Finding Jesus: A Testimony

II - A Christian Atheist

As an atheist, it is very, very easy to find something that just screams error no matter what scripture you're reading. This is even more the case when your upbringing isn't religious or isn't practically religious. And no, going to a Catholic school doesn't count. Praying without reading the Bible does not count. So, even in my initial reading of the Bible, I didn't come out religious at all.

There are so many books in the Bible, so many authors, and so much culturally lost to me as an American without context. Many atheists don't actually know either in my experience of talking with them about the intricately woven phrases that really speaks to the time and culture the works were written in.

For instance, when it's written: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26)

The understanding that an image did not actually represent a visual image is lost. We think of image and a concept similar to photography emerges or artistic depictions. But for the ancient Near East, an image represented the containment of an essence; in other words, it allowed the image to function having provided "essence". In Egyptian conception, the Pharaoh illustrates this idea being believed to be in the image of deity, and this linked to power and privilege. Idols are another reference which was biblically discussed in detail as actually referring to the objects itself, containing the "essence" of the false god.

So, when it biblically referenced man being made in the image of God, this conveyed man embodied the qualities of God, thus also allowing us to be His ambassadors. (2 Cor. 5:20)

In the writings of the early Christians, they understood image to be by creation for this reason whereas likeness was achieved by the human will in attaining to righteousness, etc. This corresponded to the view that likeness expressed resemblance in contrast. Layered on top of this is being made in the image and likeness of the triune God, enabling us to truly have it in perspective.

While it is easy to piece together that it means this, there is a fullness of it that is understood once it is contextualised.

Another of this is the notorious resting of God. What does it mean for God to rest? The idea of it is actually very common in ancient Near Eastern works. It represented order being established — sometimes this is depicted after conflict, like that in the oft-referenced Enuma Elish when Apsu and Tiamat's rest was disturbed by the noisiness of their descendants.

It is written on the first tablet: "By day I can not rest, by night I can not lie down in peace. But I will destroy their way, I will... Let there be lamentation, and let us lie down again in peace."

Note: We do not have the fullness of the tablets which is represented by "..." until specified otherwise.

Later, it mentions this concept more fully — an idea of order achieved after conflict. "By day I can not rest, by night I can not lie down in peace. But I will destroy their way, I will... Let there be lamentation, and let us lie down again in peace."

In the biblical narrative, there is not a war of the gods and thereby a following rest, but a completion of order in developing creation. This is not a rest of exhaustion — it does not denote tiredness as it may in American culture — but it does mean a "cease of action", and therefore peace and stability.

There is a lot more that can be said of this, but it may be easy to tell the interest I developed with the biblical material. And the more I actually understood it and absorbed it, the more I began to apply it to my own life, and the understanding I had of reality as well (of which I detail in other books) based on the social sciences.

My friends around this time would describe me as a Christian atheist. Maybe this did actually apply, but the endeavour wasn't entirely intentional.