The Bible: An Attack on Expectation, and Position
Narrative. Chronicle. Tale. Account. These words are synonymous with a word—a concept—that has been around for a very long time, and is of much interest—story. Understanding of this word, and the implications and power that it has, is the fundamental goal of many who study the history of the written word and its intricacies. Some commit their entire lives to the interpretation and contextualizing of literature within themselves, and the much larger human experience.
Northrop Frye states in The Great Code that, “I was attracted to the Bible, not because I thought it reinforced any “position” of mine, but because it suggested a way of getting past some of the limitations inherent in all positions.” (xvi) I believed I had a pretty good “position” in the understanding and use of stories. I would mouth the tired lines that stories are glimpses into history, they are personal connections, they are journeys, movements—attempts to grasp the ungraspable. And yet, I was a hypocrite. I found it ridiculous that anyone would live his or her life according to a text that was as convoluted and confusing as the Bible. But as I read, I realized that that is what I do. I connect myself, my beliefs with stories that I have read—how was the Bible any different or worse than other explanations for why the world is the way it is? So, embarking on a journey to “understand” the bible, I made a discovery about my own perceptions, and about stories as a whole—stories are not, as any dictionary would tell you, “an account of real or fictional events”. They are events, they are beliefs—stories make us, stories are people. In essence, the Bible changed my “position” on storytelling, and continues to do so.
The Bible is a whole, and not a whole—a series of parts that create a mythos, but at the same time creating (perhaps unintentionally) a skeptical framework that calls into question that same created mythos. Cain and Abel, Ecclesiastes, Job, Lazarus—these, like many others in the massive tome that is the Bible, leave me with more questions than answers, which, I think, is exactly the reason the Bible is so powerful, and is of great importance.
“I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (The Harper Collins Study Bible, Gen. 4.9) This line, from the book of Genesis, is an excellent parable and insight into the violent early nature of man, and raises many interesting questions about the relationship that humans have with their “brothers”, if any at all. As with many tales in the bible, there are many gaps in the text (lacuna) that beg for interpretation. If Cain has committed such a great sin, why does God allow him to live, rather then smiting him like all the other evildoers throughout the book? Are we all not descendents of Cain, do we not all share in his sin? This is what interests me about the story of Cain and Abel, and I believe it to be a challenge of expectation. If further reading of the bible is to be any indicator, Cain should die. But he doesn’t—perhaps because this story is meant to be a warning, a challenge. This is the heart of darkness that lies at the center of man, and the consequences are there to challenge expectation: perhaps there is no eternal punishment for murder—Cain continues to live. John Steinbeck captures the essence of the story of Cain and Abel in his novel East of Eden:
I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of thought and wonder. Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence… There is no other story. (747)Ecclesiastes provides another type of narrative—the narrative of skepticism. Unlike many other passages in Psalms, etc., Ecclesiastes provides no comfort, no warm-fuzzies for the reader to cover themselves with like a warm soft blanket. “For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity” (Eccles. 3.19). Keeping in tone with the bible being a amalgamation of texts, a mythology, it seems only right that there are places where the reader is not soothed, is reminded of the dangers of, for lack of a better word, vanity. Ecclesiastes is an enigma, advising the reader about wisdom, but also reminding that wisdom is yet another concept that in the end, fades away, as the veil is slowly pulled over.
The book of Job is an attempt to rationalize why God would let bad things happen to good people (theodicy). Job is accompanied throughout the story by his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Each of the three attempts to comfort Job with his own interpretation of theodicy. Eliphaz states, “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4.8). Eliphaz sees the world as a perfect system of retributive justice, where only those who do wrong are punished. Bildad offers a similar form, asking, “Does God pervert justice?” (Job 8.3) He reminds Job that God is perfect, and he wouldn’t punish someone for no reason. Finally, to deliver the knockout punch, with a speech reminiscent of Glenn Beck, “Know that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves” (Job 11.6). Job’s “friends” seek to make him cease his questioning, make him retreat to the small comforts of unquestioning prudential wisdom, but Job will have none of it, giving one of the better speeches in the Bible: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Mortals do no know the way to it, and it is not found in the land of the living” (Job 28.12). Job raises the sticky questions, and finds no answers for them—he is the thinking individual, the teacher who continues to question. Even when God shows up, to put Job in his place, He provides no satisfactory answers, asking “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 38.4) God proceeds to lecture Job, reminding him that God, not Job, made all of creation, and what right does Job have to question his almighty wisdom? At the end of the story, Job is humbled, asking no more tough questions. But the reader is unsatisfied with God’s answers, and continues their questioning journey, which is the true gift of the book of Job.
Finally, the two stories of Lazarus in the Bible are both very interesting. One, a parable, and arguably the simpler of the two, is a short chapter in which a rich man is punished for failing to ease the agony of Lazarus, a poor man who lives outside his home and is so disparate that “even the dogs would come and lick his sores” (Luke 16.21). This parable defies expectation, because we expect the rich man to learn through his suffering in Hades, and mercy to be shone on him, but in reality, it is a harsh reminder that there is no forgiveness for sin in life, and the punishment is dire.
But it is in the second story that Lazarus both interests and disappoints me, as it is one of the few stories in the Bible that I am completely unsatisfied with. The idea of resurrection in the Bible is an interesting topic, it happens rarely, and is never subjected to skepticism. Like many other concepts in the Bible, there are gaps in the text, a lack of explanation—and while the text provides information about “life after death”, it doesn’t stack up from a skeptical viewpoint. The idea of paradise seems to be, like many other areas in the book, tacked on by a redactor attempting to further an agenda. And what is resurrection? Jesus’s resurrection is a corporeal one, which is clarified in Luke 24.39, saying “Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Lazarus also seems to be corporeal, as he interacts with the world in a corporeal way. But the reader begs an explanation—if paradise is so wonderful, isn’t it wrong of Jesus to rip him back into the normal plane of existence? How does Lazarus feel, what does he do, being back from the dead. It is a frustratingly missing piece, but once again, maybe it was intended that way, maybe resurrection stories in the Bible aren’t meant to comfort.
The Bible is a work that contains the viewpoints of innumerable authors, each of them lending their own questions, their own viewpoints—some skeptical, some prudential, some just a good story. But the end result is, as with any good work, a change in the paradigm of thought in the reader’s mind—never answering, always questioning.
Works Cited
The Harper Collins Study Bible. New Revised Standard Ed. Harold W. Attridge. USA: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006. Print.
Steinbeck, John. Novels 1942-1952. New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2001. Print.
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