The Imagination of God: Art, Creativity and Truth in the Bible Kindle Edition

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!

I was provided a complimentary digital copy of this book in exchange for a fair review - and you didn't have to twist my arm to agree to do it. I have read the last few books by Godawa, and will admit that I was not quite sure what to expect this time around, but the title alone was provocative enough to draw me to read it.

Aside from his fiction, his last two major non-fictions writings that I read were God Against the gods (http://amzn.to/2bGmaXW) and When Giants Were Upon the Earth (http://amzn.to/2bI1I6p). Both of these books, though more specifically the latter, deal with issues of ancient understanding of Scripture. They gave insight into the Hebrew mind and shed new interpretive light on understanding passage from an ancient worldview. I found both books very good and fascinating, probably because the study of topics like the Pseudepigraphal writings, the Divine Council and the like have been a hot topic in my studies the past few years.

So, when I agreed to review this title, I guess I only assumed to be getting similar content - but I was wrong. What we have here is a writing that really proves one thing that most modern Christians rarely grasp, and in not understanding the point, they create many fantastical interpretations that are nowhere near the intent of the original writer or audience they wrote to. If I were to condense the topic into a very simplistic statement, this book goes to great depth to show that approaching Scripture from a purely literalistic angle is an erroneous way of reading Scripture.

Again, that is a very simplistic synopsis, but as I finished the book, it struck me that the literalistic view is the root of many of the problems dealt with throughout the book. Once you understand that the Bible is literature, and within it there are many typical literary styles that we are used to in other books, and you start to see those styles, then the Bible is able to be more easily and better understood.

Example after example of various writings styles are given, as well as reference after reference to writings of the same period and how they reflect style of that time, especially during the New Testament period and looking at the literary understanding and practice of the Greeks and philosophers at the time. Add to that examples of similar literary practices and how they show up in our modern world in books and movies, and you get a well rounded look at the Bible as a literary work, without in anyway "attacking" the Bible as liberals often seek to do over issues like this.