Narratives in Western Religions
by Vinod Suresh, 2002
For the layman, familiarity with the major religions stems from the stories that are associated with them. Using the narratives that are derived from the sacred texts is the most prominent way in which our society identifies the Western religions. The Jewish tradition is best correlated to stories like the Exodus and the parting of the Red Seas, for example, as are the many tales of the miracles of Jesus connected to Christianity. This essay will present narratives as an easy method of providing the basic groundwork for the Western religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam because of their simplicity and easily transmittable nature. Furthermore, narratives impart many of the rules, laws, and moral fundamentals for these faiths, and are used by religious writers as a novel method of initiating discussion or providing a parallel for other narratives.
From the beginning of the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible, it is evident that the identity of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the West hails from Biblical narratives. Genesis and its two accounts of creation are an essential starting point for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic beliefs. It provides a foundation for devotees of these religions to worship their God as the ultimate creator of the heavens and earth, day and night, sun and moon, all the animals and vegetation that inhabits the world, and human beings. For Jews and Christians, God created the world in six days, taking rest on the seventh day.
However in the Islamic tradition of creation, Allah's actions on the seventh day are quite different from the Judeo-Christian beliefs. In the Koran, it states, "In six days He created the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them, and then ascended the throne" (al-Furqan 25:58). Therefore, the holy day of Sabbath is it is known for Jews and Christians, is absent in Islam. God was not weary from the act of creation, and oversaw all that he had created, rather. This could be seen as part of the belief in Islam that the Koran is a "correction" to the previous religions of Judaism and Christianity, and that the holy scriptures were somehow corrupted in their present form.
In the Western tradition, primarily in the United States where Christianity prevails, the story of creation from Genesis is held in high regard, and controversies have erupted disputing whether or not its fundamentals should be taught in school. The founding of this nation through the Constitution was erected with the belief of "separation of church and state." In the conservative 1920s, a huge court case erupted from the dispute between the Christian "creationism" and the scientific founding of Charles Darwin's evolution. The "Scopes Monkey trial" of 1925 saw a schoolteacher found guilty of teaching evolution in the classroom, a theory that flabbergasted fundamentalist Christians who perceived it ludicrous that humans could have descended from "monkeys." The narrative tradition of the Genesis creation was evidently a central issue for Americans and typified the Christian identity in the U.S. at a time when modernism was emerging, as the fourteen states had anti-Evolution statutes.
According to the first account of creation in Genesis, God made man on the sixth day and ascribed him to "Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground" (Gen. 1:26). In Judaism and Christianity, the general practice of eating meat is not found to be detrimental to the harmony of the universe. On the contrary, it can be taken from this statement and others in the Bible, in which humans supercede all other life, that animals are present to be used by humans for food because they are seen as a blessing from God. However, though the Hebrew Bible does not restrict the eating of animal meat, for Jews the concept of eating kosher is present in several instances of the Scriptures. For example, animals that are considered "unclean" by God, as well as animal fat and blood, are not to be eaten, as ascribed in Lev. 11: 1-23 and Lev. 3:17 respectively. The eating of swine, also forbidden for Muslims, is a grave dietary offense, as shown in Isaiah 65:3-4 "a people who continually provoke me to my face…who eat the flesh of pigs."
In the second account of creation in Genesis we find the narrative of Adam and Eve, the first humans on earth, as accepted by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. At times the story of the Garden of Eden seems to promote the concept that the woman could be seen as subordinate to man. Adam is created first "from the dust of the ground," and this simple fact of precedence could lead one to believe that man is dominant because of it. The reason Eve is created is because "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Gen. 2:18). Eve was also the first to eat the apple from the forbidden Tree of Good and Evil, as well as to persuade Adam to eat it as well. As a result of this, God sentences to Eve, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Gen. 3:15).
The Garden of Eden story also brings about the concepts of marriage and mortality. Following Eve's creation, it states, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). Thus the idea of uniting man and women in "holy matrimony" is presented early on for the followers of the Bible. Additionally, though commonplace in our secular society, divorce is not favored because marriage is such an institution. From the punishment of eating the apple, man "must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever" (Gen. 3:22). As a result, human mortality is to stem from the consequences of Adam and Eve's actions.
Hasidism is a mystical branch of Judaism stressing rejoicing in the world and God that has been controversial since its inception in late 19th century Poland. In the book Hasidism and the Modern Man, Martin Buber utilizes narratives at the beginning of each chapter to introduce his discussion of certain ways of following Hasidic Judaism. Buber retells stories that usually pertain to a rabbi asking another zaddik, or Hasidic teacher, about a certain aspect of the teaching. He goes on to elaborate on the answer given to the question asked. One example involves a chief of a prison questioning a rabbi who had been put in jail by adversaries of Hasidism as to why God, who is supposed to be omniscient, "Where art though?" The rabbi goes on to answer that the question is more of a figurative one, and that Adam is hiding to "escape responsibility for his life" (Buber 133). Adam is searching for his heart, rather. Buber uses storytelling like this to show that one should not attempt to take religious narratives in a literal sense, and in most cases they are figurative tales that require an interpretation by someone who is more scholarly on such matters. Buber's book also exhibits how narratives in religion are wonderful methods of introducing issues in religious life, as he does when expounding on such topics as dealing with conflicts amongst fellow men.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning novel Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir of sorts of the author's own experience during the Holocaust as a teenager, the events given through the perspective of the character Eliezer. There are several references and allusions to Jewish narratives that are related to the catastrophe. Perhaps the most prominent biblical allusion is to the "Story of the Akedah" in Genesis 22. Here, God tests Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, who proceeds to bring a knife to him before being stopped by angels, as it was simply a test. A parallel is seen to this in Night as the Holocaust could be seen as a test for the faith of the Jewish people to a grander scale. However, the parallel glaringly takes a turn in Night, as in the instance when the young boy is brutally hung; there is no angel, no God to interrupt this action here, and all are silent. Thus one role of the narrative in Night is to provide a glaring literary parallel to a Biblical story, highlighting the cruelty characteristic of the Holocaust, in which the faith of most Jewish people was severely tested.
The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, and the accounts of Jesus' life from the perspective of four authors, presents much of the material from which the Christian identity is derived. In the Gospel of Matthew, three magi bring the gifts of myrrh, incense, and gold to celebrate Jesus' birth. This tradition of gift giving is obviously seen in the Western tradition of celebrating Christmas. The concept of baptism found in Christianity hails from the narrative of John the Baptist, the prophet who baptized confessors of sin soon after Jesus' birth. The many stories of Jesus traveling throughout Palestine and healing people from many ailments such as bleeding, leprosy, and paralysis infuses the strong Protestant tenet that faith is necessity to being a good Christian, and perhaps influenced Martin Luther's Reformation, who stood by the principle of "justification by faith alone." Furthermore, Jesus is found to be eating amongst tax collectors and sinners. This could be seen to encourage Christian missionaries, who seek to convert people seen as "sinners," as Jesus did not "come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:13).
Islam is a religion that incorporates the traditions of Judaism and Christianity given forth in the Holy Scriptures, but seeks to continue or rectify these narratives and beliefs through the Koran, the Word of God as handed down to the last prophet Mohammed from the angel Gabriel. Most of the stories of the Bible are alluded to or revised. Essentially Allah is the same God of the Jews and Christians, "He who sent the Two Seas rolling…an insurmountable barrier" (al-Furqan 25:50). The story of Jesus is present, however with Jesus simply being another prophet, a man who lived and died. The revisions that the Koran makes to the narratives of previous Judeo-Christian scriptures are what distinguish Muslims from the other two faiths. For example, at one point the Word of God is "I come to confirm the Torah which preceded me and to make lawful for you some of the things you are forbidden" ('Imrans 3:50) refers to how much of the Jewish laws are reneged in the Koran.
The oral and written tradition of storytelling has always been the preferred method of transmitting the religious beliefs of peoples. Furthermore, our modern Western society easily portrays the identity of Christians, Jews, and Muslims through narratives in media, such as the news, movies, comic books, and television. Because of the way in which stories help people easily grasp the lessons and morals taught by religions, narratives are at the core of the teachings of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, presenting fundamentals as well as being a resource for writing upon subject matter dealing with the those theologies.
Works Cited
Buber, Martin. Hasidism and Modern Man. New York: Horizon Press, year?
The Holy Bible. New International Version. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman and
Holman Publishers, 1995.
The Koran. Trans. N. J. Dawood. New York: Penguin Books, 1997
Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam Books, 1960.