The Morning Office readings this week are from the very beginning of the Bible - perhaps a little too late for connections with the start of the New Year.
But it has struck me what a "shame" it is (literally) that the wonderful words of the early Chapters have become a battle ground between Christians who interpret the accounts literally and those of us who understand them metaphorically.
These early chapters contain words and images which are beautiful in literary sense ( and praise God for that) and also profound in their description of (or search for) the creative nature of our God.
What has struck me is that they have a divine value whatever our choice of human interpretation.
yes, exactly! Poetry, anyone? Well said Tom
Posted by: maggi | 16 January 2008 at 10:54
Ben
I have withdrawn your comment - not only is it abusive towards Christians who do not understand Genesis literally - but it adopts the classic literalists fallacy that non-literalatists do not regard Genesis as being "true" - the two do not follow. In fact there are a number of perfectly legitimate non-literalist interpretations.
However the point of my post was to suggest that there is danger that the disputes about the status of Genesis can blind us to the real truth of what it reveals about God and the immeasurable value of that. Tempted to say "read the post again" before leaping to cliched conclusions about my faith- in fact I have said it!
Posted by: Tom | 16 January 2008 at 17:59
It's a STORY...
(And what a story, and collection of stories!)
If people today had more of a concept of Story and Storytelling (instead of subsisting on a diet of soap operas and Hollywood) there wouldn't be half the trouble about whether something was True or not.
Posted by: Tony | 16 January 2008 at 19:56
But I would say that, wouldn't I?
Posted by: Tony | 16 January 2008 at 19:58
What is intriguing of course is the way we now interpret "truth" which is essentially an Enlightenment concept. This is where the trouble arises since the literalist interpreters struggle with the idea that the "truth" lies not in the story being "true" but in the meaning of the story. This was wonderfully illustrated by the Christmas silly season press coverage of Rowan Williams comments about The 'Three' Kings. Whether there were three or four, whether they followed the star (or whether it appeared and then reappeared) does not essentially matter - ie it does not need to be "true" for the truth of the story to have meaning now as at the time of writing. It seems to me that it is unlikely that the authors of Genesis and Matthew, had the same understand of "true" about a story in their pre-enlightenment era as the literalists would now want them to have.
Posted by: Tom | 16 January 2008 at 22:13