BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 59
March, 1994
Copyright 1994, Biblical Horizons
In response to my article, "The Holy City" (in Biblical Horizons 55) James B. Jordan has made several suggestions about how I might expand on the ideas presented there. Several other readers have also contributed their insights. Below, I trace a few sketchy lines of thought.
1. The expansion of the concept of the "house" of God to include the entire city of Jerusalem is paralleled by the expansion of the concept of the "throne of the Lord."
The original throne of God is, of course, the heavenly one (cf. Ps. 11:4; 103:19; Is. 66:1; etc.). Throughout the Old Testament, however, the Lord also established a number of earthly thrones as focal points of His presence and reign among His people. Being places where God is present in glory, these were particularly holy places (cf. Ps. 47:8).
The first of the Lord’s earthly thrones was the ark of the covenant. Though the ark is never explicitly called the throne of the Lord, the Lord is several times said to be enthroned "above the cherubim" (Ps. 80:1; 99:1). Some of these references might, in isolation, be taken to refer to the Lord’s enthronement above the living cherubim in the heavenly glory, but 1 Samuel 4:4 indicates that the cherubim in question are those above the ark: the people of Shiloh "carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits above the cherubim." The ark and its cherubim throne, where the glory of the Lord sat, was clearly the central and most holy object in the tabernacle complex. When the Philistines invaded the land and conquered Israel for a time, they took the ark into exile with them; after the Lord devastated the Philistines with Egyptian plagues, they wisely returned it (1 Sam. 4-6).
During the restoration period, the ark was replaced as the Lord’s throne. Jeremiah, prophesying of the restoration, said, "`And it shall be in those days when you are multiplied and increased in the land,’ declares the Lord, `they shall say no more, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord." And it shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they miss it, nor shall it be made again. At that time they shall call Jerusalem "The Throne of the Lord," and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Jerusalem, for the name of the Lord’" (Jer. 3:16-17). In the restoration period, the entire city became the holy throne of the Lord, the gathering place for the nations.
In 1 Samuel, the Lord judged Israel’s sin by allowing the ark-throne of the Lord to be removed by the Philistines. After the restoration, when the throne encompassed the city, we would expect judgment to come upon the entire city-throne. This is exactly what happened in ad 70, in what we, more precisely than we might realize, call the "destruction of Jerusalem." The accent in prophecies of ad 70 is on the attack on and fall of the city (Dan. 9:26; Lk. 21:20-22; Rev. 17-18). The fall of the city was not, however, primarily a political event; it involved the transferral of the throne of the Lord to a new people (cf. Mt. 21:33-46).
Between these two endpoints, the ark-throne gradually became less and less central in Israel’s worship and life. Solomon built the temple to provide a permanent place for the ark to rest (1 Ki. 8:21), and the procession of the ark was clearly the climax of the temple-building project (cf. 2 Chron. 5:2-14). In Kings, however, there is no mention of the ark after it was placed in Solomon’s temple (1 Ki. 8:21). In Chronicles, we are informed that one of Josiah’s reforms was to relieve the Levites of the burden of carrying the ark (2 Chron. 35:3), who, according to J. Barton Payne’s interpretation, removed it from the temple for protection during the reigns of Manasseh and Amon ("1–2 Chronicles," The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Frank E. Gaebelein, gen. ed. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988], vol. 4, p. 552). Otherwise, the ark is never mentioned after the time of Solomon.
What was the Lord’s throne during the time of the kings? The best clue we have comes at the end of the period. Nebuchadnezzar did not, like the Philistines, carry the ark into captivity; in fact, the ark is not even mentioned among the items that he removed from the temple. Instead, Nebuchadnezzar took all the temple furnishings into exile (2 Ki. 25:13-17); like the ark, these too were the cause of plagues among the Babylonians (Dan. 5). This suggests that the throne had expanded to include everything in the temple. Taking Jeremiah 3 into consideration, we seem justified in conclusion that after the building of Solomon’s temple, the temple itself functioned as the Lord’s throne.
We thus have these three stages in the development of the Lord’s throne: ark, temple, city. The New Covenant fulfillment is the church. All the Old Testament thrones symbolized the reality that has now come in fullness: the Lord is enthroned on the praises of His people.
2. The fact that the holiness of the temple expanded to encompass the whole city may help explain the "abomination of desolation . . . standing in the holy place" (Mt. 24:15). The phrase "holy place" itself (Gr. hagios topos) is used in the LXX to describe the first room of the tabernacle (e.g., Ex. 29:31; Lev. 6:26). If the entire city has become in some sense a "holy place," however, the abomination of desolation need not be understood as being in the temple proper; whatever the desolating abomination was, it could have been anywhere in the holy city. This insight eases the problem of harmonizing Matthew 24:15 ("abomination of desolation . . . standing in the holy place") with the Lukan parallel (21:20: "Jerusalem surrounded by armies").
3. Ezekiel’s visionary temple seems to be clearer if it is understood as a vision of the entire "house" of the Lord; that is, Ezekiel described a visionary Jerusalem. It is true that Ezekiel distinguishes between the city and the temple area (Ezk. 48:8-20). But for all that, it is also clear that the city is holy, albeit not as holy as the temple itself. This is indicated both by the fact that the city is included in the "oblation" set apart as the Lord’s own portion of the land (48:9, 15-18), and by the fact that the city is laid out as a holy square (48:16). The final verses of Ezekiel describe the gates of the city, and give Jerusalem a new name, Yahweh-shammah, "the Lord is there" (48:35). Fairbairn dismisses the obvious import of this name when he states that "it was in the temple, rather than in the city, that the Lord was represented as having his dwelling-place" (Commentary on Ezekiel [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989], p. 508). It is far preferable to take the name at face value, as confirmation that the city has become a holy city, indwelt by the Lord. The Lord’s presence is no longer confined to the temple proper; He inhabits the entire city. Altogether, it seems most accurate to say that the city in Ezekiel’s vision is the forecourt of the temple.
If the above is accurate, Ezekiel’s attention to the elaborate gates of the Lord’s house begins to make sense (Ezk. 40:20-37). The gates of the visionary "house" are symbolically equivalent to the gates of the city. Nehemiah thus directly, perhaps even self-consciously, fulfilled Ezekiel’s vision in his rebuilding of Jerusalem’s gates and walls.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 6, No. 3
March, 1994
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1994
by James B. Jordan
This month we begin to set down in order comments on all the calendrical and chronological statements in the Pentateuch (Genesis – Deuteronomy), gathering into one place all the fruits of our labors in this area.
1. The Days of Genesis 1
Despite the confusion and the tergiversations surrounding the seven days of creation, there can be little doubt but that the Scriptures intend us to take these as normal ("24-hour") days, for the following reasons:
1. The word "day" is defined in the text as "light-time": "And God called the light day" (Gen. 1:5). Thus, the use of "day" for the entire evening and morning period is by means of extension. The light-time comes later, replaces the dark-time, and is eschatologically definitive; thus, the word for light-time comes to be used for the entire period.
2. The word "day" seems to be used for a larger period of time in Genesis 2:4 – "In the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven" – whether we read this clause with that which precedes or that which follows. This also must be an extended use. It cannot be read back into the days of Genesis 1, because an "age" or "period" of time does not have "evenings and mornings." Thus, the expression "evening and morning" is a strong line of evidence for taking these days as 24-hour days.
3. Exodus 20:8-11 states: "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work . . . for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth . . . and rested on the seventh day." This verse states explicitly that God’s reason for taking seven days to make the world was to set a pattern for humanity. God could have made the world instantly or over 20 billion years. He could have made it in 6 seconds or in 6 million years. In neither case, however, would He have been setting a pattern for human labor.
4. It is objected that Genesis 1 is accommodated to the thought-forms of ancient people. The ancient Hebrews were surrounded by cultures that had long mythological histories. Genesis 1 stands in stark contrast to this. Moses, with his Egyptian education, would have been just as happy if God had told him that the creation took billions of years.
5. Some have said that since the sun was created on the fourth day to mark out the distinction between day and night, the first three days cannot be said to be solar days. That is quite true: They were not solar days. This, however, says nothing about their length. It is clear from Genesis 1 that the sun was made to fit the pre-existent length of the day, not the other way around. The first three days were the same length as the last three.
6. Some have rammed a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. There is nothing in the text that even hints at such a possibility. Gap theories were the rage in the 19th century in England and America, but there never was any foundation for any of them. (Gaps were also tossed into the chronologies of Genesis 5 and 11, and between Daniel’s 69th and 70th week.)
7. It is objected that the "days" of Genesis 1 are literary markers, not real time periods. This is called the Framework Hypothesis, the notion that the seven days of Genesis 1 are merely a literary framework. The only "evidence" for this notion I have ever seen presented is that supposedly Genesis 2:5 contradicts Genesis 1:11, showing that we should not take Genesis 1 literally. That is, Genesis 2:5 says that plants were not made until after man was made, while Genesis 1:11 says that plants were made on the third day. Anyone can see, however, that this is a specious argument, and it is even clearer in Hebrew. Genesis 1:11 says that God created grains and fruit-trees on the third day, the foundations respectively of bread and wine. Genesis 2:5 says that before man was made, the other plants had not been created, and the grain plants had not yet sprouted. Traditional commentaries discuss this matter clearly, and the Frameworker argument at this point is based simply in sheer ignorance both of the text of Scripture and of the history of interpretation.
Moreover, the framework notion falls before evidence from Exodus 25-31. There we see God giving orders to Moses to build the Tabernacle. There are seven speeches from the Lord, each introduced by a formula: "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying" (Ex. 25:1; 30:11, 17, 22, 34; 31:1, 12). As has been pointed out by others, and argued at length by me, these seven speeches follow the order of the seven days of Genesis 1. (See Peter J. Kearney, "Creation and Liturgy: The P Redaction of Exodus 25-40," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 89 [1977]: 375-86; and James B. Jordan, "The Tabernacle: A New Creation" [Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons , 1993].) The reason for this is that the Tabernacle is a microcosm. In fact, the description of the Dwelling in Exodus 25:1 – 27:19 also has seven paragraphs. Thus, the Scriptures are perfectly capable of setting out heptamerous literary sequences without the use of "days." If Genesis 1 were only concerned with seven "categories," the word "day" would not have been used.
It is interesting to note that the Framework Hypothesis has been thoroughly refuted over and over again, and yet it seems to have more adherents today than ever before. G. C. Aalders of the Free University of Amsterdam pointed out in 1932 that (1) in the text of Genesis 1 there is not a single allusion to suggest that the days are to be regarded as a merely stylistic device, and that (2) Exodus 20:11 presents God’s activity as a pattern for man, and this fact presupposes that there was a reality in the activity of God that man is to copy. As E. J. Young of Westminster Theological Seminary pointed out in his book Studies in Genesis One (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Pub. Co., 1964), no one bothered to answer Aalders. Young himself went on for fifty pages refuting the Framework Hypothesis, and to my knowledge nobody has tried to refute Young.
Recently, Kenneth Gentry has summarized the exe-getical arguments against the Framework Hypothesis as follows: "(1) `Day’ is qualified by `evening and morning’ (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31), which specifically limits the time-frame. (2) The very same word `day’ is used on the fourth day to define a time period that is governed by the sun, which must be a regular day (Gen. 1:14). (3) In the 119 instances of the Hebrew word `day’ (yom) standing in conjunction with a numerical adjective (first, second, etc.) in the writings of Moses, it never means anything other than a literal day. Consistency would require that this structure must so function in Genesis 1. (4) Exodus 20:9-11 patterns man’s work week after God’s original work week, which suggests the literality of the creation week. (5) In Exodus 20:11 the plural for the "days" of creation is used. In the 702 instances of the plural "days" in the Old Testament, it never means anything other than literal days." (Kenneth Gentry, The Greatness of the Great Commission [Tyler, TX: ICE, 1991], p. 9.)
Moreover, the Framework Hypothesis has to hold that the events recounted in Genesis 1 never happened. Quite apart from the matter of "days," Genesis 1 makes a whole series of claims that the Framework Hypothesis says are false.
Let’s be clear about this: We are discussing what the text claims happened. Genesis 1:7 says that an event happened in which God made a "firmament" and separated waters above the firmament from those below. The Framework Hypothesis says that this event never happened. According to it, all Genesis 1:7 means is that this configuration came into being as a result of the evolutionary plan of God.
Genesis 1:9 says that God gathered all the waters on the earth into one place, and that the dry land appeared. The Framework Hypothesis says that as an event, this never happened.
Repeatedly throughout the chapter, the text claims that God said things. These are events. We might interpret Genesis 1 and suppose that since human beings were not on the scene, God did not "speak" in audible tones. We might even say that these phrases mean that He "put forth His Word," and thus refer to the work of the Second Person of the Trinity. The point, however, is that the text claims that God did these things, said these things, as discrete actions. The Framework Hypothesis says that God never did these things, that no such individual acts ever occurred. According to the Framework Hypothesis, all Genesis 1 means is that God’s Word (or "wordness") lies behind everything that came into being over the course of who knows how long a time. The Framework Hypothesis denies that there was a certain time in history when God said "Let there be light," and another, diffierent, event in history when God said, "Let the waters teem."
To put it simply, Genesis 1 clearly claims that certain events took place, and the Framework Hypothesis says that those events simply did not take place. The Framework Hypothesis denies the specific claims of the text: The text as it stands is in error; these things never actually happened. All we are supposed to learn from the text, according to the Framework Hypothesis, is the idea that God made everything, and ordered it.
Therefore, according to the Framework Hypothesis, God never told Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply, etc." as recorded in Genesis 1:28-30. If the Frameworker wants to say, "Oh, no; I believe God really did say those words to Adam and Eve," then we have to ask the Frameworker: "By what hermeneutics do you take Genesis 1:28-30 literally, while taking the events of the other days figuratively?" Consistently requires that either all seven days, and their events, are intended figuratively; or else they are intended literally.
Now, the Frameworker may reply, "Well, perhaps God never actually spoke those words to Adam and Eve, but the idea is still there, so the Cultural Mandate (or Dominion Mandate) is valid nevertheless." This is straining it pretty bad, but let’s grant the point because it introduces another problem for the Frameworker.
If we take Genesis 1 & 2 literally, then we find that God made Adam, told Adam not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, then made Eve, and told them both that every tree would be for them to eat (Gen. 2:7, 17, 22; 1:29). The literal interpretation shows us that the prohibition on the Tree of Knowledge was temporary, because eventually they would get to eat of every tree. Also, the literal interpretation leaves us with the impression that Eve learned about the temporary prohibition from Adam.
If, however, we go with the Framework Hypothesis, then God may never have told Adam and Eve that they would eat of every tree. In that case, they would not have known that the prohibition was only temporary. Perhaps the prohibition was permanent, and there is a "contradiction" between Genesis 1 (every tree) and Genesis 2 (every tree except one). The Frameworker can resolve this "contradiction" by saying that God never spoke Genesis 1:28-29 to Adam and Eve, but that these verses only give us the general idea that we can eat of any tree.
Now, we come up with two different ideas of Original Sin from these two interpretations. The literal interpretation sees Adam and Eve disobeying God, but also sees that their sin involved impatience, seizing something God had said they would get later but not now. The Frameworker interpretation sees the disobedience aspect, but has no reason to think that impatience was involved in this first sin, because according to the Frameworker, God did not say to Adam and Eve that every tree would be for them (Gen. 1:29).
As the reader can see, there are very serious problems with the Framework Hypothesis, and serious consequences of advocating it. We can summarize our critique by saying (1) there is absolutely no positive evidence in the Bible to suggest that the days of Genesis 1 are only a literary framework; (2) there is abundant evidence in the Bible that these are sequential days of normal ("24-hour") length; (3) the advocates of the Framework Hypothesis have never answered their critics at all, and continue to advocate their position without the slightest foundation; and (4) the Framework Hypothesis leads to some very serious hermeneutical and theological consequences.
Is there any evidence for what time of year the creation week occurred? Biblically, both the autumn and the spring are taken as starting points for the calendar. In the northern hemisphere, the fall begins the evening of the solar year, while the spring begins its morning. Later on, Passover was in the spring, the beginning of the lunar year, while the Day of Atonement was in the fall, the beginning of the solar year. Since the evening of the year comes in autumn, and Genesis 1 speaks of evening’s coming before morning, there is a tradition of seeing the creation as taking place in autumn. For a fuller discussion of this point, see section 3 below.
2. When Did Adam Fall?
When did the Fall of man take place? It could not have taken place on the sixth day, because at the end of that day everything was still very good (Gen. 1:31).
Some have suggested that Adam and Eve lived a long time in the Garden before disobeying God. This is very unlikely. Human psychology is such that the more Adam and Eve resisted temptation, the stronger they would become. It is clear that they fell into sin at the first opportunity, which means they fell right away. The sheer naivete of the situation excludes any other option.
When did God come to judge Adam and Eve? Genesis 3:8 is usually translated in such a way that the Lord God came walking in the "breeze" or "cool" of the day. This is often taken to be in the evening, but later Scripture associate the coming of the Lord and of His judgments with sunrise, not with sunset. Genesis 3:8 literally reads the "breath" or "Spirit" of the day, which points not to the time of day but to the conveyance of God’s presence by the Holy Spirit. Thus, I hazard to guess that Adam and Eve sinned during the night of the sabbath, and the Lord arrived in the morning to conduct sabbath worship. Sunrise rather than afternoon makes the most sense, since the rest of Scripture makes it plain that humanity did not enter into God’s sabbath. Thus, Adam and Eve had sinned before God came for the first sabbath worship service.
Later in the Bible, the first daily sacrifice is ordered to be offered "between the evenings," that is, between sunset and dark; i.e., during twilight. This is most pointedly required of Passover (Ex. 12:6). It seems to me that since the sacrifices pay the price for man’s sin, the timing of these sacrifices points to the time of man’s sin.
The following chronology makes the most sense to me:
Day 6, morning: God creates land animals (Gen. 1:24-25).
Day 6, noon: God creates Adam (Gen. 2:7).
God tells Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit (Gen.
2:17).
God brings animals for Adam to name (Gen. 2:19).
God creates Eve from Adam’s rib (Gen. 2:22).
Day 6, afternoon: God blesses Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:28-
30).
Day 6, sunset: Everything is very good (Gen. 1:31).
Day 7, evening: Adam tells Eve about the forbidden fruit.
Satan tempts Eve, Adam standing by (Gen. 3:6).
Fall of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-6).
Adam and Eve work during the night to make
clothing (this would have taken some time; Gen.
3:7).
Day 7, morning: God arrives for sabbath worship, making
the Holy Place in the center of the Garden into a
Most Holy Place by means of His presence (Gen.
2:9; 3:8).
God passes judgment on Adam and Eve, and they do
not enter into sabbath rest (Heb. 4).
The conclusion of this is that the fall of man took place on the seventh day, or at the very least quite soon after the creation.
3. The Sacrifice of Abel
and the Time of the New Year
When did Cain kill Abel? Obviously we cannot be sure, but there are two relevant considerations. First, it was most likely shortly before am 130, because Seth was born soon after (Gen. 4:25; 5:3). Second, it is reasonable to assume that Cain already had a wife (a sister), because if he had been driven out before marrying it would have been difficult for him to obtain one from Adam and Eve afterwards.
What time of year? Genesis 4:3 states that the two men offered sacrifice "at the end of days." This expression can simply mean "after many days," but in the present context almost certainly designates harvest and thus means in the autumn, the same time as the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Ingathering in later Israel’s calendar.
"At the end of days" is literally "at the cutting off (qets) of days." This almost certainly at the end of the harvest. It was Cain, apparently, who was in a position to determine this change of time: He was the farmer as well as the firstborn son of the house. Abel followed his lead and also brought a sacrifice.
The term qets is interesting. It always indicates the cut off point of some set period of time. It is related phonetically to the words qatsir (harvest) and qatsar (to reap, cut down). [Hebrew lexicons ascribe qets and qatsir to two different roots, but this is speculative and depends on an evolutionary view of the development of language. The ear readily connects the two, and the connection in meaning is also clear.] The harvest entails cutting down the fruit of the ground, and is the cutting off point for the agricultural or national year. This time is also spoken of as the "going forth of the year" in Exodus 23:16.
Because this is a debated point, I want to demonstrate my position more fully. Does "the cutting off of days"
simply mean "after a time," or does it mean "at the end of the year"? What we notice is that the term qets, when used with a specific length of time, means the definite end of that definite period of time:
Gen. 8:6 – at the cutting off of 40 days.
Num. 13:25 – at the cutting off of 40 days.
Dt. 9:11 – at the cutting off of 40 days.
Jud. 11:39 – at the cutting off of 2 months.
Is. 23:15, 17 – at the cutting off of 70 years.
Jer. 42:7 – at the cutting off of 10 days.
Ezk. 29:13 – at the cutting off of 40 years.
Some passages clearly indicate the cutting off as the time of harvest, the actual end of the solar or national year:
Dt. 15:1 – at the cutting off of every 7 years.
Dt. 31:10 – at the cutting off of every 7 years.
Jer. 34:14 – at the cutting off of 7 years.
Other passages hint that the cutting off of the years spoken of was in the autumn:
2 Sam. 14:26 – at the cutting off of every year. Absalom cut his hair at the end of every year.
2 Sam. 15:7 – at the cutting off of 40 (or perhaps 4) years. Absalom goes to sacrifice at this time, which may well have been at the turn of the year.
1 Ki. 2:39 – at the cutting off of 3 years. Shimei, Solomon’s last enemy, is killed. Now the Temple can be built, in the fourth year (1 Ki. 6:1). Thus, this event most likely closed out Solomon’s first three years.
2 Chron. 8:1 – at the cutting off of 20 years. This was in the autumn, as can be seen from 2 Kings 8:2.
2 Chron. 21:19 – at the cutting off of 2 years. Since the reigns of the kings were dated by solar years, beginning in autumn, the death of Jehoram may well have been right at the end of his last year.
(continued next month)
OPEN BOOK
Views & Reviews
No. 20 Copyright (c) 1994 Biblical Horizons March, 1994
Shadowlands
reviewed by John M. Frame
Westminster Theological Seminary in California
C. S. Lewis . . . . . . . . . . Anthony Hopkins
Joy Gresham . . . . . . . . . . . . . Debra Winger
Warnie Lewis . . . . . . . . . . Edward Hardwicke
Prof. Riley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Wood
Rev. Harrington . . . . . . . . . Michael Denison
Douglas Gresham . . . . . . . . . Joseph Mazzello
Dr. Craig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Firth
Savoy Pictures presents a _lm directed by Richard Attenborough. Produced by Attenborough and Brian Eastman. Written by William Nicholson, based on his play. Photographed by Roger Pratt. Edited by Lesley Walker. Music by George Fenton. Running time: 133 minutes. Classi_ed: PG (for thematic elements).
"Shadowlands" will have to be counted in the very small list of recent _lms that present a largely accurate and sympathetic view of protestant Christians who are serious about their faith. That list is so small that I can almost repeat it from memory: Chariots of Fire, Tender Mercies, The Trip to Bountiful. In that respect, this _lm is perhaps not as strong as the other three, as I shall indicate below. But it is worthy to be included in that small group, and that is a signi_cant fact.
Like the others, this is an excellent _lm, well acted, directed, photographed, scripted. Everything feels authentic, and the dialogue is always intelligent: witty in the early intellectual repartee, profound in the ending sadness. Winger is a tri_e inconsistent in her Jewish accent, but that is a quibble. The supporting actors are excellent, a trademark of the English _lm industry.
The story is of C. S. Lewis, known as "Jack" to his friends, Oxford literature professor, Christian apologist and writer of many books including the children’s Chronicles of Narnia fantasies. In 1951, he meets an American woman named Joy Gresham who has been corresponding with him. She is of Jewish background, a poet, converted to Christianity from a history of atheism and communism. She is also unhappily married (later divorced), trying to raise her ten (?) year old son Douglas (who loves the Narnia books). At _rst, the relationship of Jack and Joy is an intellectual duel, with increasing respect and a_ection.
After her divorce, she wants to remain in England with her son, and Lewis marries her in a civil ceremony, merely to facilitate that desire; still, they continue to live apart and to relate to one another only as friends. Lewis tells nobody of this marriage of convenience except his brother and housemate Warnie.
But Joy discovers she is dying of cancer. In caring for her, Lewis discovers real love, and in the hospital room he marries her for real, before a clergyman, with a ring. Eventually she does move into his home and they enjoy brief periods of marital happiness before the end comes. The ending is bittersweet in a way somewhat reminiscent of Love Story, though more profound because (in my view) the couple in the present _lm has far more spiritual substance.
Narnia readers will be moved by the scenes in which Douglas discovers an old wardrobe in Lewis’s attic and pushes his way through the garments seek-ing the magic land of Lewis’s Chronicles. His disa-ppointment upon _nding only a solid wall on the other side pre_gures the _lm’s sad ending.
The _lm shows us Lewis several times lecturing on "The Problem of Evil," the question of why a good God permits evil in his creation. In these lec-ture scenes, the _lm seems to be telling us that Lewis is all too smug about it all. One of his colleagues early on says half-seriously that Lewis is in the business of _nding easy answers to di_cult questions, and the _lm seems to validate that estimate. Essentially, Lewis’s lectures in the _lm make the point that su_ering is God’s "megaphone," to challenge us to move from our sel_sh preoccupations to greater things. Actually, Lewis’s treatment of the matter was more complicated and more nuanced than that, as can be seen in his The Problem of Pain.
The _lmmakers try to make the point that when Lewis himself endured tragedy all the glib assurances of his lectures left him and he saw nothing in Joy’s su_erings except tragedy and pain. Like the boy in the wardrobe, Lewis loses his illusions. Did Joy really need a "divine wake-up call?" Did her son? Did anybody pro_t in any way from her su_ering?
There is probably some truth in this account. One might compare The Problem of Pain with Lewis’s later A Grief Observed, in which he deals with Joy’s death. Such comparison, plus the biographical literature on Lewis, suggest that Joy’s death did change his perspective on evil to some extent. Certainly it is legitimate to observe that The Problem of Pain is not a book to give someone in the midst of a personal tragedy. Yet its reasoning is not worthless for all of that. Even the idea of su_ering as "God’s wake-up call" contains much truth. It bothers me somewhat that the _lm belittles apologetics as much as it does. In my view, that evaluation fails to distinguish su_ciently between pastoral counseling on the one hand and apologetics as an intellectual discipline on the other. Still, The Problem of Pain would certainly have been a better book had there been in it a clearer view of divine sovereignty and therefore a greater acknowledgement of mystery.
Although I’m properly thankful for the sympathetic treatment of Christians here, I cannot help but observe that this movie is about someone whose Christian theology fails him at a crucial point. I grant that that does happen, and I don’t deny that it is a _t subject for drama. But why don’t we ever see movies about how someone’s faith, his theology, sustains him through temptation and trial? What of Lewis’s conversion, so dramatically depicted in his book Surprised by Joy? (The title of the book, ironically foreshadowing his romance, was written long before it.) Why couldn’t there have been a movie about that, rather than about a theological failure in his life? Indeed, why do we have to go back to Beckett and Man For All Seasons to _nd any sort of triumphant faith?
Another problem I had in the _lm was the treatment of Joy. Although we are told she is a Christian, we learn nothing much about her own personal faith. How did she come to Christ, out of such an unlikely background? How did her own faith bear upon her su_erings? In the _lm, she is very intelligent, witty, forthright, honest, patient, and, in the end, loving; but it is not clear how these qualities emerge from, or interact with, her religious commitment. We learn something of Jack’s religion, but almost nothing of Joy’s. Indeed, Joy seems most often to present a kind of challenge to Jack’s religion, forcing him to rethink his assurances, reinforcing the somewhat negative theological thrust noted above.
Is it conceivable that a woman who had been moved by Lewis’s writings enough to want to visit him, who could identify passages in his books word-for-word, would after meeting him never talk at all about God or Jesus? The _lm seems to rather secularize the story in a way that is hardly plausible to those of us who know C. S. Lewis through other channels. One reviewer mentioned that when Lewis married Joy in the hospital, there was a church healing rite performed, and her long remission followed this. The movie omits this entirely. It does observe that Lewis prayed for her recovery; but when someone remarks that God is answering his prayers, Lewis objects: he is not praying to change God, but to change himself. Does that mean that he doesn’t actually expect God to answer, and that he didn’t think God was actually answering him? Typical of Hollywood, the nuances of Christian devotion rather escape these _lmmakers.
On the whole, however, the _lm is excellent, a truly edifying experience for Christian believers, and a witness to unbelievers of one authentic Christian life. For all my quibbles, something of the real C. S. Lewis does shine through. Anyone who thinks that Christianity impoverishes one’s intellect and depth of feeling ought to see this _lm.
Shadowlands
reviewed by Dr. Bruce L. Edwards
Bowling Green State University
Shadowlands, a movie (very) loosely based on the life of C. S. Lewis and his marriage to Joy Davidman Gresham and directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, was released in the United States on Christmas Day, 1993. A stageplay of the same title by William Nicholson had been produced by the BBC in 1988 and has been shown on PBS in America since then. The movie script represents an adaptation and an expansion of the play by its original author and is depicted in the opening credit as "a true story." The movie has since gotten national attention in ever-widening circles by virtue of its cast, particularly the _ne performances by Debra Winger as Joy Davidman Gresham and Anthony Hopkins as Lewis, and its novelty, a story of an unlikely romance between an aging "Oxbridge" don and a divorced American Jewess who became a Christian. In the view of the _lm’s rather surprising popularity, and Winger’s Oscar nomination, many Christians and admirers of C. S. ("Jack") Lewis may be curious about its authenticity as a treatment of the last decade or so of his life and the vitality of the script’s witness to his and his wife’s Christian faith . Herewith is a review of the movie-as-a-movie and as a would-be biography of the later years of Lewis’s life.
Let it be said at the outset that the movie is thoroughly enjoyable. I cheered with most others when Joy came "bounding" (almost literally) into Lewis’s life, interrupting his con_rmed bachelorhood, and violating the decorum of sti_-upper-lip British masculine society with her exuberant, feminine quest for knowledge, and her brash American sense of humor. And I found myself teary-eyed and sni_ing through the last third of the movie as Jack’s valiant wife _rst rallies against, then succumbs to bone cancer. Further, the movie well depicts the vagaries and eccentricities of academic life in Britain and I found several classroom scenes exceptionally good in the way they depicted Lewis as formidable teacher/interrogator. All in all, both Anthony Hopkins as Jack and Debra Winger as Joy are wonderfully evocative of the spirit if not the presence of this unusual and unlikely coupling; I can’t imagine two more capable actors doing a better job of authentically capturing the sparks and energy, the emotion and keen intellectuality of the relationship between these two gifted children of God.
What I can imagine is a script that would more carefully respect the biographical facts of Joy and Jack’s life together–which are certainly as dramatic as if not more so than those _ctionalized ones that primarily comprise the movie. My frequent quip to those who have asked me about the movie has been, "I thoroughly enjoyed it–I just wish it had been about C. S. Lewis."
Please understand my response as more than just a series of quibbles about one or two facts out of place in an otherwise chronologically and biographically adept script. Ten years of Lewis’s actual correspondence (begun in 1950), initial meetings, and eventual "courtship" and marriage with Joy are unartfully compressed into two years in the movie; Joy’s two actual sons, David and Douglas, inexplicably merge into one; Lewis’s boisterous and opinionated friendships with other Brits like J. R. R. Tolkien and even Dorothy L. Sayers are ignored, and characters are invented to "represent" them and Lewis’s "public"; Lewis’s disdain for modern machinery, particularly automobiles, is laughably ignored in several egregiously misconceived scenes. One laments, simply as a moviegoer, the lack of verisimilitude represented here. Still, these kinds of compressions and consolidations occur in most biographical movies and one could expect some of this.
What cannot be easily forgiven is the virtual absence in the script of any strong articulation of the real Lewis’s obvious, even notorious championing of the Christian faith in both his literary and critical works, his university life, and his public persona as a BBC radio personality. By the time Joy Gresham enters Lewis’s life, he is certainly what most of us would call a "media celebrity," and a Christian one at that, in a time, unlike ours, when there were few such _gures.
By the early 1950s, Lewis was well-known on both sides of the Atlantic because of his WWII BBC broadcasts urging his countrymen to remain steadfast in their faith and because of his reasoned defense of Christianity and its cardinal doctrines; his reputation was secure (if sullied, among his Oxford and Cambridge colleagues) as a Christian communicator and "theologian" (though he demurred when the word was applied to himself). One of the key reasons Joy had sought Jack out in the early 1950s was to talk with him about Christianity–herself a convert to Christ during a crisis of conscience and worldview similar to his own, and herself the author of poetry and non_ction informed by a vibrant faith. This motive for visiting Lewis, however, is barely hinted at in the movie; one must already know this or be listening very carefully and/or read between the lines to discern that these were two adults who shared the most important common ground a couple could ever occupy: belief in the Gospel.
Whenever the movie depicts Lewis at one of his frequent public lectures, he is invariably talking about su_ering–ironically in one of the few places the script actually quotes Lewis’s own words–creating unwittingly the impression that Lewis was utterly preoccupied with God’s wrath or discipline and spoke of nothing else. The truth is, Lewis wrote his only sustained treatise on su_ering, The Problem of Pain, in 1940, and in the early to mid-1950s was focusing on other topics and emphases, fully-engaged as he was in writing the Narnian Chronicles and the work he considered his masterpiece, Till We Have Faces. Because the script inadequately introduces Lewis’s apologetics and _ction-writing career and fails to contextualize Joy and Jack’s mutual faith, the audience is left to conclude that his Christianity was some sort of hobby or legacy of being Irish that served no sustaining purpose in his life before or after Joy entered it except in the most intellectualized, abstract way. Such was decidedly not the case. A movie about Jack and Joy that downplays or ignores the centrality of Christ to their lives is analogous to scripting the life of Michael Jordan with little reference to basketball.
Further, because the running theme of Shadowlands is that Joy is somehow able to disarm Lewis and call forth from him some depth of feeling and emotion that previously was suppressed or absent, the audience is led to believe that somehow Lewis lacked authentic experience in the world at large–either by isolation from it as an academician or in retreat from it by his mother’s death when he was nine. It is true, of course, that Lewis was not a particularly emotional or sentimental person in the manner of the modern "sensitive" male of Hollywood myth and ruin. He was, in fact, a quite private man, as evinced in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy, which contains, by modern standards, very little gossip, very little preoccupation with personal detail, and little else that does not contribute directly to the story of his conversion. There is, however, simply no evidence that Joy is responsible for a "new, improved" Lewis "able to show his feelings" for the _rst time in his life; Lewis was no stoic, philosophically or otherwise. No man with Lewis’s sensibilities could have failed to be moved by Joy’s determined faith and courage in the face of terminal illness and the movie does a credible job of depicting his genuine compassion toward her struggle. Most regrettable, nevertheless, is the movie’s climactic scene that depicts a broken, even hopeless Lewis inconsolable and bereft of any nurturing comfort from his Christian faith, weeping uncontrollably with Joy’s young, "orphaned" son. That such a scene once happened, there is no doubt; that it was the _nal statement about Lewis’s life with Joy and faith in God is sheer nonsense. The real Lewis emerged from the shadowlands of grief and despair to a restored and invigorated faith that energized his last authored and perhaps most reassuring volume, Letters to Malcolm, Chie_y on Prayer.
While Shadowlands has many merits as a movie, it contains too many _aws to be a reliable guide either to the real Joy or Jack Lewis, or to their well-articulated commitment to Christian faith. There was great drama in Joy’s life leading up to her encounter with Jack that goes untold in the movie, just as there is even greater poignancy and moment in their lives together before and during her illness which is unnecessarily displaced by tendentious scriptwriting. I remain happy that the movie was made at all, yet discontent that more reliable uses of biographical fact were not employed. My earnest hope is that the movie will bring people into the bookstores to discover more about the Lewises, and thereby be privileged to come to know two who had an undisguised and public trust in the God of the Bible and the Redeemer who saved their souls.
For those who wish to know where to start, I would suggest these four books: And God Came In, Lyle Dorsett (Crossway), a reliable account of Lewis’s relationship with Joy Davidman Gresham; Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis (Macmillan), Lewis’s own account of his early life and adult conversion; A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis (Macmillan), Lewis’s plaintive, painful diary of his grief and struggle with faith after Joy’s death; and Jack, George Sayer (Crossway), the best currently available and balanced treatment of Lewis’s life.
Shadowlands
Afterthoughts by James B. Jordan
Professor Frame teaches Apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary and as a hobby reviews _lms. We intend to publish more of his work in this area in the future. Dr. Edwards is an expert on the life and work of C. S. Lewis. I have just a couple of thoughts to add to theirs (to _ll up the space in this newsletter).
From what I could perceive the _lm ends with no indication that Lewis emerged from his dark night of the soul with renewed and deepened faith. About the last thing we hear Lewis say about God is that He must be a sadist. The earlier BBC television production was more faithful to Lewis’s life in this regard. Yet, I did notice that in the scene where Lewis weeps uncontrollably with Joy’s son, there is a light mysteriously shining from behind the disappointing wardrobe.
Thus, the _lm is rather inconsistent. Yes, the wardrobe has a back wall and does not lead to Narnia or heaven. Yet, when Lewis seems to have lost all hope, light shines from behind it. (Remember that virtually nothing you see in a movie is accidental; the _lmmaker had to place a light behind the wardrobe.)
In another curiosity, when Joy is in the hospital Lewis says that he would gladly change places with her and su_er for her. "Why doesn’t God feel the same way?" he asks. Well, of course, taking our place and bearing our su_ering is exactly and precisely what God has done. Here is a hint of the Christian message in the _lm, yet it runs by so fast that few will catch it, and is not picked up again or followed through with.
