Stories work best. We’re all susceptible to them. As Yuval Noah Harari demonstrates in Nexus, we absorb them far more readily than cold hard facts, evidence, statistics. A narrative means much more to us, which is why humans have told stories since we evolved the ability to speak and, later – much later – write.
The gospel authors knew this and dressed up their beliefs about their heavenly saviour as stories about a man who lived and died in Galilee a few decades earlier. As we know, these stories became popular, were repeated and reshaped down the years by the church, still drawing people in today. They are effective because they’re memorable: the Nativity, the temptation in the wilderness, the miracles, the trial before Pilate, the crucifixion and resurrection are all well constructed narratives that draw on archetypes of human experience.
Within these stories, Jesus is made to tell his own: he, or more likely his writers, knew this was the best way to drive a point home. Even today, many people know at least the outline of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son and the Lost Sheep. Only a few can repeat, far less explain, Paul’s convoluted theology from Romans. The gospels are effective because they, and the stories within them, are well put together, relatable and memorable. This does not, however, mean they’re true in any meaningful sense.
That’s the problem with stories. It’s difficult to know whether they’re true (as in factual), convey (universal) truths, contain some element of truth or are entirely untrue. What we need to do is search for any evidence that supports or refutes them. Very often we don’t. We accept them on the basis of their plausibility or on the authority of those telling them. Their pedigree plays a part too – as with ancient religious claims – as does the way they’re often accepted uncritically by other people. Our own predisposition to believe certain stories (but not others) is a factor too. Then there’s the way that constant repetition of stories endows them with the ‘illusion of truth’ or, as Nazi leaders put it, ‘repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.’ It’s a maxim still applied today.
Not many of us hunt down the evidence for ourselves, and sometimes there isn’t any to hunt down: did George Washington really chop down his father’s cherry tree and follow it with his ‘I cannot tell a lie’ shtick? Probably not, but there’s no way of knowing for sure – and surely millions of people who do believe it can’t all be wrong. Very often we are complicit in our own conditioning.
How about stories that circulate today? Next time I’d like to offer some examples. In the meantime if you have any suspect narratives we’re subject to, please let me know.
rejectingjesus, 
When you think about it, every narrative is a story. But as you know that isn’t the whole story (pun intended). Stories come in a variety of genre from news stories, which used to be a report of something that happened based only on facts, to narrative poetry and ballads. The stories in the Bible are not news stories. There was no such thing at the time they were composed. To read them as news stories is a mistake. But if we read them as they were intended, wonderful insights emerge.
The stories in the Bible also are not myths, not as we define myth today. You can find myths in the ancient Sumerian literature.
One of my most interesting projects has been to examine the primeval oral traditions of Genesis 2-11 from the point of view of culture and literature..
The earliest of those stories is probably the oldest story in the world and dates to around 12,000 years ago. It is told in the form and style of an oral tradition and has the marks of that genre. It is not a news story. It is not even a historical narrative as we think of that genre. It is a sacred story and an allegory mixed with real details that were probably added by the editor when it was transcribed 8,000 years later. It should be read as a literary piece based on a real event that happened in time and place about the time of Gobekli tepe, in fact, and in approx the same location. When we do, we find itr is remarkable and amazing. And the truth (all good literature is intended to convey truth) is worth pondering.Enjoy the read, my friends. .
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So tell me if I’ve got this right, Don:
The Bible is not news reporting; it is not therefore factually true, even though millions of your fellow Christians ‘mistakenly’ think it is;
The Bible should be read like any other work of fiction (A Tale of Two Cities was your comparison);
While the Bible is fiction it is most definitely not myth (even though at least some of it, like the Nativity, Abraham and Isaac, the Exodus etc etc, most certainly is);
The Bible should not, as a result, be read as myth.
So tell us, Don, just how should the Bible be read, now you’ve dismssed all these possibilities? (My money is on you saying ‘as metaphor’ even though you’ve previously been unable to tell us what it is a metaphor for, not forgetting that ancient metaphorical stories are essentially myth.)
I’m sure you’ll know best!
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You are using a semantic trap, Neil. I am trying to be clear, but we are reading from different dictionaries.
News reporting as a genre follows the usual guidelines of newspapers. It is just the facts. But there are other genres like history. History is not news reporting. It is a narrative created from facts that ties the facts together in a causal relationship.It does not need to report every fact. But there is also rarely unbiased historiography. The same story of a battle in the 2nd WW told by an American writer and a Japanese writer will be different. We Americans might say THEY are spinning the account, but we both know that everyone spins the account to make their own point. So, in the Bible, some history is hero story without an attempt to be unbiased. That is what the Egyptian histories were.
When we demand something like unbiased reporting we will rarely get it in ancient literature. But you know that.
You know about reading fiction. Fiction,- good fiction – is not intended to simply entertain. It has a thesis, As The Tale of Two Cities has. It is illustrating a point of view the author has. That is the comparison I was making. I do not say there are no actual fiction stories in the Bible. But it is difficult to say for sure. Esther may be. But even that genre mixes things up as in historical fiction. We usually read historical fiction as historically based but having a fictional plot. There may be real people portrayed, but there will be fictional characters as well. I like historical fiction because the authors often paint a picture of the place and times we don’t get in history.
Myth is a genre that is understood so differently by different people that I try not to use it. I prefer either sacred stories or traditions. They are often highly stylized and theological, at least in ancient literature. They may be based on a real event, like the flood or the tower of Babel or on real people Like Jesse James. But they may also be completely fictional. But in even folk myths there is a reason for their creation other than entertainment. They carry a message or express a truth that the author and those who [ass them on believe to be important. So if you are going to continue to use “myth” you’ll need to define what you mean. You might also explain why you think Abraham is a myth.
Metaphor is not technically a genre. Allegory is. Metaphors are comparisons between two different things often intended to give a more concrete or sensual description for a common event or thing. For example, the wind beat wildly upon the old cabin like a child with a toy drum rattling the tin plates in the cupboard.
The Bible does use metaphor and many other figures of speech. Hebrew in particular was a very literary language. But that should not be too difficult for you. Unless you come to the Bible expecting it to be simple and straightforward without the nuances of figurative language and the varied genre. Maybe that is part of your old Fundamentalist assumptions.
I know you understand these things, Neil. But others visiting the blog may not.
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A semantic trap, eh? Not unlike those Jesus used against the Pharisees.
So you’re going for historical fiction this time round. Fiction then, with a quasi-historical bent. At last we agree! As we might expect, the gospels fall into this category too. (Incidentally, I didn’t claim that metaphor was a genre but thank you for explaining it to me [snark]).
Real history, as I’ve pointed out before, does not involve angels, wandrin’ stars, devils, demons, miracles and resurrections. The Greek and Roman scholars contemporaneous with the gospels knew this, so the gospel writers have no excuse. They weren’t writing history, Don, they were creating propaganda. End of discussion.
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You lay out a pretty good explanation of how stories work. But as a literature guy, like myself, you know that stories can be more true than mere facts. They can be penetratingly true, as are these stories in the Bible and particularly the stories told by Jesus are for millions of people. Why is that less significant than the spare newspaper account of an event?
You know also that many stories can be factually true and significantly true as well. For example, many careful historians accept as factual the life and death by crucifixion of a first century Galilean who was maybe also a peripatetic preacher or rabbi whom we know as Jesus. Given that basic fact, why would you then attribute the parable stories he is reputed to have told to someone else?
You see where I am going. Where do you draw the line between factual and creative literature? But more significantly, why dismiss the parables as not authentically Jesus’ teaching? What criteria do you use?
You have a problem. It is the old camel’s nose in the tent dilemma. If you let one fact in as fact, where do you stop.? For my part, I don’t stop. Why? Because the whole gospel narrative is too coherent and coherent on too many levels to stop.
The gospel narrative is also has far more complexity and a verisimilitude that fiction at that stage of literary development did not have. It reads like a modern story not a first century story. And it has far mor nuances of personality than first century fiction. That’s a puzzle, don’t you think?
Has it been stylized? Sure. It is styled as an announcement – that is what “gospel” means. It is edited to achieve that purpose. The several Gospels are also written for particular audiences. And they seem to have used sources that were slightly different. The authors also seem to speak with individual voices. All those observations and more point to something more than a rousing story to entertain the masses.
How do you deal with all that?
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