I’ve gotten a bunch of emails like this:

Are you a glutton for punishment?…because I suspect that your opining that it would be “fascinating if there was a significant new passage or passages added to the Bible” is going to drive your innerantist conservative fans nutty. Trust me, as a former Southern Baptist youth pastor (I’m techinically still ordained) there is no greater controversy than that of the infallibility of scripture. Every major evangelical viewpoint hinges on the opinion that the Bible is not open for further debate and certainly not more books. Or to put it in a better way, gay marriage is wrong…because the Bible says so. The death penalty is right…because the Bible says so. Drinking an ice cold, refreshing, delicious, brewed-oh-so-perfectly lager, on a hot summer day, with the sweat glistening off your forehead, while your laying out on a raft in a perfect-temp. pool is wrong…because the Bible says so.
Though my evangelical brethren should be elated at such news across the sea, my guess is that deep down it strikes fear into their hearts knowing that more revelation might be available. Could you just imagine the uprooar in the Christian community. Add another book? I think not! We’ll leave that to those apostate Catholics. Apocrypha? As if…
Anyway, I’d be anxious to see your inbox if Pat Robertson gets wind of this one.
(If you post, which I have no reason to see why you would, pretty-please put my name in bold, italicized letters so that I might feel significant.)
Justin Jones
Birmingham, AL

Me: Meanwhile, I’ve received no actual email complaining about my post just warnings that other people will take offense. I would hope that people at least understand I meant no disrespect to anyone. But I’m not going to hold out a view I don’t believe. I do not believe in a literal bible and I don’t see any reason — given my own views on such matters — I should claim otherwise. This isn’t to say I don’t believe the Bible contains divine truth, but that doesn’t mean I think interpretation plays no role or that the people who put the book together might have missed a couple pages somewhere. I don’t think the Koran is the exact word of God either, and while I may be more sympatico to American evangelicals on many political matters than I am to Muslims, I don’t see why I should pretend something I don’t believe for their sake and not for Muslims. Anyway, no offense intended to anybody.