by Leland Ryken
The Acts of God
Another topic that pervades the pages of the Bible is the history of God’s acts—his dealings with individual people, with Old Testament Israel, with the New Testament church. G. Ernest Wright has popularized the concept of the acts of God as the unifying center of the Bible.7 These acts fall mainly into the categories of creation, redemption or salvation, and judgment. The concept of salvation history (discussed above) is virtually synonymous with the theme of the acts of God. Whatever designation we use, the theme remains the purposes of God as they occur in history. The corresponding question to ask of a given biblical passage is, What is the nature of God’s acts? What does or did God do, and for what purpose?
The Acts of People
The concern with what God does is almost always accompanied in the Bible by the theme of what people do or ought to do. Human behavior is a constant subject of biblical literature. It tends to fall into the dual pattern of virtuous behavior and sinful behavior. The Bible moves between the poles of human waywardness and human virtue. Using the twin techniques of portraying negative examples of vice to avoid and positive examples of virtue to imitate, the Bible presents a unified moral vision. This ethical unity of the Bible pervades both the expository parts and the literary sections, where it is incarnated in human characters, whether they be people actually doing things or the speaker in a lyric poem expressing the inner weather of his feelings (which also have moral implications in the Bible). The unifying moral preoccupation in biblical literature makes these questions relevant to most biblical texts: What is typical or characteristic of human behavior? How should people behave? In the Bible, description of human behavior is combined with an evaluative bias in such a way as to leave the reader with a sense of moral duty—of how people ought to live. Ethical duty, moreover, is not pictured as selfexertion toward moral perfection but as submission to Goďs law or conformity to his character.
Law and Grace
Luther and the Reformers interpreted the Bible through a thematic grid of law and gospel that is still useful as a way of seeing the unity of the Bible. In this view, the message of a biblical passage is either law or gospel (or both). “Law” is anything that exposes human ruin through sin. “Gospel” refers to everything that displays people’s restoration through faith in God’s grace. To use Melanchthon’s formula, “The law indicates the sickness, the gospel the remedy.” When flexibly applied, this framework of human sinfulness and divine grace yields much. Of most biblical passages we can ask, What does this text say about human sinfulness and/or God's grace?
Promise and Fulfillment
The theme of Goďs promises and their fulfillment is also a controlling theme of the Bible. T. R. Henn speaks of the Bible’s “two major symphonic movements of promise and fulfillment.”8 This pattern appears in many forms, small and big, but the most important example is the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. This relationship has been well summarized by H. H. Rowley: “The Old Testament continually looks forward to something beyond itself; the New Testament continually looks back to the Old. Neither is complete without something beyond itself.”9
Old and New Testaments
The New Testament builds upon the Old, bringing anticipations to fruition. Northrop Frye describes this overarching pattern of promise and fulfillment:
There is a very large number of these references to the Old Testament in the New: they extend over every book—not impossibly every passage—in the New Testament. . . .The general principle of interpretation is traditionally given as “In the Old Testament the New Testament is concealed; in the New Testament the Old Testament is revealed.” Everything that happens in the Old Testament is a “type” or adumbration of something that happens in the New Testament, and the whole subject is therefore called typology.10
The result is a book in which no part is wholly self-contained but instead carries echoes from many other parts.
Unity of Reference
The vast system of interlocking references and allusions is not confined to New Testament fulfillments of Old Testament foreshadowings. Biblical writers share a common framework of reference. They keep referring to the same core of faith events. These events make up the underlying story of the Bible and are arranged into the following sequence: Creation, Fall, Covenant (promises of God to the patriarchs and Israelite nation), Exodus (including Revelation at Mount Sinai and Conquest of Canaan), Israelite Monarchy, Exile and Return, Life and Teaching of Jesus, Salvation (accomplished by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus), the Beginnings of the Christian Church, Consummation of History. This outline can be either expanded or telescoped. Northrop Frye divides the biblical story into seven “phases of revelation”: Creation, Revolution, Law, Wisdom, Prophecy, Gospel, Apocalypse.11
This outline by itself imposes a loose unity on the Bible, but a much greater degree of cohesion results from the way in which biblical writers so consistently refer to this overriding story and its accompanying doctrines. No other long book in the world contains the interlocking system of references that have been codified in modern Bibles with cross references in the margins.
Unity of Faith
There is, finally, a unity of faith that welds the Bible into an organic whole. The Bible is not a theological outline, but the ideas that are stated and embodied in the Bible add up to a coherent system of doctrine. This doctrinal framework is a unifying context within which we should read individual parts. Everywhere we turn in the Bible, it is the same God and the same view of people that we encounter. The physical world is not considered good in one biblical book and evil in another. Of course, no single passage by itself “covers the whole territory” on a given topic. Individual parts of the Bible are interdependent. When we put the parts together, we find a coherent set of doctrines whose main tenets include consistently held views about God, the nature of people, creation (nature, the physical world), providence, God’s revelation as the source of truth, good and evil, salvation, and eschatology.
SUMMARY
As we read the Bible, we continually encounter a core of topics and themes. They include the character and acts of God, human nature and activity, moral good and evil, law and grace, promise and fulfillment. Biblical writers frequently refer to the same events that make up biblical history, and they share a common set of religious beliefs.
LITERARY ARCHETYPES IN THE BIBLE
A Definition of Archetypes
Literature is a great interlocking system in which we are continuously reminded of characters, situations, and symbols that we have encountered in other works of literature. These recurrent units are called archetypes. They fall into three categories: images (such as light, mountaintop, or prison), character types (such as the hero, villain, or tempter), and plot motifs (such as the quest, fall from innocence, or rescue). Archetypes are the basic building blocks of the literary imagination. When we read literature we are constantly in touch with them. Of course they recur in literature because they are pervasive in life. In both literature and life, archetypes elicit powerful universal responses from the human psyche.
A Pattern of Opposites
Archetypes tend overwhelmingly to fall into a pattern of opposites. We can label the two categories wish and nightmare, or the ideal and unideal, or the good and the evil. Together they are a vision of the kind of world that people want and do not want. The following table lists the most important archetypal images and character types in the Bible, arranged according to the dialectical pattern of opposites.
The Archetypes of Ideal Experience
The supernatural: God; angels; the heavenly society.
Human characters: the hero or heroine; the virtuous wife / husband / mother / father; the bride / groom; the innocent child; the benevolent king or ruler; the priest; the wiseman; the shepherd; the pilgrim.
Human relationships: the community, city, or tribe; images of communion, order, unity, friendship, love; the wedding or marriage; the feast, meal, or supper; the harmonious family;
freedom; covenant, contract, or treaty.
Clothing: any stately garment symbolizing legitimate position or success; festal garments such as wedding clothes; fine clothing given as gifts of hospitality; white or light colored clothing; clothing of adornment (such as jewels); protective clothing such as a warrior’s armor.
The human body: images of health, strength, vitality, potency, sexual fertility (including womb and seed); feats of strength and dexterity; images of sleep and rest; happy dreams; birth.
Food: staples such as bread, milk, and meat; luxuries such as wine and honey; the harvest of grain.
Animals: a community of domesticated animals, usually a flock of sheep or herd of cattle; the lamb; a gentle bird, often a dove; a faithful domesticated animal or pet; any animal friendly to people; singing birds; animals or birds noted for their strength, such as the lion or eagle; fish.
Landscape: a garden, grove, or park; the mountaintop or hill; the fertile and secure valley; pastoral settings or farms; the safe pathway or easily traveled highway.
Plants: green grass; the rose; the vineyard; the tree of life; any productive tree; the lily; evergreen plants (symbolic of immortality); herbs or plants of healing.
Buildings: the city; the palace or castle; the military stronghold; the tabernacle, temple, or church; the house or home; the tower of contemplation; the capital city, symbol of the nation.
The inorganic world: images of jewels and precious stones, often glowing and fiery; fire and brilliant light; burning that purifies and refines; rocks of refuge.
Water: a river or stream; a spring or fountain; showers of rain; dew; flowing water of any type; tranquil pools; water used for cleansing.
Forces of nature: the breeze or wind; the spring and summer seasons; calm after storm; the sun or the lesser light of the moon and stars; light, sunrise, day.
Sounds: musical harmony; singing; laughter.
Direction and motion: images of ascent, rising, height (especially the mountaintop and tower), motion (as opposed to stagnation).
The Archetypes of Unideal Experience
The supernatural: Satan; demons or evil spirits; evil beasts and monsters such as those in the Book of Revelation; pagan idols.
Human characters: the villain; the tempter or temptress; the harlot/prostitute; the taskmaster, tyrant, or oppressor (usually a foreign oppressor); the wanderer, outcast, or exile; the traitor; the sluggard or lazy person; the hypocrite; the false religious leader or priest; the fool; the drunkard; the thief.
Human relationships: tyranny or anarchy; isolation among people; images of torture (the cross, stake, scaffold, gallows, stocks, etc.), slavery, or bondage; images of war, riot, feud, or family discord.
Clothing: ill-fitting garments (often symbolic of a position that is usurped and not held legitimately); garments symbolizing mourning (such as sackcloth, rent garments, dark mourning garments); dark clothes; tattered, dirty, or coarse clothing; any clothing that suggests poverty or bondage; a conspicuous excess of clothing.
The human body: images of disease, deformity, barrenness, injury, or mutilation; sleeplessness or nightmare, often related to guilt of conscience; death.
Food: hunger, drought, starvation, cannibalism; poison; drunkenness.
Animals: monsters or beasts of prey; the wolf (enemy of sheep), tiger, dragon, vulture, owl (associated with darkness/ignorance), or hawk; the cold and earthbound snake; any wild animal harmful to people; the goat; the unclean animals of Old Testament ceremonial law.
Landscape: the dark forest; the wilderness or wasteland (which is either too hot or too cold); the dark and dangerous valley; the underground cave or tomb; the labyrinth; the dangerous or evil pathway.
Plants: the thorn or thistle; weeds; dead or dying plants; unproductive plants; the willow tree (symbolic of mourning).
Buildings: the prison or dungeon; the wicked city of violence, sexual perversion, or crime; the tower of imprisonment or wicked aspiration (the tower of Babel); pagan temples.
The inorganic world: the inorganic world in its unworked form of deserts, rocks, and wilderness; dry dust or ashes; fire that destroys and tortures instead of purifying; rust and decay.
Water: the sea and all that it contains (sea beasts and water monsters); stagnant pools (including the Dead Sea).
Forces of nature: the storm or tempest; the autumn and winter seasons; sunset, darkness, night.
Sounds: discordant sounds, cacophony, weeping, wailing.
Direction and motion: images of descent, lowness, stagnation or immobility, suffocation, confinement.
The Organizing Function of Archetypes
This chart of archetypes outlines the basic “language” of the literary imagination throughout the Bible. The list of images and character types is an organizing framework for the entire Bible. The unity of the Bible is partly a unity of master images.
The One Story of Literature
Archetypes can also consist of plot motifs. In fact, all of literature adds up to a single composite story known in literary circles as “the monomyth” (the “one story” of literature). The monomyth, which should not be confused with “mythology,” is shaped like a circle and has four separate phases. As such, it corresponds to some familiar cycles of human experience. The cycle of the year, for example, consists of the sequence summer-fall-winter-spring. A day moves through a cycle consisting of sunrise-zenith-sunset-darkness. A person’s life passes from birth to adulthood to old age to death. The monomyth, too, is a cycle having four phases.
We can picture the “one story” of literature like this:
Romance portrays idealized human experience—life as we wish it to be. Its opposite, anti-romance, pictures a world of bondage and misery. Tragedy narrates a fall downward from bliss to catastrophe, while comedy narrates a rise from bondage to happiness and freedom. These are the four kinds of literary material, and together they make up the composite story of literature. It is easy to see how the two categories of archetypal images and character types noted above make up the upper and lower halves of the monomyth.
Archetypal Plot Motifs
The monomyth is the most general or universal A pattern to be found in literature. The circular Motifs pattern of the monomyth takes a number of specific forms, including the following:
1. The quest, in which a hero struggles to reach a goal, undergoing obstacles and temporary defeat before achieving success (Abraham’s quest for a son and Ruth’s quest for a home).
2. The death-rebirth motif¦ in which a hero endures death or danger and returns to life or security (the stories of Hezekiah and Jesus).
3. The initiation, in which a character is thrust out of an existing, usually ideal, situation and undergoes a series of ordeals as he or she encounters various forms of evil or hardship for the first time (the stories of Jacob and Joseph).
4. The journey, in which characters encounter danger and experience growth as they move from one place to another (the stories of Abraham and the Exodus).
5. Tragedy, or its more specific form of the fall from innocence, (the stories of Adam/Eve and David/Bathsheba).
6. Comedy, a U-shaped story that begins in prosperity, descends into tragedy, but rises to a happy ending as obstacles to success are overcome (the stories of Esther and Job).
7. Crime and punishment (the stories of Cain and King Saul).
8. The temptation, in which someone becomes the victim of an evil tempter or temptress (the stories of Eve and Samson/Delilah).
9. The rescue (the stories of Esther and of Elisha at Dothan).
10. The suffering servant or scapegoat pattern, in which a character undergoes unmerited suffering in order to secure the welfare of others (the stories of Joseph and Jesus).
Type Scenes
In addition to archetypal plot motifs, there are type scenes (not to be confused with types or typology) in the Bible. A type scene is a story pattern or situation that recurs often enough in the Bible that we can identify a set of conventions and expectations
for each one. Each type scene has its constituent ingredients in an established order. An awareness of such type scenes can become a significant organizing pattern for either individual books of the Bible or the Bible as a whole.
Type Scenes in the Book of Acts
In the Book of Acts, for example, the following cycle of events keeps getting repeated: God raises up leaders who preach the Gospel; they perform mighty works; crowds are drawn and many hearers are converted; opposition and persecution arise against the leaders; God intervenes to rescue them; and on to a new reenactment of the cycle.12 Other type scenes also unify the Book of Acts—preaching the gospel, conversion stories, and trial/defense scenes.
Type Scenes Throughout the Bible
Such type scenes occur throughout the Bible. Robert Alter cites the Old Testament examples of “the annunciation . . . of the birth of the hero to his barcen mother; the encounter with the future betrothed at a well; the epiphany in the field; the initiatory trial; danger in the desert and the discovery of a well or other source of sustenance; the testament of the dying hero.”13 The type scene that dominates the story of the Exodus is the situation that unfolds according to this sequence: crisis—complaint by the people—call to God by Moses—divine rescue/provision—revelation or rebuke by God. The Gospels have their distinctive type scenes: healing stories, pronouncement stories, preaching to the crowds, encounter stories, Passion stories. Each biblical type scene consists of a set of conventional elements, usually in a set order.
