"Myths fired my imagination powerfully as a kid. Greek, Norse, Hopi, West African animist tales, I devoured them all. But the stories of the Judeo-Christian canon were an exception. The retellings were always so mired in kid-glove sacredness that all the rich drama was drained out of them. Christian Mythology for Kids finally restores these fantastic tales to their rightful place among the great, compelling stories of humanity. I want to be a kid again so I can discover Christian myth afresh." - Dale McGowan Author, Parenting Beyond Belief and Raising Freethinkers.
Increasing numbers of parents are raising their children free from religion. Christian Mythology for Kids is for secular families, to hear the stories of Christian myths without fear or empty promises. These stories are just as exciting, improbable, and fantastic as the myths of the Norse gods or the fables of Aesop.
Taking a mythology class in high school was very instrumental in helping me to properly understand the stories of the Bible. In fact it was a few years later that I determined to read the Bible from that point of view, and it was far more interesting and entertaining from that perceptive.
I have always felt that the Bible had value in helping to understand ancient societies and the formation of some of our current governments, but only with the ideas of how the book was written, sourced, and translated kept in mind.
I will totally buy this book and add it to my collection.
I like this book idea, for I, like you, found the myths and legends to be wonderful and enlightening, but balked when it came to the daily practice of being a Christian worshipper. I will look into this new book you've suggested.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was fascinated by mythology. So much so that I wrote a high school paper in tenth grade entitled "Myths of Creation". Unfortunately, one of the teachers who was very religious got hold of it and royally reamed my ass about including genesis. She wasn't too happy about my having included the different versions at that, either.
ReplyDeleteWOW! Talk about a serious wake up call! It was my first MAJOR attack from the religious right. I never forgot it. It was one of the MANY things I got "hit" with that reinforced the idea in my head that religion was garbage.
Anything that caused such violent reactions HAD to be wrong! I've since modified that statement - slightly. It became "Fanaticism for ANY reason is dangerous".
OT-http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/04/bill-nye-climate-inquiring-minds
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ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/620362394743386/photos/a.622975474482078.1073741827.620362394743386/937137489732540/?type=3&theater
Whether religious or not, I think it's important to read key parts of the bible. So much of western culture is rooted in those texts, along with the Greeks. The King James version of the bible is integral to the development of the English language. There is much about the teachings of Christ that remains revolutionary -- that all people are equal in the eye of God -- that the poor and disadvantaged deserve our help -- that all are sinners, but no one is beyond redemption. You do not have to be a card-carrying Christian to understand how the tenants of Christ's teaching changed society. In fact, it may be better not to be a card-carrying Christian to appreciate the full impact of the Bible on our culture.
ReplyDeleteThe King James Bible, which was first published 405 years ago, may be the single best thing ever accomplished by a committee. The Bible was the work of 54 scholars and clergymen who met over seven years in six nine-man subcommittees, called “companies.” In a preface to the new Bible, Miles Smith, one of the translators and a man so impatient that he once walked out of a boring sermon and went to the pub, wrote that anything new inevitably “endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition.” So there must have been disputes — shouting; table pounding; high-ruffed, black-gowned clergymen folding their arms and stomping out of the room — but there is no record of them. And the finished text shows none of the PowerPoint insipidness we associate with committee-speak or with later group translations like the 1961 New English Bible, which T.S. Eliot said did not even rise to “dignified mediocrity.” Far from bland, the King James Bible is one of the great masterpieces of English prose.
DeleteYou can hear its distinctive cadences in the speeches of Lincoln, the poetry of Whitman, the novels of Cormac McCarthy.
Even in its time, the King James Bible was deliberately archaic in grammar and phraseology: an expression like “yea, verily,” for example, had gone out of fashion some 50 years before. The translators didn’t want their Bible to sound contemporary, because they knew that contemporaneity quickly goes out of fashion. When the Victorians came to revise the King James Bible in 1885, they embraced this principle wholeheartedly, and like those people who whack and scratch old furniture to make it look even more ancient, they threw in a lot of extra Jacobeanisms, like “howbeit,” “peradventure, “holden” and “behooved.”
The influence of the King James Bible is so great that the list of idioms from it that have slipped into everyday speech, taking such deep root that we use them all the time without any awareness of their biblical origin, is practically endless: sour grapes; fatted calf; salt of the earth; drop in a bucket; skin of one’s teeth; apple of one’s eye; girded loins; feet of clay; whited sepulchers; filthy lucre; pearls before swine; fly in the ointment; fight the good fight; eat, drink and be merry.
Bravo, 7:12. Ardent atheists do civilization no favors if, in their zeal, they discourage or disparage the great texts of the world. And yes, Christianity in particular is revolutionary in recognizing and respecting common man and the poor. I think anyone who considers themselves well-read would have read it or least have the bible on their reading list. (hypocrite here, because I haven't read it, but have tons of books ABOUT it)
DeleteIt is tragic though, that it and other "bibles" are often used to enforce a twisted or literal interpretation. Ken Kesey mused that maybe the bible should be buried for a few centuries and then read anew without all the baggage that fanatics have attached to it.
Except for the part about witches I might agree with you. That line alone killed hundreds of people.
DeleteIn my post at 7:12 above "tenants" should be "tenets." And to Tennessee Christian, thank you for the brilliant reply.
DeleteAnonymous 8:58 AM
DeleteAnd to Tennessee Christian, thank you for the brilliant reply.
If you enjoyed TC's "brilliant reply" that much maybe you should read the entire article from which his/her reply was lifted without credit:
Why the King James Bible Endures
By CHARLES McGRATH APRIL 23, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/weekinreview/24mcgrath.html
"If you enjoyed TC's "brilliant reply" that much maybe you should read the entire article from which his/her reply was lifted without credit:"
DeleteHere's your Sunday assignment: How do you know I am not the source used by the author of that article?
Nevertheless, I am flattered and never imagined someone would fact check one of my blog comments, especially on a Saturday.
8:49
DeleteI already have an assignment for Sunday and I can assure you it doesn't include caring whether you are or are not the author of that article just as you aren't the author of the other articles you plagiarized for your comments.
I didn't fact-check your comment. I remembered reading the article in the NYT and your comment seemed too similar to be chance. Maybe you really are ther author. In that case, thank you for updating the number 400 to 405. I thought that was a nice touch.
The holiday, which starts at sundown tonight, commemorates the Jews’ struggle for freedom from slavery in pharaoh-era Egypt.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/22/how-is-this-vodka-different-from-all-other-vodkas-kosher-booze-for-thirsty-jews.html
And t his appears NO WHERE else in any civilizations written history... not Egypt who's scholars wrote down every bloody thing that happened in the kingdom. Another myth.
DeleteAnd you'd think that alllll those people(nearly 6 mil in the end according to the holy word of god) wandering around in a relatively small area for '40 years' would've left a few pot shards or somethin'. NOTHING. NADA. Nothing to corroborate the allegations of an exodus has ever surfaced.
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.climbwyoming.org