The spiritual aspects of Joseph Campbell's hermeneutics in mythology : an examination leading to implications for religious education

Joseph Campbell's comparative studies in mythology revealed to him that culturally bred mythologies, despite their ethnic inflections, continually point to universal archetypes and a common human identity. Campbell's belief in the common human identity stems from his adherence to Carl Jung's mystical perspective on myth, where archetypes of the personal and collective unconscious help us understand humankind in the past, present and future. Myth, like art, Campbell believed, should be interpreted metaphorically, in terms of connotation instead of denotation. Failure to interpret myth poetically leads to religious, social, and political divisiveness. Examples of consequences of a literally interpreted mythology prevail in contemporary ethnic and global warring. This thesis examines the prominent themes in Campbell's alternative philosophy of mythology, and particularly the interpretation of some selected notions in Biblical mythology which, he suggests, have to be reviewed and re-interpreted metaphorically. With the collapse of cultural boundaries due to modernity, the world community needs a mythology for the whole planet. This thesis will discuss the serious implications for religious education of Campbell's hermeneutics of mythology