Thought Snack: The Bible Is Myth
“A common reaction of many Christians to the word myth is often one of mistrust. In their minds, ‘myth’ means ‘false,’ and since the Word of God can never be false, the category of myth is anathema in relation to the Bible. But this is not an accurate assessment of the varied understandings of myth. Because of a modernist bias of anti-supernaturalism, some scholars define myth as ‘a necessary and universal form of expression within the early stage of man’s intellectual development, in which unexplainable events were attributed to the direct intervention of the gods.’ In some critical and liberal quarters of theology, this connotation has stuck to the meaning of myth and certainly warrants critique in light of its prejudicial definition that assumes a materialist universe without supernatural agents.
But a more specific and recent definition of myth is appropriate to our discussion. In this sense, myths are, as Northrop Frye has explained, ‘stories that tell a society what is important for it to know, whether about its gods, its history, its laws, or its structures.’ In this sense, mythical stories whether historically factual or fictional, do the same thing; they reveal true transcendent meaning. By this definition, calling the Bible mythical in some of its characteristics or imagery is not to jeopardize its historical claims. In fact, the Bible often claims to reveal the unseen transcendent meaning and purposes behind immanent historical events…”
– Excerpt from God Against the Gods: Storytelling, Imagination, and Apologetics in the Bible by Brian Godawa
