The Joy of Reading the Bible - Not

The joy of reading the Bible? Why not? Decades ago we had The Joy of Sex, followed up by The Joy of Cooking and other such titles on a range of subjects. When I started writing this, I soon found out my thoughts took me first to why reading The Bible might not be a joy. So, I will deal with that first, hence the ‘Not’ of this title, and then get on to the other.

1.     We don’t understand the Bible

If we are Christians, should reading The Bible not be a source of joy? Many still say they find The Bible hard to understand. Perhaps there is a reason for this. In fact, Isaiah, one of the major prophets of the Old Testament wrote (Isaiah 6:10): “Make the hearts of these people calloused; make their ears deaf and their eyes blind!

Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears,

their hearts might understand and they might repent and be healed.”

A similar passage in Isaiah 29 adds this: “10 For the Lord has poured out on you a strong urge to sleep deeply.

He has shut your eyes (the prophets), and covered your heads (the seers).

29:11 To you this entire prophetic revelation is like words in a sealed scroll. When they hand it to one who can read and say, “Read this,” he responds, “I can’t, because it is sealed.” 29:12 Or when they hand the scroll to one who can’t read and say, “Read this,” he says, “I can’t read.”

Now, that might sound a bit odd. We understand it is the Spirit of God telling the prophet what to say. Is God really causing his people to be blind and deaf to his word? Is He really telling Isaiah to do this? Actually, it is probably better understood as meaning, this is what will happen when you repeat the message you have for these people. This refers to The Children of Israel, the Jews or Hebrews.

Really, we all know what happens when we hear something too often. We tune out. We learned that early in life when our parents said things over and over that we perceived as nagging. We might also remember that sometimes we found out too late that they really meant something. There were consequences when we did not listen and do as told.

We get a further glimpse of what was meant here, as we often do, from the later-written New Testament. We know Jesus often tried to convey what he wanted people to know in stories, or parables. Parable actually means, according to my Greek-English Lexicon: “s short discourse that makes a comparison… a riddle… it expresses a complete thought… it needed interpretation because it presented teaching in an obscure fashion.” When Jesus was asked by his followers why he taught in parables his response included a quote from the above Isaiah passage (from Matthew 13:10-17): “13:13 For this reason I speak to them in parables: Although they see they do not see, and although they hear they do not hear nor do they understand. 13:14 And concerning them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says:

‘You will listen carefully yet will never understand, you will look closely yet will never comprehend.

13:15 For the heart of this people has become dull;

they are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes,

so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears

and understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Here Jesus clarifies that it is more accurate to say it is the reader and listener whose faculties fail them because of their own actions.

We might protest, ‘But I do want to understand.’ We might, and that is great. However, some of us, if we are honest, will recognize this sentiment, stop reading because of what the words tell us. Sometimes we don’t want to have our shortcomings pointed out. Sometimes The Word calls us to action but we are not ready to go there – at least not yet. This is what Isaiah followed by Jesus meant.

2.     It’s too hard to read

Some of us have given up on reading The Bible because of the ‘version’ of The Bible we are trying to read. I am saying something about my age when I say my first Bible was a gift from my parents when I first learned to read. It was The Authorized Version (AV), more commonly known as “the King James” (KJV). The description comes from its being the first translation of the Bible into English to be officially undertaken and approved – by England’s King James - in 1611. We find it difficult to read this sometimes, if any of you are even familiar with it anymore, because we no longer speak ‘King James’ English. We live over 400 years later and language changes.

Many branches of the Church have somehow concluded this is the only Bible we who speak English should read. Why they persist in this is beyond me. Those who believe this way are mostly Protestants, many of whom still harbour a deep suspicion of other branches of the Church, especially the Roman Catholic. King James was a Catholic! He was no saint, nor, apparently were some of the translaters. But they knew their languages and that was enough for the king.

There were others such as Wycliffe and Tyndale who translated The Bible in those days, but their ‘versions’ were not ‘authorized,’ not approved by the state or the Church of England and other ‘mainline’ churches. Well, most of us no longer limit ourselves by these restrictions and we have a number of translations and versions to choose from. Almost too many.

Indeed, when I got my bible, there was already an easier-to-read and understand translation out, The Revised Standard Version (RSV). However, my parents, like most of their fellow-believers of their era, still stuck to the AV. I got my own first RSV when I attended bible college as a young adult, as that is what was used there then (Canadian Mennonite Bible College, 1964). Now, an even newer version of that is out, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) which I like; it is more inclusive in language for those who find the male terms of previous translations and versions harder to swallow nowadays.

3.     There are too many ‘books’ in The Bible

Some of you might simply feel this way about the Bile, regardless. Some think, and this is nothing new, we should abandon the Old Testament and just stick with the New. After all, that is the story of Christ and The Church, is it not? Is that not who we are? We are not Jews. So why still read the Old Testament? That would cut it down from 66 to 27 books right there!

Others of you might be confused because you have seen different bibles with different books in them. Indeed, the Catholic bible, as we Protestants often refer to the version(s) they use, has a number of books in it that you will not find in the AV or most other translations and versions. Sometimes you will see these books referred to as ‘apocryphal,’ which means (according to Google) “(of a story or statement) of doubtful authenticity, although widely circulated as being true” (see next paragraph).

These ‘extra’ books are also referred to as non-canonical. Canon is simply a big ‘church’ word for the accepted or authorized, the agreed-upon limit of what constitutes The Bible. This was decided around the early 5th century. This action was deemed necessary because there were a lot of apocryphal ‘books,’ ‘gospels,’ and ‘epistles’ floating around. Some branches of the church had their favourites and others said some of these were next to garbage. So, many were eliminated from the canon.  The Holy Spirit, whom we believe inspired the Bible (and that’s a whole ‘nother topic) was working through the Church to guide it, as we still have not seen fit to really question those decisions 1600 years later!

The western Roman Catholic Church continues to include some of these books in its bibles. The eastern Orthodox Churches, include some of their own old non-canonical favourites and actually don’t include all of our western canon. And some of our newer translations have these books. I have a New English Bible from the early ‘70s that has some of these books. They are mixed in all over the place, which sometimes makes it harder for me to find the canonical books where I think they should be! My newer NRSV has them too, but they are clearly set apart in a section of their own.

These books can be interesting and informative, even helpful. However, we do well to remember that we must no regard what they say as authoritative over against what the canonical books say. Otherwise, we are working against what the whole Church, guided by, as I said I believe, The Holy Spirit decided long ago.

4.     I can’t or don’t know why I should read some of this

This is a reaction we have all shared at one time or another. There are indeed passages in The Bible that make us wonder, what is this here for? What am I supposed to get out of this? “We know whereof we speak,” as we say. We are talking about what we sometimes refer to as the ‘endless genealogies’ or all those ‘Laws of Moses’ not to mention those ‘weird prophecies.’ Sometimes we don’t think certain passages have any value for us today. And some stories contain so much violence we wonder why they are here. Maybe they should be x-rated! Numbers 19-20 is a key case in point (How many of you are going to turn to that now and satisfy your curiosity?). And then there’s The Revelation at the very end. Many are still not sure what that whole ‘revelation’ is supposed to mean.

This can take us into further discussion of what the Bible is and how we interpret it. However, I do not intend to go into that here. I will address this, as I will all of the above, in ‘the next chapter,’ The Joy of Reading The Bible –Yes!