The Bible. What is it? Who wrote it? And why?

By Rev. Clyde Grubbs, September 26, 2024

Over a dozen gathered in the chapel after the service on the second Sunday of September. We began our exploration by looking at the creation stories in the first chapters of Genesis. As we examine the Bible, we will discover a very complex document written over a thousand years by many people. However, as received in our prevailing culture, the European American culture, the Bible is perceived as one book, as the word of authority. The Bible is “the word” of what we should do and how we should think.

We will discover that there are many complex ideas in the Bible. One of the ideas is conquest. In the Book of Genesis, a character called Abraham received the word that he is to journey toward a land of promise, the land of his people. Stories follow of his descendants, the journey to the promised land continues over several generations. The great-grandchildren of Abraham are enslaved in Egypt and, after many generations, become free and travel across the wasteland to the land of promise, the land that they’re given. And they conquer it. So, the idea is that somehow God gave the chosen people the land, and they had to overcome the people who lived on the land. “God blessed us. We conquered.”

This narrative has been used to conquer other places, including Africa and the Western Hemisphere. The Puritans who landed in Massachusetts in 1630 came with the idea that they had a mandate to conquer this land, and they referred to the Indigenous people as Canaanites. So, one of the tasks of our workshop on the second Sunday of every month is to start looking at the text for what it was intended to say and how it’s been used by later-day Bible crusaders. Thank you for those interested!

From Your FPUU Affiliate Community Minister, Rev. Dr. Clyde Grubbs