C.S Lewis on Genre, Genesis, and the Old Testament

There’s no reason why God, who spoke to ancient Israelites “in their weakness, after the manner of their language” could not adapt familiar myths so “that they might come to understanding” (D&C 1:24.)

C.S. Lewis thought the same thing.

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Lewis argued that inspiration can include adaptation from “secular” or  uninspired sources, and he therefore had  

 no difficulty in accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell us that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semitic stories which were Pagan and mythical. [See “Week 3” here] We must of course be quite clear what ‘derived from’ means. Stories do not reproduce their species like mice. They are told by men. Each re-teller either repeats exactly what his predecessor had told him or else changes it. He may change it unknowingly or deliberately. If he changes it deliberately, his invention, his sense of form, his ethics, his ideas of what is fit, or edifying, or merely interesting, all come in. If unknowingly, then his unconscious (which is so largely responsible for our forgettings) has been at work.

Thus at every step in what is called —a little misleadingly— the ‘evolution’ of a story, a man, all he is and all his attitudes, are involved. And no good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights. When a series of such retellings turns a creation story which at first had almost no religious or metaphysical significance into a story which achieves the idea of true Creation and of a transcendent Creator (as Genesis does), then nothing will make me believe that some of the re-tellers, or some one of them, has not been guided by God.

Thus something originally merely natural—the kind of myth that is found among most nations—will have been raised by God above itself, qualified by Him and compelled by Him to serve purposes which of itself it would not have served. Generalizing this, I take it that the whole Old Testament consists of the same sort of material as any other literature—chronicle (some of it obviously pretty accurate), poems, moral and political diatribes, romances, and what not; but all taken into the service of God’s word.

So wrote Lewis in his 1958 Reflections on the Psalms. I emphasized his conclusion about different genres in scripture: the same sort of material as any other literature—chronicle (some of it obviously pretty accurate), poems, moral and political diatribes, romances, and what not.

One of the major keys in understanding, and even appreciating the Old Testament, is reading it in context and understanding its genres; the easiest way to do that is to pick up a Study Bible. If you’re not familiar with Study Bibles, check out this article at Religious Educator, “Study Bibles: An Introduction for Latter-day Saints.”

If you have a bone to pick with modern translations because they aren’t in elevated or archaic language, like the KJV, note Lewis again.

“The same divine humility which decreed that God should become a baby at a peasant-woman’s breast, and later an arrested field-preacher in the hands of the Roman police, decreed also that He should be preached in a vulgar, prosaic and un-literary language.’”¹As quoted in the Cambridge Companion to C.S. Lewis

“The truth is that if we are to have [Bible] translation at all²The alternative being, you must learn Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic we must have periodical re-translation. There is no such thing as translating a book into another language once and for all, for a language is a changing thing. If your son is to have clothes it is no good buying him a suit once and for all: he will grow out of it and have to be reclothed.”³As quoted in chap 5 of Authorized: The Use & Misuse of the King James Bible

The two Study Bibles I recommend most frequently work very well together. The Jewish Study Bible brings together the best of Jewish tradition and modern Jewish Biblical scholarship.⁴It is, of course, Jewish, so it does not include the New Testament, nor does it interpret Isaiah as prophecies of Jesus. The NRSV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible⁵No idea why this is so expensive right now; look at the leather-bound and other editions, but make sure you get the NRSV, not the NIV or NKJV. focuses on (surprise!) the cultural backgrounds of the Bible, aspects which often played a role in meaning, but could “go without saying.” Where the NRSVCB fails (like introducing Deuteronomy) the JSB goes into good detail.

The links above are to Amazon, but these and others are also available in Logos, available for all platforms; you can link the notes from both Study Bibles with the KJV or any others translations so they all scroll together.  Bible verses pop up when you mouse over them. (The app is free, you buy books and packages. Previous Logos posts here)

Here’s a screenshot of a basic Logos setup. (Click for high-resolution)

On the left, I have (top to bottom) my Hebrew, NRSV, JPS, and KJV, to Job 7:12. It’s a strange passage, and the KJV translators didn’t know what to do with it, really. On the right, I have my Jewish Study Bible notes, which explain the passage against it’s Canaanite literary background (which the KJV translators didn’t know)⁶It wasn’t discovered until the mid-1900s. And on the bottom right, the NRSV CBBSB actually quotes a relevant Ugaritic text and links to an article therein talking about it.

Particularly as we spend a lot of time in Genesis⁷and Pearl of Great Price parallels next year, I think these will make a difference in understanding this early and difficult book. For long-time readers, I will be indeed put up my regular yearly posts about OT resources soon. In the meantime, see those from our last Old Testament cycle here and my standard pages on LDS and the Bible and Resources for Contextual Bible Study.

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