Thoughts on Dawkins - 2 - The Bible

2. Dawkins and the Bible

Dawkins is selective over how he defines “religion” and is similarly selective over his reading of the Bible.

Dawkins view of the Bible is that is should not be used for providing moral instruction, that the lessons it teaches are either already obvious to the reader (e.g. the prohibition against murder) or actually immoral (e.g. killing in the name of religion). Therefore while the Bible may be studied as literature it should not be read as teaching how to lead a good life.

As with the subject of “what is religion”, when reading the Bible Dawkins appears to make no reference to any authorities on the subject and just makes it up as he goes along. For example he cites examples from the Old Testament about Israel attacking other tribes in the region, and sees this as a justification for genocide. He provides no other authorities to support his reading or any indication that Biblical studies is an academic discipline that requires years of study, instead the implication of his actions is that this is a topic that anyone can have serious opinions on even with little or no study on the subject.

First, let’s take the example of the “genocide” texts. Biblical scholars point out that there are at various layers of textual sources for these Bible accounts - called “E”, “J”, “D” and “P” - further reading on this topic can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

The point is that some sources encourage peaceful cohabitation (typically “E” texts) with other tribes, while other sources (typically “J” texts) are more warlike - it isn’t the case that a single view can be derived from the different sources, still less that random texts can be quoted in the manner of Dawkins to “explain” what all the texts are about. As with any ancient text an accurate understanding requires a very close reading of the material.

Dawkins may argue that he isn’t trying to accurately explain the meaning of the texts, but how they might be interpreted by a modern reader. He may claim a modern reader coming to the text could read the warlike sections and see these as a justification for oppression of the Palestinians today, for example. Such a claim raises many questions.

1. Even given some texts that suggest a warlike stance, there are others that support a peaceful co-existence with other nations, so there is no compelling argument that random reading of texts will necessarily give a bad moral compass.
2. Texts supporting one nation living in one particular location is surely better than teachings that support a nation conquering many other nations and keeping them in servitude which is what the “pagan” nations of the time such as Assyria, Egypt, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome were doing, and which many nations today appear to continue to believe is a justified course of action.
3. Dawkins idea that destroying any “spoils of war” is somehow bad needs to be contrasted with the view that if a nation is allowed to keep the “spoils of war” this encourages going to war. If Israel is not allowed to keep any spoils of war (as in the case of the “sin of Achan”) then why would they go to war? Surely only to defend themselves, not to gain the wealth of other nations - so there is certainly more than one way to interpret the “bad” texts Dawkins cites from the Bible.
4. More generally how a religious text is interpreted is through the religious tradition, not from some random reading of texts, so Dawkins really needs to show that interpretations of Bible texts have never had a good impact on morality, rather than finding some texts that he can interpret in a negative manner. As most people will recognise, Bible texts can often be used to justify all sorts of actions - both good and bad, it is just not possible to show they are always negative in their influence.

Rather than cite verses out of context what is important in any reading of a text is to look at the broad, general trajectory of the story. Dawkins needs to give an account of what the Bible is broadly teaching and to show that this is immoral - even then of course it will be his reading against anyone else’s reading - and given he does not appear to have any qualifications on the subject it will be doubtful how factual or accurate a reading he would provide.

Broadly the message of the Old Testament is of God’s acting to save Israel when they were slaves in Egypt, God chose them to be his people so that through them all the nations of the earth would be blessed. In the scriptures of the Old Testament God tells his people to care for the poor, the oppressed, the widow and orphan, to show love and compassion, justice and mercy, and a future hope that in the future all nations will live together in peace. This doesn’t appear an immoral message, but one that encourages those who follow the teachings of the Old Testament to look after and care for their fellow human beings, working together for a better world.

Similarly the broad message of the New Testament is of God sending his Son Jesus to give humanity an example of selfless love, to bring about a kingdom of peace, love of enemies, turning the other cheek and hope of new life. Again, Dawkins may wish to quote certain texts out of context, but the broad teachings of the New Testament encourage people to live better lives.

One final point - Dawkins claims the Bible can be read as literature, but not as a moral guide. Great literature is great because it teaches us about the human condition. A great work of literature which had a shallow, even immoral view of humanity would be very unusual. To claim the Bible can be read as literature - and therefore a set of stories to teach us about our humanity - and yet have no reference to morality is to misunderstand what great literature is about.