Definition of Myth quoted from Parallel Myths by J.F. Bierlein

1
Definition of Mythquoted from Parallel Myths by
J.F. Bierlein

• Myth is a constant among all human beings in all
  times. The patterns, stories, even details
  contained in myth are found everywhere and among
  everyone. This is because myth is a shared
  heritage of ancestral memories, related
  consciously from generation to generation. Myth
  may even be part of the structure of our
  unconscious mind, possibly encoded in our genes.
• Myth is a telling of events that happen before
  written history and of a sense of what is to
  come. Myth is the thread that holds past,
  present, and future together.

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Definition of Mythquoted from Parallel Myths by
J.F. Bierlein

• Myth is a unique use of language that describes
  the realities beyond our five senses. It fills
  the gap between the images of the unconscious and
  the language of conscious logic.
• Myth is the glue that holds societies together
  it is the basis of identity for communities,
  tribes, and nations.
• Myth is an essential ingredient in all codes of
  moral conduct. The rules for living have always
  derived their legitimacy from their origins in
  myth and religion.
• Myth is a pattern of beliefs that give meaning to
  life. Myth enables individuals and societies to
  adapt to their respective environments with
  dignity and value.

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Definitions of Myth

• "In common parlance, a myth is an 'old wives'
  tale,' a generally accepted belief
  unsubstantiated by fact.
• --David Adams Leeming, The World of Myth (3)
• "Mythology is the study of whatever religious or
  heroic legends are so foreign to a student's
  experience that he cannot believe them to be
  true. . . . Myth has two main functions.  The
  first is to answer the sort of awkward questions
  that children ask, such as  'Who made the
  world?  How will it end?  Who was the first man? 
  Where do souls go after death?'. . . . The second
  function of myth is to justify an existing social
  system and account for traditional rites and
  customs.
• --Robert Graves, "Introduction," New Larousse
  Encyclopedia of Mythology (v)
• "Myths are things that never happened but always
  are.
• --Sallustius, 4th cent. A.D. (quoted in Carl
  Sagan's Dragons of Eden)

4
Definitions of Mythtaken from Michael Websters
online notes lthttp//faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/wa
ys.htmgt

• "'The thing you should all remember,' said Mrs.
  Dancey, my teacher, 'is that myths never really
  change.  Sometimes they're garbled and they
  certainly appear in different guises to different
  people who recount them.  But the basic legends
  don't alter.  We're talking about truths.'
• --Edward Bryant, "Good Kids"
• The Myth, in a primitive society, that is in its
  original living form, is not just a tale.  It is
  a reality.  These stories are of an original,
  greater, more important reality through which the
  present life, fate, and mankind are governed. 
  This knowledge provides man with motives for
  rituals and moral acts.
• -Veronica Ions, The World's Mythology (6)
• "A myth is a narrative which discloses a sacred
  world.
• --Lawrence J. Hatab, Myth and Philosophy (19)

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Definitions of Myth

• "By knowing the myth, one knows the 'origin' of
  things and hence can control and manipulate them
  at will.
• --W. Taylor Stevenson, History as Myth (17)
• "Myth purports to offer an adequate explanation
  for everything--for the elements and laws of
  nature, for social structure, ethics and the
  dynamics of the individual psyche.
• --Norman Austin, Meaning and Being in Myth (2)
• "Myth is a traditional tale with secondary,
  partial reference to something of collective
  importance
• --Walter Burkert, Structure and History in
  Greek Mythology and Ritual (23).
• The elements of mythical thought . . . lie
  half-way between percepts and concepts.
• --Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (18)

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Definitions of Myth

• Mythology is the womb of mankind's initiation to
  life and death.
• --Joseph Campbell, "Bios and Mythos
• "Greek mythology is largely made up of stories
  about gods and goddesses, but it must not be read
  as a kind of Greek Bible, an account of the Greek
  religion.  According to the most modern idea, a
  real myth has nothing to do with religion.  It is
  an explanation of something in nature  how, for
  instance, anything and everything came into
  existence men animals, this or that tree or
  flower . . . Myths are early science, the result
  of men's first trying to explain what they saw
  around them.  But there are many so-called myths
  that explain nothing at all.  These tales are
  pure entertainment, the sort of thing people
  would tell one another on a long winter's
  evening. . . . But religion is here, too.
• --Edith Hamilton, Mythology (19)

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Interpreting Mythtaken from Michael Websters
online notes lthttp//faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/wa
ys.htmgt

• Many scholars believe myths may have different
  levels of meaning.
• Myths can be interpreted on both a literal and
  symbolic level
• They can serve a variety of purposes
• NOTE In this class, we will all respect
  individual beliefs while also exploring the
  numerous ways of reading, interpreting, and
  understanding religious stories. (a bit more on
  this later)

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Interpreting Myth

• Myths can serve
• As a belief system
• As a disguised history
• As disguised philosophy or allegory
• As fables illustrating moral truths
• As allegories or natural events

9
Interpreting Myth

• Myths can serve (cont.)
• As pre-scientific explanation
• As charters for customs, institutions, or beliefs
• As religious power or metaphors for the unknown
• As expressions of religious rituals
• As examples of psychological stereotypes
• As stories
• As embodying irreconcilable structural conflicts
  in social systems

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Some final notes

• If we think of myths as true, if we believe in
  them (way 1), then obviously, we are thinking in
  religious terms.  But belief is also
  psychological  some say humans need to believe
  in some power greater than themselves.  Others,
  like author Joseph Campbell, see the origins of
  myth and religion in the psychological response
  of early man to the trauma of death.  Thus,
  belief in a greater power arises when humans are
  faced with the mystery of what happens after
  death.
• --Michael Webster
• There is no final system for the interpretation
  of myths, and there never will be any such
  thing.
• --Joseph Campbell