Thanks for your thoughts, Nick, which you obviously composed simultaneously while I was composing my response above to Roger. I do agree that we don’t go around creating myths in their larger sense (at least not in any way that we are consciously engineering). I agree that bearing false witness is bad. But I’m not sure that one can cleanly say that technical truth must always be present before any larger truth or good can be acknowledged (and maybe you make no such claim --but some might). For example if we can back this down to a simple local narrative: a young child has become convinced by things his mother has said that if he runs up to or talks to strangers, really horrible things will probably happen to him. Now this may not technically be true, but I would argue even so that for you to try to relieve such a child from his parentally-installed predilections by enticing him to carefully trust strangers (most strangers end up being very kind after all!) that you would nonetheless be doing a great and unChristian disservice in the act. Even though what the child has been allowed/encouraged to think by his parents may not be technically true, it still contains a larger Truth that the parents want their child to heed.
And I forgot to mention that I think my reply to Roger with the Wright quote substantially makes up what would essentially be my response to you too.
@Mervin_Bitikofer Um, no. Truth is true and false is false. The current cultural air breathed by pretty much all of us today makes me hold my nose. In your example, the best course of action would to be honest with the child, which would be to teach the kid manners and “stranger danger”. The larger truth that the parents want the child to heed is that the kid needs to be careful around strangers because some of them are not safe, and this larger truth can be taught to the kid directly without recourse to exaggeration. It is wrong to manipulate people (adults or children) to try to shape their behavior by telling them things that are not true, because the truth will assert itself and people need to be prepared for that. Also, remember to be good in any of your reply’s or the tooth fairy will put coal in your stocking.
I’ll reword this response to be less of a short retort and more of an explanation (and hopefully to still avoid any tooth fairy visits 
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I too hold my nose at most (but in my case not all) of the post-modernist air. In recent years I’ve become more aware, though, of how much we (and creationists are especially included here) have deeply inhaled the modernist air from the last couple of centuries. The younger generation may only know a post-modern culture first hand, but that hasn’t stopped them from inhaling our second-hand smoke as it were. And the smell of it has permeated so deeply into our cultural trappings that we have begun to mistake it for a part of our pious tradition –even thinking it to be the historically faithful approach to the Bible. But it isn’t. And never was, as I can see now in continued study of the Scriptures themselves. And while we have managed to hold our nose for some modern scholarship (especially much of the ‘higher biblical criticism’ sort), we unconsciously inhaled all the rest of the (often unstated) presuppositions that we have now have even given a pious cloak to make it look like creedal defense. Faithful biblical scholars today are helping us discard some of that distorting and misleading modernist baggage to see Scriptures with clearer eyes.
What this does, it seems to me, is simply equate “myth” to story, and then leave it open to possibility as to whether the myth is true or not true. I am at a point where the use of the word myth is meaningless. What three or five characteristics do you use, to distinguish myth from narrative? What three or five characteristics do you use to distinguish myth from fiction? If “myth” is to mean some combination of historical narrative and fiction, how do you distinguish myth from historical fiction? In other words, what is myth? What is it like, and what is it not. (100 words or less 
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Thank you for that quote N. T. Wright’s Last Word. It is wise in that it points to a large part of the problem is a human problem rather than a faith problem.
Some people seem to think that just because they understand the Bible in a certain way they have faith and they are saved. He understands wisely that this is not true.
First of all our faith in not in the Bible, but in Jesus Christ. In fact wright did not want the book to be entitled the Last Word because The Last Word, as in the Ultimate Final Word (Logos) is Jesus Christ, not the Bible. When we understand that we relax about the details of what the Bible says and look at the whole picture of God’s plan of salvation.
Second, Wright criticizes pre-modernism, modernism, and post modernism, so there is no easy solution to understanding the Bible. I wish he had said that there is no easy solution to understanding life. This is not a theological problem, this is a scientific, philosophical, human problem, that requires a scientific, philosophical, human response.
Third, the biggest problem we have is that most people on all sides do not realize that there is a problem with language and how Westerner understand life. They think that their point of view is just fine, or needs just a little fine tuning. The first step in solving a problem is understanding that there is a problem.
Fourth, Wright did not put forward a solution to the problem in your quote from the beginning of the book. If one does not know that there is a problem, one will not put forward a solution, that can be discussed and accepted or rejected. Right now I am not interested in a diagnosis of the problem. I want a solution that than be discussed. He must have put something forward in the book that you can quote to see if it is useful.
Five, God has given a basic answer to understanding reality through the Trinity. For some reason people, believers as well as unbelievers do not want to explore that possibility. I fail to understand why we do not want to accept this wonderful gift of knowledge and understanding God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has given to Christians and humanity.
I do look forward to finishing this shorter work, and then maybe I can come back here with quotes, Roger. In fact his slightly longer (but still eminently readable!) work “How God Became King” is a more recent work of his, and I did finish reading that. So I think I can begin to anticipate much of where Wright may be going in this earlier work.
I don’t imagine Wright is maybe quite so gung-ho about heaping further emphasis onto already shouted traditional creeds or Trinitarian technicalities (not that he is disagreeing with any of their contents, mind you). He just thinks that we’ve so powerfully pushed those, that we fail, then to see some very essential and significant things that the creeds leave out.
I’m not at a spot in time here where I can spend time elaborating now. But maybe I’ll revisit some of what you bring up here at a later point.
Myth and narrative are not mutually exclusive terms and they both have multiple senses, so it gets squishy.
Narrative is a text genre. So the text genre of a literary myth is narrative (as opposed to expository or hortatory, for example.) As I pointed out above, myth and narrative are often used interchangeably when talking about the telling of history with an agenda.
I was using the term narrative in the way it is commonly used in sociology or political science, as a way of identifying a person’s framework for understanding the world. For example, my husband enjoys commenting on NPR threads about development work and international politics. It is a common narrative among other commenters that religion is destroying the world and can not be credited with any good. All facts and information are filtered through and made to fit their narrative and serve as further proof that their narrative accurately describes the world. So according to their narrative, I am involved in development work, not because my religion has motivated me to do a good thing and help people, but because I have a white guilt complex I need to feel better about, or I have a secret desire to exploit the poor somehow, or I am a pathetic loser who could not get a real job in the US. You could say this narrative, that religion is destroying the world and no good can be credited to it, is a myth (synonym for lie) and offer a different interpretation of the facts. You wouldn’t really be simply exposing a lie though, you would be offering a different narrative, a different interpretation of information that supports a different story about how the world works and different conclusions about what it means. That kind of thing is not easily reduced to a truth value. You evaluate narratives on a better/worse continuum (not a true/false continuum) based on how well they correspond to and explain reality and how much a person has to manipulate, fabricate, or ignore in order to maintain the narrative’s coherence.
As far as myth and fiction…
I think myth is a kind of origins story (not necessarily purely fiction) that intentionally attempts to communicate insight, truth, and meaning about things that are important to the identity or beliefs of a community. In many ways the way we tell early American history to children is mythic. It is based on real facts and people, but we “mythologize” them to serve our purposes of creating an identity as Americans and to teach our beliefs about freedom, democracy, equality, courage, etc. We leave parts out when they don’t fit the narrative. We fictionalize parts to make them fit better. If several thousand years went by, the story of how American began would probably become even more mythic.
Historical fiction is a story someone makes up to communicate the facts of history in an entertaining way. A mythologized history is a story that tells the facts of history from a certain perspective and with goals of instilling certain beliefs and values.
I don’t draw this big black line between story and truth like it appears you do. There are lots of stories that communicate true things. Sometimes the true things they communicate are facts. Some times the true things they communicate are ideas. You evaluate the value of a story based on what it is claiming to do (entertain, motivate, inform), not strictly on some kind of truth-o-meter that corresponds only to accurate representation of historical facts. Humans use stories for much more than communicating facts. We use them all the time to define ourselves and find meaning in the world.
Discussions of myth, story telling, and truth can become convoluted when they “spill over” into how people may view, and believe, the teachings of the Bible. It is a central tenet of the Christian faith that such teachings are, and must be, inspired by the Holy Spirit. For non-believer, this is an impossible proposition and they would instead, examine every genre and ways to make up stories, in an effort to nullify a need for guidance in understanding the Bible. When we add direct interventions by God in human affairs (and in Nature), meaningful discussions with non-believers becomes impossible.
Regarding theists, understanding the Bible is helped by study and any insights offered by historically valid information - but ultimately, we trust in God and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit - myths? narratives? stories? history? these are categories that seek to organise how language is used by us. The Bible however, is written primarily to reveal God to us - so all categories used for oral and written communication must be subjected to this primary criteria.
To teach a lesson or truth very much like a parable. I know this is a short answer; however, I need say no more. I have not read the previous answers; therefore, they may say much the same thing. 
Some may say this about Genesis 1-11; however, I accept the Roman Catholic view on Adam and Eve in relation to Theistic Evolution.
@GJDS
Kevin VanHoozer (a Reformed theologian who interacts very deeply with postmodern philosophy of language) has written some interesting things along these lines about what he calls “theodrama” and divine speech act. The idea is that the whole of Scripture is God actively doing something with human language. He sees the Christian life as entering and continuing “God’s story.”
Here is a CT summary of his stuff if anyone is interested: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/june/kevin-vanhoozer-drama-king.html
The article says:
[quote] "The stories, poems, letters, and visions in the Bible aren’t simply the products of human authors who were infused with divine insight. Instead, says Vanhoozer, the Bible is God’s way of addressing and guiding the church, of administering his saving covenant with us. Studying the biblical books in their historical contexts is, of course, vital. But the Bible achieves its present purpose—of making us all like Christ—because of how God speaks through it, present tense…
By saying that all of Scripture was “without error,” evangelicals risked implying that all of Scripture came in the form of “true or false” statements. How, then, to understand an exclamation of praise in the Psalms? Or what could the cry of “Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!” mean if it could only be slotted into a “true” or “false” box?
“To read always for the proposition is like always listening to a Brahms symphony only for the melody,” Vanhoozer says. “My motivation for saying that [is] to hold Scripture up high, to let it be everything it’s supposed to be.”
In short, Vanhoozer shook up evangelical thinking about Scripture at just the moment when it could have calcified. He insisted that evangelicals were right to keep a high view of Scripture’s authority. But he was equally firm that God does many things with the Bible: God prompts lament, incites adoration, urges repentance, wounds pride, and announces forgiveness and new life. Of course, Scripture also asserts truth statements to be believed, but that’s not the only thing it does.
The biblical canon doesn’t just make claims about the world. It seeks to reinvent that world—and remake us in the process.[/quote]
[quote=“Christy, post:31, topic:4159”]
Quoting Vanhoozer: The biblical canon doesn’t just make claims about the world. It seeks to reinvent that world—and remake us in the process.
[/quote][my emphasis added to ‘just’ in the quote above]
Vanhoozer treads just a bit lightly over the critics of this view, well-represented here by JohnZ (we’ll see how good a job I do anticipating his objection). Of course the Bible doesn’t do just those things [claims about the world]; but where it does, they should be expected to be true, right? Or earlier about the question of what to do with expressions of praise or such, that is a caricature of those critics because they are intelligent enough to know that not all expressions are claims. They are not ignorant of interrogative or imperative or exclamatory modes of expression as distinguished from declarative statements.
Note --I don’t number myself among those critics except that I do agree we shouldn’t assume that they consider themselves stumped by these things.
All of that said, I will hasten to add that I am in agreement with the gist of Vanhoozer’s approach as characterized in the given quote. I haven’t read his full article. But I do agree that even just among grammatical claims (statements) --and to further sharpen that: even among the claims that on a surface level can appear to be of a naive literalist or historical sort – we shouldn’t be wantonly imposing that criteria of interpretation on all of those. That is where I think I would continue to disagree with JohnZ.
This presumes that our attitude toward the Bible should always be one of “getting beyond the text” to the truth that the text teaches or asserts. I think Vanhoozer is proposing (or at least engaging with) different approaches to getting meaning out of the text altogether, so it makes comparisons with the modern paradigm difficult. People like John Z and Vanhoozer are operating under completely different assumptions about how language works, where meaning resides, what texts do to readers and what readers do with texts.
The whole concept of Austin’s speech act theory that Vanhoozer appropriates proposes that language does much more than describe reality (in propositions or assertions that have a truth value), and by their nature speech acts, or performatives, either cannot be assigned a truth value or are not assertions.
But, yes, where the Bible describes reality, it describes reality truthfully. But as I understand it, the argument is that the main point of theodrama is not to provide us with a set of true propositions from which we can construct a systematic theology. The point is to shape ongoing reality and the participants in it toward its ordained eschatological end. And it does that through providing the story of ultimate meaning and inviting participation in that story. At least that’s how I understand it; reading Vanhoozer is not exactly relaxing and no cookies are left on the lower shelves.
That seems quite sound to me … and it seems that your representative paragraph may need to (and did) suffice since the rest of his article is, for me, behind a CT registration wall.
Maybe for so many of us historically, part of the “shaping of ongoing reality” inspired by that theodrama is that it (and the heretical responses) inspired us to ‘create systematic theologies’. 
Vanhoozer sounds fascinating. Your reference to cookies went over my head (since the shelves I can reach are empty I guess.) Do I get cookies if I read Vanhoozer?
Only if you can reach the top shelf. 
“He puts the cookies on the bottom shelf” is an expression for making something hard to understand accessible to those who are less than brilliant. Vanhoozer doesn’t try very hard to do that. He uses $5 words when a 25 cent word would suffice. He could use a good editor. But if you can wade through it, he says interesting things.
I’m two chapters in, but I haven’t picked it up in a while. If you do talk about it somewhere, PM me a link, and maybe it will inspire me to make an effort to get back to it.
This is one aspect that has interested me for some time. I cannot see scripture as written under some sort of force compelling the writer, nor can I see it as a collection of literature that has caught the attention of some Hebrew scribes and religious leaders. I think the writing reflects the way the Hebrews would articulate their faith, and national identity, so language and specific personal and interpersonal matters that may be peculiar to the Hebrew national identity are very important for an understanding of the Bible. I see an additional dimension, in that the content of scripture contains material on people who have interacted with God, but more than this, of people who have pleased God. In this we would also see material on the opposite of this, such as acts of faithlessness, perversity and so on. When taken in this way, the Bible becomes far more relevant both to faith, and also the aspects of the human condition that brings so much suffering and pain. It would also show us why atheists and others have such a hard time with the Bible.
A topic in its own right so I will leave it at this point.
As far as I can see a linguistic approach which you seem to be talking about does not address the basic problem of finding meaning in the world today.
That basic problem is the clear denial of the fact that meaning exists in any objective, tangible form in reality. If meaning does not exist, then any effort to understand meaning if bogus, no matter how good it might be.
Thus it is most important to address the ontological worldview claims of Monad and the New Atheists who claim that the only scientific world view is monistic materialism, which precludes the fact that the universe is rational and life has meaning.
This what BioLogos and friends has not done as far as I know. Please correct me if I am wrong.
The thing that most likely holds us back is that a critique of monism requires a defense of the current world view which is Western dualism, which is not really defensible. That is why we, all of us, need a new and more complete world view based on the Trinity as the basis for understanding the Meaning of life.
Right. There is a difference between asking questions about how one gets meaning out of a text and what that perceived meaning is influenced by (questions about language, cognition, and culture) and existential questions about the meaning of life.
I am not a philosopher. But as I understand it, the whole idea that you can always completely deconstruct the world down to nonsense (a la Derrida and friends) is a debated issue among postmodernists.
By specifically aligning themselves with orthodox Christianity, and having a target audience that is already Christian, I would think they most people understand that they are implicitly aligning themselves with a group that blatantly rejects meaninglessness. BioLogos doesn’t dedicate space to refuting liberal textual criticism, or feminist reconstruction of God, or liberal historical Jesus studies either. The primary mission of BioLogos is not to make orthodox Christianity acceptable to those who dispute orthodox Christianity. It is to make mainstream science acceptable to orthodox Christians.
@Christy
Is neoDarwinian evolution as espoused by Richard Dawkins mainstream science? My understanding as stated by BioLogos is that it is. If that is so, then in my opinion this version of mainstream science is unacceptable to me as a orthodox Christian because it denies the fact that the Logos, Jesus Christ, is the Telos or Meaning. This is not because Dawkins is an atheist who of course does not believe in Jesus, but because his theory of evolutionary change indicates that there is no telos or meaning, religious or secular.
I am not asking that the faith be made more acceptable to non-believers, but that the science of evolution be improved to be more in line with the Christian view that God is Love.
To some extent BioLogos is put in the position of telling conservative believers that their understanding of Reality is wrong, while seeming to agree with the views of “scientists” who reject God. I think that BioLogos needs to firmly reject materialism that rejects the involvement of God in reality by rejecting the false ideology of Monod, Dawkins, & Co. based in large part on the flawed “science” of Darwinism, mainstream or not.