The Bible is an extraordinary book, and it is an ordinary book. It is not, of course, the only book to cross history’s stage to come with a claim to being the very Word of God. In some instances it is the extraordinary nature of the Bible that sets it apart from other claimants, in other instances it is its ordinariness.
Consider first two rather distinct books that claim to be the Word of God- the Koran, the holy book of Islam and the Book of Mormon, the holy book of the Latter-Day Saints. In both instances these faiths seek to affirm some level of respect for either the Old Testament (Islam) or both the Old and New Testaments (Latter Day Saints). In both instances the accounts of these books tell us that God sent a messenger to one man, that no one else was able to see. Mohammed and Joseph Smith wrote, or translated their messages essentially on their own, before revealing them to the known world. Both books recorded events outside the stream of history and distant from the time of the events covered. Both books contain no predictions future to the book’s writing and past to us who are its readers.
The Bible, on the other hand, was written by dozens of different authors over the space of thousands of years, living and ministering in different countries, speaking different languages. The Bible was given to men who lived among those to whom they spoke. Better still, the Bible was written by men who not only performed miracles to attest to their truthfulness, but performed miracles which could be tested by those who first received God’s Word. Remember that even Nicodemus rightly understood this, “This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him” (John 3:2).
Jesus Himself not only does not correct Nicodemus, but in another circumstance makes essentially the same argument. In Mark 2, in Capernaum, a paralytic is lowered through the roof in order to get to Jesus. Seeing such faith Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven you” (v.5). Because we know they are the bad guys we are put out by the skepticism of the scribes. These reasoned in their hearts that Jesus was guilty of blasphemy. Only God, after all, has the authority to forgive sins. They, however, reasoned rightly. Jesus next, however, demonstrates why He has the authority to forgive sins, but doing that which only God, or a messenger sent by God, could do- But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house” (8-11). Jesus demonstrates His authority, He authenticates His message, by healing this man of his paralysis.
In addition, the Bible includes in it multiple prophecies that were fulfilled after they were given, but before today. That the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem was promised five hundred years before it happened (Micah 5:1-2). The rise and fall of the Medo-Persian empire, the coming of the Greek empire, and the coming of the Roman empire were all foretold by the prophet Daniel during the height of the Babylonian empire. Some scholars have argued that the Bible contains over three hundred prophecies that have already been fulfilled.
The Bible contains miraculous predictions of future events which have since come to pass. The Bible contains miracles, verifiable miracles in their day, that authenticate the authority of the writers of the Bible to reveal the truth of God. One miracle, however, stands above all the rest. As He predicted, three days after His brutal death by crucifixion, Jesus Christ walked out of His tomb alive. The Bible isn’t a book telling the story of how men might go and find God, but is the true story of how God came to be reconciled with men, through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His Son.
These miracles, just like the books of the Bible which recount them, are not the work of men, but rather the Holy Spirit. The Bible alone is that book by which God the Holy Spirit determined to reveal the fullness of the godhead working in and through mere men.
If then the Bible is extraordinary in its sources, extraordinary in its message, in what sense can we rightly say that the Bible is also an ordinary book? Because the Bible is a book that speaks to us as we speak to each other. Some ancient holy books come to us less as revelations and more as riddles. The ancient Gnostic gospels as well as some eastern texts are designed not to reveal but to conceal. Indeed the very term “Gnostic” references its promise to slowly, carefully, make you one who is “in the know.” These religions thrive by promising to unpack the secret knowledge hidden in their sacred texts, knowledge ordinary people, the uninitiated, could not understand.
The Bible, on the other hand, contains a broad range of literary forms that are to be read in accordance with their form. Many, both inside and outside the church, complain that Bible believing Christians are guilty of reading the Bible “literally.” Sound biblical interpretation, like any interpretation is “literal” interpretation. This doesn’t mean that we ignore literary forms, but that we read in light of them. To read the Bible rightly, like any other book, we read poetry according to the rules of poetry. We read history according to the rules of history. We read similes and metaphors as similes and metaphors. What we do not do, however, is read history as poetry, and therefore deny its accuracy, nor read poetry as history, thereby accusing it of being off. One is not reading the Bible literally if, when Jesus said, “I am the door” (John 10:9) they wondered how many hinges Jesus had, or whether he came with curtains.
Too many want to argue that the Bible is a delightful collection of ancient men’s thoughts of matters of great import. The great lay apologist CS Lewis would object on two counts. First, borrowing from His apologetic on Jesus, based on the Bible’s own claims about itself, the last thing we can conclude is that it is a helpful, if flawed book. It is either lies, lunacy or the Lord’s abiding Word. For no erroneous book, no merely man created book can claim to be God-breathed, can claim to equip us for every good work. A patronizing perspective on the Word of God is as sensible as a patronizing perspective on God Himself. You can hate the Word for its alleged errors. You can disdain it for its purported outdated perspective. Or you can submit to it.
Finally, we would do well to confess that the Bible in one sense is ordinary in its history. That is, the Bible is not alone in affirming a worldwide flood. It is not alone in telling a story about a Son of God that comes to earth, dies, and then rises again. Liberal theologians and unbelieving historians delight to point out the similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh of other ancient near eastern texts and the Bible. Some Christians, perhaps threatened and skittish, labor to affirm the differences between those stories and the story. These brothers seem to suggest if we can put enough distance between what the Bible says and what these other ancient holy books say we can hold on to the claim of the Bible as the one true holy book.
Lewis, in his marvelous essay Myth Became Fact, suggests that we have nothing to fear from these overlapping stories, not because we would expect multiple garbled versions of one story once it goes through history’s “telephone game.” Rather Lewis argues that because the whole of creation is the manifestation of the grace and glory of God, we should expect to see these themes cropping up anywhere we find those who bear His image. The dying and rising God is not just some scheme our heavenly Father came up with to rescue us, but is the very reason for the universe. These “myths” are the meta-narratives, the over-arching story that explains who we are, for all of humanity.
The difference, however, with our story brings us back to its ordinariness. The Incarnation is a myth, not in the sense of a lie, but in the sense of a transcendent identity shaping story, that became fact. Our story became also reality. It happened in space and time. Thus Luke explains to his original intended audience, Theopholis, “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea (Luke 1:5) and later, “And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinuis was governing Syria (2:1-2). It is for this reason that our most ancient creed, a brief summary of the most salient affirmations of our faith says of Jesus that He “suffered under Pontius Pilate.”
The Bible, unlike all its rivals old and new, is an astonishing book that clearly and straightforwardly claims to be the Word of God, that defends that astonishing claim, that reveals the very character of God, that shows how we might have peace with God, all through telling us, in a rather ordinary manner, the extraordinary events that actually happened in space and in time. As the beloved disciple reminds us, “these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31).