dance of the mind

Metaphor & Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell conveys the most profound ideas in the simplest of ways. Something that I have been interested in for quite some time is his definition of metaphor and society's understanding of it.

God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all the human categories of thought, including the categories of being and non-being.....

Our society is split 50/50 in their relationship to this metaphor. Those who say the metaphor is fact are theists. Those who say the metaphor is a lie are atheists....

Neither understands metaphor!

This makes me want to cry tears of joy. This is exactly it! It is a misunderstanding of metaphor!

Prior to making this statement, he shares a story of when he was being interviewed by someone in front of a live audience. With about 5 minutes until the end of the show, the interviewer says something about mythology being a lie. Joseph Campbell says it isn't a lie, it is a metaphor. And then realizes his interviewer does not know what a metaphor is. So with the clock ticking, Campbell asks the interviewer to give him an example of a metaphor, and the interviewer can't do it. A man in the audience stands up and says he'd give a try and offers, "He runs so fast he is like a deer." Joseph Campbell says, " that is not the metaphor. The metaphor is "He is a deer".'

He runs so fast he is a deer - not like a deer, he is a deer. Metaphor and simile are not simply different methods of comparison. A metaphor goes beyond comparison. It's not just putting something side by side as a simile does: He's so smart he's like an encyclopedia. The two become interchangeable: He IS an encyclopedia.

We know he isn't an encylopedia. We don't think of that as fact. But at the same time, we realize that it isn't a lie either.

God is a metaphor. God is our idea of something that cannot be categorized - is neither noun, nor verb, subject or object. God points to that something, but is not that something because God is a word and a word is a technology. At best, God is an idea. Not fact. It can neither be fact nor lie.

I tried to explain this to my husband and he didn't understand what I was trying to say. I think this is either one of those things you get, or you don't. I hate those things.

Something else I found particularly interesting is what he claims the problem is with the Judeo/Christian religions: the problem is that the accent is on historical terms. Everything viewed within Judaism and Christianity has to be validated historically, in some way. So in terms of Christ's resurrection, a historical accent would see this as a historical calamity. It's the result of our sins. It had to happen based upon historical events...

But, if you don't think of metaphor as fact or fiction, then you can see it in a completely different way. You can see it as "the zeal of eternity for incarnation in time which involves the breaking up of the one into the many and acceptance of the sufferings of the world. "Beautiful!

Joseph Campbell conveys the most profound ideas in the simplest of ways. Something that I have been interested in for quite some time is his definition of metaphor and society's understanding of it.

God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all the human categories of thought, including the categories of being and non-being.....

Our society is split 50/50 in their relationship to this metaphor. Those who say the metaphor is fact are theists. Those who say the metaphor is a lie are atheists....

Neither understands metaphor!

This makes me want to cry tears of joy. This is exactly it! It is a misunderstanding of metaphor!

Prior to making this statement, he shares a story of when he was being interviewed by someone in front of a live audience. With about 5 minutes until the end of the show, the interviewer says something about mythology being a lie. Joseph Campbell says it isn't a lie, it is a metaphor. And then realizes his interviewer does not know what a metaphor is. So with the clock ticking, Campbell asks the interviewer to give him an example of a metaphor, and the interviewer can't do it. A man in the audience stands up and says he'd give a try and offers, "He runs so fast he is like a deer." Joseph Campbell says, " that is not the metaphor. The metaphor is "He is a deer".'

He runs so fast he is a deer - not like a deer, he is a deer. Metaphor and simile are not simply different methods of comparison. A metaphor goes beyond comparison. It's not just putting something side by side as a simile does: He's so smart he's like an encyclopedia. The two become interchangeable: He IS an encyclopedia.

We know he isn't an encylopedia. We don't think of that as fact. But at the same time, we realize that it isn't a lie either.

God is a metaphor. God is our idea of something that cannot be categorized - is neither noun, nor verb, subject or object. God points to that something, but is not that something because God is a word and a word is a technology. At best, God is an idea. Not fact. It can neither be fact nor lie.

I tried to explain this to my husband and he didn't understand what I was trying to say. I think this is either one of those things you get, or you don't. I hate those things.

Something else I found particularly interesting is what he claims the problem is with the Judeo/Christian religions: the problem is that the accent is on historical terms. Everything viewed within Judaism and Christianity has to be validated historically, in some way. So in terms of Christ's resurrection, a historical accent would see this as a historical calamity. It's the result of our sins. It had to happen based upon historical events...

But, if you don't think of metaphor as fact or fiction, then you can see it in a completely different way. You can see it as "the zeal of eternity for incarnation in time which involves the breaking up of the one into the many and acceptance of the sufferings of the world. "Beautiful!

ICHTHUS

When the early Christians were being heavily persecuted by the Romans, they needed a way to organize without letting the Romans know that this is what they were doing. So they chose a symbol that the Romans wouldn't think twice about. That symbol was the fish which was commonly known to the Roman people of the time as a symbol for the Great Mother Goddess and was similar to one used for Venus - goddess of love. The Christians chose it because it fit in with the idea of being "fishers of men". And the Greek word for fish is ichthus, which can be converted into an acrostic for Jesus Christ, of God, the son, the Savior: Iesous (Jesus) CHristos (Christ) THeou (of God) Uiou (the Son) Soter (the Savior)].

(The pre-Christian history below) is from religioustolerance.org.

The pre-Christian history of the fish symbol:

The fish symbol has been used for millennia worldwide as a religious symbol associated with the Pagan Great Mother Goddess. It is the outline of her vulva. The fish symbol was often drawn by overlapping two very thin crescent moons. One represented the crescent shortly before the new moon; the other shortly after, when the moon is just visible. The Moon is the heavenly body that has long been associated with the Goddess, just as the sun is a symbol of the God.

The link between the Goddess and fish was found in various areas of the ancient world:

• In China, Great Mother Kwan-yin often portrayed in the shape of a fish

• In India, the Goddess Kali was called the "fish-eyed one"

• In Egypt, Isis was called the Great Fish of the Abyss

• In Greece the Greek word "delphos" meant both fish and womb. The word is derived from the location of the ancient Oracle at Delphi who worshipped the original fish goddess, Themis. The later fish Goddess, Aphrodite Salacia, was worshipped by her followers on her sacred day, Friday. They ate fish and engaging in orgies. From her name comes the English word "salacious" which means lustful or obscene. Also from her name comes the name of our fourth month, April. In later centuries, the Christian church adsorbed this tradition by requiring the faithful to eat fish on Friday - a tradition that was only recently abandoned.

• In ancient Rome Friday is called "dies veneris" or Day of Venus, the Pagan Goddess of Love.

• Throughout the Mediterranean, mystery religions used fish, wine and bread for their sacramental meal.

• In Scandinavia, the Great Goddess was named Freya; fish were eaten in her honor. The 6th day of the week was named "Friday" after her.

• In the Middle East, the Great Goddess of Ephesus was portrayed as a woman with a fish amulet over her genitals.

The fish symbol "was so revered throughout the Roman empire that Christian authorities insisted on taking it over, with extensive revision of myths to deny its earlier female-genital meanings...Sometimes the Christ child was portrayed inside the vesica, which was superimposed on Mary's belly and obviously represented her womb, just as in the ancient symbolism of the Goddess." 4 Another author writes: "The fish headdress of the priests of Ea [a Sumero-Semitic God] later became the miter of the Christian bishops." 5

The symbol itself, the eating of fish on Friday and the association of the symbol with deity were all taken over by the early Church from Pagan sources. Only the sexual component was deleted.

This and more info. on the Christian symbolism of the fish can be found at Religious Tolerance, and you can find more on the Jesus fish at Wikipedia.

And a possible link to why Catholics eat fish on Friday from this site:

Before Christianity adopted the fish symbol, it was known by pagans as "the Great Mother", and "womb". Its link to fertility, birth, and the natural force of women was acknowledged also by the Celts, as well as pagan cultures throughout northern Europe.

The Romans called the goddess of sexual fertility by the name of Venus. And thus it is from the name of the goddess Venus that our modern words "venereal" and "venereal disease" have come. Friday was regarded as her sacred day, because it was believed that the planet Venus ruled the first hour of Friday and thus it was called dies Veneris. And to make the significance complete, the fish was also regarded as being sacred to her. An illustration, as seen in "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism", shows the goddess Venus with her symbol, the fish. The similarities between the two, would indicate that Venus and Freya were originally one and the same goddess and that original being the mother-goddess of Babylon.

Imagination and the Bible

I believe that our biggest problem with reading the Bible is our inability to use our imaginations. We tend to look at everything in pieces and think we can put the pieces back together to make a whole. But that doesn't work with imagination - there are no pieces to separate. The stories told in the Bible go deeper than the summation of their pieces.

For instance, the story of the miracle of bread and wine at the wedding Jesus and his mother attended is miraculous in that Jesus was able to get everyone to share what they had. That is the true miracle. And what better way to tell of this happening than through enchantment? Unless, of course, people understand it piece meal,and separate the magical nature of such an event from the actual event. Which, of course, is what has happened.

What would Shakespeare be, for instance, without magic and fairies? But we don't get caught up in the reality of the magic and fairies in his stories. His tales still point to an important truth and we readily grasp that truth. If we don't get caught up in the magic in Shakespeare, then why do we do this with the magic in the Bible?

The stories are beautiful, and much less devisive, if we take them as imaginative, poetic works that speak to a truth deeper than we can express in mere factual words.

Jesus may have been an ordinary man, but the way in which he affected others was extraordinary. And how but through the power of poetic metaphor can you possibly express such an extraordinary experience of humanity?

To miss the metaphor is to miss the power of the story. And that's what I am beginning to see as the problem. We're still holding on to a mechanistic world view and it obscures our ability to see the whole because we get so stuck in the parts.

I believe that our biggest problem with reading the Bible is our inability to use our imaginations. We tend to look at everything in pieces and think we can put the pieces back together to make a whole. But that doesn't work with imagination - there are no pieces to separate. The stories told in the Bible go deeper than the summation of their pieces.

For instance, the story of the miracle of bread and wine at the wedding Jesus and his mother attended is miraculous in that Jesus was able to get everyone to share what they had. That is the true miracle. And what better way to tell of this happening than through enchantment? Unless, of course, people understand it piece meal,and separate the magical nature of such an event from the actual event. Which, of course, is what has happened.

What would Shakespeare be, for instance, without magic and fairies? But we don't get caught up in the reality of the magic and fairies in his stories. His tales still point to an important truth and we readily grasp that truth. If we don't get caught up in the magic in Shakespeare, then why do we do this with the magic in the Bible?

The stories are beautiful, and much less devisive, if we take them as imaginative, poetic works that speak to a truth deeper than we can express in mere factual words.

Jesus may have been an ordinary man, but the way in which he affected others was extraordinary. And how but through the power of poetic metaphor can you possibly express such an extraordinary experience of humanity?

To miss the metaphor is to miss the power of the story. And that's what I am beginning to see as the problem. We're still holding on to a mechanistic world view and it obscures our ability to see the whole because we get so stuck in the parts.

Balinese Tale of Heaven and Hell

The Balinese are Hindu. But I first heard this story told by Zig Ziglar at the First Baptist Church in Dallas and have heard it several other places since then. It has great universal appeal.

A man asks to know heaven and hell. First, he is brought to a room with a great banquet of food and drink of every kind. But the people at the table have arms made of long fork-like poles and although they are able to spear the food, they are unable to bring the food to their mouths. They sit at the table in great angrish, crying and hungry. He is horrified by the scene and wants to be taken away. That, he is told, is hell.

Next, he is taken to a room that looks exactly the same. Same great banquet of food and drink. The arms of the people are also made of the same long fork-like poles so they cannot bring the food to their mouths. But there are no anguished cries. Instead there is laughter and joy. They discovered that even though they could not feed themselves, they could feed one another. This, he is told, is heaven.

What is the difference between these two places? Nothing. They are exactly the same in every detail. The only difference is some people realize they are already in heaven. And others do not. Those who recognize they are already there feed one another with joy and laughter. Those who do not, wail in anguish and hunger because they either do not realize they can feed one another, or they do not want to.

Assume someone in the room where everyone is being fed becomes indignant because they see someone who has caused great harm to others in their past. They refuse to feed this person and work hard to get others to do the same. Is that person who chooses to punish the "sinner" by not feeding him helping to create heaven? Or hell?

The Balinese are Hindu. But I first heard this story told by Zig Ziglar at the First Baptist Church in Dallas and have heard it several other places since then. It has great universal appeal.

A man asks to know heaven and hell. First, he is brought to a room with a great banquet of food and drink of every kind. But the people at the table have arms made of long fork-like poles and although they are able to spear the food, they are unable to bring the food to their mouths. They sit at the table in great angrish, crying and hungry. He is horrified by the scene and wants to be taken away. That, he is told, is hell.

Next, he is taken to a room that looks exactly the same. Same great banquet of food and drink. The arms of the people are also made of the same long fork-like poles so they cannot bring the food to their mouths. But there are no anguished cries. Instead there is laughter and joy. They discovered that even though they could not feed themselves, they could feed one another. This, he is told, is heaven.

What is the difference between these two places? Nothing. They are exactly the same in every detail. The only difference is some people realize they are already in heaven. And others do not. Those who recognize they are already there feed one another with joy and laughter. Those who do not, wail in anguish and hunger because they either do not realize they can feed one another, or they do not want to.

Assume someone in the room where everyone is being fed becomes indignant because they see someone who has caused great harm to others in their past. They refuse to feed this person and work hard to get others to do the same. Is that person who chooses to punish the "sinner" by not feeding him helping to create heaven? Or hell?

Tao Te Ching and the Gnostic Myth of Creation

I'm no expert in either the Tao te Ching or Gnosticism although I have read several translations of the Tao te Ching and have gotten through most of the Gnostic gospels. But I haven't studied either of them. It seems apparent, however, that both have at their core, the idea that rather than God being in opposition to evil, God (the Tao) transcends both good and evil. (In Gnosticism, the creator God is considered to be flawed and is not to be confused with the transcendent God.)

As I've been discussing, we're so used to taking everything as factual truths in the West that we have lost our sense of imagination and so have difficulty relating to the myths of ancient cultures. Myths were not written as factual truths, they were written as a symbolic means to explain man's relationship to the cosmos. With all of our scientific understanding and need for facts to believe something as truth, we can barely understand what these myths meant to them and tend to write them off as rediculous or non-important. Or worse, we adhere to them as literal truths.

I've written that I hold to a panentheistic view of Christianity rather than a monotheistic one because I just can't figure out what to do with evil in monotheism. I can't make it work. To think that evil will be wiped out by good just seems the perfect set-up for religious wars and hatred of the "good" against the "evil". (President Bush uses the word evil all the time about the terrorists. And the terrorists teach that the U.S is evil.)

The problem of evil is a really big problem. Not just philosophically, but how it plays out in the world. We want to get rid of what we think is bad. And there are whole religions just waiting for a savior to come and wipe that out for them. The "evil doers" will be hurting and we (the good, of course) will be rejoicing because it's finally been proven that we believed in the "right" thing and they in the wrong thing. Our good will triumph over their evil. The only problem is those we see as evil think it's the other way around - that we'll be hurting and they will be rejoicing because they believe their good will triumph over our evil. It never ends.

Gnosticism has an interesting way of soling this problem of evil.  Gnosticism is not a religion. It is simply the philosophy of salvation through knowledge. This philosophy shows up in a lot of different religions. The Persian form tends to be very dualistic. The Platonistic  form is more about transcendence. Manichaaeism adopted the dualistic Persian form, and Christianity adopted the Platonistic form. (Manichaeism believed there was a battle between the spiritual and material realm. This aescetic dualism is often associated with Gnosticism but this is a false association. Gnosticism did not view flesh as evil, but rather as further away from the transcendent God than the spirit.)

I wrote this back in 2002 for an Ancient Spiritualities class. I'm not sure exactly where this Gnostic creation myth came from, but I really like it because it is from early Christianity and ties in so well with world religions from completely different areas.  I especially noticed similarities with the Tao te Ching.

(Try looking at the True Ultimate Transcendent God as Tao, The Only Begotten (son/daughter) as Ch'i, the aspects of the Only Begotten (Aeons) as Ying/Yang, and the aspects of the Aeons (humanity, the universe, and all of the material realm) as the ten thousand things. I've paraphrased quite a bit, but hopefully it will make sense!)

The Gnostic Myth of Creation:

The True Ultimate Transcendent God wished to know himself. And so through self-limitation, acquired self-knowledge. This self knowledge is known as the Only Begotten (Mind/Truth). The Only Begotten was the comprehensible (Ch'i) aspect of the incomprehensible (Tao).

In order to know itself better, the Only Begotten began emanating aspects of itself in masculine/feminine pairs known as Aeons (Ying/Yang). These Aeons longed to know the father/mother (transcendent God).

Sophia (Wisdom) was assigned the task of finding the transcendent God. Agitation began to grow at not being able to do so until it gained power and clouded the Only Begotten (mind/truth).

Sophia had made the error of not going through the son in order to know the father (or through the daughter in order to know the mother). Because truth was clouded by the power of Agitation, Sophia substituted beauty and from beauty, she emanated a being of flawed consciousness known as the creator God. From this creator God came the material realm which was created in the flawed image of the creator.

Human beings and the universe and all that is material are aspects of the creator God who is an aspect of Sophia (Wisdom) who is an aspect of the Only Begotten (comprehensible) aspect of the ultimate Transcendent God (incomprehensible).

Human beings ARE the ultimate transcendent God, but because we were created in the error of the Aeons we remain human because we have forgotten that we must first go through the only begotten son (fullness) to get to the father (emptiness).

And this is why Christ, a unification of ALL of the aspects of the Only Begotten - Love, Beauty, Wisdom, Understanding, Justice...... was created and made manifest to save humanity from the error.

From the Tao Te Ching #42

The Tao gave birth to Ch'i,
Ch'i gave birth to Ying Yang,
Ying Yang gave birth to trinity,
Trinity gave birth to the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

What men dislike is to be orphans, to have little virtue;
and yet these are the designations which the noble ones use for themselves.

So it is that some things are increased by being diminished,
and others are diminished by being increased.

What other men (thus) teach, I also teach.
The violent and strong do not die their natural death.

another translation
The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.
Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless," But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.
For one gains by losing and loses by gaining.
What others teach, I also teach;
that is:
A violent man will die a violent death!
This will be the essence of my teaching.

I'm no expert in either the Tao te Ching or Gnosticism although I have read several translations of the Tao te Ching and have gotten through most of the Gnostic gospels. But I haven't studied either of them. It seems apparent, however, that both have at their core, the idea that rather than God being in opposition to evil, God (the Tao) transcends both good and evil. (In Gnosticism, the creator God is considered to be flawed and is not to be confused with the transcendent God.)

As I've been discussing, we're so used to taking everything as factual truths in the West that we have lost our sense of imagination and so have difficulty relating to the myths of ancient cultures. Myths were not written as factual truths, they were written as a symbolic means to explain man's relationship to the cosmos. With all of our scientific understanding and need for facts to believe something as truth, we can barely understand what these myths meant to them and tend to write them off as rediculous or non-important. Or worse, we adhere to them as literal truths.

I've written that I hold to a panentheistic view of Christianity rather than a monotheistic one because I just can't figure out what to do with evil in monotheism. I can't make it work. To think that evil will be wiped out by good just seems the perfect set-up for religious wars and hatred of the "good" against the "evil". (President Bush uses the word evil all the time about the terrorists. And the terrorists teach that the U.S is evil.)

The problem of evil is a really big problem. Not just philosophically, but how it plays out in the world. We want to get rid of what we think is bad. And there are whole religions just waiting for a savior to come and wipe that out for them. The "evil doers" will be hurting and we (the good, of course) will be rejoicing because it's finally been proven that we believed in the "right" thing and they in the wrong thing. Our good will triumph over their evil. The only problem is those we see as evil think it's the other way around - that we'll be hurting and they will be rejoicing because they believe their good will triumph over our evil. It never ends.

Gnosticism has an interesting way of soling this problem of evil.  Gnosticism is not a religion. It is simply the philosophy of salvation through knowledge. This philosophy shows up in a lot of different religions. The Persian form tends to be very dualistic. The Platonistic  form is more about transcendence. Manichaaeism adopted the dualistic Persian form, and Christianity adopted the Platonistic form. (Manichaeism believed there was a battle between the spiritual and material realm. This aescetic dualism is often associated with Gnosticism but this is a false association. Gnosticism did not view flesh as evil, but rather as further away from the transcendent God than the spirit.)

I wrote this back in 2002 for an Ancient Spiritualities class. I'm not sure exactly where this Gnostic creation myth came from, but I really like it because it is from early Christianity and ties in so well with world religions from completely different areas.  I especially noticed similarities with the Tao te Ching.

(Try looking at the True Ultimate Transcendent God as Tao, The Only Begotten (son/daughter) as Ch'i, the aspects of the Only Begotten (Aeons) as Ying/Yang, and the aspects of the Aeons (humanity, the universe, and all of the material realm) as the ten thousand things. I've paraphrased quite a bit, but hopefully it will make sense!)

The Gnostic Myth of Creation:

The True Ultimate Transcendent God wished to know himself. And so through self-limitation, acquired self-knowledge. This self knowledge is known as the Only Begotten (Mind/Truth). The Only Begotten was the comprehensible (Ch'i) aspect of the incomprehensible (Tao).

In order to know itself better, the Only Begotten began emanating aspects of itself in masculine/feminine pairs known as Aeons (Ying/Yang). These Aeons longed to know the father/mother (transcendent God).

Sophia (Wisdom) was assigned the task of finding the transcendent God. Agitation began to grow at not being able to do so until it gained power and clouded the Only Begotten (mind/truth).

Sophia had made the error of not going through the son in order to know the father (or through the daughter in order to know the mother). Because truth was clouded by the power of Agitation, Sophia substituted beauty and from beauty, she emanated a being of flawed consciousness known as the creator God. From this creator God came the material realm which was created in the flawed image of the creator.

Human beings and the universe and all that is material are aspects of the creator God who is an aspect of Sophia (Wisdom) who is an aspect of the Only Begotten (comprehensible) aspect of the ultimate Transcendent God (incomprehensible).

Human beings ARE the ultimate transcendent God, but because we were created in the error of the Aeons we remain human because we have forgotten that we must first go through the only begotten son (fullness) to get to the father (emptiness).

And this is why Christ, a unification of ALL of the aspects of the Only Begotten - Love, Beauty, Wisdom, Understanding, Justice...... was created and made manifest to save humanity from the error.

From the Tao Te Ching #42

The Tao gave birth to Ch'i,
Ch'i gave birth to Ying Yang,
Ying Yang gave birth to trinity,
Trinity gave birth to the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.

What men dislike is to be orphans, to have little virtue;
and yet these are the designations which the noble ones use for themselves.

So it is that some things are increased by being diminished,
and others are diminished by being increased.

What other men (thus) teach, I also teach.
The violent and strong do not die their natural death.

another translation
The Tao begot one.
One begot two.
Two begot three.
And three begot the ten thousand things.
The ten thousand things carry yin and embrace yang.
They achieve harmony by combining these forces.
Men hate to be "orphaned," "widowed," or "worthless," But this is how kings and lords describe themselves.
For one gains by losing and loses by gaining.
What others teach, I also teach;
that is:
A violent man will die a violent death!
This will be the essence of my teaching.

The Quest of the Holy Grail

"The great myths show that when you follow somebody else's path, you go astray. The hero has to set off by himself, leaving the old world and the old ways behind. He must venture into the darkness of the unknown, where there is no map and no clear route. He must fight his own monsters, not somebody else's, explore his own labyrinth, and endure his own ordeal before he can find what is missing in his life. Thus transfigured, he (or she) can bring something of value to the world that has been left behind. But if the knight finds himself riding along an already established track, he is simply following in somebody else's footsteps and will not have an adventure. In the words of the Old French text of The Quest of the Holy Grail, if he wants to succeed, he must enter the forest "at a point that he, himself, had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no path." The wasteland in the Grail legend is a place where people live inauthentic lives, blindly following the norms of society and doing only what other people expect." Karen Armstrong

I didn't particularly enjoy The Davinci Code. It makes for a great detective story, but it seems completely absurd to me that Jesus' bloodline could possibly be more important than discovering how to live an authentic life. (And if the holy grail is a chalice, that's even less exciting!)

An authentic life has to be one of the most sought after and least discovered abilities in the history of mankind. It is much more valuable than a gold chalice or being privy to Jesus' bloodline. And notice the title from the Old French? It's not a quest for the holy grail. It is the quest of it! Beautiful!

The Magicians Nephew

My daughter and I finished the first book of Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series tonight - The Magician's Nephew.  (We're on to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe tomorrow.)

The Magician's Nephew is the Genesis story of Narnia.  It explains how Narnia was created and how evil enters the world.  My daughter and I also read the Greek myth of Pandora's Box (well, actually Pandora's Jar) and the creation story in the Bible story for comparison's sake.  They are all quite similar actually.

Aslan is the Creator (God).  He is able to create through thought.  His breath is the Holy Spirit.  The apple represents the fruit of temptation as it does in Genesis (which parallels Pandora's sealed jar.)

I found the idea that Aslan creates through thought quite interesting so am looking forward to how Lewis continues this idea. 

The story ends with the knowledge that Narnia will regress. 

Speaking of regression, I looked up Hesiod Five Ages of Man on Wikipedia today.  Here is what it said:

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology.

In his Works and Days, the Boeotian poet Hesiod described Five Ages of Man:

1. The Golden Age - This took place during the reign of Cronus. Peace and harmony prevailed during this age. Humans did not grow old, but died peacefully. Spring was eternal and people were fed on acorns from a great oak as well as wild fruits and honey that dripped from the trees. This race eventually died out.
2. The Silver Age - These people lived for one hundred years as children without growing up, then they suddenly aged and died. Zeus destroyed these people because of their impiety.
3. The Bronze Age - These humans were fierce and warlike and their tools and implements were made of bronze. They destroyed one another in wars.
4. The Heroic Age - In this period lived noble demigods and heroes. This race of humans died and went to Elysium.
5. The Iron Age - This is the current age where humans bicker and fight, and have to struggle to eke out their existence. Zeus will someday destroy this race of humans.

Sounds more like a conservative Christian perspective than the idea that we are moving out of the iron age and back into the bronze age.  Hesiod was writing this around 700 BCE.

It will also be interesting to see how (and even if) this plays out throughout the Chronicles.

My daughter and I finished the first book of Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series tonight - The Magician's Nephew.  (We're on to the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe tomorrow.)

The Magician's Nephew is the Genesis story of Narnia.  It explains how Narnia was created and how evil enters the world.  My daughter and I also read the Greek myth of Pandora's Box (well, actually Pandora's Jar) and the creation story in the Bible story for comparison's sake.  They are all quite similar actually.

Aslan is the Creator (God).  He is able to create through thought.  His breath is the Holy Spirit.  The apple represents the fruit of temptation as it does in Genesis (which parallels Pandora's sealed jar.)

I found the idea that Aslan creates through thought quite interesting so am looking forward to how Lewis continues this idea. 

The story ends with the knowledge that Narnia will regress. 

Speaking of regression, I looked up Hesiod Five Ages of Man on Wikipedia today.  Here is what it said:

The Ages of Man are the stages of human existence on the Earth according to Classical mythology.

In his Works and Days, the Boeotian poet Hesiod described Five Ages of Man:

1. The Golden Age - This took place during the reign of Cronus. Peace and harmony prevailed during this age. Humans did not grow old, but died peacefully. Spring was eternal and people were fed on acorns from a great oak as well as wild fruits and honey that dripped from the trees. This race eventually died out.
2. The Silver Age - These people lived for one hundred years as children without growing up, then they suddenly aged and died. Zeus destroyed these people because of their impiety.
3. The Bronze Age - These humans were fierce and warlike and their tools and implements were made of bronze. They destroyed one another in wars.
4. The Heroic Age - In this period lived noble demigods and heroes. This race of humans died and went to Elysium.
5. The Iron Age - This is the current age where humans bicker and fight, and have to struggle to eke out their existence. Zeus will someday destroy this race of humans.

Sounds more like a conservative Christian perspective than the idea that we are moving out of the iron age and back into the bronze age.  Hesiod was writing this around 700 BCE.

It will also be interesting to see how (and even if) this plays out throughout the Chronicles.

Jealous Gods, Chosen People by David Leeming

I read David Leeming's book, Jealous Gods Chosen People, The Mythology of the Middle East back in July of 2004.  This seems like a good place to interject my notes from the book since much of what he has to say about the myths of the Middle East confers and expounds upon what I had learned from Campbell. 

Le eming claims that most of modern day turbulence between nations can be traced to Judeo-Christian-Islamic myths and not what the religions of these respective religions actually teach.  According to Leeming, The Commandments, Jesus' peaceful "good news", and Mohammed's equality and justice are all "clearly in moral disagreement with the positions taken by so-called fundamentalist Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the world today and in the past." Fundamentalists "forget that myths - themselves in all likelihood factually untrue - represent truths that are spiritual and philosophical. Myths help to build and to identify functional communities; they are not historical events that can reasonably be used to justify acts of violence and dominance."

The earliest stories in Genesis resemble other ancient myths that existed in the Middle East.  Some examples of these similarities:

• 12th century BCE, there exists the story of Sargon of Akkad who is born from a mother of humble birth. Like Moses, he is placed in a basket on a river and discovered and raised by Ishtar. (The tale of an infant being placed in a basket and found and/or raised by deities or royalty is a common theme of ancient mythological heroes.)
• 12th century of BCE, the tale of Marduk as creator of an ordered world. Marduk separates the heavens from the earth and brings the strong heirarchical order of male reason from the "watery, irrational chaos" represented by the female deity Tiamet (the old ways).  Very similar to the creation story in Genesis.
• Tablet 11 of the Enuma Elish, (translated "when above"), contains a flood myth very similar to the one in Genesis. Utnapishtim learns that a flood is about to destroy humanity. They will only be spared if he and his family build a boat. The measurements are given by the gods. When the boat is finished, it is filled with Utnapishtim's family, valuable, and representations of all the species. A storm comes, deluges the earth, and after 7 days the waters begin to reside and the boat lands on Mount Nisir. Various birds are released but return. A raven is released and does not return, indicating that they are saved. Inanna-Ishtar's necklace is then flung into the sky as a sign of peace, similar to the rainbow placed in the sky by God as a sign of the covenant.
• 700 BCE Egyptian Mythology: Ptah creates the gods in his heart by naming them with his tongue. Leeming says, "Ptah, like the Old Testament God in Genesis, created by thought and word. He was the Word, the Logos."
• 2040 BCE, humans in Egyptian mythology are said to be the images of a creator god as are human beings made "in the image of God" in Genesis.

However,as the Hebrew myths begin to take shape, there is a movement away from what is typically found in the area (the agricultural tribal pagan goddess) toward a patriarchal, heirarchical mentality.  "Deities such as those of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Hittites, Canaanites, and Philistines were clearly metaphorical and therefore easily assimilated by various peoples at various times.... But for Judaism as it developed, the divine was represented only by a jealous and not always compassionate god who had no divine rivals or companions."

The Hebrew Pantheon

El is the semitic word for God.   El was known in many ways.  He was the "bull God".  (The bull represented masculine power and symbolized the creator God in many Near Eastern cultures).  El is also called Ilib (Elib), the father God who contains the spirits of the dead.  The Greeks associated El with Kronos (the father of Zeus).

In Canaan, El was Baal (semitic word for Lord) and was the most important expression of the high God in that region.  But sometimes this god was said to have been fathered by El.   For the Philistines Baal was Baalzebub, the healer. The Aramean high God was Hadad which was often displaced with Baal and became Hadad-Baal. This God was later associated with Zeus (Greek) and Jupiter (Rome).

YWHW (Yahweh) is the Hebrew god that is too holy to name and is based on the verb "to be". This is the God that reveals himself to Moses as "I am".   YWHW had been considered to be one of the many Gods and was not identified as El until much much later in Jewish history.   

The name of YWHW cannot be spoken so he is addressed as Adonai (my Lord) or Elohim.  Elohim means, the gods.  Although it is the only God worshipped by the Hebrews, the Hebrews did recognize the existence of other gods.  This is considered monolatry - the worship of one God. The belief in the existence of one God (monotheism) did not come into being until 500 BCE and was not firmly established until around the time of Jesus. 

YWHW was most like the Middle Eastern Gods of all those worshipped by the Hebrews.  He was god of storms, god of war who could kill enemies, fertility god who could create the world, a jealous god of judgment, and an angry god.

Christian God

The Judeo-Christian God evolves from the Canaanite El (Baal/Lord), who was also likely the God of Abraham. Christianity adopts the Hebrew God (YWHW), but rather than a God of war he is now the loving father of Jesus.   Jesus takes on many of the aspects of the older God El - the God who involves himself in the activities of humans. Like the Egyptian God Ptah, Jesus is seen as the Logos (the Word) which is the divine ordering principle that has existed since the beginning of time.

The Christian God involves into a "complex philosophical construct known as the Trinity, in which God has three aspects or "persons" - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." It centers upon the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish reformer whose god and "father" was the god of the Jews."  The Christian theology makes use of both Middle Eastern and Greek mythologies, "especially in relation to dying-god and hero motifs and that of the mother goddess"... It expands the possibility of redemption from the Jewish view "by extending the "kingdom" and the "promised land" beyond the Hebrew race or Jewish religion to the world at large. To the extent that the religion has insisted that its way is the only way and/or that its myths are literally true, it has developed a militance and a tendency toward fundamentalism that have often placed it at odds with the actual teachings of its de facto founder by instigating or supporting violence, abuse, and repression."

Dying God is a universal theme closely related to the universal theme of the hero's descent into the underworld. The hero descends and is resurrected to bring rebirth to the land in the form of fertility (food, children, etc.). Osiris (Egyptian), Attis (Anatolian), Dionysos (Greek), Inanna and Dumuzi (Mesopotamian), Baal (Canaan), Melqart and Eshmum (Phoenician). This myth plays out in Christianity through Jesus who dies and is resurrected. But rather than physical fertility, Jesus' resurrection brings a spiritual fertility.

Incorporation of the Feminine.

Early semitic Gods in Canaan had female goddesses closely associated with them. So closely they often could not be separated. Fertility is a very important aspect of agricultural societies, and the Hebrews were not immune to worshipping Goddesses, but the Hebrews clearly saw this as a threat to the patriarchal heirarchy.

In Proverbs, Sophia (Wisdom) is closely associated with Yahweh, having been with him during the creation. In Jewish mysticism, there is the tradition of Shekhinah which is the feminine form of the divine.

In Christianity, Mary becomes deprived of her sexuality and becomes the Mother of God through her impregnation by God and subsequent birth of Jesus who is God.

The Hebrew Creation Story

There are two conflicting creation myths in Genesis, both written at different times. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is written during 6th century BCE. Creator is refered to as Elohim (all the gods in one). Contains bits of the Enuma Elish, and Egyptian influence of Elohim speaking the world into existence. Genesis 2:4-3:24 was written around 950 BCE using the jealous personal God as the creator God and creates a patriarchal existence for man, breathing life into Adam and "roaming the Garden in true land owner fashion."

Predating the story of Eve, during the onset of agriculture (2500-2300 BCE), the Sumerian Goddess Inanna (Ishtar) goes to earth to taste the fruits and vegetables to understand the mysteries of sex. She tastes the fruit and gains knowledge. In other stories of Inanna, she descends to the underworld to learn about good and evil. On her return, she falls asleep in a garden and is raped by a Sumerian man who then leaves her. She sends plagues into Sumer in revenge.

In the Hebrew myth, Eve is named for Hava (mother of the living). Hava was a Canaanite snake goddess (fertility goddesses were commonly associated with snakes), whose companion was a serpent. "What the Genesis 2 and 3 account does is deprive the female once and for all of her original and positive pagan status and to establish a sense of sin in connection with sexuality and the life cycle itself. Christians would make use of this story as the basis for the doctrine of original sin that would color that religion's mythology, its strongly patriarchal treatment of women, and its negative view of sexuality. Christians took this position in spite of the facdt that original sin is not central to the teachings of Jesus but is, in fact, negated by his role in Christian myth and theology as the "new Adam," the death-defeating fruit available to all on the new tree of life, the cross."

The Christian Creation Story

Replaces Jewish Sophia (divine wisdom) with the Greek concept of Logos (Word). From the Gospel of John "In the beginning the Word (Logos) already was. The Word (Logos) was in God's presence, and what God was, the Word was. He was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; without him no created thing came into being... and so the Word became flesh". "For the Greeks, Logos (Word) was the ordering force of the universe- divine wisdom or reason, the power that turned chaos into cosmos in the beginning."

Gnosticism interchanges Sophia with Logos. In Gnosticism, Sophia is mother of both Christ and the creator God. Sophia sends "Christ to earth as the dove to enter the human man Jesus as he was being baptized by John the Bapitst in the Jordan River."

Abrahamic Myth and Exodus

The Abrahamic Myth was written by various authors as recently as 900 BCE - 550 BCE.  They myth is set in the time period when it was mythologically common for human beings to talk with the gods. As Abraham travels, he replaces all of the old tribal god alters with the alter of Yahweh. He has Ishmael and later Isaac who gives birth to the 12 tribes of Israel. This myth "serves as a bridge between ancient times and the actual presence of Hebrews in Canaan" and "serves particularly for the justification of monotheism and claims of exclusivity" and land rights.

The Hebrews were likely a mix of Semitic tribes rather than a cohesive people. The stories of Abraham and the Exodus are culturally forging.  (They give a cultural identity and empowerment to those who had none.)

Islam

Pre-Islamic mythology was polytheistic. Jinn (spirits) were worshipped. Tribes would worship great trees and rocks that the Jinn were said to inhabit. Mohammed's tribe was said to worship a great tree called Dhat Anwat on the road between Mecca and Medina. In pre-islamic times, the Kabah was a pilgrimage center and sacred site surrounded by 360 idols. But even before Mohammed, Meccans were moving toward the idea of one God, likely influenced by Jews and Christians.

Islam is much less mythologically based than either Christianity or Judaism although folklore does exist around Mohammed, especially the passing of Allah to Mohammed of the Qur'an making him literally God's messenger. The other myth is his Journey to the seventh heaven.

Mohammed accepted the Genesis version of creation with a few exceptions. The creation process only takes 6 days, rather than 7. And Allah creates Hell for evil spirits and bad humans. All the angels are ordered to bow down to Allah's creations and all do this except Iblis (from Greek Diablos) who claimed to be better than humans because he was created from fire rather than dust. Iblis is banned from paradise with the permission to tempt humans.

In Mohammed's tale of the Garden of Eden, it is the couple who eat the fruit, not the woman tempting the man. Both eat it at the same time. In the Qur'an, it is Ishmael that is to be sacrificed by Abraham rather than Isaac. But the knife would not penetrate the flesh. Ishmael is the symbol of the perfect Muslim son. Mohammed is said to be decended from Ishmael.

Jesus is believed to be the Word of God, but not the son of God, the penultimate (next to last) prophet of Islam.

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I read David Leeming's book, Jealous Gods Chosen People, The Mythology of the Middle East back in July of 2004.  This seems like a good place to interject my notes from the book since much of what he has to say about the myths of the Middle East confers and expounds upon what I had learned from Campbell. 

Le eming claims that most of modern day turbulence between nations can be traced to Judeo-Christian-Islamic myths and not what the religions of these respective religions actually teach.  According to Leeming, The Commandments, Jesus' peaceful "good news", and Mohammed's equality and justice are all "clearly in moral disagreement with the positions taken by so-called fundamentalist Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the world today and in the past." Fundamentalists "forget that myths - themselves in all likelihood factually untrue - represent truths that are spiritual and philosophical. Myths help to build and to identify functional communities; they are not historical events that can reasonably be used to justify acts of violence and dominance."

The earliest stories in Genesis resemble other ancient myths that existed in the Middle East.  Some examples of these similarities:

• 12th century BCE, there exists the story of Sargon of Akkad who is born from a mother of humble birth. Like Moses, he is placed in a basket on a river and discovered and raised by Ishtar. (The tale of an infant being placed in a basket and found and/or raised by deities or royalty is a common theme of ancient mythological heroes.)
• 12th century of BCE, the tale of Marduk as creator of an ordered world. Marduk separates the heavens from the earth and brings the strong heirarchical order of male reason from the "watery, irrational chaos" represented by the female deity Tiamet (the old ways).  Very similar to the creation story in Genesis.
• Tablet 11 of the Enuma Elish, (translated "when above"), contains a flood myth very similar to the one in Genesis. Utnapishtim learns that a flood is about to destroy humanity. They will only be spared if he and his family build a boat. The measurements are given by the gods. When the boat is finished, it is filled with Utnapishtim's family, valuable, and representations of all the species. A storm comes, deluges the earth, and after 7 days the waters begin to reside and the boat lands on Mount Nisir. Various birds are released but return. A raven is released and does not return, indicating that they are saved. Inanna-Ishtar's necklace is then flung into the sky as a sign of peace, similar to the rainbow placed in the sky by God as a sign of the covenant.
• 700 BCE Egyptian Mythology: Ptah creates the gods in his heart by naming them with his tongue. Leeming says, "Ptah, like the Old Testament God in Genesis, created by thought and word. He was the Word, the Logos."
• 2040 BCE, humans in Egyptian mythology are said to be the images of a creator god as are human beings made "in the image of God" in Genesis.

However,as the Hebrew myths begin to take shape, there is a movement away from what is typically found in the area (the agricultural tribal pagan goddess) toward a patriarchal, heirarchical mentality.  "Deities such as those of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Hittites, Canaanites, and Philistines were clearly metaphorical and therefore easily assimilated by various peoples at various times.... But for Judaism as it developed, the divine was represented only by a jealous and not always compassionate god who had no divine rivals or companions."

The Hebrew Pantheon

El is the semitic word for God.   El was known in many ways.  He was the "bull God".  (The bull represented masculine power and symbolized the creator God in many Near Eastern cultures).  El is also called Ilib (Elib), the father God who contains the spirits of the dead.  The Greeks associated El with Kronos (the father of Zeus).

In Canaan, El was Baal (semitic word for Lord) and was the most important expression of the high God in that region.  But sometimes this god was said to have been fathered by El.   For the Philistines Baal was Baalzebub, the healer. The Aramean high God was Hadad which was often displaced with Baal and became Hadad-Baal. This God was later associated with Zeus (Greek) and Jupiter (Rome).

YWHW (Yahweh) is the Hebrew god that is too holy to name and is based on the verb "to be". This is the God that reveals himself to Moses as "I am".   YWHW had been considered to be one of the many Gods and was not identified as El until much much later in Jewish history.   

The name of YWHW cannot be spoken so he is addressed as Adonai (my Lord) or Elohim.  Elohim means, the gods.  Although it is the only God worshipped by the Hebrews, the Hebrews did recognize the existence of other gods.  This is considered monolatry - the worship of one God. The belief in the existence of one God (monotheism) did not come into being until 500 BCE and was not firmly established until around the time of Jesus. 

YWHW was most like the Middle Eastern Gods of all those worshipped by the Hebrews.  He was god of storms, god of war who could kill enemies, fertility god who could create the world, a jealous god of judgment, and an angry god.

Christian God

The Judeo-Christian God evolves from the Canaanite El (Baal/Lord), who was also likely the God of Abraham. Christianity adopts the Hebrew God (YWHW), but rather than a God of war he is now the loving father of Jesus.   Jesus takes on many of the aspects of the older God El - the God who involves himself in the activities of humans. Like the Egyptian God Ptah, Jesus is seen as the Logos (the Word) which is the divine ordering principle that has existed since the beginning of time.

The Christian God involves into a "complex philosophical construct known as the Trinity, in which God has three aspects or "persons" - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." It centers upon the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish reformer whose god and "father" was the god of the Jews."  The Christian theology makes use of both Middle Eastern and Greek mythologies, "especially in relation to dying-god and hero motifs and that of the mother goddess"... It expands the possibility of redemption from the Jewish view "by extending the "kingdom" and the "promised land" beyond the Hebrew race or Jewish religion to the world at large. To the extent that the religion has insisted that its way is the only way and/or that its myths are literally true, it has developed a militance and a tendency toward fundamentalism that have often placed it at odds with the actual teachings of its de facto founder by instigating or supporting violence, abuse, and repression."

Dying God is a universal theme closely related to the universal theme of the hero's descent into the underworld. The hero descends and is resurrected to bring rebirth to the land in the form of fertility (food, children, etc.). Osiris (Egyptian), Attis (Anatolian), Dionysos (Greek), Inanna and Dumuzi (Mesopotamian), Baal (Canaan), Melqart and Eshmum (Phoenician). This myth plays out in Christianity through Jesus who dies and is resurrected. But rather than physical fertility, Jesus' resurrection brings a spiritual fertility.

Incorporation of the Feminine.

Early semitic Gods in Canaan had female goddesses closely associated with them. So closely they often could not be separated. Fertility is a very important aspect of agricultural societies, and the Hebrews were not immune to worshipping Goddesses, but the Hebrews clearly saw this as a threat to the patriarchal heirarchy.

In Proverbs, Sophia (Wisdom) is closely associated with Yahweh, having been with him during the creation. In Jewish mysticism, there is the tradition of Shekhinah which is the feminine form of the divine.

In Christianity, Mary becomes deprived of her sexuality and becomes the Mother of God through her impregnation by God and subsequent birth of Jesus who is God.

The Hebrew Creation Story

There are two conflicting creation myths in Genesis, both written at different times. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is written during 6th century BCE. Creator is refered to as Elohim (all the gods in one). Contains bits of the Enuma Elish, and Egyptian influence of Elohim speaking the world into existence. Genesis 2:4-3:24 was written around 950 BCE using the jealous personal God as the creator God and creates a patriarchal existence for man, breathing life into Adam and "roaming the Garden in true land owner fashion."

Predating the story of Eve, during the onset of agriculture (2500-2300 BCE), the Sumerian Goddess Inanna (Ishtar) goes to earth to taste the fruits and vegetables to understand the mysteries of sex. She tastes the fruit and gains knowledge. In other stories of Inanna, she descends to the underworld to learn about good and evil. On her return, she falls asleep in a garden and is raped by a Sumerian man who then leaves her. She sends plagues into Sumer in revenge.

In the Hebrew myth, Eve is named for Hava (mother of the living). Hava was a Canaanite snake goddess (fertility goddesses were commonly associated with snakes), whose companion was a serpent. "What the Genesis 2 and 3 account does is deprive the female once and for all of her original and positive pagan status and to establish a sense of sin in connection with sexuality and the life cycle itself. Christians would make use of this story as the basis for the doctrine of original sin that would color that religion's mythology, its strongly patriarchal treatment of women, and its negative view of sexuality. Christians took this position in spite of the facdt that original sin is not central to the teachings of Jesus but is, in fact, negated by his role in Christian myth and theology as the "new Adam," the death-defeating fruit available to all on the new tree of life, the cross."

The Christian Creation Story

Replaces Jewish Sophia (divine wisdom) with the Greek concept of Logos (Word). From the Gospel of John "In the beginning the Word (Logos) already was. The Word (Logos) was in God's presence, and what God was, the Word was. He was with God at the beginning, and through him all things came to be; without him no created thing came into being... and so the Word became flesh". "For the Greeks, Logos (Word) was the ordering force of the universe- divine wisdom or reason, the power that turned chaos into cosmos in the beginning."

Gnosticism interchanges Sophia with Logos. In Gnosticism, Sophia is mother of both Christ and the creator God. Sophia sends "Christ to earth as the dove to enter the human man Jesus as he was being baptized by John the Bapitst in the Jordan River."

Abrahamic Myth and Exodus

The Abrahamic Myth was written by various authors as recently as 900 BCE - 550 BCE.  They myth is set in the time period when it was mythologically common for human beings to talk with the gods. As Abraham travels, he replaces all of the old tribal god alters with the alter of Yahweh. He has Ishmael and later Isaac who gives birth to the 12 tribes of Israel. This myth "serves as a bridge between ancient times and the actual presence of Hebrews in Canaan" and "serves particularly for the justification of monotheism and claims of exclusivity" and land rights.

The Hebrews were likely a mix of Semitic tribes rather than a cohesive people. The stories of Abraham and the Exodus are culturally forging.  (They give a cultural identity and empowerment to those who had none.)

Islam

Pre-Islamic mythology was polytheistic. Jinn (spirits) were worshipped. Tribes would worship great trees and rocks that the Jinn were said to inhabit. Mohammed's tribe was said to worship a great tree called Dhat Anwat on the road between Mecca and Medina. In pre-islamic times, the Kabah was a pilgrimage center and sacred site surrounded by 360 idols. But even before Mohammed, Meccans were moving toward the idea of one God, likely influenced by Jews and Christians.

Islam is much less mythologically based than either Christianity or Judaism although folklore does exist around Mohammed, especially the passing of Allah to Mohammed of the Qur'an making him literally God's messenger. The other myth is his Journey to the seventh heaven.

Mohammed accepted the Genesis version of creation with a few exceptions. The creation process only takes 6 days, rather than 7. And Allah creates Hell for evil spirits and bad humans. All the angels are ordered to bow down to Allah's creations and all do this except Iblis (from Greek Diablos) who claimed to be better than humans because he was created from fire rather than dust. Iblis is banned from paradise with the permission to tempt humans.

In Mohammed's tale of the Garden of Eden, it is the couple who eat the fruit, not the woman tempting the man. Both eat it at the same time. In the Qur'an, it is Ishmael that is to be sacrificed by Abraham rather than Isaac. But the knife would not penetrate the flesh. Ishmael is the symbol of the perfect Muslim son. Mohammed is said to be decended from Ishmael.

Jesus is believed to be the Word of God, but not the son of God, the penultimate (next to last) prophet of Islam.

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