Story-teller

It would appear that much of the Hebrew Bible—and Christian Old Testament—finds the form in which it comes down to us late-on in its own story: during the years of Exile under the Babylonian empire; or even the Reconstruction of a Jewish state centred on Jerusalem following the fall of Babylon to the Persian empire. This means that in as much as God is in(volved in) these stories, it is as a collector and editor and interpreter of stories (and not least over the centuries many Christians describe as the years during which ‘God was silent,’ between the Old and New Testaments) and not just as their inspiration or source.

Not entirely dissimilar to writing a good prequel.

It reminds us that these stories are told not so much ‘for the record’ of history, as they are told to help us make sense of our own times—which are often turbulent. And that gives us hope that this same God is actively involved in the process when we bring the biblical texts into dialogue with the stories of our own lives, the cultural scripts and personal journals (written, or—more likely—not) and local histories of the community of which we find ourselves a part.

Not entirely dissimilar to writing a good sequel.