It’s as if, for a story to be a good story, it has to be eternal. Even things that seem almost terminally of their time can pass into the future and transcend the present. On the one hand, A Christmas Carol is dealing with the immediate social issues of Dicken’s day, such as shutting down the ovens on the Sabbath; and yet, on the other, as those particular issues pass away, the principles remain. We call the study of these things the Humanities, and as long as we’re human, as long as what Lewis calls the unman and his ilk are kept from tearing the hearts out of his brothers, some form of A Christmas Carol will continue. We tell stories, we tell the same stories again and again; we surprise ourselves by rewrapping the story in new and exciting ways. Shakespeare didn’t invent Hamlet, that is, the basic plot was already being told, I’m told. But he told it well, he participated in the tradition, transformed it, and now when we think of Hamlet, we are thinking of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. When we way, The Lion King is a retelling of Hamlet, the Hamlet we think of as the original is Shakespeare’s.
Here, then, we come to the Bible. All throughout the world, the Bible has been introduced as one of the great stories, and for Christians, as the greatest story, as something that transcends even these transcendent narratives: “In the midst of gods, He judges.” A literary critique of the Bible, an honest critique, reveals two strange facts: On the whole, the Bible is not the best as regards language. Its poetry and prose are generally decent; books like Job and Ecclesiastes are beautifully written, but it is not always written to be beautiful. The Gospels themselves, what Christians hold as a sort of Key to everything, is an elephant in the room; it is written in Greek by people who did not have a native’s familiarity with the language. Yet, though the artistry and technique may fall short in places, another fact emerges, one that might be seen best if we first take a step back.
When we speak of artistry or technique, we are not only talking of artistry or technique. They are things which have to be effective, and so are mediums, mediums between two things, the perceived and the perceiver. Socrates comes to our aid now, and offers: “… I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you.”
I had the option in high school to take a course on Greek mythology and get a sort of general taste of the classics. We had wonderful class discussions and debates, and one of the questions our teacher brought forward was that of Socrates’s pride. I was thrown for a loop when it was asked, for humility seemed to govern his whole character; however, a friend of mine was quick to disagree. We went back and forth, and finally settled on the fact that it all depended on if he was speaking the truth.
That is the claim of the Gospels and the Bible. It is not claiming to be king of the humanities by right of comparison. It is not better at being art than other piece of art, but it is better at being the thing that makes art. Like with Socrates so with Jesus, it all depends. If this is the truth, then let it be spoken in broken sentences with forgotten verbs. Let the barefoot and mischievous figure into your bacchanal, and he may surprise you with sobriety. Let the red letters into your heart and you may find art’s whispered promise revealed.
Tale Told 