“The Bible is . . .” according to bloggers: a spoof

Warning: I’m just having fun. Feel free to feel offended. If you please, paste me with a pie at the upcoming SBL New Orleans meeting. Make sure it’s a tasty one, so I won’t curse you when I lick it off my face.

The original version, sung by Amy Grant, goes like this:

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet,
and a light unto my path.

Duane Smith:

Thy word is less errant than others are,
probabilistically, a better point of departure than those otherwise present to my mental processes.

Jim West:

Thy word is a creation of my faith,
relevant to Geschichte, but not to Historie, except insofar as it should not be used by Zionists.

James McGrath:

Thy word is imperfect, but sometimes I’m cool with it,
besides, you are not a “you,” so who am I talking to?

Eric Reitan:

Thy word is love, all we need is love, baby,
imagine no texts, I wonder if you can.
Imagine all the people just loving it up.

Bob MacDonald:

Thy word is more errant than others are,
as thou makest clear in John 3:8.

BTW, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith look and sound better now than they did 25 years ago. Listen, if you don’t believe me.

Comments

[Mike Aubrey]

nice.

[Jim]

that's fantastic! no pie for you, unless it's a slice!

;-)

[JohnFH]

Mike and Jim,

I imagine you are both referring to Amy Grant's red dress.

[Duane]

All these are pure poetry. I even liked the Amy Grant version.

[Chris Smith]

Great stuff!

[James McGrath]

OK, but then there needs to be a John Hobbins version too. How about this? [This is in lieu of a pie, and may earn me one...]

Thy Word inerrant lamp unto my feet
Perfect light unto my path [repeat]

Joshua is truth
So's the book of Ruth
If you don't take them literally

Do not be too liberal
Do not be too literal
Don't read it too (Bryant) Wood-enly.

Thy Waldensian lamp unto my feet
Perfect light unto my path [repeat]

You teach me what's right
Not to kill Canaanites
Except of course only spiritually

To read of all they kill
And all the blood they spill
It only makes sense canonically!

Thy Word inerrant lamp unto my feet
Perfect light unto my path [da capo ad nauseum]

[JohnFH]

Hi James,

Thanks for giving me my des(s)ert.

One thing I like about your song is that it brings out into the open most people's real issue with the book of Joshua - not to mention other narratives of ethnogenesis, including their own, if, for example, interpreters are Americans: the blood and gore in the text, and the text's justification of blood and gore.

In fact, I've noticed that questioning the historicity of the conquest narratives for quite a few people is really not about questions of evidence, inference, and historical analogy, but simply a convenient device for doing away with nasty stuff we wish wasn't in the Bible or in the blood-soaked accounts of our own ethnogenesis.

As far as Americans, Europeans, and Israelis are concerned - the list could easily be expanded - I think it is imperative that we hold their feet and our feet to the fire by NOT dismissing the book of Joshua as history. It is history. It recounts history in accordance with the requirements of a particular genre.

Don't believe me? Take a good hard look at the ostraca of Samaria. Funny how the slaves of Israelites in these ostraca are Canaanites. I wonder how that happened. Presumably, according to those who think Israelites and Canaanites are not distinguishable anyway; presumably, according to those who think "Israelites" were peace-loving highlanders who loved to tell stories about conquest but did so in lieu of having done any actual conquering, the ostraca give a misleading impression of the facts on the ground. Presumably, the Canaanites became Israelite slaves of their own free will.

The origins of most polities are soaked in blood, coercion, and the smashing of skulls. Judges 5 is more eloquent on this than is the book of Joshua. That's the real issue, I submit, for most people - and rightly so.

It's a dodge to call into question the conquest narrative as an account of singular events. That's beside the point. The narratives of the conquest of Jericho and Ai serve as symbolic hooks, no less than the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812 in the Star-Spangled Banner (the equivalent national narrative, so to speak in American culture) - for reaching an identical conclusion, the same conclusion that provides a foundation for war to this day. In the words of Francis Scott Key: "Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just."

If that's the real issue for you as well, James, more power to you. Now we're talking. But let's talk about the issue directly, not through the distorting prism of a positivistic standard of historical narrative.

The book of Joshua, measured against that standard, falls short. A point in its favor, a proof that it is indeed well-suited to the purposes for which it was written, as far as I can see.

On to the real questions: what were those purposes, exactly? How do they relate to the purposes of other peoples and their ethnogenesis through the ages? How does God fit into this?

[Eric Reitan]

My mind is now attempting to integrate two divergent melodies, but all I can achieve in my head is a cacophanous juxtaposition of Amy Grant and John Lennon. If I sit down at a keyboard for awhile maybe I can...oh, wait. I've got to grade. Sorry. Getting back to work now.