Tell Me a Story
Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is what I like to call a Very Important Book™ (VIB). To understand what gives Sapiens its VIB status, one must look carefully at 
the presentation of material. First, pick up the book – feel the weight of it, so different from other books of the same size. Run your hands across the embossed dust cover and note the picture on the back flyleaf, below which is the explanation that this VIB has been translated into 26 languages and is a best seller in many countries. Next, open the book and feel the weight and texture of the paper used for this book. It is similar to art books or text books. This VIB is written in common vernacular, but presented with color titles and pictures that advise the senses that this is not your ordinary book. Finally, there is the price of the book. The suggested price is $35. Not so much that the average person would be dissuaded from picking it up after hearing about it on Good Morning America, but enough to let us know that this book is just a little more special than all the others that come across our Amazon feeds.
You might think, upon reading this VIB, that the confidence with which the information is presented means that it simply must be true. Why else would this book be elevated to such obvious VIB status? The author very clearly knows exactly he is talking about, given his confidence and the fact that this book has been translated into so many languages and so many people have purchased this book. But slowly, you may begin to experience some doubt. First, there are so many things presented as what a good television lawyer might raise the objection “assumes facts not in evidence.” What I mean is that there are so many statements of fact given without footnote or endnote citations that one might begin to wonder just exactly how much of this stuff is true. I mean, sure this author has a PhD. in history from Oxford, but does that really qualify him to make statements like, “Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother?”[1]
So, this VIB must be important for some other reason than “truth.” I’m not trying to be glib, but after reading the book, I can see there is so little cited proof of anything relating to truth, that there must be another reason that publishers and publicists have worked so hard to make sure we know this is a Very Important Book. What could that be? I started over. As I looked at the way the information is presented it started to occur to me that this author isn’t necessarily selling truth, but he is hawking a new Creation saga. It seems to me that Harari is not much different than the Jews in Babylonian exile who told the tale of Creation in response to the Babylonian creation saga. Instead of “In the Beginning, God…” Harari starts his tale, “About 13.5 billion years ago, matter…” Just as we cannot prove what God 
did in the beginning, Harari doesn’t cite his “truths” because there is no way he can prove them. He has pieced together history and bits of science and is now sitting around the public “campfire” telling a new version, a humanistic Creation saga. This book is astounding and enticing because it begins with the premise “What if.” Somewhere along the line, it captured enough important imaginations that it was given VIB status. Even Bill Gates, in his review of this book, says that despite disagreeing with much of what Harari says, “Still, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a fun, engaging look at early human history.”[2] That makes it pretty clear, doesn’t it? Harari has managed to engage in powerful storytelling, capturing the imaginations of millions of people all around the world with an alternate story to the Judeo-Christian Creation saga.
So, while literalists are building museums in attempts to “prove” the Bible as history book, it
would seem that those of us who embrace the Creation saga as a beautiful telling of God bringing order from chaos have lost our audience because we have given up telling the story with certainty. We have stopped trying to capture the imaginations of those who want to know why and how we exist. In my opinion, it’s time for us to go back to telling the stories of God’s people in ways that make people think, “What if…”
[1] Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, (New York: Harper Collins, 2015), 5.
[2] https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Sapiens-A-Brief-History-of-Humankind
About the Author
Kristin Hamilton
5 responses to “Tell Me a Story”
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Amen, Kristin.
The real story of creation is ” a beautiful telling of God bringing order from chaos” and what’s more important is that the Creator even wants a relationship with us and was willing to pay dearly for it.
The end for Harari is pretty bleak. I pray that he’ll find God.
“We have stopped trying to capture the imaginations of those who want to know why and how we exist.”
Yes. We must remember that mankind has an innate need to know the purpose for their existence. Like you point out, we get so stuck on defending the accuracy of the story, that we forget the beauty of the story.
Nice recovery of the book Kristin and bringing it back around to the LGP! Beautifully written. How can we speak or write in a way that makes it alluring and enticing for people to pay attention to and admire even if they don’t agree with your perspective? That is my daily challenge with clients who do not have Christian beliefs but hunger for spirituality. There are certain Christian books I can never recommend because they will be unrelatable or worse, offensive. I definitely have my go-to Christian authors. What are your favorite Christian authors that you would recommend to non-Christians who have the ability to woo and entice the reader?
Well said, Kristin! What is our creation narrative? How do we understand our origins (and thus, what does it mean to be “human”?)
I was intrigued by his story of the genetically modified glow-in-the-dark bunny. Upon brief exploration, the story is unverified as accurate. Why would he include a sensationalist story like this, I wondered. But your positing of a new origin myth explains well his motive. Couple that with Stu’s recognition of Harai’s storytelling strengths, and no wonder it is a VIB.
Kristin I struggled with the lack of evidence throughout the book as well. I had a hard time understanding the basis for much of his arguements. It is indeed a book that tells a story of humankind. A popular story but I think the significance of a book like this is that people will always be curious about our origin. How did it all begin? that curiousity will continue to give room for authors like Harari to write their own version of our history.