What I'm currently working on: The "Good Shepherd" from the Roman catacomb of Priscilla, c. 3rd century C.E., where some of the earliest known Christian art was found. The Good Shepherd functioned as an early metaphor for Jesus, but this archetype of the herdsmen with shamanic powers can be traced in the story-traditions of figures such as Orpheus, Hermes, Moses, King David, or Endymion the shepherd-astronomer. Indeed, to think such a rich web of meaning discredits the story of Jesus is to miss the point entirely--in the mode of myth such things just compound potency and make things more interesting. I believe the figure of the Shepherd is central to the cultural "creation story" of the Near East, hence Western culture. Shepherd is a symbol of underworld guide (guide of souls), but is also an icon of ecological "deep" history, speaking of a symbiotic relationship between two species that literally made our culture possible. We westerners seem to romanticize such symbiosis in other cultures, especially pre-industrial ones, but fail to see a comparable pattern in our own. Mythology should not be just for talking about other people's cultures and distancing ourselves from the past. I know that religious studies as an institution felt tarnished by the "crypto-theological" work of certain mythologists. But there can be a way to take note from both the universality of mythology and the relativism of postmodern thought. The notion that you have to pick one (and they are just stand ins for the old dichotomy of rational/intuitive, intelligence/emotions, science/art) is the symptom of an emotionally wounded and indecisive culture that, tragically, can't trust itself.
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