What is True? The Bible is literary
Reading the Bible like we read other literature can help assuage fears that it’s not reliable
Growing up, I was taught in Sunday School that God created the earth and everything on it in six literal days (the seminary term would be “young-earth creationism,” which I know because I was raised by two seminary graduates, who indeed threw around such terms in conversation). Over time, I learned the scientific evidence for a much older earth, which I find compelling, but it didn’t really bother me.
But I’ve heard from multiple people who were raised evangelical that they were afraid to start questioning what they’d been taught. “If the earth wasn’t actually created in six 24-hour days,” for example, “what else do I believe that might not be true?”
It’s reasonable to ask. After all, those who believe the Bible is true, as I do, don’t get to choose which parts we believe and which we don’t.
That’s where the title of this article comes in. Note that I’m not asking, as Pontius Pilate once famously did, “What is truth?” I believe that God inspired the Bible to be written so that he could tell us the truth about himself (seminary term: specific revelation). Rather, I’m asserting that because the Bible is a collection of books, written by different authors for different purposes, we should approach each one as we would any literary work, with respect for its genre and what its author was trying to say.
To Christian readers: I want to show you that many types of writing are “true” without being literal or complete, so that you can have permission to let go of some literal readings. We aren’t trying to justify any techniques in the Bible that we don’t also justify for other writing already.
To readers who aren’t Christians: I admit that I wrote this article mostly to refer back to in future posts, so it might not do much for you. But if you read it, I hope it will give you insight into how Christians understand seemingly strange statements in the Bible.
Literary Devices
One of my favorite poems is “Fog,” by Carl Sandburg. I first read it on a poster in elementary school, part of a series in which each illustrated a different poetic technique. You can probably guess that this poster was titled Metaphor.
As a child, I asked, “What’s a metaphor?” (Insert your favorite punny joke here.) But we could ask a different question: Is the poem true?
It’s a beautiful description that certainly evokes an image. It’s accurate in a way, but obviously not a scientific explanation. No one minds, though, because we weren’t expecting poetry to explain.
Similarly, the book of Genesis uses multiple literary devices to describe creation, but its purpose is stated right there in the first sentence: “God created the heavens and the earth.” That’s the thesis statement, the point the first few chapters are trying to make.
The text then describes six phases of creation, using the terms evening, morning, and day. God first creates separation: light from dark, sky from water, land from sea. Next, he populates each of those places: sun and moon, birds and fish, animals and people, who rule over all domains. (Thanks to my mom for pointing out that parallel.) Finally, he rests, so as to appreciate his work.
The description also raises a few questions. For example, scientifically, how could light and dark exist without the earth rotating and revolving around the sun? I imagine asking that and the author of Genesis 1 looking at me as if I’d just asked Carl Sandburg how a cloud can have haunches. That’s not the point.
While an all-powerful God could have created everything in 144 hours, Genesis 1 doesn’t invalidate a longer creation or an old earth, nor does recognizing its literary language mean that it’s not true or that we’re trying to read an agenda into it. It’s true either way.
Phenomenological Language
Can you picture someone saying, “Wow, look at that beautiful refraction of sunlight through the atmosphere at an angle caused by the rotation of the earth”? Of course not! We just say, “Wow, look at that beautiful sunset.” Although we know that Earth is a spheroid in space, rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun, “sunset” is a simple shorthand that tells us what we need to know.
“Sunset” is an example of “phenomenological language,” meaning it describes how things appear to us, not necessarily how they actually are. And no, that was not a term I heard as a kid; I learned it from this post, the first in a series that demonstrates that even within the Bible, people had to reconfigure their understanding of Scripture when they learned new information.
Copernicus’s observation that Earth moves around the sun was initially greeted as heresy, because Bible verses such as these in Psalms and Ecclesiastes seem to confirm the opposite. Before Copernicus, it did no harm to interpret those verses literally. But when shown contradictory evidence, Christians clung too tightly to their understanding of what the Bible said, rather than asking, “Is there a different way to interpret those passages?”
There’s no reason we should be quick to throw away past wisdom, but we should always remain open to the possibility that new information means we need to change our interpretation of what the Bible says.
Simplifying Explanations
Most parents have faced the dreaded question, “Where do babies come from?” Like many, I’ve explained at one time or another that my kids grew in mommy’s tummy. Hopefully it went better for you than it did for this mom:
Thankfully, most little kids are happy to accept the explanation that moms with a growing belly have a baby inside that will eventually come out.
We simplify the explanations we give our kids for many reasons. Maybe we’re short on time, but more likely, the kids aren’t ready for the full answer, either because they wouldn’t understand it, or because it might be irrelevant to what they actually want to know…
It’s not wrong or a lie to tell your kid they grew in mommy’s tummy, but it’s definitely an oversimplification. And if we’re indeed God’s children, well, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sometimes needed to give us the truth that was sufficient, instead of barraging us with details that weren’t important to the story.
In keeping with the Genesis example, consider the creation of the stars. “God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,” says verse 17. He certainly knew he wasn’t literally picking up stars and setting them on shelves, but that was a close-enough explanation for his purpose, which was to assure us that he made the stars and knows what he’s doing with them.
Fear Not
Human brains go to great lengths to avoid cognitive dissonance and to avoid being rejected by a group to which they belong. If people think questioning one belief means they’d have to give up everything they share with family, friends, and surrounding society, it’s no wonder they might instead look for ways to keep that belief instead of accepting conflicting evidence.
Bible verses that seem to contradict science can put Christians in an awkward position if we don’t know how to deal with it. First, we should ask if the book’s genre is actually meant to answer our questions (for example, poetry is a bad place to look for scientific explanation). Second, we should ask if the answer we want simply isn’t what God was trying to tell us in that part of his word (for example, Genesis tells us who did it and why, not necessarily how it happened). For more in-depth exploration of this topic, I recommend the book How NOT to Read the Bible.
My sister wisely said, “If your understanding of your understanding is flexible, then you don’t have to deconstruct everything you believe every time you learn something.” A human system — including a church or denomination — will never get everything perfectly right. If we keep that in mind, then we won’t be scared to learn something new.
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