Cleburne native’s book
examines Bible’s authors
By Allison Davis/Features Editor
Donald O’Dell takes a different look at
the Bible than others. In his book “How the Bible Became the Bible,” O’Dell
tells the history of the Bible in a way that may shatter fundamentalist
ideals.
“I believe biblical wisdom and truth do
help me actually live a fuller day-to-day life, but I also do not read
or interpret the Bible literally,” O’Dell wrote in his introduction. “To
understand my position, it is important to truly appreciate what’s in the
Bible — namely, to see down-to-earth people who came to know, believe and
trust in a Supreme Being. I believe real ‘flesh and blood’ people wrote
the Bible in response to their very real history. Some of them overreacted,
while some of them misinterpreted events.”
His book is packed with historical time
tables, theories about authorship of the Bible, themes of the Bible, analysis
of various Biblical passages and more. His personal story is mixed into
the history of the Bible and helps communicate that personal stories of
transformation make up the Scriptures.
O’Dell’s book is divided into two sections.
The first section focuses on the Old Testament. He sets dates for events
and writings of this part of Christian scriptures. He examines at the development
of the scriptures and the seeming clash between the prophets and the priestly
writers.
“The priestly class wanted to codify or
institutionalize a form of “national” righteous or moral behavior; the
prophets kept insisting they were on the wrong track,” O’Dell writes.
The rest of his Old Testament study focuses
on the questions of authorship.
The second section focuses on the New Testament.
He examines the growth and development of the New Testament scriptures,
discusses canonization, and extra-canonical writings. He believes that
some of the extra-canonical sources should have been included in the scriptures
people have today. He also writes about the Jesus movement of the early
church and the movements that grew outside of the church, including Jewish
believers in Jesus.
“Jesus of Nazareth repeated (and lived!)
the messages of the Old Testament prophets,” the book says. “However, much
of his message dissolved as the organizational aspects of the emerging
church began making the same kinds of mistakes made by Israel’s priestly
class during Old Testament times.”
O’Dell is concerned that many people are
in danger of worshiping the Bible. One of his concluding chapters addresses
this concern. He says that by taking the Bible at its word, word for word,
people are missing the message of the Bible. He believes by living like
that, people are in danger of blindly obeying the Bible rather than listening
to God themselves.
O’Dell’s family moved to Cleburne from
Brownfield after he graduated from high school. His father took the ministerial
position at Anglin Street Presbyterian Church for 10 years. O’Dell spent
summers in Cleburne working construction and spent one summer working at
the Times-Review in the printing press department. He was also a minister
at Joshua Community Church while attending the University of North Texas.
After graduating from college, he attended Princeton Theological Seminary
and earned his Master of Divinity. Through his schooling and his ministry
experience, O’Dell has developed beliefs about the Bible.
“The Bible is a set of different voices,”
O’Dell said. “There’s not that many of them — six or seven plus the prophets
[in the Old Testament], five or six in the New Testament — if you understand
that these are different voices speaking from the reality of their transformed
lives.”
O’Dell believes that the voices in the
Bible speak about what they’ve seen God do in their lives.
“It opens a door for you to look at your
transformation,” O’Dell said. “It opens that door for your to look at your
transformation. You can speak your voice and listen to the voice of God
in others.
“The flip side is that the Bible is it.
It’s not about being transformed, but what saves you is believing in the
Bible — it’s very, very similar to the problems that the prophets had with
the emerging priesthood,” O’Dell said.
O’Dell had his own transformation, and
his experience enabled him to write the book.
“I grew up in the church and was an active
minister for six years,” he said. “When I was recovering from alcoholism
I had some spiritual decisions.”
He said he won his battle against alcoholism
19 years ago. His victory gave him a transformation story to tell.
On the Net: www.donodell.com
