The Word of the Lord
In our Church, as in many others, we are bidden, after reading a passage from the Bible, to say:”This is the Word of the Lord”. I vividly remember a gathering of clergy at a worship service in which some rather odd bit of our Old Testament was read; it might have been part of the 22nd chapter of the book Numbers, which tells the story of Balak and Balaam. In this lovely tale Balaam’s donkey tries to stop him from going on a journey of which God disapproves in spite of having authorised it himself. When Balaam starts beating his ass, the animal takes to talking back and a conversation between man and beast goes on until Balaam’s eyes are opened and he sees an angel standing in his way with a drawn sword in his hand.
As required by the published form of service the reader finished his piece by saying:”This is the Word of the Lord”; whereupon the great majority of the congregation, instead of giving the proper response: “Thanks be to God”, burst out laughing. This delighted me for it seemed to me a completely appropriate reaction.
It is not that myths such as this fascinating one about the talking donkey are of no value but the amazing truth is that lots of Christians, Muslims and Jews imagine that what we have here is historical fact. I think it was the brilliant Karen Armstrong who pointed out that before the 19th century nobody thought stories such as these were supposed to be historical documents, which had to be accepted as literal fact.
So how are we meant to understand this phrase:”This is the Word of the Lord”? I can truthfully affirm that there is something God can teach us through such stories, so that I can say to myself: “The Lord can tell me something through this myth”; but what I cannot in conscience do is to understand it literally as if I believed the story to be historical truth. Personally I’d much rather we dropped the phrase altogether since I’m sure it is misleading many people into believing that the Church actually teaches that the myths in the Scriptures are to be accepted as facts, which was never the intention of their composers. When I was newly ordained we never had to bother about that phrase, for the required conclusion to any reading of Scripture was, if anything: “Here endeth the lesson.” I don’t often prefer the old ways to the new but in this case I certainly do. “Here ends the lesson” is good enough for me.
-Peter Graham
It was also Karen Armstrong who pointed out that the Koran was also never meant to be taken literally and that the tendency of extremists in both Christianity and Islam to do this is a post cold war trend – also that the Bible has in it much more violence and injunctions against behaviour that conclude “..shall be put to death” than the Koran has.
Frankly, K.A. is like any other pop intellectual… she sifts history and facts into a narrative that she likes and doesn’t worry over-much about kludging here and there.
It’s all po-mo, don’t ya know.
(Not to be harsh, but it is a pretty universal truth. Even books with mondo references and cites written by people with sparkling credentials aren’t immune, but I’m always suspicious of anyone who writes in a more conversational style, right left, up or down).
you must be very suspicious of me
This is the word of David N Scott
Thanks be to God