In scripture, there is itself a presumption of how to read scripture.
There is a hermeneutic of hermeneutics – so that after we take account of genre, author and audience, time, place and purpose there is a way to read it.
It has a self presumption of its own truthfulness, accuracy and authority. Also that it is speaking in terms of truth as opposed to fantasy, fiction or mythology.
It seems to press against mythological and occult categories with an aggression bent toward distinguishing itself from human innovation and imaginations.
It is read as a witness, an account, a history, an affidavit telling the story as it was with no interest in fanciful aggrandizement.
As with Luke, the fastidious historian, as he gives a careful treatment of what did take place…
“Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.” Luke 1:1
Even the miraculous and the wonderful have this rugged realism built into the narrative accounts so that a reading that would lead to the fantastical never enters in.
There are heroes but never Greek heroics, monsters but no cyclopian minotaurs or medusa, powers but no magic, prayers but no incantations, temples but no demigods, a heaven but no Olympians, a hell but no Styx, no ferry man, no gates, guards or Hephaestus.
The Bible separates itself by a steady stream of historicity and verifiable claims to evidence an interpretation of God and the world consistent with experience and human reason, in hope that men might find the knowledge of God in the person and work of Jesus.
These are real things.
True things.
Neiswonger
Christian Theology 