I was raised on Dr. Dobson, and have just sent him a letter requesting his assistance to help me stop loosing faith in the Christian Church. My Mom respects Dr. Dobson as much or more than any other Christian leader, and she is interested to see his response. I only started learning the truth about the 9/11 attacks last fall. It took me an entire year to convince my own parents to listen to me, and begin reviewing the evidence for themselves. Now that they have thoroughly and objectively taken a fresh look into all the available evidence, they too are now aware of how badly we have been deceived. They now fully support my mission to find out what really happened to 2,993 of our fellow countrymen that fateful September morning. My mom is very interested to see if/how Dr. Dobson will respond. Please read my open letter to Dr. Dobson and share your thoughts at………
http://blandyland.com/?p=459
Does Christ’s Church really stand for TRUTH & JUSTICE? That is the question!
Daniel Edd Bland III
http://www.BlandyLand.com

Shalom from http://www.living-inspired.com
Between a Rabbi who thinks that calling the Bible a myth and a Christian who believes that 9/11 was a conspiracy (wake up dude!), one cannot but wonder where is the inspiration in this Jewish section of Beliefnet.com.
Rabbi, the Torah is emet mihashamayim, period.
Who cares about the work of Robin Yassin-Kassab or any other unknown writer? The Bible is a myth = the Jews have no covenant with God = the land of Israel was never given to the Jews. I mean we all know where these people want to lead us by trying to demonstrate that our Torah is a myth. What’s the point of giving them a platform?
Check out http://www.living-inspired.com for your daily spiritual click!

First time I read such definition of “Myth”.There will be many more discussions in the following years as it happened in the past.

I think the great writers like Lewis and Tolkein understood the point you are making, that the holy scriptures are huge archetypal stories, meant to illustrate timeless truths.
My own beliefs are filled with tension. I believe in the integrity of Scripture, but there are stories I find very difficult to accept as quite literal. (stories like the Creation story, the sun standing still Noah’s ark for instance.) Yet, I’m very uncomfortable in making these calls in a haphazard fashion.
at the end of the day, I accept the truth of scripture, but do so, with respect for the fact that I cannot understand the mind of ha shem. As you suggest, it is arrogant of me to think otherwise

the bible TORAH IS NOT A FAIRY TALE ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE WITH G-D – WE ARE BUT MERE CREATION OF G-D IT IS THE THING OF CERTIAN INDIVIDUALS TO DIMISS THE HOLY SSRIPTURES AS MYTHS – ISRAEL IS G-DS GIFT TO THE WORLD AND IT IS THE LAND OF THE CHILDREM OF ISRAEL . THE TORAH IS G-DS WORD. AND INDIVIDUALS WHO CALL THEMSELVES JEWS WHO ARE NOT.

When you lay down with liberal and progressive dogs (appeasing secularists), you wake with fleas, an STD that can kill you, porn on your hard drive and a violent and permissive society where children can’t walk the streets or walk home without risking their life.
Be careful what you wish for Rabbi.

To Eytan and Solomon, I can only say three things:
1, I am glad that you are reading and commenting — your voices are imporant parts of the conversation.
2, I share your belief that Torah is the infinite gift of an infnite God. In fact, I wonder if you really believe that also, how you could possibly pressume to know all that it means. Even the Sages were modest about such claims, going so far as to imagine that Moshe could not understand the teaching of Rabbi Akiva….
3, please be carefull that you not confuse that which you believe with that which God says/believes. Or, at the very least, be aware that when we assume those two are always on perfect alignment, we are probably just listening to ourselves and pretending it’s God.

I wholeheartedly agree that the word myth applies to the Bible. But to say that they’re more real than reality, that’s just plain absurd.
They’re real, but myths should be understood from the Jungian and psychoanalytical perspective, as psychological phenomena, sort of fossilized vestiges of the intrapsychic drama that our ancestors lived through. In fact, Joseph Campbell was nurtured by the analytical psychology school of Carl Jung, and was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century: he is the man who was really behind the genius that produced Star Wars, a personal mentor to George Lucas.
I think most of the myths of the Bible are not only irrelevant today but that some actually are symptoms of psychosis – specifically senile psychosis, when it comes to the infanticidal tendencies of Jehovah. I say this not only because of Isaac’s almost sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the little girl as a ‘burnt offering’ to Jehovah in Judges 11, and the sacrifice of Jesus, but also because of the killings of lil children in Nigeria which are happening today under the shadow of this God. There is a truly sinister, Molok-type quality to the archetypal image that is the God of the Bible that people don’t want to openly acknowledge.
I agree with Joseph Campbell and other Jungians that we need new myths, the old ones no longer work for our culture.

hello
for many years i am doing ancient bible cods(not computerised) to find out the truth about the bible to fined out the true meaning of bible stories.i began on 1995 and i am doing it up to now and hope to do it all my life.with these cods i could predict to coming assasination of prime minister rabin a month and half befor the event,i have published it at local newsletter/ then i worked on some biblical sentences that provide me the exact asimuth of a lost israely submmarin named DAKAR/i gave the israely navy my work,and all details about its gurney,they did not belive the work but when they were left with unknowing they used my work and went to my point. i was on israely television 3 days befor they found it and gave the exact place,it was found there
a year ago i worked on a very sad story,a yung woman had lost as if the ground swoloww her,police have been searching for years and came with nothing, so i decided to search for her in the bible by breaking some sentences related to her birth date and gave the police the work. i even gave it to an atorney to place the work at the house of court so i will have the proof / then i went with a friend and my atorney to see the place,we took some photos with a date mark.
this woman was found 150 meters from the place we stood,and the murderer was living at the exact country city i have been pointed to the police
for last 2 years i am breaking the bible cods of book of the prophet mishle and reveald the BIBLE INTERNET plus alot of events fron the past and some to come ,amoung the others i have found the truth about the holocoust and the whole true story of yeshua and miriam,you call him jesus ,so let me asure you the bible is no myth ,i can pruve it
true prophets wrote the bible with help of god’s angels,they have cover some of the truths inorder to cover some of the events maybe not to let us know future and with good reason so those who think the bible is a myth are defenatally wrong
of course those bible cods can be done only in hebrew
please forgive me for my english is not so good for using simple words to discribe huge events
thanks
zvia ben ami
israel
zviabatel@gmail.com

I think the question about being a myth is up to the person.
Myself, I’m not Christian or Jewish i do not see the Bible or Torah as being true or authoritative. I see it as an interesting history/religious history of an ancient people. It has some genuinely good advice and wisdom to offer. If you believe it is authoritative, it’s because one chooses to believe so. This is where ‘faith comes in.’
Sometimes I think the term “myth” is sometimes used as an insult or to demean a religion, meaning that it’s not real. I’ve encountered this a few times when others have spoke of my religion, Wicca.

No matter how you slice it, to English speakers myth = fiction, made up stories, perhaps emotionally true but true in no other sense. Myth is not a good translation of midrash, a figurative narrative revealing a spiritual truth. Not all of the bible – Hebrew or Christian – is midrash.
I think it would be good to call the Bible a Narrative. This would avoid the tendency to isolate texts outside the broad narrative of the overall Scriptures.
To me the narrative is the story of humanity (as represented by the Hebrews) grappling with an evolving concept of God (or humanity’s higher possibilities, if you wish). Humanity gets God wrong, God corrects humanity, some improvement occurs, and so on. Behind the narrative there is one grand theme: legitimate love of God is expressed through love of neighbor. Rabbi Hillel’s interpretation of this commandment – do no harm, wish no evil on anyone that you would not wish on yourself – clears up how to practice love of neighbor without reducing this command to sentimentality or masochism. But he is not making up what he says, just clarifying Scripture.

Perhaps a better description of the Tanakh would be a beautiful allegory that teaches humanity through its stories and the Holy One’s interventions and challenges of the players affected by them. A myth implies questionable truth and fantasy to describe an event or circumstance that is not easily understood. It’s original, but still only a story with little instructive purpose.

THE BIBLE IS NOT MYTH BUT IT’S THE REVEALED WORD OF GOD. MYTHS DO NOT MAKE PREDICTIONS OR PROPHECIES ABOUT THE FUTURE AS THE BIBLE DOES. SO FAR THE BIBLE IS ON TRACK FOR 100%, JUST THE ONES REGARDING THE “END TIMES” ARE LEFT TO BE FUFILLED AND THEY ARE RAPIDLY COMING TO PASS.

We need to be wary of mistaking fact for truth.

B-H
You could have a difficult time believing many of the narratives in the Torah, especially the Pentateuch. The bottom line is that the Torah spells out CLEARLY what will happen to the Jewish nation before the End of Days, and it is described explicitly that we will be redeemed in the end. Check out Deuteronomy, the verses just before Parshat Haazinu.
It would all be a huge fantasy, except that hisory bears out the horrible sufferings of the Jewish nation, where virtually every world power and where both Islam and Christianity (along with ancient pagan faiths) have texts describing how bad and horrible the Jewish people are (which resulted in the pogorom, inquisitions, holocausts, etc ad naseum) yet WE STILL SURVIVE..
How could a miserable bunch of wanderers, separated from our Temple and Land for thousands of years (and even now the world wants to take it away from us),survive intact?
The only explanation is that the Torah must be true, every letter, every crown on top of every letter, the Word of G-d, as dictated to Moses our Teacher on Mount Sinai.
My message to my Christian and Muslim neighbors…please repent before G-d judges the world for the atrocities committed against the Jewish people. No, we aren’t interested in converting to your faith or accepting your “god,” and yes, you can force us to jump off a roof before we’ll deny our G-d’s existence or legitimacy, but in the end, G-d will judge every human being for their actions. Don’t be caught short-handed.
Blessings for peace, tolerance and harmony among all humankind…

Very interesting insight….

Somewhere along the line I picked up this definition of “myth”: a story in which humans and the divine interact. Since that’s the definition from which I operate, I have little difficulty seeing the Bible as myth. But I have to explain myself regularly, because the popular definition of “myth” is “falsehood.”

Hello, fellow writers:
First, scholars have now concluded that Moses could not have and did not write the Law – that is a myth carried on for years. How could God have picked some people out of the middle of other civilizations to reign superior over all other people?
The God which called Abram was no less than El-Shaddai, God of the rocks or mountain (feminine name), that was stolen and converted to male – El, and later Elohim. Adamah (meaning from the soil) was a feminine name, converted to Adam. The Adam and Eve myth with the rib being taken from Adam’s side to make woman (Eve) was because the word “ti” which is a common Mesopotamian word meaning “to make live” was the only corresponding part of Adam that “Eve” could have been made from (the expanding ribs to allow breath for life). Sophia, meaning Wisdom, which always appeared with God in Theophanies (with smoke and fire to indicate God’s presence), was feminine.
The very form of the universe was taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh – where “the dome above the waters to separate the waters above from the waters below” was taken and extrapolated from Mummu-Tiamat’s upper body bolted to the sky. Also, the Hebrews believed that there were windows below the dome so that God could talk with people (Malachi 3:10), which is often used to extract tithes from churchgoers. This was an ancient cosmology.
Primarily, what we have is a document written fron an androcentric view, which subrogates women even unto today to men. There are Feminist Theologists who are hot on the trail about that, too.
For all of you who want to swear by every word in the Torah, go ahead, but learned people know better.

All things that derive from creation are truth, we create our own truths from the multitude of eternal choices, spiritual faith strengthens our resolve to express our higher self in the vulnerable energy of seeking harmony and love, as opposed to the negative polarity of fear and need to be continually in control of that which is also a truth and part of the total creations of the mind and physical realities.
I view the Tanackh as being a part of the living creative essence that will deliver some meaning to those seeking to question or draw spiritual meanings.
Myths exist in the minds of man, who is to positively say what is total truth,fear of the unknown can co-exist with life forms that can only be seen with magnification.

This retired Baptist minister merely adds “Amen!”

I am a Christian Zionist. When Moses spoke face to face with G-D He received the Torah .When G-D spoke the word good over his creation “man” He spoke the truth . When all of history is over and done , all creation will see this is true. The choice of Abraham and Israel is how G-D has chosen bring this about . Yeshua in the Brit Hadasha said salvation is of the Jews . The Bible or the scriptures have been produced by holy men of G-D as they were inspired. The hammers of skepticx have been worn out by the anvil of G-D’s Word. It still stands . Myth is a very poor word to describe the revelations of G-d.

Just some history on the word…
“Myth”
1830, from Gk. “mythos” – “speech, thought, story, myth,” of unknown origin.
Myths are “stories about divine beings, generally arranged in a coherent system; they are revered as true and sacred; they are endorsed by rulers and priests; and closely linked to religion. Once this link is broken, and the actors in the story are not regarded as gods but as human heroes, giants or fairies, it is no longer a myth but a folktale. Where the central actor is divine but the story is trivial … the result is religious legend, not myth.” [J. Simpson & S. Roud, "Dictionary of English Folklore," Oxford, 2000, p.254]

The quality of myth within stories is what makes them applicable to a wide range of experience.
I understood the message of “The Little Red Hen” without having to ask my mother if the hen was really and not a chicken, or how she could talk, in an attempt to factualize the information being conveyed.
Torah teaches us at the most basic level and, with greater understanding, the information which may be gleened becomes more abundant still. In broad terms, that may even be called miraculous.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! It is so liberating to find others who want to question the “factuality” of the Bible. Myth, facts, and truth do not need to be mutually exclusive. By calling the Bible (meaning both Old and New Testaments) Myth, allows us to find ways to make stories that were written to address the needs of a specific group of people at a specific point in history meaningful and practicable (capable of being put into action)for this point in time. It allows us to get past the human boundaries of language to the spiritual concepts being illustrated.
And, conversly, by calling the Bible Myth, it allows seekers to glimpse spiritual truths in other aspects of life outside of religiously sanctioned documents — such as the truth of spirit that speaks through Rumi, Mozart, and Monet. It also empowers each of us to carry on our own conversation with the Divine.
God can, and does, speak to each of us in differnt ways and through different mediums — why close yourself off from the small, still voice when you hear it at any other time or through any other medium.