{"id":657,"date":"2010-11-02T15:26:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T21:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/mormonportal\/?p=657"},"modified":"2010-11-02T15:26:31","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T21:26:31","slug":"scripture-history-and-myth-a-perfect-modern-example-from-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/oneeternalround\/2010\/11\/scripture-history-and-myth-a-perfect-modern-example-from-npr\/","title":{"rendered":"Scripture, History and Myth: A Perfect Modern Example from NPR!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"We\u2019re way past Genesis at this point, but like the poor<\/a>, the issue of non-historical scripture will always be among us. Most people know of the genre of \u201cparable\u201d because they\u2019re in the Gospels, but \u201cmyth\u201d is very poorly understood and the term carries a lot of negative baggage<\/a>. You have to be very careful throwing around the term. One simple definition of myth is that myth is worldview in narrative form. That is, it\u2019s a way of explaining one\u2019s\u00a0 conception of how the world works, in everyday language.<\/p>\n

John Walton, another Evangelical Old Testament professor who\u2019s recently earned my respect, elaborates on myth this way.<\/p>\n

\u201cMythology by its nature seeks to explain how the world works and how it came to work that way, and therefore includes a culture\u2019s \u2018theory of origins.\u2019 We sometimes label certain literature as \u2018myth\u2019 because we do not believe that the world works that way. The label is a way of holding it at arm\u2019s length so as to clarify that we do not share that belief \u2013 particularly as it refers to involvement and activities of the gods. But for the people to whom the mythology belonged, it was a real description of deep beliefs. Their \u201cmythology\u201d expressed their beliefs concerning what made the world what it was; it expressed their theories of origins and how their world worked.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By this definition, our modern mythology is represented by science \u2013 our own theories of origins and operations. Science provides what is generally viewed as the consensus concerning what the world is, how it works and how it came to be. Today, science makes no room for deity (although neither does it disprove deity), in contrast to the ancient explanations, which were filled with deity.\u201d From Walton\u2019s The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate<\/em><\/a>, p. 14-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

NPR recently provided a perfect example of modern myth. Radiolab featured a discussion<\/a> with Dr. Fred Coolidge <\/a>about the hypnic jerk. That\u2019s not a certain kind of internet troll, but that thing you do when you\u2019re 90% asleep, and suddenly\u2026 your legs kick and you\u2019re wide awake. That\u2019s a hypnic jerk. No one really knows why it happens.<\/p>\n

Coolidge suggests that way back in the past, primates underwent a transitional period between living on the ground and living in the trees. They returned to the trees at night because it was safer, but lived primarily on the ground. Falling out of the tree at night would likely cause injury and expose you to predators on the ground. A\u00a0 monitoring-and-correction system or a subconscious \u201cam I falling out of the tree?\u201d reflex could conceivably be an evolutionary advantage, one passed down to us as a vestigial sleep habit. In other words, evolutionary biology may explain the hypnic jerk and why so many people dream about falling.<\/p>\n

The whole series<\/a> (of which the hypnic jerk is part six) is interesting and worth listening to, but here\u2019s a rough transcript of the relevant part between the two hosts and the sleep professor.<\/p>\n

Prof:<\/strong> \u201cIf some of those primates had that behavior, they may have been just slightly more likely over millions of years to adapt and survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Host1<\/strong>: \u201cWe haven\u2019t gotten rid of it yet, is what you\u2019re saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Host2:<\/strong> \u201cSo that\u2019s my jerk, is basically so I don\u2019t get eaten by a lion, all these many years?<\/p>\n

Host1:<\/strong> Yeah, that\u2019s what he\u2019s saying. Sort of like a Lucy echo.<\/p>\n

Host1:<\/strong> \u2018Do we know this, or are we just imagining\u2026?<\/p>\n

Host2:<\/strong> \u201cNO, how are we gonna know this? It\u2019s just a story!\u201d (laughter)<\/p>\n

In the last statement, Host 2 recognizes that what they\u2019re telling is a myth, a story (albeit a scientific one) that explains how the world works, as well as the fact that said story can\u2019t be empirically demonstrated.<\/p>\n

Can scripture include myth? Or put differently, did ancient prophets share the worldview of their culture and the world around them? I think it\u2019s clear they did, and that God\u2019s revelations to them were adapted and expressed through that worldview. (I should point out, at least two important LDS General Authorities disagree, but that\u2019s for the next post. This is turning into a series.)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re way past Genesis at this point, but like the poor, the issue of non-historical scripture will always be among us. Most people know of the genre of \u201cparable\u201d because they\u2019re in the Gospels, but \u201cmyth\u201d is very poorly understood and the term carries a lot of negative baggage. You have to be very careful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,9,18,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-scripture","category-doctrine","category-scripture","category-teaching"],"yoast_head":"\nScripture, History and Myth: A Perfect Modern Example from NPR!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We\u2019re way past Genesis at this point, but like the poor, the issue of non-historical scripture will always be among us. 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