Not Easy Being Green

Understanding the natural habitat of the Bible

02/24/2025

Mark 9:14-29 As Jesus came down from the mountain with Peter, James, John…Someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I have brought to you my son possessed by a mute spirit. Wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive it out, but they were unable to do so.” Then he questioned his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” He replied, “Since childhood. It has often thrown him into fire and into water to kill him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus, on seeing a crowd rapidly gathering, rebuked the unclean spirit and said to it, “Mute and deaf spirit, I command you: come out of him and never enter him again!” But Jesus took him by the hand, raised him, and he stood up. When he entered the house, his disciples asked him in private, “Why could we not drive the spirit out?” He said to them, “This kind can only come out through prayer.”

I love to study Scripture, but there is a danger of delving too deep. It can be compared to dissecting a frog in biology class. Did you ever do that back in high school? You may have loved looking at frogs in nature, jumping from lilly-pad to lilly-pad, maybe even sang along with Kermit the Frog, “It’s not easy being green.” Heck, you may have even eaten frog-legs.

But once you lay Kermit flat and spread-eagle on the dissecting table, and start to peel back skin and muscle, and probe his poor organs, you can never look at Kermit the Frog the same again. A little of the mystery and magic is lost, namely, frogness. When you treat Kermit as an object of scientific study, then it is definitely “not easy being green.”

The same experience of losing the mystery can happen when we treat Sacred Scripture as an object of study rather than a book of faith. For example, the last line of today’s gospel, Mk 9:29, reads: “Jesus said to them, ‘This kind can only come out through prayer’.” But most Bibles will have an asterisk at that verse, and explain, “A variant reading adds, ‘And through fasting’.”

Wait a minute, so which is the correct version of Mk 9:29: adding “and through fasting” or omitting “and through fasting”? But as soon as you ask that question of which version is correct, you have taken the Bible out of its natural habitat of the liturgy (being proclaimed at Mass) and placed it like poor Kermit on the dissecting table of scientific study.

You no longer gaze at the Bible full of mystery and magic (in the good sense) through the eyes of faith. But rather start pulling it apart and probing its innards, peering at it through a microscope. This more scientific study of Scripture has great value, of course, but also has an inherent danger, namely, we may lose our faith. This modern, scientific approach to Bible study is called the historical-critical method, and it is widely used and very popular.

And the branch of this tree that examines a verse like Mk 9:29 to answer which version of this verse is more original or authentic is called text criticism, or textual criticism. You see, the problem text critics grapple with is that there are no extant original copies of the 73 books of the Bible. What currently exist in museums and libraries (like the Vatican Library) are copies of copies of copies.

And not all copies agree or have the same verses. For example, some old copies have a longer ending for the gospel of Mark, others have a shorter ending. Some old copies have the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8, other old copies omit it from John altogether. But if we don’t have an original set of the 73 books of the Bible, how do we know which oldest copies are inspired, and therefore to be trusted?

But do you see what is happening now? We have examined the poor Bible spread-eagle on the dissecting table, like we did with poor Kermit, and now we want to put it all back together again and return it to its natural habitat of the liturgy, and ask, “Which version of the Bible can we trust?” Practicioners of the historical-critical method might answer, paraphrasing Tina Turner, “What’s trust got to do, got to do with it?”

It is tantamount to declawing a cat and then putting it back out on the street to fend for itself; it will not survive. That is the danger of delving too deep with such scientific study. But to answer your question about which version of Mk 9:29 (with or without the phrase “and through fasting”) is correct and we should use, we rely on the Church to tell us which version is the inspired text.

And the Church, in its turn, relies on the repeated and traditional use of a text in the liturgy to determine which version is inspired. In other words, it is because the Church has used the shorter version of Mk 9:29, without the phrase “and through fasting” in the liturgy at Mass over two millennia that we feel confident that this is the authentic and accurate, and oldest, version of that verse.

When a Scripture passage thrives in its natural habitat of the liturgy – like when Kermit thrives in his natural habitat jumping on lilly-pads, and trying to eat flies, and not trying to date a pig – that we regain the mystery and properly-speaking the magic of Sacred Scripture. But when we only treat Scripture like a sterile object of scientific study, although such study may have ancillary benefits, it loses its original purpose and splendor. And the Bible, too, may sing Kermit’s melancholy melody, “It’s not easy being green.”

Praised be Jesus Christ!