From History to Myth: A Comparative Study

Abstract

HEN in the context of an organization calling itself an association of biblical instructors the topic of mythology is brought up, the name of the Marburg giant, Rudolf Bultmann, dominates our thinking, as indeed it should. But New Testament scholars have impoverished their studies by a kind of myopia resulting from a neglect of the problem of myth in the wider demands of Religionswissenschaft. Bultmann's well-known three story universe accompanied by divine intervention is not, strictly speaking, a mythology; it is a Weltanschauung. Of course, sophisticated modem man, for whom E = mc2, cannot accept biblical cosmology, but neither could Copernicus. The real question of mythology runs much deeper. About a quarter of a century ago, the subject of myth began to be restudied seriously after a long period of neglect. Malinowski, following Frazer and Lang, considered the anthropological aspects of folklore. Cassirer, Langer, Tillich and Urban directly explored the meaning of myth, and the researches of C. G. Jung gave added dimensions to our studies.'