scripture's authority comes from shared story rather than history

About a week ago, I felt like I was going through an audio drought—I wasn’t listening to any audiobooks, my podcast consumption has continued to go down in recent months, and I just wasn’t listening to anything while doing the dishes or whatever. This wasn’t necessarily a problem (it’s been good in terms of mindfulness, for example), but it had gone on long enough that I decided that I wanted something to listen to. In particular, I decided that it was as good a time as any to revisit Thomas Römer’s excellent lectures on the bible, which the Collège de France makes freely available in podcast format.

I’m making my way through these lectures pretty slowly—there are more than a decade’s worth and, naturally, I’ve stumbled on two audiobooks and some interesting podcasts in the few days since I got started—but even the first episode validated my choice to revisit Römer. It turns out that it’s in the very first session of his very first course that he says something that I’ve been trying to track down in the years since I first heard it:

Je dois quand-même poser cette question même si personellement, elle me passionne pas beaucoup, mais elle passionne beaucoup les gens: La question de l’Abraham historique. Est-ce que Abraham a vécu ? C’est un peu comme Moïse. Bon, vous allez voir, c’est peut-être un peu decevant, mais en même temps il faut se poser la question : Qu’est-ce ça aurait changé si Abraham a vécu ou pas vécu par rapport à la mise par écrit de son histoire ? […] C’est pas l’Abraham historique qui est a l’origine de ces trois religions monothéïstes, c’est les histoires qui auraient été transmises sur cet Abraham.

In English:

I have to ask this question even if personally I don’t find it interesting, lots of people do find it interesting: The question of the historical Abraham. Did Abraham really live? It’s somewhat like Moses. Well, you’re going to see, maybe it’s a bit disappointing, but at the same time, you have to ask the question: What would it have changed if Abraham really or didn’t really live in terms of putting his story in writing? […] It’s not the historical Abraham that’s at the origin of the three monotheistic religions, it’s the stories that would have been told about this Abraham.

As I’ve rethought and reinvented my faith in recent years, I’ve been more and more willing (thanks to what I’ve learned from Römer and others) to question the historical reality of certain aspects of scripture that I had previously taken for granted. (I remember in particular the time that I explained to an evangelical pastor that I had to believe in a historical Adam and Eve because so much of Mormonism depended on their reality). And yet, that rethinking of religion has been made easier by what Römer has to say here. Maybe the power of those stories is in the way that we share them as stories: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are dependent on stories about Abraham, but it’s not clear to me that they are dependent on a historical Abraham. My love for the Book of Mormon is based on the fact that I grew up sharing in those stories, not on their historical reality. Even central Christian doctrines, like the resurrection, speak most to me for the stories that they tell. I’d be happy to continue as a Christian even if I didn’t believe in a literal resurrection (and, to be frank, I’m not sure I have for quite some time).

I’m glad to have rediscovered this line from Römer—and to have taken the time to write it down now. I’ve wanted to find it many times in the past 3 or so years, because it speaks to an important change in perspective that I’ve had over this same time period. I’m sure I’ll come back to the idea many times in the future.

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