Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Donald R. Vance, Ph.D." <donaldrvance AT mac.com>]

My understanding of the difference was "gods" vs "humans." That is, if  
the story concerned humans and human events, it was legend; if it  
concerned the gods or prehistorical events, then it was myth. This is  
very close to Stoney's definition.

On May 14, 2010, at 4:13 PM, Stoney Breyer wrote:

> > > that is a bit different than basic genre identification. However,  
> > > it's
> still an odd question, &c
>
> If I understand James' objection correctly I think it's a very proper
> question. To the best of my recollection the traditional definitions
> distinguish legend from myth not on the basis of origin in some sort  
> of
> historical actuality (which is the definition George advanced) but  
> in what
> we might term historical 'virtuality': legend is located **by its  
> narrators
> and audiences** in historical time. The Matter of Britain and the  
> Trojan
> War are legendary rather than mythical not because Arthur and  
> Odysseus have
> the same sort of documented historical actuality as Charlemagne  
> (they do
> not) but because his epos is securely placed by the narrative  
> tradition in
> 'historical' time.
>
> Stoney Breyer
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew