First Impressions

First impressions are often lasting ones. Have you ever been embarrassed because you had a certain perception of a person only to find out that he/she is quite the opposite? Remember the gymnastics your mind had to go through because you ‘labelled’ a person to be so and so, and then need to make mental corrections – change your mind on that person. It can sometimes be extremely difficult to make those changes – in some cases nearly impossible. So it is not only facing up to wrong impressions that is hard to deal with but also changing those perceptions.

A parishioner of a church I’ve served many years ago did not like me at all. The problem was exaggerated by me trying to reach out to her. The more I reached out to her the more she would avoid me. Years later, I found out that I reminded her of someone (whom I never met and had no connection with) that did her wrong many years before. Because she found it impossible to break the mental connection between me and the other person, we could never build a relationship.

The image you form of a character, especially in the beginning of a narrative, plays an important role in how you experience a character and in the end, the way you read and experience the narrative. As in real life, the perception you form about a character often happens on a subconscious level. It is thus important from time to time, to stand back a bit and ask whether the image I have of a character in my mind is congruent with the one the narrator wishes to create.

That might not be that important when one reads fiction, but dealing with the character God, is a different kettle of fish. Subconsciously we all carry an image of God in our minds that was created through all sorts of inputs. How we read the Bible and how we relate to God and others will be impacted by our view / image of him. It is thus important to ask on a conscious level whether the image one has of God is the same the narrator of the biblical narrative wished to portray. If one does not do that and make the necessary changes, one might end up worshiping an idol (See also "What Kind of God?" 3 and "What kind of God? 4").

It might be more important to understand how narrators created / form characters than one think.

The Narrator's Toolbox: Characterisation (1)

I’ve noticed that it is nearly two years since I’ve Blogged. Should say, live has been quite busy in the meantime and still is, but I did not stop thinking about “God as a character in a story.” 

Up to now, I’ve shared a lot of theory on a narratological approach to God and the Bible (the narrative parts that is). I think there is still a lot to say about the theory – seems it never stops – but I would like to bring that to a close and soon start to say what I actually intended this blog to be about. That is, “God as a character in a story” and more specifically, how he is portrayed as a character by the narrator.

One question to ask is, “How do we learn to know characters in a story?” (See this Blog) Because, if you wish to ask, how God (or any character for that matter) is portrayed, the purpose of the question would be to come to know the character better. We learn to know characters in stories very much the same way than characters (people) in real life. In real life, one learn to know others by the way he/she acts, how they look, what they say (and how they say it), what others think and say about them etc.

Narrators use similar means to portray characters. He/she may give a direct description of a person. For example, in Genesis 2:25 the narrator tells us that the man and the woman were naked. Direct descriptions are quite rare in the Bible, so whenever you get to one, you need to take note as it will probably play an important role in the rest of the story (look how the couple cover themselves up and God asks them who told them that they are naked. At the end of Genesis 3 God covers them properly).

Another way is to ‘look’ how one character responds to another. That way you may learn something about both characters. When God created the woman in Genesis 2:21-22, how did the man respond? What does it say about the man and what does it say about the Creator of the woman?

Yet another way is to listen what characters say and how they say it (or not say). When God says that it is not good for the man to be alone, what does it say about God and what does it say about the man? Why did God, on day six of the creation account, state that everything was ‘very good,’ and now, for the first time in the Bible, something is not good? How does God respond when he identifies a lack in his work of creation?

One ‘tool’ that the narrator has, that we, mere ‘mortals,’ do not have, is the ability to be everywhere, and to know everything – even where God is and what he thinks. Thus, narrators are in some ways ‘like God’ – omniscient and omnipresent. Just think of it, the narrator in Genesis was there “at the beginning” to tell us how God created everything. In Genesis 6:7 the narrator even knew what was going on in God’s mind and that God “regretted that he had made humankind on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.” ¹ In the book of Job (Job 1:6-12), the narrator is in God’s council room (strangely enough, Satan is also there) listening in on God and Satan’s discussion.

Thus, if one wants to know the God of the Bible a bit better, one might have to look through the eyes and hear through the ears of the narrator of God’s story – we do not have anything else to go by anyway if we believe the Bible to be God’s Word.

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¹ Literally “he was grieved to his heart.”

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.

God - as the author intended

If we want to understand a biblical story, we must first take seriously the effort to learn how stories are told, specifically how biblical stories are told (Berlin 2005:21).

Maybe we should start by asking, “What is a story?” Brink (1987) defines a story as, something that happened to someone, somewhere, sometime. From this definition, we may conclude that a story consists of a plot or intrigue (something happened), character(s) (someone), space or setting (somewhere) and time (sometime). We may add to this definition, “as told by someone (author) to someone else (audience)”. These are the basic elements to be considered in order to interpret a story. All these elements play an integral and integrated part to make a good story.

Should we want to come to a better understanding of whom and how God is, we will do a character study of the character, God. Because the author uses all the different elements of the story to shape his characters (and the characters, to shape the story), we will need to follow a holistic approach, considering the role of each element in shaping a character.

What is important is to establish how the author wanted his audience to perceive the character we want to study. For example, how did the author of Genesis sketch God to his audience so that they understood God in the way he wanted them to? It is of no use if we understand the story or the purpose of the story different from what the author intended. Neither will it serve any purpose to come to view God differently than the picture the author drew. As Bright (1991, pp.42&43) puts it:

We have… the task of exegesis – of reading from the text the meaning the author intended to convey. We are not permitted the luxury of eisegesis – of reading our own ideas into the text or finding there meanings which its author did not have in mind”.

Thus, we analyse and interpret stories with the purpose to understand what the original author intended his audience to understand. By applying this to the character, God, we might come to a better and deeper understanding of who and what kind of God he is. And, we agree with Gunn and Fewell (1993:89) that it is one of the Bibles great challenges to come to some understanding of the character of God.

Understanding stories - understanding God

We all (well I guess, most of us) like a good story. Even better, a good story told by a good storyteller. A good storyteller will use different strategies to draw you into the story’s world. They will endeavour to communicate the story in such a way that you would somehow see it play of in your mind's eye and sometimes even feel part of it - inviting you into the world of the story. Good stories well told also involve the listeners emotion. Thus, a joke told well will make you cry with laughter. A good love story will produce all sorts of emotions - empathy, sadness, happiness, excitement etc. Storytellers and writers employ different strategies to achieve this goal in order to communicate their message more effectively.

This is no different for the stories we find in Scripture. The original storytellers of the biblical stories were masters of their trade. They also wished to involve their audiences in their stories on different levels. They also used different literary strategies to communicate the all important message of God’s journey with his people. Bible stories are not cold hard facts told in a dull fashion. They were told around the family fire in such a way that the stories would not only be remember but also in a fashion that would make the children sit up and listen, knowing that these are stories about their ancestor’s journey with God – knowing that the stories will continue in and through them.

Now, these stories became part of our canon – God’s Word to us.

If God wished to communicate his message to us by means of different genres, shouldn’t we take the way narratives function serious as well – not only as stories that played of long long ago, but to understand them for how they are told and what they want to achieve? In other words, for us to understand God’s message better, we should take the means by which this message is communicated serious. By not doing it, we might only get half the message or even the wrong message.

I think that Long (1994:43) was right when he said that

an increased appreciation of the literary mechanisms of a text—how a story is told—often becomes the avenue of greater insight into the theological, religious and even historical significance of the text—what the story means.

Knowing how stories work, what they wish to achieve and how they wish to achieve it, might bring us to a better understanding of who and how God is.