Not your typical Bible stories: just in time for the holidays

bible-imageThis time of the year makes me feel curious -- biblically curious. Is that true for you? I find myself thinking about wise men from the East, a blazing bright star, and all those other props and costumes in the stories of Jesus' birth. How much of it was real? How much of it was invented by evangelists vividly alive to the power of myth?

I don't even have to ask the questions myself if I don't want to: There's ABC News correspondent Christiane Amanpour on the tube, posing these and other questions about Bible stories in a prime-time special called "Back to the Beginning."

And I also have a fascinating book on the table in front of me: "From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends" by Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch (University of Nebraska Press/Jewish Publication Society).

My first reaction?

Somebody at University of Nebraska Press has a pretty subversive sense of timing -- why else do you publish a book like this in the same month when major Christian and Jewish holidays are observed?

My second reaction?

What an amazing book. An amazing, fascinating book.

The authors, both professors at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explore the reality -- and deeper mythic dimensions -- of questions that Ms. Amanpour, unfortunately, doesn't cover in her fancy two-part primetime special.

"Israel's break with its pagan past was hardly instantaneous and certainly not painless," the authors write. In fact, the books of the Old Testament (which this book focuses on) preserve that battle with the pagan past. You find bits of strange myth and odd questions strewn throughout -- like fragments from an explosion that have been scattered across a field.

"Though the writers of the Bible may have lived hundreds of years apart," Shinan and Zakovitch add, "they spoke with one another through their writings.... the Bible is not merely a collection of books but a network of connections in which stories talk to poems and laws to prophecies..."

Part of that conversation involves interesting questions, including:

-- What is the manna that fell from Heaven and fed the Israelites?

-- If it wasn't David, then who really killed the Philistine warrior Goliath?

-- Did the serpent in Eden have legs and arms long before Adam and Eve arrived?

-- Samson/Heracles/Jesus ... did you know there are connections among them?

-- Did you know that the Psalms contain echoes of earlier stories about God the Creator's primordial wars against dragons and the ocean?

This hardly scratches the surface of a provocative, engaging book that is clearly the distillation of a lifetime's worth of study.

In the questions above in boldface, as with much else in Holy Scripture,  the authors locate forgotten, older traditions and pagan observances.

They remind any reader -- one who is willing to relax his or her literalist death-grip on the Bible -- that enduring stories, much like a mighty river, are fed by countless, sometimes unexpected sources.

"The two-way journey from the Hebrew Bible to the writings that were earlier, later, and contemporary to it and then back to the pages of the Bible convinces us," the authors emphasize, "that, while it is good to study one body of literature in depth, that study cannot be in isolation: the many cultures and literatures that influenced it must also be taken into consideration.... Only by examining the entire mosaic, including each stone and its color, shade, and hue, will we be able to fully understand this extraordinary work...."

Such a lesson leads to greater understanding and, hopefully, to more tolerance among cultures.

At any time of year, that message would be welcome. At this time of year, that message is also something else.

It's a gift.

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The innocents

candle-flame From Matthew 2: 16-18:

"Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men.  Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

 A voice was heard in Ramah, Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more.”

... I think of the grieving community of Newtown -- of those heroic, selfless  educators, of those sweet little babies and their ruined families ... and I'm at a loss for words.

Belief's in a bag of chips, or an ashtray: not-so-new in bookstores

Finding the sacred in the unlikeliest places: Jesus in an ashtray, from "Look! It's Jesus!" It's a joke, right? What else are we supposed to think when someone claims to see an image of Jesus on a tortilla or the Virgin Mary on a piece of toast or the Buddha in a cluster of beehives?

I had picked up the book "Look! It's Jesus! Amazing Holy Visions in Everyday Life" (Chronicle Books) as an amusement, and over the past couple of years I've hung onto it for more important reasons. Whenever I've sorted through my shelves to decide what to keep and what to give to our local library, this one has always been in the "keep" category.

We're all seekers of truth. Everyone looks for meaning in the least expected places. That's what this book by Harry and Sandra Choron tells me.

It seemed only appropriate to take out the book, dust it off, and share it becauselook its jesus cover we're at a time of the year that's special for Christians. 'Tis the season of glad tidings and all that. And with Pope Benedict getting all sorts of attention now for debunking the legends of Jesus' birth, it also seemed fitting to share some unusual appearances by Jesus & Company in the modern world.

The book may offer ammunition to non-believers (look, they'll say, at the ridiculous extremes that some people reach), but I find this book far more important and consoling. You don't need to drive to a church or temple or mosque to find God: the spiritual world surrounds us, it's everywhere and in everything.

Like a bag of Cheetos. Take the following image, for example. Do you see it? There's Jesus, in profile, in an attitude of prayer:

cheetoh-jesus

This unusual holy "relic" was discovered by Steve Cragg of Texas. The Chorons nickname the image "Cheesus."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta was found in this cinnamon bun ordered in a Tennessee cafe. The Chorons refer to it as "the nun bun."

Delicious snack or image of Mother Teresa of Calcutta? Or both?

The next one is one of my favorites in this book. Though the selections gathered by the compilers are mainly Christian --others include the Virgin Mother in a lava lamp and a grilled cheese sandwich -- some "sightings" refer to other world traditions.

In a Cambodian Buddhist Temple located in Minnesota, for instance, the Buddhist monks heard the hum of bees in the temple's eaves and looked up. What they saw was the divine Siddhartha, sitting in a meditative pose:

A beehive shaped like a seated, meditating Buddha.

The Chorons quote the reaction of that Buddhist community's elder, and it's a lovely comment for this time of year:

"Everywhere in this world, we humans need to follow in the bees' path to make peace and serenity."

Amen to that. A perfect sentiment for the Christmas season.  Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.

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Into the mystic ... with Merton

Years ago I met spirituality author Matthew Fox after the publication of his book "One River, Many Wells," and the title of that book has stuck with me ever since.

One river, many wells: a great description of the reality of God.

Another metaphor is: Imagine that God is the sun, shining on an apartment building. One window belongs to the Catholic tenant, another to the Jewish one, the Muslim, the scientist (he sits in the sunlight thinking about String Theory), the Buddhist, Hindu, even the atheist (his blinds are drawn shut). The only problem with this image or Fox's is that it enrages dogmatic believers. It's blasphemy to them. They start shaking a finger at you and citing canon law, and any hope of common ground is lost.

That wasn't true of Thomas Merton, thank God. That Trappist monk embodied the mid-20th century ideal of American Catholicism, but he was also a questing, spiritually hungry thinker who looked east for insights into faith.  He didn't rebuff dialogue: He welcomed it. A few months ago, the publisher New Directions released two small collections of Merton's reflections, "On Eastern Meditation" edited by Bonnie Thurston and "On Christian Contemplation" edited by Paul Pearson, that capture his vibrant inquiry into the reality of God.

Merton was a man of Christ, and the Pearson volume demonstrates that on every page. But he also struggled with the Christian practices of his time, complaining that people clung to a "crabbed, rigid piety" or else were trapped "in a straitjacket." He called for a renewal of approach that amounted, he writes in "Contemplation and Action," to a "new depth and simplicity of love, and ... a new understanding."

Perhaps that's why he looked East. For inspiration.

When I think of those fierce believers who wag a finger at anything outside their comfort zone, I like to recall this reassuring line from Thurston's volume: "Merton was convinced," she writes, "there was a 'real possibility of contact on a deep level between ... contemplative and monastic tradition in the West and the various contemplative traditions in the East...' "

"On a deep level": the words make me think of Matthew Fox's river. Or an apartment building in the sunlight.

These two books are small -- a selective, engaging sample of Merton's thought, poetry, private questions.

Ideal to tuck in a coat pocket and pull out during your next coffee break.

 

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