The Bible and the location of meaning (1)

When we look at narrative texts, the communication structure is similar to the Basic Communication Model. The sender (author) wants to communicate a message (story) to someone else (reader/audience). He does that by telling or writing down his message.

The question now is, “Where will we find the meaning of the message?” Does the meaning of the story lie with the author (what he/she intended), in the text itself or with the reader? (See diagram below) My vote is with the author; he is after all the one who have the message and knows what he wants to communicate. Furthermore, in terms of the Bible, he is the ‘inspired’ author of God’s message. If I want to study God as a character in a story, my purpose would be to come to an understanding of how the author intended the reader to understand who God is and what he is like. Unfortunately, we do not have the author with us to verify whether we understand what he meant when he wrote his story neither do we have a commentary (written by the author) to explain exactly what he meant.

Another way to go is to ask, “What did the original readers of the text understood the message to be?” After all, besides the author, they would have understood the story best as the message was intended for them. They best understood the code the author used to communicate his message with and shared a common frame of reference (context) with the author. Unfortunately, once again, we do not have the readers of the text with us to explain what they would have understood the message to be. Furthermore, we do not have any guarantee that they understood perfectly what the author intended.

Although we do want to understand what the author intended with his writing and it would be great to understand what the original receivers understood the message to be, the only ‘thing’ we have is the text. The problem with the text is that, because we are so distanced from its origins (few can read it in its original language and most have nothing more than a vague, if any, understanding of the ancient world), we can easily misunderstand the message and the author’s intention. In addition, it is too easy for us to hear from the text the message that we would like to hear. As Long (1999, p. 88) observes, “In this day and age, it would be the height of hermeneutical naïveté to deny or ignore the fact that one’s background beliefs have a significant impact on how one processes and assesses data.”

Still, that is what we are left with, the text – God’s Word – and, should we want to understand its (his) message to us, we need to go about it in a responsible manner. “What we must do is identify elements in the text that plausibly ground our interpretations” (Walsh, 2009, p. 5) [author’s emphasis]. Thus, we need to make every effort to understand the text for what it is and what it wants to communicate. 

Long, V. P. (1999). Old Testament History: A Hermeneutical Perspective, in: VanGemeren, W. A. (Ed.), A guide to Old Testament theology and exegesis: an introductory articles from the New International dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis, (pp. 83–99). Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan.

Walsh, J. T. (2009). Old Testament Narrative: a Guide to Interpretation. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press.

Communicating the Message

We have defined ‘story’ earlier as, something that happened to someone, somewhere, sometime. From this definition and concluded that a story consists of a plot or intrigue (something happened), character(s) (someone), space or setting (somewhere) and time (sometime). We expanded Brink’s (1987) definition by adding the importance of the author and the audience. As we have concluded, all these elements play an integral and integrated part to make a good story.

To understand how this will help us understand stories we might have to start with asking ourselves how communication works. Put very simply, communication happens when a Sender wants to communicate a Message to a Receiver. In terms of a written text, we may distinguish between the Author, the Text and the Reader. For the Receiver to understand the Message, the Sender needs to encode the text in a code that the Receiver is able to decode. The code of the Old Testament would be Hebrew and Aramaic and the letters of the text would be the medium the Sender uses to encode the text – more specifically the Hebrew alphabet. For effective communication to take place, the Sender and Receiver should also have a shared context or frame of reference.

The above can be diagrammed as follows:

Basic Communication Model

(Deist, 1986, p. 17)

I will use the following example to explain the above. If I write a letter to a friend I will take the place of the sender and the friend the receiver. The letter will contain the message I want to communicate to my friend. If the friend speaks Afrikaans (my native language), I might start the letter with, “Goeie dag. Hoe gaan dit met jou en die familie”. What I did was to encode my message into a code that both my friend and I understand, Afrikaans. Because it is a letter, I used letters as a medium to encode the text.  Although most of you might be able to identify the letters (which is different in Hebrew and Aramaic) I used, you will probably not be able to decode the text because you do not understand Afrikaans. What is already clear is that communication cannot take place if you do not understand the code – language. English readers might be able to identify two words from this sentence, “die” and “familie”. So, I communicated something about a family who died. Although “familie” contains the same meaning than “family”, “die” got nothing to do with death. “Die” is actually the definite article (the) in Afrikaans.

Say I translate the sentence, “Good day. How are you and the family”, it will immediately be clear what I said or will it? The question is still whether you understand what I communicated to my friend. You might think it is clear-cut; he just started his letter in a cordial manner as is expected. But say my friend is involved in a family feud; he will understand it very different from just a cordial greeting. Alternatively, if the letter were directed to a friend with whose family I have a very close relationship, the content of what I communicate would be altogether different again. Each instance speaks of a different context that gives meaning to the content of a very simple sentence. Because my friend and I have a share frame of reference or context, it will be (in most instances) clear to him what I mean by my greeting.

As you can see, for effective communication to take place, we need to understand the world of the Sender and the reader. We also need to be able to understand the language and know the medium the sender used. Furthermore, we need to their contexts and the context under which the text were written. This is just the beginning of the complex act of communication. This very simple model does not even consider more complex issues like, nuance, word choice, idioms, things that distort communication and so on.

Deist, F. E. (1986). The Writer, His Text and His Audience, in: Deist, F. E. and Vorster, W. S. (Eds.), Words from afar, (pp. 17–38). The literature of the Old Testament. Cape Town: Tafelberg Publishers.

The Bible, stories and method

If stories invite and engage us, sometimes even unconsciously, do we really need to go through a whole process of interpreting the text? Can’t one just read the story and get to the message? Do we really need a method to understand biblical stories?

Maybe I should start by saying that there is no one method to interpret stories but multiple methods. For the beginner it might be best to come to grips with a (good) method to interpret a text. Once one is familiar with that method one can take on others and start to integrate different methods. We should also keep in mind that method is not the purpose but a means to a purpose – a tool to be used in order to understand a text.

Good methodology helps us to consider different aspects of a text and help us look at the text from different angles. Good methodology, well applied and used, safeguard the text and the reader from the honest reader’s presuppositions. By an honest reader, I mean a reader who knows and acknowledges his/her presuppositions and are willing to submit it to the text. An honest reader will allow the biblical text to change his/her presuppositions in the light of the text and not the other way round. An honest reader fine-tunes his ears to the message of the text. He/she will consider as many aspects of a text as necessary in order to let the text speak, putting aside, as far as possible, his/her own ideas of or about the text.

This becomes part of a process more than a method. Waltke (2001, p. 33) puts it well:

The task of the Bible student is to discern the rules employed in a biblical text as evidenced by that text. This task necessarily involves a heuristic spiral. One approaches the text with ideas about its techniques and principals, which the text then proves or disproves. Thus begins the dialogue with the text that leads the careful listener to learn how the text communicates.

Methods are the systemised way of understanding how things work and/or can be done. Literary methods, develop by scholars who studies literature in order to understand how it works, helps the reader to understand the rules by which different texts functions – how they work. Understanding how stories work and systematically working through different aspects of a story, enables the reader to come to a better understanding of the story at hand. By working through a story methodologically, we consider different aspects of what the story is about and how the author wanted to communicate his message.

As Walkte shows, it is not about methodologism but about a dialogue with a particular text. Different text functions differently. The student needs to establish which of the verity of tools in his toolbox would work best to understand a text. By carefully applying first this than that tool, knowing how to use each, he/she learn how to let the text speak and what the text wants to say – coming to know God’s voice and heart behind that of the author.

Waltke, B. K. (2001). Genesis: a Commentary. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan.

The Bible, stories and faith

If large parts of the Bible consist of stories, can we still believe the Bible. Or rather, what would the relationship between these stories and our faith be? Can we have faith, not in only in the stories, but especially in God? How do stories help us believe?

Stories are a strange phenomenon. They play of in front of you, objectively at a distance. They want to “show” you something and you "view" it as an observer. However, stories also want to engage with its audience and draw them into its world. A good story will do this without the audience realising it. It happens subconsciously. You might listen, read or watch a story and suddenly you feel part of it, you take sides with a character, you wonder how things are going to work out for this or that character. You become tense when things go wrong and are relieved when things work out. In an open-ended story, you are left with an empty feeling wondering how it worked out for the characters at the end. Suddenly you view and experience yourself, others and the world differently.

Bible stories want to do the same thing. It wants to engage you in the life and the story of its characters. It takes you on a journey, God’s journey with his people and Israel’s (the church's in the NT) journey with God. It woos you into its world and makes you part of its story. Once you engaged with this story your view about the world, yourself and God changes – it cannot stay the same. As Vanhoozer (1999, p. 36) states, “Stories…provide an indispensable interpretative framework through which we view the world, ourselves, and God.”

In these stories, we meet different kind of characters. Good characters but mostly, not so good. Even the characters that we expect to be people of faith sometimes turn out to be doing really stupid (and bad) things. It makes one wonder how it is possible for them to act is such a way and end up in “the Good Book”. But, we also meet another character – sometimes he seems to be a bit on the background – God and we see how he deals with the reality he is faced with. How he deals with his people in the light of their (lack of) faith and actions. Then, suddenly, you see yourself with your (little or much) faith, your sin, your failures, in the story and you wonder how God will deal with you.

Human (2011, pp. 54-55) puts it well, “Met die boek vol beskrywings van mense se geloofservarings kan ons vandag met ons baie of min geloof in gesprek tree. Hierin le ‘n diep troos.” (In this book, filled with descriptions of people’s faith experiences, we are able to engage in dialogue with our abundant or our little faith. Herein lays a deep comfort.) [Translation mine]. This comfort is to be found in how the character, God, deals with people with abundant or little faith.

In the Bible's stories we see ourselves, God and the world in a different light. It calls us to faith in the One who stays true to his promises and commitments in the face of the lack thereof in the participating characters. Faith in the One whom it is all about. And we are left with a new hope because of Him.

Human, D. J. (2011). Die Uitdagings Van Bybellees, in: Vos, C. and Human, D. J. (Eds.), Vaste rots op wie ek bou, (pp. 53–78). Kaapstad: Lux Verbi.BM.

Vanhoozer, K. J. (1999). Language, Literature, Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology: What’s Theological About a Theological Dictionary?, in: VanGemeren, W. A. (Ed.), A guide to Old Testament theology and exegesis: an introductory articles from the New International dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis, (pp. 11–47). Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan.

The Bible, stories and history

Another problem that comes to mind when we talk about stories and the Bible, is the relationship between story and history. We already dealt with the fact that story does not equal fiction. Aren’t we weakening the historicity of the Bible by referring to those parts that have traditionally being viewed as historical truth by referring to it as story? Can story and history go together especially if we believe that our faith is grounded in historical truth?

Henry (1987, p. 19) warns that:

The narrative approach therefore seems not fully befitting the historic Christian faith. . . . One discerns here an enchantment with the affective, a flight from history to the perspectival that enjoins no universal truth-claims, a reflection of the revolt against reason, a reliance on ‘symbolic truth’ and imagination, and an interest in earthly theatre more than revealed theology.

For him the fact that narratives appeals to the emotive and imaginative goes against the fact that we are dealing with revelation. Revelation is based on historical truth (as we see it from a modernistic worldview) and therefore the whole idea that parts of Scripture may be called ‘story’ or categorised as ‘narratives’ is actually devaluating our faith.

For Merrill (1999, p. 68), however:

The history of the OT is overwhelmingly narrative in expression. From beginning to end the dealings of God with humankind, their response to him, and their interrelationships at both individual and corporate levels appear in story form. [Emphasis Merrill's]

Thus, there need not be a chasm between story and history. Story may be just that, story (as in fiction) but it is also possible to communicate real events by means of a story. Truth told in narrative form does not diminish its factualness. If I tell you my ‘life story’, it is the history of my life in the form of a story. Using literary devises in order to make the story more interesting and to engage others in my story will not take anything away from the truth I’m telling. Tate (2008, p. 105) refer to it as “storicized history”.

Acknowledging that huge parts of both the Old and New Testament are written in story form does not take anything away from its historicity. Interpreting these text from a literary point of view does not take away anything of the truth it communicates. 

Henry, C. F. H. (1987). Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal. Trinity Journal, 8(1), 3–19.

Tate, W. R. (2008). Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach. Hendrickson Pub.

Merrill, E. H. (1999). Old Testament History: A Theological perspective. In, VanGemeren, W. A. (Ed.). Old Testament History: A Theological Perspective, in: A guide to Old Testament theology and exegesis: an introductory articles from the New International dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis. Grand Rapids  Mich.: Zondervan.

The Bible, stories and inspiration

Another issue that came up in class (see my previous blog) is that of inspiration. How can we refer to stories in the Bible and use methods from secular sciences and at the same time hold to the Bible as the inspired Word of God? Or, are we not devaluating the Bible as Word of God by simply referring to large chunks of it as stories? What are the implication of the above for or view of the Bible as ‘inspired’?

We do not have the time and space to discuss inspiration theology here. What we should say is that the Bible did not fall out of heaven ready to go to print. It developed over thousands of years and many authors have been involved in its writing. In faith, we believe it to be the inspired word of God.

The interesting fact is, agreeing that the Bible is inspired by God, that God did not choose to communicate to us by means of a ‘flat’ abstract historical thesis. When one reads the Bible, it soon becomes obvious that the text, that we believe to be the inspired Word of God, is a multidimensional document. It uses narrative, poetry, parables and a range of other literary types (genres) to communicate to us.

We all know that one cannot read fiction, poetry, history or the newspaper in the same way. We need to understand the type of literature we are dealing with and interpret it according to that literature type’s rules. Not doing so, we might end up with a total wrong idea of what the text wants to communicate.

If God then, communicate to us by means of different genres, shouldn’t we take the trouble to understand his communication accordingly? If the inspired authors of the Bible used narratives to communicate God’s message, then we should take that serious and interpret it as such. Otherwise, we might end up with a totally wrong understanding of what God wants to communicate to us.

As Ryken (1990:9) correctly observes: “To view the Bible as literature does not require one to regard it as fictional or to compromise one’s view of its special religious authority.”

If God inspired the authors of the Bible to write huge parts of Scripture in story form, who are we to think that it is not fitting to read and interpret it as such?

The Bible, stories and fiction

For many people ‘story’ equals fiction. During a recent lecture on the interpretation of Genesis, I experience a lot of resistance to the approach I was putting forward. It was only towards the end of the class that I realised that students thought of stories as fiction. Thus, my references to the ‘stories’ in Genesis resulted in all sorts of questions. Is the lecturer implying that the Bible is fictious? Does he then believe the Bible not to be true but made up stories? What does he believe in regards with the inspiration of the Bible? Etc.

The first question we need to ask is whether ‘story’ necessarily equals fiction. Can stories also be true? Tate (2008:102) agrees that the idea the parts of the Bible may be read as literature seems to be foreign to many readers. Taking it a step further and study God as a character among other characters would be, for many Christians, inconceivable. To view and study God as “a character in a novel” (Clines 1995:190) stops short of profanity.

According to Ryken (1990a:7):

Fictionality, though common in literature, is not an essential ingredient of literature. The properties that make a text literary are unaffected by the historicity or fictionality of the material. A literary approach depends on a writer’s selectivity and molding of the material, regardless of whether the details actually happened or are made up.

It seems important that we distinguish between fiction and non-fiction when we talk about stories. Although a biography for example, is written in the form of a story, it is still a true representation of what happened in a person's life. The author may use of all the literary devices available to him to give 'colour' to the story and make it more interesting, it does not, however, take away anything of the fact that what is portrayed really happened.

Modern history on the other hand, endeavours to be “scientifically objective as possible” – “writing history for histories sake” and will not utilise formal narrative strategies as you would find in narratives (Tate 2008:104).

The Bible is, according to Tate (2008:105), “storicized history”. In other words, history written in the form of a story – history writing that makes use of all the literary devices available. Being “storicized history”, the Bible is also more than just history. “Storicized history” is more than just a representation of history. It reaches beyond the cold hard facts of history to “guide the reader into the discovery of some universal truth” (Tate 2008:105). The biblical narratives is about more than the stories itself. It wants to show us a God who really cares for his creation and a reality beyond the one we live in.

Thus, although the same principals are used to interpret fictious and non-fictious narrative, story (narrative) does not necessarily equals fiction. Even though we might refer to a passage in Scripture as a story, it does not necessarily imply fictionality. It is thus, not only, possible, but also vital, to read the biblical “stories according to their own rules and conventions”, without giving up on the high regard we hold towards Scripture.