How the Bible Became an Idol

How the Bible Became an Idol

bibleidol

Again I am raising a difficult subject, but again, itā€™s something that needs to be said. And my title is true. The Bible ā€“ the holy book of more or less all Christians ā€“ has become an idol. And yes, I do mean idol as in ā€œfalse god.ā€

A book, no matter how good, remains a book and should be treated as a book. A deity is something far different.

Not every Christian uses the Bible as an idol of course, but many millions do ā€“ probably a majority in North America ā€“ including nearly all of the TV preachers.

And if youā€™re about to start screaming ā€œheretic,ā€ please remember something the book says:

Does our law judge any man before hearing what he has to say?

What Is an Idol?

An idol is something you hold above reality.

A true God ā€“ a creator of the universe, for example ā€“ should be held above reality, since he created reality. If, however, we hold something else above reality, we make it an idol. A created thing should be considered a part of reality, not held above it.

So, when I say the Bible has become an idol, I mean people hold it above reality, putting it into the position of a god.

Christianity Was Not a Book-Based Religion

Christianity very clearly did not start as book-based. When Jesus ā€œpreached the good news,ā€ he quoted just a small number of scriptures and usually as a necessity, answering people who questioned him. And several of those were of the ā€œyouā€™ve heard it saidā€¦ but I sayā€ variety. He read a few lines from Isaiah in his hometown synagogue once, but we see very little more than that.

Even the very literate Paul uses Greek poets in his sermons almost as much as Old Testament passages. (He uses some scriptures in his writings.)

Furthermore, there was no such thing as a New Testament for many generations of Christians. And when we do see them quoting the words of Jesus or the apostles, they are often different from the versions we have today. The fact is that such writings werenā€™t taken very seriously.

Ernest Renan, one of the finest scholars on Jesus, wrote this:

Little importance was attached to these writings, and the preservers, such as Papias, greatly preferred oral traditionā€¦ Hence the little authority which the Gospel texts enjoyed during one hundred and fifty years. There was no scruple in inserting additions, in variously combining them, and in completing some by others.

Whether we like it or not, thatā€™s what happened. The book existed only as separate parts and wasnā€™t turned into a whole for centuries. It simply wasnā€™t important.

In fact, the first outside record we have of Christian meetings, a letter of Pliny the Younger from roughly 110 AD, makes no mention whatsoever of scripture readings and expositions, much less altar calls or plate-passing. Their services were very simple and in two parts: early morning singing and oaths, then later in the day, a communal mealā€¦ and thatā€™s all.

The first mention I know of reading any sort of New Testament scripture in a meeting comes from Justin Martyr at about 155 AD, a solid four generations after Jesus. And not only does it refer to a small reading, but it doesnā€™t call the writings scriptures or even holy words; it merely calls them ā€œmemoirs.ā€

The typical excuse regarding this ā€“ that God gave a ā€œdispensation of miracles at the beginning, then a dispensation of his Word for usā€ ā€“ is simply a fantasy. There is no real support for such an idea. That doctrine was conjured, being necessary to support current beliefs. People who teach this are openly placing their doctrines above reality.

The Bibleā€™s Flaws

This is the point where authors begin listing the Bibleā€™s flaws and slashing away at them. I, however, donā€™t want to slash at anything; I find the book to be immensely helpful.

More importantly, anyone who reads the Bible seriously has already seen the flaws.

The problem is not seeing the flaws; itā€™s facing them.

Those of us whoā€™ve read the book know the laws in the Old Testament that no one follows anymore. We know how the apostles disagreed. But ā€“ and this is where idolatry comes in ā€“ millions of us pretend that we saw nothing and move on. Or if weā€™re trying to be very religious, we come up with creative interpretations to resolve the flaws.

And let me be clear on this: Trying to prove everything by the Bible is a deviation from actual growth. If youā€™ve done this for any length of time, youā€™ve hindered yourself.

Doing, Or Not Doing

Readers of the book really should know these things. The core of the New Testament ā€“ the recorded words of Jesus ā€“ require people to do the things he taught. The ā€œBible as word of Godā€ people, on the other hand, spend endless hours arguing about who Jesus was, comparing scriptures, finding hidden meanings, proving their interpretations right, and proving the interpretations of others wrong. And so they bypass doing.

Because of space Iā€™ll skip past quoting Jesus directly, but any Christian should be familiar with the end of Matthew 7. I recommend rereading it.

The Sad Part

The central requirement for any follower of Jesus is to love. Everything else comes second. Jesus not only taught this again and again; he exhibited it in his life. Christians, however, consistently push it aside in favor of other things. (I could tell you stories, but you probably have your own.)

The reason for pushing it aside of course is that loving is demanding. It forces you to confront all sorts of hidden hatreds, pettiness, envies, and vanities. Once you start to major on loving, you find such things popping up at you. Itā€™s far easier to debate doctrine.

The really sad part of this is that the Bible idolaters ā€“ or at least a great number of them ā€“ do have experience with the divine impulse, of contact or at least innate yearning for a transcendent ultimate. But they never develop these things, because theyā€™re busy idolizing a mere book, following the traditions and commandments of men.

And they really should have known, because the book says that the letter killeth.

Last Words

A hundred pages would be required to cover this subject sufficiently, but at least this much needed to be said, and rather sooner than later. It could be a very long time before I find the time and energy to produce a book on the subject. Perhaps someone else will take up the job.

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Evil Is Weak

Evil Is Weak

EvilIsWeak

For clarity, letā€™s define ā€œevilā€ as ā€œthe willful abuse of other humans.ā€

By this definition, any person or persons who purposely manipulate other humans to their own ends ā€“ anything from tricking them into a bad business deal to extorting money from them to murdering them ā€“ are engaging in evil.

Evil Almighty?

From television, politicians, and endless ā€œauthorities,ā€ we learn that evil is pre-eminent. God may be supremely powerful, but heā€™s powerful somewhere far away; Satan is powerful here. We can slide into evil with ease, but being good is difficult. Western man is convinced that darkness is stronger than light, whether he defines it in religious terms or secular terms.

The fear-sellers, we must admit, have won the day.

This primacy of fear and darkness is necessary to authority of course; without it, how would we be driven into their arms?

So, when someone comes along and calls evil a weakling, we think theyā€™re a bit crazy, and maybe we worry that the devil might notice and chop them down.

Fundamental Weakness

Carrying such fears around every day, people seldom realize that evil is weak. And not weak temporarily or in a certain situation, but fundamentally weak. Hereā€™s why: Evil does not produce.

Armed robbery is a good example of evil, and it is clearly contrary to production; we could almost define it as ā€œanti-production.ā€

Evil is massively wasteful: it burns crops, it breaks down bridges, it steals important, useful assets, and it kills people. Evil, therefore, must take advantage of healthy and effective life if it is to prosper.

Genghis Kahn had to get his arrows, horses, and shields from somewhere, and he didnā€™t produce them himself. Likewise for Mao and Stalin and Tamerlane and the rest. One way or another, they required basically decent people to produce for them. Regardless of whether these producers were tricked or intimidated, it was they who armed evil; evil didnā€™t arm itself.

And this brings us to one of the great, simple truths of our times:

If goodness ever stops allowing evil to take advantage of it, evil is simply finished.

The good donā€™t need the evil, but the evil are fully dependent on the good.

It is the good (or at least the basically productive) who permit evil to continue. These decent people are laboring under fears and flawed ideas of course, but without their acquiescence, evil could accomplish very little. And this is massively good news: Evil is vulnerableā€¦ deeply vulnerable.

Changing the Game

Right now, evil has tricked millions of productive people into doing its will. At this point, most think acquiescence is the right thing to do, or they simply donā€™t realize any option exists. And being in that position, they accommodate themselves to it. This can be seen in the moral confusion that is currently endemic. How else could people believe that what is immoral for one person is somehow moral for another?

So, the very first step toward the defeat of evil is to clarify morality. And here we can get a quick start, because morality is simple. It boils down to this:

What is hateful to you, do not do to any man.

From there, we can move on to things like, ā€œDo not encroach upon anyone or their property,ā€ or, ā€œKeep your agreements,ā€ but those are just extensions of the first statementā€¦ and thatā€™s all we really need.

Yes, a professional philosopher can come up with strange exceptions, but those arenā€™t serious concerns. Send the one-in-a-million scenario to a specialist and get on with the other 999,999.

Act with integrity and youā€™re guaranteed to do the right thing 99.999% of the time. Do you think any of the complicated, academic systems of ethics will touch that percentage?

Furthermore, integrity is a simple concept that can be understood by any functional adult. This means that moral clarity is not only possible, but universally accessible.

Then What?

Once weā€™re clear on morality, we simply start calling things by their true namesā€¦ and we donā€™t stop.

After that, evil openly displays its weakness every time it objects: It shows that it cannot abide ā€“ cannot survive ā€“ the persistence of simple truths.

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Paul Rosenberg

[Editor’s Note: Paul Rosenberg is the outside-the-Matrix author of FreemansPerspective.com, a site dedicated to economic freedom, personal independence and privacy. He is also the author of The Great Calendar, a report that breaks down our complex world into an easy-to-understand model. Click here to get your free copy.]