Unfortunately, "story" still carries the connotation of possible
exageration or untruth. Santa Claus is one such story. So are urban myths.
Stories are often understood to be for children and are in narrative form.
Their reliability for purposes other than encouraging good behavior before
Christmas is automatically suspect in our culture.
"History" and "Science" still have the connotation to our public of greater
reliability and honesty than "story" (even taking into account journalists'
protestations). To pretend that the writers of scripture intended to live
up to twentieth century norms and agreements about proper scholarly ways of
writing science and history (or even journalism) is as silly as insisting
that Hebrew poetry follow English rhyming schemes in order to be held in
high regard. To so radically misrepresent the intentions and meanings of
the authors of scriptures is tantamount to any other form of willful
disobedience to the Author of Scriptures and is properly understood as yet
another form of phariseeism.
May I suggest a term which I've grown fond of: "picture". (Yes, I've stolen
this from Howard Van Till, or perhaps others...) Genesis 1 is one of many
creation _pictures_ in the Bible. The evidence from Biblical scholarship
is overwhelming that none of these pictures were intended to teach
chronology (especially since the clear message of God's ownership and our
obligations is not ever tied to sequence). The use of "picture" to
describe this has several advantages. The connotations are much more
positive and realistic about what evangelicals wish to affirm about
scriptures. Everyone knows that "a picture cannot lie" and "a picture is
worth a thousand words." Pictures are chosen to present a particular
viewpoint and are selective in the scope and detail. No one would ever
complain that TV news footage "lied" about a press conference because the
picture didn't show enough detail as to show whether Clinton had unruly
nose hairs! The picture chosen and presented by reporters is supposedly
adequate to the task. It is generally accepted as trustworthy but
understood by all to be selective. That is exactly what the Biblical
writers were trying to do. To pretend otherwise is like a journalist
pretending that modern news coverage intends to cover everything in the
school library in thirty minutes of evening news. As a Christian, I attest
that scripture has told me what I need to know. As a scientist, I'm far
too busy using my God-given skills in understanding the physical world with
the tools of a physicist to bother trying to squeeze scripture into telling
me an answer it clearly had no interest in. As a Biblical scholar, I'm far
too busy trying to clean up the messes made by ignorant scientists who
evaluate everything based on whether it "helps" them do better science.
How narrow...
It is irresponsible and/or ignorant of Christians to continue to lie to our
culture and pretend that the purpose of God in Scripture was to give a
scientifically competitive account ready to show twentieth century
scientists how wrong they are. Meanwhile, we continually disobey the plain
intent and meaning of the whole passage. It is as irresponsible of
atheistic scientists to pretend they know what the Bible teaches and that
they know "better." The church must wake up and realize that it is
contributing to the polarization of the debate as well as the feeling of
many scientists that they are unwelcome in the church. These are people for
whom Christ died!
As scientists, we are trained to "check the literature" before proposing
new theories. When will Biblical scholarship receive the same respectful
treatment from the church and society?
Sorry to have gone on so long (and so disjointedly). Let me return to my
point. The Bible has several pictures of creation. Each is different and
crafted by the Holy Spirit so as to speak to the original
viewers/hearers/readers. If God had been speaking in twentieth century
scientific norms, He would have been misunderstood, and, indeed, been lying
to those ancients. He did not lie. As children should respect their
elders, we moderns have the ability and responsibility to learn what was
communicated back then. Our spiritual ancestors to whom and through whom
God spoke had no ability nor responsibility to learn what we would have
understood. The church through the ages has set aside some to be scholars,
of both scripture and science. Let us listen to them according to their
training. Peter Vibert's direction toward the work of Merdith Kline is a
good place to start.
-Larry Martin, PhD, Associate Professor of Physics
martin@npcts.edu http://www.npcts.edu/~martin/
(312) 244-5668 fax (312) 244-4952 home: (312) 478-0679
North Park College, box 30, 3225 W. Foster Ave., Chicago, IL 60625