Random Verses From the Bible

* Re “Random Verses Don’t Reveal Bible’s Meaning,” June 24:

Thank you for William Lobdell’s Getting Religion column.

Many of us who have been through the “religious” crusade against nonwhites that began before our own Civil War of the 19th century, and/or through the anti-woman piety that even today exists, have long been aware of Rabbi Martin Cohen’s remark about “the notion that you can get at the innermost meaning of Scripture by picking verses at random.”

Why do we allow each new sect and agenda to reinterpret the Scriptures by picking and choosing, when it would be quite possible for those who hold preaching positions to draw the biblical overview every Sabbath of their careers?

The very fact that so many “religious” people are so uninformed about the Scriptures is an indictment of ministers and theological schools.

CAROL HOWARD

Huntington Beach

* The explanations by Martin Cohen point out the difficulty with translating Hebrew to English and maintaining the meaning of the Scripture.

Jews who are serious about their Judaism read Scripture in Hebrew. Muslims who are serious about their Islamic faith read Scripture in Arabic. As Christians, you would think if we are serious about our faith, we would read Scripture in Hebrew and Greek.

Instead we must leave it to clergy to interpret for us. How many of these leaders are fluent in Hebrew and Greek? Is it any wonder the Christian community often misses the full meaning of the Scripture?

ED McCULLOGH

San Juan Capistrano

* William Lobdell’s piece was a disappointment because it trivializes the impact the Bible has on today’s social policies.

Clerics twist and turn the Bible’s phrases in an effort to make an ancient text somehow relevant to today’s world.

It doesn’t work, since saying that “slavery” really means something else and an “abomination” really means something else doesn’t really make those terms mean something else.

What we really need is the courage to say that there are just some parts of the Bible that don’t make sense and just don’t apply anymore, and to stop worrying so much about what that stance might say about God’s fallibility.

Meanwhile, clerics--some well-meaning and others hungry for money or power--interpret the Bible, whether the New or Old Testament, in myriad ways to accomplish whatever agenda sets fire to their souls. Most often, it means people get hurt, usually for no other reason than that they don’t share the same belief.

What should have been a road map to moral and ethical living has become for the most part an evil recipe book for discrimination and hate.

Racism, anti-Semitism, sexism, and a host of other “-isms” have their roots in the Bible; and just saying that it’s all a misunderstanding doesn’t repair the destruction.

So Laura Schlessinger does her damage, Rabbi Martin Cohen does his, and finally, Lobdell does his.

MICHAEL GRINFELD

Fullerton

* Rabbi Martin Cohen doesn’t seem to know his Bible very well if he points out that there are no records of anyone being executed for not keeping the Sabbath. Numbers 15: 32-36 tells of one such incident.

But Cohen correctly states that the death penalty for not keeping the Sabbath demonstrated how seriously they took God’s commands.

I believe a problem with scoffers of the Bible and others from this time period, which Cohen also points out, is that we often forget to look at the Bible in terms of the culture of the times and of the geography.

We often look at things in the Bible and exclaim: “That’s so barbaric!” And then we think ourselves so much better and civilized without taking into account what was normal and sometimes essential for survival thousands of years ago.

I believe the problem is not that biblical man took sin way too seriously, but rather we in our century don’t take sin seriously enough.

But lest e-mail scoffers, such as the example mentioned in the column, puff themselves up thinking that they’re so much better than Laura Schlessinger, they should remember that all fall short of God’s standard.

MICHAEL WHITE

Santa Ana