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Myth and History: A General Model and Its Application to the Bible
Author(s) -
Andriolo Karin R.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1981.83.2.02a00010
Subject(s) - mythology , style (visual arts) , literature , domain (mathematical analysis) , sociology , epistemology , history , philosophy , art , mathematics , mathematical analysis
This paper focuses upon the prevalent complementary definitions of myth and history and questions their analytic utility with reference to literary documents that bespeak the transition between mythic and historic cognition. In the style of ethnosemantic analysis, these definitions are treated as a semantic domain and subjected to formal analysis. The components elicited constitute a new definition—more precisely, a two‐dimensional model of the relationship between myth and history. Subsequently, the model is applied to a series of books from the Bible with the conclusion that men and women are structurally equal since, in their roles as social actors, both represent different components of myth as well as history.