Metaphor, Literalism, and The Da Vinci Code, Part I
I just read back through Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The first time I read it I didn't really read it, but listened to it on cassette during my long drive back to the Northwest from Act One: Screenwriting for Hollywood[base ']s summer intensive. That was the summer of 2004. Listening through all those hours, I didn't assume that what I was hearing was true, and at the end of the ride, I thought, what[base ']s the bruhaha all about? But of course, what I now realize is that people believe this stuff, and that we're going to be hearing a lot more about the Gnostic Gospels and Mary Magdalene when the Ron Howard/Tom Hanks film arrives.
What I'd like to address is one particular passage in the book that speaks about the relationship of religion to metaphor. I've been championing the value of metaphor for many years, dating back to statement I heard a major theatre director make in a workshop. "Evangelicals don't do metaphor," he said, citing this blind spot as the reason these otherwise intelligent and decent religious people could be dangerous, especially to artists. The statement struck me as true, and over the past 15 years or so, I've been working, along with many others, to help reclaim both the understanding and the use of metaphor in our part of God's Kingdom.
Here's the passage that caught my eye from the paperback edition of The Da Vinci Code. It starts on page 369.
The context (here I'm assuming you are familiar with the story and what is in question. If not, be warned that there are spoilers ahead) is that Langdon and Sophie are discussing whether or not Langdon believes it is time the world hear the proof that "the New Testament is false testimony."
"There's an enormous difference between hypothetically discussing an alternate history of Christ, and..." He paused.
"And what?"
"And presenting to the world thousands of ancient documents as scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony."
"But you told me the New Testament is based on fabrications."
Langdon smiled. "Sophie, every faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith--acceptance off that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school. Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors."
Langdon goes on to say that "those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical." After Sophie protests that her "devout" Christian friends believe in the literal virgin birth, Jesus literally walking on water, and the literal transformation of water into wine, Langdon answers, "Religious allegory has become a part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people."
Sophie replies, "But it appears their reality is false." Langdon then replies with a comment about cryptology and the fact that mathematics has properties that work in reality, but aren't really there, either.
Okay...having said all that, here's my concern. What Dan Brown is telling us is that metaphor is the basis of religion, and functionally, it works in terms of making people better, helping them cope, etc. It is a pragmatic move for people to make mentally. 'Hey...if it helps you to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, great. But what you need to understand is that it really doesn't matter, because what's important is the way Jesus lived, and the fact that his death is a metaphoric way of approaching an understanding of life, love, death, etc.'
So now we face a true/false situation in terms of metaphor vs. history. And of course, postmodernism tells us there is no real history, because what we understand to be history is just socially constructed descriptions of events, those descriptions being the ones we get because of who held power at the time the histories were written. Which puts we believers in the historical resurrection of Jesus in a bit of a quandary: we have to choose...metaphor or history? The typical kneejerk reaction is to recoil, kick metaphor out the door, and stick to my historical guns.
Once again, metaphor equals falsehood, and the rich layering that is part and parcel to the most basic functions of the human mind is lost, and literalism leads to fundamentalism leads to some pretty basic ugliness.
So here's the challenge: how do we maintain the historicity scripture claims (if Christ has not been raised from the dead, we are fools), and yet also capture the vast nuance that rises to us through the metaphors and symbols the writers of both Old and New Testaments are giving us (through the work of the Holy Spirit, I might add)?
Here's my first comment: when Langdon claims these are metaphorical stories, I agree. Stories are metaphors by their very nature. Some stories are fictional, some are historical, but in the telling of both kinds, metaphoric comparisons are created with our own lives, thereby creating a context in which our own attititudes and action can be examined, challenged, and/or affirmed. The comparative move that is metaphor does not imply historical hyperbole. The resurrection of Jesus is certainly one of the strongest metaphors we can think of for the notion of a renewed life, and stands as a deep symbol for the human desire to overcome death. It's true that there are many ancient religious stories about various god figures being resurrected--the desire to escape that final reality is deep in the race.
But the crux of the matter for Christians is that the documents we call the gospels and epistles make the historical claim that Jesus did in fact come back from the grave. So the metaphor and symbol stand, but they do not negate the history. The combination of history plus metaphor is powerful, and to miss the move to metaphor because you fear it undercuts the historicity, one being "true" and the other being "false" is to wall off a major portal to the meanings of God's work in the world.
More tomorrow...
3:11:37 PM
