User:Phatius McBluff/Christian mythology

Note: This project is now closed. The draft shown below has now been incorporated into the Christian mythology article. My statement below that the article is filled with unsourced content, etc. does not apply to the article in its present condition. However, I'm keeping this subpage here (at least for now), just because it contains a lot of useful information that might get deleted (advertently or inadvertently) by editors who make subsequent edits to the article. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

I was one of the editors who was most responsible for getting the Christian mythology article into its current condition. However, I am now convinced that the entire article is shot through with unsourced content, original synthesis, and needless duplication of material that can be found in other articles. Thus, I have decided to start a mini-project devoted to drafting a rewrite of Christian mythology.

All are invited to participate. (If no one decides to help me, then I guess I'll keep fiddling around with the draft until I either finish it or lose interest.)

Those who wish to participate should keep in mind the guiding principles (see below) that I have drawn up for this project. I should make clear what my thinking is here. I do not deny that others may legitimately disagree with some of these principles. But one need not personally agree with all of the principles in order to have reason to participate in the project. The goal of this project is not to legislate any kind of permanent rules that would apply to the actual Christian mythology article; the goal is simply to produce a polished draft that may then be proposed as a replacement for the current article.

Here are the guiding principles:

1. "Mythology" and "myth" are established academic terms, and reliable sources use them when discussing Christian narratives. Wikipedia is ultimately concerned with what reliable sources say, and not with anyone’s sensitivities, so it may use terminology such as "Christian mythology", even if some believers find such terminology offensive.
2. However, utmost care must be used to avoid any semblance of original synthesis (which is, BTW, one of the most widespread and under-policed violations of Wikipedia policy), especially given the volatile nature of this subject-matter.
3. An article on Christian mythology should never, under any circumstances, discuss a Christian narrative simply because that narrative appears to satisfy one of the many academic definitions of "myth". This is blatant original synthesis and does not belong in a Wikipedia article.
4. An article on Christian mythology should discuss a narrative only if a reliable source refers to that particular narrative as a "myth". Moreover, when discussing that narrative, the article should limit itself to information found in sources that call the narrative a myth. (So if source A calls X a myth, and Source B does not, then we can incorporate information from A but not from B.) This is an effort to respect the fact that not all reliable sources subscribe to the same definition of "myth". (Indeed, the only academic field with anything like an official definition of "myth" is folkloristics. Classicists don't have a set definition; neither do historians or anthropologists.) Of course, respecting this fact need not involve adding painstaking qualifications to each sentence in the article. (For example, we need not write, "X is a myth according to Source A"; rather, we can simply go ahead and summarize A's statements about X, as long as we are sure that A is a reliable and reasonably authoritative source.)
5. By its very nature, an article on Christian mythology will overlap with a lot of information found in other articles (e.g. the article Book of Genesis). Hence, a Christian mythology article should focus as much as possible on mythological themes (e.g. Axis mundi, Descent to the underworld) rather than the details of specific myths. This is especially true when it comes to specifically Biblical stories, which can easily be read about elsewhere. The article should not simply re-hash Biblical stories such as the Ten Plagues and the miracle of the loaves and fishes, although it may discuss Biblical stories while tracing historical developments or mythological themes. Where possible (without violating WP:SYN), the article should explicitly mention mythological themes by name.
6. Technically, myth, legend, and folktale are distinct genres of folklore. Now, consider the following situation: I have a reliable source that refers to a Christian story as a "legend" or a "folktale". Should I include that story in an article on Christian mythology? In general, I think we should be flexible on this issue. After all, it would be a tremendous waste of space to have three separate articles, one on "Christian mythology", one on "Christian legends", and one on "Christian folktales". For one thing, those three articles would almost certainly contain a lot of overlapping material. However, again, original synthesis must be kept from creeping into the article. If a reliable scholarly source has a title like Christian Mythology, then any story mentioned in it is fair game for inclusion, even stories that appear to have the characteristics of legends or folktales. (Remember, not all scholars agree on the precise distinction between myth, legend, and folktale, whatever certain folklorists might say to the contrary!) In contrast, if a source has a title like Medieval Legends, then stories that it mentions may be used in the article only if the source explicitly refers to those stories as "myths". (The other stories mentioned in Medieval Legends may be added to articles such as Hagiography, Saint George, etc.)
7. To help show that no original synthesis is occurring, editors should attempt, when discussing a Christian story in the article, to include short excerpts (either in the article body or in their citation footnotes) showing that the source that they are using indeed refers to the story as a "myth". For example, instead of writing, "According to Prof. Smith, the eschatological myth of the Antichrist had a strong influence on late medieval political theology", we should write, "Prof. Smith writes that 'the eschatological mythology of Antichrist' had a strong influence on the 'mythico-political theology' of the late Middle Ages" (where "the eschatological mythology of Antichrist" and "mythico-political theology" are quotes from Prof. Smith).

The draft begins now:

Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In the study of mythology, the term "myth" refers to a traditional story, often one which is regarded as sacred and which explains how the world and its inhabitants came to have their present form.

Christian attitudes toward myth

In ancient Greek, muthos, from which the English word "myth" derives, meant "story, narrative." By the time of Christianity, muthos had started to take on the connotations of "fable, fiction, lie". Early Christians contrasted their sacred stories with "myths", by which they meant false and pagan stories.

George Every claims that the existence of "myths in the Bible would now be admitted by nearly everyone", including "probably all Roman Catholics and a majority of Protestants". As examples of Biblical myths, Every cites the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Eve's temptation. A number of modern Christian writers, such as C.S. Lewis, have described elements of Christianity, particularly the story of Christ, as "true myth".

Historical development

Old Testament

Destruction of Leviathan. 1865 engraving by Gustave Doré

According to Bernard McGinn, "mythic patterns" such as "the primordial struggle between good and evil" are found in passages throughout the Hebrew Bible, including passages that describe historical events. Citing Paul Ricoeur, McGinn argues that a distinctive characteristic of the Hebrew Bible is its "reinterpretation of myth on the basis of history". As an example, McGinn cites the apocalyse in the Book of Daniel, which he sees as a record of historical events presented as a prophecy of future events and expressed in terms of "mythic structures", with "the Hellenistic kingdom figured as a terrifying monster that cannot but recall [the Near Eastern pagan myth of] the dragon of chaos".

Mircea Eliade argues that the imagery used in some parts of the Hebrew Bible reflects a "transfiguration of history into myth". For example, Eliade says, the portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar as a dragon in Jeremiah 51:34 is a case in which the Hebrews "interpreted contemporary events by means of the very ancient cosmogonico-heroic myth" of a battle between a hero and a dragon.

A number of scholars argue that the Old Testament incorporates stories, or fragments of stories, from extra-biblical mythology. According to the New American Bible, a Catholic Bible translation produced by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the story of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1-4 "is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology", and the "sons of God" mentioned in that passage are "celestial beings of mythology". The New American Bible also says that Psalm 93 alludes to "an ancient myth" in which God battles a personified Sea. Some scholars have identified the biblical creature Leviathan as a monster from Canaanite mythology. According to Howard Schwartz, "the myth of the fall of Lucifer" existed in fragmentary form in Isaiah 14:12 as well as in other ancient Jewish literature, and that it originates from "the ancient Canaanite myth of Athtar, who attempted to rule the throne of Ba'al, but was forced to descend and rule the underworld instead".

Some scholars have argued that the calm, orderly, monotheistic creation story in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a reaction against the creation myths of other Near Eastern cultures. In connection with this interpretation, A Dictionary of Creation Myths describes Genesis 1 as a "demythologized myth", and another scholar asserts that the writer of Genesis 1 has "excised the mythical elements" from his creation story.

New Testament and early Christianity

According to a number of scholars, the Christ story contains mythical themes such as descent to the underworld, the heroic monomyth, and the "dying god" (see section below on "mythical themes").

According to Howard Schwartz, the "myth of Lucifer's fall" underwent a new development in the New Testament: because of Jesus's statement "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (Luke 18:10), Lucifer became identified with Satan, although they were originally "two entirely separate mythic figures".

Some scholars have argued that the Book of Revelation incorporates imagery from ancient mythology. According to the New American Bible, the image in Revelation 12:1-6 of a pregnant woman in the sky, threatened by a dragon, "corresponds to a widespread myth throughout the ancient world that a goddess pregnant with a savior was pursued by a horrible monster; by miraculous intervention, she bore a son who then killed the monster". Bernard McGinn suggests that the image of the two Beasts in Revelation stems from a "mythological background" involving the figures of Leviathan and Behemoth".

The Pastoral Epistles contain denunciations of "myths" (muthoi). This may indicate that Rabbinic or gnostic mythology was popular among the early Christians to whom the epistles were written and that the epistles' author was attempting to resist that mythology.

The Sibylline oracles contain predictions that the dead Roman Emperor Nero, infamous for his persecutions, would return one day as an Antichrist-like figure. According to Bernard McGinn, these parts of the oracles were probably written by a Christian and incorporated "mythological language" in describing Nero's return.

Middle Ages

Saint George. Painting by Gustave Moreau

According to Mircea Eliade, the Middle Ages witnessed "an upwelling of mythical thought" in which each social group had its own "mythological traditions". Often a profession had its own "origin myth" which established models for members of the profession to imitate; for example, the knights tried to imitate Lancelot or Parsifal. The medieval trouveres developed a "mythology of woman and Love" which incorporated Christian elements but, in some cases, ran contrary to official church teaching.

George Every includes a discussion of medieval legends in his book Christian Mythology. Some medieval legends elaborated upon the lives of Christian figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. For example, a number of legends describe miraculous events surrounding Mary's birth and marriage to Joseph.

In many cases, medieval mythology appears to have inherited elements from myths of pagan gods and heroes. According to Every, one example may be "the myth of St George" and other stories about saints battling dragons, which were "modelled no doubt in many cases on older representations of the creator and preserver of the world in combat with chaos". Eliade notes that some "mythological traditions" of medieval knights, namely the Arthurian cycle and the Grail theme, combine a veneer of Christianity with traditions regarding the Celtic Otherworld. According to Lorena Laura Stookey, "many scholars" see a link between stories in "Irish-Celtic mythology" about journeys to the Otherworld in search of a cauldron of rejuvenation and medieval accounts of the quest for the Holy Grail.

According to Eliade, "eschatological myths" became prominent during the Middle Ages during "certain historical movements". These eschatological myths appeared "in the Crusades, in the movements of a Tanchelm and an Eudes de l'Etoile, in the elevation of Fredrick II to the rank of Messiah, and in many other collective messianic, utopian, and prerevolutionary phenomena". One significant eschatological myth, introduced by Gioacchino da Fiore's theology of history, was the "myth of an imminent third age that will renew and complete history" in a "reign of the Holy Spirit"; this "Gioacchinian myth" influenced a number of messianic movements that arose in the late Middle Ages.

Renaissance and Reformation

During the Renaissance, there arose a critical attitude that sharply distinguished between apostolic tradition and what George Every calls "subsidiary mythology"—popular legends surrounding saints, relics, the cross, etc.—suppressing the latter.

The works of Renaissance writers often included and expanded upon Christian and non-Christian stories such as those of creation and the Fall. Rita Oleyar describes these writers as "on the whole, reverent and faithful to the primal myths, but filled with their own insights into the nature of God, man, and the universe". An example is John Milton's Paradise Lost, an "epic elaboration of the Judeo-Christian mythology" and also a "veritable encyclopedia of myths from the Greek and Roman tradition".

According to Cynthia Stewart, during the Reformation, the Protestant reformers used "the founding myths of Christianity" to critique the church of their time.

Every argues that "the disparagement of myth in our own civilization" stems partly from objections to perceived idolatry, objections which intensified in the Reformation, both among Protestants and among Catholics reacting against the classical mythology revived during the Renaissance.

Enlightenment

The philosophes of the Enlightenment used criticism of myth as a vehicle for veiled criticisms of the Bible and the church. According to Bruce Lincoln, the philosophes "made irrationality the hallmark of myth and constituted philosophy—rather than the Christian kerygma—as the antidote for mythic discourse. By implication, Christianity could appear as a more recent, powerful, and dangerous instance of irrational myth".

Modern period

Some commentators have categorized a number of modern fantasy works as "Christian myth" or "Christian mythopoeia". Examples include the fiction of C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, and George MacDonald.

In The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden, written in 1968, David Noble argued that the Adam figure had been "the central myth in the American novel since 1830". As examples, he cites the works of Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Hemingway, and Faulkner.

Mythical themes and types

Ascending the mountain

Sermon on the Mount. Painting by Carl Bloch

According to Lorena Laura Stookey, many myths feature sacred mountains as "the sites of revelations": "In myth, the ascent of the holy mountain is a spiritual journey, promising purification, insight, wisdom, or knowledge of the sacred." As examples of this theme, Stookey includes the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, Christ's ascent of a mountain to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, and Christ's ascension into heaven from the Mount of Olives.

Axis mundi

Many mythologies involve a "world center", which is often the sacred place of creation; this center often takes the form of a tree, mountain, or other upright object, which serves as an axis mundi or axle of the world. A number of scholars have connected the Christian story of the crucifixion at Golgotha with this theme of a cosmic center. In his Creation Myths of the World, David Leeming argues that, in the Christian story of the crufixion, the cross serves as "the axis mundi, the center of a new creation".

According to a tradition preserved in Eastern Christian folklore, Golgotha was the summit of the cosmic mountain at the center of the world and the location where Adam had been both created and buried. According to this tradition, when Christ is crucified, his blood falls on Adam's skull, buried at the foot of the cross, and redeems him. George Every discusses the connection between the cosmic center and Golgotha in his book Christian Mythology, noting that the image of Adam's skull beneath the cross appears in many medieval representations of the crucifixion.

In Creation Myths of the World, Leeming suggests that the Garden of Eden may also be considered a world center.

Combat myth

Many Near Eastern religions include a story about a battle between a divine being and a dragon or other monster representing chaos, a theme found, for example, in the Enuma Elish; a number of scholars calls this story the "combat myth". A number of scholars have argued that the ancient Israelites incorporated the combat myth into their religous imagery, such as the figures of Leviathan and Rahab, the Song of the Sea, Isaiah 51:9-10's description of God's deliverance of his people from Babylon, and the portrayals of enemies such as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. The idea of Satan as God's opponent may have developed under the influence of the combat myth. Scholars have also suggested that the Book of Revelation uses combat myth imagery in its descriptions of cosmic conflict.

Descent to the underworld

The Harrowing of Hell, depicted in the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry, 14th c. illuminated manuscript

According to Christian tradition, Christ descended to hell to free the souls there; this event is known as the harrowing of hell. This story is narrated in the Gospel of Nicodemus and may be the meaning behind 1 Peter 3:18-22. According to David Leeming, writing in The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, the harrowing of hell is an example of the motif of the hero's descent to the underworld, which is common in many mythologies.

Dying god

Many myths, particularly from the Near East, feature a god who dies and is resurrected; this figure is sometimes called the "dying god". An important study of this figure is James George Frazer's The Golden Bough, which traced the dying god theme through a large number of myths. The dying god is often associated with fertility. A number of scholars, including Frazer, have suggested that the Christ story is an example of the "dying god" theme. In the article "Dying god" in The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, David Leeming notes that Christ can be seen as bringing fertility, though of a spiritual as opposed to physical kind.

In his 2006 homily for Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI noted the similarity between the Christian story of the resurrection and pagan myths of dead and resurrected gods: "In these myths, the soul of the human person, in a certain way, reached out toward that God made man, who, humiliated unto death on a cross, in this way opened the door of life to all of us."

See also: Jesus Christ and comparative mythology

Flood myths

Many cultures have myths about a flood that cleanses the world in preparation for rebirth. Such stories appear on every continent on earth. An example is the biblical story of Noah. Leeming notes that, in the Bible story, as in other flood myths, the flood marks a new beginning and a second chance for creation and humanity.

Founding myths

According to Sandra Frankiel, the records of "Jesus' life and death, his acts and words" provide the "founding myths" of Christianity. Frankiel claims that these founding myths are "structurally equivalent" to the creation myths in other religions, because they are "the pivot around which the religion turns to and which it returns", establishing the "meaning" of the religion and the "essential Christian practices and attitudes". Tom Cain uses the expression "founding myths" more broadly, to encompass such stories as those of the War in Heaven and the fall of man; according to Cain, "the disastrous consequences of disobedience" is a pervasive theme in Christian founding myths.

Hero myths

In his influential work The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Otto Rank argued that the births of many mythical heroes follow a common pattern. Rank includes the story of Christ's birth as a representative example of this pattern.

A chart outlining Joseph Campbell's description of the heroic monomyth.

According to Mircea Eliade, one pervasive mythical theme associates heroes with the slaying of dragons, a theme which Eliade traces back to "the very ancient cosmogonico-heroic myth" of a battle between a divine hero and a dragon. He cites the Christian legend of Saint George as an example of this theme. An example from the later Middle Ages is Dieudonné de Gozon, third Grand Master of the Knights of St. John at Rhodes, famous for slaying the dragon of Malpasso. Eliade writes, "Legend, as was natural, bestowed upon him the attributes of St. George, famed for his victorious fight with the monster. […] In other words, by the simple fact that he was regarded as a hero, de Gozon was identified with a category, an archetype, which […] equipped him with a mythical biography from which it was impossible to omit combat with a reptilian monster."

In the Oxford Companion to World Mythology, David Leeming lists Moses, Jesus, and King Arthur as examples of the "heroic monomyth", calling the Christ story "a particularly complete example of the heroic monomyth". Leeming regards resurrection as a common part of the heroic monomyth, in which the heroes are resurrected, often as sources of "material or spiritual food for their people"; in this connection, Leeming notes that Christians regard Jesus as the "bread of life".

In terms of values, Leeming contrasts "the myth of Jesus" with the myths of other "Christian heroes such as St. George, Roland, el Cid, and even King Arthur"; the latter hero myths, Leeming argues, reflect the survival of pre-Christian heroic values—"values of military dominance and cultural differentiation and hegemony"—more than the values expressed in the Christ story.

Paradise

Myths religious and mythological systems contain myths about a paradise. Many of these myths involve the loss of a paradise that existed at the beginning of the world. Some scholars have seen in the story of the Garden of Eden an instance of this general motif.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is an element in many religious traditions and often represented in myths. In The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, David Leeming lists the story of Abraham and Isaac and the story of Christ's death as examples of this theme. Wendy Doniger describes the gospel accounts as a "meta-myth" in which Jesus realizes that he is part of a "new myth [...] of a man who is sacrificed in hate" but "sees the inner myth, the old myth of origins and acceptance, the myth of a god who sacrifices himself in love".

Attitudes toward time

According to Mircea Eliade, many traditional societies have a cyclic sense of time, periodically reenacting mythical events. Through this reenactment, these societies achieve an "eternal return" to the mythical age. According to Eliade, Christianity retains a sense of cyclical time, through the ritual commemoration of Christ's life and the imitation of Christ's actions; Eliade calls this sense of cyclical time a "mythical aspect" of Christianity.

However, Judeo-Christian thought also makes an "innovation of the first importance", Eliade says, because it embraces the notion of linear, historical time; in Christianity, "time is no longer [only] the circular Time of the Eternal Return; it has become linear and irreversible Time". Summarizing Eliade's statements on this subject, Eric Rust writes, "A new religious structure became available. In the Judaeo-Christian religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—history is taken seriously, and linear time is accepted. [...] The Christian myth gives such time a beginning in creation, a center in the Christ-event, and an end in the final consummation."

Heinrich Zimmer also notes Christianity's emphasis on linear time; he attributes this emphasis specifically to the influence of Saint Augustine's theory of history. Zimmer does not explicitly describe the cyclical conception of time as itself "mythical" per se, although he notes that this conception "underl[ies] Hindu mythology".

Neil Forsyth writes that "what distinguishes both Jewish and Christian religious systems [...] is that they elevate to the sacred status of myth narratives that are situated in historical time".

Legacy

Concepts of progress

According to Carl Mitcham, "the Christian mythology of progress toward transcendent salvation" created the conditions for modern ideas of scientific and technological progress. Hayden White describes "the myth of Progress" as the "secular, Enlightenment counterpart" of "Christian myth". Reinhold Niebuhr described the modern idea of ethical and scientific progress as "really a rationalized version of the Christian myth of salvation".

Political and philosophical ideas

According to Mircea Eliade, the medieval "Gioacchinian myth [...] of universal renovation in a more or less imminent future" has influenced a number of modern theories of history, such as those of Lessing (who explicitly compares his views to those of medieval "enthusiasts"), Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, and has also influenced a number of Russian writers.

Calling Marxism "a truly messianic Judaeo-Christian ideology", Eliade writes that Marxism "takes up and carries on one of the great eschatological myths of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world, namely: the redemptive part to be played by the Just (the 'elect', the 'anointed', the 'innocent', the 'missioners', in our own days the proletariat), whose sufferings are invoked to change the ontological status of the world".

In his article "The Christian Mythology of Socialism", Will Herberg argues that socialism inherits the structure of its ideology from influence of Christian mythology upon western thought.

In The Oxford Companion to World Mythology, David Leeming claims that Judeo-Christian messianic ideas have influenced twentieth-century totalitarian systems, citing Soviet Communism as an example.

According to Hugh S. Pyper, the biblical "founding myths of the Exodus and the exile, read as stories in which a nation is forged by maintaining its ideological and racial purity in the face of an oppressive great power", entered "the rhetoric of nationalism throughout European history", especially in Protestant countries and smaller nations.

Christmas stories in popular culture

See Secular Christmas stories, Christmas in the media and Christmas in literature.

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