3. The Sense of History: The Mythological View

What is the relation between myth, legend and sacred texts like the Bible, to history? Are they forms of history, or are they fundamentally and unredeemably unhistorical? Are they meant to be read figuratively, or literally – and what do these terms even mean?

And can the figurative and the literal finally be separated at all?

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00:00 Introduction – Literal vs figurative
01:23 Test cases – Genesis 1 vs. scientific literature
07:28 The literal meaning of literal reading (&co)
12:49 Symbolic reading, symbolic life
16:58 Meaning in history
21:20 Closing remarks – thanks, and temporal perplexities

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