Think Joe Cambell nails the crux here (excuse the pun) these biblical mythic images come from a far different time and have seen their efficacy drained & lost in modern dogmatic interpretations.
"Mythic dissociation and Fundmental Disengagement. Only stubborn fundamentalists persist in their views that the bible is accurate and completely historically true. Too many interpretations of the Crucifixion emphasized the calamity of the event. And if you emphasize the calamity, then you're always caught up looking for someone to blame”
Campbell explains the biblical tradition’s problem in insisting on the factuality and historicity of its myths, especially crucifixion. He states:
“The answer, therefore, to our question as to why the crucifixion of Jesus holds such importance for Christians implies a complex of essential associations that are not historical at all, but are rather mythological. For, in fact, there never was any Garden of Eden or serpent who could talk, nor solitary pre-pithecanthropoid “First Man” or dream like “Mother Eve” conjured from his rib. Mythology is not history, although myths like that of Eden have been frequently misread as such and although mythological interpretations have been joined to events that may well have been factual, such as the crucifixion of Jesus” (Campbell 78).
Only stubborn fundamentalists persist in their views that the bible is accurate and completely historically true,
Thus the idea of history as not being mythology is raised, and although there are some who would debate that, stating that historical events lead to myths, that myths are not exactly historically accurate is not debated any longer. Only stubborn fundamentalists persist in their views that the bible is accurate and completely historically true, in complete contradiction of the latest archeological evidence, particularly in Finkelstein and Silberman’s The Bible Unearthed, and the biblical scholars’ finds relating to the continual editing as shown by the distinct styles of writing in different chapters and verses of the same books. Yet, in the following treatment of the symbolic cross, Campbell illuminates the mystical nature of Judaism and Christianity.
Campbell also studied the Middle Ages through the lens of much of its literature, and in doing so, made many observations of the problems inherent in Christianity. The following two quotes from Creative Mythology demonstrate this particularly well.
Mythic dissociation and Fundmental Disengagement
“The life-desolating effects of this separation of the reigns of nature (the Earthly Paradise) and the spirit (the Castle of the Grail) in such a way that neither touches the other but destructively, remains to this day an essential psychological problem of the Christianized Western world; and since it is at the root a consequence of the basic biblical doctrine of an ontological distinction between God and his universe, creator and creature, spirit and matter, it is a problem that has hardly altered since it first became intolerably evident at the climax of the Middle Ages. In briefest restatement: The Christian is taught that divinity is transcendent: not within himself and his world, but “out there.” I call this mythic dissociation” (393).
“[…] what is now known, […] of the universe and evolution of species, a suspicion has been confirmed that was already dawning in the Middle Ages; namely that the biblical myth of Creation, Fall, and Redemption is historically untrue. Hence, there has now spread throughout the Christian world a desolating sense not only of no divinity within (mythic dissociation), but also of no participation in divinity without (social identification dissolved): and that, in short, is the mythological base of the Waste Land of the modern soul, or, as it is being called these days, our “alienation” (394).
If Christians take offense to this and react, perhaps they would be better off thinking about how such statements are true, and what parts of them demand further exploration.
Although Campbell continually discusses the negative aspects of Judaism, Christianity and biblical tradition in general: “And we’re in trouble on it because we have a sacred text that was composed somewhere else by another people a long time ago and has nothing to do with the experience of our lives. And so there’s a fundamental disengagement” (Transformations of Myth through Time 46), and:
“One of our main problems—and these are the two great sources, now, of the problem here in Western interpretation of these matters—is the Aristotelian accent on rational thinking and the biblical focus on the ethnic reference of the mythic symbol” (Transformations of Myth through Time 96), he also provides affirmations of them. He writes: “First, we must move socially into a new system of symbols, because the old ones do not work. Second, the symbols, as they exist, when they are interpreted spiritually rather than concretely, yield the revelation” (Thou Art That 107).
He also shows a keen understanding of the politics behind the symbolism of the crucifixion; “If you want to resurrect, you must have crucifixion. Too many interpretations of the Crucifixion have failed to emphasize that. They emphasize the calamity of the event. And if you emphasize the calamity, then you're always caught up looking for someone to blame” (Thou Art That 112).
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