The Bible Doesn’t Exist
Okay, obviously the Bible exists. Number one bestseller since bestsellers. If you’re reading this you probably own or have owned a copy yourself. If you’re like me, you’ve got a dozen in different versions and languages (most of which you never actually use). You’ve memorized chunks of it. Maybe you’ve even formally studied it.
But I’m not being facetious when I say: the Bible isn’t actually real. And if we as Christians can truly re-grasp that reality, I believe we’ll return our focus to the true essentials of Christianity. I believe the entire Christian religion could return to its roots: grounded, wise, transformative, rebelling against hypocrisy and abuse of power, defined by love of God and neighbor.
What do I mean, “the Bible isn’t real?” It’s not a new idea. I mean that “the Bible” is a construct. If that makes sense already, you don’t have to keep reading! But if I’m sounding crazy, heretical or interesting, maybe we could keep exploring the idea together. We can start at the beginning of sorts, back in the time of Jesus.
We’re in Israel-Palestine, the first century, somewhere around the year 33 CE. Rome is in charge, the Jews are feeling deeply oppressed, there is no such thing as Christianity. Every sabbath — and throughout the week — Jews gather around the Scriptures that have been growing over the past millennia or two. If they are in a synagogue, a rabbi reads aloud from one of their scrolls in their religious language of Hebrew. Their synagogue probably has only a handful of scrolls, which are expensive to make. A scroll of the Torah (which in English we call Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), the Psalms, and a few others (perhaps Daniel, or Judges, or Proverbs) might be all their local synagogue owns. But they are familiar with far more scriptures and stories, passed on through oral tradition, or shared by rabbis passing through. At home, no one possesses written scripture. They recite what they can, and retell what they have memorized, maintaining the structure and message but allowing the stories to morph and adapt.
First-century rabbis and scholars of the Jews’ scriptures are familiar with not just their scriptures, but also with the ever-growing body of literature called “midrash.” In midrash, rabbis write their interpretations of the texts, and more rabbis write their expansions, and more rabbis write about those rabbis’ interpretations and expansions. The Jewish scriptures are truly alive: changing in bits and pieces over centuries to reflect the concerns and circumstances the Jews encounter.
Then, Jesus the Jew comes on the scene. Almost before he is known, he is gone. He wrote nothing.
Over the next twenty to thirty years, the number of his followers slowly grows, gathering around themes of love and care for the poor, repeating teachings that a friend of a friend of a friend heard from the rabbi Jesus years ago. Some people start to write down the most common teachings circulating in the early movement of Jesus followers so that they can be shared.
A couple decades after Jesus, Paul becomes influential and writes helpful letters to a number of churches. A bit after that, an author collects the most common teachings of Jesus and stories about him and compiles them into a narrative biography, called a gospel. In the next decade or two, more letters are written, more gospels are compiled.
By the beginning of the second century, Christian literature is growing rapidly, nearly entirely in Greek, the trade language of the day. Christians are multiplying across the Roman Empire, as is persecution. Many Christians are sacrificing their lives for the rabbi whose teachings were passed onto them through stories and occasional circulating texts. Some closely follow the teachings of Paul; some have never heard of Paul. Some follow the leadership of James; some have never heard of James’ letter. Some find comfort in the text called the Shepherd of Hermas, some never hear of it. Some have never read any of the three gospels (one more about to be written). None of these Christians have ever encountered a Bible, because there is not one.
Then, in the fourth century, everything changes. Roman Emperor Constantine becomes a Christian and begins to formalize the religion. Christian leaders become powerful figures, and they begin to use that power to formally reject “heretical” groups and texts. Leaders develop lists of Christian texts they consider commonly accepted, universally applicable, and written by an apostle (usually). These texts — though the lists differ between leaders — became the rule by which other sects and texts can be evaluated. Leaders hotly debate the relevance and authority of many texts, such as Revelation. One of the earliest collections of Christian texts we have today is known as Codex Siniaticus, which contains the books of the New Testament we’re familiar with, as well as the texts of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. Over the centuries, the list of authoritative Christian texts becomes more and more similar.
By the year 1534, Martin Luther made the most recent change in texts, moving nearly a dozen texts out of the Old Testament and into a sub-category called “the apocrypha.” He felt that these texts were “not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.” He similarly felt that Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation were “disputed” books and placed them at the end of the New Testament to emphasize his hesitation.
A few centuries later, in the present day, somehow evangelical Christianity has come to live and die by the belief that the Bible is unchanging, infallible, and essential.
So when I say that the Bible doesn’t exist, what I mean is that “the Bible” is a term we use to refer to a collection that has begun, formed, changed, and shifted gradually over two millennia. There is no holy book given by God. The earliest Christians would have known that better than anyone, and they still boldly claimed Christ, living and dying after his example. There was no divine stamp of approval of these texts at any point. Inspiration was not a criteria for which books were gathered into the canon. Instead, there is a community of people — global and historical — who have written texts, read texts, shared texts, destroyed texts, memorized texts, edited texts, grouped texts, rejected texts, and treasured texts.
The Bible doesn’t exist. That means statements like these no longer make any sense:
- “The Bible teaches _____.” Some scriptures may teach that, some may teach something else, some may not address it at all.
- “Biblical ____.” Whether it be “worldview,” or “womanhood,” or “marriage,” or “finances,” or “leadership,” there is essentially no single philosophy taught by every text now in the Bible. There was no Bible. Jesus never taught anyone anything was “biblical.”
- “The Bible says ____.” John may say that, or Proverbs. Or Paul or Peter.
Etc.
We live in an era where the Bible is used to authoritatively end conversations, questions, and trajectories. Women are held back from leadership because of “the Bible.” Scientific theories contradict “the Bible.” A few decades ago, desegregation was considered against “the Bible.”
But if the Bible doesn’t exist, if scriptures are cherished but not blindly submitted to, we are free. Yes, terrifyingly free, perhaps. Free to make a world that is beautiful by using scripture, and also by using our minds, reason, experience, intuitions, and collective wisdom. Will that kind of human-guided future be straightforward? Absolutely not. It would be far easier to have a divine instruction manual. But there is none.
When I first started honestly studying the history of the Bible, I was terrified; I felt like my faith was crumbling with each realization I made. I felt like I’d been lied to by the book I so deeply loved. But slowly, I’ve recognized that the texts never lied to me. The texts are still real, historical, meaningful, informative, and transformative. The lies came later, when I was told the texts were a perfect, infallible, and unchanging unit. It might seem like I’m angrily ripping the Bible into pieces. On the contrary, I care more deeply about these scriptures than ever. That’s why I’m writing, hoping to recover these sacred texts for what they are: human history, ancient wisdom, and some of the most beautiful teachings of love the world has ever seen.
