September 2, 2015

Oh come on now!  Really?
The Rev. Dr. Eric Funston

The first reading of Monday's Daily Office comes from 2 Chronicles and tells of the dedication of Solomon's temple.  This was the temple where the people of Israel worshiped.  This was the temple that Solomon built for the glory of the Lord.  This was the temple that was the center of religious and social life for the Jews at that time.  And we are told that, on the day of dedication, King Solomon sacrificed 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep.  Even in Montana, that's a lot of sheep and oxen.

One of the blogs I try to read regularly is written by the aforementioned Rev. Dr. Funston.  He tries to write a daily observation on one of the readings of the Daily Office, and this was the title of his Monday post in regards to the reading from 2 Chronicles.  He labeled this particular piece of Scripture “fiction,” and then he went on to say why he thought it was a fictional account.  I posted a comment in which I said that this piece of Scripture may be fictional in the same way that the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree is fictional.

On Mondays I offer a bible study at Rogue Valley Retirement Center.  It's an interesting group of people.  There is one lady who recently began attending who is very adamant, and very vocal, that every word of Scripture is accurate as written.  This has generated a few lively discussions as we work our way through Matthew.  She was none to happy with me when I suggested that Jesus could possibly have made a mistake at one point (“Remember,” I said, “mistakes are not necessarily sins”), or when I suggested that Jesus was using a particular image to show God to be feminine.

Following Monday's discussion of Matthew 24, one gentleman came up to me and said, “I have a question . . . I don't understand how people can think that the gospels contain the actual words of Christ.”

What he was getting at was that the gospels weren't written until well after Christ’s death and resurrection.  He wanted to know where the authors got all of their information, and wasn't it possible that in gathering that information from an oral tradition, they might have gotten some of the words wrong?  Yes, that's probably likely.

It's possible that we don't have the actual, verbatim words of Christ in the Bible.  It's possible (likely?) that Solomon didn't sacrifice 22,000 oxen and 122,000 sheep as recorded by the Chronicler.

The Bible may not be factually accurate in places; but in all places it expresses truth.  And what I’ve discovered over the years is that it is much harder to read the Bible for truth than it is to read it while blithely ascribing factual accuracy to it.

While Fr. Eric's question was a cute blog post title, maybe there's more to it than that.  If we read Scripture with that same question on our mind, might we be challenged to dig deeper?  If we read Scripture with that same question on our mind, might we be willing to search for truth rather than settle for easy answers of 'facts'?

How are you reading Scripture?

Amen.