Fable

Fable, in biblical usage, does not refer to the literary genre of moralizing animal stories but to invented or speculative religious teaching without scriptural grounding. The Greek mythos (translated "fable" or "myth" in the New Testament) denotes a fictitious narrative or tradition — specifically, the kind of speculative theological discourse that was circulating in certain Jewish and Hellenistic Christian communities of the first century.

Paul warns Timothy against giving attention to "endless genealogies" and "old wives' fables" (1 Timothy 1:4; 1 Timothy 4:7; 2 Timothy 4:4), opposing these to sound doctrine grounded in the apostolic gospel. Titus 1:14 similarly warns against "Jewish fables" that distracted from the truth. Peter's contrast is equally pointed: the apostolic witness to Christ was "not cunningly devised fables" but eyewitness testimony (2 Peter 1:16). The New Testament thus uses the term polemically to contrast revealed apostolic truth with human religious invention.