In a recent debate about religion I heard a man declare something along the lines of: “Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Bible is the Word made text. At times there appears to be tension. For example the constant conflation of the ultimate revelation of God in Christ and God’s textual revelations in the Old Testament inevitable raises the Old Testament to a level of ultimacy of which it cannot deliver.” Unfortunately he was cut off and wasn’t able to continue his thoughts further. However these short lines struck me as thought provoking… if not contentious. It has given me much to think on and I hope to blog about the subject more down the road. For starters I think we need to distinguish between the Bible’s descriptive accounts of God’s interactions with humanity and God’s prescriptive commands to us in regards to our relation to each other.  Moreover I’m grateful Jesus, as the ultimate revelation of God, has been given to the world to both criticize and condemn how the Bible, particularly the O.T., has been misused by many to oppress and persecute many people–in the name of God.