Today’s Scripture
Reading (June 26, 2015): Genesis 41
The opening
line to the Paul Bunyan tale “Babe the Blue Ox” reads –
Well now, one winter
it was so cold that all the geese flew backward and all the fish moved south
and even the snow turned blue. Late at night, it got so frigid that all spoken
words froze solid afore they could be heard. People had to wait until sunup to
find out what folks were talking about the night before.
We understand the words, even though we don’t believe
what the writer is attempting to tell us. No one believes that all the geese
flew backwards, or that it was so cold that the words froze in mid-air and the
people had to wait until the next morning to hear what it was that was said the
night before, but we get the message. It was a cold Minnesota night. Those of
us who live in the northern part of the Northern hemisphere have lived through
those nights even if we have never experienced a Minnesota in winter. We know
that kind of cold.
The literary tool is called hyperbole – the act of
exaggerating something to the absolute extreme (like words that freeze in
mid-air on a cold, winter’s night). And it might be the one of the most used
literary devices in our library. Hyperbole is usually in use whenever we choose
to describe something in absolute terms – whenever we say that something always
happens, or never happens. Or that we attended a party and everybody was there.
We don’t need anyone to interpret the words; we know that not everyone attended
the party, but that there was a significant portion of a certain group that had
attended.
Jesus loved
hyperbole. In speaking to the Pharisees, Jesus said “You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a
camel” (Matthew 23:24). We don’t take Jesus words
literally expecting the Pharisees to have accidently swallowed a camel, but we
understand the meaning of Jesus words – the Pharisees were focusing on the
minor things and missing some major issues in their spiritual lives. No one has
to explain that to us. In John 12, the Pharisees tell each other that their
plans are “getting us nowhere. Look how the whole
world has gone after him” (John 12:19)! Interpretation – there were crowds
that were following Jesus, but not the whole world. Jesus ministry at the time
was centered in Israel, there were huge swaths of the world that had never even
heard of him, let alone had followed him.
So the question
becomes, when is the Bible speaking in hyperbole, and when is it literal? And
that is unlikely to be an easy task. When Jesus said “For God so loved the
world …” was that hyperbole? (I vote no – God loves the world.) But this
passage in Genesis 41 has often been interpreted as being hyperbole. Yet here
there does not seem to be an overwhelming reason to believe that. Or maybe to
rephrase it, there is no reason to believe that there was not a famine at this
time in history throughout the known world. We know from this story that the
famine extended up the east side of the Mediterranean Sea into the Fertile
Crescent. And it would seem that if the Fertile Crescent was suffering from
famine, the famine might have extended into other areas of the known world as
well.
Whether or
not the whole world was genuinely threatened, we may never know. But what we do
know is that the convoluted story of Joseph was about to reach its climax. And
because of all that Joseph had been through, the whole world was not only
threatened by famine, but were also about to find their salvation in this
Hebrew leader in Egypt.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Genesis
42
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