One of my favourite things to talk about with my students each year are ancient myths. Myths shape culture and have become so deeply woven into the way that we think and speak today that they become essential to understanding much of the literature we read and even the various traditions that have developed in our own society.
One of the books I use in teaching writing second semester spends some time focusing on myths. In the first chapter of this book, they set about defining myth. When we get to this part, I always ask my students to think of the different myths they have heard and tell me what a myth is. Most of them end up giving examples from greek mythology, and I usually get the same basic list of criteria for a myth: heroes, creation of the world, origin of cities and people, wars, invention of technology, explanations of events using supernatural means, etc. I then ask them, “Are the stories that the ancient greeks told about Zeus, and Hermes, and Poseidon myths?” To which they all respond in unison, as good elementary school students do, “Yes!” I then ask, “What about the myths we read studying the vikings about Thor, Odin, and Loki, are they myths?” “Yes,” they reply. Then I throw them a curve ball, “What about the Bible, is it a myth?” “No!” they all respond almost before I have finished the question. And then they all sit up shooting daggers at me with their eyes, because I said, “Yes!”
Now, before I am misconstrued as a heretic, as I my fourth graders usually conclude at this point, let us look at the meaning of the word myth. The book from which I teach defines a myth as, “An ancient story not based on actual events, with gods, goddesses, and heroes,” but this definition says too much. This is not the traditional understanding of the word myth. If we turn instead to the Oxford dictionary, we will find what I believe is a better definition. Their first definition reads, “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.” A myth is a story that tells the origins and struggles of a people. These stories usually contain supernatural events: events that do not normally occur inside of the normal world where we live. But nowhere in this latter definition does it assume that the story is false. The idea of a myth always being false is something that we have added in our own minds over time, because when we say myth we think first of the pagan myths of Greece and Rome. However, this has not always been meaning of the word myth. Our word “myth” comes from the greek word “μῦθος” (muthos). This word may be translated as speech, saying, fable, or story. It is also important to note that the lexicon does not specify that the story or speech is a false one. In fact, it is used in places to refer to both true and false stories. Truth or falsehood does not make a myth.
A myth is a story of the history and origins of a people, often with extraordinary or supernatural events. If we accept this as the definition of myth, then we see that the Bible itself falls into the category of myth. The whole Bible begins with the story of Creation ex nihilo by God in seven days. Then we get the story of the Flood and the Tower of Babel. These three alone have “super natural” involvement by God and angelic beings. With Abraham we see the beginnings of the nation of Israel that is to come. In addition, the genealogies also give ample records of all of the nations of the known world after Noah, so in a sense we get the origins of the whole world as well. Then in the New Testament we begin to see that this story has not only been the story of Israel, but is also the story of Christ and his church. In the New Testament we get the extra ordinary, miraculous works done by Christ himself, and then we get the story of the Acts of the Apostles and the spreading of the Church to the nations. We see that the Bible does indeed fit our criteria for a myth. “What then,” you might ask, “is the point of our faith if we are just another myth? What sets us apart from everyone else?” The answer to that is quite simple: “We are different because our myth is true.”
“What is your point then?” one might push back further. “Why waste so many words on such a trivial idea? You’re just trying to be antagonistic by saying something that sounds heretical to defend an insignificant point.” The point I am attempting to make is far from insignificant. On the contrary, it is a point that is vitally important to understand especially in our current day and age. Everyone believes some “myth.” The Greeks believed that the Gaea, the Earth, and Uranus, the Sky, produced the first living beings, who then ordered the world. We Christians believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth in seven days through the power of his Word. The National Health Institute believes that over fifty billion years ago the universe exploded from nothing and eventually mankind evolved from apes. Everyone believes in some myth, but we must learn to recognize which one is the true one. Far too often even Christians fall into the trap of accepting the mythology of the scientific community in the place of Scripture because it is “rational” or “ verifiable.” “Science” declares that it has no mythology, because it holds only to empirical facts. When we allow this claim to go unchallenged we are opening the door for the dismantling of Christian society. No, science is not purely based on facts. Facts must be interpreted, and to interpret requires the interpreter to have some idea or view of how the world works: i.e. a mythology. For the Christian, the tool of interpretation must be the Bible. If someone claims to be a Christian, but does not look to Scripture as the tool to understanding everything they experience, then their claim to Christianity must be questioned. Christians cannot seek answers from external sources before we have listened and submitted to the teaching of scripture. Now, the Bible is not a science textbook, and and I am not attempting to claim that it is. However, it provides us with a true account of historical events in the story God has been telling since the beginning, and this should be our starting point in seeking to understand creation.
We cannot give into or accept the lie that “Science” is purely objective and deals only with facts in its own field. Modern contemporary Science begins on a false assumption of history: God does not exist. They do not want God to exist and have thus concocted their own story to explain the order of the world apart from him. Their mythology gives them a false understanding of the world. Objectively speaking, there is not much to prove that their myth is any more true than our myth. None of us were there in the beginning. We are all operating by faith in our chosen mythology. However, while the traditional scriptural reading of events has endured relatively unchanged, the modern scientific account seems to change every couple of years. The proposed age of the Earth is ever increasing, new inconsistencies in the fossil records keep being discovered, dates of historical events keep getting shifted around. The “rational” scientific explanation seems to be anything but reliable. In contrast, those in scientific history who have begun with faith in the words of Scripture have faired far better in their studies. In fact, it was largely through these people that western society has been able to achieve the discoveries that we have made today. Why? First, because their studies were built on a foundation that didn’t shift. Second, because the christian myth makes better sense of the world where we live. When we examine the world around us, we find that it is much easier to believe that a benevolent Creator God designed and ordered everything we see than the alternative, which is that all was born from chaos. What is good in modern science was developed largely by men who believed the world was formed by a Creator God, and this belief lead them to understand rightly the world in which they lived and make strides to understanding its order. Christian mythology alone can lead us to an understanding of truth in the world, because we alone know the source of everything we see.
Mythology is not always false. A myth is a story regarding the origins of the world and the people in it. It tells of the many fantastic events that lead up to the time it was written. The Bible is a myth because it tells us where we came from and the fantastic works God has performed in history. However, it alone among all the myths is true. The world since Adam’s fall has sought to discredit the validity of the true myth, and we as Christians must not be shy about affirming what we know is true. The world tells its own false myth while accusing us of making assumptions and not maintaining objectivity, but we cannot allow them to commit such hypocrisy. No one is truly objective. We must hold fast to what God has revealed in his word. We are still living in this great story that he is telling. We cannot lay aside our mythology, because to do so is to forget who God is and what he has done.
Further Reading:
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On Fairy Stories by: J.R.R. Tolkien
Miracles by: C.S. Lewis
A House For My Name by: Peter Leithart
The Silmarillion by: J.R.R. Tolkien
Lord of the Rings by: J.R.R. Tolkien
The Space Trilogy by: C.S. Lewis
Relativity Visualized Ch.5 by: Lewis Carol Epstein
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