tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price) (01/07/91)
A few months ago there was reference to "The Two Babylons" by Alexander Hyslop. The discussion died quickly and the moderator referred to "The Two Babylons" as "a notorious anti-Catholic Smear", if I remember correctly. For those who don't recall, the thesis was (partly) that Nimrod was the originator of systematic false worship based on the Mother-and-reborn child theme. Nimrod ruled from Babylon / Rome = the Babylon of the Apocalypse, etc. etc. I bring this up again because I am now reading Joseph Campbell's monumental "The Masks of God"; all of mythology in three volumes starting with the prehistoric reindeer hunters and carrying on to the present day. Campbell's idea (widely accepted) is that certain themes are visible in all world mythology, and, just as a vast number of languages are believed to have been derived from an early "Indo-European" language, so he thinks it obvious that all mythologies had an original source. This is interesting to one such as myself who believes that the first ten chapters of Genesis can be meaningfully mapped onto world history and that the creation of man from the dust occured around 70K years ago (that is, that anthropological and archaeological dating of man's antiquity are likewise meaningful). Man would have originally had a uniform education (in the days of Adam, at least). The story of Babel seems to me to be a confusion of (false) worship, rather than a confusion of language (examination of the word "tongue" in a Young's concordance bears this out) and the continuation of various apostate themes under various guises would naturally be associated with such an event. I would welcome email on any of these topics. But what I'm really asking the net is this: Has anyone read Campbell in detail? What do you think of the proliferation of Mother-Goddess-and-Reborn-Child-God pairs in the ancient and very ancient world? (Isis-Osiris, Demeter-Adonis, Ishtar-Tammuz, etc. -- I forget Indian and Chinese examples) Campbell regards the cult of the Virgin Mary to be just another example of this as a matter of course. As the support for adoration of the Virgin is not so much Biblical as traditional, I find this highly plausible. Tom Price tp0x@cs.cmu.edu Disclaimer: (You've got to be careful what I mean vs. what I say. -- Bill McCracken) [And God started out as a tribal war-god or whatever. Certainly there are patterns in religion that recur, even in Christianity. However that say little about its truth or falsehood. Various commentators have taken views such as all other religions are remnants of the original knowledge from Eden somewhat degenerated, or shams of the real thing created by Satan to delude people. More positively, if you accept Paul's comments in Rom 1 that God has put enough evidence in the world for people to know him, one should not be surprised to find similarities. --clh]
hetyei@athena.mit.edu (Gabor Hetyei) (01/09/91)
In article <Jan.6.22.50.42.1991.22610@athos.rutgers.edu>, tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price) writes: |> I bring this up again because I am now reading Joseph Campbell's monumental |> "The Masks of God"; all of mythology in three volumes starting with |> the prehistoric reindeer hunters and carrying on to the present day. |> Campbell's idea (widely accepted) is that certain themes are visible |> in all world mythology, and, just as a vast number of languages are |> believed to have been derived from an early "Indo-European" language, |> so he thinks it obvious that all mythologies had an original source. Nice idea, let's see what you do with it. |> This is interesting to one such as myself who believes that the first |> ten chapters of Genesis can be meaningfully mapped onto world history |> and that the creation of man from the dust occured around 70K years |> ago (that is, that anthropological and archaeological dating of man's |> antiquity are likewise meaningful). Man would have originally had |> a uniform education (in the days of Adam, at least). The story of Babel |> seems to me to be a confusion of (false) worship, rather than a confusion of |> language (examination of the word "tongue" in a Young's concordance bears |> this out) and the continuation of various apostate themes under various |> guises would naturally be associated with such an event. Just a minute: I do not see, what does your idea to do with Campbell's. If I understand Campbell's reasoning well (I did not read his book, so I have to rely on your interpretation in understanding him), he points out that new mythologies repeat elements of old mythologies, without stating anything about the truth value of these mythologies, without EVEN CLAIMING THE ORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY TO BE TRUE OR FALSE. You insinuate an interpretation: the original mythology being true, and the various worships in Babel being false. This is your opinion, I am not sure that Campbell would agree with you. |> I would welcome email on any of these topics. But what I'm really asking |> the net is this: Has anyone read Campbell in detail? What do you think of |> the proliferation of Mother-Goddess-and-Reborn-Child-God pairs in the |> ancient and very ancient world? (Isis-Osiris, Demeter-Adonis, Ishtar-Tammuz, |> etc. -- I forget Indian and Chinese examples) Campbell regards the cult of |> the Virgin Mary to be just another example of this as a matter of course. |> As the support for adoration of the Virgin is not so much Biblical as |> traditional, I find this highly plausible. Now, I think, you are speaking in Campbells spirit. I especially like the parallels Isis-Osiris, Ishtar-Tammuz. Both Osiris and Tammuz are gods defea- ting death in the same way as our Lord Jesus Christ. I read in a book of a Hungarian marxist author that the myth of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ originated from the cult of the resurrected god Tammuz. A plau- sible question arises: if you reject the cult of th Holy Virgin as Mother of God, as a revived heathen cult, shouldn't you also refuse to believe in the resurrection of our Lord, this "story" being already known in other mytholo- gies? Going further: shouldn't you also mistrust the recitation of the Deluge in the Bible, for this story appeared already in all Mesopotamian mythologies? (Abraham came from Mesopotamia, the Jews spent 70 years in Babilonian captivity, there was enough occasion to "pick up the story".) Finally in marxist schools in Hungary I was even told, that God has two names in the Bible because before it was written, Jews had two separate creation stories: one with the Mesopotamian god Elohim, and one with the Jewish god Jehovah as creator. Later when they developped to the level of monotheism, they merged the to gods into one God, and the two creation stories into one. Although you can still read to separate version about men's creation as a witness of two completely separate creation stories. In short pursuing this logic consistently you might as well lose your Christian faith. There is though also another way to think: the old symbols reemerge again and again, always with a new meaning. The neighbours of the Jews adored snakes as gods. The Bible choses the snake as the symbol of the temptator. Even within the Bible there is a development of symbols: compare only what does Easter mean to the Jews and what does it mean to us. My perception about the development of mythology is exactly the opposite of yours: I don't think that there was an original religion which was true and the newer ones contained more and more falseness. (By the way if it were so, why to pick on Catholicism which -as an older version of Christianity- should contain less errors than newer denominations- acccording to your logic). I believe in a development of our knowledge about the world and God (why only natural and human sciences should develop?). Of course, we use the same motives again and again, as we use the same words, the same syntactic forms. But, as in a puzzle game, more and more pieces find their right place- sometimes by a new revelation, sometimes by our deduction. The piece "Mother of God" is an old piece in this game. Is it at the right place know in your or in my mind? I think, it is hopeless to dispute about it. Only God has the answer. |> Tom Price |> tp0x@cs.cmu.edu Gabor Hetyei hetyei@athena.mit.edu |> Disclaimer: |> (You've got to be careful what I mean vs. what I say. -- Bill McCracken) You have also to be careful what you say vs. what you mean. -- G.H.
walsha@uunet.uu.net (01/23/91)
In article <Jan.16.04.35.25.1991.10034@aramis.rutgers.edu>, dragon!cms@gatech.edu writes: > What Campbell actually believed, I don't know, but it was paradoxical. > But, then, so is Christianity, in many ways. > for a while he was a fervant espouser of a spiritualized hinduism, then he visited India and was totally disgusted so he gave that one up. if i were to try to pin down Campbell's religion, i'd call it a Jungian pantheism: there's a jouney to God built into our very nature, but he wouldn't trust any religion or any definition of God to give any more than a shadowy approximation of the truth. And his scholar's mentality tended towards a condescending mockery, i think. ando.