Originally Posted by Dr Jim

In this longer version I demonstrate how some aspects of religious scholarship are quite incompatible with secular scholarship, especially comparative religion, and the question of mythology in particular. ....

I will offer no definition of myth or mythology of my own. I am currently working on a book length treatment of myth and the Hebrew Bible but this project is in its early days. I should indicate, however, that I reject form-critical definitions of myth and tend to favour more functionalist ones, although I am not fully comfortable with these either. I am leaning towards looking more at “mythology” within a larger “symbolic universe” as the primary subject of research rather than “myth” itself, as I think it is more productive to look at all representations of religiously significant stories and not just specific narratives. Moreover, my work is tending to emphasize the process, and not the product, of myth making and remaking and the loss and potential rediscovery of old stories as mythology. To me, myth is in the eye of the beholder, and no story is inherently mythical. It depends on its cultural context and interpretational strategies to make a story a myth. I hope my project will help clarify these issues and to develop a workable understanding of ancient Judean mythology.