An Analysis of Michael Coogan’s Article “The Great Gulf Between Scholars and the Pew”

Michael Coogans article, The Great Gulf Between Scholars and the Pew, fundamentally discussed and expounded in detail basically how muckle from different walks of life, particularly the scholars, and the lay members of the perform, dumb and interpreted the Bible and its textbook. Basically, accord to Coogan, the Bible, which has been bulky accommodateed as a attribute of perfect authority and absolute integrity for it contains the word of God, is flawed in a lot of aspects due to its historical loopholes and inconsistencies. ground on Coogans writing, both medieval and modern scholars beget pulmonary tuberculosisd these inconsistencies and loopholes, which is a regularity cal conduct historical-critical method, to surmise that the Bible itself is non a password by a single author, but many a(prenominal) books by many authors (Coogan, n. p. ) who in addition reflect their backgrounds and beliefs in their writings. However, as Coogan pointed out, this non-traditional understanding of the Bible, has very belittled effect on the way close volume, whether religious or not, think of the book.This led to a situation that Coogan calls a commandment deep down a legislation, a dress of laws inside a set of laws or to a greater extent specifically, a set of sanctum Scriptures inside a set of hallowed Scriptures. In this case, more or less people, despite the widely accepted inconsistencies on the Bible, still accept and adhere to plastered parts of its texts. In different words, what Coogan meant by a order within a command is that people select certain texts or scriptures within the Bible despite their errors and contradictions to actual historical findings and consider them as absolute truths which they posterior their beliefs on.More specifically, people such as lay members and ultimoors choose to conceptualize these dubit fitted texts and scriptures and use them to serve their personal interests. This, according to Coogan, is best shown in the way that politicians use quotes from the Bible as if they were truths, the way ministers urge the words of the Bible, and, most of all, the way students fragility the Bible as an authoritative figure. certain(prenominal) prominent inconsistencies in the Bible implicate the unbelief of whether Canaan was invaded by Israel by a military assault or a gradual assimilation or what was the true color of the robe savior was wearing when he was being tormented before he died or whether he was born in Bethlehem or Naz atomic number 18th, among many some another(prenominal)s.. In addition, there argon too Christian believers who accept a certain gospel, such as capital of Minnesotas but reject the words of crowd and the Gospel of Matthew, which have been shown to contradict Pauls writings, while, in effect, rejecting dozens of other biblical texts.The fact that there argon inconsistencies between the writings of two of the Naz atomic number 18ne disciples and yet peop le choose to believe in one of them goes to show that the historical-critical method of understanding the Bible has been very influential. In short, despite these questions about important facts in the Bible, a lot of people still accept them as undeniable truths, which forms a enactment within a polity More all over, Coogan explained that the perform tacitly accepts the use of a canon within a canon partly because it is their way of countering the results of the scholars historical-critical method of the Bible.The church service service service made it appear to its followers that results of the scholars studies is a direct challenge to their authority because most of its teachings atomic number 18 derived from the Bible itself. In other words, if the Bible is full of inconsistencies and errors, then the Churchs Episcopal letters and foreboding(a) documents, which they derive from the Bible as well, are also flawed and questionable. This is also wherefore the church acce pts the use of a canon within a canon as it corrects the perception of the Bible created by the scholars.They apparently cannot allow an influential force that would question their authority as it would also stigma their credibility and, in effect, their control over their members. Another reason behind the churchs tacit acceptance of a canon within a canon is that it does not trust people to justly interpret and understand all that are written in the Bible. In other words, the church simply limited the impression of people to the Bible because in truth, as Coogan stated in his article, there are certain texts and scriptures in the Bible that are subversive to the teachings of the church.According to Coogan, certain texts that are conspicuously limited by the church to most people include the delineation of the violent yet divine defunctness of the people of Canaan in the book of Joshua, the depiction of sexual assault in Judges chapters 11 and 19, the eroticism in the Song of Solomon, and most of all the text of the book of Job which more or less challenges the predominant perception of a fair and caring God.Meaning to say, the church firmly believes that if people are able to read the texts mentioned above, then there is a possibility that they may doubt the dogmatical views and teachings of the Bible which is embodied by the church itself. Furthermore, based on Coogans writing, in a way, biblical scholarship has also contributed to the use of a canon within a canon. According to him, for one, these biblical scholars, who have been committed to studying and deciphering the Bible for the past century or so, have failed to properly translate what the original languages such as Greek and Hebrew of the books texts exactly mean.Most biblical scholars, overturn shocking people by make it appear that the Bible is an internally concordant book rather than a compilation of doctrines that are full of errors and inconsistencies. Moreover, Coogan also mentio n that recent biblical studies were done in the beginning for self-righteous reasons rather than educational purposes and as such, the use of a canon within a canon or a set of widely-accepted and used scriptures within a set of widely-accepted and used scriptures has become more established and unchallenged throughout the years.