Myth and religion in Greece: a border never drawn

The Odyssey is a myth, but does that make it religion?

Are Greek myths a religion? The question sounds like a high school textbook, but a tweet from Padre Mercant has brought it back into the spotlight with uncomfortable consequences. The Odyssey and the Iliad are conveniently filed under the label "mythology", without anyone explaining whether that makes them religious texts, literature, or both at once.

The border between mythos and logos that was never there

The supposed separation between myth and reason is more artificial than it seems. Mythos meant "word" or "story"; logos came to designate ordered, rational discourse. Yet Plato, the very paradigm of rationalism, uses myths without the slightest embarrassment in his dialogues —the myth of Er, Atlantis— to shore up philosophical theses. Are they religion? Obviously not. Greek religion was transmitted through stories, but turning every story into religion is a leap nobody justifies.

The shadow of Troy over the word 'myth'

There is a second front that unsettles things: the Trojan War. For decades it was explained as pure myth, until archaeology showed it corresponded to real events, occurring on several occasions around 1200 BC. If a myth is, by definition, a false story, what do we do when the myth contains history? The conclusion floating around is that Western academia decides with remarkable ease what counts as myth and what does not.

In the end, we still don't know whether the Greeks prayed to Homer or simply read him. The only thing that is clear is that the word "myth" too often works as a catch-all.