Catching Up

CELWPGA is an acronym for Northrop Frye's seven word summation of the Bible. This is how I'll remember those seven words:

"Celebrating Existence Lets Will Power Gain Attractivenss"

... = Creation, Exodus (Revolution), Law, Wisdom, Prophecy, Gospel, Apocalypse (Revelation).

Now that we have that out of the way, I'll talk briefly about what I've read in Frye's Words with Power. Frye says that Literature, and in our case The Bible, should be read and analyzed in a very specific way. He says that if one approached literature looking to fulfill an ideological query then you're perspective may only take away a portion of the reading. The big picture may be caught in a haze of personal conflict. Frye says that, "In such approaches literature is subordinated to something else which by definition is more important and urgent" (p. 27). But literature shoudn't have a boss; it is what it is. We can allow The Bible to adhere to an agenda, but the scripture will misrepresent itself too much if we focus on proving or disproving an agenda. We shouldn't be a critic when reading scripture because The Bible's fruitful content.

There's one last enticing quote which I'll share: "it is criticism which separates science from superstition, history from rumor and legend, philosophy and politics from propaganda, and the like." So to what extent should we question, analyze, and criticize the Bible?