FUNDAMENTALISTS TRIVIALIZE OTHER BIBLICAL VIEWPOINTS

A kid in my religious school class recently questioned the predilection of a Christian public school classmate for answering every question with, “The Bible says . . .”

Many of us who staunchly vow allegiance to the Bible’s truth nonetheless bristle at the idea of invoking the Bible selectively to avoid intellectual or moral inquiry, much less the dishonesty of lifting a passage here-or-there to justify one’s prejudices.

This is a point I try to get across to my fundamentalist colleagues:

Cite the Christian Testament however you wish. That is a Christian’s prerogative. No Jew dare argue with a Christian who claims, “The Jewish Testament was then, this is now.”

But, if you invoke the Jewish Testament to advocate capital punishment, why then eat pork and shellfish? If you invoke the Jewish Testament to condemn homosexuality, then why not observe the Biblical Sabbath? If you invoke the Jewish Testament to discredit the theory of evolution, then why not circumcise your sons, pray in prayer tallis and tefillin, fast on Yom Kippur? Why are you so quick to cite the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, but so resistant to quote Isaiah 58, regarding salvation as a function of works, not of vicarious atonement?

Then, look even more deeply:

If Christians should strive to be Christ-like, then would they not want to study the Jewish Testament the way that Jesus studied it? Are they not aware that Jesus studied and expounded on the Bible as amplified by the Rabbinic tradition, not as a book to be narrowly explained within the four corners of the page? Are they not aware that Jesus’ response to “an eye for an eye,” “turn the other cheek,” was the classical Rabbinic response?

Take the evolution vs. creationism hubbub, for example:

Ironically, Jesus’ mentors, the Rabbis of Palestine, did not interpret the Creation epic literally. 2,000+ years ago, they were already explaining the first chapters of Genesis in an evolutionary manner.

The Rabbis, for example, compellingly cited Psalm 90 to establish that “a day of God” is not 24 hours, but eons in duration. Likewise, they maintained that the results of each “day” of creation had evolved from more primitive life-forms created at the beginning of each “day.” They even taught that Adam had a tail and webbed fingers!

An Aramaic translation of Genesis asserted that Adam’s “breath of life” breathed into him by God was the higher cognitive abilities that distinguished him from his more primitive relatives. Did the Rabbis, thus, find the “Missing Link”?

Likewise, those who hide behind the skirts of the Bible to denounce homosexuals should also temper their bluster. For, every time the Jewish Testament condemns homosexuality, it does so in the context of Canaanite idolatry, even using the Hebrew “to’evah,” a word that is reserved exclusively to mean “an idolatrous abomination.” Clearly, homosexual behavior was one among many sexual ways that the ancient Canaanites paid tribute to their gods. We would be hard pressed to assert that the Bible condoned homosexuality (and other non-procreative sexual practices). But, we would be equally hard pressed to maintain that the Bible ipso facto mortally condemned all homosexuality outside the context of idolatry.

When a Christian blinds himself to a fuller and more compassionate view of the Jewish Testament, to whom is he doing a disservice? The Jews, our Bible, our historic continuity, and our Rabbinic tradition will survive. Intellectual and spiritual seekers of truth and seekers of justice will also weather the storm. But, to trivialize the heritage that nurtured Jesus demeans Christ and Christianity alike.

Seekers of truth, it seems, win great favor in both our cherished Testaments. And yet, no one seems so smug and arrogant as one who pats himself on the back for having “found” ultimate – and exclusive – truth.