Hebrew Myths Read Free Page A

thoughts of his forebears, and aware of his own profound influence on the fate of his descendants; he is equally influenced by the behaviour of his descendants and influences that of his ancestors. Thus King Jeroboam set up a golden calf in Dan, and this sinful act sapped the strength of Abraham when he pursued his enemies into the same district a thousand years previously.
    Fanciful rabbinic expansions of the
Genesis
stories were still being made in the Middle Ages: answers to such questions by intelligent students as—‘How was the Ark lighted? How were the animals fed? Was there a Phoenix on board?’ (see 20.
i–j
)
    Greek myths show no sense of national destiny, nor do Roman myths until it was supplied by gifted Augustan propagandists—Virgil, Livy and the rest. Professor Hadas of Columbia University has pointed out close correspondences between the
Aeneid
and
Exodus
—the divinely led exodus of refugees to a Promised Land—and concludes that Virgil borrowed from the Jews. It is possible, too, that Livy’s moral anecdotes of Ancient Rome, which are quite unmythical in tone, were influenced by the synagogue. Of course, Roman morals differed altogether from the Jewish: Livy rated courageous self-sacrificeabove truth and mercy, and the dishonourable Olympians remained Rome’s official gods. Not until the Hebrew myths, borrowed by the Christians, gave subject people an equal right to salvation, were the Olympians finally banished. It is true that some of these came back to power disguised as saints, and perpetuated their rites in the form of Church festivals; yet the aristocratic principle had been overthrown. It is also true that Greek myths were still studied, because the Church took over schools and universities which made the Classics required reading; and the names of Constellations illustrating these myths were too well established to be altered. Nevertheless, patriarchal and monotheistic Hebrew myth had firmly established the ethical principles of Western life.
    Our collaboration has been a happy one. Though the elder of us two had been brought up as a strict Protestant, and the younger as a strict Jew, we never disagreed on any question of fact or historical assessment; and each deferred to the other’s knowledge in different fields. A main problem was how much scholarly reference could be included without boring the intelligent general reader. This book could easily have run to twice its present length by the inclusion of late pseudo-mythic material rivalling in dullness even the
Wars of the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness
, which was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls; and by the citation of learned commentaries on small disputed points. Our gratitude is due to Abraham Berger and Francis Paar of the New York Public Library for bibliographic advice, and to Kenneth Gay for help in preparing the book for the press. Although of dual authorship,
Hebrew Myths
serves as a companion volume to
The Greek Myths
(Graves), its material being similarly organized.
    R.G.
    R.P.

1
THE CREATION ACCORDING TO
GENESIS
    (
a
) When God set out to create Heaven and Earth, He found nothing around Him but Tohu and Bohu, namely Chaos and Emptiness. The face of the Deep, over which His Spirit hovered, was clothed in darkness.
    On the first day of Creation, therefore, He said: ‘Let there be light!’, and light appeared.
    On the second day, He made a firmament to divide the Upper Waters from the Lower Waters, and named it ‘Heaven’.
    On the third day, He assembled the Lower Waters in one place and let dry land emerge. After naming the dry land ‘Earth’, and the assembled waters ‘Sea’, He told Earth to bring forth grass and herbs and trees.
    On the fourth day, He created the sun, moon and stars.
    On the fifth day, the sea-beasts, fish and birds.
    On the sixth day, the land-beasts, creeping things and mankind.
    On the seventh day, satisfied with His work, He rested. 1
    (
b
) But some say that after creating Earth