DR. CUMMINGS: Are all myths really lies?

Do you remember when your 6-year-old son asked: “Daddy, where do babies come from?” Or the real kicker: “Who made God?” You answered those questions, I know you did. And your children went on playing, satisfied that their questions had been answered.

Think of the many hero-myths that we have always believed in — like the truthful George Washington and his chopped-down cherry tree. We were told he wouldn’t lie to his father: “Yes sir, I chopped it down.” Really? Sure, we believed it. And we told this myth over and over again to foster our own children’s veracity.

Mankind has always believed in myths. Thousands of years before Christ, people wanted to know how this world came to be. The Babylonians (modern Iraq) created the Enuma Elish myth with the male god, Marduk, slicing open the female god, Tiamat, and creating the world from her belly. They believed it — why not?

Many years later, the Northern Hebrews developed the Elohim myth in Genesis, 1:1 where a very “strict, rabbinic god” (Elohim) creates the world in six days and rests on the Sabbath. The Northern tribes believed it. Earlier, the Southern Hebrews had developed their Yahweh myth in Genesis 2:3 where a “playful, human-type god” (Yahweh) creates a Garden of Eden for his naked creatures to romp around in. The Southern tribes believed it.

Myths are necessary when we don’t know, or don’t need to know, the actual, historical truth, but when we do need to believe in something. Lately, I’ve been re-reading the seven actual letters of Paul to his Greek converts, who had grown up on the exciting myths of Zeus and the Trojan wars.

Paul used many “Christ myths” to convert them to Christianity. Remember, Paul never met the human Jesus. He never heard him speak or teach. He never walked the dusty Galilean roads with him or sat down to break bread and drink wine with him. And Paul didn’t want to talk to those who did. He shunned the Apostles completely, argued with Peter and said that “those who are considered important added nothing to me” (Galatians 2:6).

Then what was Paul preaching? Well, it wasn’t the peasant Jesus of Nazareth, that’s my opinion. That job fell to the four gospels which were written many years after Paul died. No, I find that Paul’s “gospel” was all about the Christos, “Christ-Jesus,” not the human Jesus of Nazareth. Paul seldom (only once in Romans) used the solo name Jesus. Paul seemed to have no interest in any of the stories later developed about the human Jesus like the infancy narratives and the parables and the miracles and the resurrection events. The Christos, for Paul, was the Messiah who had been foretold by the Hebrew Scriptures.

Paul was an expert in the Hebrew Scriptures. He had studied under Gamaliel, the famous Jewish professor (Acts 22:3). But Paul used the stories in these ancient scrolls the way his Greek converts used the stories of Apollo and Zeus. For example, Paul quotes the book of Genesis where God says to Abraham: “I will give this land to your seed” and Paul says: “because the word ‘seed’ is singular not plural, God meant ‘one seed,’ the Christos (Galatians 3:16). I think Paul knew his Greek readers would smile just like we do when we read about Santa’s reindeer.

Mythology is not a form of lying, it’s a form of art. Joseph Campbell gives us a great insight into this in his classic book: “Myths To Live By,” where he outlines the world’s most exciting myths and wisely tells us: “Don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.”

I agree with Campbell that the Bible has many priceless “biblical babies” to live by, if we can only understand and interpret the water that surrounds them.

Dr. Bill Cummings is the CEO of Cummings Consolidated Corporation and Cummings Management Consultants. His website is www.billcummings.org.

This story was originally published September 12, 2015 at 8:33 PM with the headline "DR. CUMMINGS: Are all myths really lies? ."