The Bible as Literature

Oldřich Kulhánek / Oldrich Kulhanek
Job III
litografie / lithograph
2004, 91,5 x 64 cm
23.000,- Kč / CZK

Under the headline "Should Bonners Ferry Teach Bible?", D. F. Oliveria, the steady hand at the wheel of Huckleberries Online (HBO), raised the question, "Would you support a public high school teaching the Bible as part of a secular program?", here.

I made a brief comment at HBO in answer to this question and felt like writing more, and decided to address this question in a little more detail on my blog.

I've been a Christian, sometimes barely having the faith of a mustard seed, my entire life. I graduated from a Christian college (Whitworth), spent a year working as a Chaplain's assistant at Whitworth, and taught English two different times at Whitworth. I also was part of the team taught course, Core 150, a survey of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I'm licensed as a lay preacher in the Episcopal Church.

My thoughts about this question grow out of a lifetime spent practicing and serving the Christian faith.

When it comes to the Bible, and understanding the Bible, I'm a pragmatist.

In my view, the Bible should be studied and approached in as many different ways as possible. The Bible should be studied from the perspectives of theology, sociology, psychology, history, literary criticism, historical criticism, mythology, linguistics, etc. I don't regard the Bible as a source of a single Truth, but as a source of countless truths.

When looked at from academic points of view like history or sociology, mythology, or literary criticism, the Bible can only be looked at as the Word of God, if "Word of God" means the word about God, not the word coming from God.

Thus, looked at from a secular point of view, studying the Bible has little or nothing to do with affirming or confirming the tenets of a world religion or of the church.

It has to do with an invitation: what is the text inviting us to understand?

For example, the Book of Job invites us to see Job as an unwitting pawn in a challenge set forth by Satan. Satan questions Job's faith. He says the Lord has put a hedge of protection around Job and Job is untested. The Lord responds by saying, in essence, destroy that hedge. Don't lay a hand on Job, but go ahead, take everything he's got.

Seen from a literary perspective, I would not take the opening of this story literally. To me, it's an invitation to experience what senseless suffering feels like, especially to a person, like Job, who has lived an upright life. He's done nothing to bring suffering upon himself.

In other words, the teller of the Job story might have thought about how much senseless suffering exists in the world.

The teller might have thought, "It's as if the Lord stands by and allows Satan to work destruction upon the upright."

This seems grossly unjust. Why should an upright man like Job suffer such loss and misery? Shouldn't a man as good as Job be rewarded for his service and devotion? Why should he suffer like this?

What are we invited to learn from such a story?

I think the story invites us to learn about the capricious, unwarranted, unpredictable, unjust, uncalled for nature of suffering itself. It cannot be avoided. It comes out of nowhere. That's Job's experience.

The story invites us to see how Job responds to his suffering and to how others respond to it, too.

Thus, Job's "comforters" become central. We are invited to see that in the face of Job's inexplicable suffering, they respond, not with compassion, but with superiority. One suggests that Job just needs to repent. Another tells him to quit complaining. The third tells him he needs to believe more strongly, that something in him is lacking.

None of them offers to share in his suffering. None of them considers this suffering as random, mysterious, or unjust. Each believes the suffering must be happening for a reason.

None of them understands Job's existential plight.

From a literary perspective, the timeless mystery of suffering, of life seeming pointless and absurd is at the heart of this story and we are invited to fully experience the misery of this suffering as Job rails about what's happened to him.

When I have taught Job in a literature course, some Christian students want to rush in and defend God and want to parallel the suffering of Job with the suffering of Jesus Christ.

They want to see Job as steadfast and patient.

But, Job's angry. He lashes out at his circumstance. He bitterly proclaims himself a man more sinned against than sinning. He cries out to Yahweh and Yahweh isn't all that comforting in response.

Yahweh, the story's supreme being, tells Job that he can't understand what's happened to him.

It's a classic existential circumstance and we are invited to see that not only do humans suffer without cause, but that often humans who serve a Supreme Being often know and experience and know suffering more fully than they experience and know the One who created the world and brought all into being.

It's a painful story. Seen from a secular perspective, it illuminates the harsh reality of suffering and how much occurs in the world that is senseless.

But, in the end, all is restored to Job. It's at this point that the story raises the question as to why Job is rewarded in the end.

If looked at from a literary or secular point of view, one way to see the story is that Job is rewarded for his anger, his honesty, his lashing out. It is as if the story not only narrates the mystery of suffering, but the mystery of its coming to an end as Job accepts that he cannot understand what has happened to him.

Suffering perplexes, enrages, and chastens Job.

It's a universal story that should have a place in a public school, not to bring students to believe in God, but to help students understand that from the beginning, beginning with the story of the Garden of Eden itself, storytellers have wrestled with the inexplicable problem of suffering.

Does suffering come from punishment? Is it random? Is it avoidable? Is it inevitable? Can it be explained? How do we live with it? How do we help others? What does suffering help us understand about human nature and the human condition? What is the nature of this supreme being in Job called Lord, God, Yahweh?

Is the Job story a hopeful story? Is it a story of despair?

Are not these the very questions that a liberal arts curriculum ought to be addressing, whether through the stories of the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, King Lear, The Ramayana, the Book of Job, the Psalms, or the story of Jesus?

If seen as another book of stories and poems in a long line of other ancient books told by a series of storytellers and poets trying to figure out what it means to be human in relation to other humans and in relation to a Supreme Being, I think it's foolish not to study the Bible in public schools.

But, studying from this perspective, persuading students to study from this perspective, and winning the trust of the religious and the secular community is much, much more easier said than done.