What Does the Bible Say?

A Critical Conversation with Popular Culture in a Biblically Illiterate World

Mary Ann Beavis, HyeRan Kim-Cragg

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781498232197
  9781498232210
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498232203
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This book is a collaboration between a biblical scholar (Mary Ann Beavis) and a practical theologian (HyeRan Kim-Cragg) who are concerned with the way that the Bible is portrayed and interpreted in popular culture, including but not limited to the movies. This concern points to a need for a conversation, examining what the Bible actually says, in order to uncover transformations and distortions of the biblical stories in the wider culture--including Christian culture. Our conversation is counter-cultural, not in an oppositional way, but taking an alternative posture that aims to provide different insights by drawing from and closely looking at the Bible. The chapters take a Christian canonical approach, articulating "what the Bible says" (and doesn't say) with regard to culturally pervasive themes such as sin and salvation, Christ and Antichrist, heaven and hell, in contrast to popular understandings as disseminated in (primarily) film, advertising, television, etc. We hope that together we will open up fertile academic, ecclesial, and secular space for disclosing loaded cultural and ideological views towards offering positive and intriguing insights embedded in the Bible.

1

Creation and Apocalypse

This chapter introduces several biblical creation accounts (Gen 1:1—2:4a; Gen 2:4b—3:24; Prov 8:22–32; Job 38–41; Ps 104; John 1:1–5; cf. Heb 1:1–4) in relation to the themes of creation and recreation (Flood and Restoration, Slavery and Exodus, Exile and Return), culminating in Revelation 21–22, which does not look forward to a heavenly afterlife, but envisions the establishment of the reign of God in a “new” earthly realm of justice and peace. It is divided into three parts. The first part shows how the Bible relates the themes of creation and recreation to apocalypse by employing a comparative reading of how these two chapter themes are depicted and understood.

The second part is a theological exploration of the themes arising from creation and recreation as well as restoration. Theological themes that emerge from this discussion include the goodness of creation, care of the earth, justice, peace, and liberation. The presentation of these themes in this chapter contrasts with excessive cultural focus on Adam and Eve, sex and sin, especially in advertising,1 and with horrific apocalyptic scenarios with deterministic views of history and human destiny that assume that only the violent destruction of the earth can bring about salvation.2 We critically revisit the book of Revelation in the light of the creation narratives, seeking to learn what the Bible actually says about creation and apocalypse.

Finally, we engage in a conversation with the film, Princess Mononoke (dir. Miyazaki, 1997), in order to show how a pop culture presentation of the creation, restoration, and the beauty of the earth can enrich our understandings of the biblical narratives. We argue that this film can be used as a teaching tool that can inform a nuanced reading of creation and recreation and their significance for Christians. Based upon the experience of watching this film with a particular church group, we suggest further discussion questions, and teaching and learning materials for such use.

Creation, Recreation, and Restoration in the Bible

The Christian biblical canon is arranged so that it begins with creation (Genesis 1–3) and ends with recreation (Rev 21:1—22:4). Since they are placed at the beginning of the canon, the first three chapters of Genesis are regarded as the creation story par excellence, sketching a grand narrative of the origin of the world, of the human race, and of all living beings, with implications for who we are in relation to the divine as well as about how we live. It delineates a theological anthropology and a relational cosmology.

As students of the Bible know, there are actually two creation stories at the beginning of Genesis. The first of these, Gen 1:1—2:4a, was probably written centuries after the second (Gen 2:4b—3:24). This “Priestly” (P) creation account, written during or after the Babylonian exile (587–538 BCE), depicts the creation of “the heavens and the earth” in seven days, corresponding to the days of the week, culminating in the Sabbath. The life of all beings is affirmed as “good” (1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). This biblical teaching on the affirmation of life is obvious; creation’s goodness is repeated seven times as each time God created earthly life, its value is affirmed. In this story, human beings, male and female, are created “in the image and likeness” of the divine, and given a special role in relation to other beings (Gen 1:26–27), rendered in the KJV as “dominion” (kavash). As Dianne Bergant explains,

Despite the fact that they share the same habitat with some of these creatures, they are given a limited jurisdiction over the rest of creation. This is an invitation not to exploit or cause harm to the natural world but to oversee its growth and manage its productivity, for they are representatives of God, meant to govern as God would govern.3

The ecological theologian Sallie McFague contends that the intrinsic value of all life is at the heart of the first creation story,4 and that this same value is spelled out even today in The Earth Charter, a United Nations document:

Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every form of life has value regardless of its worth to human beings. Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual potential of humanity.5

In its historical context, it is easy to see how this mandate to oversee creation would be meaningful to returning exiles who had enjoyed little control over their lives and environments in foreign territory. In the Priestly account, however, humanity is not God’s final word; rather, it is the seventh day, Shabbat, when “God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation” (Gen 2:2–3).

The second creation account (the J or Yahwistic account) was written as early as the tenth century BCE, edited together with the Priestly version in post-exilic times almost seamlessly. However, a close reading of Gen 2:4b—3:28 reveals many discrepancies between the two. In Genesis 2, the first (not the last) created being is the human (ha’adam), formed out of the earth (adamah). Next, the Garden of Eden is planted as an environment for the primal human, so that ha’adam will have something to eat. Then, so that the human will not be lonely, God creates the animals and birds, which are named by ha’adam. Finally, a woman is created from the side of ha’adam, and humanity is divided into man (ish) and woman (isshah) as fitting partners for one another (2:22–24). As in the P narrative, the human being is given a special task with respect to the garden, “to till it and keep it” (2:15), reflecting the agricultural economy of ancient Israel. Perhaps reflecting its antiquity, the J account is much earthier than P, and presents God (called by the proper name YHWH) in human-like terms, forming the human out of the earth, breathing life into the human’s nostrils, planting the garden and placing ha’adam there, giving the human every fruit of the garden to eat, except for the fruit of the tree of knowledge (2:15–17). Compared with the cosmic scope of the P account, J is anthropocentric, human-centered. It portrays the relationship between God, humans, and the earth in intimate and relational terms.

These ancient stories are the best-known of the Bible’s creation narratives, and they have pride of place by virtue of their position at the beginning of the canon and their influence on western culture. They mesh together very well, proceeding from the big picture—the creation of the heavens and the earth in seven days—to the microcosmic focus on the Garde...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Creation and Apocalypse
• Chapter 2: Sin and Salvation
• Chapter 3: Moses and Jesus
• Chapter 4: Jews and Christians
• Chapter 5: Heaven and Hell
• Chapter 6: God and Satan
• Chapter 7: Christ and Antichrist
• Chapter 8: Gender and God
• Chapter 9: Purity and Sex
• Chapter 10: Suffering and Sacrifice
• Bibliography