Talk:Jewish mythology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mythology Portal
This article is supported by WikiProject Mythology .

This project provides a central approach to Mythology-related subjects on Wikipedia.
Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article has been marked as needing immediate attention.
Judaism Portal
Jewish mythology is part of WikiProject Judaism, a project to improve all articles related to Judaism. If you would like to help improve this and other articles related to the subject, consider joining the project. All interested editors are welcome. This template adds articles to Category:WikiProject Judaism articles.
Project Judaism To-do:
Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the quality scale.
High This article has been rated as high-importance on the importance scale.

Contents

[edit] This article

This arcticle is as informative as it could possibly be without going into so much detail on judaism noone would be able to read through it. -Rafi Letzter

I hate to say it, but this is a really [bad] article. It does not specify who has the views provided -- many people or few, scholars or non-scholars, critical or orthodox, clerical or lay -- so it is fundamentally uninformative. The phrase "some people" in this particular context is laughable (ALL views are held by "some people"). Perhaps some narrow groups of people use "mystical vs. mythological" this way, but it does not seem to reflect sound schoalrship on Jewish mysticism, nor does it use the words "myth," "mythology," or "mythological" the way social scientists, historicans, or literary critics use the terms. There are some people active here who know more about Jewish Studies than I do, but I am fairly well-read for a non-expert and none of this makes any sense to me, so what value does it have for a wider audience except to misinform them? If there is some value to this article, then at the very least it needs much more context and specificity for it to make sense. I can't begin to improve it without just deleting it and starting from scratch, so if I have misunderstood the article as intended by the contributers involved, I hope they will work on this, soon Slrubenstein

Slrubenstein:Many Wikipedia articles have started off far worse than this one has. To sit on the sidelines and sling mud at an article, especially by using an "expletive" that should be "deleted", in the context of a scholarly discussion is very sad. Maybe you should clean up your own act and wash your figurative mouth out with some soap and water before passing judgment on a subject about which you admit you know nothing. However, be that as it may, yes, this article, like tens of thousands of others on Wikipedia needs work and polishing, which it will invariably get eventually. Cool your heels. IZAK 01:39, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Wow. I find myself agreeing with IZAK. What a day. - Gilgamesh 11:36, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

I stand by what I wrote. As I wrote, I know something about this topic, and the article as it stands is at best misleading. It does not need "polishing," it needs massive correction, which will inevitably involve deleting much misleading or wrong material. Slrubenstein

  • Slr: Well, since this is the discussion page meant to to serve for the improvement of articles, could you please list:
  1. What is it in the article that is "misleading"?
  2. Specifically what facts/issues/personalities in this article need "massive correction"?
  3. What do you think needs to be deleted and why?
  4. Which specific citations do you deem to be "misleading"?
  5. What are the "wrong" points secifically?

Remember, this article was written as an "introduction" to a complex area concerning Judaism so I assume you have a fairly good background in that too and not just in the separate subject of "mythology" alone. I know you are concerned about the "purity" of how the subject of "mythology" is handled, but this is not merely about some past ancient abstract occult mythological phenomenon, this about a part of the living Jewish religion and way of life as based on the Torah, Tanak , Talmud and the Halakha AS WELL AS the vast area of Midrash, Zohar and Kabbalah and much more that is still avidly studied and understood by many leading Torah scholars AND lay people today. IZAK 06:21, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reread what I originally wrote, in which I specify what is wrong. Slrubenstein

I agree with SLR's comments in full. RK 13:36, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Let's face it. This is my religion, yet I consider the Torah and Tanakh to be rooted in mythology, same as any other religion. Just because those folks in the frum end of the religion call it mysticism, not mythology, does not change that fact. However, because some folks don't consider it mythology, my views obviously wouldn't be NPOV. Go figure. Oh yeah. And some of you would point out I'm writing on Shabbat, and you'd point out it was a mitzvah NOT to write on Shabbat. Whatever. Point is this: Mythology is mythology, whether it concerns Ragnarok or the worship of the Golden Calf. Rickyrab 07:31, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Should this article include both Jewish mythology and Jewish folklore? How do the parallel articles in Wikipedia (on other mythologies and folklores) handle the distinction (if at all?) RK 13:36, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

This page was false advertising. It did not discuss Jewish mythology. Rather, it only contained a series of religious polemics against anyone who studied Jewish mythology, claiming that they didn't understand Torah-true Judaism. None of the many other Wikipedia pages on folklore do this, and this page should not do so either. That is a violation of Wikipedia policy. People don't come to an encyclopedia to be told that they are heretics are stuck in a Western mindset, even if they are told so politely. I have tried to improve the article slightly, but at present am focusing on the Aggadah article. RK 13:49, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A new proposal

I don't think it makes any sense to have an article on Jewish folklore, aggadah and on Jewish mythology. Indeed, one might fairly say that Judaism has no indigenous mythology distinct from its theology and aggadah. Of course, it is also fair to say that the Hebrew Bible is permeated with stories that have all the characterisitics of what is termed mythology. Yet the study of Biblical studies from the perspective of myth is far from the discussion of Kabbalah as myth. It seems to me that we need to remove this particular article on Jewish mythology altogether, as it attempts to combine far too many distinct topics into one article. As such, I propose that we use this scheme:

Jewish folklore - Studying Judaism's folklore from a historical perspective.
Aggadah - About the non-legal teachings in classical rabbinic literature.
Kabbalah - Our present article on Kabbalah can include scholarly studies of mythological tendencies and themes within Kabbalah. If this section becomes too long, it can be spun off into its own article.
Biblical mythology - A new article that I just created, discussing how scholars analye Biblical themes and stories as myth. RK 02:05, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thats not a bad proposal. I think Jewish Mythology should point to the page on kabalah and on aggadah. StephenGoldmeier

After five months no one has disagreed. I this will redirect this currently useless article to Jewish folklore, and make sure that this article links to the other articles mentioned above. RK 03:21, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Reasonable proposal. It seems to me that the Biblical mythology article might better be part of a more general article on modern critical approaches to the Bible, summarizing things like the Documentary Hypothesis, archeological and anthropological approaches, literary approaches, etc., which could always spin off sub-articles as needed. It seems to me that the very act of characterizing subject-matter as mythology reflects a POV and the article titles might better describe approaches (i.e. "ethnographic approaches to the Bible" rather than making what would appear to be claims about the content "Biblical mythology" --Shirahadasha 05:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What happened to the redirect?

I just came across this article and was shocked by the amateurish approach to this subject. As a fairly knowledgeable Torah Jew, I know that what you read (in the Torah, Mishna, Talmud, etc.) cannot always be taken at face value. This article purports to "analyze" something called "Jewish mythology" on its face. That is, if the Talmud talks about flying dragons, it must mean that the Sages believed in flying dragons. Nothing can be further from the truth. Often these descriptions are analogies or oblique references to deeper teachings which the Rabbis of the Talmud preferred to keep hidden from the eyes of the general public. Thus, Talmud must be learned with a teacher; else you could come up with all kinds of crazy ideas like those espoused in this article. I agree with Slrubenstein and RK that something drastic needs to be done here. However, RK's very good suggestion of redirecting this to Jewish folklore has apparently backfired, because Jewish folklore is a redirect to Jewish mythology! I have put a notice for clean-up on the main page, but I would really like to submit this for AfD. Yoninah 20:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

You could try, but I doubt it would pass. You could always reverse the redirects. Jayjg (talk) 17:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The notion about "flying dragons" being coded proxies for other meanings revealed only to legitimate students has a parallel in medieval astrological practice where writings that are ridiculous on their face actually describe procedures meant to be understood only by adepts. Myron 01:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Mythology" is such a loaded term

"Mythology" is such a loaded term, since myth as a label often refers to something the labeler doesn't believe in. The article is full of statements like "The classical rabbis themselves were at times not free from sharing in the popular beliefs. Yet there are found instances of exceptional freedom from mythological influences." This is an inherently POV claim, and the article should be careful to identify who is making such claims and cite sources. Likewise, casual unsourced comparisons to other cultures in ancecdotal fashion doesn't strike me as helpful, may be Original research, and could potentially be misleading. And customs (like the older sister marrying first) would seem to be different from "mythology". Likewise, phenomena in contemporary culture, such as fiction-writers' use of biblical themes, would seem to be yet another category. To mingle them all together is to risk serious subject-matter and POV confusion. The proposal for dividing the article up into separate domains makes sense. At the very least, there needs to be a clear distinction between things that classical judaism generally regards as being allegorical in character, things whose character represents a current disagreement in classical Judaism (i.e. the Kabbalah), and things whose legendary or mythological character is asserted by critical or anthropological scholarship. --Shirahadasha 21:06, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Would adding a disclaimer like the one on the Jewish Mythology category page resolve the issue for you?Apofisu 17:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

It would help --Shirahadasha 05:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
No, no, no. All religion is, objectively speaking, mythology. Therefore all Jewish religious beliefs are mythological. This DOES NOT connote the "falsehood" of Jewish beliefs. On the contrary, every religious belief system in the world is subject to study by mythologists --and they do not use the popular definition of myth, "something the labeler doesn't believe in."
Think about it this way. Almost every belief system in the world has some adherents who believe it to be literally true. That being the case, it would be impossible for Wikipedia to maintain its NPOV status if it discussed mythology at all, since to call any belief mythological would inevitably offend someone. But that is not the nature of myth. Myth, in the scholarly sense, is a body of stories/traditions (including Biblical stories, Buddhist teachings, etc.) that hold deep explanatory significance and meaning to a culture. By that definition, every religious belief is a mythos.207.216.49.234 21:18, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

ms.207.216.49.234 biology is mythology then according because it is just stories of atheism so biology is mythology to your definition just kidding but you atheists quit it being aholes or will categorize under something really bad and you'll be the only article ha ha ha.


Message from:Hungrykiller- Someone needs to re-write this. It's not correct in many ways. I suggest a Rabbi should write this article, not a christian. And whoever wrote it sux because all the sources are based on folklore, and is quoting books that were written in the last century, which means his sources aren't that reliable. A Rabbi should write this and use the Gemara as a reference, where the books are at least 1500 years old. A christian should not be allowed to comment on any jewish page. In my opinion, i think a jew should write it.I dont think any of the above should be read because its invalid, being written by a non-jew. how are christians going to write about a religion they dont believe in? --Java7837 03:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Page saved

Article was discussed at Wikiproject Mythology today and page saved.. I put my 2 cents keep the page as in important topic on its own. Maybe some experts can help it from the Judaism project. Goldenrowley 05:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

OK I did what I could last night to readjust the focus back on mythology as sacred and traditional narratives and to copy edit so that it is about mythology. Goldenrowley 14:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] comparative mythology

I notice the comparative mythology section was deleted today and have a feeling Phatius plans a major rewrite which will vastly improve it, but if not, can we salvage at least some of it? It wasn't all bad in my honest opinion. Goldenrowley 20:01, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I felt that the section (now) titled "Interaction with other cultures" is the real comparative mythology section in this article. The (now deleted) "Comparative mythology" section seemed to be all about customs, superstitions, etc., and it mentioned few or no actual traditional narratives. Instead of restoring that section, I suggest we expand the "Interaction with other cultures" section, using bits and pieces from the "Comparative mythology" section if they're helpful. In particular, Goldenrowley, feel free to add a subsection on Flood myths. --Phatius McBluff 00:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, I moved the section I titled "Interaction with other cultures" and renamed it "Comparative mythology". Now we can get to work adding more comparative mythology info into it. --Phatius McBluff 01:30, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough! Thanks for explaining. Goldenrowley 02:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Goldenrowley-- Following your lead, I moved a lot of passages from "Comparative mythology" in Christian mythology to "Comparative mythology" in Jewish mythology (replacing them w/ minor summaries in Christian mythology, of course). However, I wonder if the "Comparative mythology" section should be at the end of Jewish mythology, as it is at the end of Christian mythology. I mean, the exposition of the main sources of Jewish mythology (Tanakh, medieval folklore, etc.) should come before a comparison of Jewish mythology with other cultures' myths, right? --Phatius McBluff 07:53, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes that sounds logical. Goldenrowley 01:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paganism

"The people's tendency to adopt the neighboring pagan myths, denounced as it had been by the Jewish prophets, returned with force during the Talmudic period, probably under the influence of the Babylonian[citation needed] and Persian"

I'm a Persian Jew, who has studied Judaism and Persian history for years, and I could not believe it when I was reading the aforementioned statement. Even though there are no citations, for those historically illiterate people in regards to Jewish history, the Persians saved the Jews from the Babylonian rule, not once, but twice, to the happiness of many Jews and perhaps to sadness of a few Rabbi's. And ever since Arya Mehr right until the Islamic Conquest, Persians practiced Zoroastrianism to a level that surpasses the strict obedience most muslims show Islam. Not only is Zoroastrianism the oldest recorded dualistic religion, Iran (modern Persia) was also the home to all the Vedic scriptures that eventually resided in India. Please stop all this nonsense and defamatory anti-Persian writing that is starting to occur all over Wikipedia, not only defying archaeological evidence, but also deceiving readers. To all you Pyramid lovers who love to claim everything triangular, try to bring facts to the table and don't call yourselves Jews. --78.86.159.199 (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you find it offensive that Jewish prophets could have denounced Persian myths? I guess we can look at the scripture to see if it was historically denounced, or not. I think prophets denounced many things. Goldenrowley (talk) 21:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)