Synopses & Reviews
Campbell compares the creation story in Genesis with creation stories from around the world. Because the world changes, religion has to be transformed and new mythologies created. People today are stuck with old metaphors and myths that don't fit their needs.
Moyers: "The driving idea of his life was to understand the power of the stories and legends of the human race, especially those common themes and deep principles which energize our imaginations through the ages."
Campbell: "Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of the human life.... Whenever one moves out of the transcendence, one comes into the field of opposites.... that is to say, I know the center and I know that good and evil are simply temporal apparitions.... With that fall in the Garden, nature was regarded as corrupt. There's a myth for you that corrupts the whole world for us and every spontaneous act is sinful."
Moyers: "Your work in mythology has liberated my faith from the cultural prisons to which it has been sentenced."
Campbell: "It has liberated my own. I know it's going to do it with everyone that gets the message."
About the Author
JOSEPH CAMPBELL (1904-1987) was a prolific writer, dedicated editor, beloved teacher, inspiring lecturer, gifted storyteller, avid scholar, and a foremost interpreter of myth. Among the many books he wrote and edited, he is best known for The Hero with a Thousand Faces, his four-volume The Masks of God, and his magnum opus, Historical Atlas of World Mythology.