Saturday, May 12, 2007
Jesus and Myth
One of the most important ideas that Marcus Borg has presented in his many books about the New Testament are his terms “Pre-Easter Jesus” and “Post-Easter Jesus”. I found this difficult to understand at first because I tried to force fit my own understanding of physical and supernatural into his terms. I wanted this to mean physical-Jesus vs. spiritual-Jesus. That was a mistake and it slowed my understanding of his writings. In addition, we should understand that these terms are not meant to create a competition between the pre and post Easter Jesus.
Here is a brief summary of how I now understand these valuable terms:
Pre-Easter Jesus - the historical man that walked the earth and may have even said some of the things mentioned in the gospels.
Post-Easter - The "legend" or the character in the gospel stories which we have all fallen in love with in our Christian walk. This is the Jesus that we Christians experience as we live out his vision and continue to tell the story and allow it to influence our lives.
The post-Easter Jesus is alive in our hearts and minds today, but because of that, our views of him are uniquely shaped by each heart and mind. The Jesus that lives in my heart is not shaped the same as the Jesus that lives in the heart of Pat Robertson. Comparing the four NT gospels reveals four different leading characters in their four different narratives (even more if we count non-canonical texts). Each character is a little different based on the perspective of each individual storyteller. That doesn't change who the pre-Easter Jesus was, but it does change our perspective because we only know about the pre-Easter Jesus through the post-Easter stories about him. Confusing the two would be like confusing Charlton Heston with Moses. The post-Easter stories are extremely valuable to us because it is through these stories that we come to know and experience Jesus.
Several people have asked lately: “Do you think the authors lied to us?” No, I don't think the storytellers lied. Does anybody ask if Homer lied about the battle of Troy in his epic poem "The Iliad"? Nobody would see that poem as either literal history or as lies. There is another, more obvious choice. Most believe there is some type of history behind such stories but the techniques used to tell the story are metaphor and myth so nobody takes them literally even if they do take them very seriously. Was there literally a Trojan horse or was that a myth meant to tell the readers that the Greeks won a battle by outsmarting their opponents? The answer seems obvious. Why would we expect Biblical myths to be any different? Did the young David really kill a giant? I don't think so, but I do believe that story is truthful. More than likely, it references a battle that was won by a small undermanned army over a much larger enemy army. The value is in the meaning of the myth, not the historical accuracy. Through that myth, we are told that even though Israel was smaller and less powerful, they were victorious over their enemies because God was on their side and they remained faithful. The myth is told to encourage faithfulness to God and the facts are irrelevant.
You might ask, why would anyone follow a myth? Only a modern western mind would think that calling a story mythical or metaphorical is an insult. Symbolism is actually a higher form of writing that elevates the story to “mythical proportions”. It is MORE than literal. It is “Truth PLUS” not “history MINUS”. When a writer takes the time to craft a myth then we know it's underlying truth must be extremely important. That goes for Pandora’s box as well as the prodigal son.
We may never know how much of our Jesus is myth and how much is history, but I say that it doesn’t matter. The important point is NOT to determine if it really happened that way. The important point is to understand why these people told the stories the way that they did. We should then look at the dramatic impact of lives that have embraced the story of Jesus and the vision this story presents. We should accept this man and these myths as our own vision and pattern for life. This treatment of Jesus also echoes that Easter is the definitive point where the life of Jesus ended and his powerful life changing story began. The story of Jesus was born on Easter and it is this mythical narrative about a historical man that saved my soul and can save the world. Metaphorically speaking, Jesus is the whole ball of wax!
11 comments:
Yes,
When Borg talks about metaphor he doesn't mean necessarily non-factual but more than factual. There is truth to be found in metaphor, just not necessarily the factual kind as defined in Enlightenment defintions!
Good post
I posted something on a similar theme a while back, though from a buddhist perspective - thought it may interest you -
Myths and stories get a bad press in our scientific age. The word myth colloquially is interpreted as an “untruth”. This is explored in the introduction to David Loy’s book (co-written with Linda Goodhew) “the Dharma Of Dragons And Daemons”. I have paraphrased it a little, without I hope, altering the author’s intended meaning.
“One of the ways that language makes us human is by enabling us to create and share stories about what the world is, who we are, and what we are to do while we are here. Consciously or unconsciously, stories order a complicated, often confusing, world and give us models of how to live it. They include creation myths, folk and fairy tales, legends about gods and heroes, Homeric epics and Norse sagas, Greek tragedy and Japanese Noh plays.
The best stories are more than just entertainment. Traditionally, the most important ones have been religious. According to the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, religion is the metaphysics of the masses, but it is just as true to label philosophy the religion of the intellectuals. Theologians like to argue about doctrines, and religious institutions elevate those claims into dogmas, but for most of us it is chiefly stories we find meaningful, because stories speak to us and move us in ways that concepts do not. The birth of Jesus in the manger, because there was no room in the inn; the Last Supper followed by Christ’s agony on the cross; his resurrection, victorious over death – these narratives are what most Christians relate to, not the niceties of the Nicene Creed. Until recently, at least, Bible tales from the Old and New Testaments served as the “core stories” of Western civilisation. Allusions to them were embedded everywhere: Renaissance sculpture and painting, Bach’s cantatas and Handel’s oratorios, the epic poetry of Milton and Blake. The success of Me Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” reminds us that these stories have not lost their attraction.
Buddhism, too, can be seen as a collection of stories. The life of Shakyamuni Buddha forms the core, especially such crucial incidents as his leaving home and his great awakening under the Bodhi tree. According to legend, his father surrounded young Gotama with healthy youthful people, so it was utterly shocking when he eventually encountered a sick person, an old person, a corpse and finally a world-renouncer – which led him to renounce his own royal position and become a forest ascetic. The power of this story is not affected by the fact that it does not seem to be literally true. Historical or not, it remains a deeply moving myth, dramatically reminding us not to repress awareness of illness, aging and mortality, but to allow that awareness to motivate a spiritual quest for the meaning of our life and death.
What was the great awakening that crowned this quest? What did the Buddha realise that led to his liberation? The necessary ambiguity of his enlightenment, for us, makes his realisation less a doctrine than a myth, the central myth, to attempt to live to the buddha’s quest as one’s own core story.
Myths do not gain their meaning because incidents they describe actually occurred. If they are “true” it is because they invoke something essential about who we are. Paul Tillich distinguished “unbroken myth” (understood to be literally true) from “broken myth” (no longer believed to be historically true, but still held to have a deep significance). In place of broken myth, however, the former Anglican bishop, Richard Holloway has suggested that we think in terms of “breaking open a myth” (See Holloway’s “Doubts and Loves”). The meaning of myth is something contained within it, and often obscured by the details of the story, so if we want to taste its fruits we need to break through its skin. To reach the living heartwood we must penetrate the hardened bark.
We need such myths to live by, as mythologist Joseph Campbell put it. They are not crutches for those who cannot take too much reality, for we need them to figure out what is real and important about the world and our being in it. From a spiritual perspective, then, the point is not to get rid of our myths but to become more aware of what they are. Myths change us: when we live a myth, that myth is also living us. One of the most pernicious myths is the myth of a life without myth. A few people become spiritually ill because they lose their myth and do not know how to find another one, but for most people the myth of no myth means they have been captured by the dominant myths of their culture – myths so prevalent that they are unaware of them, like the fish that does not notice the water it swims in.
Buddhist teachings are full of stories. The Pali canon with the Sutras and the Vinaya, always present the context for each of the Buddha’s talks, where it occurred and who was there. “Thus I have heard…” If those stories are often no more than the occasion for a teaching, each teaching is nevertheless placed within a larger narrative involving people who gather together to hear what the Buddha has to say. When we study the earliest records of the Buddhadharma, we study stories.
Later scriptures such as the Lotus Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra are basically long narratives that present their teachings by embedding stories within stories, often in the form of parables. In Tibetan Buddhism there are tales from the lives of Padmasambva, Marpa, Milarepa, and many others. In Chan/Zen Buddhism there are foundational legends about Bodhidharma and the sixth patriarch. In Pureland Buddhism, we have the three Pure Land Sutras with the Larger Pure Land Sutra giving us the wonderful story of Dharmakara fulfilling his vows to become Amida Buddha,
How many of these stories are literally true? Historical scholarship raises questions about most of them, yet the basic issue, for Buddhists at least, is whether a myth inspires and empowers us to follow the Middle Path in a fruitful way”.
Thanks for that comment Ray. I really felt like the Christian tradition came alive for me AFTER I had studied the Buddhist tradition. One of the key elements for that change in me was the understanding of how Buddhists had no problem seeing their stories as myth rather than literal history but they still valued the stories. I'm sure that has not always been the case and isn't the case for all Buddhists. I think it is easier to see that when you look at a tradition outside your own. Once the lens of literalism was lifted off my eyes, then the Bible became something I could embrace and follow. It also allowed me to see a wealth of meaning that I missed becaue I had been too focused on the surface level meaning.
Danutz,
Your post is thought-provoking but I'm a little concerned about your comment about how Buddhists are ok not taking their 'stories' literally. Surely the NT narratives are not directly analogous to your run-of-the-mill bodhisattva stories!
A similar comment, I think, can be made to contrast (for example) the stories about Jesus (viz. the gospels), and the stories Jesus tells (e.g. the prodigal son) or the stories about Adam and Eve... There is less room for 'mythical inflation' in the NT than in the OT I'd argue. As conservative as he turned out to be, I think CS Lewis was on to something when, after spending his atheistic early career studying myths and legends (which, as you point out, are full of meaning) truly encountered the gospel narratives (and the resurrection narratives!) and claimed they were unlike anything else out there...
All I'm saying is, it won't do to stuff the NT into a mythical framework (which is more suited to texts like the Genesis Creation myths), since it does not present itself as such. Surely we must first do justice to the text itself (which is what I'm concerned you may not be doing by being to quick to allegorize it), before asking hermeneutical questions of it...
My two cents.
Cheers,
-Daniel-
Daniel,
What makes you say...
"Surely the NT narratives are not directly analogous to your run-of-the-mill bodhisattva stories!"
It seems to me that the only reason you would think that is because one is YOUR OWN set of myths and the other is not. I think myths are wonderful up until the point that a particular religion develops the arrogance that their own myths are "unlike anything else out there". The fact is that they are all very much alike and often contain the exact same underlying points. Joseph Campbell does a great job of laying out those concepts in his book "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" which shows how this hero myth resonates in almost every culture from the stories of native Americans, to Hercules, to the promised Messiah of Israel, to Luke Skywalker.
The point is that myths tell us more about the people that create the myths than they ever do about history or about God.
Appreciate it. It has finally clicked for me. Sometimes its quite difficult rubbing off the "truth=factual" label.
Just found your blog. I've really enjoyed your ideas.
Mike,
Great summary of Borg.
I do have a question, if what Jesus said is so unsure, then how do we know that the myth we are following is even a real myth? How do we know it is not own own?
And I really want to understand this: If the point to which the myth is tethered is uncertain, then why do we obther to cite the bible? I saw on another blog Hitchens arguments for doing the right thing, and they actually seem to have more substance than using some 1st century assembly of legend as a type for how to live in this much more complex world.
Once I didn't believe in Jesus anymore, I just realized I could start doing the right things just because I wanted to, and not have to defend all that other stuff.
For Instance: like the Buddha, he left his wife and kid to go find himself, and even though his family suffered, look how much good has come from a person just doing the thing that he thought was right?
Looking forward to your insight,
Mitch
Mitch I don't have ANY uncertainty about what Jesus said. Jesus certainly said all the things that he said in those stories. We can read them in the many different stories. Now before you read too much into my statement, remember I'm talking about the post-Easter Jesus who is a character in a story (several stories). That character said those things and those things are worth following. For you, do you have to know that a historical person said those exact words in order for the words to be valuable? Is the prodigal son a bad story because it isn't historically accurate? How about the flood or the garden of eden? Do those characters need to literally exist in order to contain truth?
You said "how do we know that the myth we are following is even a real myth"
What would be the difference between a real myth and an unreal myth? "Real Myth" is a paradox.
The story is definately REAL I can read it right now because I have 2 copies in my office. I can touch the pages and read the words. It is a real story because the story exists.
I think the quesion you mean to ask is: "Was there any factual history behind the myth?". That is a better question. I'm confident there is some history behind them. There is almost always history behind a good myth but that is where the uncertainty will always be. I argue that it doesn't matter. I accept and follow the story and I'm not concerned with where the facts blur into fiction.
Mike,
I really appreciate your reply, but I found it confusing.
Your first post said "may have even said" and your reply to me said "Jesus certainly said", which I guess is my problem with the whole idea of following this at all.
To clarify, in the "real myth" quote, I was addressing the fact that you originally were unsure as to what was said by this guy. And my real myth idea, which admittedly I didn't explain well at all, was just a matter of me (poorly)asking the question that if we really have no idea what this guy actually said, and the whole thing is just our sentiment for some manufactured person, then is the myth that we find so inspiring just crap between our ears? And if the myth is our own projection then can we dispense with the fiction that it is based on some guy who said something substantial? My understanding from the people I read is that we have no idea what Jesus said. I heard Crossan say that on a television special recently.
And so my whole thing boils down to this: we don't know what he said, we don't know what he did, we know how we feel about things, so why do we have to continue to attach ourselves to this manufactured semitic super-hero? Like you said, "where the facts blur into fiction" is not a concern to you or to me so can't we just dispense with the fairy tales? Why do we need all this ancient Palestinian stuff? There is so much baggage with this, and it is such an uphill battle against fundamentalism, and using an amorphous person/non-person is just distracting from doing the right thing and loving people and dealing with all the horror in the world. We are already using a picture of this guy that suits us, why do we keep invoking the name of him to do what we already know we need to do?
Can't we do the right thing because it's the right thing and stop justifying ourselves by using this dude's name?
hoping to understand where you're coming from better,
Mitch
Mitch,
We are in agreement. There was a subtle implication that didn't come across well in what I wrote.
In my last post when I said : "Jesus certainly said all the things that he said in those stories" I mean that the CHARACTER JESUS (post-Easter Jesus ) said those things. We can read the words that the character in the story said so the "character" definately said them. I agree with you that we may never find out what the historical Jesus actually said. But you never know, we may uncover the Gospel of Jesus some day.
As far as "doing the right thing", I think you've missed the message of what the right thing is all about. Unless we dive into the context of these writings we will likely miss the point.
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