One of the things anyone studying mythology discovers is the remarkable similarities between myths of various different cultures. Numerous attempts have been made to explain these similarities. Most see the similarities as either a result of active borrowing from the myths of other cultures or as a consequence of similarities in human consciousness (Doniger 139).

Early Christians were disturbed by the similarities between myths, for instance, similarities between the births of Christ and Zeus (both born in a 'cave' and wearing swaddling clothes). One early church father, Clement of Alexandria, developed "The Thesis of Demonic Imitation," in which he argued that demons, in an effort to subvert Christianity, suggested to the early poets and writers stories that parodied the Bible in an effort to make it appear a collection of fables (Doniger 69-70). Most scholars think that there is not one single explanation for the similarities in myths. However, below are some of the most popular explanations.

Borrowing

Geographic diffusion

Many writers have suggested evidence of borrowings from one myth to another. This process is known as diffusion. Wendy Doniger suggests that stories made their way across the planet as invaders, merchants, missionaries and proselytizers sailed the oceans or crossed ancient land bridges between the continents (Doniger 139).

Another possibility for the diffusion or transfer of content from one culture's myth to another's might be that itinerant poets learned the myths of the cultures they visited and added them to their repertoires. David Leeming argues that the Hebrew flood story is "clearly based on the older Babylonian one" (Leeming 47), suggesting that the Hebrew writer, familiar with the Babylonian story, retold the story in a way that reflected his own culture's values (Leeming 57).

Donna Rosenberg has suggested that, since Homer was a rhapsode, he would have learned the stories of other cultures--Hellenic, Hittite, Mesopotamian--as well as those stories of his native Anatolia. She suggests that "[p]articular details in The Iliad and The Odyssey reveal that Homer was familiar with older epic literature such as Gilgamesh from Sumer/Babylonia and The Enuma elish from Babylonia." She goes on to suggest that the friendship between Achilles and Patroclus may have been modeled after Gilgamesh and Enkidu (Rosenberg 116).

Cultural Corruption

As have others, Rosenberg has also suggested that the oral myths of some cultures might have been corrupted in transmission by those who recorded the myths. Many of the myths of the Americas were recorded by the conquering Spaniards or by native writers educated by the Church so that elements of Christianity were added to the myths (Rosenberg 575, 595, 600-601). The unknown poet who wrote Beowulf also blended the older pagan stories with the Christianity of his own culture and time (Rosenberg 384).

While it is probable that the myths of one culture were influenced by the myths of others, it can become very difficult to prove, particulary regarding the extent of the influence. And even more controversial can be the question of which myth is the primary source and which, the secondary.

Common Humanity

Universal Historicism

During the Enlightenment and extending into the 20th century, a movement developed to determine which individual culture was heir to the first human culture, generally associated with the Eden of the Old Testament (Leonard and McClure 7). For instance, folklorists attempted to trace stories back to their roots in antiquity (Doniger 140). Giovanni Battista Vico worked on an evolutionary history of the world to explain the myths of all cultures in terms of his beliefs about Christianity and history (Leonard and McClure 8). Sir William Jones, noting similarities between many languages, suggested a common pre-Babel language. Modern scholars, who no longer trace this language back to Babel, refer to these common language roots as proto-Indo-European, an artificially constructed language based on similarities between existing languages (Leonard and McClure 8-9).

Scientific Naturalism

During the 19th century, the Nature School of comparative mythology argued that the similarities between myths were a consequence of the common effort by early, non-scientific peoples to explain natural phenomena like lightning (Leonard and McClure 10). Adalbert Kuhn suggested that stories about the gods bringing gifts of fire were "allegories of natural phenomena" like lightning strikes (Leonard and McClure 12). Frederich Max Müller saw myth as a "disease of language," poetic descriptions of nature taken literally by later peoples (Leonard and McClure 12-13).

Both of these approaches, universal historicism and scientific naturalism, were similar to the ideas of the ancient philosopher Euhemeros, who argued that myths were based on exaggerations of actual histories. The term euhemerist came to be applied to anyone explaining myth as primitive explanations of science or distortions of historical events (Leonard and McClure 4-5; Doniger 51-2).

Myth Ritualism

Some anthropologists argued that myths were remains of "scripts" for rituals, for instance, rituals where early peoples acted out behaviors that reflected the passing of the seasons. The myths were the written record of the oral portions of the original rituals (Harris and Platzner 41-42). Some, like Sir James Frazier, saw stories about the dying god as references to fertility rituals where the king or his surrogate was slain to ensure a good harvest (Leonard and McClure 13-14).

Linguistic Structuralism

The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, building on the linguistic studies of Ferdinand de Saussure, argued that the similarities in myths were due to a common mental structure rooted in language. Saussure had argued that language should be studied in terms of the relationships within itself. The words on a page are a set of characters (sign) depicting a particular sound associated with an idea or concept (signified). This approach to language, known as structuralism, suggested that meaning was always conditional, dependent on the experiences of the listener/reader and the relationships between the elements of language (Eagleton 95-6). Levi-Strauss suggested that the commonalities between myths were a consequence of commonalities of expression, common "codes" for expressing ideas (Leonard and McClure 19).

Psychological Structuralism

The founder of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud had argued that the imagery from dreams arises from the unconscious desires of the creature nature in humans, the desires for food, safety, procreation, and so on (the lusts of the flesh). For Freud, then, similarities in myths occur because all humans struggle with balancing their sense of social responsibility (superego) with their natural desires for self-preservation (id) and those struggles are expressed in the fantasies of myth (Noland 321).

Carl Jung, Freud's student, and a psychologist in his own right, argued that there were images in dreams which seemed to be universal and not limited to the conflict between duty (superego) and desire (id). Jung equated these universal images with Adolf Bastian's "elementary ideas" referring to them as "archetypes of the collective unconscious" [emphasis added] (Campbell, "Inner Reaches" 2). In myth, Jung identified basic archetypal events, such as stories of death and resurrection, and characters, such as the great mother and the trickster.

Joseph Campbell argued for three basic types of stories or myths, built around archetypes. He linked these three types to three biological functions, instincts, or urges:

• Creation myths: the urge to survive (life survives by feeding on life)
• Fertility myths: the urge to reproduce (cycles of life and nature)
• Hero myths: the urge to possess, to overcome, and the urge to mercy (the relation of humanity to the universe and whatever lies beyond it)
(Campbell, "Inner Reaches" 3-5).

Campbell saw the hero myth as enveloping the other two types and saw a universal pattern between various hero stories which he labelled the monomyth, which includes three basic stages: separation, initiation, and return (Campbell, Hero, 30).

Historian of religions Mircea Eliade suggested that the archetypal similarities between Christianity and other mythologies may be due to "God [intervening] even in the collective unconscious, that it may be saved and fulfilled" (Eliade 161). Eliade was not arguing that Christianity "borrowed" these archetypes (Elaide 158-9) or that the archetypes prefigured Christianity but rather that revelation operates through the whole person, including the psychological realm of the unconscious (Eliade 161+). Christian symbolism "comes to complete all [an archetype's] earlier . . . meanings" (Eliade 164). Eliade argued that myths can contain a common content without denying, ignoring, or replacing the individual variations unique to particular cultures (Eliade 165) [For those interested in a fuller understanding, read the entire chapter in Images and Symbols titled "Symbolism and History" 151-178].

Conclusion

Whatever the explanation, similarities between myths do exist. But in recognizing these similarities, students should not ignore or downplay the differences between myths.

In the late 19th century, ethnologist Adolf Bastian identified in myths certain "elementary ideas" (Elementargedanken) which were universal to all cultures, and other "ethnic" or "folk ideas" (Völkergedanken), which expressed local differences in expression. Leo Frobenius, focusing on the integration of the "elementary ideas" and "folk ideas" within a culture's mythology, defined the mythology of a people as a single unit (or monad), where the "imagery . . . of a mythology is metaphorical of the psychological posture of the people to whom it pertains" (Campbell, "Inner Reaches" 3). The mythology of a people as a whole, in both its universal and local elements, then, expresses the unique traits of that culture even while it may contain individual images common to many cultures (archetypes).

Wendy Doniger uses the analogy of the telescope and the microscope, suggesting that students of myth should study myths comparatively, exploring the similarities between myths, applying the various approaches to myth that look at similarities. This approach to myth she calls the telescopic view. Students of myth should also focus in on the peculiarities of the myths of individual cultures, i.e., the differences, using those approaches to myth that focus on differences in order to understand that culture's unique perspective on the human condition. This is her microscopic view of myth (Doniger 4-11; Leonard and McClure 24).