MIke James posted this during last week:

Maikimo.net › Reading › Bible considered harmful (to conservative views)

Zeke L observes in a comment to advisorjim — and expands on the idea elsewhere — that

The bible is one of the worst offenders in terms of turning people liberal.

My experience is similar.

It came from my Church experience, and through the Biblical expositions of men like Clarence Jordan and his Cotton Patch translations, and from the likes of Sojourners, and from The Church of the Saviour, all deeply emeshed in Biblical studies; all thoroughly determined and dedicated to uncovering the sense of the times from which the Biblical narrative emerges.

In this, I have seen that the Bible is somewhat like “A People’s History of the World”, but from the viewpoint of “God’s People”, which is a much broader survey of human history than the term “God’s people” has come to mean today in these conservatively tinted theological times. This “People’s History” highlights not only the prophetic and the dissent against “the Powers”, but also the story of what happens when people take on the mantle for themselves of “God’s judgment”.

I have always had a problem with the idea that God commanded , as it testifies in the Old Testament, to wipe out entire cities, leaving no living thing alive. Many a conservative or now neocon-leaning friend has used this as some kind of Biblical justification of “the ends justifies the means” way of ratioanlizing their support of Bush. I remember a commentary passage by Willaim Barclay on one of these Old Testament passages, and the story of a little girl who had a friend ask them about how God could order such a thing, and the little girl answered the accusation: “That was before God became a Christian”. Barclay’s point was that “God has not changed, but man’s conceptions of God have changed”, which at the time kind of took me aback that Barclay, no radical, would suggest that this OLd Testament passage was not , indeed, accurate in its attributing the orders to God; but rather, to suggest that these orders had more to do with ideas about “long range good” justifications by the Israelite army core than with what God wouod have them do.

I become more convinced of that when I read passages in the Psalms where the divinely inspired writer rants: “Blessed is He who dashes THEIR little ones against the rocks”. INspired by God’s heart? Or just the inclusion of moments of righteous rage, as a taste of how humans often “naturally” (or “culturally” ) respond. I believe that Jesus looked at the Law in mnay of its incarnations in just this manner. And Jesus would often say “YOu have heard it said” (which was often referring to the Torah as recited in oral traditions), BUT I SAY TO YOU……. My theologically conservative friends say “But Jesus said that not a jot or a tittle shall pass away from the law until all is fulfilled”, meaning that ALL of the LAW is FROM GOD (often confusing “ALL OF THE LAW” with what we have in terms of Old Testament, and the centuries of interpretations. Jesus himself came under extreme theological questioning of his interpretation or “following” of the law.

The Jewish religious leaders (at least the ones with whom we see his conflict in the New Testament) are constantly offended by his use of the Scripture (from his “Today , in your hearing, the Scriptures are fulfilled” in Nazareth at the “start” of his ministry, ot the “YOu will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of the Father” at his trial which caused the high priest to rent his garment in religious offense.