Myth | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

But here the danger is that by delineating the field of mythology too sharply, one biases one's account in favor of one sort of theory. And any definition broad enough to escape this charge would be either vague or a mere catalog.

The third objection would be that the Christian era until the time of Vico appears to be neglected by this schematism. For this there is good reason, however. In that era mythologies were predominantly treated as false theological accounts, rivals to the one true theological account, the Christian.

Greek Philosophy

Greek myths, like those of other Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures, include cosmogonies and accounts of great discoveries and inventions, such as that of fire; of the founding of cities; and of the ancestry of kings, in which relationships between gods and men are codified. In different stages of the mythology, such as in the distinction between the Olympian gods and the dark, chthonic deities, one can distinguish different social origins. From the time of Émile Durkheim and Jane Harrison anthropologists have stressed the function of myths as explanations of rituals that express the social consciousness of a group. In Greek society the public ritual continued to express the life of the community long after belief in gods had become questionable.

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