How Does It Fit?

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter who wrote the books of the Bible or when they were written. Theologians argue to no end about whether a certain book of the New Testament was written prior to AD 70 or after. And I don’t care. They can discuss and disagree about the authorship of 2 Timothy. Some of them say it was not written by Paul; some say it was. And I really couldn’t care less. And what about the Pentateuch? Was it authored by Moses, or was it a cut-and-paste job from various sources? How many Isaiahs were there? These are the kinds of questions that next to no one is asking anymore.

Who? When? Where? These inquiries waste too much energy and brain power. I’m not concerned if Jesus actually said what was written, or if he may have said something similar, or if he even said any of this at all. I don’t even care if Jesus actually existed or not. (I believe he did, but I’m not going to stand around and argue with someone about it.)

Here’s how I see all of this. We have this thing called the Bible. Right? It’s a very ancient book. Agreed? Obviously the books that are contained in the Bible “made it”. Why? My guess is that, politicking and power-brokering aside, they fit into a narrative scheme that is unmistakeable. We can spend all sorts of time arguing about whether such-and-such actually occurred, or if the Bible is applicable to our time or not, or whatever. These discussions are irrelevant to me. What I want to know is: What’s the story here? How does this passage, or book, or incident, fit into the larger canvas of the sweep of the Biblical narrative?

The pages of the Scriptures are all we have to work with, so my assumption is that it all fits together somehow. The interpretive task for our day may quite well be to answer the question, “How?” or “What’s the story here?” or “What is the author (whoever it is, and I don’t care who it is) trying to say here about the story of the Scriptures?” It’s apparent to me that the Biblical authors (whoever they were, and I don’t care who they were) were very knowledgeable of the Story and did the very best they could to maintain the integrity of their received texts and traditions.

What do you think?