Is the Bible True? Part 1: Daffodils

Seems like a simple question, but for some reason it generates enough heat to power a continental electrical grid. What do we mean by true, anyway?

Since the 1700s, we have adapted new standards for “true.” We now mean true according to historical and scientific standards, in other words, standards which we ourselves invented to limit acceptable evidence.

If a thing is true historically, i.e. if there exists written documentation for it, then it is true. “I’ve got a piece of paper!” because we know people never talk trash on paper? Humans have only been writing things down for a short time compared to our entire gig on the planet, so written documentation is going to be more and more sparse the further back you go. Ancient writers memorized vast chunks of narratives and passed them down orally.

If a thing is true scientifically, then there is scientific evidence, something physical, material has been weighed, measured or observed, experiments have been devised and repeated-voila=truth. This eliminates spiritual stuff as true, simply because spiritual stuff is not physical, ergo it doesn’t exist, it’s just mental constructs, nonsense, superstition, and other bad things as opposed to Science which is rational, good and of course, the source of all truth.

Ancient writers would laugh at this impoverished worldview-it only deals with the world of the senses, which can be wrong. They knew there was a realm beyond the senses, beyond rocks and trees and grass, and that world was very important. So the stories did not go by our standards of truth-written history and science. They had a message to pass down and the message was true.

Can a message be true and each ingredient in it not be scientifically and historically true? Well, is a poem true?

Which of these conveys the message “daffodils?” William Wordsworth’s poem or the Royal Horticultural Society?

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

1 W-Y = a trumpet daffodil with white perianth segments (“petals”) and yellow corona (“trumpet”).
2 Y-YYO = a large-cupped daffodil, all yellow except for a band of orange at corona (“cup”) rim.
11b W-O/Y/W = a papillon daffodil with white perianth segments and longitudinal bands of orange, yellow and white in the corona, with orange predominant.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I like science; I actually was an adjunct professor of horticulture. I see the value of the classification system. But to know daffodils, Wordsworth takes us closer. The only thing better would be to experience daffodils, to grab a handful and bury your nose in them.