I have read Spong's "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism" twice now, once for my own edification and this latest time in preparation for a book study I will facilitate. Each time I have been enriched by the author's biblical knowledge and his ability to look behind the words for the meanings. He contends, and I agree, that to hang on to the literal meaning of the words is to miss the intention of the writer.
Bishop Spong maintains that "the average pew sitter in the average main line church, both Catholic and Protestant, is, to say it bluntly, biblically illiterate". Spong says his purpose is first to rescue the Bible from the exclusive hands of those who demand that it be literal truth and second to open that sacred story to levels of insight and beauty that, in my experience literalism has never produced.''
Early in the book he explodes the idea that the mother of Jesus was a virgin, by pointing out that the Hebrew word for virgin is "betulah" "Almah", which is used in the familiar text never means "virgin" in Hebrew.
Literalists have a problem right off the bat in the first two chapters of Genesis. There are two creation stories, the first chapter tells that humans were created first and the second chapter says they were created last. Which one is true; are either true in view of scientific knowledge of the twenty-first century?
Spong points out that when the Bible was written, first century knowledge held that the earth was flat and that above it was the sky with little holes, which those early people regarded as stars. Above the sky was heaven. Hence, when Jesus ascended following his resurrection, He went above the sky to heaven. Below the earth was hell. Those who continue to regard the Bible with a first-century mind can't help but find that approach doesn't serve them well twenty-one hundred years later.
A real mind crusher is the Easter story if one is insistent on making the chronology of all the events come out right. And the authors of the Gospels don't help at all. When did the risen Christ appear to his disciples--was it really on the third day?
Bishop Spong ends his book with the question: "Who is Christ for Us?" That is the ultimate question, the one the Bible is supposed to answer for us and one isn't helped by literalistic interpretation of the Bible. If you choose to look beyond the words to the meaning of the words, you will find this a very helpful book.
Ernest G. Barr
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The Rescuse is of Fundamentalis
The Bible can have value to someone who just has problems with a talking snake and a boat big enough to hold between two and several of each species on earth. You don't have to take the Bible literally to value and use the Bible to enhance your life.
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