Verena wrote:
> I am currently starting to study these scholars on comparative
> mythology:
> ELIADE-ROOTH-RAGLAN
> What are their approaches, can somebody give me a short update on
> those, or a webpage where I can look it up?

I'm unfamiliar with Rooth and Raglan. Eliade wrote about myth around
the middle of the 20th century, I gather, and I read long ago some
books by people said to have been strongly influenced by him; the
people who said that about the people who wrote the books I read
*also* said that a concept central to how I think about myth - "in
illo tempore", the idea that myths are conceived of as taking place in
a *time* somehow other than the time we live in from day to day, if
not a dreamtime anyway something like it - is Eliade's. I find this
concept extremely useful in that it makes possible something I think
necessary in serious conversation about myth - a category of things
that are true although (in some meaningful sense) impossible. "in
illo tempore" leads to "it's not possible now, but it was possible
then" - for example, ordinary mortals marrying gods. Note the
similarity to what popularisers say about the Big Bang; I don't want
to get all New Agey and start claiming that physics proves mythology,
just to note that if the idea that different things are possible at
different times is acceptable to physicists, the rest of us should not
be horrified at the thought that our ancestors thought this way too.

I'm ranting at great length about this because I've found that in
practice, people in general *are* horrified at the idea of "impossible
and true" in any way, shape, or form.

Please note that you have posted your question to the newsgroup
humanities.classics, which is mainly about Greco-Roman civilisation.
Greco-Roman civilisation is a weirdly special case. Much of our
written material about Greek myths dates from times when most writers
were openly contemptuous of the myths; in particular, the handbook by
Apollodorus (often called "Pseudo-Apollodorus" because he isn't the
same person as some other Apollodorus) is centuries later than the
general collapse of belief among the literate. Things are complicated
still further by strong arguments advanced by, inter alia, Gregory
Nagy, that the superstructure of Greek Mythology that Apollodorus
gives us (and Hesiod before him, if not entirely Homer) is an
artificial construct built on top of the local poleis' myths by some
sort of Panhellenising process. Our main source for local myths, as
opposed to the Panhellenised versions, is the extremely late
Pausanias. (Some useful references on this stuff include parts of
Nagy's <Pindar's Homer>; D. C. Feeney's <The Gods in Epic>; oh, I
dunno what-all else, but it won't hurt you also to give G. W.
Bowersock's <Fiction as History>, or maybe vice versa, a try.) To
make matters even worse, as if that were really possible, most of our
written material about Roman myths is really about Greek myths in
Roman drag, and there's no serious reason to think the Romans *ever*
believed this stuff.

So although the word "myth", as usually used in comparative mythology,
refers primarily to believed narratives, Greece gives us primarily
disbelieved ones. The only other case I know of where this happens in
a big way is the Norse mythology preserved by Icelandic Christians;
I've never been very clear on just what the components of the
"mythological cycle" of Irish legendry are, but they may also be
similar. (It's clear, however, from what the writers *about*
mythology do when talking about Irish, that the Irish texts aren't
nearly as informative as the unbelieving writings of Greeks and
Icelanders.)

> What other scholars have a very different approach on this issue?
> (Bascona, Jung, Dundes, Frazer) and in what way.

Beats me.

> Also, I am searching for a page with egyptian myths (the stories
> itself), especially Geb and Nut.

I've been looking for a book that collects the Egyptian myths, and
have not found any. Egyptians rarely wrote myths, and those they did
write *tended* not to be obviously serious. For example, "The
Contendings of Horus and Seth" is an X-rated farce out of the Three
Stooges; there's a roughly contempoary story (actually the
introduction to a magic spell) that explains how Isis got her divine
powers by tricking Ra. Anyway, there are books here and there that
summarise the major Egyptian myths, working from various sources, but
if you want actual stories in (translated versions of) the Egyptians'
own words, you'll have to hunt around. The major sources -
Pritchard's <Ancient Near Eastern Texts>, Lichtheim's <Ancient
Egyptian Literature> - have some of them. (I think, but am not sure,
that Geb and Nut are in the document called the Memphite Theology;
this is in Lichtheim's first volume. It's really short, though. I
don't remember whether there're other myths about Nut but am pretty
sure I've heard of no more about Geb.)

If you can read either German or Spanish, you might do better trying
Emmy Brunner-Traut's <Altagyptische Marchen>, which has recently been
translated into Spanish as <Cuentos de> something or other (sorry;
I've requested the book by inter-library loan and may have more
details sometime soon). The only edition of this book that I've seen
was the 2nd or 3rd, in 1963; it now has reached at least 8 editions.
The one I've seen had some myths in it, but I'm not sure how complete
it was.

I have no idea whether Egyptians believed the stories they wrote down
that we call myths. The Memphite Theology was a forgery, which
implies that it was meant to be believed; the usual explanation is
that the priests of Memphis were trying to win some sort of inter-city
status, because you see, in Egypt the inter-city smoothing out of
myths that Greece experienced never happened. (As far as anyone
knows.) Apart from this, though, who knows? maybe the goofy myths we
have were comic relief for bored Egyptian priests. I'm fairly
confident that the Egyptians *did* have a category of "impossible and
false", something I would call fantasy, earlier than anyone else.

In case you're interested, there's a fairly complete collection of
*Mesopotamian* myths translated into French by Jean Bottero and Samuel
Kramer, <Lorsque les dieux faisent l'homme> or some such. Many but
not all of these have also been translated into English; if you don't
read French, I can provide you pointers later on.

Anyway, please remain aware that humanities.classics is not the
premiere group for comparative mythology. For that you may do better
in alt.mythology (I've never read it but have seen people say good
things about it). This group *is* a good place to turn with
specifically Greco-Roman issues.

Joe Bernstein