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Notes -
Then by what definition of "diabolical" are other religions' miracles diabolical and how do we know they're diabolical? The review is very unclear about this.
In the case of prior myths and legends, I'd guess that the similarities are from blending common mythic elements with facts about the historical figure.
Sure, I agree the review is unclear about it, as it is a bit of a tangent. As I laid out in my longer comment, every hypothesis has to explain why it is different from every other hypothesis. In some cases this requires accepting opposed supernatural forces (actually in most cases, I think most, perhaps all, religious traditions teach that not all supernatural forces are aligned).
Yeah I mean, why are their common mythic elements? From what I understand Campbell was influenced by Jung, who had the psychological/mystical idea about some sort of collective unconscious (my apologies if I am butchering Jung, I have not read his work). But if you don't believe in the collective unconscious you have to do harder lifting.
From what I understand what e.g. Lewis does is says "isn't it odd that all stories have a Christ-figure-legend but none of the figures had historical backing until Christ shows up? That's very classic divine foreshadowing" which is an interesting take, but, well, I am not sure I buy the idea of a monomyth, at least in a very "tight" or specific sense.
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