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To: Sopater
I said that teaching it as myth is no better.

I think that for a lot of stories, you have to make the choice. Was there a flood a few thousand years ago that killed off almost everyone? Did Moses actually part the Red Sea or see a burning bush that didn't extinguish itself? Sorry, I think most people view those as myth. Are they part of a larger structure that may impart larger lessons? Possibly, and that should be explored. But again, the bible shouldn't be used as a textbook - it's a book of old stories that many people consider to be relevent to themselves today. If you are going to teach the bible as literature, one of things you do is to look at myths from other religions and cultures and see how they compare to myths in Christianity. For instance, most cultures have a "great flood that destroyed the world" myth that are similar to eachother. Is that proof that there was a flood that destroyed the world? No - most early civilizations lived near water, and pretty much any large body of water will have a large flood at some point. One has to acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that the Christian flood story is any less mythical as any other religious flood story, if one wants to be even-handed in teaching a subject like this. So, yes, I do believe that treating biblical stories as myth is better than teaching them as fact. This doesn't mean that the teacher has to say that God is a myth, or that Christianity is wrong. But he should treat the text like he would any other non-Christian religious text in terms of truth value.
25 posted on 03/09/2007 11:37:53 AM PST by Stone Mountain
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To: Stone Mountain
Sorry, I think most people view those as myth.

[snip]

This doesn't mean that the teacher has to say that God is a myth, or that Christianity is wrong.


Only that the God of the Bible is a myth since the things that it says that He did is a myth. Right?

One has to acknowledge that there is no reason to believe that the Christian flood story is any less mythical as any other religious flood story, if one wants to be even-handed in teaching a subject like this.

There are many reasons to believe that the Christian flood story is less mythical than any other religious flood story. The Bible is full of prophecy that testifies to it's own truth. To call the stories of the Bible a "myth" is to call the author of those stories either "misinformed" or a "liar". No other religion has a documented record that comes remotely close to that of the Bible.
26 posted on 03/09/2007 12:21:35 PM PST by Sopater (Creatio Ex Nihilo)
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