Wesley Huff

making sure that mythological drift doesn't happen.

I think there are a couple things related to what you said.

First off, I think I would be careful in trying to ascribe the ancient world as being pre-scientific and therefore largely, say, ignorant.

I mean, even when the angel comes to Mary in the gospel story and says, you're going to be with child, Mary's objection to the angel is a scientific one.

I haven't met the minimum requirements of how babies are made.

Therefore...

I can't be pregnant, right?

So she's not dumb, right?

She's not just at face value accepting that, you know, well, I believe in angels.

And so, you know, this kind of magic thing can happen.

She's still objecting scientifically, even though she might not have the terminology to understand like the complexities of childbirth and embryology and all of that.

So I would say this is what the writer C.S.

Lewis calls chronological snobbery, that he says we need to be careful of not to ascribe the ancient world as being more ignorant and stupid than just because we are a product of the Enlightenment and we understand scientific things now.

The second thing is I think the Chinese Whispers or the telephone game or whatever you call it is a good kind of case study.

I think where it falls short is that if you play the telephone game, if you play Chinese Whispers –

there are rules in order to corrupt the message.

So you have to whisper.

You can only say it once.

You have to do it one person to one person.

In an oral culture, you would have been hearing these stories constantly.