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Q.
Did God write the Bible?
oral traditions: stories of creation and election (Genesis), of liberation (Exodus)
and instruction (the Law), and of adoration (Psalms) and proclamation (the
prophets).
These stories and some new ones shaped the early church: incarnation
(the gospels) and mission (Acts and the epistles). So the Bible is a collection of
the people’s encounter with a God who creates, redeems, judges, and restores.
The oral stories were not committed to writing until something terrible
happened. The Jews were deported to Babylon, and the Temple destroyed.
These displaced and distraught exiles needed somewhere new around which
to gather, being that they no longer had the Temple.
Over time, observance of “the Law and the Prophets” became a way to
recreate a “temple” of sorts. And by writing it down, this “temple” of oral
tradition was given concrete permanence. The gospels came about in a similar
way, but within a shorter time span.
Christians adopted this notion of the “temple” being whenever and
wherever the faithful gathered around the word. And they did this because
whenever they engaged the written word, they sensed that they were encoun-
tering the Living Word, Jesus. “For where two or three are gathered in my
name, I am there among them” (Mt. 18:20).
The Bible shapes us because its stories are our stories and because we
encounter Jesus along the way.
Kathy Escobar
Who is...
?
Kathy Escobar
I am a distant but direct cousin of Abraham Lincoln.A.
I believe God used people to write the Bible. Through divine inspi-
ration, the words were recorded. At the same time, I do not believe
they appear in the many translations of the Bible that I have on my
bookshelf in the exact way they were originally. I think pastors and leaders
must become more honest about that.
Translation always leaves room for human error, and despite that pos-
sibility, it doesn’t affect my extremely high view of the transforming power
of the Bible. I love how God can use the fl awed to reveal the perfect. I have
absolutely no idea why God didn’t just magically make the words appear in a
neat and tidy package, but my guess is that even if God had done it that way,
the same things would be up for grabs when it comes to interpretation and
haggling over what it means and says.