When my sister Amy visited recently, she asked if I might request Niels Lyhne by Jens Peter Jacobsen from the public library, so she could read in the evenings; the book was virtually impossible to get from the Denver libraries.  So, I did, having never heard of the author, Jens Peter Jacobsen.

Amy’s stay was cut short, then the book came through for her.  I decided to pick it up anyway.  I had done a little research, the most telling of which was that Jacobsen had a great influence on one of my favorite authors Rilke (that’s his quote on my main blog page), and I thought that perhaps I might enjoy the novel, too.

Jacobsen was a Danish poet and novelist with scientific leanings (I thought this was a chummy start between the two of us!).  He fell in love with Darwin’s new theories and proceeded to translate Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Descent of Man into Danish.  He “quickly adopted a thoroughly naturalistic and atheistic world view, in the process rejecting the Christian faith as a myth, a comforting illusion, in conflict with the laws of nature.”  So it is with Niels Lyhne.  I was drawn to it for numerous reasons–the luminous writing, of course, which somehow had the ability to burrow uncomfortably into the characters’ hearts and minds, and Niel’s struggle for a noble faith, a workable life.  I’ve just begun reading atheists’ books (I don’t mean for them to sound like pariahs), so I’m not grounded in that particular mind set; the books are necessary reads, I think, to adequately test your own “take” on issues, and there is a particularly beautiful passage in the book, that enlightened me as to how an atheist might see the world and his or her place in it.  It’s an ideal–that’s the whole point–and for the first time, I could see how someone of spiritual conviction and someone of atheistic beliefs could be working out the same kinks of life, just in different ways.

Here’s the passage.  Niels is fervently explaining his life philosophy to a friend (pg 117 in my version).

“‘But don’t you see,’ exclaimed Niels, ‘that the day humanity can freely cry: there is no God, on that day a new heaven and a new earth will be created as if by magic.  Only then will heaven become the free, infinite place instead of a threatening, watchful eye.  Only then will the earth belong to us and we to the earth, when the dim world of salvation and condemnation out there has burst like a bubble.  The earth will be our proper fatherland, the home of our heart where we do not dwell as foreign guests for a paltry time but for all our days.  And what intensity it will give life when everything must be contained in life and nothing is placed outside of it.  That enormous stream of love, which now rises up toward that God who is believed in, will bend back over the earth when heaven is empty, with loving steps toward all the beautiful, human traits and talents with which we have empowered and adorned God in order to make God worthy of our love.  Goodness, justice, wisdom, who can name them all?  Don’t you realize what nobility would spread over humanity if people could love their lives freely and meet their deaths without fear of hell or hope of heaven, but fearing themselves and with hope for themselves?  How our conscience would grow, and what stability it would bring if passive remorse and humility could no longer atone for anything, and no forgiveness was possible except to use goodness to redeem the evil you committed with evil.’”

I found ample research resources written by scientists and theologians when writing Eve, but very few scientific-minded and spiritual people who had compared the ancient literature texts when analyzing what might have happened way back when.  [Bottom line: let’s face it, no one was there at earth’s inception, including the scribe who penned Genesis, so to say that you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what happened only makes a red flag go up in my mind.]  If you compare the ancient texts (Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians), it’s obvious the stories were first told orally, and were embellished in a poetical and lyrical way.  Even with the accouterments, the creation story of various cultures retains, shockingly, similar characteristics.  After many years, the stories were written down–the end product vastly different than the original.  It’s like the modern-day children’s game “Telephone,” where children sit in a circle.  The first one whispers a phrase to the next one.  The phrase cannot be uttered a second time, no matter if the second child is unsure of what he heard.  The second child must whisper the phrase to the third child.  This continues, until the last child blurts it out.  The difference between the first child’s phrase and the last child’s phrase is what makes this game so hilariously funny.

So.  Back to ancient texts.  Observant and conscientious readers have to make a decision.  How much of the Bible (or Torah) is written in this way?  And what have we taken as gospel truth that is really a metaphor for something else?  Digging even deeper, how much of our God-construct is man-made?  Do we even want to know?

It’s food for thought.