Is the Bible Mythology? (Click here for link)

Recently when I was studying to become a high school teacher, I was considering having a double focus: on German and on Psychology (which falls under the category of "Social Studies"). So I had to take a "methods" course for Social Studies. Lo and behold, the teacher was the same teacher I had in 9th grade at Kenny Guinn Jr. High (yeeeeears ago). He demonstrated one typical opening he uses to teach about Greek Mythology.

We entered the classroom and took our seats. Then the teacher flickered the lights on and off for about 20 seconds (it actually gave me a mild headache). He then asked me what causes electricity. Now if you know me, I started giving a sort of 'technical' answer (as best as I understand electricity!). "Wrong!" he shouted, "it's the gods that create it!" (with a dramatic emphasis on "gods") "Whenever people in the past didn't understand something, they would create a god for it. Now we know better, so we have no need to create gods for things we don't understand."

First, his statement is just a blatant over-generalization. But anyway.... So does this apply to Christianity? Is the Bible just a bunch of myth? Does it read like a myth?

If you've heard of the Chronicles of Narnia, you've heard of C.S. Lewis. He wrote sooo much more than just the Chronicles of Narnia. An excellent writer, he was a brilliant professor at Oxford over in England: one of the top universities in the world. Let me just quote what he wrote in "What are we to Make of Jesus Christ?" (from the book God in the Dock):

"Now as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are, they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they (the Gospels) are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. ... Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there are no conversations that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence. ... And the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art."

If you read the gospels, all throughout you'll encounter "irrelevant details", like what time in the day something happened, that Jesus wrote in the sand, that Jesus' clothes in the tomb were folded. Those all are irrelevant details when it comes to getting the main story across, so those are clues to the literary historian that the text is a record of something that really did occur.

Greek Mythology is not the same; we know it was invented by a man named Homer. Why did he write the Greek Mythology stories? The Greeks at that time had no long-standing history, no gods, nothing to make the people seem "mighty", so the myth was invented to satisfy those needs. This fact is recognized by Greek historians. Also, Jesus doesn't come across as 'mighty' and the disciples don't come across as having perfect understanding of things.... TOTALLY unlike myth.

So... if anyone tells you that Christianity is "myth", you have tools to explain the truth. The gospels (and other historical books like 1&2 Kings, 1&2 Chronicles, and 1&2 Samuel) do not read like myth or legend.

By the way, if you're reeeeeally bored, I created a link to the short essay, "What are we to Make of Jesus Christ?". (Click on the title of this blog post for the link) God in the Dock is actually a collection of essays written by C.S. Lewis.