Saturday, May 14, 2011

Excerpt 2 from meditation on Revealed Truth

In my studies, I learned, as Paul indicates in Romans 1:18-23, that God has revealed himself to all peoples in some way, if at least minimally through the natural world. This universal revelation, from my view through the lens of Christ, was reflected in the reality that every group of people who have ever lived on the earth have or have had a mythology - everyone, even the ancient Hebrews.
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I also learned that mythology is not made up, fictional, unreal, fantasy stories. These stories often have the element of fantasy, but they embody emotional, mystical, psychological, sometimes even historial elements that can only be expressed in human language in fantastical vocabulary. They are metaphysical stories, reflecting the deepest truths a people hold, truths that sometimes aren't even recognized on a conscious level.
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These truths are the reason why anthropologists study peoples' mythology. It's the first thing they want to learn about because, without it, there's no way to understand how a people see themselves - in relationship to the world, each other, and the divine. And how people conceive of the divine in turn shapes the rituals and worship practices they develop culturally, as well as their social values, so we can't understand a people's cultural or moral expression unless we understand their mythology.
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Thus, studying mythology has enabled me not only to understand more of others and their cultures but also to see deeper meaning in the mythology of my own faith, meaning which a human, literal interpretation cannot provide. By taking into account the Holy Spirit's transforming work in us - including his inspiration - we can see how the Genesis text, though confined by language expressions of the time and place in which it was written, in this case, some six to ten thousand years ago, can transcend its time and place. Yet, by understanding its time and place, we can better understand the meaning that the human author desired to convey.