As you know if you’ve looked through my Books section, that I am a fan of Marcus Borg. According to Rabbi Harold Kushner, Borg has “removed many of the barriers that separate thoughtful people from the wisdom of the Bible.” Why should I check my brains at the door when trying to learn the wisdom of the Bible? Borg says, you don’t.
In Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, Borg encourages seeing the Bible metaphorically-historically as opposed to inerrant factuality. To prove his point about metaphorically seeing the bible, he lists three examples that I will list here:
A Finger Pointing to the Moon
The first metaphor comes from the Buddhist tradition. Buddhists often speak of the teaching of the Buddha as “a finger pointing to the moon.” The metaphor helps guard against the mistake of thinking that being a Buddhist means believing in Buddhist teachings–that is, believing in the finger. As the metaphor implies, one is to see (and pay attention to) that to which the finger points.
To apply the metaphor to the Bible, the Bible is a finger pointing to the moon. Christians sometimes make the mistake of thinking that being Christian is about believing in the finger rather than seeing the Christian life as a relationship to that to which the finger points.
The Bible as Lens
…using the lens metaphor and applying it to the Bible itself: the Bible is a lens. A student of Borg’s, after a few weeks into a semester made this statement that has stuck with him: “I think I’m beginning to get it. You’re saying that the Bible is like a lens through which we see God, but some people think that it’s important to believe in the lens.”
The point, of course, is the same as the finger metaphor: there is a crucial difference between believing in the lens and using the lens as a way of seeing that which is beyond the lens.
The Bible as Sacrament
Now [Borg] extends the metaphor so that is includes the Christian tradition as a whole: the Bible as well as Christian creeds, liturgies, rituals, practices, hymns, music, art, and so forth. When one sees Christianity as a sacrament of the sacred, being Christian is not about believing in Christianity. That would be like believing in the bread and wine of the eucharist rather than letting the bread and wine do their sacramental work of mediating the presence of Christ. It would be like believing in the finger or the lens.
Rather, being Christian is about a relationship to the God who is mediated by the Christian tradition as sacrament. To be Christian is to live within the Christian tradition as a sacrament and let it do it transforming work within and among us.
As mentioned above, Borg also suggests seeing/reading the bible historically. I will post on this at a later time.
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