Friday 3 November 2006

Pic of the day: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (But at least stop torturing people indefinitely based on mere suspicion and without recourse to justice.) The great thing about the Bible is that it has parts written to both primitive brutes and more enlightened people.

Gradual revelation

When we first meet Yahweh, he is an early Iron Age deity. It should go without saying that he could not reveal himself to those primitive brutes in the same way as he can today. But just in case it doesn't go without saying, we have the words of Jesus Christ who flat out tells his disciples: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16, 12-13a.)

From the books in the New Testament that were written down first, we get the impression that the early Church was living roughly in what we in Spiral Dynamics call the Green vMeme, or a bit more advanced than today's Nordic societies. Of course this did not last. Mankind was not nearly ready for a society that refused both violence and greed as motivators and demanded uncompromising honesty. Christianity fell down to the Blue level and has largely stayed there. If now Jesus Christ could not bring his disciples up to the "second tier" of consciousness while demonstrating his personal life, how do you think Yahweh could reveal himself fully to a ragged band of desert warriors? He cannot even do so to modern churchgoers.

While we're with Jesus, it is fascinating to notice that some of his most advanced and profound statements were given not to his loyal disciples but to a Samaritan (heretic) woman whose most remarkable achievements so far had been her large number of husbands and the fact that she was now living with a man who was not her husband. To her Jesus could say flat out that God is Spirit and must be worshiped from the heart, not from particular houses. Given the large number of decorative church buildings today, it would seem that the world could need more Samaritans! Because this woman was "gullible" enough, Jesus could talk to her about things that most people would not be ready to hear for another 2000 years. Perhaps that was all he ever required. And presumably the same holds true for the Father.

For this reason it makes no sense when "fundamentalists" insist on limiting themselves to the Iron Age religion. I am not saying that we should just make things up to fit in with the spirit of the times. But if Jesus is to be believed, there is a Spirit of Truth who is willing to reveal more than Jesus himself could.

When Yahweh gave his Law to Israel, he had not even declared himself as the only God. He just asked them to not worship any other gods. This was probably hard enough for people who were used to having one god for sun and one for storm, one for childbirth and another for death. Likewise God did not abolish slavery, for instance. This was still 3- 4000 years too early. Instead he gave laws for humane treatment of slaves, and the option for them to become free after a time. And the infamous rule, "an eye for an eye", was most likely an attempt to limit the spiral of violence where each part wanted to do a little more than was done to them. The current inhabitants of the same area could have something to learn from that.

If we read the Bible in this spirit, we see a God who is insistent but not cruel or capricious. In each generation he probes the human mind, seeing if it is possible to move the borders a little further in his direction. A little more mercy, a little more understanding and less rote obedience to rules, is what we see among the great prophets. There was not an empty space from Moses to Jesus, but rather a gradual transition from literal law to a spirit of love. We should lay the ruler on the Bible and ask: If there were prophets still writing, what would they write today? Would they really go back to a more literal, cold and cruel revelation? I don't think so. I think these harsher commandments were given, as Jesus says about divorce, "for the sake of your hard hearts". Not because God wanted it, but because it was all he could do at the time. What can he do in our time? That would depend on our hearts, obviously. The Spirit is willing.