HiddenMysteries: Dangers of Reading Biblical Stories Literally

By tabonsell

Discussions of politics and religion usually create heated debates that can't be resolved. But on this site, discussions of politics seem to be a relatively safe issue since most users are of like mind. Not so with religion.

Any questioning of reading biblical stories invariably brings heated responses by some who claim that questioning standard orthodoxy is "bashing religion" or "attacking a faith." That has been so in merely introducing alternative or modern ways of viewing some biblical stories, and has nothing to do with a particular faith or religion. Often, the loudest protesting comes from those who try to position their faith as the best, many knocking on your door trying to convince you that your soul is toast unless you accept their brand of religion.

We will look at how reading biblical stories as literal historical events ~ as most do ~ rather than as lesson-delivering stories has been detrimental and has brought about horrendous results. We examine four conditions that exist because people have missed the point of the stories.

We must remember that Jesus Christ was never a Christian; he was born a Jew, lived as a Jew and died a Jew. It appears that he came to believe that the ancient stories First Century Jews based their religion on were mere myths that contained wisdoms and truths that were intended to relate philosophies of human existence, not literal historical events. He taught those wisdom and truths through parable, myths, folklore; the very tactic the ancient stories used. For that, he was killed.

The four misuse of myths we will consider involve multiple wives, The Promised Land, Hebrew slaughter of others and the End Times.

1) The Church of Jesus Christ of Modern Day Saints (Mormons) had a long history of polygamy, which it was forced to surrender in order that its territory join the United States as the state of Utah. (Whether government should have any say over our love lives and marriages is a subject for another time.) The church certainly found religious precedent for multiple wives in that King Solomon was said in the Bible to have 700 wives and 300 concubines and other characters had multiple mates. But there was a valid reason that men had several wives in ancient times, and it had nothing to do with suppressing women or satisfying the male lust. No male can be lustful enough to take on the burden that Solomon did.

Ancient people were vicious warriors who would attack and slaughter any other people not of their tribe or nation. This invariably decimated the ranks of young men capable of defending the tribe. When half or two-thirds of capable men were wiped out in battle it became necessary for the tribe to repopulate as soon as possible. All other tribes had the same problem, so they would be at peace for a while. The men would take on as many wives as possible in order to repopulate the tribe and no woman capable of bearing new warriors would remain widowed or unmarried. Failure to quickly reproduce would allow other faster-reproducing tribes to gain the advantage and conduct genocide on slower-reproducing tribes.

The stories of multiple wives and concubines could illustrate the necessity of quick repopulating and that no woman remain unmarried, it did not advocate that women lead lives as objects to satisfy men's sexual fantasy. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church who reportedly had 27 wives, missed the point of this biblical lesson just as many fundamentalist Mormons living in outlying enclaves continue to do today. In ancient times polygamy was a necessity, a need that had to be met for survival of the tribe. In modern times polygamy has been slavery, it has been child abuse and rape, it has been an insult to a civilized people. It has devalued, demeaned and degraded women. We should understand all that.

2) Israeli-Palestinian conflict will never end as long as the "promised land" fallacy persists.

Fundamentalist televangelist Pat Robertson claimed last year that the massive stroke Israeli Prime Minister Arial Sharon suffered was God's retribution because Sharon was trying to divide the land that was promised to the Jews. Such thinking and moronic position will ever preclude a compromised settlement to the continuing slaughter in the area. Those who accept the Promised Land myth as historical fact rather than lesson will never compromise, they will kill and die, kill and die, kill and die into perpetuity.

And the Muslims who claim that cooperation with a non-Muslim is a traitor to the faith will continue to kill and be killed, kill and be killed, kill and be killed as long as the Israelis do.

An article in the Hamas newspaper, al-Risala, in the Gaza Strip claimed that the extermination of Jews is Allah's will and is to benefit all humanity. The author claimed that suicide operations conducted by Hamas are committed solely to fulfill the wishes of Allah, who demanded the actions because "the extermination of the Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds." The Hamas article said:

"We find more than once condemnation and denunciation to the resistance operations and bombings [suicide attacks], carried out by Hamas and the Palestinian resistance branches. There is no other choice but to use restraint regarding the condemnation, the attaching of the label of terror [to "resistance"], and the assembling of conferences [for] condemnation [of the attacks]. [This] so that everyone will know, that we did this only because our lord commanded so, 'I did it not of my own accord' and so that people will know that the extermination of Jews is good for the inhabitants of the worlds on a land, to which Allah gave his blessing for the sake of the inhabitants of the worlds." [Al-Risalah, April 23, 2007]

So, as long as these radicals think Allah has commanded them to kill Jews, there can be no compromise and therefore no peace.

Falsehood rules both fundamentalist sides of the conflict, and as long as it does, peace will be impossible.

To understand the true "Promised Land" story see
story at end of this article

3) God helped Hebrews destroy other people as they wandered in the desert, as the stories go. George W. Bush, who reads the Bible literally, would seize on that to conclude God endorsed his launching into the worst war-crimes escapade since that of Hitler's Third Reich. The siege of Jericho may have inspired Bush. We still have not been given a valid reason why the Hebrews saw fit to sack the city of Jericho, other than to seize the land, just as Bush has never given a valid reason to attack Iraq, maybe to seize what the land yields. The Hebrews claimed that God told them to attack just as Bush said God told him to attack Iraq. Maybe the folks in Jericho had hidden caches of weapons of mass destruction, perhaps they were trying to reconstitute a secret weapons program in violation of the international community's wishes, perhaps they were ruled by a tyrant and needed "liberation" by the world's last superpower after it replaced Egypt as the world's liberator, just as Bush's America has replaced the Soviet Union as mankind's liberator of last resort today. Maybe residents of Jericho needed democracy imposed on them by a tribe that didn't practice democracy in its own affairs. Maybe the king of Jericho needed some comeuppance heaped on him after once trying to kill Moses with Joshua wailing, "he tried to kill my predecessor." There's also the possibility that a group of fanatics from Hebron attacked a Hebrew desert camp and Joshua knew he had to send his warriors to attack Jericho in retaliation. Or maybe Joshua was just itching for a fight and wanted to be known as a "War Leader" in order to claim a successful reign.

It doesn't matter the reason or reasons; there are eerie similarities between war against Jericho and war against Iraq today. Jericho was attacked only after God had left the city nearly defenseless by destroying its protective walls. Iraq was attacked only after United Nations weapons inspectors had rendered Iraq nearly defenseless by destroying most of its weaponry. No mercy was shown on the residents of Jericho who were slaughtered just as no mercy was shown on residents of Baghdad by the massive nighttime bombings at the outset of Bush's war and repeated sweeps in various Iraqi cities. The Bible tells us that the Hebrews confiscated Jericho's treasure of gold and silver after the city fell and reality tells us that Bush is doing all he can to confiscate Iraq's treasure of oil. The Hebrews took the treasures of Jericho for the "treasury of the house of the Lord"; as if God couldn't have created more gold and silver for his treasury after creating all of it in the first place. Bush is trying to take Iraq's riches for the "treasury of the house of Big Oil." Bush's constant relying on prays to help his cause differs naught from the Hebrews praying to God to make destruction of Jericho possible. The only dissimilarity is that the Hebrews knew how to finish the job and get out.

It must be remembered that George Bush reads the Bible literally and by reading the stories as history, Bush justifies his own crimes and deludes himself into thinking that if God actively helped Hebrews destroy Jericho, God must also be helping Bush destroy Iraq. To explain why he refuses to change course in a failed war policy, Bush recently told New York Times Columnist David Brooks that, ''It's more of a theological perspective. I do believe there is an Almighty, and I believe a gift of that Almighty to all is freedom. And I will tell you that is a principle that no one can convince me that doesn't exist.'' That reveals that Bush would misuse religion to justify his crimes and to place the blame for his warmongering on his "Almighty".

There is no proof that God ever instructed his "chosen people" to destroy other peoples, because the only thing that would point that way were the stories so-called holy men told, claiming God instructed them to convey that to their people. It is more likely that the Hebrews were a nomadic warring tribe ~ that much has been shown by history ~ and created the stories after the fact in order to justify their actions. The stories tell us about the character of man, not the character of God. But man will commit atrocities on his own then blame his God by saying, "God told me to do it."

4) Right-wing nutjobs, who can't wait for the Apocalypse and the battle at Armageddon, are actively calling for more war, thinking that will hasten their Rapture into a heavenly paradise without the need of death. They would blow up the world thinking this fairy-tale will come true.

The Rapture crowd draws its nonsense from a letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians in which he opined:

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

"For the corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality,

"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.

" 'O death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory'?"

Paul wasn't describing a mysterious event in which the "righteous" would disappear into thin air leaving behind those people right-wing fundamentalists considered undeserving. Paul was describing dying.

Ancient Jews ~ and Paul was one ~ believed that at death the deceased was buried with no afterlife until the Messiah came to prepare a paradise. The time between death and resurrection ~ a year, ten years, thousands of years ~ was termed "sleeping in death." Paul said there would be no sleeping because the resurrection into a spiritual existence was instantaneous. He believed this because he thought Jesus was the Messiah and had already created that heavenly paradise. If that is true, no one will know it until his or her own "resurrection."

What Paul was describing could be likened to what is called "near-death experience" today, in which a severely injured person suddenly is outside his or her body and floating in air. If there is a real experience such as that, it should be termed a "temporary death experience."

The Rapture is nowhere to be found in the Bible, but that doesn't stop this distortion from being accepted by millions.

Modern religion has proven its main weakness to be the inability to understand the lessens of the biblical stories it exalts. There are two ways of reading a biblical story, and we shall look to Noah and the Flood to consider each. The story goes that Noah was warned of an impending flood and told to build an ark to save his family and a male and female of all animals. The ark allowed them survive the flood that killed everyone else on Earth.

One way to read the story is that God endowed humans with the intelligence to make provisions while times are good so that they may survive when a catastrophe hits. And saving the animals says that God intends that humans protect and preserve nature because the animals don't have the capacity to do that themselves. The other way to read the story is that God became so angry at humanity because it lacked enough piety to please him, so he brought a massive flood to kill all humans, save eight. The first reading is of a loving and protective God, the second is of a vengeful and hate-filled mass murderer.

Those who view God as the loving-and-protective deity are a minority in the world. Those who see him as vengeful-and-hateful deity who would cause a catastrophe to kill millions of people, including innocent infants because some adults were insufficiently pious, are the majority and they control our governments and most of our religions while also displaying the same characteristics in their own personalities.

Even understanding biblical stories can bring grief. There was a reign of terror lasting nearly four centuries in Christian nations in which reading the Bible was considered blasphemy and anti-God, and those who practiced Bible reading were worthy of death, being burned at the stake, drawn and quartered or hanged. It was called the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834) and was perpetrated to advance admiration of a "loving and compassionate God". Today, many fundamentalists deem that understanding the lessons biblical stories are meant to convey are "anti-God" and blasphemous, but burning at the stake of those who think deeply on biblical stories is no longer acceptable. Today a hate-filled tirade filled with slander is unleashed at persons concentrating on the meanings of the stories instead of the supernatural wrappings of the stories. This from those who claim only they know spiritual truth but are unable to justify or defend their beliefs with reason and intelligent argument nor advance their faith beyond Inquisition or medieval levels but still claim to be following biblical commandments to love one another.

In all of these instances, modern religion has been teaching the wrong lesson. And these four examples of misreading biblical stories show what evils can ensue. Religion concentrates on the structure of biblical stories while discarding the meanings the stories were created to impart and has treated those stories like the child who lays aside and ignores an expensive Christmas gift to play in the cardboard box the gift came in. By keeping the wrapping and discarding the gift, religion is playing in the box.

Authors Bio: Thomas Bonsell is a former newspaper editor (in Oregon, New York and Colorado) United States Air Force cryptanalyst and National Security Agency intelligence agent. He became one of American journalism's leading constitutional experts through years of study at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C. He is the author of "The Un-Americans: Trashing of the United States Constitution in the American Press", a critique of the mainstream media for ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of self-government. He left newspaper work years ago, disgusted at the direction the Fourth Estate -- under the mismanagement of ineffectual, out-of-touch, can't do executives -- was taking away from honest responsible journalism and the observation that there was no place in the mainstream media for a progressive, or liberal, constitutional "expert". Bonsell is an honors graduate of Woodbury College (Los Angeles, California) with a bachelor of business administration degree. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America. Personal motto: Have brain; will use.

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The Promised Land and Other Myths

Diary Entry by tabonsell

Ancient societies, having no printing presses or computer memory discs on which to store their knowledge, used myths to teach and pass on knowledge. Unfortunately those stories are subject to distortions and other misuses over time. This is about some distortions and misuses.

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If the word of God could mysteriously appear in the mind of Ezekiel, the ancient Jewish prophet, so that he could know God's plans and desires when others couldn't, it could appear in the mind of a modern man.

If God would endow some people with mystical powers to see the future through dreams or visions, he can endow others with abilities to see the past through intelligence and reasoning.

If evangelist Billy Graham can communicate with God so that he (Graham, that is) is best qualified to counsel presidents, a secular man can communicate with God to counsel himself.

If the likes of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts and other reactionary religious leaders can talk to God daily to be told what God wants of us all, a progressive man can also talk to God.

Here's what God told me:

We got it all wrong.

Myths are not falsehoods, as most people "think"; they are traditional stories serving to explain some phenomenon, custom or understanding of reality. God loves myths. Myths are not to be taken literally, but modern men often do.

The Hebrews weren't a chosen people for any reason other than to be an example for the rest of us. God really didn't like them or dislike them any more than he likes or dislikes us. And there is no reason to think God likes us all that much, for he has devised a system in which even Doris Day must grow old, and that displeases God as much as it displeases any thinking man. But that be what it got to be; or kai sera sera, as Doris used to tell us with song.

The Hebrews ~ like most ancient people ~ were a war-waging tribe that roamed Middle East deserts (wandering in the wasteland after "leaving Egypt") smiting whomever they encountered; killing the men, enslaving the women and children and eating the animals. To justify by glorifying their actions, they made up stories saying God told them to do that, and those people they slaughtered weren't God's People, so their lives didn't matter. That rational pretty much mirrors the attitude the American religious right now has about the Iraqi victims of a religious-right president's actions. There is no physical evidence the Hebrew nation was ever held captive in Egypt, so stories were created to explain the desert wandering. Those stories have endured in religious literature for ages but they don't tell us the true nature of those ancient Hebrews.

Such stories led the Hebrews to concoct the rational that God led them to a "Promised Land," a land that is a delightful place full of milk and honey, the story goes, but it could only be occupied by overcoming those who lived there. The Hebrews were told they could have that new desert paradise by smiting one last nonchosen people. They smote them.

But what is the Promised Land? Religions tell us it is a place. God tells me it is a condition.

Milk and honey represent the good life that only a people living in peace and harmony can experience. And once in paradise, the Hebrews lived in peace and harmony, for a while, at least.

But there was a prohibition that God placed on them before entering the land. That is their leader Moses, who had "led them out of captivity" and through those many years wandering and smiting in the desert, could not enter. There was a reason for that.

Moses was not a single man but a figure that represented a position, much like a tsar, a caesar or a president. Moses couldn't enter the Promised Land because he symbolized a warring, despicable, bloodthirsty tribe. Because entering the Promised Land meant evolving from their warring nature and putting on the cloak of a civilized people dedicated to peace, knowledge and morality, a warrior Moses couldn't be there to lead; the Hebrews needed enlightened, peaceful leadership to be what they were chosen to be. That's what God told me, so don't argue.

And those "giants" that Caleb and other spies reported seeing in the Promised Land were not behemoths who would dwarf a modern National Football League linebacker or defensive tackle, they were the internal demons in themselves that made the Hebrews the vicious slaughter-happy people they were, but which they had to conquer in order to become a peaceful, harmonious people. Monsters they had to overcome to inhabit the metaphorical Promised Land.

The Bible tells us that David also encountered a "giant" that he had to slay before becoming king of the Jews. He slew him. Modern religion pushes the story off as one human, with God's blessing, killing another in war, as if that were justified. Religion is wrong. The behemoth, Goliath, that David killed, like the giants occupying the Promised Land, was David's own internal monster that had to be quieted, put to death with God's guidance; and the story is intended to tell us that every person must slay his or her own internal monsters to be a leader of a civilized people. God told me so.

Warrior Hebrews became peaceful Jews when they conquered their internal giants, monsters and demons, and they were "chosen by God" to do just that. They were a "chosen" people, not a "favored" people, a light unto the nations to follow them into peaceful existence. Their new faith made them peaceful, maybe too peaceful as they learned in the Holocaust of World War II. They were the harbingers to the vicious warring Tibetans who were the scourge of the East, but who developed Buddhism to become the most-peaceful people in Asia. The only difference is Buddhists don't have an all-knowing, all-controlling God to tell them what to do, to think, to be.

It appears that Tibetans were the only people to understand the story. The other two religions (Christianity and Islam) that evolved from the same stories that spawned the Promised Land myth could use some of that peacefulness to tame their own internal giants, demons and monsters that ravage their societies.

Critics ~ that means critiquers, not criticizers ~ often say the Bible depicts the Old Testament God as a vengeful, bloodthirsty fiend. They miss the point of these stories, just as do the fundamentalists who revel in a death-dealing God they find throughout the Old Testament. Those stories of death and slaughter tell us what we used to be ~ and what a few of us still are ~ not what God was. People who depict God as a vengeful, bloodthirsty fiend they think the Old Testament portrays him as being have no problem being vengeful, bloodthirsy fiends themselves. George W. Bush comes to mind here.

Religions and their leaders have distorted and misused biblical stories, to be what they are not, and that has greatly hurt the world for we have learned little of what the tales were created aeons ago to teach. They have been used over the ages to perpetuate ignorance, not enlightenment; to control people, not free them; to beat down, not lift up; to create fear and despair, not hope and joy; to create division, not unity; to create hate, not love; to make war, not peace.

God told me all this, and if you don't believe me, just ask him. He will not deny it.

Thomas Bonsell is a former newspaper editor (in Oregon, New York and Colorado) United States Air Force cryptanalyst and National Security Agency intelligence agent. He became one of American journalism's leading constitutional experts through years of study at Georgetown University Graduate School of Government in Washington, D.C. He is the author of "The Un-Americans: Trashing of the United States Constitution in the American Press", a critique of the mainstream media for ignorance of, or disdain for, our constitutional principles of self-government. He left newspaper work years ago, disgusted at the direction the Fourth Estate -- under the mismanagement of ineffectual, out-of-touch, can't do executives -- was taking away from honest responsible journalism and the observation that there was no place in the mainstream media for a progressive, or liberal, constitutional "expert". Bonsell is an honors graduate of Woodbury College (Los Angeles, California) with a bachelor of business administration degree. He is profiled in Marquis Who's Who in America.

Personal motto: Have brain; will use.

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Dangers of Reading Biblical Stories Literally

Sunday, July 29 2007 @ 09:38 AM CDT