# When teaching Religion, Myth and Legend as Literature should it be labeled as Fiction? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 9, 2026, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156 "2026-04-09T19:33:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/81 "2026-04-12T19:47:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I ask this question of those who think the Bible should be considered “fiction”- are you going to say the same about the Quran, Bhagavad Gita, all the Sutras, not to mention Plato and most of the ancient Greeks, Norse eddas, and greek Myths. You seem to think this question is some sort of a “gotcha,” and I’m not sure why, since the answer is very self-evidently “yes.” ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/82 "2026-04-12T20:18:39Z")
As with Linnaeus and taxonomy, Melvil Dewey’s Decimal System only informs us how libraries using his system sort their shelves. Outside of that, it does not inform us whether a given text is _actually_ fiction or non-fiction. As to the above question, of course the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, the Sutras, most of Plato and the ancient Greeks, the Norse Poetic Edda, and the Greek Myths (Heinrich Schliemann and _Hissarlik was Troy_ notwithstanding) are fiction by the definition that has nothing to do with the Dewey fucking Decimal System. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2026, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/83 "2026-04-12T22:56:11Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You seem to think this question is some sort of a “gotcha,” and I’m not sure why, since the answer is very self-evidently “yes.” The bible should be classified in the same way as those other examples (except Plato - what, the Atlantis legend?). That’s obvious to anybody who does not consider Christianity a special, unique truth. But the classification is not fiction. Not in today’s English. BTW, American humor books are classified in DD under 817, British humor under 827. Are they fiction, literature, or some other class entirely? The entire 800s are deemed Literature, whether it is high or low, poetry or drama, nonfiction and criticism about literature, or dictionaries. Technically, fiction is 8x3 for all x from 1 through 8. Literature therefore is a higher, encompassing, classification than the others. Religious mythologies are classified in the 290s, under Religion; folklore and legends under 398, under Social Sciences. I wouldn’t try to backfit Melvil Dewey’s 1890s victorian viewpoint into any modern discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/84 "2026-04-13T00:09:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > All Libraries and most bookstores i know of categorize Shakespeare as Literature. Because “literature” means “fiction the self proclaimed intellectual elite are pretentious about”. It’s still fiction. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/85 "2026-04-13T00:20:30Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because “literature” means “fiction the self proclaimed intellectual elite are pretentious about”. It’s still fiction. - > Literature includes both fiction and nonfiction and can be written or spoken creative works. [https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-fiction-and-literature-739696](https://www.thoughtco.com/difference-between-fiction-and-literature-739696) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/86 "2026-04-13T00:33:30Z")
If that’s the definition we’re using, then everything in a library is “literature”, and the term therefore has no use in library classifications. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/87 "2026-04-13T00:35:13Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No special existential place exists for Christianity > … > When you say that myths and legends never achieve the state of being “interwoven” yet a future mythic Christianity would be considered “intertwined” you give a special place to your religion that you deny to thousands of earlier religions that totally consumed their societies. I did not advance this claim, I don’t even believe I mentioned, or even implied any particular religion, but may have on a contextual reply. - So with that clarified, I will ask of you still see a contradiction, and if so if you can explain it beyond the assumption you seem to be making about apparently what you thought I posted. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/88 "2026-04-13T00:54:09Z")
Well, i think literature is writing the CDs of music the library used to lend, and the DVDs of movies they still lend, along with the jigsaw puzzles and cake pans you can borrow from my town library, are not literature. But yes, i think all the books in the library are “literature”. I would never have said that anything is “literature” _instead_ of beinging fiction. I’d have said that Shakespeare is plays and poetry rather than fiction. The Bible includes poetry and (factually bad) history, and myth, and law, and collections of letters, and memoirs, and probably other stuff. It’s a mishmash of different kinds of literature. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/89 "2026-04-13T01:17:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because “literature” means “fiction the self proclaimed intellectual elite are pretentious about”. It’s still fiction. I don’t know how many intellectual elites use “literature” that way nowadays, but one does still hear about the divide between “literary fiction” and “genre fiction.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/90 "2026-04-13T01:40:08Z")
Please clarify whether you think a future mythic Christianity is exactly equivalent in every reasonable way to the mythology of old or not, first. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/91 "2026-04-13T02:11:10Z")
Please define what you mean of ‘mythic Christianity’, and what is ‘mythology of old’. I have already compared and equated Dantes Inferno to the Legends of Hercules. Neither are religious works, but can be said to be ‘myths’ or perhaps works of religious fiction in a culture of a particular religion where the work was pulled from the religious framework. If that is what you mean, I would say they equate. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/92 "2026-04-13T16:04:08Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > The Bible includes poetry and (factually bad) history, and myth, and law, and collections of letters, and memoirs, and probably other stuff. It’s a mishmash of different kinds of literature. Yep. Trying to categorize the “Bible” as one thing is ignoring the fact that it is many works that happen to be bound into one volume. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/93 "2026-04-13T18:32:37Z")
Sorry, but that’s a nonsensical equation, as I said earlier. Please answer my straightforward question about Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/94 "2026-04-13T19:20:43Z")
My hesitation for a direct answer is I do feel you are putting forth an undefined term which makes a direct answer ambitious and/or easily mistaken. I will also remind you I am the one awaiting your answer of what actual contradiction you see with the statements and logic I have put forth so far. Perhaps this is where the disconnection is. In particular: > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Please clarify whether you think a future **mythic Christianity** Bold mine To answer this I need to know what you mean by ‘mythic Christianity’, it is a term you came up with in our exchange and as such remains undefined - and I have tried to resolve it with my last post with a clarifying example, but to no avail, But to help things along will answer it using my assumptions of what you may be getting at and would rephrase my answer this way: _Please clarify whether you think a future myths that came from Christian culture is exactly equivalent in every reasonable way to the mythology of old or not,_ Yes - though this does not speak to the religious cores that people lived and structured society on, which I would place equally under religion, not mythology. It is the separation of mythology and religion that made me hesitate in a direct answer to ‘mythic Christianity’. On one hand it could be myths that have come about from Christian cultures (i.e. Santa Claus - which I would place as myth), or could deal with core beliefs (God became man - which I would place as religion). Or if we look at the of old, non-extant religions, in Hellenic Polytheism Zeus is the king of Gods and the primary authority in the Greek pantheon - that too as I se it is religion, not myth. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/95 "2026-04-13T19:24:08Z")
I’m not @Exapno_Mapcase but his meaning is clear. Once nobody believes in Christianity any more and it is as dead a religion as is current worship of Zeus or Osiris, and has been for a thousand or more years, how _then_ will the mythology written in the bible be somehow qualitatively different from the written mythology of Osiris or Zeus? IOW: How is the mythology of any one particular dead religion different or better or worse than the mythology of the other 10,000 dead religions. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/96 "2026-04-13T19:31:09Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Once nobody believes in Christianity any more and it is as dead a religion as is current worship of Zeus or Osiris, and has been for a thousand or more years, how _then_ will the mythology written in the bible be somehow qualitatively different from the written mythology of Osiris or Zeus? By that time the Human race will be wiped out by global climate change. Or the Lizard men will take over. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/97 "2026-04-13T19:35:39Z")
I dunno about that. Assuming modern technological society continues I could imagine both Christianity and Islam being gone within 1,000 years of today. There might still be isolated pockets of cranks claiming to be christian or muslim, just like the wacky “druids” of today, who’re badly aping something for essentially contrarian reasons whose correct understanding was lost in the mists of time. But that crank presence would do nothing to alter what the rest of then-current society thought about the myths of those long dead religions. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/98 "2026-04-13T22:06:00Z")
Another deflection. In post #68, I specifically mentioned Jesus as a myth. Not Santa Claus, Jesus. In post #79, I explained your contradiction. Others in this thread have also called you on your refusal to equate Christianity with the Greek god-stories you don’t consider to be religion. It is clear to everyone here that you consider Christianity a special case. That’s fine as an individual opinion. The Texas legislature would certainly agree with you. What’s maddening is that a secular public body is more straightforward about their Christian bias than an anonymous individual’s posts on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/99 "2026-04-13T22:43:19Z")
I don’t know about that… European paganism is dead, aside from the modern “druids”, because nobody kept good records of just what their beliefs and practices were. Even if somebody wants to be a pagan, nobody knows how. But any religion with significant extent today has extensive documentation of its beliefs and practices, and that’s not going away. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2026, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156/100 "2026-04-13T23:14:18Z")
You’re surely right that absent apocalypse, people 1000 years from now in 3000CE will know far more of 2000CE xian practice than we do of 1000CE druid practice. But if the society doesn’t believe, then the practice of tiny crank minorities, be it historically authentic or not, is immaterial. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-teaching-religion-myth-and-legend-as-literature-should-it-be-labeled-as-fiction/1029156.md?page=6)