Myth and Fact

           Keith Olberman had a man on his program the other night who he described as a comedian, whom he also said was an atheist.  The guest justified all of this by describing the bible as a collection of stories without any factual foundation -- a collection of mythology.  I certainly couldn't argue with that.  It was a bit discouraging to me to have him base his atheism on such a fragile foundation.  Certainly the bible is full of myths.  It is the only reasonable way to describe God.  When scientists dismiss God or religion out of a concern that mythology is at the root of it, I wonder at their intelligence.  Myth is a wonderful way to describe God.  When I think of Moses encounter with God in the burning bush, I am not at all sure that the story happened in exactly the way that it is told in the bible.  I do know that what effect this encounter had on Moses was profound and was rooted in his faulty belief system that was overcome by the burning bush conversation that he had with God.  That moment with God, however it happened, is what brought Moses to the leadership of the Hebrew people in their escape from Egypt and their hegira in the desert for forty years, which is another mythological event.

           Even in the New Testament, myth has a firm place.  Who knows what Jesus' life was all about.  How was be born, and where; in Bethlehem, or Nazareth?  Was Mary a virgin, or is this an attempt to connect the birth of Jesus to Isaiah's prophecy?  How was Lazarus raised from the dead, and did it all happen just as John's gospel describes it?  All of these are attempts to tell a story, to describe Jesus as the incarnate God walking the earth, which is to me one of the most exciting ideas that I have ever known.  But how do you describe this without myth?  Jesus the human born in a stable in Bethlehem and raised to be a rabbi who somehow has the power to heal and to raise the dead to life, as well as provide enough to eat for five thousand people at one time, is a wonder in himself, but to describe him as God takes more than facts.

           The word "myth" has been equated with falsehood in this culture.  It isn't false at all.  Myth is a way of speaking truth that can't be comprehended by fact.  Myth is larger than simply a collection of facts.  It speaks to underlying meaning that facts alone can't provide. How, for example could you describe the creation of humanity better than the story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve?  To then turn around and require these events to be essentially factual is to make a joke of them.  When someone scales Mt. Ararat to look for the lost Ark of Noah, I wonder both at their faith and at their intelligence.  Certainly the flood is myth, and myth to tell truth.  The leading of humanity out of corruption by God's grace is the story of the bible.  To require it to be basically scientific and factual is to destroy it.