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The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible's Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love
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Average Rating:  out of 134 Reviews
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Price: $15.95
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Sale: $2.57
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Manufacturer: HarperOne
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EAN (European Article Number): 9780060778408
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Number of Items: 1
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Binding: Paperback
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Author: John Shelby Spong
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Publisher: HarperOne
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Dewey Decimal Number: 220.6
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Publication Date: 2006-03-01
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Reading Level: 336
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Description: In the Sins of Scripture, Bishop John Shelby Spong takes on a thematic exploration of the Bible, carefully analyzing those passages that inform some of our key debates, like the role of women in the church and in society, and homosexuality, to name just two. Beyond that he also looks at scriptures that have helped shape culture and history -- bringing to light the undercurrent of anti-Semitism he finds in the Gospels, for example. The journey is particularly compelling because Bishop Spong believes in and values the good the Bible has brought to many through the ages. His goal is not to define the Bible itself as something to be set aside, but instead to honor and value what he loves about it while still labeling what he dramatically calls "texts of terror" for what they are. The true joy of the book is found in Spong's vigorous intellect, which he shines bright in an attempt to catch a reflection of the age, culture and circumstances in which the texts he examines were written. Like an archaeologist working with ideas instead of tools, he removes the rocks, brushes away the sediment and reports on what he finds. What were the roots and cultural realities behind the Scriptures that define the role of women in the church? What were the hopes and fears driving the writers who condemned homosexuality in such stark terms? What is the justification behind scriptures recommending "the rod of correction" (or as Bishop Spong simply labels it: "[t]he physical abuse of children…".) Whether or not you agree with some of his musings along the way, many of his conclusions are hard to argue with. Putting aside the issue of divine origin of the Bible, no one can deny passages have been used in service of very human ends. Finally, the Sins of Scriptures can be seen as a careful observer of what those ends have been. And when taken on those terms, it makes an interesting read, regardless of one's religious background.--Ed Dobeas
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Customer Reviews
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Review Summary: A Brilliant Counter To Fundamentalism |
Date: 2005-05-05 |
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Details: The times we live in show a resurrection of great theological debate. Biblical scholarship, with the help of the discovery of ancient texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls has revealed the great diversity of thought that made up Christianity in the first three centuries after the death of Jesus.
It wasn't until the fourth century and the adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Rome that Christianity went through a period of codification and setting of official dogma. Fundamentalist Christianity today continues the traditions and dogma put in place by politicians and church elders of the fourth and fifth centuries. Beliefs of a different age, and a society much different than our own.
It was then that beliefs became law, for there was no division between church and state...indeed, a heretic in those times was guilty of not only treason against God, but against the state. In this book by John Shelby Spong, he exposes how the Bible has been used to suppress the opposers of the state and its religion.
He tells how the Bible has been used to keep women as second-class citizens, how scripture has been used to justify cruelty and tyranny. His words are the words of a man that has studies the Bible all of his life, given his life to working for God and the followers of Jesus. While many will not agree with him, there is no doubting his scholarship and dedication to Christianity.
It has been said that the days of the prophets are gone. I disagree. John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg and others are speaking out against the iniquities of ancient biblical thought that continue to be practiced. We need people like them to speak out. There are many that wish to maintain the old thoughts about God and keep people in fear. For those, this book will be a revulsion. For others that look for a different way, this book could be a revelation.
Highly recommended |
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Review Summary: Spong redux; fine book that restates earlier work too much |
Date: 2005-11-26 |
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Details: As with Bishop Spong's previous efforts, "The Sins of Scripture" is a thoughtful, well-documented survey of the ways that the Bible has been used to justify some thoroughly immoral attitudes and behavior. Specifically, the authority of the Bible to underwrite selfish abuse of the environment, the repression of women, the condemnation of homosexuals as somehow subhuman, pious anti-Semitism, the violence meted out to children and to people treated as children, and the destructive divisiveness of creeds are exposed for what they are: an appeal to the authority of God to justify evil. Spong builds his case quite convincingly yet I was left a bit unsatisfied by the book as a whole.
Anyone who has studied the history of Western civilization knows of the appalling "sins" of the Christian establishment. The Bible has been used as a weapon countless times in attempts to destroy freedom of conscience and belief, at the cost of human lives and the aggregate human progress in knowledge. For that matter, anyone who keeps reasonably informed of current events, particularly in the United States, has seen how a certain view of the Bible is used to damage people, to repress scientific inquiry, and to subvert the interests of democracy and freedom. This book serves quite well as an examination of how the message of the Bible has been corrupted, both in its writing and its application, to serve provincial bias and to support otherwise untenable positions.
Thus, to refer to the subtitle of this book, the "Bible's Texts of Hate" have been exposed for what they are: the prejudices of people in a particular place and time, elevated through time and tradition to become, amazingly, the inerrant Word of God. In that effort, Bishop Spong has succeeded admirably. However, I must say that, in my opinion, the book is somewhat disappointing in revealing the "God of Love".
Much of the depiction of the "God of Love" in this book is accomplished by describing what God is not. I was already well convinced of those propositions, even before having read earlier books by this author. Clearly, if God is seen as the creator, the designer, the ground of being in which humans exist, or any other such conception, the idea that somehow God is capable of hating and condemning any portion of humanity is absurd. Equally absurd is the notion that God wishes some part of humanity to hate, abuse or oppress any other part. God is, by definition, the *Higher* Power, and doesn't indulge in the base emotions which would be attributed to God by those ideas. Rather, God calls humanity to "come as [they] are in order to become all [they] can be", to use an apt phrasing from the book (p. 274).
Spong, unfortunately, does too little to describe the "God of Love" affirmatively. It is primarily in the final two sections of the book that this is attempted, and not particularly coherently. As with the book "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism", he has succeeded in exposing the nonsense but stating little of the sense found in the Bible. In chapter 20 of the present book, he asks whether there is any role for Jesus in the new view of reality he has explained, which sees humanity not as "fallen" from some state of grace in the misty past, but rather as an incomplete creation which is growing toward a perhaps impossible perfection. His answer is an endnote which states that he will address the question more completely in his next book, tentatively titled "Jesus for the Nonreligious". I find myself wishing that he had written that book now, since "Sins of Scripture" covers much of the same ground his earlier books had already examined. This book does lay out his thesis somewhat more completely, but it leaves me questioning, as I was when I first opened the book, what can be salvaged from the Bible to further a healthy, humane spiritual growth. Perhaps that is the point; after all, affirmative statements of belief have the disturbing propensity to become creeds, which by their very nature are exclusionary and divisive.
To summarize, this is overall a fine work. Those already familiar with Spong's writings will find it a bit repetitive of previous books; those who are not will find it challenging and illuminating. Being of the former description myself, I wavered a bit over rating the book '5 stars'. After reading other reviews here, many of which gave very low ratings based apparently on either the publisher's blurb rather than actually reading the book and/or the reviewer's own contempt toward anyone who questions dogma, I felt compelled to give an additional star over my initial four simply to help push the average toward a realistic rating. |
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Review Summary: for the real CHRISTian |
Date: 2005-04-22 |
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Details: It is sad that in this day and age that there are those that use the Bible to spread their hatred of others - and justifies it. We shun this behavior in terrorists, yet practice intolerance with others. Bishop Spong questions the Bible's text in an insightful manner. While in college (at a Catholic university), my theology teacher (a Father who is now with the Bible Institute in Rome, Italy), taught us to question where each religion came from and what sort of environment the authors of the religious texts were in. We all know that Jesus Christ, Lord Buddha, etc did not write the doctrines followed by their respective religions. Their desciples did. We tend to forget that and take these texts literally - when these texts were written at a time where majority of the populous was illiterate - thus ideas had to be given in non-literal ways ... such as narratives. |
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Review Summary: There's a coordinated attack campaign going on here. |
Date: 2005-04-14 |
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Details: That many people in a row don't give a book just one star.
Clearly this has been a coordinated campaign against the book by right-wing nutjobs. |
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Review Summary: "No hate texts in the Bible" -- say what? |
Date: 2005-05-08 |
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Details: I grew up a Southern Baptist (not that it matters, but Pat Robertson and I attended the same church, in Lexington, VA). Over fifty years later, I still believe in God as much as I did then. What I stopped believing decades ago, however, is the laughable assertion that the Bible is the "literal Word of God." I don't mean to be disrespectful or dismissive, brothers and sisters, but did God give you functioning brains? Can you not tell the difference between reality and the tribal legends of an ancient people? Contrary to a previous reviewer's truly amazing statement ("There are no Hate texts in the Bible"), it's full of passages that promote hatred: sure, go ahead and hate Jews, hate gays, hate uppity women, hate anyone who belongs to a different tribe or who doesn't believe exactly what you believe, just so long as you're doing it in the name of God. "Grow up, already!" is Bishop Spong's point; use your God-given intelligence to think for yourselves for a change, as opposed to blindly buying into the lock-step, "my way or the highway" ravings of the Falwells, Robertsons, Dobsons, and other would-be Pharisees of a theocratic America. What, indeed, would Jesus do? Ask yourself if Jesus would beat a young gay man senseless and left him to die in the cold. Ask yourself if Jesus would discourage reality-based sex education and opt instead for the head-in-the-sand, abstinence-only version that results in more unwanted pregnancies and sexually-transmitted diseases. And the next time the "fry 'em all and let God sort 'em out" capital punishment loonies start howling at the moon and spouting that truly evil "eye for an eye" Old Testament nonsense that Jesus so emphatically refuted in the New Testament (you might want to look that up when you get tired of cherry-picking Leviticus to find verses to rationalize your prejudices, by the way), try really, really hard to visualize Jesus pulling the switch on an electric chair to fry one of God's children. Too many people who claim to be Christians are missing the forest for the trees: Jesus came to teach love, not to enforce an inflexible legalistic system. The "terrible texts" that Bishop Spong dissects and dismisses as fraudulent are the ones that teach exclusion, hate, and intolerance. His work makes me admire him greatly, but it also makes me sad: sad to think that, two millenia later, there are still so many people who believe that Jesus' message of love is less important than mindlessly adhering to an endless list of "seemed like a good idea at the time" laws set down by people who also believed that the sun revolved around the earth! |
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