Back in April I wrote a blog post for Synchroblog about 'What if the Bible is a myth?'
When I wrote that piece my definition of myth was 'a fabrication', 'something made up', 'a story', or 'fiction'. In my head I had retitled the topic 'What if the Bible is a lie?'.
It turned out that I appeared to be the only person, that I'm aware of, who used that definition of 'myth'.
Most of the other participants defined 'myth' as 'containing fiction that conveys truth' (my definition).
I don't think anyone, who participated in the discussion, considered the Bible to be all myth, but some did allude to portions of scripture being fictional in order to covey truth.
Some of the 'controversial' passages that lend them themselves to being myth are-
The creation story. Did God really create the world etc in six days?
Jonah and the Whale. Did Jonah really stay alive for three days inside a giant fish?
The Flood. Did the whole earth really go under water?
I don't want to get into an argument about the literalness of the Bible and I'm not taking on a particular point of view.
But, in the case of the Biblical stories mentioned above, is God not powerful enough to have these things?
Or, to personalize the question in a contemporary setting,
To convey truth, would you make a documentary (truth conveyed with fact) or a fictional movie (possibly conveying truth with myth)?
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