Website of Dr. John K. LaShell
The
Bible among the Myths
by John N.
Oswalt
|
Not long ago, a young lady, educated in
one of the nearby liberal arts colleges, asked about the Bible’s
relationship to pagan myths. Her teacher had asserted that Genesis 1 was just
Jewish mythology based on earlier near-eastern writings. I had written a bit
about pagan mythology in my book, The Beauty of God for a Broken World, and I
knew somewhat more that I wrote. She seemed satisfied, but I wish I could have
placed The Bible among the Myths in her hand.
I have often described the Bible’s creation account as an
anti-mythology. Oswalt provides new depth for that
description. He begins, in one sense, with the end of the story as he reviews
how the combination of the Greek and Hebrew worldviews led to the unique
understanding that we find in Western civilization.
As a result of that
combination there was now an explanation for the Greek intuition of a universe
[instead of a “polyverse”]: there is one
Creator who has given rise to the universe and in whose creative will it finds
its unity. At the same time the Greeks showed the
Hebrews the logical implications of their monotheism (25).
Chapter 2 shows that to call the Bible a myth or a collection of
myths stretches the definition of myth so much that it ceases to be a useful
term. Chapters 3 and 4 highlight the fundamental contrast between the biblical
and the mythological worldviews. Mythological thinking sees a
continuity between the gods and human beings and all of nature. The
Bible insists that God is transcendent. He stands far above His creation. There
is no gradual scale of beings between God and the world.
“The Bible versus Myth”
(chapter 5) examines a number of parallels between the Bible and its
surrounding culture. It would be surprising if there were no such points of
contact, but Oswalt shows that they function in
entirely different ways in the pagan worldview than they do in the Bible.
The next two chapters argue that the biblical worldview provides
the only solid basis for a truly historical perspective on life. Genuine
history, as opposed to king lists and royal annals, is not
found in the ancient near east.
The final chapter is perhaps the least interesting for the general
reader. In it Oswalt reacts
briefly with proposals by other Old Testament scholars who offer other
explanations for the Bible’s worldview. I highly recommend this book for
people who have heard that the Bible is just a bunch of myths.