God and Bible Settings

Christianity for the Next 1000 Years

In the beginning, God created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  May God’s good providence lead you through your way in life.

I have been writing about the element of good storytelling known as setting.  I turn now to Bible settings. 

All action in a good story happens in a time and a place.  The primary settings for the Hebrew and Christian Bibles cover an area that spans Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Middle East in the Jewish Bible and Europe in the Christian Bible. 

Within those areas, writers tell the story of our main character, God.

The first setting is the sky above a formless earth.  As the earth is being created, a setting is being established.  This earth is understood to be a flat disc fixed into mountains below a sky where immortals live. 

In this setting the crowning creation is humanity.  On this earth, the story of God will happen.

The next setting is a magical garden.  It’s magical because Adam magically appears before the other animals magically appear.  The garden has at least one animal that talks.  It also has two magical trees.  One is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The other is the Tree of Life.

The next setting is not clearly defined.  We know it is outside of the magical garden.  The symbolism of this place and time suggest that it is where we all live today. 

In this setting, Cain murders his brother and builds a city.  In this setting some of the sky dwellers lust for human women, copulate with them, and impregnate them.  In this setting, God regrets having created humanity so God sends a flood to drown everyone and everything except Noah, his wife, and six other people on an ark.

After the flood, we are suddenly in a world filled with countries and cities.  The ark lands on Mount Ararat.  The sons of Noah become fathers of named nations.

God’s action occurs in cities like Babel, Ur, Mamre, Sodom, and Gomorrah.  Regions like Canaan, Egypt, the Valley of Sidim, and the land of the Philistines are named as well. 

God comes and goes with a body in some settings.  In others, God appears in dreams, in a burning bush, as a visible, ethereal presence called the shekinah that dwells in a tabernacle and eventually a temple.  In some places, God appears in visions.  To Elijah, God came as a still, small voice on Mount Horeb. 

One of my favorite settings is Habakkuk’s place on the tower, possibly overlooking the wilderness for an invading army.  The poet muses about theodicy, or the justification of God in an evil world. 

Why is this world such a setting as it is beyond Eden where men must watch for invaders who will butcher and pillage their brothers and sisters?

All of us have been on that tower.  We see the news.  Everyday we see the terrible evil humans afflict on other humans.  

Just yesterday, I saw images of dead children stacked on top of each other as if they were logs.  These children were murdered by chemical weapons.  

To Christians, God continues to appear in all times and places.  For God is present where there is love, and we are commanded to love always. 

We need more of that kind of presence in the world.

Blessings…