[Less than 5-minutes of your time.]
Let’s admit it, most of us overlook a lot of difficult passages in the Bible if not downright avoid them. But did you know that in the 19th century some actually printed a redacted Bible in order to control African slaves?
This “abridged” version of the King James Bible is on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.. Anthony Schmidt, associate curator of Bible and Religion in America at the museum, says “About 90 percent of the Old Testament is missing [and] 50 percent of the New Testament. Put another way, there are 1,189 chapters in a standard protestant Bible. This Bible contains only 232.” They left out almost 80% of the Word of God from the Word of God! Talk about a Readers Digest version of the Bible! Take a minute and let that sink in. Eight out of ten passages gone, at least for enslaved humans!
They didn’t use scissors or “white out” (pun intended), the chapters they deemed dangerous for slaves to hear! It was actually printed on a press with just those 232 chapters. In other words, a lot of work went into the project to keep slaves under their evil boot. And by the way, this wasn’t just used by godless slavers, but by British missionaries who came to America to “convert and educate (code for dominate) slaves.” They didn’t want anything left that might inspire them to rebel. You heard that, right? In their preaching, so-called “missionaries” possessed and propagated a redacted gospel!
What kinds of things did they redact and what was left in this “Slaver’s Bible”? Of course, they were keen to leave in any passages that could be misinterpreted to reinforce the institution of slavery, such as: “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.” (Ephesians 6:5) Equally keen were they to remove the entire Exodus story which could be fodder for slaves to hope for a day when they would be emancipated. Not to mention anything that could have prompted rebellion had to go, like: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)
If this doesn’t prove our tendency to, what I call “lawyer down” the Bible according to our own personal preference, I don’t know what does. None of us totally read the Bible in a vacuum. We’re shaped by our social context more than we realize and maybe much more than we are shaped by the Word of God. Our desire for economic prosperity, social standing, or political power often come before our actual hunger to know truth.
Lord, have mercy! And help us read, believe, and act on “the whole will of God” (Acts 20:27), even those many parts that make us uncomfortable.
“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.” (Revelation 22:18-19)
barney wiget 