The Hebrew Mythology

I'm going to be honest, these past 2-3 weeks have been hard for me. In not only this class, my history class also, we looked at the Bible as mythology.

For some, this may not have proven to be
a problem, but for me, the world seemed to trip over its own axis. In my history class we looked at 3 mythologies, Egyptian, Babylonian, and....the Bible. Going into this I always looked at mythology as fairytales that were considered as religion at one point. (So how dare my "Christian" professors place the Bible, God's Holy Word with mythology... wait for it) I read through the first 2 myths with ease, but before I could read the assigned scripture, Dr. Leeper came in one day and pointed out that the Bible was mythology. Meaning it was a story, not a tragic one, like our stories, no, the Bible was a beautiful comedy, where the hero laughed in the face of death and gave the opportunity for humanity to accept his "salvation". The Bible was merely a story that fits in the definition of mythology.

Now let's setup the background before I go into the history class. First off, why was I so upset about the Bible being mythology? Just to give you a small "window" into my heart. I received Christ at a very young age and rededicated my life still in my youth. And since then, without too much detail, I can promise you, I have been through my own personal hell with my faith. So my biggest pet-peev is when someone tries to get me to "forget" my faith or leave it. I have Satan already on my case trying to get me to lose this battle, I don't need the rest of the world. So my theory, or ideology of why I stay with my faith is this:

 Even, in the end of my life, if my faith, my religion turns out to be false, I will have lost nothing. I will have lived a life of feeling fulfilled without regrets, because I believed I was forgiven. If and when I die and do not wake up in "Heaven", I will have lost nothing. I didn't lose years wasted upon hate of others, I wouldn't have trashed my body in an earthly, "youthful", way. I will have lived a life where I sought after knowledge, found answers in minuscule places, and loved others. I would have loved others because if you stripped my heart down to its "soul" you will see that I am a lowly human undeserving of love or forgiveness in any form. But I, through-out my life would have felt loved by this mythological God that I chose to call father, who is the main character in this mythological storybook called the Bible. And in the end, I would embrace death with nothing more or less than hope. Because I had hope in the greater.

On a final note. In history we had to compare all 3 mythologies and it struck me. The thing that we pointed out as a "flaw" in the Hebrew mythology was actually our best argument. We kept pointing out in the Old Testament that God seemed to be a wrathful and vengeful go who could easily be persuaded. But what if that wasn't the case. What if, like a story goes, it was merely foreshowing and the author wanted to set the stage for something greater. We were the only mythology that had an end to our story, a promise, which hasn't been fulfilled. What if everytime Moses, or Abraham or whoever stepped in for God's people to mediate for them it was a symbolic picture of the climax of the story. That soon they wouldn't need a middle man or a burnt offering to please God.

In the end, there would be a lamb whose blood would cover us for eternity. To stand between God and our sinful beings.


Now wouldn't that be a great story.