Myth, Metaphor, And Reality
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In response to a question regarding the story in the book of Exodus and what
it implies about the nature of God's use of power:

I saw an interesting documentary on TV some time ago about a couple of
historians who went looking for a city written of in the koran that had been
destroyed by God, just as in the story of Sodom and Gomorra in the bible.

They searched for a long time, using all sorts of ancient documents and stories
and finally found the site where this town had actually existed. In the story
in the koran, God had destroyed the town with fire and brimstone just as in the
bible, because of the townspeople's ungodly behavior. The historians dug all
around the ancient tumbled down walls until they had a layout of the town and
lots of artifacts and could finally discern how it had been destroyed. To their
surprise, they did find "brimstone" which is actually some sort of scorched
rock that results from volcanic activity. It turned out that the whole reason
the town had been built there was because there was a natural well, and because
it was on a crossroads in the desert. The town sprung up and grew very fast as
soon as the well was discovered and the buildings, though made of stones, were
hastily and weakly built.

Anyway, this town had thrived for some years, and grew in size very quickly,
but as it grew the people placed more and more of a burden on the well water.
As they drew more water from this well, they had to keep digging down deeper
and deeper into the well to get it, and eventually they created a giant sink
hole that collapsed. When it collapsed, it pulled much of the town into the
hole, and as it was all poorly built and on loose dirt anyway, the rest of the
buildings fell down from the vibrations of the sink hole's collapse. Basically
it was as if there were a small localized earth quake, and the result was that
the town was destroyed, the well was buried, and there was a lot of rubble
(some of it this scorched volcanic rock) lying around, and no more people.
Those who had survived the collapse left, because without the well there was no
reason to rebuild.

As the nomadic travelers continued to passed by the the destroyed town, people
would see the ruins and wonder about how such a thing could happen (not knowing
how the town had been destroyed) and eventually the myth emerged that Allah had
destroyed the town, and that the reason must be that the behavior of it's
people was displeasing to him. As the years passed, the evidence of the town's
existence was buried under the sand, and the town's whereabouts was forgotten,
but the myth continued on, and was eventually written of in the koran.

Most myths, like this one, have their foundation in some real event. But the
reason they persist long after the real events are forgotten is not because of
the event itself, but because the myth has become a metaphor for some ideal
that human beings hold to but have no objective way to convey. So the myths get
separated from the reality that instigated them, and applied to situations in
our lives that cause us to consider and discuss these ideals. The facts of the
original event don't matter in this discussion, and so are not held to account.
The point of the myth is not to display the facts, but to convey an ideal. And
that's why over time they become more and more "unrealistic" or supernatural.

As we humans use these myths to discuss the ideals they have come to represent
to us, we alter the story to better convey the ideals. Thus, the supposed
"facts" become less and less plausible. And that's fine as long as we all
understand that the function of myth is to convey these ideals, and not to
represent the facts. When people read the koran or the bible they are reading a
huge collection of just these kinds of myths. They may or may not have been
born in factual events, but it isn't their purpose to represent those events,
anyway. Their purpose is to convey ideals by serving as metaphors for those
ideals. And that means their factuality is often compromised or nonexistent.

The story of this town in the koran has become a myth. It's purpose is to
convey the ideal that when we behave in an ungodly way, very bad things will
happen, and Allah will be behind it. The story is not concerned with the
factual behavior of people in a factual town, it's concerned with our behavior
wherever we happen to be living, and God's behavior, whatever we think that
might be. It isn't likely to tell us anything about the actual town, or the
real behavior of the people in it, or even about God for that matter. What it
tells us about is the idea that the people who used this myth had about God and
human behavior and how they interact.

I mention all of this because to analyze the Exodus story in the bible with the
intent of discovering God's nature or character would be like analyzing the
story of Little Red Riding Hood to discover the character and behavior of
wolves. What we find in the Exodus story is not the nature of divine power, but
the ideas that the people who created and use the story have about God's power.
These are not the same thing.

And what we are left with, then, is the question of how we ourselves view the
nature of God and God's power? The myths don't provide answers (as so many
people wish to believe), what they do is present us with the questions, and the
proposed answers of other men. We still have to think about these things,
discuss them, debate them, and decide for ourselves .... or not.

Peace,
Dave