The All-Too-Human Bible

By John Barker, OFM

As part of our 50^th Anniversary series, Fr. John Barker, OFM, confronts the challenges—and the incredible beauty—of God’s choice to partner with human beings in the process of divine revelation.

Whenever I teach the Bible, I can count on at least a few students airing frustration with the biblical styles of revelation. Unfamiliar language, bizarre imagery, storytelling with unbelievable elements (talking donkeys, sun standing still), and obscure historical and cultural references all combine to produce confusion and even doubt about the revelatory quality of much of Scripture. Though often reluctant to admit it, my sincere, faithful students find it irritating that God would choose to reveal timeless, universal truths through such timebound and culturally particular means. What a lot of work to make sense of it all! When I point out that all humans (including them!) live and think in specific times and cultures, they reluctantly accept that God is pretty much required to communicate in ways that will perplex many people much of the time. This is the downside of the mostly upside of God choosing to have anything to do with us at all.

Besides the unavoidable necessity of speaking humanly to humans, it should probably not surprise us that the God who likes to make covenants has deployed human partners in the setting down of Holy Writ. We know from all those relationships in the Bible, and especially from the Incarnation of the Word of God, that God is perfectly happy to work with and through the limitations of human reality if that’s what it takes to heal and restore that reality. Partnering with humans is what God does, and there’s no getting around it, even if we wanted to.

We all know that this divine insistence on relying on human partners to reveal saving truth does make understanding the Bible very challenging at times. And not just for us today. I remember in graduate school puzzling over a passage in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. When I remarked to my professor that I wondered how Paul’s original audience understood his logic, she told me not to be so sure they did! Human speech can be ambiguous and obscure, fraught with the possibility of misunderstanding and miscommunication, even when speaker and audience share the same cultural background.

Still, how nice it is that God trusts humans enough to enlist us in the enterprise of revelation! And God does so with such respect, honoring the individual talents, outlooks, and idiosyncrasies of, say, the prophets or the apostles. This respect extends to the production of Scripture itself. While the Church has never definitively determined exactly how the Holy Spirit did inspire the human writers, it has insisted that God did not bypass their limited humanity, but instead “made use of their powers and abilities,” making them “true authors” (Dei Verbum, 11).

Pope Benedict XVI put all of this nicely when, drawing on ancient Christian tradition, he noted in his apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini that “as the word of God became flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so sacred Scripture is born from the womb of the Church by the power of the same Spirit. . . . In this way one recognizes the full importance of the human author who wrote the inspired texts” (19).

My students’ frustration with the all-too-human Bible has been shared by many over the ages, and I get that. But honestly, what value (or fun?) would it be to receive from on High a somehow utterly transcendent, probably dry and abstract, and thoroughly unhuman catechism of divine truths? How much better and more fitting that the God who showed such “thoughtful concern for our weak human nature” (DV, 13) by taking on that nature to save and restore us to God’s friendship, should speak to us down through the ages in our own familiar language. That is, after all, how friends talk to each other.

John R. Barker, OFM, is a Franciscan friar with the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe. A former professor of Old Testament at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, he now serves as pastor at Holy Family Parish in Oldenburg, Indiana. He gives frequent workshops and retreats on biblical and Franciscan topics and contributes regularly to Give Us This Day and other pastoral publications.

.

It's time for Fall Bible Study!

Did you receive your Little Rock Scripture Study Fall Catalog? Take a look at all we have to offer, including our two new studies: Women in the New Testament and Women in the Old Testament! Questions or need help deciding? Reach out to Amy Ekeh at 320-363-2081 or aekeh001@litpress.org.

Eucharistic Year of Mission

The Eucharistic Revival in the United States has now entered the Eucharistic Year of Mission. It’s a great time for breaking open God’s Word together and putting the good news into action! If you’ve already studied The Eucharist in Scripture, consider The Acts of the Apostles—the powerful story of the earliest Christian missionaries, the first followers of Jesus.

Advent Bible Study

Has your parish tried Advent Bible Study? It’s a wonderful way to bring parishioners together and stay focused on the meaning of the season. We especially recommend the following options that are just 3 sessions each: The Infancy Narratives of Jesus (includes commentary on Matthew 1–2 and Luke 1–2, along with free video lectures) or Advent: Season of Divine Encounter (a briefer booklet with plenty of questions for reflection and faith-sharing).