The Enuma Elish, Gen 1, & The Planets of Narnia

I just picked up Michael Ward’s recent work on C. S. Lewis entitled, The Planets of Narnia:  The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis.  He came to my attention because we at SPU have invited him to do a couple of talks in November.  Even though I was an English major in college, I’ve never been a huge fan of Lewis.  I have nothing against him, his works just haven’t personally moved me.  But I do recognize that Lewis has had, and continues to have a huge influence culturally (e.g., the recent Disney movies), intellectually, and religiously.  So like him or not, he is someone to be reckoned with. 

Ward has given me a newfound appreciation for Lewis.  No, let me rephrase that.  I now think Lewis is a genius.  What excites me about Ward’s work is that he has made a genuine literary discovery.  He has unlocked the secret organizing principle that allows the seven Narnia Chronicles to cohere.  As a biblical scholar I talk of doing “research.”  Now am I actually discovering something new?  Something somebody has never before seen in the text?  I’ll admit rarely.  We have a name for someone who is always coming up with new, never before seen interpretations or doctrines – it’s heretic.  Most often I am interacting with other views, correcting what I perceive as misreadings, illuminating what I perceive to be more faithful interpretations of the text for a contemporary context (which I would add is one of the most difficult and complex tasks of interpretation).  Ward has uncovered a secret that has remained hidden for 50 years.  If you’re skeptical, read his blog and his book.  What’s clear so far is that Lewis scholars have unanimously found his thesis to be credible.

Ward’s work excites me as a scholar.  There is still more to learn.  There might be patterns in texts that interpreters have missed.  We may have been investing our energies in intellectual rabbit trails and been missing the main point.  Certainly new discoveries can provide new insight in regard to the Scriptures.  The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, have been immensely helpful for both OT and NT scholars.  And if you’re skeptical that Christians can espouse new, illuminating readings of texts all the while maintaining a rigorous orthodoxy read one of the numerous works of N. T. Wright.

Lastly, I must say Ward’s thesis, that the seven planets of the medieval cosmology served as the organizing principle for the Chronicles of Narnia and that he wrote these works in response to criticisms of his prior work Miracles, has fueled my theological imagination.  Ward’s thesis has helped me understand what Genesis 1 is all about.  I just taught a Depth Class at Quest tonight on the topic of Faith and Evolution.  We spent some time comparing the Gen 1 account to the Babylonian myth Enuma Elish, we looked at the literary design of the chapter, and of all things I ended my talk with The Planets of Narnia.