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On Horrors and Miracles

18 Dec

What Brought Me Back

After a hiatus from Bible Heathen, last Friday’s horrifying school shooting has led me back. For four days my mind’s been grinding away at the unanswerable questions that come in the wake of deliberate, man-made tragedy. And last night I was surprised to find myself—a Santa-loving agnostic—on my way home from work, wondering how the events in Newtown,Connecticut, intersect with the Holy Book.

For the first time, I began to understand the Bible’s appeal and it’s relevance to modern, daily life. I didn’t want to pray, find redemption, or get religion (whatever that entails). Instead, I was searching for a way to connect Friday’s frightening events with a more expansive human history,and the Bible seemed like a good place to turn.

The Bible is one of the oldest books that seeks to reveal human nature through some kind of historical context. We learn from the Exodus (I think) that mass murder is nothing new, but the motivations of a suicidal killer like Adam Lanza feel distinctly different from the evil perpetrated by ancient kings. It leaves me wondering what stories from our present era would be included in a Brand New Contemporary Testament of Modern Times. What horrors and miracles define our existence? How do we know that justice
is meted out?

2000+ Years of Loneliness

Look at Eden’s Adam. There was a guy who knew loneliness! But his isolation pushed him to nurture and create (with some help from the big G, of course). He tended the Garden of Eden, named roughly 8.7 million species of critters, and begat one massive family. He fought against his isolation, turned his energy outward to build new life.

In modern times we stand at the bus stop in silent clusters, staring at glowing rectangles. Put in the context of my meager Genesis readings, modern daily existence seems both cluttered and empty. Our basic human needs are satisfied, but we suffer from a new frightening isolation. It is far too easy to become detached from any sort of community, to replace real creation with digital activity. We have more ways to connect, but fewer ties to a real and tangible world. Unlike the productive loneliness of Eden’s Adam, isolation like that of Newtown’s Adam Lanza culminates as a single act of destruction by which it replicates, pushing itself into the families and communities that suffer direct losses.

Heathens’ Vigil

Last night as I passed Washington Square Park, I looked at a crowd that had gathered for a candlelight vigil to honor Newtown’s dead. The group was mostly NYU students and they had the distinct, heathen-y look of people who spend their weekends reading Nietzsche before hitting the bars. As they leaned against one another it didn’t matter if they believed in God or organized religion. They filled the square with spiritual electricity as they prayed (the way heathens do, even if we don’t call it that) for justice. And I realized that moments like that give me every reason to believe in heaven and hell.

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The Tale of the Riblet

19 Sep

Genesis 2

If Genesis 1 is Genesis Lite, then Genesis 2 is the kitchen-sink version. It has Adam, Eve, that magic riblet, and lots of man-God bonding. It’s also less abstract and has much stronger narrative and characterization, setting the scene for “The Fall of Man.” This time, after God has created the basics (i.e., heavens, earth, land, seas), he creates plants. He plants them in the Garden of Eden but it’s just too much landscaping for him to manage on his own. God needs a gardener. Enter man: a single human created from the dust of the ground and given life when God breathes into his nostrils. (Eww.)

God puts this yet-nameless man in the Garden of Eden “to work it and take care of it” (NIV, Gen. 2:15). In the center of the garden, he plants the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (He also plants the seemingly irrelevant Tree of Life, which may or may not be the same tree.) Eden is a vegetarian’s paradise, with the exception of a little foreshadowing:

“And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat it you will surely die.’” (NIV, Gen. 2:16–17)

It turns out that the man could use some help with the shrubbery—and he wouldn’t mind some company, either. God gets to work shaping animals from the earth, but the man rejects them all. But unlike in Genesis 1, man here collaborates with God in the creation of animals by naming each one, despite not finding a companion.

God conducts surgery on the man and takes out a rib to create what might considered a sort of female mutant clone. The man calls this marvelous creature woman. And now that he has discovered sex, he really couldn’t give a whit about her gardening talents. Their sex is endorsed by God and is completely absent of lust; it bonds the man and woman together, and is the reason why people leave their parents when they grow up.

Bible Heathen’s Reflection

Adam and Eve’s relationship is interesting in how it turns our earthly birth process on its head. Here, Adam’s gut is the source of new female life, while we modern humans find new life in a woman’s belly.

This inversion reinforces the gender hierarchy. In Genesis 2, the men, literally and figuratively, come first. Adam and God are the collaborators, creators, and leaders, here. Eve is their support staff, but she also bears innate and powerful knowledge that will change Adam’s world and his relationship with God. After all, if God is the father, and we are all destined to leave our parents for our romantic partners, Adam’s following Eve is preordained.

Up Next: Genesis 3, “From Figleaf to Fur: The Loincloths of Eden”

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Genesis Lite

18 Sep

Genesis 1

Even heathens know that in the beginning, there is Genesis, which actually contains two creation stories, thanks to oral storytelling origins.

The Adam-and-Eve-less version contains God’s famous line, “Let there be light,” as well as the less catchy, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters” (KJV, Gen. 1:6), or “an expanse between the waters to separate water from water” (NIV, Gen. 1:6). Firmament or expanse, in the beginning it’s a bit like the cosmic quark-gluon soup of physicists. From this, God creates the following, in order: heavens, sky, land/sea, plants, sea creatures, birds, animals, whom he tells them to “be fruitful and multiply.” Included in these critters are livestock, who—I would argue are sorely in need of shepherds, vets, ranchers, trainers, and county fairs. Known for his master planning skills, God’s one step ahead of me and creates a bunch of humans to take care of this pastoral wilderness:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Gen. 1: 27)

All the while, God is explicitly in spirit form, so how we are in his likeness seems open to interpretation. It’s possible that spiritually we are like God—after all, he does make humans caretakers of his earthly creation:

“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” (KJV, Gen. 1:28)

Seven simple days. No Adam, no Eve, no Garden of Eden. The end.

 

Up next: Genesis 2 (the other creation story)

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How Bibles Are Like Peanut Butter

7 Sep
Part I of . . .

A Biblical Task: Choosing a Bible

I don’t speak biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek, the respective languages of the original Old and New Testaments, so my first step in reading the Bible is choosing an English translation. Doing so is a biblical task, literally and figuratively. People have the same allegiance to their Bible version that they do to their peanut butter. My former college roommate is a Jif die-hard; a friend from high school loves the gloppy-sugary texture of Peter Pan; and the food co-op hipsters grind their own organic peanuts into an unsalted paste. But they all agree that there is only one true peanut butter, and it is the one they spread on their bread!So, my original plan was to go with the King James Version, a real crowd-pleaser, the Jif of Bibles.

I had assumed that the King James Version—the KJV, to Bible hepcats—was the generally accepted, mainstream, go-to, expert-approved, infallible-enough translation. If only it were so simple and unanimous. The KJV alone is not enough for me. I want more. I want footnotes, endnotes, miscellaneous annotations, maps, historical citations, cross-references, and the Apocrypha (whatever they are, I want them!). I want the whole shebang of biblical context, support, and assistance. I want the New Oxford Annotated Bible, which is not exactly the KJV, but rather the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

The NRSV is reviled by many churchgoing Bible readers for being too academic, not ecumenical enough (despite billing itself as “An Ecumenical Study Bible”). It’s not seen as the word of God so much as the word of secular academics. By reading the Bible as a piece of historical literature, the NRSV neutralizes some of the book’s contemporary political and emotional connotations. This is part of the Oxford’s appeal to me, as a heathen. But it also neglects to investigate popular modern interpretations of the book—ones I want to understand. Which brings me to the New International Version (NIV). At first glance, the NIV seems to be favored among many practicing Christians, our neighbors, coworkers, and friends, who take their faith seriously. I expect it to provide a true glimpse into the modern Christian faith.

But it doesn’t stop there. I am now the proud owner of six Bibles! I’ll be investigating the context of each version, so if you have any guidance, please drop me a comment.

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