{"id":386,"date":"2009-11-15T10:46:52","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T10:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/11\/calling-the-bible-a-myth-may-n.html"},"modified":"2009-11-15T10:46:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T10:46:52","slug":"calling-the-bible-a-myth-may-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/11\/calling-the-bible-a-myth-may-n.html","title":{"rendered":"Calling The Bible A Myth May Not Be Such A Bad Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

This short article by Robin Yassin-Kassab<\/a>, makes an intriguing claim about the wisdom of seeing the Bible, or any sacred literature, as mythology.<\/p>\n

Myth<\/a> doesn’t mean untruth any more than a great novel does. Myth is heightened truth. A myth is perhaps more ‘true’ than reality because reality unfiltered is unstructured and unexplained. The fact that God uses human myths to talk to humans need not perturb the religious.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The idea that a myth is something different from a lie, and possibly more important than a simple factual truth, is not new even if it remains provocative and that is why I share this with you. Is this so different a claim than that made by the Sages of 2,000 years ago, that “the Torah was given in human language”? The idea that the infinite One could reveal in human language the full meaning of God’s will is actually pretty arrogant on our part.
\nThe article itself is overly simplistic and far too impressed with the results of a simple comparative of religions approach which notes the similarities of the Gilgamesh epic and the story of creation as found in the Hebrew Bible. But the larger issue of our ability to think bigger about the stories we hold to be sacred endures.
\nUltimately, this author asks us to think about how big these stories are, and how the bigger they are, the more elastic their meaning will be. In a world of endless battles between too many who either see literal truth or no truth at all in the Bible, those are important questions to ask and to answer.
\nWhat do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This short article by Robin Yassin-Kassab, makes an intriguing claim about the wisdom of seeing the Bible, or any sacred literature, as mythology. Myth doesn’t mean untruth any more than a great novel does. Myth is heightened truth. A myth is perhaps more ‘true’ than reality because reality unfiltered is unstructured and unexplained. The fact…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judaism","category-pop-culture","category-religion"],"yoast_head":"\nCalling The Bible A Myth May Not Be Such A Bad Idea - Windows and Doors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/windowsanddoors\/2009\/11\/calling-the-bible-a-myth-may-n.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Calling The Bible A Myth May Not Be Such A Bad Idea - Windows and Doors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This short article by Robin Yassin-Kassab, makes an intriguing claim about the wisdom of seeing the Bible, or any sacred literature, as mythology. 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