We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.
The second article of the Nicene Creed
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Nothing encapsulates the mythic portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth better than the second article of the Nicene creed. Jesus of Nazareth, the eldest son of Joseph and Mary, would be totally missing from one's awareness if one was not familiar with the Synoptic Gospels of the New Testament. The Jesus of the Nicene Creed is the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John where Jesus is described as the Word Incarnate and the only-begotten Son of God. Throughout the past eighteen centuries, the vast majority of Christians have been saying this creed as if it is an irrefutable fact. The fact is that very little of the second article is fact.
What is likely to be factual is that Jesus had a mother named Mary and that Jesus was crucified on the order of Pontius Pilate, died, and was buried. Beyond that, everything else is a matter of what people believe about Jesus based on teachings passed along through the centuries. Setting aside the likely, leaves what can be identified as the myth based teachings about Jesus; namely, that Jesus is the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, of one Being with Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he come down from heaven, by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary. (After being dead and buried for two days) he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and dead and his kingdom will have no end.
Before proceeding further, I need to be clear by what I mean by myth. What identifies a story as a myth is a lack of provability as a story that can be replicated. That does not mean that myths are lies. On the contrary, myths are used to expose truths for which there is little to no concrete evidential data or proof to support them. Mythic truths are distilled and established into archetypal stories that offer meaning and context to the experiences we encounter. All myths serve that purpose.
If you are a Christian, you are probably aware that there is a bias against the notion that myths exist in the scriptures of The Holy Bible. This is due in part to both the First and the Second Letters to Timothy, where myths are said to be clever lies. There is also a history of insisting that stories about Jesus are factual in spite of their lack of provability or possessing an ability to be replicated. As a result the mythic stories about Jesus are taught as either concrete facts or as mysteries of faith. I would suggest that mystery is a term used to bypass the notion of myth. Whereas myths are stories told to bring meaning and understanding, mystery is a term used within Christianity to claim something is beyond comprehension and therefore must be accepted as a matter of faith without question.
Personally, I prefer mythic explanations over unexplainable mysteries. Faith is not enhanced by defining something as unexplainable that must be believed if there exists the possibility of a mythic explanation. The irony of things deemed to be a mystery in Christianity is that they are often connected to the mythic stories about Jesus.
The myths of ancient Greece and Roman have influenced Western culture as they are archetypal stories that help us identify why we are the way we are and what we frequently struggle with as humans. The same could be said of the myths found in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. That they are not used in the way ancient Greek and Roman myths are used is due to the religions which are based on them insisting that they are not myths but are factual events. This was probably true of the the Ancient Greek and Roman myths at the height of their polytheistic religious views. The irony is when the ancient religions were supplanted in the late Roman Empire by Christianity their myths remained as guide into to the human psyche.
The mythic imagination is evident throughout both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. What makes the Holy Bible unique is its blend of the mundane and the mythic. Jesus as an itinerant rabbi who interpreted the scriptures of Judaism in new and meaningful ways possessed a mythic imagination as evidenced by his use of parables, which he used to enhance the meaning of what he was preaching. The authors of the Gospels used their mythic imaginations to give context and meaning not only to Jesus's teachings, but also and more importantly, to his life and death.
The question then becomes, what are the mythic stories of Jesus? The following is a cursory list of stories in the Gospels that are myths or contain mythic elements.
MYTHIC STORIES
1. The virgin birth of Jesus
2. Jesus Baptism in the Jordan
3. Jesus' temptations in the wilderness
4. The feeding of the four and five thousand
5. Jesus walking on water
6. The story of the Transfiguration
7. Jesus calming the stormy Sea of Galilee
8. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus
9. The Gospel of John
This list may be strike some as shocking as it contains some of the most important "events" found in the Gospels; particularly, the story of Jesus birth, resurrection, and ascension, which are all central to Christian belief and teachings. I've included in this list the entire Gospel of John, which I have explained in other posts is a work of theology, but John also employees and engages a mythic imagination regarding Jesus. I left some questionably mythic stories out such as the raising of Jarius' daughter, the raising of widow's son from Nain or the casting out of demons from the Gerasene demoniac and other healings as these are events that have possible factual explanations and are not trying to convey a meaning beyond Jesus being a healer.
In the posts that will follow this one I will address each of these mythic stories.
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Until next time, stay faithful.
Norm
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