(RNS5-FEB21) Book cover for “Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of
White Christianity” by Edward Gilbreath. For use with RNS-10-MINUTES, transmitted Feb. 21,
2007. Religion News Service photo courtesy of InterVarsity Press.
(UNDATED) For more than 30 years, David Plotz, a self-described proud but less-than-pious Jew, would robot through religious rituals.
One day, bored at a bat mitzvah, he picked up the Bible and started reading. Until, then, Plotz had always assumed the Good Book was the collection of fables and feel-good stories he’d learned in Sunday school.
What the Slate.com editor found was darker and more complex: rape, genocide and swindling. And that’s just the good guys.
He decided to chronicle the experience of reading the Bible for the first time as a cultured but biblically illiterate outsider. First on a blog, and now in “Good Book,” published earlier this year, Plotz grapples with the Word.
Some answers have been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You write that our priests and rabbis have whitewashed the Bible, to some extent.
A: There is some amount of whitewashing. For example, the story of Jacob and Esau. You have Jacob who is a truly despicable character in a lot of ways: he’s deceitful, a con artist, awful to his brother. Esau, while deeply stupid, is forgiving and sweet and generous. And yet Esau comes down to us as villain and Jacob is the hero.
When you look at the laws, you have Leviticus 19, this incredible litany of laws, marvelous in every respect. At the same time, you have to cherry-pick to find that stuff. There’s so much that’s appalling or confusing. It’s not that ministers or rabbis are making stuff up, but they are looking very hard to find things that are palatable.
Q: You say Isaiah is a bit like Al Sharpton. Do you now picture him wearing a tracksuit?
A: Actually, I think Isaiah is the kind of person whose personal hygiene is not so hot. So I don’t know that he would wear a tracksuit. Old plaid shirts, maybe.
Q: So, does the Good Book teach good morals?
A: There are two kinds of answers for that. One is going back to cherry-picking; every person, and by extension every religion, makes its own Bible — not only in what they select, but also in what they emphasize. I think it’s a lot easier for Christians because the New Testament is much more generous and warmhearted in a lot of ways.
For Jews, where we find our morals is in the argument. The great heroes of the Hebrew Bible are the ones who are arguing with God: Abraham, Moses, Gideon. They question God and look for the moral things God should be doing.
Q: You’ve become a bit of a Bible-thumper. Why do you think it should be taught in public schools?
A: It should be taught in Western Civ. classes, where students study all the things that make us what we are today, and read for all the influence it has had on our culture. I understand the complications of trying to teach the Bible without proselytizing. But I do think it’s bizarre and perverse that the most important book ever written by our civilization is not allowed to be taught.
Q: You read the book largely without the help of outside materials. Do you think that made you read it more literally?
A: For sure. And I think it probably caused me to make bizarre, silly errors of misunderstanding. I was reading it that way for a purpose, but I recognize the result is that there’s so much that I miss. My purpose was: What is the experience of just reading the book?
Q: Do you worry that reading the book through your 21st-century moral lens leads you to be unfairly critical of people who lived 5,000 years ago?
A: Yeah, there are probably occasions where my horror, at, for instance, their interest in slavery, is unwarranted. But part of the pleasure of the book is that juxtaposition of ancient and modern, when I’m this 21st-century person making fun. I recognize that some of it’s unfair, but I also think I’m fairly generous.
Q: You write that reading the Bible brought you closer to Judaism but further from belief in God, because of how savage and capricious God seems to be. But why blame God? Why not blame the Bible writers, who may have painted an inaccurate picture?
A: Well, first of all, I don’t think all the stories are true. I don’t believe there was an ark or an exodus from Egypt. I don’t believe God ignited a burning bush. So then, are we supposed to have a holy text that is a series of lies about God? Then we’re stuck with a kind of creator who has nothing to do with the Scripture; if God isn’t doing the things ascribed to him, what is he doing?
I think Christians have created a tradition of a God of loving kindness and that works really well. Obviously, it’s a much more successful business model than the Jewish model. But I don’t see why we have to assume one is right. If God is difficult and contentious and fickle that allows me to think that there is a God who exists but may not necessarily be on my side. That’s much more congruent with my experience of how the world works.
