Are Genesis Stories Myth...
or Are They Truths so Deep That Mere Words Aren't Enough

Early in his analysis of the creation accounts, John Paul gives prolonged attention to their style. The accounts are not simply the artifact of an early attempt of religion to monopolize what we think. He acknowledges that the accounts are myth, but not in the rationalist sense of a fable. It is crucial to understand the significance of Genesis as a myth in the traditional sense of myth: a myth is not the same as a fable or fairy tale that tells a story to convey a true notion [emphasis SML]. Henri de Lubac, the French Jesuit scholar, writes, “On the other hand, fabula (tale, fable) (μνθος [myth]), in the singular, does not always indicate that it is a question of a false story, of events that did not happen[3] Rather, myth in the classical sense tells a truth about the human person through an event that is so true it cannot fit under a microscope. The rationalist emphasis of the nineteenth century attempted to relegate myth to fantasy. The stories of the past were branded as not true, made up, false—fantastic tales with no truth in them. As a category of human expression, however, myth is deeper.

The Genesis accounts are the classic myth: the accounts are in a sense “more than true” [a paradigmatic shift in understanding — SML]; they convey a truth too dense to fit in a fact.[4] Myth is not about fiction or the unreal, but the more than real. In fact, in light of the truth about man contained in the myth, the modern approach to the human person and marriage is unveiled as the fabrication. Rather than read as fantastic, out-of-date stories, the first chapters of Genesis must be understood as prophetic history[5] extending into the “dateless past” of an anteroom of history, “a region beyond memory,” whose reality is nonetheless accessible[6]. The author of the first book of the Bible is expressing a truth about man that has a different consistency from a mere series of factual notes.

John Paul points out that “the rationalism of the nineteenth century” regarded myth as a “product of the imagination or what is irrational[7] He then goes on to describe the classical sense of myth as discovering “the structure of reality that is inaccessible to rational and empirical investigation.”[8]

This profundity has a[n] especially subjective nature and is therefore, in a certain sense, psychological. The second chapter of Genesis constitutes, in a certain manner, the most ancient description and record of man's self-knowledge. Together with the third chapter it is the first testimony of human conscience. A reflection in depth on this text - through the whole archaic form of the narrative, which manifests its primitive mythical character - provides us in nucleo with nearly all the elements of the analysis of man, to which modern, and especially contemporary philosophical anthropology is sensitive.[9]

Following the contemporary philosophy of religion and that of language, it can be said that the language in question is a mythical one. In this case, the term “myth” does not designate a fabulous content, but merely an archaic way of expressing a deeper content [i.e., paradigmatic shift — SML]. Without any difficulty we discover that content, under the layer of the ancient narrative. It is really marvellous [sic] as regards the qualities and the condensation of the truths contained in it.[10]

Corporality and sexuality are not completely identified. In its normal constitution, the human body bears within it the signs of sex and is male or female by its nature. However, the fact that man is a “body” belongs to the structure of the personal subject more deeply than the fact that in his somatic constitution he is also male or female. Therefore, the meaning of “original solitude,” which can be referred simply to “man,” is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different “incarnations,” that is, on two ways of “being a body” of the same human being created “in the image of God” (Gn 1:27).

Following the Yahwist text, in which the creation of woman was described separately (Gn 2:21-22), we must have before our eyes, at the same time, that “image of God” of the first narrative of creation. In language and in style, the second narrative keeps all the characteristics of the Yahwist text. The way of narrating agrees with the way of thinking and expressing oneself of the period to which the text belongs. …

So, God-Yahweh says: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Gn 2:18). At the same time the man confirms his own solitude (cf. Gn 2:20). Next we read: “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman” (Gn 2:21-22). Considering the specific language, first it must be recognized that in the Genesis account, that sleep in which the man is immersed - thanks to God-Yahweh — in preparation for the new creative act, gives us food for thought.

Against the background of contemporary mentality, accustomed — through analysis of the subconscious — to connecting sexual contents with the world of dreams, that sleep may bring forth a particular association. However, the Bible narrative seems to go beyond the dimension of man's subconscious. If we admit, moreover, a significant difference of vocabulary [between the different semantics of the pre- and post-Hellenistic mythical language — SML], we can conclude that the man ('adam) falls into that ‘sleep’ in order to wake up ‘male’ and ‘female [emphasis mine]. In Genesis 2:23, we come across the distinction 'is-'issah [male and female – JP II] for the first time.”[11]                       

1.       There would be no words that Moses could use to describe a potential quantum/heavenly state in which God dwelled on earth, and in which Adam and Eve existed prior to the Fall of Man. Thus, God inspired Moses to use Ancient Hebrew mythic language. In modern terminology, paradigmatic substitution. In this case, the Garden of Eden. While the “Garden” could represent a state which is incomprehensible to early man, the organic materials described in the Garden could very well be both literalistic and literal; and,

2.      The understanding of what dust means in Scripture would require knowledge of three sciences: biology, chemistry, and geology. There would be no words in Hebrew that Moses could use that would have been adequate to describe the scientific knowledge necessary to understand that we are organic dust/salt. Yet, that understanding would be required in order to literally describe this primordial event. Thus, the need for mythical language to describe the paradigmatic shift in understanding God was conveying to the Hebrews, as well as to subsequent populations. So, the paradigmatic substitution, “dust of the earth” would be both literally and literalistically accurate (DNA is geologically defined dust and chemically defined salt), but using the one science, i.e., geology, that all people could understand, regardless of scientific knowledge.