Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today, the creation of

life and biological diversity, part 12. For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to

reasonable faith.org. Last time we looked at the way in which the notion of myth is understood by scholars of folklore.

And you'll recall that we said that a myth is a sacred narrative which seeks to ground

or anchor present realities in a primordial time.

And as such, the first 11 chapters of Genesis would qualify as mythical.

Now, let me say a couple of things about comments that were made in the discussion last week

on which I had a chance to reflect

afterwards. Given the definition of myth that we're using the folklorist's definition,

this is not the same sense that Tolkien and Lewis spoke of myth when they said that Christianity or the gospel is the true myth. They're

thinking there of the notion of myth as a sort of archetypal idea which is truly embodied

in the Christian faith and in the message of the gospel. But the gospels themselves, the four gospels, are not of the message of the gospel. But the Gospels themselves, the four Gospels,

are not of the genre of myth. They are not traditional sacred narratives which try to anchor

present realities in some prehistoric time. Rather, scholars of the Gospels have determined that the genre to which the

Gospels belong is ancient biography, like the famous lives of Greeks and Romans by Plutarch.

And as such, the Gospels have a historical interest in giving an accurate historical

portrayal of the subject of the biography.

So it's important to understand that in the sense in which we're using the word myth,

the Gospels do not belong to that genre. They are not myths, rather they are ancient

biographies. In the discussion as well, someone asked if I could think of a good example

of literary dependence that has been demonstrated since I expressed skepticism about the efforts

of many Old Testament scholars to show the dependence

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