The ‘Mythistory’ of Genesis 1-11: Introduction
A New Outlet
3rd July 2020
The ‘Mythistory’ of Genesis 1-11: Creation (part 1 of 2)
24th July 2020Whilst deliberating for a short time as to what exactly I should entitle the next few upcoming posts, I genuinely believed I had coined a new word! Feeling somewhat proud and slightly conceited, I curiously Googled my new found portmanteau, only to be met with 42,500 results AND a self-titled book…The lesson? I’m really not that smart, self-praise is no praise and there truly is nothing new under the sun!
History vs. Myth
If you haven’t figured it out already, the word I am referring to is ‘Mythistory’ and the two words I was attempting to (unoriginally) fuse together are history and myth. The former needs very little explanation. History is something we are all a part of and in varying degrees have more than likely studied. By and large, it is the retelling of actual events that have happened and can be verified by means of evidence and eyewitness accounts - albeit at times from a bias vantage point. When we talk about history, more often than not we tend to think of it as a camcorder retelling of the past.
By contrast, myth is not particularly concerned with a literalistic or chronological retelling of the past, and from a modern perspective does not intend to simply ‘get history right’. It is a common ancient category, one that uses symbols and stories to address a reality that is significant to writers and their audience in their time and in their place. Put simply, myth is the way in which ancient people gave meaning to their present - in the same way history gives meaning to ours. As modern people we must however be careful not to import our modernistic assumption and relegate myth to something that is ‘untrue’ simply because it does not correspond with how we would describe our past. To do this is to miss the point of the genre and to undermine the purpose which it served within the world it functioned.
*** I do apologise if all this sounds somewhat profound and unnecessarily deep. It is difficult to define myth in such a way that it would fit concisely into a ‘mythology for dummies’ textbook (not that I am in anyway referring to this readership as 'dummies'!) The understanding of myth is however an important framework to grasp as we move forward both in this post and others to follow.
"...the Bible is diverse in its genre and its writers are able to communicate truths to their readers by means of varied literary styles."
Genre, genre, genre!
Genres come in many different flavours, from fiction to non-fiction to science fiction and everything in-between. Recognising genre is extremely important – for example, when choosing a movie on a romantic night-in so that you can quickly scroll past ‘Rom Coms’ in an effort to eliminate at least one category of film you have zero interest in! I’m (half) joking of course, but to stress my point again – this time with regards to literature - the importance of correctly identifying genre cannot be overstated, as if we misunderstand this, then we risk placing false expectations on the text; expecting it to act and read in ways for which it was never intended.
Take a comic book for example, a form of literature that we would most commonly categorise as fiction or fantasy. We would never pick up a comic with the intention of reading it as history - believing that Batman was a literal person and Gotham City a place we could jump into our cars and actually visit. In a similar manner, we would have no reason to doubt a newspaper headline that said ‘£10k wage increase for MPs’ and not believe that the writer was attempting to stir up his readers with a literal truth about our beloved Members of Parliament and their 'deserved' hike in salary! These examples show that understanding any form of literature is vitally important because it respects the intent of the writer, setting certain boundaries and allowing the reader to engage with the words and interpret them in the context within which they were intended to function.
Most of us with only a basic understanding of the Bible will know that it is in essence a library of books, sixty-six to be exact (at least in the Protestant tradition), each of which is composed in a particular style or genre; Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, for example, can be placed into the genre of Wisdom, Psalms is best described as Poetry and that strange book of Revelation is most commonly recognised as Apocalyptic Literature. I do not intend to offer an exhaustive list of literary types, but simply wish to highlight something which we are all probably aware of and unanimously in agreement with - the Bible is diverse in its genre and its writers are able to communicate truths to their readers by means of varied literary styles.
Genesis 1-11 is WHAT!?
Having said all that, I will now lay my cards on the table (as if you hadn’t already suspected!) and say that I am becoming more and more persuaded that Genesis 1-11 should be better understood within the genre of myth and less as an actual snapshot or camcorder version of history. Now, I appreciate that having read the previous sentence, some of you (after climbing back onto your chair) may have already clicked out of the blog! For those, however, who remain and are still somewhat intrigued, please allow me to elaborate and lay some foundations to my bold claim…
"...what Genesis 1-11 is doing, is both adopting and subverting the common ANE myths of its time and cutting through them to reveal unique truths and understandings about God, creation and people."
The ANE world
It is widely accepted that Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) people living in Mesopotamia – that is to say the region where ancient Israelites and their neighbours lived - were simply not interested in science and history, not because they were unintelligent or lazy, but because these modern categories were simply not available in the world in which they lived.
We must therefore ask what was the intent of the writer in Genesis 1-11 if not to give a chronological/historical and scientific account, and, equally as important, how would the readers have understood the text? As will be elaborated upon and developed in subsequent posts, I am of the opinion that what Genesis 1-11 is actually doing, is both adopting and subverting the common ANE myths of its time and cutting through them to reveal unique truths and understandings about God, creation and people. Whilst the opening of the first eleven chapters as a blow-by-blow literal account may not be - and I would argue probably isn’t - the intent of the writer(s), the truths were no less real for its ancient audience back then as they are for its modern audience right now - that is, I believe, if we humbly surrender our modern lens in exchange for an ancient one…
Pandora’s Box
I can appreciate that for many, to suggest a less than literal reading in favour of a more mythological understanding of Genesis 1-11 may at first sound like a strange and foreign concept. I am also not ignorant to the knee jerk reactions and theological concerns that have been raised in response to this interpretation – some of which may already be going through your head right now.
Questions such as - if we don’t take Genesis 1-11 literally then why stop there and refuse to take other parts of Scripture literally too? What about Adam and Eve, Original Sin and Noah’s Ark, all of which are alluded to in the New Testament? Did Jesus not actually exist? – you’re on a slippery slope here, Nick! Believe me when I say that I understand the concerns and do not intend to ignore them. Please know, however, I am not flippantly throwing this out there like some liberal sadistic anarchist who is hell-bent in destroying the Bible and your understanding of it - I have given this much MUCH thought and consideration!
A white-knuckle ride
It was during the final year of my undergraduate degree that this particular interpretation was first introduced to me, and it was one amongst many of Pandora’s boxes in Biblical interpretation that had been opened throughout my three years of study. At that time, however, I had a keen interest in 'science and the Bible' and more specifically a strong bias towards Young Earth Creationism (YEC) and Ken Ham’s Answers In Genesis (AiG), and so this was particularly painful! I was taken back and in many ways disillusioned by this alternate way of reading the text. Uncomfortable with this new lens I had to at least ‘borrow’ for both study and exam purposes, I ended up having to white knuckle it through most of the module as it continued to jar with my own understanding. Looking back, I guess in some ways I was feeling that this new way of reading the text was eroding the child-like wonder which the much simpler literalistic interpretation presented – one which offered me a front row seat to the creation of the universe as I watched in amazement how exactly God fashioned the Cosmos, and the step-by-step description of how the earth and its first two inhabitants were formed.
The months and years that followed led me to a place where I gradually began to see that succumbing to a different reading of Genesis was not nearly as detrimental to the text as I had initially believed. I started to appreciate how reinterpreting the first eleven chapters of Genesis in light of Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) myth, did not destroy the text and certainly did not lessen the inspiration behind it. I am also happy to report that the loosening of my historical grip of the opening eleven chapters of Genesis has not resulted in my theological wings falling off. I have not gone into free fall or needed to send out a mayday call for someone to save me as I spiral into a sea of doubt and ambiguity!
Paint that, Da Vinci!
Whilst I acknowledge the virtue in holding fast to ‘the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it’, I want to suggest that believing the Bible in this way, may not be as simple or as practical as it sounds, and reading the Bible literally certainly does not always mean reading the Bible faithfully. Let’s face it, no one reads the Bible literally from cover to cover, and no one should, because if we did then we would be left conjuring up some very peculiar images – not least of which is Jesus as a lamb, who is also a lion, who is at the same time a shepherd, a corner stone, a door and a loaf of bread…paint that into The Last Supper, Da Vinci!
These descriptions are of course all metaphors, and I of course am being intentionally ridiculous. The use of metaphor in these instances is employed by the author to help highlight a deeper and more profound understanding of Jesus, and my deliberate caricaturing is simply to highlight the fact that abandoning literalism is not the same as abandoning the integrity of the text. In fact, quite the opposite is true, we are actually upholding its integrity and reading the text for what it is and in the way the author intended. Similarly, giving way to myth is not analogous to giving way to lies. Rather, myth – if properly understood and appreciated for the genre that it is - serves as an aid to understanding the text in a richer and deeper way that literal history simply could not and cannot accomplish.
The God Who accommodates
I would appeal to you then, not to be too quick to dismiss or recoil at the idea of Biblical inspiration incorporating the category of mythology. If we have no problem in agreeing that God communicates truth through a wide array of genres (which we have previously talked about), then why not myth? It is often said that God ‘meets us where we are’. But why? Well, aside from the fact that it would be extremely difficult for us to meet Him where He is, God’s desire to meet us at our level, demonstrates His humble accommodation in His divine quest to make Himself known – the incarnation of course being the personification of this. If therefore, we truly believe that He desires to meet us where we are, and are not simply throwing this catchphrase about like some virtuous cliché, then why should we not at least entertain the notion that, perhaps – and in relation to Genesis’ opening chapters in particular - God may very well be accommodating the ancient readers where they were, through the genre that they knew best, in a bid to reveal truths about Himself, the world He had created and the purpose for which he intended them (and therefore us) to have within it?
If the lens fits...
I don’t for one minute expect that, having read up to this point, many will simply decide to abandon their literal reading of Genesis and jump ship to the mythological interpretation... nor would I encourage them to impulsively do so. From personal experience I believe that if large paradigm shifts such as this are to be made, they are best eased into; through prayer, careful study, critical thinking and a lot of chewing on the text! What I do hope to have achieved however, as I bring this rather lengthy introduction to a close, is that at the very least those reading this will be willing to appreciate why others may legitimately interpret the Bible in this way. I might also add that although this interpretation may be new to some, it is by no means a ‘new way’ of looking at the opening chapters of Genesis. This mythical approach has enjoyed a strong precedent throughout Church history and was in fact both upheld and promoted by a number of Early Church Fathers - including Origen of Alexandria (185-255 AD), who labelled anyone that read Genesis 1-11 literally as being ‘foolish’… Of course I would never be so insulting!
If the evidence shows that the opening chapters of Genesis are not merely an historical narrative of ancient journalism, then I believe we should strongly consider laying down our modern lens in exchange for one that best suits the text we are reading. As I have said already, I am becoming increasingly convinced that this seems to be a more helpful and fitting lens through which to read Genesis 1-11, however at the same time I also realise that the onus is on me to explain this, so let me begin, starting with creation…
