Oriental Mythology is the second of the four volume The Masks of God written by Joseph Campbell. Campbell in general, and this series in particular, is very popular among Jesus Mythicists.
Campbell, a literary scholar, sought to find the commonality among all of the worlds myths. He believed that there was a monomyth, a common template on which all of the world’s myths were built on.
This particular volume focuses on India, China, and Japan. The myths described are not just ancient belief systems but the living religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism, etc.
Campbell continues his aim to show all of these religions and myths are just a variation on a theme. You can see how that would be applicable to the Jesus Myth Theory.
I am not an expert on Eastern religions and so I do not want to comment on his accuracy in describing these belief systems. But I will point out that Campbell did not have formal training in this either.
I do know that when he did touch on areas that I am familiar with, especially the Bible, there were often red flags. He would “massage” a biblical passage to make it look more like the other myths. There were some questions when he touched on the Egyptian and other Near Eastern myths that I am familiar with.
What Campbell does is take all of the details of all of the different religions and myths over thousands of years and identifies some common themes. But this does not prove his theory of a monomyth.
If you took enough boxes of puzzles and poured them on the floor, you would find pieces that were similar to each other. But that does not mean that one puzzle is directly related to another.
Campbell’s argument that there was the steady transmission of common mythical material moving back and forth from the Greco-Roman world to the Far East is not convincing. It is just as possible that religious movements developed on their own based on historical events in their own local setting.
While Oriental Mythology was an interesting read, I would suggest reading scholarly works that are not trying to force diverse stories into a common mold.
