The best way to assess the Bible is to take it for what it is: a discourse in Foucault's sense. Foucault wrote about discourses and used the term to suggest that the various contexts in which people discuss phenomena dramatically influences their development. The Bible is a discourse to the extent that its existence today survives intense dialogue, debate, conflict, belief, and faith. The more we view the Bible as the sum (product?) of its a priori causes and a posteriori effects, the more communication will occur on common ground.

The causes of stagnation in Biblical interpretation reflect the unnecessary limitation of topics between the two major participants in the debate: Christians and let's say the scientifically-minded. Christians are taught to have faith in the validity of the Bible under certain designated conditions according to their specific denomination. The Bible for them is the actual word of God and the book that tells of how Jesus saved man from sin and ultimate annihilation. The priests and ministers teach Christians that and it's easy to believe, for the Bible is filled with great acts of faith and assertions of the power and presence of God in the world.

The fact that we all know that the Bible was crafted by ecclesiasts over the course of its early development means little to Christians as far as evaluating its authenticity as the sacred text par excellence. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church sold indulgences does not indicate to them that there is certainly an element of political and economic control involved in how the church was positioning itself at that time. Christians leave one area of their lives untouched by the light of scientific reasoning. Christians leave logic at the door when they walk into a debate about the truth contained in the Bible.

On the other hand, those thoughtful people who say how much harm religion has done to the world completely ignore how much good has been done by the discourse surrounding the Bible. The church the Bible scripturally supports creates a forum from its inception until now where the congregants can advance ideas and positions that might be ignored otherwise; ideas of right and wrong, good and evil, the spiritual and the material. When scientists go into the lab, they would do well to remember some of the more disturbing moments of their lives and imagine how somehow, religions help some people through those times.

What can the Bible really be? We can only begin to imagine what it is now when we look at the roots and branches of the tree of the Bible. Many beautiful flowers have emerged and some dead branches have been pruned; a tree that grows just as powerfully is the tree of science which has had the same processes. To accurately assess the Bible, first we need to be able to recognize the fruit of both trees.

Learn more about this author, Heath Cleaveland.
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