Phrixus

2011-03-16

Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

The classical Greek myths related to the founding of the colony of Cyrene in North Africa (Libya) are worth knowing about alongside the biblical narrative of the founding of Israel. This post is a presentation of my understanding of some of the ideas of Philippe Wajdenbaum found in a recent article in the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, and that apparently epitomize his thesis, Argonauts of the Desert.

My recent post drew attention to the following mythemes in common to both the Phrixus and Isaac sacrifice stories. I’m not sure if my delineation of them is guilty of slightly blurring the edges of a strict definition of a mytheme, but they are certainly common elements. Continue reading “Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land”

2011-03-14

The Bible’s roots in Greek mythology and classical authors: Isaac and Phrixus

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

When I wrote a series of posts on resonances between the Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes and several features of Old Testament narratives, I confessed I did not know how to understand or interpret the data. But someone else does. Philippe Wajdenbaum in 2008 defended his anthropology doctoral thesis, “Argonauts of the Desert: Structural Analysis of the Hebrew Bible.” He applies the structural analysis of myths as developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss to the Bible, something Lévi-Strauss himself never got around to doing, although he did eventually encourage biblical scholars to do so. This post looks at one detail of a detail-rich article in the 2010 Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament (Vol. 24, No. 1, 129-142), “Is the Bible a Platonic Book?” (After a few more posts on this my next project will be to see if the same type of analysis can be used to suggest origins of the Gospel myths.)

Lévi-Strauss and structural analysis of myths

In Wajdenbaum’s words,

For Lévi-Strauss, a version of a myth is always derived from an existing adaptation, originating most of the time from a different culture and language. A myth must always be analysed in comparison to its variants within the same cultural area where contacts between populations are proven. (p. 131) Continue reading “The Bible’s roots in Greek mythology and classical authors: Isaac and Phrixus”

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https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080
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Scott Ruhren on Good King Josiah: Why did he have to die like that? (Like Moses? Like Jesus?): “You’re the only one yet that made it make sense to me.” Mar 19, 11:56
Winston Shipman on From Humble Beginnings: A Tale of Two Divinities — Jesus and Apollo: “You are right. And the disciples are illiterates . Probably not for no reason. Each of the illiterate disciples will…” Mar 19, 04:43
Neil Godfrey on Jesus’ Unheroic Moment in Gethsemane – and a return to Vridar/Vardis Fisher: “That’s a good idea. I don’t know why it is so hard to find — even in some of those…” Mar 18, 21:11
Ben Woodbury on Jesus’ Unheroic Moment in Gethsemane – and a return to Vridar/Vardis Fisher: “If you still have motivation remaining after completion of your current translation task, could you please consider taking on the…” Mar 18, 20:01
Winston Shipman on From Humble Beginnings: A Tale of Two Divinities — Jesus and Apollo: “I must repeat again that I am Jewish just so nobody thinks I am making generalities about the Jews that…” Mar 18, 07:29
Koren on Why the Gospels Are Historical Fiction: “Yes (that literally made me laugh, too. Not bad, as it’s now 2 years later). Maybe we’re asking too much.…” Mar 18, 00:27
KOREN on Why the Gospels Are Historical Fiction: “Thank you! It’s years later, but I still find Luke almost embarrassing and am grateful for the links.” Mar 18, 00:14
Steve Ruis on Jesus’ Unheroic Moment in Gethsemane – and a return to Vridar/Vardis Fisher: “Re “Jesus’ struggle in Gethsemane is not heroic.” Nothing about Jesus is heroic. Anything that might have been was removed…” Mar 17, 16:06
RParvus on A Simonian Origin for Christianity? — A few more thoughts: “Giuseppe, The early records don’t tell us much about either the Dositheans or about Simonian activity in Samaria. That means…” Mar 17, 15:34

Tag: Phrixus

2011-03-16

Greek Myths Related to Tales of Abraham, Isaac, Moses and the Promised Land

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

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2011-03-14

The Bible’s roots in Greek mythology and classical authors: Isaac and Phrixus

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Lévi-Strauss and structural analysis of myths

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Lévi-Strauss and structural analysis of myths

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