difference between history and myth essay

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> Science in Context
> Volume 7 Issue 1
> Narrative, Myth, and History

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Narrative, myth, and history.

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008

During the last two decades the debate on the use and abuse of narrative in historiography has taken a new form: ideological instead of methodological. According to poststructuralist critics, the representation of past events and processes in the form of a coherent story turns history into mythology, which is (or serves) conservative ideology. This is so because the fabrication of organic continuity and unity between the past and the present (as well as the future) of society depicts its most fundamental laws and institutions as divine-natural rather than human creations and thereby renders them impervious to any rational or historical refutation. The main aim of this essay is to reclaim some credibility for narrative history against its critics, both ancient and modern, and on both methodological and ideological grounds, by reappraising the role of myth in the constitution of all norms and forms of life. Setting out from the observation that the narratives and other symbolic interpretations of historical reality in which the people believe are as real as the conditions and events in which they actually live, the author calls upon historians not to eliminate, but to illuminate, myths in history, by showing their extension or configuration of historical reality.

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Volume 7, Issue 1
Joseph Mali (a1)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0269889700001629

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Essay: Differences between myth and history

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What we can conclude from the definition of ‘history’ is that history relates to events that have actually occurred in the past. The Cambridge dictionary depicts history as “the study of or a record of past events considered together, especially events of a particular period, country, or subject.” Therefore, myth as “an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining the early history of people or about natural events and facts.” In this way, myths are not mostly true with their ostensible nature and history is considered superior towards myth. As historian Heehs argued in his article, many contemporary historians see their task as removing all obdurate traces of myth from historical records and, conversely, many students of myth consider history to have less elucidating power than traditional narratives. The use of myth and history should not be limited to the ancient history of myths, but also contemporary topics such as gender and postcolonialism. The focus of this essay will be the theoretical considerations of orientalism and poscolonialism to draw a conclusion that although colonialism is over, the systems of thinking, talking and representing which form the basis of colonial power relations still remain. (Said). References will be given to why and for whom orient is a myth. Edward Said sought to demonstrate that the reality behind the myth of scholarly impartiality was an ethnocentric exercise of control and authority over the orient, but the reality behind the myth of Orientalism is a theoretically flawed work which offers a reduction in the account of an impoverished view of human beings. This paragraph will elaborate on the meaning and origins of Orientalism to further expand the debate of myth over the Orient. Orientalism is a critique of Western texts which have represented the East as an exotic and inferior euro-centric notion of the other and construct the orient through a series of repeated stereotypical images. It is indeed a racist stereotype that has wrongly received the force of self-evident truth, mainly because it has been repeated many times. Said argued that; “The Orient was almost a European invention, and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.” (Said, p.1). Said’s model of Orientalism helps to express the idea that provides political, economic and socio-cultural justifications for imperialist actions by hegemonic countries such as America. (p.2). Orientalism and Postcolonialism coexisted. Postcolonialism questions the image of superiority and power of the west. Postcolonial link to modern trajectories in the Middle East resulted in the creation of Orientalism. Author Ashcroft for instance, highlighted the importance of Orientalism in European relations. It was used as a Said’s critique and emphasized the significance of postcolonial literature. He argued repeatedly that Said’s work must be perceived as an argument rather than as the presentation of some transcendental historical truth. (Ashcroft). Ashcroft further argued that it is possible to find many statements by European scholars attesting to the value of Oriental culture and the capacity of Orientalism to break the East and West cultural divide. (Ashcroft). In light of this, European fascination with exotic Oriental cultures is not a modern phenomenon. Said was right that Orientalism survives as a discourse and shapes our understanding of countries that we categorize together in the exotic place called the Orient, however, he was criticized by his literary examples and methodologies. To conclude, there are numerous differences between myth and history. History tackles many issues in a very factual way while myths only try to elucidate daily occurrences through a more subjective way. Correspondingly, in history, the sources usually come from primary sources or objective secondary sources while in myths, many of the ideas come from personal accounts, legends, and imagination. However, the main difference is that myths are written to explain bizarre natural occurrences such of those in Marco Polo’s accounts while history seeks the truth. The myth of the Orient was only seen as a representation of the East, not as its real, natural presence. Because of their exaggerating nature, myths are also unreliable compared to historical study. 2019-2-1-1549043566

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On one level, myths are simply stories. This introductory essay explains the features common to all stories, stressing that while the storyteller's words and the images they conjure up may be fleeting, their stories are often long-lived, deeply influencing the flesh-and-blood individuals who hear them, and thus by extension also the social groups to which individuals belong. However, understanding what is distinctive about mythic storytelling (often collectively referred to as "mythology") also requires grasping what distinguishes myths from other types of stories. This essay thus begins by clarifying this distinction, as well as the relationship between different types of stories.

Overall, I invite readers to go beyond thinking of myths in terms of static beliefs about the unseen. Many people associate the term "belief" with static declarations to which particular groups uniformly adhere , and about which authoritative sources can easily inform us. In reality, however, many beliefs are held unconsciously, and most develop and transform over time. Considering the storytelling context of myth draws attention to the dynamic process of telling, listening, and reflection that continually shapes and reshapes people's beliefs about the unseen powers and forces at work in their daily lives .

Mythic Stories, Past & Present

In the modern period, with the growing influence of rational scientific views of the world, the term "myth" has more and more come to denote stories that are false, and this is the most common use of the word today. Yet this definition of the term assumes that contemporary methods of scientific analysis have the final word on what is and is not real. Mythic storytellers both past and present, on the other hand, have typically assumed that reality is too complex to grasp by means of any one method of analysis, and so have relied heavily on stories to provide a glimpse of that complexity. For them, stories about mythic worlds were in an important sense more real than accounts of observable facts. Such storytellers admitted that the beings inhabiting mythic worlds, and the events taking place in them, were directly visible only to a few, uniquely endowed visionaries. Yet they also pointed out hidden connections between invisible mythic realities and the ordinary people, places, things and events that they and their audiences daily experienced.

Mythic storytellers of ancient Greece, for example, told about ancient events like the Trojan war, and about supernatural beings like Zeus and other deities believed to dwell on remote Mount Olympus . Such storytellers and their Greek audiences certainly realized that they could not see Trojan heroes and Olympian deities. Yet they seem to have felt that stories like those of Troy and the Olympians were secretly connected to the familiar realities of warfare, and to the unseen influence of supernatural powers on their daily lives. The ancient peoples of the Middle East, likewise, told stories now recorded in the Hebrew Bible , New Testament , and Qur'an . Most surely admitted to themselves that they could not directly see God, angels or the demons depicted in those stories; yet they felt strongly the mysterious presence of divine and demonic beings during both inward prayer and outward acts of service. This course includes many examples of similar stories from other cultures.

Mythic traditions are not simply a thing of the past, however. Many Jews, Christians and Muslims still report experiencing divine mystery in their lives. (Due to the primarily negative use of the term "myth," followers of these traditions typically reject this term as a label for their stories; yet if we consider the richer meaning of the word, the Bible and Qur'an are indeed mythical in establishing connections between the human world and a mysterious otherworldly beings.) The primary sources assigned for this course, moreover, offer a glimpse of other culture's ancient stories as they not only survive, but also transform and grow in the modern period. Such contemporary mythic thinking also manifests to some degree in contemporary American culture, whether through immigration of assimilation of mythic stories from these other cultures.

Even in modern secular culture, furthermore, storytellers continue to establish connections between what most of us experience daily and the deeper mystery of the reality that encompasses everything. Realist types of science fiction connect the world we see today to the as yet invisible yet possible world of the future. (Consider " Star Wars vs. Star Trek ," Gene Rodenberry's dramatization of the difference between realist and fantasy genres of science fiction.) Mythic storytelling also continues to evolve in efforts to explore the spiritual realities often hidden by ordinary perception, drawing on the science of quantum physics and neurology, as illustrated vividly in the film " What the Bleep Do We Know ?" Finally, storytelling is also a powerful force used to draw attention to the web of interconnections that make up our global community, and to the momentous challenges that our species will face in coming generations (see for example the film " Baraka: a World Beyond Words "). Stories told about contemporary issues such as climate change and peak oil do fit the deeper meaning of the word "myth," since they connect visible daily experience to invisible social, geological and economic forces that influence our lives.

Mythic vs. Other Types of Stories

The distinctiveness of mythic stories is apparent if one compares them to two other types of stories with very different settings.

Daily life stories deal with people, places, things and events that are similar to those directly experienced by most of us: for example, stories about life on this campus and in the Sacramento area, including the recent history of these places. Anyone who wants to verify the accuracy of such stories can usually do so by doing some straightforward research; such research may not conclusively prove that every detail in a story is factual, but will generally reveal whether the story as a whole is plausible. If your friend tells you that the coffee shop in the union is offering a special deal during finals week, or you see it advertised, you can easily check it out yourself. The people, places, etc. of daily life stories may be widely known, but they may also be quite ordinary, as in the above example. Interestingly, one could argue that the category of daily life stories includes certain types of fiction narrative , such as historical fiction. Although the authors of such stories confess to making up the people, places, etc. in such stories, they make every effort to research the situations they write about in order to make them plausible. In other words, realist fiction is verifiable in the sense that evidence suggests that the stories it tells could have happened.
Fantasy stories , on the other hand, magically transform the situations that most people experience. The stories of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, as well as more modern stories such as the Little Mermaid; of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny; of Superman, Spiderman, and G-Girl (in " My Super-Ex Girlfriend "); the first "Star Wars" episode ("A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...") and similarly fantastic types of science fiction movies--all of these take daily life experiences and transform them into something magically different. Two tell-tale sign that a story is fantasy is that no mentally balanced adult person (sometimes termed " neuro-typical ") argues that it might be true; and that characters in fantasy stories rarely pray to or appeal to the kind of otherworldly powers described in mythic stories. Despite their fantastic nature, fantasy stories are valuable for cultivating imagination in both children and adults. Such stories often convey important moral lessons, and/or bring to light important yet otherwise abstract psychological issues and moral dilemmas. Stories like that of Santa Claus and Cinderalla make very concrete for children the idea that good-hearted actions are rewarded even if no one seems to be looking at the time. The superhero and fantasy science fiction stories enjoyed by older children as well as adults explore more complex notions such as destiny and the vastness of time, highlighting the subtleties of trying to do the right thing in a complex world.

In addition to distinguishing mythic stories from stories that deal with daily life and fantasy worlds, I find it important to make a distinction between myths and legends. For the purposes of this course, I include both of these in the category of "mythic stories," but it is helpful to be clear on what differentiates them. The two types of stories approach distant and/or invisible mystery in distinct yet integrally connected ways.

Myths , as traditionally defined, focus primarily on supernatural beings and the worlds they inhabit. Myths often depict supernatural beings as having human, animal and sometimes plant forms; storytellers and their audiences often regard such descriptions as symbolic rather than literal. Descriptions of Apollo riding a chariot through the sky, for example, or Yahweh the God of Israel riding on clouds, suggest approximations of other-worldly realities that are difficult to describe in words. Indeed, some stories explicitly attribute such mythic descriptions to visionaries who perceives things that most people cannot see. Stories about mythical worlds are magical in the sense that those worlds are unfamiliar, and because the influence of mythic beings on the visible world is mysterious. Yet unlike people telling and hearing fantasy stories, mythic storytellers and their audiences for the most part assume that such mythical worlds and beings are real, even if the words used to describe them are approximations.
Legends , in contrast to myths, describe past heroes in a way that is consistent with available historical records. Storytellers passing on legends claim to depict real humans in ways that their audiences consider at least plausible, though often not directly verifiable. Legends do usually tell of such people interacting with unseen beings forces; the heroes in legends thus often serve as models for the way anyone might themselves interact with the mysterious aspects of their daily life experience. Legends thus differ from stories of supernatural worlds and beings, which symbolically depict what is for invisible to most. Legends also differ from fantasy stories, which convey moral messages and hint at psychological issues via unrealistically magical characters and settings. The child hearing Cinderella is not literally being told to hope for a magical transformation that will enable her to attend a prince's ball. But stories about Troy, the ancient Patriarchs of Israel, and the followers of Jesus and Mohammand do present practical examples of prayer and courage in action that often are directly applied by those who reflect on such stories. Admittedly, legends often describe events that border on the miraculous. Some miracles are dramatic, as when a person is swallowed up by the earth or journeys down to the underworld (as in Greek myth), or walks on water (as in the Christian gospels). Others miracles told in legends are more subtle, as when a person hears a divine voice and/or receives a divine vision (as Moses, Muhammad and followers of Jesus reportedly did), or when someone is healed from a recalcitrant illness after a prayer or vision (as described repeatedly in the New Testament). The nature of such miracles make some legends seem like fantasy stories. Legends, however, typically differ in that way that people's responses to miracles. Whereas characters in a fantasy story for the most part do not seem either distressed or impressed by the magical events that take place, characters in miracles stories typically acknowledge the amazing nature of miraculous events, implicitly regarding them as strikingly different from the normal course of things.

The distinction between myth and legend highlights that both types of mythic stories establish more or less subtle connections between familiar, daily life experiences and worlds that are directly visible only to a few, uniquely endowed visionaries. Myths emphasize the invisible, yet they also hint that mythic reality strongly influences everyday human realities, even if most of us cannot directly perceive that influence. Legends are more realistic in describing people who possibly inhabited the same world as the storytellers who tell of them; yet they also highlight the unseen forces that impact human lives. For the purposes of dealing with the contemporary stories in this course, I often further refine the category of legend by separating out stories of less dramatic miracles occuring in contemporary contexts, referring to these simply as "miracles tales." For examples of these, consider the sample stories written by past students in this course.

The Story Triangle & the Map Analogy

The above comparison of daily life, fantasy and mythic stories suggests that, rather than thinking of "myth" and "fact" as a linear spectrum bounded by radically contrasting, black-and-white opposites, one might more helpfully think of mythic stories as one of the three points of a triangle, as illustrated on the right. This triangular spectrum, like a linear spectrum, suggests that there are many "gray areas," as it were, between the three categories.

The "gray area" of special interest in this course is that represented by the vertical line extending from "stories about mystery" (myths, legends and miracles tales) and stories about fantasy and magic (such as fairy tales, superhero stories, and fantasy science fiction). As noted in the previous section, mythic stories sometimes do border on fantasy, especially in pre-modern cultures that have not prioritized scientific analysis over spiritual forms of investigation. But as explained above, mythic stories can most often be interpreted as visions and symbolic approximations of a largely invisible reality that audiences of those stories consider real. There is also a "gray area" between myths and legends: many cultures speak of a distant period of history when humans interacted freely with the divine, supernatural beings, who were thus not invisible to most people.

At the beginning and end of the course, we will also consider "gray areas" implied by other two sides of the triangle. Daily life stories may incorporate mythic concerns when dealing with invisible forces such as love, destiny, justice, and wisdom. Daily life stories may also tend towards fantasy when details are exaggerated or sensationalized, often to make money or gain fame.

Finally, despite the differences between daily life, fantasy and mythic stories (including legends and miracle tales), they have several things in common. These common features of all stories sometimes make it difficult to tell when a story deals more with fantasy or mystery then daily life. Acknowledging the characteristics that all stories share is thus an important first step to moving beyond similarities to the uniqueness of the three types of stories. Most obviously, it is human beings who develop and transmit all three types of stories in their families and communities. All three types also clearly draw on similar narrative techniques to describe characters, situations and events. More subtly, all three types of stories implicity and/or explicitly encourage certain types of human actions.

As illustrated throughout the course, one especially powerful analogy for understanding the power of stories to guide actions is the idea that every story is like a map of some territory. This territory may be in the visible human world; a magical transformation of it; a real world invisible to human senses; or some combination of these. The story maps of such territories orient the people who tell and hear them, helping to guide their actions. While helpful for understanding all types of stories, this analogy is especially helpful for understanding that mythic story "maps" must have a clear connection to reality in order to survive and spread. Two features of maps make this point especially clear.

Like a map, a mythic story must connect to something one has already experienced in order to be useful. A map of the Sac State campus, for example, is most useful to someone who has aready been to one or two points on the campus, or at least knows where the entrance is. A map of some foreign territory makes little sense unless there is some point on that map that one at least has some instructions on how to get to, or a larger map, such as a globe representing the earth as a whole, which includes both the foreign territory and what one already knows. A map of Oregon becomes more useful when one notices that it includes the California border, and a map of Europe becomes intelligible if one has heard that one can catch a plane to one of the cities listed on it. Similarly , a mythic story must connect its listeners to something that they have directly experienced, and then use that experience as the foundation for pointing to something that is far less apparent. Fantasy stories tend to connect to their listener's experiences primarily via emotions and imagery similar to that experienced in dreams. Santa Claus intuits the quality of children's actions; Cinderella's virtue is vindicated by a fairy spirit who turns ordinary household objects into the accoutrements of a noblewoman going to a ball; and neither finds a place in realistic accounts of world history. Mythic stories, on the other hand, typically depict more realistic experiences of hardship and struggle that are part of widely accepted historical narratives. Greek warriors experience the wrath and favor the Olympians while at sea and on actual battlefields of the ancient meditarranean; Moses, Jesus, Mohammad and their followers likewise reveal their virtues in the face of ordinary critics and doubters living during documented periods of history.
Like most maps, mythic stories require ongoing revision, often growing outdated soon after being made. With any map, the territory depicted change through destruction of existing landmarks and new growth. More importantly, though, the labels for those landmarks and the territories themselves change over time; and different map makers discover and highlight features of the land that had previously not been thought to be important. So too mythic stories require continual adjustment, not only because some aspects of mythic realities evolve over time, but also in order to highlight details most relevant to listeners in particular situations, time periods and cultural contexts. Greek and Roman myths and legends were told and retold in poetry, literature and drama. Jews, Christians and Muslims stories tell the same classic stories of year after year with important variations, the most famous example of which is perhaps the four contrasting accounts of Jesus's life told in the New Testament.

To help illustrate the features of maps and to highlight the analogy explained above, I will be asking you to represent stories as maps at various points throughout this course. You will begin, in preparing for the trial team assignment, by making your own story map of Sac State, which tells the daily life story of the way you experience this campus. Everyone's map will be different, just as actual maps of the campus each present a different perspective (see examples 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 ). Yet each map will illustrate that the way a person tells their story can help them deal with the daily life situations they face.

The ABCs of Mythic Thinking

As the story<-->map analogy presented in the previous section suggests, the story types described earlier represent different types of thinking, amongst which mythic thinking is unique. The reflection evident in daily life stories is concerned primarily with logic that connects clearly perceptible entities--for example, why the coffee at the union is free--and is thus most obviously different from the thinking that informs fantasy and mythic stories. Most people therefore tend to assume that fantasy and mythic thinking amount to the same thing, and a number of limiting stereotypes about mythic thinking result from this.

I intend the final points made below to invite you to go beyond such stereotypes. The first emphasizes the uniqueness of myth thinking in contrast to the reflection that informs the telling and hearing of other types of stories. The other three points stress features of mythic thinking that apply also to the reflection inherent in daily life and fantasy stories; but people often forget such features when speaking of mythic stories. I refer to these points alphabetically as the "ABCs of myth" to help you remember them throughout the course, as a supplement to the three points of the triangular spectrum introduced above.

A for "Accuracy:" mythic storytellers and their audiences typically trust that there have existed uniquely endowed visionaries who can verify the truth of mythic stories.

Outsiders generally assume that mythic storytellers invent stories to draw in their listeners, meeting some psychological need in much that same way that fantasy stories do. The most critical of such outsiders tend to view this as a sign that such mythic stories are false, even misleading. One of the most popular articulations of this view is that "myths offer explanations for things that the people who created them could not (or simply did not take the time to) understand." Sympathetic outsiders, on the other hand, including many modern scholars of myth, tend to argue that the accuracy of the details told in mythic stories has never really mattered much to those who tell and listen to mythic stories. What matters more, such sympathizers claim, are the powerful symbols and messages conveyed by those stories.

While not denying the power of the mythic symbols and the messages they convey, I would argue that both these positions, the critical and the sympathetic, misleadingly conflate mythic stories with fantasy. As suggested by the map analogy outlined in the previous section, those who participate in mythic thinking do generally consider that the stories they hear and tell are accurate in an important sense, in contrast to fantasy stories whose factual inaccuracy is taken for granted by mentally balanced adults. Whether such implicit claims about the truth of mythic stories actually hold up under scrutiny is a question that this course must necessarily set aside in order to foster productive academic analysis. Nevertheless, it is important as part of this analysis to acknowledge that myths, legends and miracle tales claim truth in a way that fantasy stories never do.

How might mythic storytellers and their audiences justify the truth of realities that are always to some extent fantastic, even magical? As already hinted, they would typically assume that a uniquely endowed few, usually both gifted and trained in discerning hidden truths, are able to directly perceive the truth of mythic realities, and then to map them out for those who can't directly see them, much like frontier explorers. Such claims about the truth of mythic thinking are evident in the contemporary spiritual movements inspired by quantum physics, neurobiology, and environmental sciences (see " What the Bleep Do We Know ?" and " Baraka: a World Beyond Words "), which trust in the accuracy of a small number of visionary scientists. Yet many of the pre-modern traditions of mythic thinking surveyed in this course allude to being similarly inspired by spiritual visionaries, whether they are specially designated shamans and priests or ordinary people with spiritual gifts.

Certainly, many storytellers would admit that they do not personally know any such visionaries. Yet they would also likely insist that such visionaries have existed, seeing deeply into the hidden dimensions of even the most seemingly ordinary details of daily life--the forces at work behind seemingly chance meetings and coincidences, for example. There is little, they might point out, that most of us can fully explain in verbal, logical terms. Most people who offer explanations, whether in the form of stories or scientific theories, are simply gropping in the vast, dark complexity of life's mystery.

B for "Breadth:" different versions of stories that depict the same mythic realities--even seemingly contradictory stories--may all contribute to a broader understanding of the mythic realities described.

The most extreme critics of mythic storytelling traditions would likely stress that there is only one truth, which can most often be described in words and ideas. Only one version of such descriptions is the right one, while all others are by definition wrong. Myths, being fantasy, are by definition wrong; in order to offset their influence, the correct view of truth (which is inevitably that one that such critics themselves trust, and which usually is itself mythic in scope!) should be disseminated as widely as possible.

The multiplicity and ongoing revision of maps, noted in the previous section suggests the limitations of this extreme view. But one need only consider the way daily life stories evolve and the reflection they inspire to see that truth is by nature reflected in a diversity of perspectives. Even daily life events directly witnessed by many people give rise to multiple stories no two of which are identical, and which sometimes conflict on important points of detail. The most vivid illustration of this examination of eye-witness stories regarding an accident or crime. In most cases, a seasoned juror or detective seeking to understand what really happened will consider each story as a distinct but at least partly valid perspective on the truth of the event, like pieces in a puzzle that only makes sense when the whole is assembled. Off course, some perspectives will be taken more seriously than others: the reliable witness is like a more intact puzzle piece, while another witness's testimony may be likened to a mangled or very worn piece. In practice, furthermore, many pieces are often missing and presumed lost; yet as the detective or juror gathers and assembles the pieces that are available, she comes closer to a view of the whole, even if she never achieves complete certainty. The alternative approach is to look for the one true story, and throw out all the others. But complete verification is often difficult to obtain, and in throwing out alternative perspectives one may often miss an important clue.

In a similar way, those who respect and engage in mythic thinking often trust that different mythic stories, even ones that seem to conflict, all provide a different perspective on some greater truth. Why, after all, would there be only one telling of an event so complex and mysterious as the beginning of creation, or its end, or the creation of the first people? Even the visionaries to whom mythic visions are often ascribed would only be able to convey part of what they experienced in words. Interestingly, the same can be said of fantasy stories: each transformation of the story of Cinderalla, Santa Claus, Superman, etc., clarifies the underlying psychological issues and moral dillemas that these fairy tales explore. And as the trial team assignment for this course illustrates, daily life, fantasy, and mythic stories related to life on this campus can all lead to a fuller understanding of the greater whole of this university.

C for "Context:" mythic thinking thrives in ordinary settings, influencing real, flesh-and-blood people, and fade when they are no longer widely relevant to those people.

Critical outsiders typically regard mythic thinking as fantasy, completely disconnected from what real human beings face in their actual, day to day lives. Like the reflection evident in daily life and fantasy stories, however, mythic thinking dies out when it is no longer relevant to the people in whom it takes place, just as old scientific theories are superceded by new ones. We forget many stories of our own past that no longer seem directly relevant to our current situation; we rethinking the ones that we do remember in light of who we are today. People no longer tell old fairy tales that don't speak to their present situations, or else they rewrite them to integrate contemporary issues. Likewise mythic thinking changes with the times, because the mysterious, largely invisible dimensions of reality which it contemplates must relate to all times and all places to be relevant.

D/F for "Dysfunctional:" like other kinds of thinking, mythic thinking becomes dysfunctional when not balanced with accurate perception.

This class emphasizes the need to study and understand mythic thinking through an empathic consideration of those who tell, listen to, and rely on such stories to guide their thoughts and actions. But this does not mean that every mythic story you hear about in the class is used in a healthy way; on the contrary, I have intentionally included a number of examples of mythic thinking that appear to be at least partly dysfunctional. In analyzing the sources assigned for this class, I am not asking you to accept any and all mythic stories as valid and accurate. Rather I am proposing that mythic thinking at its best, when combined with accurate perception and thoughtful reflection, does seem to serve a highly valuable function in guiding those who rely on it to act in an inspiring way.

Conclusion: Starting Your Own Investigation

This overview of how I define the category of "mythic story," and its relationship to other types of stories, is intended as a starting point for your exploration of the primary sources encountered throughout the course, rather than as a definitive statement of truth to be accepted, memorized and repeated. I do urge you to study, remember, and seriously reflect on the points I have made regarding

the relationship between mythic, fantasy and daily life stories, illustrated as a triangular spectrum;
the ways that mythic stories in particular resemble maps; and
the "ABCs" of mythic thinking that I propose to challenge prevailing stereotypes about myth.

But I also hope that you will test these ideas rather than simply accept them, ideally discussing them with peers and weighing the alternatives. I hope you will consider to what extent the examples of mythic storytelling you study throughout the semester are adequately explained by my claims, ideally once again in conversation with others, who may hold different views. And I hope that you will come up with your own ideas and perspectives about mythic stories and the cultures in which they thrive, and in the process develop and sharpen investigative skills that will serve you in your life in some important way.

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Distinctions with a difference: essays on myth, history, and scripture in honor of John N. Oswalt

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Bill T. Arnold

The question of Israel’s distinctiveness in the ancient Near East was a central concern of the biblical theology movement in the mid-twentieth century. The excessive claims and overstatements of that movement were corrected later in the twentieth century. Most scholars today assume the question is settled in a consensus that Old Testament Israel was not distinctive, and was completely at home in the ancient world in every respect. This paper explores three ways in which ancient Israel was indeed at home in ancient Near Eastern culture, while also suggesting ways in which Israel’s religious convictions led to a genuinely unique profile in the ancient world.

Christoph Uehlinger

Kenton Sparks

Oded Borowski

The Ancient Israelite World

Kyle Keimer

Bill T. Arnold , Brent A . Strawn , Christopher B. Hays , Lawson Younger , Christopher Rollston , Joel S Burnett , Carl S Ehrlich , Pierre Briant

Leading Experts Introduce the People and Contexts of the Old Testament What people groups interacted with ancient Israel? Who were the Hurrians and why do they matter? What do we know about the Philistines, the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and others? In this up-to-date volume, leading experts introduce the peoples and places of the world around the Old Testament, providing students with a fresh exploration of the ancient Near East. The contributors offer comprehensive orientations to the main cultures and people groups that surrounded ancient Israel in the wider ancient Near East, including not only Mesopotamia and the northern Levant but also Egypt, Arabia, and Greece. They also explore the contributions of each people group or culture to our understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures. This supplementary text is organized by geographic region, making it especially suitable for the classroom and useful in a variety of Old Testament courses. Approximately eighty-five illustrative items are included throughout the book. Contents Introduction Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn 1. The Amorites Daniel E. Fleming 2. Assyria and the Assyrians Christopher B. Hays with Peter Machinist 3. Babylonia and the Babylonians David S. Vanderhooft 4. Ugarit and the Ugaritians Mark S. Smith 5. Egypt and the Egyptians Joel M. LeMon 6. The Hittites and the Hurrians Billie Jean Collins 7. Aram and the Arameans K. Lawson Younger Jr. 8. Phoenicia and the Phoenicians Christopher A. Rollston 9. Transjordan: The Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites Joel S. Burnett 10. Philistia and the Philistines Carl S. Ehrlich 11. Persia and the Persians Pierre Briant 12. Arabia and the Arabians David F. Graf 13. Greece and the Greeks Walter Burkert† Indexes

Koert van Bekkum

David deSilva , André Lemaire , Pieter Gert van der Veen , Bill T. Arnold , Kyle Greenwood , Daniel Bodi , Robert D Miller II , Lawson Stone , Samuel Greengus

The history of Israel is a much-debated topic in Old Testament studies. On one side are minimalists who find little of historical value in the Hebrew Bible. On the other side are those who assume the biblical text is a precise historical record. Many serious students of the Bible find themselves between these two positions and would benefit from a careful exploration of issues in Israelite history. This substantive history of Israel textbook values the Bible's historical contribution without overlooking critical issues and challenges. Featuring the latest scholarship, the book introduces students to the current state of research on issues relevant to the study of ancient Israel. The editors and contributors, all top biblical scholars and historians, discuss historical evidence in a readable manner, using both canonical and chronological lenses to explore Israelite history. Contents Preface Bill T. Arnold and Richard S. Hess Introduction: Foundations for a History of Israel Richard S. Hess 1. The Genesis Narratives Bill T. Arnold 2. The Exodus and Wilderness Narratives James K. Hoffmeier 3. Covenant and Treaty in the Hebrew Bible and in the Ancient Near East Samuel Greengus 4. Early Israel and Its Appearance in Canaan Lawson G. Stone 5. The Judges and the Early Iron Age Robert D. Miller II 6. The Story of Samuel, Saul, and David Daniel Bodi 7. United Monarchy: Archaeology and Literary Sources Steven M. Ortiz 8. The Biblical Prophets in Historiography James K. Mead 9. Late Tenth- and Ninth-Century Issues: Ahab Underplayed? Jehoshaphat Overplayed? Kyle Greenwood 10. Eighth-Century Issues: The World of Jeroboam II, the Fall of Samaria, and the Reign of Hezekiah Sandra Richter 11. Judah in the Seventh Century: From the Aftermath of Sennacherib's Invasion to the Beginning of Jehoiakim's Rebellion Brad E. Kelle 12. Sixth-Century Issues Peter van der Veen 13. Fifth- and Fourth-Century Issues: Governorship and Priesthood in Jerusalem André Lemaire 14. The Hellenistic Period David A. deSilva Indexes

Benedikt Hensel

Is the Hebrew Bible purely a product of Jerusalem or were there various social groups who each played a role in its development during the Second Temple period? This is the guiding question of the present volume which fills a crucial gap in recent research by combining current literary-historical, redactional and text-historical analysis of the Hebrew Bible with the latest results pertaining to the pluriform social and religious shape of early Judaism. For the first time, the volume addresses the phenomenon of religious plurality by bringing together archaeological, (religious-)historical, and literary-critical approaches. The volume comprises thirteen articles by internationally renowned scholars and covers the panorama of currently known social groups of Yahwistic character and the impact of this phenomenon on the making of the Hebrew – from the Persian period down to the time of Qumran. Bibliography: Social Groups behind Biblical Traditions: Identity Perspectives from Egypt, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Israel in the Second Temple Period (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 167), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2023; hg. von Hensel, B., Nocquet, D und Adamczewski, B.

Emanuel Pfoh

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The Traditional and Modern Myths Essay

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Introduction

The biblical myth, myth as a metaphor, cultural identity, works cited.

The concept of mythology has preoccupied human life for many decades. Myths may refer to sacred narratives or stories that try to explain how human beings and other world phenomenon came into being as seen in their present form or state.

Although many scholars of mythology have used this terminology in many different ways, the fundamental element of myths is that they all tend to resemble stories with traditional origins.

The analysis of both traditional and modern mythology shows that the main myths are characterized by gods, fictional heroes and supernatural beings or powers all shaping the human mind. Myths have served to shape human kind through establishing models of behavior.

Through storytelling, individuals develop tendencies of retrogressing into the mythical past, thus drawing closer to the divine truths. This paper seeks to analyze the traditional and modern myths with a view to demonstrated similarities as well as differences. In the next phase of the discussion, the paper will enumerate the symbolic imperativeness of myths, and their influence to my perceptions about the world.

A private and unrecognized dream exists as a myth within the absence of an effective mythology. The Biblical conceptualizations of the origin of man provide an excellent form of a myth in the antiquity while the relatively new myth of the Superman offers the best illustration of a myth in the contemporary society. The representations of the origin of man from a religious standpoint offer me a unique opportunity to understand how humanity and its related facets came to be.

The Biblical story of the origin of man is perhaps the most upheld belief appealing to the universal conceptualization of humankind and its origin. Although religious dogmas and beliefs vary in a number of ways, there is a consensus about the origin and existence of humanity. The Superman myth portrayed by the comical superhero appeals to me because while as a kid, I believed in its existence and, in my dreams, wished to meet him.

According to the Bible, God created man after he had created the heavens and the earth. The book of Genesis takes us through the process that took God to create human beings and the world in general. We are later taken into the Garden of Eden where we are told that God placed Adam and Eve the supposed first human beings.

In the book of Genesis, we are told of the man who has to discover his origin and the origin of some fundamental elements of suffering and happiness as portrayed by the sinful nature of man and the potential redemption through salvation (New International Bible, Gen.2.1-2)

Like every other myth that has passed down through generations, the myth surrounding the origin of humankind in the Bible caries with it many inconsistencies. The order of creation in the Bible is broken and unexplained and uses unnatural means to achieve its goals. We are told, “Let there be light” ‘and there was light.”

The symbolic element of creating Adam and Eve as contrasted to declaring their being serves to demonstrated the innate significance of our existence as unique objects within the mythical realms. Therefore, through these representations, we come to appreciate the intrinsic importance of man in the universe. This draws from the elements of his creation as the last creature in order to watch over the rest of God’s creation.

The tales of the Bible try to explain common phenomenon, which remain unexplained in the contemporary world. According to Bible, the painfulness of child bearing is a punishment from God for defying his order not to eat from the fruit tree, which was at the centre of the Garden. One can conclude that this myth tries to explain why child bearing is so painful for women. However, in my view, it might seem unreasonable to justify the pains experienced by women due to sins committed by their ancestors.

To explain the conflict that exists between snakes and man, the Bible attributes this to God’s curse for man to toil in search for food. Man has never stopped seeking the explanations of metaphysical aspects such as death, beginning of life and many others. Humanity has always dreamt and remained committed of coming up with an answer through mythology and scientific discoveries and theory.

Renowned scientists like Charles Darwin have conducted numerous researches to explain and dispute the Bible’s theory of the origin of man. For instance, Charles Darwin concluded that man exists because of evolution process through change over a long period. Although this elementary theory may provide an insight into the question of origin, it may fail to offer best explanations surrounding the metaphysical world.

In trying to lend explanations to the origin of man, the most famous myths of the ancient Greek, myths of Oedipus, Odyssey, Zeus and many others may perhaps provide a substantial amount of light into the very question of existence. It is undisputed that myths form a very important part of our religions from Europe, Africa and all over the world.

Myths inform many aspects of our life, for example, many company names originate from Greek myths; very interesting though is the effect and influence that myths have on religions all over the world, for example, the Yoruba of Nigeria believe that their God originated from a reed.

Still in Africa, the Kikuyu, a tribe in Kenya, believed that their God came from mount Kirinyaga, which was his dwelling place. Explanations about the mythological formulations vary in approach and thought, thus serve to explain the conflicting nature of myths held by various traditions.

The Superman Myth. The comic character of Superman has come up as a strong mythological figure especially in the urban areas; it is common to hear kids saying, “That car is as fast as Superman.” to convince a seven year old kid that Superman does not exist may be a challenging task. It is attributed to numerous representation of the Superman through comic books and movies and in real life.

Siegel and Shuster created the first mythical characteristics of the Superman via images and symbols of rough and aggressive person renown for terrorizing criminals and gangsters especially in the 1920s.

No doubt exists in the fact that a similarity exist between the Bible, comic book hero, superman, and other myths.

In most cases myths provide perfect metaphors for applicable in real life situations. For example, the mythical Garden of Eden acts as a representation of aspects of life. Although this contradicts the Biblical essence, critics have commented that the Garden of Eden represents sexuality in human beings where the human body is represented as holy just like the Garden of Eden.

However, Adam and his wife go against this order and eat the fruit meaning that they slept together. Today, the story in the Bible provides a metaphorical account of human life the story of Cain and Abel’s sibling rivalry symbolizes the conflict that exists among humans, between racism to tribalism, the rich and the poor and many other differences that exist nowadays. (Genesis, 4.1-10).

On its part, the mythical hero superman represents a conflict between the law-abiding citizens and the criminals in the society or a war between the right and wrong.

Although held in separate ways, my choice of my myths conforms to the universal conception of most cultures around the world in a number of respects.

American culture is the one that is technologically advanced as more and more people tend to believe in science, a good example are many Hollywood movies which have been created predicting the end of this world due to a calamity arising out of a scientific experiment or the future based on scientific discovery. A new religion based on a science fiction, and science on the rise. In my view, this religion bases its roots in the recent technological and scientific discoveries as evidenced by the abundant literature.

The American society is a highly religious society where freedom of religion freely thrives. It is for this reason that many religions have their home in America. However, the Christianity has the highest following and for this reason, most Americans identify themselves with the theoretical stories in the Bible set at the Garden of Eden.

This analysis has adopted the comparative mythology in which two different myths have been compared on a number of aspects. The analysis of the concept o mythology in both traditional and modern perspectives reveals the attachment between humanity and the world. The link that manages to connect the world phenomena that remain unchallenged is filled by the formulations of myths. The concept of myth has evolved since pre-historical and Biblical times and that these elements have penetrated the modern society.

Studies have shown that the tendencies of traditions to get back to their traditional form of thinking have been facilitated through the creation of myth. Different traditions have held that myths are significant in shaping human behavior through drawing near to the divine nature of the ancient moments.

As indicated by Campbell in his book the “ Heroes Journey,” these myths follow the same pattern and form, thus form a platform for behavior change. Similarly, in the comic hero’s myths, superman lives in a perfect world in Krypton where he soon discovers that there are other Kryptonians living on the planet, when he comes to rescue them they are defeated and he is forced to remain on the earth where he experiences struggles but at the end, he triumphs.

The symbolic elements of myths remain instrumental in illustrating the meaning of some traditional and modern beliefs in order to inform their users. In demonstrating the essence of myths, the Superman serves as the critical example of how mythical components transform the mind and behavior through belief. Using this example, I have come to learn that characters and personality of most people are controlled by acceptance to subscribe to some particular myths.

Although a strong relationship exists between the traditional and modern conceptualizations of myths, these two groups of myths have vast differences and perhaps opposing features of each other. For instance, the 21 st century mythical representations attempt to reject the 19 th century mythical theories and science.

In this process of varying views, the modern mythology has developed a tendency to observe the traditional facets as obsolete and inconsequential to the development of the world’s ideologies. However, some studies document that different myths work in almost similar ways in order to achieve specific though different cultural and traditional goals. They argue that traditions are the regenerate functional subsets of the entire package of myths guiding the development of that given society.

Myths act to give meaning to life through transformations in modes of thinking toward the world into which our deities connect with the human beings. This element enables us to understand that the existence of things such as sufferings happen for a higher cause and reason.

Based on this significant element, the Biblical myth of the origin abd existence of man has enabled me to develop a general feeling that we are unique beings intended for better things in the world. This follows the punishments aspects of the Garden of Eden where our ancestors suffered because of their wickedness.

In addition, besides acting to inform our understanding, the two myths have offered themselves as lessons from which we model our behavior through taking the Superman and God as role models in our social and spiritual lives respectively. For instance, the Biblical story of the origin of man is perhaps the most upheld belief appealing to the universal conceptualization of humankind and its origin. Although religious dogmas and beliefs vary in a number of ways, there is a consensus about the origin and existence of humanity.

The Superman myth portrayed by the comical superhero appeals to me because while as a kid, I believed in its existence and, in my dreams, wished to meet him. On the other hand, myths have throughout history served to justify the cultural activities through the authoritative nature of mythical elements and characters. Man has never stopped seeking the explanations of metaphysical aspects such as death, beginning of life and many others.

Humanity has always dreamt and remained committed of coming up with an answer through mythology and scientific discoveries and theory. Through these aspects, myths attempt to establish events, customs, religious facets, laws, social and political structure, crafts and many recurring elements in the daily human life.

Myths represent the consensus of ideologies and cultural identity of varied traditions. There has been a general notion that some myths are outdated while others were current and able to address the phenomenal events happening in the world today. However, according to the evaluation of myths through a comparative study, analyses show that myths share some universal elements

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1949. Print.

Cousineau, Phil. The Hero’s Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. Ed. Stuart L. Brown, New York: Harper and Row, 1990. Print.

Foley, Kevin D. African Oral Narrative Traditions: Teaching Oral Traditions. New York: Modern Language Association, 1998. Print.

New International Bible Version. London: Clays,1984. Print.

Rollo, May. The Cry For Myth . New York: Delta, 1992. Print.

Petrou, David M. The Making of Superman the Movie . New York: Warner Books,1978. Print.

Mythology: The Garden of Eden Theory
Jack London's Martin Eden in the Context of American Realism
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Achilles as a Classical Hero
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Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, October 19). The Traditional and Modern Myths. https://ivypanda.com/essays/myth/

"The Traditional and Modern Myths." IvyPanda , 19 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/myth/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Traditional and Modern Myths'. 19 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Traditional and Modern Myths." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/myth/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Traditional and Modern Myths." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/myth/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Traditional and Modern Myths." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/myth/.

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Anthropology

Difference Between History and Myth

Student: Grünfeld N. (0442607)

Course: Cultures (SSC 131)

Lecturer: Dr. M. Bouuet

Date: 30-09-04

Words: 1612

When an anthropologist uses the word history he refers to stories about the past that seems to him more or less probable, when he uses the word myth he is talking about what seems to him to be improbable or impossible. Now open a dictionary, it will tell you that a history is (the study of/a record of) past events considered together, especially events of a particular period, country or subject. A myth on the other hand is an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining in a literary way the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts .

The use of the word that the dictionary prescribes and how the anthropologists actually uses it is quite different. And myth and history are in important respects different in character than anthropologists use them. To stress this: “a story may be true yet mythical in character, and a story may be false and yet historical in character” . Some characteristics of myths:

“It is not concerned so much with a succession of events as with the moral significance of situations, and is hence often allegorical or symbolical in form. It is not encapsulated, as history is, but is a re-enactment fusing present and past. It tends to be timeless, placed in thought beyond, or above, historical time; and where it is firmly placed in historical time, it is also nevertheless, timeless in that it could have happened at any time. Ten the very improbabilities, even absurdities, in many myths are not to be taken, as in an historical record, literally and hence as naivety and credulity, but are of the essence of myth which, just because the events lie outside human experience, demand an acts of will and of imagination. Then, myth differs from history in that it is regarded differently by the people to whose culture both belong. They do not regard historical happenings and mythical happenings as happenings of the same order.”

This is a preview of the whole essay

“Myth, deprives the object of which it speaks of all History” , according to Barthes. He actually states that myths would not posses any historic value, and therefore is not worthwhile to research if one is searching for factual information. But is this true? Don’t most of the myths have a core of truth which makes research worthwhile? To look deeper into the difference between history and myth in the anthropologic field and the importance of studying myths to obtain factual information (history) we can focus on a division of opinion on the matter whether anthropology can be regarded as a natural science or as one of the humanities. This because this division is at its sharpest when the relations between anthropology and history are being discussed.

I will first explain the above mentioned difference between anthropology as a natural science and anthropology as part of the humanities. After this we will look at the Ilahitan people as described in Social complexity in the making – a case study among the Arapesh of New Guinea by Donald Tuzin.

Value of history to anthropology

A functional theory of society is nothing new. Human societies are natural systems in which all the parts are interdependent, each serving in a complex of necessary relations to maintain the whole. The aim of social anthropology is to reduce all social life to laws or general statements about the nature of society which allow prediction.

What is new is the statement that a society can be understood satisfactorily without reference to its past. This because a natural system can be described in terms of natural law without recourse of history. In sake of clarity, we must distinguish two different senses of history:

“In a literate society, history is a part of the conscious tradition of a people and is operative in their social life. It is the collective representation of events as distinct from events themselves. This is what social anthropologists calls myth. The functionalist anthropologist regards history (usually a mixture of facts and fancy) in this sense as highly relevant to a study of the culture of which it forms part .”
“On the other hand they have totally rejected the reconstruction from circumstantial evidences of the history of primitive peoples for whose past documents and monuments are totally, or almost totally lacking.”

This last contrasts strong with how the eighteenth-century moral philosophers presented their conception of social systems and sociological laws. They believed that: “by using inductive methods it would be possible to explain the societies studied in terms of general principles or laws in the same way as physical phenomena had been explained by physicists.” These natural laws could be derived by studying the human nature. Because of the fact that these laws applied over whole mankind, man always advanced along certain lines through set stages of development. These stages could be reconstructed by what later became known as the comparative method. The basis for this method was the belief that: “sociocultural systems observable in the present bear differential degrees of resemblance to extinct cultures” .

The difference however is that they: “presented this in the form of a natural history of human societies, and the enduring passion of their Victorian successors was seeking for origins from which every institution has developed through the working of laws of progress” .

The modern functionalist anthropologist denying the importance of the history of a society to a functional study of it is strange. Firstly because they claim that they make a natural history of human societies, all human societies. But because of the general bias against history they ignore information provided about historical societies that they could use in their comparative case-studies. Societies that they (should) regard of as in their work field.

But the most important reason why they should not neglect the importance of history is because the comprehensive and detailed professional field studies of modern anthropology are products of the functional orientation which insists on the interrelatedness of things. But without historical knowledge of institutions studied in the field, so without knowledge of where things came from in the past you can never understand the society studied. Especially not because “anthropologists are now studying communities which, if still fairly simple in structure, are enclosed in, and form part of, great historical societies, such as Irish and Indian rural communities, Bedouin Arab tribes, or ethnic minorities in America and other parts of the world. They can no longer ignore history, making a virtue out of necessity, but must explicitly reject it or admit its relevance. As anthropologists turn their attention more to complex civilized communities the issue will become more acute, and the direction of theoretical development in the subject will largely depend on its outcome.”

So to summarize, you can roughly divide anthropologists into two groups, one group that believes that history is irrelevant to the study of societies because of the general rules and patterns which can be found by studying a society in present time, and on the other hand you have the group which believe history and myth explaining history are important and even essential because they explain why things are as they are and they are able to tell us in which direction societies will develop in the future, they form part of a people’s traditional being and last but not least they are important because, except for the direct observation as an ethnographer, anthropologists have to rely a great deal on secondary information, secondary information that history and myth can provide.

History and myth of the Ilahitan people

Before Tuzin tells the story of Nambweapa’w, the Ilahitan creation myth, he writes the following:

“It was told to me on my very fist day of field work, many years ago, by a group of villagers who declared that if my object was to understand their ways, then this is a story I must know; for this is where they came from, this is what they are . It is a tale of mystery, enchantment, and historically prophecy. And although I previously warned myths cannot be taken as historically true, there are truths other than historical. This story is embedded in history but also transcends that history and is truthful of the Ilahita in its own fashion. As an 8-year-old girl of my acquaintance once replied when I asked if she knew what a “myth” was, ‘A myth is a story that is false on the outside, and true on the inside.’ So it is with Nambweapa’w.”

See how this fits into the things I wrote before about myths? Also with other information Tuzin got from villagers they often told about mythical concepts as mother and father sago. Stories which included important (historical) information.

Difference between history and myth is pretty clear when you read both definitions of them. In reality they are often intertwined. Seemingly historical information being partially mythical and vice versa. Both concepts, history and myth, are of great importance when one does anthropological research. One needs information to compare his own findings with, one needs to know where things came from to actually understand why they are there and what purpose they fulfill, one needs to understand local myths if one wants to understand how people are thinking and why they are acting as they are.

In a ‘ Social complexity in the making ’, Tuzin makes a strict distinction between what he sees as historical and what he sees as myth (see quotation above), even though I am not always so sure this distinction is as clear cut as Tuzin sometimes presents it. . In that sentence the difference between history and myth is important for the book.

Bibliography

Chakov, K. ‘Nineteen century social evolutionism’

Pritchard, E.(1961). ‘Anthropology and History’. In: unknown. pp. 46-65

Pritchard, E.(?). ‘Social Anthropology: past and present’. In: unknown. pp. 13-28

Tuzin, D. (2001). ‘ Social Complexity In the Making ; A Case-Study Amongst the Arapesh of New Guinea’ . Routeledge

Anthropology and History, Evans Pritchard, 53

Roland Barthes , 1972

Social anthropology: past and present, 21

Social anthropology: past and present, 14

Nineteen century social evolutionism, Kelly Chakov,

Social Anthropology: past and present, 19

Social Anthropology: past and present, 21-22

Donald Tuzin, Social complexity in the making, 2001, 62

Document Details

Word Count 1777
Page Count 8
Level University Degree
Subject Social studies

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Myth: A Very Short Introduction (1st edn)

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2 (page 36) p. 36 Myth and philosophy

Published: July 2004
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‘Myth and philosophy’ examines the many positions held on the relationship between myth and philosophy. Some philosophers assert that, antithetically to moderns, primitives think ‘mythopoeically’, which means concretely, uncritically, and emotionally. Philosophical and mythopoeic ways of thinking are more than different conceptions of the world. They are different perceptions of the world: the coming of rain after a drought is ascribed not to atmospheric changes but to, say, the defeat of a rival god by the rain god, as described in myth. Some philosophers translate myth into existentialist terms in order to make its meaning palatable to moderns. For them, myth is a philosophical tale, and myth for them is philosophy.

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The difference between ‘history’ and ‘the past’

In school, college or university, when we study the subject called ‘History’, it is common to hear people use the terms ‘history’ and ‘the past’ interchangeably, as if the two mean the same thing.

In fact, when we talk about the past or history when we are not in class, most people certainly do use the terms as synonyms.

However, when undertaking History as part of your studies, these terms are used to mean two different things. It is important to know the difference so that you can use them correctly in your assessment pieces .

To help you understand the difference between ‘the past’ and ‘history’, I will talk about them separately and explain how they relate to one another.

By the end, I hope that you will feel confident when using the two terms in future.

What is ‘the past’?

When we use the term ‘the past’, we mean all of the things that have ever happened since the beginning of time until the present.

In other words, it is everything that has occurred before this exact moment: every person, society, event, and idea that existed before now, is part of ‘the past’.

Unfortunately, we only know about ‘the past’ based upon what has survived to the present.

Sadly, almost everything from the past has disappeared forever and only fragments of evidence that it ever existed remain.

Watch a video explanation on YouTube

Think about the billions of people that have ever lived and how we will never know anything about them, or their lives, because nothing about them remains.

Similarly, think about the countless weapons, tools, houses, clothes, and ideas that must have been made over the millennia, and how most of them crumbled, rusted, fragmented, and disappeared in just a few weeks, years, and centuries after they were made.

‘The past’, as a term, refers to all of these things, even if they no longer exist.

What is ‘history’?

In contrast, the term ‘history’ refers to how someone has tried to reconstruct ‘the past’ in a way that we can understand.

Most of the time, ‘history’ is when a professional historian writes a book to explain what a society, culture, person, or event might have been like, based upon the evidence that remains.

The most common ways that historians construct a history is to present it in the form of a story, which we call a ‘narrative’.

Stories are easily understandable for most people, and presents the past in a chronological way, from beginning to end, taking you on a journey through the highlights of the narrative.

However, all historians admit that their histories are incomplete, because they have had to fill in a lot of the gaps in their story, since we don’t have all the evidence we would like from the past in order to write a complete story.

However, historians don’t simply ‘make up’ the gaps in the past. Instead, they spend years on dedicated research , trying to find out as much as possible to make an educated guess about different aspects of the past.

Ultimately, every historian admits that their story is only their best conclusions about what is most likely, based upon the evidence we have.

As a result of the need to ‘fill the gaps’ in order to construct a narrative about the past, historians are open to hearing about how other historians attempts at writing history.

If another historian can provide a better version of history, they are willing to change their minds.

This is why we say that there is multiple ‘histories’ about the past: every historian has their own interpretation about the past that is open to revision and correction.

How are ‘the past’ and ‘history’ related?

Now that you know the difference between the past (everything that happened before now) and history (a historian’s attempt to tell the story of the past), let's look at how they relate to each other.

‘The past’ is completed and can never be changed, but ‘history’ is the ongoing discussion of trying to explain the past and is open to change and revision.

‘History’ relies upon what we know about ‘the past’, and this is dependent on the evidence available. You cannot write a history that is not based upon evidence.

Final thoughts

I hope that the difference between these two terms is now much clearer to you and that you’re able to use them more effectively in your own writing.

Write a comment

Philomina owusu ( Sunday, 22 January 2023 17:37 )

I now understand everything � My mind is clear now. Thank you.

ISAAC GYAN ( Wednesday, 25 January 2023 17:53 )

Since history is not complete ans is open to change and revision, does it mean that Historians who carve stories from the past depend on significant or major events that mark an era due to few availability of remains?

Yeboah Divine ( Saturday, 28 January 2023 16:38 )

This is an interesting piece. The difference is very clear now

Anderson ( Sunday, 29 January 2023 11:37 )

I Literally love everything about this piece it's comprehensively clear

SALIM ARHINFUL SEIDU ( Thursday, 25 January 2024 16:45 )

I can know the past of my parents but not history of my parents. Because the past are things that has already happened in their life, whiles history is a continue things which is happening in their life. Past is gone but history is unending dialogue

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Introduction

Fairy tales

Sagas and epics, etiologic tales.

Allegorical
Comparative
Functionalist
Structuralist
Explanation
Justification or validation
Description
Healing, renewal, and inspiration
Myth and psychology
Myth and science
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Religious symbolism and iconography
Sacred texts
Oral traditions and written literature
Visual arts
Performing arts
Myth and history
Myths of origin
Myths of eschatology and destruction
Messianic and millenarian myths
Myths of culture heroes and soteriological myths
Myths of time and eternity
Myths of providence and destiny
Myths of rebirth and renewal
Myths of memory and forgetting
Myths of high beings and celestial gods
Myths concerning founders of religions and other religious figures
Myths of kings and ascetics
Myths of transformation
Secularization of myth and mythology
Demythologization of major religious traditions
Political and social uses of myth
Cosmogonies
Animal and plant deities
Hunting and agricultural deities
Culture heroes
Demonic plants and animals
Creation of human beings from plants or animals
Relationships of mixture
Relationships of transformation
Death, or postmortem, soul
Plural souls
The alter ego, or life index
Relationships of similarity

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When did Greek mythology start?

Aphrodite. Greek mythology. Sculpture. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

Relation of myths to other narrative forms

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The Minneapolis Institute of Art - World Myths and Legends in Art - What is myth?
Campus Manitoba Pressbooks EDU Network - Transforming English Language Arts with Visual Art, Poetry, and Related Texts - Myths and Legends Through Art, Poetry, and Story
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mythology - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
mythology - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
Table Of Contents

In Western culture there are a number of literary or narrative genres that scholars have related in different ways to myths . Examples are fables , fairy tales , folktales, sagas , epics , legends , and etiologic tales (which refer to causes or explain why a thing is the way it is). Another form of tale, the parable, differs from myth in its purpose and character. Even in the West, however, there is no agreed definition of any of these genres, and some scholars question whether multiplying categories of narrative is helpful at all, as opposed to working with a very general concept such as the traditional tale. Non-Western cultures apply classifications that are different both from the Western categories and from one another. Most, however, make a basic distinction between “true” and “fictitious” narratives, with “true” ones corresponding to what in the West would be called myths.

If it is accepted that the category of traditional tale should be subdivided, one way of doing so is to regard the various subdivisions as comparable to bands of colour in a spectrum. Within this figurative spectrum, there will be similarities and analogies between myth and folktale or between myth and legend or between fairy tale and folktale. In the section that follows, it is assumed that useful distinctions can be drawn between different categories. It should, however, be remembered throughout that these classifications are far from rigid and that, in many cases, a given tale might be plausibly assigned to more than one category.

The word fable derives from the Latin word fabula , which originally meant about the same as the Greek mythos . Like mythos , it came to mean a fictitious or untrue story. Myths, in contrast, are not presented as fictitious or untrue.

Fables, like some myths, feature personified animals or natural objects as characters. Unlike myths, however, fables almost always end with an explicit moral message, and this highlights the characteristic feature of fables—namely, that they are instructive tales that teach morals about human social behaviour. Myths, by contrast, tend to lack this directly didactic aspect, and the sacred narratives that they embody are often hard to translate into direct prescriptions for action in everyday human terms. Another difference between fables and myths relates to a feature of the narratives that they present. The context of a typical fable will be unspecific as to time and space—e.g., “A fox and a goose met at a pool.” A typical myth, on the other hand, will be likely to identify by name the god or hero concerned in a given exploit and to specify details of geography and genealogy—e.g., “ Oedipus was the son of Laius, the king of Thebes.”

The term fairy tale , if taken literally, should refer only to stories about fairies, a class of supernatural and sometimes malevolent beings—often believed to be of diminutive size—who were thought by people in medieval and postmedieval Europe to inhabit a kingdom of their own; a literary expression of this belief can be found in William Shakespeare ’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The term fairy tale , however, is normally used to refer to a much wider class of narrative, namely stories (directed above all at an audience of children) about an individual, almost always young, who confronts strange or magical events; examples are “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Cinderella,” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” The modern concept of the fairy tale seems not to be found earlier than the 18th century in Europe, but the narratives themselves have earlier analogues much farther afield, notably in the Indian Katha-saritsagara ( The Ocean of Story ) and in The Thousand and One Nights .

Like myths, fairy tales present extraordinary beings and events. Unlike myths—but like fables—fairy tales tend to be placed in a setting that is geographically and temporally vague and might begin with the words “Once upon a time there was a handsome prince….” A myth about a prince, by contrast, would be likely to name him and to specify his lineage, since such details might be of collective importance (for example, with reference to issues of property inheritance or the relative status of different families) to the social group among which the myth was told.

There is much disagreement among scholars as to how to define the folktale; consequently, there is disagreement about the relation between folktale and myth. One view of the problem is that of the American folklorist Stith Thompson, who regarded myths as one type of folktale; according to this approach, the particular characteristic of myth is that its narratives deal with sacred events that happened “in the beginning.” Other scholars either consider folktale a subdivision of myth or regard the two categories as distinct but overlapping. The latter view is taken by the British Classicist Geoffrey S. Kirk, who in Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (1970) uses the term myth to denote stories with an underlying purpose beyond that of simple story-telling and the term folktale to denote stories that reflect simple social situations and play on ordinary fears and desires. Examples of folktale motifs are encounters between ordinary, often humble, human beings and supernatural adversaries such as witches, giants , or ogres ; contests to win a bride; and attempts to overcome a wicked stepmother or jealous sisters. But these typical folktale themes occur also in stories normally classified as myths, and there must always be a strong element of arbitrariness in assigning a motif to a particular category.

A different and important aspect of the problem of defining a folktale relates to the historical origin of the concept. As with the notion of folklore , the notion of folktale has its roots in the late 18th century. From that period until the middle of the 19th century, many European thinkers of a nationalist persuasion argued that stories told by ordinary people constituted a continuous tradition reaching back into the nation’s past. Thus, stories such as the Märchen (“tales”) collected by the Grimm brothers in Germany are folktales because they were told by the people rather than by an aristocratic elite. This definition of folktale introduces a new criterion for distinguishing between myth and folktale—namely, what class of person tells the story—but it by no means removes all the problems of classification. Just as the distinction between folk and aristocracy cannot be transferred from medieval Europe to precolonial Africa or Classical Greece without risk of distortion, so the importing of a distinction between myth and folktale on the later European model is extremely problematic.

The word saga is often used in a generalized and loose way to refer to any extended narrative re-creation of historical events. A distinction is thus sometimes drawn between myths (set in a semidivine world) and sagas (more realistic and more firmly grounded in a specific historical setting). This rather vague use of saga is best avoided, however, since the word can more usefully retain the precise connotation of its original context. The word saga is Old Norse and means “what is said.” The sagas are a group of medieval Icelandic prose narratives; the principal sagas date from the 13th century and relate the deeds of Icelandic heroes who lived during the 10th and 11th centuries. If the word saga is restricted to this Icelandic context, at least one of the possible terminological confusions over words for traditional tales is avoided.

While saga in its original sense is a narrative type confined to a particular time and place, epics are found worldwide. Examples can be found in the ancient world (the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer ), in medieval Europe (the Nibelungenlied ), and in modern times (the Serbo-Croatian epic poetry recorded in the 1930s). Among the many non-European examples are the Indian Mahabharata and the Tibetan Gesar epic. Epic is similar to saga in that both narrative forms look back to an age of heroic endeavour, but it differs from saga in that epics are almost always composed in poetry (with a few exceptions such as Kazak epic and the Turkish Book of Dede Korkut ). The relation between epic and myth is not easy to pin down, but it is in general true that epics characteristically incorporate mythical events and persons. An example is the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh , which includes, among many mythical episodes, an account of the meeting between the hero Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim , the only human being to have attained immortality and sole survivor (with his wife) of the flood sent by the gods. Myth is thus a prime source of the material on which epic draws.

In common usage the word legend usually characterizes a traditional tale thought to have a historical basis, as in the legends of King Arthur or Robin Hood . In this view, a distinction may be drawn between myth (which refers to the supernatural and the sacred) and legend (which is grounded in historical fact). Thus, some writers on the Iliad would distinguish between the legendary aspects (e.g., heroes performing actions possible for ordinary humans) and the mythical aspects (e.g., episodes involving the gods). But the distinction between myth and legend must be used with care. In particular, because of the assumed link between legend and historical fact, there may be a tendency to refer to narratives that correspond to one’s own beliefs as legends, while exactly comparable stories from other traditions may be classified as myths; hence a Christian might refer to stories about the miraculous deeds of a saint as legends, while similar stories about a pagan healer might be called myths. As in other cases, it must be remembered that the boundaries between terms for traditional narratives are fluid, and that different writers employ them in quite different ways.

The term myth is not normally applied to narratives that have as their explicit purpose the illustration of a doctrine or standard of conduct. Instead, the term parable , or illustrative tale , is used. Familiar examples of such narratives are the parables of the New Testament . Parables have a considerable role also in Sufism (Islamic mysticism), rabbinic (Jewish biblical interpretive) literature , Hasidism (Jewish pietism ), and Zen Buddhism . That parables are essentially non-mythological is clear because the point made by the parable is known or supposed to be known from another source. Parables have a more subservient function than myths. They may clarify something to an individual or a group but do not take on the revelatory character of myth.

Etiologic tales are very close to myth, and some scholars regard them as a particular type of myth rather than as a separate category. In modern usage the term etiology is used to refer to the description or assignment of causes (Greek aitia ). Accordingly, an etiologic tale explains the origin of a custom, state of affairs, or natural feature in the human or divine world. Many tales explain the origin of a particular rock or mountain. Others explain iconographic features, such as the Hindu narrative ascribing the blue neck of the god Shiva to a poison he drank in primordial times. The etiologic theme often seems to be added to a mythical narrative as an afterthought. In other words, the etiology is not the distinctive characteristic of myth.

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Roman Mythology Vs Greek Mythology

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