MYTHOLOGY & THE GOSPELS

“Myths take centuries to develop.”

Brad Pitre makes a definitional error when accusing Alex O’Connor of making a category error.

Myth is not synonymous with fantasy, fiction, nor legend. Myth or mythos simply means “story” or “narrative,” and myth doesn’t take centuries to develop.

The best example of how a myth with embellishments beyond a factual record can develop quite rapidly is Area 51 with the stories about aliens and crashed spaceships in Roswell, New Mexico.

The fantastic elements of the Roswell fable were able to develop and grow in our modern era, in a modern language we can all read, and with our modern record keeping.

Even by the narrow impression of myth as fantasy or fictionalized history used by religious apologists, the legends surrounding Area 51 and Roswell prove Brad Pitre’s assertions wrong.

Brad Pitre’s assertions about the definition of mythology defend the Gospels from a false conception of the term. He also asserts a definition which conveniently distances the Gospels from the perceived stigma. It’s more a job of damage control.

Mythology is a mixture of truth and prose, and it honors the genres it’s presented in — depending on what period of time it appears in literature. Mythology is a story-based mechanism to pass on and preserve memory, and it does so in a way that is distinct from modern conceptions of history and forensic fact.

Myths are not only timeless tales of archetypes, gods, heroes—and the process of adding fantasy, fictional, and made up elements is absolutely present in the most basic “historia” and ancient biographies.

Ancient biographies and historia are not passive snapshots recording facts about recent or distant events. They are shaped by narratives, “myths,” and require detective-like scrutiny.

"The naive way of looking at the past is to say, We have reliable sources, we just read them and trust them.”

—Dr. Steve Mason, History Valley Podcast,  May 25, 2022

The Gospels, starting with the Gospel of Mark, are a form of Greco-Roman literature, and they were written in  the style of their time.

The easiest way to think of the Gospels is as movies, which are the popular literature of our own time. The Gospels are relevant ideas and truth told through the style of its time in Greco-Roman literature.

Just like with movies about historical events like “Darkest Hour” about Sir Winston Churchill or “Oppenheimer,” events are conveyed in a deliberately fictionalized and embellished way to adhere to the genre.

Even Josephus wasn’t simply giving forensic facts when he wrote elaborate speeches for figures like Eleazar Ben Yair in Masada. This “mythologizing,” which Brad Pitre vilifies, was happening with one of the most significant historians of the era.

The uncomfortable truth for literalist believers—clutching onto inaccurate labels about the New Testament documents—is that if things aren’t preserved in story, in myth, then things don’t really get preserved for future generations.

Story is the power of the parable, and story offers a way to convey truths in a way that proverbs cannot. Parables of Jesus might have been “fantasy,” but they conveyed something straight forward facts could not.

Mythology isn’t simply made-up fantasy just because it’s not pure fact. Even history is just an investigation, not a factual record. Biographies are not a factual record free from the “mythological” embellishments demonstrated with the Roswell incident in our modern era.

The Gospels aren’t pure mythology, yet they’re not a factual record. Yet, somehow, they’re both.

"The historian's job is not to find reliable sources, it's much more like to be a detective... The detective is not looking for the one true account... they cross-examine, they try to come up with their own theory of the case... compare it with other evidence we have to compare with forensic... material evidence."

—Dr. Steve Mason, History Valley Podcast,  May 25, 2022