After going over all of his school lessons, and teaching my grandson everything that I know and even some stuff I made up, I eventually got around to telling him some Bible stories to entertain him,  and well, to maybe learn a thing or two.  He loved them. As per usual, I got in over my head with his questions, even on a topic that I consider myself to have considerable knowledge. It is also tough finding Bible stories that are G-rated, especially in the Old Testament. I told him about David and Goliath, a classic, but hey, in the end somebody gets killed! Explain the righteous God in that one to a six year old.  I told him about Jonah and being swallowed by the whale, but it sure was hard explaining why he was swallowed by the whale in the first place, and why he was spit back up. Finally, I thought I would give up telling him stories and show him something cool  I played an excerpt from a YouTube video from The Ten Commandments movie, where Moses parted the Red Sea. He did indeed think it cool, but it sure raised a lot of questions. So I told him we could watch the whole movie and I would try to explain what was happening in the story to him. He and I both lost some interest when I told him the movie was about five hours long, or something crazy like that. And the movie, of course, raises a lot of questions- maybe not for my grandson- but certainly for me.

Now this classic movie is scripted, so all those hard heads who say that it is not Biblical or true to the Bible need to get over it.  The show is story, it is drama, and it gets the point across.  There is plenty of reading between the lines, but hey, we all do that when we read scripture anyway- it’s called interpretation, and that is why there are so many different beliefs about the same text.  We all add stuff to its reading. We can’t help it, we can’t escape our own bias.

I do love the movie “The Ten Commandments.” I like the drama and my favorite line in the movie is when the children of Israel are backed up to the Red Sea and Pharaoh is in hot pursuit with his chariots and mighty army. Brenner smirks with great irony, “The God of Moses is a poor General, that he leaves no retreat.”   I guess Pharaoh, on the other hand, was a genius when his troops followed the children of Israel into that sea that parted right in front of their eyes.  Now come on people, if you have been through the plagues, and you now saw the sea part, no way you are going to mess with those people or their God.  You are simply going to find some weak heathens on the way back to Egypt to capture and enslave.  The Israelites were bad karma, let those people go dude and forget about them.  Of course, the Children of Israel had their own faith issues.  They had seen the God’s deliverance first hand, and after Moses was gone a few days too many, they started worshiping a cow they made out of gold themselves, for heaven’s sake. People. Go figure.

In reality there are a lot of questions about many of the Bible stories.  I will never forget going to seminary and learning about the International Critical Commentary of the Bible, written more than a hundred years ago by mostly scholars from Oxford and Cambridge, and it changed the way I saw scripture.  You can access them online for free.  Now, they are difficult, tedious reading at best.  I had a lot of education about the scientific method in my collegiate background, and you would think the Bible, being true, would hold up to such scrutiny.  And in a word, not to burst anyone’s bubble, the concept of the Exodus just doesn’t hold up to science. 

And I say this mainly for these reasons: There are no historical accounts outside of the Hebrew Scriptures.  There is no archeological evidence that has ever been discovered to support the Exodus.  I mean two million people wandering around in the desert for 40 years and no pottery shards or artifacts from such a civilization?  Especially in a land where the conditions are ripe for everything being preserved forever. There are pottery shards and arrowheads in every field east of Little Rock (left behind from much smaller groups of native Americans) that wash up after every heavy rain.  There are not indicators in the vast scholarly field of Egyptology that refer to Moses or a mass Exodus of slaves.  According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered “about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children,” plus many non-Israelites and livestock.  Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550. The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the “mixed multitude” of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people, compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3.5 million.  Two million people would be larger than almost all modern American cities, there is no evidence of such large populations in this period of history.  Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150-200 miles long (no kidding, do the math).  No evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe or that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds. The International Critical Commentary has a field day with numbers on the Old Testament BTW. Archeologist, even those of the faith have labeled the search for artifacts around the Exodus as a fruitless pursuit.  The route of the Exodus is also problematic from a geographical perspective.  Where is this “Red Sea” anyway?

And there are a number of anachronisms in the story itself which point to a context closer to 600 – 800 BC rather than the date required to fit Egyptian domination, such as the names of the cities listed, the fact that dromedaries were listed and they were not introduced into Egypt until much later, and so forth.   The consensus among biblical scholars today is that there was never any exodus of the proportions described in the Bible, and that the story is best seen as theology, a story illustrating how the God of Israel acted to save and strengthen his chosen people, and not as history. 

So did the Exodus really occur?  Who knows?  It seems unlikely that it occurred on the scale in which it is reported, but is certainly possible on a smaller scale, and we all know that numbers were often symbolic in scripture. And besides, it was a very long time ago; there was no CNN to cover the event.  But that is not the point.  God’s story of liberation and salvation is the point.  But we sometimes think that the whole thing stands or falls on the historicity of the entire Bible.  I have heard preachers say “if one part of it isn’t true, then none of it is true.”  If the world was not created in seven literal days, then it is all false people say.  If there was no talking donkey, or a giant, man swallowing whale, or kid killing a giant with a slingshot, then it is all rubbish some believe. They really do throw out the baby with the bathwater.

So what about Jesus?  There is some evidence about Jesus in extra biblical sources.  And shortly after the first century, there was an explosion of accounts by his followers.  Heck no one in the history of the planet has more written about them.  There is debate about some of the miracles of Jesus.  There are many New Testament Scholars who believe that many of the passages of the gospels were added by the post resurrection followers of Christ who were editorial revisionist.  Again, I don’t know. 

But here is what I do know: I don’t care about the Exodus or even Jesus turning water into wine—actually I kind of like that one, glad he did it. If they prove that Jesus wasn’t virgin born, so what?  I will still believe because for me the gospel is communicated in the stories, not in the historicity of the events themselves.  And as such their truths are applicable to our very own life events; they are relevant to our context, and thereby are not culturally encapsulated paradigms.

So where does my faith come from?  Great question!  But make no mistake, it is there.  A large portion no doubt comes from tradition, and the faith of my parents before me.  I am fully aware that if I had been born in another place, another time, or another context my faith would be very different or maybe non-existent.  Yet, I still have faith.

Some of my faith comes from superstition.  Some from guilt. Some from fear. Some from shame and the need to be punished or forgiven. Some from the need to see the wicked get their due.  Some from the need to believe that someone, somewhere, is keeping score for all the injustices in the world.  Some of my faith is magic, some is rubbing the lucky rabbits foot.  I know all of this, yet, I still have faith.

At the end of the day, some of my faith comes from spirituality or spiritual awareness. You just can’t explain some things. Faith is often at odds with reason, it sometimes makes no sense. And in fact, having faith sometimes is downright foolish. When I consider other faith systems that I think are ludicrous, when it boils down to it, they are really no different from my own on some level. Yet I still have faith.

So where does my faith come from?  It comes from experience. Personal experience.  It comes from my life and the lives of others and from the lessons of history. The proof for me, is in my own life. Just ask the Apostle Peter, went from a coward who denied Jesus to a hero on the day of Pentecost.  I have seen radical transformation in my own life and the lives of others. I have seen the transforming power of living the Kingdom ethic, of practicing the law of love, of the blessedness of being a peacemaker, And the purpose and direction that my life has because of faith. And more powerfully, this same story is replicated throughout the annals of history and the gospel stories and the history of Christianity.

The truth is I know Jesus lives and was raised on that third day not because of archeological or historical or scientific evidence.  I know he lives because I have seen in my life and the lives of many the light that pierces the darkness.  I believe because of the darkness that is in human history.  I believe because of the dark corners of my own life.  I believe because I have seen the light of the resurrected Jesus showing us the way.  I have seen that the moral arch of history is long but it has been bent toward justice.  I have seen the power of love and nonviolence.  I have seen the transformation of lives that comes from the authentic love of Jesus Christ.  I have seen love conquering all.  I have seen the most recalcitrant souls transformed, and we all know how hard change is for any of us. I have seen things come and go, but the story of Jesus Christ endures.  And that is why I have faith.

Do I believe Jesus “loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so”? Maybe. But this I know- I do believe because my life tells me so.  As does the lives of the saints I have been blessed to know—personally, and through the stories in the Bible and church history.