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Interview with Jason Boyett, by Becky Garrison
  
Why do believers need a Pocket Guide to the Bible?
BOYETT: Despite going to church three times a week and listening to Focus on the Family every day and purpose-driving our lives all over the place, we’re still pretty clueless about the Bible. I’ve been attending church from infancy, and there were stories I found in the Bible, while doing my research, that I’d never read before.
How can the Biblicabulary help the faithful fine-tune their faith?
BOYETT: How many of us can define the churchy words we hear every Sunday? We hear about concepts like sacrifice and covenant and the atonement all the time, but how many of us truly know what those mean or where they originated in the biblical text? Also, hopefully, the faithful reader will begin to see how these Old Testament themes — atonement and high priests and the concept of a mediator — are replayed with a Big Plot Twist in the Gospels–the kind of M. Night Shyamalan ending that redefines the whole movie. That’s what makes the Bible a really, really cool book: once you get to the stuff about Jesus, you realize that’s who you’ve been reading about all along, from Genesis onward.
Who is your favorite person cited in your cast of characters?
BOYETT: I love how sarcastic Elijah gets when Baal doesn’t respond to all their frenzied dancing and shouting there on Mount Carmel. They get all worked up, and nothing happens, so Elijah taunts them: “Maybe this Baal guy is busy. Or maybe he’s traveling.” A lot of scholars believe the Hebrew word that our modern translations render traveling is really an unsavory euphemism for pooping. So what he’s basically saying is “Maybe your little god isn’t responding to your pleas, dear prophets of Baal, because he’s on the can.” That’s awesome.
How come you tip-toed around those bits where Paul tells women to be silent and that whole “be a 1 Peter woman” thingee?
BOYETT: Personally, I chalk those up to some cultural stuff that we probably don’t understand, and the fact that Paul, as a recovering Pharisee, had some definite sexist tendencies. His statements are probably more personal opinion than anything that we ought to hold to today. If you want my honest assessment, I’m more interested in Jesus’ views on women than Paul’s. But you’re right. I should have covered that stuff. My bad.
Why do you think televangelists tend not to preach much from Philippians?
BOYETT: Though the book is all about joy, Paul likely wrote the thing while under house arrest in Rome, around the time the Roman emperor Nero’s got a real jones for using Christians as human torches at his banquets. So here’s Paul, in jail, with Christians being persecuted left and right, and he’s all happy-happy-joy-joy despite the handcuffs smearing up his penmanship. Don’t worry or complain, he says, when you get set on fire. Be like me! I’m clanking my chains together and singing a jaunty tune! Because Christ suffered, and when we fellowship in his sufferings, we become more like him.
Doesn’t sound like Osteen.
BOYETT: That doesn’t exactly jive with the God-wants-you-to-be-rich-and-happy guys. When Paul talked about how difficult the Christian life was, he wasn’t talking about rock climbing or being able to enjoy a nice Guinness in a cool pub with all your freedom-in-Christ church friends. And by persecution, he wasn’t talking about some kid making fun of your Tommy Hellfighter t-shirt, either, or about godless liberal Democrats not liking our Christian president.
How come you call Marcion a turd? I can think of much bigger sh*ts in Christian history – take the Inquisition … please.
BOYETT: Well, certainly there were much bigger sh*ts in Christian history. (Or even biblical history, because: How big a toilet must Goliath have needed?) But Marcion gets a shout-out in my “Brief History of Holy Writ” timeline because he played an interesting role in the formation of the canon because he rejected most of the Hebrew scriptures, 95 percent of the passages in the Gospels, and all but ten of Paul’s letters as being unworthy of being read by followers of Jesus. Also, he thought the Yahweh of the Old Testament was a completely separate, megaviolent deity from the God of Love as revealed by Jesus. This earned Marcion a significant following of anti-Semites. It also earned him the heretic label. He’s even been called “the greatest foe Christianity has ever known,” greater even than Dan Brown.
What’s your favorite biblical translation and why?
BOYETT: I love the King James version. For one thing, I grew up reading it, and the language just sounds biblical. But there are also times when its stilted cadence and vocabulary are incredibly funny. The KJV says “ass” a lot, so that’s always amusing to hear in church. And the way it describes all those diseases people used to worry about. Grievous murrain? The burning ague? Smited bowels? I’ll own up to being immature, but that’s dang funny. I wouldn’t wish the grievous murrain on my worst enemy. Not even Marcion.
How do you respond to those who feel that your irreverent treatment of the Bible borders on blasphemy?
BOYETT: I tried to be pretty careful about blasphemy during the writing. Seriously. While I may admit there are times my sarcasm or irreverence may tip-toe to the edge, I think most of it is directed at the foreignness of the text and the weirdness of the stories. The Bible is about primitive people doing some pretty primitive things, and to not acknowledge that some of it is very much at odds with our modern understanding of things is to ignore the 800-pound gorilla of our faith. All the emphasis on circumcision and the elaborate sacrificial system and all the warring and killing — there are a lot of parts of the Bible I can hardly identify with at all. Yet the message of Jesus — and the theme of grace that resonates in the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation— is something that I can embrace wholeheartedly.
I guess this book isn’t too popular with the “Jesus Said it. I Believe it. That settles it.” crowd.
BOYETT: If inerrancy means, for you, that God chose the very words and to struggle with any of those words is to blaspheme the Almighty, then the Pocket Guide is perhaps not the book for you. But if you believe the Bible is authoritative and true because it is perfect in communicating one single Word—Jesus Christ—to us, despite its humanity and literary styles and primitiveness, then I think you’ll enjoy the Pocket Guide.
Finally, Given that the righteous will be raptured, what’s the need for a Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse?
BOYETT: The primary goal of Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse is, obviously, rapture preparedness. As the prophet Larry Norman once said, shouldn’t we all be ready? And as the 19th century apocalyptic guru William Miller taught us, there’s great money to be made by selling, in his case, “ascension robes”—particularly if you keep changing the date of the rapture, which almost always brings in new customers. Also, you get extra jewels in your heavenly crown if you’re able to pinpoint the Antichrist before he (or she) appears on the world scene. So there’s a lot to be gained by reading books like Pocket Guide to the Apocalypse. Once the rapture’s happened, though, none of us will care what’s going on down below. Right? Isn’t that what all those “Warning: In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned” bumper stickers are about? Because multi-car pileups and mass carnage on the interstate highway system is pretty freakin’ funny when viewed from heaven. Also, I was getting the feeling that most evangelical Christians thought the Left Behind template was the only way to think about eschatology. In fact, most of us don’t know what the word eschatology even means. So I wanted to write a book that educated the reader about these things while also being a fun, entertaining way to pass the time.
You can purchase Pocket Guide to the Bible right here.
Becky Garrison’s books include The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail , Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, and Red and Blue God, Black and Blue Church: Eyewitness Accounts of How American Churches are Hijacking Jesus, Bagging the Beatitudes, and Worshipping the Almighty Dollar.
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Huh. This Boyett guy comes across as kinda flippant and cutesy and weird.
Probably some background explanation is due -- this interview originally took place way back in 2006, after Pocket Guide to the Bible first released. And, at that point, the interview was for the print version of The Door, which practically requires flippant weirdness in its interview subjects. But it never went to print, and with the closing of The Door, it found its way here. Hopefully, that explains the tone. (Also the ancient pop culture references. Because, really, Dan Brown?)
But I stand by the part about "grievous murrain," because that's always funny.
Actually the Door is in hibernation for the time being. Jason's books are funny. Buy them despite the Dan Brown references.
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Huh. This Boyett guy comes across as kinda flippant and cutesy and weird.
Probably some background explanation is due -- this interview originally took place way back in 2006, after Pocket Guide to the Bible first released. And, at that point, the interview was for the print version of The Door, which practically requires flippant weirdness in its interview subjects. But it never went to print, and with the closing of The Door, it found its way here. Hopefully, that explains the tone. (Also the ancient pop culture references. Because, really, Dan Brown?)
But I stand by the part about "grievous murrain," because that's always funny.
Posted by Jason Boyett | Posted at 10/11/2008 12:06 PMActually the Door is in hibernation for the time being. Jason's books are funny. Buy them despite the Dan Brown references. Posted by becky | Posted at 10/12/2008 12:23 AM