I often joke about how bad my memory is, and it is really bad,
but I do have some recollection of things that have happened to me. Every
healthy mind has the ability to retain ideas, images and impressions of where
it has been. These ideas, images and impressions are what we use to navigate
through the world around us and to judge validity of things we encounter in the
present. Because I remember the pain of touching the glowing hot burner on a stove,
I will not believe someone who tells me that touching a hot stove will not
hurt. In millions or perhaps billions of tiny ways, my memory shapes who I am
and dictates what I believe.
For many thousands of years, humans had no written records
of their existence, past or present. They had no written language. We should
not imagine that they had no memories. Simple necessity and human nature would
have led them to share their memories, share the things they knew to be true.
These shared memories became the knowledge base that allowed them to survive
and prosper. Fire is hot; tigers eat people; acorns grow into oaks. People
learned to trust in a shared knowledge base.
Human nature being what it is, it is natural to suppose that
over time, people would embellish memories of their own deeds and those of
their cherished ancestors. This is the syndrome we know as the “fish story.”
Every time the fisherman tells the tale, the fish gets bigger. This propensity
leads to my valiant deeds growing more and more exciting as the telling
continues. By the time we are recounting great-great grandfather’s deeds, he
has become larger than life. He has become a legend; legends woven into tales
become myths. Myths retold over centuries form one of the foundations of
culture.
It is probable that the characters in Greek mythology, for
example, had once-living human beings as their antecedents. It is certain that
the Cyclops and Medusa were drawn from pure fantasy, as were the supernatural
powers of Zeus or Poseidon. However, one can easily imagine that there were
living men in the shadows of pre-history who grew into the superheroes of
mythology. Archeology has granted a glimpse into ancient civilizations about
which little is known apart from the myths.
With the ascendance of science and reason over mythology
some five hundred years ago, people gradually discounted the reality of myth,
although they enjoyed telling the tales as entertainment. A quick scan of the
movie guide today attests to the fact that we still enjoy mythology. The
problem for Christians is that many moderns lump the Bible in with mythology.
They admit that there may have been an Israelite named Moses at some point in
history, but he didn’t literally part the Red Sea. Jesus may have walked the
dusty roads of first century Palestine, but he couldn’t have literally walked
on water.
The enlightened, reasonable mind is going to have trouble
with the supernatural in the Bible. It resembles the “fish story” style of
mythology. However, there are good reasons to believe what the Bible says is
literally true. For one thing, whereas Homer intentionally fabricated much of
the Greek “history” he wrote, Luke takes pains to recount in his Gospel only
what he could verify from the memories of eye witnesses. The Apostle Paul, who
wrote two thirds of the New Testament, lived the history he tells. The last
book of the Bible was written when there were people still alive who had either
been there, done that, or they were personally acquainted with those who had.
There is another strong defense of the Bible as truth: no sane
person is going to die to protect a myth. Only a crazy person would die to
preserve the story of Batman. Yet tens of thousands, perhaps millions have died
because they believed the Bible was a true story. Of course, there are other reasons
to trust the Bible. It has phenomenal internal consistency for a collection of
writings gathered over hundreds of years. Archeology and secular historians
have confirmed the facts as stated in the Bible in every instance in which they
have been challenged. The scientifically verifiable fulfilled prophecies alone
testify to the Bible’s veracity.
And then we can go back to shared memory. I
have my own personal memories of all the times God has proven Himself and the reality
of His Word. My father believed
the Bible; his father believed; there were men and women in every preceding
generation going all the way back to the writers of the book itself who will
attest to its truthfulness. Textual criticism proves that the very words of the
Bible, Old Testament and New, have not changed over the centuries. The Bible is
not a collection of fish stories; the Bible is the record of a loving Creator
redeeming His lost Creation.
Are there mysteries in the Bible? Certainly. Paul refers to one
of the most significant ones in Ephesians
3, which was a mystery to everyone in Heaven and on Earth until after the
Cross of Calvary: the mystery of human existence. Then there is the mystery of
how God can be totally sovereign, yet humans can have complete free will. It is
still a mystery what we will be like when we “shuffle off this mortal
coil.” I agree with A.W. Tozer that we must make room for mystery. We are
not God; we will never know everything God knows. But we can know this: the
Bible is true, and it alone holds the key to the life of the ages. No mystery
there. And I hope I never forget it.
