What if?

 What if the Christian story originated in the North? I mean, not Wigan, just somewhere in more Northern lattitudes, rather than on the Med.

It is a question that struck me recently, with the shorter days here - something that doesn't happen to the same degree in Israel, but is important in the UK and even more so into Scandinavia. I am not saying a different understnading would be better, just that it might be different.

Phrases like "From the rising of the sun to the setting, the Lords name be praised" (Ps 113) - well, in Norway that would mean a couple of hours praising God in the winter, and 22 hours in Summer. This is not the intention of the passage, but the change of day length is so core, so fundamental to those of us in more Northern locations that it would hold a different meaning.

The sense that God departs in the Winter - something that is quite common in folk legend - becomes part of our inherent understnading, whether we mean it or not.

There is a related matter that is also important - in Israel, at around 6:00 in the evening, the sun vanishes, and it turns from light to dark in a matter of minutes. In the more northern places, we have a think called a "sunset". Especially in the summer months, this can be an important part of the sun going down - this transition is significant, and in some places even further North can be very extended. Even to the point where the suns light does not entirely vanish. The low sun, even at this time of year, lightens up the horizon. This is so much a part of our understanding of the evening, it would have featured. The transitional times are at the core of our relationship to the world. The rather black and white interpretation of good and evil that some put on the Bible messages comes from this light and dark relationship to the world.

Maybe in the North, we would have introduced more gray into the equation.

The context was also one of a very consistent seasonal pattern. Of consistent patterns across the year, of hot times and of rain. I am reminded of Luke 12: "When you see a cloud in the West you know it is going to rain". In the UK at least, it just means you are East of Manchester. Clouds not only don't mean rain always, but they don't always mean a lot of rain where you need it. Or when you want it.

Now, of course, farmers do know the patterns and signs of the weather, but it is far more complex than the comparatively simplistic weather patterns seen in Israel and that area. This is why in the UK we always talk about the weather - it is highly unpredictable. This is why the Weather Gods of the Northern lattitudes are seen as a lot more capricious. It is why the mythology of Northern Europe is so much more about a battle with nature, about adapting ourselves to the world, than about rights to land.

That might have proven a much more environmentally sound approach.

Finally, one of the features of Israel is the desert - or wilderness. the barran land, where Jesus went to be tested. In the UK we don't have deserts, and even in the further North locations, the wildernesses are more likely to be ice-deserts. Equally inhospitable, but in a different way, meaning the temptations would be different. I wonder, also, if some of the imagery of Hell would be different - maybe less burning heat, more freezing cold.

 

The conceptions of this world and next are very much based on the environment these stories were developed in. The challenge to those of us living in different environments is to take these stories and images, and understand the messages contained within. And then to re-interpret them in ways that fit and work for us. To see the reality of the divine as it related to us, here and now.

And not to ignore the cultural and environmental influences on the story we tell.