Should I Read the Bible as Literature?

Absolutely! In fact, the Bible reader must be a reader of literature. Why? First of all, the Bible as an anthology of literature, tells the story of humankind; it is a story of tradition revealing the present. Genesis chronicles the beginning of humankind. From the beginning, humans are described as finite creatures who must learn their limitations yet yearn for release from them. Eve is mother of humankind; Adam is formed from the earth itself, although made in the image of God, having the divine inbreathed; he asks for and is given a clone of himself to discover, ironically, that human will seeks in its own choices to pronounce "good" solely of itself, to deny its own nakedness and ignorance, to usurp divine right to autonomy, and to enter into a conflict with God, nature, and humankind. Apart from arguments of the existence or inexistence of this God, our literary inheritance provides us with a rich repository of perspectives on this experienced conflict.

The issues of "literal" or "symbolic" create an unfortunate tension for many beginning readers of the Bible. To begin to read, though, is to be drawn immediately into the middle of symbolism: the alphabet itself is a symbol system; words themselves form from an active combining of symbols, both in the creation of text and in the reading and interpretation of text. Not to read symbolically is not to read at all. The Oxford Companion to the Bible rightly cautions the reader about any stance taken toward symbolism:

Symbols. A symbol entails the use of a specific entity to represent or parallel an idea, concept, or reality. Usually there is some likeness between the object used as a symbol and its intended parallel. Symbols in the Bible are drawn from everyday life or from a specific cultural setting and are especially frequent in apocalyptic literature.

Symbols drawn from everyday life are easily illustrated. A person who observes the Law and with whom God is pleased can be described as a tree or garden that grows and blossoms. The struggle against evil can be viewed as warfare (Wisdom of Solomon 5.17–20; Ephesians 6.11–17; 1 Timothy 6.12; 2 Timothy 4.7; Revelation 12.17). Fire is used in various ways, most significantly perhaps in theophany narratives, in which God’s presence is symbolized by fire (e.g., Exodus 3.1–6; Exodus 19.16–19; 1 Kings 18.38; Acts 2.1–4; See Metaphors).

In Judaism and Christianity certain symbols are drawn from their historical and cultural backgrounds. Thus, circumcision is the sign of entrance into the community for Jews, as baptism is for Christians. The seven-branched lampstand or menorah used in the Temple can symbolize the Jewish community, while the cross can stand for the Christian community.

Finally, symbols are used extensively in apocalyptic literature. Animals and fantastic beasts can represent other nations; numbers and colors have symbolic importance.

Ancient writers assumed that their audience would correctly interpret a symbol by making the necessary comparison. Later interpreters, however, can read too much (or too little) into a symbol, applying to it an anachronistically modern understanding. Thus, knowledge of the actual setting and of the literary genres used by ancient writers is necessary for interpretation of the Bible’s many and marvelous symbols.

History, by definition, limits itself to the finite in alienation to the infinite; to talk of the infinite is to move, if not literally, then symbolically, outside the space/time boundaries experienced by human beings." The Bible is concerned with absolute "Truth," beginning with the Garden of Eden experience, a time when the infinite and finite existed in intimate connection with each other. For the Hebrew, Truth existed already at creation, that moment when the eternal and absolute entered into the transient and finite. For the Hebrew, God is the only autonomous being and Absolute Reality. For good reason, then, some scholars argue the Bible is not primarily concerned with history.

History for the Hebrew mind becomes a mirror of the Real/transcendent unfolding of what has already been. Reflection on the past with understanding gives hints of an unchanging, transcendent, and eternal reality. Particular experiences are abstracted to a larger sense of the greater whole. Far from being unmindful of "this world-ness," the Hebrew mind draws analogies from experience and observations of experience. Experience and observation, though, bring only awareness of our limitations and, indeed, ignorance. Consider the lessons learned:

Job 14.1 "Man born from a woman has a few days, full of trouble; he blossoms like a flower; then withers."

Ecc 11.7-8 "Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. If a man lives many years, he should enjoy them all; yet remember all the same that the days of darkness are many."

Proverbs 11.24 "One man gives freely, yet grows the richer for it; another keeps what he should give, and still does not have enough."

Ecclesiastes 1.9-11"There is nothing new under the sun. If we can say of anything: that it is new, it has been seen already long since. This event of the past is not remembered. Nor will the future events, which will happen again be remembered by those who follow us."

For limited human beings, fate and destiny become central concepts. We struggle against our destiny when the only appropriate response for the Hebrew mind is acceptance and understanding. What we are to accept is that we are creatures and not Creator. A difference exists between what an autonomous, absolute Creator sees and what the creature sees.

Reading the Bible as literature, we will pay attention to the eponymous: the part symbolically represents the whole. This pattern constantly repeats itself in the anthology we call the Bible: Israel's power and presence is an eponym depicting God's chosen people, both then and now; the Bible makes much use of a metaphorical patronage: we see eponymous ancestors; "son" and "house" linked through time. Numbers also suggest metaphorical comparisons: thirty and forty, for example, suggest reigns. The theme of exile and forced population depict the fate of a people choosing not to submit to God. The Old Testament picture, in particular, of a god’s becoming drunk on the blood of enemies is found generally in classical tale myths.

Reading the Bible as literature, one recognizes several familiar themes repeated: one is the theme of creation/new beginnings. We see this in reiterative story chains: Moses leads people through the sea onto dry land to begin a new life (Ex. 14-15); Joshua crosses the Jordan River (3.7-17); Jacob crosses the Jabbok in Gen. 32.22. In this, one discovers a reiteration of the original division of waters at creation, separating chaos from new order.

Yet another familiar theme is God's war against the godless. Destruction stories abound: Babylon (Jeremiah 50-51), Samaria and Jerusalem (2 Kings 17 and 25); prophecies of destructions against God's enemies (Jeremiah 46-49); Great flood (Gen 6-9); Soddom and Gomorrah (Gen 19); Noah and Lot fill the role of surviving remnant. The metaphor of cosmic war is a much repeated motif; look at

Psalms 2, 8, 89, 110. This cosmic war is picked up in the New Testament in the book of Revelation. Moreover, the reiterations continue the theme that God will preserve His own chosen remnant, both the literal Jerusalem and the spiritual New Jerusalem. Consider Zechariah: : Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.

2: For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

3: Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

4: And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

5: And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee.

6: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:

7: But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.

8: And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be.

9: And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

In the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments, the desert must be viewed metaphorically as a place of exile for those who refuse to walk in God's path (murmuring and backsliding, for a full generation of forty years). The wilderness symbolically suggests the absence of God.

The wilderness has mostly negative associations in the Bible. It is a bad place (Numbers 20.5; Proverbs 21.19) of hunger, thirst, and deprivation (Psalm 107.4–5; Job 30.3); it is unsettled (Jeremiah 2.6; Job 38.26), nonarable (Jeremiah 2.2), windswept (Isaiah 21.1; Hosea 13.15; Job 1.19), haunted by noxious beasts and demons (Deuteronomy 8.15; Isaiah 13.21; Isaiah 34.14), and echoing with frightful noises (Deuteronomy 32.10). It is the domain of Cain (Genesis 4.12–16), Ishmael (Genesis 16.12; Genesis 21.20–21; Genesis 25.6; Genesis 25.18), Esau (Genesis 27.39–40), and raiders (Luke 10.30; Acts 21.38) such as the Arabs (Jeremiah 3.2), Midianites (Judges 6–8), and Amalekites (Exodus 17.8–16; Deuteronomy 25.17–19; Judges 6.3, Judges 6.33; Judges 7.12; Judges 10.12; 1 Samuel 15). Apart from nomads and the lawless, only the mad inhabit the wilderness (Luke 8.29), or those with no other recourse (Genesis 16.6–14; Exodus 2.15; 1 Samuel 22.2; 1 Kings 19; Jeremiah 9.1; Jeremiah 48.6; Psalm 55.7–8; Revelation 12.6). The wilderness is figuratively dark (Jeremiah 2.6; Jeremiah 2.31), recalling the primordial state of the universe (cf. Deuteronomy 32.10). To punish a people God may “uncreate” a country, converting arable land to wilderness (Isaiah 6.11–12; Isaiah 14.17; Isaiah 34; Jeremiah 9.11; Jeremiah 22.6; Jeremiah 50.39–40; Jeremiah 51.43; Ezekiel 6.6; Hosea 2.3; Hosea 2.6; Joel 2.3; Zephaniah 2.13; Psalm 107.33–34).

Oxford Companion

In Nehemiah, Jerusalem is deserted.(Jeremiah 4. 23-28); Jerusalem is an empty nothingness, as before creation. There is no humanity; even the birds have fled. A desert emptiness is the 'dark night of the soul," akin to monastery and desert fathers. This dark night of the soul may be, however, a requirement for spiritual insight:

The wilderness is also a place for spiritual renewal. Hagar (Genesis 16.7; Genesis 21.19), Moses (Exodus 3.1–4.17), and Elijah (1 Kings 19) flee there and meet God. Jesus similarly seeks solitude in the desert (Matthew 4.1 par.; Mark 1.35 par.; Luke 5.16; John 11.54). The wilderness is above all associated with the wanderings of Israel narrated in Exodus-Deuteronomy. Most texts recall this as a time of tension between God and his people (Exodus 15.22–26; Exodus 16; Exodus 32; Leviticus 10; Numbers 11–14; Numbers 16–17; Numbers 20.1–13; Numbers 21.4–9; Deuteronomy 1.19–46; Deuteronomy 6.16; Deuteronomy 9.7–10.11; Jeremiah 7.24–26; Ezekiel 20; Psalm 78; Psalm 106; Nehemiah 9; Acts 7.39–43; 1 Corinthians 10.5–12; Hebrews 3–4), but Jeremiah 2.2–3 and Hosea 2.15 idealize it as a time of piety. Some sources maintain that God simply found Israel in the desert and brought them to the land (Deuteronomy 32.10; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 9.10), apparently ignoring the Exodus proper. It was in this wilderness, at Mount Sinai/Horeb, that God entered into a covenant with Israel (Exodus 19.1– Numbers 10.10), a covenant reaffirmed on the wilderness borders of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy).

Oxford Companion

Wisdom requires submission to the Absolute and introduces the Man of piety and discernment. We discover that the fear of God and righteousness begin in the self-understanding of human ignorance. Here, David is a model. We see David as we would see humankind: David --running from enemies, in desperate trouble, in search of Yahweh—he sings of sorrows and fears, gives voice to his hope that God will save him. We sing David's song with him, and thus give birth to a transcendent David. II Samuel 15--David, hunted by the army of his son Absalom, is abandoned by his friends, reaches the top of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the seat of his kingdom Jerusalem. Men go to the Mount of Olives to pray. David has climbed the mountain as a last refuge; he is barefoot and holds his head bowed; his friends hold their heads bowed. The mountain tests David's life to the core (revealed in his words to Zadok, meaning righteousness). David is emptied of all self-will, the apogee of the ideal king, a servant of Yahweh; it is humility's success. David crosses over the mountain; Absalom is dead. Through Yahweh's Messiah, he has died ignominiously, hanging from a tree. Returning as king, David rides a donkey into Jerusalem; as Yahweh's anointed, he enters into his kingdom. This is an everyman's tale of piety; Jesus reiterates David's story in Mark 14.32-42.

Not by the will of man but by the will of God does one enter the kingdom.

Polarization (like reiteration) creates Israel's past. We see patterns of polarization: Abraham-Lot; Isaac-Ishmael; Jacob-Esau. In these individuals, we discover founding ancestors, all people whose lands have been promised to them by their deity from the earliest times; this deity seems to be a God without a people finding a people without a God. The children of Israel are quintessentially human, wanderers through life, clinging to a tenacious destiny: Israel is humanity's representative and Yahweh's first-born.

The Biblical narrative provides a careful reader with still other themes:

--humanity seeking its own will

--human ambition

--competing wills of God and human beings

--hubris and destiny

--strife and struggle

--dilemma of freedom--etiological paradigm for all the world's humanity.

--rejection of first-born: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Samaria's Ephraim over highlands of Manasseh--mother favors the younger: Sarah beats Hagar; Pharaoh is harsh with Isaac's descendents; Jacob and Esau conflict takes center stage.

--new surpasses the old--alternating cycles of good and evil culminates in a reiterated closure of punishment and destruction (Samaria, Jerusalem)

--Israel as morality story.

--everyman's fate

--to struggle with God is to be human; reveals the truth of being human.

--struggle is between God's will and human hubris.

--Bible as survival literature.

Conflict and opposition is a constant in the human scene; a common origin and universal quality of humanity is found in the Hebrew and the later Hellenism. Patterns of conflict include the stories of Joshua and Israel against the Midianites; six legendary enemies of Old Israel: Amorites, Hitites, Perizites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites; in Judges, Saul and David, the enemies are Philistines; we recall the conflict between Samaria and Jerusalem, Jacob and Esau, the Seleucid North (Alexander) and Ptolemaic South, true Jews and schismatic Samaritans. We discover a moral world of black and white, good and evil, locked in eternal conflict.

Out of the conflict of people comes a struggle for Jerusalem, a geographical place where God dwells; this later becomes the non-spatial or spiritual New Jerusalem. The Israelites struggle to occupy Jerusalem. In Joshua 10--five Amorite kings are defeated (God sends hailstones; five stones are set up, signaling a historicity). In Joshua 18—Jerusalem is given as spoils of war to Benjamin. In Judges –the conquest of Jerusalem is after Joshua, Jerusalem is not Amorite but Canaanite; Judah and Simeon defeat the Canaanites. In I Sam 17.54, however, Jerusalem is already part of Israel, when David brings Goliath's head as a trophy.

In his meditation on this most holy and painful city (Jerusalem: City of Mirrors, [Boston, 1989]), the “capital of memory,” the Israeli writer Amos Elon observed that it is as if the very name Jerusalem (Hebr. yŽrûšŒlaim) is a reflection of the city’s contradictory, even dualistic nature (aim is the Hebrew suffix indicating a dual or pair), manifesting itself even in its location on the boundary between Israel’s cultivated grasslands and arid desert regions. There has always been a tension between the present and the future, the earthly and the heavenly, the real and the ideal Jerusalem, a city of diverse peoples struggling to accomplish their daily activities and the city of religious visionaries. (from The Oxford Companion).

What the people will is contrasted to God's will. In the selection of king, Israel clamored to be like its neighbors when they had been clearly instructed that God was to be their king. Their first king, Saul, is selected as a concession to human demand. Made king by Yahweh's prophet and priest Samuel, Saul is a good king and general, but, unfortunately, he did--as humans do-- what he himself saw as good. Yahweh, Saul's patron, wanted obedience; when Saul disobeyed, he lost favor with Yahweh and is replaced by David, a man after God's own heart. Saul's end is tragic, as it often is for the strong and ambitious: Saul goes mad.

Literary symbolism is again important to understanding the succession of power. David cuts off the hem of Saul's robe and thus, symbolically, gains Saul's power and potency.

Transitional to David's reign, the careful reader understands that Yahweh's messiah is the one through whom Yahweh's will is carried out on earth. It is how God is present in history. David will have nothing to do with the killing of God's messiah but subordinates his own regime to Saul, gives him allegiance, and calls him father. Saul accepts the patronage: "Is this your voice, my son, David?" This is mutual recognition of the father and son relationship and the general issue of succession in generations.

Who is David? Is he his own man? Nabal refuses to recognize David as patron and even goes so far as to ask who is David? Abigail is invited to the patron's house (echoes Gen 33 where Jacob faces Esau, who has brought 400 retiners). Abigail swears a curse against David's enemies--that they become like Nabal (assassinated). Yahweh must kill Nabal. The allegiance of Nabal's house passes to David; Abigail becomes the author's alter ego. Abigail answers the question of who is David by allowing hubris to play out to a fall. David is the servant standing under Yahweh's protection. David grants Abigail patronage. "When men rise…the life of my lord will be bound in life's bundle which is the care of Yahweh… " I Sam 25.29. It becomes clear that David must be read as God's messianic representative. His struggle is the struggle of piety: every person's struggle against enemies.

As man of piety, David recognizes that Saul is Yahweh's messiah and that he cannot be touched without guilt. Not David but Yahweh must take Saul's life. The spear at Saul's head (the cloak) must be taken.-- this is a demonstration of power and will: David has Saul's life in his hand; Saul asks, "Is this your voice, David, my son?" David's reply, is submissive: my Lord, my king. Ironically, David as servant and king has been pursued murderously by Saul. In the question of who is God's messiah, it's clear that Saul rejects Yahweh for "right in his own eyes"; David, in contrast, man of prayer, submits on the Mount of Olives: "thy will be done."

In reading the Bible as literature, one discovers that the individual must fear killing God's messiah. Saul's head rolls across the battlefield David's fear of killing Saul is appropriately fear of God and, thus, the beginning of wisdom. Consider the narrative: in I Sam 31, Saul and his armor bearer commit suicide. In II Sam 1—the Amalekite, however, reports finding Saul's body to David. The Amalekite tells David he has killed Saul, being requested to do so by the king himself. As the narrative unfolds, the Amalekites discover Saul's body and cut off his head. Saul's armor is placed in the temple, his body tied to the wall of the town Beth Shan. Towns people take the body of Saul and his sons from the wall and cremate and bury them. I Chronicles tells us Yahweh himself killed Saul.

Reading the Bible as literature, the reader understands David is the messiah struggling against the ungodly; he struggles to remain on the path of righteousness. This personal struggle is at the heart of self-understanding. A parallel exists in the struggle of David, a man after God's own heart and Jesus, Son of God chosen by God:

Jesus David

Jesus is betrayed. David's son Absalom is declared king.

Crosses the Kidron into the wilderness.

Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives. Goes to Mount of Olives to pray.

Jesus rides on a donkey. Given an ass to ride.

Jesus is crucified on a cross. Absalom is killed; hung on a tree.

In the pictures of both David and Jesus, the reader finds despair, betrayal, and loneliness presaging salvation. This is again every human being's struggle if the individual seeks the way of wisdom and piety.

Another theme appearing reiteratively is that of prophets serving as spokespersons for God. Contrast Elijah, prophet of doom and wrath, to Jonah, prophet of mercy and forerunner for the election of mercy as God's clearly intended destiny for universal humankind:

Elijah Jonah

Doom and wrath Mercy

Man of God is mocked--

I Kings 19 Elijah runs for his life;

Takes a day's journey into the desert;

Sits under a tree;

Prays to die Wishes to die because his preaching

has been successful.

Jonah, like Cain, is angry.

The will of God is not what men would have it.

Doom and divine anger Mercy and comfort

How can one not read the Bible as literature? Within this narrative, we find the additional themes of children born of gods and obedience is better than sacrifice. This is the story of humanity. Adam (humanity )personifies all individuals. In Adam, we discover a humanity made out of a piece of ground. This human being fights a losing battle with ground for life itself; Adam must earn his way by the sweat of his brow, by hard work. His loneliness can be overcome only with another like himself (Adam finds all animals and birds made from earth unsatisfactory partners; the Creator clones from Adam himself: "bone of my bone; flesh of my flesh.")

What we discover in the Bible is an aetiology that helps us to understand the truth of things. We discover that to be human is to be nothing in oneself; to be alive is to share in the divine; to die is to return to our essence. We also discover knowledge is dangerous and can kill the one possessing it. Why do we want knowledge anyway? What does knowledge reveal? Nakedness! What do human beings do? They clothe their nakedness. Adam and Eve, for example, become afraid and hide from God. Human beings also fear their own ignorance. Equally true, though, we find ourselves alienated--from earth, from companions--all echoed in our longing for a reconciliation which, when granted, is to be our death.

In reading the Bible as literature, we encounter ourselves. At one end of a continuum, we see pictured humanity's Independence: we do what is good in our own eyes; we seek even to be like God, to choose for ourselves: to gain knowledge of good and evil. We learn, however, that God and humanity, the infinite and finite, the absolute and relative are not compatible.

One way of looking at the Bible is to read it as survival literature. We find in it the story of God's People: Moses is unheroic; Joshua is a warrior savior, a hero possessed by God's spirit. In fact, we find described a series of savior heroes. Judges is a bridge story in which people "do right in their own eyes." There is no servant of Yahweh, no one to carry out his will. The plot evolves the theme of God as Israel's king. Samuel is God's servant, priest, and king. His mother, we recall, was impregnated by the divine spirit and dedicates Samuel wholly and entirely to God. Samuel's sons, though, are worthless. Israel wants its own king.

Saul is the people's choice. Saul's faults, carefully studied, reveal only that he is human. God does not want a king who does what "he thinks is right" but a king who will do what Yahweh sees as good. Yahweh demands commitment to divine will: Abraham, for example, submits in confidence; Saul fails for lack of confidence that God will provide. Saul fails to be Yahweh's servant.

Beloved David is a Cinderella story. He is the eponymous founder of New Jerusalem, where God is to be forever king. After submission at the Mount of Olives, however, David murders his own faithful servant and dies rejected, old, humiliated, cold, and impotent.

Solomon becomes God's beloved in David's stead. Solomon builds Yahweh a home, and the kingdom is at peace. Solomon is a philosopher-king. We learn promise is conditional to obedience.

In reading the Bible as literature, we learn that the human being has clay feet and cannot escape destiny. Fate itself is sealed by humanity. Beginning with the creation of humanity, the Biblical story describes a forsaken Israel. The Old Testament chronicles the way of every human being; it is universalist. It is a paradigm of humankind.

What many find in Jesus Christ, the Way of Life, the Truth, the Light, the Door, is a way out of the human predicament. The cross itself becomes a symbol of the intersection of the infinite and finite, eternal and temporal, spiritual and earthly. Christ is the mid-point in irreducible contrasts. Yet, Christ Himself stands at the door and knocks, waiting for the human being to permit entry. The narrative is again clear: mercy is eternally present but awaits submission, acceptance of mortal conditions, piety, an understanding of Creator and creation, autonomy and submission, freedom and responsibility, possibility and limitation.

As the Bible unfolds God’s judgment and mercy in parallel movement, the end and destruction of humankind is delayed. This end is delayed in order that humankind can be saved from its own attempts to make itself God. 2 Peter 3:

9 The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The joy of reading the Bible as literature is that one, ultimately, is reading comedy: the creation is preserved; humankind universally is saved. In the historical interlude from Genesis to New Jerusalem, the account is tragic: hero after hero succumbs to ambition to master one’s own destiny and fate. Generations suffer, and God drinks the blood of humankind.