If you could add a character to the Bible, who would you add?
At the Virgin Birth, I would add the Communist Cousin from Kansas to the Three Wise Men.
This would appear in the Simplified Lutheran Surrealist Translation.
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As you would expect, the Bible isn't a document that I spend any time over, or wondering about.
Why?
Undoubtedly, some of my ancestors must have, but I have no information about that. The thread of my connection with them was broken by the generation of my parents, who, like many of those during the first half of the 20th Century, broke with their clans and forebears, leaving their children to drift....
Oh, my, my.
I feel no lack, however.
Kirby,
Let me take this more seriously than it deserves. The character who is obviously missing from our Bible is Hillel, who lived 110-10 BCE, and who largely initiated the Pharisaic movement.
It seems to me that the standard Christian view of the Pharisees is strikingly one-dimensional, indeed, more so than the scriptures themselves, which contain the lovely story of Gamaliel (the grandson of Hillel) in Acts 5, and several stories of generally positive encounters between Jesus and other unnamed Jewish scholars/men of faith.
The "problem" here lies in the compositional context of the Gospels, which seem (with the possible exception of Mark) to have been written in the era after the 1st Jewish Revolt, and after Jewish Christians had been evicted from Judaism per se. Thus, the ambiguous relationship of mutual challenge and comprehension that existed between Jesus and the Pharisees gave way to a purely antagonistic relationship by the mid-70s CE.
This anachronistic framing of Jesus has resulted in unnecessary antagonism between Christian and Jew, and also in a misunderstanding of the theological message of Jesus.
In short, we'd be better off with a Bible in which there was a better (more balanced, more accurate) character development of the Pharisees and their movement.
Curtis,
I feel no lack, however.
It is hard to feel the lack of what you don't know. Let me suggest that if you did get to know the Bible, you'd be glad you did, even if you don't enter the circle of faith as a result. There is just too much Biblical allusion in the world (and especially the world of literature) that you'll miss without that background.
One of the nice things about the Bible is that it is a library—a collection of books, none of which is especially long, and where it is a perfectly reasonable decision to read one book, set aside the collection for a while to do other things, read another, etc.
And the Bible represents an extraordinarily diverse collection of writings, spanning roughly a thousand years, and radically different views of the world. And it is also an uneven text, with a lot of repetition.
Let me suggest a short reading course, intended to give you a maximum background with a minimum of reading:
1) Genesis/Exodus. The formative mythology of the people of Israel, setting the stage for the primary actors: God and his people.
2) 1st & 2nd Samuel, 1st & 2nd Kings. These books represent the climax of the so-called "Deuteronomic History," and deal with the transition of the nation of Israel from a collection of tribes into a monarchy, the division of that monarchy into northern and southern kingdoms, and the ultimate destruction of both.
3) Jeremiah, Amos. These are books of writings of two prophets. Amos was a prophet to Israel (the northern kingdom) shortly before its destruction; Jeremiah was a prophet to Judah (the southern kingdom) before and through its destruction. Jeremiah is believed by some to be the author of the deuteronomic history.
4) Second Isaiah (ch. 40ff), Ezekiel. These were prophets to Judah while in exile in Babylon. They are strikingly different in style, but not in message: God has heard the suffering of his people, the time of restoration is at hand.
5) Luke, John. Two strikingly different Gospels, i.e., books that tell the story of Jesus.
6) 1st Corinthians. A letter from St. Paul to the church at Corinth, a troubled congregation.
I'd also suggest reading Psalms on an occasional basis. At some point, it's worthwhile reading Robert Alter's "The Art of Biblical Poetry," to understand the underlying Semitic poetic conventions.
I wouldn't loose too much sleep over translations (assuming you don't read Hebrew or Greek), except that I'd advise avoiding paraphrase translations (e.g., the Message) or "simplified language" translations (e.g., "Good News," or NKJV). I like the NRSV theologically, but I recommend Robert Alter's translations of the OT books, especially the Psalms.
Curtis, you can't feel a lack if you didn't once know something.
I think the Romans under Nero would be all we would have if not for Christ. I mean, his reign would still be the norm.
Thank God for God!
Stu, I liked your response, and think you're right. We should know more about the Pharisees. where do you go to find out more?
Kirby,
We should know more about the Pharisees. where do you go to find out more?
Good question. One obvious thing is to read the Gospels with sympathy to the Jews, who it must be admitted were in an extraordinarily challenging historical context. Realize, also, that whenever Jesus is debating a lawyer or a scribe who is not specifically identified as a Sadducee, he's probably debating a Pharisee, whether or not this is made explicit by the text. [BTW, my model of the Sadducees is as collaborationist scum, and this likely also lacks nuance :-).]
Beyond NT sources, the place to look is most likely in the Mishnah, which I'll admit that I've not read. There is only finitely much time, after all. My uninformed best guess is that reading the Mishnah is a lot like reading Aquinas (for us Protestants). It's an obviously sincere and indeed ferocious attempt to understand the nature of the relationship between God and man, but pursued within such an otherwise alien framework, and addressed at issues that are often so remote to us, that we'd find the signal/noise ratio to be discouraging.
It would be great if someone wrote fair, condensed versions of each (Summa and Mishnah) suitable for a modern audience. If done well, they'd serve as an appetizer and map for the underlying texts as main course/destination.
Kirby,
Oh, and St. Paul is self-described in Acts as a student of Gamaliel, which makes him a Pharisee too. And undoubtedly what makes Paul so different from the other NT material is his Pharisaic training, and this was refracted, radicalized, and reinterpreted his Damascus Road experience and subsequent training and call.
It is, of course, hard to tease out Pharisaic antecedents of Paul from its Christianized written form, but perhaps an appropriately trained and interested scholar could do good work there. And perhaps one already has.
Valentine Michael Smith
Emily Litella.
I think it would liven up certain parts of the Bible if every now and then she popped onto the scene and said: "what's all this fuss I keep hearing about......."
Wendy,
Emily Litella.
Isn't Peter, in his role as the densest of the disciples, and clueless straight man, already covering this turf?
Stu,
I'm not too sure. Certainly the disciples were dense,and Jesus frequently commented about having to explain it all.
But I don't recall Peter ever being corrected, then smiling sweetly into the camera and saying: "never mind." But maybe that was covered by the three denials.
I think every character one could devise is already covered somewhere in the Bible. That's part of its charm.
WW
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