Charting the New Reformation, Part VI – Building the Case for the Death of Theism: The Impact of Freud

Column by Bishop John Shelby Spong on 7 January 2016 1 Comments
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Question

I have a question which could be submitted for the Q&A "blog" or could just be answered personally, if that is possible.

I'm seeking a resource, hopefully a book, which does with the Old Testament what Marcus Borg did with the New Testament, that is, puts it in the order in which it was written, and then adds scholarly information about the circumstances surrounding the writing of each “book” in the scriptures.

For instance, instead of Genesis being written first, it is fascinating to think that it was the Babylonian captivity that seemed to spark the need for putting down the creation stories! I wonder why each “book” of the OT was written, where and by whom, but I know all the answers aren’t known. If there ARE any answers or at least opinions, I would like to study them.

Answer

Dear Sue,

Your question is a good one, but one that I do not believe could ever be answered in a single book. For example, all of the creation stories, to which you refer in the book of Genesis, did not come out of the Babylonian Exile, only the seven-day creation story of Genesis 1:1-2-2:4a did. The Adam and Eve story is some 500 years earlier. When you get to the prophets where would you put the books of Isaiah and Zechariah, just to pick two? Isaiah 1-39 appears to come out of the 8th century BCE, Isaiah 40-55 appears to come out of the 6th century BCE and Isaiah 56-66 appears to come out of the 5th century BCE. Zechariah 1-8 seems to be about 150 earlier that Zechariah 9-14.

I tried to do much of what you seem to want when I wrote my book Re-Claiming the Bible for a Non-Religious World. I took each book in the historical order in which it was written, dealing with composites, like the books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy), which are the combination of a least four separate authors or traditions that were woven together over perhaps as long as 500 years, somewhat differently. I tried to place the prophets into the context of Jewish history and sought to examine all of the time-bound issues with which each prophet sought to deal.

I organized the New Testament in the historic order of its writing, which would place Paul before any gospel and put Mark in front of Matthew, since we know that Matthew actually expanded Mark when he wrote his gospel. The last book of the New Testament is probably II Peter. The first book of the New Testament is probably I Thessalonians. Mark is the first gospel to be written, John is the last. Near the end of his life, Marcus Borg began to suggest that Luke was probably later than John and suggested a date around 140 CE for it. That debate goes on, it is not new. Burton Mack offered that theory about a generation ago. I don’t believe it will win the support of a majority of biblical scholars, but it should be considered.

The Q hypothesis, which suggests a now lost book of the sayings of Jesus, which if real, might have been used by both Matthew and Luke and could have been written as early as the 50’s, is an hypothesis that is only about 150 years old. Most American scripture scholars support this hypothesis. I think cracks are beginning to appear in the Q argument, however, and I welcome it. Continental scholars are less convinced about Q than American scholars.

The question you ask is not an easy one to answer is the point I am making. The debates about the origins and dates of the books of the Bible are ongoing. Most Christians who occupy the pews of our churches are oblivious to these debates. That is a shame because biblical fundamentalism is nothing, but the product of biblical ignorance. The Bible is so much more than the fundamentalist mind can imagine.

I hope this helps.

John Shelby Spong

 

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