FABLE
[Gr., myʹthos].
A false story, fiction, myth, an invention, falsehood. Myʹthos is found at 1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4; Titus 1:14; 2 Peter 1:16.
Myʹthos is to be contrasted with a leʹthei·a, “truth,” signifying the manifested, veritable essence of a matter. At Galatians 2:5 “the truth of the good news” contrasts the true teaching of the gospel with perversions of it. The apostles warned Christians against the danger of being turned away from the truth to false stories, as these had no basis in fact but were the imaginations of men. Judaism was filled with such false stories, the traditions of the elders making up the so-called “oral law” that came to be incorporated into the Talmud. Judaism, the leading opponent of Christianity in the first century, had been greatly influenced by pagan philosophies and teachings. One of its false stories contained the pagan doctrine of transmigration of souls. The story was that the soul of Adam passed successively into the bodies of Noah and David and would also pass into the Messiah. This doctrine they took from Egyptian mythology. Abraham was the person to whom, they said, it was first revealed; and they claimed he taught that the souls of men passed into women, beasts, birds and even reptiles, rocks and plants The spirit of a man was punished by passing into a woman; and if the conduct of the man had been very atrocious, it took the form of some reptile or of an inanimate object. If a woman acted righteously, she would, in another state, become a man. Balaam’s ass, the ravens that fed Elijah, the fish that swallowed Jonah—all were supposed to have possessed reasoning, transmigrated souls.
Another of Judaism’s false stories was that the two tablets of stone given to Moses weighed upward of two tons (1.8 metric tons), but, with the commandments engraved thereon, they became ‘light as a feather.’ When the rays of light reflecting from the golden calf came in contact with the tablets, the letters flew away and Moses was no longer able to support the great weight of the tablets and threw them down so that they broke.
Another story was that when the Messiah would appear there would be a great feast in which every Jew that had ever been born would be restored to life. The feast would consist of fowl, fish and ox flesh. Concerning the fish, the story of Rabbi Simon was that he was once sailing in the Great Sea when he and the mariners saw a fish of such tremendous size that, after seeing one eye of the fish, and traveling with a fair wind, they sailed five days longer in a direct line before they reached the other eye of the same fish. According to the tradition, the feast at Messiah’s coming was to be of a fish of such size, called Leviathan, along with a similarly large ox and bird.
The Apocryphal writings abound in false, imaginary stories, such as Daniel’s killing a great dragon with a mixture of pitch, fat and hair (Addition to Daniel 14:22-26, Dy), and Tobias’ getting curative and demon-exorcising powers out of the heart, gall and liver of a monstrous fish.—Tobias 6:2-9, 19, Dy.
Other purveyors of dangerous false stories were several Gnostic sects, some of which tried to combine Christianity with Judaism and heathenism. Others rejected Judaism, but all these sects were based on pagan beliefs, including Greek philosophy. A Gnostic belief was that there was a god, the Demiurge, who occupied an intermediate position between the supreme God and the material world. To most Gnostics, because they considered all matter a source of evil and opposed to God, this Demiurge was only a limited and imperfect being. He created the planetary heavens and had the whole course of the world under his control, though he was the unconscious instrument of higher powers. According to Irenaeus, in the days of the aged apostle John there was a certain Cerinthus, a Jew who held himself forth as a teacher. Cerinthus taught that the world was not made by the supreme God but by the Demiurge, separate from the supreme God, below him and ignorant of him. He claimed Jesus was not born of a virgin but was the actual son of Joseph and Mary, though he excelled all men in virtue and knowledge and wisdom. At his baptism the Christ came down upon him from God (who is over all) in the shape of a dove. At the end the Christ left Jesus; otherwise Jesus could not have died. Cerinthus also taught that redemption could not be effected by the suffering of Jesus. He considered the Mosaic law binding on Christians.
CHRISTIANS TO REJECT FABLES
At 1 Timothy 1:4, Paul instructs Christians not to pay attention to false stories. These can get Christians involved in research of no real benefit and can turn their minds away from the truth. Some of these false stories are the kind told by old women whose lives have been spent in worldly practices. They violate God’s holy, righteous standards. (1 Tim. 4:6, 7; Titus 1:14) The apostle Peter, at 2 Peter 1:16, contrasts such false stories (which are not only fictitious but also artfully and cunningly devised so as possibly to turn a Christian aside) with the true, factual account of the transfiguration, of which he was an eyewitness. (Mark 9:2) Paul, at 2 Timothy 4:3, 4, foretold that at a future time people would willingly turn aside to false stories in preference to the truth.