Of Myths and Parables…

Are we fighting dragons, slaying them like Saint George? Do we dismiss the ancient Greek or Mesopotamian myths as the fiction of peoples not as enlightened as we are today? If we do then where do we stop in rejecting past myths as pre-modern fables?

I am reading an excellent book by Andy Angel entitled Playing with Dragons: Living with Suffering and God. Starting with the Enūma Eliš - the Mesopotamian myth of creation - and comparing it to the similarities in the Biblical account in Genesis, Andy argues that the rich and sometimes bizarre text in myths offers insight into our spiritual lives in a way that modernist writings sometimes cannot. I highly encourage people to read his book.

What he seems to omit however is the relationship between myths and parables. Myths are generally fictional narratives attempting to make sense in a spiritual world of physical historical events. Parables are fictional narratives attempting to bring spiritual truths to influence a physical world in the future. They are, as such, mirror images of each other. Whereas many Christians in the 21st century are comfortable embracing parables they simultaneously reject myths. In doing so they lose something of the richness of mythological language.

So to start with let me offer this as a modern myth, trying to make spiritual sense of a recent past that created suffering and indeed for some people still does: 

The story of Lehoia

The goddess Hegoadlea was very beautiful, taking the form of a fish swimming in the deep ocean or the rivers. She had big fins allowing her leap into the air and skim over the waters like a bird. One day she was swimming in the big river and Iparraldea, the bull god, standing on the muddy bank of the great river drinking, saw her. She was indeed very beautiful and so, being a powerful god, he took her for his wife saying ‘Oh Hegoadlea, you who are the most beautiful of all the gods, come with me who is the most powerful of the gods and we shall procreate a family of gods to rule and bring peace in our lands’.

Indeed they had many children, Fidagarria was like a hunting dog, loyal and true, Harrokia was like a goose, or a rock sitting there not doing anything looking down on those who passed, Errukitsua like a rodent, though appearing dirty showed empathy and compassion above many and one, Lehoia, we know as the great sea serpent, and he above all showed independence enjoying the waters in which he swam. 

Unlike his mother Hegoadlea, Lehoia had no wings and could not fly but he controlled the sea with his power. He was passionate about gold and collected it wherever he could, storing it in the sea cave where he lived. Over the years the gold pile grew and he would sometimes bury himself in it enjoying the touch of the metal against his body.

As he lay there in his cave looking out he became jealous of the eagle, seeing it soaring above. He could not even skim the waters like his mother. So he hatched a plan. He would cut off her wings and sew them to his body then he too would fly. Then he would not be limited to the water. 

Now gold is a valuable but very soft metal, so he spent many years folding and hammering a sword to make it hard and sharp. All the while he was still laughing and talking with his mother, so she would not suspect his plan.

One day, while she was sleeping, Lehoia cut off Hegoadlea’s wings and as he slithered back to his lair carrying the wings in his jaws he left a trail of blood over the land. He stored her wings in his sea cave thinking he too would then be powerful like the eagle, when later he sewed them to his own body.

Iparraldea seeing his wife bleeding and crying licked her wounds and gently cared for her. Her wounds soon healed and over time new wings grew in their place allowing her to skim the waves again. Lehoia, angry at this, sent floods, hoping to drown Iparraldea, but he found a high mountain above the floods. 

Seeing how Lehoia had rebelled against them, when the waters subsided, Iparraldea assembled all the gods and they banished Lehoia to be imprisoned in his sea cave and so not hurt them again.

Meanwhile the dragon god Ekialdea was jealous of Iparraldea for his beautiful wife Hegoadlea. He had been flying over and watching all that was going on, biding his time. Seeing that Iparraldea was injured he thought ‘Now is my time, I will cause destruction and Iparraldea will be weakened and I can take Hegoadlea for my wife’. So he breathed fire over the land causing a great famine. 

Lehoia got very hungry in his isolated cave, so he ate his mother’s wings, spitting out the bones; so now he would never fly or skim the waves. Instead, Lehoia lay, half buried in gold… plotting. 

In comparing and contrasting Biblical accounts with ancient myths Andy Angel brings in some interesting insights. Biblical accounts include Leviathan, a sea creature considered total fiction in today's world, and in doing so demonstrates the writers knew and understood the ancient myths and their meaning. However in creation, for example, whereas the Mesopotamian myth sees human beings created as playthings for the gods, the Biblical account shows humans created in the image of God for a relationship with Him. 

He uses references to the Psalms to show how the same myth could be seen in a different light when viewed not in a world of chaos but in a world fashioned out of chaos by the one true God. So let us look at the myth above as if a psalm:

The Psalm of  Lehoia

The LORD is a great God
He is mighty in all his deeds
All the people of the earth worship you
They come together as one

Oh LORD, why then have you deserted me?
Why have you left me crushed and defeated?
My enemies have conquered me
They have taken away my freedom

They removed all truth from their mouths
They only told lies; lies upon lies
Our enemies plotted against us
So the people would not know the truth

They showed us the eagle
And told us we too could fly
Like Hegoadlea the winged fish
Who could skim over the waves

Then people believed those lies
They trusted Lehoia the serpent
He gave control to the people
While taking all power for himself

We called on them to return to you
But they would not listen
We called on them but they could not hear
Because they were deaf to your voice

But you are the one great God
Who chastises his people
With famine and flood
To bring his people back to him

So now we are rich
But we cannot eat gold
We are sick and dying
But precious stones will not heal us

Come LORD and rescue us
Save us from ourselves
Bring us back into community
The family of those who love you

One of the problems we have in today's world is Fake News which I dealt with in a past blog post, where I suggested we need to become truth-tellers. Myths and parables are not fake news, not antithetical with promulgating truth. They are different ways of communicating truth. Brandon Sanderson put it this way, 'The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon'. As truth-tellers, we bring myths and parables to give you spiritual questions to think upon.