Myth Collage

We will use The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch to guide us through the study of mythology. The book covers Greece and Rome but also touches on Nordic and Eastern mythology. Bulfinch's work is exceptional in its presentation of this large area of study as a cohesive story.

Searching out and reading the earliest written sources is one way to learn about mythology. There are many other ways: studying performances, costumes, music, rites, dances of various groups and tribes. Many of these observations were made at the end of the 1800s by anthropologists looking at tribal life when technology was less pervasive.

In 1903 a pair of lectures by German scholar Friedrich Delitzsch was published claiming that many stories and ideas traditionally traced to biblical sources have more ancient origins in Mesopotamian mythology. Babel and Bible had a significant impact on the development of biblical scholarship, theology, and German history.