The myth explanation

[The Lady Kate]

Kate said: You mean consider the possibility that the writers of Genesis has absolutely no shread of poetry or creativity in them, and were transcribing God's words verbatim?

Gee, was it that hard to figure out? I mean when it says God took dust and made a man, what do you think it means? That “God took dust and made a man” or could it possibly mean that “God took dust and made a man!”

I see. The Authors of Genesis had absolutely no shred of poetry and creativity in them... and neither should its readers.

What a depressingly bleak place the Kingdom of God would be.

Ok I'm thinking about it...now I'm laughing... now I thinking some more... now I'm reaching for a Dr. Pepper.... now I'm giggling... Sorry, what was the question again?

Ah, such sarcasm, very unbecoming of a lady – isn’t it? But hey what do I know.

Because I am a Lady (and don't you forget it!) I'll refrain from giving this question the answer it deserves.

Couldn't resist shoehorning your own words into Luther's, could you?

My mistake, should of said [or billions of years]. And no its not my words, I’m a young earth creationists - remember?

So you claim that Martin Luther said "billions of years"?... My, the man was a visionary...

In other words, shut our mouths, believe what you tell us, and let's all go back to the Glorious 14th century again.

Not really:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” - Romans 12:2

Scripture says be transformed by the renewing of our minds, not the removal of our minds.

Amazing and disturbing how close one seems to be the other, doesn't it?

And by the way Luther lived in the late 15th and early 16th century, not the 14th.

The message was one of regression. I forgot how literally you take everything.
Some of that poetry and creativity I mentioned might come in handy right about now.

"Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." --Martin Luther.

Humm, sounds like very good advice - don’t you think?

If one wants to keep the masses ignorant and superstitious, at the mercy of self appointed prophets, sure.

 

[Marshall Janzen]

I mean when it says God took dust and made a man, what do you think it means? That “God took dust and made a man” or could it possibly mean that “God took dust and made a man!”

Want to try that interpretational approach with Genesis 1? When it says that God spoke "Let us make man" and so God created man, what do you think that means? Be sure not to add any intermediary steps in there, such as dust.

But most likely, you do add the dust, because you look at some other parts of God's revelation, including Genesis 2, and probably come to the conclusion that there was a step between God speaking and man being created. In between, there was dust formed and inspired by God. If that is your view, then the very approach you dismiss (using other parts of God's revelation to shed more light on a passage) is what you use yourself. The only difference is that you limit the other parts of God's revelation that you consider to parts of the Bible, while others also use God's creation.

In my opinion, the Genesis 1 and 2 accounts of humanity's creation should not be merged together into a sequential order of events. I don't think it's right to say God spoke, then God created. My reason for this is that God's speech is effectual. When God speaks, things will happen! "For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm" (Psalm 33:9). "By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible" (Hebrews 11:3). If one uses a sequential approach to God's speech and God forming creatures from dust, then one ends up with God's word being nothing more than God talking to himself prior to getting busy with creating. I don't think that's at all what Genesis 1 is trying to portray.

Instead, I see Genesis 1's description of creation by God's word and Genesis 2's description of God's creation in response to needs by physical actions as being complementary images. Both describe something supernatural that no physical image could completely contain. Both show different aspects of the same whole; they present the reality of creation through different windows, each of which only gives a partial view. So, it is true that God created by speaking, and it is also true that God created animals and humans from dirt. The contradictions only appear if we take the images too literally while ignoring that they refer to something beyond the merely physical.

And so, adding the scientific view that God has allowed humanity to discover, we end up with a third picture of creation. Science reveals many of the physical details. Genesis 1 and 2 describe God's agency and purpose in those processes. All three revelations are true as long as we allow each to be a window to the reality rather than claiming that any of the three completely encapsulates the reality.

 

[Micaiah]

Is there any theistic evolutionists here that can explain the Genesis myth conclusion? I am not looking for links, I am looking for your own words, with Scriptural support to show that Genesis is meant as a myth.

This was the initial post. The first step would be for the TE to define what they mean by a myth. The second step would be to demonstrate why Genesis is a myth. I haven't seen the first step completed yet. We've seen TE's trying to explain that a myth is not what you commonly think a myth is, and one saying he doesn't consider Genesis was intended as a myth.

Can anyone see why we have trouble understanding and accepting what TE's believe. Some view their efforts as an attempt to obfuscate what God intended as a plain and simple account of Creation.

 

[gluadys]

This was the initial post. The first step would be for the TE to define what they mean by a myth.

Re-read posts 2, 4 & 10.

If I have not been clear enough on what a myth is, feel free to ask clarifying questions.

The second step would be to demonstrate why Genesis is a myth.

Post 10.


Note that one can be confused by the term "myth" because it has several non-literary meanings as well as being a literary genre. Those non-literary meanings (e.g. fable, tall tale, falsehood) are not applicable when discussing myth in the bible.

Also, most people do not have the necessary grounding in literary genres to be able to distinguish terms such as metaphor, fable, myth, legend, allegory, etc, properly. So they use them carelessly as catch-all terms for "not literal" "figurative".

A myth is an extended metaphor, but it is not a legend, fable or allegory.

I appreciate the fact that most people here are science-oriented and have not studied literature at a post-secondary level, so I don't often call them on making such category errors. But if you seriously want to know why scholars call parts of Genesis (never the whole book or even the whole creation story) a myth, you have to be prepared to learn something about literary forms and genres. Because, whatever else it is, the bible is also literature, and understanding what kind of literature it is at various places improves one's understanding of the author's message.

Some view their efforts as an attempt to obfuscate what God intended as a plain and simple account of Creation.

In the ancient near east, as in most pre-scientific societies, a myth WAS a plain and simple account.

 

[Micaiah]

In the ancient near east, as in most pre-scientific societies, a myth WAS a plain and simple account.

Maybe so, but judging by what you say, you require a post graduate degree to understand the intended meaning of the passage. Call it what you like, but it is NOT the plain meaning of the text.

I believe God wrote the account of Genesis so that people from any culture could read and understand the assertions of fact made. Most people understand the meaning of words like day, fish, birds, male, female etc. There is a supernatural aspect to the story recorded in Genesis 2. I never had much trouble accepting that when I was 5. I didn't think the TE's on this forum denied the possibility of the supernatural.

 

[Joykins]

I don't think anyone needs postgradulate level study to be able to define a myth.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=myth

first meaning

A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth.

There are other meanings to "myth" which approximate "fictitious" or "fallacy" but that is not the meaning of "myth" that we use when we refer to the second creation story in Genesis.

Joy

 

[Micaiah]

Some definitions and statements about myths by TE's. Believe me, trying to get a definition from these guys is like pulling a tooth.

POST 2

So, when speaking of myth in the bible, we are speaking of a literary genre identified by specific characteristics. Other meanings of myth in the dictionary or in popular speech should be set aside. They are not relevant.

We aren't going to give you a clear definition except to say it is not what you think it is. Normal dictionary definitions are inadequate.

One characteristic of a myth is that the central character is God (or in polytheistic cultures, gods.)

That covers most of Scripture.

POST 3

"Myth" is define as a story of beginnings. A myth could be true or a fable.

This one was apparently wrong.

POST 5

From Encarta... MYTH: a traditional story about heroes or supernatural beings, often attempting to explain the origins of natural phenomena or aspects of human behavior.
Genesis certainly fits the description, doesn't it?

From an encyclopedia. Always a good starting point. I think this covers my understanding of Genesis as a YEC, and I don't consider that a myth.

POST 6

well, im a Theistic evolutionist, but i dont believe it is a myth.

check this ultra scientific classification of the bat in laviticus 11:13-19

I'm not aware of the book called laviticus in the Bible. For a start, all the books in my Bible begin with a capital letter. This TE has obviously gone out on a limb. This and the other posts highlight the diversity of opinion that can exist when you adopt the so called 'plain' TE interpretation of the text.

POST 8

For what it's worth, I think the 2nd creation story in Genesis (Genesis 2 ff) pretty well fits the definition of allegory. (A simplified definition of an allegory would be a highly symbolic story where the symbolic meanings are more important than the literal ones. Characters and objects often represent something else, and these are often keyed by the names--for example, Christian and Lady Bountiful are names of characters in the allegory _Pilgrim's Progress_, and the Slough of Despond is the name of a place in that same book.)

The two named trees in Genesis 2 are the Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil--not apple or pear trees. The Serpent stands for Satan (the tempter)--this is the interpretation even of "literalists." And so forth.

I think that story is an allegory with mythic intent as it explains that we are NOT just like the animals, that we are moral actors--because we have the ability to understand good and evil, we are responsible for the decisions we make, we will inevitably use this knowledge to make "wrong" decisions; that this separates us from God; and yes, we can be tempted...

Another perspective. I'd have to start another thread to discover the difference between an allegory and a myth. Given the diversity over the definitions of myth given here, I don't think it really matters.

There is some attempt here to relate the meaning of allegory to the book of Genesis. This OP was unusually clear in the way she expressed her views. One is however left wondering why we should reject the possibility of the supernatural in the story of the fall, just because it sounds - well supernatural.

 

[gluadys]

I don't think anyone needs postgradulate level study to be able to define a myth.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=myth

Yeah, Micaiah's exaggerating. I did not say post-graduate, I said post-secondary. I've never studied at a post-graduate level myself.

first meaning

I would say that definition would be a bit difficult for some (but not all) high school students. However, as I was refreshing my own understanding of "myth" I found several lesson plans for teaching high school and even elementary students the basic literary meaning of myth. So it's not rocket science.

After all, if primitive people, who had not even developed a writing system yet, could understand myth 10,000 or more years ago, it's not beyond our capacity to do so.

 

[Joykins]

I was a literature major. Genre is one of the easiest things about literature to understand. From the same link:

allegory

1. <LI type=a>The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
2. A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories.
3. A symbolic representation: The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.

fable

1. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
2. A story about legendary persons and exploits.

There, now we have the tools to discuss.

 

[Critias]

Time to get a little more specific.

First we have two creation accounts in Genesis. This has been evident for centuries and biblical commentators speculated on why long before any tools of modern scholarship were brought to bear on the biblical text.

Linguistic analysis shows us that the two accounts were produced by two different writers.

Now to speak of "Genesis" being a myth is far too vague. Only one section of Genesis is truly myth. That is the section that begins in the second half of Gen. 2:4 where it says "In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...", and continues to the end of chapter 4. The preceeding account is not myth. From chapter 12 on, most of Genesis is legend, not myth. The principal characters are human and may even have been real historical individuals. The places are mostly real, and the culture is realistic for the time.

In between the second creation story and the call of Abraham, we have two stories (the Great Flood, the Tower of Babel) which fall somewhere in between myth and legend, in that they have some of the characteristics of both. i.e. both could derive from an actual event, as legends may, but both have been mythologized more than legends usually are.

So when we look at Genesis 2:4b-4:26 why do we identify it as myth?

1. The principal character of the story is God. God creates earth and heaven. God creates a man. God plants a garden and set the man in the gardern to till it and care for it. God notices the man's solitude and creates animals to help him. When these prove insufficient, God creates a woman who is part of the man's very flesh. God gives the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge and judges the man, woman and serpent when the command is disobeyed. God expels the man and woman from the garden. God gives them children and God deals with Cain both in warning and in judgment.

Some of these conclusions can be applied to Jesus as well.

2. The story is not set in historical time but in the mists of the long ago "day when the LORD God created heaven and earth" (There is no mention of six/seven days in this story.) It is a story of beginnings, not of history.

Really? So you see no connection in Genesis 2:4-3 with Genesis 1?

3. The story contains numerous symbolical elements such as the two trees in the garden, the serpent, the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, the garden, the expulsion of from the garden, and testing of the human characters.

Serpents, trees, sacrifices, a garden, testing of human characters are defined as symbolic?

Much of the Old Testament and New can be symbolic then.

4. The story explains why things are as they are. Why does a snake have no legs, why do women experience pain in childbirth, why do thorns and thistles crowd out cultivated plants, where did the technology of civilization come from, why do men and women marry, why do we die?

Jesus explains why things are as well, was that mythical?

So, because it explains our sinful beginning and what sin has done, it is a myth?

In pre-scientific days, myth functioned as a "popular science" by providing answers to what we would now think of as scientific questions. Consider the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Ask an ancient Greek why we have summer and winter, and he would say nothing about the orbit of the earth around the sun. He would tell the story of Demeter grieving during the six months of the year her daughter had to spend time in Hades.

We are comparing the Greeks with Ancient Hebrews? These cultures were very much different.

5. The story is applicable to all times. Its lessons are timeless. We see this in Jesus pointing to the mating of the man and woman in this story as the basis of marriage.

Jesus' stories and lessons are applicable to all times. His lessons are timeless. Was Jesus then a myth?

6. The story identifies the Hebrew people. This is often a function of myth: to build up the cultural identity of a people, to tell them who they are in relation to others. The story throughout names the creator as Yahweh (the LORD in many modern texts) Elohim (God)---Yahweh God--the God of Israel. It does not simply say "God" created, but "Yahweh God" created. This is the story of the beginning of Yahweh's people.

So, saying Yahweh Elohim denotes myth? Historical recordings are also used to identify a people and their culture. To explains who they were and what they did within the world.

Identifying a passage as myth is not a matter of "feeling". It is a matter of looking for specific characteristics such as the six above.

You cannot be serious, can you? If I take your six examples above, I can apply them to most of the Bible, if not all of it.

Identifying Genesis as a myth is being careless with the interpretation. Can you draw from other ancient myths and show why Genesis is just like them?

 

[Micaiah]

Apparently not all of Genesis is myth, only part. Here are the reasons why TE's believe part of Genesis must be interpretted as myth. We assume that the points raised are all characteristics of a myth, and help to define the TE meaning of myth.

From post 10

Now to speak of "Genesis" being a myth is far too vague. Only one section of Genesis is truly myth. That is the section that begins in the second half of Gen. 2:4 where it says "In the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens...", and continues to the end of chapter 4.

So when we look at Genesis 2:4b-4:26 why do we identify it as myth?

1. The principal character of the story is God. God creates earth and heaven.
2. The story is not set in historical time but in the mists of the long ago "day when the LORD God created heaven and earth" (There is no mention of six/seven days in this story.)
3. The story contains numerous symbolical elements such as the two trees in the garden, the serpent, the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, the garden, the expulsion of from the garden, and testing of the human characters.
4. The story explains why things are as they are.
5. The story is applicable to all times.
6. The story identifies the Hebrew people.

Identifying a passage as myth is not a matter of "feeling". It is a matter of looking for specific characteristics such as the six above.

By the way. What do you call the first part of Genesis up to 2:4a?

 

[Micaiah]

Yeah, Micaiah's exaggerating. I did not say post-graduate, I said post-secondary. I've never studied at a post-graduate level myself.

LOL Basically you are asking for a university course in literary genres followed up by an application of genre study to biblical narratives

I was a literature major. Genre is one of the easiest things about literature to understand.

Take your pick!

 

[Micaiah]

I was a literature major. Genre is one of the easiest things about literature to understand. From the same link:

allegory

1. <LI type=a>The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.
2. A story, picture, or play employing such representation. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Herman Melville's Moby Dick are allegories.
3. A symbolic representation: The blindfolded figure with scales is an allegory of justice.

fable

1. A usually short narrative making an edifying or cautionary point and often employing as characters animals that speak and act like humans.
2. A story about legendary persons and exploits.

There, now we have the tools to discuss.

You forgot about a myth.

Psst. What is a genre? Aren't these were the guys in charge of an army.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

By the way. What do you call the first part of Genesis up to 2:4a?

genre is Hebrew epic poetry.
Kline calls it the preamble to the Treaty of the Great King
see: http://www.girs.com/library/theology/syllabus/objsotr2.html
establishing the right of the King to command by virtue of His Creation and Providence.

or an easier read at:
http://present.presenttruthmag.com/archive/XXVIII/28p1-5.htm

 

[Joykins]

Genre means the kind of writing it is.

Science fiction, fantasy, poetry, allegory, biography, epic, novel, myth, legend, fable, magazine article, etc.

Joy

 

[Joykins]

myth is defined in post 26. It's the same definition cited in post 5.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

one of the best essays online on both the mythic qualities of Gen 1 and of it's polemic attacks on neighboring religious mythologies while using those images is:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Bible-Science/6-02Watts.html

where he begins this section with:

Genesis 1 in Its Ancient Near Eastern Environment

How then are we to approach our reading of Genesis 1? As in the reading of any document, it helps to have some familiarity with comparable materials, in this case other ancient creation stories. What we are after, in dealing with the ancients’ view of origins, is some idea of the kinds of questions they asked and how they answered them. Again, this is not to assume that Genesis 1 is identical to, or of the same genre as, these other stories or has borrowed from them. We are simply interested in trying to understand what issues a second-millennium B.C. culture might have been interested in. I am, however, assuming that they were not trying to do modern science nor attempting to show that Darwin was wrong—hardly likely since neither was around at the time. It is impossible here to carry out a thorough comparison of ancient creation stories, but a cursory overview will be helpful in giving us a feel for the kinds of concerns that the first audience of Genesis 1 might have brought to the text.

and his conclusion:

Conclusions

What might we conclude about the truth claims and significance of Genesis 1? Given its genre—a highly stylized form and unrealistic content—I would suggest that it is not to be taken "literally" in the popular modern Western sense as a blow-by-blow, chronologically accurate, account of creation. No one in the ancient world, apart from the isolated account of the time taken to build Baal’s palace, seems particularly concerned with these kinds of questions. Our chronos-fixated age measures things in nanoseconds and smaller—but not theirs. Rather, the pattern of days probably derives from the ancients’ understanding of the structure of their world—day/night, above/below, and land/sea—this being conceptualized in terms of the deity’s construction of his palace-temple as he gives it form and fills it. The fundamental issue is that it is Yahweh, Israel’s God, a God who cares for slaves, non-entities, and even non-Israelites (cf. the mixed multitude who are also delivered from Pharaoh’s genocidal proclivities; Exod 12:38), who brought order to the world, not the failed deities of oppressive Egypt nor, to a lesser degree, those of Canaan or Mesopotamia. And in doing so, it uses the language and imagery to which that world, and particularly Egypt, was accustomed. This is hardly suprising.

On this reading the twenty-four hour periods, or more accurately dawn-to-dusk days, probably reflect the notion of the customary daily periods of work. Yahweh is the builder, and each day he speaks and thus by divine fiat builds or fills a discrete part of his realm. Consequently, the injunction to keep Sabbath is less intent on imitating six literal twenty-four-hour days of creation than it is a summons for Israel to live out her creation story—structured as it is in the nature of the case by six days with a seventh to rest—and so to declare herself to be Yahweh’s "son," imitating him in continuing his creation work of bringing order with the ultimate goal of Sabbath rest.

So in what sense is this true? If this kind of metaphor, symbol, or antiquated way of seeing the world is all that is intended, how does it translate into our modern world? In what sense can this be meaningful for us? The answer is surprisingly modern. We recall that for the ancients the fundamental concern of their stories was the emergence of humanity, society, and culture. It was the same for Israel. Yahweh has designed this palace-temple, this pavilion, to be the habitation of his image-bearer, namely, humanity. This, it seems to me, is nothing other than the ancient version of the recently formulated Anthropic Principle, which in its various forms reflects the fact that the fundamental structures of this world, the observed values of its cosmological and physical quantities, appear to have been fine-tuned with human existence in view. To observers both then and now there are strong hints that this creation was designed for us. And Genesis 1’s answer, it seems to me, is not so much concerned with the "how" in the technical or mechanical sense as it is with the "who," namely, Yahweh. It is Israel’s God who has created this world, and humanity will never truly know what it means to be human until we learn to reflect his image. There is truth here, but it is more like the pungent and memorable truth of Blake’s "Tiger, Tiger" than the serried ranks of mathematically precise gene maps.

Two final observations. If this creation is Yahweh’s palace-temple, then we had best take good care of it. Far too many of us treat our homes far better than we treat this creation. We would never tolerate toxic waste or unbridled pollution in our living rooms, and yet we seem happy to do so when it comes to God’s palace-temple. While some have mistakenly read the apocalyptic language of purging fire as a carte blanche to do whatever they will to this present earth, we might do well to remember the warning in Revelation 11:18: God will destroy those who destroy his earth. Given that it is his palace-temple, and that far from people going to heaven, heaven is coming here (at least if Revelation 21 is to be believed), God’s anger against violators of the earth is perfectly understandable. It is his palace-temple they are defiling, whereas he is committed to renewing it.

this is the kind of analysis that compares middle eastern myth with Gen 1


....

 

[Micaiah]

Thanks ladies and gentlepersons.

 

[Critias]

that is some serious jumping through hoops.

 

[gluadys]

that is some serious jumping through hoops.

Yes, it is. It takes practice getting out of the little hoop we have locked ourselves into since we adopted Enlightenment/scientific criteria of truth and finding our way into the mytho-poetic hoop that was the norm in ancient cultures.

But since the biblical writers wrote when mytho-poetic writing was the norm, the way to understanding the bible is to jump from our modernistic frame of categories into theirs and, as far as we can, get a good look at it from the inside.

Then we can start applying it to our own cultural way of thinking. When we do this it is astounding how modern the bible can be. Ultimately the creation story is less about the details of a long ago event, than about how to worship God here and now.