Myths help?

Question

Both myth and historical account give us the sequence of important events. But what way is myth different from history?


does anyone have a clue how? thankyou

Answer 1

Myths are in my view older, quite often entertainingly mis-interpreted, knowledge/information passed on with the means of the spoken word. Historical accounts are older, also quite often entertainingly mis-understood, knowledge/information passed on since the invention of the written word.


My explanation:

This depends on the myth and historical account in question. With historical accounts we usually know who the author is and that will help us to validate wether their words are accurate or wether they have their own vested interests in it, like some propaganda value. Historical accounts have been written down first hand or second or third hand (etc).

The oldest myths are the religious ones. Like the creation stories. No one can say how old the myth is and who came up with it. By the time most myths are written down they have been passed down orally from generation to generation, subjecting them to change, colouring the story for entertainment value and eventually hiding any truths that may have been in them.

Some myths explain why things are a certain way. But these explanations seem absurd to us because we have access to more information than the people who came up with the first explanation. How do you explain thunder if you had no idea what electricity was? So it must be a god stricking down enemies.

Then there are the myths that tell us of events and people in the past. The story of the flood is familiar to all christian, islam and jewish faiths, but it was also told by the ancient babylonians. We cannot say for sure, but I assume that the myths are what is left of some great event that happened a very long time ago. For some reason we now assume that it covered the whole world (as we know that there is a whole world out there), where as it was most likely a local event in that region (that region being the whole world for those living there). If the survivors of the boxing day tsunami had no other means of telling about their experiences, than their spoken word, then generations from now people would "remember" a great flood in myth like stories.

Answer 2

Myth and history only differ from the perspective of the person speaking of it or reading it. Did Abe Lincoln really walk 2 miles to return a few pennies he overcharged someone when he was a store clerk? Did the Trojan war actually take place? Was there an actualy global flood that wiped out all but those few that were sad to have survived? Some say these events actually happened, others say they are only myth presented as fact.

The only real difference between history and myth is, as I said in the beginning, perspective.

Answer 3

Myths are made up and have very, very little truth to them. Often they are stories to explain natural phenomena like storms or fossills or to explian how we got here. History is about actual events that really happened. Granted history is sometimes inaccurate and has to be changed as we find new evidence.

Answer 4

myth is like a legend, thats not always true...
history is something that actually happened... and you can prove it