Throughout this book the author makes his mea culpa for having once been the type of backward-thinking Christian who "privileged" reason while devaluing the imagination. He had succumbed to the "elitism of the word" and had "privileged rational discourse" as the superior means of communication. (Locations 178, 965.) He had become "logocentric," a dreadful condition that not only fosters "the inflexibility and intolerance that led to wars" and "rationalistic doctors who murder millions of preborn children," but also enables the likes of the Marquis de Sade who "in his books of words" described "grotesque sexual fantasies of sado-masochism, rape, mutilation and murder that rival any modern cult horror film." 2367, 2400.

Now enlightened and duly chastened, the author proclaims that Christian theology must maintain an "equal ultimacy of both word and image." (2245.) Images, we are told, are on a par with words in communicating and understanding truth. Indeed, God could have just as easily communicated his truth in images alone without words, so one must never suggest that images are inferior to words in communicating truth. 2273-274.

And yet God gave us a Bible of words, not a graphic novel. God himself is logocentric: "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1. You can't get more logocentric than that.

If, as the author claims, there is "equal ultimacy" of word and image, he should have demonstrated this by using only images to convey his thoughts. But instead he has produced his own "book of words" that contains hardly any images, and the few it does have are superfluous to the text.

The author does not, and cannot, practice what he preaches. But what exactly is he preaching? According to the author, the Bible is full of contradictions, if read literally, but these can all be made to go away with a figurative reading. Figurative interpretation is particularly suited to biblical narratives describing events that defy the laws of physics and are not confirmed by historical records outside the Bible. 371, 401.

The author is dismissive of attempts to establish the historical facts of the Bible, an endeavor he describes as an "obsessive preoccupation" of theologians and bible scholars. (321.) While acknowledging that actual historical facts may have provided some impetus for the Bible, such facts are "often interwoven with these imaginative images" and there remains much in the Bible "that is fantastic." 407, 459.

The author sees no need to separate fact from fantasy in the Bible because the exaggerated, fantastic, nonliteral portions are "just as true as any of the historical, literal, abstract or rational propositions and words contained in these same pages." 515.

Fantasy is "just as true" as reality. They have "equal ultimacy." That is the author's message.

We all love a good fairy tale, but Aslan and Gandalf are not "just as true" as the historical, biblical Jesus. Imaginary characters cannot save anyone from their sins or grant eternal life. Divine condemnation and the resurrection of the dead might be interpreted by some as mere figures of speech to stimulate the emotions and imagination. But if there really is a day of reckoning, then we need a real savior. We need the real, historical, factual Jesus. But you could never find that Jesus in the exaggerated, fantastic, nonliteral bible as figuratively interpreted by this author.

DISCLAIMER: I did NOT receive a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for a review, as most other reviewers have.

Book Review of God Against the gods, by Brian Godawa
I received a free advanced copy of The Imagination of God: Art, Creativity and Truth in the Bible, by Brian Godawa in exchange for a fair review of the book. In addition to enjoying the book, I found it of great value for its insights in the areas of art, image, words, creativity and imagination within the Bible , so I purchased a Kindle copy for my family library.
I have previously reviewed his book, God against the gods, and found the insights into the Ancient Near Eastern Worldview to be extraordinarily helpful, so I figured that this one would further my understanding of the Holy Bible in total. I believe that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible, God-breathed word, at least in its original autographs, and I had my eyes opened by God against the gods, so I was prepared for the next installment and I was delighted!!!
In this book, the take home messages for me were that in addition to keeping in mind the Ancient Near Eastern Worldview, and the fact that the Bible was written for us, not to us, it was clear that God’s truths would be communicated in a variety of literary genre, and further, it was vitally important that the literary genre, and its use in those times, be factored into interpretation, just as much as looking through the eyes of an Ancient Near East viewer. Biblical truths can also be communicated through works of art, music, songs and metaphors.
As I was preparing this review, I happened to open the book and the following text jumped off the page: “Images are concrete expressions of abstract ideas, the existential embodiment of the rational word. Images, whether they are stories, pictures, or music, are incarnations of ideas – words made flesh. Image is the personification of logic, the enfleshment of proposition.”
At a later point, I encountered this quote: “Rather than separating himself into the Christian enclave of ‘holy subculture,’ Paul and the other biblical writers interacted redemptively with their Jewish and pagan surroundings. They assimilated Jewish and pagan imagery into a Christian worldview and redefined it. They found points of connection and truth, and affirmed them. They also pointed out where Christianity was distinct and antithetical. But they interacted with the culture…So Christians today should expose themselves to and even participate in the music, movies and television of today with an eye toward the truth – within the media as well as without it.” To me, this is watching movies or plays, or reading books or listening to music or poetry, with the prayer for discernment of the truth and perhaps when necessary, even the opportunity to subvert the problem pieces to a more righteous purpose.
In commenting about some of the works of C.S. Lewis, Brian points out a key principle: “What Lewis had learned, and what I am learning at the outer limits of our engagement with Christian faith through reason alone, is good news: God is bigger than rationality, bigger than imagination and He is Lord of both.”
There is so much in here, that since I wanted to keep it on the shorter side, I’ll just include the following two quotes, with comments:
“The nature of narrative, parables, verbal imagery, metaphors, and stories of visions, miracles and dreams is precisely a literary art form and not a scientific or rationalistic discourse. Just because it is written in words does not negate its artistic nature and does not reduce it to logo-centricity. Both images and words are God’s ‘Word,’ or as we indicated earlier, God’s message.” The take home message here is that the Bible is a literary art form, and has so much to offer us in terms of understanding God’s truth and coming closer to Him, if only we would be open to the possibility.
Brian ends the main part of the book with the following quote: “Our God is a God of both Reason and Imagination, both word and image. The spiritual Logos became incarnate flesh, and embraced the artistry of imagination in his teaching because he knew that the imagination can bring us into contact with truth in a way that reason cannot and vice versa. So we too must embrace that paradigm if we wish to know Him fully and properly express his image in us. Amen.”
This book is a scholarly text that is highly readable and entertaining, something that I’ve come to expect from Brian Godawa. I highly recommend it!! Thanks Brian!

Initially, I found this book hard to get through. After reading quite a few of Mr. Godawa's other works, I was not expecting the format of this book to be so academic. However, once I was able to change my thought process from reading for enjoyment to reading for enlightenment, I was able to really wrap my mind around the content in the book. This book opened my eyes to passages that I have read in the Bible for years and never really understood. This book has inspired me to read through the Bible again only with a new perspective. Thank you Mr. Godawa for sharing you insight!