no space given to progressive Christian literature by Borg, Boernhoffer, Holloway or Jesus Seminar. The Catholic Bookshop in Lonsdale Street had materials that strongly supported the Roman Catholic version of Christianity not surprisingly. So, for example, I found The Jeruselum Bible, the original version, here but not elsewhere. Finally, the Uniting Church bookshop felt the most liberal with dissenting texts in the theology section. Here for the first time I found the more controversial Christian authors. Like the others, though, they have a wide range of bibles, prayer books, children’s books as well as other devotional books, brochures and music.

Just for the record I bought a couple of bibles - New Revised Standard study bible and NKJV travel bible.

Alex McCullie

Very funny extract from Ricky Gervais’s comedy tour on YouTube

Alex McCullie