(continued from above)

On the other end of the spectrum, the Gnostics tried to expand the canon to include books of doubtful connection to the Christian mainstream.

The Christian canon was formally codified in the late 300s, though it is generally believed that an informal consensus was arrived at as early as 200CE. Though there were some politics involved in the selection of the canon, there were two basic criteria: apostolicity and use in worship. Apostolicity means that the book can be at least nominally connected with an apostle said to be its author, but more important, that the book matches with the historical faith as people understood it at that time.

For example, the Western church did not include the Letter to the Hebrews for many years because they did not consider it consistent with the tradition. They thought it might have been written by Paul, but they weren't sure. On the other hand, it was in widespread use in Eastern churches, and so eventually the West relented and brought the letter into their canon. Much of John's work, as well as the letters of James and Jude, were also disputed.

As Henry Chadwick says about the work of the Councils, "Sometimes modern writers wonder at the disputes. The truly astonishing thing is that so great a measure of agreement was established so quickly."

Wasn't there some stuff left out?

Yes indeed, there were some books left out of the emerging canon. The Pseudopigrapha are "false writings" which were rejected at the Councils because they did not match the teachings of the church at the time they were being considered. Many Gnostic texts are included in this group, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary, the Acts of John the Apostle, the Gospel of Truth, or the Odes of Solomon. This category also includes books which were considered worthwhile reading but something short of scripture: the Shepherd of Hermas, Clement's Letters to the Corinthians, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, or the Apocalypse of Peter, for example.

There are also "extra-canonical" works that were never seriously considered for scriptural status. Perhaps the most important of these is the Didache, or "teachings," which gives many details of life and worship in the early church.

In the 1500s, Martin Luther placed several Old Testament texts in an appendix to the Bible because they appeared in the Septuagint but not in the Hebrew scriptures. These are known as the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. Luther also believed that the Epistle of James should be removed from the New Testament, but that change didn't stick. Today, Catholic and Orthodox Bibles carry the Apocrypha in their traditional places among other scriptures, while Protestant Bibles include them in a separate section, if at all.

The Apocrypha also includes a few books that appear only in Greek and Slavonic Bibles. Of all the books "left out" of the Bible, the Apocrypha are the most important, because they are still recognized as scripture and used in worship in many churches.

Wasn't there some stuff that got rewritten?

Yes and no. It's often charged that the Bible has been written and re-written to suit the political needs of whatever editor was working on it at the time, but that's hardly an uncontested notion among biblical scholars.

What is indisputable is that the Bible has gone through many different translations, and translation is not easy work. As noted above, there are hundreds of thousands of textual variations in the original manuscripts, so even assuming that translators are working with the same materials isn't necessarily safe.

Biblical texts can also be quite obscure: words appear there and nowhere else, or cultural references in the texts are lost to history, just to name a couple of the difficulties. The bottom line is that there are many different ways to read and thus interpret the Bible, even when working with the original manuscripts. So it should come as no surprise that there's a lot of variation from edition to edition.

Many books of the Bible also show signs of editing and/or multiple authorship. The creation story in Genesis is widely thought to be two separate views stitched together, for example. The Psalms are probably an anthology, and Isaiah more than likely contains the writings of three separate authors! The gospels might be the most complicated of all: they are compilations of stories and sayings that may have passed through multiple layers of telling and retelling by various communities, until they were finally transcribed and edited by leaders within those communities.

Looking back from our perspective on these processes, it's tempting to say that some dominant authority suppressed the "real story" of scripture, leaving us with a sanitized version.

That might be true, but it's the wrong way to approach the Bible as we find it. For one thing, there's no evidence that anyone felt suppressed. The contradictions and multiple viewpoints we find in scripture in fact suggest just the opposite: people felt free to disagree with other perspectives, and debate was an accepted part of both Jewish and Christian practice. Look at Jesus' harangues toward the Pharisees and Sadducees if you need more proof.

For another thing, it's a bit backwards to think that because the Bible speaks against certain viewpoints, it's necessarily a censoring document. Were it not for scripture and the Holy Mess it describes, we wouldn't have many of those perspectives. Simply as a historical resource, the Bible is invaluable. It preserves voices that would otherwise be lost, even if in edited form.

What didn't get rewritten might be more interesting than what did. Stories such as God's apparent assassination attempt against Moses or the rape of Dinah, or uncomfortable teachings such as Paul's stance on the position of women in the church, provoke us to deeper thought and further exploration that we might if biblical content were easily understood or uncontroversial.

It sounds like what's in the Bible is pretty arbitrary. Why should it be any more important than any other book about religion? Why shouldn't we add to it or take away as we see fit?

You'll have to make your own decisions about the spiritual or religious importance of the Bible. Nobody can make you accept it as your scripture.

That being said, there are a couple of good reasons to leave the Bible the way it is, and to accord it some special significance.

First, as New Testament scholar Luke Johnson points out, having a "closed canon" gives Christians something to organize around. Love it or hate it, the canon give us a starting point for discussing--and arguing about--what it means to be a Christian. Along those same lines, since so many Christians do accept the canon as is, it makes it much easier to talk with them about the Bible and hence their religious beliefs if you can agree with them on what that includes.

(If, like Toby Ziegler, you must take issue with wingnut Christians on which is the First Commandment, make sure you have Pres. Bartlett to back you up.)

Because the Bible has been a starting point for so much of American moral discourse, it hovers over that conversation in a way that other religious works simply cannot. We might wish there were more diversity in our moral sources, or that they were other than Christian scripture, but that's not the situation as we find it. On the other hand, religious practice and cultural awareness are shifting. The Bible no longer dominates the way it used to, and that trend shows no sign of reversing itself anytime soon. Still, as a practical matter, I think it's best to simply take the Bible and its position as givens and try to work with them as best we can.

That's my argument, and I'm sticking to it. You may disagree with me if you like.
Conclusion:

After all that, what's the point?

Simply this: that the Bible is a supremely complex and supremely diverse document. Anyone who tells you that there is a single right way to read the Bible is a fool.

Worse than that, they're a faithless fool. To reduce the Bible to a WASPy blandness is a form of idolatry.

That's not to say that the Bible is without coherence. Within its diversity, it does possess a unified theme: it is a testament to a people's journey with God over hundreds of years. It records their conversations, not their settled statements of doctrine. Those conversations are often partial, often frustrating, occasionally maddening, baffling, or downright offensive. But at the same time, they are rich. They give us many points of view to consider, force us to struggle with difficult ideas, and push us to grow in many ways.

The Bible, at the last, is not a last and final authority. It is a starting point for the difficult and often tenuous life of faith, and a companion for the way. It has much to teach, but in the end, it only has as much authority as we are willing to grant it. And the kind of authority it has depends on how we read it.

We'll take that up next time, in "How to Read the Bible".

Daniel Schultz is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He lives in Central Pennsylvania with his wife and writes for faithforward