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06/23/2004: "On another Bible front..."
While some are changing Scripture to suit their politics (see next post), others are warning against a toxic Bible. Specifically, Union Theological Seminary (NY) professor Hyun Kyung:
"I want to put a warning sign on a Bible just like tobacco companies put them on their cigarette packs," she jokes to a crowd of students. "The label should say that without guidance, this book can lead to various side effects, such as mental illness, cancer, rape, genocide, murder and a slavery system. And that it's especially dangerous to the mental health of pregnant women."
And from whom should delicate and unformed minds get their guidance while using such dangerous material? Why, the professor herself:
Hyun Kyung says the church hasn't provided that to its followers, especially women, but instead used its biblical authority to subjugate women. She goes so far as to challenge the accuracy of biblical texts, suggesting that there might have been a possible conspiracy among Jesus's disciples, like the one mentioned in popular novels such as "The Da Vinci Code."
"Contemporary theories reflect that Mary Magdalene was performing a funerary rite when she poured oil on Jesus's feet," she says. "Some feminist scholars argue that she was a priestess, because the funerary rite was conducted only among the priests at the time of Jesus. Gnosticism, which supports those ideas more clearly, was excluded from the Gospels.
"There are also supporting facts about the writing of Genesis, in which God supposedly created the living in order of perfection. It could mean that the Bible was written by the ones who triumphed and advocated their views, just like many other history books. We just don't know."
Well, some of us don't, that's for sure.
