Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Friday, August 01, 2008
Joe Orso: Who gets to interpret Scripture?
Not long after the creation of the universe, God asked the first two humans a question.
As the Genesis story goes, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, then hearing God’s approach and feeling shame, hide their bodies in the bushes.
Standing there, covered by vegetation, they hear the first question emerge from the mouth of their Creator: Where are you?
As a teacher recently explained, God was not asking them a question about the location of their bodies, which God certainly knew, but about the state of their beings.
After I heard this teaching, I joked with a friend, “Wow, I never knew God could be so deep.”
I meant the biblical God.
Scripture is made to transform us, but so often the stories seem dead to me.
I don’t know if it’s my own lack of insight or a more general lack of insight in Western religious traditions, but when I hear Bible stories, I usually hear those tiresome old interpretations:
- Why did Jesus walk on water or change water to wine? Simply to prove to the world that he is God.
- What is the parable of the prodigal son about? God loves us, even when we mess up.
- And why, after all, did Adam and Eve feel shame after eating that apple? Well, they disobeyed God, of course.
I’m not saying any of these interpretations are wholly wrong, but I think they miss the depth of what Scripture can offer. They come off as logical teachings, presenting lessons like Aesop’s Fables, when I imagine their intention is to transform us.
Let me switch gears for a second.
I am reading “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle. A friend deeply committed to her Christian faith is reading the book, too. For more than a month now, we’ve been sharing our wonder at how the book has helped us enter our prayer more deeply and to hold onto that prayer, at least a little, as we walk through our days.
In the book, Tolle observes the tendency of people to be trapped by their thought-patterns.
“It wasn’t through the mind, through thinking, that the miracle that is life on earth or your body was created and is being sustained,” he writes. “There is clearly an intelligence at work that is far greater than the mind.”
He then offers clear, though challenging, practices about how to encounter this deeper intelligence.
And as I read Tolle’s words, I actually feel differently, and realize that this should always be the effect of reading Scripture, too.
I know Tolle can sound too Eastern to some, or too far removed from Western religion, but he isn’t. Over and over in the book, he returns to the Bible, especially to the teachings of Jesus, to underline his points.
In his teaching about shifting from your mind to your body, for instance, Tolle talks about forgiveness.
“Forgiveness is to offer no resistance to life — to allow life to live through you,” he writes. “The mind cannot forgive. Only you can. You become present, you enter your body, you feel the vibrant peace and stillness that emanate from Being. That is why Jesus said: ‘Before you enter the temple, forgive.’”
But maybe I’m off here. And maybe Tolle is just one more person putting his own spin on Scripture. And maybe Jesus was really just saying, before you go to the altar, reconcile with your brother.
Only each of us as individuals can answer whether our interpretations come from within us, or are blind acceptance of another’s teaching.
As Rabbi Saul Prombaum, of Congregation Sons of Abraham in La Crosse, said in a conversation this week about religious authority and Scripture, “We were told that the Bible is off limits, taboo. Leave it alone. It will only get you in trouble if you try to negotiate it on your own. We will tell you how to read it and what to get out of it. And that’s how you kill a book — when you tell someone that they’re not welcome to offer an interpretation.”
Joe Orso works part time for the La Crosse Tribune and the Franciscan Spirituality Center. Opinions in this column are his own. He can be reached at jorso@lacrossetribune.com
or (608) 791-8429.
All stories copyright 2000 - 2006 La Crosse Tribune and other attributed sources.