Reading What's Not There

It all started with Eve, the mother of us all. The story of the first
humans, Even and Adam, opens the Bible with a tangle of loneliness,
companionship, desire, and love. It tells how woman, made in the Creator's
image, gives up a life of ease in an idyllic setting, along with the promise
of immortality, and instead, chooses to pursue wisdom and intimacy with her
man.

This how Naomi Harris Rosenblatt opens her article, "The First Rebel", in a
special edition of US News and World Report titled "Women of the Bible."
While it isn't stated in the Introduction, I can't help wondering if this
isn't directly connected to the release of the movie version of Dan Brown's
book, "The Da Vinci Code."

Quite frankly, after reading the first paragraph of Rosenblatt's article,
I'm not terribly interested in reading the rest of it. But I kept
reading...

The Garden of Eden is an ideal playground, a place of innocence where life
is beautiful and safe, lacking all challenges.

I'm wondering if Rosenblatt has read Genesis any time recently, or if she's
referring either to what she's heard others say about it or what she
remembers from having someone read it to her when she was 4 or 5. Or maybe
she has read it herself recently and decided to "fill in" what she felt was
lacking... or even completely alter some of what's already there in order
fit a 21st century post-modern feminist agenda.

What's clear is that she's ascribing this to the Genesis/Eden account things
that are simply not there - not even between the lines.

The choice Eve had to make was whether or not to choose trust in and
obedience to God - not whether to choose an idyllic setting for an easy life
or wisdom and certainly not choosing between immortality or intimacy with
her man. The characterization is absurd... at best. Nowhere - nowhere in
all of the Bible let alone Genesis - is Eve's choice depicted as giving up
fantasy for reality.

The "life of ease" Rosenblatt depicts is not a biblical characterization
describing Eden. There is no description to suggest what life was like in
Eden except that God was present, that he talked with Adam and Eve, and that
he had given them responsibility for all that was in the Garden. Sounds
like at least some kind of work to me - not at all "lacking all challenges."
About the only description on which I agree with Rosenblatt is that it was a
"place of innocence where life is beautiful." The fact that there was a
serpent seeking to tempt them to do that which would get them kicked of such
a place means it certainly was not "safe."

May I suggest that when you read the Bible and begin to work out what it
means for your life, the least that can be done is to read what is there and
don't read what is not there. That's not as easy as it sounds. It requires
a willingness to recognize and accept that there are questions the Bible
does not answer. It was not designed to serve as an exhaustive treatise on
every subject under the sun. It is not a history book - although it
contains history. It is not a financial strategy book - although it
contains financial strategy. It is not a science book - although it
contains some science. It is not a book of philosophy - although it does
contain philosophy. What the Bible is, more than anything else, is the
revelation of God by God to Man about God's and Man's relationship with each
other. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, it is the revelation of
God's heart for all of mankind, the root problem that mankind faces, and the
solution God has provided because of his heart for each and all of mankind.

But even then, the Bible does not answer all our questions. What we must
recognize is that God has answered all the essential questions, the answers
that could not be discovered apart from God's revelation. We may gain
answers to some of our questions outside of the Bible but we dare not
attribute to the Bible things that are not included within it - even by
implication.

Rosenblatt - and many like her - typically want the Bible to say more than
it says AND less than it says. Reading one's own personal biases (whether
they be cultural or political or any other) into it helps us make what the
Bible say what we want it to say. That way we don't have to wrestle with
what it actually does say... and doesn't say.

Orthodox Christianity has been taking a lot of hard knocks in recent
history. Granted, the Church deserves SOME of those hard knocks. But it
appears that our 21st century American culture has recently made the
adolescent discovery that there is someone to pick on and blame for all our
ills - orthodox Christians. You know what... it's been done before. The
Church in America ought not be shaking its fist at American culture but
bending her knees and folding her hands for Americans as well as all others.
Christians in America must not be duped into following the gods and
goddesses of American culture - literate or illiterate - even though they
must. Perhaps they should even welcome the God-given opportunity to live
among them. But those same Christians must remember that their citizenship
is in a different Kingdom, their behavior dictated by a different Law, their
allegiance belongs to a different Leader.

The Church is the one who, in regards to the Bible, is capable and
authorized to "read between the lines." But that's because she doesn't read
what's not there. She's been reading it - and listening to it - for nearly
2000 years. She hasn't always got all the details right. And there are
still a lot of details that are questioned and unclear. But she's not
trying to make the scriptures fit preconceived agendas regardless of what's
there. Her agenda is to understand and love the revelation as well as the
God who sent it. After all, the revelation is not just about God, it is God
himself.