Religious booknotes
Gerhart, Mary
RELIGIOUS BOOKMOTES Saviors, myths, & sacred heroes Mary Gerhcort own potential divinity/' Blallas is alert to" these p^si^ifitfes in the world* religions. VL£ sttgj^ists^by his choices of...
...assessments ate straightforward and appreciative...
...i>oty ranges widely iii des^ribingaiKj reviewing cOntemporary Ways of understanding myth and ritual, Notwithstanding its comprehensiveness, his study makes no pyetetise to value-free analysis" His, ,......% < ........*.....___^ Mythogntphy: The Study of Myths and Rituals, by WitiiamQ.t>0ty, University of Alabama Press,:$2&,50, 326 pp...
...ethical questions and promise to share in the wisdom of those who originally told the stories...
...Myth" is not mentioned...
...huildigH case from Erik Briksott, M^m Mead, June Singer, and ^J|i|2[ Guin...
...One enters a different world, although the same religious tradition, in Jakob Petuchowski's Our Masters Taught: Rabbinic Stories and Sayings...
...Gill's sensitivity to relatively "non-scriptural" religious traditions improves our understanding of "myth" as well...
...VL£ sttgj^ists^by his choices of stories ft$m.tik&fiy *e%io#s%aai-^ u'ons, that by reflecting on theories of religions aot ourWn* we can **bet* ter understand and to appropriate our own...
...The chapter on t'B|i|^ Contexts anjd Tmth" coiicl^fesj an analysis of the 'Jsmar|"^l^ ' 'proper,?' (terms - ^ffj^ M Jonathan Smith, Mmf'fx^x^iif Erie ten Raa),todi%e|lt||te^t^ different levels of mythie.^p^|ssM v Although the4erm "ciyth^ il3 mentionedan Edna Uong'&Tk^WM the Sacred Tree, her hotv^tieiL mmmmmmmmmmmmummmmmmmmmmmmi Th* Way oftfte Sacred Tr^i'^M...
...A iiijaip for ft scalp, A life' for a life...
...In*between, the author describes Changes tit the self-uflderstandings of l^e BaktJ&s, $r they encounter white ^n ^(|!6hri^ia||ty> TJwwgh the f^cepaiiSjr the-pibt^i *as incora|?aftibly|r!ptterOiWdiat of the whites, ^e betrayal of .the myths of both Dakotas and Christians is stated as the puse for the*disa$ters suffered vari•o*K$y for all: "hire hatred...
...Moving beyond well known theorists, such as Turner, Jung, Freud, Prye, and LeVi-Stratuss, Doty gives access to lesser ktfoiWJii ures...
...ever, calls into question simple distinctions between oral and written traditions, including the conventional one between myth (written) and ritual (non-written), He points out that many of our conventional distinctions (such as "verbal" and "non-verbal," "literate" and "non-literate") are fixed by writing and tempt us to ignore the ways that the categories may overlap...
...huge "pit" ||hieh turned out to be a bomb crater) ip)ssii which carousing prison guards iPed prisoners to leap for their lives lll&^QonlesS night...
...Each chapter draws from several religious traditions and isf followed h$ *. set of discussion questions,, questions which...
...In his three^pa^ section on "Gender DifferenfaatibM for example, Doty provide^ botb $M tification and a critique...
...Here the confusion noticed in isolated references to myth can be transformed into an appreciation of both its negative and positive uses...
...LrJa>the' late nineteenth century, ft^yth" took Jn-^derbgatory meanfftjjji"wherritHvas differentiated from to&s^arys^The ambiguity which relulted from separating myth from history ca» be seen in Yaffa Eliach's Wsijic Tates of (he Hbtvatust...
...instead midrash and haggadah are the terms of identification...
...The book is issue-orienleJT^ helps leaders to locate consejagH where it exists and reasons for^i continuing controversy where '& sensus is missing...
...Neither the mythic nor the legal aspect is explicit, yet the narratives raise Our Masters Taught: Rabbinic Stories and Sayings, by Jakob J. Petuchowski, Crossroad, $10.95, 117 pp...
...Hatred Iha^ave birth to hatred- The endless, ehain of hatred and vengeance...
...maTee^the^book l^itilbie^fdTr classroom use asfwell a$*forjtetsonal reading % * -* ^ « '* One istemptefl p say of WUliajm 0, Ooty'S MythQgrqphy...
...The narrators and, with few exceptions, the characters are male- The most interesting stories engage in some kind of riddle or unexpected response to a question...
...24 April 1987 251...
...Denny andKodney L. Taylor, University of South Carolina Press, $19.9$, 252 pp...
...The reader at this point might well wish to return to Doty's first chapter in Mythography, which entertains seventeen elements in a "working definition" of myth...
...In this book, the mythic and the historic are both taken seriously...
...These terms are set off against legal components (halakhah) and laws...
...THeyafe dually Jinked |the historical existence of a zaddik |nt or religious leader) and are told ^preserve the human spirit in, exWi|, Inher introduction to this colBtto.n of post-Holocaust Hasidic Ks, Eliach tells of the lengths she iifetcf It* confirming the historicalKplrical details of the stories, for Btfipte, to find the...
...Finally, m the introduction to The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, edited by Frederick M. Denny and Rodney L. Taylor* myth is seen as part of the oral tradition, as distinct from scripture, or written text...
...The brief introduction, which describes three forms of religious expression (the conceptual, the practical, and the social) and three aspects of scripture (origins, forms, and functions), is followed by nine chapters, each written t>y a specialist, wrio describes the scriptures of one of the nine religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, Latter-day Saints, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism...
...The novel jht$& with the hanging of thirty-eight braves in Mankato, Minnesota, in yt862,and the exile of the remainder of the four Dakota tribes to a reservation...
...tie Study of Myths and Rituals thfit if there is something about myth that it Jacks, whatever that "soraediing*' is., is not to be known...
...Hon^ 4ugsburgJfO,9$, p&er, mSt Dakota people, based'dn hiltqf^ coi'ds of fahtily and mis%ojprj'i pers, is laced with the erjexW^ti^' the incredibility of myth, ^e,5^ opens with the birth1 of a nialdCT "on that never-to-be-fort^fe ||i in the Moon when the 19eer1Ru%'t^ the sky rained stars and the Moonji Night became as bright as the $oofl Day'' with all the tribe staddteg«^ 250: Commonweal 'under the shooting Stars...
...Gill refers to a diagram (which unfortunately does not appear in the book) in which the "informative" aspects of religion are mapped on the "performative" aspects and vice versa, and proposes a new model of religious studies based on this distinction...
...by Frederick...
...The last chapter, "Nonliterate Traditions and Holy Books: Toward a New Model," by Sam D. Gill, how* The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, ed...
...In Doty's view, if myth is to be myth, its many dimensions both call for and suggest multiple forms of analysis...
...InfwMcTaht of the Holocaust: The First mginal HasUSe Tales in a Century, by Wmt Efctph, Oxford University Press, psed, the transcriber of the tafes thinks Mfafthn, "H&idfetaies/* may ] fe the/' most appropriate literary form 'f nrough whicrjlo^orae to terms with t be Roloca»si audits aftermath/' The | jfe$i<| dat|fro3n the early t70Osf and | Jasidic tales have always been charI S?*erized by fpIH elemfnts blended ptirigQe^it...
...In his study, myths are af«* ranged thematically — ^reation, sep* oration, tricksters, the*vision qnest, the heroic task, and the gentle hero...
Vol. 114 • April 1987 • No. 8
