Reaction to the First Episode of "The Bible"

I finally got a chance to watch the premier episode of The Bible, which aired on Sunday night on the History Channel. I wrote a post[1] late last week in anticipation of that episode and in response to a Wall Street Journal article that the producers of the miniseries had penned.

I admit that I went into my viewing of the episode with high hopes and low expectations. So many television adaptations of the stories of Scripture have been cheesy, low-budget affairs that left me shaking my head in shame. The Bible didn’t necessarily disappoint me in this way, but I still came away with neither a sense of excitement nor shame. All in all, the episode was a wash for me.

I do not want to recap the scenes of the first episode; rather I want to explore some of the “under the hood” things I noticed as a Bible nerd and pastor.

First, we must consider the selection of stories that were told in this first episode. Those stories included Noah and the Flood (with a dialogue of the Creation narrative from Genesis 1), the call of Abram, the desertion of Lot from Abram’s camp, Abram’s rescue of Lot, the birth of Ishmael to Abram and Hagar, the destruction of Sodom, the departure of Hagar and Ishmael at the birth of Isaac, Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, the birth of Moses and rescue by Pharaoh’s daughter, his murder of an Egyptian, the burning bush encounter, Moses’ return to Egypt and the plagues, the Exodus from Egypt through the Red Sea, the reception of the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai, and finally Joshua’s reconnaissance of Jericho and the introduction of Rahab. 

            My first observation is that the producers had to choose what stories to include in the series. There is enough material in Genesis alone to fill a 10-part miniseries! The producers had to choose, therefore, those narratives that helped them make their point, which was “trust in God,” a mantra repeated over and over in the first episode. I understand the exclusion of some of the Genesis material for the sake of plot development, and there are certainly sections of that book that can be excluded because of the general audience implied in the network airing of the program (i.e., Lot’s daughters offered to the men at Sodom and their later rape of their father after Sodom’s destruction.)

            The stories that the producers chose are indeed those that are “more familiar” to the general public, and thus they are the ones that would make the miniseries more compelling to the widest audience.

            I thought that the mixture of the Flood narrative with the Creation account of Genesis 1 was very well done and shrewd for two reasons: first, there is enough material between Genesis 1 and 9 to dominate and entire episode, which would have been impractical. Secondly, the creation accounts are the ground of so much discussion and argument that the producers could have spent too much time and production interpreting and then rendering their interpretation of Genesis 1-3. Thus, by combining two major narratives (especially these two oft-argued ones) the produces quickly moved the plot of the episode to Abram, where there is certainly more “meat” on the bone for filmmakers.

            Another highlight for me was the sacrificial scene in which Abraham takes his son Isaac to the mountaintop as an offering to God.[2] It was a new experience for me to see that scene acted out with its themes of betrayal, murder, sorrow, and hope all thrown into one. I was moved to tears by the (admittedly mediocre) acting of Isaac and by the miraculous appearance of a lamb as a replacement for the boy on the altar.

            This scene is also where I began to realize why I was slightly bothered by the details of the episode. In the Scriptures it is God who speaks to Abraham and instructs him to sacrifice Isaac as a test. In the TV version, Abraham seemingly comes to this idea of child sacrifice on his own (in other instances of communication between Abraham and God in the show God’s voice is heard by Abraham and by the audience). It is a further complication (and certainly foreshadowing by the producers) that a lamb is caught by its foot at the top of Mt. Sinai at the exact moment of the sacrifice. In the Scriptural account of that incident it is a ram caught by its horns that takes Isaac’s place.

            This may seem like the splitting of hairs by a Bible nerd, but I think these two accounts are indicative of a serious assumption that the producers of The Bible have made in the weaving together of a grand narrative of Scripture. It is clear to me that the producers are moving the plot along toward the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus and are making subtle attempts to connect the Old Testament narratives that they have selected more appropriately serve that plot. Please understand – I believe that Scripture should be interpreted in light of the Cross and Resurrection. The lens through which Christians read Scripture is that of Jesus’ Incarnation and his teachings. It is his interpretation of Scripture that drives our interpretation of Scripture.

            Therefore, I understand the producers’ redaction of the Biblical narratives to serve this purpose. However, by altering the details of the narratives they run the risk of overlaying their specific understanding of God’s redemptive activity in too heavy-handed a manner for educated Christians to stomach. Further, while it is clear that no interpretation of Scripture or any other source in film is without directorial interpretation, such interpretation and plot-manipulation can become the narrative of the show rather than the Bible it intends to bring to life.

            Underneath all of this is one major reflection I had at the conclusion of the episode: it is impossible to produce something like The Bible intends to be without filtering it through 21^st-century sensibilities. Consider two elements of the first episode:

            First, Abraham’s relationship with Hagar. In the episode it is Sara who is mourning her inability to bear Abraham a son, contrary to God’s promise. She recommends to Abraham that he impregnate the woman Hagar, who just happens to be in the camp with Abraham, Sarah, and their entourage. Abraham resists, acts shocked and slightly revolted by the idea of “cheating” on Sarah. When he is finally convinced to go through with it, we see him coming out of Hagar’s tent with a look of disappointment or anger, or even shame.

            The Scriptural account[3] we have few details of the encounter between Abraham and Hagar, and even less of Abraham’s moral perspective on the situation. What we know about ancient cultures, though, renders the 21^st century morality demonstrated in the episode moot. Hagar was a slave. She had no choice in the matter, most likely, and I doubt that Abraham would have demonstrated the same martial fidelity that we see in the episode when Sarah gives him the “hall pass.”

            Further, it is anachronistic to see Lot’s wife arguing with Lot in front of Abraham and Sarah. I realize that we’ve come a long way in our treatment of women from the times of the Old Testament,[4] but the 21^st-century perspective on husband/wife relationships was hard to swallow.

            Second, the segment concerning Sodom. In the producer’s interpretation of this thoroughly troubling narrative from Genesis 19 the two angelic visitors to Lot’s house are warriors. These two men take Lot, his wife, and their two daughters out of the city, in harmony with Scripture. However, the producers saw fit to make the two angelic warriors draw inappropriately modern swords and proceed to cut down dozens of Sodomites in true action-flick style. Apparently the producers couldn’t find enough action in this segment of the narrative to make it palatable to American audiences, so they created some swordplay, blood, and death to spice things up.

            Why?! Isn’t there enough morally questionable content in this portion of Scripture? Would it have been more objectionable to have Lot say to the crowds outside his house, “I beg you brothers, do not act so wickedly. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please…”[5] Apparently so. We, the viewers, can handle some canned death and dismemberment that’s not in Scripture, but we couldn’t stomach the morally inflammatory content of the actual narrative.

            In the final analysis, The Bible is a well-made show about some of the more popular stories of Scripture. It has an agenda that will certainly be demonstrated in future episodes, though for now the driving theme of the series is “trust in God.” I maintain that the broader culture needs to hear and see the Scriptures, and I understand that any production of the Bible will necessitate some interpretation. Of the shows I’ve seen that try to bring the Bible to life, this is the best. However, as a Bible nerd I am aware that even this good effort cannot help but leave gaps that must be filled in by minsters and mature Christians everywhere.

---

[1] http://revbrock.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-bible-and-public-schools.html

[2] Cf. Genesis 22

[3] Cf. Genesis 16

[4] See William J. Webb, Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals. IVP, 2001.

[5] Genesis 19:8, NRSV.

The Humility of Lent

The Humility of Lent

Delivered at Madison Chapel, Madison, MS

March 3, 2013

The Third Sunday of Lent

            One topic that has dominated many of the things I have read in recent years concerns the growth in popularity enjoyed by the Reformed movement in Protestantism. This movement has taken on titles like “neo-Reformed,” “neo-Calvinism,” and especially the “Young, Restless, Reformed” impulse. The Reformed trend in Protestantism is certainly neither new nor novel, but it has certainly become something more than in generations past. Calvinism, the root theological system at work in this neo-Reformed movement, has become a buzzword in popular debates among scholars and preachers, such as in the dueling authors N.T. Wright and John Piper.

            The latest flare-up of Calvinistic trouble is at Louisiana College, an SBC-sponsored school that shares many similarities with my Alma Mater, Mississippi College. The president, Joe Aguillard, has taken a “not in my back yard” stance on the teaching and official endorsement of that theological system at LC which has garnered much criticism.[1]

            I bring this up today not to discuss the theological intricacies of the Doctrines of Grace or of the differences and similarities between Calvinism and Arminianism; rather I want to bring up one theological point that seems missing in all of these debates, that is, the Christian’s humility.

            Regardless of which side of the theological fence you land on in this or any other topic, the Christian is obligated to maintain humility even in the face of Spirit-inspired conviction and the certainty of their position. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are to filter everything through a Christ-like love for our God and for our neighbor. I fear that we, like those who argue their positions in the secular world, have forgotten that it is the love of Christ crucified which compels us.

            During our journey in Lent we are stripped down. First comes the hunger, then the thirst. Soon we are considering giving up and returning to civilization, pretending to be holy and blameless. If we have the spiritual compunction to stay in the wilderness seeking God, we are sure to be stripped down even further. This time it’s not the hunger or the thirst or even the shame of wanting to quit – this time our very clothes fall to rags and we stand in our nakedness before the God who sees our sins inside and out.

            That’s the real heart of the matter in Lent – our sins and sinfulness laid bare for the Lord and for our own eyes to see. Any season of prayer, fasting, and intentional devotion opens us up to the liability of encountering the Holy One. Such an encounter will always leave us exposed, guilt-ridden, and humbled. Like the Israelites who saw Moses when he descended from the Mountain, we are uncomfortable with the Holy, and we quickly erect things to block it and to make us feel better about ourselves.[2]

            Where do we hide? With what do we clothe ourselves? Some wrap themselves in success and accomplishment. Some cover the walls of their hearts with diplomas and accolades. Some avoid the accountability of the Holy by spreading themselves thin in volunteering, in work, and in family life. Some mask their hearts in cloaks of piety: singing songs, praying prayers, and taking social stances that make them appear as holy as the one from whom they hide.

            We can, through these things, make ourselves out to be a group of strong, well-adjusted disciples. Such thinking necessarily makes others weak, less developed believers. That’s the type of trouble that got the believers in Corinth in trouble with Paul.

            The believers at Corinth were living in an over-realized eschatology. They had been baptized into Christ and were living as though the freedom that came from that commitment offered them license to live in any manner in which they saw fit. They were eating and drinking with the pagans, sleeping with prostitutes, and dividing themselves into cliques of stronger believers and weaker believers. They believed that with the coming of the Holy Spirit the Kingdom was theirs and they could live as they pleased.

Paul is quick to renounce and denounce such ungodly license. By conjuring the memory of the Israelites journeying in the wilderness, Paul communicates the risk that the Corinthians run by living in such ways. B.J. Oropeza comments on this idea, saying, “They [the believers at Corinth] have experienced an eschatological salvation through their initiation but its culmination lies in their future… The Christian ought to run his or her life in the present so as to attain the future life expressed in imagery of completing a race and completing a journey… Paul believes that the Corinthian congregation must live out that tension in perseverance until the end of their natural lives. A persistent failure to do so would result in the forfeiture of the future life. In such a case, the Corinthian member would thus perish with the corrupt and transient world and not attain that final future salvation in the age of incorruption. This could happen to the Corinthians despite their genuine initiation, election and membership in the body of Christ.”[3]

The believers in Corinth who are haughtily living as though the Spirit’s presence excuses all things are living dangerously. They are running the risk of expulsion from the Body because of their apostasy in the wilderness of this in-between time ‘twixt the Ascension and the Second Coming. William Baird adds to the danger, saying, “The lesson is absolutely clear: Although the Corinthians have been blessed with the gifts of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, God can readily become displeased with them. Participation in Baptism and the Supper provides no easy security. Like Paul, the Corinthians, and today's Christians, can be quickly disqualified.”[4]

This threat of disqualification must not be taken lightly. When we become too comfortable in our salvation, when we rest on our laurels of faith rather than progressing on our journey through the wilderness we are not, I repeat, are not fulfilling God’s will for us in Christ. Hear again the hammer-strokes of Paul’s argument: our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same supernatural food, and all drank the same supernatural drink…the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. It seems that faithfulness to the will of God is not as easy as fitting in with the majority, even if that majority looks as though they are following the Way.

When we stop moving along the narrow path laid out before us because of the threat of fear or the temptation of comfort, we have a tendency to lose the humility that comes from relying on the God that calls us into the wilderness in the first place. But we’re so good at feeling confident and secure! As Baptists we hold to the doctrine of the Perseverance of the Saints, which holds that nothing can cause a person marked for salvation to lose that salvation. There is no sin so great or circumstance so awful that God will reject a person’s faith in Christ Jesus for eternal life.

Oh how comfortable that makes us! The certainty of salvation and the good, old-fashioned Protestant allergy to “works” often renders us as the “frozen chosen,” feeling neither the need nor the compulsion to live in the dangerous, naked wilderness. The popularity of folk-Calvinism professed by many in the neo-Reformed movement adds to this inertia of the soul by laying a divine determinism over the souls of men and women that amounts to fatalism for many believers. Since God has pre-determined our salvation[5] and nothing we can do can alter such an unmerited gift, what should motivate us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling?”[6]

The motivation comes in our determination to be faithful to the life of discipleship to which God has called us. We are to live and serve as Jesus did, holding the lives of our neighbors above even our own. This Lenten journey into the wilderness should lay our hearts bare – we should be as exposed to ourselves and to God as we have ever been. For surely we have not served, we have not loved, we have not walked as we should.

What should wake us from our comfortable spiritual slumber is that we will certainly be judged by our Holy God. We like to speak of judgment as much as we like to speak of sin. Yet it is judgment that is at the heart of our Scripture passages today. It is the judgment of God against the apostate Israelites in the wilderness, the ones who forsook the God who had just delivered them. It is judgment that threatens our complacency; judgment that will certainly cut more deeply than our Lenten confessions ever could.

But let us be clear about what sort of judgment. The crowds surrounding Jesus are bothered by the same fatalistic superstitions that cloud the minds of so many modern Christians. They see God’s wrath behind every earthquake and hurricane, his judgment motivating every catastrophe. To cut through the clutter of misconception Jesus tells a curious story of a fig tree that bears no fruit. Charles Hedrick helps us understand the implication of this parable: “The Galileans whom Pilate killed and the eighteen unnamed persons who died in a disastrous fall of the tower of Siloam were no worse than those who escaped the tragedies, and those who escaped were no better than those who died. Thus everyone stands under the threat of God's judgment unless they repent. In this kind of a context the story about the fig tree seems to be a warning to everyone to repent in view of the impending judgment. From this perspective the immediate context and the story come together: bear the fruit of repentance or perish in the judgment.[7]

            Here is where the right humility of the Lenten season appears. It is in the knowledge that regardless of our position on the journey of discipleship, no matter how many burdens we bear, no matter strength of our faith or the fortitude of our souls we will be judged. We must not live in the comfort of knowing it all or confessing it all or praying it all. There is more to do, more to love, more to give. We have not arrived.

            We must be humbled by the judgment and brought low by the holiness of our God, the God who meets us in the wilderness when we have nothing left, when we are naked and without dignity or pride. We are humbled at the great weight of sin that has been borne on our account by God’s own self. In our theology, in our prayers, in the very way in which we do church, we must live lives marked by the humility of one following Jesus to the cross.

           

            It is painfully ironic how we treat God’s grace. We usually slide from humility to the arrogance displayed at Corinth within a single prayer. Believers quarrel with others, accusing them of apostasy and heresy over their interpretation of God’s grace – GRACE! We need to be reminded, again and again and again and again that the invitation to salvation offered to all the world is the essence of God’s call to us. It is that call, simple and profound, that humbles us ultimately, When we, in the wilderness, are honest and naked before our Holy God, when even ashes and sackcloth are insufficient to adorn our guilt, all we have to hold on to is the great love of God that is offered to us. That, friends, is the nature of Lent’s humility. When we have nothing left, we have the love of God. When our theological constructs are swept away, we have the love of God. When our pretentiousness to holiness is exposed, we have the love of God. This is the time to seek and find that love, in the midst of our sorrow wilderness.

            “Isaiah 55 proclaims that God's grace… was intended not only for those who remained faithful, but even for the defectors and "back- sliders." The cost of faithful discipleship includes the hard lesson of accepting the injustice of divine grace, and grace is a challenge to all our notions of "meritocracy," about who deserves what. But the invitation, thank God, is to all: Ho, everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters . . . and inquire of God while he is near.”[8]

---

[1] See http://www.faithonview.com/louisiana-college-the-sbc-calvinism-and-ethics/ and http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/02/26/calvinist-controversy-at-louisiana-college/. There is also an article relating to the controversy in The Baptist Message, but it is only available online to subscribers.

[2] Cf. Exodus 34:29-35.

[3] From Oropeza, B.J., “Apostasy in the Wilderness: Paul’s Message to the Corinthians in a State of Eschatological Liminality,” JSNT 75, p. 69-86.

[4] Baird, William, “1 Corinthians 10:1-13,” Interpretation 44 no. 3, p. 286-290.

[5] Some in the Calvinist camp would argue that God’s pre-determination covers the non-spiritual as well. See R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God, Tyndale, 1994.

[6] Cf. Philippians 2:12.

[7] Hedrick, Charles W., “An Unfinished Story about a Fig Tree in a Vineyard (Luke 13:6-9), Perspectives in Religious Studies 26 no 2, p. 169-92.

[8] Sanders, James A., “Isaiah 55:1-9,” Interpretation 32 no 3, p. 291-95.

The Bible and Public Schools

           In the February 28^th edition of The Wall Street Journal filmmakers Roma Downey and Mark Burnett published an opinion column[1]concerning the teaching of the Bible as history and literature in American public schools. The motivation behind their article is the premier of their 10-part miniseries on the Scriptures appropriately titled The Bible, which will air on the History Channel beginning Sunday, March 3^rd.

            I’m interested in the series and will definitely watch the premier episode. The Bible has already received good reviews from at least one source I trust, namely in an article[2]that appeared in The Christian Post on the same day. The series is the latest attempt to tell the great stories of Scripture to a wide audience that has largely ignored those same stories.

            As excited as I am about the miniseries, the filmmakers’ article in the WSJ teased my interest even more. Downey and Burnett, both of whom were raised in Europe where the Bible is taught much more widely as literature, believe that the time has come to take the teaching of the Bible in American schools more seriously “for the sake of the nation’s children.” They continue “it’s time to encourage, perhaps even mandate, the teaching of the Bible in public schools as a primary document of Western civilization.”

            Anticipating the predictable response of those who draw a bright line between public education and the establishment of religion, the authors remind us that “the Supreme Court has said it’s perfectly OK for schools to do so [teach the Bible as literature], ruling in 1963 (Abington School District v. Schempp) that “the Bible is worthy of study for its literary and historic qualities.””
           The authors’ goal is not to evangelize, but to preserve a literary and cultural touchstone without which Western culture would be greatly different. At no point is a specific interpretation of Scripture implied, nor is the concept of faith in God in any way advanced. Rather, the thrust of the argument is that not studying the Bible is un-American because the vocabulary of the Scriptures has, at least in part, defined what it means to be an American.

            One of my convictions as a pastoris that the Bible must be taught with more diligence, urgency, and expectation in our churches. There is far too little basic knowledge of the Bible in our pews, which renders preaching, Christian education, and especially discipleship more difficult and, in many cases, an endless cycle of remediation where on-again-off-again Sunday School teachers re-hash the same juvenile spiritual truths to occasional participants.

          What this article reminded me of, though, is the essential nature of Biblical study. When I approach the Bible to prepare for a sermon or lesson, or even when I read it for personal devotion, I do so as a person who has a fundamental assumption that the same Spirit that inspired the Scriptures can (and certainly will) speak to me through those Scriptures. Reading the Bible is dangerous for that very reason: diving into the depths of Holy Scripture renders the reader liable to a transformation by the Spirit of God, an outcome that can hardly be anticipated and certainly not prevented by abstract notions of “reading the Bible as literature.”

          Downey and Burnett are not interested in your faith; they are interested in reclaiming and re-popularizing the language of the King James Bible so that we can be better-informed and perceptive citizens. Without getting too much into history, the phrases that the authors are so interested in defending are idiomatic expressions that were poetic interpretations of difficult Greek and Hebrew ideas that appeared in the ancient sources used in the creation of the KJV.

          I appreciate the cultural impactthat the Elizabethan language and phrasing has had on America. I enthusiastically agree with the authors that such literary and linguistic artistry is worthy of promulgation and preservation. It does seem interesting, though, that the argument about the teaching of the Bible as literature and history is predicated on the specific vocabulary contained within a single translation of the Scriptures.

          The separation of the form of the Scriptures and their content is certainly worthy of academic examination, even at the secondary school level. Further, the analysis of the literary themes and modes of Scripture as well as the sitz imleben of those texts are also fertile areas of study. However, the fears of those who would avoid or preclude such study in public high schools is well founded and very real. It is difficult, almost impossible to separate the reading of Scripture from the faith that such study develops at the leading of the Spirit, especially when those doing the studying are young and not professional academics.

          The use of the Scriptures as a devotional collection is inescapable, even for the authors of the article. Notice how they end their argument – “Can we hear an amen?” Even in the faith-phobic, sanitized classrooms that the authors would like to see made mandatory in American public schools the presence of the language of worship, of community, and of the participation of like-believing men and women is unavoidable. Yes, I’ll give you an ‘amen,’ but only if you recognize that such a call-and-response invitation undermines the position that the use of the Scriptures separate from participation in a relationship with God is not so easy to achieve.

---

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324338604578326150289837608.html

[2] http://www.christianpost.com/news/review-the-bible-this-time-hollywood-got-it-right-90992/