Mythology

The first of these under the leadership of Abraham, who is called ‘the Hebrew’ in the early sources, came from Ur of the Chaldeans about the middle of the eighteenth century B.C. and finally settled in the neighbourhood of Hebron. The second movement, somewhat later, consisted of nomad, or semi-nomad, Aramaeans, under the leadership of Jacob, also called Israel, the eponymous ancestor of the Israelites; this branch ultimately settled around Shechem. A third wave of Hebrew settlement, consisting partly of tribes who had fled from Egypt after a long period of settlement there, entered Canaan from the south and east towards the end of the thirteenth century B.C. All these groups which ultimately became the people of Israel were composed of pastoral people, and in entering Canaan they found themselves in a country already inhabited by a long-established population, Semites like themselves, but whose economy was almost entirely agricultural. The account already given of the mythology of the Canaanites shows the type of religion and ritual practised by agriculturists, and it was to such a type of religious practice that the newcomers had to adapt themselves. The late and somewhat tendentious account of Hebrew settlement given in the book of Joshua suggests that extermination was the declared policy of the invading Hebrews; but earlier accounts, and the testimony of the prophets of Israel, suggest that Canaanite agricultural rituals and seasonal feasts were taken over by the new-comers and persisted, in spite of prophetic protests, until the Exile. In the form in which we have it now, the Old Testament is the product of editorial activity extending over many centuries. In the course of this activity many things were suppressed or modified as the conceptions of the nature of Yahweh developed through the teaching of the prophets. The mythological material was specially affected by this process; hence three main problems confront us in studying the mythology of the Old Testament. First we have to inquire what was the source and original form of the myths which we find there; then what modifications did the Hebrew writers or editors make in the mythical material which they borrowed from Canaanite or other sources; and lastly whether Israel produced any myths of its own. The final editors of the Old Testament collected most of the mythological material into the first eleven chapters of Genesis; but other myths and legends are to be found in fragmentary form scattered through the sagas and poetry of Israel and will be dealt with in due course. Creation Myths In the first two chapters of Genesis there are two stories of Creation, representing two different stages of the development of the religion of Israel. The first is contained in Chapter i-2 : 4a, and the second in Chapter 2:4b-25. The first has been assigned by the general agreement of scholars to the editorial activity of writers after the Exile, while the second has been assigned to a much earlier period in the history of Israel, possibly about the beginning of the monarchy. It shows signs of editorial activity, but in its present form it seems to bear the impress of a single mind. The differences between the two accounts may be best seen by setting them out in tabular form [Insert tb105 + tb106] In addition to these two main accounts of Creation, there are various references in Hebrew poetry to the divine activity in Creation which suggest that other forms of the myth of Creation may have been current in Israel.

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