Mythology

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The word mythology (from the Greek μυϑολογία mythología, from μυϑολογείν mythologein to relate myths, from μύϑος mythos, meaning a narrative, and λόγος logos, meaning speech or argument) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. In modern usage, "mythology" is either the body of myths from a particular culture or religion (as in Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology) or the branch of knowledge dealing with the collection, study and interpretation of myths, also known as mythography.

Term

The term mythology has been in use since the 15th century, and means "an exposition of myths". The current meaning of "body of myths" itself dates to 1781 (Oxford English Dictionary (OED)). The adjective mythical dates to 1678. Myth in general use is often interchangeable with legend or allegory, but some scholars strictly distinguish the terms. The term has been used in English since the 19th century. The newest edition of the OED distinguishes the meanings

1a. "A traditional story, typically involving supernatural beings or forces or creatures , which embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology, or justification for something such as the early history of a society, a religious belief or ritual, or a natural phenomenon", citing the Westminster Review of 1830 as the first English attestation

1b. "As a mass noun: such stories collectively or as a genre." (1840)

2a. "A widespread but untrue or erroneous story or belief" (1849)

2b. "A person or thing held in awe or generally referred to with near reverential admiration on the basis of popularly repeated stories (whether real or fictitious)." (1853)

2c. "A popular conception of a person or thing which exaggerates or idealizes the truth." (1928)

In contrast to the OED's definition of a myth as a "traditional story", many folklorists apply the term to only one group of traditional stories. By this system, traditional "prose narratives" can be arranged into three groups:

• myths - sacred stories concerning the distant past, particularly the creation of the world; generally focussed on the gods
• legends - stories about the (usually more recent) past, which generally include, or are based on, some historical events; generally focussed on human heroes
• folktales/fairytales (or Marchen, the German word for such tales) - stories whose tellers acknowledge them to be fictitious, and which lack any definite historical setting; often include animal characters

Religious-studies scholars often limit the term "myth" to stories whose main characters "must be gods or near-gods".

Some scholars disagree with such attempts to restrict the definition of the word "myth". The classicist G. S. Kirk thinks the distinction between myths and folktales may be useful, but he argues that "the categorizing of tales as folktales, legends, and proper myths, simple and appealing as it seems, can be seriously confusing". In particular, he rejects the idea "that all myths are associated with religious beliefs, feelings or practices". The religious scholar Robert A. Segal goes even farther, defining myths simply as stories whose main characters are "personalities — divine, human, or even animal".

A popular meaning (which English myth shares with Greek μῦθος) of a rumour, misconception or mistaken belief, is in marked contrast to the meaning "stories of deep cultural or spiritual significance". In this article, the term is used in the latter sense, detached from the notion of historical truth, throughout.

Characteristics

In Shintoism, the Kappa are a type of water imp and are considered to be one of many suijin (literally "water-deity").

Historically, the important approaches to the study of mythological thinking have been those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lávy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.

Myths are narratives about divine or heroic beings, arranged in a coherent system, passed down traditionally, and linked to the spiritual or religious life of a community, endorsed by rulers or priests. Once this link to the spiritual leadership of society is broken, they lose their mythological qualities and become folktales or fairy tales. In folkloristics, which is concerned with the study of both secular and sacred narratives, a myth also derives some of its power from being more than a simple "tale", by comprising an archetypical quality of "truth".

Myths are often intended to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation myths" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions or rituals, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself. This broader truth runs deeper than the advent of critical history, and it may or may not exist as in an authoritative written form which becomes "the story" (preliterate oral traditions may vanish as the written word becomes "the story" and the literate class becomes "the authority"). However, as Lucien Lévy-Bruhl puts it, "The primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development."

Most often the term refers specifically to ancient tales of historical cultures, such as Greek mythology or Roman mythology. Some myths descended originally as part of an oral tradition and were only later written down, and many of them exist in multiple versions. According to F. W. J. Schelling in the eighth chapter of Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology, "Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding." Individual myths or mythemes may be classified in various categories:

• Ritual myths explain the performance of certain religious practices or patterns and associated with temples or centers of worship.
• Origin myths (aetiologies) describe the beginnings of a custom, name or object.
• Creation myths, which describes how the world or universe came into being.
• Cult myths are often seen as explanations for elaborate festivals that magnify the power of the deity.
• Prestige myths are usually associated with a divinely chosen king, hero, city, or people.
• Eschatological myths are stories which describe catastrophic ends to the present world order of the writers. These extend beyond any potential historical scope, and thus can only be described in mythic terms. Apocalyptic literature such as the New Testament Book of Revelation is an example of a set of eschatological myths.
• Social myths reinforce or defend current social values or practices.
• the Trickster myth, which concerns itself with the pranks or tricks played by gods or heroes. Heroes do not have to be in a story to be considered a myth.

Religion and mythology

Significantly, none of the scholarly definitions of "myth" imply that myths are necessarily false. In a scholarly context, the word "myth" may mean "sacred story", "traditional story", or "story about gods", but it does not mean "false story". Therefore, many scholars call the sacred stories of Christianity and Islam "myths" without intending to insult those religions. However, this application of the word "myth" may cause confusion and offense, due to the popular usage of the word.

Many myths, such as ritual myths, are part of religion. For instance, the myths that form part of a religion's scriptures are certainly part of that religion. However, unless we simply define myths as "sacred stories" (instead defining them as "traditional stories", for instance), not all myths are religious. As the classicist G. S. Kirk notes, "many myths embody a belief in the supernatural [...] but many other myths, or what seem like myths, do not". As an example, Kirk cites the myth of Oedipus, which is "only superficially associated [...] with religion or the supernatural", and is therefore not a sacred story. (Note that folklorists would not classify the Oedipus story as a myth, precisely because it is not a sacred story.)

Examples of religious myths include:

• the Hebrew creation story in Genesis, which is clearly a sacred story about the creation of the world
• the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish, a sacred creation story which formed around which the Babylonians' religious New Year festival revolved
• an Australian myth describing the first sacred bora ritual.

Related concepts

Myths are not the same as fables, legends, folktales, fairy tales, anecdotes or fiction, but the concepts may overlap. Notably, during Romanticism, folktales and fairy tales were perceived as eroded fragments of earlier mythology (famously by the Brothers Grimm and Elias Lönnrot). Mythological themes are also very often consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer. The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself being part of a body of myths (Cupid and Psyche). The medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism refers to the process of rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts, for example following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization). Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time, for example the Matter of Britain and the Matter of France, based on historical events of the 5th and 8th centuries, respectively, were first made into epic poetry and became partly mythological over the following centuries. "Conscious generation" of mythology has been termed mythopoeia by J. R. R. Tolkien, and was notoriously also suggested by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

Formation of myths

Robert Graves said of Greek myth: "True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially." (The Greek Myths, Introduction). Graves was deeply influenced by Sir James George Frazer's mythography The Golden Bough, and he would have agreed that myths are generated by many cultural needs. Myths authorize the cultural institutions of a tribe, a city, or a nation by connecting them with universal truths. Myths justify the current occupation of a territory by a people, for instance. All cultures have developed over time their own myths, consisting of narratives of their history, their religions, and their heroes. The great power of the symbolic meaning of these stories for the culture is a major reason why they survive as long as they do, sometimes for thousands of years. Mâche distinguishes between "myth, in the sense of this primary psychic image, with some kind of mytho-logy, or a system of words trying with varying success to ensure a certain coherence between these images. Joseph Campbell is one of the more famous modern authors on myths and the history of spirituality. His book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1948) outlined the basic ideas he would continue to elaborate on until his death in 1987.

Myths as depictions of historical events

Relief of the "Descent of the Ganga" in Mahabalipuram (also Mamallapuram), India; detail of the central part, the complete relief is 9 m high and 27 m wide.

As discussed above, the status of a story as myth is unrelated to whether it is based on historical events. Myths that are based on a historical events over time become imbued with symbolic meaning, transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed. One way of conceptualizing this process is to view 'myths' as lying at the far end of a continuum ranging from a 'dispassionate account' to 'legendary occurrence' to 'mythical status'. As an event progresses towards the mythical end of this continuum, what people think, feel and say about the event takes on progressively greater historical significance while the facts become less important. By the time one reaches the mythical end of the spectrum the story has taken on a life of its own and the facts of the original event have become almost irrelevant. A classical example of this process is the Trojan War, a topic firmly within the scope of Greek mythology. The extent of a historical basis in the Trojan cycle is disputed, see historicity of the Iliad.^{[citation needed]}

This method or technique of interpreting myths as accounts of actual events, euhemerist exegesis, dates from antiquity and can be traced back (from Spencer) to Evhémère's Histoire sacrée (300 B.C.E.) which describes the inhabitants of the island of Panchaia, Everything-Good, in the Indian Ocean as normal people deified by popular naivety. As Roland Barthes affirms, "Myth is a word chosen by history. It could not come from the nature of things".

This process occurs in part because the events described become detached from their original context and new context is substituted, often through analogy with current or recent events. Some Greek myths originated in Classical times to provide explanations for inexplicable features of local cult practices, to account for the local epithet of one of the Olympian gods, to interpret depictions of half-remembered figures, events, or to account for the deities' attributes or entheogens, even to make sense of ancient icons, much as myths are invented to "explain" heraldic charges, the origins of which has become arcane with the passing of time. Conversely, descriptions of recent events are re-emphasised to make them seem to be analogous with the commonly known story. This technique has been used by some religious conservatives in America with text from the Bible, notably referencing the many prophecies in the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation especially. It was also used during the Russian Communist-era in propaganda about political situations with misleading references to class struggles. Until World War II the fitness of the Emperor of Japan was linked to his mythical descent from the Shinto sun goddess, Amaterasu.^{[citation needed]}

Mâche argues that euhemerist exegesis, "was applied to capture and seize by force of reason qualities of thought, which eluded it on every side." This process, he argues, often leads to interpretation of myths as "disguised propaganda in the service of powerful individuals," and that the purpose of myths in this view is to allow the "social order" to establish "its permanence on the illusion of a natural order." He argues against this interpretation, saying that "what puts an end to this caricature of certain speeches from May 1968 is, among other things, precisely the fact that roles are not distributed once and for all in myths, as would be the case if they were a variant of the idea of an 'opium of the people.'"

Contra Barthes Mâche argues that, "myth therefore seems to choose history, rather than be chosen by it" , "beyond words and stories, myth seems more like a psychic content from which words, gestures, and musics radiate. History only chooses for it more or less becoming clothes. And these contents surge forth all the more vigorously from the nature of things when reason tries to repress them. Whatever the roles and commentaries with which such and such a socio-historic movement decks out the mythic image, the latter lives a largely autonomous life which continually fascinates humanity. To denounce archaism only makes sense as a function of a 'progressive' ideology, which itself begins to show a certain archaism and an obvious naivety."

Catastrophists such as Immanuel Velikovsky believe that myths are derived from the oral histories of ancient cultures that witnessed cosmic catastrophes. The catastrophic interpretation of myth, forms only a small minority within the field of mythology.

Theoretical descriptions

Middleton argues that, "For Lévi-Strauss, myth is a structured system of signifiers, whose internal networks of relationships are used to 'map' the structure of other sets of relationships; the 'content' is infinitely variable and relatively unimportant."

In their book Hamlet's Mill, Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend suggest that myth is a "technical language" describing cosmic events, They write:

"One should pay attention to the cosmological information contained in ancient myth, information of chaos, struggle and violence. [..] Plato knew .. that the language of myth is, in principle, as ruthlessly generalizing as up-to-date "tech talk". .. There is no other technique, apparently, than myth, which succeeds in telling structure [..] The main merit of this language has turned out to be its built-in ambiguity. Myth can be used as a vehicle for handing down solid knowledge independently from the degree of insight of the people who do the actual telling of stories, fables, etc"

Modern mythology

Film and book series like Star Wars and Tarzan have strong mythological aspects that sometimes develop into deep and intricate philosophical systems. These items are not mythology, but contain mythic themes that, for some people, meet the same psychological needs. An example is that developed by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.

Fiction, however, does not reach the level of actual mythology until people believe that it really happened. For example, some people believe that fiction author Clive Barker's Candyman was based upon an actual event, and new stories have grown up around the figure. The same can be said for the Blair Witch and many other works of fiction.

Mythology is alive and well in the modern age through urban legends, New Age beliefs, certain aspects of religion and so forth. In the 1950s Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873-1961) and his followers also tried to understand the psychology behind world myths.

References

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• Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)
• Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
• Reed, A. W. Aboriginal Myths, Legends and Fables. Chatswood: Reed, 1982.
• Thomas Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Mythology (1880s).
• Caillois, Roger (1972). Le mythe et l'homme. Gallimard.
• Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
• Mircea Eliade
  • Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
  • The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. NY: Harper & Row, 1961.
• James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890).
• Louis Herbert Gray [ed.], The Mythology of All Races, in 12 vols., 1916.
• Edith Hamilton, Mythology (1998)
• Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
  • Mental Functions in Primitive Societies (1910)
  • Primitive Mentality (1922)
  • The Soul of the Primitive (1928)
  • The Supernatural and the Nature of the Primitive Mind (1931)
  • Primitive Mythology (1935)
  • The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism (1938)
• Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
• Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich The Poetics of Myth (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky, foreword by Guy Lanoue) 2000 Routledge ISBN 0415928982
• Barry B. Powell, "Classical Myth," 5th edition, Prentice-Hall.
• Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). "Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth", Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-87923-215-3.
• Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling
  • Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, 1856.
  • Philosophy of Mythology, 1857.
  • Philosophy of Revelation, 1858.
• Segal, Robert A. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004
• Welker, Glenn. "Stories/Myths/Legends". Indigenous Peoples Literature. 14 August 2004 <http://www.indigenouspeople.net/stories.htm>.
• Zǒng In-Sǒb. Folk Tales from Korea. Elizabeth: Hollym International, 1982
• Kirk, G. S. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley: Cambridge UP, 1973

See also

General

Archetypal literary criticism, Comparative mythology, Folklore, National myth, Artificial mythology, Legendary creature, Mytheme, Monomyth, Mythical place, Origin belief

Mythological archetypes

Culture hero, Death deity, Earth Mother, First man or woman, Hero, Life-death-rebirth deity, Lunar deity, Psychopomp, Sky father, Solar deity, Trickster, Underworld, Panic,

Myth and religion

Religion and mythology, Christian mythology (Mythological and eschatological Biblical interpretation and Jesus as myth), Jewish mythology, Islamic mythology

Lists

List of mythologies, List of deities, List of mythical objects, List of species in folklore and mythology, List of species in folklore and mythology by type

External links

At Wikiversity, you can learn about:

School:Comparative Mythology

• Myths and Myth-Makers Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by comparative mythology by John Fiske.
• Godchecker Easy-to-use searchable encyclopedia of gods and goddesses from around the world; currently has over 2,500 gods listed, including many obscure deities.
• www.mythologyweb.com Information about myths, legends and folklore, as well as a message board.
• Timeless Myths.
• Winged Sandals An interactive learning website.
• The New Student's Reference Work/Mythology

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"Myth" redirects here. For the computer game, see Myth (computer game).

The word mythology (from the Greek μυϑολογία mythología, from μυϑολογειν mythologein to relate myths, from μυϑος mythos, meaning a narrative, and λογος logos, meaning speech or argument) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. The modern definition of mythology primarily the body of myths from a particular culture or religion, as in Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology. Mythology is also the branch of knowledge dealing with the collection, study and interpretation of myths.

What is mythology?

Myths are generally narratives based on tradition and legend designed to explain the universal and local beginnings ("creation myths" and "founding myths"), natural phenomena, inexplicable cultural conventions, and anything else for which no simple explanation presents itself. Not all myths need have this explicatory purpose, however. Likewise, most myths involve a supernatural force or deity, but many simple legends and narratives passed down orally from generation to generation have mythic content. The Brothers Grimm demonstrated that there is mythic content embedded even in the least promising fairy tales.

In common parlance, a myth is generally considered a "mere story" — that is, a story that holds meaning for people, but the narrative of which is untrue. In folkloristics, which is concerned with the study of both secular and sacred narratives (the latter being myths), a myth also derives some of its power from being believed and deeply held as true; to folklorists, all sacred traditions have myths, and there is nothing pejorative or dismissive about the term as there is in common usage.

This broader truth runs deeper than the advent of critical history which may, or may not, exist as in an authoritative written form which becomes "the story" (Preliterate oral traditions vanish as the written word becomes "the story" and the literate become "the authority"). However, as Lucian Lévi-Bruhl puts it, "The primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development." (Mâche 1992, p.8) Most often the term refers specifically to ancient tales from very old cultures, such as Greek mythology or Roman mythology. Some myths descended originally as part of an oral tradition and were only later written down, and many of them exist in multiple versions.

According to the eighth chapter of F. W. J. Schelling's Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology, "Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding."

Religion and mythology

Mythology figures prominently in most religions, and most mythology is tied to at least one religion. Some use the words myth and mythology to portray the stories of one or more religions as false, or dubious at best. While nearly all dictionaries include this definition, "myth" does not always imply that a story is either false or true. The term is most often used in this sense to describe religions founded by ancient societies whose belief systems are nearly extinct. However, it is important to keep in mind that while some view myths as merely stories, others may hold them as a religion. By extension, many people do not regard the tales surrounding the origin and development of modern dominant religions as literal accounts of events, but instead regard them as figurative representations of their belief systems. Many modern day rabbis and priests within the more liberal Jewish and Christian movements, as well as most Neopagans, have no problem viewing their religious texts as containing myth. They see their sacred texts as indeed containing religious truths, divinely inspired but delivered in the language of mankind. Others separate their beliefs out from the similar stories of other cultures citing them as history. These people object to the use of the word myth to describe what they believe.

For the purposes of this article, therefore, the word mythology is used to refer to stories that, while they may or may not be strictly factual, reveal fundamental truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes. Also, the stories discussed express the viewpoints and beliefs of the country, time period, culture, and/or religion which gave birth to them. One can speak of a Jewish mythology, a Christian mythology, or an Islamic mythology, in which one describes the mythic elements within these faiths without speaking to the veracity of the faith's tenets or claims about its history.

Religion is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices, values, and institutions associated with such belief. It is a structure of beliefs that involves the existence or nonexistence of at least one of:

• a human soul or spirit,
• a deity or higher being, or
• self after the death of one's body.

It generally involves how people worship and can include any system of beliefs (eg., like those that do not involve the existence of one or more deities like Buddhism).

Mythology, most abstractly, refers to a collection of stories about a people, usually concerning their origin, history, deities, ancestors, and heroes behind the belief structure and faith. The stories discussed express the viewpoints and beliefs of the country, time period, culture, and/or religion which gave birth to them. It can also be a body of myths concerning an event, person, or institution. One can speak of a Jewish mythology, a Christian mythology, or an Islamic mythology, in which one describes the mythic elements within these faiths without speaking to the veracity of the faith's tenets or claims about its history. Mythology is used to refer to stories that, whether or not believers accept them as strictly factual, are believed to reveal fundamental truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes. From this perspective, Story (Myth), figures prominently in most religions and belief systems, and specific mythologies are tied to at least one religion.

The word mythology itself is ambiguous (and sometimes controversial) and can convey negative connotations of a belief being imaginary or false (eg., fictitious narrative). This is usually applied to discarded or archaic notions of religions that are no longer widely practiced. The term used in the sense of fable commonly describes religions founded by ancient societies, such as Roman mythology, Greek mythology, and Norse mythology, in which the existance is nearly extinct. However, particularly in the academic world, myth and mythology can denote beliefs without necessarily implying falsehood.

While some view ancient mythologies (such as the Nordic and Celtic pantheons) as mere fable, a very few even today may seriously hold them as a religion — although the work of some modern scholars (including Ronald Hutton) suggests that the modern versions of these beliefs usually have little to no resemblance to the originals (see Neopaganism). Similarly, many people do not regard the tales surrounding the origin and development of religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam as literal accounts of events, but instead regard them as figurative representations of their belief systems; and they may, reflecting such disbelief, use the word, myth. However, this is not what academics mean by the word or idea; and, besides the academic setting where this meaning is mostly recognized, this more classical notion is gaining acceptance in the popular culture (diminishing it's negative connotations).

Similarities

"Mythology" can be used to refer to stories that, whether or not they are strictly thought factual, are received for their deeper truths and insights about human nature, often through the use of archetypes (eg., viewpoints and beliefs of the country, time period, culture, and/or religion which gave birth to them). Therefore, some mythologists would define any element of a religious narrative as belonging to the realm of religious mythos, including also any formal religious doctrinal tradition, including the Trinity^[1], Allah^[2], the Son of God. From the perspective of comparative mythology and comparative religion, these elements represent the symbolic values within these faiths.

The similarities between cultures and time periods can be useful, but it is usually not easy to combine beliefs and histories from different groups. Simplification of cultures and time periods by eliminating detailed data remain vulnerably delicate or flimsy in this area of research. Abrahamic religions and Pagan religions share, though, some rituals and practices. Duplication being done by Christians and Pagan bidirectionally, coincidentially or directly outright.

Some similarities between cultures and time periods include:

• Thuvayal Thavasu was a spiritual as well as physical purification as per Ayyavazhi.
• Baptism was a principal ritual.
• The sacrament of a ritual meal of bread and wine (which symbolize the diety's body and blood) have been held by both.
• Some celebrate the birthday of their god incarnate.
• Some celebrate the resurrection of their god (such as the Resurrection of Jesus and the Egyptian worship of Osiris).

To do - list more similarities

Contrasts

Though there are similarities that exist between Abrahamic religions and Pagan religions, there are contrasts. Mythologies typically are explanations of the universe, natural phenomena, or other themes of human existence, often ascribing agency to one or more deities or other supernatural forces. Some religions have very few of this kind of story of cosmic explanation. Abrahamic religions and Pagan religions similarities does not specifically denote dependence of the one upon the the. The particular meaning of the rituals and celebration may not have synonymous meanings. Parallels drawn between Abrahamic religious text and Pagan religious texts cover a wide range of literary forms with few in exact concordance. Similarity of literary style between Abrahamic religious text and Pagan religious texts can be attributed to common cultural milieu.

To do - list more contrasts

Range of views

Academic views

The academic meaning of the word mythology is not meant to suggest a negation or denial of the beliefs concerning the codes or values associated with such belief, or to mark these views as similar to unreal or imaginary stories. Such description of certian religious doctrines, traditions, literature, and scriptures is to understand a religion in general. Mythology is used in this sense to understand the body of stories, addressing issues of core belief, that explains or symbolizes a religon.

Sociologists and historians of religion are not primarily interested in these stories for their historical value. They analyze religions in terms of the role which their stories and histories play, within the religious system. Histories and imaginative stories alike are treated as a body of myths, when they are regarded by a people as expressing profound truths. Describing the essential and traditional stories accepted as mysteries and historical narratives considered true is consequently just a tool for theological studies and study of the systems of common experience in general. Without necessarily speaking to the veracity of the faith's tenets or claims about its history, these mythological elements are studied for their mythic value.

Religious views

Some churches as well as individuals, especially within revealed religions that are justified in terms of an authenticated scripture, take offense when historical aspects their faith, or what they consider to be the Word of God, are characterized by outsiders as an expression of myth. Those who hold such views differentiate religious myths, fables and symbolic stories, in contrast to those narratives of Scripture which Scripture itself, or their tradition, describe as history or revelation. Some use the description fundamentalism for this view; and they suppose fallaciously that this view rejects discernment of various literary types, hyperbole, allegory, or other non-literal kinds of meaning in Scripture (although a few individuals holding the view require that every incidental element be accepted as literally true).

But there are often reasons internal to a given religion that account for this objection to such terminology. For example, the etymology of the word myth as it is used in the Greek New Testament means a fable. Thus, if essential mysteries and teachings are described as myth, to most English speakers, but especially to more religious individuals, the word implies that it is a fable and false invention. This description would be taken as a direct attack on religious belief, quite contrary to the meaning ostensibly intended by the academic use of the term. (However, for an example of typically academic writing where 'myth' clearly denotes 'falsehood', being used unequivocally in opposition to 'historical', see the article Historicity of Jesus.)

There are also historical reasons for people of faith to be sensitive to the term. During the dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution, alongside the adoption and enforcement of a policy of religious toleration, for a time speaking of the Bible as anything except a myth came to be viewed by authorities as treasonable. Public expressions of Christian belief were also discouraged. Similar policies have also been forced upon people at various other stages and places in history. For example, Enver Hoxha's Albania denied its citizens freedom of religion, although the constitution of 1976 ostensibly guaranteed this right. Some communist regimes, such as Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, have instituted policies to stifle religious expression.

Some apologists for religious belief sometimes argue that when their scriptures, or the codes or values associated with their beliefs, are described as a "mythology", it introduces an analysis of religion that ignores, and sometimes denies, the transcendent and historical aspects supposed by adherents. Some religious individuals believe that these academics mean to dogmatically insist that their religion is merely the creation of human religious imagination and a development of culture, when the religious see this as the reverse of the case: that their scriptures and codes are a correction of otherwise errant religious imaginations, of which their culture is the product.

Using the terms of myth and mythology to describe a developed doctrine may also be taken by some religious individuals, such as evangelists, priests, rabbis, or shamans, as an attack on the religion in general (eg., that some do not truly desire to describe thier beliefs, but only desecrate devout concepts). Some religious groups may hold the same belief in this use of terminology. Even when such groups or individuals recognize elements of mythology especially in their literature and folk religion, this is sharply distinguished from the Tradition and Scripture of their formal religious doctrines. Their philosophy would not include elements of their respective religions, such as God, the Trinity, or Allah, as in any sense "myths" or "mythical".

In contrast, many religious people view every religion as containing a body of myths that express deeper truths, that are ineffable on the surface level. Modern day rabbis and priests within the more liberal Jewish and Christian movements, as well as most Neopagans, have no problem viewing their religious texts as containing myth. They see their sacred texts as indeed containing religious truths, divinely inspired but delivered in the language of mankind.

Miscellaneous

The Dewey decimal system covers religion and mythology (or religious mythology) together in the 200 range. The books under 201 are for "Religious mythology & social theology". ^[3]

See also

General

• Cult : relatively small and cohesive group of people (often a new religious movement) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be far outside the mainstream.
• Mythography : the rendering of myths in the arts.
• Paganism and Heathenry : Catch-all term which has come to connote a broad set of spiritual/religious beliefs and practices of a natural religion, as opposed to the Abrahamic religions.
• Ritual : formalised, predetermined set of symbolic actions generally performed in a particular environment at a regular, recurring interval.

Modern religious mythologies

• Ayyavazhi mythology
• Buddhist mythology
• Christian mythology
• Hindu mythology
• Islamic mythology
• Jewish mythology
• Native American mythology

Other

• Similarities between Roman, Greek, and Etruscan mythologies

Books

• Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces : Book by the American professor of comparative mythology and comparative religion which traces the stages of a hero archetype's journey and transformation through many traditional mythologies of the world.

Wiktionary

• Religion
• Mythology

External articles and references

Citations

• ^  "Trinity". Encyclopedia Mythica Online, 2005. Accessed September 01, 2005.
• ^  "Allah". Encyclopedia Mythica Online, 2005. Accessed September 01, 2005.
• ^  "Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system". Online Computer Library Center, 2005. (PDF)

General

• Brantley, Garry K., "Pagan Mythology and the Bible". Apologetics Press, 1993. (Originally published in Reason & Revelation, July 1993, 13[7]:49-53.)
• Robinson, B. A.,"Parallels between Christianity and ancient Pagan religions". Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 2004.
• Crystal, Ellie,"Mythology". Crystalinks, 2005.
• Baskin-Jones, Michele, "Death, Dying and the Afterlife in Religion and Mythology". dying.about.com.
• "Religion and mythology : Selected resources". University of Wisconsin Library, 2004.
• "Mythology". The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2005.

Encyclopedia and text repositories

• "Encyclopedia Mythica". Encyclopedia Mythica Online, 2005. (ed., An encyclopedia of religious mythology, folklore and legends.)
• Occultopedia: The Occult and Unexplained Encyclopedia.
• Internet Sacred Text Archive

Further reading

• Freke, Timothy, and Peter Gandy, "The Jesus Mysteries: Was the 'Original Jesus' a Pagan God?". Acacia Press, 1999.
• Girard, René, Jean-Michel Oughourlian, and Guy Lefort, "Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World". Stanford University Press, 1987
• Goodwin, J., "Mystery Religions of the Ancient World". Thames & Hudson, 1981.
• Heidel, Alexander, "The Epic of Gilgamesh and Old Testament parallels". University of Chicago Press, 1963.
• Redford, Donald, "Similarity Between Egyptian and Biblical Texts—Indirect Influence?" Biblical Archaeology Review, 1987. (13[3]:18-32, May/June)

Classifications

Ritual myths explain the performance of a certain religious practices or patterns and associated with temples or centers of worship. Origin myths describe the beginnings of a custom, name or object. Cult myths are often seen as explanations for elaborate festivals that magnify the power of the deity. Prestige myths are usually associated with a divinely chosen hero, city, or people. Eschatological myths are stories which describe catastrophic ends to the present world order of the writers. These extend beyond any potential historical scope, and thus can only be described in mythic terms. Some myths fit in more than one category.

Related concepts

A fairy tale itself is not a myth. Myths are not the same as fables, legends, folktales, fairy tales, anecdotes or fiction, but sloppy usage has blurred the distinctions in many people's minds. The term myth is sometimes used pejoratively in reference to common beliefs of a culture or for the beliefs of a religion to imply that the story is both fanciful and fictional. Myth is often used to refer to a commonly held but erroneous belief or a misconception.

Other examples of stories that are not mythology but are frequently confused with myth:

• Philosophical allegory
• Sentimental or moral fable, parable or anecdote
  • Cupid and Psyche
  • Prodigal Son
  • Cornelia's jewels
• Romance
• Cultural propaganda
  • Betsy Ross
• "Rationalized" explications of myths that are no longer understood
  • This is an approach attributed to Euhemerus
• Heroic saga and epic
• Narrative drama
• Enriched history
  • Song of Roland

Formation of myths

What forces create myths? Robert Graves said of Greek myth: "True myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially." (The Greek Myths, Introduction). Graves was deeply influenced, perhaps too strongly, by Sir James George Frazer's mythography The Golden Bough, and he would have agreed that myths are generated by many cultural needs (more on the forces that generate myth is needed).

Myths authorize the cultural institutions of a tribe, a city, or a nation by connecting them with universal truths. Myths justify the current occupation of a territory by a people, for instance.

All cultures have developed over time their own myths, consisting of narratives of their history, their religions, and their heroes. The great power of the symbolic meaning of these stories for the culture is a major reason why they survive as long as they do, sometimes for thousands of years. Mâche (1992, p.20) distinguishes between "myth, in the sense of this primary psychic image, with some kind of mytho-logy, or a system of words trying with varying success to ensure a certain coherence between these images.

A collection of myths is called a mythos, e.g. 'the Roman mythos.' A collection of those is called a mythoi, e.g. 'the Greek and Roman mythoi.' One notable type is the creation myth, which describes how that culture believes the universe was created. Another is the Trickster myth, which concerns itself with the pranks or tricks played by gods or heroes.

Joseph Campbell was considered by some people to be the world's leading authority on myth and the history of spirituality. Roger Caillois (1972) contrasts myths of situations determined from outside by historical events with myths of heroes determined from inside by their psychic life. However Mâche (1992, p.10) argues that, "on this level he [Caillois] refers only to the presentation of images in the form of stories, which in themselves are more ancient than stories, not yet submitted to this kind of distinction."

Myths as depictions of historical events

Although myths are often considered to be accounts of events that have not happened, many historians consider that myths can also be accounts of actual events that have become highly imbued with symbolic meaning, or that have been transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed. One way of conceptualizing this process is to view 'myths' as lying at the far end of a continuum ranging from a 'dispassionate account' to 'legendary occurrence' to 'mythical status'. As an event progresses towards the mythical end of this continuum, what people think, feel and say about the event takes on progressively greater historical significance while the facts become less important. By the time one reaches the mythical end of the spectrum the story has taken on a life of its own and the facts of the original event have become almost irrelevant.

This method or technique of interpreting myths as accounts of actual events, euhemerist exegesis, dates from antiguity and can be traced back (from Spencer) to Evhémère's Histoire sacrée (300 B.C.E.) which describes the inhabitants of the island of Panchaia, Everything-Good, in the Indian Ocean as normal people deified by popular naivety. As Roland Barthes affirms, "Myth is a word chosen by history. It could not come from the nature of things" (Mâche 1992, p.20).

This process occurs in part because the events described become detached from their original context and new context is substituted, often through analogy with current or recent events. Some Greek myths originated in Classical times to provide explanations for inexplicable features of local cult practices, to account for the local epithet of one of the Olympian gods, to interpret depictions of half-remembered figures, events, or account for the deities' attributes or entheogens, even to make sense of ancient icons, much as myths are invented to "explain" heraldic charges, the origins of which has become arcane with the passing of time. Conversely, descriptions of recent events are re-emphasised to make them seem to be analogous with the commonly known story. This technique has been used by some religious conservatives in America with text from the Bible, notably referencing the many prophecies in the Book of Revelation. It was also used during the Russian Communist era in propaganda about political situations with misleading references to class struggles. Until WWII the fitness of the Emperor of Japan was linked to his mythical distant descent from the Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun.

Mâche (1992, p.10) argues that euhemerist exegesis, "was applied to capture and seize by force of reason qualities of thought, which eluded it on every side." This process, he argues, often leads to interpretation of myths as "disguised propaganda in the service of powerful individuals," and that the purpose of myths in this view is to allow the "social order" to establish "its permanence on the illusion of a natural order." He argues against this interpretation, saying that "what puts an end to this caricature of certain speeches from May 1968 is, among other things, precisely the fact that roles are not distributed once and for all in myths, as would be the case if they were a variant of the idea of an 'opium of the people.'"

Contra Barthes (quote above) Mâche (1992) argues that, "myth therefore seems to choose history, rather than be chosen by it" (p.21), "beyond words and stories, myth seems more like a psychic content from which words, gestures, and musics radiate. History only chooses for it more or less becoming clothes. And these contents surge forth all the more vigorously from the nature of things when reason tries to repress them. Whatever the roles and commentaries with which such and such a socio-historic movement decks out the mythic image, the latter lives a largely autonomous life which continually fascinates humanity. To denounce archaism only makes sense as a function of a 'progressive' ideology, which itself begins to show a certain archaism and an obvious naivety." (p.20)

Other theories

"For Lévi-Strauss, myth is a structured system of signifiers, whose internal networks of relationships are used to 'map' the structure of other sets of relationships; the 'content' is infinitely variable and relatively unimportant." (Middleton 1990, p.222)

A modern interpretation of myths, primarily as indicators of astrononomical events, has been put forward in such works as Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And It's Transmission Through Myth by Giorgio De Santillana, Hertha Von Dechend (ISBN 0879232153), and serves as a counterpoint to numerous Jungian (often psychological or mystical) interpretations as put forward by Joseph Campbell.

Catastrophists such as Immanuel Velikovsky believe that myths are derived from the oral histories of ancient cultures that witnessed cosmic catastrophes. For example, Velikovsky believe the dragon represented a fiery cosmic object such as a comet. Believers in catastrophism are only a small minority within the field of mythology.

Modern Mythology and Mythic Themes

Television and book series like Star Trek and Tarzan have strong mythological aspects that sometimes develop into deep and intricate philosophical systems. These items are not mythology, but contain mythic themes that, for some people, meet the same psychological needs. An excellent example is that developed by J. R. R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings.

Fiction, however, does not reach the level of actual mythology until people believe that it really happened. For example, some people believe that fiction author Clive Barker's Candyman was based upon a true story, and new stories have grown up around the figure. The same can be said for the Blair Witch and many other stories.

Mythology is alive and well in the modern age through urban legends, New Age beliefs, certain aspects of religion and so forth. In the 1950s Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies. Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873-1961) and his followers also tried to understand the psychology behind world myths.

The Study of Myth

Human effort to examine and interpret myth dates back thousands of years, with development of philosophy in ancient Greece providing an excellent example of popular myths being probed for underlying meanings. Many of these myths involved gods, monsters and the supernatural, which these philosophers believed were not to be taken literally, but analyzed for to make sense of the stories and morales and meanings they revealed. This approach was understood as a rational approach

Myths by region

Africa

Akamba mythology - Akan mythology - Alur mythology - Ashanti mythology - Bambara mythology - Bambuti mythology - Banyarwanda mythology - Basari mythology - Baule mythology - Bavenda mythology - Bazambi mythology - Baziba mythology - Bushongo mythology - Dahomey mythology (Fon) - Dinka mythology - Efik mythology - Egyptian mythology (Pre-Islam) - Ekoi mythology - Fan mythology - Fens mythology - Fjort mythology - Herero mythology - Ibibio mythology - Ibo mythology - Isoko mythology - Kamba mythology - Kavirondo mythology - Khoikhoi mythology - Kurumba mythology - Lotuko mythology - Lugbara mythology - Lunda mythology - Makoni mythology - Masai mythology - Mongo mythology - Mundang mythology - Ngbandi mythology - Nupe mythology - Nyamwezi mythology - Oromo mythology - Ovambo mythology - Pygmy mythology - San mythology - Serer mythology - Shona mythology - Shongo mythology - Songhai mythology - Sotho mythology - Tumbuka mythology - Xhosa mythology - Yoruba mythology - Zulu mythology

Asia (non-Middle East)

Ayyavazhi mythology - Buddhist mythology - Bön mythology (pre-Buddhist Tibetan mythology) - Chinese mythology - Hindu mythology - Hmong mythology - Japanese mythology (mainstream) - Japanese mythology (Hotsuma version) - Korean mythology - Philippine mythology - Turkic mythology

Australia and Oceania

Aboriginal mythology (natives of Australia) - Melanesian mythology - Micronesian mythology - Polynesian mythology

Europe

Anglo-Saxon mythology - Basque mythology - Catalan mythology - Celtic mythology - Corsican mythology - French mythology - Germanic mythology - Greek mythology - English mythology - Etruscan mythology - Finnish mythology - Irish mythology - Latvian mythology - Lithuanian mythology - Lusitanian mythology - Norse mythology - Polish mythology - Roman mythology - Romanian mythology - Sardinian mythology - Slavic mythology - Spanish mythology - Swiss mythology - Tatar mythology - Turkish mythology

Middle East

Arab mythology (pre-Islamic) - Biblical mythology - Christian mythology - Jewish mythology - Persian mythology - Mesopotamian mythology (Babylonian, Sumerian, Assrian)

North America

Abenaki mythology - Algonquin mythology - American folklore (non-Native American) - Blackfoot mythology - Chippewa mythology - Creek mythology - Crow mythology - Haida mythology - Ho-Chunk mythology - Hopi mythology - Inuit mythology - Iroquois mythology - Huron mythology - Kwakiutl mythology - Lakota mythology - Leni Lenape mythology - Navaho mythology - Nootka mythology - Pawnee mythology - Salish mythology - Seneca mythology - Tsimshian mythology - Ute mythology - Zuni mythology

South America and Mesoamerica

Aztec mythology - Incan mythology - Guarani mythology - Haitian mythology - Maya mythology - Olmec mythology - Toltec mythology

Mythological archetypes

• culture hero
• Earth Mother
• first man or woman
• hero
• life-death-rebirth deity
• lunar deity
• psychopomp
• sky father
• solar deity
• trickster
• underworld

Mythological creatures

• legendary creature
• list of species in folklore and mythology
• list of species in folklore and mythology by type
• list of species in fantasy fiction

Books on mythology

• Bulfinch's Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch
• The Golden Bough by James George Frazer
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces and other titles by Joseph Campbell
• Mythology by Edith Hamilton
• Mythology by Anne Birrell

See also

• artificial mythology
• Claude Lévi-Strauss
• folklore
• folkloristics
• list of deities
• list of legends and myths
• list of mythical objects
• monomyth
• mytheme
• mythical place
• Mythologies, a book by Roland Barthes
• national myth
• religion
• urban legend

References

• Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
• Mircea Eliade. Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
• Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
• Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
• Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, Social Psychology. Addison-Wesley, 1997.
• Mâche, François-Bernard (1983, 1992). Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion (Musique, mythe, nature, ou les Dauphins d'Arion, trans. Susan Delaney). Harwood Academic Publishers. ISBN 3718653214.
• Caillois, Roger (1972). Le mythe et l'homme. Gallimard.
• Lévi-Bruhl, Lucian.
• Schelling. Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology.
• Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0335152759.
• Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). "Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth", Harvard University Press. ISBN 0879232153.

External links

• Encyclopedia Mythica Comprehensive encyclopedia of mythology, folklore, and legend; covers deities, heroes and mythical beasts.
• Godchecker Easy-to-use searchable encyclopedia of gods and goddesses from around the world; currently has over 2,500 gods listed, including many obscure deities.
• Using Mythic-Archetypal Approaches in the Language Arts. ERIC Digest.
• www.mythology.com Information about myths, legends and folklore, as well as a message board.
• How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives

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New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Mythology  ^history

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Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Mythology  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Mythology"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

Philosophy and religion