John Doyle,

The composition could indeed have been, and probably was, a very complex one for good story telling is a highly developed art that is always technical and so both difficult and rare. The fact that this ancient tale so fascinates speaks for itself. And there is a fallacy in assuming that we moderns and postmoderns are somehow more advanced, for in this field i suspect that we are quite backward. The ancients were certainly better versed and more sophisticated than we in the ‘simple’ art of narrative.

i would be very interested to get your personal take as a part of this conversation itself rather than having to wait for Sir Toby! For one thing, each one of us will have a slightly or even markedly different view on Genesis (that’s a bit obvious) and it is in the sharing of the interpretations that we can each broaden our perspectives on what the story could mean.

getting back to true myth, it’s quite probable that ‘the truth is in the story’ or as another put it in a more PoMo fashion “the truth is in the fiction”, but this is something that we will have to discover together as we go along. As Russ suggests, we could just try to be transparent about what hermeneutoc we are plumbing for as methodological diversity and differences of perspective are, I think, an essential requirement if we are to collectively search for that oh so elusive ‘truth’.

Live to serve : Serve to live