The Bible According to WHOM?

Just because someone says “It’s in the Bible” doesn’t mean they know what they are doing, or that they are correct.

My husband was watching an episode of the old Western TV show “Gunsmoke” today. Marshall Dillon found a teenage girl with a newborn baby hiding in a cave. Her father sent her away to a home for wayward girls after discovering she was pregnant from a rape. She ran away from the home for fear of dying during childbirth because another girl had died during the delivery of her baby.

Marshall Dillon attempted to return her and the baby to her parents. They had no place to go and needed to be cared for. Her mother would have welcomed her but she was afraid of her husband. The girl’s father unfortunately wanted nothing to do with either his own daughter or the baby she gave birth to. He believed the baby was the result of an evil act and carried the evil seed of its father. It said so in the Bible. It was in the “Good Book”.

I have seen this episode a couple different times but today, for some reason, it tweaked a nerve with me. Maybe it is because more than once lately I have heard the Bible used as an excuse for justifying a person’s bias or behavior.

“You can’t marry a person of a different color or a different race. It’s a sin. It’s in the Bible.”

“You must obey your husband in all things. The Bible says he is the ultimate head of the household and he is always right.”

The Bible has been conveniently used to justify biased opinions and predjudices. Even the devil can quote the Bible to suit his purposes.

Anything written can be taken out of context to mean something completely different. If you remove a few words from the original work the entire sentence or paragraph might take on a whole new meaning. A single sentence removed from a Bible passage can sometimes be used to support a stance almost opposite of what the original passage intended.

Taken as a whole Christians see the Bible as a guide for life, a reference book for morality. However, I think people have lost sight of the ultimate rule for moral life: The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have done unto you.

Two simple words define a good moral life: Love and Respect. If you treat all other humans with love and respect despite their faults and shortcomings you are living as you should.

The Bible is written both literally and figuratively. If it were to be taken completely literally women would be banished during their menstrual cycle. Everything they touch would be considered unclean. People would be slaughtering animals for offerings. The price of evil-doing would be a stoning to death. Should we go back to these things?

I am not, by any means, dismissing or rejecting a reading of the Bible or following its teachings. However I do take offense to those who use it as a tool against those they either don’t like, or are trying to manipulate.

Therefore, when someone says to me “It’s in the Bible” I merely ask, “the Bible according to whom?”