10- Reading the Bible

Literary criticism theories and schools have developed into three levels:

         1-   Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author and intention of the author, such as the historical criticism, sociological criticism, and psychoanalytic criticism.

         2-   Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the content and form of the work. Such as Structural theories and Formalism schools (Russian formalism as an example).
       3-  Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the reader (or "audience") and his or her experience of a literary work. Such as Deconstruction and Reader-response criticism.

Modern theories shows us how different readers receive, perceive, and extract the meaning from a text in different ways, based on their culture, purpose of reading, and the context in which they read the text. Therefore the reader might have different interpretation for the same text if he re-reading it again. Also, reading the Bible will be a big different if you believe that it is holy book or not.

For me, I read the Bible in early 90’s. I was in my early 20’s studying the literature in Alexandria University. I was so attracted to poetry and philosophy. I read a lot of books, but never read a religious book except Islamic. I asked myself many times: “How can I be sure my religion is right and others religions are not?”

I had a Christian classmate in high school, and then when we went to the same university, we became closer friends. Someday, I asked him to give me a copy of the Bible.

I found the Old Testament very close to the Quran. Both offer a practical law... what is allowed for the believers and what is forbidden. They are full of orders and prophets’ history. Sometimes, I found the same verses in both books in the same meaning, same words, and even same pronunciations) because Arabic and Hebrew are from same family language). For example, the Verse “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth” is in Exodus 21:24 in Old Testament, and in the Quran 5:45.

New Testament is different. It surprised me because it does not have any rules or law. I saw it closer to poetry and philosophy books more than religious holy books. It offers an idealistic (not realistic) religion that cares about the spirit of the law more than the law itself.

I discussed my opinions with my Christian friend, but he really disappointed me. For example, I told him:

-          I loved when Jesus said: “What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them."  Matthew 15:11

-          Yes, that why we can eat and drink anything.

-          WHAT????!

-          Yes, this verse teaches us that there is no forbidden food or drink for Christians.

-          No, this verse does talk about what we can eat and what we cannot. It teaches us that what you eat or drink would affect you only, but what you say will affect others and could start a war!

He was religious Orthodox who reads and understands the bible literally to extract his rules or law, and of course, he depends on his pastors to guide his interpretation. That was different for me, I was completely free, I depend on my reading skills and experiences, not on a pastor, and my goal was just exploring the book, not find any rules for me.