Pious fiction

A pious fiction is a narrative that is presented as true by the author, but is considered by others to be fictional albeit produced with an altruistic motivation. The term is sometimes used pejoratively to suggest that the author of the narrative was deliberately misleading readers for selfish or deceitful reasons. The term is often used in religious contexts, sometimes referring to passages in religious texts.

Etymology

An early use of the phrase was in 1862 in the British newspaper The Examiner.

Examples

Religious context

Historical-critical approaches to the New Testament sometimes views stories such as the Virgin Birth, the Visit of the Magi to Jesus, and others, as pious fictions.
The relationship between the modern celebration of Christmas and the historical birth of Jesus has also been described as such.
Minimalist interpretations of the Hebrew Bible (i.e. the Tanakh or the Protestant Old Testament) often consider much of the Tanakh/Jewish Bible (but not the New Testament)^{[citation needed]} to be a pious fiction, such as the conquests of Joshua, and the historiography of the Pentateuch. The Book of Daniel has also been described as a pious fiction, with the purpose of providing encouragement to Jews.
The Book of Mormon, one of the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saint Movement, has been described as a hoax or pious fiction, and it is not accepted as containing divine revelation by those outside the Latter Day Saint movement (an umbrella term encompassing many sects, many of which describe themselves as Mormon, and some of which, such as the RLDS, do not describe themselves as Mormon).
The Koran, the sacred text of Islam, has been described as a pious fiction by several authors. The hadith, likewise, have been described as a collection of various pious fictions by several authors.
Dale Eickelman writes that Muslim jurists employ a pious fiction when they assert that Islamic law is invariant, when in fact it is subject to change.

Other contexts

Fredrick Pike describes some morale-boosting efforts during the Great Depression as pious fictions.

Notes

↑ "The Literary Examiner: A Compendious History of English Literature, and of the English Language, from the Norman Conquest With numerous Specimens [review]" (PDF). The Examiner. 22 February 1862. p. 117. Retrieved 5 July 2026. The pious fiction of the dream of the herdsman Caedmon, and the direct interposition from heaven that gave to the noble paraphrase of Scripture stories into English verse made for the religious bouse of Whitby, stronger hold on the surrounding peasantry, for whose instruction it was made, was a fraud honestly meant, and may escape blame if interpreted by the imperfect ethics of that day, which now disgrace only as an anachronism some orders in the Roman Church.
↑ Jones, Maurice. New Testament in the Twentieth Century. p. 63.
↑ Michael White, L. (4 May 2010). Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite - L. Michael White - Google Books. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061985379. Retrieved 2011-09-27.
↑ Top 20 football chants (2006-12-21). "How December 25 became Christmas Day... - Features, Unsorted". Independent.ie. Retrieved 2011-09-27.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
↑ The Times^{[dead link]}
↑ Borras, Judit, Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, BRILL, 1999, p 117: ".. the overwhelming consensus of modern scholarship is that the conquest tradition of Joshua is a pious fiction composed by the deuteronomistic school …"
↑ Stanley, Christopher, The Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Approach, Fortress Press, 2009, p 123: "Minimalists begin with the fact that the Hebrew Bible did not reach its present form until well after the Babylonian exile … most the that the story was formulated by a group of elites who wanted to justify their claims to dominate … In other words, the narrative [of the Hebrew Bible] is a pious fiction that bears little relation to the actual history of Palestine during the period it purports to narrate."
↑ Carson, D. A. For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word, Good News Publishers, 2006, p 19: "Many critics doubt that the account of Daniel 4 is anything more than pious fiction to encourage the Jews."
↑ Skousen, Royal, The Book of Mormon: the earliest text, Yale University Press, 2009, p x: "Outsiders generally consider this book [the Book of Mormon] a nineteenth-century hoax or pious fiction …"
↑ Berkey, Jonathan P. (2008). The formation of Islam : religion and society in the Near East, 600-1800 ([Online-Ausg.] ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-521-58813-3.
1 2 Crone and Cook, Patricia and Michael (1980). Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-521-29754-7.
↑ Luxenberg, Christoph (2007). The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: a Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran. Verlag Hans Schiler. p. 349. ISBN 978-3-89930-088-8.
↑ Brown, Jonathan (2011). The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: the Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 431. ISBN 978-90-04-21152-0.
↑ Eickelman, Dale, Muslim politics, Princeton University Press, 2004, p 26: "Emendations and additions to purportedly invariant and complete Islamic law (sharia) have occurred throughout Islamic history…. Muslim jurists have rigorously maintained the pious fiction that there can be no change in divinely revealed law, even as they have exercised their independent judgment (ijtihad) to create a kind of de facto legislation."
↑ Pike, Fredrick, FDR's Good Neighbor Policy: sixty years of generally gentle chaos, University of Texas Press, 1995, p 79:
"In the Depression era, a great many Americans, north and south of the border, succumbed to the pious fiction that underlay the Krausist-Areilist-Marxist nonmaterial rewards aspect of good neighborliness… Without the occasional seasoning of pious fictions, concocted by intellectuals who in their delusions of grandeur try to introduce elements of dream live into crude reality, might not the real world be a far more vicious jungle than it is?"

[1] "The Literary Examiner: A Compendious History of English Literature, and of the English Language, from the Norman Conquest With numerous Specimens [review]" (PDF). The Examiner. 22 February 1862. p. 117. Retrieved 5 July 2026. The pious fiction of the dream of the herdsman Caedmon, and the direct interposition from heaven that gave to the noble paraphrase of Scripture stories into English verse made for the religious bouse of Whitby, stronger hold on the surrounding peasantry, for whose instruction it was made, was a fraud honestly meant, and may escape blame if interpreted by the imperfect ethics of that day, which now disgrace only as an anachronism some orders in the Roman Church.

[2] Jones, Maurice. New Testament in the Twentieth Century. p. 63.

[3] Michael White, L. (4 May 2010). Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite - L. Michael White - Google Books. Harper Collins. ISBN 9780061985379. Retrieved 2011-09-27.

[4] Top 20 football chants (2006-12-21). "How December 25 became Christmas Day... - Features, Unsorted". Independent.ie. Retrieved 2011-09-27.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

[5] The Times^{[dead link]}

[6] Borras, Judit, Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, BRILL, 1999, p 117: ".. the overwhelming consensus of modern scholarship is that the conquest tradition of Joshua is a pious fiction composed by the deuteronomistic school …"

[7] Stanley, Christopher, The Hebrew Bible: A Comparative Approach, Fortress Press, 2009, p 123: "Minimalists begin with the fact that the Hebrew Bible did not reach its present form until well after the Babylonian exile … most the that the story was formulated by a group of elites who wanted to justify their claims to dominate … In other words, the narrative [of the Hebrew Bible] is a pious fiction that bears little relation to the actual history of Palestine during the period it purports to narrate."

[8] Carson, D. A. For the Love of God: A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word, Good News Publishers, 2006, p 19: "Many critics doubt that the account of Daniel 4 is anything more than pious fiction to encourage the Jews."

[9] Skousen, Royal, The Book of Mormon: the earliest text, Yale University Press, 2009, p x: "Outsiders generally consider this book [the Book of Mormon] a nineteenth-century hoax or pious fiction …"

[10] Berkey, Jonathan P. (2008). The formation of Islam : religion and society in the Near East, 600-1800 ([Online-Ausg.] ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 286. ISBN 978-0-521-58813-3.

[978-0-521-29754-7_p277-11] 1 2 Crone and Cook, Patricia and Michael (1980). Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-0-521-29754-7.

[12] Luxenberg, Christoph (2007). The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran: a Contribution to the Decoding of the Language of the Koran. Verlag Hans Schiler. p. 349. ISBN 978-3-89930-088-8.

[13] Brown, Jonathan (2011). The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim: the Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 431. ISBN 978-90-04-21152-0.

[14] Eickelman, Dale, Muslim politics, Princeton University Press, 2004, p 26: "Emendations and additions to purportedly invariant and complete Islamic law (sharia) have occurred throughout Islamic history…. Muslim jurists have rigorously maintained the pious fiction that there can be no change in divinely revealed law, even as they have exercised their independent judgment (ijtihad) to create a kind of de facto legislation."

[15] Pike, Fredrick, FDR's Good Neighbor Policy: sixty years of generally gentle chaos, University of Texas Press, 1995, p 79:
"In the Depression era, a great many Americans, north and south of the border, succumbed to the pious fiction that underlay the Krausist-Areilist-Marxist nonmaterial rewards aspect of good neighborliness… Without the occasional seasoning of pious fictions, concocted by intellectuals who in their delusions of grandeur try to introduce elements of dream live into crude reality, might not the real world be a far more vicious jungle than it is?"