Chris Weimer

I'm ignoring lpetrich's opinion and just going by what Lord Raglan counted as heroes under his testimony. It's painfully obvious that you need a loose interpretation, else the list would not be worth anything at all. It's not like Raglan's list is the official list...

Ever heard of the Immaculate Conception?

I never counted Jesus as a myth! It's a mistake to take this list as any more than a study of heroic archetypes, regardless if the person actually existed or not.

Think about it - it's physically impossible for someone to have sex with a god, namely because god doesn't exist. Now, women conceived from gods is a common theme in Mediterranean heroic stories, thus we can categorize Jesus' unnatural birth as a Mediterranean heroic myth. It has nothing to do with whether Jesus existed or not.

You contradict yourself. First you say that I treat Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus as the same, then you say I treat Jesus differently. Which is it?

Chris Weimer

I thought we were discussing heroic myths, in which case several of the cases would not be general. For example, incest. Hercules had incest with what relative?

GIDEON MAGE

Have you guys never heard of Odin? Balder? Both very high scores. Odin sacrificed himself on a tree. His son Balder, was killed by a mistletoe, and will resurrect after Ragnorak. There will be a new heaven and a new earth.

andrewcriddle

Oedipus notoriously commits incest
So does King Arthiur with his half sister (to conceive Mordred.)
The Norse Hero Sigmund commits incest with his sister Signy
Hrolf Kraki is conceived by Father Daughter incest
as is Adonis

Hercules does not commit incest however he does show other forms of dysfunctional family behaviour such as killing his children by Megara and he is (accidentally) killed by his later wife Deianeira

(I shall be away over the weekemd so won't be able to reply further till next week)

Andrew Criddle

Chris Weimer

Oh, Andrew, I'm not saying that it isn't common, but if its dysfunctional families you want, you don't have to go any further than a "radical priest" who disowns his own family. Unfortunately, it's probably based on history.

That's the problems with myth in general, you know? You can always find a concrete example to compare with the paradigm.

And for every example of heroic incest, I can give you an example where it lacks. You name King Arthur? I say Lancelot.

And finally, are we really keeping tally within a single work, or is it spread among multiple works about the same character?

lpetrich

GIDEON MAGE, could you try checking on how Odin's and Balder's biographies compare to Lord Raglan's profile?

And taking the Bible as a whole against Kirk's list, I find:

1. Jesus Christ's one-liners against the Pharisees.
4. The Devil and the Beast in the Book of Revelation; not sure if David vs. Goliath might count.
5. King David sends Uriah the Hittite into battle, so that he can have Uriah's wife Bathsheba.
6. The Israelites traveling from Egypt to the Promised Land.
8. Korah's rebellion against Moses; he gets swallowed up by the ground. Worshipping other gods makes YHWH angry at His Chosen People, so YHWH send other nations' armies to conquer them.
9. Jesus Christ being indifferent or snotty to his parents.
10. Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac.
11. Psalm 137 - revenge against the Babylonian captors.
13. Cain vs. Abel, Ham being a Peeping Tom
15. Lot and his daughters.
16. Lot and his daughters, Ham being a Peeping Tom (voyeuristic incest?).
17. Ancestors of the Twelve Tribes, etc.
19. The New Testament is full of prophecy-mongering.
20. The Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ's mother.
22. The witch of Endor channels Samuel's ghost.
23. Jesus Christ's birth.
24. Slavery in Egypt and the Babylonian Exile.

GIDEON MAGE

I will try later today. My favorite is Samson. I think he is basically a whitewashed ancient Sun God myth. Even his name means Sun, the root being "Shemesh". I suspect seriously that he originally resurrected after his self sacrifice in the pre-Jewish version, maybe even every year. The riddle sequence is very mythic, reminiscent of many native american legends.

The Bishop

Thank you, Andrew.

Having had a look at your page dedicated to this issue, I find your shout of "bullshit" to be somewhat strange, given that you apparently agree with me. You have extended "virgin mother" to the concept of "hero was mother's first child", and that I do agree with. In my opinion, the restriction to "virgin" is evidence of the Christ-bias in the original list of Raglan's.

Seriously, Chris - how many times do I have to state and reiterate that I agree with you on this! I haven't stated on any occasion "This proves Jesus to be historical" or "This proves Jesus to be mythological". I am trying to point out that a) Jesus has a high score on the list because the list was derived from Jesus's life, not from a dispassionate examination of all mythology, and b) Jesus doesn't even score as highly on the list as everybody thinks because nearly half of it has to do with a Royal status of the hero, which Jesus only fulfills metaphorically, where all other God/King heroes were literal royalty.

I'm not arguing that Jesus does not have many mythological elements. I'm arguing that Raglan's list is peculiarly poorly suited to establishing the level of mythicism. And I still just do not get your continued defence of Mary as an exalted personage apart from being Jesus's mother. The Immaculate Conception isn't even a Biblical story, so i really don't know why you brought that up except maybe to wind me up!

(PS, I forgot to add earlier, references to the 4th Earl as if he was the 1st Earl were an error on my part, which I withdraw unreservedly).

The Bishop

Finding good matches for mythological tropes with the bible as a whole is scarcely surprising. You don't even need the whole Bible, just the book of Genesis!

Incidentally, referencing your earlier post:But the evaluation for Krishna is your very own!

Chris Weimer

This seems so contradictory. If it was purposefully inflated to fit Jesus, why are you arguing that it doesn't fit Jesus? It baffles my mind.

Why are we stopping merely at Biblical literature? There's plenty of legends and tradition about Jesus, family, and friends. Tradition about the exalted status of Mary can be found in not only Luke, but in many of the extracanonical works, such as the Protevangelium of James.

Stopping at just the Bible would be a sign of...Christian bias?