Upon reflection, we have to recognize there is a great deal of fiction in the scriptures and religious teachings. Yet, it is there for a reason. For example, what do you think about historical fiction of scriptural stories? Like many, I have watched all available episodes of The Chosen, a TV series that follows the ministry of the Savior. Historical fiction of the scriptures is not only entertaining but educational. We find fiction in… church art. Some fiction was added to the scriptures by… forgers. Jesus taught in parables. In summary, we need to recognize how fiction can bring the Gospel to life and give us perspectives we couldn’t find elsewhere.
Email - ScottRFrazer@gmail.com
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S3E12 – The Role of Fiction in our Religion
by Scott R. Frazer
This is the podcast Science and Scriptures - Discerning Truth the from Error, Season 3, Episode 12, or “The Role of Fiction in our Religion”.
Hello everyone. This is Scott Frazer of the podcast Science and Scriptures. First, I have another announcement to make. A couple of weeks ago, I announced Cedar Fort is publishing a new non-fiction book called Be Ye Wise as Serpents. As it turns out, my first fiction book will also come out this month as well. It’s entitled First Judgment.It sounds religious but it’s actually an action-based science fiction novel, with a few philosophical suggestions thrown in. I recommend it to you of course. If you like my podcast, you might enjoy the book. Anyway, as I wrote this book, I’ve thought about fiction a lot.So, I thought I’d like to air a podcast about the role of fiction in our religious education.
Historical Fiction
As the best example, what do you think about historical fiction of scriptural stories? Like many, I have watched all available episodes of The Chosen, a TV series that follows the ministry of the Savior. Much of the dialogue does NOT come from the New Testament, so most of you hear on The Chosen is the creation of writers who speculate as to what the New Testament characters might have said. Since the creators of the show wanted it to be popular, obviously they had to add dialogue. We know very little about the conversations that must have occurred between the Savior, His apostles, and other followers. If the series dialogue had to have been lifted straight from the pages of the New Testament, it would be pretty dull. Though the series is mostly fiction, it gives me a different perspective on the life of the Savior. It helps to round out the picture in my mind of the events of the New Testament. Not only do I remember them better, I understand those stories, and their context, better.
The same can be said for most historical fiction movies that are based on the scriptures. Think of the movies The Ten Commandments, The Robe, Son of God, Samson, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Nativity Story, and even Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Some scripturally-based movies are hopelessly out of touch with the storyline and content of the scriptures. The best example of such a bad movie is Noah starring Russell Crowe. Believe it or not, creatures made out of rock help Noah assemble the Ark! Where is that written or implied in the book of Genesis?!
In general, though, historical fiction of the scriptures is not only entertaining but educational. They teach us a new perspective of the scriptures. Within the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gerald Lund has been especially prolific in writing historical fiction. His series The Work and the Glory follows fictional characters from the early days of the Church through the migration to Utah. It was a very popular series of books, with good reason. As long as we don’t confuse the historical part from the fictional part, we are fine.
Where else can we find fiction? Well, we find fiction in… church art. If you look at the artist’s depictions of the Savior teaching, please notice the apparel of the Savior and even his listeners.Though the clothing is mostly made of robes, notice that everything is perfectly clean. There is no dirt on the clothing at all. There are no dirt stains on the hems of the robes from walking on dusty or muddy roads. There are no sweat stains on the necklines of their shirts. Even children’s clothes are spotless. Church art is painted to help us to picture how the Savior might have looked during His ministry. The reality of the dust, poverty, heat, and sweat stains of the nation where Jesus taught may distract from the spiritual feelings we wish to enjoy when looking at paintings of the Savior. So… there is more than a little fiction painted into those works of art. This is not a criticism. Art is meant to create certain emotions in people. Accuracy may or may not be a priority.
We should recognize that there is some fiction throughout the scriptures. The Latter-day Saint religion is certainly not one which believes that the Bible is perfect and contains no errors. In fact, the Bible had so many errors creep into its text over the centuries that Joseph Smith decided he needed to rewrite some of it.As explained on the church website:
During the summer of 1830, Joseph and Oliver received by revelation an account of visions experienced by Moses but not found in the Bible. This revelation marked the beginning of Joseph Smith’s efforts to prepare an inspired revision or translation of the Bible. For the next three years, Joseph worked on his “new translation of the Bible” with Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and other scribes, considering the project a “branch of [his] calling” as a prophet of God.
Joseph said that his translation was intended to restore "many important points touching the salvation of men, [that] had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.” There are many additions and revisions that do not change the meaning of the text, but there are others that are significant changes.
In my opinion, the most significant of such corrections is found in John 4:24.Let me set this one up for you. Jesus is talking to the Samarian woman at the well.John 4:23, reads as follows,
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Then comes John 4:24, which is the verse that can be blamed for much of the confusion around the nature of God that has existed for centuries. We read,
"God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
This verse is in direct contradiction to what Joseph taught that God the Father and Jesus Christ had bodies, so Joseph needed to correct this fictional verse. His retranslation of this verse reads thusly:
“For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.
This totally changes the teachings of the verse, of course. During the many years that scriptures were maintained by priests of the Children of Israel, someone made a change in the interpretation.
Some fiction was added to the scriptures by… forgers. The book Forged is an excellent book written by Bart D. Ehrman. Ehrman reports that in the days of the early church led by Peter, church members who wished to steer church doctrine towards there personal beliefs wrote letters and signed them with the name of one of the apostles or other leaders in the church. He states,
“If your name was Jehoshaphat, and no one… had any idea who you were, and you wanted to write an authoritative Gospel about the life and teachings of Jesus, [or] an authoritative letter describing what Christians should believe or how they should live… you could not very well sign you own name to the book. No one would take the Gospel of Jehoshaphat seriously. If you wanted someone to read it, you called yourself Peter. Or Thomas. Or James. In other words, you lied about who you really were.”
Ehrman later calls out 2 Peter, which scholars don’t believe was written by Peter. Several of the books purportedly written by Paul are also under a great deal of suspicion.
Yet, most of the errors we find in scriptures and Christian beliefs are there simply because people tend to embellish their stories.Since the days when our ancestors sat around campfires because it was the only form of entertainment available, storytellers have endeavored to make their stories more riveting for their audience.So, one would expect to find the exaggerations in those stories that were told the most.
What is the most-told story in the Bible? It’s got to be the story of the Nativity, which much of the world reviews every December. Have changes been added to the story of the birth of Jesus Christ? Oh, yes…
Every Christmas Eve for years, I have given my children, and now my grandchildren, a Christmas quiz. Several of the questions center on what part of the Christmas story is written in the scriptures – and what parts are tradition. Let me ask you a few of those questions.
How did Joseph and Mary get from Nazareth to Bethlehem? The scriptures do not say. She probably walked or, less likely, rode in a wagon, or even less likely, she rode a donkey.
How many wise men were there? The scriptures do not say. The only reason people believe there were three wise men is because the gifts include gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Three gifts, so three wise men. Very weak evidence indeed… Someone should rewrite the words to the hymn We Three Kings.
Did the wise men arrive in time to see the Christ child in Bethlehem? Almost certainly no. Despite the evidence of millions of Nativity scenes across the world, according to Matthew 2:11, the wise men did not arrive until the Savior was a toddler, when he was living in a house in Nazareth.
The fiction built around the Christmas story has gotten even more extensive with time. Have you heard stories of how the Christmas tree was built into the Christmas story – or, even worse, how Santa Claus (or Saint Nick) came to be associated with the Nativity? We have built so much fiction into the Christmas story, I recommend you read the narrations given in Matthew and Luke word-for-word each year – just so you can do a reality check of what we are celebrating.
The existence of fiction in our scriptures should not, therefore, shake our testimonies. We learn the principles of living the Gospel from our scriptures, knowing that errors and exaggerations may exist. For example, Numbers chapters 1 and 26 declare that the number of the males over the age of 20 within the tribes of the Children of Israel was over 600,000 men when they left Egypt. When you factor in the families of those men, let’s say a wife and three children each, the number becomes about 3 million people. The logistics of feeding that many people for forty years in the desert becomes very, very difficult. Moses would have had to import about 1,500 tons of food each day, or two freight trains - each a mile long. This population would have required 11,000,000 gallons of water each day, and 4,000 tons of firewood for cooking and warmth. We hear about none of these issues in the scriptures.
Now you could chalk this up to the belief that nothing is impossible for God. Or, you could also chalk it up to the possibility that the numbers in the book of Numbers were mistranslated, or severely exaggerated over the centuries. How do you make a story about God or Moses a better story? You make it a bigger story.
Again, I don’t want to rock anyone’s testimony.I personally believe that these numbers are grossly exaggerated, but you don’t have to. However… if Joshua really had a force of 600,000 fighting men, what Canaanite army could have stood up to them? With such a force, taking the Promised Land would have been a cakewalk – and that is not what I read in Deuteronomy and Joshua.
A second story that has a healthy dose of fiction is that of Noah’s Ark. Those of you who have read my books know that I don’t believe Noah’s flood covered the whole planet. I believe that when Genesis 7 claims the flood waters came and covered the whole earth – it means the whole earth that the people could see around them. Thus, Noah’s flood was most likely a regional flood.I don’t believe that Noah had load elephants from Africa, buffalo from Northern America, or monkeys from South America into the Ark. Also, if Moses had two of every species of his time – the logistics of feeding so many animals would have been tremendous. Grasses, fruits, leaves, bamboo, seaweed, and tons of meat would have been needed on the Ark. Again, there is no mention of this being a challenge for Noah. However, if Noah only had to survive a regional flood with his farm animals, it would have been a much more doable project – both in building the ark and supplying it with food.
Noah’s Ark is a great story and it teaches a lot.I don’t accept it word-for-word, but that fact does not diminish my testimony of God, his love, or His commandments.
Jesus Used Fiction
Who else used fiction to teach Gospel principles?Well, Jesus Christ himself of course.We call them parables or teaching tools. Yet, they are still fiction. The Good Samaritan did not really exist. Jesus used fiction, knowing that the best fiction teaches truth. He knew He was using fiction – and all His listeners knew His stories were fiction as well.
Now, while the parables may seem pretty obvious today, in Jesus’ time even the apostles didn’t seem to understand them well. In Matthew 13:36, we read,
The Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field.
After His explanation, the apostles may have still looked unsure, because Jesus asks,
“Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord.
In Mark 4:10, Jesus explains the parable of the sower to His apostles. Jesus used parables because those spiritually mature enough to understand the teaching behind the story could do so. Those who were not mature enough – and might still be led astray - would not be held responsible for the teaching. Their final judgment would thus be more bearable for them.
Yet Jesus also used parables because they could emphasize the message He really wanted to send. Jesus asks, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? The church was tiny in those days, but would someday fill the earth. So, the Savior went with a simile to a mustard seed – a small seed that became a big plant. We still make such comparisons in church talks and lessons, using fiction to teach concepts.
When it comes to learning the Gospel, we are (and should be) very concerned with learning the Truth. Jesus emphasizes that fact quite often. In a world of lies and subterfuge, He encourages us to seek the truth in all things. So, we may feel a bit uncomfortable that we are learning truth from sources that have a lot of fiction in them. The scriptures, parables, the Christmas story, The Chosen, and other historical fiction – all have fiction running throughout them. We have the responsibility to interpret what parts of such teaching are fictional and what that fiction is designed to teach us.
So, that is all I have for you today. This is Scott Frazer from the podcast Science and Scriptures. We need to… see behind the teachings that we receive. We need to recognize how fiction can… bring the Gospel to life and give us perspectives we couldn’t find elsewhere. It is admittedly a bit ironic – seeking truth in stories or parables that are untrue. I find that there are many ironies in the universe, and they challenge us to learn.In any case, take care, have a good week, and may God bless.