The Political Creativity of the Bible: Seth Sanders' The Invention of Hebrew

Seth Sanders’ central thesis is that the Bible, from the viewpoint of political theory and linguistic anthropology, is a powerfully innovative text. The Bible’s power resides in its mode of address, which is politically creative in the foundational sense: it calls into being an autonomous polity that spans time and space. Its law, ritual, and exhortation address a collective “you” and create that “you” in so doing. The privileging of a mode of address in which deity constitutes a “you” that spans time and space was a radically innovative act in blatant opposition to the genres of power of the empires of its day.

On this understanding, the Bible was and is a post-colonial project of massive proportions. It allowed and allows those who place themselves under its authority – I choose my words carefully; they are not identical to those of Sanders – to constitute themselves as an autonomous polity, with the wherewithal to recast, dissent from, and re-establish on new foundations the scope and limits of political actors both within and without.

The Bible, says Sanders, is the first text in history to make a collective “you” to which one belongs by assent the subject of political communication. Insofar as the text has been granted authority, it has generated authority. In the exchange, it has created a vast number of politeumata with confessional characteristics in hegemonic and non-hegemonic situations. Sanders’ list of polities created by the Bible is long and includes the first Jews and Christians, the kingdoms of Christendom but also, the pilgrims of New England; Rastafarians, but also, the United States, or at least its Presidents, who continue to think of the American project as one of confessional and universal significance. Prototypically, the collective “you” is the Jewish people, wherever they gather and repeat, in self-reflexive language replete with the politics of recognition: “Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” The Bible is “call,” says Sanders, a call that empowers. “It is this call that the Bible’s audiences have been answering for more than two thousand years” (quotes from page 1 of the Introduction).

Despite Hobbes, with whom Sanders interacts in engaging fashion, the Bible’s ability to lay claim on its readers is not diminished but increased insofar as its claims are exercised over against the state, including a polity’s own state. This is already clear in Deuteronomy, a completely unrealistic text in terms of the role it assigns to the king. According to Deuteronomy, rather than doing the things kings do by definition, a king is supposed to occupy his time reading and re-reading the admonitions of the book of Deuteronomy. The un-realism of the book of Deuteronomy is its great strength. It establishes a set of unreal coordinates that challenge Realpolitik.

Have I captured the essence of Sanders’ volume in the above paragraphs? Hardly. Sanders seeks to do nothing less than reset the discipline of biblical studies in light of insights drawn from political theory and linguistic anthropology. Furthermore, the book is fun to read, not something one can say about many books in the arcane discipline of biblical scholarship. More on this seminal work in forthcoming posts.

Seth L. Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Traditions [gen. ed., Gregory Nagy; editorial board: Olga M. Davidson, Bruce Lincoln, and Alexander Nehamas]; Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009).  

For this post in pdf form, along with the two following, go here.

Comments

[Alan Lenzi]

Sanders is good. I'm looking forward to this book, whose title just doesn't capture the excitement your blurb conveys.

[Carlos Bovell]

I thought your remarks were quite helpful until I got to the end:

"Should it be retorted that no, authority always rests in the community that reads the Bible, not in the Bible itself, it must be pointed out: such an analysis is a misreading of the phenomenology of the interaction. The community does not even exist until it is constituted and elected by the text."

The scriptures do not exist until a community composes it, edits it, redacts it, compiles it. The community doesn't exist until scripture calls the community together. I suggest in Inerrancy and the Spiritual Formation of Younger Evangelicals (Wipf and Stock) that a dialectical relation is phenomenologically apparent from the start. Conservatives like to emphasize the one aspect, moderates the other; and both appear obviously right to each. Yet a cultural-linguistic dialectic could do justice to both sides without a tendency toward over-exaggeration.

[JohnFH]

Carlos,

What you say is true. However, the community always receives the scriptures as a gift from God, not as its own creation. Scripture is no longer scripture as soon as this is no longer the case.

Scripture is God's word addressed to the community, not the community's response to that word, even if, very overtly in some cases, and covertly in all cases, God's word comes to us in the words of previous iterations of the community, and in the form of responses to God's word by the community.

In short, there is a dialectical relation, but it is hierarchical in structure. The word is primary, the community's response is secondary. As soon as this is denied, the whole thing, phenomenologically, falls apart.

Thanks, by the way, for pointing out your book to us. I'll try to get a look at it. It's a great topic.

[Carlos Bovell]

Thanks for your remark. I think I may be interested in according the same respect to scripture as you seem to be in what you say, but I wonder if you are insisting on a false dichotomy. The historical development of the communities' religious and cultural deposit might very well be God's word in the making. The scriptures are so thoroughly infused with culture in every facet of its diachronic production that God's word seems (to me at least) to be provided for primarily and fundamentally through the communities various scriptural activities over an extended peiod of time. I don't quite understand why conservatives are convinced giving "God's word" priority somehow will accomplish anything all that helpful. To take it one step further, the very idea of "God's word" having to have some kind of priority doesn't appear to me to even be subject to phenomenological investigation in the first place.

On another note, could you please elaborate what you mean by "the whole thing falls apart"?

[JohnFH]

Hi Carlos,

In many church traditions, when Scripture is read in church, the reader concludes by "This is the word of the Lord." Not with, "This is the word of the community," though you are right that it is also that.

Why the consistent emphasis on the word found in Scripture as that of God, even when (for example, in the Psalms) it is actually a word spoken to God? That's because Scripture qua Scripture is received as God's word even if it is, formally speaking, something else.

Phenomenologically it falls apart if, when a text from the Bible is read, one is thinking about the fact that this is, primarily and fundamentally, the word of the community of another period of time. Once you do that, you will treat it more or less like any other text handed down in the community, and it is no longer given a constitutional role. For more on this, see Jaroslav Pelikan's recent volume on the Bible and the Constitution.

Does that help?

[Carlos Bovell]

I did not mean to suggest that scripture is fundamentally and primarily the word of communities from another time. I was suggesting that scripture is the word of God mediated primarily and fundamentally through the cultural-scriptural activities of communities over time. I think a case can be made that there's a difference between the two models. I still would say there's a false dichotomy to resist.

I find L. A. Schokel's explanation helpful:

"[T]he whole of revelation is in Scripture, but it is there in a special way. It is fixed in literature but it is not purely propositional; it contains some things explicitly and other implicitly; some realities it sets forth in concepts, others in symbols, some truths are given in propositions, others as possible inferences, some fully developed, others in germ...This fulness of revelation in the Scriptures demands by its very nature a process of reading, interpretation, explanation and development which will never end; and this is tradition. Congar thus arrives at the conclusion that there is no truth revealed only in scripture, none revealed only in tradition, with the one exception of the truth that must be outside scripture: "These books are inspired." (See The Inspired Word, 333-334.) [I was brought to say something like this for my own reasons in my By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism (Wipf and Stock).]

"Scriptures gave tradition a literary fixity," Schokel explains. [Compare my Inerrancy book.] I don't think I'm necessarily denying that we should receive scripture as God's word. I see myself as rather suggesting that it will prove more helpful for conservatives especially to reconceive how they understand scripture to be God's word in the first place by doing away with this "priority" business, for example.

[JohnFH]

Carlos,

First of all, thanks for introducing your work on this thread. I just read Craig Blomberg's review of your earlier work here:

http://www.denverseminary.edu/article/inerrancy-and-the-spiritual-formation-of-younger-evangelicals/

I agree with Blomberg's remarks to the effect that your criticism of the teaching of inerrancy applies to strands only within American evangelicalism, not to inerrancy as taught and understood in many other strands. Nor does it apply to inerrancy as taught by the Catholic magisterium, for example, in Dei verbum. Go here for discussion and a link:

http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2007/08/a-challenge-to-.html

As I note there, the Catholic tradition also, despite frequent statements that go in the other direction, accords priority to Scripture. John Paul II spoke of “sacred scripture as the highest authority in matters of faith” in his ecumenical encyclical Ut unum sint (1995).

There are senses in which it is possible to claim that the language of priority instantiates a false dichotomy. From a historical point of view at some level, for instance. But not at an ontological and theological level, because the Word of God is eternal and is passed on to us in three ways: as the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God inscripturated, and the Word of God preached. In the beginning was the Word (=equal to the Word incarnate). Before the church existed, the scriptures of which 2 Tim 3:16 existed. Faith does not come except by hearing of the (preached) Word. In all three senses, the Word is prior.

Congar of course is correct to say that there is a truth that is revealed only in tradition: these books [including the New Testament] are inspired. Catholics are right to point this out.

I adore Alonso, he was one of my teachers. BTW, that's how his name works. He is Alonso or Alonso Schoekel, not Schoekel. Spanish last names are confusing.

It may be that your view of the relationship of scripture and tradition puts you in the Catholic or the Orthodox camp. Sola Scriptura, which seems to rub you the wrong way, is a very important corrective emphasis without which the Reformation is hardly conceivable. If you think the emphasis has done more harm than good (a defensible position), you might look into Catholicism or Orthodoxy as a church home for you.

Don't want to lose you, and I would have thought that at ICS, they would have given you the groundwork to be a happy-go-lucky Calvinist without the sort of mind-torturing versions of inerrancy you refer to, but it wouldn't be the first time that someone made a journey that began in Westminster-land and led to Rome.

[Carlos Bovell]

Thanks for this. I think I was trying to point out an equivocation in what I hear you saying and, at least as far as I can see, you have clarified for me that there is indeed some equivocating going on:

"But not at an ontological and theological level, because the Word of God is eternal and is passed onto us in three ways: the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God inscripturated, the Word of God preached. In the beginning was the Word. Before the church existed, the scriptures of which 2 Tim 3:16 existed. Faith does not come except by hearing of the Word; once again, the word is prior."

Scripture is not all of these Words of God; it is only a small subset of a broader category that you are calling, "Word of God". The Word of God that ends up revealing itself to religious communities does so through the medium of scripture subsequently to its being revealed to believing communities in one or more of these other "modes". So insisting on the "priority" of scripture as Word of God seems to me to end up distorting the very ontological realities it is thought to preserve. [I try to describe further what I mean in a forthcoming essay.]

[Carlos Bovell]

If you recall, this is the claim I objected to:

"Should it be retorted that no, authority always rests in the community that reads the Bible, not in the Bible itself, it must be pointed out: such an analysis is a misreading of the phenomenology of the interaction. The community does not even exist until it is constituted and elected by the text."

And now you are saying:

"...because the Word of God is eternal and is passed onto us in three ways: the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God inscripturated, the Word of God preached. In the beginning was the Word. Before the church existed, the scriptures of which 2 Tim 3:16 existed. Faith does not come except by hearing of the Word; once again, the word is prior."

I would like to reiterate that I think there is some serious confusion here that needs cleaning up:

"In the beginning was the Word" does not mean "in the beginning was scripture."

"Faith does not come except by hearing the word" does not mean "faith does not come except by hearing scripture."

"Before the church existed, the word existed" does not mean "before the church existed scripture existed."

I suggest that an over-willingness to grant scripture some sort of "priority" is precisely what motivates conservatives toward conceptual multivalence when it comes to scripture with scripture eventually becoming a kind of "spiritual everything" for them, especially when coupled with a fear that if scripture is not given "priority" then all is lost. Christ should play this role not scripture (of course, I'm sure you'd agree with this last point).

[Carlos Bovell]

I hope that you don't mind me commenting a third time here seemingly out of turn but now there appear some clarifying parenthetical phrases in the sentences of yours that I quoted above:

"But not at an ontological and theological level, because the Word of God is eternal and is passed on to us in three ways: as the Word of God incarnate, the Word of God inscripturated, and the Word of God preached. In the beginning was the Word (=equal to the Word incarnate). Before the church existed, the scriptures of which 2 Tim 3:16 existed. Faith does not come except by hearing of the (preached) Word. In all three senses, the Word is prior."

I am pretty sure they were not there before. If so, I cannot explain why they did not appear either time when I copied and pasted them into my comments (I did this two times). If these parenthetical remarks indicate a revised claim, then my only concern would be that generally speaking it is inappropriate and perhaps misleading to insist that the Word inscripturated be given the "priority" conservative evangelicals tend to give it.

[JohnFH]

I look forward to your essay, Carlos.

I think the problem you will run into is that of cutting off the Word inscripturated from the Word incarnate and the Word proclaimed. The unity of the Word needs to be maintained. It is one and the same word.

The notion that Scripture is a small subset of a broader category called the Word of God hardly does it justice. Scripture as in the Old Testament is a mirror in which we see Christ more clearly: that's always been the way the Church has read the Old Testament. The OT is prior to the incarnate Word of God. It is the eternal word of God alone that is prior to the Old Testament as the word of God.

Scripture is the standard or canon by which and on which the word of God preached is founded. It really is the constitution of the church. Its authors are the founding fathers. Scripture has always been foundational, first the Old Testament, and then, the Old and New Testaments, in doxy and praxis. The priority is historical, liturgical, and doctrinal, all at the same time. You can talk about the priority of the community all you want, but it is this selfsame community that has always accorded scripture authority, as in authorization and authoring combined, over itself.

True conservatives do not have a Bible-only spirituality. Wesley for example spoke plainly about works of piety and works of mercy being means of grace. Searching the scriptures is one work of piety, alongside of prayer, communion, fasting, koinonia, healthy living. Works of mercy: see Matthew 28.

[Carlos Bovell]

Thanks for the pronlonged interaction. I agree with what you say. I hope I do not end up cutting off the Word from scripture or vice versa. My intention is merely to put scripture into a more helpful and (at least from where I am coming from) a more proper perspective within the larger redemptive economy.

Blessings,

Carlos

[Chariots of Fire 4]

This article makes me really want to read the book. It sounds like it really captures how the bible creates "you". I also like how you mention that "It allowed and allows those who place themselves under its authority" because we choose to be under its authority we aren't forced to.

[JohnFH]

Hi Chariots of Fire 5,

You are right that it is a choice, that of standing under the authority of a text like the Bible, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Mayflower Compact.

At the same time, we stand under their authority whether we like it or not, simply because we participate in a culture for which all of the above texts are foundational and continue to serve as cultural resources, consciously or unconsciously, for an entire polity.

Another example of American "scripture" which creates "you": the famous poem of Emma Lazarus which graces the Statue of Liberty. Of late, many Americans reject its message and wish to make the country into a gated community off limits to all but the wealthy and those with highly prized skills. Here are the operative words:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Millions on millions came; many of us are their biological children; all of us stand on their shoulders, on the shoulders as well of those who came not of their own volition, but as objects of commerce. So the "you" of texts that are designed to constitute a polity has an ever-expanding reference; so does the "we" of said texts, such as:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

[Pulp Fiction 3]

I really appreciate that they say the bible “creates you.” This statement is all entirely true for me and many friends. The bible is what helps a lot of people through the toughest struggles in our lives; yet saying that, no one was forced to read or believe the bible. That right there is proof of how the bible can in turn “create us.” If we so choose to read the bible and study from it outside of class, we are making the point to be in its authority not forced as Chariots of Fire 4 stated earlier. People these days can and will choose what they believe, and it cant be forced down our throats. We are becoming our own, and maybe for some, with the help of a great script.

[Pulp Fiction 5]

This post was interesting because it made me think what I could become if I allow myself to become more immersed with the Bible and let God infiltrate my life more. I could become part of the mentioned collective “you.” The Bible and all it has to teach could reshape my life not only to be more in touch with God but also most certainly to become a better person.

One of the greatest things about the Bible, in my opinion, is that it allows each reader to interpret it in a slightly different manner to pertain to their individual lives. Obviously each person interprets the Bible the way in which their specific religions ask them too but I believe that each person also reads it with their own personal endeavors in mind. Although we may all be part of the collective “you” we also are creating and individual “you” by interpreting the Bible as we see fit.

[Truman Show 2]

I agree with Pulp Fiction 3 in appreciating that they say that the Bible “creates you”. I also agree with Pulp Fiction 3 that the Bible helps a lot of people through the toughest struggles in there live because I know it has for me, but no one is forced to read just like any other book. In the end it is a choice if you read and to be under the authority of the Bible.

[Pulp Fiction 4]

I find it interesting that while the Bible creates a collective group that freely gives the Bible authority over it, there are many statements in the Bible that seem to apply to everyone. For example, the final judgment is based on an individual’s belief in God or lack thereof. Do we believe that everybody on Earth is subject to that standard, even if they haven’t consented to being governed by the Bible?

[JohnFH]

Hi Pulp Fiction 4,

You touch on a question of fundamental importance. Constitutional texts, religious and political (the Bible is both; it is hard to have one without the other) make truth claims that are considered valid whether everyone accepts them or not.

For example, when Lincoln said in his second inaugural:

still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether.”

- he was saying that the carnage of the Civil War was God's judgement on the American people for the institution of slavery. Lincoln did not believe he was stating his opinion, though of course he was also stating his opinion. He was stating propositional truth the content of which was valid whether individuals or entire states cottoned to it or not.

[Shawshank Redemption3]

I have always liked the thought of the Collective "you" in the bible! It makes me feel as if God is talking to me as a person. It seems like he is challenging me to live by His words and his law. And the Bible does this throughout. The laws and words do help others get through their tough time like Pulp Fiction 3 mentioned. For people to feel like these words of love and compassion are directed towards them is most likely comforting.
But at the same time for someone without much knowledge were to read and see the judgments and the Laws and the Challenges that God presents to the "you" they may feel over whelmed and scared and not be open to more things.
The "you" is great for me I love the feeling, But that does not mean this is how everyone feels.

[Shawshank 4]

In response to Shawshank Redemption 3:
Thank you for noting the opposing view to yours in saying that those who aren’t familiar with or knowledgeable about the bible may feel “overwhelmed and scared”. This is a feeling I am very familiar with in my reading of the bible. Once again, not considering myself to be a religious person I would say I find the concept of being included in this “you” the bible mentions confuses me more than anything. Not knowing exactly what it is from the bible I take at face value I almost feel like I am being ordered, or expectations are being set for me before I even have the chance to determine if I believe, or how I feel about what is being said. I think it’s great that someone who is so assured in their beliefs and religion can be included in the collective “you” and feel empowered and inclined to live by the words of the bible. I also agree with you in the sense that I’m sure the bible (and the collective “you”) is a great tool in helping, reassuring and comforting believers, but again, in my own experience it seems until I’m sure of my own stance it is a rush of confusion to consider myself directly associated with this collective “you” concept.

[The Mission 2]

I’m with Shawshank Redemption3, I love the feeling of being included in the “you” of the Bible, especially with the promises God gives me through it. Promises like He is always with me, that He won’t give me anything in life I can’t handle, or the promise of Heaven. I also agree with Shawshank Redemption3 that people like Shawshank 4 may feel overwhelmed and scared when reading the Bible. It’s hard to start and continue reading it from cover to cover; however, the messages and the history that can be found in this book are simply amazing. It has shaped me as a person throughout my life.

[Breaker Morant 2]

While I was raised in a Catholic background, I did not always believe what was being told to me in mass. This did not mean that I did not believe in Christianity or in Jesus, but that I did not like the way that the scriptures were being taught in a whole. This idea of being considered apart of the "you" from the Bible is one of the many reasons that I am still as spiritual or even religious as I am now.

Feeling this way was the only thing that helped me remain religious, and as a result helped save me. When reading from the Bible, I feel a sense of belonging. It is nice, but also a little frightening, but this is is okay, because the ideas and the morals are compelling and amazing to consider.

[Shawshank 2]

I agree a lot with what Pulp Fiction 5 had to say in regards to people read the Bible with their own endeavors in mind and each individual can receive interpretation from the Bible in a much different manner. Reading and believing in what the Bible states is a choice, not something that everyone has to do. There are many different Faiths and religions out there to choose from in which people can find their own self-satisfaction. But by choosing to believe the Bible and its word, you are under that authority of Faith and a part of that “you”. Not because you have to, but you want to. I feel reading the Bible brings me closer individually to our Father the Almighty God, and I truly cherish that. No one ever told me that’s what had to happen or was going to happen; it is something I feel in my heart. This is one of the most interesting aspects of the Bible, and being a part of a collective “you,” is a great way to feel a connection with God. For someone to read the Bible with no faith and feel overwhelmed is understood completely. The Bible is a complicated but simple book in many ways.

[TheTrumanShow1]

I also can agree with much of what Pulp Fiction 5 had to say in accord with how the Bible can have so many different interpretations for each reader. This is part of the reason I believe that the Bible has lasted so long throughout time because it can relate to the people of that time period no matter what due to its diverse meanings. Also if one opens up to the beliefs stated within the Bible itself, that allows more room to learn from what is written, or even a way to communicate with God. As stated above, the Bible is hard to read as something that is strictly historical because it has so much religious significance and depth to it. However the way that the Bible is mentioned in the article as a "power" seems a bit off to myself since it was not made to be used as a weapon or to control people, but as a means to connect with God and a way to live out one's life faithfully.

[The Mission 5]

I definitely can relate to how Shawshank 4 feels about being confused and overwhelmed. If you are not much of a spiritual person, it is hard to understand that personal connection that one may have while reading the bible. As someone who is reading the bible for the first time, I do not feel like part of the "you". But I'm also not expecting to change overnight and I'm sure that those who do have that special connection with God have spent much time working on it.

[Nell 2]

As stated already by a few people the Bible can really be read in different ways which makes it very unique. People always have their past experiences which will make them read the Bible in a different manner. Also many go to the Bible when searching for a specific example for support, knowledge, or faith. Depending on what you are reading for this can also skew your reading of the text in which you may interpret it different than someone else. Also, many different faiths do use the Bible which can also lead the Bible to be interpreted different by others in a different walk of faith. This is one challenge in reading the Bible collectively is trying to take a small step back and read without and prior conceived notions. The Bible specifically helps me have a one on one connection with God. The hardest part for me is to keep that connection ongoing. I tend to depend more on the Bible and God’s word in times of struggle. I think one of the reasons that I am not continuously reading the Bible is because that it is very in-depth and can be complicated and interpreted differently.

[The Mission 3]

I like how Shawshank Redemption 4 responded, as well. The Bible really does make the reader feel personally touched by what the Bible has to say. This also relates to praying in a way; we don’t all take turns praying one at a time but God can still hear what we all have to say even if there are hundreds of thousands of people praying at once in all sorts of different languages. While praying, I feel like it’s just God and I one on one when in fact tons of other people are talking to him and feeling the same way at the same exact time.
Some people who haven’t gotten into reading the Bible may be afraid that they won’t understand it, but there’s no right or wrong answer – it’s how the reader interprets it and is affected by it.

[TheMission7]

As someone who was born, bred, and has learned a lot about God and the Christian faith, I really enjoyed reading this. Also, as the other Pulp Fiction's mentioned, the part where it says that the Bible "creates you", I can very much relate to that. I am who I am today as a person partially to "my faith" and I have finally come to truly believe that. When I was younger, I didn't understand why I had to go to church or why I even had to believe in something that was not physically tangible. But once I genuinely paid attention to the scriptures and readings, I became completely immersed in the words written because they do kind of have a hold on you and you can't help but feel moved in a way. I think of it as a type of third parent that's there to guide me in the right path if I ever were to stray and I'm sure that's what other Christians feel too when they read the Bible. I guess that's what this post means when it says that the Bible communicates to the readers as a collective "you". That feeling it gives that you're not alone is like the backbone of the Bible to me.

[PrayingWithLior1]

Again the Bible shows us as reader that it speaks to all people at all times. Yes the text explains that the Jews were the chosen people back then, but the word was also given to the gentiles (anyone else). I find it very interesting how Americans use the scriptures to promote American development. I feel like that idea goes along with the thoughts of a “white” Jesus where most people don’t know the history and historical setting.

[True Grit 12]

I do agree with many of the previous posters about the Bible "creating you" being a positive thought. However, in a certain way, can we think of the creative process of immersing oneself in the Bible as being mutually beneficial? So many different translations of the Bible exist in the world and that leads to the conclusion that not only can the Bible create you (in a individual sense), but in a way, we are "creating" our Bible based on how each group translates or interprets the original words of the Bible. I put "creating" in quotes because I do not want it to be assumed that this statement insinuates that the Bible is fallible, rather that our collective relationship with the Bible is a fluid one.