A Strange Notion of Myth Formation

   

I am always thinking about how we got where we are and how things came to be so.  Today, I was given a concept that I will try to explain to you.  Let's see if I can.

To begin, I don't think myth is a bad or untrue word.  I think it describes something possibly quite true in an easily assimilated narrative form.  I think sometimes  people tend to assume that to call something a myth is to say that it never happened, it's an untruth. Not to say that every myth is equally true.

Ok, I was imagining the long expanse of past time in it's unknowable vastness and reach and thought...there is no way we can process or perceive something like this.  And then I began to see that over time there are high points, and that when viewed from the perspective of the present they assume a shape that tells a story that means something real, though it is an artifact.  

Can I produce a believable example of this airy fairy notion?

Let's take a homely example from a family history.  You probably knew your grandfather.  But you don't know everything that ever happened to him in his life and everything he ever did.  Family history tells you of certain points in his life.  He was born in a certain place, he had certain parents.  He had a childhood, had some kind of schooling, married a certain girl and so forth. He had a history of the things that he said and did.  Certain points stand out.  Taken together those points create a picture of the man.  I said of my grandfather that he was a hard man.  That's a very tiny myth.  A hard man.  It's true, but it's a symbolic artifact, a glyph, to stretch a point.  It's foreshortened all to heck.

Myths, I believe, are foreshortened truth.  

You know, of course, that I am dreaming about the book of Genesis.  I wouldn't presume to say that I know how it came about, really.  But I think I see, looking back into deep time, the way the story, as we know it, could have happened to be formed.

This should not harm faith.  It should enlarge it. The Almighty God of Creation, the world, all of the universe and time are so much more than we apprehend, or at least I could apprehend.  Glorious it is!  To think less is to resort to religious idolatry.  IMO.

  I hope that I have not gotten myself into trouble. You may feel free to throw tomatoes at me!

Oltremare means overseas