Foreword
O
nce upon a time, we all believed our lives to be part of a larger story. It’s a natural thing. When I tell the story of my life, I see a narrative arc, with clear high points and low points. I see cumulative development—emotional, intellectual, and physical growth. I assume that I came from somewhere specific and that I’m going somewhere—that I have a goal, though I glimpse it only dimly. Civilizations also have stories. They need stories. Caesar Augustus knew this, so he hired the greatest poet of his time to write a backstory, a grand narrative. If Rome were to replace Greece as the world’s dominant power, it needed an epic poem that could stand alongside The Iliad and The Odyssey. So Virgil produced The Aeneid. Educated Greeks and Romans knew that these backstories were largely fictional. The myths made no corresponding demands on the people’s everyday lives. They proposed virtues, such as patriotism and fortitude, but they enshrined no morals. Biblical religion was essentially different from this. It ascribed its story not merely to human poets but to a God who is Creator, Redeemer, Lawmaker, Judge, King, and Guide. For Jews and Christians, the great story encompassed both the civilizational and the personal. It narrated the history of the people and the person. And they believed it to be history indeed—history that could be confirmed by the documents and monuments of the world. If they saw allegory in the biblical story, they saw it not merely in the words but in the events the words describe. 7
