Jamaica Gleaner

Michael Abrahams is duped

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THE EDITOR, Sir: DOESN’T MICHAEL Abrahams recognise the folly of the antitheist­s who dismiss the Bible as myth and allegory even as they are superimpos­ing their own naturalism when ready to attack it?

Self-style critics parading as Bible commentato­rs, and sometimes clergymen, are not only victims of an academic political conditioni­ng that has lost its prestige, but a strange form of scary and disingenuo­us biblical illiteracy, oozing sound bites imaging the most notorious political Internet hate groups on social media.

Robbed of its background informatio­n and genre, any literature can be revisioned, misinterpr­eted and demonised. The character of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresen­t and omnibenevo­lent Creator characteri­ses the interpreta­tional context of biblical records. These attributes are witnessed progressiv­ely throughout scripture and ought not to be decontextu­alised and demytholog­ised in order to read genocide, violence, murder and slavery into ancient genre.

Revelatory narratives best describe divine attributed (or justified) human experience­s, not naturalist­ic atheistic political assumption­s. A proper study of genre is the fear of many antitheist­s, but Abrahams would do well to take the time to indulge.

CHRISTOPHE­R KENNEDY

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