Biblical Puzzlers

April 24, 1990

Host: Barbara Thompson ..................................... Invited Guest: Karl Puechl

Barbara: Good Morning! Thanks for joining us again this morning on the Seekers Forum! We are continuing to deal with the various questions received from you, our listeners. And our guest this morning is Karl Puechl, of the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship. Karl has been with us before so I am certain that his responses to your questions about "Biblical Puzzlers" will not surprise you. But first as part of this particular round I and, as a listener requested, am going to ask what were the landmarks that brought you to this particular point in your belief? And with that, Karl Puechl of the UU Fellowship, a warm welcome back to the Seekers Forum!

Karl: Thank you, Barbara. I'm glad to again be here to represent the local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. For those who haven't listened to me previously, I should explain that in UU terminology, a Church has a minister while a Fellowship is a congregation that does its own thing without ministerial guidance or constraint. Both the UU Churches and Fellowships are an integral part of the Unitarian Universalist Association which is headquartered in Boston. The congregation here in the Valley is a true Fellowship. I am representing the Fellowship simply because I was the President until April first, and the newly-elected President, Bill Mayer, asked that I again represent the Fellowship on the Seeker's Forum. By profession, I am a nuclear physicist who has absolutely no theological background; our new President, Bill Mayer, is a journalist by profession; so you see that we are a diverse group of people. Not only are we diverse professionally, as is the case with most churches, but we also have diverse viewpoints on almost all subjects, including that which might be called "theology". To most Unitarian Universalists, theological beliefs are not particularly important; what is important are how the beliefs were arrived at and how these beliefs provide positive influence on the individual.

Barbara: Very interesting. Thanks again, Karl. I think that will help a lot in giving us some good background for your responses on our "Biblical Puzzlers," and we'll get started with those right now. Here's the first question. What is it about THE BIBLE that makes it THE AUTHORITY for so many churches? It's full of folk tale stories, legends that may have been based on fact but sound like they have a lot of fantasy mixed up in them too. When it's treated like an ethnic, semi-historical group of stories, I can accept it; but when every word is treated as if it can not possibly be in error, then I say "WHOA!" I'd really like to know by whose authority, does the Bible become THE authority?

Karl: This question is often asked by someone who has doubts about the aspects of his or her current religion and is searching for something more rational; more understandable, if you like. The Unitarian Universalist denomination offers such an inquiring mind a haven because most of our members find it difficult to accept beliefs that cannot be proven, and that seemingly contradict personal experience. Discussion of the Bible is a good starting point to illustrate rather common UU questioning.

Many of us, sometime during the course of our lives, have been involved in some activity where a news reporter was present and, whatever was being done, was written up and printed in the "next edition". I daresay, that most of us found that the write-up was not entirely true or did not convey the highlights of what, we thought, actually took place. Because of such a personal experience or experiences, many of us take the content of most news articles with "a grain of salt" and we may ask ourselves the question: "If descriptions of events that happened only yesterday are so often misleading and sometimes even erroneous, how can we believe descriptions of events that occurred some years ago?" Certainly, this is a very legitimate question. For those of us who have brothers or sisters of about the same age, how many have found that they interpreted some past family events completely differently from what we remembered? How many of us, while watching a TV documentary, have made the comment: "Gee, I lived through that but that isn't the way I remember it?" Or, for those of us who lived through World War II, how many of us now realize that we were told many untruths, propaganda, simply to provide encouragement for the war effort? Pity, the current generation of Russians who were repeatedly indoctrinated from early age on that their nation and its leaders could do no wrong; that Stalin was a great leader; that the Nazis were responsible for killing the Polish officers buried in the Katayn forest; that only mentally deranged people were sent off somewhere; etc., etc. Under "glasnost", can the average Russian ever again believe anything that his government and its leaders tell him?

Obviously, the truth can be readily distorted even when there is intent to be truthful and reliable, as in newspaper reporting; and it can be greatly distorted, even fictionalized, when there is clear intent to distort on the part of some people in authority, as was the case in the USSR. With this perspective in mind, a thinking person can certainly legitimately ask, "Then, how can we believe the Bible?"

At this juncture, a Unitarian Universalist, or someone with like mind, would go to the local library and try to find more information that might lead to an answer to this question. I daresay that he or she will find many books written by past and living theologians on the history of the Bible. Some of these will be written dogmatically without research or attempt to provide evidence for the given conclusions, but most of them will be written in scholarly fashion and will show that the Bible was not written all at once, but that various segments were written at completely different times and that all parts were repeatedly revised, translated, and re-edited. From this wealth of available analysis by people who spent their professional lives studying ancient history, ancient languages, and the history of the Bible (together with personal experience or experiences that started this inquiry), it will be possible for an inquiring mind to come to some sort of conclusion. Some people may wish to argue with the derived conclusion, but no one will be able to prove right or wrong. The right conclusion for a particular person will be that which appears to be right for him or her; knowing that he or she has spent a considerable amount of constructive effort in trying to get at a reasonable answer. The question you asked, Barbara, said something about "on whose authority?"; the Unitarian Universalist answer is that it must be, and can only be, "on your own authority, using your own judgment".

To show that we are not alone in this belief, or that it is not new, let me quote from the writings of a French parish priest, John Meslier, who lived in the late 16 and early 17 hundreds. In his Testament, later published by Voltaire, he wrote:

"I will not sacrifice my reason, because this reason alone enables me to distinguish between good and evil, the true and the false ... will not give up experience, because it is a much better guide than imagination, or then the authority of the guides whom they wish to give me ... I will not distrust my senses. I do not ignore the fact that they can sometimes lead me into error; but on the other hand I know that they do not deceive me always; ... my senses suffice to rectify the hasty judgments which they induce me to form .. To discern the true principles of morality men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods; they need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of its members; and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury, to beings of their species ... Men are unhappy only because they are ignorant; they are ignorant only because everything conspires to prevent them from being enlightened; and they are wicked only because their reason is not sufficiently developed ... It is only by showing men the truth that they can know their best interests and the real motives that will lead them to happiness. Long enough have the instructors of the people fixed their eyes upon the heaven; let them at last bring them back to earth. Tired of an incomprehensible theology, of ridiculous fables, of impenetrable mysteries, of puerile ceremonies, let the human mind occupy itself with natural things, intelligible objects, sensible truths, and useful knowledge."

Barbara: All right! Karl. You do give us some different approaches and perspectives. Good food for thought! Thank you. Now I'll give you a chance to take a breath and get ready for our other questions while I take a moment to say thank you to some very special people.... Now here's the next question. I've always been bothered by the story about the woman who kept bothering Jesus and the disciples because her daughter was possessed. The disciples were apparently getting really annoyed and asked Jesus to send her away. He was apparently in agreement when he said "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But the woman persisted in asking him for help. He still says "It is not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." She retorts "yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Jesus is impressed with her faith and heals her daughter by long distance. To me, Jesus sounds pretty hard-nosed in that story. Not the loving, sympathetic Jesus I heard about in Sunday School. Apparently he didn't understand his mission to all people at the time? To me it's confusing.

Karl: This question is a good illustration of the fact that the Bible was revised at different times. Whenever a religion gets started, it starts small within a family, a clan, or a tribe; one might say that it starts out being a "cult". Generally, the religion teaches that certain peoples, those that come to believe in whatever it espouses, are different from all their neighbors. When the seeds of Christianity were being sown, the cult at that time was interested only in converting the "children of Israel". All other people were of no interest to the would-be founders of Christianity, and the neighbors of the "children of Israel" certainly had no interest in even listening to the preachings of any Jew. However, at a much later time when Christianity had become more universal and could attract a broader spectrum of people, the wording in the Bible had to be changed so as not to alienate those that could be attracted to Christianity. Accordingly, some Monk or other redactors, made changes that were necessary to make the biblical stories more generally acceptable. Since these changes were made in piecemeal fashion by different people at different times, one finds many inconsistencies.

Barbara: It is interesting that you mention "inconsistencies" since most of the other biblical questions that were phoned into the station have to do with inconsistencies that are bothersome to some of our listeners. Without my repeating these many questions, would you care to comment some more on the apparent inconsistencies in the Bible?

Karl: I've already commented on the historical reasons for the inconsistencies so let me get to a much more interesting aspect, which I'll call the "aesthetic aspect". Most concrete or factual elements in our heritage have relatively short life-spans. Who remembers a news report that dealt with specifics that occurred last year? Who remembers much about a particular biography? Even something as concrete as Newton's laws of motion have been superseded by quantum mechanics and general relativity theory. But who can name works of art, musical masterpieces, or poems, or novels, or plays that were first produced hundreds of years ago? We all can, and the reason is that these are not specific, but their content is ambiguous and thereby subject to individual interpretation, and reinterpretation by each new generation. It is the inconsistencies and ambiguities that have given the Bible its longevity. Like a painting, it can be interpreted and reinterpreted in any manner that makes it attractive and meaningful to a particular reader. For those of you who are concerned and bothered by the inconsistencies and

ambiguities in the Bible, let me urge you to step back and judge it as a work of art rather than as a rational, factual document. If it cannot be admired by you, even in this vein, then the only recourse is to ignore it; which is what most people do anyhow even though it is on most everyone's bookshelf.

Barbara: Can you believe how quickly the time has gone? that's all the time we'll have for our questions today. But hasn't it been interesting! Karl, thanks so much. Again, for your unique and thought provoking responses to these question.