Christ as Canon: The Bible and its Messages

I have become increasingly fascinated with the Bible—both in its old and new testament forms. I'm trying to figure out why, and I think it's because I've been to unravel the many layers that conceal it to my initial gaze. I cannot think of a more poignant and more powerful document—one more quick and ready to really bring to past the immortality and eternal life of my subconscious. When I consider the bible and all that it means and has meant to me over the years and the centuries, I am astounded by permanence and even by its immortality. I wouldn't go so far to say, as many would blindly do, that the bible is simply the greatest story on earth because god wrote it—but, ever if we take something of a sociological position on what the Bible is—that's a it's a historical document, handed down throughout time, ravaged by the woes of human subjectivity—it still seems that the Bible is an inevitably great work. And this, possibly, is because "Bible" itself has become synonymous with literature—it is the book of Western Culture, like it or not.

 

Of course, I only make these incredibly bald claims to reveal the immense christocentricism in my head. "Bible", for all of my weird mormon biases, still connotes nothing less and nothing more than the word of God. Yet how that word descended among men, and was codified and canonized, is beyond my individual understanding.

 

But I digress, again. I am interested in only one thing: what is the word "Bible." We know, from enormously fecund array of sources, that "Bible" actually means "the books." The Bible, in an of itself, denotes a canon—an accepted stock of doctrines and literatures. Yet, taken all together, the Christian bible from Genesis ot Revelation could hardly account for a single story. Rather, the bible's comes, paradoxically, from its overarching diversity. If not for the violence of the book of Judges, the eroticism of the Song of Solomon, and the rantings of Jeremiah, how could we understand the annunciation of Christ. Skipping over the dirty parts of the bible to get to the good news seems nothing less than heresy to me, because the crowning glory of the Christian message is based on a fulfillment of the Law (Torah), rather than its rejection. Is not Christ the descendent of Rahab, the prostitute, as much as he is the descendent of King David?

 

I'm certain my musings make little sense (I'm hardly in a coherent mood). Let me conclude this tirade with a question: "How does bringing together so many disparate stories (and even materials) impart and overall message? Does the fact that the "Christian message" is a strong misreading of the Jewish bible matter, or is it justified?