Did you say "myth?"

I was reading last night's post and realized that I had used the term "myth" in a way that it is not commonly understood so let me back up a little and elaborate on that. If you are a literal interpreter of Scripture this post is not for you.

When I was studying anthropology (that again) I was taught a very important lesson about the biases of literate cultures, that is those who have a permanent means of storing speech. We have possessed the technology of writing for so long that we don't think about how preliterate societies transmitted knowledge. The means by which they did this was by oral tradition, in other words "stories" told from one generation to the next. Keep in mind that each culture is uniquely adapted to its own environment and that transmission of these aspects of culture are critically important for survival.

Have you ever had the experience of hearing someone describe an event at which you were also present? Did you notice that the other person always got it "wrong" by leaving out facts, adding new ones or distorting some? Personal memory is a very unreliable way to store information, so if we are to transmit cultural wisdom we have to have some way to ensure that information is preserved intact through countless generations.

If you have children or grandchildren you must have told them some classic bedtime stories which are pretty much known throughout our culture. And did you notice that when someone else told them the details were pretty much exactly intact? Why? Because unlike the memory of actual events, they are not dependent on personal recollection but rather on the fictional details. Stories turn out to be a mechanism by which information is handed down in a reliable and consistent way because they contain a relatively small number of details structured in such a way that the story itself is radically changed if even one of these details is distorted.

So in preliterate societies, the story tellers were responsible for passing on the culture And we call these stories"myths." Myths are not untrue, but rather they contain essential truth wrapped in a fictional structure that protects that truth from distortion. As a culture begins to develop writing, these myths start to be written down, not so much as a historical record as a modern person would define it, but as a memory aid to ensure even more the accuracy of the story. When we approach these texts as modern Westerners, we tend to bring our understanding of textual criticism with us. And many people approach early texts incorrectly with that bias.

Seen that way, the first five books of the Old Testament are probably the earliest written versions of the creation myths of the Jews that stretch back hundreds of generations. I personally believe that the ancient Hebrew myths were in fact directly inspired by God and as such contain tremendously important truth about His nature, His creation and His creatures. For example, I do not have to believe in a literal Garden of Eden to accept the truth of man's fallen nature. (my theology, but maybe not yours)

Because God himself is unknowable, any stories about God are necessarily mythical, that is, they reflect the total mystery of God. Theology, or the "study" of God, is really the study of the truths contained in the myths, or sometimes the creation of entirely new myths shrouded in academic credibility.

So when I refer to the "God concept" as a benevolent myth, I do not mean that belief in God is a belief in the untrue, but rather a belief in the unknowable. And as I said in the previous post, this "myth," this story about God, is such a fundamental part of our human nature that we are never entirely complete until we embrace a story about God that fulfills our deepest longings.