A new book has just come out that many of you will be very interested in. It is called A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible (Oxford University Press), by Kristin Swenson. I did not know Kristin until I learned of the book, some months before it was published. The publisher asked if I would write an endorsement for the cover. I usually have to say no to this kind of request, but I read the book and thought it was terrific. Here is what I said in my blurb:
Do you think you know the Bible? Wait till you read Kristin Swenson’s new book. What if you don’t know the Bible at all? Even better. A Most Peculiar Book is a deeply informed, completely accessible, and endlessly fascinating explanation of what scholars know about the Bible and lay people, as a rule, do not. Read this book and prepare to learn!
I received my copy a couple of weeks ago and contacted Kristin to ask if she’d be interested in writing a couple of guest posts about it on the blog. She enthusiastically agreed, and here is her first one.
Kristin is in crunch time writing her next book and so will not be able to respond to questions and comments. But make them anyway! I’ll answer the ones I can (without having to reread the entire book!) and the ones I can’t will stand out there among many of life’s questions that simply have no answer….
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Kristen Swenson is also the author of God of Earth: Discovering a Radically Ecological Christianity and Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time.
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Hello you dear, intrepid readers of the The Bart Ehrman Blog. You are the best. I mean it. You are exactly the kind of people who “get” the effort of my fresh-off-the-press A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible (Oxford). I’m so grateful to Dr. Ehrman for inviting me to meet you here, and also for saying nice things about it (and early enough) to go on the back cover. In A Most Peculiar Book, I get to go a bit deeper into what I skirted around with Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time, namely that the Bible’s a really weird book. This is not merely an observational fact. (You know that; you read this blog.) But it’s consequential. Lately, I’ve been thinking it may actually be the most consequential aspect of the Bible. (That’s for my next post.) Here’s an excerpt from the Introduction, subtitled “An Arranged Marriage.” Then, please come back. I’ll see you in another post!
I have a confession to make. But I’m worried that what you, an intelligent and discerning reader, will hear is not exactly what I mean. Then you’ll close this book and put it right back on the shelf. Yet what I want to tell you—and the fact that it feels like a confession— is what drives this entire project. So, here it is:
I love the Bible.
That statement gives me the willies. It’s something millions of Americans would nod right along with because it sounds so simple to understand. But my love for the Bible is not a tacit acceptance of everything in it as lessons or truths for immediate application. Not hardly. This is not a love for facile public display. It’s not of the swept-off-my-feet, love-at-first-sight variety, but rather more like the complicated love that might develop after decades in a marriage. An arranged marriage. I grew up with the Bible in an open-minded, garden-variety Protestant congregation. And I’ve come to love the Bible for all sorts of reasons, including some of the same reasons that can make it problematic and exasperating, even for reasons that make me disagree with it.
Look closely. Besides texts of lofty wisdom, inspiration, com- fort, and guidance, the Bible contains bewildering archaisms, inconsistencies, questionable ethics, and a herky-jerky narrative style. Yet those features barely get a passing glance these days. Some believers simply explain them away, while nonbelievers use them as a reason to dismiss the Bible entirely. This book looks squarely at what’s so weird, difficult, and disconcerting both about and in the Bible, and in the process shows how those qualities can actually en- rich one’s relationship, religious or not, to the text. I am not trying to convert anybody to anything except to learning. I’m committed to providing information, digging into the text and its background, and sharing questions of my own that might resonate with you. Those questions are both what make me love the Bible and what make that love so complicated.
For starters, the Bible is a cacophonous gathering of disparate voices. Not only are there different books within The Book, but they come from a range of places, from the Dead Sea to Rome, Egypt to Antioch, from tiny towns and huge metropolises, rural hillsides and palace halls, prisons and podiums, and from a wider-still range of times—spanning as much as 1,500 years. The Bible covers subjects so vast that it begins with creation itself. The people responsible for putting down those words, the people responsible for passing them along, for collecting and canonizing what we have, and the people who have translated original ancient texts for modern readers come from and reflect a dizzying range of times and places, all of which influence the way we read what we now call the Bible.
And yet, despite all of that, this collection of texts is said to be “the word of God.” Think about that. The singular, one expression, of God. A person could spend a lifetime unpacking only that. Many have.
… It should come as no surprise, then, even if you have never read the Bible, to find that it is full of holes. From the very beginning, the story leaves us modern readers scratching our heads. For ex- ample, where did the supposedly first children—two boys—get their wives? The Bible doesn’t say. Those responsible for delivering the Bible that we have apparently didn’t always care about the kinds of things that we, who expect a story to proceed with a certain narrative logic, get hung up on.
… [T]he Bible invites—nay, demands—interaction, even argument. And I don’t simply mean argument about what the Bible says or means (though that’s inevitable) but argument with the text itself. For the qualities I have cited—its disparate voices and images of God, its fissures and cracks and the endless ways and things to learn about it—the Bible defies the simplistic treatment of so-called literalism. (I say “so-called” because what exactly does it mean to “read the Bible literally,” especially if what one is reading is itself a translation from the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek?) The Bible’s diversity of perspectives and tone, not to say those texts in blatant disagreement with each other, actually models conversation, dialogue, and debate. It could issue no bolder invitation to engagement, no more compelling demand to bring the best of one’s faculties to bear on any interpretation of it.
Take the book in your hands as an opportunity to step out- side assumptions about dogma, traditional interpretations, and received opinion. Read it as if in conversation, and argue just as much as you like, as much as you can stand. Much of what we think about the Bible is actually received ideas and assumptions, passed along through other sources, themselves interpretations: holiday traditions, music and art, pop culture, children’s stories. You’ll be surprised how many things “the Bible says” don’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible. I want to return us to the text itself, in all its oddness—to show how strange is some of what’s familiar and to make the engagement inviting again.
Some of what you find here may be old hat; some of it might be new but easily digested; and some of it might make you a little (or more than a little) uncomfortable. I hope you’ll wrestle with that discomfort and in the process discover a richer way to think about the Good Book, maybe even about thinking itself. I hope that you’ll feel empowered to engage biblical texts with nuance and deepened appreciation, and also with the confidence to be not merely a blank slate on which it writes the old stuff but an agent in the conversation, to “gird up your loins” and be a partner with the text in the business of its meaning-making..
Don’t you just love it
quote – “what scholars know about the Bible and lay people, as a rule, do not.”
The word I am looking for here is ‘arrogation.’
Now, if we could just get scholars to agree with each other, and stop cherry picking verses and definitions.
Jesus was more than a match for lawyers, scribes, scholars and religious cognoscenti of His time. Matt 11:25 says He REJOICED that ‘these things are hidden from the wise and prudent.’
Not ‘understood’, not ‘approved’ but ‘rejoiced.’ Think about it.
I’m not sure what you mean by arrogation in this context. Are you thinking of a word connected to arrogant?
Even people claiming to be guided by God and the holy spirit can’t agree on what it says. Even the Apostles the Bible claims were guided by the holy spirit couldn’t agree at times. Look at how many different Christian groups exist, all claiming to have “the truth” and many direct guidance of God. Don’t many of them cherry pick verses and interpretations?
If God and the holy spirit can’t keep Bible understanding and the message straight among believers, why would you expect scholars to be able to do it? Perhaps there is “arrogation” among believers claiming the Bible as a proven, reliable and clear book from god.
Purchased!
Got to add this book to a long queue on my list. Thanks.
Yes, correcting errors is important.
What I’ve found is that the more I read (and learn) about the Bible is that I’m far less surprised by what *is* in the Bible that I didn’t know about, than by what *isn’t* in the Bible that I’ve always thought was there.
OK, I’m afraid I have to play (with all due respect) Devil’s Advocate here. And out of my enormous respect for (and trust in) Dr Ehrman and his opinions, I guess this is primarily a question for him.
In short, we seem to be being offered a list pointing out many of the more obvious problems with the content of Bible —and, more specifically, the problems with reading the Bible “over-literally”.
For example, rather than a factual/historical document (in the modern sense) the Bible actually consists of myth and metaphorical legends and stories. Instead of a single, linguistically consistent document, the Bible is compiled from disparate sources and “editions”. Instead a logically consistent theological treatise, the Bible contains multiple, often contradictory, view of God or Christ is. [Etc….]
All well and good. But my issue with this approach (and with the dozens of books published each year that make essentially the same point) is that this is typically presented as a new, ground-breaking discovery, rather than what it actually is: I.e. the position of the vast majority of main-stream critical scholarship of the past two centuries.
So I guess my question is: Why is this any different?
Interesting point. Who do you see as suggesting it is a ground-breaking discovery? (Kristin certainly doesn’t!) My sense is that everyone who does a book like this — if they are a scholar — is quite clear that it is not advancing scholarship and is not trying to do so. But the reality is that most people who read the Bible don’t know any of this information. So I think there absolutely have to be well written books to let them know.
I can’t wait to read it. I already like her style!
Bought it online for Kindle. Very good read. Thanks Bart for pointing us to this book.
Bart,
This question is off topic, so I apologize, but my minds been questioning: what were the early churches opinion of the real presence of the Eucharist or symbolism? I seem to see a lot of quotes from somewhat early church fathers indicating a belief in the real presence, but was curious what you thought. Thank you!
It was not an issue they addressed or even imagined. It’s a much later idea.
As an ex-Catholic/Christian I would love to hear more on that! (Darn, keep forgetting to click the response notification tab, I subscribe, honest!)
Thank you for the reply!
What would we make of this quote from Ignatius, or is this considered a bit later?
“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions … They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ…” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).
Not a Christian anymore, so just trying to learn!
Ah, right. As I understand it the doctrine of the real presence involves an understanding of what happens to the sacrament during the words of institution. Ignatius means something far more basic. He is saying that the Eucharist represents the actual humanity of Jesus, that he was not simply a spectrum/ghost any more than the eucharist is. But the later doctrine certainly developed from this kind of statement.
Some years ago I made a point of reading all the way through the Bible for myself and it was very enlightening. Some of it beautiful, much of it interesting, some of it very dark, and a fair amount is what I call chloroform-in-print. But definitely worth the read.
I agree. I should read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and decide if there are anything i could fall love with. The problem for anybody, who have been indoctrinated to take all content as a face value, is to read it from new and fresh perspective.
I hope this book will help me in that.
To Kristin Swenson;
After reading your recent blog post, I realize that I have been waiting, quite literally for years, for someone to put into words this kind of perspective and understanding of the Bible. Your approach and insights are a long awaited breath of fresh air.
I just wish you the best in your endeavors as you continue to explore and study, as you put it, the “Good Book”.
Thanks much.
This is a delightful essay. Thanks for sharing it here!
Which of the original texts of the Bible were in Aramaic? I thought the O.T. was in Hebrew and the N.T. Greek.
THe only parts in Aramaic are sections of Daniel and Ezra.
,,,,which is interesting and it can happen it is the wrong post to adress this question,,,but I’ll give it a try anyway.
First of all, I might very well have a different view than you can have of Daniel when it comes to interpretation, or at least how it speaks to me. Personally, I have serious doubts about the story, or Daniel is historical or should be taken literally. Either way, if it fits well into a symbolic spiritual understanding of the vision of the soul and its development, exemplified in the dreams of chapters 2-7, where you have the dreams of destroying the human kingdom and restoring a new type of kingdom (chapters 2 and 7) , and the consequences of the “human” kings or “kings as the human realm”, one who rebelled, became insane and returned and was restored (Chapter 4) and his son who rejected and was killed (Chapter 5) and the tribulation of the elected people (in Chapters 3 and 6). In my mind a perfect symbolic pattern, which could easily be used to tell the story of humanity / soul, not personified to specific individuals.
As you mentioned, part of Daniel is in Aramaic, namely the “dream section” in chapter 2-7. What is your opinion on this ?, why did they do it ?, and if the dream section came later, why did they choose another language, well aware that the second part was in Hebrew?
If it was found in a different source then it was written in whatever language the author of that source typically wrote in.
I suppose this is a q for Dr Ehrman. Imho, understanding the Bible centers on reading it text-in-context. I used to think reading the patristic writers would give us a better understanding of the intent of writers of the NT. It is obvious to me that they were not informed about ancient near eastern culture.
Do you believe even a person like myself, with a limited knowledge of the ANE, could be better positioned to assess the OT than let’s say Justin Martyr was?
What about post second temple period Jews, had they lost the ANE as well until it’s rediscovery via archaeology in the 19th and 20th Cs?
Yes, I’d say you are, if you read what actual scholars say about it, if you mean trying to figure out what hte original authors actually meant.
So there were a couple parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic? Wonder how we know that? And why (if true) there’s no record of Aramaic (as in “Q” or “M”) scripture of Jesus. I keep reading comments about the “itinerant ” and uneducated Apostles, contemporaries, companions of Jesus. Yet if true, yet Jesus seemed to be quite “familiar”, versed, and logical in his understanding of scripture. Were there Jewish “Sunday schools ” ? Of all the Jewish converts, none of them could read or write? Wasn’t one of the Apostles a tax collector? How do you do that but not know how to read? Odd how the “word of God” had to be written in a “pagan ” language.
We know that because that’s how they’ve come down to us in the mss. And no, no Jewish sunday schools. But Jews would tather together to talk about their sacred traditions. There was nothing pagan about the Greek language, just as there is, say, nothing that makes English Christian.
She sounds like fun. I like how she rolls.
You should get Francesca Stavrakopoulou on this Blog. I assume you have chatted?
I’m afraid I don’t know who she is.
She uses some very unusual hyphenation (‘ex-ample’, ‘out-side’, and ‘com-fort’).
Just curious, are those alternate spellings common to someplace else, like Europe, for example?
I think she was taking the passage from her book where hyphens were used because of line endings. At least that’s usually why one gets that kind of thing.
Hi Kristen, I am a United Methodist Pastor and just finished your book. I want to share with you what I just wrote my congregation:
I have to share with you a new book that I just read and highly endorse: “A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible” by Kristen Swenson. Kristen is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has done something amazing through this book. She has consolidated and distilled years and years of academic and historical research into a short, easy-to-understand book for the layperson of faith.
Her book lays a great foundation for many of the sermons I preach that have proven to be “difficult” for some.