Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
All Souls Unitarian Church
July 10, 2005
Is Everything in the Bible True?
An old preacher announced he planned to read the tale of Noah and the ark at the next Sunday morning service. Some mischievous boys decided to play a joke on the minister. They found the place in the Bible he was to read and glued the connecting pages together.
That Sunday morning, the preacher read at the bottom of one page "When Noah was 120 years old he took unto himself a wife who was" then – turning the page – "140 cubits wide, built of gopher-wood and covered with pitch inside and out." The preacher looked puzzled and then said. "My friends, this is the first time I have ever seen this in the Bible. However, I accept this as evidence that we humans are fearfully and wonderfully made."
In drawing this conclusion, that preacher took a very literalistic approach to understanding the Bible. Today there are still many people who adhere to the view that all of the words of the Bible were spoken by God – written down by humans, but fundamentally the word of God – and, therefore, infallible and unchangeable. That is the view proclaimed by Christian fundamentalists who want public schools and zoos to teach the biblical account of creation, called "creationism" or its recent corollary known as "Intelligent Design."
But, lest Jews feel somehow superior or snobbish, let me quickly add that we have our Jewish fundamentalists. A few years ago, it seems that some rabbis in Israel who issue certifications of kosher products decided to withdraw their certification of the Tali Dairies. Not because there had been any infraction of the dietary laws, but because on their milk cartons the Tali Dairy had pictures of the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, and this contradicts the fundamentalists' view which says the world as of today is 5765 years old. Jewish fundamentalists' view of the Torah is that every word and even the spaces between the letters are Divinely ordained and that the Bible is true in its entirety.
We Reform Jews and, I suspect, many Unitarian Universalists as well, approach the Bible much differently. We believe that Bible stories are not necessarily accurate, historical accounts; they were not meant to be. They are what we call sacred legends; their purpose is to impart spiritual values. The Bible for us is a book of insights and perceptions, attitudes and priorities. The purpose of the Bible is to give us principles to help us live better and more fulfilling lives – individually and communally, locally and universally.
Some of the details in these legends may be factually correct, others may not be – but that is not our major concern. For example, the Bible opens with the account of God's creation of the world, including the creation of the first human couple. Now scientists have verified some parts of the Genesis account of creation. The Bible tells us that the first natural phenomenon was light, "vay'hi or – let there be light." Scientists also believe that the world probably originated in a blinding flash of light. The Bible informs us that in the beginning water covered the whole earth; later, the waters receded and dry land appeared. This set of events can also be authenticated today by science.
However, some parts of the creation story contradict science. In the biblical account, the world was created in six days. This is not true unless we understand the word "day" to mean a much longer period than 24 hours, like maybe a day meant a billion years. But certainly such an interpretation stretches the meaning of "day" to absurd lengths.
Proving or disproving details in the Bible should not be our concern. Our challenge is to find the meaning of a Bible passage for our own time. So what is the story of creation trying to teach us here today?
I. One major value is that human beings – created last – are the highest ranking members of all God's creatures. Unlike other animals, we were created b'tselem Elohim – in the image of God. Thus we are unique in having intellectual capacity and moral potential, which we are commanded to develop.
Another value. On each day of creation except one, the Bible records that God said it was tov, good. Therefore, in contrast to some other religions, Jews believe that the world and all life within it are potentially good, not essentially evil.
Still another value. The idea that God worked on six days and rested on the seventh emphasizes that rest is as important to human life as work.
The late Bible professor at the Hebrew Union College, Dr. Stanley Givertz, once pondered the question "Is the Book of Genesis true?" He gave the following insightful answer by dealing with the Bible as a work of poetry rather then science. He wrote: "It is indeed true, not in the sense in which the statement of a physical law is true. Few things that matter to the poet really are. It is true in the way that great poetry is always true: to the imagination of the human heart and the orderliness of the human mind . . ." Thus we Liberals view the Bible as a source of spiritual meaning and guidance, not as factual history.
Fundamentalists don't understand or do not accept that the Bible speaks in human language which is not to be taken literally. We can appreciate Joyce Kilmer's poetic words about the tree " that looks at God all day and lifts its leafy arms to pray." But those are poetic words, not factual descriptions. Similarly, where God "spoke", or God "stretched forth His arms", or where God "walked", these terms need to be understood as human language, not factual descriptions of what God did or does.
Therefore, it does not matter to me if Moses actually climbed Mount Sinai or not, whether God dictated and Moses with a laser-like beam wrote into stone words. What matters much more to me is that the idea of honoring parents, of respecting the human form, of sharing and preserving land, came down that spiritual mountain. Does it matter more that God was somewhere 4,000 years ago or that God is here now? If God was at the Reed Sea or at Sinai – is that good enough for a living faith charged with changing and repairing today's world? In other words, wherever God was yesterday, don't we have the responsibility to find God today in our land, in our times? If we dwell only on the past, then what of the present? And what future will our faith have if it remains locked in the desert tabernacle, frozen in one format, enshrined on a mountain?
Judaism, like the evolving poetry of scripture, lives on in its flexibility and resiliency. When pogroms came, we Jews took our Torah scrolls elsewhere. When we were expelled, we translated our text into a new language. We were never trapped by our text; we molded it lovingly, carefully, as we adjusted to new circumstances. We can argue about what Abraham actually said to Sarah, what Moses in fact dictated to Joshua. But what links us to them and them to us is that they experienced a need to be touched by God – and so do we.
II. Therefore – and this is a lesson which many non-Jews don't understand – while it is true that the religion of Judaism is based on the Bible, today's Judaism differs greatly from the religion described in the Bible. We don't live biblical Judaism in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2005 – and that should not surprise anybody. Our Bible was canonized, put in the form that we have it today, almost 2000 years ago. Surely Jews and Judaism have grown and developed since that time. Over the centuries, the rabbis have added revolutionary new understandings to passages of the Bible. They have created new Jewish practices and procedures not found in the Bible.
For example, each Fall Reform, Conservative and Orthodox Jews gather in our synagogues on Simchat Torah and joyously celebrate the conclusion and beginning of another cycle of Torah study. The Bible contains absolutely no mention of Simchat Torah, or of Chanukah – which is almost universally observed in the Jewish community today.
The Bible says "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The rabbis say I am not allowed to act on that literal meaning and pierce out the eye of an offender who blinds me. I can demand only monetary compensation from him.
The Bible gives the age of 20 as the time when young men reach adulthood. The rabbis maintain that a boy of 13 years and one day has attained his religious majority.
In the Bible, marriage occurs simply when a man and woman cohabit. The rabbis created an elaborate marriage ritual with seven blessings and a marriage contract not described anywhere in the Bible.
In the Bible, animal sacrifices are the chief form of worship. After the destruction of the Second Temple almost 2,000 years ago, the rabbis substituted prayer and study for animal sacrifices. So the Bible is a description of Judaism of over 2,000 years ago, not a depiction of contemporary Judaism.
Furthermore, we need to approach the Bible critically when its formulations are at a variance with the conclusions of science or the dictates of reason. Thus we need to consciously disassociate ourselves from the condemnations we find in the Torah of homosexuality, just as we need to disassociate ourselves from the manner in which women are often viewed. Or the way in which the Torah instructs us to deal with wayward children. We need to understand where these prescriptions stem from. But we also need to say that the insights we have about human nature, culled from a variety of sources, are valid for us.
III. The third and final lesson I would like to teach this morning is inspired by the television evangelists and fundamentalist preachers. They hold up their Bible – "You want to know what God has to say? Just read your Bible! You do not need to know anything else, friends, it is all here – the only and final word of God." As though the Bible is such a clear, explicit document.
I have news, friends. The language of the Bible can be ponderous and incomprehensible. Long, dull, seemingly irrelevant passages of genealogies and ancient laws make up large sections of our Bible. The Bible is not an easy book to read, and Jews have never been urged just to read the Bible. Yes, the Bible contains many uplifting and edifying passages; but, many are buried in a great mass of monotonous material – they are like precious stone embedded in huge quantities of valueless rock.
So Jews have been urged to study the Bible with the aid of commentaries. In the cheder, the Hebrew school of old, young people would always study the Five Books of Moses together with the commentary of Rashi, the French Medieval Bible expositor. We need aides to explain the difficult words and the obscure phrases, to resolve contradictions between one passage of the Bible and another, and to provide the historical context of biblical stories and laws.
There are a number of valuable commentaries. Many Jews of my vintage grew up with the Hertz Pentateuch. Joseph Hertz was the late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire. He wrote in lucid, vivid English. He was an Orthodox Rabbi and he tended to adhere to a more traditional approach. The Hertz Pentateuch is still a valuable aid for studying the Bible. But I would like to call your attention to two commentaries which are much more current. Their scholarship includes the results of archeological, anthropological, and linguistic analytical studies unknown in Rabbi Hertz's day.
The first we have been using in the Reform Movement now for more than two decades. It is the work of Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut and is called "The Torah: A Modern Commentary." It is excellent. It includes the new Jewish Publication Society translation, notes, historical context, and a section called "Gleanings" which contain selections from Talmud, Midrash, and a variety of commentaries both traditional and modern.
Then a couple of years ago the Conservative Movement issued Etz Hayim, edited by Rabbi Harold Kushner and the late Chaim Potok. Its scholarship is wise, its style is beautiful. I highly recommend both of these volumes.
A number of years ago a very courageous Episcopal Bishop, John Shelby Spong, called for religious liberals to join in "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism." He urged us to reclaim the Bible from the exclusive hands of those who demand that it be literal truth, and that we come to a new appreciation of the Bible's insights that are so often hidden beneath the literal words of the text.
I believe that it is absolutely necessary that we liberal religionists – whether we be Reform Jews or Unitarian Universalists – rescue the Bible from the fundamentalists. In our hands, the Bible can again become the living book it was intended to be. In our hands, if we study it and approach it reverently, the Bible can become the transmitter of important values and perspectives about human life. In our hands, the Bible can be elevated and glorified, rather than become the object of derision and scorn. In our hands, that great product of incredible inspiration can enrich us, strengthen us, and bless us.
So let me sum up three non-fundamentalist approaches to the Bible. First, the Bible is not a source of science or history or law; rather, let us view our Bible as a collection of books which convey significant religious values. Some of its sacred legends may or may not be literally true.
Second, the religion of the Bible lies at the root of modern-day Judaism, but differs markedly from it. Contemporary Judaism is that religion which was shaped by the rabbis who produced their greatest work after the Bible was completed, and that work is on-going as is the parallel searching within liberal Christianity.
Third, our Bible can be understood, appreciated and embraced best with the aid of commentaries. Only by studying the Bible can its treasures be unlocked and savored.
The late Yiddish novelist, Isaac Bashevis Singer, described the riches of the Bible in a charming way. Singer wrote: "Whenever I take the Bible down from my bookcase to read it, I cannot put it down. I always find new aspects, new facts, new tensions, new information in it. I sometimes imagine that while I sleep . . . some hidden scribe invades my house and puts new passages, new names, new events into this wonderful book."
Dear friends, may we – like Singer – always find new and exciting lessons to unearth through our Bible study. Amen
I have been guided in this lesson by the work of my long-time friend, Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl in his excellent book, "Making the Timeless Timely."
