pagan mythology
- noun
- /ˈpeɪɡən maɪˈθɑlədʒi/
:
mitología pagana
- Pagan mythology often describes deities that represent aspects of nature, such as the sun and the moon.
Examples
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38. In the eighteenth century, both pagan mythology and the Bible were relegated to a lower position in the dynamics of world history, below scientific and empirical explanations.
Academic text (1994) -
Lafitau himself wrote, "The study I have made of pagan mythology has opened up to me another system of belief and made me go back far beyond the time of Moses to apply to our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, all that the author of whom I have spoken applied to Moses and Zipporah."
Academic text (2007) -
Jean Starobinski has explained how this view of pagan mythology and the rejection of its spiritual significance became a way to insinuate disbelief in the Christian doctrine of immortality.
Academic text (1994) -
Pagan mythology provides rich narratives that explain the seasons and life cycles of ancient cultures.
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Scholars study pagan mythology to understand the beliefs and rituals of societies that existed before Christianity.
How Mythical
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'pagan' (religious practices outside the Abrahamic faiths) with 'mythology' (a body of myths): together they straightforwardly mean the myths belonging to pagan traditions. This compositional pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows normal noun-noun modification, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should understand it.
Etymology
Pagan mythology comes from the picture of people in old villages telling stories about local gods, spirits and brave heroes; pagan named those who followed 'old religions' and mythology meant their shared 'stories'. So, pagan mythology refers to the set of ancient myths and legends that explained the world before Christianity.