Thursday, December 05, 2024

Who Taught You the Bible?

From whom did you learn the Bible? I don't mean a couple dozen stories and 40 bible verses you committed to memory in Sunday School. I don't even mean frequent bible reading that has left you familiar with a great deal of bible content. When I say "learn the Bible" I mean on-going, deep dive, critical study of texts, cultures, idioms, traditions, textual inconsistencies, inaccurate cosmoloties, historical fallacies, pondering the almost unlimited lessons that may be learned and applied from myths and parables...I mean wrestling and with playing with and threatening to abandon and then reconciling with the ancient texts (as best we can knowing most of us are reading edited translations of hand copies of no longer existent documents that were compiled and canonized centuries after Jesus' life). From whom did you learn the Bible "that way"?

My teachers by book and/or lectern were: Alan Cooper, Angela Bauer-Levesque, Bart Ehrman, Bernard Anderson, Burton Mack, Elaine Pagels, Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Gale Yee, Hal Taussig, Joanna Dewey, John Dominic Crossan,
John S. Spong (though bible scholars often bristled to have him included among them insisting that he was a good teacher of their scholarship rather than a contributor to the scholarship), Lawrence Boadt, Lawrence Wills,
Mona West (Take Back the Work; Queer Bible Commentary eds.1 & 2; Queering Christianity: Finding a Place at the Table for LGBTQI Christians),
Phyllis Trible, Toni Craven, Vincent Wimbush, Wil Gafney...
as well as M. Borg & Wm. Countryman, John A. T. Robinson & Karen King, A.J. Levine & Lloyd Geering.

What I love about critical study is that it's never done. I thought I had learned from the best and I'd spend the rest of my career (possibly my life) trying to refresh my memory on things I had forgotten or that had become hazy from all the knowledge that had been deposited into my brain by the great scholars of our time. But scholarship never gets to retire and there are always new perspectives and discoveries.

And so, in recent years, my list of teachers has grown (but unlike the older list above, these people don't they've influence me or that there is a me to influence, but their recorded lectures, discussions, classes, and their books are nevertheless mind-expanding and I am grateful to and for them).

New bible teachers in my life include: Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Jennifer Grace Bird, Joshua Bowen, Paula Fredriksen (Paula has been at it for decades but is new to me somehow...I seem to remember her from Living the Questions but only now am I enjoying her work), & Robyn Faith Walsh.

Do you know these people? Do you love them? Who have I not listed that I simply must add to my list (I already know Randall Bailey is a must). From whom did you learn the Bible and who would you recommend to me? And if you don't know any name listed here, please look them up, find their papers and books and YouTube discussions and talks...you'll be glad you did.

Wednesday, December 04, 2024

A Reflection/Prayer Treatment for the Miracle We Are

A Reflection/Prayer Treatment for the Miracle We Are

~ Bishop Durrell

It has taken billions of years for the unique expression of Life that I am to be made manifest. 

Light and energy, sound and star dust, minerals and atoms have all cooperated and conspired to show up as me. The same is true for us all. 

The universe is vast, and compared to it, I am nothing. 

And yet, the universe is vast, and I am an integral part of it, and as part of the vast universe, I am amazing. And so is every person I bring to mind today. 

Someone met someone, somehow, and they had a child who grew up to meet someone, somehow, and they had a child who grew up to meet someone, somehow, and they had a child…until I showed up. How many random, chance encounters took place to make me possible? How many sperm tried to reach how many eggs before one reached one and fertilization occurred and somehow that fertilized egg evolved into the thing that would become me? Randomness after chance encounter after lucky break after disappointment after biological process after ideal circumstance after human effort all merged and combusted into powerful creativity and from the flames of happenstance this phoenix arose!

How many ideas shared over millennia are now part of my consciousness? How many bodies have returned to the earth which provides nurture and sustenance to support more bodies that return to the earth which provides nurture and sustenance to support more bodies…?

How many artists, musicians, architects, farmers, philosophers, inventors, medical researchers, film makers, explorers, loving aunts and adopted children and good neighbors and geniuses and storytellers and peacemakers have contributed to the world that I have inherited? And how lucky am I that I get to contribute to and benefit from this world?

Do I call any of that God? I have done, but I don’t always. However, the marvel of it all is amazing and, in my estimation, sacred, divine even. I bow before the mystery. I am humbled by and grateful to the larger life that gives expression to my life.

Of all the planets and all the stars and all the solar systems and all the galaxies in the ever-expanding universe (which is almost 14 billion years old, at least, and may actually be eternal, without beginning or end, without cause or creator) …You and I are here on this rock, and we know we are. We are aware. We are conscious. Surely conscious life is rare in the universe. Even if 100 planets have it (and we don’t yet have evidence that they do), in the grand scheme, 100 isn’t very many. But we’re here, on one planet in one solar system in one galaxy, and we know that we are. With or without myth, with or without poetry, with or without religious vocabulary, that is awesome.

And so, my fellow miracles, my fellow unlikely events, my fellow self-aware life-forms (rare as we are), I remind you that you are part of grand and glorious realities. In the language I embrace, you have sacred value. I hope that brings you hope today, or peace, or joy, or comfort, or strength, or courage, or relief. Whatever blessing you need, you deserve it and I hope it comes to you in the best way possible; afterall, in a universe where you and I show up, almost anything is possible. And so it is. (dw)