Quirks, questions and qualms... How the crap do I read this thing?

I've been wrestling a lot lately with how to read the Bible.

Just a things I'm processing/asking God about lately...

• I'm irritated that translators took the liberty to change female names to male ones. If they did that, what else did they do? How much of the message has been lost to biased translation?

• Paul was a misogynist. Feels really good to get that one off my chest. And I'm nursing a grudge toward Martin Luther, founder of sola scriptura -- the idea that only the Bible ought to be used as an authoritative source -- because of the views he had toward women. Luther, a celibate monk before he stirred up a little change in Christendom called the Reformation, wrote that if a woman wasn't pleasing her husband in bed, he could go next door. In order to, you know... umm... borrow something...
  

• I don't understand how back in the middle ages we certain books of the Bible were deemed canonical (Christianese for "that's chill with us to put in our book"), others were tossed aside and today people refute my questions with the one-size-fits-all one liner that the Bible was put together by God, and obviously, he knew what he was doing. No, it was written by people, people! And during the middle ages in the first ecumenical councils, people decided what was in and what was out. So who's to say we haven't included things that shouldn't have been (even Martin Luther and John Calvin were reluctant to include Revelation with the canon) or failed to include things we ought to have?

• It bothers me when people (and in saying this I indict myself), "proof text," choosing certain verses or passages to prove a point. Sometimes I get really angry about this, especially when people justify their judgmental behavior toward fill-in-any-person/group-different-from-them with a single verse, while ignoring all context. I am tempted to respond in kind when faced with opinions that really get under my skin. Coming from the perspective that a narrative of love ought to serve as the lens with which one reads scripture doesn't exactly serve me well when I want to retort back at someone who has rattled off a series of numbers -- Matthew 15:12! Malachi 1:5! Take this! And that!
  

There you have it. Some of the things on my mind lately.

I want you to know that in spite of this, I haven't given up on the Bible (although to be sure, I've given up certain ways of seeing it that are not life-giving). To the contrary, I feel as though the process I am in right now is helping me to see the Bible in a more textured, profound way. I've also been deeply shaped by the biblical narrative, and I hope my faith will grow by wrestling with the text.

For my friends who are asking questions too, I want you to know you're not alone.

I resonate with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, when he wrote to a friend, “You would be surprised, and perhaps even worried, by my theological thoughts and the conclusions that they lead to; and this is where I miss you most of all, because I don’t know anyone else with whom I could so well discuss them to have my thinking clarified. What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is , for us today.”

I'm grateful for the folks who've listened to my ramblings, asked really good questions and helped me to process.

What keeps surprising me is the way God keeps showing up in unexpected ways. God in human skin, the word made incarnate, as it were. Jesus keeps me asking these questions. He's the one who keeps drawing me back again and again and again. And what I love about the Bible, in the midst of all my questions and qualms -- or perhaps because of them -- is that it brings me back to him.

I'm so grateful that this journey is taken one day at a time. It is to be savored, and to be lived with patience and perseverance. Each conversation over a cup of Spanish coffee. Each whisper of gratitude when I look up at the gorgeous Sierra Nevadas. Each moment of grief and frustration and loneliness. Each whirling, joyful night of salsa in the bar below my apartment. I'm stumbling, dancing my way with Jesus. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I've greatly appreciated Rachel Held Evans' series on "Loving the Bible for what it is, not what I want it to be." She engages several fascinating books, including N.T. Wright's Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, which I'm looking forward to reading when I'm stateside.