Faithlore: The Invented Reality

Crosby claims that much of the Bible is myth. Since some myth may be true, the next step is to label that part of myth adjudged to be untrue, such as folklore. But myth and folklore are not necessarily the same. Lore serves further as an interpretation, elucidation, embellishment, or spin upon the myth. This lore, in turn, may help clarify one’s beliefs or it may enable one to see more clearly what is essential to one’s faith or nonessential. Crosby follows the exegesis and biblical criticism norms of Albert Schweitzer’s quest of the historical Jesus with emphasis on mythus pioneer David Friedrich Strauss. Theology meets biology and physiology in culmination with all biblical study. This takes place in the sapiens brain, the supreme source of all language and imagination via which we invent the reality in which we choose to dwell.

John Fulling Crosby was an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA, having served two churches in Michigan and one in New York. He endured a crisis of faith and demitted (defrocked) the ministry after eleven years. Crosby then earned a PhD in marriage and family (Syracuse) and a clinical certification in the Amertican Assocciation for Marriage and Family Therapy (AMFT). Crosby then taught at Indiana University and the University of Kentucky, where he also served as department chair for seven years. Crosby has authored and edited nineteen books.