Understanding Personification and Historical Narrative in Scripture

A particular literary form that is troublesome at times is a form that we find frequently with close association with Hebrew poetry as well as with other types of national poetry, and I'm thinking of the use of the concept of personification -- personification. We have it in our own literary patterns of poetry, and personification is, as the word suggests, the use of personal forms of description for impersonal objects, attributing human characteristics to inanimate things. [00:01:08]

I think, for example, of the narrative account in the Old Testament of Balaam's ass, where in that story, we are told that Balaam is riding along on his donkey and he's on a very close confined quarters of a narrow mountain pass, and suddenly, the angel of the Lord stands in front of the donkey, and the angel stands there with a sword and he bars the passage of the ass. [00:03:18]

Now the donkey can see the angel, but Balaam, who's riding on the back of the donkey, cannot see the angel, and he's just assuming that the donkey's refusal to move ahead is just part of the obstreperous stubborn nature of the beast, and he starts to rebuke the jackass, and he said, "Get going, jackass. Why aren't you moving?" And he's whipping it and prodding it, and the thing is not going to move; it'd rather fall off the cliff than have to deal with that angel. [00:04:08]

Now how in the world are we supposed to interpret that narrative? Well there are different ways to approach it; some say this is an example of simple personification. The problem with that, however, is that the account of Balam's ass does not take place in the broader structure or the literary form of poetry. It takes place in a passage that is marked by all of the normal characteristics of what we call historical narrative, with a certain soberness to it. [00:04:57]

We have another category of literature where you will find stories that are written that have some of the characteristics of historical narrative and that are written in some cases in a style of prose, but they end up with animals speaking and doing human things. We think of Aesop's fables, for example, and that that is itself a literary form that is used to teach a moral lesson. [00:07:10]

In the very earliest chapters of the Old Testament, going back to creation itself, back to the account of the fall in the third chapter of the book of Genesis, one of the most important narratives of all the Scripture because it gives us the biblical and theological explanation for the fall of man, for the reality of sin, for the reality of death in this world, for the very need for redemption in the first place, I mean, it's crucial to the Christian faith and theology that we understand properly the biblical idea of creation and fall. [00:09:23]

Now again, we have the same problem here that we've had in other places already. We have to ask the question, is the Bible claiming a supernatural event happened here in real time, in real space, in real geographical setting and that the problem that we're confronting with those who are skeptical about it is basically a problem of unbelief -- they just don't believe in God? They don't believe in a supernatural Creator who has the capacity to bring miracles to pass? [00:11:31]

With all due respect, I agree that the real, you know, concern ought to be what was the conversation about -- that's vitally important -- but right now we have a crisis here in the church, a crisis of whether or not the Bible that we come to for our instruction of the things of God is a book that can be trusted when it teaches matters of history. Can we believe it when it says that in history Jesus Christ rose from the dead? [00:14:21]

Now again, I'm not backing off my original assertion. I said there's only one right answer to that: either the author of Genesis is trying to say this is what happened in real history or he wasn't; we can't play games with that. I don't want to do that, but I'm saying we have to be careful to analyze the literature. [00:15:52]

Some of the most basic of all characteristics of historical narrative that we ought to be able to recognize when we see them are as follows -- I'll give you a simple list. First of all, where the passage gives us a setting of a time and/or of a real historical place. Think of the announcement of the nativity of Jesus Luke tells us: a day -- you know, "A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world would be enrolled, and these things took place in the days when Quirinius was governor of Syria." [00:21:40]

Another tip-off to real history is the presence of genealogies, those lists and catalogs of generations: so-and-so begat so-and-so begat so-and-so that begat so-and-so. Those were part of the legal documentation of the records that were used in the census bureaus and in the local courts of Israel, and so genealogies are not usually found in poetry. They're found in historical narratives. [00:23:50]

I would say the burden of proof to differentiate when the rest of these characteristics are present would be on those who are arguing that it is not historical narrative. That's one of the reasons why I believe in the historicity of the first three chapters of Genesis. Yes, there are these elements, these strange elements of symbol present there, but you have real rivers, you have real genealogies, you have the corroborative evidence of the rest of the New Testament writers, no less, the New Testament and Old Testament referring to Adam and so on as a real historical person, and so I would say the cumulative evidence would call us to treat those chapters as historical. [00:26:18]