Mythology

I haven’t studied myths. I enjoy them, especially the ancient Greek, Roman and Chinese variety. I haven’t read The Golden Bough. I have a mere passing acquaintance with Jung’s work. But …

Long ago I read a definition of mythology that stayed with me: a myth is anything that feels like a myth. Read a number of myths and pretty soon you notice that they all have some “feeling” in common. It is analogous to the ability one develops to instantly identify an email as spam, from exposure to great numbers of such emails.

A myth is a story with characters and events larger than life as we know it. A story that explains a current state of affairs. It answers the question, how did this come about? How did humans acquire the mastery of fire, for instance? Answer: one enterprising, larger than life figure stole it from the gods. A single story, that explains the origin of something lost in the mists of time.

In Genesis myths answer the following questions, among others:

• Where do we come from?
• Why is there pain and suffering?
• Where does evil come from?

As I read more I will discover more.

In my posts I note story elements that are not logical, plots that have holes in them. In actual fact myths have their own mythological logic and narrative imperative. Things are the way they are in them, because that’s the way they are. We shouldn’t calculate the volume Noah’s ship would be able to hold, and then point out that there’s no way he could have gotten all the animals into it. If we do we approach the story with the wrong critical apparatus.

Should myths be believed as is? Swallowed hook, line and sinker? I think they should rather retain their character as a fiction, a narrative with a purpose, without being “flattened” into nothing more than a tall tale. Trying to believe them literally, to drag them into the everyday world of the real, is simply a wrong approach from a different direction. And when people do believe them like that it becomes necessary to be critical about myths, to highlight their essential fictional character and illogic.

It is time to rescue these myths from dogma and doctrine I think. And make it possible to enjoy them again.

See Noahs, Noahs everywhere for other Mesopotamian myths of the Flood.