Jewish born writer, broadcaster and novelist Howard Jacobson confronts the controversy between militant atheists and those who believe in the literal truth of the Creation story as told in Genesis. His conclusion? The Creation is a great, life enhancing work of literature which celebrates the creativity of both the Creator and man, his creation. Here, he discusses his love of the Bible as a book to enjoy, wrestle with, argue or even reject.
I've always read The Bible as a work of literature. When I was younger, a friend and I chose to study it at O'level because we just loved reading the Bible. I simply liked the literature, the stories. So I've always loved it as a story, a book, rather than the place to go and find the word of God.
I don't read The Bible thinking about how I'm going to get to Heaven, but I certainly read it thinking, this is how to behave and understand life. Not 'Have I been a good boy today? Is the Bible telling me off?' But if you’ve heard the Ten Commandments 'Thou shalt do this, Thou shalt not do that' they stay in your mind. They're great resonant statements about the way to behave to make you realise how important they are.
The Bible is in a language which takes us beyond our ordinary judging selves, the law courts, the trouble we might get into at school and I think is part of what is so important.
We are blessed
It's what's nice about Creation. We're 'blessed' into existence. It's such a quiet thing. God says 'let there be' and 'light is blessed into the world' and 'we are blessed into the world.'
Of course, it's not long before the God that blessed us is doing quite nasty things to us, but it's all about being made to feel there is some purpose, a grand design, our being here is a significant thing.
I am a great believer in disobedience and argument. I don't think we should read the Bible, or go to church, synagogue, or any religion on our knees, beaten down into subservience. I say fight it. I say disobey, disobey with all your soul. Reject it in your heart but know that what you're rejecting is something significant and major. Make your rejection an important act, not a little mimsy well, I think this. I don’t think that.'
Wrestle with God
I like the idea there is this one God, not to be obedient to, although he wishes obedience and insists obedience, but to be in a perpetual argument with. One of the great scenes in Genesis is the wrestling with the angel, and I think that's how you read if you love the Bible. It's a wrestle, and you're wrestling with something that's very, very personal.
God changes as the Bible gets rethought and rewritten, but in the Creation, God is almost there. In the very first pages, he's walking in the garden with Adam and Eve. He's there. He's a presence. You can talk to him and deal with him, and that's thrilling.
I feel proud that my Jewish religion is so rooted in philosophy and argument. Everything is up for constant refutation, endlessly being argued about and criticised. We are like no other religion in the way we subject our holy works to scrutiny. Nothing is so holy that it can't be criticised, and re-understood, and reinterpreted. The Bible is about infinite reinterpretation.
You can't disagree with a God, unless you start with a God. That's the other important reason to have a God, so that you can disagree and reject him if you like. But you can't reject something that wasn't there in the first place.
