To return to the original controversy. It is perhaps worth pointing out that one of the characteristics of Jesus (or the stories about Jesus) is that he does the opposite of the folktale, in fact he often destroys the whole premise of the folktale.   The folktale works horizontally, either through a journey or a challenge or a test or some such, which often sets out problems and mysteries and paradoxes which are to be solved, and thereby entertain and instruct the audience (this is standard folklore theory). There are lots of examples. The true religious story 'cracks open' the folktale. Jesus is often shown in what appear to be folklore situations which he deconstructs, or to put it more metaphorically, where he stops or wrecks the folktale momentum. An example from another tradition is the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism, which is part of the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is many, many volumes of folktales, exciting stories one after the other, wars, battles, love stories, you name it. At one point all the armies of the world meet together on one battlefield, and the big massacre is about to begin. Suddenly, the warrior Arjuna says hold it, why are we fighting, and his charioteer, the disguised god Krishna, then shows him the entire universe, how and why the world works, and why Krishna should be worshipped, and that though the universe should be destroyed, one must do one's duty. This is nothing like a folktale!

There is an interesting comparison of folktale vs. religion in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there is the story of Solomon and the dispute over the baby. The cunning ruling by Solomon that the baby should be cut in half, thus flushing out the false mother from the true, is a classic of the folktale. We are amused and touched by the story.

In the New Testament, we have the story of the woman taken in adultery. It has everything a folktale does -- adultery, the watching crowd, the wise man asked to decide, and so on.   We are waiting for the husband or the boyfriend or some other element of the adultery story to be revealed, or to have something folkloric happen. And Jesus says, 'Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone.' This cracks the story wide open, sends it 'vertical' -- it questions the entire structure of the story, and, more importantly, it is not a cute story, a neat and touching solution. It blows up in our faces. Jesus' gaze is turned directly onto the reader. 'LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN AMONG YOU CAST THE FIRST STONE!' Are we that person? ARE WE THAT PERSON? We can say no, no, I am not without sin -- but then is the woman to go free, is she to get away with it? So sin is to go unpunished? Who are we to punish? Is there to be no punishment in the world? Have we committed adultery? Can only the pure condemn? What is forgiveness? And so on. We are on a writhing hook which will not let us free. You can spend your whole life wrestling with that one sentence. People have.

This is religious writing, and not folktales.   Religious writing is a terrible thing to encounter. If it does not cause you some fear and trembling, and challenge your beliefs and standing in the world, it is not religious. Much of the world's so-called religious writing is nothing of the kind. With great respect to any Mormons in the crowd, or Scientologists, both of whose writings I have read, there is nothing in their writings that is remotely like true religious writing. It is pseudo-religious writing, a simulacrum of religious writing. Like the simulacra of religious politicians and others who go around spreading their hypocrisies about God.