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.