Fact and Fiction --- A Difficult Relationship

by hamilcarr 20 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  hamilcarr

  The latest WT issue deals with the question: "Why God Saved Noah --- Why We Should Care". Belief in the scientific accuracy of the Genesis account is supposed to be of paramount importance. Consider the following quotes:

  Noah and the Flood - Fact, Not Fiction (p.3)

  If the Deluge had not happened, then Jesus' statement about the days of the Son of man" would be meaningless.

  Our Readers Ask --- Was the Flood of Noah's Day Really Global? (p.5)

  How could Paul teach followers of Jesus the doctrine of truth if God's word contains myths?

  Not only did Jesus believe that the Flood took place, but he also believed that it was global. In his great prophecy about his presence and the end of this system of things, he likened those events to the time of Noah.

  If Noah was a mythical figure and the global Flood a fable, the warnings of Peter and Jesus for those living in the last days would be meaningless.

  Are fact and fiction --- religious myth and scientific truth --- really diametrically opposed as the WT wants us to believe? As early as the third century the literalness of Genesis had been rejected in Christian thought by Origen. In a work titled "Did the Greeks believe in their myths?", Paul Veyne gives evidence that ancient people probably didn't believe in their Gods as we do. Maybe it's due to our scientific mind that we want our sacred writing to be scientifically accurate and infallible. Harvard theologian W.C. Smith, for instance, argues that (individual) faith and belief in its modern sense originated in the Renaissance period, thereby replacing (collective) religious experience.

  Smith, W.C. (1979). Faith and belief. Princeton, University Press. // Veyne, P. (1996). Did the Greeks believe in their myths? Chicago, University of Chicago.

  As this post only contains preliminary thoughts on this exciting subject, I'd like to read your input...
• 

  Narkissos

  Good topic!

  Veyne's book (published in French in 1983) is excellent and fun to read.

  What I especially dislike in the above WT quotes (and this is actually common to much of fundamentalistic apologetics) is the tactics of hijacking Christian faith in general, and people's religious feelings and "experiences" in particular, into the defence of a particular (literalistic, historical) take on Bible literature. It sometimes sounds like fundamentalistic apologists would better have "liberal" Christians renouncing Christianity altogether than accepting some connection between their faith and literary fiction.

  From a literary perspective, though, I would suggest that fiction doesn't really pre-date history (in the modern sense of both words): they are more like twins. They emerge simultaneously, although gradually, in Western literature -- one against the other, as "history" becomes more critical and "fiction" more self-conscious, as it were. That's why we tend to read ancient works as a mix of fiction and history, whereas ancient readers would probably not perceive the distinction as we do. One consequence of which is that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot read Ancient texts as Ancient readers did. Our conscious "suspension of disbelief" (not to mention modern literalism and criticism) doesn't match the Ancient approaches. The texts are lost and recreated with every generation of readers (which is only one small aspect of différance in writing, but an important one to keep in mind as far as exegesis and hermeneutics are concerned).
• 

  quietlyleaving

  Their reasoning does not hold up under scrutiny.

  Not only did Jesus believe that the Flood took place, but he also believed that it was global. In his great prophecy about his presence and the end of this system of things, he likened those events to the time of Noah.

  If Noah was a mythical figure and the global Flood a fable, the warnings of Peter and Jesus for those living in the last days would be meaningless .

  For example

  didn't Jesus' words about the end have a first fulfillment (acording to WTS reasoning). We are told that the good news was preached to the ends of the then know world or all creation (or something like that).

  Burt what actually happened - only the Jewish system of things as represented by Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed. (the world remained intact).

  The first fulfillment fell far short of what was actually preached. IMo that shows the faulty reasoning on the part of the WTS. Wouldn't it be more in keeping to say that the worlwide preaching work that they are doing today should follow a similar course to that of the first century - that perhaps only the WTS will be destroyed and the rest of the world will remain intact.

  Jesus did not have to believe that the flood of Noah's day was global. He could easily be said to talking about a localised flood just as he seemed to be predicting a prophetic localised end for his day.
• 

  Narkissos

  From a purely theological standpoint it is very poor Christology too. As many "orthodox" (especially Trinitarian) theologians have long pointed out, "divinity" did not require a human Jesus to be omniscient -- with anachronical "perfect" knowledge of physics, astronomy or history... "Incarnation" implies actually his learning and sharing most views of his people and times, as the Gospels Jesus obviously did. So even on "Christian" and "scriptural" grounds the argument is really moot.
• 

  hamilcarr

  Nark,

  Illuminating remarks. I still wonder what you exactly mean by the term "history" (as you say in its modern sense), though. And, does it offer another perspective than "fact"?
• 

  Gopher

  You offered the idea -- maybe it's our scientific mind that makes us want the sacred word to be scientifically accurate and infallible.

  I'd say instead that the Bible itself claims to be inspired and true, and that builds up hope in its believers.

  Then when certain underpinnings of faith (such as the Noachian flood) are found to be mythological and scientifically impossible, it can cause a sort of faith trauma.

  I think the WTS is exactly right when it says that if the Deluge had not happened, then Jesus' statement about the Son of man would be meaningless. It IS meaningless, because the Deluge as described in the Bible never happened.
• 

  hamilcarr

  I think the WTS is exactly right when it says that if the Deluge had not happened, then Jesus' statement about the Son of man would be meaningless. It IS meaningless, because the Deluge as described in the Bible never happened.

  It would only be meaningless within a literalist perspective, but not according to other hermeneutics. I even think that a meaningless text is a contradiction. I'm afraid we project our modern expectations of a narrative upon ancient texts. A narrative was originally a performance, a collective experience or ritual, only later it did evolve into a source of truth. When the rituals disappear and only the text (part of the story) remains, people come up with a new and poor understanding.
• 

  Narkissos

  hamilcarr,

  Modern history is rationally critical -- it excludes a lot of stuff (gods, oracles, miracles, portents) that ancient historians (who did show some critical sense as compared with writers of epics, myths or legends) would welcome into their narratives. Still I don't think it is to be simply equated with "facts," not even asymptotically, inasmuch as it aims to make (i.e., create) sense of "events" through interpretation -- picking up "important facts" among the wealth of archaeological and documentary data, hierarchising them, and correlating them with rational links, highlighting (or inventing?) patterns, analogies, causality, genealogy and so on. Any modern historian would concede that there is no such thing as purely factual history (or pure facts for that matter). The increasing awareness of interpretation characterises modern history as an admitted (self-conscious) literary genre.

  Btw I perfectly agree with your response to Gopher. Modern literalism is just one of the possible modern approaches to ancient texts -- which approaches are all, of necessity, anachronistic, because we cannot move back upstream of the dichotomies (such as between "history" and "fiction") which are constitutive of our minds.
• 

  Leolaia

  It would only be meaningless within a literalist perspective, but not according to other hermeneutics. I even think that a meaningless text is a contradiction. I'm afraid we project our modern expectations of a narrative upon ancient texts. A narrative was originally a performance, a collective experience or ritual, only later it did evolve into a source of truth. When the rituals disappear and only the text (part of the story) remains, people come up with a new and poor understanding.

  Nicely said. Think of the Eden narrative in Genesis. That single composition was just one telling of a story that may have had many tellings prior to being written down, and which was probably differently conceived and told depending on the purpose and situation. The present story has a number of elements (such as the maturation theme and the offering of divine wisdom/immortality) which parallel other ANE myths and which may thus be older than certain other elements (such as the possible anti-Asherah polemic) which may have entered into the narrative at a later stage. Then once recorded in its present form in the primeval history, it became the object of interpretation and reappropriation for different purposes. It contributed to the early development of the concept of Satan (a character subsequently read into the story). Sirach (second century BC) used it to explain the origin of sin and, placing the blame squarely on women, used it to justify misogyny as well. The author of Jubilees (second century BC) used it to explain the origin about certain laws on childbirth and sacrifice. The author of the Life of Adam and Eve (first century AD) used it to give moral lessons on humility, repentance, and forgiveness. Philo of Alexandria (first century AD) took the story as an allegory on ethics and the proper relationship of partners in a marriage (with a Platonic parallel in conceiving of man as originally androgynous). Paul used it as a contrast to the humility of Jesus in his incarnation and as an argument for relative roles in the church. The early Sethian gnostics of the second century AD used it as the basis of their cosmogony and as a polemic against traditional Judaism. The early church fathers of the second and third centuries AD used it to argue a protevangelium of Jesus in the OT and his victory over Satan through the cross. The rabbis of the second and third century AD (as represented in the Talmud) used it to argue that there is a basic morality underlying the Torah that was given to humans since the beginning of history. Medieval Judaism used it to develop a range of Lilith legends (cf. the Alphabet of Ben Sira and the Zohar). Protestant Christians drew it significantly to develop further the concept of the "fallen state" of man and the necessity of the cross. And even among the general public today (who may no longer see the narrative as history), it still remains a resource of symbols and themes for creating new interpretations and uses of the story.
• 

  JCanon

  It is interesting that while we address church doctrine regarding the Edenic story, few pay attention to the cultic "Mysteries" take on Eden, particularly relating to Satan being a woman, that is, the wife of Christ originally. Don't be surprised that Christ has a wife, of course, since it is clear he marries the Church, his "bride" later on. But that is his new wife who replaces his old wife, who was Satan. That Satan is clearly understood to be the snake-woman goddess is clear in the esoteric pagan doctrine that infiltrated Christianity, the paganistic "Divine Feminine" alluded to in the very populat "Da Vinci Code" book and movie, but clearly seen in much Christian artwork depicting Satan as a snake-woman. Funny nobody mentions that aspect of the Edenic story in reference to what the Eden story was all about...

  So here are lots of pictures of Satan as a snake woman that is also part of the Edenic tale:

  http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/humm/Topics/Lilith/aNePics.html

  Per the Bible, the reference to the "woman" "and her seed" at Genesis 3:15 is a reference to Satan in the capacity at that time as Jesus' wife. Obviously, Eden, among so many other things, was the time of Jesus' and Satan's divorce.

  When speking of Eden, we shouldly leave off the occultic pagan influences of that story.

  JC