Timothy Beal Quotes

Mercy, how we do so often love to immortalize those despised and forgotten in life.

Biblical interpretation is not a passive matter. It requires our own active negotiation. When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature.

The icon of the Bible as God's textbook for the world is as bankrupt as the idea that it stands for, of religious faith as absolute black-and-white certainty. Just as the cultural icon of the flag often becomes a substitute for patriotism, and just as the cultural icon of the four-wheel-drive truck often becomes a substitute for manly independence and self-confidence, so the cultural icon of the Bible often becomes a substitute for a vital life of faith, which calls not for obedient adherence to clear answers but thoughtful engagement with ultimate questions. The Bible itself invites that kind of engagement. The iconic image of it as a book of answers discourages it.

Like my peers, I believed that the Bible was God's Word written down for me, answering all my questions about who God is and what God wants for my life, from the mundane to the ultimate. Or at least I knew that was what I needed to believe. But that was not what I found when I actually opened the Bible up and looked around inside.

About two-thirds of Americans believe that the Bible "answers all or most of the basic questions of life"—and 28 percent of them admit that they rarely or never read it!

For many potential Bible readers, this expectation that the Bible is univocal is paralyzing. You notice what seem to be contradictions or tensions between different voices in the text. You can't find an obvious way to reconcile them. You figure that it must be your problem. You don't know how to read it correctly, or you're missing something. You're not holy enough to read the Holy Bible. It might even be sacrilege for you to try. If the Bible is God's perfect infallible Word, then any misunderstanding or ambiguity must be the result of our own depravity. That is, our sinful nature as fallen creatures is what separates us from God, and therefore from God’s Word. So you either give up or let someone holier than thou tell you "what it really says." I think that's tragic. You're letting someone else impoverish it for you, when in fact you have just brushed up against the rich polyvocality of biblical literature.

The history of the Bible is one of perpetual revolution. In that light, we might begin to think about the Bible not so much as a fixed thing but as a dynamic, vital tradition. In light of its history, the Bible looks less like a rock than a river, continually flowing and changing, widening and narrowing, as it moves downstream. For some, thinking about the Bible as a river and not a rock is liberating. That rock has been a millstone around the neck and a tombstone that won’t be rolled away. But for others, seeing it this way can be disorienting. That rock has promised solid foundation in a stormy world. Cling to it or be swept away.

The idea of the Bible as a divine guidebook, a map for getting through the terra incognita of life, is our golden calf. It's a substitute for the wilderness wandering that the life of faith necessarily entails.