Just Read the Bible?
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“All you need to do is read the Bible. Whatever it says is true.”
Think again. There’s more to the story.
Are Your Assumptions about What the Bible Says Really Your Own?
What you may assume that “the Bible says” may actually be an interpretation promoted starting in the early 1900’s. Presented as a literal reading, this interpretation was called “The Fundamentals” and became known as fundamentalism.
This did not happen accidentally. It is the result of an intentional undertaking, a well-funded effort.
How did this happen? The story has deep roots in history.
Before the Printing Press:
The story begins before the printing press changed the course of history in Europe.
Back then, texts of the Bible were not easy to access. Books had to be laboriously copied by hand. Not many copies existed. Only a few people had access to any books, including the Bible. Reading the Bible required knowing ancient languages, too.
In European Christian communities, most people only heard selections from the Bible read to them in worship. They did not choose for themselves what to read. Church leaders determined which parts of the Bible the people heard and what those passages meant.
Access to copies of the Bible was a source of power.
Bibles Become Available
The printing press changed that. Printing began to make books available in Europe in the 1400s. A Latin version of the Bible was published in the 1450s. In the following century, printed copies became available in languages people spoke in their daily lives.
Many more people could read the Bible for themselves. More people could choose for themselves what to read from it. More people could consider for themselves and discuss what the Bible meant.
The printing press also meant that more people could share ideas more broadly, including interpretations of the Bible.
Religious Conflicts, New Institutions
A new power struggle over the Bible developed. Who had the authority to interpret the Bible?
Christian churches fragmented into many denominations partly due to different opinions on this question. Starting in the 1500s, religious disputes helped fuel a century of horrendous warfare in Europe.
After that, governments emerged in Europe that were no longer ruled by church authorities. Universities also emerged that were not religious institutions.
The Bible became open to many interpretations.
Studying the Bible without Dogma
As more people were reading the Bible themselves, scholars in the new universities began to study the Bible in new ways, too. They began to read the Bible without the assumptions of specific faith traditions, without the rule of church dogma.
Scholars began to study the Bible as writings by human authors. They studied texts in the Bible in relation to the historical situations of the authors. They also found new ways to appreciate the writings as examples of ancient literature.
Scholars brought tools and information from other developing fields, too. Archaeological discoveries and studies of ancient history and literature informed their readings.
Ministers studying in seminaries began learning these new ways to study the Bible. Non-doctrinal approaches to biblical study threatened some religious authorities. Scientific learning was also spreading with notions that disrupted religious assumptions and authority.
This period of history is called the Enlightenment.
Reaction: The Fundamentals
One major reaction to the new forms of biblical study asserted an interpretation that claimed to be based on reading the Bible literally. This approach became known as “Christian Fundamentalism.”
Fundamentalism takes its name from a well-funded project that asserted a set of beliefs as “The Fundamentals.” The project was organized around the turn of the last century. A twelve-volume set of ninety articles set forth “The Fundamentals.”
The articles explained a version of Protestant doctrine purportedly based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. The project was primarily paid for by a California oil man. The sets of books were mailed to 250,000 church and religious leaders free of charge.
Other efforts popularized The Fundamentals. Brief tracts, Sunday school materials, Bible study lessons, and many more materials packaged and spread the fundamentalist version of Christianity. Institutes were founded to train religious leaders in the fundamentalist doctrines and methods of reading the Bible.
The Fundamentals version of Christianity spread widely.
Success of “Biblical Literalism”
The Fundamentals project was successful in shaping assumptions about the Bible and what it meant to read it literally. The overall effort to limit the influence of the non-dogmatic study of the Bible succeeded.
The widespread influence of fundamentalism made many seminary-educated clergy members reluctant to share the biblical scholarship they had learned with members of their congregations.
The people in the pews and now many people who have left the pews have been left with assumptions shaped by the legacy of The Fundamentals project. In large part, The Fundamentals project has created a common assumption that the Bible can be read literally. Many of the doctrines that the project asserted are also commonly assumed to be biblical.
Sadly, The Fundamentals project has succeeded in cutting many people off from deeper understandings of reading the Bible.
Bible Search & Rescue and What the Bible Says
Information about how to study the Bible using methods begun in the Enlightenment has not been as widespread as the information spread by the heirs to The Fundamentals project. This website is an effort to make those tools and results more widely available.
We invite you to share in a broader exploration of what the Bible says.
For hundreds of years, biblical scholarship has been learning and growing and exploring. Here we hope to share the results of scholars’ work. We hope to offer you tools for understanding biblical texts yourself.
We hope to assist you to read the Bible without the constraints of dogma and literalism.
Will we tell you what the Bible “really” says? Rarely.
Will we tell you when the Bible does not say what you may have been told it says? Absolutely!
