The other day in class a story about the author Philip K. Dick was mentioned. I had heard the story before in the movie, "Waking Life". I know someone already beat me to the punch when it comes to posting the scene in Waking Life where the story is told, so I figured I would at least post the whole movie. The link is below. The scene describing Philip K. Dick's story can be found at 1:25:30.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7583894250854515095#
Perhaps this story is a total coincidence. Perhaps not. But that is not the point. The point of the story is to reduce time to a falsity. The inclusion of the Book of Acts is a rather elegant addition to the question of time, for the Book of Acts is certainly chronologically relativistic in its stories and descriptions. In very broad terms, the Book of Acts describes the works and trials of the apostles after the ascension of Jesus Christ. Recounting miracles such as "speaking in tongues" to crowds so that when the apostles preached to spread Christianity, every person heard their sermons in their own language, this book of the bible describes the spread of Christianity after the Pentecost.
If we refuse to confine ourselves to literal interpretations, the Book of Acts is quite remarkable as an account that appears to be confined to a specific place in time, but actually describes the general pattern of Christianity through the last 2000 years. Lets begin with the "speaking in tongues" issue. So the apostles are talking to a crowd and even though everyone in the crowd speaks different languages, they all hear the message of the apostles. Already we have assumed that time in this account exists. By assuming that there exists a past, present, and future, we also assume that this story takes place at a specific place, at a specific time, and since we do not perceive this account to be currently happening in our specific place and time, we assume the event to be localized in the past. Including time and assuming the story recounts a single moment, we are forced to assume the apostles are ONLY Jesus' disciples, the crowd was a gathering of local people living ONLY when Jesus' apostles were around, approximately 2000 years ago, and the variety of languages spewing from the mouths of the apostles occurred in that specific instant as nothing other than an act of God. Now delete time altogether. By erasing time's existence, everything else in the story breaks down, and yet it arguably becomes more beautiful. If this story is not limited to place and time, then the apostles represent anyone in the past 2000 years who has preached the word of Christianity. Therefore, the crowd must include anyone in the past 2000 years who has been preached to and eventually converted. Taking these things into account, we can then argue that this specific instant in the Book of Acts describes the spread of Christianity east to Constantinople after the first Christian Emperor Constantine of Rome converted the empire. It describes the spread of Christianity north into Europe, the eventual creation of the Holy Roman Empire in today's Germany, the Crusades, the bringing of Christianity to the 'New World' by the Conquistadors, Puritans, and many others, and so on. Through thousands of years and thousands of cultures, The Bible has been taught in thousands of tongues. It is time's illusion that creates this seemingly literal miracle in the Book of Acts. By deconstructing time, our interpretation of this story is loosened, the miracle becomes a reality, and the story becomes a history.
Some would say that this blasphemous interpretation degrades God by explaining away a miracle, but these people have missed the point. Is not the spread of a religion around the world by its followers a miracle for that religion in itself? Miracles with explanations can still be miracles can't they? Too many people get fixated by the supposed supernatural essence of the miraculous. By eliminating time altogether, the Book of Acts hits closer to home. This story is not talking about events in history, it is talking about right now. Right now is an instant, and it is eternity.
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