Evangelical Biblicism

The question "what does the Bible say?" is misleading. There is no one translation of the Bible that is sovereign, no original manuscript that we can refer to, and no universal interpretation of the text. The Bible has become more than just a book. The question does not encompass the subjective qualities of the Bible. The question does not address the individual context and personal beliefs that influence each individual's interpretation of the Bible. The question does not contain referral to any time specific cultural assumptions. There are no existing comprehensive answers to this question. There cannot be any answers to this specific question, as it is too general. The question is unfounded, because of each of these absences of information. …show more content…
Brian Malley, in his work How the Bible Works, An Anthropological Study of Evangelical Biblicism, notes the importance of not designating the Bible as 'the Bible'. In his words, "'the Bible' is not a name, or at least not the name of anything. It is worth noting that 'the Bible' has all the linguistic characteristics of a generic noun: it can take the indefinite article- 'a Bible'" (Malley 28). The author enunciates clearly that there is no one Bible to find relevance in, and the inevitable outcome of discourse on the subject. When this is considered, it is important to understand that the several factors of 'a Bible' all refer to the background of the individual reading the text: how deeply religious the person is, if the person regards the text of the Bible as fact or fiction, the sentimental values of Bible passages in the person's life, etc. The question of the content of the Bible should truly be divided into questioning the text of the bible and questioning what teachings the Bible provides for those who read …show more content…
A frequently debated example of this is found within biblical depictions of homosexuality. In the King James Version translation of Corinthians 6:9, the text forbids "abusers of themselves with mankind" from entering G-d's kingdom. This text, published in 1611, has significantly nuanced language than the language in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, published in the early 1950's. In that translation, the wording forbids "homosexuals". This RSV translation of the Bible was the first translation to include the word homosexual. This word had only been created to refer to same-sex behavior for several years, and was included to reflect current discourse throughout widespread churches. Because of this reasoning, there is no possibility of claiming that the Bible has always condemned homosexuality. To do so would require knowledge that the modern concept of homosexuality is identical to same-sex relations in biblical times, not to mention the knowledge of the original text of Corinthians. Neither of these pieces of knowledge is available, so consequently, to claim a specific interpretation of the bible as the only true text is completely

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