Bible

Not one to learn my lesson, many years after I taught that ill fated adult Sunday school class at that Lutheran church in the Dutch Fork of South Carolina, I preached the same teaching to Messiah Lutheran, the congregation I served in Knoxville, TN.  Thankfully it was received well and reflected upon by all who were in the assembly that day. Well, all except, a friend who occasionally worshipped at Messiah. 

The week after I preached the message about scripture and Adam & Eve and poetry & myth, I was having dinner with this same friend. For what, I am sure, was the good part of two hours he admonished me for teaching that Adam & Eve were representations of all of humanity and not necessarily real people. He kept coming back to this notion, “If we cannot trust the validity of one part of scripture, then we can’t trust any of scripture”.   To which I responded “Why not? After all it’s not like the Bible is one book.”

The bible is a collection of books, somewhat like a library. No doubt a library contains history, poetry, hymnody, persuasive prose, letters, folk tales, etc.   The same is true of the Bible. It is not a single book with chapters. It is different books written at different times for different audiences. In some cases a book contains stories from two different sources, like Genesis chapters 1 & 2. Often these sources are at odds. Sometimes one whole book argues against another whole book. There are factual errors in scripture. There are myths in scripture. Why, Martin Luther even thought less of certain portions of scripture because, to him, they did not reveal Christ or grace or good news. But just because one book in the library contains myths and folktales, and even though some books contain errors, misrepresentations and falsehoods, none of this means the whole library should be rejected. 

Our task in digging down through the top soil is to seek for more accurate interpretations of the stories that shaped the faith, the radical faith of Jesus and the early church. Then, hopefully we may discover more faithful and even, newer ways to understand God. 

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What folktale in scripture are you most curious about? 

What folktale or myth outside of scripture do you think contains truth bigger than the story itself?  

What ancient folktales or myths still speak truths which are efficacious today?

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Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash