What I'll Be Reading: The New Oxford Annotated Bible

 A (likely) multi-year reading project

I grew up learning that the Bible was the word of God, meaning that it was true, infallible, and literal. It was written down by men, but its words were God's words, brought straight down from Heaven. And while there was room for nuance and discussion (especially about those pesky verses about selling all your possessions to give to the poor), it was fairly cohesive and its meanings were usually clear. I've read the Protestant Bible from Genesis to Revelation at least three times, including with a commentary that provided fascinating historic context but also constantly reaffirmed a very narrow reading of the text. The Bible was, as they say, clear.

Until it wasn't.

Like many people, my narrow, post-Enlightenment, white, western, 21st-century understanding of the Bible fell apart. Or, in my case, unraveled in an instant like a piece of crocheted material when you take one thread and yank really hard. In the spring I was confident about this infallible word of God handed down from Heaven; in the summer I felt in my heart of hearts that none of it was true and everything I'd learned was a lie.

This was the start of me learning to relate to the Bible in a different way than before. After I recognized that I actually did still want to believe the story I had learned about a Creator God who loved me and people and the whole earth, I began to seek to understand the good book not as a single book by a single divine author, but as a breathtaking collection of several genres with paradoxical and even competing viewpoints that is not meant to be mined for "the right answer," but wrestled with, as Jacob wrestled with God and came out with an incurable wound, a new name, and a blessing.

I've read a lot of useful books on the topic (Opening Israel's Scriptures by Ellen F. Davis has been my favorite so far), but had yet to dive into an ecumenical commentary on this collection of stories, literature, parables, wisdom, and mythology that we called the Bible. 

As most of you know I recently started attending a Methodist church, and for the Sunday school I picked up the assigned commentary Bible: The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha: An Ecumenical Study Bible. I just started reading it today, beginning with Genesis but also peeking ahead at the Apocrypha, which I'm ashamed to say I've never read before.

I'm already totally in love with the commentary. The notes on Genesis feature a detailed discussion of the four literary sources/schools that were consolidated into a single book by later editors, something I'd read about in other academic sources but never seen applied line-by-line into the text. It's fascinating to notice the differing material edited together— the omnipotent, kingly God of Genesis 1 creating the world by giving form, use, and names (three essential components of creation in ancient Near Eastern thought) to the various parts of the world is very different from the personal, limited God of Genesis 2 who makes mud pies into a human being. 

To see these often-conflicting accounts placed next to each other tells us that the Bible values diversity, not homogeny: multiple stories with multiple meanings, not a single "right" answer.

The commentary compares the stories of Genesis to other mythology of the ancient Near East, showing similarities and differences, as well as notes cultural/historical background and points out references in the Bible that appear elsewhere in ancient writings.

I could go on and on, but in the meantime, I wanted to share this resource in case anyone else would be interested in this kind of commentary Bible. It'll likely take me a couple years to get through the whole thing, but I'm excited for the journey. I'm excited to embrace the texts on their own terms, rather than through my narrow modern perspective, and to see them with fresh eyes.

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