Departure, Initiation, and Return in Biblical Narratives and JC’s Heroic Biography

Abstract

This study applied Joseph Campbell’s heroic pattern to the lives of Moses and Jesus Christ as described in Exodus and the Gospels in order to determine to which extent their lives correspond to the lives of mythological heroes. The results indicated that their lives agree to Campbell’s hero pattern and they furthermore offered a different approach in uncovering the symbolic meaning of these narratives, ultimately supporting the idea that biblical narratives can be read as hero stories.