The Wikipedia page gives a good summary about the debate on who comes first, myth or ritual.
Only, I see that the names of scholars cited are only of the previous century.
Do you know some living scholar who has some new idea about that debate?
Thanks in advance.
Myth versus Ritual: who is first?
Myth versus Ritual: who is first?
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Myth versus Ritual: who is first?
This question fascinates me, too. There have been many studies on the nature and origins of religious ritual and one starting point I found useful is "To perform, or not to perform? A theory of ritual performance versus cognitive theories of religious transmission1" by Robert A. Yelle, in Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 2006, 18, 4. The main value of that article is its extensive references to many other leading researchers in the field (esp anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse) and various theories.
Some researchers link ritual to the psychology of obsessive compulsive disorder. Cognitive sciences are being applied by many in searching for ritual origins.
I wonder if there is a clue to the answer in our Christian records: Paul speaks of rituals and his belief system seems to have been grounded in mystical visions. The Jesus narrative emerges later and appears to offer an etiological explanation for rituals already in existence. Mark, for instance, has been interpreted as a rationale for baptism.
That is, our evidence for Christian rituals precedes our evidence for gospel-type narrative.
Perhaps there is even a clue in the Ascension of Isaiah where we read about a narrative of Jesus emerging subsequent to the experience of a heavenly vision. Visions were sometimes induced in part through ritualistic practices.
Some researchers link ritual to the psychology of obsessive compulsive disorder. Cognitive sciences are being applied by many in searching for ritual origins.
I wonder if there is a clue to the answer in our Christian records: Paul speaks of rituals and his belief system seems to have been grounded in mystical visions. The Jesus narrative emerges later and appears to offer an etiological explanation for rituals already in existence. Mark, for instance, has been interpreted as a rationale for baptism.
That is, our evidence for Christian rituals precedes our evidence for gospel-type narrative.
Perhaps there is even a clue in the Ascension of Isaiah where we read about a narrative of Jesus emerging subsequent to the experience of a heavenly vision. Visions were sometimes induced in part through ritualistic practices.
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Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Myth versus Ritual: who is first?
Immediate question: You might be interested in recent work by Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and academic (U. Toronto). He is much in the news in North America because of his resistance to speech codes, but he is also widely admired for the substance of his scholarship.
https://jordanbpeterson.com/
He's fond of Jung and Eliade, if that helps you place him on the ritual-myth spectrum.
Also possibly relevant to your inquiries would be Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford. She's a psychologist-anthropologist who among other cool things teaches her undergraduates to channel the ghost of Leland Stanford, Jr (with some "success" we're told).
http://luhrmann.net/
Overall question: It is a curious fact that Aristotle (in the Poetics) advised playwrights to "act out" their dramas in the privacy of their workrooms as part of their composition process. If this advice is admissible, then there is no inherent priority between ritual and related narrative.
If there is no inherent priority, and the records have all been lost, then the question is at best undecidable and possibly ill-posed (maybe composition can be a form of ritual, for example, as is compatible with Aristotle's advice).
https://jordanbpeterson.com/
He's fond of Jung and Eliade, if that helps you place him on the ritual-myth spectrum.
Also possibly relevant to your inquiries would be Tanya Luhrmann of Stanford. She's a psychologist-anthropologist who among other cool things teaches her undergraduates to channel the ghost of Leland Stanford, Jr (with some "success" we're told).
http://luhrmann.net/
Overall question: It is a curious fact that Aristotle (in the Poetics) advised playwrights to "act out" their dramas in the privacy of their workrooms as part of their composition process. If this advice is admissible, then there is no inherent priority between ritual and related narrative.
If there is no inherent priority, and the records have all been lost, then the question is at best undecidable and possibly ill-posed (maybe composition can be a form of ritual, for example, as is compatible with Aristotle's advice).