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Section Reading the Bible Again for the First Time
A Cyberspace Discussion Group

Foundations: Reading Lenses: History & Metaphor

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Click on the 3 sections below for materials according.
SUMMARY REFERENCES COMMENTS
We move now from "seeing the Bible" to "reading the Bible". 2 aspects together. Borg makes small apology for the big-mouthful words he uses but says they are the best words for the job, and "very illuminating".
The Historical Approach. ..."all the methods that are relevant to discerning the ancient historical meanings of biblical texts." What did the text mean when it was written?
What it is. There are quite a few schools of "criticism". What they have in common is a perspective of specialty from which they examine the text. In consequence we must be interdisciplinary to have a complete picture.
Why it matters."the Bible as a whole and its individual texts are historical artifacts: things made in the past. ... the distant past." from 10 C BCE to 2 C CE. This has been rewarding and illuminating and helps us to avoid reading our "current agendas" into it.
Limitations. Modern spiritual skepticism conditions our perception of the Bible. Events or stories do not sound plausible and we don't go into the depth of it. Modern scholarship is specialized, technical and tough. It's not always friendly to go to the bother of making sense of the Bible from this point of view. For some modernism has just shredded the ancient meanings and left little in its place. And it is no small limitation that historical criticism ONLY speaks to ancient understandings, nor modern.
The Metaphorical Approach.allows us to go beyond the ancient meanings.. Again many voices.
What it is "Metaphorical language is intrinsically nonliteral." "...metaphorical language is intrinsically multivalent, with a plurality of associations." "It emphasizes seeing, not believing. The point is not to believe in a metaphor, but to see in light of it." "Metaphor is poetry plus, not factuality minus." There are schools here also of specialty including literary and archetypal criticisms.
Justification Much of the Bible is clearly metaphorical in the first place and has been traditionally regarded as we can observe in the writings of the Church Fathers like Origen. The Bible is a "classic" which also means it has surplus meanings.
Limitations Fanciful imaginative interpretations are all too easy to make. Some "control" is necessary and it is best that it be "soft"
The Bible as History and Metaphor.
Narratives that Metaphorize History Here the 2 things go together. Example Bartimaeus' regaining sight was a history with a lesson. The Gospel writers organize their material in this way.
Purely Metaphorical Narratives Here there is no historical aspect. Creation stories for example. To help decide the matter there are 2 factors: 1)What does it look like? and 2)What are the "limits of the spectacular?" The difference between moderns and ancients on God's relation to creation and to the laws of nature must be brought into account. "the ancient communities that produced the Bible often metaphorized their history. ... But we, ... have often historicized their metaphors."
The Bible as Stories about the Divine-Human Relationship. A suprising abount of the Bible is narrative - hundreds of them - and they have in common the relationship to God. And they are not stories about old relationship - they speak over the ages to each generation about that relationship to God. For example the Exodus story "portrays bondage as a perennial human problem and proclaims God's will that we be liberated from bondage."
Reading the Bible in a State of Postcritical Naivete.
... meaning when we pass through our childlike trust in authority that things are simply as expressed.
Critical Thinking. "...very much concerned with factuality and is thus deeply corrosive of religion in general and Christianity and the Bible in particular. ... faith becomes believing things that one would normally reject."
Postcritical Naivete. to be able once again to hear the Bible stories as "true" stories. Surprisingly, this is an old tradition too, that stories are told as stories in many cultures, often with a preface to that effect. Importantly, we do not return to childlike innocense but with critical thinking in hand. Christmas is an example. In the rest of this book then, "We will see what it means to read the Bible as a true story (and as a collection of true stories) about the divine-human relationship."
REFERENCES
Meditation
for
the
evening
 Fortunate are those who are willing
to let themselves be censured by the Word of God,
to re-examine their views,
to believe they haven't yet understood a thing,
to be taken by surprise,
to have their mind changed,
to see their convictions,
their principles,
their tidy systems,
and everything they took for granted,
swept out from under them,
and to face the fact, once for all,
that there's no such thing as a matter of course,
and that God can ask anything.

... Louis Evely
Click left to visit the New Testament Gateway - a modern stance on subjects of Biblical criticism with many articles and book reviews. The link visits the articles on Mark from which Borg takes the story of the the Blind Man from Bethsaida.Bookmark this, you'll want to visit again.
Click left to see the Mathew Henry commentary on the story of the Blind Man from Bethsaida. This is traditional exposition and has some degree of critical perspective.
Click on the caves picture for a huge site of information on ancient civilizations. The link opens at a listing of collections on the theme of Religion and Myth. It encompasses the globe and has much to re-visit.

Click on Pandora for a background essay on aspects of myth and archetype. Excerpt: "it is with the relationship of literary art to "some very deep chord," in human nature that mythological criticism deals. The myth critic is concerned to seek out those mysterious elements that inform certain literary works and that elicit, with almost uncanny force, dramatic and universal human reactions."
COMMENTS

Borg makes reference to his "The Meaning of Jesus-Two Visions" that he co-authored with NT Wright. In fact his points on post-critical naivete were apparently first made in this book. Here he quotes the poet TS Eliot
And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.
It is most important to notice his affirmation at the end of this referred to section in 2Visions, "Because I combine historical Jesus research with a metaphorical and narrative reading of the gospels, I can affirm that both the historical Hesus and the cannonical Jesus matter. One does not need to choose between the two." p 249

Catherine Armstrong in "A History of God" also speaks of these themes of relationship to God. A few quotes:
"These myths were not intended to be taken literally, but were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too complex and elusive to express in any other way." p. 5
"Effectiveness rather than philosophical or historical demonstration has always been the hallmark of a successful religion..." p 33.

St. David's United Church.Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The United Church of Canada.

October 14, 2001, feb 22, 04