HUM/105 Version 3 / 6
Week One Content Outline
TOPIC and Objectives
Foundations of Mythology
· Differentiate how the word myth is used popularly with how it is defined academically.
· Identify mythological themes that are universal among world cultures.
· Analyze the relationship between knowledge and belief, myth, and religion.
· Explain how myths typify human experiences.
Explain how myths typify human experiences.Content outline
1. Popular cultural uses of the term myth
a. Myth is commonly used to mean something that is not factually true, such as in the phrase, “it’s just a myth”.
1) This usage is widespread in popular culture and the media referring to commonly misunderstood concepts.
2) Examples: Myths about the causes of cancer, myths about retirement, myths about investments, myths about exercise, and diet myths
b. The word myth has also been used to dismiss another culture’s sacred stories and beliefs, as if the dominant culture’s sacred stories and religion are superior or truer than another’s is.
c. Myths are also often thought to refer to primitive or fantasy-based children’s stories (and thus, inferior).
d. Cultural myths are often popular concepts that are common beliefs but are not necessarily factual, such as, “only the good die young,” and “good men are hard to find.”
2. Academic definition of myth
a. Myths were originally used to describe stories from preindustrial cultures to account for happenings that were mysterious or inexplicable.
b. A myth is an explanatory narrative. Myths are ways to explain why the world is the way it is.
1) Myths may use stories to illustrate how people should act.
2) Myths may use stories to attempt to explain the origins of the social order, or to attempt to justify existing social order.
3) Myth may refer specifically to a sacred story, which is honored as self-evidently true.
4) Myths, in the form of sacred stories, are at the heart of many religions.
5) Myths often use stories to encourage a common culture or belief.
c. Myths are generally collectively authored.
1) There may be no single author of any myth.
2) Myths are often spontaneously created by a society or group.
a) Tribal myths
b) National myths
c) Religious myths
d) Communal myths
e) Organizational myths
d. Myths are generated through oral tradition.
1) Myths are told and retold over time.
2) As a result, multiple versions of myths exist.
3) Myths share universal narrative structures.
a) Specific stages
b) Specific attributes of characters
e. Myths may involve beings that are superior to humans in one or more of the following ways:
1) Immortality—may not be subject to death
a) Gods and spirits usually do not die.
b) If killed, mythic beings can often return to life.
2) Powers—may possess super-human abilities or attributes
a) May possess superior physical strength
b) May possess superior physical beauty
c) May be able to transform shape or appearance
(1) Example: Zeus becoming a swan
(2) Proteus changing shape in general
d) May control natural elements—particularly unpredictable ones
(1) Gods of weather
(2) Gods of sea
(3) Gods of land or harvest
e) Often can control human destiny—particularly in unpredictable aspects
(1) Life and death
(2) Wealth, success, or power
(3) Human existence after death
f) Are sometimes served by other mythic beings or creatures
(1) Example: In Norse mythology, Odin was served by Huginn (thought) and Munnin (memory).
(2) Example: In Hindu mythology, Shiva is served by a host of Gana.
g) May carry objects, attributes, or talismans of great power
(1) Example: Shinto gods used Amenonuhoko (a heavenly spear) to create the world itself.
(2) Example: In Greek mythology, Cupid fired arrows that caused people to fall in love.
h) May possess superior wisdom and knowledge
(1) This knowledge, especially in areas humans cannot easily access
(a) Example: life after death
(b) Example: telepathy
(c) Example: extreme self-knowledge
i) May be ethically superior or inferior to humans
(1) Gods and mythic beings are markedly more just or upright than humans.
(2) Demons are markedly more degraded or evil than humans.
j) Are often central to creation
(1) In some mythic systems, mythic beings created the world.
(2) In some mythic systems, mythic beings are created by the same process as the world.
(3) In some mythic systems, mythic beings were the first things created by the creative process after the universe itself.
k) May represent general order
(1) Mythic beings rule or influence the universe.
(2) Mythic beings embody specific principles.
(3) Mythic beings are charged with organizing (or disorganizing) human life.
f. Myths are timeless.
1) Myths could exist outside of historical time—the same story could exist in other settings or periods.
2) Myths appear to occur and recur.
3) Myths are less concerned with chronological sequence.
3. Origins of myth
a. The ancients may have personified natural phenomena—for example, adding human characteristics to the sun, the moon, the sea, the wind, and fire.
b. The ancients may have used allegory (extended metaphor) to explain natural phenomena—Apollo represents fire—or to teach moral lessons—Aesop’s fables.
c. Myths may grow out of actual experiences that exemplify a principle or truth; for example, Sidhartha Gautama’s enlightenment while sitting under the Bodhi tree is probably based on a true story.
4. Cultural and social functions of myth
a. Myths help explain the world.
b. Myths help unify a people.
c. Myths may be tied to specific formal or informal rituals.
d. Myths give meaning to daily acts.
e. Myths serve as symbols of shared values.
f. Myths reflect values and conditions of society creating them.
g. Because many aspects may be symbolic, the relation of myths to reality may not be clear.
h. Myths that appear to be similar across different cultures may address universal concerns.
5. Myths as distinct from legends, tall tales, fairy tales, and folktales
a. Tall tales (American)
1) Tall tales focus on humans who have extraordinary abilities, but may not teach a moral lesson or explain the world; they are told for entertainment.
2) Most American tall tales originated from the 1800s as entertainment.
3) Often there is a morality component, but the characters are not tied to the nature or origin of the universe.
4) The main character may be a completely fictional person such as Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan, who have larger than life characteristics.
5) The main character may be derived from a real person, such as Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, Davy Crockett, and Paul Revere, whose deeds, over time, become embellished.
b. Legends
1) Stories handed down (orally) that are accepted as true though they are unverifiable
2) Urban legends: contemporary folklore
a) Unverifiable stories in e-mail chains
b) Often sports heroes, celebrities, and fictional characters become contemporary legends such as Sacajawea, Annie Oakley, Betsy Ross, Michael Jordan, Chuck Norris, and MacGyver.
3) Legends and tall tales may blend with myths over time, particularly if they take on characteristics of myths.
c. Fairy tales and folktales
1) Focus on human action in magical circumstances, usually told for entertainment.
2) Tales may include magical beings, objects, or situations.
3) There may be a morality component, but these beings or objects neither are explanatory nor are they tied to the nature or origin of the universe.
4) Fairytales may be considered one example of folktales—magical events may occur, but the main character is mundane rather than divine. Magic simply exists for magic’s sake.
5) Examples include Rapunzel, Cinderella, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus.
6. The intersection of truth, knowledge, and belief
a. Different fields use the words truth and true differently.
b. Stories that have become myths may or may not be empirically true, but may be true in the literary sense because they are accurate explanations or reflections of hard-to-understand phenomena, like human interactions.
1) Scientific truth: When a scientist (who generally considers something true only if it can be empirically verified—and even then with a grain of salt) reads a fictional novel, he may consider it false simply because it is based on fictional people and events.
2) Literary truth: A literary critic, on the other hand, might consider the same novel true in that it accurately a culture or area, in spite of being fictional.
c. Metaphors and similes, though figures of speech, can be taken to be true in the same way. Many people believe mythological and religious stories are metaphors of truth, even if they do not believe in them literally.
d. When stories are said to be true, do not assume scientific or empirical veracity. Some myths may have a basis in empirical facts, but many do not. However, regardless of whether a story is based in empirical fact, most myths have truths in them from which we can learn.
e. The words truth or true merely carry the degree of certainty or confidence about the topic. These words say more about us than they do about the thing in which we express interest.
1) We know something to be true: We are confident that it is true.
2) We have faith that something is true: We have a strong confidence it is true, sometimes without hard evidence.
3) We believe something is true: We have some confidence that it is true.
4) We wish that something were true: We desire it to be true, though we believe it is not true.
f. We come to knowledge though a variety of processes: through inductive and deductive reasoning, through sensory experience, through testimonial evidence, and through belief.
7. The intersection of mythology and religion
a. Religion is not simply a matter of belief; it is primarily a part of our human experience. Ninian Smart, a scholar of world religions, has distinguished seven dimensions of religion. Smart’s Dimensions of Religion include the following:
1) Doctrines: the basic tenets of a church or sect – examples: the nature and form of God, the reality and form of life after death, the purpose of life, and so forth
2) Sacred narratives: sacred stories that may explain the religion’s cosmology (what the universe is like, or why it is as it is), soteriology (of the meaning of salvation), or provide examples and non-examples of religious behavior
3) Ethics: One of the functions of sacred narratives is to inform disciples about the appropriate way of living, you in relationship to deity and with others in the world.
4) Ritual: the symbolic gestures or actions, formulas, communal sayings, and prayers that reinforce the values of the belief – Rituals include celebrations of special events, punishment or atonement to overcome failure or sin, and rites of mourning. Some sacred performances take on aesthetic values such as Navajo sand painting and sacred dances.
5) Religious experience: Though often held suspect by the scientific community because they do not yield to empirical observation, these basic human experiences include conversion or being “born again,” enlightenment, mystical experiences, and revelations or visions.
6) Social institutions: Many religious institutions develop various forms of communal authority within their respective systems, which may include churches, congregations, hierarchies, polities, monastic orders, and so on.
7) Art and material culture: Religious belief often results in the use or creation of sacred places and things, particularly where they serve a symbolic or functional purpose, such as chapels, temples, altars, sacred utensils, and ritual objects. Because these are often aesthetic by design, the products of creative imagination, they often include sculpture and art, icons, music, and poetry.
b. These dimensions cumulatively define a worldview that constitutes what we commonly call a religion.
8. Common phrases derived from myth
a. Achilles heel—hidden weakness (from The Odyssey)
b. Bites the dust—poetic death (from The Iliad)
c. Good bye—“God be with ye” (contraction from middle English)
d. Swan song—last act before death (from Norse mythology)
e. Lotus eater—a lazy person that indulges in luxury (from The Odyssey)
f. Trojan horse—a way to sneak into a secure place or situation (from The Odyssey)
g. Herculean task—an enormously difficult task (from the Greek myths about Hercules)
h. Alpha and Omega—the beginning and the end (from the New Testament of the Bible and the Greek alphabet)
i. Burn bridges—there’s no going back (from Alexander the Great in India)
j. By the skin of one’s teeth—against great odds (from the Old Testament of the Bible in the Book of Job)
k. See the light—suddenly come to understand (from the New Testament of the Bible, Paul on the road to Damascus)
9. Various types of myth
a. Cosmic myths
1) The creation cycle
2) Weather and climatic occurrences
3) End of world or apocalypse
4) Celestial and sky
b. Myths of gods and goddesses
c. Hero and heroine myths
d. Object and place myths
10. The human experience and cultural mythologies
a. Historical myths from ancient cultures covered in this course:
1) Middle Eastern
2) Greek and Roman
3) Far Eastern and Pacific Islands
4) The British Isles
5) Northern European
6) African
7) American (North, South, and Native)
b. Terminology
1) Myth
2) Metaphor
3) Meaning
4) Symbols
5) Deity
6) Monotheism
7) Pantheon
Reference
Smart, N. (1996). Dimensions of the sacred: An anatomy of the world's beliefs. Berkeley: University of California Press.