Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

Take Back the Bible
Wednesday, December 27, 2006

I used to think of Dennis Prager as a thoughtful spokesperson on religious ideas in America. But all the bile he received last week for suggesting that swearing in on the Koran was anti-American must have gone to his head. Now he's after more publicity, with a new rant that says the Culture Wars come down to believing in the "divinity" of the Five Books.

If you want to predict on which side an American will line up in the Culture War wracking America, virtually all you have to do is get an answer to this question: Does the person believe in the divinity and authority of the Five Books of Moses, the first five books of the Bible, known as the Torah? ("Divinity" does not necessarily mean "literalism.")

I do not ask this about "the Bible" as a whole because the one book that is regarded as having divine authority by believing Jews, Catholics, Protestants and Mormons, among others, is not the entire Bible, but the Torah. Religious Jews do not believe in the New Testament and generally confine divine revelation even within the Old Testament to the Torah and to verses where God is cited by the prophets, for example. But "Bible-believing" Christians and Jews do believe in the divinity of the Torah.

The piece ends: "This divide explains why the wrath of the Left has fallen on those of us who lament the exclusion of the Bible at a ceremonial swearing-in of an American congressman. The Left wants to see that book dethroned. And that, in a nutshell, is what the present civil war is about."

But liberals do not universally believe the Bible should be "dethroned." That task was already handled by the Founders. In fact, as I have tried to say as widely and as loudly as possible, the Bible is not filled with talking points of the Religious Right. Liberals can, should, and increasingly are using it to support their causes as well.

Take Back the Bible. Now.

Labels: Bible in America, Take Back the Bible

Posted by B Feiler at 12:15 AM
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