Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Sybil]

Shouldn't stories like those of Cain & Able, Adam & Eve, Abraham etc. be considered mythology if stories of Hades & Persephone, Heracles, Jason etc. are? What makes them so different besides the polytheism of Ancient Greece?

[jimwalton]

Just because other stories are considered mythography doesn't mean all stories are, or that the biblical stories are. I would assert that the Genesis story is markedly different in nature and purpose than any of the ancient mythologies, separating it from them. 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.

It also helps to understand that ancient historiography was not meant to relate what "really happened" the way we in our era approach historiography. T.M. Bolin has shown that we are often interested in historical reconstruction, whereas the ancient Israelites were interested in truth-telling literature. Glassner says, "The Mesopotamians had no profession of historian as we understand it today, nor its methods or perspective. As they saw it, the problem was not critical assessment of sources, nor was the question, fundamentally, knowing how and in what causal sequence events considered unique had occurred. The primary task was to choose, according to a definite focus of interest, among the carefully collected data from past events, certain facts that, from that point of view, had acquired universal relevance and significance." So the Genesis story is "event-oriented, truth-telling literature," but doesn't work the same way as modern historiography does.

In other words, John Walton says, "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." I would argue that the stories of Genesis are ancient historiography as distinct from ancient mythography, with a different purpose, referent, approach, format, ideology, and literary form. That's what sets Genesis apart from mythology.

[Good Thinker]

> I would argue that the stories of Genesis are ancient historiography as distinct from ancient mythography, with a different purpose, referent, approach, format, ideology, and literary form. That's what sets Genesis apart from mythology.

Genesis is not "historiography" by any angle you care to look at it. It is a myth since the supernatural elements are obviously not rooted in reality. Thus these recounts are fictitious and meant to be a sort of mistic allegory and a metaphorical story in an stone age attempt to try to describe an origin of the world. Of course you will have your bunch of theologian scholars trying to convey a beautiful explanation of why this should be considered real history and most believers will buy on it, but to the outsider of faith these are evident myths with no real value in this day and age.

[jimwalton]

> Genesis is not "historiography" by any angle you care to look at it.

I disagree quite strongly. The narratives in the text are presented as historic events, and there are good reasons to take them as such.

> It is a myth since the supernatural elements are obviously not rooted in reality.

I understand that this is your opinion, but you have no evidence to support this position.

> Thus these recounts are fictitious and meant to be a sort of mistic allegory and a metaphorical story in an stone age attempt to try to describe an origin of the world.

I disagree quite strongly. Again, they are written as historic events, and you have no evidence to support your claim that they are "meant to be" allegorical or metaphorical explanations of what they see and know.

> to the outsider of faith these are evident myths with no real value in this day and age.

Yes, I'm sure this is your opinion, but it's only an opinion and nothing more.