Those Hard, I mean, not so hard sayings of the Bible

Visiting at the Christian Century blog -- Theolog -- I read Timothy Larsen's wonderful little piece on the "No-Longer-Hard Sayings of the Bible." Timothy reflects on our changing sense of what's offensive in the Bible, noting that 19th century Victorian atheists were disconcerted about the sexual nature of certain parts of Scripture -- you know the nakedness of Adam and Eve for instance. Or their disquiet at the Bible's refusal to endorse temperance -- too much wine-bibbing for them!

For many the whole idea that their are parts of scripture that should be seen as "hard" is highly questionable. What do you mean? Hard sayings. Surely their is an explanation. And of course over time that which is a problem does seem to change.

As Larsen, who teaches at Wheaton, notes:

Thinking about this, I found a copy of one of my teenage guides, The Hard Sayings of Jesus, by F. F. Bruce. Curiously, I had to read down the list of chosen passages past a good handful or so of entries before I came to one that struck my current self as particularly “hard.” Perhaps as we continue to face honestly parts of the Bible that trouble us, we should also occasionally take time to decommission a few passages that no longer do.