The reduction in the Nov. 19 front-page article “At the Museum of the Bible, first public visitors walk between the covers” of the Bible to the book “at the center of three religions and two millennia of conflict,” while tightly constructed prose, was unfair to readers of faith and to history.
The Bible is the center of three religions, but how does one miss the centrality of the Bible to the moral foundations of our civilization and reduce it solely to a source of conflict? Historian Paul Johnson described the impact of the second half of the Bible when he suggested “the salient virtues of the message Jesus conveyed . . . percolated through society, leaving precious traces of love and neighborliness, mercy and forgiveness, courage in suffering and faith in goodness.”
Or, sticking to the “center of three religions” theme, author Bruce Feiler describedan interfaith conversation in which the participants realized “they needed a foundation that all three traditions revered equally, that embodied the monotheistic ideals of faith in God and righteous behavior toward humanity, and that existed before the religions themselves existed.” They found that in the Abraham of the Bible. There are any number of things that divide society, precious few that unite us. The Post should leave room for them.
Read more at The significance of the Bible goes beyond conflict.
