To Read or Not to Read the Bible with Expert Academic Help

Someone once asked me about reading an introduction to the Bible. The book she showed me was a very nice-looking book. I glanced in it, and it looked like it had a lot of really good information. She asked if it would be good. The bible is always good--necessary--to read for one's spiritual journey. However, reading the bible with the aid of academic experts, whether through books, commentaries, etc, is something else. Academically, scripture study is criticism, i.e., it reduces the bible to a combination of history, sociology, and literature. 

(Image--Thomas Waterman Wood 1874)

The world has learned so much from scholars who decided to evaluate the bible, not as a spiritual, divine book, but as a work of history, and also through literary and sociological lenses. The insights have been invaluable in the sense that we can't imagine living in a world prior to this knowledge. In a way, it's like imagining how people could have lived fulfilled lives in the 9th century AD without wifi, books, cars, and hygienic products. But those people lived very full and happy lives, no more or no less than we do. So also, Christians thrived without the burden of this academic approach to scripture.

For some types of Christians, including myself, entering into the world of biblical study with academic experts is a faith-destroying, soul-sucking enterprise. The academic overlay and telescope become a blight and varnish on the scriptures--a maze, a rabbit hole that once you go down, you never get out.

On the other hand, the academic approach to the bible is a major breath of fresh air for many other types of Christians. For one, the bible then makes sense. The cultural context, literary structure, and historical notes categorize things in a neat enough way that remove obstacles to faith.

Everyone needs expert help. Reading the bible is not a solitary thing but a community venture. The scriptures are given first and primarily to the people of faith as a whole, to the Church, and next to us as individuals, in a secondary sense. I think wading into the world of academic "criticism" and context is not the worst thing in the world. But it is eating the forbidden apple. After you enter this world, you can expect to realize that you are naked, you'll start hiding from God, Cain will kill Abel, we build towers to climb to the heavens, and darkness floods in such that God will despair and consider another ark. But in all this darkness, we still get grace, the Messiah, and a savior. What choice do we have? We can't ignore all the insights of the past few hundred years. Yet, we pay dearly for every morsel of this analytical food we eat.

In sum, there has to be an initial time of self-reflection and assessment. It helps to understand what kind of person you are--what kind of Christian you are. Do you lean more toward the affective or more toward the analytical? But ultimately, at the end of the day, there is one real injunction: Fear God and do his commandments. If we stick to this, we can hope to be guided aright.

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