posted
Anybody who has not heard of Greek Mythology raise your hand.
Betcha nobody raised their hand because Greek Mythology has been so much a part of our culture for centuries. There are all those fun stories. And movies based on them - like Jason and Hercules. The night sky is loaded with Greek Mythology. There are even whole college courses based on it. And of course a big part of the English lexicon was influenced by it.
To a lesser degree, much the same could be said of other mythologies such as Roman and Norse.
Well, it dawned on me several months ago that there is also a lot of Christian Mythology out there. Of course most of you probably think that this is no great epiphany since it is so obvious. And you are right. As long as I can remember I have been aware that there are a lot of fantasies based on Christianity. It’s just that, until several months ago, I never thought to put it in the same category as Greek Mythology. I do now.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m approaching this from the point of view of a devout Christian. Obviously agnostics, atheists, and other non-Christian folks have always thought of Christian stuff as myth. But as a devout Christian, always believing (and still do) in much of the teachings of Christendom, that hasn’t stopped me from believing that there is also a lot of fantasies too. Stuff like Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, and movies like “Heaven Can Wait,” “Angels in the Outfield, ” “What Dreams May Come,” “Hellboy,“ and of course I mustn’t leave out Arnold Schwarzenegger duking it out with the Big Kahoona himself in “The End of Days.“ I could list several dozens of other examples right now without breaking a sweat. Fun stories, but fantasies none the less.
But now I’m starting to think there are enough of these stories out there that I’m thinking the phrase “Christian Mythology” might just be a worthwhile phrase even from my devout point of view.
I’m not bringing up this subject just because the movie “The Da Vinci Code” is so much in the public eye, although that is, in my opinion, another example of what I’m talking about.
posted
I don't get it. Heaven Can Wait is a Christian myth? How? Hellboy? Angels in the Outfield? What Dreams May Come? HELLBOY? How?
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are not Christian myths. They are pagan myths that the Christians couldn't quite stamp out when they converted those cultures. Same with the Christmas Tree, Easter eggs, and Halloween (All Hallow's Eve).
In fact, a lot of Christian symbols have their roots in pagan cultures that just couldn't be wiped clean. Four leaf clovers, the celtic cross, the Yule log, etc. There's even thought that St. Brigid was simply the Celtic goddess made flesh and granted sainthood to help convert the Irish.
Christianity "borrowed" quite a bit during its evolution.
The Christian image of the devil with cloven hooves, horns, a goat like face, etc, was probably a stolen myth from another pagan religion, too - the images resemble Amun from the Egyptian mythos pretty closely - to show that the pagan god was "evil" and must be tied to Satan (who was an angel and shouldn't really look much different than the other angels, no?)
Still, though, I do agree that there are plenty of Christian myths. A good chunk of them come from the Apocrypha, or the "non-accepted" books of the Bible. Lilith and her brood, etc.
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posted
TL, I could go into more detail of my reasons later. But for now I’ll just say that it is MY OPINION that they are fantasies. If you want to believe that any or all the concepts depicted therein in any or all of these movies are true, then that is your privilege. I just don’t happen to believe it. Hence my accusation that they are fantasies.
For instance, maybe I’m wrong and heaven is really the way “What Dreams May Come” depicted it. In which case the movie would be a true story. Or maybe heaven really isn’t like that. In which case it is a fantasy. Who knows?
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:TL, I could go into more detail of my reasons later. But for now I’ll just say that it is MY OPINION that they are fantasies. If you want to believe that any or all the concepts depicted therein in any or all of these movies are true, then that is your privilege. I just don’t happen to believe it. Hence my accusation that they are fantasies.
I think TL's question - especially regarding Hellboy - was more about how the movies in question are rooted in Christian dogma in the first place.
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Yeah. I *know* they're fantasies. I mean -- what the --?
How is Heaven Can Wait a Christian myth, for crying out loud?
And I'm not attacking, by the way. For all I know you might have a brilliant and thoughtful explanation that'll make me clap and laugh with delight. I'm not saying they ain't -- I'm just saying how are they? What's the thought process on this?
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quote: I do agree that there are plenty of Christian myths. A good chunk of them come from the Apocrypha, or the "non-accepted" books of the Bible. Lilith and her brood, etc.
I don't think that Lilith can be tied to Christian mythology, Flying Cow. She definitely has a Jewish birth...
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quote:How is Heaven Can Wait a Christian myth, for crying out loud?
Well, there's a Hell, a Purgatory, angels, and a God. It rather carefully and generously leaves its options open, but it's an afterlife that most Christians would easily recognize.
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quote:I don't think that Lilith can be tied to Christian mythology, Flying Cow. She definitely has a Jewish birth...
LOL. So did Jesus.
I don't necessarily throw Jewish stories out with the bath water when it comes to Christianity. Christians believe in Adam and Eve as much as the Jews do - the fact that there's an alternate Lilith story runs parallel to both their faiths, and would constitute a myth outside the standard system of each religion.
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posted
I know that early Christians took the Lilith myth and ran with it; what alternate Lilith story are you talking about?
The one I'm aware of is that Lilith was Adam's first wife. When she refused to submit to his sexual advances the way he wanted, she fled to the ocean (??) to get away from him. God sent Eve to Adam instead.
Lilith somehow started having children out in the wilderness, to the tune of having 100 a day. God sent three angels to kill her offspring, because they were all monsters. Lilith swore vengeance on all first-born male children for the deaths of her children-- but the angels made her swear to leave children alone who wore an amulet bearing their names.
posted
What I mean is that the official story is that Adam was created, then Eve, and then they had kids. No other people mentioned until Cain gets sent into the Land of Nod and took some wife that was never mentioned before.
Alternate, and parallel to that, not officially recognized in any mainstream version of christianity or judaism I've ever heard of, is the story of Lilith being Adam's first wife.
I meant it was alternate to canon, aside from it. But it's still a part of both Jewish and Christian apocrypha.
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posted
Neil Gaiman does a really wonderful take on the Lilith thing in one of the Sandman episodes, tying it in with the Maiden-Mother-Crone imagery. "Adam had three wives". And I like his Lilim, too.
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posted
Monsters like Grendel/vampires/etc. being descended from Cain is another example of Christian mythology.
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quote:Well, there's a Hell, a Purgatory, angels, and a God. It rather carefully and generously leaves its options open, but it's an afterlife that most Christians would easily recognize.
Are we talking about the same movie? An argument could be made for the film being about Purgatory. Hell, angels, and God.... I don't remember any of those things being directly addressed at all. I suppose one could say, "Well, if there was no God, how could her spirit have left her comatose body? God is in this movie." But it's a rather wild leap from that point to "This movie is about Christianity."
And even if you were right, and those things *were* all represented in the film, how does "an afterlife that most Christians would easily recognize" translate to: "This is a Christian myth!"
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posted
I think it's rather silly to apply the Christian label to anything with themes or images that could be interpreted as representing Christianity, regardless of any intent of a real relationship.
With those broad brush-strokes you could mistakenly call all kinds of things Christian myth.
Dune, for example. Or X-Men, or The Green Mile, or Interview With a Vampire, or, well -- name any movie with a magical or God-related element. You know, I'm sorry, but at some point somebody has to step in and say, "Listen, Labyrinth is not a Christian myth."
What's being identified are common elements of modern American thought being applied to fantasy settings or as fantastical allegories -- pop-culture stuff. Not Christianity. (They look similar because of the intertwining influence of centuries---not because I'm wrong and Angels in the Outfield really does have something to do with Christianity after all.)
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posted
Oh yeah, I was thinking about Just Like Heaven. Guess we weren't talking about the same movie. My mistake. I haven't seen Heaven Can Wait since I was a kid.
The broader points about incorrectly identifying everything under the sun as specifically being "Christian" still stands.
But I was wrong about Heaven Can Wait.
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posted
I might be misreading this, but I can't see anything specific that anybody has said in this thread that you disagree with. After all, nobody has said that X-Men is a Christain myth.
Interview With A Vampire is a stretch, but not not a large one. There are a lot of christain myths that deal with vampires. The only book by Rice that I've read is IWAV, and nobody in that book knew the origins of vampires, but some of the christian vampire myths could easily be incorporated into that story.
posted
My problem with describing movies with explorations of overtly Christian concepts as myth is that it gives too much weight to those stories. I see myths as the shared stories around which cultures built their identities, rather than modern explorations and expansions of those stories.
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posted
I think the word 'myth' needs clarification as it appears that you are taking about mythological concepts and entities which arose from groups of practioners of the religion rather than the tenets of the faith itself.
I would consider mythology inherent to Christianity such as the idea of the snake being the devil. Most Christians accept that as being the case, but Jews don't, and it is never specifically stated in the New Testament as being the case (right?).
A lot of the other examples seem just as particular to social groups and regions as the religion itself.
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posted
Exactly, Kristen. I think that you just made the point I set out to make a lot better than I succeeded in making it.
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While I'd say that concepts such as selling your soul to the devil are aspects of Christian Mythology, you are right that stories such as Bedazzled aren't myths themselves. They are stories that draw on such myths.
Most of the examples mentioned in this thread are not myths themselves, but are stories that use elements of christian mythology.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Most of the examples mentioned in this thread are not myths themselves, but are stories that use elements of christian mythology.
That's not to say that they couldn't become myths in their own rights in time, but I agree that they aren't there yet (and most likely 99.9% never will be).
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
So, the movies mentioned aren't really Christian myths, right? They just have Christian themes/elements.
But there are Christian myths, just like Greek, Roman, Norse, Native American, etc. Like Noah and the flood; it's a myth meant to teach a lesson or message. We aren't supposed to believe that a pair of all of the animals that we have on earth now were at some point on the same boat, are we? And without eating each other, or catching some decease? So that's a Christian myth, right?
And Adam and Eve, too. There weren't literally two people that populated the entire planet, it's literary tool to explain the power of God and how he created human beings. So, myth, right?
So where is the line drawn between what is Christian myth, and what is Christian truth? I mean, I'm going through the list of what I think is a myth and I'm coming up with the Tower of Babel, David and Goliath, Samson's hair, and so on.
As a Christian, where would you draw the line for what is accurate biblical history, and what is metaphor, or myth?
Edit: I'm using this definition of myth found at dictionary.com:"A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society"
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quote:In fact, a lot of Christian symbols have their roots in pagan cultures that just couldn't be wiped clean
This is true and is common knowledge.
quote:Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are not Christian myths. They are pagan myths that the Christians couldn't quite stamp out when they converted those cultures. Same with the Christmas Tree, Easter eggs, and Halloween (All Hallow's Eve).
The fact that they started out as pagan myths doesn't stop them from becoming Christian myths. Most Roman myths started out as Greek myths, and most Christian myths from the Old Testament started out as Jewish myths.
Disclaimer: My use of the word "myth" in this post is not intended to convey any judgment about the truthfullness of the stories.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by vonk: So, the movies mentioned aren't really Christian myths, right? They just have Christian themes/elements.
Exactly.
quote:So where is the line drawn between what is Christian myth, and what is Christian truth? I mean, I'm going through the list of what I think is a myth and I'm coming up with the Tower of Babel, David and Goliath, Samson's hair, and so on.
As a Christian, where would you draw the line for what is accurate biblical history, and what is metaphor, or myth?
I think that that's a line that each believer has to draw for themselves, vonk. I have certainly known people who took every bit of the Bible as being literally true, and have known people who self identified as Christian who said that the literal truth of the resurrection was irrelevant to their faith.
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posted
vonk: There are people on this board who literally believe in those myths that you keep rhetorically asking "We aren't supposed to belive this, are we?"
I literally believe in many of them myself.
I like the way that Noemon put it :"the shared stories around which cultures built their identities". Notice that this definition doesn't even touch on the truth of the stories.
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posted
Okay, I'm sorry if I offended anyone with my disbelief (and the assumed disbelief of others) of particular biblical stories. My diction may not have been the best, but as I understand it, and as Noemon said, the line I was wondering about has to be drawn by each individual.
I was just curious as to where you, or anyone else, might draw that line, whether it is believing that the Bible is 100% true, 100% myth, or somewhere in the middle.
Again, I apologize if anyone is offended.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
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TL, I know you were not attacking. And I hope my last post didn’t come across as argumentative. Your question of how these are Christian Myth is certainly a good question.
Here is some of my reasoning. Take “Hellboy.” Here is this Priest who captures a baby demon from hell (Or was it that the baby demon somehow got stranded. I forget all the details.) At any rate, the Priest ends up raising the demon who eventually helps the forces of good to defeat other demons. Or something like that.
Although I believe evil spirits exist - lots of them - I don’t believe they have physical bodies, horns, nor cloven hooves nor all the other stereotypic trappings that writers have used over the years. Nor do I believe in a hell somewhere in the bowels of the earth or in some other dimension or something with fire and brimstone and stuff. Although I do believe hell exists.
The Christian element comes in because there is that priest fighting against the forces of evil and because of the things Tom Davidson said. So of course I’m going to consider this story a Christian myth. Although I really enjoyed the movie.
As for “Heaven Can Wait” that was a remake of a 1941 movie “Here Comes Mr. Jordon” with Robert Montgomery and Claude Rains. I liked the 1941 version but pretty much hated the remake because Warren Beatty annoys me. (Just my personal prejudice and no reflection on his acting ability.) At any rate, here is this guy Joe Pendleton who dies before he was scheduled to because some angel bungled his job, Joe’s body is cremated before the mistake can be rectified, so Joe’s spirit is sent back into the body of a freshly murdered millionaire. (Who apparently was supposed to die.)
OK, I believe that we are dual beings with a body and a spirit and that a person’s spirit leaves his body at death and goes to a spirit world. But I don’t believe that the Lord operates this stuff the way the movie depicted. Although it makes for a fun fantasy story. For that matter, I don’t believe in the St. Peter/Pearly Gates nonsense, although it’s a great vehicle for a lot of jokes.
But hey, I could be wrong. The Lord hasn’t seen fit to reveal to man a lot of details on the day to day operation and conditions in the after life, so those stories my be closer to the truth than I think. But they don’t fit in with the way I understand the little that has been revealed. So, to me, they are myth.
You’re right, though. It would be silly to try to apply this Christian Myth label to everything. Some stuff might fit better than others but one could get carried away. Flying Cow mentioned some stuff that was adopted by part of Christianity from pagan peoples. (“couldn't quite stamp out” was how FC put it.) This is true, but I suggest that when any Christian adopted a myth, it then became a Christian Myth. It’s still a myth that belongs to whatever non-Christian outfit it was borrowed from, but it’s now Christian Myth too.
Indeed, a lot of these movies and stories I’m thinking about seem to be a bunch of different myths like that all mixed together in a big fun fantasy stew.
Mr. p h said, “Most of the examples mentioned in this thread are not myths themselves, but are stories that use elements of christian mythology.“
You just threw me a curve. I’m having trouble understanding the distinction between “myths themselves” and “elements of . . . mythology.” It sounds reasonable but I’m going to have to think about it.
quote:I was just curious as to where you, or anyone else, might draw that line, whether it is believing that the Bible is 100% true, 100% myth, or somewhere in the middle.
I generally start from the assumption of truth.
The conflict comes when the stories conflict with our observations of the world. For example, it appears that people don't rise from the dead, the world is much older than 10,000 years, all the species on earth couldn't have fit in a ship the size of the Ark, we don't appear to all be descended from one couple about 6,000 years ago, etc.. There are many many, more.
When the veracity of the story is in doubt, there are two big questions I have to answer for myself. How important is the truthfulness of this story to my understanding of God and his dealings? How convincing is the evidence against this?
For example:
I do believe in the literal resurrection of Jesus. I believe in the literal ancestry of Adam and Eve, but I don't have definite beliefs about where their bodies came from. (literally or metaphorically made from clay and rib?) I don't believe the flood, the arc, and Noah are metaphorical, but I have doubts that water literally covered the entire earth and that all land mamals are descended from the animals on the arc. I think that the earth is probably far greater than 10,000 years old.
Many things, such as the longevity of antedeluvian peoples, giants, and pillars of salt, are questions for which I haven't made up my mind. This does not concern me.
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posted
Flood myths are pervasive cross-culturally. The Mayans, Hindu, and Norse (kind of) have them, and that's just what I know. I think that gives credence to a huge, prolonged rainstorm occuring and destroying much of Mesopotamia as it seemed to be a problem everywhere.
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posted
No offence taken, Vonk. You brought up a good point. So did Noemon.
I remember hearing somewhere that there are still people who believe in the Greek gods of Greek Mythology fame. Or at lease they believe in some of that stuff. If it’s true that there are still folks who believe this, then Greek mythology is gospel truth to them.
I’ve tried to show WHY I believe some particular story, or element of a story, is a myth. But that does not make it compulsory for anyone else to agree with me. In fact, it might be rather dull around here if they did. Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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quote:This is true, but I suggest that when any Christian adopted a myth, it then became a Christian Myth. It’s still a myth that belongs to whatever non-Christian outfit it was borrowed from, but it’s now Christian Myth too.
I dunno, this just struck me as funny.
I mean, if a Christian believes in the Boogie Man, does that make it a Christian myth? Or if a Christian believes in leprechauns, does that make it a Christian myth?
I do see, though, how the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus have become part of a sort of Christian mythos, primarily through ignorance of their origins. Same with things like Halloween, the majority of people not knowing the origins of the holiday.
This whole thread makes me want to go back and read Gaiman's American Gods.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
There's a big difference between a single Christian believing it and an entire community believing/celebrating it.
quote:I do see, though, how the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus have become part of a sort of Christian mythos, primarily through ignorance of their origins.
The pagan origins of such Christian symbols are common knowledge.
Although they probably weren't always.
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posted
I'm not sure I'd call them common knowledge. I somehow made it through two decades of life without learning that. I remember learning about the rise of Christianity in high school, but definitely not the adoption of pagan symbols. Sadly enough, I had to read the Da Vinci Code to find out. Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Yeah, I worded that kind of awkwardly. It would have to be a whole bunch of Christians adopting a certain myth and using it long enough for it to catch on for it to qualify as Christian myth in the sense I’m thinking about myth. Maybe along the lines of it becoming a fad or something like that.
(I wonder if Feng Shui qualifies?) Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I believe that theologians do use the term Mythology to refer to the events described in the judeo-christian bible, just as they describe the history of the trojan war or any of the stories that were considered history under any particular religion, defunct or otherwise. The word mythology in this usage does not imply untruth.
The definition of the word "myth" has taken on the assumption of untruth, mostly because of its association with religions that have become defunct, but also because of the religious tendency to treat the history taught by any other religion as untrue, while the history of one's own religion is considered true.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
mph, having been a teacher for four years, I no longer assume anything is common knowledge.
Pick 100 people randomly and ask them the origins of Halloween and 99 probably couldn't tell you. Pick 100 people randomly and ask them if they know why we have christmas trees, or why easter is symoblized with a bunny, and 99 likely couldn't tell you.
I think you're really overestimating the awareness the average person has about history.
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posted
I was never taught it in school. I came to it on my own when beginning to question my own faith in high school, and digging into history a little bit.
Beyond that, none of this is tested material in the eyes of No Child Left Behind, so even schools that once taught it will probably emphasize it a lot less or neglect it to focus on tested topics.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Mythos can refer to the body of supernatural stories that contain truths - like most of the Bible stories you hear in Sunday school. Those stories make up the Christian mythos. Calling a story a myth does not make it any less true or important. Mythos, in fact, conveys the idea that a story holds importance for the human psyche or soul.
Some of the Christian themes include:
changing water to wine heaven and hell the devil falling from heaven angels the power of calling upon Jesus the power of the cross holy water sin and redemption speaking directly to God and having one's prayers answered the whole baby Jesus birth story
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quote:Is there a reason this material needs to be tested, FC?
Maybe I wasn't clear.
This is not tested material. Schools are less likely to teach material that isn't on standardized tests with the increased emphasis on test scores these days. This is not a good thing.
Essentially, I was saying that education in this country is becoming less comprehensive because schools are too focused on material that will be tested. Schools are covering less of what is considered "common knowledge" in favor of topics that appear on english/math standardized tests.
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