I would think the working definition would be or should be that the events actually happened as described. That the events, the people and what happened to them in those times are not just point makers but accounts of the miraculous hand of God at work. Real.
Forgive me for sifting further, but believing “that the events actually happened” could also mean a number of things. Did they actually happen
as written (in other words, Genesis or Exodus are accurate transcripts of what happened; Adam or Jacob or Moses must have said or did
exactly the same words or actions that you find written on the page, down to the last jot and tittle) in a literalist sort of way? Or something like “the stories
are based on historical facts but are not to be taken as modern newspaper articles or encyclopedia entries or screenplays”? Or anything else in between or beyond?
I mean, one could believe that Genesis or Deuteronomy or Judges are “real” in the sense that all the accounts ultimately convey
truth and in most cases, may well be grounded in historical
fact, but that doesn’t mean that believing that they are “real” necessarily entails that one must read the books in a literalistic, ‘fundamentalist’ sort of way.
BTW, do you remember me asking you on
another thread what you meant by the word ‘myth’? The reason why I asked that is because of this:
Personally, I believe Genesis to be ‘mythology’
par excellence. However, since the words ‘myth’ and ‘mythology’ are more commonly used today in the sense of “stupid lies only stupid kooks would waste their time with,” (when some people say ‘the Bible is a myth’ they often mean it in this sense, unfortunately) I need to qualify what I mean by it.
When I say ‘mythology’ I mean it in the original sense, the sense it is still being used by folklorists: a sacred narrative usually explaining how the world came to be in its present form, in other words “a story that serves to define the fundamental worldview of a culture by explaining aspects of the natural world and delineating the psychological and social practices and ideals of a society.” Myths (in the folkloristic sense) could arise either as elaborated accounts of the ‘factual’ past, as allegories for or personification of natural phenomena, or as an explanation of ritual, and are used to establish models for behavior and that myths may also provide a religious experience.
I believe the same is true for Genesis: I think that these are ‘myths’, elaborated stories of real historical events in the distant past. Just because the accounts are handed down to us in an ‘elaborated’ form, however, does not mean that they could no longer convey truth: does it really matter whether our first parents were really named
'Adam or
Ḥawwāh? Do we have to believe the dialogues recorded in Genesis is really what they said to each other, word for word (like a transcript), or for that matter, that they apparently spoke Hebrew? Personally, I don’t think the issue of whether Adam’s name was really
'Adam or something along those lines would have any effect on the ultimate truth that these stories convey: that God created the world, but man disobeyed and fell from grace. And even if somehow, what really happened back then was not totally ‘in agreement’ with what is written with Genesis, it still wouldn’t make the accounts an utter lie or the comparison with Jesus as the new Adam invalid, in my opinion.
In other words, I think that Genesis is mythical and at the same time, true. But that’s just my own personal opinion on the subject. Feel free to take it or leave it.
So, in the case of Genesis, one could say that I believe it to be a ‘myth’ (in the sense I described above) grounded in ‘fact’, ‘real’ and ‘true’ all at the same time. I believe God made the universe and that 'Adam or Ḥawwāh (aka Eve) existed (whether that is their actual names or not, or whether they had any name at all, is not of much importance to me - they’re our first parents all the same), but I do not take the creation accounts in a hardline literalist fashion, especially considering the OT’s original cultural context.
So yeah, I kind of doubt whether my own opinion - a huge mess as it is - is actually represented faithfully on the poll, which is why I’ll still refrain from picking one.
