Near the end of Bart Ehrman’s wonderful “Jesus, Interrupted” he relates the story of a young woman with evangelical parents. The parents oppose her getting a tattoo because, surprise surprise, the Bible is against tattoos. (This will not come as a shock to anyone with even a vague familiarity with the world’s most famous book.) Ehrman points out that Leviticus, the book of the Bible that contains the tattoo proscription, is also opposed to eating pork and wearing clothing made of two different kind of materials (no cotton/poly blends for you literalists!); plus it advocates the stoning of children who disobey their parents. Ehrman uses this example to illustrate a point he makes repeatedly in “Jesus, Interrupted”, namely that it is impossible to distill a universal understanding that incorporates every part of the Good Book.
“Jesus, Interrupted” is a pseudo-sequel to Ehrman’s 2005 work “Misquoting Jesus”. The central tenet of “Misquoting Jesus” was that it’s stupid to try and take the Bible as the literal word of the divine because there are no extant originals. Its various pieces have been copied and recopied an unknown number of times by an unknown number of different people and many of the most popular modern language translations are based on demonstrably inaccurate versions. Back in April Ehrman discussed the reaction to “Misquoting Jesus” in a Salon promotional interview for “Jesus, Interrupted”:
“Misquoting Jesus” aroused a lot of controversy. Were you surprised by the reaction?
I wasn’t surprised because a lot of Christians who see the Bible as the fundamental basis for their faith were taken aback to learn that we don’t have the original copies of any of the books of the Bible. And not only do we not have any of the original copies, but we don’t have any copies that are completely reliable. And that’s troubling to people who think the words of the text are the very foundation of their faith. But I was a little surprised by the reaction of evangelical scholars. Nobody objected to any of the information that I presented. They agreed with everything I said but they just thought I made too much of it.
Mindful of those reactions Ehrman states over and over again throughout “Jesus, Interrupted” that reading the Bible with a historical and critical eye in no way prevents someone from being a Christian. Understanding the human nature of the book, and the very human way it came together, in no way precludes someone from going to church, having faith, and believing in salvation through Jesus. That’s all well and good, but for Biblical literalists, which includes many of the more, shall we say, active elements of modern American evangelicalism, none of those disclaimers matter in the least.
What Ehrman can’t conceal is that his book is an attack on Biblical literalism; and Biblical literalists are often religious conservatives who like to cite Bible passages as incontrovertible support for their political positions. To take perhaps the most salient example we can return to Leviticus, specifically 18:22 (“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”) and 20:13 (“If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”). You see these two (especially the first as it’s shorter and less bloodthirsty) all the time when homophobic conservatives get their cackles up. Ehrman’s book demonstrates, in clean and simple prose, that those kinds of citations amount to little more than cherry picking. Ehrman doesn’t mention it, but in addition to the tattoo and clothing proscriptions Leviticus condones slavery and says that menstruation and ejaculation make people so unclean that everything they touch must be washed and purified. Those passages do not figure as prominently on protest placards and in fiery sermons.
Of course, Ehrman barely mentions Leviticus; his book is about Jesus and Jesus only shows up in the New Testament. But as the Salon interview makes plain, Ehrman is well aware that it is impossible to write a book about the Bible without it being viewed through the warped lens of political religion. “Misquoting Jesus” demonstrated that, contrary to what many American Christians assume, the Bible didn’t just fall into the lap of the first pope and come from there on down to us. It’s a hodgepodge of sources, disputes and ancient grudges.
“Jesus, Interrupted” delves into how that haphazard construction inevitably affects the way the Bible is interpreted and what people think it means. For those already familiar with Biblical criticism and analysis it isn’t going to come as news that the Christmas story exists in only two of the four Gospels and that even those two contradict each other in numerous places. Or that the story of Jesus’ crucifixion is told in very different ways. Or that none of the Gospels were written by actual apostles or anyone else with direct experience of the life of Jesus. Nevertheless, the book is an excellent explanation, well written, short and funny, of Gospel discrepancies and how they came to be. Inevitably that means that it directly undermines the thoughtless simplification that religion undergoes when it becomes entangled in politics.
Why is simplification so important? Because without it religion loses its edge as a political weapon. Even seemingly simple religious concepts become complex with just a moment’s reflection; political slogans, on the other hand, need to fit on bumper stickers. The two don’t go well together and trying to cram the former into the latter always ends badly for both.
Ehrman’s book is valuable not because it gives non-believers another rational cudgel to wield against political religion, we’ve got plenty (though it never hurts to have spares). It’s valuable because it shows, as gently as possible, that Biblical literalism is poor theology and, by implication, worse politics. Ehrman’s gentleness, and his clear respect for the book and those who take it seriously, also shows that unlike many other strident critics of organized religion he remembers that the people he’s offending are indeed people. They aren’t sheep, automatons or lemmings and he doesn’t treat them as such. That in itself is a nice lesson, one that goes well with the rest of his excellent book.
