Photo by: NASA Goddard Photo and Video
Has something changed in the way we read the Bible that is affecting our view of reality? Is it possible that we are no longer engrossed in its own story, but instead are flipping through its pages looking for interesting thoughts or anecdotes?
Several recent experiences have me wondering.
On one hand I recently heard a representative of Biblica (previously The International Bible Society) quote research indicating that too many of us do read the Bible in fragments, out of context.
A couple of weeks later I ran across a comment by a University of Texas Ph.D candidate who explained her own research project like this: “I noticed after reading a really engrossing book that you feel like a different person momentarily,” she says. “And (afterward), when I would write an e-mail or have a conversation, I kind of felt possessed by the author. I thought that was worth studying — that maybe thinking styles could be contagious, could be transmitted through language.”
Even though that persons’ comment had nothing to do with the Bible, it reinforced a question in my mind about whether, at some point in our spiritual journey, we begin looking for ideas, rather than being absorbed in the real story of the Bible. I wondered what would happen if I started reading newspaper articles, Reader’s Digest stories, or books the way many of us read the Bible? (i.e. more like a daily horoscope than a story).
But then I read a somewhat weightier article that was about the Bible, and that directly addressed the issue of whether we are letting the Bible’s own story define our reality, or whether we are using our own experience to determine the way we view the Scriptures.
The article, by William Placher, was about a little known theologian by the name of Hans Frei who, according to the author, might be considered by future historians as one of the most important theologians of his generation.
According to Placher, Frei concluded that something has changed in the last couple of centuries in the way many people read the Bible. He became convinced that, for many centuries before the modern age, people tended to read the Bible as a realistic story of the world, from creation to last judgment. In the process readers tended to make sense of their own lives by seeing their own stories within the context of that larger story.
But, then, or so it seemed to Frei, “somewhere around the 18th century, people started reading the Bible differently. Their own daily experience seemed to define for them what was “real,” and so they consciously tried to understand the meaning of the Bible by locating it (the Bible) in their world.” At this point, Frei observed that many began reading the Bible either with questions about whether its historical facts were true, or otherwise as a book of moral lessons that give us direction and answers to our questions.
So over the last few weeks, I’ve been wondering whether, what Frei says has happened on a large scale, could be happening to us personally, In short, are we reading the Bible in fragments, out of context, to the point of forgetting the real story its telling us? Could that result in not being engrossed in its own story to the point that it’s Author hasn’t taken over out minds? And could the result then be that even after reading it, we are left struggling with our own reality, rather than with a renewed ability “to walk by faith, rather than by sight”?
The question isn’t whether what we are experiencing is real, but rather what our story means in light of the wisdom of God’s perspective: a reality defined by the Great Genesis to Revelation Story of the Bible.
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