SOURCE: Segal, Robert A. “Myth Versus Religion for Campbell.” In Uses of Comparative Mythology: Essays on the Work of Joseph Campbell, edited by Kenneth L. Golden, pp. 39-52. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992.

In the following essay, Segal considers the relationship between mythology and religion in Campbell's work.

“My favorite definition of religion,” declares Joseph Campbell, “is ‘a misinterpretation of mythology’” (Open [An Open Life] 78). No theorist of myth since the Victorian Indologist F. Max Müller pits myth against religion so severely as does Campbell. Typically, theorists view myth either as tied to religion or at least as compatible with religion. The antithesis that Campbell draws between myth and religion is the subject of this essay.

What the actual relationship is between myth and religion depends first on the definition of myth. When myth is defined as a story about one or more gods, the relationship is intimate...