How Stories Invent History   

By Harry T. Cook 

4/12/13

Harry T. Cook

Long ago, in another life, I was a downhill skier, and not bad at it, either. One of my mentors in learning the sport had been in a younger day what skiers call a "hot-dogger." The term means, roughly, "one who takes chances with life and limb."

By the time he was helping me not to break my neck, my friend was no longer hot-dogging it on the slopes. One day, in a pensive mood, he said to me, "Why did I enjoy so much doing the thing that threatened me so much?"

Now, four years into retirement as a parish priest, I can ask that question of myself. I enjoyed nothing so much in parish ministry than teaching people how rationally to read and interpret the Bible. I may as well have skied straight down the Matterhorn with abandon.

Like most working clergy, I served congregations some of whose members, for all their college degrees and professional excellence, were operating on elementary Sunday school knowledge, if that.

Because for their whole lives they had seen the Bible almost as an amulet, as collection of hyper-sacred texts, they were unable, unequipped and not infrequently unwilling to consider that such texts are, all of them, of human provenance -- but no less important because they are. I spoke of "myth," a word directly imported from Greek into English meaning "story."

To use the word "myth" in connection with any biblical passage or term of a creed can be tantamount to dropping a lighted match into a gasoline tank. One of the Episcopal Church's finest young priests, surely destined for greatness, was rejected for the pastorate of a significant parish because it was discovered that he had used the words "myth" and "resurrection" in the same sentence.

I ran headlong into that same buzz saw in my educational efforts. I pointed out to my students the inconsistencies in the so-called resurrection narratives of the four New Testament gospels and that none of those narratives had taken shape earlier than the early- to mid-'70s of the first century CE -- easily 40 years after the times whatever real or imagined events would have occurred.

Going further, with a careful reading of each gospel's version of the basic story, I demonstrated that each of them assumed a resurrection on hearsay rather than straightforward, first-person testimony.

My students, already suspicious, had no background or facts of their own at hand to gainsay that truth. But a number of them insisted that, because the Bible was "the Word of God," my proffered data did not count.

Year after year, with new groups, I used the myth of Icarus as an illustration of how stories are sometimes the vessels of truth, if not the truth itself. I asked if the myth (story) of Icarus was about the chemical makeup of waxen wings and the temperature of the sun. No one thought that. Then I asked what anyone thought the story was about. For those who knew it -- and almost always everyone did -- the common answer was human overreach prompted by hubris.

I would turn then to one or another of the resurrection stories, and ask what anyone thought about them. The answer was invariably "about Jesus being raised from the dead." I would probe further by asking, "In what sense?" The answer, also invariable, was something like, "Well, he had died on Friday but was brought back to life on Sunday." Someone in the class who knew his Bible would attempt to checkmate my inquiry by quoting such texts as I Corinthians 15:17 to the effect that if Christ has not been raised, then we're as good as dead forever.

One man insisted that the story had been repeated often enough and believed by so many people over the centuries that it must be true.

I countered with yet another a story out of what was then my recent past. I spoke of having gone to Fredericksburg, Va., to assist at a wedding. Whilst there, I was taken on a tour of that historic city. I was shown a brass plaque in the sidewalk on the bank of the Rappahannock River. A proclamation in raised letters said something to the effect that a young George Washington had once thrown an English sovereign from that spot across the western branch of the river to the island in the middle of the stream.

My guide saw me perplexed and guessed that I was thinking Washington had thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac -- a river many, many times wider than the Rappahannock at that point. He said the weight of an English sovereign was likewise many times heavier than a silver dollar, which, by the way, did not exist in Washington's youth. The guide gave my then-younger physique an appraising look and opined that even I might be able to throw a baseball -- about the weight of an 18th-century English sovereign -- most of the way across that span of water. Yeah, well ...

I asked him how it was that the story got changed. His reply: "I'm not even sure the one the plaque recounts is all that true."

That helped me appreciate how the stories of Washington's youthful heroics became necessary to the burnishing of his character as "the father of our country" just as young Abe Lincoln's legendary honesty was said to have been proven by his walking multiple miles to return a coin or two to a widow whom he had accidently shortchanged at a grocery store where he worked as a boy. Then there is the Washington story of the felled cherry tree and the inability to tell a lie.

Narratives, when told and retold, when written and rewritten, have the effect of revising history or even inventing it. Andr� Aciman, who teaches comparative literature at the City University of New York, wrote recently: "There is no past; there are just versions of the past. Proving one version true settles absolutely nothing, because proving another is equally possible."

Aciman was comparing accounts of a walk he had taken with his brother on a trip to Egypt almost a quarter of a century ago. "Four years later in a memoir," Aciman wrote, "I removed my brother from the scene, and, instead, described taking that same walk by myself. ... When I returned again to Egypt in 1995, I walked along that same stretch to test whether I remembered walking there alone or with my brother. And suddenly it occurred to me that I might have made the whole thing up."

Now, as I compose this essay, I am feeling uneasy about my memory of the Fredericksburg incident. I was in that city, I did see the muddy run of the Rappahannock and there was discussion of the silver dollar business, but my story would be eviscerated on sharp cross-examination.

I invite any reader to come as a silent witness to any holiday dinner I share with my siblings. I am the oldest among us; Jeri is youngest. The parents we have in common have been dead 35 and five years, respectively. We are none of us as yet subject to the undertow of dementia. Even so, we can hardly agree on how father made the German potato salad and with what condiments, or about whether maraschino cherries ever appeared atop a festive breakfast casserole known affectionately as "Christmas Crud."

To students in my biblical studies classes, I would relate such stories as these to help them see what tricks memory can play and how stories can take the place of actual fact. Generally, I made little headway. So, what the hell: Long live the silver dollar, the Potomac, the cherry tree, the widow's pence and one sibling or another's version of the family potato salad recipe along with their adamant denials of the maraschino cherries.

As for the resurrection of Jesus, you're on your own. Pick a story and stick to it. I will be no help as I have retired from hot-dogging.

re essay of 4/5/13 One Lump or Two                 

Blayney Colmore, La Jolla, CA:

Your essay concluded: "To have such a voice rise over the clamor of the tea party harpies and the droning, drawling hypocrisy of so-called national leaders would be a welcome deliverance. Is it too much to hope for?" I don't think it's promising so long as our politics remain captive to the likes of Koch brothers and our Supreme Court insists corporations' voices are protected as if they were individuals. Maybe it was always the case that change and truly progressive (and regressive) legislation come only in response to catastrophe. Churchill was speaking in 1940 when it looked as if Britain likely would soon be defeated by Hitler. I would not be fool enough to try to guess when, but the combination of increasingly impoverished American working people, increasingly enriched American plutocrats, along with an avalanche of "natural" disasters that the climate looks certain to visit on us, will one day bring to an end the complacency that was birthed by the gains so many of us made between the end of World War II and around 1973. What that end will look like is unsettling to imagine. Voices of leaders will call for sensible heads to prevail. But sensible heads will finally see the path our nation has taken -- and the voices that have insisted the so-called free market must break free of government for the good of us all turn out to have been nonsensical. Karl Marx had an opinion about what happens then.

Fred Fenton, Concord, CA:

You correctly state that tea party types who oppose taxes and government regulations "are not good Jews or Christians." That is because authentic religion involves responsible behavior. However, for most Americans being a Jew or Christian is not a matter of belief or actions. It is simply their personal identity. That is why many consider themselves religious while ignoring the basic Judeo-Christian duty of neighbor love. Lowering taxes on the super rich while neglecting the needs of the poor is a heartless refusal of the most basic biblical teachings. Dropping financial regulations and their enforcement is stupid. That is what caused the financial collapse of 2008. Canada maintained its regulatory framework and weathered the crisis nicely. The ignorance and arrogance of tea party advocates should be opposed not only by practicing Jews and Christians but by all people of good will.

Eunice Rose, Southfield, MI:

Oh, let's get wild and give 'em two lumps! I've admired your work for eons.

Dewey Barton, New Smyrna, FL:

I agree with you all the way. The tea party is a disgrace!!    

Charles White, Plymouth, MI:

Your wonderful essay is once again a bunch of baloney wrapped tightly in a demonization of all sorts of citizens different from you.

Let's just start with your first error: It is not true that the Republican budget does away with answering the needs of the needy. In fact, the Republican budget actually increases each year, just not as much as the unsustainable aims of the Democrat budget which leaked details last Friday.

No one in the country of reasonable sanity wants those in need to suffer, starve or remain homeless. Please cease the demonization.

The problem is how to pay for meeting the full needs you prescribe. Well, we already know that your simple solution is merely to tax those citizens that you feel should pay more. And how has that worked out in countries that are far more "advanced" than the USA in meeting its citizens needs? Yes, that would be our dear friends in Europe. So far, Ireland, Portugal, and Greece are on the ropes and cannot sustain their social programs. Cyprus just realized that it cannot meet its needs and therefore decided to simply take funds from the citizens at the place where they placed their trust in their family legacy --- the banks. France, Great Britain, Spain, and Italy are close behind these failing countries in terms of similar economic calamity. The biggest problem all of these countries are already inflicted with is very high unemployment, much higher than the USA. And that is because there are no more jobs to offer. And that is because those with good intentions raised taxes that reduced revenues because it killed business and economic activity. Raising taxes in the USA to raise revenue has nearly always backfired and for the same reasons that Europe is experiencing now.

Your continued demonization of others will not result in a world where the poor and the needy are treated better. Rather, the best solution would be for those with good intentions to look for viable and successful solutions. Until those willing to speak out actually step up, there will no legitimate progress. The current culture of dependency and complacency brought on by those handing out food each day must change. My proposal stands: If those espousing more dignity, more freedom, and more happiness for the poor which to proceed, then such folks with good intentions should offer their jobs to the poor and homeless, of course along with adequate training and encouragement before handing them the keys. This should work, since I have read many an essay about "if the poor only had a chance" and "I know many a homeless that could easily qualify for job were it not for the hiatus in their r�sum�s."

Charles E. Walling, Fayetteville, AR:

People have such short historical memories. The Boston tea partiers conveniently forgot why England was trying to tax them in the first place. The mother country had run up huge bills defending the colonies during the "French and Indian War" that ended in 1765. The mother country thought, not unreasonably, that the colonies should foot part of the bill. The colonies didn't agree. Questions for the Tea Partiers: What part of "promote the general Welfare" do you not understand? Can't you see that promoting the "general Welfare" would help "insure domestic Tranquility" and "secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity?" You're always saying that the government is the enemy, but have you forgotten that the government is "We the People of the United States?"