This post has nothing to do with dragons. But I couldn’t find a picture of a Leviathan. Then again, this post has nothing to do with Leviathan either.

Instead this post is all about the term “myth”. I am of the mind that we lose more than we gain when we exclude the terminology of “myth” and “mythology” from the biblical text. In fact, if I’m going to be really honest, I think we are wise to use the category of “myth” for certain texts. Specifically, I’m thinking of the first chapters of the book of Genesis. Chapters 1-11 have a very mythical quality to them. And now that I’ve said that, I should probably clarify what I mean.

We have an unfortunate habit of setting the term “myth” as the opposite of the term “fact”. Search the internet and you will find all kinds of websites and forums that seek to expose and debunk certain myths for what they are, namely unscientific and nonfactual assertions. “Myth” as the antithesis of “fact” is a rather modern and crass use of the term. But it is pervasive. So it might be helpful to recognize broader ways that “myth” has been used.

When I use the word “myth” to refer to the early chapters of Genesis, your first reaction was probably to assume that I am calling them “unscientific” or “fictitious.” That would be offensive to most Christians, and indeed a challenge to orthodoxy. There is a more primary definition of “myth,” at least in my dictionary, and that is "a traditional story of unknown authorship, ostensibly with a historical basis, but serving usually to explain some phenomenon of nature, the origin of man, or the customs, institutions, religious rites, etc. of a people.” When I say that the early chapters of Genesis are mythic, this is the definition I’m working with. Let me explain.

The value in the language of “myth” is that it recognizes that some ideas cannot be fully explained through history or science. The first three chapters of Genesis are full of such ideas: the creation of the cosmos, the creation of humanity, and the presence of evil, for example. These are big ideas. They are abstract. Their full explanation is more than science and history can bear, and so they require mythological language. And this is important because it doesn’t just apply to the Bible. It is universally true.

In Big Bang cosmology the history of the universe can be tracked back in time for about 13.7 billions years. The known laws of physics offer us decent descriptions of the state of the universe during this time. But they fail to reach all the way back to the beginning. An instant before we backtrack all the way to the point when time begins, the laws of physics break down. Nothing makes sense. Which means that any description of the state of the universe before that time has left the purview of science and has entered the realm of imagination. To say anything more enters the realm of myth, and indeed science has such myths (e.g. a multiverse, or an eternal repetition of universes expanding and contracting forever).

I am convinced that Creation must always be described in mythological terms, no matter who is telling the story. What else should we expect? Creation out of nothing is more than our minds can handle. How can we imagine, much less express, some kind of existence that transcends time, space, matter, and energy? We can’t. How can we speak clearly about everything we can name, coming from nothing. We have no framework for such an idea. The most we can say is “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There is your core theological statement. Any further description of what happened must be mythical.

Which isn’t to say that it isn’t true. Who would argue that creation didn’t actually happen? But it does suggest that there is a Reality that exists beyond our deepest understandings. A Reality that cannot be contained in all of our facts, data, theories and understanding. C.S. Lewis had a great appreciation for myth and wasn’t afraid to refer to parts of the Bible as mythical, because “what flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is)….” The Reality behind creation is the source of all that we can say about creation, but that Reality cannot be reduced to all that we can say.

The same argument can be made for the other topics of Genesis 1-3. Humanity may be genetically related to other creatures in the animal kingdom as the theory of evolution suggests, but no part of that theory can describe the origins of animal life, much less the emergence of a self-conscious humanity from the animal kingdom. Again the Reality of humanity is greater than all we can say about it, and all the truths of history and science will never be able to fully explain the origin of humankind on earth. More importantly, any attempt they make of doing so will have to be mythological. For the emergence of human life from animal life is more than our science and history can handle. That story can only be told through myth.

If this is true, that some stories can only be told through myth, and that our highest truths and deepest descriptions are insufficient to describe the Reality behind it all, then we don’t need to set science against the Bible. Both in their own way are naming truths, but the Reality that is the source of those truths is beyond the full description of either discipline. Science and theology are looking from different angles, and they use different tools, but that shouldn’t be a source of conflict. Any conflict that we find between modern science and the early chapters of Genesis must lie in the vision of reality that they point us to. If the scientists say that the universe is an eternal cycle of expanding and contracting universes with no absolute beginning, then that is a myth that points to a reality in conflict with the Reality the Bible points to. Therein lies a conflict. If scientists tell us that the universe is a closed system of time and space filled only with matter and energy and that nothing exists beyond it and that nothing could ever intrude on and alter the course of nature, then that is a myth that points to a reality in conflict with the Reality the Bible points to.

The real question for Christians is whether the scientific data is actually in conflict with the Reality that Christianity says lies beyond the cosmos. Does a 13.7 billion year history of the universe conflict with the Reality behind “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?” Does an evolutionary history of life conflict with the Reality behind “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them?” These questions cannot be answered by comparing the myths of atheistic scientists to the myths of the Bible. (Which seems to be what usually happens. But why would we be surprised to see conflicting views of reality from atheists and from Christians?) But do we have scientists, who study that natural world, and who affirm the Reality that the Bible points us to? Yes, we do: Francis Collins, George Ellis, Karl Giberson, Mark Harris, John Polkinghorne, Kirk Wegter-Mcnelly, Robert John Russell, Nancey Murphy, Christopher Southgate are just a few such people. And the list could certainly be expanded greatly. Which suggests to me that the scientific evidence, including a Big Bang and an evolutionary history of life, can work with the Reality that the Bible points us to.

But the real value of the language of myth resides in the recognition of a Reality that transcends our data, facts, and understanding. A Reality that perpetually transcends our greatest thoughts and our deepest study. A Reality that brings us into awe and worship of the One behind it all.

• The C.S. Lewis quote is from his essay, Myth became Fact which can be found in the collection God in the Dock.