The author William Faulkner once said, “Facts and truth
really don’t have much to do with each other.”
His comment reminds us that, while our favorite stories might be based
on actual events, they are often manipulated in retrospect with moments added
or omitted to deepen the meaning or the moral.
Some stories of the Bible are like this.
Archeological evidence, things like pottery samples and settlement
studies, suggests that the great exodus from Egypt to the promised land of
Israel may have more of a trickle over years than a massive wave. While there may have been historical kings
like David and Solomon, there is little evidence that they were as powerful as
the Bible suggests. Even the book of
Acts, with its stories of people falling dead at the feet of the disciples
feels exaggerated for effect. And yet
there is a truth behind and within these stories, a reflection about hope for
who God is and how God has made us.
One of
the biggest barriers to faith I have encountered is the assumption that to be a
Christian one must take the Bible to be 100% historically accurate, despite
evidence to the contrary. A college professor
of mine who was not a big fan of religion spoke of the need for Christians to
“check their brains at the church door.”
This was frustrating because I grew up with a faith that welcomed
questions and encouraged exploration.
Later, in seminary, I was trained to seek the deeper truths behind the
text, no longer asking, “Did this happen?” but the more ancient question, “What
does this mean?”
In
Lutheran circles, especially more conservative Lutheran circles, this attitude
will be argued against by noting that Martin Luther was a literalist. While this statement does not tell the whole
story of Luther’s relationship with the Bible, it is true that Luther treated
the text as historical fact, that the events happened as the Bible testifies.
However,
there are two kinds of literalism, sometimes divided into cultural literalism
and intentional literalism. Cultural
literalism existed for the first sixteen centuries or so of the church. In that time, although there might be a few who
raised questions, there was very little evidence in conflict with the biblical
world view. The earth was flat. The sun traveled across the sky. There could well have been a flood of water
that covered the entirety of the earth.
Humanity may well have started with two people in a sacred garden. There was also no concept of genetics; most
people assumed that everything needed for the next generations was found in the
male “seed.” There was no concept of
geology; the possibility that the world might be millions of years old instead
of a few thousand. There was a small
sense of astronomy, but no one had ever seen the Earth from outer space or
flown through the sky where the curvature of the planet becomes clear.
But
even as the Reformation was spreading across Europe, Nicholas Copernicus was
writing On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, a book that would
challenge the earth-centered view of the universe, calling into question one of
the basic assumptions of the biblical creation stories. Within a few centuries, as the influence of
the scientific method increased, even more of the biblical world-view would come
under scrutiny. This leads to the other
kind of literalism, intentional literalism.
Literalism of this form is an acceptance of the biblical narrative and
world-view in spite of evidence to the
contrary. At an extreme, this view has
created a small group of “Flat-Earthers.”
More commonly, it creates conflict around things like the age of the
earth, creation and evolution.
What is
at stake is something deeper. It is the
idea that if one part of the Bible is not accurate, then the whole book can be
called into question, most importantly including the stories of Jesus. If the biblical stories of the creation and
the flood and the exodus are not factual, then what of the healings and walking
on water and resurrection?
As
someone who is not a literalist, I do not have an easy answer other than going
back to the ancient question mentioned before, “What does this mean?” I cannot prove that any of the Bible is
factual, but I would assert that the Bible is true. The texts have something to say to us today;
good news and challenges; promises and life.
The Bible does not ask us to prove that the creation or the exodus or
the resurrection happened. Instead, the
Bible challenges to live as though they happened, to live as though we had been
created by a loving God; to live as though we had been set free; to live as
though we had been raised. In this
lifetime, we can never prove that these stories are factual, but we can live
knowing that they are true.
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