Cool new books: Knock at the Sky by Liz Charlotte Grant
Because where else are you going to find obscure science facts, mildly mind-blowing rabbinic stories, and Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac, all in the same recently-published book?
When I was in college, my (very secular) school offered a Bible class, and I did not take it. But some of my friends did.
The class was taught by a religious studies scholar who was not himself religious, and everything I heard from friends about that class seemed to chip away at the foundations of Christianity.
Maybe the origins of the Bible were much more complex than God sitting down each human writer and dictating what God wanted to say.
Maybe the sacred texts evolved over time.
Maybe mistakes were made.
Maybe people intentionally manipulated texts to suit their own interests.
Maybe the sacred words had quite a bit of humanity written all over them.
At the time, I ignored these ideas. Of course they were mere theories of a secular scholar with a bent against religion. Of course he’s biased when it comes to matters of faith. He’s not on our team.
And really, God is all-powerful. If God wanted to write these scriptures, God could do it however God wanted to. The history doesn’t really matter one way or another; what we have today is still God-breathed. We take this on faith, a kind of childlike faith that nothing rattles.
Many years later, I am rattled.
Or maybe, rather, I am more open and curious and secure, but the ways of thinking about the Bible that I took for granted fifteen or twenty years ago have certainly been rattled, possibly out of existence.
I’m still fascinated by the Bible. But my relationship to it is deeply different now from what it was in my late teens. And that’s okay.
In this vein, if you haven’t encountered it yet, I want to introduce you to a cool new book: Knock At the Sky: Seeking God in Genesis After Losing Faith in the Bible by
.
This book embodies, powerfully, the ever-evolving journey many of us former evangelicals are on. Liz reads scripture with imagination, creativity, and a stubborn hope that we can embrace all of its contradictions and complexities and maybe still find a living breathing God in its pages, somehow.
It’s a cool book. And I have good news for you.
was so kind as to answer a few questions I found in my brain after I read her book. Without further ado, here’s our three-question interview!1. Why the Bible?
Me: Why the Bible, among the million interesting topics someone who writes about empathy and current politics and change and so many other lovely things on Substack could have chosen?
(Other) Liz: Well, I did somehow find a way to write about a VERY wide range of topics despite limiting myself to the book of Genesis (to my publisher's dismay—ha! So many rounds of editing!).
In fact, I hired a science fact-checker to certify the truthfulness of my work because I write about the discovery of dark matter, and what it feels like to be hit by lightning, and the first recording of whale song, and how the Grand Canyon was made, and paleoanthropology, and Third Man Syndrome... among other things.
I also write about my experience of childbirth, and about Marina Abramović (the grandmother of performance art), and about avant garde sound artist, John Cage. I cover a lot of ground!
But the heart of your question is, why the Bible?
I grew up within an ecosystem that appealed to the Bible every other second to justify our every decision. I sword-drilled and memorized verses on 3x5 cards and aced bible classes in college.
I understand why readers may feel fatigue when it comes to the Bible—not another book about the Bible. Or maybe the Bible feels radioactive—the Bible is so harmful, why do we have to keep talking about it? The Old Testament is especially problematic. I mean, the Canaanite conquest/genocide? The patriarchal roles, incest, domestic violence, rape, etc.? Slavery?!?!
I get it, and also, I'm stubborn as hell. I don't want to give up these stories to the conservatives.
I have come to see the Bible as a book of ancestral wisdom, a masterwork of ancient literature, a work of art. These stories are mine, too.
So, there's a thread throughout the book about the complex way in which the Bible was built. I discuss how they made paper and ink, how they passed down notes in the margins of scrolls, how translations have gone awry and been mended.
I like answering the question of how an ancient book got to us, and I especially like to muddy the waters about the inspiration of such a book. Because, by the way, insisting the magic dust of God lives within the pages of any book is... wild. To say the least. So I wanted to play with that assumption. I guess I'm the kind of person who likes to confront the sacred cow.
I also refused to meaningfully address the question of Genesis's historicity because I find that to be a boring question. So, I'm a capricious narrator.
2. Stories by rabbis
Me: What led you to pay so much more attention to Jewish biblical scholarship than most Christian writers do? What do you think Christians (or people whose main religious exposure has been to Christianity) can learn from reading what rabbis have to say?
(Other) Liz: First, I want to say that antisemitism is the historical reason that Christians have not depended on rabbinic teaching to interpret the Old Testament—and I do not mean that we today do not consult the rabbis because we progressive or evangelical Christians are antisemitic. But traditionally, the church fathers who founded Christian theology did not consult the rabbis on purpose.
They mistrusted Jews and in their writings, they clearly demonstrate their prejudice against the Hebrew people, whom they blame for Jesus's death. (Martin Luther wrote an entire treatise on the Jews "and their lies.") Hatred toward the Jews is baked into the foundation of Protestantism, and it also exists in Augustine, Origen, Chrysostom, etc.
Second, I relied so heavily on rabbinic commentary on Genesis, in part, as a corrective. But also my style of reading the Bible is rhetorical and midrashic, more than exegetical. I'm not trying to find a single interpretation to any part of the Scriptures, but to see what can be said about a story or character. With close literary study, what emerges from the text?
Part of that work included the legends and stories that the Hebrew people built around their sacred text over centuries, including myths which in no way pretend to be factual.
Often these myths try to answer questions that the text leaves vague. Who is Cain's wife? What language did Adam speak in the Garden of Eden? Why did God topple the tower of babel? The Bible does not tell stories with explanatory footnotes, and so the Hebrew people wrote their own versions of the stories into the white space between the words, sentences, and paragraphs.
The question of historicity that interested me was not so much did the events in Genesis matter, but how has this Genesis narrative been interpreted over time? What has the Hebrew origin story meant across generations? What does that story say about God and humanity?
I used the rabbinic teachings as a form of cultural criticism and as a way to encourage my readers to take creative liberties with the Bible--not as a way of desecrating the story, but as a way of meaningfully engaging and playing with the sacred story. I believe God shows up in play and not only in serious study.
3. Should I chuck my Bible?
Me: What would you say to someone who once read the Bible but doesn’t anymore because they feel it’s tied to MAGA-type stuff they hate?
(Other) Liz: I get it. You have permission to throw your Bible in the garbage disposal nearest to you. You are by no means obligated to read a book that feels like harm to you.
I do not believe the Bible was written to be an object of oppression, but a gift of creativity and wisdom. So if you have not received it that way, throw the book out.
For those who want to be convinced to keep their Bibles, however, I would suggest approaching the book as literature, not as fact. Consider it a library of ancestral stories. Consider it a work of art. Does that change the way you feel toward the stories?
You may not be able to read your own Bible on your own, but I have been comforted to learn that most Christians across history did not have personal bible study time. Instead, they read the Bible collectively and collaboratively. They read the Bible together, through the mouths of others, through the interpretation of the group.
You do not have to read the sacred book by yourself. Read it in community, in therapy, in concert with writers who are attending to the book on your behalf.
Give yourself permission to rage against the words, to tear out pages, to black out entire sections. Who said that wasn't allowed? That's what we've always been doing. Reading is inherently interpretative.
I knew these stories would be chasing me around for the rest of my life, so instead of running, I turned to face them. I encourage you to do the same.
Whew. I feel like that’s a whole word right there, as some preachers might say. Thank you
for answering my questions with such thoughtfulness, complexity, graciousness, and humor! I love it.That image of the stories chasing Liz, though. I feel it too. I think many of us, regardless of what kinds of faith communities we’re a part of (or not), or how we might label ourselves now, still find ourselves wrestling with these sacred stories.
We might think very different things about the Christian scriptures than we once did. But maybe we’re still thinking about them. Maybe current events—and the way people justify them with things they say are from the Bible, or things they say are Christian—make us think about them, like it or not.
Maybe we’re asking questions. Hopefully, we’re letting our brilliant, unique, curious minds wander around freely. We wonder what we think about these texts and what others have thought about them in other times and cultures.
Liz explores all this beautifully in Knock at the Sky. So if any of this sounds intriguing, consider picking up a copy. And consider following her here on Substack over at The Empathy List, too—because she’s one of my faves, and because curiosity, empathy, kindness, and sass (to take some words from her “about” page) is what we need right now, more than ever.
In this with you.
If you need more…
I figured I’d throw in “cool new book” features here and there, the requirements of which are mostly just that a book came out in the last six-ish months (or is about to come out), I read it and enjoyed it, and the author was kind enough to answer a couple questions that interest me and might interest you too. This is the second one I’ve done; the first is on Cara Meredith’s book Church Camp. Open to feedback—are these helpful? Is there anything you’d add or change? Or any cool new books you’ve read whose authors might talk to me?
I wrote a brief opinion piece on a topic close to my heart—women leaving evangelical churches—and was happy to find a great home for it at Baptist News. Here it is: “For evangelical churches left behind, it’s a four-alarm fire; for women leaving, it’s freedom.”
And of course, for anyone who’s new or wants a reminder: I wrote a whole book about Nice Churchy Patriarchy. (Spoiler: I’m against it.) Hope you get a chance to read Nice Churchy Patriarchy if you haven’t yet.
So much goodness!