{"id":60097,"date":"2019-03-18T05:16:08","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T09:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=60097"},"modified":"2019-03-17T18:12:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-17T22:12:26","slug":"science-fiction-and-prophecy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html","title":{"rendered":"Science Fiction and Prophecy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Having written about science fiction as prophecy here<\/a> not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em> by Namwali Serpell<\/a>. Here is one briefer and one longer excerpt:<\/p>\n

Maybe because we\u2019re living in a dystopia, it feels as if we\u2019ve become obsessed with prophecy of late. Protest signs at the 2017 Women\u2019s March read \u201cMake Margaret Atwood Fiction Again!\u201d and \u201cOctavia Warned Us.\u201d News headlines about abortion bans and the defunding of Planned Parenthood do seem ripped from the pages of Atwood\u2019s novel \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d (1985). And Octavia Butler\u2019s \u201cParable\u201d series, published in the 1990s, did eerily feature a presidential candidate who vows to \u201cmake America great again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n

The writer Harry Turtledove tweeted a link to that article with an exclamatory comment: \u201cScience fiction does not predict the future<\/a>. Not. Not! [expletive] NOT! It uses the imagined future to comment on the real present.\u201d Margaret Atwood often claims something similar, echoing Gibson\u2019s protestations. Despite\u00a0manifest evidence of her acute forecasts<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the rise of the Christian right, in vitro meat, sexbots modeled on real people, apocalyptic climate change, live aquatic jewelry \u2014 she says: \u201cI\u2019m not a prophet. Honest, I\u2019m not a prophet<\/a>. If I were a prophet I would have cleaned up on the stock market years ago. \u2026 They\u2019re saying things about \u2018Oryx and Crake\u2019 and \u2018MaddAddam\u2019 are all coming true. But that\u2019s based on things people were already working on when I was writing the books. It\u2019s just that I was looking for those things and other people weren\u2019t.\u201d Maybe science fiction\u2019s future is actually just a lens on the present.<\/p>\n

Some writers do like to don the mantle of prophet. In 1983, Isaac Asimov\u00a0published a set of 2019 forecasts<\/a>. He was right about some things: \u201cThe mobile computerized object, or robot, is already flooding into industry and will, in the course of the next generation, penetrate the home.\u201d But it\u2019s embarrassing to see how hopeful he was about us: Asimov thought computers would have freed us from the most tedious forms of labor by now. He imagined we\u2019d have fixed pollution, developed technology \u201cbased on the special properties of space\u201d and even settled on the moon. This rosy picture might seem surprising, given science fiction\u2019s proclivity for doom and gloom. Yet given our headlong plummet toward the death of this planet, to picture any future at all feels optimistic these days. It assumes that, when the apocalypse comes, we will still be here to witness it.<\/p>\n

Stories are one of our oldest technologies. They let us have vivid experiences \u2014 beautiful, moving ones, but also horrifying, dark ones \u2014 and then close the book, or the laptop, unscathed. They give us a kind of perverse pleasure in reverse: not of seeing the worst come true, but of seeing the worst\u00a0without<\/em>\u00a0it coming true. And this is the other reason I don\u2019t think writers should give up on the art of prediction. Writers don\u2019t just see into the future or possess special insight into the present; we also construct a kind of machine for virtual hindsight. We create an immersive simulation of the future that we can all experience and look back on, so that we might decide together whether we want these dreams to come true after all.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I notice in particular how widespread the view is that prophets predict(ed) the future. What prophets past and present have done and do is precisely what Turtledove articulated: \u201cIt uses the imagined future to comment on the real present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it can be easy to miss this when reading the edited compilations of prophetic writings from our perspective, with the benefit of hindsight. For the most part, those things which simply didn\u2019t come to pass have been left out, or altered. The classic example, mentioned regularly in treatments of redaction criticism, is Amos\u2019 statement \u201cI will destroy it from the face of the earth. Yet I will not totally destroy the descendants of Jacob\u201d (Amos 9:8<\/a>). The second part seems to many scholars to be an addition to the first part.<\/p>\n

Another particularly clear example is to consider\u00a0Omri<\/a>, the king who is viewed by the Deuteronomistic History (see in particular 1 Kings 16:25<\/a>) as the worst in Israel\u2019s history. Look and see what the books named after prophets have to say about him. Basically, nothing. Why? Not only because our earliest prophetic books are later. But because Omri\u2019s reign was a time of prosperity. Those who opposed him theologically may well have predicted doom and gloom. Nothing happened, at least not during his lifetime. The prophetic writings in the Bible are edited compilations of oracled and occasionally also stories. From the perspective of hindsight, we not only discern between individuals but between individual sayings. It would be interesting to be able to hear what these ancient Israelite prophets proclaimed and predicted that\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/em> recorded. But that would require yet another kind of science fictional technology.<\/p>\n

To round off this post, here are a couple of links to posts of mine, more than ten years apart. Blogging probably has a chastening effect on anyone that might be inclined to predict the future. It is even easier to see how wrong someone can be not just about major events and trends, but even where a TV show like LOST is headed\u2026<\/p>\n

The Parables of the Sower<\/a><\/p>\n

How Far We\u2019ve Come: Things I\u2019ve Learned from Star Trek<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one briefer and one longer excerpt: Maybe because we\u2019re living in a dystopia, it feels as if we\u2019ve become obsessed with prophecy of late. Protest signs at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":60103,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[3690,9642,10890,15212,12639],"class_list":["post-60097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-fiction","tag-future","tag-prophecy","tag-science-fiction","tag-the-handmaids-tale","tag-time-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nScience Fiction and Prophecy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Science Fiction and Prophecy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-18T09:16:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-17T22:12:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2019\/03\/Make-Margaret-Atwood-Fiction-Again.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"768\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"544\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html\",\"name\":\"Science Fiction and Prophecy\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-03-18T09:16:08+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-17T22:12:26+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Science Fiction and Prophecy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Science Fiction and Prophecy","description":"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Science Fiction and Prophecy","og_description":"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2019-03-18T09:16:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-03-17T22:12:26+00:00","og_image":[{"width":768,"height":544,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2019\/03\/Make-Margaret-Atwood-Fiction-Again.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html","name":"Science Fiction and Prophecy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-03-18T09:16:08+00:00","dateModified":"2019-03-17T22:12:26+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"Having written about science fiction as prophecy here not long ago, I was struck by a recent article in the\u00a0New York Times by Namwali Serpell. Here is one","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2019\/03\/science-fiction-and-prophecy.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Science Fiction and Prophecy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}