I am venturing to guess that very few theologically progressive Christians would say that all Bible passages are to be taken literally and viewed strictly as the inerrant and infallible word of God. Some Christians who are already experienced with scripture and those people reading the Bible for the first time may interpret all of what they read as literal concrete fact, ignoring literary nuances related to styles of ancient story telling, metaphor, symbolism, depth of meaning, etc.

My view of the Old and New Testaments, as they are commonly called, is that the many books comprising the Christian Bible are important works to be taken seriously and as a foundation to the Way of Jesus Christ as was taught by him as a fully human Divine Mediator two millennia ago. Centuries of history have passed upon Earth since that time. The ancients wrote the books to reflect how they experienced the presence of God in their lives at that period of history. There was an older culture back then when the books were written, in some ways the same as but in some ways different from today. In a manner similar to a figure-ground relationship, those ancient books speak mainly from the culture of those times.

As a person identifying as a Progressive Christian, I have not run across anything like a disclaimer in the preface or introduction section of a Bible. What I am referring to are sentences or paragraphs making guiding, qualifying or cautionary statements about how the Bible is — or is not — to be read. Perhaps, some may exist but I have not seen one.

Were I to write a personal disclaimer (others may write differently to reflect their own views), it might go something like the following:

A Note To The Reader

This non-apocryphal Christian Bible comprises a collection of 66 books written starting about three thousand years ago up until approximately the early part of the second century CE. The originally written manuscripts are essentially non-existent and what you read in the volume published here stems from numerous hand-copied parchments or papyri passed down through many generations until the era of the printing press allowed mass reproductions. The books have undergone myriad language and interpretive translations. We trust that the original words have been brought forward to retain a sense of history and meaning. We acknowledge that human error and bias may enter any domain of human endeavor.

As in any work of literature, the issue of interpretation either literally or figuratively presents itself. We advise the reader to have an appreciation for scholarly input aside from finding a personal meaning, spiritually gleaned, from reading the Bible’s pages. The books contained herein were selected centuries ago in a canonical fashion of human consensus regarding which of many books were worthy of selection. There are well-researched and quoted books of the apocrypha that deserve being read, perhaps to augment the meaning contained in the books of the biblical canon.

We hand down to you in printed and bound form (electronic copies also available) what has been passed on for many generations and centuries. This Bible is what it is. Take from it what you can and please look to Spiritual guidance in doing so.

In honor of and with thankfulness for our Creator God,
The Publishers

Written by Randall Wehler, 2017