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[Taro Cardmaster]

> There's so much historicity in the story that we actually have reason to lean towards historicity than fiction or legend

I don't agree with this train of thought-- for example, I could make a fictional story that takes place in Chicago, using real details about Chicago's economics/religious systems/governmental systems/infrastructure/etc. I'll include very important statements about what I think about God in this story, also. Then I'll let 3000 years pass. Future people could verify that the details about Chicago are true based on what remains that alludes to the ancient Chicago and its people, but just because the real historical details I had included in my story are true, and perhaps verifiable still in the future, doesn't mean the whole story is true. Especially when there are really incredible claims in my story such as a plague killing many many of a heavily populated metropolis' firstborn sons, yet no extrabiblical mention of this incredible thing having occurred.

[jimwalton]

> I could make a fictional story that takes place in Chicago, using real details about Chicago's economics/religious systems/governmental systems/infrastructure/etc.

Of course you could, but a story of historiography and historical fiction would lead you to the firm conclusion that historical fiction was not an ancient genre. It didn't exist in their day as it does in ours. No one at the time wrote historical fiction or fictionalized accounts using historical places, people, dates, and names. That's why your argument doesn't work. Such fictional stories are part of our era and culture, but were not part of theirs.

[Taro Cardmaster]

Thanks for your replies and entertaining my thoughts. A sincere question— is there not historicity in ancient things like the Epic of Gligamesh? Ill admit that I haven’t read it, and certainly can read it sometime, but you seem knowledgeable of ancient literature and seem confident about how things truly were then, so figured Id just ask.

If there was historicity in the EoG, then your same logic of “if there’s historicity then we should lean towards calling it truth rather than myth” should apply.

If there is historicity in the EoG, but a modern Christian would in the end still say that the EoG is fiction despite its historicity (as it doesn’t support their theology), then that seems like you could summarize that it’s historical + fiction = historical fiction. If that’s not true, then it seems like what’s called historical fiction and what’s not is based on which gods are being supported more so than the historicity of the writings.
Perhaps one could argue that the differentiation between what is historical fiction and what is not is all about the sincere belief of the writers— one could say that the EoG is not historical fiction because the writers really believed all of it was true— but why couldnt the same be said of a modern writer who really believes that what they’re writing about the holy events and new god in Chicago is true (even if in hindsight readers find out that it’s not true) and it includes historicity. It seems like an inconsistency in reasoning.

In addition, many in this forum are saying that some incredible things in Exodus should be taken only as stories, not accurate events— thus at least partially fictional. Yet “there’s so much historicity in these stories”. But... doesn’t historicity + stories (stories equalling something that’s not an accurate event) sound a lot like historical fiction?

To me, “myths” seem like they could easily equate to historical fiction if they happen to include real historical things— it seems like two names that are referring to the same thing.

[jimwalton]

> is there not historicity in ancient things like the Epic of Gligamesh?

I would say there is a historical base. For instance, I believe there actually was a large, regional flood in which many people died, described hyperbolically by both the Bible and the Gilgamesh Epic (though they tell very different theological interpretations of the event). That might be as far as I would venture. No historicity in Gilgamesh has ever been verified.

> If there was historicity in the EoG, then your same logic of “if there’s historicity then we should lean towards calling it truth rather than myth” should apply.

So, as you can see, considering EoG as leaning us toward historicity is more than a stretch. One possible event out of twelve tablets doesn't imbue me with confidence. Nor would I even venture to call it historical fiction. Instead, it's mythography.

>many in this forum are saying that some incredible things in Exodus should be taken only as stories, not accurate events— thus at least partially fictional.

Yeah, I know they do.

> But... doesn’t historicity + stories (stories equalling something that’s not an accurate event) sound a lot like historical fiction?

No. Harry Potter is set in London, but nothing more. It's not even historical fiction, but fantasy set in London. Spiderman is in NYC, but nothing more. Again, comic book fantasy. These are vastly different from the Bible, where fact after fact has been confirmed, and there has never been any discovery to prove a part of the Bible to be false. Where there is a discovery, it affirms the Bible. Obviously, there are many things in the Bible that have not been confirmed or are unconformable, but the fact that its has thousands of people, geography, cities, cultural tidbits, etc. that HAVE been confirmed has to open us to the possibility that the author was writing historiography through his theological lens.

Where is there anything that has been shown to be "not an accurate event"?

> To me, “myths” seem like they could easily equate to historical fiction if they happen to include real historical things

Mythographies are not interested in portraying events (history), but want to show how the cosmos works and how it got that way. A myth is an attempt to explain reality from theological vantage point, and are not meant or trying to connect those stories, as stories, with events in the real world. Dr. John Walton writes, "Mythography has a different referent than historiography, yet is considered no less real. It may, however, be considered to pertain to a different plane of reality. ... each has a different focus in its expression of reality."

Mythography was cultural imagery set in fantastical language to express theological concepts. Though mythography often adopts a narrative form by recounting events (Zeus having a battle, for instance), it is generally not interested in those events as events that can be connected with the real world. They use mythographical narrative to explain the core reality of their beliefs and perspectives (Wisdom, fertility, life, death, anger, naturalism, etc.). It was not an attempt to portray historical events but rather theological concepts. Mythography deals with ideology.

The Bible is greatly different from other ancient and religious texts. It is vastly different from mythography, and presents historiography as representing actual events in the human realm. The supernatural realities of which the Bible speaks are of a different character than the ones of other cultures and their myths.