The meaning of religious literary genres

The meaning of religious literary genres

There are literary genres that we have been trained and educated to recognize and interpret correctly.

So when faced with a cartoon, or a Romeo and Juliet romance, a not-so-real Napoleon epic, or a ridiculous scene from a Batman comic book, we know how to differentiate impossible and unlikely loves from music and theatrical representations and from artistic genres. With maturity, we can identify the ideological editorial in the daily news and know how to separate political militancy from the indicated fact. We always make our judgments on reality shows, separating fantasy, theatrical representation from unreal competition totally orchestrated to gain audience and cause controversy.

As early as the fifth century BC, there was no provision for the meaning of spirit as part of immortal life, except in Buddhism.

Then this construct was accepted by the Greeks, whose thinker Socrates created in a book written by his disciple Plato the concept of spirit that became the term soul for Christians in the book Phaedo.

The biggest problem for religious people is not this. But, the biggest and only central problem is that Christians believe in the myth of Noah's ark without separating the mythology genre, believe that Daniel survived in the lions' den, another myth, believe that the Red Sea opened for the passage of the Hebrew people, another myth. It is wrong to believe in the genre and not in the Bible's lesson through myth. We believe in the fable of Santa Claus dressing up as the old man who gives presents. Everyone has fun and we spend trillions of dollars on this party all over the world. However, as adults, we have the ability to separate myth from reality and still build the non-existent figure of Santa Claus into universal family love and solidarity on Christmas Day. Even though we know that no one knows where Santa Claus lives, the message remains. This should be the behavior of Christians when faced with the fantastical aberrations of the Bible as a literary genre. Literality should be rationally overlooked, not like little children who adopt Santa Claus. Thus, Jesus' message should be greater than the invented myth. Stop being psychopaths and grow up.

Roberto da Silva Rocha, professor universitário e cientista político