The Bible, research and dialogue

Thanks to Viv for the following, not my normal reading:
"The University of Exeter lecturer told Radio Times: ‘Eve, particularly in the Christian tradition, has been very unfairly maligned as the troublesome wife.’
But former MP Ann Widdecombe, who is a Roman Catholic, said: ‘I would guess that most other theologians will demolish her theory in three seconds flat.’ "
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1364018/Atheist-Dr-Francesca-Stavrakopoulout-BBC-face-religion.html]
The programme is 9pm Tuesday 15th.

I wrote earlier about dialogue. Interesting that politicians (or ex politicians) cannot do dialogue, only express their unconsidered opinions as rudely as possible and do battle with anyone who dares to disagree. No wonder politics is in a constant mess.  This however gives me the chance to talk a little about the Bible (and see also my blog 4004BCE). I was brought up by fundamentalist Christians, but managed during A level religious studies to begin to think critically. Their view was that human history is accurately contained in the Bible story. My view now is that the view of history was constructed by the people who wrote the Bible books, and that it was political. It may contain nuggets of historical data, but they are few and far between, and always problematic. I developed this in Creating the Old Testament.

The story of Eve was written for a purpose - a social purpose, a political purpose, a dogmatic purpose. It commented on the view of the writer(s) of relationships between the sexes. Christian use of the story helped to define the policy of the early church. That is not to say that the stories themselves are as stereotyped as my upbringing suggested. They deserve further study as we read the words of the translation too glibly: original meanings are never as straightforward as those expressed from some pulpits. People die, can distinguish between good and evil, women bear children with pain, men provide food with difficulty, and snakes are poisonous - all the ingredients are there. And the writer theologian asserts, none of this is God's fault. Not even wisdom, for then 'humans will become like one of us'. Us?? What better clue to encourage us to dig deeper.