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Dear Peter,

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You wrote :

« For example, the annunciation to Mary of her conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit falls between the genres of history and mythology. While written as if it describes events in time, it is not history as we know it as a description of actual events. Neither can we describe it as mythology because the boundaries between nature and culture are not erased. Rather, we may understand it as a theological construct in narrative form created by the writer. »
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Myths and facts are both used to explain reality. The difference between myths and facts is that facts are falsifiable whereas myths are not.

Christianity’s claim that Mary’s conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit is not falsifiable. In this example, there is a clear boundary between nature and culture. It is pure myth and, as you state at the end of the first paragraph of your article :

« Myth, in this case, means "not true". »

I agree that, as such, “we may understand it as a theological construct in narrative form created by the writer.”
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You also wrote :

« We must refrain from thinking that religion and, for us, Christianity, is a panacea, something to make us feel better about the world and ourselves. It's blessing derives from its truth. »

As there is no empirical evidence either for or against the tenets of Christianity, it would be more correct to affirm that :

« It's blessing derives from our faith in it as representing the truth »

Please correct me if I am wrong.

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Peter, I suspect that all of the great religious figures have had some element of the mystical in their thinking. It seems to me to be a quintessential component of the numinous epiphany that is so often a feature of the peak experiential aspect of religiosity. The sense of holistic connectedness that Francis and others have written about and is at the heart of the idea of a Creation is surely mythic in nature?

Jack Sarfatti, a physicist from Cornell in the US, has been doing a lot of work on the nature of causality that has some interesting reflections in what you've been discussing of late. You might be interested in looking up his work. He's far from the mainstream, but equally, he's no crackpot. His work is well-founded mathematically, it's his speculations as to the meaning of some of his findings that are most likely to be confronting.

George, I thought that second quote above was very interesting, thanks.

Banjo (and Peter), I wonder whether it is entirely true that myths are not falsifiable. Whilst they don't demand falsifiability as a prerequisite of existence as empirical science does and as a result they may drift over time to be something quite different to the original observations that inspired them, they are not just stories.

The ones that survive over time all have an instructive aspect to them. We musn't forget that the past 1000 or so years are hugely anomalous as a representation of human history and that for the majority of the time that humans and their ancestors have walked the Earth very little changed for thousands of generations. The same stone tools were used for 2 million years and for a million years before that they were only slightly more crude. An instructive narrative was valuable for millennia.

Our present rapid growth in technology and population is the result of a confluence of many different factors, not just the change in thinking that Peter has pointed out. That the need for some mythicality may persist is not surprising.

Craig,
I realise that I am using the word "myth" in a very specific way defined by Schneidau. I think his definition is relevant to the thinking of Israel amid the "nations". I reiterate my point that legends like the crossing of the sea of reeds in Exodus is not really myth but embellished history. Again, entirely invented narratives such as the Annunciation, look like history and not myth.
Peter

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Dear Peter,

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You wrote:

« I reiterate my point that legends like the crossing of the sea of reeds in Exodus is not really myth but embellished history. Again, entirely invented narratives such as the Annunciation, look like history and not myth. »

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The exact location of the route of the alleged Exodus has been the subject of much conjecture, some opting for a northern route on the coastal highway (an ancient military route known by the Egyptians as “the Ways of Horus) from Tjaru (Egypt’s north-eastern frontier town with Sinai) along the Mediterranean across the Suez canal and on to Gaza.

However, this northern route has been associated with “the way of the land of the Philistines” whereas Exodus 13:17 specifically states : “God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near.”

Here is a 2006article published in the “Bible and Spade Magazine” :

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/08/19/New-Evidence-from-Egypt-on-the-Location-of-the-Exodus-Sea-Crossing-Part-I.aspx#Article

And an excerpt from James K. Hoffmeier’s “Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition” :

http://books.google.fr/books?id=CT_lHTEcL6gC&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=tjaru+egypt&source=bl&ots=thcRtFBTI7&sig=doF4RPf0nqa_IA4AcCo11VN57l0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7m-OVay1EcPfU4D1icAO&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=tjaru%20egypt&f=false

According to Wikipedia :

« General scholarly opinion is that the Exodus story combines a number of traditions, one of them at the "Reed Sea" (Lake Timsah, with the Egyptians defeated when the wheels of their chariots become clogged) and another at the far deeper Red Sea, allowing the more dramatic telling of events. »

There is; of course, no evidence, outside the bible, that the so-called Exodus ever took place :

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Exodus-Does-archaeology-have-a-say-348464

As for the annunciation to Mary of her conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit, you note :

« Again, entirely invented narratives such as the Annunciation, look like history and not myth. »

That is a very personal point of view, Peter. Wishful thinking, perhaps. However, I think you will agree that the fact that any such “invented narratives” look like history in no way qualifies them as genuine historical events. No more than a remarkable copy of Michelangelo’s Mona Lisa qualifies as the original.

It qualifies as a fake.

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Banjo, the Exodus story is an obvious case of the "drift" I was referring to, but of course its instructive purpose for a small group of tribes beset by much larger ones was and is immense. As a story of the enormous power of belief in the capacity of a group with right on its side to overcome great odds it's hard to beat!

The Annunciation story may well be "true". Have a look at Steven Fry's documentary on bipolar disorder on Youtube. One of the common themes among those interviewed(and Fry himself) is that they do not want to be "cured". One of them notably says "Why would I? I get to converse with Angels!". Their "illness" is a disorder largely because it puts them into opposition with the rationalist world around them. In a mythical culture that would be regarded as part of the range of normality. Roman Judaea was hardly 21st century empirical rationalist central and the Torah is full of prophets doing just that. Their explanations may be off-key, but that doesn't mean they are "fake".

Peter, thank you for the reference to Herbert Schneidau's work. It rang some interesting bells for me and I'll look into it further.