"...she looked past the high priest to that which hung beyond and above, the image of the Man on the Cross. It was not as skillfully wrought as many carvings she had seen at home, be they figures or friezes or the fearsome head of a dragon ship. But something was in it that she had yet to understand, and must if she were not to fall into the helplessness of bewilderment."
-Poul Anderson, Mother Of Kings (New York, 2003), Book Three, Chapter VIII, p. 225.
Our first experience of any religion is of its images. When I told a Polish man that there was a mosque at the end of our street, he asked, "Do they have...crucifix?" I used to think that the Buddha was a strange god and was surprised and pleased to learn that he was a compassionate man.
Gunnhild's thoughts continue:
"Not only song and drum, but pain could loose the shaman from the flesh. Odin hung, wounded with a spear, offered to himself, nine nights on windy Yggdrasil, to gain the runes; and he had since raised seeresses from their graves to foretell for him. What powers had his own sufferings, his own death won for the Christ? How could they strengthen her house?" (ibid.)
(Surprisingly, Odin is hanged in Havamal, not, as we might expect, in Voluspa, and the tree on which he hangs is not named.) Gunnhild does not understand the Christian meaning of the Crucifixion but does a good job of reinterpreting it in terms of the Odin story.
The Paul Shackley Interpretation
Odin is a myth. Jesus' execution is historical but its sacrificial role and his Resurrection are myths. I cannot accept either that God required a blood sacrifice to pay for human sins or that He would accept His Son as the perfect sacrificial victim. Thus, of the two myths, I prefer Odin's. It is plausible that returning from a realm beyond death would bestow powerful knowledge.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Commenting on your last paragraph: it was not REQUIRED or necessary per se that the Second Person of the Trinity, who became Incarnate as Man for our redemption, HAD to be nailed to the cross for our salvation. Rather, that was the CHOICE God freely made from all eternity that He would do to redeem us.
I know you don't mean the use of "myth" as it is commonly, if rather carelessly used these days, but even in the more correct sense in which you use it, the word does not "feel" right. Because Nicene Christians believe the atoning sacrifice of Christ and His literal resurrection to be true and historical.
Sean
Sean,
To me, a myth is a meaningful story. To CS Lewis, the Resurrection was both history and myth/meaningful story. God becoming Man meant myth becoming history.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, that was what I had in mind as how you meant the word "myth." But, I really don't see any need for that word in Christian faith and theology. Not if "myth" means "meaningful story."
Sean
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