In approaching any study of mythology in biblical texts, a
necessary starting point is establishing a working definition of "myth." B.S. Childs explains that one must "consciously [limit] the discussion to the definition of myth as has been used in the history of modern Biblical scholarship. Within this field there have been developed two main approaches to the understanding of myth which differ in decisive points from each other" (13).
Accordingly, Childs identifies these two approaches as those delineated by Hartlich and Sachs (Childs 14), and Gunkel (Childs 15).
The broad approach, aptly defined by Hartlich and Sachs, is a historic-philosophical position which asserts the following:
The mythical movement treats principally on the same level all statements concerning miraculous and supernatural occurrences, especially of a direct miraculous intervention or appearance of the deity as well as any other supernatural being. It designates them uniformly as "mythical" in so far as the statements concerning such events arise from a pre-scientific and uncritical, naive stage of consciousness, regardless of whether they appear in the Bible or other religious documents (14).
Childs proposes, however, that such an approach brings with it the potential to force false and unsuitable categories upon the subject being examined. Further, he notes that the definition provided by Hartlich and Sachs does not approach the subject of myth as a totality, but rather as having been relegated to "the sphere of the supernatural" (14). The failure of this approach, according to Childs, is that the supernatural elements are inseparably bound to the complete comprehension of reality. By failing to acknowledge the inner coherence of mythical thinking and focusing on a "false distinction," this approach tends to overlook the actual purpose of the myth.
The second, "narrow" approach, according to Childs, was first defined by the Gr...