rmadison

Mageth

Originally posted by Mathetes
I agree that there is an anthropological and pshychological value in myths, but this is in spite of the myth being wrong. It was not their primary intent.

Well, we seem to be diverging from the topic a bit here, but this is a subject I find fascinating.

IMO, I don't think a myth is necessarily "wrong", nor do I think the myths, when invented, were necessarily intended to be "right", as in historically accurate. I think that such myths were created as "just-so" explanations for the unknown (I think the inventors knew the myths originated in their imagination), that metaphorical meaning was sometimes woven into them for "pshychological" or other reasons, and that there may have been other motives for inventing or co-opting the myths (e.g., in the case of the Hebrew Bible, to give the Hebrew tribe a more glorious "history" as a "chosen people").

We cannot be sure of what was in the head of whoever created the myth, but I personally think that the guys writing them really believed them (probably they were recording pre-existing myths, adding some more details if you want). Even if they did not, they intended future generations to believe them as true.

Well, I disagree, to a degree. I think that the originator of a myth knew that the myth he or she was weaving was not literally true (unless they were somehow mentally unbalanced). I think they knew they were inventing "just-so" stories. I think the translator of pre-existing myths into other mythologies may have thought that there was historical truths in the myths they were translating, but the modification of the stories to fit the mythology indicates further conscious "mytholization" (if there's such a word) of the stories.

Whoever read Genesis in the times of Jesus, he really believed that God created the world in one calendar week. He really believed the explanation for why snakes crawl. He really believed that there had been a global flood. He really believed that the Babel Tower was the explanation for the different languages in the world.

I don't think we can conclude that for everyone who read Genesis at that time or at any other time. Personally, I think some people 2000 years ago may have accepted the stories as history, and some may have understood them as myths. I don't think people back then were that different from people over the last 2000 years, up to and including today.

Whenever anybody in the Bible (Old and New Testaments) refers to an existing story, nothing suggests that they interpret that as non-literal myth. The gospels very clearly take for granted that Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, existed as described (maybe you can find a counter-example?).

That's hardly surprising, because the people in the Bible are part of the same myth, and the people who wrote the books of the Bible (including the Gospels) were mythologizers themselves! You'd hardly expect someone writing a myth of Jesus to discredit the myths that the Jesus myth is spun out of.

Magus55

Well, if you just use other books/sources, you get into circular reasoning. If no one that wrote a book on, had ever gotten first hand knowledge, then every source that follows is hearsay.

And how do you determine consistency? Read through it and if it doesn't make any claims you don't agree with, its consistent?

Magus55

Why are you ranting at me?

Mageth

Originally posted by Biff the unclean
But...to accept magic is to completely discard reason. So presenting a reason, like the complete absence of evidence, is useless.

I don't think so. It forces them to extend their magical explanations to the point that they become completely laughable. For example, for the Flood, it forces them to admit that, for the Biblical Flood to have happened as described, it would have to have been magically caused and magically erased. For all but the most unreasonable, this should make their position totally untenable. Note that Magus himself, while proposing magical causes for the Flood, seems to be insisting that there must be evidence for the flood that we haven't recognized yet (not even he has brought up the possibility of a magical cleanup operation after the flood; I suspect even he recognizes that doing so would also poof any "reasonable" belief in the Flood story into oblivion).

This appears to be some kind of mental problem like a phobia or obsessive compulsion. Better treated with medication than debate

I'd like to think of it as painting the Flood proponent into a corner from which there is no escape. Either accept the Flood as a totally magical event, and thus one for which there is no rational argument or evidence for, or give up and accept it for the myth it is.

Magus55

Depends what global flood you are talking about. There is no global flood if God didn't cause it. Without God, a flood of the Biblical magnitude is impossible.

Mageth

Originally posted by Magus55
Well, if you just use other books/sources, you get into circular reasoning. If no one that wrote a book on, had ever gotten first hand knowledge, then every source that follows is hearsay.

I'm having a hard time parsing that last sentence...

Note I mentioned other books/sources, archaeology, and the book itself.

It's simple, Magus. If one book makes a historical claim, the claim may be accepted with one level of confidence. If two books mention or corroborate a historical claim, the claim is accepted with a higher level of confidence. And so on. Just like some places ask you for two forms of identification.

And how do you determine consistency? Read through it and if it doesn't make any claims you don't agree with, its consistent?

Note that I said "consistency, etc." And your second sentence here is a bit of a strawman.

I'll give you an example of inconsistency. Considering the entire bible as one text (it's really a collection of separate texts), there are sections in some books that are directly inconsistent with other sections in other books of the Bible (I know you disagree with this, but grant it for the sake of argument). Now, since the Biblical text includes inconsistent, sometimes contradictory, accounts of the same events, one can discount the accuracy of the Bible as an historical text (or, at a minimum, the books in question or on the events in question). One can't tell for sure, without outside corroboration, which of some Biblical accounts may be "true" to some degree, if they are true at all.

Or consider another book that describes a reportedly historical figure. If, in one section, the book talks of the figure as having one father, but in another section describes the figure as having a different father, then the book is internally inconsistent. A bit of a contrived example, but I think you get my point.

As another example, if a book makes one or more historical claims that are corroborated by outside sources, other historical claims the book makes that are not so corroborated may be viewed with a higher level of confidence than if there were no other such corroborated claims in the book.

Likewise, if a book makes one or more historical claims that are contradicted by well-established outside sources, other historical claims in the book may be viewed with a lower level of confidence.

Mageth

This wins the yearly award for "Not Grokking the Post which it is in Response To" award, IMO.

rlogan

I think we are getting somewhere with our friends M&M discussing the "value of myths" as it were, and HerodonRomulus' point I will apply to it.

Having served in elected office I see much of this from a political perspective. Everything they say as leaders of people must be evaluated in terms of their political ramifications.

The discussion should not exclusively rest on what is "true" or "false" by observing the geological record and the application of science to the Ark's seaworthiness.

The motivations of the writers, good or bad, should be inspected because they too either add credence or give more doubt - to both the story and to the merit of the "lesson" in the myth.

Fear is a politicians best friend. It is the key ingredient in the Ark story. I appeal to HerodonRomulus' point here - to what use its the Ark story put? Doesn't knowing this help us to both evaluate the message as well as the story itself?

Mageth

Good points.

I would add that, when a myth is misinterpreted as history, as some do the Flood myth, it loses much if not all of the metaphorical significance that the author may have intended. One is reduced to the rather simplistic, and cruel, conclusion that God historically drowned every man, woman, child, plant and animal on earth (with the exception of the denizens of the Ark) because they were "bad" and he "repented" or regretted that he had created them. To me, as an historical event, it would raise more questions about God and his nature than it would answer.

If one accepts the account metaphorically, one could, for example, personally apply the story as illustrating the possibility of starting over or "death and rebirth" from even the most impossible circumstances. In this sense, the Noahic Flood parallels the "resurrection" myth of the NT - out of death, comes new life.