Jewish mythology

Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism. Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology, as well as on world culture in general. Christian mythology directly inherited many of the narratives from the Jewish people, sharing in common the narratives from the Old Testament. Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories; for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham, the stories of Moses and the Israelites, and many more.

Tanakh

The writings of the biblical prophets, including Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, express a concept of the divine that is distinct from the mythologies of its neighbors. Instead of seeing the god of Israel as just one national god, these writings describe Yahweh as the one god of the universe.

The prophetic writings condemned Hebrew participation in nature worship, and did not completely identify the divine with natural forces.

Through the prophets' influence, Jewish theology increasingly portrayed God as independent from nature and acting independently of natural forces. Instead of eternally repeating a seasonal cycle of acts, Yahweh stood outside nature and intervened in it, producing new, historically unprecedented events; Eliade wrote: "That was theophany of a new type, hitherto unknown—''the intervention of Jahveh in history''. It was therefore something irreversible and unrepeatable. The fall of Jerusalem does not repeat the fall of Samaria: the ruin of Jerusalem presents a new historic theophany, another 'wrath' of Jahveh. ��Jahveh stands out from the world of abstractions, of symbols and generalities; he acts in history and enters into relations with actual historical beings."

Themes and narratives

Creation narrative

Two creation stories are found in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first Elohim, the Hebrew generic word for God, creates the heavens and the earth in six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh. In the second story, God, now referred to by the personal name Yahweh, creates Adam, the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden, where he is given dominion over the animals. Eve, the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion. God creates by spoken command and names the elements of the world as he creates them.

Genesis 1:1–2:3 creation order:
* Day 1 – Creation of light (and, by implication, time).
* Day 2 – The firmament. In Genesis 1:17 the stars are set in the firmament.
* Day 3 – Creating a ring of ocean surrounding a single circular continent. God does not create or make trees and plants, but instead commands the earth to produce them.
* Day 4 – God puts "lights" in the firmament to "rule over" the day and the night, referring to the "sun" and "moon".
* Day 5 – Creation of the living creatures.
* Day 6 – Creation of first man and woman.
* Day 7 – Creation is followed by rest.
In the second story (Genesis 2:4–2:25) the order is different; God created man, the Garden of Eden and planted trees, the living creatures and then the first woman.

The "combat myth"

Many of the Hebrews' neighbors had a "combat myth" about the good god battling the demon of chaos; one example of this mytheme is the Babylonian '' Enûma Eliš''. A lesser known example is the very fragmentary myth of Labbu. According to historian Bernard McGinn, the combat myth's imagery influenced Jewish mythology. The myth of God's triumph over Leviathan, a symbol of chaos, has the form of a combat myth.McGinn, p. 24 In addition, McGinn thinks the Hebrews applied the combat myth motif to the relationship between God and Satan. Originally a deputy in God's court, assigned to act as mankind's "accuser" (''satan'' means "to oppose" – Hebrew: שָּׂטָן ''satan'', meaning "adversary"), Satan evolved into a being with "an apparently independent realm of operation as a source of evil" – no longer God's deputy but his opponent in a cosmic struggle.

Even the Exodus story shows combat-myth influence. McGinn believes the "Song of the Sea", which the Hebrews sang after seeing God drown the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, includes "motifs and language from the combat myth used to emphasize the importance of the foundational event in Israel's religious identity: the crossing of the Red Sea and deliverance from the Pharaoh". Likewise, Armstrong notes the similarity between pagan myths in which gods "split the sea in half when they created the world" and the story of the Exodus from Egypt, in which Moses splits the Sea of Reeds (the Red Sea) – "though what is being brought into being in the Exodus, is not a cosmos but a people".Armstrong, p. 96 In any case, the motif of God as the "divine warrior" fighting on Israel's behalf is clearly evident in the Song of the Sea (Ex. 15). This motif recur in poetry throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (I Samuel 2; Zechariah 9:11–16;14:3-8).

Some comparative mythologists think Jewish mythology absorbed elements from pagan mythology. According to these scholars, even while resisting pagan ''worship'', the Jews willingly absorbed elements of pagan mythology.

Origin myth

Adam and Eve

According to the creation narratives in Genesis, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman. In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible

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