spin

I didn't say that all myths are religious. I was asking about the term "myth" in regard to matters of this forum, BC&H, religious matters, as explained in the OP, in the poll question, and in the post you responded to. As you are claiming to disagree with me, I can't see the relevance of your last comment. But it's interesting that you'd call Babe a mythical character. That is relevant, as it shows the width of your usage here.


spin

dizzy

In case I was unclear on this, I view the narrative of Jesus as serving the same function for Christians as "regular mythology" does within a "regular culture". Perhaps, spin, you can demonstrate that Christianity is not a subculture at all, and therefore that talking about it as a cultural phenomenon is pointless. But until you do so, your attempt to constrict the parameters of this discussion is the only thing that is pointless.

mountainman

There appears to be three separate regions of theory space in BC&H:


Region (1): Purely Historical

The region marked (1) above, totally in red depicts those theories
which consider themselves to be wholly based on an historical Jesus.
No element of myth is considered existent in this segment of theory space.
Examples of this class of theories are represented on the Early Christian
Writings website, on the page Historical Jesus Theories.

It is notable that all theories in this category will generally accept
the historical core postulate.


Region (2): Mixture - Both Historical and Mythical

The region marked (2) above, totally in yellow/orange depicts those theories
which consider themselves to be a mixture of both history and myth. The
images of Sol Invictus, and the Helios-Christ depictions will find themselves
in this second category.

Examples of this class of theories are also represented on the Early Christian
Writings website, on the same page, prefaced Jesus the Myth.

It is notable that all theories in this category do not generally accept
the historical core postulate, and that their basic postulate is somewhere
between the core historical (unexamined) postulate, and the core mythical postulate.

It should be stated at this point that practically all theories advanced
to date will fall into either Region (1) or Region (2). Those in Region (1)
think of themselves as supporting the unexamined postulate of an historical
jesus, while those in Region (2) depend at least to some degree upon the
notion that there may have been some element of truth to an historical jesus.

These two parties consider themselves to be the two exchange participants
in all dialogue to date. An excellent summary of many positions, theories,
and use of hypotheses in contemporary Biblical Criticism and History is
presented on this Matrix of Scholars' Views on Historical Jesus and
Pauline Authenticity.

Region (3): Purely Mythical or Fictional

The region marked (3) above, totally in green depicts those theories
which consider themselves to be wholly based on a mythical Jesus.
No element of history is considered existent in this segment of theory space.
The entire class of theories involving fiction and/or fraud are in this segment.

spin

What is "regular" mythology? If you read someone like S.H. Hooke, there are several types of mythology.

The horse has already escaped by this time. We are dealing with the inception of christianity, not when it had become a representative of a subculture. That subculture you seem to have in mind would have formed as the religion took shape.

:tomato:

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dizzy, I'm not trying to pick on you or cramp your style, but you have been here for two weeks and haven't experienced the polemic involved in this discussion yet. I have a specific range of meaning in mind that seems to be at the root of the issue. I'm not looking to allow the discussion spread wide enough for the specific issue to be swamped. If you want to talk about myth in what you see as a non-religious cultural manifestation, please start another thread specifically on that, just not here, if that's understandable.


spin

DCHindley

Spin,

I've got a couple minutes before I have to head out on the road, so I'll take my break now and say that I use Myth in the sense of a secondary meaning riding on top of literal meaning.

Normal communication works like this: In the US of A, the American flag stands in for the country as a whole. The figures of "mom and apple pie" represent the country's values epitomized in the 1950's & 60's (stay-at-home mom prepares the family meals which the whole family gathers as one to eat). In those cases, it can be said that the flag is just a flag, or mom is just a mom, apple pie is just a pie (although here there will be some who will feel the necessity to question whether that pie should be open top or closed top crust). Myth is when the thing symbolically represented by the image of the flag, that is the USA, is used as the signifier for an even further tertiary meaning (say, for instance evil or colonialism).

See Roland Barthes. This definition covers all subcategories of myth, including the ones normally found in use here.

DCH

gurugeorge

I think "narrative whose purpose is to explain religious ideas" is probably the closest, but I think there's an important aspect that's being missed out with all these options - the "Jungian" aspect, one might say.

Although one needn't go the whole hog with Jung's specific ideas, I don't think there can be any doubt that there's something in what he said, i.e.:-

Myths represent something that's deep in the structure of our psychology (basically instincts as Jung put it), certain commonalities arising from shared physiology, neurology, etc., that makes myths around the world be analogs of each other.

More specifically, though, I think there's a huge gap in rationalist understanding of religion if the primary port of call isn't in the unusual experiences that the founders of religions have - of the type that were canvassed by William James in Varieties of Religious Experience. Religion isn't originally just about ideas, it's about peoples' vivid personal experiences that lead them to ideas. And those experiences are had as a result of the aforementioned shared physiology, neurology, etc.

To take one important example, the way the brain is structured to give the illusion of a virtual captain of the crew - a "self" as we normally call it - and the way that "self" is subjectively detachable from the body in certain types of experience like OOBEs, "astral" visions, etc., is likely to be the primary origin of the notion of the "soul". (e.g. cf. Thomas Metzinger)

Without these kinds of experiences, it's unlikely that untutored but otherwise rational minds would have come up with religious concepts - the concepts that naturally arise for untutored but otherwise rational people who don't have these kinds of experiences, or for more educated rationalist minds (e.g. the Carvaka school of materialism in ancient India, many ancient Greek philosophies), tend to be naturalistic.

The kind of notion that one often finds in rational explanation of religion - e.g. that we have an "automatic personification" function in the mind that is liable to assume personality in natural events - just doesn't hold water. People come to believe in tree spirits and water spirits either because they SEE them (i.e. see something they take to be a water spirit) or because they trust that people they trust have seen them, or that authorities are right that they exist.

But it's the people who see water spirits who start religions.

bacht

"Myth" is one of those words that has several meanings. In popular discourse it's often synonymous with "untrue" or "fictional".

I was lucky to study one year under the literary critic Northrop Frye. In "The Great Code (or via: amazon.co.uk)", his analysis of the Bible, he fixes his remarks around two main language functions: myth and metaphor. Myth in its simplest definition just means narrative, an artificially constructed story.

But the more interesting meaning is the idea of myth as a story or narrative with cultural significance. This is the kind of thing that Joseph Campbell was into, presenting old stories and looking at their value as teaching aids or shared communal wisdom. He saw mythic characteristics in the Star Wars series, the reinforcement of certain cultural truths like leadership, heroism, sacrifice etc.

Campbell saw the King Arthur cycle as the last great Western mythology. The fusion of Christian and pagan Celtic elements was the climax of centuries of European cultural flux.

Jesus is a fusion of Jewish and pagan elements, one manifestation of the "east meets west" post-Alexander world. Maybe new myths arise from significant socio-political changes. The LXX was a symbol of the new age of Hellenism and a tentative move towards syncretism.

The mythology of the Augustan poets is an obvious example of sponsored propaganda. The truth of the theses stories was not in the past (Aeneas) but the contemporary supremacy of Rome.

dizzy

I won't dwell on it after this post, spin. As per your wishes.

I placed "regular mythology" in quotation marks because I don't believe there is such a thing. Which is the point, really. You seem to want to define the use of "myth" on this forum as some kind of special application of the term. So special that it doesn't conform to the macro-definition of mythology at all. This just makes no sense to me.

In fact, we seem to be dealing with the inception of Christian mythology, which is not the same as Christianity proper. And as far as the mythology is concerned, what is commonly referred to as the "Markan community" or "Lukan community", etc., would appear to constitute a subculture existing at the point of inception.

Perhaps you need to be clearer on this.

I understand your purpose with this thread.

I think you're trying to define something by working with preconceptions of what the definition ought to look like when you're done.

It's quite understandable. But I still think you've missed the point.

Mageth

None of the above. See dizzy's first post for what is essentially my take on "myth" in the broad sense.

spin

The OP isn't asking for "the broad sense" though, but about its significance in the restricted sense dealing with biblical analysis, especially matters dealing with our being dogged by HJ/MJ blubberings.

I personally don't use the term of my own choosing.


spin