Bible written and compiled by NON-PROTESTANTS

Recently, in a group I was in, a divinity student said that he did not understand scripture until he studied anthopology. When I first read the Old Testament I found the same thing to be true. While reading the Old Testament I found the commentaries were helpful but inadequate. So I gravitated to looking up anthropological and archeological writings that did help me understand the scripture better.

At an archeology site we see a pile of things, and dirt, and we sift through (carefully if we follow modern proctice) and look for artifacts and then categorize them by placement and other rules so that we can relate them to other artifacts. In an anthopological study we visit some village and try to determine artifacts of things, actions, and communications that reveal what is important to the group of people of that village.

In scripture we have both an archeologiacal and an anthopological site. We can sift through the information and find artifacts or we can join the people in their village and see what is important.

There is perhaps one catch that we all recognize. The information has already been sifted. It was not put into this text if it was not important to begin with (when the ancients first captured the information) and also it was only included because it was important to Ezra and his scribes. As you read it, there is quite a varied kind of information included. If we (us 21st century folks) did that job it might be much more limited in scope and viewpoint. Ezra seems extremely more generous about inclusion than we would ever be.

So that leads to my method of understanding scripture. I look for artifacts and try to stratify them as to how they related to other artifacts, both similar and dissimilar. The result of all this sifting and analyzing is that I see themes that recur and change. I see this repitition of ideas and I see these ideas change and "mature."

Now ancient writing was often in a poetic mode. And this poetry has a style different from our writing style. Rather than a linear, "scientific," approach, the poetry takes on a cyclic, repititious (non-linear) approach in order to show what is important. Important things rise from the rest because they continue to develop and mature. Unimportant things seem to die away.

If 21st century Protestant wrote this it would be linear and right to the point (and dead). But instead it is a living record of the anthropological and religious development of the Hebrew people. It is taught from them (from their village) as they develop in relationship to God.

So I understand scripture to be a poem. Specifically a symphonic poem. The themes of this symphony keep recurring. But like a good symphony these themes develop. They developo as the Hebrew village develops. The development of these themes is the relating of themes to other themes. So we have a symphonic poem theme and variation.

So scripture is not a scientific text or a history text (21st century folks would write one or the other or a combination of both). Instead it is a poem that tells a story; a real story. It is meant to help us understand who God is and how He works, even though it is in another village besides our own.

Yes we are better off if we understand the village we are entering and the milieu it is connected with. And we are also better off if we leave our own biases behind. We need to see what the text says without searching for proof we are right. The text is not meant to prove us right (whether we are Protestant, Catholic, or New Age). Proving us right would require a very linear text.