MYTHS IN THE BIBLE
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
This is the very essence of myth: Man and God standing together on the battlefield, the man Joshua, and the Lord Yahweh, facing the critical issue of life, and time stands still for Joshua the man and the people Israel as they reach into history, into the past where a man named Jasher described such a moment, and now the man and the people Israel have become one in time past, present and future, with the Lord their God who is Yahweh great in battle. This is the day when time stands still, when the issue of the very life and destiny of the nation Israel is being decided on the field of battle and by the strength of the arm that wields the sword. This is the mythic moment in the creation of the nation Israel who will establish the power of the Lord God upon the land, and it will not be seen again until that day when Israel faces the great moral issue of a moral and ethical religion against the power of the sex crazed religion of Baalism when the prophet Elijah will stand against four hundred and fifty priests of Baal and yet again when the two, Moses and Elijah, will appear with the Messiah on the mountain top and assert that this one is indeed the Son of God. So the promise made to Abraham that the land will belong to his seed is fulfilled by the bloody sword in the strong arm of Joshua, and we have one more notch in the mythic struggle to create a man of power in the likeness of God. We learn now something about both God and man: that God is the power that not only frees, liberates his people from Egyptian slavery, but sets them in power upon the land where their destiny is to be achieved and seen. Joshua is the man of the moment when time stands still for the revelation of that power of God to be revealed in His people Israel. In such a mythic moment did time stand still when Odysseus returned to Penelope’s bed after twenty years of war and wandering and the goddess Athena stood over them and held back the rising of the sun until their lovemaking was complete? But the land which Israel has taken will not stay taken unless other mythic heroes arise to face the issue and offer their faith, sometimes their sword, to Yahweh God of hosts and LORD of Israel.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
Myths in the Bible grew out of the controversy over the Bible. Is every word the factual truth, just like God gave it to the men whom He inspired to write it? Or is it a book of myths written by the hand of man to tell us what happened to them when they met God? The answer hinges on the meaning of myth which is a special way of telling a story to show how God gets His point across to man. So myth is truth, but truth that is not dependent on facts to undergird it. Myths in the Bible tells the truth about God and man in the struggle of life. Myth is God’s Hand reaching out to man. It is man trying to get a hold on God’s Hand. It is God and man, hand in hand, facing life on this earth.
About the Author
Henry Alfred Buchanan was born in Georgia more than ninety years ago. He grew up on a red dirt farm near Macon and attended church at Mount Zion Baptist Church. The Lord called him to preach; he studied at Mercer University, then at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he earned the degree of Doctor of Theology. Doctor Buchanan loved the heroes of the Bible from his boyhood. And he takes the teachings of Jesus very seriously. He always wondered where Cain and Able got their wives, and who Cain feared would kill him. He marveled at the falling of the walls of Jericho. He wanted to find the meaning of it all. Buchanan was born to write, and he has written twenty-seven books and some newspaper and magazine articles. He did most of his work in Kentucky, but moved to Texas because that’s where the Georgia girl, Anne Ellis, lives. They married. In Texas he keeps on writing and there may be another book after Myths in the Bible. Watch for it!