Memories, Myths and Mysteries.

I often joke about how bad my memory is, and it is really bad, but I do have some recollection of things that have happened to me. Every healthy mind has the ability to retain ideas, images and impressions of where it has been. These ideas, images and impressions are what we use to navigate through the world around us and to judge validity of things we encounter in the present. Because I remember the pain of touching the glowing hot burner on a stove, I will not believe someone who tells me that touching a hot stove will not hurt. In millions or perhaps billions of tiny ways, my memory shapes who I am and dictates what I believe.

For many thousands of years, humans had no written records of their existence, past or present. They had no written language. We should not imagine that they had no memories. Simple necessity and human nature would have led them to share their memories, share the things they knew to be true. These shared memories became the knowledge base that allowed them to survive and prosper. Fire is hot; tigers eat people; acorns grow into oaks. People learned to trust in a shared knowledge base.

Human nature being what it is, it is natural to suppose that over time, people would embellish memories of their own deeds and those of their cherished ancestors. This is the syndrome we know as the “fish story.” Every time the fisherman tells the tale, the fish gets bigger. This propensity leads to my valiant deeds growing more and more exciting as the telling continues. By the time we are recounting great-great grandfather’s deeds, he has become larger than life. He has become a legend; legends woven into tales become myths. Myths retold over centuries form one of the foundations of culture.

It is probable that the characters in Greek mythology, for example, had once-living human beings as their antecedents. It is certain that the Cyclops and Medusa were drawn from pure fantasy, as were the supernatural powers of Zeus or Poseidon. However, one can easily imagine that there were living men in the shadows of pre-history who grew into the superheroes of mythology. Archeology has granted a glimpse into ancient civilizations about which little is known apart from the myths.

With the ascendance of science and reason over mythology some five hundred years ago, people gradually discounted the reality of myth, although they enjoyed telling the tales as entertainment. A quick scan of the movie guide today attests to the fact that we still enjoy mythology. The problem for Christians is that many moderns lump the Bible in with mythology. They admit that there may have been an Israelite named Moses at some point in history, but he didn’t literally part the Red Sea. Jesus may have walked the dusty roads of first century Palestine, but he couldn’t have literally walked on water.

The enlightened, reasonable mind is going to have trouble with the supernatural in the Bible. It resembles the “fish story” style of mythology. However, there are good reasons to believe what the Bible says is literally true. For one thing, whereas Homer intentionally fabricated much of the Greek “history” he wrote, Luke takes pains to recount in his Gospel only what he could verify from the memories of eye witnesses. The Apostle Paul, who wrote two thirds of the New Testament, lived the history he tells. The last book of the Bible was written when there were people still alive who had either been there, done that, or they were personally acquainted with those who had.

There is another strong defense of the Bible as truth: no sane person is going to die to protect a myth. Only a crazy person would die to preserve the story of Batman. Yet tens of thousands, perhaps millions have died because they believed the Bible was a true story. Of course, there are other reasons to trust the Bible. It has phenomenal internal consistency for a collection of writings gathered over hundreds of years. Archeology and secular historians have confirmed the facts as stated in the Bible in every instance in which they have been challenged. The scientifically verifiable fulfilled prophecies alone testify to the Bible’s veracity.

And then we can go back to shared memory. I have my own personal memories of all the times God has proven Himself and the reality of His Word. My father believed the Bible; his father believed; there were men and women in every preceding generation going all the way back to the writers of the book itself who will attest to its truthfulness. Textual criticism proves that the very words of the Bible, Old Testament and New, have not changed over the centuries. The Bible is not a collection of fish stories; the Bible is the record of a loving Creator redeeming His lost Creation.

Are there mysteries in the Bible? Certainly. Paul refers to one of the most significant ones in Ephesians 3, which was a mystery to everyone in Heaven and on Earth until after the Cross of Calvary: the mystery of human existence. Then there is the mystery of how God can be totally sovereign, yet humans can have complete free will. It is still a mystery what we will be like when we “shuffle off this mortal coil.” I agree with A.W. Tozer that we must make room for mystery. We are not God; we will never know everything God knows. But we can know this: the Bible is true, and it alone holds the key to the life of the ages. No mystery there. And I hope I never forget it.