Tag: Yahweh
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Samson, a Hero and a Half ! (iii)
Last time, we saw how, when Samson stomped off from his wedding day, the bride-not-to-be was married off by her father to someone else. Unaware of this, and having recovered his cool, Samson “went to visit the young woman he thought was still his wife.” He brought with him a gift which he clearly thought […]
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Samson, a Hero and a Half ! (i)
In the book in the Hebrew Bible called “Judges” (chapters 13 to 16) we’re entertained with the amazingly outrageous story of Samson. This makes a welcome contrast to, let’s say, the first dozen chapters of 1 Chronicles. When sleep doesn’t come easily, try these interminable genealogical and other assorted lists of eminently forgettable names. The […]
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The Bible and Canaanite Myth
Previous posts have explored the use made by the writers/editors of the Hebrew Bible of the Babylonian myth of Marduk and Tiamat, goddess of the salt waters. A different version of this story is found in the mythology of Israel’s fellow Canaanites, and appears in tablets (see above) discovered at ancient Ugarit on the Mediterranean […]
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The Bible and Babylonian Myth (ii)
My previous post showed how the Hebrew Bible writers made use of the Babylonian myth ‘Enuma Elish’ in finalising their own great national epic, and how the conflict between the god Marduk and the goddess Tiamat, hinted at in Genesis 1:2, finds clear parallels in the books of the Psalms and Job. In the Babylonian […]
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The Bible and Babylonian Myth
The scrolls of the Hebrew Bible most probably reached their final form after the Israelites’ 6th century BCE return from exile in Babylon. While there, they’d have encountered the ‘Enuma Elish’, the Babylonian myth of creation and the rise of the storm god Marduk to become the chief of their gods. In those days, the […]
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A Picture or 1000 Words
The old saying tells us that “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament contains thousands of words about God, but it seems to me that it also contains two ‘pictures’ that put all these thousands of words in their proper place, and warn us against understanding them in any crudely literal […]
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The Tower of Babel – or Babble?
This story begins by stating that “the whole earth had a common language and a common vocabulary”, which is a splendid example of ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story’ since we’re told, in the previous chapter, that the nations had been “separated into their lands, every one according to […]
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Genesis 6 – Who were the Nephilim?
Following on from the Cain and Abel tale of blood-stained misadventure, here is an even more ambiguous, if not totally obscure, story. It concerns dubious goings-on involving, of all people, the “sons of God”. The phrase בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים (beney haʾelohim) is found only here and in the Book of Job, but occurs outside the Hebrew Bible […]
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Cain and Abel – A Different Slant
Why, in Genesis 4, does this strangely ambiguous and shockingly bloodthirsty story make its appearance, about the two brothers Cain and Abel? Cain was not, of course, a historical person but an invention, a character in a story intended to portray something ‘true to life’. Needing to find him a name, the storyteller came up […]
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