Before I get into your books on the Bible, I’d like to ask you a very obvious question. where is the best place to start reading the bible?
here’s a thought. Much of the bible is narrative, so why not start with a good story? you have a good story in the gospel of mark. it’s also, in fact, the shortest gospel, so it might cheer you up. watch what happens as you do it and just listen to the pushes you find yourself receiving.
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If, on the other hand, you want to look at the Old Testament first, I’d start with the Psalms. the psalms are israel pouring out his heart. It’s not about truth or falsehood here, just a lot of emotion of many different kinds: anger, joy, jubilation, misery, bewilderment, all sorts of things.
going to the books. tell me about john barton’s bible story: the book and its religions. this was recently published.
yes. It came out earlier this year and is a general introduction for the non-specialist reader (although that doesn’t mean it has nothing for the academics). he calls it a ‘bible story’. He is well aware that the Bible evolves over thousands of years and that it is important for a modern reader to understand if he is to cope with reading it. he knows his subject intimately; and covers a wide range of different topics with immense skill. he never puts a foot wrong.
He says that Christianity “is not essentially a biblical religion” centered on a book seen as a single sacred work. where does it lead there?
you’re saying that the bible is actually a pretty messy collection. we tend to use phrases like ‘the bible says’, but in fact, you have several different voices in the bible and the trick is to be like a conductor directing a choir and having all those different voices sing from the same sheet music .
Can you talk a bit about the structure of the book? What are the controversies or biblical themes that it addresses?
well, there are a lot of them. it’s built around fairly obvious sections. It starts with the old testament and the different types of literature found in the old testament, then it goes into the new testament and how it all started and the different types of literature that are in there. then the ‘bible and its texts’ is its third section, how to go from ‘books’ to ‘scripture’. at some point, the words on a piece of paper have become “writing” and take on a kind of authority.
“bockmuehl sometimes speaks of the ‘imprint’ left by these texts. I think it’s a very important idea and it tells you something about the literature that we call the bible, which left this mark on us and then left this mark on our civilization that cannot be removed.”
looks at the 27 books of the new testament, but also discusses other books, sometimes called the apocryphal gospels. now if you look at those, the church showed great wisdom in not selecting them, either because they’re not very interesting or because, where they’re interesting, they’re interesting for the wrong reasons. the protoevangelium of james, for example.
what are the wrong reasons to include a book in the bible?
Well, the wrong reasons are the ones that are exciting and excitable. For example, the story of the ox and the donkey in Jesus’ manger comes from the apocryphal gospel. that’s not very important, not very interesting, but people cling to it.
then you have something useful about the different types of biblical manuscripts. Often we don’t know exactly what the Bible says because the manuscripts differ. of the 50,000 manuscripts of the new testament, each one is different from the others.
and none of them are original. . .
none of them are written by the original author. that’s how it is. which is a great sadness, but it is true.
despite all that variety, do you suggest that there is some kind of thematic unity in the books of the bible?
I think so. one of the ways it does this is to say that faith is the common theme, meaning when people open the text they now find a life throbbing beneath the surface of the text. we give that life the deceptively easy name of god.
does he see faith as an essential prerequisite for understanding the books of the bible?
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no, I don’t think it will; he would gracefully bow in the direction of biblical scholars who are totally without religious faith. he says they have every right to read the gospel and say this is what the gospel says and he’s right about that.
let’s move on to the introduction to raymond brown’s new testament. One of the things that Brown shares with Barton is that he claims to be centrist in his interpretive approach rather than idiosyncratic, but he focuses very specifically on the texts of the books of the Bible. is that so?
yes, he is concentrating on the text. he thinks we should read the text of the new testament and preferably read it in Greek. the reason I chose it is because it is part of a great tradition, perhaps the beginning of a great tradition, of Roman Catholic biblical scholarship. he was a giant among biblical scholars, but a staunchly faithful Roman Catholic. i remember being at a conference in north america where they gave him an award and, without notes, he gave a wonderful talk on the old testament and then started talking about his own attitudes towards church and faith. at one point, he broke down because he was so moved to think of the church. that was despite the fact that many people within the church attacked him as a heretic and a denier of all truth.
“The Book of Vermes is important because, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for the first time scholars were able to see how Jesus fit into his Jewish background.”
This book is a very good job. It must be 30 years old, I should think, but it’s still worth a read. Raymond Brown is always worth reading because he is always carefully measuring what he says, but he is writing from the perspective of faith and from a deep understanding of up-to-date scholarship.
why was he attacked?
He was attacked because he did serious biblical scholarship and people interpreted him as saying that the bible is a bunch of lies. but that is not what biblical scholarship means! what he was actually saying was that you can safely do a serious study. you can learn the languages of the bible and you are sure to do it. it is not a dangerous thing to do serious academic studies. he thinks you have to do both theology—affirming that there is a god—but also history, to examine the history of the texts of the books of the bible in both the new testament and the old testament. it’s safe to investigate them.
let us now turn to geza vermes’s jesus the jew: a historian’s reading of the gospels. Vermes was an interesting character. can you tell us a bit about him?
geza was born jewish in hungary in the 1930s. his parents saw what was coming with the german invasion and sent him to a catholic boarding school run by the sisters of the zion parents. he never saw his parents again. they were dragged into concentration camps and died. Geza converted to Catholicism. he wasn’t forced to, but he really wanted to. he became a catholic priest, joined the fathers of zion and then did his bible studies, lots of work on the dead sea scrolls and a doctorate on the habakkuk pesher (one of the best preserved dead sea scrolls). he became a famous scholar and then he met his pam’s first wife and left the priesthood and religious life. he spent the rest of his life concentrating on early Judaism.
When you say that you abandoned your religious life, do you mean that you completely abandoned your Catholicism?
he abandoned Catholicism and, if he went in any direction, he returned to a kind of liberal Judaism. he certainly belonged to a london synagogue. he used to pray a lot alone in the garden, since he had not lost faith in god and, in fact, he had not lost faith in jesus at all. he used to say things about jesus that seemed to me very close to what christians would believe, and i think he had kind of a personal relationship with jesus, though maybe he didn’t mean that.
but this book is important because with the discovery of the dead sea scrolls, for the first time scholars were able to see how jesus fit into his jewish background. the dead sea scrolls did not disprove anything about christianity. what they did was give us the background from which Christianity grew, because here you have a Jewish movement at odds with other Jewish movements and we have a good idea of what it was like to be a Jew in that first century.
does that mean the book essentially argues that jesus was living within the old law? is that so?
who remained a good and faithful Jew. that is absolutely correct. yes: all 27 documents of the new testament are written by Jews. there is no doubt about that in my mind at all. that’s very important we can’t really understand them unless we understand the Jewish background from which Christianity arose. This book is scholarly and readable, which is surprising considering that English was Vermes’ fifth language. his command of English was excellent.
Shall we now talk about Levine’s book, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Jewish Jesus Scandal? She’s dealing with some of the same issues Vermes talks about in her book on the Bible. I was also struck by the fact that her book had a very contemporary air and also that it is a very American book. she feels like she’s a voice in the midst of the American culture wars.
I think that’s correct. she is a very funny and entertaining speaker and she also writes in an entertaining way. she is writing a lot from a Jewish perspective. she is part of a trend that started vermes, of jews who were really interested in the new testament and rediscovering their own judaism through it. they also realized that they could tell us Christians something about the Judaism from which Christianity grew, and thus they can illuminate us about Judaism in a liberating way for Christians.
what is your approach in the book? how do you do that?
She really writes the stories. The book is called The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Jesus Jew Scandal. it is a scandal that so often christians have tried to avoid the judaism of jesus and have seen the jews as inferior in some way. it has chapters on jesus and judaism and then “from the jewish sect to the gentile church”. at the end of the first century Christianity was indeed gentile, but it did not start out that way. then you have “the new testament and anti-Judaism” and a very interesting chapter on the stereotypes of Judaism, the point of it is that Judaism comes in a multitude of dimensions and you really can’t stereotype it at all.
The book has a lovely beginning. she says “when I was a child my ambition was to be a pope”. she has this perky opening, which is very attractive.
talks a lot about the slightly painful history of Christian persecution and the denigration of Judaism.
That’s right and he doesn’t beat around the bush either.
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To what extent do you consider that it continues to be a contemporary problem? it feels like I’m engaged in a very contemporary discussion.
I think it is. I mean most educated Christians today would accept your points about anti-Judaism in Christianity, but we are not really aware enough of how much persecution of Jews has been carried out in our name. we still have to resist that. you often find people casually making anti-Jewish comments who are Christian; and she is committed to educating them and she can do it because she is Jewish and she loves the new testament. and she can say, “you Christians need to figure this out.”
Do you talk about the apparent justification for some of these anti-Jewish sentiments in particular books of the Bible?
yes. she says that she is there, for example, in the gospel of john. the Greek words used by the evangelist are hoi joudaioi, which can mean either “the Jews” or “the Jews.” I always translate it as “the Jews”, i.e. the people of Judea, which makes it sound less horrible.
“barton knows his subject intimately; and he covers a wide range of different topics with immense skill. he never takes a wrong step.”
There are one or two rather obscure comments in John’s gospel about “the Jews” or “the Jews” and it sounds much worse if you translate it as “the Jews”. gives some kind of impetus to anti-Jewish persecution.
is the gospel of john the one that says “his blood be on us and on our children”?
no, that’s matthew. is another good example, and has been used by Christians, but is clearly not intended to prohibit the persecution of Jews. matthew is a good jewish guy and if you said to matthew, “look, we can use this to attack those horrible jews” he would be shocked.
finally to markus bockmuehl seeing the word: refocusing the study of the new testament.
He calls it “refocusing the study of the new testament” and advises readers to look at the little thumbnail on the cover. because you have san lucas portrayed as an artist. he certainly is an artist with words, if nothing else. you have him painting and you can see the model of the painting of him. she is a slightly disheveled looking woman who gazes lovingly at her little son. the boy playfully tugs on her throat. so you can see the painting that luke is taking out of this and it’s a wonderful painting of a very pious beautiful woman and the boy not so naughty and a bit calmer.
what I think bockmuehl is saying is that the gospel paints a picture that is true, but it paints it outside of the reality of human life; however, it is to see the deeper truth that god is producing here.
and in these books of the bible, the gospels, what is the painting and what is the reality that we are seeing?
reality is both the discomfort of ordinary human life and the reality that god is at work in this terrible reality. the gospel of luke is a very good example of that because he is aware of what is going on in life and he paints a beautiful picture. Thousands of artists have tried to paint one of Luke’s greatest achievements, the story of the Annunciation to Mary, and you can see the artists really trying to capture that moment.
Are you saying that it is a great advantage to come to the gospels in faith if you want to understand them?
Honestly, I think it is. I want to say that you have very good biblical scholars who do not have religious faith and I listen to them with interest, but I think that they are missing an important dimension of the bible. not that you have to be dogmatic about it. It’s not that the church forbids you to say something. we must allow all the richness that first-class academics have to offer, whether they are believers or not; but one way or another, if you’re not open to that dimension of the transcendent, the idea of god, the possibility of the resurrection of jesus, then you’re going to miss out, particularly in the new testament.
Isn’t he also saying that because the gospels were written with a kind of memory of the apostolic era, it is necessary to understand their reception, which is rooted in the underlying faith?
yes, sometimes he talks about the “trace” left by these texts. I think that is a very important idea and it tells you something about the literature of the books that we call the bible, which left this mark on us and then left this mark on our civilization that cannot be removed.
if you could start with one of these bible books, which one would it be?
the story of the bible by john barton, because anyone can read that book and it is very well done and the fruit of a lifetime’s work. It’s very well made, and it’s not heavy at all. so go out and buy it.
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