Earlier this week I read a Facebook post shared by a friend claiming that Mylie Cyrus had slammed all believers of the Old Testament for their faith in, what she termed to be “Fairy Tales”. I do not know Mylie Cyrus personally and can’t call myself a fan. She exists somewhere in my peripheral vision and I can’t account for the validity of the statement or if she even said as much. Yet the post stuck with me and not because of the name of some celebrity being linked to it, but because it was so completely unoriginal. I have heard this so many times that I can now use the word often when referring to those occasions. I might therefore be late off the starting blocks in giving this answer, but let me write this once and for all so I can get it out of my system and allow myself and my fellow believers to be heard.
I think the first issue that needs to be addressed is the one of ignorance. The moment we use the words believers or faith or any synonym thereof, it is immediately assumed that we are referring to the ignorant masses. It is a fact that blind faith exists and there had been times when I have had occasion to practice it. However, when it comes to my faith in the Old Testament we are far removed from blind faith. True again, that I have often spoken to fellow-believers who exercised blind faith when it came to the Old Testament, but for every “ignorant” believer, I have encountered another who was informed, well-read and studied in the topic. No, I would venture to say that ignorance lies on the side of the accusers. Allow me to explain.
When confronting these accusers, I would like to start off by asking of them if they had read the Old Testament? I am not talking about remembering passages from the Children’s Bible or snippets from church attendance and other such sources; what I am talking about is reading from Genesis to Malachi an actual formal ‘adult’ translation of the Old Testament. Have they? My next question would be which translation they had read. Or perhaps they read a transliteration? I shan’t be too strict here. I really only want to find out if they are informed about the book they so easily shirk as something condemned to children’s literature, namely fairy tales. Because I have read it so many times that I have lost count of the amount of readings. Now why would a person of above average intelligence be interested in reading the same book over and over again? Simply, because I still do not understand it. How anyone can classify this as children’s literature is beyond my understanding. Take the book of Job, for instance, that is currently playing on my audio Bible. Do you understand Job? I know the book baffles me at every reading. Perhaps it is because it was originally written as poetry? Did you know that about Job? Do they know that Biblical Hebrew did not make use of rhyme and that there is very little of our understanding of English poetry that can be applied to Biblical Hebrew poetry?
I keep using the term Biblical Hebrew. Let me explain this as well. You see the Old Testament was written in Aramaic and Hebrew. The Biblical Hebrew is however, so far removed from modern spoken Hebrew that Modern Hebrew speakers have great difficulty in understanding it, if they can make sense of it at all. Allow me to use Shakespeare as an example here. We have all been confronted by Shakespearean writings at some stage, haven’t we? Did it strike you how different Shakespeare’s English was to modern spoken English? Shakespeare lived in the 16th century. The Old Testament is a couple of millennia older than that. Do you see the pitfalls? Now add to that differences in culture, lifestyle, etc. and you’ll see that we could never dream of an off-handed brushing of the Old Testament aside to fit in the genre of fairy tales, at least not if we did not want to come across as being ignorant ourselves.
I could carry on for hours telling you about the different authors that contributed to the Old Testament, the editions that their work underwent, the translations and the translators and the influences they were subjected to. I could advocate learning another language to open up more possibilities of understanding, but I think I would be accused of missing the point. It is the stories these accusers have a problem with.
I am not. These stories are part of a much bigger whole and no one will ever be able to understand them fully until they investigate the bigger picture. Tell me, you know the stories of the heroes of faith, don’t you? I am talking about the book of Judges, where the heroes are often referred to in Children’s Bibles as men of faith. Yet the book of Judges is a link between Joshua, Moses’ successor and the first king. The intention of the book is actually to prove that the faith of the nation was dwindling and failing and that an alternate form of leadership would be required if their faith was to survive.
Do you understand that those stories from the Children’s Bible served their purpose when you were a child? But you are no longer a child. It is time you read the Bible as a responsible thinking and reasoning adult and leave the things of children behind you. Until you do, you may find yourself in danger of sounding like a resounding ignoramus when next time you enter into a conversation about the Old Testament and fairy tales.
Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.
Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
You can follow Miekie's daily Bible Study blog, Bybel Legkaart, here in English & Afrikaans.
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