Bible Study with Gene: Truth Communicated through Narrative
We often think of our ancestors in terms of our genetic family. Indeed, they play a major role in shaping our lives. But we also have another set of ancestors, our cultural ancestors: the people most influential in molding the culture in which we live and thus how we think about the realm and our lives.
Enlightenment
A group of 17th-century scholars taught us that the world is logically structured and can be understood by scientific reasoning. Their 17th-century “cousins,” the Empiricists, added that observation and experience provide the data for analysis. Together, they laid the foundation for the 18th-century Enlightenment. The Enlightenment had confidence in what we learn through observation and analysis.
History was one of the unexpected heirs of the Enlightenment. As we look at our past, what is true can be verified through scientific historical methods. But many of the stories we tell about our past cannot be historically verified. Therefore, they are probably not true.
Narrative Communication
I need us to lay aside, at least for a moment, the historically verified definition of truth. We recognize that many of the stories we read and tell our children convey truth, even if they are not based on historically verified events. They may be stories about right and wrong. They may intend to convey the truth about God and/or the nature of love and life.
That brings us to the first four chapters of Genesis: Chapter 1 affirms that God’s word and work are evident in the orderly world we have been given. Chapter 2 points us to the intimate world within God’s touch. Chapter 3 mourns the human decisions and actions that tragically spoil God’s orderly, intimate world. Chapter 4 insists that resorting to violence seriously ruptures God’s world and threatens to make violence the dominant way of life.
Genesis 1-4 comes to us from an oral culture. They accurately describe the character of God and the beautiful and discouraging world in which we live. Our ancient ancestors knew these were true stories millennia before we read them.
Eventually, we need to return to the post-Enlightenment culture in which we live and work today. But for a moment, let’s stay with our Bible and listen to these narratives.
The Narratives about the World
Look around at the beautiful, orderly world we have been given. We can depend on the rhythm of the seasons, the beauty of the trees, even the northern winter trees with their interwoven branches. Spring follows with longer days and the return of color. That’s followed by long, warm, even hot days, with a chance to be outside as the evening cools the day's heat.
Enjoy the intimacy of love and friendship. Relationships that carry your past and lift the present. I realize the value of love and friendship when I lose specific friends over time, distance, or circumstances. Genesis 2 reminds me that God knows it is not good for us to be lonely.
But the world is not all that God intended it to be. People make decisions that harm themselves and others, leading to unexpected tragedy. News programs have fallen into a litany of violence. This repetition of violence threatens to become the way of life on earth.
We live in a good and painful world, according to Genesis 1-4. That truth is embedded in those narratives, regardless of their historical verifiability. Arguing about their verifiability may cause us to lose sight of their truth.
