Through the Bible, Week Three

Original Sin - The Other "Original Experience"

Genesis three is one of two "hinge" passages for the Biblical story.  Both hinges are a drama of man and woman around a tree.  The first protays the first Adam and Eve around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the fateful choice that is made there.  The second portrays the second Adam and Eve around the tree of Calvary, and the fateful choice that is made there.  All of human history turns on these two episodes, what has done, not done and what was undone there.

Genesis describes how the original unity and harmony established in creation is destroyed by the first man and woman's choice to reach outside of God's will for them, to cease trusting in the goodness and reliability of God towards them. At the end of chapter two we are told the man and woman were both naked and "not ashamed."  By chapter three, verse seven, the same couple is sewing fig leaves together to cover themselves.  What transpires to change "naked and unashamed" into "sewing fig leaves together and made themselves loinclothes?"  The drama of human history (not just the Bible - which is the meaning of human history) turns on this question.

Our first parents succumbed to a lie.   John Stott's analysis of the first temptation, leading to the first sin, is one of the best short anaylsis I have read (pp30-32).  In asking the insinuating leading question, "did God really say, 'you must not eat from any tree in the garden?'",   Stott explain that the devil in the form of the serpent opened a line of faulty reasoning that ultimately denied the truthfulness of God (actually God did not say what the devil suggests), denied the goodness of God (overlooking the broad permission the LORD already gave them - "you may eat from every tree of the garden") and denied the otherness of God ("you will be like God...").  They were already God-like, being the only image-bearers in creation.  

At the heart of original sin is denial: doubt leading to denying the goodness, truthfulness and otherness of God.   This is what separated our first parents from God, from one another and, eventually, from all of creation.  Genesis 4-11 will document this progressive social deterioration. 

If doubt and denial lead us out of relation with God then it is safe to suppose that trust in the goodness, truthfulness and otherness of God will lead us back in.  And this is what scripture teaches: we are made right with God through faith.   The way out is also the way back in.  The rest of the scriptures describe the process (grace on God's side and faith and repentance on our side) of bringing people estranged from God and one another into reconciliation with God and all of their original experience.  

As suggested at the beginning, we will be confronted again with a couple, a choice and the same God of goodness and truth.  Learning how to read Genesis three teaches us how to read the passion of Jesus.  And vice versa. 

What does Genesis three teach us about combatting temptation - and the temptor?

What might you do the next time you are tempted to think God is something other than entirely good and truthful to you?

Through the Bible, Week 2 - part 2

After a string of "it was good" and one "very good" God mentions something that is "not good."  Man is alone.  OF all the animals which he has named, not one is capable of entering into communion with him.  Man in the "image of God" is made for communion, for deep abiding friendship and companionship.  So the Lord God decides to make a companion, a friend, a soul-mate for Adam (which literally means "earthling").

In this creative act, like the creation of man in chapter one, the Lord God does not merely "speak" woman into existence but rather "forms", "shapes," and "constructs" her out of the very side and substance of the man.  The terms used for this procedure have architectural overtones. So they will find shelter in one another.

The first recorded words of the man are spoken after the creation of woman, and they are in verse, a naming poem in which each of the two lines begins with the feminine indicative pronoun "this one" and is also the last Hebrew word of the poem, forming a tight bookend structure:
This one at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh
This one shall be called woman for from man was this one taken.

Man speaks when he has someone who can answer.  Language's original purpose was to serve this communion of persons.

Pope John Paul II has written masterfully on this passage.  He reminds us that before "original sin" (narrated in Genesis three) there were three other and even more "original" experiences:
1) Original solitude - humans are unique "image-bearers" and stand apart from the rest of creation in their capacity for self-consciousness and communion with God
2) Original unity - human relatedness and communion is inscribed in the body as male and female.  This is portrayed in Genesis 2 through the story of Adam's Sleep, Adam's Rib, and Adam's Song.
3) Original nakedness -  is original solitude and unity as they appear in the body, making visible the person through the body.  The body is the sacrament of the person, the transparent connection between the body and love.

One commentator captures these insights this way:  "Adam recognizes that Eve shares his human nature, yet it is embodied in a different way.  This sexual complementarity of the man and woman - their bodily differences within a common nature - reveals their call to relationship.  In fact, their sexual differentiation is what enable them to become a mutual gift of self to one another.  Their bodies' natural aptitude for union is the visible reflection of their interior capacity to form a communion of persons."  Mary Healy, Men and Women are from Eden, p. 24.

Toward the end of his life and a few years after the death of his beloved wife, Mark Twain wrote his most overtly theological and contemplative work, Eve's Diary.  The voice is Eve's, narrating life outside of the garden of Eden.  She dies.  Then Adam's voice appears, as he puts the finishing touches on his wife's manuscript.  He finishes her account of life outside the garden with these words:  Wherever she was, there was Eden.  

Mark Twain understood Genesis two quite well.

Through the Bible, Week Two

Creation and Humanity

This discussion will take two or more posts.   As we saw last week, Genesis One is more about the Creator than creation.  It is a monotheistic polemic that places all things- in six sequential days of creative activity - under the order of God's loving will.  At the apex of this order stands the creation of humanity, on the sixth day.  The pagan world which surrounded Israel would often make idols of the objects created in days one through five, which according to this picture of reality is an inversion of superiority.  Humanity is the only divine 'image-bearer" in creation and thus the only object worthy of sacred recognition (but not worship).

Genesis Two is an alternate account of creation which expands substantially on the sixth day of creation, the creation of humanity as male and female.  Whereas Genesis one portrays the creation of male and female as a fiat, simultaneous and fully equal, Genesis two elaborates on this act of creation.  There is great scholarly energy exercised over the differences between Genesis one and two which places much emphasis on the differences.  These differences are usually attributed to different sources and authorial intent.  Though the differences are surely there and not to be flattened out, it is also important to see that they belong together as complementary visions of creation.  Genesis one portrays creation from a vertical, transcendent perspective.  The primary actor is "Elohim" the high, transcendent God of the Hebrews.  Genesis two is from a horizontal,  immanent perspective.  "Yahweh" the LORD, is the primary actor.  Genesis one is the work of the ultimate God.  Genesis two is the work of the intimate God.  Creation and the character of God are too rich and multi-dimensional to be captured in one perspective.  So the first act of the Bible - creation and especially the creation of humanity - is repeated with variation. 

Repeated with variation is a key literary device of the Bible.  And this repitition works both at the macro-level and micro-level.  I will briefly illustrate

1.  Macro-level:  The history of Israel is told in the primary history of Genesis through 2 Kings.  It is then repeated with variation in Chronicles, a secondary history with its own unique perspective and purpose.  One detects the same repeating of primary history in the New Testament.  John's Gospel is a repeat with variation  of the primary history of Jesus in Matthew, Mark and Luke ( and these three comprise a common perspective with variation, thus known as the "synoptic" - similiar view - Gospels).

2. Micro-level: We have three sister-bride stories in Genesis, two are about Abraham and Sarah and one is about Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 12, 20 and 26, respectively).  The repetition is a way of underscoring emphasis and importance, making sure the reader gets the lesson of the narrative.  The variation, though, signifies nuance and meaning of its own.

 What we have is another "rule for reading" the Bible.   Repitition with variation is one of the Bible's signals, teaching us what is important to the Bible.  It is a way of developing the plot and the characters within the plot.  It is a primary way the Bible suggest there is a surplus of meaning in the Biblical story, one that cannot be captured in one perspective.  And differences in those perspectives are not to intimidate us but rather serve to invite us into the kind of relationship with God that demands our fullest attention and our deepest commitments in order to participate in the purposes for which the Bible was written.

Through the Bible, Week One

The Creator and Creation

Genesis One is more about the Creator than the creation.  When read against its original background of Ancient Near Eastern creation myths, Genesis 1 comes across as a poetic monotheistic polemic - something that could have been memorized and sung in the liturgy.  Using the world- picture of the ancient world ("let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters....let the waters be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"), it simultaneously and fundamentally shatters its world-view (the underlying vision of reality).  The sun, moon and stars are no longer seen as deities but now are parts of the one God's creation.  Indeed, the only object that shares the divine nature ("in our image") are humans, who now stand at the apex of creation.  The objects of worship in the ancient world - astral objects and animals - are actually below man in the view of reality portrayed here.  The subliminal message of Genesis one would be, "why would you bow down to something beneath you?"

Stott expresses my sense of this opening chapter: "From this crude polytheism it is a relief to turn to the ethical monotheism of Genesis 1."

Let us consider the implications of this radical breakthrough into the nature of Reality.  What does it mean to live in a world that is a product of God's free will and love (He did not make us out of necessity nor constraint) as opposed to a world that is produced from the body of a deceased god, the product of a divine battle amongst the gods, which was the basis of all the ancient creation myths.  The Bible grounds all of reality - all that is - in the overflowing love life of the Trinity.

I suggest three important implications - or matters to discuss - for our lives of discipleship:

1) Creation is a gift, not a given.  As gift, our relation to it is one of stewardship.  There is a built-in ecology in our relationship to the world.  Just as our society has developed an ecology for trees, for example, there is a deeper ecology of persons.   The gift-ness of persons places limits on our behavior, our speech toward them.  Stott wisely references James 3:7-12 in his discussion of persons as God's image-bearers.  He writes: "The sanctity of human life arises from the value of God's image bearers (9:6).  Human beings are god-like beings. They deserve to be loved and served."

2) Since creation is not a necessity, there is freedom.

3) The appropriate response to gift (and freedom) is wonder and gratitude.

Genesis three will document what occurs when wonder and gratitude, and the trust underlying them, are lost.  Paul comments on this theme in Romans one, "for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened."  We anticipate Genesis three and its aftermath in these themes.  These early chapters teach us how to read all that follow......

What do you think?

Through the Bible, General Introduction

Rules for Reading........

The best way to read the Bible is to begin reading it with other Christians, living and dead (thus we are inviting Brother John into our conversation).  Reading the Bible with the Church - both militant and triumphant - is one of the best ways I know to practice the Communion of Saints and to acquire the mind of Christ.  But only if the conversation leads to further conversion and transformed conduct.  Reading simply for information or to win arguments is dangerous.  This blog class on the Bible will encourage a life & death, close to the bone, holy conversation around the Word of God to guide our walk ("your word is lamp to my feet and a light to my path" Psalm 119:105).  As we are led into the light, the word of God should turn vicious lives into virtuous lives.  The only thing worse than a vicious person is a vicious religious person.  And what kind of religious person you become largely depends on how you learn to read and live this holy book.

As we read the Bible I encourage to us learn new ways of thinking, to have our minds transformed.  We will engage concepts, even literature, that is foreign to most of us.  Barth called the Bible "that strange new world."  And it is.  There is a constant temptation to domesticate the word of God into  "concepts and ideas" which we then defend as if our constructions are God's instructions. There is nothing wrong with describing a kiss, unless of course, you think you have been kissed once you've described it.  I will encourage us to let the word of God be sovereign in our thinking, even by giving us the rules by which it is to be read.  There should be an encounter and not merely an essay as a result of our reading.  Close textual and allusive reading (comparing scripture to scripture across the entire grand pageant of redemption) will assist us in such an encounter of the living God.

John Stott was one of the great modern teachers of the Bible.  And this guide book, which he wrote in the last decade of his life, is one of my Stott favorites.  It represents the fruit of a life-time of Bible reading and study.  His mind was shaped by the grammar of scripture.  This becomes apparent in his treatement of the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which functions as a theological introduction to the whole Bible.  Stott spends the first four weeks of the guide discussing these 11 chapters, a disportionate amount of attention to such few chapters given the size of scripture.  I believe he does so because he understands these chapters are foundational to all that follows.  You will note he skirts the misguided creationist debates (a classic category mistake for NA Christians); his instincts are wise.  

I think of Genesis 1-11 as the grammar for reading the poem which is the Bible, a theological storied primer for all that follows.  I will introduce just three rules for reading which these chapters introduce, and in some measure, begin to develop.

#1 - Type scenes - repeat events across scattered intervals in the biblical narrative.  These doubling and tripling of events is seen in modern times as bad editing of source material, but in the ancient ways of reading these scenes were known as "the deeds of the father are a sign for the sons".    We see this rule in Cain repeating Adam's avoidance of responsibility to the other ("am I my brother's keeper").  We will see this in the way Abraham's sons repeat their father's marital infidelities.  The various nuptial type scenes are crucial for understanding the message of scripture.  By the time we reach the New Testament, we will be ready for a righteous husband.  This is just one of several type scenes we will encounter as we read.  However, I think nuptial type scenes to be one of the most important.

#2 - Character Types - usually contrast characters within a narrative such as Cain (farmer) and Abel (shepherd), or Cain (older brother) and Abel (younger brother).  Much of the tension and energy in the biblical narrative sparks off of these particular contrasts: younger vs. older brother, shepherd vs. farmer.  Pay attention to which of these pairs tend to be favored by God.  Hint:  Abraham, Moses and David were all shepherds or became shepherds.  But not all were younger brothers.......Jesus was the good shepherd, but was not a younger brother.  Yet he went to the far country to find us younger brothers, in contrast to most of the older brothers of scripture.  Jesus is establishing a different sibling relationship for his new family...  Keep your eye on that dynamic as we read the Bible through the year.  

#3 - Key words/phrase repetition - usually create a kind of technical language for the expression of precise generalized concepts.  There are two basic words and word phrases which are introduced in Genesis 1-2 and are crucial to understand correctly.  The word God in our English translations renders the hebrew plural noun "Elohim."  Since it is accompanied by a singular verb, we translated the word "God" rather than "gods".  Grammarians call this a plural of plentitude (a foreshadowing of the Trinity).   But another important (and often overlooked) feature of this word is that in the polytheistic culture out of which the word arose (and the world out of which the biblical characters are being converted), it often signified the "high" or "ultimate" God that a people would imagine to be beyond reach or to be reached through intermediaries, like lesser, tribal gods.   The other important word for deity in the OT is "YHWH" which is rendered LORD (in all capitals to differentiate it from "Lord" which is yet another word in Hebrew) in English.  LORD is not a generic word or title but is the personal name for God, his name given to those with whom God enters into a covenant relationship.  If "God" is the ultimate deity, then "YHWH" is the personal, intimate deity. 

Part of the tension of the biblical narrative derives from the characters' lack of recognition that these two are the same God (Jacob reveals this misunderstanding at Bethel, Genesis 28:21).  The monotheism of the Bible is hard-earned and does not come all of a sudden nor is it easily kept once it is achieved.  The pull of polytheism is constant in the story of Israel, as is the pull of sectarianism (Israel often forgets it was blessed to be a blessing not just to recieve a blessing).    The Biblical God is both ultimate and intimate, both high and low, both transcendent and immanent.   Today we are not tempted by polytheism as OT believers were, but the pull of idolatry remains strong and the lure of false gods abides as does the false assurances of sectarianism.  Pay particular attention to the phrase "the LORD God" or the two words in close proximate, when it appears.  Note the context and try to understand what is happening in the imagination of the OT believer.  The phrase, fully understood, represents a transformation of the imagination and a conversion of the heart - indeed, as Paul said of those in Christ - "a new creation."  The narrator uses it often, but he knows what it means.  As do the psalmists.  Usually.  

Future post won't nearly be this long.   Tomorrow I will write a brief blog with some discussion questions.

Through the Bible

Beginning on September first we will be reading through the Bible together.  John Stott's Through the Bible will be our common guide.  At the beginning of each week I will post a commentary and questions to start off our weekly conversations around the Word of God.  Sometimes I will directly engage Stott.  Other times I will bring other reading to bear.  But the focus will be on the actual words of Scripture and it's guidance for our common discipleship to Jesus.

As I come to the Bible again this year with a desire to hear the Lord's guidance and direction I do so with a couple of overarching queries:

1) How does the Lord effectively exercise his authority in our lives?  How, in others words, does his "kingdom come on earth as it is heaven?". How does the Bible narrate his regency?  What does it look like on earth when His reign is acknowledged by His creation?

2) There are two parts to the question above: How does God exercise his authority and how do we acknowledge and respond to it?  It seems to me there is a dilemma in the heart of God which scripture invites us into: God has all power but what He really wants cannot be forced.  How does God convert us (our unruly wills and our wayward hearts) to the joining of His purpose to heal the world, to establishing his kingdom on earth as it is heaven?  So we must look at our interactions with The Lord God, how He exercises his sovereignty - a sovereignty that comes to its fullest and truest expression in Jesus enthronement on Calvary.