How Belief Stories Matter / An Approach to Myth

For journalists and advertisers, myth is what people often have the poor judgment to believe, and informed people will want to debunk. But if we regard myth as the story element in religions, we see how it dramatizes and fosters a culture's cherished truths. Early mythologists safely eviscerated belief-stories of their sacred meaning, but anthropology, ethnology, and religious studies have advanced the discourse on myth from judgments of primitive savages toward greater regard for commonalities between less familiar and major religions. This book offers a productive means for scholars and teachers to deal with the vast range of worldwide belief stories -- Ashanti to Hindu, Christian to Navajo. It shows how three interconnected components of belief-systems -- Doctrine, Story (myth), and Ritual -- reinforce one another to carry forward values that identify and cohere a society, and to reassure its members that there is order in the cosmos, within which they have significance. It should not be so striking that myths have features in common as that mythmaking (mythopoesis) is universal. With an emphasis on the triad of belief system components, the book distinguishes myth from other narrative forms, considers its sources, and probes story-telling skills and politics in classical mythological literature.