Reading the Bible as Story

In Scot McKnight’s book, “The Blue Parakeet” the idea of reading the Bible as story is a major theme. He says we must read the Bible as story. It is a whole series of stories written in different ways for different reasons. The earlier stories affect the later stories. As he says, none of the stories is the final story. But together they all tell “The Story.” It is a true story. It is a story with power. But most of all it is God’s story

Story is a very important word these days. We hear is quite often on the lips of young people. Some people say they think in stories (probably not most). They have been influenced by the post-modern period that we have all passed through. For post-modernity, story is more important than fact, than science or truth. Truth is something that those in power or those with money use to control the less powerful. (Those who write the story, control the glory). But stories can communicate without appealing to truth or being totally true. Since post-modernity distrusts truth as either being nonexistent or unknowable, it has appealed to story as a way to understand people and the world around us without having to be true. Stories communicate and there is wiggle room in them because the story can be “true” for you but not necessarily true for me. It can tell something of value without having to be true. And that’s okay, because I still understand something about you and the world around me without needing the obsolete and or even dangerous idea of truth.

As a Christian, I can’t accept that truth is non-existent, obsolete or even dangerous. The idea of truth is foundational for us to understand that there is an ultimate reality. There is objective truth no matter how hard it might be, a times, to discern it. Jesus said he was the truth. He said the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. So, truth must stand.

But…as we try to understand the world around us, we realize that everything has a story. I have my story…the story of my life. You have your story. The town we live in has a story. The nation we live in has a story. The whole earth has a story. There is a true story for everything. For us to understand each other and the world around us, we need to listen to all the stories. Our existence is a series of interlocking stories.

Many people are uncomfortable with the word story to describe our existence. Some prefer fact and factual accounts. Others prefer more the objective perspective of “provable” history. Still others look to the empiricism, objectivity and precision of science. But all these are simply different ways of telling the story of something or someone. All are trying to communicate something in a fashion that will tell the real story.

I suspect the reason people have a hard time thinking of the Bible as Story is because stories aren’t always true stories. They are often fictional. We tell stories to our children before bedtime. Bedtime stories are meant to put children sleep. Novels are stories. Sometime they are pure fiction. Nowadays we have seen the rise of the “historical novel” where the background is carefully researched history, but the story line is fictional. The characters are real, but they could have been because their character and actions were taken from the accounts of real people living real lives and their real events. We fear that mixing fiction and history will cloud the truth.

The reason for approaching the Bible as story is because in reality, it is a story. It is God’s story of himself creating, interacting, redeeming and bringing to culmination the world around us. We must not deny that it is a story…God’s Story. But it is a true story. It is a powerful story. God tells us this story so we can understand him and his love for us. It tells us how to love him back and love the people he so loves.

As student of the Bible and theology now for nearly 30 years and I have seen people treat the Bible in ways that was never intended. People see the Bible as if it were written in the 20th century. They see it as a textbook. They want it to be history has they read it now. They want the biographical accounts of figures as though they were written from the perspective of a “modern.” Some think they can distill science out of the Bible. Some appeal to the precision of Greek and Hebrew languages and surmise that because of this precision one can simply exegete the texts based on a grammatical-historical basis and arrive the real meaning of a text based simply on the reading of an isolated bit of text. Still others see the Bible as communicating directly to them with no notion of it place in history or the culture from which is came.

The Bible is a series of writings done from 1500 B.C. to nearly 100 A.D. It uses many different ways of speaking: history, poetry, narrative, parable, metaphor, fiction, prophetic, apocalyptic and more. All demand that the reader pay attention to the way the writer wrote. All demand that the reader keep the writer’s words in their historical and cultural context. All demand that the reader keep in mind where the writer’s words…his part of the story…fits into the overall story. But most of all, the reader must keep in mind that the Bible is telling a story through the patchwork of stories, accounts and different kinds of writing.

Yes, the grammatical-historical method of reading the Bible is good. Yes, because of the descriptive nature of the accounts, we can see direct correlations between the physical world of the writer and how we see our world. Yes, there is a certain precision in the language. But, we must not make the mistake of expecting more precision from the language than it can give us. We must be careful not to think that the Bible is scientific. It does not have that optic. We must be careful that in exegeting the passages we study, that a too reductionist approach will not yield the message the author was conveying.

We need to remember that the Bible is story…God’s story told through the stories of the writers that he chose and that he gifted to write the story. And such, we need to become “his-storians.” We need to read the story. Listen to it time and time again. Get to know the fabric, the warp and the woof of the story. We need to learn when something is speaking figuratively or factually. We need to know when the meaning of a text must be qualified by its historical setting and background culture. We need to learn to ask the right question as we read so that we can get the right answers.

The more we listen to the story, the more we’ll understand the story. That is why even those who don’t know the Greek and the Hebrew (while being very important for translation and exegesis) can still understand the story. The story communicates. God made it that way. He speaks a language we can understand because it is a story of our earth, our world and the people around us. As “his-storians” we can hear his voice. But we will only hear it when we listen to God as the master storyteller. After all, it is his story.

Interpretation is Today's World

In his book, "Is There a Meaning in this Text," Kevin Vanhoozer says that postmodernity is "a culture of interpretation." By this, he characterizes a major part of both the philosophy and methodology that is at the center of postmodern thinking. Everything is open to interpretation. And that is true. But does that mean that everything is open to endless speculation as to the meaning of what is being interpreted. Let's narrow our scope for now, to the interpretation of texts.

With the rise of "reader-oriented interpretation" of literature, where it is the reader herself that brings the meaning to the text, we have seen many people think that there are as many meanings of text as there are readers. Everyone has there own interpretation. Again, while that may be true, does that signify that the meaning of a text changes with the reader who reads it? This question is important to anyone of faith in Christ who approaches the Bible to learn of God and his ways.

Is is possible that, as Vanhoozer thinks, "meaning is independent of our attempts to interpret it?" I have always understood that, if "all scripture is God-breathed" as the Apostle Paul told his protegée Timothy, then the meaning lies with God who inspired the text. Our job is then to discover the meaning and not establish it. But in the postmodern way of thinking, "The purpose of interpretation is no longer to recover and relate a message from one who is other than ourselves, but precisely to evade a confrontation. The business of interpretation is busyness: constantly to produce readings in order to avoid having to respond to the text."(p. 16)

In some circles, this is what I hear being done with scripture today. Since, so the argument goes, there are many church traditions, and each has it's own interpretation of the scriptures, then each reading and interpretation is valid. So, if you come upon a section of scripture that you find uncomfortable or unpalatable, then you simply look for a church tradition or theologian or any private reader of the scripture who has something to say, and remark, "there are other interpretations." What Vanhoozer says seems to ring true, people appeal to a constant process of readings, re-readings and deconstructions, to "avoid having to respond to the text."

So if one doesn't like having to say that sin is one the roots of the human problem, don't worry, there's another interpretation. If you don't like the idea the people who don't live with God in this life won't live with God in the next life but will be in a hellish place where all evil is gathered together in one place, don't worry, there's another interpretation.

But, what if the meaning of the texts of the Bible have a transcendent nature to them, one that transcends all efforts we make to read into the text? What if God's message really is that we need to be saved from the evil that ensnares us and that pulls us to where there is "weeping and gnashing" of teeth. What if through God's love he did sent his son as a sacrifice of atonement for us so that we would not have to pay the penalty of sin? What if we really do need to respond to God's message before we die, so that when we are held accountable for our life on Earth by God, he will be able to forgive us based on that faith in God's message Jesus great act on a cross, and experience the completion of redemption that God promises to all who believe his message.

I believe that a limited use of deconstruction theory is quite helpful because it keeps going back to the text to see what it really means. But a deconstruction that arrives at an endless process of deconstruction with no solid reconstruction, leaves us with no Word of God respond to, to guide us and shape us. It seems that the Good News as is plainly read in Scripture, is a lot better than any attempts to deconstruct it into a something that is not reality and will not save us.

Vanhoozer says that "We need to examine the theory and practice of contemporary interpretation to see if it is "in the faith" for some readers contrive to deprive the Bible of it's authority through interpretation." Does the purpose of the current practice of interpretation as practiced by some, follow Soren Kierkegaard's cynical insight when he says, "Look more closely, and you will see that it [the practice of contemporary interpretation] is to defend itself against Gods Word."