The Conscious Use of Myth
Talk by the Rev. U. E. Simon
Lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament Studies at King's College, London
In this talk the Rev. U. E. Simon raises criticism of Rudolf Bultmann's method of demythologising. He maintains that the Biblical writers selected a common mythology of the Near East, purged i-t of pagan associations, and re-interpreted it in a religious context: in this way the present literary form of the Bible is inseparable from its context. Mr. Simon maintains that there could be nothing to take the place of myth and that all attempts to demyrhologise deprive the faith of its eternal imagery and leave a fiat, unpoetioal religious jargon. The need is not to demythologise but to re-mythologise, and this he believes many poets and some psyohologists of our day are engaged in doing.
Last of four talks