Yale Divinity School Professor Bruce Gordon presents the Summer Study keynote address on “The Global Bible and the Necessity of Humility”.
One of the most problematic of Christian claims is, “The Bible says … .” The turbulent history of Christianity can be told through the glories and conflicts arising from those words. In truth the Bible says many things, some seeming clear and others difficult to reconcile or even understand. That reality is as old as the faith itself. Paul was exasperated by the diversity of interpretations of his teachings. Following Christ’s commission, the disciples went unto the nations reaching the Black Sea, North Africa, Persia, India, and perhaps China. Christian scriptures were continually received in a diversity of cultures, and translated into many languages. The sacred texts of Christians were not dictated by God–there is no original version–but inspired, making the Bible, as it became, a deeply beautiful yet problematic sacred text. For two thousand years, as the Bible spread across the globe, Christians have sought to surround it with scaffoldings of interpretations to make authoritative claims, resulting in endless acrimony. The Bible, however, will not be owned, and it repeatedly confounds every effort to force it into definitive doctrines and confessions. Does this render Christianity inchoate? Perhaps, if we focus on the endless conflicts and denunciations. However, there is another way for Christians to respond and live that the very nature of the book itself opens to us. This lecture argues that the global history of the Bible, and its current flourishing in Africa, Asia, and South America, present us with fresh possibilities for renewed and life-giving relations with scripture–if we come to it in awe, wonder, and humility, mindful that our stories are but one moment in the life of a book that, paraphrasing Shakespeare, is far beyond what we have dreamt in our philosophy.