Why does Greek mythology ostensibly lack many of the “survivalistic” traits of Jewish holy texts?
What we have now as Greek mythology is at best distantly related to the forms in which it was the object of popular, believing worship. A look at Hinduism might be instructive. As a monolith of cultural anthropology it has a lot of similarities to Greek mythology — lots of anthropomorphic gods with lots of backstory. In the life of an observant, believing Hindu it is very different indeed — a lot less on the “mythology” and a lot more on other aspects of the devotion, as well other aspects of cultural overlay like the Caste system. And, as with Hindus, I suspect that the mythos themselves were always understood by the contemporaries (at least the elites) to partake as much of racial / cultural / literary narrative (and regulation of society going foward) as of literal supernatural truth. One of the real novelties — and, I suspect, selective strengths — of monotheism is its ability to foster a much more thorough degree of faith among its notional adherent. A much higher percentage o
First, let me put my cards on the table. I think the theory of religious texts as survival tools is intellectually worthless. It treats religion in purely functional terms — i.e. as a survival kit; a set of tools serving particular purposes — and, in doing so, ignores the irrational aspects of religious belief, the presence of conflict and ambiguity in religious texts, the role of ritual in religious worship — almost everything, in fact, that makes religion distinctive and interesting and worth studying. It is also fundamentally mistaken in assuming that there is a single model of ‘religion’ against which all the major religions of the world can be measured. The underlying problem with Pinker’s theory is that while he claims to be talking about ‘religion’ he is actually talking about the particular variety of religion with which he, as an American academic, is most familiar: i.e. the monotheism of the Old and New Testaments, as received in the Christian tradition. OK, that’s my poin
