The Bible is different from the Koran (Qur'an), the sacred scriptures of Islam, which claim to be the direct dictation of God's words spoken to Muhammad, written down verbatim by a scribe. In a future email, we will talk about what it means to think of the Bible as "inspired by God," but for now we can say that the Bible began to be formed long before anything was written down. Introducing his story about Jesus, Luke tells us that he has done considerable research and wants to put down in writing an "orderly account" of what happened fifty years earlier. The entire Bible was written by dozens of such people, obsessed with one pretty important question:
What happened? Something extraordinary, something inexplicable - and over time, lots of things, many kinds of things happened. People were awestruck. A man felt profoundly questioned. A woman experienced a tender, mysterious embrace. Against desperate odds, the tide of battle turned. Moses went on a long retreat on a cloud-curtained mountain, and came back visibly shaken, carrying messages. The lad David toppled the giant Goliath with nothing but a slingshot; yet as a grownup he forgot God a few times. A shout was raised in worship, so palpable was God's presence in the temple. A teenaged Jeremiah opened his mouth uttering (as if possessed) "Thus saith the Lord." The rain fell, the crop came in, our hungry children got to eat. Mother survived childbirth. God intervened. God was noticed.
Words were inadequate at first. Are mere words ever sufficient to capture what it was like to come face to face with God? Mary's settled life was totally disrupted by an angel, and an unexpected child was born. She didn't grab a pen, or type up anything. Like 95% of the population, she probably was illiterate. Instead, she "kept all these things and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Jacob wrestled all night, and could not fathom what had happened for a long time (was it a man? an angel? God himself?) - and nothing was ever the same (Genesis 32). Time passed; more pondering. Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth; Jacob found his estranged brother Esau. They whispered what had happened. Years later they repeated a maturing story, more deeply understood, to others. Rumor spread. Inquirers asked. The story spread further, by the campfire, during long days of work out in the fields, as parents tucked their children into bed, when worshippers gathered. Letters were written.
So, how was the Bible formed? God formed it, but not via dictation. God formed it by being God, by getting involved with people for whom God's presence in life was dizzying, transforming, healing. The Bible is not some author imposing his ideas on others, but a report of people who knew God, and what they pondered, passed along word of mouth for years, centuries, and then finally committed to writing - as we will see in eBibleQuestions 3.
James
