Edgework

As this series progresses, it will become clear to us that when Jesus read his Bible (basically our Old Testament) he accepted the fact that it did not speak with a singular voice. That is to say he saw both testimony and counter-testimony in the text and accepted the challenge to discern ultimate truth from within that mixture.

Accepting multivocality in the biblical text is quite the challenge for those schooled in the notion that the Bible always speaks with one voice. In his book, “Disarming Scripture,” Derek Flood suggests such persons approach the Bible with “unquestioning obedience.” If God said it, I believe it and that settles it. But, as we will soon see, it is not so easy to know which of the many voices really speaks for God.

In contrast, Jesus’ demonstrates the way of “faithful questioning” when reading Scripture, always discerning where the text eventually wants to lead us. Accepting multivocality in the Scripture does not devalue the Bible but accepts it as it has been given to us: a divine/human document that records the statements about a God willing to accommodate less-than-ideal human situations, as well as an imperfect attempt by humans to hear the voice of God. This means that not every statement in the text can simply be taken at face value.

One example of multivocality is found in 2 Samuel 24:1 where it clearly states that God incited David to take a census of his people. Then, after David has done so, God punishes him for his obedience by killing 70,000 Israelites with the plague. In I Chronicles 21 the same story is recounted but this time it is said that Satan incited David to take a census. So who was it; God or Satan? Two voices.

Then we take note of the “deuteronomic alternative” recorded in Deuteronomy 28; blessings for those who obey God and curses for those who disobey. This was basic theology 101 for Israelites. However, this declaration is challenged by the Psalmist who asks repeatedly why the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer. And after Job’s friends repeatedly invoke this central tenet of Jewish faith, God declares that they had not spoken for him.

By the time we get to Isaiah, we learn from his “suffering servant songs” that suffering in fact was to serve a redemptive purpose for Israel. Yet the central theme of many of the prophets is that suffering will come because of disobedience.

Another striking example of multivocality relates to God’s outright rejection of kingship for Israel. That should have settled matters quickly. But when the people insisted, God directed Samuel to anoint Saul as the first of the Israeli kings (I Samuel 10:1). Then he chooses to “bless” the kings in ways foreign to Yahweh’s original vision.

A similar thing can be said with respect to the temple. When David desires to build a temple, Nathan, the prophet, declares that God doesn’t want a temple built. But then he turns on a dime and promises that his son would be allowed to build a temple. Ironically, David is not eligible to build it because he has been too successful in bloody wars God helped him win. When the temple God didn’t want was completed, God’s presence visibly filled the temple.

A final point of multivocality in the Old Testament that needs mention is God’s perspective on bringing destruction on people. In Deuteronomy 28:63 it states clearly that to those who disobey, “it will please him to ruin and destroy you.” But in Ezekiel 33:11 the Lord says that, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” So what is one to make of the numerous times Israel is told by God to practice genocide on their neighbors, including smashing infants against the rocks?

I have only scratched the surface of multivocality inherent in the Old Testament text. But the conclusion we are already forced to make is that not everything attributed to the word and will of God can be taken at face value. Archie Penner speaks of this conundrum in terms of the “concessive” will of God. That is to say that God accommodated himself to where his people were at and even is seen to give “unholy commands” at times which go against all human conscience. But Penner would say that is not the whole story. A clearer vision would emerge when Jesus comes on the scene.

Another helpful suggestion comes from Derek Flood who suggests that part of the problem comes from the fact that Israel was the first of the nations to move from polytheism to monotheism (92).  The world view of the time was that everything that happened did so because of the direct action of a god. Good things came from good gods and troubles came from capricious gods. For Israel, belief in one supreme God was central to their faith. But it created the problem of how to attribute blame for evil when there was only one good God available. Isaiah even has Yahweh saying, “…I bring prosperity and create disaster; I the Lord do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). In other words, the people of that time had no other option on the horizon but to attribute all actions, both good and evil, to their one God. From our modern perspective it makes God look somewhat schizophrenic. So the challenge Jesus had, and we still have, is to discern what the true heart of the one God, Yahweh, really is.

That is no small task. First it will require us to let go of our view of an “error-free” Bible which is easy to understand and enter into the debate of competing voices we hear in its text. And we will need to follow Jesus in the way he read his Bible – in a faithful questioning way. We will explore how he did that in the next essay.