2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
He had spent his entire life in defense of the literal
interpretation of the Faith. None
understood this commitment to his belief. As a youth he was patronized, as a
man he had been ridiculed, and now, as he entered the winter of his years, he
was pitied. But the grizzled man knew
that if he could convince just one person of the validity of his belief, his
lonely existence would be justified. He
would read the Bible from beginning to end and prove that the only valid
interpretation of the text was a literal one.
And so he retired into the corner of his study and sat down
on the purple velvet chair behind the grand mahogany desk. In the centre of the desk lay an overly
ornate leather bound bible. The old man
ran his fingers across the decorative cover, letting his hands roam over the
edges of the folio to trace the gilt gold lettering on the spine. He inhaled deeply as he lifted the heavy
title page and gingerly turned over the frontispiece.
Here they were. The
literal words of God. He opened the book
to the Book of Genesis.
He read the first
verse. He was happy. It was the beginning, and his dreams of the
completion of his work seemed close at hand.
And then he read the second verse.
What did this mean? Was the earth without form, or was it
void? Why both? Why was it necessary to
specify this And If the earth had no form and was therefore void, how could
“deep” exist? And for that matter how could there be a surface on which God could move?
He slammed the book closed.
Surely this was a bad translation.
Surely this was man misunderstanding and reinterpreting the Words of the
LORD. He pushed his chair back slightly
and reached in the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk. He pulled out a cheap, octavo paperback and
flung it across the folio. He felt a
little like Dr. Faustus.
He read the first verse.
He was happy. It was the
beginning again, and he was happy.
And then he read the second verse.
The verse made more literal sense, now. The draftsman had
made sure of that. But something was missing.
The words now felt as empty as the state of pre-creation they described. The literal meaning of the words was not true enough. How was this possible? Anxiety overwhelmed him.
His heart began to palpitate wildly in his chest as the fear
of what this signified seized him. He
clutched his chest with his right hand, trying to ease the pressure there. He felt light-headed. The literal interpretation of this verse was
wrong. His entire system of analysis was
wrong. Everything he had believed was wrong.
He had wasted his
life.
His breath was broken, and he stole it in gasps. And suddenly he realized that what he thought
was a panic attack was something more severe. The pain in his chest was now unbearable.
As he slipped beneath the desk, beneath the Bibles, he knewt:
He was not Enoch. He
would not walk with God.
