Abstract

The Kantian logic of science has shaped much of the critical-historical tradition of scripture analysis, partly by canonizing a specific set of limits defining the possible and, correspondingly, limits to what a human being may defensibly believe in the way of historical reports. Residual inexplicable incidents are regarded as mythical or unhistorical in that tradition. However, by training a Wittgensteinian lens on certain religious applications of the verb 'to believe' we can begin to notice a rainbow of diverse and finely shaded uses, none of them privileged. The fact that some of these make no connection with the canonical sense of 'to believe' puts in serious question the recent tendency to employ the category 'myth' in scripture scholarship.