Reading the Bible in 3D is now in paperback.

For most people, reading the Bible is like watching a foreign movie with no subtitles. The keys to understanding the book are hidden in plain sight, but we haven’t been trained to see them. The Bible is a story. The Bible has a shape. The Bible has a tune. The Bible is art. The Bible is fun. Contemporary culture has been shaping us for a fresh look at the Bible. This amazing book has been biding its time, waiting for a new generation of visual thinkers who are profoundly savvy when it comes to story, poetry and symbolism. This little book will give you your first glimpse of the potential of the structural and symbolic wonders in the Bible. It’s time to open your eyes.

From goodreads.com

“A concise and accessible introduction to the approach often called ‘interpretive maximalism,’ this book should prove a helpful steppingstone to some of Michael Bull’s more complex works, as well as the work of James Jordan.” – Courtney Joshua

Available here.

Chapter 7 of Reading the Bible in 3D:

A book or a movie or a TV show has its own “world,” and this world has its own internal logic. The Bible is a book like every other book in this respect. But the internal logic of the Bible happens to be “fractal” in nature. That is, it’s a lot like a set of Russian dolls.

The best way to get a big handle on the way the Bible is built, and on the way God works in history, is to get an understanding of fractals. Don’t worry, fractals aren’t scary. Fractals are cool. (A lot cooler than Russian dolls.)

What is a fractal?

If you mention the word “fractal” to most people, they will give you a blank look. The reason is that “fractal” is a relatively new word, yet fractal geometry has changed your life and mine.

The basic idea is that a fractal is a shape made up of smaller versions of itself. If you zoom in on each part, you can see that it is a smaller replica of the entire object. In may cases, this pattern of “self-similarity” continues through many layers as you keep zooming in.

The word was first used in 1975 by a mathematician named Benoît Mandelbrot, who noticed a recurring pattern in some electrical interference in data cables while working for IBM. Mandelbrot called this process of self-repetition “iteration.” Since then, fractal geometry has gone on to change our lives in many ways.

It was fractal geometry that allowed mobile phone designers to build a super-efficient antenna that doesn’t stick out of your phone. It is fractal-based software that enables Hollywood to create fantastic moving images that look like they are a reality. Mandelbrot himself went on to use fractal geometry to successfully explain the behavior of financial markets. Research is also being done on the fractal patterns found in the human heartbeat to enhance diagnosis and treatment.

Once you know what they are, you will find fractals everywhere. This is because fractals are found not only in computing, modern technology and financial markets, but also everywhere in nature. You can see them in the relationship between your arteries, blood vessels and capillaries, and also in the relationship between the trees in a rainforest, the branches on the trees, the twigs on the branches, and the patterns in the leaves. They are also apparent in animal coloration patterns, river networks, lightning bolts, ocean waves, DNA, earthquakes, the structure of snowflakes and other crystals, and in Romanesco broccoli.

Many of the rough shapes in nature, such as coastlines, waves and cloud formations were once thought to be beyond the “clean lines” of mathematics. What fractal geometry has done is reveal the “internal logic” of these formations. Identifying the basic formula at the heart of such formations has enabled us to “measure roughness,” and also to replicate it using computers.

There were many others before Mandelbrot who noticed this process of “iteration.” The most interesting to me is the Japanese artist known as Hokusai (1760-1849). You can see fractals in his famous painting, “The Great Wave.” Hokusai wrote:

From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the shapes of things. When I was fifty I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy five I’ll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At a hundred I shall be a marvelous artist. At a hundred and ten everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself ‘The Old Man Mad About Drawing.’

If fractals are foundational to efficiency and beauty in both the created world and the best achievements of man, would it be beyond reason to discover them in the Word of God? After all, making Man in His image was an act of “self-similarity.”

Fractals and the Bible

The Bible’s “roughness” was always a frustration for me. It was just like looking at the apparent randomness of a coastline or a cloud formation. It seemed to be a bit of a hapless collection of documents which could have been arranged a lot better. In his book, The Literary Structure of the Old Testament, David Dorsey writes:

My fascination with [Hebrew literary structure] was kindled when I began teaching Old Testament courses in seminary. At that time I was struck by the apparent lack of order within many of the biblical books. Jeremiah seemed hopelessly confused in its organization; so did Isaiah and Hosea and most of the prophets. Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes appeared to be in almost complete disarray, and even the more orderly historical books, such as Joshua and Kings, showed signs of strangely careless organization.

Why did the biblical authors write like this? I would never write a book, an article, or even a private letter with such carelessness of arrangement. I was intrigued by the possibility that the Hebrew authors might have organized their compositions according to literary conventions that were different from ours.

There’s no hiding the fact that the Bible is weird. You think you know where a story is going and then it suddenly changes direction, or gives you a boring genealogy, or hits you with a long list of architectural instructions for no practical reason, or repeats the same thing twelve times over!

Most often, it doesn’t seem to follow any logic that we are aware of, and sometimes it is downright bizarre. We all pretend we know what is going on (including many Bible teachers) but do you ever get the feeling that even they themselves don’t have a big grip on what is going on? It is usually assumed that the apparent chaos is due to the Bible’s texts being very ancient, (which is a nice way of saying that the ancients were stupid), but what if there were something going on in the apparent chaos, a method to the madness, of which we weren’t aware?

A few years ago, I discovered the not-very-well-known theologian James B. Jordan. To me, one of the most amazing things he spoke of was the use of the Creation Week (Genesis 1) as a common literary structure in the Bible. Since then, I have gone on to discover that this pattern is found everywhere in the Bible, and at every level. This incredible “iteration” of the process of “forming” and “filling” means that the Bible is a fractal. This might get a “So what?” from most people, but almost immediately I saw the potential which this observation has not only for interpreting and understanding the Bible, but also for applying it in the real world, in everyday life. It gives Man, who was made in God’s image and given a mission to make the world a better place, a big handle on how God Himself creates.

The same pattern is the “deep structure” of every speech that God gives, every Covenant that He makes with mankind, and every story which follows His initiating acts. When He calls somebody to do something, the shape of the speech is just like a “new creation.”

One example is the structure of Genesis chapters 1, 2 and 3. Some people insist that there are contradictions here but they are ignoring the possibility of a very careful, and beautiful, method behind the apparent disorder. The seven day process which we find in the Creation of the physical world in Genesis 1 is symbolically repeated in the setting up of the “social” world in Genesis 2, and also the “ethical” world in Genesis 3. Why is this? Could it be that these three domains reflect the “shape” of the Father, Son and Spirit? It’s certainly something to chew on.

As we discussed concerning Joseph, Daniel and Jesus, the person God calls goes through a sevenfold process of “initiation” to qualify him. (We will cover this pattern in a later chapter.) Then this person leads the people of God through the same sevenfold process as a new creation, and they then minister to the world. An example would be Moses leaving Egypt for the wilderness for forty years, and then leading Israel through the wilderness for the subsequent forty years, and into the Promised Land.

These are basic examples, but once you know what you are looking for, you can see the “shape” of God’s words being replicated like “soundwaves,” taking on human form in His servant and then in His people in just about every book in the Bible. The intricacy we find as we zoom in or out is mind-blowing. But the good thing is that the basic pattern is consistent. All the beauty and complexity that follows as this fundamental structural theme is developed throughout the Bible is based on the same simple “fractal” process.

No More Four Views

Christians disagree on the interpretation of certain passages, especially in the prophets. There are a number of books available in Christian bookstores with titles that begin with phrases like “Four Views on…” What if the Bible had its own internal system of logic which, once identified, would make undeniable which view of the text was the correct one?

The Bible does have its own internal logic, and it is “fractal” in nature. The fact that the same process is going on at multiple levels leads to a great deal of confusion when we assume the text is “flat.” Much of the confusion comes from truth spoken about one level being misapplied to another. The key is the structural context. Once we identify the separate patterns, the confusion disappears.
This might all sound very complicated, but the beauty is that every Covenant process has the same shape, so you only have to learn one process. God’s work — and His Book — is like “wheels within wheels,” a little bit like planets orbiting the sun at different distances. If you can identify the Covenant context of a passage, only one of the four views can be the true one.

At this stage, the idea might appear too technical to be bothered with, but as with the solar system, once you see it in operation its surpassing beauty and precision will not only leave you breathless, but also able to identify the purpose of every layer in Covenant history, and make sense of every text.
Instead of being presented with double- or quadruple vision, you will be able to focus on the Bible’s true shape, to read the Bible in 3D.

The Blessings of Abraham and the Curses of Moses

This is the fourth cycle within the “Numbers” section of Galatians. Since the next section concerns the Christians’ identity as sons of Abraham (Succession), this cycle seems to correspond to New Covenant Sanctions.  I’ll take a risk and outline the epistle as I see it so far, so you can keep a handle on it. (The headings for the sections we have already covered are links to the relevant blog posts.)

 
This post has been refined by fire and included in a new book, The Shape of Galatians.

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For most people, reading the Bible is like watching a foreign movie with no subtitles. The keys to understanding the book are hidden in plain sight, but we haven’t been trained to see them.

The Bible is a story. Imagine if you could make sense of its weirdest bits using some skills you might have learned from watching a long-running TV series. The countless novels, movies and TV shows we enjoy employ exactly the same techniques to connect with people as the ones used by the authors of the Bible.

The Bible has a shape. Imagine being able to read it in 3D in the same way an architect interprets building plans, or a tailor understands suit patterns.

The Bible has a tune. Imagine being familiar with its basic “musical” themes so you know what is happening and where the story is going.

The Bible is art. Imagine being a curator who knows the reason for every curve of the sculpture, with a mind and heart shaped by its beauty.

The Bible is fun. Imagine being able to see when the author is making a joke or turning another Bible story on its head just to shock his audience!

Contemporary culture has been shaping us for a fresh look at the Bible. This amazing book has been biding its time, waiting for a new generation of visual thinkers who are profoundly savvy when it comes to story, poetry and symbolism.

This little book will give you your first glimpse of the potential of the structural and symbolic wonders in the Bible. It’s time to open your eyes.

Available for Kindle here. iBook should be available on iTunes soon (hopefully for free! amazon Kindle doesn’t do free).

“The reason literature, like art, has no hard-and-fast rules, is because authors and artists confer meaning upon things as they go.”

Recently on the hermeneutics exchange, Monica Cellio (one of the bright lights, whose eyes are like lasers) asked,

Do any principles commonly used in the field of hermeneutics have any counterparts in scientific principles? Is there a corollary in hermeneutics to the requirements that science demands as far as the reproducibility of experiments, peer review of results, etc?

This is a fantastic question, not because it will lead us towards a better understanding of the Bible, but because it exposes the reason why modern academics have such a problem with understanding and teaching the Bible.

There are no such principles. This is because hermeneutics is not a science. There are no hard-and-fast rules in literature. Bible teacher James Jordan, in a recent lecture, said,

Do you read anything else by rules? When you pick up the latest mystery novel, do you say, “Well, let’s remind ourselves of the rules of hermeneutics,” or do you just plow in? Do you read the newspaper by rules? The assumption seems to be that the Bible is some kind of weird book, and that if you don’t have all these rules you’re going to misinterpret it. There’s always some helpful stuff… but the problem with reading by rules is that it reduces reading to science. We have what is called ‘the ideal of science.’ Science has to turn all art into knowledge of a certain sort, with rules. That’s not the way the Bible is written and that’s not who God is. Some rules are commonsense, designed to get you to read sanely, like “Pay attention to the context.” [1]

The reason literature, like art, has no hard-and-fast rules, is because authors and artists confer meaning upon things as they go. So I guess reading cumulatively through a book is one rule. But once you are inside the author’s or artist’s world, the work becomes uniquely self-referencing. So the Bible makes its own rules based on what has gone before. This means that what gets classed as “faithful exegesis” of the Bible’s literature is in fact a sort of scientistic tunnel vision, based on the mistaken assumption that breaking things into smaller pieces will reveal their true essence. We must treat the Bible as literature, as a book. Having eyes like lasers is only good for cutting things up into small pieces, and hermeneutics is not an autopsy. If you take a single note out of a piece of music, it loses its meaning.

Next post, I’ll have a look at a famously difficult passage which can only be understood by taking into account the “meanings” of certains things conferred upon them in earlier Scriptures, and the order in which its events take place.

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[1] James Jordan’s lecture series is here. Also, details on our one day event on hermeneutics and literary structure (held in Australia), can be found here.

ART: Gold Albert Einstein by Michael Bull. Just to illustrate my point.

Here’s my all-time favourite joke in the Bible.

Jesus makes it clear that whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. This goes right back to the Garden of Eden. Adam did not humble himself under the Word and repeat it once more as a prophetic legal witness to the serpent and to Eve. In this refusal, he extended the exaltation of the serpent himself against the will of God. So Adam was humbled by God, and, very interestingly, the angel behind the serpent was exalted to a legal role in heaven. The serpent was lifted up, standing at God’s right hand as the accuser of Man.

If Adam had obeyed the Lord, he would have been worthy, as firstfruits of the Land (he was created in the Land and lifted up to the Garden) to “open the scroll,” in this case, the promises of dominion which the Lord had made to him. But the scroll remained closed. It would be a mystery to human eyes for four thousand years.

Joseph was a faithful firstfruits. Unlike Adam, he humbled himself continually and did not hide his relationship to God. This could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the double witness God had sent to the Gentile king in dreams. Once vindicated as faithful and wise, he sat at Pharaoh’s right hand (with Pharaoh’s ring or seal) and became Pharaoh’s “living word.”

Daniel was another firstfruits carried into a Gentile court. He, too, humbled himself, and did not hide his Covenant identity. Again, this could have cost him his life, but he was eventually lifted up. He “opened the scroll,” the fourfold witness God had sent to the Gentile emperor in dreams. He, too, became the top wise man in the royal court, and it seems he may have had a hand in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian armies (under God’s guidance, of course).

James Jordan runs us through these similarites in his lectures, and how they all point to Christ’s faithfulness, His exaltation to the right hand of the power (finally usurping the satan), and His worthiness to “open the scroll” of the New Covenant, and sends out the four gospels (the horsemen of the harvest).

This really unlocks the book of Revelation for us, but the one that made me laugh was the instance in the book of Esther, which is already funny, but becomes hysterical when we have prior knowledge.

Mordecai was the Jew living in a Gentile city. Instead of submitting to authority, he refused to bow. (Bowing to Gentile kings, or any other human being, was not sinful for Jews, only bowing to idols because they are not images of the true God.) Mordecai also told Esther to hide her Covenant identity. As a result, another satan, Haman, usurped the role God had obviously prepared for Mordecai (we know this because of all the previous patterns, and also because Mordecai eventually received this role, a terror to the nations.)

Mordecai thwarts an assassination attempt on the king, which leads us to the divine comedy. Instead of the king receiving dreams from the Most High, he can’t sleep. If we were watching a sitcom with such a well-established pattern, seeing the king tossing and turning would surely justify some laughter from the live audience. He calls for the royal records and discovers Mordecai’s faithfulness (which, in context, we must understand as a submission to authority which God can bless.) He calls the self-righteous Haman in and asks his advice on what to do to glorify a faithful man. Here, Joseph or Daniel would “open the mystery.” Adam would obey and understand God’s intention behind the test. The purpose of the trial was to qualify His right hand Man so that a much greater authority could be conferred upon him and a much greater blessing could be poured out through him. (Notice the correpondence between Joseph’s grain and Jesus’ Pentecostal Spirit! In Daniel’s case it was the conversion of the king, but that would take a little more explaining than is wise at this point.)

Of course, Haman misinterprets the king’s will entirely, which is very funny, and repeats a theme which, as you can see now, unites the entire Bible from the first book to the last. Haman is just like Adam. He has himself become a lying serpent. He desired to exalt himself and he would be humbled. His wisdom was not the wisdom of God. But of course, a much greater humbling for him, and his sons, was to come. The serpent would be lifted up (Garden), along with his sons (Land) and the entire brood gathered in his spirit across the World.

Now, there are many Bible teachers who say that a type is only a type if it is explained explicitly in the text of the Bible. Never read Shakespeare or watch a good movie with, or lend a novel to, such a person. He is in the ranks of the illiterati and must not be permitted anywhere near such exquisite entertainments, especially the Bible.

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James Jordan’s lectures are available from www.wordmp3.com