If the four Gospels make it clear that there are different ways of understanding the Christian Gospel, it is equally clear from the first page of the Old Testament that the same is true of God’s work in creation. If you are convinced either way of there being or not being a Maker, stop reading now.
‘In the beginning God …’starts the first sentence. It introduces a poetic account with each development beginning with ‘God said …’ Sky and dry land are accounted for. Then comes vegetation, light and darkness, sun and moon, living creatures and human beings. This chapter is more like a song of praise than a handbook of geology
For another generation another style becomes appropriate. Something more like a nursery story. The garden of Eden is the setting. There are place-names, Havilah and Cush, rivers. Eve was made out of Adam and the story of the snake and the fruit find a place in the story. Here’s a story that begs repetition; the audience know it well and like to hear it again and again.
Milton followed both examples in ‘Paradise Lost’. He began his presentation in heaven with the angelic rebellion. Satan becomes the field-marshal commanding the rebels. It is he who sets himself the task of throwing a spanner into God’s new creation. His cunning takes him a long way but not to an entirely successful outcome.
When a story comes to us in verse or prose, we welcome both, ‘London’ was Samuel Johnson’s first major work. This was in verse, unlike ‘London a biography’ a 20th century view of London by Peter Ackroyd.
When ever something like this is accomplished or attempted, there will be comparison and attempted collation. Details are likely to appear that are singular. Conversations are constructed that amplify or intensify what one account or the other has included. Ask a school class to illustrate a Gospel story and questions about beards, begging and other characteristics will emerge. The imagination has to be called in for want of any other guide.
The process by which a book or document emerges raises different issues from the worth or quality of the final product. A process that we find elsewhere in other publications will be involved before the document or documents see the light of day. Whether we talk of an era of pen and ink, or typewriter or digital technology, a familiar process takes place. The outcome is mundane or overwhelming. It is not surprising that we find the Bible to be anything but mundane.
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