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The Media and The Bible

Pastor Jun-Jun Arnecillo
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Singles/College Minister

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Major educational T.V. stations regularly present documentaries on the Bible (e.g. Banned from the Bible, Science of the Bible, etc. ).   These documentaries approach the biblical texts with purely academic concerns.  So many of the interviewees, who are renowned scholars, are not concerned with spiritual, practical, or revelatory messages from God through the Bible.  They are actually concerned with the historical authenticity of the texts, philosophical world views that shaped the texts and the were expressed in the texts, sociological and political factors that shaped the development of Christianity as a religion, etc.  Hence, at least during the interviews, they do not address the concerns of regular members of communities of faith.  Members of communities of faith look for messages from the Bible that can be appropriately applied to their daily lives, such as guidelines for moral decision-making, words of encouragement, etc.

In spite of the attempts of these scholars to remain objective in making scholarly comments on issues about biblical texts, they implicitly promote theologically liberal biases.  These biases include beliefs about the nature of biblical texts, such as the belief that these texts were partly the products of power struggles among the leaders in early Christianity, the belief that these texts were heavily influenced by the mythological stories in the ancient world, etc.  These beliefs seem to invalidate the authenticity of the truths that are contained in the Bible.  So, some reflective parishioners of traditional churches, who watch these documentaries, are initiated into the process of bewilderment.  Unbeknownst to uncritical church members, the media (including major magazines) have slowly shaped the views of intellectually sophisticated citizens of affluent nations about the nature of biblical texts.

In Banned from the Bible, a documentary series, scholars were interviewed about books or epistles that were not included in the New Testament canon.  Many of them implicitly suggest a reconsideration of the value of such books or epistles as proofs of theologically diverse world of the early church.  So, they want to promote theologically diverse texts that conclusively determines Christian truths.  However, good traditional scholars do not deny the existence of such diversity.  The New Testament even recorded events that involved false teachers.  As a matter of fact, the existence of "orthodox" teachings (e.g. Trinity, divinity of Christ, etc.) is a proof for the existence of "heterodox" teachings.

The fact that the early church was theologically diverse does not necessarily imply that such kind of diversity must be promoted.  One of the main reasons for the formation of the canon is the establishment of a list of authoritative textual witnesses of apostolic teachings.  If the teachings of the apostles, who were the immediate witnesses of Jesus, must be preserved, then the most reliable sources of information about such teachings must be included on the list.  There are no good reasons for including many of those that were banned from the Bible.  For example, most of them were written between mid-second century and mid-fourth century.  So, many of them were more likely written 20 - 250 years after the death of the last living apostle.  Hence, they cannot be considered as authoritative textual witnesses.