1. Homework – due in
Critically compare the use of symbol with the use of analogy to express human understanding of God (35 marks)

2. Religious Language
Myth

3. Mythical beasts Myths communicate values, beliefs and truths
What truths could your mythical beast reveal?
What deeper significance could the story communicate?

4. Myth What is myth? Muthos (Gk.)
Originally referred to a word or speech or anything delivered by word of mouth
Came to mean a fictional story

5. MacQuarrie – booklets, p.16
Characteristics
of Myth
Dramatic
and
Narrative
Evocative
Immediacy
Alogicality
Remoteness
in time
and space
Community

6. Discussion What is a fundamentalist? What is an atheist?
How might fundamentalists and atheists be a bit similar?

7. Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr believed that myth must be taken ‘seriously but not literally’
This is different from the fundamentalist view that religious language must be taken literally
It is also different from the atheist rejection of religion as ‘just a myth’

8. Fundamentalism and Atheism
Fundamentalists and atheists often share the idea that religious language must be taken literally and judged on that basis
Niebhur’s recommendation to take myth seriously but not literally opens up other possibilities

9. Rudolf Bultmann Demythologizing the bible Existential interpretation
A blind acceptance of New Testament mythology would be simply arbitrariness; to make such acceptance a demand of faith would be to reduce faith to a work
The central message of Christianity:
let go of self-centredness and open up to God’s grace

10. Myth worksheet Fill in your line of the grid
Include lots of detail about the possible existential meaning of the story
Justify your answer about whether someone can be a Christian and reject the literal truth of the story – you could use p in the booklet to help you do this
Fill in the rest of the grid based on the other groups’ feedback

11. Traditional Story
Possible existential meaning
Can someone be a Christian and reject the literal truth of this story?
Creation
(Genesis, chapters 1 to 2)
Fall
(Genesis
chapter 3)
Flood
(Genesis chapters 6 to 9)
Virgin Birth
(Luke 1:26-38)

12. Traditional Story
Possible existential meaning
Can someone be a Christian and reject the literal truth of this story?
Incarnation
(John 1:1-18)
Jesus’ miracles
(Luke chapters
4 and 5)
Resurrection
(Luke chapter 24)
Last Judgment
(Matthew
25:31-46)

13. Evaluation of Bultmann
Strengths
Weaknesses