Kudos to the UK's bishops

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Vatican II's statement about the scriptures, the Catholic bishops of the UK released a statement recently that the Bible cannot be expected to be literally, historically factual.

What is sad is that this is news. I mean, it is the 40th anniversary of this statement by the Church as a whole. Here is a link to the article in the Times about it:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1811332,00.html

I do not like the way that the article phrases things, I must say. In the opening paragraph, it says some parts of the Bible are not actually true. I guess I would say there is literal, historical, factual truth, but there is also truth beyond that. Steinbeck conveys truth to me in stories that are entirely fictional, but they speak to the human condition so eloquently that I must say yes. Tom Joad never really organized the fruit pickers, but he speaks truth to me.

Similarly, the creation stories - there are two of them in Genesis, and quite different - are not historically factual. The empirical evidence against the earth being a few thousand years old is staggering, and Darwinism is as solidly established a scientific theory as is gravity. They could both be wrong, and I am sure we understand neither entirely. But that is not to say that the creation stories do not convey truth. Here are some of the truths in the creation story as I read it: This earth and all of its creatures are good. Humans are created in the image of God and good, and God desires a relationship with the creations of the earth. Was Eve built from one of Adam's ribs? Nope. Pretty likely those cats didn't exist period.

Another thing I thought was interesting was one of the things on the list that the bishops maintain that is factual: the virgin birth of Jesus. Wowsers is all I can say to that. Recent biblical scholarship I think would emphatically state that the virgin birth stories - again, stories because Matthew and Luke have very different stories that simply cannot be reconciled - result from a couple different inputs. First of all, the Greek translation of Isaiah refers to the virgin who will give birth in the time the Messiah brings peace and reconciliation to the world. But the Hebrew word does not connote virginity at all, but speaks merely of a young woman bearing a child. Second, there are stories of the rise and divinity of the Caesars, especially Augustus, that involve virgin births. Much of the new testament was written in direct counterpoint to the theo-political culture of the Roman Empire. Your son of god, Luke writes, was born powerful and brought peace through victory. Our Son of God was born humbly without even a room, and brings peace through justice.

The gospel writers could easily have written the story to fit the prediction in Isaiah. It is not as if we have a newspaper report of the virgin birth written before Jesus amounted to anything. I could write a story about JFK and have him predict the Red Sox rallying against the Yankees last year, predicting the wildly improbably only to have it come true, but it wouldn't really be that impressive since I was writing after the fact.

So I am puzzled, to say the least, why the bishops would feel the need to claim the literal truth of the virgin birth. I hate the very idea of a virgin birth if for no other reason than it sets an impossible conflict for women. Mary is portrayed as the ideal Christian model for women throughout time. But how can one be a mother and a virgin? And yet both are essential to the portrayal of Mary. I think much of the misogny that has infected the Christian church from at least the second century can be traced to this horrible portrayal of the mother of Jesus as a virgin. She had several other children; the gymnastics the Catholics have to go through to deny this is Olympic-caliber; she was a sexual creature as are all women. To deny them a part of their essential character lessens them, and it has been going on for far too long.