User talk:Phatius McBluff/Christian mythology

Possible sources: --Phatius McBluff (talk) 06:10, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Anything by Mircea Eliade. Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return and Myth and Reality provide good discussions of the contrast between the Christian view of time and the portrayal of time in pagan mythologies.
 * Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Devotes a lot of space to discussing Christianity, although not all the stuff on Christianity is usable, because a lot of it is more about church history than about myths per se.

The organization/structure of this article
How should this article be organized? According to mythological theme (e.g. Descent to the underworld)? According to historical development (e.g. biblical myths first, then medieval myths, etc.)? According to genre of mythology (e.g. first we discuss stories that qualify as myths according to the ultra-narrow folkloristic definition, then we discuss legends, then folktales)? This will need to be worked out as the project develops. All suggestions are welcome. (Right now, however, I'm more concerned with finding relevant, sourced information and getting it saved to the draft, to be reorganized later.) --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:51, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

Excellent material from old version of the article
To be included in the new draft once I verify it:

From Roman Empire to Europe

After Christian theology was accepted by the Roman Empire, promoted by St. Augustine in the 5th century, Christian mythology began to predominate the Roman Empire. Later the theology was carried north by Charlemagne and the Frankish people, and Christian themes began to weave into the framework of European mythologies (Eliade 1963:162-181). The pre-Christian (Germanic and Celtic mythology that were native to the tribes of Northern Europe were denounced and submerged, while saint myths, Mary stories, Crusade myths, and other Christian myths took their place. However, pre-Christian myths never went entirely away, they mingled with the (Roman Catholic) Christian framework to form new stories, like myths of the mythological kings and saints and miracles, for example (Eliade 1963:162-181). Stories such as that of Beowulf and Icelandic, Norse, and Germanic sagas were reinterpreted somewhat, and given Christian meanings. The legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is a striking example (Treharne 1971). The thrust of incorporation took on one of two directions. When Christianity was on the advance, pagan myths were Christianized; when it was in retreat, Bible stories and Christian saints lost their mythological importance to the culture.

Since Enlightment

Since the end of the eighteenth century, the biblical stories have lost some of their mythological basis to western society, owing to the scepticism of the Enlightenment, nineteenth-century freethinking, and twentieth century modernism. Most westerners no longer found Christianity to be their primary imaginative and mythological framework by which they understand the world. However other scholars believe mythology is in our psych, and that mythical influences of Christianity are in many of our ideals, for example the Judeo-Christian idea of an after-life and heaven (Eliade 1963:184). The book Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X by Tom Beaudoin explores the premise that Christian mythology is present in the mythologies of pop-culture, such as Madonna's Like a Prayer or Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun. Modern myths are strong in comic book stories (as stories of culture heroes) and detective novels as myths of good versus evil(Eliade 1963:185). --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:26, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, the bit from Eliade about Christian mythology incorporating material from pagan mythology has already been mentioned in the draft, so I simply added Eliade as a source. I couldn't identify the source called Treharne, because a full citation doesn't appear in the bibliography for the old (current) Christian mythology article. I think the source may be Elaine M. Treharne, but I haven't been able to verify that any work of hers uses the term "myth" in connection with King Arthur, so I'll keep that on hold for now. The stuff on post-Enlightenment myth isn't specifically about Christian-themed myth, so I'll keep that on hold also, although if someone wants to add similar material in such a way as to show its relevance to the article, be my guest. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment from SuperX9
This is interesting! The material that Phatius provides is of good scholarly nature. I believe what may be of value to this topic is adding some Eastern Christian ideas as well as some western bibical ideas which have lost some flavour among modern bibical scholars. I look forward to seeing how this project unfolds. SuperX9 (talk) 17:44, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the supportive words, SuperX9. I agree that I need to look further into Eastern Christianity (an area that often receives relatively little attention in historical studies of Christianity). If you know of any good sources (preferrably ones that have the word "myth" in their titles or that use the word "myth" frequently), please let me know. Also, I notice that you created your account today. Welcome to Wikipedia! If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them or to direct you to someone who can. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 22:55, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! SuperX9 (talk) 04:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Ready to go?
As I have advertised on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mythology and Talk:Christian mythology, I think that this draft (although surely not yet a "good article") may be superior to the current article. If anyone has any opinions about whether the draft is ready to go (i.e. ready to be used as a replacement for the current article), please post them here. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 18:23, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think some of the notes, See Also entries, and Further Reading in the original article need to be preserved here before replacing the original. Also, the original should be gone over once more in detail to determine if anything that will be lost from it is worth preserving in this article.


 * Formatting suggestion: You need to collapse all those duplicate references using named ref tags; they needlessly add to the article's length.


 * Keep in mind that one can have separate sections for references, notes, and sources. References are what you have already, sources are what you have already, but notes can be referenced as and under the Notes section you'd have the tag and all the notes in group "n" will appear in that section (in 2 columns). The article on Muhammad uses this technique. ~Amatulić (talk) 07:11, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Question: I believe there is a bot that will automatically convert the duplicate references; do you happen to know if there's a way to get it to work on a specific article? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 15:49, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure. Ask on Bot requests. But it's pretty easy to do it manually. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Okay, I did it manually (sorry about the edit conflicts). I'll look back through the old version to see what more I can use. If you have any recommendations, let me know. --Phatius McBluff (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)