People of the Book (2)

I’ve read the Bible several times; basically, the Old Testament is the Jewish scriptures, the ‘old dispensation’ that was superseded by the advent of Christ. It’s a curious hotch-potch of very different things, and is also pretty violent in places. I have always liked the stories I first came across when very young, the stories that, sadly, children do not seem to meet any more at school, from the five books of Moses: Adam and Eve and all the subsequent tales, Noah, Joseph and his brothers, Moses and lots more. And if you wonder why children should meet these stories, it’s because they are part of our cultural heritage and historical past: though we may no longer be a Christian country, those beliefs and stories have inescapably shaped our world, and we need to know them.

But then, there’s the strangeness of Leviticus, with all the minutiae of Jewish ritual observances, and all the marauding and battles and infighting in the books of Samuel and Kings and elsewhere, which I find very tedious and tiresome and not very edifying at all.

The prophets I find weird, basically, full of gloom, warnings and threats, admonishing wayward people in a very similar manner to some of the rather hectoring passages in the Qur’an; basically telling people that if you don’t do what you are told, you will meet a sticky end. Thus have people been oppressed by religion through the ages…

For me, the best parts of the Old Testament are the various Wisdom books, which are confusingly known by a variety of different names, and some of which are also excluded from the Old Testament by Protestants and Anglicans, and labelled apocryphal, whatever that bizarre judgement and appellation might actually mean. But certain of the books, such as Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus are philosophical, reflective and capable of speaking to us across many centuries; the Psalms are often beautiful, poetic although somewhat repetitive: when I studied the poetry of Walt Whitman at university, I learned that his poetry is modelled on the Hebrew poetic style, which involves repetition which isn’t quite repetition: something is changed, modified and perhaps extended as part of the repeating, so that there is a gradual, accretive effect. It can be tiresome, but when it works it is quite beautiful, in a way totally unlike our Western styles of versification.

In some ways I find it curious the way that the New Testament is tagged onto the end of the Old. I know it’s meant to be the fulfilment of many of the earlier prophecies, an extension or replacement for what went before, and so we need to know what there was before. There is such a difference in tone and also in structure. There are five narrative books – the Gospels and Acts, then all the epistles to the new churches, then the weirdness of the Revelation, and that’s it. And by and large it’s free from violence and warfare, apart from the Revelation.

Raised a Catholic, I know the gospels pretty well, at least in terms of the stories. Coming back to them many years later, I notice how they have different foci: one presents Jesus as a worker of wonders and miracles, another emphasises his teachings and preachings, another reminds us as often as he can how Jesus is fulfilling all those Old Testament prophecies. So we get several different portraits of the man. There is overlap and difference, and, if one digs into detail in the way Geza Vermes does, for instance, then there are also plenty of contradictions and inconsistencies. And yet, there is clearly a very powerful story, of a thinker who offered a different way of living, and of looking at the world and life, a teacher with something revolutionary to say to people, who offered hope then and for many continues to do so now… and then there is the story of what happened after his death. I have to say that I cannot believe in a virgin birth or a resurrection from the dead, but that lack of belief does not diminish for me the power of the ideas and the message.

Unravelling the truth about what really happened is very difficult because so little was written, and a long time after the events; we have no way of knowing what was suppressed or destroyed. Clearly his followers thought his message was worth keeping alive; when we get onto St Paul and his epistles, I do begin to wonder: here’s an interloper almost, someone who wasn’t there and who never knew Jesus and yet who issues all sorts of edicts and instructions, who interprets and glosses, for his own purposes; I’ve always been uneasy with almost all he wrote, and that’s without looking at the misogyny. And the Revelation is just seriously bonkers; for my money it makes most of Hunter S Thompson’s wilder ravings seem positively normal and balanced… All in all the Bible is a curious book to place at the centre of a religion; I find the Catholic balance between scripture and tradition, or the Quaker one between scripture and the workings of the Spirit rather more convincing and comforting…

Wisdom & Spiritual Texts

I haven’t written about my response to spiritual writings before, as it’s quite a challenge. But they are a part of literature, alongside anything else that people may feel them to be…

I’ve read the Bible at least three times through, and have found myself liking it less and less each time. It’s a vital part of our Western cultural heritage, and underpins many of our values. I have always liked the old, familiar Old Testament stories, and have felt saddened that today’s children are unlikely to be familiar with them – as a teacher I found myself having to explain an awful lot of references in literature. I find a great deal of the Old Testament to be full of violence and warfare and cruelty. Some of the psalms I find beautiful, many repetitive. And yes, I know about that style of writing. I am most drawn to the Wisdom books of the Old Testament (those which Protestants assign to the Apocrypha) – Ecclesiastes, Sirach, Wisdom, and the like; these texts most resemble the calmer thoughts of Eastern spiritual texts. But the language is often quite sexist, and demeaning to women. So the texts are of their time, and some sects choose to rephrase them in ‘inclusive’ language; I’m not sure about doing that to any text…

I like the gospels for their familiar stories, and for the ideas in them, Jesus as a teacher with a new and challenging message in his times, and ideas which can still have relevance for us today. I’m also interested in the very different agendas the different evangelists have when telling their stories. Paul’s epistles I have always found hectoring, dull and sexist; they are of their time. Recently I have been interested in the epistle of James. And the Revelation I have always found deeply disturbing and disturbed.

Overall, I think that if a God had meant this collection of texts to rule all aspects of our lives, then s/he would have made a rather better and more coherent job of it.

The Qur’an I have become more interested in recently. It’s hard to read, though I’ve managed once; as I understand it, it is meant to be recited, and I have found it much more accessible through a recording (librivox again, if you are interested). I’m also aware that the Qur’an is in Arabic, and that in any other language it’s actually only a ‘version’. I’m astonished at how much overlap there is between stories and characters in the Bible and the Qur’an, although that is perhaps not so surprising when I recollect where in the world both texts originated. Like the Old Testament, it’s full of threats, warnings and dire punishments for those who stray from the right path, but to me it has also a stronger emphasis on a God who cares for and about his people. I have to admit that my knowledge and understanding of it is very limited, but I can see why it is venerated and respected by its followers, in ways in which the Bible does not seem to be.

I have also read the Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu, The Analects of Confucius, and Marcus Aurelius‘ Meditations, which I include under the heading of ‘wisdom and spiritual texts’, although their status seems rather different. To me they are focused on what I would call ‘right living’, which I think is very important, maybe paramount; they focus on suggestion rather than command, and they do not threaten dire consequences if one does not follow them: maybe they presume intelligence and benevolence in their readers as a starting-point? They are enigmatic; they demand slow and close reading and re-reading. They certainly do not suggest that to live well, or contentedly, is an easy and straightforward task, although they do think it is something for the wise to strive for. as I have grown older, this approach is one that I have gradually come to agree with.

I hope I have not offended anyone with my musings, but this is my blog and these are my thoughts.