Chapter 30

The Bible for the inquisitive

Essenceism declares the following assumptions:

There has always been an inexhaustible, all-encompassing and primordial Original Energy. It has always been permeated with the omnipresent Personality, the Spirit of God. God has always was, has always is and will always been. From Him, from His Energy and Spirit, everything that exists, had appeared...

And this is what the Bible describes in its first sentences:

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters".  (Genesis 1, 1-2).

There is no beginning for God. Meanwhile, it is available to us. It can be called the Great Beginning, and even the Big Bang, regardless of whether we see it as an independent physical phenomenon or as a creative act. In both cases, it can be assumed that the universe was created out of the God’s Original Energy and His Laws and Principles. Thus, the Work of creation, also in religious terms, is the combination of the Creator's Powerful Energy with the Laws and Principles inherent in His Spirit.

Next, the whole process of the formation of the universe proceeded in the way that contemporary science perceives it. According to the popular opinion, it is an irrefutable fact, because scientist’s research is considered to be objective. Only the events from before the Great Beginning (or the Big Bang) elude our imagination, let alone the scientific research. In solving this problem, we can help a bit with today's and objective view of the Bible.

I am therefore obliged to explain what I mean by an objective attitude towards the Bible.

Many people say that you cannot believe in God without gaining knowledge of the Bible, the Koran, or any other important book, or without going through the training of the contents of these books kept by relevant religious organizations.  This is not necessarily true.

The nature around us is all that comes from the primeval nature: mountains and forests, seas and oceans, rivers and lakes, plains and deserts are teeming with knowledge of their Creator. Various forms of life, large and small, such as insects, plants, fish, birds and other animals throughout their existence, also testify to some imaginable Creative Source of Life. All the primeval nature seems to be pure and innocent compared to the environment created by man. Therefore, one can fully believe in God or understand His Work only on the basis of a thorough observation of nature. My friend, a priest-poet, thought that one could believe in God only by surprise, seeing what he had done.

Unfortunately, the observation of human civilization and history, and most of all the behavior of most people, leads to the conclusion that there is no God. Even admiring the genius work of the Creator, which is the human body, does not allow to refute this thesis. Therefore, at the moment of doubt, it is worth reaching out to the Bible to understand that the evil that obscures God concerns only the human personality. Knowing the Creator based on the perfection of nature would be, as my friend put it, "sure and true" if there were no doubts about the bad conduct of mankind.

The second, next to nature, a great source of knowledge about the First Cause can be a description of the world passed to us by physicists, from the smallest elementary particle to the most distant galaxies. And here you can also believe in the Creator from "surprise". Fortunately, the evil from human civilization is not able to obscure the genius of His work. In this form of faith, or rather knowledge, it is not necessary to prove His existence with verses from the Bible.

It is only in the third place that I place our faith on the basis of holy books written down by many very spiritual people, including, of course, the Bible. I do not deny that this form of knowing God is still the most popular today, although our times are conducive to the development of knowledge about nature and the great progress of science, especially that concerning the cosmos and the origins of the universe. But let us return to the question of how to derive knowledge from the Bible?

If we read a text, especially a text containing important messages, to understand it, we must know the language in which it was written. The better we know this language, all its nuances, the phraseology used in it, used figuratively, and above all its spirit, the better we understand the content contained in the text.  Sometimes this understanding is very difficult, especially when its creator uses many comparisons and rich symbolism, to understand which one must use the maximum of intelligence. Sometimes the content can be expressed in a specific slang understood only by people who are turning in a specific environment, and sometimes it is even encrypted with a complicated code that can only be known to specially prepared readers. This is how it is possible to understand the content contained in a given message only by those to whom it has been addressed and that no one else, especially the potential enemy, knows about its secrets.

I have given the above reasoning because I believe that we can understand the Bible when we use the maximum of our intelligence and intuition and when we find the code to decipher it. It was written for us by specially prepared for these authors in order to provide us with important knowledge. It is directed only to people - God's children - seeking the truth about their Father.

In describing Jesus' life in the Gospels, the apostles emphasize that he spent much time explaining to them the Scriptures now called the Old Testament. In the meantime, for hundreds of years before Jesus, the scribes explained to the Israelites the secrets of the books that existed at that time. Evidently, however, Jesus knew a code unknown to anyone before and explained the content of the Old Testament quite differently from the then scribes, which made him vulnerable to Israeli religious leaders, especially the Pharisees.

Undoubtedly, Jesus revealed to the apostles an important code or otherwise a kind of "key" to decipher the Old Testament. This later helped them and their successors prepare the content of the New Testament. An example of a lack of knowledge of this code may be Jesus' claim that no one at that time understood that these Jewish Scriptures speak precisely of Him. This is very important information. After hundreds of years of study of the contents of prophecy and the well-known Israelites of the Scriptures, the New Teacher, Jesus Christ, came and proclaimed to everyone what their proper meaning was. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, almost no one in the Israeli nation believed Him.

It is worth realizing the above fact these days. For two thousand years we have been reading the books of the Old and New Testaments and new interpretations are still being made. Older interpretations on the basis of which hundreds or even thousands of different Christian denominations arose are still presented. Meanwhile, new interpretations actively stimulate the emergence of new churches, associations and religious sects. Each of these denominations maintains that their interpretation of the Bible is the most appropriate, which leads to conflicts and even to wars.

I have no doubt that the Bible was written in good faith and to give us some important truth. I am almost certain that it was written by inspired people, although not everyone shares this view. Surely, the Bible has had a significant impact on human civilization and is probably the most important book in the history of mankind. That's why I am taking a voice in her case in my study.

If you do not accept that the Bible was written by inspired writers, it makes no sense to treat it as a source of religious truth, and especially as a book that presents important knowledge about the existence of God. Without inspiration from a good spiritual world and without taking into account the ubiquitous inspired symbolism of the facts described, it becomes only an extensive volume describing certain old events and in a biased, inaccurate and sometimes even incompatible with existing facts. The practical value of its content can be compared to the value of the parable which Jesus preached. They were most often symbolic, sometimes naive, and could even differ from other similar descriptions. We know, however, that it was not about them. For these were the inspired teachings of Jesus, hidden behind symbolic events. Since the apostle Teacher did it, it means that this approach to the Bible should be right.

If someone says that there are errors in the Bible, he should at least take into account the authority of Jesus. He is, as it were, a judge against what the Jewish people have prepared in the form of the Scriptures that make up the books of the Old Testament. In many places in the Gospels it is written that Jesus quoted these Scriptures. It has not been written, however, that He showed any errors in them. His explanation was rather a thorough analysis showing that these Scriptures were speaking about Him. It seems that the Old Testament texts were credible for Him and therefore He did not say anything about mistakes.

One can now ask the question, is the Bible a real message of knowledge from God?

I cannot answer this question directly. First and foremost, I believe that the Bible leads to the Truth (the one through the big "T"). Strictly speaking, the Bible is not the truth in itself, but the key and the way to know the Truth. Therefore, in my opinion, for the Israelites, the text of the Old Testament should also be the key and the way to know the Truth, the guide to recognize the Messiah in the person of Jesus. Meanwhile, the people to whom this book was addressed did not read the truth from it, neither by large nor by small "t". However, today you can certainly answer the question of what truth is according to the Bible. Jesus explained it when he said: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (John 16: 6). Therefore, the Truth by the large "T" is not a description or theory, but a concrete Person, Jesus Christ. He is the embodiment of the Word of God. I suppose that's why Christians use the word God's Word for naming Bible books.

That is why I say that the Bible is a book that leads to the Truth using all methods that refer to human intelligence. It does not deal with the presentation of the truth in itself, especially that of the small "t". It contains descriptions of events which did not have to take place at all, or those which we can get to know through different relations, unlike those of the Bible. Describes historical facts that looked completely different to other sources or could have no place at all. It presents words that have not necessarily spoken on specific or implied listeners. Today, we know these words only from the relationship and can sound very different to us than in the old days. Biblical descriptions of events, facts and words can be a form of informative lecture on how to distinguish good from evil or how to behave in everyday life. However, they do not necessarily have to have anything to do with actual events.

I therefore claim that this is a didactic book. Using various images, descriptions, metaphors or parables, it tries to teach us not only proper conduct, but something much more important. An example of this is the parable of the Good Samaritan narrated by Jesus. He wanted to define the concept of his neighbor through it and it does not matter if the described event took place at all. Jesus, as a teacher for the apostles, often used such didactic methods to make ordinary people understand difficult concepts. In a further intention, He wanted to make every recipient of His parable be guided by both love and wisdom resulting from logical thinking. This was one of the main goals of His teachings.

The above considerations lead to the conclusion that the Bible is an open book that billions of people will learn in their own way to know the Truth. The idea of essenceism presented here is trying to help them, above all applying logical thinking. Essenceism rejects the view that in the case of learning about God, one should not be guided by our human logic. This unauthorized claim is most often used to "brainwash" believers, which in turn leads to unnecessary fanaticism and inappropriate attitude towards other people. Uncritical adoption of dogmatic interpretations of biblical content also brings the above results. Meanwhile, through analytical and logical reasoning opens the way to understanding God in our own way, characterized by independence and originality. That's why the Bible exists.