If you’ve been around Christianity for any amount of time, you’ve likely heard a Christian leader, pastor, professor or other individual say, “the foundation of the Christian faith is the Bible.”
What does this mean?
Over the last 40 years of my life, when Christians asserted that the Bible is the foundation of the Christian faith, they often meant that the Bible is not only the most important spiritual source for Christians but their ultimate authority on all matters of truth and Christian ethics. Some will go as far as to say that Christianity would simply not exist without the creation and existence of the Bible.
Is that true?
In this last post in the 10 Bible Myth series, I will answer that question with the following four assertions and how they are rooted in both history and the Bible:
- Yes, many of today’s Christian traditions and institutions would not exist in their current form without the creation of the Bible.
- No, the existence and survival of the Christian faith following the first century CE did not depend on the existence and creation of the Bible.
- No, talking about the Bible as “the foundation (or ultimate foundation) of the Christian faith” is not an adequate, or even appropriate way of referring to the Bible.
- It is far better to think of Jesus, his message, his way of life and his mission as the ultimate foundation of Christian faith.
Let’s begin.
1. Yes, many of today’s Christian churches and institutions would not exist in their current form without the creation of the Bible.
It is true that most Christian institutions base their traditions, practices, doctrines, theologies and worldviews on the Bible. And it’s true that much of what we know about the ancient Israelites, their history, their self-perception and their identifying narrative(s), where Jesus fit into it, how the early Jewish Christians saw themselves and their movement as being fulfillments of Israel’s divine calling, eschatology and prophecy, how they imitated the way of Jesus and his mission in this world—come to us through the Bible. To be sure, there are other ancient sources that help compliment and sometimes critique Biblical sources, but without the Bible, there simply is so much we would not know about the historic Christian and Jewish faiths.
In terms of its devotional nature and use, the Bible is one of the primary sources of hundreds of millions of Christians around the world for spiritual meditation, inspiration and meaningful connection with God and other Christians. I too have found God in the pages of Scripture and use the Bible for both its meditative/devotional nature and its historical/theological nature. I deeply value the Bible from cover to cover (both the Hebrew Scriptures/Old or First Testament and the Christian New Testament). So this post is not in any way an attempt to devalue or discredit the Bible’s beneficial uses.
That being said, more often than not (in my experience at least), most Christians who claim the Bible to be the foundation of the Christian faith assert this in order to support a prior assumption/belief in the Biblical inerrancy view (which we already dealt with in the first 3 articles in the series: the introduction 10 Myths Christians believe about the Bible that are misguided, Bible Myth 1: The Bible is either all true or none of it’s true and Bible Myth 2: The Bible doesn’t contradict itself). They assume, incorrectly, that there needed to be a creation of an inerrant (error-free) Bible for the message of Jesus (the gospel, or good news) to spread around the world. One, I already made the case that the Bible is not error-free (see links above). Two, it simply was not the case for at least the first thirteen hundred years of Christianity that the Old and New Testament writings (or books) had been collected into one book–the Bible–and then translated into the common vernacular. And even after that, it was not common among Christian families and individuals to own a copy of the Bible until the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
2. No, the existence and survival of the Christian faith following the first century CE did not depend on the existence and creation of the Bible.
Before you pick up stones to stone me or call me (God forbid) a heretic, hear me out. The early Jewish Christians in the first and second centuries CE post Jesus did not even have the New Testament of the Bible in its final form and yet the Christian faith continued to thrive and spread. In fact, prior to the New Testament writings, most Jewish families didn’t even own a copy of the Hebrew Bible. Copies of various Hebrew Scriptures were held at the local synagogues and at the Temple in Jerusalem, but they didn’t carry a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures on an individual basis.
And by the time even some of the New Testament writings were written and copied down in the 1st century CE for others to read and use, early Christian families and individuals didn’t own or have in their possession most of the available copies. In fact, within the first hundred to two hundred years of the early Christian faith, Jewish and non-Jewish Christians often met together in homes for “church” instead of synagogues or cathedrals, mainly because their non-Christian Jewish brothers and sisters didn’t share the same faith in Jesus, so any copies of the New Testament writings they did have would be kept with the local house church leaders and later be passed on to other house churches so they might also have the privilege of reading a copy of a letter of Paul, Peter, James or John or perhaps a copy of one of the four Gospels. And at that time in history, it was a privilege to have a copy in their possession as these copies were rare (in comparison to today’s western standards).
The first known collection of New Testament manuscripts (called The Muratorian Canon) happened in 200 CE, and it didn’t even include all the books in today’s New Testament. The first Christian New Testament wasn’t fully compiled until 350 CE, and it wasn’t until 400 CE that the first widespread Bible (which included both the Hebrew canon and Christian New Testament) was compiled by St. Jerome. The first handwritten copy of the entire Bible into English wasn’t until the 1300s by John Wycliff. The first printed (as opposed to handwritten copies) Bible wasn’t created until the Guttenberg Bible in 1455. And even then (YES, even then), it was only in Latin so only those who could read Latin could understand it, which usually meant only clergy (priests, bishops or other ministers) trained in Latin. Not only this, but with such high poverty in Medieval towns and villages across European, Asian and African countries, there weren’t many Christians who actually owned a Bible even after the Bible was translated into the common language of the people.
It really wasn’t until the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries that the Bible we know of today became more commonplace to own for the average Christian family or individual. And even then, it was often only in western countries with more wealth and power. Other countries simply did not have the access due to high poverty and lack of availability.
Let’s recap: prior to the last few centuries, Christians around the world followed Jesus in their world and time without the Bible we have today.
3. No, talking about the Bible as “the foundation” (or ultimate foundation) of the Christian faith” is not an adequate or even appropriate way of referring to the Bible.
For centuries, the foundation for Christian faith could not have been the Bible because the Bible we have today simply did not yet exist. To be sure, Christians throughout the centuries had put misplaced trust in clergy, human governments, money, property and violence, among other things, so it wasn’t as if they consistently got their priorities right or had a good spiritual foundation. In fact, they got a lot wrong. Let me repeat: THEY GOT A LOT WRONG AND DID A LOT OF HARM.
A strong historical case can be made that up until the fourth century, Christianity mostly centered on the person, life, message and self-sacrificial way of Jesus. This is what informed Christian ethics. Non-violence and self-sacrificial love was the rule for Christian living, not the exception. But once the Roman Emperor Constantine began identifying as a Christian in the fourth century, claimed to have visions from heaven and then in an ironic twist of fates made Christianity the religion of the empire, it became much more commonplace for Christians across the Roman Empire to use their religious and political positions of power to manipulate and control others (instead of serving others in the way of Jesus) and to justify and utilize violence (if you can believe it!) in the name of Jesus (and for Jesus’ sake!). What! The way of the cross went from being a subversive non-violent approach for how to treat one’s enemies to becoming the very symbol of religious “Christian” retribution and violence. Christians in the centuries following continued to follow suite up to our present day. That being said, the Christian religion was coopted post Constantine and often spread for reasons that had nothing to do with the good news and love of Jesus.
Side note: If you have an overly flowery (perhaps naive) view of Christian history (assuming Christians largely did no harm), I highly recommend reading Brian McLaren’s recent book Do I stay Christian? to capture just some of the many horrendous things brought about by Christians over the centuries. It also captures some of the more beautiful, creative and transformative things brought about by Christians too.
But that was not how the early Christian faith initially thrived, was nourished and spread within the first few centuries for perhaps tens of millions of Christians.
How and why did the Christian faith initially spread?
For the early Christians up through the first few centuries, they had been captured by Jesus, by his life, his message, and his self-sacrificial others-oriented enemy-embracing non-violent love and mission. It (or rather he) had transformed them and revolutionized how they saw being human, let alone being Jewish. The message of Jesus and the early Christian faith spread because this love and mission of Jesus had so changed them that they actually thought it was worth dying for. It was the death of the martyrs, perhaps more than anything else, that moved forward the message and mission of Jesus. People around the world took notice when a group and movement of people were willing to die for a famous Jewish carpenter named Jesus who spoke of God in profoundly inclusive and relatable terms, and that somehow the love of this God was most visibly seen and understood in his subversive death on a Roman cross. And they wanted the whole world to know about him so they left all that they knew and traveled the world, living simply and sharing the good news of Jesus with both friends and enemies alike.
And they did this without the completed Bible we have today. You see, for them, Jesus was the foundation of the Christian faith.
4. It is far better to think of Jesus, his message, his way of life and his mission as the ultimate foundation of Christian faith.
If you simply take the New Testament at face value, if you consider the way they told the Jesus’ story in written form, you will (hopefully) discover a Jewish story centered around Jesus of Nazareth, his message, his way of life and his mission. For first century Jews, it did not at first glance appear that Jesus would (or should) become their foundation for faith simply based on what they knew of the Hebrew Scriptures prior, but somehow in Jesus, his message, his way of life and his mission is where Israel’s story had been heading all along (see How God became King and Simply Jesus by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright for this historical background). For those who pushed past their initial hesitations and opened their hearts, Jesus not only carried out Israel’s original calling (where the nation of Israel failed to do so), but Jesus reimagined what Israel’s calling and destiny was to begin with. Instead of the Temple, Law and Land being the centerpieces and ultimate sources of God’s presence, wisdom and provision, those were now found in Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, and his self-sacrificial way of life.
Jesus wasn’t like the other religious or political leaders of the day. Instead of leading through force, coercion, violence, the demonizing and hating of enemies, Jesus led through self-sacrificial love. He still verbally confronted the religious powers-that-be for sure, but he also extended a hand of mercy to even them. He spent time with and healed the outcasts and marginalized within Jewish society, people the religious and political leaders of his day rejected and despised. He called his people forward to love not just their own people, but to love those outside their nation and people. To envision God’s family was bigger, not smaller and then act on that vision. Even to love and pray for their enemies.
This was revolutionary, but it was non-violent revolution rooted in self-giving love. Unheard of in most nations and religions, including their own.
How did Jesus see his own Bible (the Hebrew canon at the time)?
Jesus quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures all throughout his years of public service to his people. He clearly looked highly on them and saw them as authoritative. At the same time, he was also willing to rethink, reinterpret and reimagine them in a new light. He was even willing to disagree with them and transcend them for a higher ethic where love and mercy were central. Nothing demonstrated this more than how he reimagined the topics of prayer, fasting, love, trust, worship, money, poverty, adultery, enemies, violence, murder and peacemaking in his famous sermon on the hillside.
But likely his most profound critique was for how the religious leaders of the day had often approached and viewed their Bible (the Hebrew Scriptures). After a lengthy rebuke of their religious obstinance and arrogance, he said this: “You search and examine the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is those very Scriptures that speak of me.”
Think about that. Religious leaders believed that eternal life was found in the Hebrew Scriptures. What could Jesus have meant? I see two likely possibilities (although others more knowledgeable than me may have other likely explanations). One, Jesus may be saying the religious leaders of his day believed that eternal life could be experienced or obtained in the process of studying the Scriptures. Two, it could be that Jesus was saying they believed the Scriptures themselves contained eternal life in their words and pages. Either way, he seems to be suggesting that their allegiance to and/or reliance on them for gaining eternal life was skewed and entirely missed that they (the Hebrew Scriptures) had been pointing to him all along.
Based on his own words and actions, Jesus did not see his Bible as the ultimate source of truth on matters of life, ethics, love and hope. In some unique and profound way, Jesus saw himself as the ultimate source of those things and that he embodied eternal life.
And the first followers of Jesus, including Peter, James, John, Jude, Paul and the author of Hebrews followed suite by referring to Jesus as “the word, the message, the light, the life, the hope, the truth, the Sabbath, the bread, the wine and God’s salvation.”
For them, it was Jesus, not the Bible, that was the foundation for Christian faith.
How can we prioritize anything less?
pic by Jon Tyson (click on link to see more of his photography)
