Bible, Part II: Bias Against Dead People?

Skeptics may ask what reading a book that’s at least 2,000 years old could possibly have to do with their lives. The mindset of the authors of the books of the Bible was so different from ours that little of what they have to say would be relevant or useful to us. It’s like reading Shakespeare. He may have been a great writer and all, and there may be useful messages in his work, but we don’t have the time or inclination to decipher the language or understand the context.

Besides failing to recognize that the Bible is “the Word of God in words of men,” I believe this is part of a bias we have against dead people. I know that sounds weird but think of how we smile knowingly when we consider the customs and beliefs of our grandparents – to say nothing of the lives of people who lived centuries ago.

I recall the hilarious Saturday Night Live skits with “historical” themes. One was about the overconfident and self-satisfied medieval barber/physician, Theodoric of York, played by Steve Martin. He got great laughs about his eagerness to bleed and use leeches on virtually every patient.

We have a feeling of superiority about people of the past, as if they were a little weak-minded and witless for living in ages in which there were no computers or smart phones. Everything from their styles of clothing and hair to their way of speaking seems weird or dismissingly “cute.”

How little humans have changed

What fascinates me about the Bible, however, isn’t how little it has to do with my life but how relevant it is. It reveals how little human beings have changed in 2,000-3,000 years and how many of the important things we have in common with people of that age. I’m also blown away by the insights the biblical authors have into human nature and how much they seemed to intuit about God.

I’ve regularly prayed the Psalms for at least 45 years and am still startled by their insights. Consider:

Exuberant joy and gratitude: “Cry out with joy to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy.” (Psalm 99*)

On the brevity of life: “As for man, his days are like grass; he flowers like the flower of the field; the wind blows and he is gone and his place never sees him again.” (Psalm 102)

Insight into God’s nature: “O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next. Before the mountains were born or the earth or the world brought forth, you are God, without beginning or end.” (Psalm 89)

On early atheism: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 13)

On God’s silence: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.” (Psalm 21)

Many stories in the New Testament also show how little we have changed substantively. One of my favorite stories about Jesus had him traveling through Samaria, whose inhabitants were considered heretics by Jews. He’s separated from his disciples and runs into a woman at “Jacob’s well,” a historical site used as a water source by the nearby inhabitants.

A woman with a past

He’s a now-famous prophet with a big following. She’s a woman with a past. He asks for a drink. She’s surprised that a male, and a Jew, would speak to her. After an exchange of words in which Jesus mentions that she has “had five husbands” and is currently living with a man unmarried, she recognizes him as a prophet and tries to distract him from the “husband” problem with a sectarian argument about where God should be worshipped. Jesus cuts through the deception, saying “…the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…but …in spirit and truth.”

The woman, deeply impressed by the encounter, “left her water jar and went away into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” So people rushed to see him.

Jesus didn’t, of course, tell her “everything she ever did.” Exaggeration was alive and well in those days, too, and fame and celebrity were just as important then as they are now. Just on the woman’s word, people wanted to get a look at him. If there had been paparazzi in those days, they would have been all over him.

The point is that, contrary to popular opinion, we have a lot in common with the people of the Bible and it could be relevant and useful to us, if we let it. First, we have to overcome our bias against dead people.   

*Psalm numbers are from the Grail translation.