The Bible is literature.

That should be an obvious statement. Many Biblical scholars, for the most part quite devout, consider this axiomatic and uncontroversial.

And yet. It is also a brash and controversial statement. In some circles it is unsayable, unthinkable and the very idea of someone writing it out like I did above is a pointless affront, a deliberate radical provocation only meant to hurt out of hateful motives. And yet indeed.

The point I want to make is not a big one. It is not all-encompassing. It is not methodical. It is a spark of insight from a perspective of literary criticism. But to get to even a small point within such an asphyxiating lack of atmosphere requires many qualifications and convolutions. So I’ll start. Trying.

I’m going to go many steps further. I’m going to accept that first statement (“the Bible is literature”) as axiom and I will sincerely and respectfully ask that the Bible be read in the manner of literature. Enlightenment should happen if you do so. You should see things in perspective, perhaps for the first time. I will point out some of what becomes obvious if you do. It may (to some) be upsetting to the point of assumed blasphemy on my part. I am sure this is true amongst certain dear ones. It is the sort of thing that has historically gotten many a “blasphemer” or “heretic” killed.

I welcome that. I invite it, like I once invited the rabid supporter of the 2nd Amendment to plead the 2nd on my person. I outlived that person. But there are many dear ones who would see only propriety in having persistent unreformed heretics sacrificed, terminated, crucified or summarily mortally punished in other manners. I welcome them as well. I am at a point in my spiritual development when I know better than to value physical life over real eternal spiritual life. And while I live and respect life with everything that I have and that I am, the Holy Nām is the essence of all that is spiritual and eternal. I do not give the Bible any status as the literal word of God. So crucify me.

It might be useful, at this point, to talk about the forces that make it so hard to see the “Word of God” as something not literally that. Or to put it another way, to talk about the forces that establish and maintain the reverence and maintenance of the literal cult status of the Bible as literally holy and as above any kind of objective criticism.

Such forces are total. Such forces are awesome. All of good is arrayed on the one side and all of bad has been scapegoated on the other and run out of town.

I could provide a historical background on how we got here, but history is the kind of thing best consumed individual by individual. Our experience of encountering “history” in school is a big part of the problem. So, rather than give a historical context I’ll just point out a few things I’d like for you to look into yourself. The exercise of “looking into” may, hopefully, strengthen your abilities to question things. Hopefully, it will embolden you to actually approach things in the Bible like literature (which is it). I can hope.

So, in light of all that, please look into the mish-mash collection that the Bible actually is. Check how patchwork it really is. Check the process of determining what is in “the canon” but, more importantly about how it was determined what was NOT in. Check the timing of the writings. Check the political context at the time of the writing. Consider why someone would want to take a certain line or approach. Look into the status of the year 70. Look into how it came to play out that a “religion” grown so tentatively under such trying conditions of persecution grew into being the state-sponsored persecutor itself. Then think of the ways that the established religion takes advantage of a persecution complex even to this very day. Consider the time-line: a few years of being the persecuted followed by nearly two-thousand years of being the establishment persecutor. Yet the institutionalized cult is able to brandish that sorrowful chip-on-the-shoulder of being persecuted in a 21st century paranoically [sic] imagined “War on Christmas” and like-minded concerns. Inquire into how it turned on the doings of a certain murderous Constantine and his Grendel’s mother of a vengeful woman mother. (Of course, really look into this) (I assume you can approach actual ‘history’ writing as literature and not be sucked into the official state-sponsored official rendering of the story [in which Constantine is ‘saved’) [Maybe I hope too much. Maybe I’m wasting my time]. But I’ll keep trying. Look into. Look into who Origen is and look into why he was killed as a heretic. Look into the Pelagian controversy. Look into the issues of the purity of Paul’s writings. See to what extent ghost writing and embellishment have been factors. There are definitely sections of Paul’s letters that aren’t written by him at all, (we called it “faux Paul” in a certain Theological University sponsored four-year study group I experienced it with).

When you don’t consider context, perspective and background and you accept all is as is destined and as only could have been [the way that it is], you are subject to finding confirmation of what you seek. For instance, I remember personally hearing the argument that the best example of the integrity of the Bible is the fact that it is so seamless and fits together so perfectly well. This, of course, is common sense bonkers, but it transcends common sense. There are untold instances of the opposite, that the book is a hodge-podge gumbo of all sort of mismatches, but a literal “Word of God” person can and will argue the opposite and have all the force and strength of utmost authority on his side, because it is literally written in His name and so doesn’t get questioned by anyone decent.

That is force.

But it is farce too. Just objectively consider how does the “Song of Songs” fit in seamlessly? I’ll leave it at that. (Hint: female sensuality).

Well, I’ve written all that as a preliminary to the small observation point I was intending to make. It doesn’t seem to be going all that well for me. But I am sincere and will leave it at such a shaky level of autonomous and unplanned discussion. (My Muse sometimes seems to might be Mary Ann with the shaky hand). *(obscure Who reference). This is my discourse and it stands.

So what is this about? Why the convoluted windup? Why is it so? Well, those of you who know me in that other incarnation, the one which laughably might be called “real” wouldn’t be surprised to know that the genesis of this ‘essay’ was yesterday when I mowed the lawn. I had a written work in my head which started with what will come below. The windup comes about partly because of a delay in addressing the matter. But the main part comes about because I very much want to paint the perspective picture all too much. It is kind of what can be thought of as development of a “voice”. But maybe not. There is nothing that thinking doesn’t make so. Perhaps today I’m merely suffering from a surfeit of blue chakra energy. I am intellectualizing too much, in other words. I don’t know. But I am ready to begin.

The Bible is literature and should be read that way. Some sections of it obviously seem to be written by a man, a really presumptively patriarchal poser of a pompous puss of a man who needs control, imagining himself to be God. These portions should be questioned and seen in that light. Why do we go for this perpetuation of patriarchy when it is obviously man-oriented, man-convenient, and man-serving?

Why?

Ironically, I see some of these most obviously misogynist passages clung to as the most religiously righteous and moving parts. It hurts me to see any woman respond so. It is wrong. A recent example that got me started this way was from one of the Psalms (a minefield of cultural crap and miscreant nonsense keeping disproportionate company with genuine spiritual beauty). The particular ‘trigger’ incident for me was about how we need to be “broken” by God. This is so antithetical to spirituality and so obviously man-oriented that I couldn’t phantom how in the hell any independently-minded intelligent woman would respond this way. Or course, that is to presume a lot on my part. That is, inadvertently, that I personally seem to seek to contradict and negate the very religious experience of another. And that is patently NOT what I’m trying to do.

But, in another sense, there should be a universal spirituality available and open to all. The Kingdom of Heaven, say. Or the Realm of Wisdom to use a euphemism. I experience and feel this. I know it to be true. There is truly a spiritual Holy Nām, and not an exclusive culturally-bound Holy Name that is a focal point. That whole latter thing is totally man-contrived while the first is spirituality in key with Wisdom the Creator of the Creator of the Creation. So, yes, in a way, I am invalidating organized religion. I invalidate anything that isn’t spiritually involving all of creation all equally. That’s just me. So, we’re back to the beginning. Crucify me.

But let’s rein back! Let’s go back to the beginning, the lawn-moving epiphany!

The Bible is literature. It should be read that way. Please read it that way. Question that which your gut and your intellect tell you is insensitive and stupidly misogynistic and man-convenient. See it for what it is. Question it in the same way you’d question any man-centered misogynistic writing. Much of the Bible is beautiful and truly spiritual and elevating in nature. Almost all of what is in the Gospel of John, for instance, that pertains to light is that way. Spiritually beautiful. Inclusive. Yet, a main theme, a leitmotif of the very same book, is an extended cursing and denigration of Jews. The wonderfully spiritual beauty is fundamentally marred by a politicization. If you see the Bible only as the literal “Word of God” and not as literature, you could not appreciate this. The sad thing, the saddest thing, to me is that the political parts seem to be the ones most clinged to, the most relied upon by those who wish to be the most devout. But that is personal.

Yet, a great remedy is to understand the Bible as what it is: literature. When approached that way, the chaff can be dismissed as chaff and the wheat can be devoured as nourishment. Nourishment is a good thing. And what is the political is also the man-oriented patriarchal self-serving stuff Read that too like literature. Especially that! It is the opposite of nourishing.

And when I say it seems as if a man wrote it thinking he were God, I don’t mean Jesus Christ. For had Jesus had any part with writing a manifesto or even a Bible, and he didn’t, we would have a focused manifesto. It would be the beatitudes and it would be the two commandments. It would be inclusive and forgiving. Of everyone! But this is not the man thinking he’s God that I have in mind. I have in mind the most patriarchal. the most controlling, the most possessive, the most underappreciating of women and the most with the inane tendency to stamp out any sprouting of female initiative or creative invention, the most vile masqueraded as the most caring and ‘protecting’. Like a protection ring. Know those? Never mind the creative reality of Wisdom. Never mind the Holy Nām. Never mind spirituality.

Wake up! Learn to read. See context. Know what’s literature. Free your mind instead.