There are some remarkable similiarities in myth to the stories of the bible and similiar holy books.
an example of this is the story of Ivar Vidfadmi, who reportedly united all the 12 Northern Nations into one Scandia, as a kind of King Arthur of Scandinavia. And, like Arthur, he was held to be a Christian King (even though, the record also tells that he married 12 Princesses).
Similiarly we can look to the sumerian myth and see many similiarities to the hebrew myth. It makes me wonder if anyone has ever tracked the social evolution of man, by tracing the myths.
It’s hard to tell because many of these myths pre-date written language. Even the myths of the Hebrew Scriptures (Christian Old Testament) claim to pre-date writing. i think these myths do one of two different things:
(1) Verify the existence of such a story by its universality
(2) Disprove the uniqueness of such a story
i wouldn’t be surprised if these myths weren’t also embellished and modified to suite a group’s/region’s beliefs. In fact, with regards to the book of Genesis, there is no story in it that deals with universal ramifactions (i.e. the flood and such, not Jacob and Esau) that is not found in other cultural/religious texts of the region and era.
Hi scythe. You might want to Google Joseph Campbell. He made a life’s work doing this. His “Hero of a Thousand Faces” is a pretty comprehensive comparitive work. Yes, the similarities in myths are stunning. Floods, crucifixions, Edens, all popular symbols running through the myths of many cultures.
The truly fascinating thing is that the same motifs show up in cultures of the same time periods, but in totally different parts of the world. Amazing, that.
well think about the cornerstone of evolution… we all started out in the same area… africa. As for universality, the creation myths can vary quite a bit…
the flood myth? well there is no archaelogical evidence for a world wide flood, there simply isn’t enough water. But… what if the world were smaller? remember that we are seeing the “world” through our eyes…
Certainly the survivors of the Black sea flood around 6500 BC would’ve survived to tell the tale, and the flood of 3000 BC in the fertile crescent is likely where the story of the gilgamesh flood (which is the one the bible is based upon) came from. As the ice age receded (from 10000 BC) there were numerous floods… like the one in northwestern united states that flooded an area from minnesota to the cascades.
well not so much the uniquelessness, as the similiarity of the human experience from which all myth are drawn from.
exactly, that’s why the bible has two stories of creation and two flood myths.
jerry,
Actually I have a video series of his on dvd, I’m trying to plod through… one can only take so much joseph campbell in one sitting before the wife starts complaining.
very interesting though. When you couple it with some other reading, it truly gives you insight to the human psyche and mythology.
And of course Campbell was very interested in this idea of how the same motifs could be present in all of these myths. He was a fan of Jung (and a friend actually) and became interested in this idea of some kind of collective unconscious. Something has to be going on, he believed.
