fantastical faerie stories

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I was trained to credit my sources: the title phrase is derived from the typically polite and compassionate Valentine Wiggins - Is that Klimt? It beats the previous, but I find him affected.

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There was a thread pointing out [at some length] the well known parallels between the Christ Account and a number of motifs in myth and folktale throughout humanity. Which is interesting, if a little overdone - still, it might be new to some.

Here I would like to see can we identify elements in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures and in Judaeo-Christian theory and practice which significantly DIFFER [that is not upper case abuse] from the mythic - folkloric background.

My, aren't we bitter.

Just to kick it off:


Consider in Isaiah 55: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

One, I repeat, of my favorites. Juxtapose that with the NT account of Jesus healing - individually - pretty much anybody who asked or who was asked on behalf.

And it ties in with the time of my shift, when I was in effect given freedom from a 30 year crippling hangup as a free, no strings attzached, sample of salvation.

The particularity of this is in large part what led me to see the Christian formula as he best explanation for that year.

Myth and folklore, which I know not quite as well as languages, but they have been a serious study, are remarkably low on unconditional free gifts. Instead what you see is a lot of wquid pro quo.

Jesus heals people who do not sign on, and does not go after them to take back the healing.

Without money and without price. I think I have only encountered this in the tradition where the benefactor is specifically tied to the recipient - the ghost of his mothger, for example. Making the Christ Account perhaps unique.

good luck with that, besides small very specific points i bet you will be able to find paralels top almost everything, as you can with many religions that predate the abrahamic religions.
even the polytheistic norse pantheon has similarities, despite using a completely different logic structure, god's werent "immortal" for one and hel, the death realm(for those that did not die in battle or glory) was an actual physical place "connected" by direct path to the rest of the world, the same was said of the path to asgaard the realm of the gods, though i have been to one of the places most commonly used as this path almost yearly for most of my childhood i havent found it.

Modern Christianity is the result of people taking literally a mystic allegorical story which was heavily influenced by older mystic allegorical myths, superstitious peasants playing telephone game with it for thousands of years (as well as monks and hermits), and twisting it to suit themselves.

BTW the title of this topic is awesome

Without getting into the rabbit chicken of the source of Christianity ancient OR modern, the similarities [see previous thread on that] are extremely well documents, and anyone can read up on that at great length without previous knowledge of the mythic / folkloric field - after which people so inclined can rabbit chicken on THAT question.

If you have a reasonable background in the folk stuff, your take on the unexpected NONparallels is being solicited.

Here is another that the conventions of myth / folklore / literature [the three categories are not identical, but overlap a LOT] might not have predicted.

The raising of Lazarus..

Pass by some of the great touches like Thomas' statement - that caught the guy. The big part is the interactions of Mary and Martha. This is not even developed to short story proportions, yet these are people - not the stick figures typical of folktale. You can match it in Shakespeare's folktale derived presentation of Lear, or in some of Francis' Little Flowers - but it is not a mythic / folkloric norm to have people so sketched in with a few deft strokes - especially not people of this class.

Random firing of neurons? Certainly no connection to topic.

Dumb machine -

Okay I try again.

Here is another for you:

the tail end of Jonah, particularly thew punch line:

"Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?"

Done seen a passel of fiction and a whole shootin' match of folklore. This is another pretty unique one.

Don't you just LOVE "also much cattle"?