Hellzapoppin:

I think we can safely say the myths are true because they've survived this long and still have something to teach us.

I've always admired the notion that for Jews, traditionally, the historical factuality of the scriptural stories was never important. That to me is a mature apprehension of their religious practice. You can find analogs in strains of Catholic and Protestant tradition, though they are not so evident. This is what is missing from the practice of fundamentalists and some evangelicals.

Very well said, Hell. I would be described as a fallen Catholic (who really appreciates the Church and having grown up in it) and I relate to Judaism for the reasons you state above far more so than I do fundamentalist Christians. For Catholics the lesson the BIble teaches us rather than the actualities the Bible describes is most important. (Having said that, the belief in the Virgin Birth, Jesus's walking on water and other miracles, transsubstantiation and the like, is very important to Catholics. That has less to do with a strict adherence to the word in the Bible but other traditions.)

What Catholics, and I think Jews, get very well is the built-in relationship between the unknowable, doubt and faith. You can't have faith without some underlying uncertainty or you only have well recited dogma. Catholics will say that is the act of having faith is what interact with Spirit and impacts realites here on earth.