I'll admit this probably isn't the best article to write during the Catholic Holy Week, but I've been thinking about this for quite some time. I do not intend to be disrespectful or blasphemous but rather thought provoking. It has taken me a while to write this because I doubt I'll be able to put into words properly what has been long debated in my head - but I'll do my best.
Prophets - The Bible and many other holy books speak of Prophets who foretold of future world events and how those events were eventually fulfilled. The Prophets are revered as divinely inspired and ultimately wise. We have Prophets in our current times too but we think of them differently. We call them Fortune Tellers. When is the last time you saw someone reading a tarot card and thought of them as wise or divinely inspired? If you see someone with a crystal ball you probably think more of magic than miracles. As a child raised in the Catholic faith, I was always told that magic and fortune tellers were the work of the devil - to be avoided at all costs. Why does the Church revere the fortune tellers of the past and condemn those in our own time?
Testaments - The Bible and many other holy books are full of eye witness testaments that are said to be undeniable proof of events of the times. However, I've learned recently that many of those so called eye witness testimonies were written decades after the fact. Not only that but these testaments have been re-written and interpreted over and over again throughout their existence. I'm reminded of the childhood game we used to play where all the kids sat in a circle and the first kid would whisper a sentence to the next kid and so on until the last kid would tell what they heard. In almost every case the sentence was completely inaccurate after only 5 or 6 interpretations of one basic sentence. Imagine what can happen after 10 to 50 years have passed. Revisionist history is rarely accurate and totally subjected to the bias and opinions of those who speak it. I can recall many examples of revisionist history in our own recent past. It happens now and it certainly happened back in biblical times.
Divinely Inspired - I'll admit I've had some of my most "ah-ha!" moments after a couple glasses of wine - I call them "Merlot Moments". Others have made even more profound mental discoveries after a toke or two of wacky-tabacky. Both of these mind altering drugs - along with many others are completely natural and have been readily available throughout the history of man. Wine is even mentioned in the Bible. We cannot assume those who claimed to be divinely inspired were perfectly sober. But if they had a pen in their hand at that particular moment - it became the written word. I've written a few of these words myself thinking they would make a fantastic blog article to be published the next day. I've enjoyed a good chuckle reading those words the next morning. Thankfully I hadn't already mailed my letter from John to the Ephesians that couldn't be deleted or retracted.
Son of God - Lots of folks have claimed to be the Son of God. They didn't believe Jesus until after they killed him first. These days you will find those who claim to be the Son of God nicely medicated and perhaps enjoying an extended stay in a Nut Hut. Who is to say (besides the Bible) that God only had one son - if any? And why no daughters? I admit that there were extraordinary events surrounding the life of Jesus - but they were written decades later as I previously mentioned. They thought Jesus was crazy and blasphemous at the time just as we think the folks in modern times are crazy when they claim to be the Son of God. We just don't kill them now most of the time. We just make them medically behave.
I think my point about all of this is that we really need to think about the ancient documents we use to rule (not guide) our lives. We need to carefully evaluate not only holy books but also constitutions and laws of the land. Do they still apply? Are they completely accurate? Should they be amended to accommodate modern times? Do they apply to all people in all cultures and all religions? Should they be used to prosecute and condemn or teach and enlighten?
Few things are certain - but there is one absolute truth - God wrote nothing down. All words that have been recorded were done so by human hands and are a product of human bias, that person's mental state, and the times in which they were recorded. We must always remember that.
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I watched a program on the history channel this weekend about "banned books" of the bible. There were thousands of stories from different perspectives written and recorded but ultimately left out of the bible. Some were chosen over others because the story was more literary, others were chosen because they were more popular. The story of Jesus also differed from region to region before the "bible" was circulated. But none of this matters if you have blind faith.
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