I was recently browsing some forums on religion, and there was thread comparing the many "myths" of creation. I noticed a huge difference when it came to the Babylonian tradition of Marduk creating man from clay and the blood of a slain God, and the Christian tradition of man being made by God.

For some reason, the Babylonian tradition was defined as a myth, but the typical Judeo-Christian tradition was not. Now, why would this be?

What makes a myth, and how do we define it, if we even can?

"myth ~ From Ancient Greek (muthos), “‘word, humour, companion, speech, account, rumour, fable’”). English since 1830."
Note the first translation, "word". Now if we take the Bible: "In the Beginning, there was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God".

Word, myth, fable, perhaps it all points to the same thing. However, I'm pretty sure that most Christians wouldn't exactly like you if you called the Bible a myth. We speak of the creation myth, but why don't we address the entire Bible as being mythical? Or the Torah or the Qu'ran for that matter?

My guess is that because of its historical "evidence" (which is much more obvious in the Qu'ran than in the Bible or the Torah, for that matter) we stop to look at what is said is mythical.

If we compare this opinion to that of a Christian living five hundred years ago, or random Christians somewhere in Alabama nowadays, they will not see the 6-day creation of the world as being a myth, or mythical in origin.

Take for example the Greek legend of the birth of Dionysus. He was born from the mortal woman Selene and was the son of Zeus. While Selene was pregnant, she doubted the divine origin of the child and demanded that Zeus showed him to her in all his divine power. Seeing this, she died and Zeus took the unborn baby from her stomach and sewed Dionysus in his own thigh.

I suppose that most people will regard this as, in the words of Tribeseman, bollox. For a Greek man 2,500 years ago this was reality.

So why do we take Jesus, say he turned water into wine, magically duplicated loaves of bread and fishes and raised a man from the dead. Just like Isis and Osiris. But for some reason, that's mythical.

To cut a long story short, where do we place myths? How you can rationally call one explanation a myth and another real. Feel free to debate.