A DISTINCTIVE APPROACH TO THE BIBLE

[Excerpts from the Preface of How the Bible Came to Be—Exploring the Narrative and Message, by John W. Miller (Paulist Press, 2004), the textbook for Blenheim’s Bible Study Program].

The Bible contains a vast array of books, teachings and stories woven into a longer narrative that opens with an account of creation and ends with a vision of creation renewed. Prominent within this narrative is the story of Israel: a recounting of events from Abraham and Sarah down through time to the missions of Ezra and Nehemiah, and then to Jesus, and the worldwide expansion of the church begun in his name. How this narrative is understood has given shape to the various theologies and worldviews that have informed, animated and, at times, dominated western religion and culture.

The conviction underlying this book is that a new approach to understanding these scriptures is needed, one informed by canon history. Despite its unprecedented availability the Bible as a whole is still a mystery to many. There is no built-in manual of instruction about how it should be read, and history has shown it can be wrongly interpreted with devastating consequences. The canon-historian studies the Bible from the standpoint of when and why it was initially compiled. In this way we are put in touch with the intent and purposes of those who created this body of literature.

There are several reasons why such an approach may be an especially relevant one in our time. Studying the Bible from this more objective historical perspective can be a unifying experience. Christians of various denominations and traditions along with their Jewish brothers and sisters are drawn closer together as they journey to the wellsprings of history common to all. When focusing on the Bible’s origins in this manner we encounter its larger structures and must consider its overarching form and message, an area of weakness in the pedagogy of many churches. Paying attention to what these scriptures were originally meant to be and accomplish can afford much needed help in knowing how to understand them today.

Most importantly, looking at the Bible in this light can serve as a corrective to two of the darker aspects of religious history in the west: “supersessionism” and “triumphalism.” Supersessionism refers to the long-standing presumption that Christianity replaced (or superseded) Judaism. Triumphalism refers to the domineering form Christianity took when it became the territorial state religion of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, and then of Europe and other regions of the world, imposing its beliefs by force. As the following chapters will demonstrate, knowledge of the Bible’s origins reveals the extent to which supersessionism and triumphalism distort and subvert the core intentions of those who created it and puts us in touch with other ways of viewing Christianity vis-à-vis Judaism and the world.

The starting point for an inquiry of this kind is awareness that the books at the forefront of the Christian Bible are the scriptures of Judaism, which were assembled and codified well before the dawn of the Christian movement. Therefore, this older block of books must be seen as an entity in its own right. When and why was it created? What is its form and message? This is the focus of Part One. At some point the Christian church added writings to the scriptures of Judaism to form the Bible we have today. When and why was this done? And how was this enlarged Bible meant to be understood? This is the focus of Part Two.

As the footnotes will indicate, these studies are indebted to the work of many others, but take issue at points with prevailing views. A core thesis is that the Bible was largely formed during three major canon-creating periods—the first during and following the state reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah; the second during and following the teaching and temple reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah; and the third during a theological crisis that erupted in Gentile Christianity in the second century CE. I hope to show that an awareness of the factors at play in the formation of normative scriptures during each of these epochs can substantially enrich our understanding of the collection’s major subsections and of the Bible as a whole.