A New Meanness in the World

There is a new meanness in the world
fueled by a literal interpretation of God’s Word.

Car Bombs humanly guided to kill children.
Spies among us willing to kill the innocent.
Politicians and preachers willing to stereotype
those who believe differently,
to divide the country
for the sake of power and prestige.
Presidents and Governors willing to
jump into private family pain
to take sides for the sake of
political gain.

The bible was never meant to be
an Infallible message, without error.
Those who maintain that are deliberately
blind to facts, and to the deeper meaning
of God’s message, and they are likely to
get it wrong
as did Christians who believed slavery
was (it is) justified by the Bible,
as did males who believed women must
be subordinate to men, because “The Bible
says so.”
As did religious leaders who punished
scientists who disagreed with the “facts”
in the Bible.
The Bible is full of historical errors,
and was never meant to be Infallible.
The two accounts of creation in Genesis
chapters one and two disagree.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
all quote the Bible wrongly.
Jesus quoted the Bible wrongly when
he said
“Scriptures declare that rivers of living water
shall flow from the inmost being (heart, belly
in various translations) of anyone who
believes in me. . .” in John 7:38.
There is no such scripture anywhere in the
Bible. Did Jesus make it up?
Did the early Christians make it up and
put it in Jesus mouth?
Jesus predicted that he would return before
this generation had passed away. Matthew,
Mark and Luke all have this passage. All the
Christian community, included Paul, expected
Jesus’ return within their lifetimes.
It did not happen.
How come?
How did the entire early Christian community
misunderstand the prediction of Jesus
that he would return in their lifetime?
If Jesus said it that way, was that
not a false prophecy?
Hundreds of other discrepancies.
We cannot and are not intended to
take every word in the Bible literally.
We are bound to read in our
own assumptions and prejudices
as did Christians til our time
and even doing so now,
to judge some of us as further
from God as they are.
None of these prevent us from
accepting this Bible as the
authoritative Word of God to guide
us today, by the stories, life and
preaching of Jesus and the incomparable
Wisdom to be found, in both
Testaments.
But we must ask ourselves what was the
intention of the author. All were human
beings, and every passage had a context
and an intention.

To use God’s word, Allah’s words,
Mohammed’s words to harm others
is the greatest of evils.

See. Dr. Margaret Nutting Ralph
And God Said What
on the literary forms of the Bible
for your introduction.

Paschal Baute.
July 14, 2005