Poetry and symbolism

I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks, hence a lack of posts on here but, praise God, I had some very involving discussions and revelations from conversations and events in the past two weeks which will provide some fuel for several upcoming posts.

The first is about symbolism and metaphor in the bible. It comes from a conversation about one of the biggest issues connected with the topic; how to interpret the account of creation at the beginning of Genesis.

Yes, the beginning of Genesis is poetic. There is no doubt, whereas most of the rest of Genesis appears to be historical, the opening few chapters are rich with poetic devices. The repetition of phrases, the grand descriptive language, the fact that Adam addresses Eve in Hebrew rhyme when he first speaks; all these things point to this segment being poetic. The two most important doctrines or teachings to be taken from the opening chapters are creation (that God created all things good) and the fall (that man, created good, rebelled against God and separated himself from Him).

Now, in poetic terms, the fall is not really a problem. The fall is a spiritual event, easily represented in poetic terms. Although it does result in physical consequences, it's origin and actual happening occur spiritually, in fact, invisibly. Poetry lends itself perfectly to, in fact some might say is defined by, describing the intangible and invisible events that surround us by tying it to objects and situations we can see and understand.

My point is this: whether Adam and Eve literally ate fruit or indulged in some other sinful act which the fruit-eating represents is not the issue - they still sinned. It is rebellion against God whether symbolic or literal. Whether Satan was genuinely disguised as a snake or whether the snake is used to represent Satan as a subtle and dangerous being doesn't matter, Adam and Eve were still tempted by him. Revelation 20:2 shows that the snake is to be regarded as Satan, literal or not. It's true that Genesis does not say this in itself but if we believe the bible is a cohesive document, then Revelation must be correct in its analysis.

In terms of the fall, poetry functions well, in fact actually simplifies and aids our understanding of the complex spiritual event. When it comes to creation, the problems with interpretation begin.

Let's begin by stating this: poetry is a still true but the truth becomes symbolised. If I were to say: 'My girlfriend is a rose' it would be poetic but I would be stating something which I believe to be true; that she is beautiful. In calling her a rose, I have made a link between the generally accepted idea of the beauty of a rose and my girlfriend. I have also made the reader think about the romantic connotations of the flower. Even though the statement is not literally true (my girlfriend is not a thorn-covered flower) it is still true, just in a poetic sense.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because sometimes people take Genesis' quality of being poetry as implying 'It can mean anything'. No! Not at all!

The poetry of the segment doesn't give us license to essentially negate its meaning or twist it. The poetry of Genesis DOES set limits on how far it can be stretched. For instance, some people believe in theistic evolution; the idea that God somehow guided evolution and that this is what Genesis 1 is representing 'poetically' when it talks about God creating animals - but the poetry doesn't match up.

The poetry shows rapid and spontaneous creation, it shows man being created from the dust of the earth. Even when we begin to think of poetic things this might represent, it's still an unfathomable leap to say that Genesis 'supports' the idea of theistic evolution because, even poetically, it doesn't. The quality of truth in God's word is not lessened by the use of poetic language and devices. Psalm 119:160 sums it up really nicely: 'The entirety of [God's] word is truth.'

I think the real issues with interpreting Genesis only really come when non-Christians use it to attack the entirety of Christian faith or biblical reliability but it can also begin to be troublesome when Christians get their priorities wrong.

Don't underestimate the use of science as an idol for many, many people even some Christians. Our primary duty is not to make Genesis fit with scientific discovery - that would as good as saying that the account of creation that God deemed worthy for us to have, Genesis, is insubstantial or lacking when it's not AT ALL. It is totally sufficient to telling us all we NEED to know about how the world began, the involvement God had and the reason for our creation.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the first step of evangelising to someone with a 'creation hang-up' isn't to try and make Genesis fit with what they believe. The first step is to get them to stop idolising science! They must be convinced that it's right to give God and the bible authority over science instead of giving science authority over God and the bible!

Genesis is not a scientific textbook but it tells us the truly essential things we need to understand for our lives and the gospel to make sense.

That is this: God created all things, including humankind, and he created them good. Humankind, cooperating with Satan and failing to trust God, disobeyed God and, as a result, evil entered the world and humankind was cursed with separation from God. Creation, which God made good, became bad because of humans. This is the root cause of all the problems in the world today... and enter Jesus and the gospel of his death and resurrection to reconcile humankind and the rest of creation to their creator!

How God created the world is not the issue AT ALL, it's the why which is really important. This 'why?' should be the starting point for how we live our lives as Christians and also the introduction for those who don't yet know God.

Do you want my stance on creation? I believe that because God deemed Genesis as totally sufficient for informing us of our purpose, we should live our lives and evangelise, to all intents and purposes, as if Genesis is entirely literal... whether we believe it is or not.