Here are several possible ways to define myth. Which of these (or more than one) do you mean by the word? I think you're using #2, right?
1. The literal sense of myth, from the Greek mythos, is simply "sacred story." This says nothing about its truth or falsity, historicity or nonhistoricity—just that it is a story and that it is sacred, or about sacred things.
2. The popular sense is simply "something that didn’t really happen," or "something that isn’t real"—like Santa Claus. Here myth is contrasted with truth or fact. This is the sense in which most people are concerned about the stories in the Bible, especially the miracle stories: did they really happen, or are they only "myths," that is, mere fictional human inventions?
3. A more technical and narrow sense of myth that is often used to describe biblical stories, especially miracle stories, is that of a literary genre that includes fantasy, talking animals and stories of the gods. These are supernatural stories that are not literally true, nor are they meant by the storyteller to be taken as literally true, but as a way of explaining natural facts by supernatural (or natural) fictions. Both supernatural stories of gods and talking animals, and natural stories like Jesus’ parables, fit in this category.
4. Another technical meaning, unusual outside professional circles, is that of a projection of human consciousness out onto reality. In this sense, Kant’s theory of knowledge ("the Copernican revolution in philosophy," as he called it) is the claim that all human knowledge is myth. In a narrower sense, dreams are myths if while we are dreaming we take them for objective realities.
5. A much broader, but still technical and professional, use of myth is "any story meant to articulate a worldview." This sense would include both literally true and fictional stories, but it is usually used with the connotation of fiction.
6. A last sense, also quite broad and quite technical, used in literary more than biblical circles, is that of a Platonic archetype in story form, a universal truth about human life expressed in a story. The story is usually fiction, but not necessarily. Christ’s resurrection, even if factual, would also be a myth in this sense, as the pattern for our resurrection.
These definitions from Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli
For those interested...
ReplyDeleteI mentioned in a previous post that most old earth/young earth arguments assume time as a constant, which it is not. This article offers some very interesting perspective on that issue. BTW...Answers in Genesis is committed to a young earth view, which makes this especially interesting.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/v17n2_cosmology.pdf
The trouble I'm having with your posts is that you keep using Christian writers definitions of terms. You also keep avoiding answering my dang question! I don't care what N.T. Wright, Peter Kreeft, Ron Tacelli, Kant, or any other person believes. I want to know what YOU believe.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'll respond to your post a little later. I've got to wrap up some guitar tracks first.
XO
J
But I am a Christian. When I use terms I mean them from a context that assumes that worldview. I don't really have any other options. I use definitions in order to create understanding of how I use words.
ReplyDeleteI finally read a bit of this "answeringgenesis" pdf.
ReplyDeleteI'm gobsmacked. This is the epitome of bad science. Science, done properly, proposes a theory. You then test that theory. Basically, try and prove it wrong. If you can prove it wrong then it is. If you can prove it true then it is true. If you can neither prove nor disprove it then it remains a theory. But a theory that has not been proven.
The problem with this "science" is that it is trying to prove ancient literature as scientifically true.
I'm glad they didn't work on the Polio vaccine in such a manner.
Of course it's just a theory. So is much of S Hawkings stuff. And relativity was a theory until it could me measured. I'm just presenting that some fairly serious scientists are looking at cosmological models that incorporate relativity. I think it's interesting stuff. Complaining that theoretical science isn't the same as lab science is just stating the obvious.
ReplyDeleteYou don't expect me to not whine and complain do you? I'm a Liberal!! It's ALL WE EVER DO!!! ;)
ReplyDeleteI hope you're having a ball in London my friend. One day we have to take a trip like that together. Seriously, that would be UNBELIEVABLE fun!!!