Question 2: Myths

Is there any truth in Greek mythology?

In order to begin answering this question, let's first look at a few examples from Greek mythology:

1. Cupid and Psyche. The gist of this story is that Psyche is given in marriage to Cupid, thinking, along with everyone else, that her husband is a horrible serpent. After her marriage, Psyche is forbidden by Cupid to look at him, though she is fairly certain that he is not a horrible serpent after all. But then she is tempted by her sisters to look at him, and she does. Cupid wakes up and curses her. A lot more happens later and they eventually get back together again.
2. Narcissus. This young man is so beautiful that all the nymphs have fallen in love with him, especially one named Echo. But Echo is then cursed to forever repeat the last words someone else says. Narcissus never even notices or cares for Echo, or any of the other nymphs, but in the end falls in love with his own reflection, and dies trying to reach it in a pond.
3. Demeter and Persephone. In this story, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, is kidnapped by Hades to be his bride. Demeter casts the world into a frozen wasteland until Hades returns Persephone to her. But before Hades lets Persephone go, he makes her eat a pomegranate seed, which will cause her to always return to the Underworld for a third of the year. So for a third of each year, the world is cast into a frozen wasteland as Demeter weeps for her lost daughter.

There are many more examples I could bring up, but these are some of the easiest ones to explain. Each one has its truths. In the story of Cupid and Psyche, we learn that without any trust in a marriage, the marriage will fail. In the story of Narcissus, we see what pride does to a person. Narcissus was prideful because he thought so highly of himself that he didn't care for the praise of others, considering them beneath him. In the tale of Demeter and Persephone, the Greeks tried to explain the change of the seasons with the actions of their deities.

So for each of these three myths, and in pretty much any myth written by the Greeks, there is some truth, whether the story tries to explain a physical or a non-physical truth. However, none of these stories tells the whole truth. For instance, none of them agree that there is only one God, and in most of them, nature is at war with itself, when really the natural world works together amazingly well.

You can find such truths not only in mythology, but also in pretty much any novel. You just have to be careful what you pick out as truth and what you pick out as a lie. The best way to find truth in a novel is to test it against the Scriptures. But there are also a few other pieces you can look at when analyzing a book for truth.

Some books tend to have more truth in them than others. Having only some truth doesn't necessarily make a book good. Why the truth is written about, how the truth is written about, and what the truth is are also important. Why the truth is written about is important because sometimes, truths are merely used as evidence for a false conclusion. When reading such a book, you need to be able to distinguish between the actual truth and the false conclusion. How the truth is written is important because good truths are often wrapped in evil in a novel. For example, an angst-filled teenage love story may contain truth, but do you really need to endure the angst for the sake of the little truth in the story? Lastly, what the truth itself is is important because although such things as abuse exist, do we need to go into detail about them? Do those who have endured abuse need to relive it in the form of a novel? I would argue that such topics are unnecessary to be dwelt on in a novel, even if they do exist.

In the end, yes, Greek mythology does contain some truth. But it doesn't capture the whole truth, so we must be wary when reading it, just as we should be wary of calling lies the truth in any other fiction we read.