Storytelling and Truth

Listen a photo by paynehollow on Flickr.

In a previous post with a rolling set of interesting commentary following it, the question of storytelling arose. I hold storytelling in high value and think that the stories told in the Bible are tremendous sources of truth and ought to be taken as truths to contend with. However, that is not to say that I consider all the stories therein to be likely strictly fact-based.

As far as I know, most early storytelling falls into the "storytelling for the purpose of passing on truths, or for entertainment, or for moral lessons" category - as opposed to storytelling with an emphasis on telling strictly factual, linear history of a more modern sort. That sort of fairly strictly factual history-telling didn't really start happening until somewhere around 500 BC - 500 AD.

As far as I can tell. I'm not an expert, I just know what I've read and what makes sense. Can I do some research and discover "proof" that, of ALL the stories ever told in our earliest history, none were told in a factual, linear sort of way? No, of course not. One can't prove a negative. And so, I can't say it didn't happen and I'm not saying that.

Rather, what I'm saying is simply that, I see no evidence of it. I have seen no early writings with an emphasis on linear factual storytelling in a more modern historic sense. If you google "ancient historians," you come up with names such as Herodotus (known as the "father of history"), Josephus, Tacitus, Thucydides and Sima Qian, among others. All of these folk lived in that 500 BC - 500 AD window. And even amongst these who are credited with beginning "history" as a category of writing, the emphasis on facts was not always apparently strict.

source, source, source

So, what does that say of our biblical history stories? Most of the Old Testament, after all, falls prior to this 500 BC start of more modernistic history-recording. Is that to say that these stories are "false" and therefore unreliable?

I say, No. I say that early peoples told valuable stories and kept their history, they just didn't do it in the way we do it today. To suggest that early history-storytellers who might include some fiction right alongside some fact are "liars" or that lessons learned from these stories are compromised simply because they told history-stories in the style of their day is not to denigrate those lessons or those stories. It's just that we need to keep in mind the context and read these history-stories accordingly.

And yet, in the aforementioned post, we found some commenters who DID seem to suggest that ancient history-storytellers who include fiction and fact side by side ARE liars. That the lessons learned in such stories ARE compromised or wholly invalid.

Comments made include...

"How does one find comfort is something that didn't happen?"

and,

"Just because they were primitive doesn't mean they were stupid."

(I had pointed out that these were a "primitive" people, by Merriam Webster definition, meaning simply an earlier, pre-literate people with differing cultural/storytelling norms than we have - nothing in that was to suggest they were stupid, nonetheless, that was what one commenter appears to have gathered.)

I offered an example of my OWN storytelling (with some departures from the facts) from my own family and that was met by,

"I'm glad you have so little regard for factual accuracy. Great so you tell funny stories, is it somehow less valuable/funny to use the facts of the situation. Personally this is a weak analogy, the Israelites were not just telling some funny stories around the campfire, they were relating their national history."

and,

better to not make inferences about the character of a real person from a fictional tale in the first place.

Given all this, I wonder if it's the case that some of these commenters just hold storytelling itself in contempt? Human history has a long and wonderful history of storytelling that is not wholly dependent upon facts. From one source speaking of native American storytelling traditions, we read...

In the time before The Change (European contact), the oral narrative was a "sacred" process and the soul of Indigenous People. Without a written language traditional culture and customs were handed down using the spoken word as the base. They provided social, cultural and historical contexts, and acted as a social cohesive for the entire tribe...

In other words, the oral narrative was a highly developed, sophisticated medium supported by ages old teachings and explanations that were based on fact, observation, oral claims and contracts (in front of witnesses), and a complex set of social and cultural customs for dealing with the sacred and the supernatural.

Native people did not distinguish between the physical and supernatural because everything was viewed as a vast continuum; whether it be animate or supernatural, the world existed in 'real time' and in a conscious state of existence. Every living thing was a member of one large family: the four elements (earth, air, fire and water), plant, animal and human worlds were connected to each other in often complex and sophisticated ways. In other words, every object that existed in the physical world or sprang from the rich imaginations of the storytellers was in effect in possession of ‘real’ life and co-existed in perfect harmony with all other living beings - all were considered human...

Missionary damnations of Indigenous culture was as a result of refusal to acknowledge or understand the descriptive narrative base of Indigenous languages. Patriarchal Christian biases, coupled with attempts to translate the stories into a utilitarian language such as English caused a double jeopardy of linguistic confusion and misinterpretation. This distortion continues to exist, as colourful transformation figures such as Raven, Glooscap, Napi and Coyote were reduced to mere caricatures of buffoonery...

It was simply beyond the pale for the average missionary to contemplate them as akin to the level of Jesus Christ - that is a figure sent by Great Mystery to bring order to the world. Clutching rosaries and muttering homilies, Christian missionaries scuttled about, "Raven, Jesus, Coyote in the same sentence?" "I don't think so!" and so, the culture heroes were relegated to the only other place in Christian sensibilities, hell and Satan.

Indigenous narratives defy simple classification. 'Myth' seems to be a popular category, but it is incorrect. Myth, by definition means the stories are not real because they refer to fictitious themes that include imaginary persons or things that were spoken of as though they existed.

For the Ancestors, all beings whether they were physically real or from the visions of the Old Ones did exist, and in real time, albeit sometimes in an altered or supernatural state. The oral narrative also passed down important claims and entitlements - territory, crests, clans, names.

If labels are to be applied, 'Lore' is probably closer because it invokes a teaching, or the act of being taught by someone who has knowledge of a particular group or subject matter of a traditional nature...

source

I've read things of this nature before and believe it to be a common theme in ancient history-storytelling. The people told stories well, passed down histories accurately by their terms, and if ancient people had "fictional" talking Ravens in a story next to an actual person in the real world or a fictional dragon and an actual king, it was NOT because they were lying - these were real to them and their "factual" non-existence was irrelevant to the story.

Storytelling - regardless of rigid factuality - was of GREAT importance throughout history and still is today. The truths learned in these stories are not to be rejected and the authors reduced to "liars" simply because the storytelling style is different. It has been and still is a rich, beautiful, wonderful and powerful to convey great truths, deep personal connections and histories, even if every line is not factual.