What safeguards do imaginative teachers and writers use when turning to the Bible?
I talked about imagination and the Bible in my last post here.
But because we believe the Bible is truth, it’s important to accurately understand it and to be careful not to let our imaginations run wild.
Can heresy can come from an imagination that is not safeguarded from too much creativity, shall we say?
I asked two bestselling Biblical novelists, Tessa Afshar and Jill Eileen Smith, what safeguards they use to ensure their writing is “biblically sound.”
Research is paramount
They both went to the same objective standard: research as the key.
Afshar explained it this way:
“We need to understand what is actually present to the best of our ability; this requires historical study, and understanding what was going on at the time, so we comprehend the context of a verse or story.”
The author of more than a dozen novels about women in the Old Testament, Smith starts with research to write well and accurately:
“Creativity and imagination have to be coupled with research. We can’t imagine what “might have been” or envision the setting if we know nothing about that setting.
“Creativity began for me when I started teaching Bible studies and I had to dig deeper.
“Part of digging deeper is to try and understand the life and times, the culture, the era, the geography of the land, the Law of Moses and how it affected daily life (if the Law was given during the time of the story), etc.”
Only once the research is done does Smith feel comfortable applying it to the Biblical text on which she bases her story.
Experience and Study
Afshar has a degree in divinity from Yale; she’s studied academic Bible texts and works in Christian ministry.
Smith also read countless books, studied maps, and has written about Bible times for many years. Her familiarity means, for her,
“it’s not hard to envision Jesus speaking to his disciples, for instance, and walking along the Sea of Galilee and pointing to a city and saying, “A city on a hill cannot be hidden,” because the cities on hills were right there for all to see.”
Smith has sampled food the Israelites may have eaten (Wild locusts anyone?) and made dishes from a Bible cookbook. She’s attended Jewish Seder meals to better understand the Last Supper.
Christy Award winner Afshar grew up in the Middle East and brings an innate cultural background and understanding to her stories. Jill has been to Israel.
For both writers, a deep understanding of the Bible itself informs their writing and their ability to write Biblical stories with spiritual confidence.
Smith’s first book told the story of King David’s wife Michal:
“I could not imagine Michal’s story, for instance, without studying 1 and 2 Samuel and all about her father, her brothers, her sister, and David.
“It meant even reading genealogies and ages of characters and sometimes doing the math to calculate who lived when.
“To imagine accurately, I needed to be sure it [the story] squared with the whole of Scripture.
“If you get to know a map of Israel, where the tribes were located, where the other enemy tribes settled, you can better understand a lot of Old Testament settings.”
She stressed the importance of understanding the times and the mindset in which the people lived. Their culture was different than 21st century America.
“I don’t change what happened [in the Biblical narrative].
“I only imagine, based on research how it might have come about and from my experience why it could have happened in an imaginative way.”
Without doing the necessary research, Smith pointed out, you can’t know what the original meant. It’s important to read and imagine the Bible stories within their natural context.
Bible knowledge
Thorough knowledge of the Bible enables a writer to “use Scripture to interpret Scripture.”
Smith finished by laughing,
“I don
‘t know nearly as much as I once thought I did.”
“Faith and hope and going back to the Scripture keeps me on track.
“Not straying from what I know from Scripture is true is the only safeguard I probably have.”
Both Afshar and Smith have editors and publish with well-known publishers in the Christian world.
Safeguards are part of their natural life and that of their publishers.
Just as they should be part of ours.
The best way to harness and safeguard our recognition of what is true and right and salutary is to spend more time in the Word of God than in imagining what it actually says.
The Holy Spirit will guide us in all truth.
We just have to ask.
Tweetables
Biblical novelists on how to use imagination. Click to Tweet
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Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?