Myth in Scripture: It’s The Real Deal

Without understanding the depth and meaning of myth, there is little hope of ever grasping the beauty and richness of the text in the Bible, because—not to put too fine a point on it—Hebrew and Christian scripture is chock-a-block full of myth story telling.

The notion that we can discount myth as mere fiction and falsehood is now discredited by literary scholars, both secular and religious alike. However, this unfortunate and unimaginative way of seeing the world, with its insistence on empirical fact and nothing more, remains pervasive in secular western thought.

Christianity, likewise—at least for some—has its own version of this closed-mindedness which insists on only a fundamentalist method of reading scripture and is thus no less dismissive of myth.¹ Although myth has been in serious decline for centuries under the lash of both these juggernauts, it is now on the comeback trail. 

Myths are the beautiful convergence of symbols and metaphor that create meaning within all cultures at existential depth. They are a necessary means of interpreting the spiritual world through storytelling. The extraordinary and unseen world of the Spirit thus combines with the human imagination to create depth and meaning. 

This is a limitless treasure trove for the mystic where universal truth and personal revelation are both well and truly on the menu. So let me quote a few biblical scholars on the subject to show myths crucial centrality in the Hebrew and Christian texts. 

Prominent scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Douglas Knight puts it this way: 

“Myth means a story, usually set in the distant past when the normal rules of physics do not apply. It offers a summary of a cultural worldview; it explains how life as we know it came to be; it expresses our hopes and fears. It is true, in the same way that a parable is true.” ²

Mary Midgley is even more concise and no less correct when she says:

“Myths are not lies. Nor are they detached stories. They are imaginative patterns, networks of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. They shape its meaning.” ³

In terms of scripture, there are many scholars convinced of the abiding relevance of myth. These include, Dexter Callender Jr. and William Scott Green, who argue that:

“Mythic language is essential to the communication of religious experience and hence its truth claims…The logic of mythic language lies in shared convictions regarding the empirical world.” ⁴

Or Northrop Frye, who implores that:

“The story of the Bible is a myth (meaning mythos, narrative or story). In primitive verbal cultures myths are distinguished from folktales or legends, not by their structure, but by a specific social function. Myths are the serious stories: they are the ones that really explain what is of primary importance to their society.” ⁵

And finally Steven Kraftchick, who writes:

“The New Testament does employ myths and is itself mythical…It is mythical not simply because it contains stories of miracles and wonders, but because it is a network of stories, symbols, and patterns that interpret the world.” ⁶

Ok, enough already with all this quoting! The point could hardly be clearer. Interpreting scripture includes myth interpretation because myth is so pervasive in its pages. Within the myth, a moral imperative emerges, a story about the living God, to be discerned by the imaginative mind and the open mystic heart. It was ever thus! 

1. Kenneth R. Overberg, Roots and Branches : Grounding Religion in Our Human Experience (Cincinnati: St Anthony Messenger Press, 1988), 43-62. [↩]
2. Douglas A. Knight and Amy-Jill Levine, The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (New York: HarperCollins 2011), 66-67. [↩]
3. Mary Midgley, The Myths We Live By (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), 1. [↩]
4. Dexter E. Callender Jr. and William Scott Green, “Introduction: Scholarship between Myth and Scripture,” in Myth and Scripture: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion, Language, and Imagination, ed. Dexter E. Callender Jr (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 7. [↩]
5. Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Religion: Northrop Frye, ed. Alvin A. Lee and Jean O’Grady (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 4. [↩]
6. Steven J. Kraftchick, “Recast, Reclaim, Reject: Myth and Validity,” in Myth and Scripture: Contemporary Perspectives on Religion, Language, and Imagination, ed. Dexter E. Callender Jr (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 180-181. [↩]