Tag: Myth

• Somewhere over the Rainbow …

  In Genesis, after the all-encompassing waters of the Flood have at last abated, a memorable image makes its appearance in the clearing skies. “God said .. I will place my rainbow in the clouds .. whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears .. I will remember my promise that never again […]

  calgacus83

  31st May 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Archery, Biblical scholarship, Bows and arrows, God, Marduk, Myth, Rainbows, Storm gods, The Flood

• Myth and the Gospels

  In my previous post, I wrote about myths in the Hebrew Bible, and also about contemporaneous Greek myths. There are also what we can call myths, I believe, in the Gospels, and here I’m suggesting an example in John’s gospel. By ‘myths’, I mean imaginative stories which include supernatural beings and events. The fourth gospel, […]

  calgacus83

  11th May 2022

  Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, Literature, Mythology, New Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Gospels, Jesus, Lazarus, Literature, Macbeth, Myth, Resurrection, Shakespeare, Supernatural

• Who Wrote the Bible’s first 5 Books? (ii)

  There are still people who believe the Bible is “inerrant”. This would have astonished those editors for whom inconsistencies and even contradictions were such a non-issue they made little attempt to ‘iron them out’. They clearly didn’t imagine they were writing the ‘infallible word of God’, nor should we. For example, in Exodus 6 (P […]

  calgacus83

  1st May 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Deuteronomy, God, Inerrant, Legend, Moses, Myth, Pentateuch, Priests, Stories

• Myth – A Personal View

  Let’s try to return to basics (so I’m not writing anything new). One of myth’s functions was enabling people to find meaning in, and feel comfortable with, the cosmos. A myth was a story that tried to make sense of life as it was experienced, day by day. People wondered how and why they existed, […]

  calgacus83

  10th Apr 2022

  Christianity, Consciousness, Literature, Mythology, New Testament, Old Testament, Philosophy, Poetry, Religion, Science

  Fundamentalism, Myth, New Atheism, Paul Tillich, Religion, The Cosmos, The Jedi, Unconditional Love

• Myth, Bible, Religion (ii)

  In thinking about myth, I wrote last time about the sometimes limited ability of words to fully describe. This, of course, doesn’t hinder words from evoking the indescribable. A favourite example comes from William Wordsworth –  That’s an eight line, non-description of what is intangible, but it’s also a matchless evocation of what Paul Tillich […]

  calgacus83

  9th Apr 2022

  Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, Literature, Mythology, New Testament, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Atheism, Bible, Buddha, Jesus, Myth, Religion, Tillich, Transcendentalism, Wordsworth

• Myth, Bible, Religion (i)

  In dealing with some of the early chapters of Genesis, I’ve been writing about myths. Nowadays, the word ‘myth’ is often applied to statements, or claims, that are thought (and /or said) to be untrue. Recently, some people said it was a ‘myth’ that, during the pandemic lockdown, boozy parties were held in 10 Downing […]

  calgacus83

  7th Apr 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Awareness, Bible stories, Buddha, Flower Sermon, gods & goddesses, Joseph Campbell, Legends & Folktales, Myth

• Cain and Abel – A Different Slant

  Why, in Genesis 4, does this strangely ambiguous and shockingly bloodthirsty story make its appearance, about the two brothers Cain and Abel? Cain was not, of course, a historical person but an invention, a character in a story intended to portray something ‘true to life’. Needing to find him a name, the storyteller came up […]

  calgacus83

  5th Apr 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Cain & Abel, Farmer v Herder, Genesis, Guilt, Murder, Myth, Oklahoma, Rogers & Hammerstein, Yahweh

• Different Stories, Different Gods

  The first eleven chapters of Genesis combine two different sources, each projecting a different picture of God, which undermines any view of the Bible as a homogeneous entity with a consistent message. It’s more like a tangle of different messages, and these chapters need careful literary and linguistic scrutiny to disentangle them. Repetitions, inconsistencies and […]

  calgacus83

  23rd Mar 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Attachment, Bible, Genesis, God, Myth, Priests, Signposts, Stories

• Genesis and Ugarit

  From 1939 onwards, the excavation of a mound on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria, (called Ras Shamra), uncovered the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit. Included in the finds were tablets containing texts recording the religious beliefs of its people, which show that Ugarit and Israel shared a common linguistic and literary heritage, and provide […]

  calgacus83

  5th Mar 2022

  Christianity, Hebrew Bible, Literature, Mythology, Old Testament, Poetry, Religion

  Asherah, Baal, Canaan, Israel, Myth, Psalms, Ugarit, Yahweh

• Rethinking Jesus (15) My (current) Conclusions …

  Firstly, there is the Jesus of History. I’ve had to acknowledge the fact that he had a view of the world which is different from mine, including beliefs I don’t share. For example, being a Jew, he believed in circumcision, in observing the sabbath day, (even if not in the inflexible, box-ticking way of others), […]

  calgacus83

  2nd Mar 2022

  Christianity, Jesus of Nazareth, Literature, Mythology, New Testament, Religion

  Death, Goodness, History, Inclusive, Jesus, Myth, Peterson, Sin