A WINDOW TO THE HUMAN CONDITION
Joel M. Hoffman has done a lot of thinking about what the Bible actually says. Recently I talked to him about his book, The Bible Doesn’t Say That: 40 Biblical Mistranslations, Misconceptions and Other Misunderstandings. Did Adam and Eve really eat an apple when they took fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Does Genesis contradict evolution? Does the New Testament replace justice from the Old Testament with love? Our conversation has been edited for length.
Jennifer: There are two versions of the creation myth. In one, Eve was formed from Adam’s rib (Genesis chapter 2, verses 21-22). In an earlier telling, Eve and Adam were created at the same time in God’s image, (Genesis, chapter 1, verse 27).
Joel: The different stories teach us different things about the nature of our lives. They are equally valid. According to one story, Eve was created so Adam wouldn’t be alone. The other story teaches us that men and women are equal, they were both made in God’s image and created on an equal footing.
Jennifer: Why do we blindly accept all these Bible stories — the flood and Noah’s ark, for instance? How could every animal on Earth fit into that tiny ark?
Joel: It wasn’t meant to be history. Even a cursory examination points out the numerous flaws in the story. It was meant to teach us things about the world. The early part of Genesis was designed to tell us how the world got to be the way it is. Things didn’t work out so well the first time God created Earth. There were angels who came down and had mated with human women and fathered giants. And then there was wickedness on Earth.
God thought he had to start again. The flood story was about that. Noah is certainly a flawed character but the power of the Bible is in the way it speaks to the real human condition, not the idealized human condition. Even our heroes are flawed. You see it with Abraham, too. Going back to Noah, it raises the question of what does it mean to be righteous? Do you have to be perfect to be righteous or is perfection too much to ask for?
Jennifer: The Jews have often been targeted as the slayers of Christ and it has made them scapegoats and worse. But you point out there isn’t a clear sense of who was responsible for the Crucifixion.
Joel: In terms of who killed Christ, some things are clear. It was not all of the Jews but there were some Jews involved. It is equally clear there were some Romans involved. As with most decisions at this level, the conversations took place in back channels. No minutes were kept so we don’t know the details of how this decision was made.
The scapegoating of the Jews has less to do with the Jews’ reputation for killing Christ. There are some people who were anti-Semitic and this was a fine place to hang their hat. Christ had to die to make Christian theology work. Christ could not die if there were no sins. Christ could have stopped this and he chose not to.
Jennifer: What about the virgin birth? My readers are going to rebuke me for asking this but how is it possible for Mary to get pregnant without having sexual intercourse with a man? Maybe she was just an innocent who didn’t know what was happening?
Joel: Let me think carefully about the answer. I don’t think it is my place to judge what the text is saying. Just understand- ing what the ancient text of the New Testament says involves peeling back a whole lot of grime that has accumulated in the form of misinterpretation over the past 2,000 years. The text says Jesus was born of a virgin birth. Now you can choose to believe it or not.
But you have to understand the Bible wasn’t meant to convey facts. Facts take a back seat to understanding the human condition. It teaches us how we are supposed to treat each other and what we are all doing here. Today we focus on science and we shove it into everything we do.
Jennifer: Are you a creationist?
Joel: I am not a creationist. The Bible did not mean to say the world was created in six days. It was intended to teach us about the nature of the world and one way was the creation story.
Jennifer: But there are creationists in the United States who think the Bible story should be taught instead of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Joel: Creationists have misunderstood the Bible’s role. It was never intended to compete with science and there are two different stories of creation. Many people are grappling with how to live life in the scientific era. Two unfortunate results of that are hyper-fundamentalists who literally believe in every word of the Bible or professional atheists who don’t believe a word and think science should replace the Bible. You have a much richer life if you have both the Bible and science.
Jennifer: The Tea Party must think you are a heretic.
Joel: I lecture frequently throughout the Bible Belt and the reception is overwhelmingly positive.
My experience is that a lot of people want to know what the Bible says before it was misinterpreted. The only negative feedback I got was from a group of Southern Baptists who preached against me because I dared to suggest that men and women were supposed to be equal in the Bible.
The Bible is a lot like a newspaper. There is news, commentary, reviews and comics. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the newspaper. Certainly there are contradictions in the Bible but the Bible is meant to show that life is complicated. There are many interpretations and sides.
Jennifer: Talk about the social aspects of the Bible.
Joel: There are two burning social issues: one is homosexuality and the other is abortion.
Abortion is the question of when life begins. In the view of the Bible, the fetus is not a child. The Bible does not give us an answer to when life begins. One can interpret that abortion is murder or that it is a woman’s right to choose.
Regarding homosexuality, the Bible says male homosexuality is forbidden. It also says wearing a garment made of both wool and linen is forbidden. The text does not use the word sin. There is a big difference between things that are undesirable and things that are sins.
Paul is a very important source of what the Bible says about this, but unfortunately we don’t know from the Greek he uses whether he means all homosexual sex is immoral.
Translators do their best but there is a lot of uncertainty. Another way to think about it is the New Testament tells us not to judge people. It says love thy neighbour.
I don’t think you have to believe in God to believe in the Bible. If you care about the human condition, you will want to read the Bible. If it is just fairy tales and nonsense, why are we still reading it 2,000 years later? The Bible presents messages in more than one way. Not every message it presents is good. But overall, it shows us what it is like to be a human living on this Earth.