Wrestling with Angels
Defending Scripture. Literally.
Defending Scripture. Literally.
I attended a Christian university in the long ago days of acid wash denim and Commodore 64s. One of my classmates, Ken Jacobsen, had a gift for impersonation. He was renowned for his imitation of Bono on the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For." "I have spoke with the tongue of angels," he'd croon when he got to the fourth verse. "I have held the hand of a devil." But then he'd alter the lyric and sing, "N-o-t literally. It's only a metaphor." That always got a huge laugh.
It's been decades, but I still remember the joke. I realize now it was humorous not only for its inherent silliness, but also for the way it held up a mirror to something funny about ourselves.
Most of us were earnest, sincere evangelicals. We weren't biblical studies majors, but we saw the defense of the Bible as our sworn duty. Against the onslaught of those who sought to undermine Scripture's authority, we committed ourselves to upholding it as the reliable Word of God.
One of the unintended side effects of our fervor was that we took almost everything literally, at least in spiritual matters. Generally, we weren't very good with oblique metaphors and analogies. And if, like Bono, you talked about spiritual things in a seemingly unorthodox way, well, we worried.
There was much that was good about our impulses, and maybe they were necessary in a time when the "battle for the Bible" was raging. But for me, and, I suspect, others like me, our "literalist" convictions left us confused in significant ways—not only about song lyrics, but, much more tragically, about Scripture itself.
All these years later, I'm learning that understanding the literal meaning of the Bible is a more nuanced adventure than my college friends and I imagined. We'd been blithely unaware that there is more than one genre in the Bible, or that literary context profoundly matters to meaning. We didn't understand that when we read ancient Hebrew prose poems (like Genesis 1), wisdom literature (like Proverbs), or apocalyptic literature (like Revelation) as if they were science textbooks, we were actually obscuring their meaning.
For me, the most negative consequence of all that well-intentioned literalism was the conviction that Yahweh, having given us his straightforward Word, was completely comprehensible. This paradigm both diminished my perception of God and set up my faith for crisis when I discovered aspects of God that remain stubbornly shrouded in mystery.
If you'd told me back then that the language we have for God—even (especially) much of our biblical language—must be understood analogically, I would have prayed for you and backed away slowly. I wouldn't have understood that there are no words that can be applied to God exactly the same way they are applied to creaturely things, no language that can be used "univocally."
When I say that I am "alive" and God is "alive," the word "alive" is analogical, not univocal—it does not apply to me (a temporal creature) the same way it applies to God (who is eternal). The same goes for words like "good" or "powerful." Connotations of imperfection or limitation must be deleted from any word when it is applied to God, and the notions (as best as we can conceive them) of total perfection and completion must be added.
Understanding this sooner would have helped me with biblical descriptions of God's "wrath." I can only get a glimmer of what God's wrath looks like when I divest the word of the human implications of self-centered, reactionary anger, and condition it with the unchanging goodness that must clarify all of God's attributes. Or take the word "Father." The claim that God is our heavenly "Father" can ultimately mean something wonderful, even to my friends who had terrible human dads, because the word is not used univocally when it's applied to God.
Wrestling with Angels
Carolyn Arends
Singer/songwriter and author Carolyn Arends has written and released 9 albums and penned 2 books, including Wrestling With Angels (Harvest House/Conversantlife.com). She is a regular reviewer for Christianity Today Movies and a list of her blogs can be found at CarolynArends.com. Her bimonthly "Wrestling With Angels" column has appeared in Christianity Today since 2008.
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Daniel Hartshorn
I just found this. Fascinating! "Most Ancient Hebrew Biblical Inscription Deciphered, Scholar Says" "The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time." English translaton of the deciphered text: 1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord]. 2' Judge the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an] 3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and] 4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king. 5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger. Take that you so-called OT scholars who sneer at an early dating of the OT.
Duane D Watts
My Theologian friend may be right that Genesis 1 and 2 are not science text, but that leaves us with a vacuum. In this vacuum steps scientists, the offspring of fallen man in a fallen creation, and we are to buy into their creation myth because they have scientific evidence. Their version is replacement theology for our "creation myth" (which by the way DOES subject us to natural theology). But the real reason for my comment was to beg, BEG someone to answer what the LORD wishes us to glean from this: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept; and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh thereof, and the rib which the LORD God had taken from man, made He a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said "this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man". I implore you oh learned ones, cipher to me the meaning of this vision.
Glen Waugh
... the Word of truth, coming as it does, as a whole, from one and the same Divine Author, is its own context. That is to say, a particular passage is to be regarded not only in the relation it bears to its own ... context; but, in the relation which it bears to the Word of God as a whole. It may not be intended to teach science, chronology, or history ... but, everything that it records will be in perfect harmony with whatever is true of any or all of these. Scientia means knowledge, and nothing in Scripture will be found to contradict what we really know, which is true science. Much that goes by the name of "science" is only hypothesis; and, in much more, supposition is so mixed up with knowledge that the result is vitiated. All must be brought to the bar of the Divine Word. That Word as a whole is the context for its every part. All that is outside the two covers of the Word of God must be judged by what is within. We must not reverse this process. (E.W. Bullinger)
Roger McKinney
Compare interpretations of Genesis 1 with interpretations of Christ's resurrection. How would scientists handle the resurrection using nothing but knowledge we have today of the natural sciences? They would say resurrection is impossible because it violates the laws of physics and biology. Therefore Jesus must not have actually died and his recovery took longer than 3 days, probably months. The only reason we know about the resurrection is the eye witness accounts. The only way we can know about the creation is through an eye witness account, but God is the only witness. Science cannot prove or disprove a miracle because miracles by definition violate physics. So if the creation was a miracle that took six day, then physics would lead us astray and convince us it was not a miracle. Science can tell us nothing about miracles.
Roger McKinney
Mike, no I don't think Genesis 1 is a scientific account of creation. The commonly understood definition of science limits the word to the natural sciences. Of course Moses did not know modern natural science. Creation was a miracle. Science can tell us nothing about miracles because by definition miracles violate the laws of physics as we know them. But Genesis one is an accurate historical account of creation. Get a book on hermeneutics and see if you can force "evening and morning" to mean anything other than a 24-hour day using Aristotle's principles.