Some thousands of years ago it was written

by Andrew Pratt.

Some thousands of years ago, so it was written, an ethnic group was in bondage, held as slaves constructing buildings and monuments for the proud nation that held them in thrall. These people were driven and ill-treated. Some died in captivity. A narrative history was built around the lives of these people culminating in a daring escape across the sea while being chased by their captors. The story was infused with the rehearsal of miraculous happenings and events. Finally free, their leader took them into a wilderness, through danger, through desert. At times they faced hunger and thirst. They rebelled against that leader, longed to return to captivity. Again and again, against seemingly insurmountable obstacles and internecine conflict, this body of people achieved a union, in sight of their objective as their leader died.

From a mountain top they looked out on a fertile vista, an attractive landscape, which offered a calm and verdant prospect. Another leader headed with them into this land. Stories of the incursion vary. Some perspectives relate a sudden dramatic fall of the first city, such that it was presented as miraculous. Others tell of progressive advance, stalling, progress. Eventually the then inhabitants of the land were assimilated, killed or driven out until the invading force were the dominant inhabitants.

Now let me step aside; and an admission. As a retired Methodist Presbyter I do not present myself as a Biblical expert, let alone a scholar of Hebrew scriptures, nor of Jewish history. But when I read this story, and admittedly the overview I have given is but a potted account, it raises questions for me in relation to the origination and authority of the Bible, which holds this account, and its application.

While the Egyptians left evidence of a sophisticated political and historical society, our Hebrew Scriptures offer a history which seems to have been validated more by later commentary, than contemporary record. I believe the dating of this commentary is later than the events that have been recorded and have grown in the context and ultimate culmination of the events that have been related. Alongside this record a theology was continually developing and evolving.

Moving forward, interpreters looked back on the ‘historical’ record and invested it with an insight related to this theology. This was not a sudden event, but a gradually developing understanding. Some of its conclusions were probably woven in contemporarily with the events. What is significant and dominant is the assumption that all the events were either invested with God’s influence, or subject to theistic control and direction. Counter-intuitively this was (and is?) accepted even when the events ran counter to the theological image of God that was developing. So God could be seen to be loving and caring, or devastatingly destructive. Through the whole sequence of development the persistent theme was that of a people treasured and protected by God.

Today it is easy to recognise that institutions develop sociologically to protect their own existence, over and above that of the individuals in those societies. They build walls, literally or legalistically, to protect their essence from others. That othering may be geographical or ideological or religious. Societies can be small, a single club or society; a city state; an empire. Many groups will assert that they are in a place predetermined by a divine institution. If that God is on our side then all is well. If not the supporters, worshippers, of that ‘god’ are heretics. Notice my change from capital to small-case initial.

To return to Judaeo-Christian history. If the perspective of a divine institution is real and pre-emptive then it trumps all opposition. If, on the other hand, it is something attributed after the events, or even prior to them, in order to support the actions of a group over all possible opposition then, I would argue, they are suspect. This is as true within Judaeo-Christian contexts as in any other faithful theological constructs. This is a question which undergirds the conflicts which persist in the Middle East to this day as people seek to justify their actions in relation to each other, regardless of the human consequences of these actions. The justification, or at any rate the tenor of the argument, that is elaborated to support one view or another is often rooted back into this distant history and is not solely a consequence of recent terrorism, persecution or a reaction to such. However faint, there is an assumption of divine institution or authorisation allowing what is taking place.

The bottom line for me is to what degree can we be sure of the foundations on which we build our Biblical interpretation, our subsequent faith and actions? To what extent is our interpretation, faith-statement and consequent actions internally coherent? Where there are inconsistencies, as we can already discern that there are, what common place of consent can we reach which will enable our coexistence with other human beings, or are we consigned to continuing dissonance and conflict?

What is there about our belief of which we might individually say with Martin Luther: ‘Here I stand, I can do no other’? And having decided, is this something which justifies our persecution or annihilation of another?