Article November 21, 1994 Issue

Hello, Jacob

What can we learn about ourselves from the people and lessons in the Bible?

Brian E. Zavitz

Among other things, the Bible is biography. For many of the people in the long history it records, we are shown significant events in their lives, sometimes over most of their lives, in a way that makes it obvious that these are real people and real events.

There may be some Bible characters invented or enlarged for the purpose of making a point—Job is probably a good example of this—but to a very large extent, this book is about real people, and what happened to them and why. This is probably one reason that the Bible has such a profound impact on those who read it. Even if its readers don't catch—or even if they consciously reject—the spiritual significance of these distant, remarkable events, still it is hard to dismiss them as mere religious mythology. They ring too true.

Of course, the real power of the Bible lies in the moral and spiritual significance threaded through these stories. The picture of Abraham leading his dear son Isaac out to sacrifice, for instance, is a powerful one that resonates in our thought and touches our own deepest feelings. The event is a moving drama and makes for enduring literature. But it becomes more than drama or literature when we see how Isaac was spared, and discern the underlying spiritual insight that propelled Abraham to a higher sense of God. His step away from human sacrifice as the ultimate sign of devotion and worship was a long step toward the concept voiced by the Psalmist in a later age: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Ps. 51:17).

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