Perhaps I have run out of my mind, perhaps I do not know how to express myself, but somebody needs to say this. Rewriting the bible to suit our day to day lives is something that Christians the world over should seriously consider. Why?
The reasons are many, and I can’t review all of them on triond. Not now, and not in the near future, but I appeal to Christians of no mean repute to listen and reconsider the status quo.
I believe the bible like all the other religious books was written to serve man, and to guide him in his quest for religious and moral uprightness. Has it succeeded in this core value? Perhaps, and again, perhaps not. Attempts by man to serve the bible have come a cropper, and he seems to have resigned to his own fate, caring less for what will happen in the hereafter. Should things remain this way? Of course not. I want to believe that a true Christian has room for improvement and must therefore look up to this holy book for inspiration. What does the book say then?
First is the creation story in Genesis. So much has been written on creation and evolution as being the basis for our very existence. I have said it in the past and will say it again. Let those who have ears listen. Both the creation story and the theory of evolution are deficient, and the weaknesses they bear are inherent since they were hurriedly put together by men keen on explaining our very existence once and for all. Did they succeed? Of course not. They left more questions than answers. The world has more than a thousand creation stories. It’s therefore apparent that the biblical writers picked the Jewish creation story because it was closer to what they wanted to achieve in the end, and their achievement remains suspect. Their thinking had what I will call the Old Testament mindset. They believed God was for the Jews and Jews alone, a thinking that was repealed by the New Testament after Paul sought to defend the need for the gentiles to behold of the same lord. Paul fought tooth and nail to have gentiles accept God, and Christ as the answer to everything and after this happened sections that appear to be overtly anti other races and or pro-Semitic should either be repealed or expunged from the bible altogether.
Closely related to this Pro-Semiticism is a verse that makes me sick whenever I come across it. I fail to understand why in the world anyone could conjure up such. Jacob fights God (a stranger), wins the fight by almost crippling God, gets hold of him and refuses to release him unless God blesses him. The stranger blesses him and calls him Israel for he has fought both men and God and has prevailed. My dear goodness, the God that Christians serve was supposed to be invincible, omnipresent and omniscient. Whether he is, remains a story for another day, but I refuse to accept that he could be beaten hands down by Jacob! Our God can not be this helpless as to be detained by a mere mortal when he is supposed to be all powerful.
Second, the Old Testament and the New Testament to a keen reader like me appear to be at logger heads. The former is replete with what has been known as the Mosaic Law that covers the Pentateuch. It advocates for what has been summarized as an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Indeed the God of the Old Testament is a no nonsense god whom we witness ordering the Israelis to overrun whole villages, kill everyone, and sacrifice, sacrifice, and sacrifice. He has no mercy to sinners who turn away from his paths and destroys them with floods or at times fire. The New Testament God is different. He is kinder, merciful and has no room for revenge. Who then do we follow when our holy book seems to favor both? If we abandon the vengeful lord of the Old Testament for the forgiving lord of the New Testament, happiness shall evaporate from our midst. Some people who revenge, sacrifice helpless humans and sell each other into slavery shall be keen to defend themselves by this Holy Scripture, what then shall we offer as defense when their actions result from our own sins of omission and commission? There is only one simple solution. Reconstitute another council that will look into these contentious issues and probably rewrite the bible!
Third, the books that constitute the bible were written by the hand of man, and to add to this, the council that selected what to include and exclude from the bible did leave out some key texts and included some whose importance in guiding the present Christian remains to be seen. Of all the Gospels that were written, one fails to understand why the Gospel according to Thomas, a key witness of Christ’s resurrection, and the Gospel according to Peter, the rock upon which the church was to be build were left out and Luke’s gospel written by a doctor who lived nearly two hundred years later was included. This is the work of human prejudice that can be rectified by constituting another council to right this wrong.
Catholics on the other hand have gone ahead to include seven more books that were meant to suit their whims bringing their total to 73 instead of 66. This anomaly arises out of what I have already delineated, the need to rethink this process. Religious leaders can agree to make these amendments without much ado.
WATCH OUT FOR PART TWO!