Reading the Bible Badly. Karl Allen Kuhn
follow a lectionary that dices and splices Scripture into bite-size morsels for Sunday worship, divorces passages from their biblical settings, strikes verses deemed offensive, and undermines the literary artistry that is the lifeblood of Scripture’s profound revelation;
to read the Bible in fear, warping its witness to Jesus and tragically neglecting Scripture’s ever-persistent call to compassion, hospitality, and love;
to read the Bible looking for simple rules that affirm our sense of right and wrong, while missing the point of what true righteousness is about;
to read the Bible as agents of heterosexual male privilege, using its enculturated patriarchy as a license to deny women’s gifts and their call to leadership in the church, and to discriminate against members of LGBTQIA+ communities.
This book is also an invitation for us, like our ancestors in the faith, to discern those elements of our spiritual upbringing, psyches, and souls that cloud our vision. It is an invitation to seek our own lens adjustments, so that we can more faithfully embody and steward God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Reflection or Discussion Questions
1 How would you describe the reading glasses you use for interpreting the Bible? What experiences, beliefs, practices, and traditions shape the way you read Scripture?
2 What do you make of Powell’s experiment with the parable of the “Prodigal” Son? How do you understand the parable? Why do you understand it in this way?
3 Are there elements of your “hermeneutic” (your lens for reading Scripture) that sometimes prevent you from seeing the Bible clearly? If so, where did they come from? Why do you still hold on to them?
4 Are there elements of your hermeneutic that you cannot do without, that are nonnegotiable for you?
1. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture texts are taken from the NRSV.
2. The Greek verb Paul uses here which the NRSV translates as “be transformed” is metamorphēo.
3. The notion of a crucified and resurrected messiah does not appear to have existed in Israelite thought prior to the time of Jesus. The Israelite Scriptures and other Israelite traditions refer to righteous ones who suffer due to their faith in God or on behalf of Israel, such as in the Psalms, the Maccabean traditions, or the Servant Songs of Isaiah (e.g., Isa 52:13–53:12). But there are no surviving Israelite texts prior to Jesus that specifically foretell the crucifixion and resurrection of God’s anointed. For this reason Paul refers to Christ crucified as “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Cor 1:23).
4. Powell, “The Forgotten Famine.” I previously cited and discussed this study in Having Words with God, 118–20.
5. Powell, “The Forgotten Famine,” 266–67.
6. When Powell challenged the Russian students’ focus on the famine as the primary cause of the son’s plight, they replied that during a severe famine even the rich will die from hunger. In fact, the wealthy may be at a disadvantage since they have not cultivated the skills and networks to survive such desperate times.
7. Lest we quickly dismiss the reading of the parable favored by the Russian students as overly tendentious, Powell (“Forgotten Famine,” 279–85) notes that several features of the parable as it appears in Luke’s gospel could be marshaled to support it. He points out that the Greek terms that are commonly rendered “squandering” and “dissolute, “riotous,” “loose,” and “reckless” living in our English Bibles could just as easily be translated in a far less pejorative sense, identifying the son not as “prodigal” (i.e., “recklessly wasteful”) but more along the lines of “carefree spendthrift.” He also argues that viewing the primary focus of the parable as God’s salvation of the wayward and needy actually fits better with the two parables preceding it. Taken together, these three parables respond to the grumbling of the scribes and Pharisees (15:2), and portray “repentance” not so much as the moral transformation of the sinner but God’s gracious act of welcoming home or “finding” those who would otherwise be lost (see 15:32).
8. Powell, “The Timeless Tale of a Prodigal Son.”
9. The terms “point of view” or “frame of reference” are often used in these circles to identify this phenomenon. While the field of epistemology is home to many different theories of knowledge, the contextual nature of meaning has been one of the tenets of postmodern thought to take hold in many modern discussions of how we know things. Moreover, deliberations on epistemological issues now commonly occur outside of traditional philosophical contexts within the natural and social sciences, including biblical studies. Researchers in many fields now feel compelled (and rightly so!) to address the complex nature of knowledge, even in disciplines that are often seen as dealing with “objective” facts.
10. Hermeneutics refers to the practice, or science, of interpretation. Most commonly, its focus is on written texts, but it also includes verbal and nonverbal communication. Accordingly, the term “text” is often employed in the field to refer to both written and verbal communication, as well as nonverbal action that has a communicative function. As a field of thought, it examines the practice of interpretation and critiques methods employed to discern meaning from texts. This book, in other words, and any conversation you might have on biblical interpretation, is part of the field of hermeneutics, which is a sub-discipline of the field of epistemology.
chapter one
Reading the Bible with Amnesia
and Dishonoring Our Ancestors
Few things are more typical of the celebration of Christmas by American Christians than children’s Christmas programs.
Shepherds, sheep, a donkey, the angelic host, three wise men. Center stage, underneath a glittering star and illuminated with a golden glow, nestle Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. There may be variations in the sophistication of the set. The number of peripheral characters may change, depending on how many children are attending Sunday school that year or which costumes are easiest to fashion in haste (those angel wings can be a chore!). Perhaps the Little Drummer Boy joins the crowd (Pa-rum pum pum pum). Perhaps—and I cringe as I write this—Santa makes an appearance, dancing across the chancel and tossing out candy canes while screaming “Merry Christmas!” Understandably, this is the moment when babies start to cry.
Children’s Christmas programs. What a strange rite of the church year to put ourselves through! Of all the burdens we place on our Sunday school teachers, this has to be one of the worst. The planning, the preparing, the props, the politics (“I was really counting on my Jimmy being Joseph this year! He was a shepherd last year!”). But in many congregations, this strange rite has become a sacred one. It has become central to their celebration of Christmas. Christmas would simply not be the same without it.
But perhaps this could actually be a good thing—to not have Christmas be the same, at least our Christmases.
What would it be like, I wonder, to celebrate and remember the birth of Christ in the way it was celebrated and remembered by his earliest followers and the Gospel writers? What would it be like to read the Christmas stories in Luke and Matthew’s gospels mindful of the kinds of realities, experiences, and yearnings of those who first encountered