* The Holy Scriptures *
An Inspiration Like No Other
The way people view the Bible usually falls into one of three categories:
a sacred religious text;
a vast historical work;
or a collection of great stories.
However, in the words of Tom Butler-Bowdon: "our attachment to these tired slots can prevent us from seeing it anew as a collection of ideas, ones that helped create our concept of what a human being might be."
** PROGRESS **
It is easy to forget just how much the Old and New Testaments are responsible for the world we live in today.
In his book (The Gifts Of The Jews: How A Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed The Way Everyone Thinks And Feels), Thomas Cahill wrote:
"Without the Bible we would never have known the abolitionist movement, the prison-reform movement, the anti-war movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the movement of indigenous and dispossessed peoples for their human rights, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Solidarity movement in Poland, the free-speech and pro-democracy movements in such Far Eastern countries as South Korea, the Philippines, and even China. These movements of modern times have all employed the language of the Bible."
Perhaps the crucial change in the way we think was the idea of progress. In the distant past time was invariably seen as cyclical; the great creation stories were so important to these early cultures' understanding of themselves that little attention was paid to the future. The idea that tomorrow could be better than today was alien. There were many gods, but they were impersonal and capricious and none had any particular vision for the human race.
This changed with the direct revelation of the commandments through Moses on Mount Sinai. While this new singular God was to be feared, He was a God who not only always had our best interests at heart, but had a long-term vision for His people. He is the God who led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land, who would work through history in order to create His own ends - the God of progress.
Though we take it for granted today, this progressive worldview has defined western culture and been adopted by nearly all non-western cultures too. It is, as Cahill says above, the force behind all the great emancipation movements that, often employing the language of the Book of Exodus, grew out of the thought that "it does not have to be this way." This thought is also the light that guides most of the self-help literature.
**THE POWER OF LOVE**
If the Old Testament has been the inspiration for groups throughout the millennia, the New Testament became a symbol of personal salvation.
The Old was revolutionary because it put fresh emphasis on the individual, but the New took this to its logical extreme by saying that individuals could not only change the world, but had a duty to do so. Its challenge to transform the world to God's image, using Jesus as the example, made it a manual for active love. Again, a love that heals and creates - like progress - is something totally taken for granted now. But as Andrew Welburn put it in 'The Beginnings Of Christianity': "Love is the revelation of God to the individualised, self-conscious man, just as power and wise order were the revelation of God to ancient, pre-self-conscious humanity."
The Bible's theme of the power of love marked a new era of humankind. On his way to Damascus to help suppress the Christians, Saul of Tarsus (who later became St. Paul) was "blinded by the light." This wonderful story of personal transformation illustrated the strange new idea that love could be stronger than position or power.
** FAITH **
The collections of deities that preceded the Judaic concept of one god were mostly reflections of human desire. If you didn't get what you wanted, it was obvious that the gods were displeased with you. Moses' God was more complicated, requiring the worshipper to have faith in order to fashion his ends and demonstrate omnipotence. The Judaic and Christian God became one not simply of creation and destruction, but One of co-creation.
Look at the story of Abraham: Told by God to go to a mountain to make a sacrifice, he does so, but realises that the sacrifice will be his only son. Amazingly, he is willing to go through with it. At the last minute, God has him replace the boy with a ram caught in a nearby bush. Abraham's success at this incredible test of faith is rewarded by generations of his descendants living in prosperity.
Yet this was not simply a test of allegiance to God, and not just about Abraham. Humanity itself had passed a test: we could choose no longer to be animals quivering with fear, tied to the physical world, but could reflect God in becoming beings with calm faith.
** INDIVIDUALITY **
Other religions and philosophies had seen the world either as an illusion or a drama in which we played a role, but Christianity, by making the individual the unit through which the world would develop and fulfill it's potential, made history important - it became the story of humankind's efforts to create heaven on earth.
Above all, Christianity freed believers from having to accept their lot in life. It was profoundly in favour of equality for all people: Human beings were no longer captive to other humans, nor to capricious gods, the "fates", or the "stars". The emphasis gave people the groundbreaking idea that they could no longer be defined by factors such as class, ethnicity, or lack of money.
The revolutionary opportunity of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was to see and understand the "incommunicable singularity of being which all possess" (Teilhard de Chardin). While the broader vision of the Bible is the creation of a community of humankind, it can only be one in which each person has the opportunity to express this singularity to the full. Whatever you may think of him, this belief is what fired Pope John Paul to be so strongly anti-communist - that was a system that was willing to sacrifice a person's uniqueness to some larger community.
** INSPIRATION **
The Bible deserves to be seen with new eyes. We no longer have to see it as being about original sin and sacrifice, or as spawning a heavy church hierarchy and holy wars.
We should be reminded of it's simpler messages of compassion and fulfillment and refinement of ourselves, a morality requiring no imposition on others.
Though fascinating as a historical book with great stories, we should do the Bible justice by remembering that it was the original manual for personal transformation.
"Thou shalt decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways."
* Job 22:28 *
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters; He restores my soul."
* Psalm 23 *
"If God is for us, who can be against us?"
* Romans 8:31 *
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I have become a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiced in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
* 1 Corinthians 13*
Verses 1 - 8
and verse 13
