Much of the theorizing about myth in philosophy and religious studies grows out of efforts to understand the classics and the Bible. In the case of the classics, the presence of myth has been taken for granted, and conclusions reached about Greek and Roman mythology have spurred generalizations about myth. In the case of the Bible, however, the existence of myth has been contested. In fact, Judaism and Christianity are regularly praised for their nonmythic outlook. Conclusions reached about the presence or absence of myth in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament have led to generalizations about myth per se. Many of the essays in this volume apply theories of myth to classical, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern cases, but in so doing they draw conclusions about the nature of myth itself. Those essays that criticize past applications make generalizations as weIl.

By no means has aIl theorizing about myth from philosophy and religious studies centered on the ancient world, and this volume contains selections from theories in both disciplines that stern from reflections on the nature of science, language, knowledge, and reality.

Robert A. Segal University of Lancaster

Volume Introduction; Myth and Symbol in Contemporary Philosophy and Theology: The Limits of Demythologizing; The Meaning of Mythology in Relation to the Old Testament; Myth and the New Testament: The Greek Word of 1vor;; New Testament and Mythology; Judaism and the Modern Political Myths; The Mythic; The Meaning and Function of Myth in Greek and Roman Literature; The Prestige of the Cosmogonic Myth; Myth and Reality; Mythic Thought in the Ancient Near East; Sumerian Mythology: A Review Article; Greek Mythology: Some New Perspectives; Review of The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near Eastern Myth and the Old Testament; Method in the Study of N ear Eastern Myths; Inside and Outside the Mouth of God: The Boundary Between Myth and Reality; The Truth of Myth; Introduction: The Symbolic Function of Myths; Myth: Some Philosophical Problems; Myth in Greek Historiography; The Semantic Approach to Myth; Myth and History in Israelite-Jewish Thought