The Myth of Mythology - Episode 007

- Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot! I’m Carey Griffel and I’m so glad to have you listening. This week has been…a tough one for me. In the last few episodes, we’ve been getting deep into the supernatural context of the Bible. We talked about the Trinity and what I call the Deuteronomy 32 Worldview or the Divine Council Worldview. These have all been topics which I personally started learning under Dr. Michael Heiser. From listening to the Naked Bible Podcast, watching his lectures, reading his blog and his books and actually being his student as his school of theology—he has given me so much, and I so deeply appreciate it all. His work has provided a central ground for my understanding of God’s interaction in the world and my purpose in it. He is, no doubt, the main reason I am doing this podcast. He has worked tirelessly to provide a window into learning and sharing with the body of Christ, and he has done so in order to enable others to learn and to also teach. I’ve mentioned before that he has been dealing with cancer, and this week he announced that there is no more to be done for him, medically. This is devastating news to myself and I know, to so many others. There are no adequate words in such a time, but I would like to publicly thank him, and also his family who have done more than any of us know. - I’ve frequently heard people say that well, yes, this “divine council worldview” is interesting…but *does it matter?* Does it matter…if you could read all the words pouring out in grief and support right now, all the stories of people who have come across his content and whose lives he has touched and literally changed, I think you’d clearly see that it does. People brought out from dark places into understanding how they fit into God’s creation and purposes…it’s hard to describe if you’ve not been in some of these places, I think. - And interesting to me, as well, has been to see a community formed and so many people encouraged to engage the world. It has been, to me, a delight to interact with others. I see the body of Christ growing actively, in numbers and in learning and in love. - I know that it was Dr. Mike’s love and purpose to bring forward all of these things, and he has…in abundant amounts. And his work will continue to do so. But I ask for continued prayers for him and his family and the life of the church. - Today in my seventh episode we’re going to get into some more ancient context and we’re going to do it while studying about myth. And we’ll probably talk about genre while we’re at it. - I like that this is the topic today because the original title of Dr. Heiser’s *Unseen Realm* was, *The Myth that is True*, harkening back to a quote from Tolkien. - Why do we need to study myth? That seems unnecessary when we have the truth of the Bible. We don’t usually think of the Bible when we think about mythology unless we’re fighting some atheist who tells us that the Bible is just a bunch of myths. Well, sure, but aside from what we’re going to get into regarding the definition of myths, the stories of the ancient world help us put our minds in the space that the minds of the ancients would have been—imperfectly, yes, but to a greater degree than we could otherwise. I like this quote from Chaim Potok’s history of the Jewish people: - We have been reading the Patriarchal narratives all through the centuries without knowing the customs and traditions of the “old country” from which the Patriarchs came. That is like looking at Irish and Italian Americans with no knowledge of Ireland or Italy; like trying to understand the American Southwest with no notion of the existence of Spain; like gazing at Plymouth and Concord and Boston without knowing that there is an England. *Chaim Potok, Wanderings: History of the Jews, quoted in Ada Feyerick’s Genesis: World of Myths and Patriarchs* - Our main question in today’s episode is, what is a myth? If you call something a myth, doesn’t that just mean it’s fiction? A fairy tale? A *lie??* - Well if you’ve heard some of my other episodes, you might know what direction I’m going with that; I’ve discussed lies before and I think people in general have some misconceptions as to what a lie is and is not. - What’s the Merriam-Webster definition of a lie? - to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive - To deceive, to be false, to ensnare, to cheat - to cause to accept as true or valid what is false or invalid - Isn’t that what a myth is? Well, it’s one definition of the word. A myth is a story that is untrue, right? It’s unfortunate that the world seems to have forgotten the larger definition of myth, and that’s what we are going to get into first today. - We’ve already gotten the dictionary out so before we put it away, let’s look up the word “myth.” - I’m actually surprised to see the first definition; it’s what I want to talk about, so we’re going to leave that one to the end. One of the other definitions of “myth” is, indeed, “an unfounded or false notion” and—I wonder if this might actually be the most popular definition in common use—a myth is “a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence.” It can also mean, “a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone especially one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society.” - We can all think of easy examples of this, whether or not we agree with the sentiment. We have figures and characters that embody holidays or ritual, and those who live outside of a religious belief sometimes put aspects of religion under this category. - In my recent series on the Trinity and Divine Council, you can see that even the false gods of other religions I would not personally put under this particular definition of “myth,” merely a belief or tradition. Go talk to Christian missionaries in foreign countries and you will hear some stories that indicate anything but this. And of course we see the Bible itself taking these lower created beings seriously, as if they have serious power and intent. - Of course that’s not to suggest that all the stories in the world that are formulated about these deities are true. I don’t expect these false deities to be honest and upstanding communicators, so I’m not going to take what their adherents say to be revealed truth. - What is that first definition of “myth” that Merriam-Webster has listed, though? - a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon - Hang on…did that just say *historical??* Okay, it said “ostensibly” historical, but hey that leaves the door open. *Ostensibly* means that it might maybe possibly actually look like it’s historical, so unless some evidence comes to light to refute the idea…I suppose we ought to treat it as historical? Maybe? Maybe. - Well we aren’t going to take every myth as “historical,” of course. But at least from within the tradition the myth comes from, the myth is seen as historical. Isn’t that interesting? I take it, then, that this definition of the word “myth” is not *actively* trying to deceive or present false information. It’s not *necessarily* false, unfounded, imaginary, or unverifiable because we know that many traditional beliefs do have some things backing them up, even if it’s only an event that someone claims they witnessed or a fragment of physical evidence. - So let’s get over the idea, then, that a myth is necessarily false. What else did that definition suggest a myth was? - It said, a traditional story that serves to “unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon.” - In other words, a myth explains the origin of something important to a group—either the origin of the people themselves, something they do or believe in, or even something that is visible in the world in some way. What is the origin of true love, or thunder and lightning, or why we tap the top of an aluminum can of pop before opening it? Okay, maybe that last one is just me. And I have no idea why I do it. - So that’s the normal dictionary. - Now let’s look at Lexham Bible Dictionary and how it defines myth: - The broad definition of mythology is any story about the activity of the gods. Since nearly the entire Bible depicts the actions of God in the world, that cannot be the sole criterion for determining myth in the Bible. Instead, mythical passages, particularly those in the Old Testament, are commonly defined as those that display generic similarities to other ancient Near Eastern texts that are considered mythical. These stories include Gen 1–3, Gen 6, the flood story, and the cosmogony motifs found in the Psalms and Prophetic literature. *Aubrey Buster, “Myth,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).* - Cosmogony—that means the origins of the universe or cosmos. - Words are better when they are narrowly and exactly defined. But that is so hard to do when you have a thousand scholars and each one has a different opinion…or two. Or three. Sometimes I have somewhere closer to fifteen opinions myself, so it doesn’t really help when we narrow down our opinions to confessional scholars—to scholars who are Christian. But since we are confessional here, we can take certain things for granted in our definition of myth and the way we look at it. I’m going to read another quote from the LBD: - [James] Barr asserts that it is essential to derive a definition of myth as it relates to the Old Testament not from “universal theoretical considerations, or even upon the universal phenomenology of religion at all times and in all places,” but from examples contained within the text itself (Barr, “The Meaning of ‘Mythology,’ ” 2). It is important to observe what distinguishes Old Testament “mythology” from the mythology of the surrounding nations. One element is the distinction between God and His creation (Barr, “The Meaning of ‘Mythology.’ ” 7). In ancient Near Eastern mythology, the actions of the gods generally corresponded with the cycles of life on earth; however, the Bible describes God as one who instigates and controls actions on earth, but is other than them—He is not Himself identified with a particular worldly occurrence. *Aubrey Buster, “Myth,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).* - In other words, differences are very important when we are comparing the Bible with other literature. The God depicted in the Bible is very different than the gods depicted in other ANE texts. - More from LBD: - Childs proposes the following definition for myth: “Myth is a form by which the existing structure of reality is understood and maintained. It concerns itself with showing how an action of a deity, conceived of as occurring in the primeval age, determines a phase of contemporary world order. Existing world order is maintained through the actualization of the myth in the cult” (Childs, Myth and Reality, 29–30). He accepts the premise that the Old Testament creation accounts assimilate preexisting material, but seeks to describe its new theological framework as an interaction with myth. Thus the Old Testament authors used the material of mythology for theological purposes. *Aubrey Buster, “Myth,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).* - We’ll talk more later about how world order is maintained from this connection between mythology and cult or ritual. It’s important to note here that assimilating preexisting material need not mean that the account is “made up” or that it is not revelation. But we won’t belabor the point here. - Right now before moving on I want to mention the genre of “legend,” because this is often associated with that of mythology. - The reason we associate the two is that one use of “legend” is for non-historical stories that were nonetheless seen as historical by people of the past. Usually the past, anyway. People can claim that other people groups believe in legends today; it’s a negative and critical accusation, in other words. Both myths and legends are seen as fiction in some sense. - But, as with the word “myth,” this is not the broadest or the only definition of the term “legend.” It can also refer to stories that surround culture heroes or great institutions. Usually we think of the versions that are about great heroes or kings. - We are going to take this definition of “legend,” and thus we see that it is a separate conversation from that of myth, because legends involve humans—or at least partial humans since we see many legendary heroes who were said to descend from the gods—whereas mythology is centered around stories about the gods. - You might wonder, also, about the category of “epic.” The word “epic” comes from the type of rhyming patterns in ancient writing; this category originally centered around the form rather than content of writing, but most often ancient epics also fit under the category of either myth or legend. ## Myth vs History? - To sum up our introduction to myth, we see that—though there are many specific ways myth is defined—for our purposes we might say that mythology is an origin story involving the gods or the supernatural. (An even broader definition suggests that mythology is not all about origin stories, but rather any story involving a deity can be put into the category of mythology. You can now guess why modern secular scholars have influenced the idea that “mythology” = “untrue.”) - Before we get into more specifics about myth and hopefully looking at some examples, I feel like we ought to look at what history is since we’ve already opened the door that myth and history connect in some way. If myths are origin stories, then surely it is assumed by their audience to be historical. - But a popular suggestion today is that it is not possible for myth to be historical while at the same time myth involves the supernatural. Even Christians separate these two because it is not possible for every myth to be literally historically true. So “literal historicity” cannot be part of our definition of myth. But just hold that thought for a moment because we’re going to get into what “history” means, or at least how people view history. - Neither Genesis, the Bible, nor any other ANE literature are the same as modern historical narrative. This fact influences much of modern scholarship because if the literature of the ANE doesn’t correspond to history in the way we think of it, then we’re not going to evaluate it as history. - In order to explore this, we need to understand historiography. - Because history has been written in many ways, there is not one single way of understanding historiography—even though some modern historians seem to insist otherwise. There is often this attitude that it is their definition or else. Historiography is the study of the methods of historians. The problem with that, though, is that it then has to decide who historians are. And often modern scholars tend to land on a particular definition of “historian” which precludes the way our earliest histories were written. - Just like science, there is a “historical method.” This is the method that a historian today uses in order to construct a, hopefully, accurate picture of the past. Scientists have evidence that they then evaluate; historians have sources, which they likewise evaluate. This is how history today is done. One tool that historians use today is source criticism. - Source criticism is the practice of evaluating the sources used by the historian. Source criticism looks at who produced a source, when and where it was made. They also evaluate the sources of the source, they evaluate the credibility of the source, including whether or not they have the original source or not. - These all sound like reasonable points to study until you realize how much more difficult this becomes the further you go into the past. And that last point concerning credibility, that is a doozy. - Historians have a hierarchy of sorts to determine “reliability,” which isn’t necessarily the same as credibility but impacts the determination. The evidence for reliability translates into credibility. I’m going to read these points and I want you to consider whether or not it seems like ancient writers used these when writing about the origins of their societies. - Point one: Physical evidence is treated as more reliable than textual evidence. - Their physical evidence was the existence of the world and how it fit into their narrative. - Point two: Having what seems to be the original source is more reliable than a copy of the source. - The ancient world lived on copying things. In fact, it seems like copying something that was previously written may have been a point in favor of something’s reliability. - Point three: The closer in time a source was produced to the event, the more reliable it is seen. - We do see evidence that they valued ancient sources themselves, since they sometimes went to lengths to make some piece of writing appear old. However, legitimacy seems to have stemmed from connecting a current event to the past in any way that they could, including writing something new that merely framed the current event in terms of what happened in the past. - Point four: Eyewitnesses are more reliable than secondary sources. - We do see the value of eyewitnesses in ancient writing; this is why we see ghosts or visions of dead people who tell stories. But I don’t think modern historians are very cool with ghost eyewitnesses. - Point five: Independent, agreeing sources make both sources more reliable. - Well, good luck with finding agreeing sources in a place like the ANE. When we’re lucky we will find names mentioned here and there which show at minimum someone actually existed, but the propaganda from two places rarely *agreed*. - Point six: Apparent biases cause a source to lose reliability unless a source can be found that displays an opposite bias. - Narratives in the ANE all had clear biases. The point here, I suppose, is that if two nations mention the same event, then we at least know something happened. - Point seven: When a witness or source has no known reason to “lie” or possess a bias, that source is considered more trustworthy. - Again, our modern brand of objectivity is not something that seems to have been valued. - Point eight: Historians outright reject anonymous sources. - Ancient writing didn’t often include information about the author. Most of the books of the Bible are, in fact, anonymous. And for many ancient texts that do claim an author, that author may not have been the author at all; rather, the real author may have used someone else’s name in order to gain legitimacy himself. So at least we do know that famous or well-known sources back then were valued. - According to a modern historian, then, ancient writings that purport to be historical don’t conform to these rules of reliability, which colors their credibility factor. Certainly there is little in the Old Testament that fits these criteria; historians love especially to point out the theological bias of the OT, as if every other ANE text doesn’t have similar biases—including something as seemingly straightforward as a royal decree. - In other words, if a text or physical evidence can’t be found that confirms historicity, then you can forget it. - Because of the bias-point, historians shy away from using the Bible as historical evidence unless they can find that an “external source” that agrees with it in some way, though this is usually only a bare mention of a name. The Bible isn’t generally confirmed so much as used as a source to confirm something else. - This simply isn’t how the ancient world related to history. I don’t want to suggest that there is something wrong with wanting to see these things in order for us to formulate our concept of history (although… these points do functionally make it difficult to develop credibility in many cases…if I had to justify the historicity of an event in my own life through these criteria, I might be hard pressed to do so! Most things in life simply aren’t recorded with this level of backup.) - In any case, that’s modern historiography. Ancient historiography so clearly does not correspond to this that comparing the two seems ridiculous. - Back to our main topic…Modern scholars, as they have done in many areas since the 18th century or so, have really done some arrogant thinking when it comes to myth. I’m going to be referencing Kenton Sparks’ book *Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible*. In his chapter on myths, he mentions two scholars, Levy-Bruhl and E.B. Tylor who “viewed myth as the product of primitive and prescientific modes of thought, a step on the evolutionary ladder that leads to modern humanity.” *(Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible, 305)* - Scholars like this talk about “mistaken explanations of phenomena” and “primitive mindsets” which didn’t separate supernatural from natural. - These scholars definitely reject the idea of anything like magic or ritual which might actually affect the world. - These scholars are suggesting that prescientific thought is somehow lesser than our new and improved amazing scientific thinking! Though they profess to be scientists, and scientists ought to be objective, these scholars are inserting value judgments into their assessments. - Here is a quote from LBD again: - In “The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man,” Henri and H. A. Frankfort applied Tylor and Lévy-Bruhl’s theories to the ancient Near East and argued that there is a distinction between modern humans and the ancients (Segal, Myth, 41). * Modern humans think “philosophically,” meaning they think abstractly, critically, and unemotionally. They interact with the world in an objective way. * The ancients thought “mythopoeically,” meaning they thought concretely, uncritically, and emotionally. They interacted with the world in a subjective way. *Aubrey Buster, “Myth,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).* - First of all, while there might be some reason to stereotype modern humans and ancient humans like this when talking exceptionally broadly, this actually seems to be a very cultural categorization. Who says that there are no modern humans who process things via myth? Who says that myths cannot be communicating abstract ideas? And whoooo says that we are objective?? It sounds very much like we are rooting this thinking in scientific materialism and implied modern superiority. After all, making categories like this at all is an example of abstract thinking. - But I am not convinced that it is correct to say that ancient people did not think abstractly or critically. After all, they took stories and changed them in critical ways all the time. They were clearly thinking in abstract themes and motifs; they were legitimizing these concretely. Also, through looking into the textual record of the ANE, we see some pretty incredible theologizing going on as they work through these stories in different ways—combining them, even putting contradictory tales together into a single place, which I believe indicates that they are philosophically working through ideas. They are doing so in the form of narrative rather than in the form of discourse. - As Sparks says, “It is difficult from our modern vantage to distinguish between theological compositions that the authors wholeheartedly believed and those that were products of theological speculation, but in either case, later readers took the compositions as serious expressions of truth.” *(Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible, 336)* - Now. I think it ought to be clear that there is nothing wrong with processing the world through our own cultural understandings. We don’t need to turn around and chastise ourselves for our modern western thought, just like the ancient person shouldn’t expect himself to think like we do. These distinctions exist; we just need to be upfront about them so that when we come against another way of thinking, rather than judge it as a less effective way of understanding the world, we can appreciate it as a different way of understanding the world. We need not frame it as an us vs them dynamic. - All that said, it is then natural for us to ask…if myth is defined in this way and we take most myths to reflect things that are not true, doesn’t that mean myths, in general, align with our first definition, that is, that they are “made up stories”? - ? are the two options before us that either the Bible/Genesis are totally unique and are, in fact, just like our modern definition of history and aren’t actually like those other stories that we call myths, or the Bible/Genesis are exactly like their counterparts and thus they don’t reflect a historical reality? Are those our two options? - The Bible and Genesis clearly are not totally unique, and they clearly aren’t like our modern definition of history (which we’ll get into more later). But neither do we need to shrug our shoulders and decide that they must not be historical at all. - After all…we are here. Creation happened. We can confirm, at minimum, that the nation of Israel exists. These two things are far from proof that the text is “scientifically or historically correct,” but hey no one can say there’s no physical evidence around. But it’s more than physical evidence we need, particularly since this insatiable need for physical evidence is still putting all of our eggs in the scientific materialistic basket. Personally, I am not interested in proving literal historicity one way or another—I’ll leave that up to other people, as, in fact, the vast majority of us have to do, anyway. What I am interested in doing is thinking—and that’s something we can all do. We need a way to think about these things that encompasses the options that present themselves to us as truth: that is, how do we bring together the idea that the text is or can be in the genre of ANE myth, but is also *much more than that?* - One need not be a modern historian or write in the way of a modern historian in order to record real events, of course. Because they wrote in the same way as their contemporaries does not mean that they were not writing actual accounts. This kind of thinking that it has to be our way or the modern highway reflects a modern bias of superiority. It is often the case that we must merely *assume* that they were not writing actual accounts. - Let’s circle back to our point. The question is, to put it another way, if we don’t ascribe historicity to other ANE myths, then how could we possibly ascribe historicity to the Bible, which is so similar to these other myths? - We can focus for a moment on the first chapters of Genesis, since they are called the “primeval history,” and primeval refers to the earliest age or the origins of all things. How and to what extent can we call Genesis 1-11 “historical”? - These are difficult questions that are bandied about in scholarship—at least in circles where there is acknowledgement to begin with of the possibility of historicity and the possibility that the Bible is unique *and* the possibility that the Bible also aligns with its contemporaries in some ways. - But think about what the Bible is for those of us who follow Christ and affirm that it is, in fact, revelation. There is a very big, and obvious difference between general ANE myth and biblical myth. This point was briefly made in a quote earlier. The Bible is God’s self-revelation of himself; thus, we should expect that on some level, the Bible is going to be “true.” God’s self-revelation is also situated in time and apparently did not come with an info dump of new scientific-type data, so is it so terrible to suggest that what it means for the Bible to be “true” should also be situated in time? That is, the writers of the Bible wrote it according to their standards and definitions of truth, not ours. Can we expect otherwise? … What I’m saying is that, if the human author was presenting history in the way history was presented at his time…then as far as we are concerned, we can read it as history. How else should we read it?? - - If this were the case, we would expect to see all kinds of similarities of this revelation to elements we see throughout the same time and area. - The fact that it is self-revelation from God rather than merely another piece of purely human composition further suggests that we will see a great many differences between the Bible and its contemporaries, as well. - These are both things we do, in fact, see. - The fact that the Bible can be seen to be historically situated in the writer’s time suggests that tossing out the label of “historicity” as applied to the Bible is silly…*the Bible is definitely historically-oriented writing*. It was both written in a real time and place and it was definitely understood by its recipients to be historical. If we choose to believe it is not historical simply because their vision of doing history doesn’t line up with our vision of doing history, that’s our opinion, not theirs, and doesn’t reflect on the genre or purpose of the writing. And I don’t think it reflects on God, either, because who says that he has to insist on our definition of historical writing? - I know that there are wide swaths of apologetics movements and writings that focus on the idea that the Bible is unique, that the Bible is 100% as true and as factual as any courtroom record if God himself were to write that courtroom record. Often these apologetics movements are wonderful efforts—but if they wish to imply something about the text that is simply not there, such as the idea that the Bible cannot be compared to any other writing, then these apologetics arguments end up doing more harm than good. - A bad argument in support of a true premise is not helpful. - One thing to keep in mind is that, though there are similarities between the Bible and other literature which put the two into the same genre and category, the dissimilarities between the material are also vast. These dissimilarities are enough to widely impact the way we study and look at the material. - Also, it seems obvious to me that the accuracy or truth or inerrancy of Scripture—however you personally want to put it—is not something that we impose on Scripture, but rather is something that arises from Scripture itself (this is, of course, compounded by evidence that it external to the Bible). As such, in order to analyze what it means that it is inerrant, to see it this way, we need to analyze Scripture within its context. This requires that we look at genre, look at situational context, look at the purpose of the writer and the time…those are things we are going to look at when judging anything like accuracy or truth. If, instead, we want to impose an external standard of inerrancy on Scripture that does not arise from its pages itself, well, good luck with that. - Said another way, we are going to judge a child’s second grade essay on his pet turtle quite differently than we are going to judge an article written by a herpetologist. - The instant we take Scripture out of its own context and put it into a foreign one is the instant we lose the idea we can even talk about “inerrancy” unless we are content to suggest that the situational context and cultural genre of the books are of no importance whatsoever. - My point is, there is no need to erase the unique elements of the time or people who wrote and edited the Bible. We ought not to suggest that the humans who wrote the Bible had nothing to do with writing the Bible. Doing so would lift the Bible out of its historical context. It would make it, in a sense, *less historical.* It would make the Bible harder to read and understand because the way we understand ancient languages is by studying them in association with other ancient languages. - Here’s a question. Do historians use myths? Considering the points I laid out before, you might be tempted to say that they don’t. - But they do. They use Egyptian mythology, for instance, to study the reigns of pharaohs. Egyptian mythology is, I believe, crucial to Egyptian chronology. The inclusion of god narratives in texts which reference pharaohs do not preclude historians from using these texts. So we must ask why there is a double standard for why the Bible is not used, also, to confirm the historicity of past events. - It’s an interesting question, but now let’s look more closely at the genre of mythology. Though there are many frameworks within which we can study mythology, such as comparative anthropology, psychology, and theology, we are going to focus on comparative literature. ## Genre: Form Criticism - First of all, it’s helpful to suggest and realize that just because we have categories in place to sort our texts into, that does not mean our text needs to be confined to what we say about this label in general. It might be more useful to ask what the intention of the text is. But looking at the intention of the text is already one major way we compare it with other texts, although for many texts it is difficult if not impossible to uncover the actual original purpose, so we are often left with looking at the content rather than the way the text was used. The trouble we get into is when we start to impose our ideas and values onto the meaning. That’s the point we were getting into with the discussion on history. When we want to tell the ancient person that their intention of explaining their origins is “not historical,” then we are judging their intentions by our standards. That’s…that’s a major problem if you ask me. - Let’s get into how scholars talk about comparative literature. “Form criticism” is a fancy name for studying genre. It looks at the form of literature and works to fit it into a context through which we can compare diverse pieces of literature with one another—what was the purpose of the text? How did it or does it function in society? What are common elements that the text has with others of its contemporary time? The dissimilar elements matter, too, but first we must look at the similarities. We don’t want to go comparing a legal ruling with the rules of a board game. - The important thing is to keep our study and our value judgments rooted in the time and culture rather than trying to meld it with the way we think today. This is harder than it might seem, and we might even think that we are being successful at this when we’re actually not. So it’s something to keep in mind. - At any rate, because we are far from the original writing and editing of the text, the common reader tends to miss “genre cues” (LBD). - What are the “genre cues” of mythology? (LBD) - Archetypes/symbolic figures - Archetypes, to us, often suggest an element of “unhistoricity” when this is not necessarily the case. George Washington or Abraham Lincoln, for instance, were real people but many think of them as archetypical presidents. There were many emperors of Rome, but we tend to lump all of them into one or two historical Caesars. Real figures can become the symbol of the office or position. All other examples are compared to these archetypes or include them in some real historical way; every President has a political lineage of sorts that can be traced back through history to the archetype—even if in antagonistic reaction. - In addition to archetypes and symbolic figures, myths are set in a particularly significant time. Or they might be set outside time entirely, or in some primeval era. - Of course, myths have divine beings interacting with and affecting the world in some way. - I think I mentioned this before, but myths are a “narrative outworking of a particular worldview.” They are, in other words, foundational and explanatory. What is happening in current time is supposed to be viewed through the lens of mythology. - Though I hate to bring up this point again, myth can be seen as prescientific/scientific thought because it functions to explain the world. Not all myths are about politics or morality. Sometimes myths can explain why there are different kinds of rocks in the world, or how mountains or rivers came to be. - Mythical time also serves as the basis for civilization, the explanation for how the people came to live in cities with amazing and benevolent rulers. - Ritual and festival practices often connect with this - and it is the justification for social order and authority. - These genre cues help us to find where various types of literature line up together so we can look at them through comparative eyes. - Does literary study have to be something that opposes our study of theology? Of course not. Theology does tend to be more on the systematic side rather than narrative, but I dare say that we can’t do theology without also doing literary study. - Let’s read what John Walton has to say in *Dictionary of Theological Interpretation* in the section titled, *Ancient Near Eastern Background Studies*: - We have come to think of the material provided by comparative studies as anti-theological when in reality it has the potential to serve as a guide to understanding some of the theology of the text. Here is the extended syllogism: If: ``` (a) comparative studies provide a window to the ancient worldview; and (b) Israel in large measure shared that ancient worldview; and (c) revelation was communicated through that worldview; and (d) that revelation embodies the theological teaching of the text; ``` Then: comparative studies become crucial to the theological understanding of the OT. *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 41.* - If you don’t know what a syllogism is, a syllogism is deductive logic where you have a premise, or initial concept, that builds up through related premises to reach a conclusion. This makes up a logical argument—not the kind of argument that is a disagreement but an argument that forms a type of logical evidence. In a properly-constructed argument, if the premises are all correct, then the conclusion is correct. - So what Dr. Walton is saying here is that comparative studies help us understand the worldview of the Bible; if revelation and thus theology is communicated through this worldview and this revelation, then comparative studies are extremely important to understanding theology. - You can see how these things all become interconnected. - I’m going to bring up three or four points that Dr. Walton further suggests in his article. Number one: - `God did not reject the entire world-picture of Israel’s neighbors, but used much of its structure as a framework for revelation` *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 41.* - This is seen by the fact that the Bible does directly reflect the same worldview and thinking as the ANE in general. The Bible does not demonstrate a culture or society that fell from heaven or was designed and implemented by God. The Bible is inspired; the Bible’s culture, on the other hand, is not. - Walton’s second point: - `God often used existing institutions and converted them to his theological purposes` *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 42.* - Similar to the first point, institutions are not inspired but, rather, are used. Some might say that either God accommodated himself to mankind’s practices, or that God’s use of those practices are “redeemed” by God’s use. Maybe God saw that the people were going to do these things regardless so he provided a way in which they could do them properly, with the right focus. We can’t really say, since there were no records. - Now, we might ask why and how these institutions exist. Many if not most truly stem from prehistory. Perhaps they stem from Adam in the garden for all we know. So there may be a structure that is inspired or that be said to be revealed. - An example of this might be the concept of the priesthood. Adam is not outright said to be a priest in Genesis, but the first chapters of Genesis provide many conceptual allusions to the priesthood. This could and probably will be a whole podcast episode in itself; for the moment, suffice to say that the imagery of the garden that is reflected in the temple and the language used of Adam in “keeping” the garden are both very priestly. - A question, though, is…does this mean that the office of the priest existed first in Adam, or did the writer of Genesis see how well he fit into the form of the priest, even though the priesthood did not exist at Adam’s time? The priesthood is an institution that mediates between God and man; Adam existed prior to the need of such mediation. - Either way, it might not matter except to historians who wish to get all the details correct in order. What matters to us, reading the Bible, is being able to trace these themes and motifs throughout the Bible so we can see what they reveal. - We find the concept of the priest in every ANE culture; therefore, we have a very wide view of who and what priests were. Again, we will definitely be exploring this in further episodes, so stay tuned if you’re interested in that. - Let’s move on to Walton’s next point: - `Revelation did not always counter ancient Near Eastern concepts, but often used them in productive ways` *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 42.* - If we think of revelation and other ANE material, we might think that the Bible is always polemical. While this can be said of many places in the text, it’s also common to see that there is no difference between the Bible and what other people of the time thought. There aren’t differences in everything. - Further, Walton says: - Literary connections do not negate inspiration of Scripture Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 43. - Literary and cultural similarities do not mean that we must assume that everyone in the ANE was inspired. Think back to our thoughts about the priesthood. Could the priesthood be an inspired concept that everyone then took on? - Sure, it’s possible. But it’s not the only conclusion we have to make. Corruption of inspiration might be a common practice. But so is Godly accommodation where God is fine with using what the people already have in place in order to put forth his purposes. - The idea of accommodation sometimes feels to us like a lesser option, like it’s cheating. For some reason, we prefer the idea of corruption. - But why? Why is it such a bad thing that God would lower himself to us so that we can understand him? - After all, isn’t that what we are to see in the incarnation of Christ? - Our final point from Walton: - `Spiritualized explanations must not be chosen when cultural explanations are readily available` *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 43.* - When I first read this, I thought, wait, what? What does Walton mean by that…because, depending on what he means by “spiritualized explanations,” I’m not sure I can agree with him. - Thankfully, he gives an example of just what he means… - In the account of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11, the traditional interpretation that goes back to the rabbis and the early church fathers suggested that the tower was a means by which the people were attempting to get up to God. Some suggested a specific objective such as overthrowing God or replacing him with an idol. Others proposed that the people were acting out their hubris and overstepping divinely established boundaries. - Okay, I’m going to break up the quote here and talk about this. This is the example Walton gives about “spiritualized” explanations…he is bringing up a theological explanation of the tower of Babel that doesn’t really have a direct connection with the text; it’s just an explanation that “sounds” good to us. This is, indeed, a “spiritualizing” of the text in that we need to figure out what is going on here and without context we are going to insert some ideas that sound like they come from the text but don’t. - Maybe you don’t believe me that this idea of “climbing to heaven” or “overthrowing God” isn’t actually there in the Genesis 11. Let’s read it ourselves. Here’s the first four verses: - Genesis 11:1–4 (ESV) 1Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” - It does say that they want the tower to have “it’s top in the heavens,” but that could mean a number of things, couldn’t it? Like…perhaps…it was very tall? - What does it say immediately after that? It doesn’t mention God. It says, “let us make a name for ourselves.” How would “getting up to God” accomplish this goal? Maybe the idea is that making a name for themselves is a type of overthrowing of God’s name being proclaimed? But their concern is that they not “be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” They seem awfully concerned about themselves rather than dislocating God. - See, there’s this trick to finding out what the Bible means, and that trick is to *read what the Bible itself says.* - It doesn’t say anything about getting up to God or overthrowing him. Now, I do think there is a reason that the text has been looked at in this way, and the framework is from earlier in Genesis with the eating of the fruit and “becoming like God.” So the idea is that this is another example of trying to be like deity…only this time by “going up to heaven” in some sense. Or perhaps this is them trying to return to sacred space. - That might be *thematically* relevant, but the trouble is, Gen 11 doesn’t really say any of that. It’s not silent about the people’s motivations. - What it does say is that they want to make a name, that they don’t want to be dispersed. It doesn’t sound like they actually want to go anywhere at all. - Let’s turn back to Walton again, who is suggesting that the idea of “getting up to God” is “spiritualizing” the text: - In contrast, analysis against the background of urbanization in early Mesopotamia identifies the tower as a ziggurat. In turn, a study of ziggurats demonstrates that they were not designed so that people could go up to the heavens or in an attempt to transgress divine boundaries. Instead, a temple was built next to the ziggurat and the idea was that the god would come down and visit his temple and people. There his needs would be met and, as a result, he would bring blessing and prosperity. Thus, Gen. 11 indicates that the tower was built, as all Mesopotamian ziggurats were, with its head in the heavens. Then it tells us that God did indeed come down, but not with the expected results. Rather than being pleased and bringing blessing, he was disturbed and reacted with punishment. *Kevin J. Vanhoozer et al., eds., Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible (London; Grand Rapids, MI: SPCK; Baker Academic, 2005), 44.* - If you keep reading, the text literally says that God came down. They actually achieved their goal in this tower/temple…only it didn’t quite pan out like they’d hoped. - This cultural reading of the text doesn’t mean that there is no “spiritual” or perhaps we might say “divine” meaning to it…so Walton isn’t suggesting that contextual readings lack theological punch. I kind of wish he’d used another word other than “spiritualizing,” but I’m glad he fleshed out what he meant with real evidence from the text and cultural studies. - So we have looked at myth in comparative literature studies and we have looked at how we can use the information of genre to inform our theological studies. There are other ways we could look at it, such as in study with anthropology and psychology. These methods of study, though very valuable, often transcend time and right now in this episode we are primarily concerned with trying to immerse ourselves in the thought of the ancient world. - - I would be remiss if I ended the discussion about looking at myths from a modern perspective without mentioning that famous quote that Dr. Heiser took his initial book title from. Perhaps you know the story where C.S. Lewis was walking with two close friends, one of them JRR Tolkien, who was then working on writing *The Lord of the Rings*, and Lewis told them how much he loved myths but lamented that they were all lies. - Apparently Tolkien greatly took issue at this and expounded the beauty of the myths that Lewis loved. He argued that Lewis loved myths not in spite of the fact that they are lies, but because they actually hold deep, deep truth. - In Humphrey Carpenter’s 1977 biography, Tolkien is quoted as saying, “Just as speech is invention about objects and ideas, so myth is invention about truth. We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed, only by myth-making, only by becoming a ‘sub-creator’ and inventing stories, can Man ascribe to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.” - A month later, C.S. Lewis wrote to a friend and said that the “story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with the tremendous difference that it really happened.” - The Bible records the myth that is true. ## Myth in Ancient Times - I fully believe that deep truths are embedded into our greatest stories, including myth. There are truths that abide through all of time, truths that do not die. - We are both incredibly similar as well as incredibly dissimilar to the ancient writers of the Bible. We need to understand the way they thought—their conceptions of reality, what they find important, how they related to things around them. And by studying mythology at large, we can study these similarities and differences that lie between us and the original recipients of the writings that make up the Bible. What things stand out about God’s revelation in comparison to the other material at the time? And what things are the same? - Another quote from LBD: - mythology offered a framework through which they viewed the outworking of all of life *Aubrey Buster, “Myth,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).* - We view the outworking of all of life through the lens of Scripture; Scripture is not a dry theological text but rather a great compilation of narrative and poetry and prophecy and vision and—well, I mean, mostly it’s story. It’s God interacting through people and events. - So what’s story? Story can be true or it can be made up. We think of narratives that didn’t happen…well, we think of those as *fiction*. - Even if a Sumerian or Babylonian priest or scribe sat down to write a fresh story straight out of their imagination, more or less (we know, for instance, that kings sometimes commissioned such work), myth is still not our modern genre of fiction. It might actually be a lot more like science. - Now, I need to explain this a little more, I think. Fiction, as seen and used today, is generally for entertainment—I mean, it can have purposes beyond this. Either intentionally or unintentionally, fiction can be used as propaganda or it can present a world or a story that has a definite narrative purpose. It can certainly present entire worldviews. So in a way, ancient myth and modern fiction can have similar purposes and similar workings. But, except in rare and extreme cases today, fiction doesn’t blur the lines between the real and unreal. Okay, yeah, there’s historical fiction—but with historical fiction, the person who is concerned about historicity will often suggest a disclaimer like—this may not be exactly how it was….or of course they made up the dialogue and this or that side plot….or this is pretty close to how it happened but they had to take liberties for the sake of the story….you see, there remains a strong distinction between “history” and “the story,” between “reality” and “fiction.” No one was making such disclaimers about their ancient myths. No one wrote a myth and told the king, “Okay…now, of course, O Great King, I made up the dialogue, but this is essentially how I think it happened.” No. They presented the myth in its fullness and there was no conversation about which parts were real and which parts weren’t; there was no conversation about how anyone made it up just out of pure imagination. They didn’t care; it was a formative story for them, though sometimes they might have acknowledged that some of their stories were just for entertainment or to present a good view of something. For instance, they used them as presentations to foreign delegates or they were meant to speak to the dynasty of a king. It’s likely, also, that there were stories which were written and not intended to be taken seriously at all, but nonetheless, *after time*, they were actually were incorporated into a description of the real world. People today don’t read a typical fictional story and say to themselves, this is a great story that we’re going to incorporate into our religious ritual and worship practice. No, with fiction we have a hard line that says “this isn’t real and we’re not going to treat it as if it is.” The ancients seemed not to have that hard line. - Okay, so not only were myths not generally “fiction” in a formal sense, they were intended or at least used to explain reality—in this sense, they were more real than the real world seen daily with physical eyes. - Again, I think this is a bit difficult to communicate because I do think that many original hearers of ancient myths would have known that they originated in the halls of the current regime. Sometimes the regime tried tricking them into thinking that they didn’t actually just make this up out of whole cloth, of course. One way we can know that this happened is that we have some inscriptions that we have dated to a pretty firm era, but the scribes wrote them in a way that they looked like they had been written in a time long previous, using ancient-to-them forms of writing. But though the people might have been fooled as often as we are today, ancient people weren’t stupid; I’m sure they often knew there were current political reasons for the stories they were hearing. We can’t always say how much the common person would have taken in these stories as opposed to rolling their eyes and saying, sure, sure, whatever you say, “Your Highness”…. But many people had to think that this was an effective way of legitimization. - All this talk about myth vs science is not to say that there were no writings in the ancient world that seemed to correspond more closely to how we see science. There are, for instance, tablets with astronomical calculations and that kind of thing, the kind of thing that we would see as “pure science,” (except of course back then it probably remained anything but objective observation—the stars formed a big part of how the ancient world incorporated themselves, as a people, into the cosmos). Cosmology—the description of the world, its shape and origins—was always connected to the gods. In fact, “cosmic geography” is also a big deal in the Bible. - What do I mean by “cosmic geography”? This is the melding of the physical world with the world that we cannot see, the world of the gods. “On earth as in heaven.” The boundaries of nations, the tops of mountains, groves of trees, rivers—these were not only physical aspects of the earth; they had some importance to the realm of the gods. - In addition to the way the world was seen to work, myth also had much to do with the way that politics worked. Myths were often used for propaganda or flattery. They were used as polemics to show which god was greatest and why one people was conquered and another people became the victor. - Another quote from Sparks: “What is interesting about these polemic exemplars is how close their content and form was to the myths with which they competed. This suggests, not surprisingly, that polemical myths were most effective when they adhered closely to accepted mythical patterns.” (Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible, 336) - This is interesting because we can see polemical elements in the Bible. So it should not be surprising to find other texts which reflect so closely to the biblical one since this was such a common practice at the time. What would be strange is if the Bible didn’t participate in these types of common tropes of writing. - It is also quite possible that other people took the stories of the Bible (perhaps especially the earliest tales) and made them their own, either through direct correspondence or through the fact that both the Bible and the myth arose from a common, earlier source. Sadly, our historical record from the earliest millennia of writing is far, far from complete. - Another important point that relates to this is how often mythic motifs were reused in the ancient world. They were really not a people who seemed to prize narrative originality. As Sparks says, “As a general rule, the traditional societies of antiquity would not have embraced excessive theological novelty.” *(Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible, 338)* - Editorial work is quite obvious in the existing ancient writing that we have, including stringing stories that seem to have been separate before into now-cohesive narratives. Or at least, mostly cohesive. - Now…I don’t know about you, but I still find it difficult to think this way. When I read a modern novel, I expect it to be cohesive, I expect it not to include any elements that aren’t integral to the plot, to be innovative and fresh and original. This is not how the ancients wrote. They wrote for their own purposes. And they did not have our sensibilities. - A good example of ancient people bucking against what we would expect them to do is in the realm of parallel text traditions. I mean, where we have the same story or the same characters in different narratives, so that either the same thing is happening to different gods or the same god is doing the same thing but in radically different ways. Many times there are details between these parallel stories that do not match up. - It might make perfect sense to see a similar text from two different places which contradict one another. But what is strange is when we see these contradictions within one place and time where surely people would have seen and cared about the discrepancies. …Wouldn’t they? I assume they care because I assume they are concerned with consistency. - I find myself thinking about it in terms of chronology and facts and accuracy. They seem to have thought quite differently than me. - For instance, have you ever tried to understand Egyptian cosmology and origins of the world? I want there to be a nice, systematic way that they taught this. But it’s a mess! An absolute mess. It’s a mess in part because of Egypt’s long history and transfer of power through dynasties and war and the like. Different gods were seen as more powerful at different times because of a change of the seat of power and that kind of thing. But it’s also a mess because they have “contradictory” texts about gods…within the same temple, written (or at least transcribed) at the same time! - In the temple of Horus at Edfu, there are five accounts of Horus’ victory over Seth. Five! These accounts are written right next to each other! - Each account displays Horus in a different way. The point apparently wasn’t historicity; the point was to show off how cool Horus is. Each story put something unique about Horus on display. - We began by talking about mythology in relation to origins. There was no set definition in the ancient world between the supernatural order and the natural order; they were one in the same. Thus, in mythology we see the beginnings of life, we see how humanity is positioned in the cosmos, we see the themes of how and why society was structured the way it was. - There is a frequent theme of order vs chaos in mythology where creation must continually be renewed to push back against the chaos. - This was the place of ritual—where actual participation connected the myth with the people. The ritual participation brought the reality of the myth into intersection with the lives of the people. - Here is another way in which we see the difference between myth and fiction. Myth was a real part of human lived life rather than a bedtime story to read around the campfire. Since myth frequently revolved around the purpose and function of ritual, myth was an ever-present reality in the ANE. Narratives were part of the ritual life of society—stories being told publicly, out loud, as many couldn’t read. Festivals and meals were orchestrated around these stories. Sometimes the myths gave the reason for the ritual in the first place. - We still might be having a hard time understanding how we are to look at myth and ritual today because it is difficult to put off our thinking and put on the thinking of another people and time; we might still be wondering what is the point? There might remain a chasm of thought between now and then that we struggle to bridge. - But don’t we have places today, in Christianity, where this real playing out of ritual also occurs, seen to varying degrees depending on which historical tradition you participate within? The practices of baptism, the Eucharist or the Lord’s Table, prayer, liturgy, song, reading of Scripture, the celebration of holidays…these are all ways in which we participate in our formative narratives as a people. We push back against the forces of darkness and chaos when we participate in these things. We find ourselves renewed, recreated in a real sense. A literal sense. These things actually matter. - ## Summary - I was hoping to get into more nitty gritty details of some actual examples of myths in this episode, but it was first essential to lay down some groundwork for the importance of myth and how it becomes useful in our Bible study since I don’t want to suggest that these are only interesting esoteric details. In order to be able to connect the details of ANE mythology into our own worldview in some way, we need first to understand where and how they intersect with what we already have. - I am hoping that you can see how thinking about the literature like this can help us explain these textual connections. Too often I see people jump to one conclusion and stay there, not knowing that there were other conclusions that were within jumping distance. The idea that the Bible is “just like any other ANE literature” and thus is not reliable revelation is simplistic thinking. The idea that the Bible might not always conform to our idea of history is often a great—and unnecessary—stumbling block in the faith of many. And the suggestion that there is only one right way to interpret the Bible is a sad state of affairs that divides many in the body of Christ unnecessarily or casts negative light on those with whom we should be studying the Bible. ## Outro - Thank you, once again, for listening to Genesis Marks the Spot. I am truly humbled that you all choose to join me on my journey of exploration here because I learn new things myself with every episode I research. And thanks to those of you who come interact with me online in social media and through email, as well. For those interested who aren’t already there, you can find me in the world of Facebook at Genesis Marks the Spot and you can email me at [email protected] Feel free to send me questions or ideas for episodes. I also have a site at [genesismarksthespot.com](http://genesismarksthespot.com) where you can listen to all of my episodes and also access bonus links and files for most of the episodes. - Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next week.