There was a two-shelf bookcase in the grade 11 and 12 classroom of the school I attended in Craik, Saskatchewan. That bookcase was our school library. I read every book in that bookcase during the two years I spent in that classroom, mostly during class time. I don’t remember any of the books except for one of them, and I really don’t know what it was about. except that it was a history book and it told a different story than what we had been taught in class.
That was an epiphany for me, a moment of enlightenment. I realized that history was not like mathematics. Two writers could begin with the same circumstances, the same dates, the same people, and come up with different answers. That was when I realized that the telling of History depended a lot on who was telling it, on their preconceived ideas about the countries and the people involved and their motivations, and that this coloured the conclusions they drew about what was happening.
For the rest of my life I have approached history with questions. Is the writer leaving out some details? Does he have a more favorable opinion of one side then of the other? The history that I learned in school was flavoured by the Orange Order point of view, that is that the English Protestants were always the good guys and that people of other ethnic origin, skin colour and other religions were automatically the bad guys. When you read history with an awareness of the mental framework that the writer has, it soon becomes evident that he has chosen the elements that are favourable to his point of view and left others out, that he is interpreting the motives and actions of one side in a favorable light and the motives and actions of the other side in an unfavorable light.
One needs to read carefully to pick up those things that indicate the writer’s point of view and a willingness to read the same story from other people’s point of view to get a clearer idea of what actually did happen.
The same sort of thing happens when people write about things in the Bible. Many people approach the Bible looking for evidence that will buttress their point of view, their theological perspective, their interpretation of prophecy. One needs to approach the Bible with an open mind, a willingness to consider all the Bible has to say about a certain person a certain event a certain topic. The Bible does explain the Bible. All interpretations based on some external framework should be considered suspect, and most often will, at least in part, lead one astray. The Bible is enough, but one needs to read the whole Bible to understand what God is doing, what His purpose is, and what He expects of those of us who claim to believe the Bible and to trust in God for our salvation.
Perhaps this helps to explain why I am now writing a book which I plan to call What was God doing?
