In the past I have enjoyed the great works of the mighty authors as well as the spy craft of Tom Clancy and the mystery of Agatha Christie along with the imagined world of a Dune planet. Along with these I have loved the works of Shakespeare, the poetry of Auden, and the complexity of Dostoevsky. But I can also say I have loved the romance and intricate portrayals of people and places in the Merchant and Ivory films and the great histories re-imagined in such movies as Operation Mincemeat. We have so enjoyed the small releases such as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society along with period pieces such as Cranford. It is such a wonder to enter into a place and a plot with people you have never met until they become friends you cherish and fierce enemies you must battle. Such is just a small part of my love for books, for words printed on a page.
While it is certainly not literature in the same sense as these works, Scripture is writing with a compelling story, great characters, and a plot whose resolution awaits an unnamed day when the Savior shall open the clouds and return in His glory. There is something to be said about an appreciation of this. No, it does not mean that you treat the Scriptures as any other book or that you discount its story as something less than real history but it does mean that the words are more than merely a set of facts recounted or doctrines unfolding for information. The Bible is meant to engage the imagination. There is something wrong with our reading if we do not build in our minds the face of a Moses or a Peter the way we would imagine how a character in fiction looks. Movies can aid in this or they can disappoint us when they give faces to the people we have learned to know well that do not at all look like the images of our minds. Perhaps that is why so many Biblical movies seem to fall short -- they make small what the Bible makes grand and so they disappoint us with something that is less than what the words on the page actually say.
In the old TV world of Dragnet, Sergeant Friday is said to have opined, "Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts." I am told he never actually said it or did not say it in those words anyway. Could it be that we are disappointed by Scripture because we want to distill the book down to quotes or because the stereotype lingers longer in our imagination than its reality? Could it be that we have rendered the riches of the stories of the Bible into rather wooden accounts that not only lack in faithfulness to the Bible but make the authors and the Word whose words they are into something shallow and one dimensional? One of the things I have loved doing over the years is to use the stories of the Bible in catechesis -- telling the stories of Scripture and letting the details and the whole landscape of the prose unfold to both engage and inform. You cannot read the account of the Creation and Fall without being drawn into the story -- unless you are also dull and of single dimension. You cannot read the stories of Abraham and Sarah or David and his kingly history and family and fail to be drawn into their stories as spectator and even participant. Or, if you can, you have succeeded in turning God's divine drama into something pedestrian and bland. If that is the case, it is a shame indeed.
Children's Bibles can sometimes rob the urgent and intricate stories of the Bible of their wit and elegance by presenting them not simply briefly but in the most spartan of prose. Details matter. The details of the Bible stories matter. Preaching involves unpacking these stories in such a way that it does not devolve into mere truths postulated so that someone gives ascent to these proof-texted propositions drawn out of context and out of sequence. What a shame when that happens. A long time ago I got a Bible without verses or chapters and set in single column paragraph form. It remains my favorite way to read God's Word. It may not work for study but for the pure enjoyment of reading God's Word it cannot be matched. This format allows my imagination to work, creating faces to the characters and building scenery for the words of the Lord that are His works as well. I highly encourage it. The Bible I use is also a King James version, with an elegance of prose and poetry that too often seems lacking in modern versions that seek to explain God as well as give testimony to His voice. This has nothing to do with the downplaying of the truth of God's Word and everything to do with the engagement of the mind to assist that Word to make its home in our imagination as well as our hearts.
When it comes to the old books, those classics which not only feed our imagination with vibrant imagery, relatable characters, memorable dialogue, and descriptive settings, we do not only see what the writer saw when he penned his or her work, but we learn how delightful the right words can be used to tell a story. I like being pulled into a good book by an author who skillfully draws one into a time and place, and provides curious insights into the human condition. I don’t know the state of fiction today, because I tend to read the old books. But in a recent trip to the library, I skimmed a few contemporary autobiographies and non fiction, as well as fiction writings by various modern authors, noting that many used cuss words, and I suppose in their minds, they thought they were being contemporary. They believed that coarse vernacular is what people want to read today, since many folks use profanity with abandon, even so called educated academics. Out of respect for language and propriety, I dismiss these types of self serving writings immediately, and they go quickly back on the shelf. If a writer can’t produce a sentence without peppering it with salty language, I simply stop reading their work. These writers are not craftsmen. They abandoned the craft of good communication, effective expository writing, and reflect a disrespect for words. As for stories, it is true that the biblical record of the events and people of the Bible makes for excellent reading, and the themes of scripture have been used in many works. The Bible describes the human condition, denotes a beginning, middle, and resolution to the story of mankind. I have never found better prose and poetry anywhere as awesome as the Old and New Testaments, the Psalms, and Proverbs. The wisdom of the Bible is incomparable to any other works: God’s word for generations. There are many Christian works of fiction, like “Pilgrim’s Progress,” “Robinson Crusoe” and “ The Screwtape Letters,”. “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” etc, that are delightful reading. All of these contain themes which can be traced to the Bible. The fall and rise of humanity, redemption, and the promise of eternal life by the grace of God and thorough the sacrifice of Christ are woven within the pages, and it is wise to seek out these truths and embrace them.
ReplyDeleteSoli Deo Gloria