When I started teaching comparative mythology, I was afraid I might destroy my students’ religious beliefs, but what I found was just the opposite. Religious traditions, which didn’t mean very much to them, but which were the ones their parents had given them, suddenly became illuminated in a new way when we compared them with other traditions, where similar images had been given a more inward or spiritual interpretation. I had Christian students, Jewish students, Buddhist students, a couple of Zoroastrian students—they all had this experience. There’s no danger in interpreting the symbols of
...more
