The words "myth" and "mythology" have been tossed around some here, so I'll quote (or maybe it's more of a paraphrase, but close) something a preacher friend of mine told me:

"A myth is a story, told as of something that happened a long time ago, about things that are always true."

Note that there's nothing there to the effect that the events related didn't happen. Thus, to speak of "The Jesus myth" neither asserts nor denies his one-time existence nor the reality of the miracles, etc. Instead, it refers to those stories as dealing with timeless principles.

Dave Oesterreich