In my June 10 post (Hmmm, looks harmless enough...) I shared some things that would definitely raise eyebrows among the guardians of Christian orthodoxy. They’re not really controversial things, falling well within the range of traditional Christian thinking, but Evangelicals can be rather narrow, so I find I do upset some of them some of the time. The particular item I’m thinking of is my affirmation that there are myths in the Bible. I meant what I said, but I probably need to explain a little.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term “myth” has two definitions: 1.a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events... and 2. a widely held but false belief or idea..., The first is technical, the second popular. When I say that some of the biblical writing is myth, I am using the word in the technical or first sense.
The first eleven chapters of Genesis, for example, are best understood as mythical according to this first definition. They set forth traditional stories about the early history of, not just the Hebrew people, but, significantly, all people. They involve supernatural events but, being Hebrew, they are driven by only one supernatural being; God. Their purpose is to explain the natural and social world. And though they do in some sense purport to tell us how things came to be, that’s really of secondary importance. Their primary concern is the meaning of things as they are now. We do not really need to know how to create a cosmos, but it’s pretty handy to understand what the cosmos is, how the pieces properly relate to one another, and how the entire thing, including me and mine, relates to the one who made it all.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1 These are the first words of the Book of Genesis (Beginnings), and because the books have been arranged with Genesis first, these are the first words of the Bible as a whole. The first word of this sentence is the Hebrew word re'shiyth (ray-sheeth') and it’s a bit broader than the strict translation “In the beginning”. It also conveys what we would convey in English with expressions like: “first of all”, “to begin with”, “number one”, implying, not simply that this is the first thing that happened chronologically, but that this is the first and most important thing we need to know as we begin our story. And what exactly is this thing we need to know? That God created the heavens and the earth.
For us who have been raised in a culture familiar with the Bible this may seem an obvious claim, but it’s actually quite stunning. Other ancient peoples believed that there were many god’s, and that no one god, not even the one they principally worshipped, made everything. The Babylonians worshipped Marduk as the head of a pantheon of gods. He was Lord of the storm, the waters, magic and judgement, but he was the son of a god, and the father of many. The Egyptians give priority to Ra, the god of the sun. But, though he was sometimes conceived to be the creator of the world, he also lead a pantheon of gods. He was not the creator of everything, nor the god of everything, and certainly not the only god.
When we use the word “god” for God, we capitalize the initial letter. This is not piety, but merely English. “God” virtually becomes a proper name when you’re the only one. But the implications of consigning to non-existence all gods but the one you worship go far beyond the rules of grammar. As we begin the story, can you anticipate what some of these implications might be?
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