Upon reflection, I was taught two different perspectives or aspects on soteriology. A negative aspect (Say this prayer/believe these things or you're going to Hell...) and a positive aspect (God loves you, Christ sets you free from your sin/bondage, etc) during my accumulative time at two churches in the first fourteen years of my life. It is sufficient to say that since I was taught the negative aspect starting at 7 years old, it sufficiently scarred my psyche and put a significant burden upon a child who was carefree and curious about the world before this was repeatedly shoved upon me over and over again.
I learned the positive aspect when I was around 13 years old and accepted this much more willingly then I did the other. Thanks be to the healthy and holistic ministers out there.
However, as much as the Bible was used to support both perspectives and revered as the "Infallible, Inerrant, Holy Word of God," the academic study of these texts were rarely bequeathed to me by those who possessed this knowledge. I know that there were (and still are) individuals who have been to seminary in my church and learned everything that I have learned and continue to research now. Why, I ask, was I not informed by these individuals?
To give an example of the knowledge I now possess, consider the Documentary Hypothesis. The Documentary Hypothesis states that the Torah (I will use Genesis as an example) was redacted or edited together from at least four different primary textual and oral sources known as J, E, P, and D. The first three chapters in Genesis show this primarly by what name they use in reference to the Divine - Genesis 1:1-2:3 use the Hebrew word, Elohim (translated into English as God) to refer to the Divine (this is the P or Priestly source) and Genesis 2:4b-25 use YHWH Elohim (translated into English as Lord God) to refer to the Divine (this is the J or Yahwistic Source).
If you wish to know more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis for ready information or a study Bible such as the New Oxford Annotated Bible or the Harper Collins Study Bible.
Now, it is not that I am stating that the Documentary Hypothesis is necessarily the end-all, be-all of the authorship of the Torah but it is certainly apparent that Moses didn't write the entire Torah. This is the line toted by the church I attended - Moses wrote the entire Torah, which is clearly wrong considering that there are parts of the Torah that continue on after Moses' death.
Therefore, I ask why was information such as this not taught to me in church? The "Fruits of the Academia" were not shown to me until after I was on my own at college and learning them in the classroom? What I learned in the classroom as well as what I experienced in college, "shocked" me out of my "shell" of what I thought I knew. If I was prepared for this, maybe things would turned out differently but alas, they didn't. At least I attended a church in my teenage years that had sense enough to put away unhealthy theology. Thanks be to them for that.
There is a post on a similar topic over on another blog that helped me to make the decision to write this post. Check it out: http://newtestamentperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-intellectual-life-matters.html
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2 comments:
I salivated a little as I read this. I love bringing up the J & E (and P & D) stuff to literal interpreters. My understanding is that only the really liberal minded believe it. I think if you told an Orthodox (or even Modern Orthodox) Jew about the J, E, P, D stuff, they would attempt to tell you that God dictated it what to Moses, because God is seen as appearing in many forms, and just revealed himself in many forms to Moses. If you try to tell a fundamental Christian, the response may be that it was God's plan to make it seem like many voices as a way of testing you, Or, that any contamination or doubt in the word of the Bible was put there by Satan.
I'm not sure, but that's just my thoughts. The tougher question is why a small, liberal parish would ignore this theory. My conjecture would be for the same reason the Medieval church took a literal and not metaphorical stance on the New Testament - because they think the followers can't handle the truth. It's been documented that in the middle ages, peasants were told literally believe in the miracles of Jesus, but church leaders and scholars did not believe these literal truths, and were just suggesting them as an allegory to guide the "stupid" peasants.
So in short, it's because they don't think you can handle it, and they'd rather try to just reassure your faith, then make you question it, unless you've proven you can handle the questioning.
Haha, I'm glad you salivated. That theory is a great theory and although it is a product of the age it was proposed in, it has taken a considerable position in Biblical Scholarship.
That's very true - I didn't attend a small, liberal parish though when I was in high school. I attended a rather conservative, medium size church and we definitely had trained theologians in the church but none of them taught this idea. If there were those who thought it was true, they didn't expound about it because it wasn't beneficial for one's faith.
Even when we had a theologically-trained seminarian come from GWU and give the sermon, I spoke to him after the sermon and he gave me a lot of pat answers. Perhaps, I'm just accustomed to doubt and the answers I've found.
I feel the answer is that the common people can't handle it, like you said. Just like Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" said (I know his view is a little more nuanced than that) the people need their common faith and don't need to question it. However, the claims of any institution should hold up under scrutiny and in this case, they don't.
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