Biblical History (Part 2)

What is the Bible, exactly? I believe that this is the question that MUST be answered before we ever attempt to tackle the problem of "historical reflection."

In all of my discussions I try to help people understand that the Bible is the story of God's interaction with humanity, starting with the first humans, moving through Israel, and then the whole world. My understanding of the Bible is this: "The Bible is the story of the lengths that God is willing to go to in order to redeem his people." Pretty simple, yet so complex.

The Bible really serves three functions:
1. History
2. Literature
3. Theology

The Bible always works from those perspectives, BUT not all three have to be present at any given time. The section being read could be literature and theology, but not history. (Song of Solomon, anyone?) The story can be historical and theological, but not very literary. (The first few chapters of Numbers or the book of Ezra comes to mind.) The important thing to remember is this: No matter what the story concerns, its ultimate goal is to present a theology of Go.

The Bible finds various individuals wrestling to come to grips with a God they don't understand and cannot control. The Bible simply outlines the best they can do. Habakkuk's discussion/prophecy is a good example of this. Habakkuk is a prophet, wrestling to understand a message that he doesn't like. He calls God on the carpet and tells him to answer his questions, because the world doesn't seem fair and nothing seems to be going the way it should. The ultimate message is this: you cannot always understand my ways, you simply have to trust that it will all work out in the end.

The Bible deals primarily with theology: Who is God? What is he doing? What is he calling us to do/be? Can we trust in his ways? The Bible displays raw emotion in this search.

Theology is the primary function of the Bible. History and literature form the secondary functions of the Bible. Thus, the Bible is NOT written as history for history's sake. The Bible can even deviate from history in small ways in order to make its point. (For example, many of the narratives in the Gospels are taken in different sequential orders; i.e. the anointing of Jesus before the Triumphal Entry in John vs. the anointing AFTER the Triumphal Entry in the Synoptics.)

I think the problems we encounter in academia is when we try to make the Bible something it isn't. Those of us in the Western world approach the Bible from our own cultural understanding, not realizing (or caring) that the Gospels are written from a different time and place. No matter how hard we try, we will always be saddled with our Western contextual understandings. Thus, we always approach the Bible with some bias, even an unintentional one, and it colors the way we see the text.

The Bible was never meant to be a science book, so toss that understanding out the window completely. It wasn't even written to be a history book, at least not history from our understanding. Rather, it is the history of Israel's (and the world's) interaction with God. This is the purpose that it serves. It teaches us who God is and what he has done so that we can realize what God can (and will) do in our lives.

What are your thoughts?