welcome to the story.

Patchwork: The Bible as Mosaic Part Two of My Conversation on the Bible As we continue our conversation about the value of the Bible, I think its important that we remember just how the Bible was put together. And to be more specific, how the Bible was approached by the Israelites in the Old Testament and the early church in the New Testament. The Bible was written over 1500 years, by 40 different people, who lived on 3 different continents, and who wrote in 3 different languages. Hardly sounds like a textbook. The fact that it was not written by one person, in one place, in one context, in one language, validates this fact. It�s not a textbook. But it�s a collection of stories of a diverse group of people relating to God. And the story of God relating to a diverse group of people. This diversity frames the Bible as a mosaic, or patchwork arrangement of stories. These stories originate out of the lives of those who are dealing and relating to God. These stories are birthed from the lives of normal people who attempted to integrate their faith in God into the fabric of their lives. At times these stories are quite extraordinary. And at times they are a simple telling and retelling of how God was a part of the normalcy of their lives. So what is so important about the Bible being written by a bunch of different people, in a bunch of different languages, in a bunch of different locations, in a bunch of different contexts? I believe it shows that the Bible was not written and compiled by a bunch of theologians looking for scientific answers to questions about God. I think it shows that the Bible was written as a narration of how a particular person or community was relating to God and how God was in turn relating to them. The Bible wasn�t even compiled in the form that we have it today until late 300 AD. This is huge because it means that before the books were compiled, they simply existed as stories. They weren�t a part of the Bible. No one could study them. Analyze them. Break them down. Learn theology from them. They were just stories. Biographies, autobiographies, fiction, poetry, prophetic language, dream sequences, songs. They were stories. More importantly I believe, is that most of the stories weren�t even in written form. Outside of the Law (the first 5 books of the Bible) and some of the Psalms, a good majority of the Biblical writings were first passed on as verbal stories. Around the campfires of the nomadic Israelites in the desert. While in exile in Babylon. Books like Job and Ruth, these began as stories passed on from generation to generation verbally. The telling and retelling of how God was relating to them and how they were relating to God. Even after all the mini-stories (books of the Bible) were compiled into one master book (the Bible), the good majority of people did not have access to these writings. This was because books and paper in general were so expensive before the printing press (1500 AD) that people were forced out of necessity to communicate the story of God verbally. Unless you were wealthy or a part of the clergy, the only way to communicate and learn about the story of God was to tell it verbally. More importantly, there were no verses or chapters in the Bible until 1555. So the Bible had no stopping points. No sections. No breaking points. Each book read like a story from beginning to end. Each book became a mini-story about a person, a community, a situation. But then we added verses which helped us to find and locate passages easier. But in doing so, it robbed much of the narrative out of the Bible and turned it from a story into a textbook. We broke the Bible down into verses and chapters. Then the Enlightenment hit with its thirst for rationalism and knowledge. So of course we set off to analyze and explain all the little verses without regard to the overall story. We lifted statements and verses out of their historical and narrative contexts. Like an encyclopedia or textbook with no context, no history, no personality. And in doing so, we lost the mystery, romance. The art, the narrative. The intrigue, the beauty. The heart. The soul. The guts of the Bible. We lost the story. But the Bible is not a textbook. A textbook is full of declarative and imperative statements. A textbook gives you facts and only facts. And that is not what the Bible is. The Bible is a conversation. It is in conversation with us and we are in conversation with it. Think of it like this, if I�m having a conversation with you, I�m not going to simply give you facts or imperative and declarative sentences. In conversations we use a wide variety of literary tools and speech to communicate what we are attempting to say. In a conversation neither person talks in a monotone voice and just gives out facts. That�s not a conversation. That�s not a dialogue. That�s a monologue and you�re probably being lectured to. And the Bible is not like that. Because the Bible�s tone is conversational and communicating a narrative, a story, you see a wide variety of literary devices and speech used to communicate. Just like you would see in a conversation. You see metaphor, metaphors, similes, hyperboles, understatements, rhetorical questions, parallelism, irony, sarcasm, symbolism, puns, mockery, exclamation, declaratives, dream language, and performance language to name a few. The exact same things you use when you are in conversations with people. And because the Bible is not a book of facts and because it is a recording of how God relates to people and people in turn relate to God, you see the exact same things that you would see in a conversation. Textbooks are not like that. But the Bible is. The Bible is story by nature. And the Bible is conversational by nature. It requires characters and plot and conflict and resolution. It�s not simply a monologue. It�s not simply a lecture. It�s a dialogue between God and humanity. God and our hearts. God and our minds. God and his characters, who are immersed in a plot, with an ever-present conflict, a hint and rumor of a resolution, all within the midst of a story. And the point of the Bible is to show you your place in the story. To show you how your mini-story fits into the grand story. It�s main purpose is not for you to break the Bible down into parts to be analyzed. Nor is it for you to correctly memorize and recite certain facts or verses. Nor is it to convince you of a certain theology by means of �scientific� evidence. No, its purpose is to tell you the story of God. Its purpose is to give meaning and validation to your story. To fuse your story with meaning. To give your life a context with which to operate out of. That�s the purpose. The Bible comes to you as a humble (big word) conversational partner (this does not devalue displace the role of authority � we�ll jump into that next week). It comes to you telling a story of how God has related to humanity and how humanity has in turn related to God. And it�s purpose is to invite you into that same type of relationship. That same type of engagement. And approaching the Bible any other way is missing the point.