The Bible and Second Grade Spanish

I once saw a comical skit on a TV show in which the actors made a mock, Spanish-speaking soap opera. All the characters had the fiery passion of the typical soap opera lovers and betrayers, but they only spoke with 2nd grade Spanish. They would blurt out phrases to each other with red-hot zeal. Phrases like, “Que hora es!?” or with bold emphasis on a few well-chosen syllables, one might look at the other and proclaim, “Como te llamos!?” This went on for a while, with the silliness building. Then at the end a man burst into the room and fervently spoke to the rest of the characters in flowing, eloquent Spanish, which, of course, caused the rest to stare at him in dismay.

This is much like the way people often handle the Bible. Many Christians tend to express fervently the few individual concepts and stories in the Bible they know, assuming the familiar points to be characteristic of every other part of the whole. This confident ignorance is often seen in Christians and their opponents when that all familiar phrase, “the Bible says…” is thrown around in debate by each side. The well meaning, but less-than-knowledgeable Christian might argue against his more liberal counterpart that “the Bible says homosexuality is sin, and that’s that!” referring to the very adamant condemnation of homosexuality in Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6. The rebuttal may then be given that another condemnation of homosexuality is given in Leviticus 18, a chapter which also forbids having relations with a woman while on her menstrual period. It might also be said that “the Bible says” in Exodus 35 that a person should be put to death for doing work on the Sabbath (which is Saturday). The opponent may then point out that the one so adamant about forbidding behavior “the Bible says” is sin doesn’t heed the other prohibitions, and so apparently is very selective in heeding what “the Bible says.”

This is a common type of exchange. Many who are passionate about their convictions and about the small parts of the Bible they are familiar with, are thrown into confusion when they hear references to passages such as the ones from Leviticus and Exodus cited above. For many newcomers to the Bible, the descriptions of warfare, sexual practices, and seemingly obscure religious rituals in the Old Testament are disconcerting. One of the main factors causing the dismay is the assumption that the familiar parables in the Gospel narratives, and a few prominent Old Testament stories like the Flood and the crossing of the Red Sea are indicative of all that’s to be found in the Bible.

It needs to be emphasized that when one understands the nature of the different literary genres and their historical and cultural contexts, much of the confusion caused by references to seemingly obscure or scandalous passages is resolved. If one understands the genre and purpose of the ancient piece of Hebrew Scripture called Leviticus, and its place in the overall story of the Bible, many of its apparently troublesome points are no longer so troublesome. A fundamental problem arises, however, when a person is only familiar with the genre of the Gospels and Acts, and in turn, perhaps unknowingly, tries to homogenize the entire Bible along the same lines, expecting books like Leviticus to be read the same way—to teach the same way—as books like Matthew, which are a very different type of literature. Many try to impose their idea of what they think the Bible should be onto the text, when that idea comes from somewhere other than the text. Another common form of this mistake is seen when people go to the historic accounts of Jesus’ life written in the 1st-century Middle East, and expect them to read like 21st-century, journalistic documents, as if the historical events recorded in two very different cultures separated by two millennia and half a globe would be articulated the same way. To put this in perspective, just try telling someone you have a historical account for her to read and then, without showing her the cover or introduction, give her the owner’s manual to your computer. The reader would expect things from the literature it never intends to offer, and in the end she would not know the history she intended to study and would have a rather odd understanding of computers.

MM