The Bible Research Paper

The Bible has many uses and it is often discussed what is in the Bible. Four scholarly writers, Barth, Brueggeman, Mertan, and Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson, write about what is in the Bible and how people use it. After reading into papers written by these authors, I have made an argument, as well, about what is in the Bible. Based off of these authors, I have come to a conclusion that the bible is a series of ideologies that is set in the storytelling process, an ever changing interpretation of stories, and is a lot deeper in meaning than one person can find out and thus should always be read with caution and deeper thoughts in mind.

The Bible serves as a canon, according to Brueggeman a canon “attests that literature of the Bible functions

In a Christian sense, it would be outlandish to say that one book is more important than the other. The books of the New Testament are often citing the Old Testament. AGT goes into this quite thoroughly. “One needs to read the New Testament through the lens of the Old Testament, not least because Jesus himself read and quoted these books as Scripture.” To say that the Old Testament is not needed is preposterous. The main central character of Christianity alluded to these older books himself. These books were ever changing. Each time a story was passed along parts would change as to be more useful. Each time the story gets told it gets closer to the “final” one and sure must be the correct one. As once mentioned before, the Bible “deals with events rather than with theories or ideas.” Its messages are communicated through the stories it tells. This traditioning process is still happening in a new sense where new editions of the bible are being made, some areas are highlighted more depending on the audience. Everyone takes something different from the Bible. According to Barth, “We’re going to find in the Bible exactly as much as we seek from the Bible.” The Bible has a tendency to mirror those who read it. It requires careful reading and studying to avoid this mirroring and only seeing what you want to see. Thus, the content is constantly changing. To stop this process of interpreting and

Barth puts it as a “New World.” He says that the “Holy Scriptures will open themselves up, in spite of all our narrow-mindedness and ignorance getting in the way.” This “New World” is a sense of a new perspective in which to view the world. To take off the glasses that you already wear and have a change of prescription. As with glasses it can be challenging to get used to a radical change in vision, but this is all apart of the challenge for the better. These stories were written and made for a whole different set of people. They do not have the same problems that we have today and thus makes it difficult to read and get the meaning of. Not every story can mesh easily with modern day problems and question. But to cut these stories out because they do not easily fit would be a detrimental mistake. Merton has an excellent quote for this, “All attempts to narrow the Bible down until it fits conveniently into the slots prepared for it by our prejudice will end with our misunderstanding the Bible and even falsifying its truth.” When stories get cut to justify our own needs, in a sense, cheapens the Bible. We make it so that it will tell us what we only want to hear and then the mirroring effect happens but at a greater scale. To see beyond the text, and to really dig deep into the Bible, one has to realize that it is written “from faith for faith.” These are the people who were able to lace these stories with ideologies and