Turning Heaven into Hell

"Then there are the ones who say that the bible is the literal word of God, so it must not contain any errors, and some do say that, and vociferously. Those folks are commonly called the Fundamentalists. One of them was William Jennings Bryan, he of the Tennessee Monkey Trial. Is everyone familiar with that?"

All heads had nodded.

"And here are various preachers who have attained fame or notoriety for believing the bible to be the literal word of God., for example Dwight Moody of the Moody Bible College, Jerry Falwell who is now deceased, but made a big splash during the 1960s, and, of course, the 700 Club guy, Pat Robertson. Everybody heard of him?"

This time, there were nods along with knowing smiles, for he was still active, and very opinionated and a dyed in the wool Fundamentalist.

"What makes a lot of this so important is the Fundamentalist belief, come what may, that the bible is to be taken literally, and those who are fighting to keep gay rights. That's of national interest to all of us whatever side you may be on, but we won't get into that here, just whether those Fundamentalists are correct in their assessment of the bible's veracity.

"So far we've found that there seems to be no prophecy of Jesus and Nazareth per se in the Old Testament, and a variety of other names to describe Jesus. What's true, and what's false, or are they all true, we can't honestly say. Why? Because we do know that the bible is a collection of books that have been deemed as sacred to Christianity, but of which none are original. All are copies, and that, along with those Fundamentalists fighting the gay rights people, has made it an industry.

"Well, it was an industry before the gay rights thing came along, but it's gotten interesting such that there are a growing number of Textual Criticism people working to learn all they can, along with other things like archeological finds that have piqued our interest like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

"However, since we don't know the truth of any of this objectively, we'll be trying to find mistakes in the bible: errors, contradictions, etc. If we find none, or just a few, we have to objectively take the bible seriously. If we find many, it's the other way around. Any questions?"

We had none at this time either.

"Okay, let's see if we can do any connecting of some dots work. You all are probably familiar with some of the differences in the stories surrounding Jesus' birth, like the travel to Bethlehem and the manger, and the taxation census thing that was supposed to be called, right?"

At this, we all nodded emphatically.

"Good. Again, we have Matthew saying it was prophesied that he would be called Emmanuel, or God with us in 1:23, as well as a virgin conceiving." Again our nods were in agreement. "A funny thing is that it turns out that the translation of virgin has come into disrepute for most now think that it should have been rendered as a young woman, or maiden, signifying a teenage girl maybe, or a very young woman. But let's look at the Emmanuel prophesy.

"Once more, there's no Emmanuel in the Old Testament, but we do find an Immanuel, which I think we can safely say is the same, but we do get it from the prophet, Isaiah in 7:14. Both the KJV and the Catholic bible are in agreement on this, as is the NRSV. So is there an error here? Actually, yes, but have you all heard of this being referred to around Christmas? Are you all familiar with it?"

We all nodded, and some said yes aloud.

"So what's wrong with it? Frankly, when I heard that it was wrong, I couldn't believe it, and maybe you can't either. I had to read it all for myself. As a kind of homework, please read Isaiah, chapter 7, and see if you find as many are today, that the Immanuel that it talks about is meaning a king to come after Ahaz, and he is Hezekiah, and said to be beloved by God such that he extended his life by several more years when he was supposed to be dying. What seems to have happened was that it was taken long ago to be a foretelling of Jesus, and it stuck, but no one seems to have read the whole chapter. We can talk about it the next time, and again, it is a short chapter.

"Now, a confession. We'll find that there are many errors in the bible, but can you imagine having a bible lesson every Sunday and covering the whole bible? I can't. It's too large. Anyway, the early church powers that were decided what we would believe, and what we wouldn't believe, and if you dissented, well, they had no qualms about burning you at the stake. We remember and love the Pilgrims for Thanksgiving, and think well of them, but if we think about it, they were pretty straight-laced to the point of even burning a few people when it was believed that the word of the bible had been crossed.

"But we were told what to believe, and it's spelled out for us in snippets if you're of a church that has Sunday bible study. Catholics have their catechism, but most other Christian churches, Protestant and Independent, have what might be called quarterly booklets outlining what's to be studied every Sunday. Are many of you familiar with these practices?"

Uniformly, we all were.

"We have time to look at one more thing. Let's look into Noah and his ark. In chapter 6, we're told that the ark was to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high. A cubit is now understood to be a foot and a half, so in our terms, it was to be four hundred feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. That chapter goes on to say that he is to take one male and one female of every sort, that is two hippos, a male and female, even two crocodiles, a male and a female, two lions, two tigers, two of every animal, that is all living creatures including birds and creeping things, and provide the food that is to be eaten, as well as food for him and his wife, sons, and their wives. Is everyone familiar with this story?"

We all loudly voiced that we were, which was to be expected.

"Okay, you can read it in part of chapter 6 of Genesis, but did you know of differences in the story in chapter 7 of Genesis?"

"Different how?" someone asked.

"I'm so glad you asked that," she said with a smile on her face that was pretty wide. "That chapter says to take clean beasts by sevens, the male and its female, and of the unclean beasts, take two of each kind, the male and his female. In this, the KJV, the NRSV, and the Catholic bibles are all in agreement. Again, the parts of those chapters that mention this are pretty short, so you can easily read them for yourselves. That's easy homework, right?" she said again, but this time with a grin. " What may not be easy is wondering how an ark that long, or rather, that small, could fit every creature, whether a pair of each, or seven pairs plus one unclean pair. Another problem is for how long he is to have food for all. Any guesses?"

"Forty days and nights?" someone ventured.

With a very big grin, she shook her head. "Nope, not according to the bible. If you would like to figure it out, I think you'll come up with about a year's supply, or maybe a tad more, maybe a year and ten days. Try it, and try to figure out how it's all to be kept dry and not allowed to rot in all the moisture that should have been present.

"There are obviously two different authors with two different ideas of how many, and what kind of animals were to be taken, and how enough for all would be kept, and where. If the bible says as I've told you, then can it be said that there is more than just a contradiction here, or two people writing of the same thing, but with different facts?

"Now if you think you have any Fundamentalist with this, let me advise you not to try any of them. They just won't own up to any error no matter how you show it to them, and this on Noah, is easy to see in my opinion."

"Okay, that's it for today. Do your reading on Isaiah, chapter 7, and look over Noah's ark if you will, and make our next class an interesting one. If this class is not to your liking, you still can go and drop it without financial consequences of any kind, and no hits on your GPA. I do hope to see you all in the next class though, and thanks for coming," she said with a pleasant smile.

Chapter 8

Shannon had a look on her face that was hard to figure out. In one way, she was angry as could be, but in another way, she looked confused.

"Hold me, my love," she pleaded quietly.

On the one bed, I held her, kissed her tenderly, and often, but kept quiet. I thought it best to let her calm down from whatever was troubling her, though I thought I knew. In time, she began to speak.

"Do you remember saying something about our church hiding something from us, our love that is within us?" she asked in a sad whisper.

"Uh-huh, I remember."

"Maybe you were right. Not that I doubted you, or questioned you as if you might be wrong, but now I may be starting to see just how right you might have been. Brooke, I never heard of those things Ms. Carlson spoke of, especially that about what's in Isaiah. Do you think they didn't know about it, or that they did, but didn't think it should be told to us?"

"Either one could be right," I said. "When you feel up to it, we can read it as she told us to, okay?" I said and kissed her.

"I'm already getting some bad thoughts and feelings about what we're about to learn," she said. "If it's all as she said, then I'm not sure what I may want to do...other than loving you, that is," she added quickly.

"Mm, I'm glad you fixed that up right off," I said, and kissed her again.

Later, when she settled down some, we went to the cafeteria and ate, then returned to our room and took a shower without putting any clothes on afterward, but we didn't make love just yet.

"Where do we start?" she asked.

"Maybe with Noah?"

"Yeah, we can go from there, huh?"

It was an easy enough read from both chapters, and we did some quick addition from the information the bible gave us. Ms. Carlson was right: it was at least a year, and we agreed that when all was considered, per what the bible said, it was impossible for it to be as written. Then too, that conclusion was easy when we took into account that there were probably two different writers, the one for chapter 6, and the other for chapter 7.

"I wonder how it was that no one took into account what was written first, or later, that there are two different versions,?" she said.

"Which, I think, means that already that there's reason to believe that there are errors and contradictions in the bible.. I never thought of that," I said.

"Me too," she agreed, her face long with sorrow. "I'm hating this, but I have to know more."

""Are you ready to move onto Isaiah?" I suggested.

"That one I'm really hating, but yeah, let's read it."

"Why are you hating this Isaiah?"

"Because I remember it being quoted several times, and in his inimitable manner. Let's get on with it, and let me find just how wrong I might have been all these years."

She was truly sorrowing, and I knew why she felt it so strongly. At any rate, we read Isaiah, and found that neither one of us wanted to believe what we were reading.

"It's like there's something in us that's wanting to reject what we can't deny that we're reading," she said.

"I'm feeling the same way, maybe for different reasons than you are, but really, what's the difference? Is it that we've heard it so often that we blind ourselves to seeing it differently if it means giving up believing what we did before?"

She looked at me with a woeful face. "Yeah, kinda hard to believe, huh?"

"Well, we both had to know, didn't we?"

"Uh-huh. Let's admit it: according to what we read, Ahaz is in deep stuff, and Isaiah is telling him that it'll get better with a coming son of his, which looks to be Hezekiah, right?" she asked.

"That's what I read. There, we've admitted it. Weird how that is, huh?"

"Do you mean how we need to admit it openly before we fully accept it, the change in belief, that is?"

"Seems that way, at least sometimes. Well, now it's this Nazareth stuff. To see it for ourselves, we'll have to find one of those concordances, but I bet it's like she said and it's not there.

We went to the library for a while to look it up. In the Strong's Concordance, as she had said, there was nothing. Returning, we made some sweet love for an hour or more and finally slept.

* * * *

All of our other classes were enjoyable, but none like the religion class. They were easy as far as we were concerned, but maybe it was due to our habit of studying, and more, our liking to learn. When we returned to the religion class, Ms. Carlson got us to talking about what was covered, and our "homework".

"Hey, that's great. You all seemed to do it, and do it well. So we're learning that the bible is not inerrant as many have said, and still do say. Now let's do some of that connecting stuff I mentioned in our earlier class.

"This is something that I've never heard mentioned before, and it's how Jesus is tied as if by an umbilical cord to some in the Old Testament by the gospel writers—how they married him to them, so to speak. Since we don['t have any originals, and even if we did, it's not believed that the gospels were written by those mentioned, namely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Doing their thing, researchers have figured that some others not known by us were the actual writers. Even the Catholic church has admitted to this in at least one of their bibles, saying that they were written by 'Inspired' individuals, which is spin for 'I-really-have-no-earthly-idea-who-the-writer-was'. We'll cover that later on, but for now, let's see what words were put in Jesus' mouth as if he had spoken them, or, in this case, which biblical persons he is said to be quoting, or tying himself to.

"Jesus is tied to Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, Matthew ties Jesus to Abraham through his genealogy in chapter 1, as does Luke in his genealogy in "chapter 3. They're easy to find, so you can look them up. Luke also mentions them in chapter 13, verse 28, as well as Isaac and Jacob also; then tying Jesus even to Moses in chapter 16, verses 29-30.

"And speaking of Moses, Matthew, in chapter 8, verse 4 ties Jesus to him neatly, and thereby to the Law when he heals a leper and tells him to '...offer the gift that Moses commanded...'

"What I'm saying is that Jesus, as you well know, was a Jew, but I'm saying it in a way that will lead to a point. The final connection here is tying Jesus to Daniel. Matthew, chapter 24, verse 15 gives Jesus to say that '...when the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet...' etc., speaking of the end times.

"Why this is all so important is that Christianity, and all it entails, is in bringing all back to God through salvation through Jesus as the Christ, and by the resurrection to eternal life. The idea of the resurrection is first proposed by Daniel. You can read it in Daniel, chapter 12 starting in verse 1.

"Okay, here's the connection, the umbilical cord that ties all of this together, and is all the fodder anyone needs to wonder whether the bible is the word of a perfect God who, as God, the creator of the Universe and everything we see and are, or is it all possibly a book of errors, and therefore maybe not the word of God.

"Jesus, a Jew, is connected to the law of Moses by his own words that the writer puts in his mouth, and then to Daniel, who was the first to speak of a resurrection. But the Book of Daniel the prophet is mostly written in first person as if Daniel himself is writing it, and is initially set with his captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon where he was supposedly taken.

"This will be your assignment: read the Book of Daniel, watching for the veracity of the kings mentioned, and whether that they are correct. Were those kings correct in their time, and in what they did? Check any history book, use the Internet, use whatever, but don't use what you may have been taught, or any belief you may have.

"The whole of the idea of Jesus as being who and what he is said to be, and taught to us through the ages, hinges on this. All else is filler. If you do this objectively, you'll see what I mean. Okay, any questions?"

Questions? Oh, boy, were there ever questions, including by me, but only after I saw the look on Shannon's face. She looked stunned; tense as could be, but said nothing. I said all I could think of to make sure she got whatever she might need, for I knew what we'd be doing tonight, if not sooner.

"Class, one caveat: I'm sure some of you will look for concordances for some of the different bibles, so here's a warning. If you see Hosea mentioned as having foretold the resurrection as in Daniel, or even Jesus, please read the whole bit , and don't just bite on 6:2 alone. Well, there, I told you where you'll find it, but as I said: beware and get the context.

"Okay, our time is up. Good luck, and good reading, and be sure to bring your questions."

* * * *

As I expected, Shannon was on a mission to learn as much as she could, for Ms. Carlson had really hit a very sore spot in her. We started in before going to have our dinner, then stopped to feed ourselves, then it was back to the bible grindstone.

We had no problem with what she said about the umbilical cord. We easily accepted that Jesus was a Jew, and was connected to Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, and even Daniel, but that last surprised us both. Still, we then searched for the resurrection in the Old Testament, and found that she was right. We did see where one Internet person tried to say that Hosea in 6:1-3, spoke of it, but we didn't agree with that; as she said, taken in context, they were, in our opinion, talking about a different presence before God. That seemed pretty easy, but we could not find any other mention of a resurrection.

We talked about Daniel's prophecy of the resurrection, and that left us wondering. It was to be the big question. However, in looking at the kings, and their order, we did find that there were quite a few errors, including who was the king who defeated Babylon, and further, Belshazzar was not the king as said in the bible, but the Regent in his father's place, Nabonidus. Worse, as far as we were concerned, three bibles said Darius was the conquering Persian, but as far as we could find out, it was Cyrus the Great who defeated Babylon.

We also had a list of kings that were not in order, or mentioned. There were just too many errors, and that greatly unsettled Shannon.

As far as Jesus went, he did quote Daniel and that abomination foretelling bad tidings. We wondered what Ms. Carlson would say about that; we just knew she would.

Though I had to take care to soothe Shannon's disappointments, she still showed me a lot of love, problems or no problems. We did love our love.

Chapter 9

"Brooke, do you think that they know all of what we've been showed? My preacher, I mean."

"I really can't say, not for sure, anyway. I'd only be taking a wild guess."

"Okay, go ahead with a wild guess, or two if you have more."

"Well, I have to think that maybe he doesn't have a clue. He seems to be locked in on a few things only, and he's passionate about them. What surprises me is that none of the church members act as if they know better either, but when I think about it, which I haven't much, I have to say that I think I understand it."

"What is it that you think you understand?" she asked as if stumped and ready to listen to any explanation.

"My thinking is about how we are, my family, I mean, and all the people of our church, me included until now. We're told what the bible says, and it's not everything, just tidbits here and there, and we come to Christmas, and all the happy hoopla, or Easter, but not as much, and everyone is content, maybe because we don't wonder about it all. It kinda works for a lot of people, and most in your church too, but only if there's no one to take exception, or that is an exception like you are in your church."