101 Myths of the Bible [antikvár]

Preface"IIn 101 Myths of the Bible, I examine many stories in the Old Testamentand show their mythological nature. In choosing the stories, I selectedmaterial from three broad categories., ' - vV'| 'jFirst, I collected stories with at least two contradictory accounts in die Bible. I' '' 'i[ ' ' i ( Mwanted to show not only the existence of contradictions, which meant that at least one'.:,'!]'-version of the story was untrue, I also wanted to explain how the contradictions came ' I' ' 'i about, which to me was far more interesting. What was the story behind the story?.,, ^ j ij, 'In many instances, the inconsistencies reflect the ongoing propaganda' < \wars between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. On other occasions, an earlyj, ', .'version of a story was replaced by a later version. This was particularly true 'in the Creation and flood accounts, where early Egyptian influences on Israel ,' , ' came into conflict with later Babylonian sources.' . Second, I looked for bibKcal stories that closely paralleled earlier myths and legends from neighboring cultures. While in some cases the influences were obvious, as with the Babylonian flood myth, in many cases the task was quite difScult. Because of the biblical emphasis on monotheism, die authors had to eliminate references to or symbols of deities other than the Hebrew god. These changes were made by transforming foreign deities into human charaaers and sometimes changing die locale of die story.As intended, this version usually disguised the true nature of the biblical story, making it difflcuk to identify the earlier mythological source. Nevertheless, in many instances the editors overlooked some of the telltale signs of these earlier sources and, even in disguised form, it is often possible to strip off the costumes ;'' . - . : and see what mythological elements the bibHcal authors masked.iThe third cat^ory involved stories that simply coiddn't be true. I was concerned primarily with archaeological data diat indicated that events described in the Bible as happening within a particular time frame couldn't have occurred at the time indicated.J I' I'. '