Myth in old testament interpretation 9783110811469, 9783110042207

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
Chapter 1. Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century
Chapter 2. Theological and Historical Reaction — de Wette, George and Ewald
Chapter 3. Comparative Mythology
Chapter 4. Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology
Chapter 5. Hermann Gunkel
Chapter 6. Myth and Ritual
Chapter 7. The Old Testament versus Mythopoeic Thought
Chapter 8. The Structural Study of Myth
Chapter 9. Le Symbole donne à penser
Chapter 10. German scholarship since Gunkel: other recent developments
Chapter 11. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index of Modem Authors
Subject Index
Index of biblical references

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J.W. Rogerson Myth in Old Testament Interpretation

J.W. Rogerson

Myth in Old Testament Interpretation

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Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York 1974

Beiheft zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Herausgegeben von Georg Fohrer 134

© ISBN 3 11 004220 7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73—78234 1974 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., vormals G.J. Göschen'sche Verlagshandlung—J. Guttentag, Verlagsbuchhandlung — Georg Reimer — Karl J . Trübner — Veit & Comp., Berlin 30 Alle Rechte des Nachdrucks, der photomechanischen Wiedergabe, der Übersetzung, der Herstellung von Mikrofilmen und Photokopien, auch auszugsweise, vorbehalten. Printed in Germany Satz und Druck: Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30 Bindearbeiten: Lüderitz & Bauer, Berlin 61

Preface The aim of the following study is to describe how the concept of myth has been used in Old Testament interpretation since the end of the late 18th century. It has not been my intention to provide the fullest possible catalogue of scholarly writings and their understanding of myth. Rather, I have tried to isolate the major theoretical approaches to the subject of myth and its application to the Old Testament, and to evaluate the presuppositions of these approaches, whether the presuppositions be philosophical, theological, anthropological or linguistic. As a result, the book runs the risk of inadequacy from at least two directions. First, the complexity of the notion of myth, and the fact that it is of importance to a number of disciplines, has often led me into areas where I am by no means a specialist, and where I may well have made mistakes. Secondly, some readers may feel that there are gaps in the presentation. For example, I have said little about Scandinavian scholarship, for the reason that I think that Scandinavian scholarship has applied an established view of myth to the Old Testament, and has not worked out a new theoretical understanding of the concept. Whatever its defects'; I hope that the effect of the book will be to provide the basis for a renewed discussion among Old Testament scholars of a subject which is currently a matter of great interest among anthropologists and classicists, and where some inter-disciplinary cooperation could yield useful results for the Old Testament. I very much hope that the book represents my first rather than my last thoughts on the subject, and that criticism and discussion will enable me to produce something better at a future date. My indebtedness to scholars who have previously written about myth, and about the history of Old Testament interpretation, will be obvious. However, in almost every case, the present work is based on a fresh study of the primary sources to which I refer. I must express my gratitude to the staff of the University Library in Durham, and especially to the inter-library loan section, for much help in getting access to primary sources. I am also grateful for permission to use New College, Edinburgh, library on several occasions. In the summer of 1970, before he retired as Ephorus of the Tübingen Stift, Professor Dr. Friedrich Lang generously enabled me to read in the Stift for a number of weeks. When I had written the chapter on the structural study of myth, the fourth volume of L^vi-Strauss's "Mythologiques" entitled

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Preface

"L'homme nu" reached me. I would have preferred to read this volume before completing my work on this topic, but I do not think that I wish to modify my approach to the subject, or my arguments in the light of the fourth volume. Among my colleagues who have helped me in various ways, I should like to thank the Reverend Professor C. K. Barrett, the Reverend Canon Professor D. R. Jones, and the Reverend Dr. J. Heywood Thomas whose suggestion it was in the first place that I should write this book. I am most grateful to Professor D. Dr. Georg Fohrer, D. D., D. D., editor of the Beihefte, for accepting the book for publication in the series. J. W. Rogerson Durham, December 1971

Contents Chapter 1: Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century l Chapter 2: Theological and Historical Reaction — de Wette, George and Ewald 16 Chapter 3: Comparative Mythology 33 Chapter 4: Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology. . 45 Anthropological Mythology

51

Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter Chapter

5: Hermann Gunkel 67 6: Myth and Ritual 66 7: The Old Testament versus Mythopoeic Thought . . . 86 8: The Structural Study of Myth 101 9: Le Symbole donne ä penser 128 10: German Scholarship since Gunkel: other recent Developments 145 Chapter 11: Conclusions 174 I. The Origin of Myth II. The Problem of Primitive Mentality III. The Old Testament and Modern Belief

Bibliography Indices

179 180 185

190 202

Chapter 1 Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century Between the period 1775 to 1800, the first attempts were made in the modern era of the study of the Old Testament to use myth as an interpretative concept. The fundamental research on this subject was carried out some twenty years ago by C. Hartlich and W. Sachs 1 , who were later followed by P. Barthel 2 , and indeed the present study is much indebted to this earlier research. However, Hartlich and Sachs, and Barthel were concerned primarily with the New Testament, and discussed the Old Testament only insofar as the use of myth in biblical studies began with the latter before passing to the former. In neither case was the research taken beyond de Wette on the Old Testament side, nor was Herder's later influence discussed. In contrast, the present chapter aims to display the complexity of the use of myth in Old Testament interpretation at the close of the eighteenth century, to expose and evaluate its presuppositions, and to indicate how it prepared the way for later scholarship and exegesis. B y way of introduction to the subject, it will be useful to note the comments of the Berlin philosopher and student of the Old Testament, J . F. L. George3. Writing some thirty years after the period under consideration, and with a view to advancing quite a different theory about the nature of myth, he sketched the history of the meaning of the terms myth and saga up to the point of their first positive use in biblical studies. According to George, myth had been connected with the Greek pOôoç, and saga with Aôyoç, and there had been a tendency to equate Aôyoç with what was factual, and nûôoç with what was unhistorical (fabelhaft). With the rise of interest in history, saga had then been contrasted with history and been regarded as untrue. In turn, this had led to an equation of the terms myth and saga, which were thus being used interchangeably towards the end of the eighteenth century, in particular by several of the writers to whom we shall pay attention in this chapter 4 . The fact that in the nineteenth century 1

2 3

1

C. Hartlich, W. Sachs, Der Ursprung des Mythosbegriffes in der modernen Bibelwissenschaft, 1952. P. Barthel, Interprétation du langage mythique et théologie biblique, 1967.® J . F. L. George, Mythus und Sage. Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Entwicklung dieser Begriffe und ihres Verhältnisses zum christlichen Glauben, 1837. George 98—105. The discussion concerns, of course, Germany, which is the almost exclusive concern of this chapter. It must be noted that we are dealing with R o g e r s o n , Myth

1

2

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

the most strenuous efforts were made to distinguish between myth and saga, makes it all the more important to note their general equation in the earlier period. The work of Hartlich and Sachs made it clear that the scholar who more than any other prepared the way for the introduction of myth into Old Testament interpretation was the British scholar Lowth5. Published in 1753, Lowth's lectures on Hebrew poetry, delivered as Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, received considerable attention in Germany6. Their importance for the later mythical interpretation of the Old Testament can be summarised as follows7. First, he investigated Hebrew poetry not on the basis of a theory of divine inspiration, but according to the actual style of writing. This encouraged scholars in Germany to interpret the Old Testament as they would any other book, while maintaining its divine inspiration. Second, by comparing Hebrew poetry with Greek and Latin poetry, he suggested that the Bible could be interpreted on the basis of insights gained from the study of non-biblical literature. This suggestion was soon to bear fruit when theories about myth worked out in relation to Greek literature were then applied to the Old Testament. Similar procedures were later to be adopted on numerous occasions. Third, Lowth held that man's earliest speech was poetry, and that the poet was expressing the same truths as the philosopher, but in a more sublime way. It was Herder who was to use this suggestion to the full. Fourth, Lowth made an incidental distinction between poetry derived from nature, which was man's earliest speech, and poetry as a conscious art. It was this suggestion that was taken up by Heyne, and used as the basis of the distinction between myth as the earliest speech of man, and poetry, which involved the artistic use of elements and figures derived from man's earliest mythical speech. Lowth's lectures were republished in Gottingen in 1786 with critical notes by J . D. Michaelis, and it was the Gottingen classicist the German terms Mythus or Mythe, here represented in English as myth, and Sage represented as saga. 5

6

7

Hartlich-Sachs 6—10. See also Barthel 21 and G. W. Meyer, Geschichte der Schrifterklärung seit der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften, 1809, V 702 ff. R. Lowth, De sacra poesi Hebraeorum, 1753. English translation, by G. Gregory, Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, 1847. For Lowth's importance for German scholarship see T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism, 1893, 4; H.-J. Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung des Alten Testaments, 1969 2 , 119. For contemporary acknowledgements see inter alia J . G. Herder, Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie, 1827, 3. See also the obituary and appreciation in J . G. Eichhorn, Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Litteratur, I, 4 1788, 707—724. See especially Hartlich-Sachs 6—10.

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C. G. Heyne who developed out of some of Lowth's suggestions, principles for interpreting Greek myths 8 . As noted above, Heyne's main disagreement with Lowth was over the nature of man's earliest speech. According to Lowth it was poetry; according to Heyne, it was myth, by which was meant the attempts of earliest man to understand and express his experiences by drawing analogies from the world of nature around him, an enterprise in which he was prone to misrepresent both actual happenings and their causes. To reach this particular view, Heyne drew on what was known at the time about primitive peoples9. On the assumption that contemporary primitives were, like earliest man, humans in the infancy of their development, and on the supposition that primitive man was unable to reflect on his immediate sense impressions, or to express his experience of the world around him in any exact way, Heyne maintained his theories, thus paving the way for the many later anthropological approaches to the subject of myth in terms of primitive mentality. Heyne distinguished between myths which were attempts to describe actual happenings (historical myths) and those which tried to explain the causes or origins of phenomena (philosophical myths). These pure types of myth had to be distinguished from the artistic use of myths, as for example in Homer and Hesiod10. A student of Heyne, J . G. Eichhorn, first applied the former's theories to the interpretation of the Old Testament in an anonymous article on the opening chapters of Genesis published in 177911, although as the author later revealed12, the article had been completed as early as 1775. Eichhorn was, of course, the pioneer of the writing of modern introductions to the Old Testament, and it is important to note that his mythical approach to the Old Testament did not take precedence over his literary interests. Thus, in discussing Gen 1, he was prepared to advance a literary explanation for the fact that vegetation grows in v. n before the creation of the sun in v. 14. The literary explanation was in terms of the combination of two sources; it would have been easy simply to regard the oddity of the narrative to the modern mind as due to the primitive outlook of the Hebrew writer13. 8

9 J0

11 12 13

See especially the article De origine et causis fabularum Homericarum published in Gottingen in 1777. Also Opuscula Academica, 1779, I 184—206; III 1—30. Compare Opuscula Academica III, 10, 29. See the comments on Heyne by J . de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie, 1961, 143—144. Repertorium fur Biblische und Morgenlandische Litteratur, IV 1779, 129. See Allgemeine Bibliothek, II 1790, 711. The references are to J . P. Gabler, Urgeschichte, 1790—93, which reprinted Eichhorn's article, but with extensive notes and introduction by Gabler. For Eichhorn's treatment of Gen 1 see Urgeschichte I 137 ff. 1*

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Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

The greatest interest lies in Eichhorn's treatment of Gen 2—3. These chapters were interpreted as historical myths, that is, the events underlying them had actually happened, but earliest man had understood and described them in a mythical way. It was historically true that the original pair from which the human race was descended had lived in a garden. In some way, God had intimated to them that some fruits in the garden were poisonous14. Then the woman saw a serpent eat one of the poisonous fruits without harm, and was encouraged to do the same. When she and her husband ate, the poison affected their physical constitution. For the first time they became aware of physical passions, an awareness which was henceforth to be transmitted to their offspring. A storm in the evening seemed like the voice of divine judgement, and in fright the couple left the garden15. This was the historical reality; the mythical understanding and expression consisted of such things as the woman's conversation with the serpent and the man's conversation with God. The former represented only the woman's own thoughts; the conversations with God were man's misunderstanding of natural phenomena16. One also had to allow that the abstract ideas of good and evil as applied to one of the trees could only be the result of later reasoning on the part of narrators or editors of the story, since earliest man would be incapable of such abstractions 17 . Eichhorn also had to allow that the first man had an idea of a one creator God, and that this idea was God's first revelation to man 18 . Like the views of many pioneers, Eichhorn's views did not remain static. By 1790, he had modified his historical mythical interpretation in favour of a philosophical mythical interpretation of Gen 2—3, which saw the narrative in terms of an attempt to describe the loss of a golden age19. Also, he had begun to take the important step of applying his theories to the interpretation of the New Testament, and in particular to the angelophanies20. But though he was the pioneer of what has been called the "mythical school" 21 he was certainly not its theoretician. If we wish to get a clearer idea of the presuppositions and aims of the mythical school, we must turn to the writings of J . P. Gabler22. 14

15 16 19 20 21 22

Urgeschichte II, 2, 100. Eichhorn contents himself with saying "how can one conceive the many thousand means the creator might have used ? " Urgeschichte II, 2, 99ff. 186ff. 216ff. 1 7 Ibid. 100. 1 8 Ibid. 60—61. Ibid. 64ff. Allgemeine Bibliothek, IV 1792, 500. Allgemeine Bibliothek, III 225. 282. 383. 1040. See also Hartlich-Sachs 61 ff. Eg. by Barthel 21 ff.; Hartlich-Sachs 20. See particularly the Urgeschichte. Another important theoretical treatment is that of F. W. J. Schelling, Über Mythen, historische Sagen und Philosopheme der ältesten

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

5

At first sight, Gabler seems to have been more rationalistic in his approach than Eichhorn. For example, he rejected Eichhorn's view that earliest man had an idea of a one creator God23. On the contrary, the divine name in Gen 2—3, Yahweh Elohim, itself the result of combining different names for the deity current among different sections of the ancient Hebrew people, showed that the background to the narrative was polytheistic. But supposing there had been a divine revelation to earliest man, how could the latter have understood it, granted the extremely rudimentary nature of his language and thus of his ability to understand abstract ideas? Surely it was more logical to see in the incident of the man naming the animals, man's first beginnings in the acquisition of speech and reason, and to interpret Gen 2—3 as a whole along the lines of Kant, who saw in the discovery of the difference between good and evil a vital step forward in the development of reason24. At the same time, in a review of an anonymous book in which all miraculous occurrences in the Pentateuch were given a natural explanation, Gabler vigorously defended the possibilities of miracle and revelation 26 . He argued that if one denied that an earthly event could have a supernatural cause, one was either denying that God had created the world, or was reducing God to a creature in the natural world. Further, if the laws of nature were held to be eternal and unalterable, this in effect denied the existence of God as an object outside the world. Miracles, especially during the ministry of Jesus had happened, and their purpose had been to help the faith of the first disciples, and the spread of Christianity in the ancient world. Some form of divine revelation was essential if man was to pass from being a creature of passions to a creature of reason. Gabler's conclusion was that one must not approach the Bible with the a priori view that there could not be miracles. The correct approach was from a position that allowed full weight to the tendency of the ancient and oriental mind to understand and express natural events in terms of the supernatural. One might still reach the position Welt, in: H. E. G. Paulus, Memorabilien, 1793, V 1—68. Schelling is also discussed by Hartlich-Sachs 52 if. Schelling's discussion owes much to Heyne and Herder, and adds little if anything to what was stated by Gabler in the Urgeschichte. Perhaps the most interesting comment, reminiscent of Herder, is that the myth of the tree of knowledge is psychologically true (psychologisch richtig) in its portrayal of man's condition after his first misuse of freedom (55). 23 24

25

Urgeschichte II, 2, 64 note 27. I. Kant, Anfang der Menschengeschichte, Berlinische Monatsschrift 1786, Iff. Referred to by Gabler, Urgeschichte, II, 1, 423. See his article: Kurze Prüfung einiger philosophischer Hauptgründe gegen die Wunder, nebst etliche andern Ansichten dieses Gegenstandes, in: J. Ph. Gabler's kleinere theologischen Schriften, 1831 I, 575ff.

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that no true miracles had occurred in the incidents related in the Bible, but this conclusion would be based on exegesis and not philosophical presuppositions 26 . It is when we add to this argument Gabler's treatment of Gen 2—3, that we can begin to see what the acutest mind among the members of the mythical school was trying to achieve. Gabler followed Eichhorn's earlier view of Gen 2—3, in maintaining that it arose as an historical myth from the experiences of the first man and woman 27 . Later, the historical myth was expanded into a philosophical myth about the origin of evil in the world. In the course of expansion, elements were added to the narrative which would have been outside the understanding of earliest man, such as the dialogues, the tree of life, the serpent, the cherubim, marriage, father and mother 28 . But there was an integrity about the whole narrative. It was not fiction, because its basis was in an actual event, and where the narrative had been turned into a philosophical myth in order to explain the origin of evil, it was true in that it represented the philosophising of ancient, though not now earliest man. Thus Gabler was trying to rescue the opening of Genesis from two extremes. On the one hand he was opposing thoroughgoing rationalism by asserting that the narratives were in some sense historically true, and that his denial of the supernatural was the result of exegesis based on anthropology and comparative literary studies, and not the result of a priori views about the non-possibility of the supernatural. On the other hand, he was opposing the literalism of the day which was quite happy to accept that there had been a walking, talking serpent in the Garden of Eden 29 . It is easier for us today to note that Gabler's exegesis was not without certain rationalistic presuppositions, and to point out that his treatment of Genesis reduced its theological significance to that of providing information about man's ascent to the religion of reason, than to appreciate that it represented an attempt to break out of the limiting circle of approaches current in his day. We must turn now to consider Gabler's definition of myth 30 . According to him, myths are not fables (Fabeln) neither are they folk 26 27

28 29

30

Ibid. 586—589. At Urgeschichte II, 2, 38 note 19, Gabler discussed the seven main types of race then generally held to be found in the world, but concluded that all were descended from an original pair of humans, differences of height and colour, etc., being due to climate and way of life. Urgeschichte II, 1, 640—641; II, 2. xxxiii, xxxix. Literalist interpretations are discussed at length by Gabler at Urgeschichte II, 1, 28 ff. See especially Urgeschichte II, 1, 260 ff. 482 ff. In view of Gabler's usual clarity, it is disappointing that in an article about the alleged two-year reign of the popess

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

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tales (Märchen). They are sagas31 and as such convey the history and philosophy of the earliest times in the modes of expression available to early man. However, because of the vicissitudes of the oral transmission process, myths or sagas can undergo considerable modification. They can give rise to fables (Fabeln) which then look like myths, but in contrast to myths are the product of human fiction (Dichtung). Again, myths which originate from historical events may be transformed into poetic or philosophical myths in a number of ways. Poetic elements may be added, or a poet may work disparate myths into an integrated artistic composition; or an historical myth may be taken and used to express a philosophical truth. Indeed the hardest job is to distinguish between historical and philosophical myths, because apart from the tendency of the former to be transformed into the latter, there is the possibility that the latter will be be cast in the form of the former. However, a myth is truly historical only when it is intended to be an expression of an historical event. The above analysis is surprisingly subtle and modern. Had it remained the theoretical basis of the mythical school, later research would no doubt have proceeded on profitable lines. Unfortunately, Gabler himself went beyond his careful reasoning in the "Urgeschichte" to argue a position which was not to be so helpful to biblical studies. It has already been noted that Eichhorn first applied the mythical approach to the New Testament 32 , but again, while Eichhorn was the pioneer, Gabler was the theoretician. A crucial article was that in which he discussed the Lucan account of the angel which strengthened Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane33. Gabler's starting-point was to ask why it was that the non-eyewitness Luke should have in his Gospel an incident not recorded by the eyewitnesses Matthew and John. The answer was that Luke had access to eyewitness tradition independent of Matthew and John, and this assertion then became the basis of the view that in Luke 22 43 we have "an old Christian saga" 34 the point being that oral transmission lay behind the description of the event in the Gospel. There were two possible explanations for the origin of the "saga". First, Jesus may have told his disciples that he felt as though an angel was strengthening him, the saying then being Joanna round about A. D. 866 (J. Ph. Gabler's kleinere theologischen Schriften, I, 445ff.) he was able to equate Sage and Fabel. 31

32 33

31

It is important to note the connection in German between Sage and the verb sagen " t o say". This suggests that Sage is something transmitted by word of mouth. See 4—5 above. Über den Engel der nach Luc. xxii, 43 Jesum gestärkt haben soll, first published in Neuestes theologisches Journal 1798, reprinted in J . Ph. Gabler's kleinere theologischen Schriften, I 1—53, to which reference is here made. Ibid. 21.

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misunderstood so that it was assumed that an angel did actually strengthen him. Second, the incident may have been witnessed by someone who, however, because of the nature of the Jewish or eastern mind, conceptualised the incident in terms of the presence of an angel. Of these possibilities, the second attracted Gabler most, and it led to the formulation of the important principle "it is characteristic of the oriental that he does not relate bare facts, but will relate an event in the way that he thought it happened, or must have happened. Interpretation has always been closely woven in with history, and presented as the fact itself, because the oriental cannot think that an event happened in any other way than that in which he perceived it. The fact and the way the fact was perceived were for the easterner an inseparable unity". 36 This principle clearly involved a shift of ground. For the "earliest human understanding" there has been substituted the "eastern mind", and Hartlich and Sachs have rightly observed that in moving beyond the pre-literary earliest stage of human history, Eichhorn and Gabler had departed from the principles laid down by Heyne 36 . It is tempting to see this shift of ground as having been made possible by the equation of the terms myth and saga, which facilitated in turn the fusion of the separate ideas of oral tradition and primitive conceptualising. Whatever the case, the way was now open for myths to be found from the first page of the Bible to the last, and any supernatural or unusual incident was likely to be labeled mythical. It was left to G. L. Bauer to work systematically through the pages of the Bible, and to produce what represents the logical outcome of the work of the mythical school37. Although Bauer has been called the theoretician of the mythical school38 in fact his work displays nothing of the acuteness and subtlety of Gabler. While roughly the 35

38 37

38

Ibid. 37. "Es liegt ohnehin in dem Charakter des Orientalers, eine Begebenheit nie nackt zu erzählen, sondern so, wie er sich dachte, daß es dabei zugegangen, oder wie sie erfolgt seyn möchte. Räsonnement war immer in Geschichte eingeflochten, und wurde selbst als Faktum dargestellt weil der Orientaler sich's gar nicht denken konnte, daß etwas anders vorgefallen seyn könnte, als er sich's gerade vorstellte. Das Faktum, und die Art, sich das Faktum zu denken, floß bei dem Morgenländer in Ein unzertrennliches Ganze zusammen." This passage is also emphasised by Hartlich-Sachs 67. Hartlich-Sachs 62. G. L. Bauer, Hebräische Mythologie des alten und neuen Testaments mit Parallelen aus der Mythologie anderer Völker, vornehmlich der Griechen und Römer, 1802. See also Bauer's The Theology of the Old Testament or A Biblical Sketch of the Religious Opinions of the Ancient Hebrews. Extracted and translated from the Theologie des Alten Testaments, 1838. Compare the discussion of Bauer in HartlichSachs 70 ff.; Barthel 24 ff. E. g. by Barthel 23.

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first sixty pages of his "Hebräische Mythologie" is devoted to theory, he makes no new contribution to the subject. He refers much more to Heyne than to Gabler, yet he fails to see how his own position is much less cautious than Heyne's. His main contribution lies in the way he has collected comparative material from extra-biblical sources with which to illuminate and support his biblical interpretation. The bulk of the book is an interpretation of biblical passages under the headings of philosophical myths, historical or historical/philosophical myths, and poetic and mixed myths. What is interesting is that while some of his interpretations seem crude to the modern reader, and far too dependent on thunderstorms and lightning (the Tower of Babel was destroyed by a storm [224], Sodom was destroyed by asphalt ignited by lightning [238], the burning bush was a flash of lightning in a bush [267] )a number of interpretations are current in modern interpretation. Thus Saul's evil spirit from Yahweh is explained as an illness conceptualised in terms of the supernatural (149—150), and the origin of the tradition of the sun standing still over Gibeon is thought to be a poetic fragment preserved in the book of Yashar, and taken literally by a later historical writer (II 12). In the case of the deliverance of Jerusalem from the armies of Sennacherib, the account of Herodotus is quoted as providing the fact on which the myth is based (II 202). It is odd that in the following century, the mythical school was to influence New Testament studies much more than Old Testament studies. The reasons are beyond the scope of this book, and have been discussed elsewhere39. This chapter concludes with a consideration of Herder, who exercised a more lasting influence on the understanding of myth among Old Testament scholars40. Herder's equipment for an approach to the Old Testament was exceedingly rich. Well grounded in the classics and Hebrew from his teens, and a great traveller whose journeyings in 1769 gave him a first-hand interest in primitive cultures, Herder was interested among other things in the origins of language, and the nature and transmission of oral and folk literature. Above all, he brought to the Old Testament a great feeling for poetry, and found that deep called to deep. On the other hand, Herder was such a prolific writer that to begin to reduce his thoughts on any one subject 39 40

See the later chapters of Hartlich-Sachs; Barthel 36 if. For a recent biography of Herder see E. Baur, Johann Gottfried Herder. Leben und Werke, 1960. For Herder's importance to myth, and biblical studies generally see Hartlich-Sachs 47—53; J . de Vries 122ff.; R. Smend, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wettes Arbeit am Alten und am Neuen Testament, 1958, 12ff. 27ff.; H.-J. Kraus 114ff.; E. G. Kraeling, The Old Testament since the Reformation, 1955, 57—58; K. Barth, Die Protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, 1952. English Trans. From Rousseau to Ritsehl, 1959, 197ff. Cheyne 16ff.

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to any order and coherence is a formidable task 41 and in what follows, due allowance must be made for this fact. A useful starting-point is to consider what Herder had in common with the mythical school42. We know that while he was living in Biickeburg between 1771 and 1776, Herder visited Gottingen in order to collect material for his researches into the ancient Orient, and there met Heyne, with whom he later maintained some contact 43 . Further, in his "Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind" 44 he quoted with approval Heyne's theories of the origin of myths. Thus it is not surprising to find that some of his interpretations are reminiscent of those of the mythical school. For example, he accounted for the origin of the Cherubim who guarded the way to the Garden of Eden by supposing that between mankind and the garden from which they had been banned was a mountain, possibly shaped like an animal, over which lay thunderclouds. The flaming swords of the Cherubim would derive from the lightning that flashed down onto the mountain 45 . Again, the eating of the forbidden fruit was understood as an actual incident in which an odious fruit awoke physical passions in the first human beings 46 ; yet it is typical of Herder's phenomenal breadth of interest that he added a long discussion of the effects that guilt (Schuld) arising from the shame of discovering nakedness might have had on the physical constitution of the human race, based on a study of medical opinion on the subject. If some of Herder's interpretations resembled those of the mythical school, it is also the case that his writings often provided a basis for the school's theories. There are numerous references to Herder in Gabler's "Urgeschichte" 47 and the mythical school was particularly indebted to Herder's celebrated essay on the origin of speech48. In this study, Herder had argued that speech had a human and not a divine origin; yet man had been created with the potentialities of speech and reason, which must, however, develop hand in hand. 41

42 43 44

45 43 47 48

Compare F. E. Manuel's introduction to Herder's Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, Chicago, 1968, ixff. See Cheyne 16ff.; Hartlich-Sachs 172—175, for Herder's contacts with Eichhorn. Baur 44. 62; Cheyne 19—20. Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784—91. See Herder's sämtliche Werke zur Philosophie und Geschichte, 1827, 131. For the English translation see note 41. Heyne is referred to in the English edition at 174. Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie, I, 1, 170—171. Ibid. I, 1, 158; Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts IV 117 ff. Urgeschichte I, 42—44. 107; II, 1, 106 note 50. 163. 581. Über den Ursprung der Sprache. Sämmtliche Werke zur Philosophie und Geschichte II, 1—160.

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Herder's view of the intellectual capacity of earliest man was the basis of Gabler's understanding of Gen 2—349. However, having noted the common ground shared by Herder and the mythical school, it is important to stress the differences. Herder rejected many mythical interpretations as strongly as he advocated others. Thus he could not accept that the tradition about Enoch being taken by God originated in an incident concerning a boy who died before his father and brothers, and of whom it was said "your brother is with God" 5 0 . Nor could he regard Jacob's wrestling as a dream81. Both narratives had the stamp of history, although the latter was clearly a shepherd saga (Hirtensage). In such matters one needed to consider not only the oriental mind, but what parallels could be drawn with contemporary eastern peoples. Herder's treatment of Balaam's ass is typical 62 . It is necessary for one's knowledge about people and culture in general to be as exact as possible; only then will much that is inexplicable become clear. Thus "the man who lives in the desert speaks with animals, trees and springs of water. The man who is in prison speaks with the loathsome spider. Man must speak and have fellowship with something. All solitaries speak aloud, with themselves. Each speaks with his travelling companion, the Arab with his horse and Balaam with his ass" 6 3 . The clearest difference between Herder and the mythical school can be seen in the treatment of the opening chapters of Genesis. Herder's interest in the origin of language led him to propose that the earliest impressions made on human understanding were in pictorial form 54 . Gen 1, for example, was the result of the later conceptualising of the impression made on the first man by the daily miracle of the dawn. This impression had been in the form of a sevenfold hieroglyph 56 which had been important for the structure assumed by the account of creation in Gen 1. Although Herder later modified this 49 50 51 52

53

54

55

Urgeschichte II, 2, 64—65. See also Schelling 3. Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie I, 1, 201. Ibid. I, 2, 19. Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend 30 ff.; Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts IV 104—105. See also Smend 27 ff. Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts IV, 105: "Der Mensch in der Wüste spricht mit Thier und Baum und Wasserquelle: der Mensch im Kerker mit der abscheulichen Spinne. Der Mensch muß sprechen und macht sich Gesellschaft. Alle Einsamen sprechen laut mit sich selbst. Jedes spricht mit seinem Gefährten, der Araber mit seinem Pferde, und Bileam mit seinem Esel." See also Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend 17—36. Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts I 152 ff.; Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie II, 1 88ff. Baur 50ff. Baur 52.

12

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

view66 it makes his general position clear. Man's first impressions were received from nature; yet man in the infancy of his development had such an openness to nature that these impressions were divine intimations about the essential being of man and his place in God's world, and as such, important for later generations 87 . With Lowth, Herder affirmed that man's earliest understanding and speech were poetry, and what later philosophy sought to do was already achieved, and in a more sublime manner, by this earliest poetry. Thus the opening chapters of Genesis were more than historical and philosophical myths whose significance was merely as part of the historical record of man's progression towards the religion of reason, once reasonable man had demythologised them. They had a value in their own right because they expressed truths about man and God, truths revealed by God to earliest man through nature, truths which could be understood and appreciated by the modern reader who approached the ancient text with the appropriate sympathy 58 . Of course, Herder recognised that Hebrew was not man's earliest speech59. This, like the language of children had been monosyllabic, whereas Hebrew was bisyllabic. Yet Hebrew was one of the oldest languages, and possessed a dynamic structure which made it a particularly fitting medium to convey the conceptualised first impressions of man 60 . When we try to understand what Herder meant by terms like myth, we run into real difficulty. De Vries has suggested that for Herder, mythology was ancient speech imitating nature in sound and form 61 . My own reading suggests that the case is far more complex. The clearest statement I have found is the following "The Greeks had many legends" (a term which is meant to describe a type of literature 56 57 58

59 80

61

Gabler, Urgeschichte, I 43. Herder, Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, I 172; IV 78ff. Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie I, 1, 18 "Um von einer Nation zu urtheilen, muß man in ihre Zeit, ihr Land, ihren Kreis der Denkart und Empfindung treten, sehen, wie sie lebt; wie sie erzogen wird; was für Dinge sie mit Leidenschaft Hebt . . . " Ibid. II, 1, 54. Ibid. II, 1, 53: "alle Kinder sprechen zuerst einsylbig". 54: "Indessen halte ich sie für eine Tochter der Ursprache, und zwar für ein der ältesten Töchter." (The Statement in H. Weidmann, Die Patriarchen und ihre Religion, 1968, 66, to the effect that Herder regarded the Hebrew language as the original language of the human race, is incorrect). Ibid. I, 1, 20: "Also die Sprache, die viel ausdrückende, mahlende Verba hat, ist eine poetische Sprache: je mehr sie auch die Nomina zu Verbis machen kann, desto poetischer ist sie . . . das Verbum setzt sie in Handlung; diese erregt Empfindung, denn sie ist selbst gleichsam mit Geist beseelet . . . Nun ist bei den Ebräern beinahe alles Verbum: d. i. alles lebt und handelt." See also 1,1, 29. Herder seems to anticipate much of the position criticised by J. Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language, 1961. Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie 123.

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

13

rather than denote something historically false). "In older times they were called sagas; later, they were written down, included in ballads and a mythology was formed out of them." 62 Here, mythology seems to be an artistic set of stories about gods, and something of the same meaning is met in passages where Herder describes, for example, the Cherubim as mythological, and is concerned to give them a natural explanation so that he can assert the relative freedom of the oldest sagas of the Hebrews from mythology 63 . Also, these passages suggest a distinction between saga as the older, and myth as the later phenomenon. Against this, Herder elsewhere appears to say that myth arises from man's earliest language, and his personification of the forces of nature around him 64 . Again, mythology seems to be used as a general term for the cosmology of any race 68 . In the case of saga, the usage seems to be more consistent. The opening chapters of Genesis are saga, and in contrast to fables (Fabeln) are based on historical fact, although they may include elements from fables, and sometimes take the outward form of fables 66 . It seems generally clear, however, that the essential thing about saga is that it is transmitted by word of mouth. Fables have no basis in history, and Herder can indignantly deny that the narrative of the Fall is essentially a fable 67 . At the same time, the incident of Adam naming the animals is said to bring him into the world of fable, and here the term seems to denote stories about animals, as in Aesop's Fables, and is not used in a pejorative way 68 . 62

63 64

65

66

67

63

Legenden, dramatische Stücke und Dichtungen VI 25: "Bei den Griechen gab's viele Legenden. In altern Zeiten hießen sie Sagen; nachher wurden sie aufgeschrieben, in Gesänge gebracht und eine Mythologie daraus geformet." Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie I, 1, 169—170; I, 2, 103—104. Uber den Ursprung der Sprache 61—62: "Da wurde alles menschlich zu Weib und Mann personificiert: überall Götter, Göttinnen, handelnde, bösartige oder gute Wesen; der brausende Sturm, und der süße Zephyr, die klare Wasserquelle und der mächtige Ocean — ihre ganze Mythologie liegt in den Fundgruben, den Verbis und Nominibus der alten Sprachen, und das älteste Wörterbuch war so ein tönendes Pantheon, ein Versammlungssaal beider Geschlechter, als den Sinnen des ersten Erfinders die Natur war." Cf. Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts II, 19, where Herder speaks of the Mythologie of Gen 1. See also Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie I, 1, 71—72. 119. Ibid. I, 1, 141. II, 1, 100: "Daß auch die Geschichte im Orient, zumal wenn sie alte Vatertradition ist, gern den Umriß der Fabel annimmt, und gleichsam poetische Geschlechtssage wird." Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend 23—24. Note here how Herder equates Fabel with Märchen. Vom Geist der Ebräischen Poesie II, 1, 98. My own study of Herder would lead me to endorse entirely the verdict of A. Allwohn, Der Mythos bei Schelling, 1927, that "Herder gebraucht in 'Vom Geist der ebräischen Poesie' von der Paradiesenge-

14

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

If a good deal of this is unclear, at least three points emerge with some certainty, and are important for understanding Herder and his later influence. First, his interest in the history of literature, and especially folk literature, led him to investigate carefully the transmission processes of the biblical narratives. During the patriarchal period, for example, the traditions had been in the form of family or shepherd sagas, essentially preserved within the circle of the patriarchal family. For the period before the Flood, written genealogies had survived; the names of the men recorded in them acted as an aid to the memory of the early Hebrews, because the names reflected the main events or characteristics of their lives. Thus the name Adam reminded the people of stories about the first earth man 69 . In this discussion of the family sagas, we can find hints of what was later to be expressed by Gunkel and Westermann. Second, and arising from the first point, Herder maintained that where mythological elements had come in to the Hebrew traditions (mythological here meaning something like the world of the supernatural) this was due to the later growth of the traditions, and was not an original feature of them 70 . Thus he was giving an essential early warning, often later to go unheeded, against the simple equation of mythical with earliest. Third, while Herder was not indifferent to history 71 he took a wider view of truth than the mythical school. The latter was concerned to get back to bare facts. Herder looked to the whole tradition with its complexities of myth, saga and fable bound up together, to express truths about the nature of man and his existence in the world. In this way he was able to assert that the word of God can speak to modem man through the pages of the Old Testament 72 , and it was for precisely this reason that he influenced many who came after him who looked for a way out of the limits of rationalism and evolutionism. It is difficult to discover any coherent philosophy behind Herder's position. It arises rather from the response, the highly personal response, of a soul imaginative and open to the poetry of the Hebrew tradition. Smend has summed up Herder's contribution to biblical study by saying that whereas rationalism sought to bring the Bible into the present age by modernising it, Herder sought to take man back schichte nacheinandcr die Worte 'Fabel', 'Mythos', 'Poetische Sage', 'Sage des Ursprungs', 'Dichtung', 'Geschichte', and 'Allegorie', ohne irgendeine Abgrenzung dieser Begriffe zu versuchen" (21). 69 70 71

72

Ibid. I, 2, 46—47. Ibid. II, 1, 104. See L. Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen, 1965, 15ff. for a summary of Herder's part in the development of the study of history. Hartlich and Sachs 49—50 appear to underestimate Herder's interest in history and historicity. Hartlich-Sachs 52.

Beginnings in the late eighteenth Century

15

into the past in order to hear the Bible speaking73. Many who later followed Herder were able to take man back into the past more scientifically than him, on the basis of those discoveries in the second half of the nineteenth century which brought the ancient Near East into the grasp of the present. However, few, if any, matched Herder's great intuitive feel for the essential spirit of the Hebrew tradition 74 . 73

74

Smend 26: "der Rationalismus holt die Bible durch Modernisierung in die Gegenwart. Herder dagegen führt, archaisierend, den Menschen in die Vergangenheit." The mythical school and Herder knew of the ancient Near E a s t only through classical sources. They were aware, for example, of the similarity between Gen 1 and the Babylonian cosmology as described by Berosus. I n the Urgeschichte I I , 2, 135 Eichhorn compared the Chaldean and biblical accounts of creation.

Chapter 2 Theological and Historical Reaction — de Wette, George and Ewald The first half of the nineteenth century saw a reaction against the mythical school by Old Testament scholars, in two directions. One was philosophical theological, the other historical. The former reaction is perhaps best represented by J. F. L. George and the latter by Heinrich Ewald; but the most original, though not lasting, contribution came from a scholar whose reaction was both historical and theological, W. M. L. de Wette 1 . Recent scholarship has increasingly recognised the importance of de Wette in the history of Old Testament study. He anticipated Wellhausen in the understanding of the history of Israel's religion2, and Gunkel in the classification of the Psalms3. His mythical interpretation of the Pentateuch foreshadowed the writings of later scholars including Gunkel and von Rad, even though his actual understanding of myth had little influence after the first half of the nineteenth century. De Wette's historical reaction against the mythical school is contained in the second volume of his youthful "Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament"4, where the exegesis of the mythical school is rejected, and alternatives proposed. From the outset, de 1

2

3

4

For an account of de Wette's work see R. Smend, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wettes Arbeit am Alten und am Neuen Testament, passim; T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism, 31—53; H.-J. Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung, 174—189; idem. Die Biblische Theologie, 1970, 70ff. There is an interesting chapter on de Wette in K. Barth, Die Protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, 133—141 (this chapter is not in the English translation). For contemporary assessments on the occasion of de Wette's death see H. Ewald, Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft, 1849, lOff.; F. Lücke in: Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1850, 497—535. J. W. Brown, The Rise of Biblical Criticism in America 1800—1870, 1969, 164 ff., has traced de Wette's influence in American scholarship. See the comment of L. Perlitt 92 on de Wette's description of earlier Hebraic and later Judaistic religion: "Läse man es nicht bei de Wette, möchte man es bei Wellhausen lesen!" Kraus 181: "De Wette . . . beschreitet Wege, auf denen — rund hundert Jahre später — Hermann Gunkel eine auf formgeschichtlichen Forschungen beruhende Gattungsanlage vollzieht." Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament, II 1807. Kritik der Israelitischen Geschichte. Erster Theil — Kritik der Mosaischen Geschichte.

17

Theological and Historical Reaction

Wette denied that it was possible for scholarship to strip away the supernatural from events recounted in the Pentateuch so as to get at the underlying historical facts. Scholarship could only deal with the facts in the way that they were related6. Thus it was pointless to follow Bauer's interpretation, for example, of the narrative of God's promise of descendants to Abraham in terms of the false conceptualising of the bare fact that Abraham one night looked at the stars and thought that God had promised him innumerable offspring6. In fact, historical research could only have a negative effect on such traditions. Thus Abraham as "an Arabian shepherd ruler" could not have had abstract ideas about covenants with God; he could not have imagined that he would found a nation by having only one son; as a nomad he would not think in terms of his posterity inheriting the land of Canaan. If circumcision was practised in his camp, who had the skill to administer it 7 ? No, the Abraham cycle in its present form was the work of a later writer who sought to present Abraham as the "symbol and prototype of Hebrew piety" 8 . Further, what was true of the Abraham cycle was true of the Pentateuch as a whole. It could not be used to reconstruct the history of the Israelites before the time of Moses, nor did it express the religion of the patriarchs. Its value rather lay in the fact that it reflected the outlook and spirit of the Israelite people after the time of Moses. It reflected the Mosaic, and later religion of Israel 9 . What, then, was the origin of the various traditions which made up the Pentateuch ? De Wette did not use the term "aetiological" but a good deal of his sort of explanation was later to be described as aetiological10. According to his explanation, the cursing of Canaan arose from Israel's dislike of the Canaanites after the settlement11. Gen 18—19 was "pure fiction" in which unhospitable behaviour towards guests was used to describe the Sodomites, and thereby to point to God's inevitable punishment of sin12. Abraham's purchase 5

6 7

8 9 10 11

12

Op. cit. 6: "Nicht die Fakten selbst kann [der Forscher] erforschen, sondern nur so wie sie erzählt sind." Op. cit. 77 on Gen 15. Op. cit. 60—66. De Wette allowed that circumcision might have been possible in Abraham's camp, but he wanted to avoid Eichhorn's interpretation in Allgemeine Bibliothek VI 867, according to which the circumcision of Abraham made sexual relationships between Abraham and Sarah possible. Op. cit. 399. Op. cit. 396—408. For example, by Gunkel in his Genesis commentary. Beiträge II, 75 on Gen 9 18-27: "Wie sie da steht, ist diese Erzählung ein Produkt des Nationhasses der Hebräer." Op. cit. 90 ff. R o g e r s o n , Myth

2

18

Theological and Historical Reaction

of the field and cave at Hebron for the burial of his dead might be based on the customs of his own time, and designed to reinforce the claims of Israel to Canaan after the conquest and settlement13. Gen 27 expressed later relationships between Israel and Edom 14 . It was impossible to know what lay behind the incident of the Golden Calf, but the narrative was possibly connected with the revolt of Jeroboam and the ten tribes15. The incident of the brazen serpent was justification for later medicinal practices connected with the serpent, the practices being justified by being referred back to the time of Moses16. Etymology was another fertile source of origin of traditions. The story of the tower of Babel was a false etymology arising as a joke against Babylon 17 . The account of the incest of Lot's daughters arose from the etymologies aija = 3N ^ and li^?? = and other etymologies could be found19. De Wette did not regard all traditions as arising without any foundation in an actual happening; for example some narratives about Abraham had more of a "traditional" character 20 but he seems to have preferred to posit a "nonhistorical" origin for traditions if at all possible. Any modern reader who has waded through the mire of the interpretations of the mythical school, with their unconvincingly high proportion of thunderstorms, will find de Wette's sweeping aside of these interpretations a great relief. However, just because de Wette's alternatives sound more modern to present day readers, they should be aware that de Wette's explanations were no less rationalisations than those of the mythical school, and not necessarily any more objective than the latter. Negative as de Wette's approach may at first sight appear, he himself believed that he was doing something positive. If he had proved that it was impossible to use the Pentateuch purely as an historical source, he had now cleared the ground for his positive assertion that at the end of the day, history had only limited value, and that poetry and theology were much more important21. For Op. cit. 103 ff. on Gen 23. Op. cit. 120ff. on Gen 27. 15 Op. cit. 247 on E x 32. ™ Op. cit. 361 on Num 21 4-9. 17 Op. cit. 76 on Gen 11 1-9. On etymologies generally, de Wette commented 405: "sie gefiel ihm, sie gefiel den Zuhörer, und dieser fragte auch nicht darnach, ob sie wahr sei". 13 14

18

Op. cit. 9 5 o n G e n 1 9 30-38.

19

For example Gen 17 15-21 (op. cit. 86) Gen 21 31 (110) Gen 29 32fr. (127) Gen 32 2 (132) etc. Op. cit. 111. Op. cit. 103: "wir wollen über dem Forschen nach Geschichte nicht den schönen Sinn der Dichtung vergessen."

20 21

Theological and Historical Reaction

19

example, it was all very well to know that quails and manna could in fact be found in the region of Israel's wilderness wanderings, and that therefore Ex 16 could be historically correct. It was a disaster if this knowledge obscured the fact that Ex 16 in its present form had the primary purpose of expressing what the sabbath meant to Israel22. Thus de Wette could maintain that although history might appear to have lost as a result of his researches, religion had profited 33 . The primary intention and meaning of the traditions, which was theological, had been upheld, and the various parts of the tradition, as well as the whole of the Pentateuch could be described as mythical, in that their intention was to express the national and religious insights of the Israelite people24. De Wette's "negative" attitude to the Pentateuch as an historical source produced a sharp reaction from the mythical school, in the form of a small book by G. W. Meyer. However, this merely restated the aims of the mythical school and attacked de Wette for being too sceptical. It did not answer his detailed criticisms and suggestions25. Having considered de Wette's historical reaction to the mythical school, we must consider his philosophical theological reaction. He was not prepared simply to assert that in some way the Pentateuchal traditions expressed the outlook of the Israelites. He sought to ground myth in the philosophical theology of his day. The important influences for de Wette were Fries and Schleiermacher, and if one may venture a brief summary of the position adopted by de Wette, it is that he posited an intuitive way of knowing in religion, analogous to that faculty of the mind whereby one coordinated sense impressions and ordered the world according to its "laws" 26 . In the religious sphere, this way of knowing coordinated the experience and knowledge which a man gained during his lifetime not according to logical principles, but in such a way that the problems and contradictions of life were resolved into an understanding which transcended the perspective of this world27. However, it was a necessary characteristic of this way of knowing that it should express itself in mythical or symbolic ways, 22 23 21

25

26

27

Op. cit. 218. Op. cit. 408: "Die Geschichte verlor, aber die Religion gewann!" Op. cit. 398: "Er ist Produkt der vaterländischen religiösen Poesie des Israelitischen Volkes, in welchem sich sein Geist, seine Denkart, sein Patriotismus, seine Philosophie und Religion spiegelt . ." G. W. Meyer, Apologie der geschichtlichen Auffassung der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments, besonders des Pentateuchs, im Gegensatz gegen die bloß mythische Deutung des Letzteren. 1811. Über Religion und Theologie, 1815, 7 ff. See also the treatment of de Wette's philosophical theological grounding of myth, in Hartlich-Sachs 102 ff. Op. cit. 10 ff. 2*

20

Theological and Historical Reaction

and thus myth was an inescapable part of religious experience and expression28. More than this, myth was so connected with belief, that the quality of the latter affected the former. In particular, it was dangerous for belief to reach the reflective, unspontaneous stage, in which the details of mythology became the basis of dogmatic theological systems 29 . Thus it was right to see in Gen 2—3 a narrative expressing man's true nature in the sight of God, but dangerous to press the details of the story into a metaphysical history of how evil came into the world 30 . Where belief in God was at its most direct and personal, the mythology would express, but not become the basis of dogmas about, this belief. This last point is of great importance for de Wette's attempt to show that the Old Testament and its mythology were relevant to the Christianity of his day. Already in his early critical work on the Old Testament, he had established to his own satisfaction that the attribution to Moses of the legal and cultic ordinances of Israel was mythical, that is, historically incorrect but expressing for the Israelite people their divine origin31. In the "Über Religion und Theologie" de Wette now sketched not only the history of Israel's religion, but the history of Christianity, in order to show the relevance of the former to the latter. His starting-point was the Mosaic religon as reconstructed by himself, that is, lacking the legal and cultic aspects. Moses had deliberately rejected the mythology familiar to him from Egypt, thereby preventing its details from becoming the basis of Israelite dogma, and removing the veil that hid the highest holy God from the Hebrews32. The Mosaic faith was essentially simple and direct, with an appropriately spontaneous mythology. The prophets continued the 28

Op. cit. 74—75: "Durch diese heilige Symbolik sucht der Mensch sein religiöses Gefühl zu wecken und zu heben: aber auch die Phantasie verlangt Befriedigung, und da es dem Verstände versagt ist, die Verhältnisse des Ewigen auszusprechen so versuchen wir es wenigstens in Bildern der Dichtung, oder in der Mythologie. Einem lebendigem öffentlichen Leben der Religion wird sich immer eine Mythologie anbilden, und durch sie erhält es erst Umfang und Rundung und die volle Gewalt, mit der es das ganze geistige Gebiet beherrscht."

29

Über Religion und Theologie 76: "eine gesunde geschmackvolle lebendige Mythologie sich nur da bilden kann, wo der Glaube sich von den Fesseln des Begriffmäßigen Wissens losgemacht, dagegen aber auch in seiner wahren Innigkeit und Tiefe sich begründet hat, so daß er der Mythologie erhabene Ideen leicht, ihrem freien Spiel mit dichterischen Formen aber ohne Vorurtheil zusehen kann."

30

Op. cit. 211. Beiträge II, 255ff. 273ff. Über Religion und Theologie 85: "Er hebt den mythologischen Schleier, welcher die Idee des hochstenheiligen Gottes verhüllte . . .".

31 32

Theological and Historical Reaction

21

true spirit of the Mosaic religion33. However, the rise of cultic and legalistic religion, the influx of an alien mythology from Persia after the Exile, and finally the emergence of later Judaism, had led to the reflective, non-spontaneous type of religion so harmful to a proper mythology. In the New Testament era, Jesus had returned to the religion of Moses and the prophets, not least by abolishing the law, the temple and its cultic requirements. However, in the course of time, the Roman Catholic Church had almost reverted to Judaism, and had thereby created a mythology which bordered on superstition. The Reformation had freed the Church from these excesses, and returned to the spontaneous faith which ultimately went back to Moses. Yet even so, Protestantism needed to create its own mythology, and to avoid making its details the basis of dogma34. Thus de Wette tried to save the Old Testament and its mythology from becoming merely an interesting historical relic, by asserting a unity of religious experience between the religion of the Old Testament and Christianity at two levels, one spontaneous and good, the other reflective and bad 35 . The purpose of this excursion into de Wette's theological position with regard to the Old Testament has been to try to make clear something which is to be found in the first volume of the "Beiträge" regarding myth, and which seems to have been overlooked by other writers. For example, Meyer, in his attack on de Wette concentrated on the second volume of the "Beiträge", and the same is true of the otherwise admirable treatment of Hartlich and Sachs. However, a word of elaboration is needed here. In an influential article 36 R. Smend has divided de Wette's Old Testament work into three periods. The first, which saw the publication of the "Beiträge", was the Jena and Heidelberg period, up to 1811. The second, in which he concerned himself more with philosophical theology under the influence of Fries and Schleiermacher, was the Berlin period of 1811 to 1818. The third period, from 1819 in Basel, can perhaps best be described as pietistic37. 33

34

35

36

37

Op. cit. 89: "Der Mosaismus war als Lehre und Weltansicht einer geistigen Entwickelung nicht unfähig, und die Propheten und andern Weisen der Nation haben mit großem Erfolg daran gearbeitet." Uber Religion und Theologie 89 ff. The Roman Church is described as "ein zum Judentum herabgesunkenes Christentum" (99). The Reformation "wirft die Fesseln ab, die ihm ein dunkles träges Zeitalter angelegt hatte, und erkämpft sich wieder die Freiheit welche Mose in ihrer ersten Regung und Christus in ihrer ganzen männlichen Kraft geltend gemacht hatten" (106). De Wette hoped that Protestantism would build "eine höhere Mythologie" (116). It is noteworthy that in the 1831 edition of the Lehrbuch der christlichen Dogmatik 42ff., de Wette's position is virtually unchanged. De Wette und das Verhältnis zwischen historischer Bibelkritik und philosophischem System im 19. Jahrhundert, Theologische Zeitschrift 14 (1958), 107—119. Compare Barthel 34 note 79.

22

Theological and Historical Reaction

Smend has argued that while the first period was not without presuppositions (the influence of Herder is mentioned), it was not directly influenced by the writings of Fries, which de Wette did not begin to study until 1811. The implication is that one should be cautious about using works of de Wette from the first period to understand those of the second, and vice versa. This warning may well be timely with regard to many aspects of de Wette's work, but it does not seem to apply to his use of myth in Old Testament interpretation. We have seen how important for de Wette's philosophical theological position was the distinction in the "Über Religion und Theologie" between spontaneous and reflective faith together with their corresponding mythologies. But such a distinction is already to be found, albeit not philosophically worked out, in the first volume of the "Beiträge" 38 where it plays an important role in helping to prove the lateness of the books of Chronicles and Deuteronomy. De Wette compared Chronicles with the books of Samuel and Kings and found that in Chronicles the mythical, that is, the supernatural element was heightened. Thus whereas in the version of David's census and its aftermath in II Sam an angel of the Lord was referred to, in I Chr the additional detail was given that the angel was standing between earth and heaven with his sword drawn in his hand. Ten verses later Chronicles had the information, lacking in Samuel, that fire fell from heaven, and that the angel sheathed his sword39. De Wette advanced numerous reasons for maintaining the lateness of Chronicles, including the omission of the Bath Sheba incident in the life of David, and the ignoring of much of the history of the northern kingdom; but ultimately the case was a cumulative one, and myth had its part to play in establishing lateness, because "myths were taken up rather than given up by a people such as the Jews, who attached greater importance to myths than to factually correct history" 40 . But the similarity between the "Über Religion und Theologie" and the first volume of the "Beiträge" is even more striking in the case of Deuteronomy. Here, de Wette's argument is that the mythology of the book, and thus the 38

39 40

Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Alte Testament, I 1806. Kritischer Versuch über die Glaubwürdigkeit der Bücher der Chronik mit Hinsicht auf die Geschichte der Mosaischen Bücher und Gesetzgebung. Compare II Sam 24 27 with I Chr 21 16 ff. Beiträge I 45. Op. cit. 50: "Mythen nehmen nicht ab, sondern zu, bey einem Volke wie die Juden waren, bey welchen Mythen ein größeres Gewicht als die wahre Geschichte selbst hatten." The currently held view about Chronicles, against which de Wette was arguing, assigned equal antiquity to Chronicles and Samuel and Kings, and accounted for the differences between them by supposing that all were dependent on common sources, but that Chronicles had excerpted more cultic material, for example, from the common source. Cp. J. G. Eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, II 498ff.

Theological and Historical Reaction

23

quality of the faith is reflective and therefore Deuteronomy cannot come from the Mosaic period of Israel's history41. To sum up, it will be seen that de Wette's position was in many ways highly original. How many others of his day would have used the mythical to demonstrate not the antiquity, but the lateness of biblical books ? Again, by regarding the mythical as an essential part of religious expression, and by seeing it run right through the Old Testament and on into the faith of the Church, he avoided a developmentalist approach to the Old Testament, and firmly rejected the interpretation of the mythical school in terms of primitive psychology. He was then able to insist that if the Old Testament traditions were not interpreted theologically, they were interpreted wrongly. One can criticise de Wette on many scores. His account of the religion of Moses and the prophets, Jesus and German Protestantism, which de Wette so romanticised, and which apparently gave rise to the purest form of mythology, was unclear and vague in the extreme. It was much more the reconstruction of the religion of the scholarly aesthete than the religion of the people, and tended to reduce traditional religious doctrines and symbols to a point where they had no reference to truth beyond themselves41®. Again, modern scholarship would be much more confident than de Wette about the antiquity of the cult and laws of Israel. Another serious defect in his position was his almost total disregard of the nature and importance of oral tradition. However, when all has been said, much of value remains. The cult may be older than de Wette supposed, but its attribution to Moses was certainly mythical in de Wette's sense, that is, expressing for the Israelites its divine origin. Many of de Wette's explanations, especially aetiologies and etymologies were put forward by later scholarship, and will have to receive further consideration. Again, no modern scholar would be over-confident about using the Patriarchal narratives to reconstruct 41

Beiträge I 275: " E s (Deuteronomy) ist in einem Geiste geschrieben, der sich schon ziemlich jener rabbinischen allegorisierenden und mystischen Philosophie nähert. In den frühem Büchern finden wir Mythologie und Gesetz in ihrer einfachen natürlichen Gestalt, jene in ihrer wahren Natur, als religiösen Volksglauben, wie sie die Väter überliefert hatten, dieses in seiner juridischen Trockenheit und Strenge, als zwingenden Buchstaben, als Gebot und Vorschrift. In unserm Buche aber ist die Mythologie, schon dem bewußtlosen einfachen Glauben entrückt, Gegenstand der Reflexion geworden, es werden Begriffe und Dogmen daraus abgezogen, es wird in vieles ein geheimer Sinn hineingelegt, es wird mit Wohlgefallen auf die Wunder der alten Geschichte zurückgesehen, und die Vorzüge des Volkes Gottes werden prahlerisch herausgehoben."

41a

Compare Barthel 33—34 note 78 where he points out that de Wette's position reduces the resurrection to a Symbol of the immortality of the soul, and the divinity of Christ to an aesthetic idea.

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the Patriarchal religion, and de Wette's theological approach to these traditions in many ways foreshadowed that of von Rad in his Genesis commentary. That is why many points maintained by de Wette, though not necessarily his reasons for maintaining them, ought to be taken very seriously by contemporary scholarship. J. F. L. George is a scholar whose writings have attracted little attention in Old Testament circles. For example, his name does not appear in the index of Kraus's survey of Old Testament scholarship. Yet his book on myth, which has already been referred to42, represents one of the few attemps to define key terms carefully, to approach the nature and meaning of events philosophically, and to apply the results to the Old Testament. Indeed, his complaint against the mythical school was precisely that it had concentrated on the externals of events, and had not asked whether they had an inner meaning43. George's starting-point is an understanding of events in terms of their external manifestations (Erscheinung) and their meaning (Idee). To understand an event fully, one must see not only the externals, but grasp the meaning. However it is difficult enough for an eyewitness to grasp the meaning of an event, let alone a person to whom the externals come via a long oral tradition. Thus absolute history, in the sense of a complete perception of both the externals and meaning of events, is an impossibility44. The difficulty of preserving a proper balance between externals and meaning is such as to give rise to the two quite different types of narrative, myth and saga. In the former, the meaning tends to predominate; in the latter, the externals. Myths are the expression of truths about the world or mankind, which have in some way generated externals which have become the bearers of these truths. How the facts are generated, or come to be related to the truths, George does not say, although he does make the important observation that if the scholarly examination of traditions, written or oral, suggests a truth which is then held along with, and is thought to be expressed by, the traditions concerned, then we have something akin to the mythical process45. Saga arises from the externals of actual events, the meaning usually being lost or forgotten 46 . A number of differences between the two types can be discerned. Thus while myth tends to express truth regardless of the formal accuracy of the narratives concerned (for example, it does not worry 42

43 44 15 46

Mythus und Sage. Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Entwicklung dieser Begriffe und ihres Verhältnisses zum christlichen Glauben, 1837. Ibid. lOOff. Ibid. 3ff. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 10.

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myth that the sun is created before the light in Gen 1, or that the six days of creation do not allow sufficient time for the plants and vegetation to grow), in saga there is a tendency to stereotype the length of time, to increase the numbers of enemy armies, and to diminish those of Israelite armies47. It is easier for sagas to be bound together to form greater wholes. Myths, expressing as they do truths and ideas, tend to be more isolated fragments, as in the opening chapters of Genesis where the incidents of the Creation, Flood and Tower of Babel are bound together by no more than genealogies48. Further, arising from this last point, when sagas come together to form larger narratives, they often give rise to false historical connections between individual incidents, an example being the putting of the plagues before the Exodus in order to explain why Pharaoh let the Israelites leave Egypt 49 . Myths, on the other hand, are often incorrect explanations of natural phenomena. Again, while myth and saga both use the miraculous in their explanations, in the former God is usually the direct cause of the miraculous, while in the latter the wonders are performed indirectly, either through human agency such as Moses, or through the providential coincidence of natural events 50 . The poetic character of myth as opposed to the more prosaic character of saga is also recognised by George51. As applied to the Old Testament, these theories yield some interesting results. First, the area of saga is seen to be more limited than that of myth. Saga ceases as soon as written records of events are kept, and thus is superseded by history. Myth is more pervasive. The opening chapters of Genesis are myth, after which saga takes over in the form of stories about the patriarchal heroes. However, within the Pentateuch various types of myth can be found. Those narratives which express relationships between peoples in terms of stories about individuals, are mythical in that the meaning (the interpeople relationship) is more important than the details. Again, the ascription of legal and cultic ordinances to Moses is mythical, expressing the truth of their God-givenness. After the Pentateuch, myth is found where certain truths cluster around great personages. Thus David becomes the focus-point for the future hopes of the Israelite people. Myth returns with the books of Chronicles and the way they 47

48 49 50 51

Ibid. 56—74. Of myth George says "die Idee ist hier wohl gegeben, und diese bildet nothwendig sich die Erscheinung, aber die Welt der Erscheinung, in welche sie tritt, ist für sie nicht vorhanden, und darin liegt der ganze Mangel und die Unwahrheit der Mythenbildung" (57). Ibid. 38—40. Ibid. 80—81. Ibid. 76—81. Ibid. 32.

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attach new meanings to older traditions. Thus "the mythical element runs right through the history of the Israelite people, while saga and the properly historical narratives have more limited timespans" 62 . With regard to the truth and value of myth and saga in the Old Testament, George holds that saga gives insights into the historical development of a people, while myth expresses its outlook and sympathies (Geist)53. Myth and saga are not the only types of narrative to do this. George has a section where he defines also the terms legend (Legende) folktale (Märchen) and fable (Fabel) in relation to myth and saga. The expression of a truth is as much the basis of a legend as a myth, but in the former the expression is deliberate and artificial, and in the latter, unconscious. Märchen, an unclear term often defined as a collection of extraordinary happenings without any deeper meaning, whose object is to entertain the hearer, is defined by George as truth clothed in fiction. Fable, too is a conscious and artificial creation54. It does not appear that George thought that these latter forms were to be found in the Old Testament. Something of George's independence of mind can be seen from the way he was prepared to advance his own theories about myth, saga and other forms; indeed his liking for legislative definitions can be held against him. However, if one may generalise, his achievement was the following. Whereas the mythical school had equated myth and saga; and while de Wette had followed a similar line except that he grounded myth in religious experience rather than naive conceptualising, George carefully worked out a distinction between myth and saga which has much to commend it. Not that he was always consistent. For example one feels that George's myths in which relations between individuals express relations between peoples, ought in fact to be classed as saga, since if the relations were historically correct, the traditions had presumably arisen from historical happenings. Against this, George might presumably have argued that the truth of existing relationships was being expressed in such narratives, and that this truth had given rise to the traditions, rather than that the traditions arose at the same time that the relationships originated55. Further, it is only fair to note that George did allow that myth could be con52

53 54

55

Ibid. 31: "So geht also das mythische Element durch die Geschichte des ganzen Israelitischen Volkes hindurch, während die Sage und die wahrhaft geschichtliche Darstellung einen kleinen Zeitraum einnehmen." Ibid. 89. Ibid. 105. George's warning that Märchen is "ein Begriff, der nicht so leicht zu fassen ist, wie es gewöhnlich erscheint" is one that needs to be heeded. It is a pity, for Old Testament scholarship, that George's ultimate aim was to relate myth to Christian belief. It would have been interesting to see his views applied by him in greater detail to the Old Testament.

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taminated by saga in the course of oral transmission66. Whatever the case, the important thing is that after George, it should no longer have been possible for Old Testament scholars to posit a single overall cause for supernatural elements in narratives, such as naive conceptualising, together with a single evaluation of the worth of such elements. We might say that George successfully distinguished between the supernatural as explanation of presumed historical connections between incidents, and the supernatural as expression of Israel's philosophical and theological insights. The former explanations were of little permanent value, almost ceasing to exist as Israel emerged into its historical period. The latter explanations had more permanent value because they indicated Israel's view of the world as it was held right through the historical period. In all this, with little use of extra-biblical comparative material, George had begun to perceive and to work out for the Old Testament, something of the important and highly complex relations between myth and folklore. When we turn to the writings of Heinrich Ewald, we find ourselves in a different world altogether 67 . If he has any philosophical interest, it is hardly apparent 68 . What are paramount are history and philology. On the subject of myth, Ewald's views are clear and consistent. Myths are stories about gods (Göttersagen) and as such hardly to be found in the Old Testament 59 . Indeed, the idea of myth is for Ewald so inextricably bound up with heathen literature that its use in connection with the Old Testament is inappropriate. For the Old Testament, Ewald would prefer to distinguish between stories about God (Gottessagen) and stories about gods (Göttersagen) and to restrict the term myth to the latter 60 . In this position, in so many ways similar to that later adopted by Gunkel, the influence of the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm is to be seen. In their great pioneering works on mythology and folktale they had defined myth in terms of belief in gods and narratives about gods 61 and although I have not traced in any detail the personal relationships between 58

Op. cit. 88.

57

For outlines of Ewald's work and importance see Cheyne 66—118; Kraus 199—208; Kraeling 85 if. See also the work by T. Witton Davies, Heinrich Ewald Orientalist and Theologian, 1903. For Ewald's lack of training in and sympathy for philosophy cp. Witton Davies 8 5 ; Perlitt 138ff. Cheyne 117 note 1 comments: "He might almost pass for English in his repugnance to modern German philosophy." H. Ewald, Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis Christus, 1864 3 , I 63—64.

58

59

60

Geschichte 3rd ed. I 63—64.

61

See the discussion in A. Jolles, Einfache Formen, 1968 4 , 92ff.; Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie, 163ff. L. Denecke, Jacob Grimm und sein Bruder Wilhelm, 1971.

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Ewald and the Grimm brothers, it seems sufficient to note that Ewald was a professor at Göttingen at the same time as the Grimms, and together with them made up part of the Göttingen seven who were dismissed from their posts for refusing to swear allegiance to King Ernest Augustus of Hanover in 1837 62 . Because he accepted a narrow definition of myth, and also held that there was very little of it to be found in the Old Testament, Ewald had to extend saga to cover much of what previous writers had regarded as myth. In particular Ewald's explanation of the supernatural in the traditions was largely in terms of the oral transmission process, which tended to heighten the supernatural the further the tradition moved in point of time from the events related. Even in the case of Chronicles, the heightening of the supernatural occurred compared with Samuel and Kings, because the writer of Chronicles was much further away from the actual reigns of, say David and Solomon than the writers of the earlier books63. Ewald's discussion of saga was of the greatest importance64. In the first edition of his "Geschichte des Volkes Israel", Ewald felt no need to define saga itself, but by the third edition, he had introduced the qualifying word Überkommniss, which presumably means narratives that have come down to us (by oral tradition) 65 . Saga was primarily dependent on memory (Gedächtnis) which, while it could ensure the transmission of the basic facts of a happening, could also forget some of the circumstantial details. Later narrators would supply circumstantial details of their own, but with no sound historical basis to rely on, and the result would be the formation of doublets of tradition, as in the case of Gen 12, 20 and 26. As time went on, older traditions tended to be superseded by newer ones, so that more was known about the kingship of David than his youth, and more about Moses than the oppression in Egypt 66 . In a situation where there was no writing to preserve sagas, a number of other aids existed, which both preserved sagas and helped to create new ones. Thus poems or songs such as David's lament over Saul and Jonathan were linked with traditions about these heroes. Proverbial sayings such as "Is Saul also among the prophets?" gave 62 63 64 65

66

Witton Davies 18—19; Cheyne 92—93; Denecke 133—136. Geschichte 1st ed. 1843 50; 3rd ed. 59. Ibid. 1st ed. 15—59; 3rd ed. 20—69. Ibid. 1st ed. 16: "Wir nennen Sage die Erzählung wie sie zunächst entsteht und sich aus ihren Mitteln erhält, ohne an sich selbst zu zweifeln und ihren eignen Inhalt zu untersuchen." 3rd ed. 22: "Wir nennen nun Sage oder Überkommniss die Erzählung wie sie zunächst entsteht und sich aus ihren eignen Mitteln erhält ohne viel an sich selbst zu zweifeln und ihren eignen Inhalt zu untersuchen." Ibid, 1st ed. 17—20; 3rd ed. 24—27.

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rise to stories explaining their origin. Puns on names such as Isaac the laugher or Jacob the twister gave rise to stories about or expressed something of the character of the heroes. Various monuments, such as the stone mentioned at I Sam 7 12 or the tomb of the patriarchs at Hebron acted similarly with the tradition. Another important ally of the saga was the annual festival such as Passover, at which stories of the national deliverance were recounted 67 . When sagas were gathered together to form greater wholes, there was an amount of simplification and rationalisation. Genealogies helped to form a connecting thread, but not all the names of the heroes survived, and so traditions could be wrongly ascribed to persons. Further, the genealogies themselves tended to be rationalised to produce round numbers of generations. Certain numbers were popular, and it is noteworthy that Levi, Terah and Noah were all said to have had three sons. Then again, old and new could be mixed together, as in the case of Samson who was clearly one of the latest heroes, but whose exploits seemed to have attracted material from the patriarchal period. Finally, Hebrew saga, like the traditions of other nations, used numbers to assemble fragments together in greater wholes. With the seven trials of Hercules one should compare the plagues in Egypt or the four episodes in the book of Jonah 68 . It will be clear from the foregoing that Ewald's description of the saga went beyond anything so far achieved in Old Testament scholarship, and became the basis for much that is held in modern scholarship. From the point of view of myth interpretation, he moved Old Testament scholarship in a new direction. Among his pupils were men like Noldeke, Dillmann and Wellhausen 69 , and thus it is not surprising that Ewald's historical and philological interests transmitted to and furthered by such men as these should have strongly influenced Old Testament scholarship later in the nineteenth century. For as a result of Ewald's purely historical approach to the Old Testament, the theological and philosophical insights regarding myth, as put forward by de Wette and George, were forgotten. For example, Wellhausen, who was greatly influenced by de Wette's "Beitrage", took from them only what would further his historical interests 70 . When scholarship later looked for a way out of the limits of historicism, it was the spirit of Herder that became a source of influence, perhaps because it was tied less to particular philosophical views than the positions of de Wette and George. It is instructive to consider the effect of Ewald's historical approach on his understanding of the opening chapters of Genesis. 67 69 70

68 Ibid. 1st ed. 22—27; 3rd ed. 27—35. Ibid. 1st ed. 28—34; 3rd ed. 36—41. Witton Davies dedicated his book to these three distinguished pupils of Ewald. Perlitt 164ff.

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Insofar as these chapters are dealt with in the "Geschichte", it is mainly to distribute them among the various authors considered by Ewald to be responsible for what he called the Book of Origins71. The passages Gen 2 5 to 3 end 6 1-4 and 111-9 are regarded as mythical (in Ewald's sense), and probably excerpted from works of foreign mythology, although the Israelite writers concerned wanted to illustrate some point by so excerpting 72 . It is only in a number of articles published between 1849 and 1855 in the "Jahrbiicher der Biblischen Wissenschaft" that any consistent attempt is made to deal with the Urgeschichte, and here, the results are most disappointing 73 . The word Diniji is seen as a remnant of pre-Israelite mythology 74 . Otherwise the text is largely taken up with further attempts to distribute the biblical traditions among the various presumed authors of the Book of Origins, or to give straight, and often dull, theological expositions, from a rigid theological standpoint. With regard to Gen 1 Ewald states "True religion presents pure truths which man must accept as coming direct from God. Thus here we find truths about the difference between the world and God, about the original and thus eternal dependence upon God of all parts of the world, arising from their origin in the will and grace of God; about the various purposes of the different parts of the creation, and in particular of the creation of man. Such pure truths, as they lie before us in this creation narrative of the Book of Origins, we can and must accept in simple faith" 7 5 . 71

73

73

74

75

Ewald distinguished at least five authors whose successive efforts had brought the Book of Origins (Das Buch der Ursprünge), roughly the Hexateuch, to its present form. The opening chapters of Genesis are well fragmented and distributed among these authors. Geschichte Ist ed. 137: "Allein es ist auch recht wohl denkbar, daß der Verfasser gerade bei diesen ursprünglich fremdländischen Sagen andere Bücher nur kurz auszog, ohne bei diesen Stoffen zu lange verweilen zu wollen." 139: "mehr für besondere Zwecke gebrauchte er ferner das mythologische Werk aus der Fremde, welches oben besprochen ist, und vielleicht noch einige andere Werke." Jahrbücher der Biblischen Wissenschaft I, 1849, 76—95; II, 1850, 132—156; III, 1851, 108—115; VI, 1854, 1—19; VII, 1855, 1—27; IX, 1858, 1—26. Jahrbücher I 94: "Sogar die Sprache dieses Stückes (Gen 1 2) bewahrt noch Überbleibsel weit älterer Gestaltungen der Schöpfungserzählung. Denn das Wort 01(1X1 ist zwar Gen 1 2 noch zur Bezeichnung des Urmeeres wie es in Chaos war gebraucht: weil es aber offenbar ein Ausdruck der uralten vormosaischen Mythologie war, und daher in Prosa eigentlich nirgends mehr vorkommt. 94 note x x : es (017111) findet sich sonst nur noch in den Redensarten Gen 7 11 8 2 welche ebenfalls nur noch wie vereinzelte Überbleibsel aus einer schon zur Zeit des B. der Ursprünge veralteten Mythologie sich erhalten haben. Den Artikel hat as wie ein Eigenname verloren." Jahrbücher I 81: "Die wahre Religion gibt reine Wahrheiten, die der Mensch als von Gott unmittelbar gesprochen glauben muß: solche sind hier z. B. die Wahrheit von dem Unterschiede zwischen Welt und Gott, von der ursprünglichen und daher

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I, for one, would not ultimately wish to dissent from some of these sentiments, but I would very much like to know why, according to Ewald, I ought to have the simple faith he demands. It seems that with him, we have a complete divorce between the historical and the theological in approaching the Old Testament, and especially what has been called its mythical content, compared with what is to be found in de Wette and George. The first half of the nineteenth century, then, which had begun with the philosophical theological attempts of men like de Wette and George to use the concept of myth in Old Testament interpretation, ended with the dominance of the historical approach of Ewald, which left no place for myth at all. The next advance, prophetically foreseen by Ewald in the opening volume of his' 'Jahrbiicher''76 would take place as a result of the publication of the ancient Near Eastern myths and epics, which were being discovered from the 1850's. However, what understanding of myth would the first editors and translators bring to these myths and epics ? The answer was already being partly supplied by a German scholar in his adopted English home, who was developing a revolutionary method of myth interpretation which would be used on the Old Testament, as well as the newly discovered material77. ewigen Abhängigkeit aller Theile der Welt von Gott, von ihrem Ursprünge aus dem Willen und daher auch aus der Güte Gottes, von der verschiedenen Zwecken der einzelnen Theile der Schöpfung und insbesondere von dem der Menschenschöpfung. Solchen reinen Wahrheiten, wie sie in dieser Schöpfungsgeschichte des B. der Ursprünge in Fülle vorliegen, können und müssen wir schlicht glauben." 76

77

Jahrbücher I 7. "Was ist dazu zu erwarten wenn erst der uralte Schutt von dem Boden des h. Landes entfernt, die uralten Gräber dort um der Wissenschaft willen untersucht, und die Grundlagen der vorzeitlichen Bauwerke aufgedeckt werden, um vielleicht Zeichen und Denkmale des fernsten Alterthumes zu enthüllen von deren Art wir bis jetzt kaum eine Ahnung h a b e n ? " The three writers discussed in this chapter by no means exhaust the writing on m y t h in the period concerned; but they do indicate the main trends. The overall picture I have tried to present — t h a t of movement from a philosophical theological t o an historical approach to what was regarded as mythical in the Old Testament is borne out by other writings. The theological approach can be seen in H. Leo, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte des jüdischen Staates, 1828, where it is stated "Das F a k t u m in einer historischen Eckigkeit wird vergessen, aber der Gedanke, die Idee, welche das Faktum erzeugte, wirkt in der Tradition produktiv weiter, und so wird das F a k t u m in der Sage zum zweitenmal auf ein rein geistigere, ich möchte sagen, ewige Weise geboren — seine Form entspricht jetzt reiner seinem substantiellen Inhalt — es wird Poesie. In diesem Sinne ist die ganze ältere, in das Reich der Sagen fallende Geschichte der Juden bis auf Moses eine ewige, eine göttliche Geschichte, weil sie ihrem Inhalt nach der sittlichste und tiefste Mythus ist, der sich aufzeigen läßt.' (Quoted from the review by Adolf Müller in: Theologische Studien und Kritiken 1830, 137—172). However, by 1848, an article by F. W. C. Umbreit, Der Bußkampf

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Jakob's, Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 113—122, reflects something of the reluctance that has come into Old Testament scholarship to find myth there at all. Umbreit comments (117) "Der heidnische Klang des Wortes 'Mythus' erschreckte zwar die frommen Ausleger der heiligen Schrift und sie wollten wenigstens 'Sage' dafür gesetzt haben; aber die 'Sage' bleibt doch dieselbe 'Sache', nur unbestimmter. Wir dürfen gegenwärtig mit Vielen, die wahrlich nicht unfromm sind — der Name de Wette gibt uns Zeugnis dafür — den entschiedenen Ausspruch thun: die Sage hat neben der Geschichte ihr Recht und ihren Raum im Alten Testament, und keiner hat in neuester Zeit die feine Grenze zwischen beiden Gebieten einsichtiger und umsichtiger bestimmt und abgemessen, als Ewald in seiner trefflichen Geschichte des Volkes Israel. Aber die Sage webt und schwebt im Reiche der Poesie, und man hat in dieser Beziehung nicht ohne Grund von einer 'absichtslos dichtenden' Sage geredet. Diese naive Bildnerin poetischer Geschichte reicht indessen nicht hin, uns manche Erzählungen schon in der Genesis in ihrem Entstehen verständlich zu machen. Öfters hat sich der reine und bestimmte Gedanke der bloßen Poesie dergestalt bemächtigt und von ihr Besitz genommen, daß von dem 'Absichtslosen' wenig mehr zu erkennen, sondern die scharf ausgeprägten Züge der 'absichtlich' gestaltenden Reflexion deutlich hervortreten. In diesem Falle muß es der wissenschaftlichen Sprache erlaubt sein, heidnisch — vergleichungsweise 'Mythus' für 'Sage' auch auf biblischen Grund und Boden zu gebrauchen."

Chapter 3 Comparative Mythology In the first decades of the second half of the nineteenth century, the method of myth interpretation which held sway in Britain and Germany was the so-called comparative mythology. It was made possible by the researches of Jacob Grimm into the relationships between what today are called the Indo-European languages, culminating in the formulation of Grimm's Law, which put comparative philology on a scientific footing1. A second important point, noted apparently already in the previous century2 was that Sanskrit, while not being the parent of the Indo-European languages, was the nearest extant language to that parent language which, it was assumed, was spoken by the Indo-European people when they were a single people and not divided into the various branches of historical times3. The aim of comparative mythology was to discover the history of man's earliest intellectual development by means of the principles of comparative philology, and to see how and why myth had arisen during this intellectual development. In Germany, one of the pioneers of the method was the Sanskrit scholar Adalbert Kuhn, whose essay published in 1859 "Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks" directly influenced attempts to apply comparative mythology to the Old Testament4. In England, the chief exponent of the method was F. Max Müller, another Sanskrit scholar, who came to England from Germany in 1846, who moved to Oxford in 1848, and who spent the rest of his life teaching and 1

2 3

4

For an account of Grimm's work and Grimm's Law see L. Bloomfield, Language, 1 9 3 5 , 1 4 if. 347 if. Compare Bloomfield 12. The term used by many writers of the time was Aryan. In what follows, the term Indo-European will be used, following the convention of modern linguistics. For a recent summary of some of the problems of reconstructing pre-history from comparative linguistic data see Bruce G. Trigger, Beyond History: The Methods of Prehistory, 1968, 12—13. Kuhn's essay was published in Volume II of the Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft. A review article of the essay by H. Steinthal was translated to form an appendix to I. Goldziher's Mythology among the Hebrews and its Historical Development, 1877, 363—392. R o g e r s o n , Myth

3

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Comparative Mythology

writing in Oxford 6 . It is on the basis of Miiller's writings, executed in an English so lucid that even his opponents expressed admiration for it 6 , that the methods and results of comparative mythology will be outlined. Miiller argued that at an early stage in the development of thought and language, language was characterised by polynomy and synonymy 7 . Objects were denoted not by a single word, but by many words, each expressing a different attribute of the object concerned. There would be many words for the sun, one describing the winter sun, another the rising sun, and another the hot summer sun. Further, there was the fact of homonymy. If a word described the main attribute of an object rather than the object itself, the same word could be applied to other objects which displayed the same attribute. As Miiller put it "In the Veda, the earth is called urvi (wide), prithvi (broad), mahi (great), and many more names of which the Nighantu mentions twenty-one. These twenty-one words would be synonyms. But urvi (wide) is not only given as a name of the earth, but also means a river. Prithvi (broad) means not only earth, but sky and dawn. Mahi (great, strong) is used for cow and speech, as well as for earth" 8 . The next point of importance was that when early man described the operations of nature, he used poetry, which was the only language available to him. Whereas we would say the sun rises, early man would say "the Dawn has died in the arms of the Sun" or "the Dawn is flying before the Sun" using, in each case, any one of the possible words for sun and dawn. Thought and language then passed through a period of "forgetfulness" 9 in which increasingly each object was denoted by a single word only. As a result, many words for objects became redundant. Their meaning was forgotten, as were the meanings of phrases describing the workings of nature which contained these words. Yet the words and phrases themselves were preserved in the language, passed down from father to son in a language only half understood by its speakers 10 . Many of the redundant words came to be 5

7

9

10

For an account of Miiller's work on mythology see R. M. Dorson, The Eclipse of Solar Mythology, in: T. A. Sebeok, Myth: A symposium, 1958, 15—38; idem. The 6 British Folklorists, 1968,161 ff. E. g. Andrew Lang, Modern Mythology, 1897, ix. F. Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, II1867, 71 ff. The essay Comparative Mythology which is here referred to, was first published in 1856 in Oxford Essays. It was reprinted as a separate book, with an introduction by A. Smythe Palmer, as s Comparative Mythology, 1909. Müller, Chips, II 72. Müller used the unfortunate phrase "disease of language" cf. Contributions to the Science of Mythology, 1897, 68—69, a phrase exploited to the full by Lang op. cit. xv. Müller, Chips, II 82. "we do not possess (the legends of the people) as they were told by the older members of a family, who spoke a language half intelligible to themselves and strange to their children." See also 72.

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35

regarded as proper names, and explanations were advanced to explain these proper names and the unintelligible phrases in which they occurred. Arising from words which were related because they denoted the same object, stories were invented about persons who were related, as brother and sister, or parent and child. This indeed was precisely how mythology had arisen. Whereas before the period of forgetfulness, people had said "Selene embraces Endymion" meaning "the sun is setting and the moon is rising" 11 , as a result of the forgetfulness, Selene (moon) and Endymion (sunset) became proper names, giving rise to the story of a young lad Endymion, loved by a young lady, Selene. The importance of this theory was that it could explain, at least so Miiller maintained, the irrational and repulsive elements of myths. The Oedipus myth could be explained as follows. Oedipus denoted originally the day, and Laios the night. "Oedipus kills Laios" would be a poetic way of saying that day follows night. The relation between Oedipus and Laios as father and son would arise from the fact that poetically, the day could be called the child of the night. The name Iokaste was a homonym, denoting both the violet twilight and the violet dawn. As the former, she was the wife of the nocturnal Laios; as the latter, she was the wife of Oedipus the day. Thus the details of patricide and incest in the myth could be traced back to poetic descriptions of the workings of nature before the period of forgetfulness 12 . The importance of comparative philology to the method was that while some myths could be explained from the resources of their own languages, especially if the myths contained names like Helios (sun) and Selene (moon) — and this point was of importance for the application of the method to the Old Testament — in many cases, names were not intelligible. However, if with the help of Grimm's Law a name could be traced back to Sanskrit and the Vedas, and if in the Vedic literature a name as traced back could be shown to be an attribute of a god connected with a particular aspect of nature, then the phenomenon of nature which the word originally denoted had been identified, and the myth could be interpreted accordingly. Three general points about the method should be noted at this stage. First, the method was intended to be strictly scientific, in that it was based on the principles of comparative philology. It was not 11 12

For Huller's justification of the meaning of Endymion as sunset, see Chips II 79 ff. Ibid. 167—168. This interpretation of the Oedipus myth is quoted from Miiller's review article of G. W. Cox's A Manual of Mythology, 1867. The interpretation is Cox's, but quoted with approval by Miiller. I have chosen the example of the Oedipus myth, so that some comparison can be made with the interpretation of C. LéviStrauss in chapter 8. 3»

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arbitrarily decided, at least not in theory, that a particular word denoted, say, some aspect of the sun. This conclusion was reached only after careful and painstaking philological comparison, backed by an exhaustive knowledge of the Vedic literature13. From the outset, comparative mythologists sought control and objectivity. Secondly, comparative mythology did not claim to be able to explain all features of myths in this way. It was satisfied if it could explain some, especially irrational and repulsive features. Third, and closely connected with this point, it was not suggested that because many features of myths could be explained as misunderstandings of words, therefore all features of myths were unhistorical. An important discussion in this respect, and one of interest to Old Testament scholars, concerned Cyrus, king of Persia. Muller recognised that many features of accounts of Cyrus's reign could be explained by comparative mythology, to the detriment of their historicity. The name Cyrus could, wrongly in Miiller's view, be connected with the Persian word for sun khvar or khor. More certainly, the name of the king killed by Cyrus, Astyges, might be a corruption of the Zend name Azhi dahaka the destructive serpent who is to be killed at the end of days, like the serpent Fafnir in Norse mythology. Again, Cyrus, like other solar heroes, was exposed as a child, saved, suckled, recognised and restored to his royal dignity. Y e t for all this, it was certain that Cyrus was an historical character. Thus Muller could sound the warning that "comparative mythologists . . . should bear in mind that there may be elements in every mythological riddle which resist etymological analysis, for the simple reason that their origin was not etymological, but historical"14. A t its best, comparative mythology made modest claims for itself. It was based on linguistic premisses that could be used only by those of the utmost learning and brilliance, and its chief advocate in Britain presented its results with amazing lucidity. It had the great merit that it transformed even the most repulsive aspects of myths into poetic descriptions of the workings of nature. No wonder that this system, which is reminiscent of Herder's stress on poetry as man's earliest language, and his response to the daily miracle of the dawn, should have had great vogue. The theory will be assessed after its application to the Old Testament has been described. 13

See Miiller's statement at the end of the essay on Comparative Mythology, Chips I I 142—143. " I t has been proved by comparative philology that there is nothing irregular in language, and that what was formerly considered as irregular in declension and conjugation is now recognised as the most regular and primitive stratum in the formation of grammar. The same, we hope, may be accomplished in mythology, and instead of deriving it, as heretofore, 'ab ingenii humani inbecillitate et a dictionis egestate', it will obtain its truer solution, 'ab ingenii humani sapientia et a dictionis 14 Chips I I 169. abundantia.'"

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The first scholar to apply comparative mythology to the Old Testament was H. Steinthal, in an article on the Samson stories, later reprinted in English in the English version of Goldziher's "Mythology among the Hebrews"16. Steinthal had to use the inner resources of the Hebrew language, and not surprisingly chose a cycle of traditions whose hero, Samson, bore a name containing the root of the principal Hebrew word for the sun. Steinthal also sought to explain the name Delilah by connecting it with the root meaning "to relax, vanish", in which case it denoted the moon, and the story of Delilah depriving Samson of his strength was originally a description of day passing into night. Other incidents in the Samson cycle were explained not by etymology, but by analogy16. Samson was blinded, like Orion. The two pillars that he pulled down resembled those of Hercules. The story of the honey in the lion's carcass, an actual impossibility, denoted Samson the sun god overcoming the hostile side of the sun (lion) as Hercules burned himself, but rose out of the flames to Olympus. In the incident of the ass's jawbone17, the jawbone was the lightning, and the spring the rain which bursts from the cloud when the lightning strikes. Not all of the cycle was mythical in the comparative mythological sense. The birth story, and the fact of Samson being a Nazirite were legendary, arising from the details about Samson's hair, which in the first instance, symbolised the growth of nature in summer. Steinthal dealt with that part of the Old Testament most susceptible to comparative mythology. Goldziher, who recognised Steinthal as the founder of mythological science as applied to the Hebrews, and who acknowledged not only his debt to Muller, but complete agreement with the latter's principles, attempted a throughgoing application of the theory to the Old Testament, coupled with a history of Israelite literature18. In the nature of the case, he had to work more from etymological supposition than fact. The only really certain etymology he could adduce, and one that is hardly convincing to the modern scholar was that the name Shechem originally denoted 15 16

17

18

Goldziher 392—446. A limited and controlled use of analogy is to be found in Müller. Where myths have motifs in common, they are often brought together by Müller to show how the same description of a natural phenomenon underlies them all. See, for example, Chips I I 108ff. The controlled use of analogy is to be distinguished from the uncontrolled, to be described later. Judges 15 9-19. For a critical assessment of Steinthal's treatment of this and other incidents from Judges see C. F . Burney, The Book of Judges, 1918, 391—408. Goldziher vii, where he refers specifically to Müller's essay "Comparative Mythology", in Chips II. See also 2: "the Myth tells of the operations of nature, and is the mode of expressing the perception which man at the earliest stage of his intellectual life has of these operations and phenomena".

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the early morning, the red glow as the ravisher of the sun. This conjecture was based on Gen 341-2 where Shechem dishonoured Dinah, and on the verb connected with Shechem, D'OtWl, rose up early 19 . Otherwise, Goldziher's procedure was to work from a name to a "root meaning" which was then somehow connected with the workings of nature. The name Isaac, from a root "to smile" was the sun smiling. Abram, meaning "lofty father" was the night sky, and so Gen 22, Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac, was originally a description of sunset in terms of the night sky swallowing the smiling sun 20 . Jephthah, from a root "to open" meant the opening (rising?) of the sun 21 , while Asher, meaning to step or tread, denoted the sun marching through the heavens22. Abel, murdered by his brother Cain, denoted the dark sky, because the derivation of his name was from a root "was dark" 23 . In the poetic books, where mention of Rahab, Tannin and Leviathan was to be found, prophets and poets had employed "the long outgrown and obsolete notions of the myth of the battle of the sun against the flying serpent (lightning) and against the recumbent or curved serpent (rain)"24. So far, Goldziher had simply extended Steinthal's method to as much of the Old Testament as possible25. Where he went beyond him was in combining the comparative mythological approach with a history of Israelite literature. He divided Israel's history into several distinct sections for this purpose 26 . The first was the nomadic, in which the moon rather than the sun was the centre of attention. Mythically, little had survived from his period. Possibly, the yearning after the nomadic way of life was expressed in Gen 2—3, but this was not particularly mythical within the terms of the method. A new period began with the settlement in Canaan, and the change to an agricultural way of life. Now, the Hebrews were strongly influenced by the solar mythology of the Canaanites. However, they did not passively receive this mythology; they resisted and adapted it, with the result that only the Samson cycle survived as a really complete solar myth, and even so, with the purpose of asserting Israel's independence over against her enemies. The next period was that of the united monarchy, when on the analogy of rule by a single king, the 19 20

21 22 23 25

28

Goldziher 25—26. Ibid. 45ff. Goldziher used source division to isolate an Elohistic narrative in which the boy was actually sacrificed. Ibid. 98. Ibid. 122. 24 Ibid. 110. Ibid. 28. Goldziher recognised that not only the Old Testament, but also the later Haggadic literature was a source for comparative mythological interpretation. See 29 ff. Ibid. 226ff.

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39

Israelites developed a monotheistic faith. This profoundly affected what had been taken over from Canaanite mythology, modifying it in a monotheistic way. From now on, only figures of speech drawn from mythology were used in Israel, for example, by the prophets. The final period was the Babylonian captivity, when for the first time, Israel began to develop that desire to know about the origin of things which resulted in the writing of cosmologies, and speculations about the origin of evil. Because such speculation was well advanced in Babylon, the Israelites borrowed from that quarter. An interesting conclusion drawn from this last point was that the sort of cosmological speculation to be found in Gen 1 was not in fact myth, because concern with such things could only arise when a race had ex hypothesi passed beyond the poetic mythopoeic stage at which true myths were produced. One result, therefore, of the application of comparative mythology to the Old Testament was that attention was diverted away from the Urgeschichte and towards the historical traditions27. Whereas Ewald had worked out the characteristics of saga, and its relation to history, and had seen the patriarchal and other traditions as resting on some basis in memory, while the Urgeschichte might be derived in some respects from stories about gods, Goldziher looked for myth precisely where Ewald saw saga, and regarded much of the Urgeschichte as beyond the scope of mythical investigation28. In the best traditions of comparative mythology, Goldziher was modest about what the method could achieve. He regarded it as erroneous "to speak, as is often done, of myth and history as two opposites which exclude any third possibility"29. On the contrary, one had to reckon with either the attachment of mythical phenomena to historical facts, or the attachment of historical facts where the name of the person involved had been forgotten, to mythical persons. Even so, in practice, Goldziher thought that the majority of Israelite heroes had developed from myths. In the case of the Jephthah story30, Goldziher denied that the motif of the annual mourning of maidens for Jephthah's daughter was original. The motif had been attached secondarily to an original solar myth, and had not given rise to the incident. In the case of the tradition of the Tower of Babel, the etymology was secondary31. 27

28 29 31

This is not true of the entire Urgeschichte, of course. Incidents like Cain and Abel, and of the founders of culture (Gen 4 19 tt.) were interpreted mythically. Goldziher xxv-xxvi. 323 ff. 30 Ibid. 96 on Judges 11 29-40. Ibid. 22. Goldziher 335: "no entire story, such as that of the Confusion of Tongues at Babel, can be proved to have been formed upon no other basis than the indifferent etymology".

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It will be obvious that the application of comparative mythology to the Old Testament was so closely bound up with, and dependent on the general theory of the method, that it must stand or fall with the latter. The method will therefore now be assessed. The main objection to it is that while so much was based on what were regarded as scientific principles of philology, so much was nonetheless completely unverifiable. As Bloomfield has said of another writer who sought to deduce mental processes from linguistic facts "The only evidence for these mental processes is the linguistic process; they add nothing to the discussion, but only obscure it" 3 2 . There was simply no way of knowing whether people had passed through a period of forgetfulness, and the poetic phrases by which early man is supposed to have described the workings of nature, while not completely unsupportable 33 had in practice to be reconstructed by guesswork. A crucial weakness concerned the possibility of communication both immediately before and after the mythopoeic phase. If language abounded in so many homonyms, the communication between one person and the next must have been far from easy. An equally strange picture is conjured up by Miiller's description of people speaking a language only half intelligible to themselves. Another weakness arose from Miiller's insistance that primitive man had never been savage in the way he was popularly, and not only popularly, made out to be. He asserted that "As far as we can trace back the footsteps of man, even on the lowest strata of history, we see that the divine gift of a sound and sober intellect belonged to him from the very first; and the idea of a humanity emerging slowly from the depths of an animal brutality can never be maintained again" 34 . Of course, such an emergence from animal brutality was maintained again, and although Miiller may well have been right to oppose that particular idea, his opposition was fatal to his own theory. How can we reconcile a people passing through a period of forgetfulness, with the notion of the sound and sober intellect which belonged to man from the first? Further, Miiller's optimistic picture of the intellect of early man hardly helped one of the most attractive features of comparative mythology, namely, its ability to explain irrational elements in myths. If Miiller had argued that man had passed through a phase in which the irrational had been generated because man knew no better, and that by the time he did understand that the stories contained much that was irrational the stories had become sufficiently part of a past heritage to prevent their being discarded, all would have 32 33

34

Language 17. See Chips II 83, where an example is quoted from Betshuana, an African dialect, in which it is said "the sun dies" meaning "the sun sets". Chips II 8.

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41

been clear. Indeed, Miiller did argue the point about man's reverence for his past traditions; but on his own view of the intellect of early man, he could not convincingly account for the rise of the irrational in the first place35. The arguments advanced against comparative mythology by its Victorian opponents included some of the above points. Other points were also made. One was the amount of difference of opinion between proponents of this allegedly scientific method. For example, men like Miiller and Kuhn, while working according to the same principles could reach different conclusions, the former seeing myths as originating from mostly solar phenomena, the latter preferring explanations based on the storm 36 . From the logical point of view, as a sympathiser pointed out 37 , there was no reason why differences of opinion and results should invalidate the method and all its conclusions. However, in practice, such divergence of opinion among the experts damaged the method's credibility. Most damaging of all, comparative mythology, in England at any rate, had to face competition from a rival theory of mythology, which I shall call the anthropological, and which will be considered later in its own right. This theory accounted for the irrational and repulsive in mythology by appealing to the alleged primitive conceptualising of present-day savages, as they were called. This approach was all the more dangerous to comparative mythology, because it shared an important common principle with it, namely, that all races had passed through the same stages of intellectual development. It must have seemed better to many contemporaries, given this point, to work from what was thought to be known about primitives, on the basis of observation, rather than rely on the reconstructions of the comparative mythologists, reconstructions which could not be verified by observation. In vain did Miiller apply his methods to primitive peoples, apologising that his knowledge of Mohawk or Hottentot was not as exact as he would like38, castigating 35

36

37

38

Cf. Chips II 14: "Even though the traditions of past ages may appear strange, wild, and sometimes immoral or impossible, each generation accepts them, and fashions them so that they can be borne with again, and even made to disclose a true and deeper meaning." For criticism that Miiller had not really explained the irrational in myth see Lang, Mythology, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed. 139 col. 2. The difference was admitted by Müller, Chips II 141—142. For a typical use of the point see Lang, Modern Mythology, 1897, 50. R. Brown Junr., Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, 1898, 33ff. : "if Athena is said to be the Moon (Porphyry), the Lightning (Roscher), or the Dawn (Müller) . . . why may not one of them be correct ?" (34). Müller, Natural Religion, 1889, 514—515. The statement of Hilary Henson in her otherwise interesting article Early British Anthropologists and Language in: E. Ardener, Social Anthropology and Language, 1971, 14, is incorrect. She writes

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his opponents for not being familiar with the requisite languages39, and issuing warnings about the unreliability of evidence about the modes of thought of primitives, warnings which anticipated modern anthropological criticisms of the Victorians40. Finally, comparative mythology was undoubtedly greatly harmed by a method of myth interpretation which was its own inevitable offspring, and which must be considered here, because it has some relevance to later "solar" mythological interpretations of the Old Testament. The method was what Miiller defined as analogical comparative mythology as opposed to etymological comparative mythology 41 . Briefly, it accepted the basic premisses of comparative mythology, namely, the common progression of all races through certain intellectual stages of development, and the fact that myths had arisen from misunderstood descriptions of the workings of nature. But it differed on the point of etymology, claiming that there was no need to investigate the etymology of names, it sufficing to compare myths in order to see if they displayed common elements. A certain use by Miiller of analogy has already been noted. Again, the etymological method itself occasionally ran into difficulties, and phonetic "rules" were bent or ignored42. Then there were cases where etymology did not work at all, yet connections between gods were clear. It might not be possible to connect Wuotan, Appolon and Rudra etymologically, but an examination of their characters showed that common to all three was their dark approach in the hurricane, and their weapon, fatal to men and beasts. Thus it was clear that all three arose from descriptions of the storm 43 . All that was needed, then, in analogical mythology, was to work from myths the meaning of which was established, to myths containing similar motifs, and to interpret the latter and the former in the same way. Some analogical comparative mythologists were distinguished linguists, who used the method with care44. It will be obvious, however, "(Müller) was a great Sanskrit scholar, and appears to have had very little knowledge of any language outside this group". 39

40

42 43 44

For example Müller, Anthropological Religion, 1892, 180. See also the remarks of the Egyptologist and comparative mythologist P. Le Page Renouf, complaining that the most distinguished linguist is considered no better qualified to interpret mythologies "than the shallowest and most frivolous of journalists". Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology IX, 1893, 282. The same point is made by Dorson, The British Folklorists, 167. See the Appendix On the Untrustworthiness of Anthropological Evidence in: Müller, Anthropological 41 Religion, 413ff. Müller, Natural Religion, 484ff. The evidence is summarised by Brown 9ff. Müller, Natural Religion, 488 ff. See Müller's comments in: Natural Religion 484—485.

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that once a method was advanced which required no linguistic aptitude, it could be used and abused by anyone. Thus the indiscriminate use of the method brought comparative mythology as a whole, including the strict etymological branch, into disrepute. Satirists wrote brilliant essays which used the method, and one proved that Miiller himself was a solar myth 45 . A point of importance which emerges for the student of the Old Testament is that it is misleading simply to speak of "solar mythology". It is much more important to ask on what presuppositions an interpretation of myths in solar or astronomical terms rests. This is made even more urgent by the fact the astral mythology of the German scholars such as Winckler, Jeremias and Jensen was based on presuppositions far removed from those of the various types of comparative mythology, as will be shown later. The indiscriminate use of comparative mythology brought it, then, into a disrepute which prevented it from having any lasting effect in Old Testament interpretation. However, when the first of the Mesopotamian myths and epics began to be published from the 1870's onwards, its influence was still sufficiently strong to make many of the first editors and interpreters understand the texts in a general solar way. A notable exception, of course, was George Smith; but in 1876 W. St. Chad Boscawen could remark that he was in a minority in regarding Assyrian religion as nature worship, as opposed to the majority view that it was solar worship 46 . Further, A. H. Sayce's Hibbert Lectures of 1887 on Babylonian and Assyrian religion followed a moderate solar line47. To a small extent, these interpretations were fed back into British Old Testament interpretation. Cheyne could see in Job 7 12 "an allusion to a myth based on the continual 'war in heaven' between light and darkness" 48 , or could speak of "the swiftrunning hero Shemesh, the caste or guild of the Elohim, the crashing voice of the Thunder-god, fine myths debased by unholy associations" 49 . In the twentieth century, A. Smythe Palmer's "The Samson Saga" preserved the solar interpretation of the Samson cycle, although Palmer based his interpretation on elements taken from Lang and 45

46 47

48

49

See the essay: The Oxford Solar Myth, first published anonymously in: Kottabos, the terminal magazine of Trinity College, Dublin, 5, 1870, and attributed to the Revd. Dr. R. F. Littledale. The essay was reprinted in Comparative Mythology xxxl-xlvii. Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology IV, 1876, 287. A. H. Sayce, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religion of the ancient Babylonians, 1887. T. K. Cheyne, Job and Solomon, 1887, 22. See also 24, where Rahab is described as the storm dragon which fought against the sun. Cheyne, The Origin of the Psalter, 1891, 202.

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Frazer as well as Muller60. As late as 1918, C. F. Burney in his important note on the mythical element in the story of Samson discussed points raised by Steinthal and Smythe Palmer51. He also discussed the astral mythologists. In lumping together these various approaches under the heading of solar mythology, Burney was perhaps not aware that he was dealing with not a single phenomenon, but with several positions, with widely differing premisses. 50

51

A. Smythe Palmer, The Samson Saga, 1913. For Palmer's various sources see Dorson 182 if. C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges, 391 if.

Chapter 4 Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology Astral mythology is today so out of fashion, that it may come as a surprise to students of the Old Testament to discover how much it dominated the German interpretation of the Mesopotamian myths and epics, and to a lesser extent the Old Testament, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The astral interpretation of Mesopotamian material dominated, for example, the great "Lexikon der Mythologie" edited by Roscher1, and scholars such as Winckler, Zimmern, Jensen and Jeremias were exponents of this approach. Applications of the theory to the Old Testament can be found in such books as Winckler's "Geschichte Israels" and "Altorientalische Forschungen" 2 , Jensen's "Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur" 3 , Stucken's "Astralmythen" 4 and Jeremias's "Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients" 6 . Only the latter of these great astral mythological works received an English translation, and for this reason, the majority of references will be to Jeremias's book. The theoretician of the astral mythological school was Winckler, and of fundamental importance in this respect was his article "Himmels- und Weltenbild der Babylonier als Grundlage der Weltanschauung und Mythologie aller Völker" 6 . As the title suggests, Winckler's claim was no less than that all mythological systems containing astral myths, even those of contemporary primitive peoples, derived from Babylonian astral mythology 7 . Here at once, we see a difference from the "solar" mythology discussed in chapter 3. The latter accounted for similar mythological traits in widely differing cultures by positing the uniform mental and psychological development of all races. 1

W. H. Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1884—. See, for example, the articles Marduk, Shamash, Tamuz. 2 H. Winckler, Geschichte Israels in Einzeldarstellung, 1895—1900; idem, Altorientalische Forschungen, I—III 1893—1902. 3 P. Jensen, Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur, I 1906. 4 E. Stucken, Astralmythen, 1886—1907. 5 A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, 1904. English translation: The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East, 1911. « H. Winckler, in: Der Alte Orient, 3, 2/3, 1903. 7 Ibid. 7: "Die Feststellung der babylonischen Himmels- und Götterlehre liefert daher den Schlüssel zu den Mythologien und Sagen aller Völker, soweit diese überhaupt ein festes in sich geschlossenes und tiefer durchdachtes System zeigen."

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Winckler's theory was essentially diffusionist. His argument was that astral observation among primitive peoples could only be due to borrowing, which eventually went back to Babylonia 8 . It was not possible to trace all the paths of such borrowing, because of lack of historical resources, and in particular, the similarities between myths of Babylon dating from 4,000 to 6,000 B. C. and those of the Slavs of A. D. 700 to 1200 constituted a puzzle for the sphinx to ponder 9 . However, the possibility of borrowing was strengthened by the fact that races of a lower culture could borrow elements from races of a higher culture without the process causing any revolutionary change in the basic structure and concepts of the lower culture 10 .1 have stated this part of Winckler's thesis only to draw attention to its basic difference from comparative mythology. For the purposes of comparison with Israel, with its known historical connections with Babylon, common influence can be accepted whatever the truth or otherwise of Winckler's diffusionist theories. Winckler's definition of myth was that it was a way of understanding the world, based on the idea of correspondence between what happened to the heavenly bodies, especially the sun and moon, and what happened on earth 11 . To this extent, mythology was a science, the "science" of astrology. Mythology was also a symbolic system. The heavenly bodies were not themselves divine, but rather the visible representation, in their relations with each other, of relations between the divine forces which governed and sustained the world12. The sun and moon were of particular importance, as were their relative positions at the solstices and equinoxes, and the way these positions related 8

11

12

Ibid. 5 ff.: "Eine nur oberflächliche Betrachtung der meisten Religionen zeigt zudem einen inneren Widerspruch. Der astrale Gehalt ihrer Mythen und Lehren, das ganze Weltsystem in seiner tief durchdachten und verwickelten Durchbildung verträgt sich nicht mit der ganzen Kulturstufe des Volkes und entspricht in keiner Weise den gebräuchlichen Kultformen und volkstümlichen Vorstellungen von Göttern und Welt. Auch das zwingt wieder zu der Erklärung der höheren astralen Lehren als 9 10 einer Entlehnung von anderswo." Ibid. 63ff. Ibid. 6. Winckler, Die babylonische Weltschöpfung, in: Der Alte Orient 8, 1, 1906, 1: "Der immer wiederkehrende Grundgedanke bei jeder mythischen Darstellung von Vorgängen am Himmel oder im Weltenraume ist der der Entsprechung der Erscheinungen." Ibid.: "Alles geistige Leben, jede Regelung des Lebens, in Sitte, Gesetz und Ordnung beruht auf religiöser Grundlage, und diese Religion war eine Gestirnreligion, eine Lehre von den Himmelskörpern und Himmelsräumen, ihren Bewegungen und ihrem gegenseitigen Verhältnis. Deren Erscheinungen in einer anmutenden und leicht begreiflichen Form darzustellen, ist der Zweck des Mythus, der also eine symbolische Darstellung des gegenseitigen Verhaltens der Götter sein will und in poetischer Gestalt zur Darstellung bringt, was im großen Weltenraume und am Himmel vor sich geht."

Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology

47

to the seasons of the year. Also noted were the zodiacal signs and the fixed stars, through whose areas of influence the sun passed once, and the moon twelve times in the year. As well as the yearly path of the heavenly bodies, the daily movements of the sun and moon were part of the mythological system. The Mesopotamian myths and epics were interpreted as expressing the various significant relationships between the heavenly bodies. In the Enuma elish, the fight of Marduk against Tiamat expressed the passage of the sun through the southern, that is, watery, parts of the heavens, to its weakest point at the winter solstice, and then back to the spring equinox where the victory was completed at the new year 13 . There was a corresponding battle of the sun at the time of the summer solstice, this time with the shooting stars, which symbolised the falling of heavenly fire against the sun. The Norse myth of the destruction and rebirth of the world at Ragnarok expressed the same point, and although the danger to the sun at the summer solstice, the exact counterpart to the danger from water at the winter solstice, did not find expression in the Enuma elish it possibly found expression in the Tammuz myth, where Tammuz was the spring sun killed at the time of the summer solstice14. The Epic of Gilgamesh, while admittedly expressing Babylonian ideas about death and the afterlife 15 also had an astral origin. Some interpreters identified each of the twelve tablets of the epic with one of the signs of the Zodiac16. According to Jensen's interpretation, Gilgamesh was a solar figure. On his visit to Ut-napishtim, he passed through the waters, like the sun. His companion Enkidu was possibly a god of animal or vegetation fertility, so that the common action between Gilgamesh and Enkidu represented the forces of sun and earth giving life to the world. The death of Enkidu, and the subsequent wanderings of Gilgamesh represented the death of vegetation, and the movement of the sun to the winter solstice. The entrance of Gilgamesh into the underworld and the resurrection of Enkidu signified the return of the life-giving forces of nature 17 . According to Zimmern, the hero 13 14

15 16

17

Ibid. 35. Ibid. 35; Der Alte Orient III 2/3, 62—63. For a similar interpretation of the Tammuz myth see Sayce 227ff., and the use made of this interpretation by Müller, Natural Religion, 625 ff. A. Jeremias, Hölle und Paradies bei den Babyloniern, Der Alte Orient I, 3 1903, 7. A. Jeremias, The Old Testament in the light of the Ancient East, I 13. For this interpretation from a British scholar see R. Brown Jnr., Semitic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, 178. P. Jensen, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, VI, 1 Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen, 1900, 423. For a similar English interpretation see C. F. Burney, The Book of Judges, 395ff.

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of the Babylonian flood narrative was originally a sun, or better still, moon god, who crossed the ocean of heaven in his boat 18 . The application of these theories to the Old Testament can be divided into two aspects. In the Urgeschichte of Genesis, the emphasis was mostly, but not entirely, on the comparison of the world views of Israel and Babylon. F. Delitzsch's famous "Babel und Bibel"19 had tended to suggest that most of the religious doctrines of Israel, including monotheism, were of Babylonian origin, and this made such comparisons inevitable. For example, in treating the story of the Fall in Gen 2—3, interpreters compared the Old Testament view of sin and guilt with that to be found in the Babylonian documents. An exception to this sort of treatment was the incident of Cain and Abel, which could be explained like other accounts of brothers in conflict. Probably the most significant application of astral mythology was to the patriarchal, pre-monarchic and historical traditions of Israel; significant, because although astral mythology did not rule out historicity, it went a long way to destroying it. Also, some interpreters went further than others. On the whole, Jeremias's treatment in "The Old Testament in the Light of the Ancient East" was as moderate as the approach of any member of the school. He did not deny historicity to the traditions; rather, he looked for astral motifs by which the traditions had been shaped. Abraham, as the inaugurator of a new age for Israel, was linked with astral motifs derived from astral figures who were inaugurators of new ages20. The number of Abraham's servants, 318 in Gen 14 14 was the number of days in a lunar year when the moon was visible. The movement of Abraham from east to west corresponded with the path of the moon. The tradition of the opposition between Abraham and Lot derived, as did all such stories of opposition between individuals, especially brothers, from the opposition between sun and moon21. The fact that Sarah was both Abraham's wife and sister was a reminder of the relationship between Tammuz and Ishtar. The journey into Egypt, that is, the south, which resulted in sterility for Egyptian women according to Gen20i7ff., corresponded with the journey of Ishtar to the underworld, and the resulting unfruitfulness of the land22. The motif of opposition between the sun and moon was found again in the opposition between Jacob and Esau, and Rebekah, like 18 19

20 21 22

H. Zimmern, Biblische und Babylonische Urgeschichte, Der Alte Orient II, 3 1903,37. F. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel, 1902. For a survey of this controversy see Kraus, Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Erforschung, 309 if.; Weidmann, Die Patriarchen und ihre Religion, 67 if. Jeremias op. cit. 18 if. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20.

Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology

49

Sarah, corresponded to Ishtar, because she veiled herself on meeting Isaac, because she was described as both the wife and sister of Isaac at Gen 26 i and because she was barren and later became fruitful 23 . Astral mythology also noticed the connection between Tamar in Gen 38 and Tamar in II Sam 13, and saw the Ishtar motif in both figures. In the Vlth tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Ishtar is said to have destroyed her lovers. The same was true of Tamar in Gen 38, whose love lost the lives of the brothers Er and Onan, and true of the Tamar of II Sam 13, where Amnon lost his life. Amnon lost his life at the hand of his brother Absalom, another reminder of the motif of the opposition of brothers. The fact that Absalom revenged his sister Tamar was further similar to the incident of Gen 34, where Simeon and Levi avenged their sister Dinah 24 . In the Joseph cycle, there were many signs of the Tammuz motif. Egypt, as the south, or the underworld, has already been noticed. Joseph, like Tammuz, descended to the underworld, so that he could later bring about a new age. His special garment of many colours, or long sleeves, was described by a Hebrew phrase which occurred elsewhere in the Old Testament only in connection with Tamar in II Sam 13, who, as has already been seen, was an Ishtar figure 25 . Joseph's encounter with Potiphar's wife corresponded to Ishtar's desire for Tammuz. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Ishtar's love was rejected, she took vengeance for the slight done to her. The same was true of the revenge of Potiphar's wife on Joseph 26 . In Jacob's blessing of his twelve sons, references to the twelve signs of the Zodiac could be detected 27 . To avoid multiplying examples ad nauseam, it will suffice to mention in conclusion that Ruth was regarded as an Ishtar figure, because she covered herself when she went to visit Boaz, even though it was night, and she would therefore not be seen28. In the book of Esther, the names Esther (Ishtar) and Mordecai (Marduk) were a clear indication of astral origin, although it was a matter of dispute whether the basis of the book was the incident in the Epic of Gilgamesh, in which Gilgamesh and Enkidu killed the giant Humbaba 29 . 23

Ibid. 51. Ibid. 61—63. 25 Ibid. 64ff. For the special garment of Tamar and Joseph cp. II Sam 13 18 and Gen 37 3. 26 Ibid. 66. 2 ' Ibid. 77 ff. 28 Ibid. 62. 29 Ibid. 251. Jensen op. cit. 423 proposed that the Humbaba episode was the basis of the book of Esther. Against this see Jeremias 251. 24

R o g e r s o n , Myth

4

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Astral Mythology and Anthropological Mythology

Sufficient has been said about the astral mythological interpretation of the Old Testament, in one of its more moderate forms30 to show what its results were. Clearly, whatever other theories it was based on, in practice the method of interpretation was analogical and comparative, with all the weaknesses inherent in such an approach, and without any possibility of control or verification. Wherever a veil was mentioned, Ishtar was recognised, and it was not asked whether this detail perhaps resulted from a natural reaction of women in the East to certain situations. Again, there was a certain freedom in handling the Babylonian material in the attempt to find parallels in the Old Testament. One wonders, for example, how fair it was to compare Ishtar's revenge on Gilgamesh in the Vlth tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, with the revenge of Potiphar's wife on Joseph. In the Epic, the immediate instrument of Ishtar's revenge, the bull, is killed by Gilgamesh and Enkidu, so the revenge is not effective. Neither can it be argued that Ishtar punishes Gilgamesh by causing the death of Enkidu, because the latter's death is the direct result of Enkidu's own insolence to Ishtar, and not the result of Gilgamesh spurning Ishtar's advances. On examination, then, the parallel with Joseph and Potiphar's wife seems to be far-fetched, and the same could be said of other comparisons. In view of the excesses of the method, its lack of objectivity, and competition from other approaches to the Old Testament, for example, the folkloristic as displayed in the later work of Gunkel and Gressmann, it is not surprising that astral mythology hardly survived the generation of its brilliant advocates31. What was its effect in British Old Testament scholarship ? Traces can certainly be found, although there was no really deep penetration. Cheyne was prepared to follow Winckler in seeing "elements of the Adonis-Tamuz myth in the Joseph-story" 32 , and some of the astral mythologists contributed to the Encyclopaedia Biblica 33 . It is interesting, however, that neither the Encyclopaedia Biblica nor Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible (1898—1902) had an entry under the heading 30

31

32 33

On Jeremias's differences from Winckler see Kraus op. cit. 307—308. Weidmann op. cit. 69—88 has a useful sketch of the effect of astral mythological interpretation on the understanding of the patriarchal narratives. Kraus op. cit. can note (308—309): "Von Schräder bis Jeremias steht die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft unter massivem Einfluß assyriologischer Forschungen und 'panbabylonischer' Extremauffassungen" yet quickly turn, after dealing with the Babel-Bibel controversy to other matters, thus indicating the quick demise of the whole school. T. T. to In

K. Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, 1907, xvi. K. Cheyne, J . S. Black, Encyclopaedia Biblica, 1899—1903. Zimmern, contributed the articles on Creation, Deluge, Magic; Winckler to Mesopotamia and Sinai. the latter article, Sinai was connected with the moon, and Horeb with the sun.

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of "myth". The reader was left to glean what he could from articles such as "Dragon" and "Rahab". Skinner, in his commentary on Genesis34 took the astral mythological approach sufficiently seriously to give it reasonable space, if only for the purposes of criticism. However, in some ways, Skinner was sympathetic to the approach. He regarded it as "possible" that there was a connection between Tamar in Gen 38 and Ishtar 38 . Again, in discussing the Flood, he referred, not without sympathy, to the astral interpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, although his conclusion was "whatever truth there may be in these theories, it is certain that they do not account for the concrete features of the Chaldean legend; and if (as can hardly be denied) mythical motives are present, it seems just as likely that they were grafted on to a historic tradition as that the history itself is merely the garb in which a solar or astral myth arrayed itself" 36 . In the case of Joseph, a "direct influence of mythology" was "extremely speculative" 37 while in connection with the Zodiacial interpretation of the Blessing of Jacob, although the theory had to be reckoned with, "it has as yet furnished no trustworthy clue either to the explanation of obscure details, or to the restoration of the text" 38 . S. R. Driver, in his commentary on Genesis was much more cautious. Although astral mythological works were cited in footnotes, the theory itself was not mentioned. Perhaps the nearest Driver got to a mention was regarding the flood episode of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which Driver regarded as originating from a reminiscence of an extraordinary overflow of the Euphrates, although the story had undoubtedly been "mythologically embellished" 39 . It is in Burney's appendix to the Samson cycle in the commentary on Judges that the most explicit application of astral mythology to the Epic of Gilgamesh by a British scholar is to be found. In this case, however, the theory was mixed up with other approaches of a "solar" nature, and of only narrow application to the Old Testament 40 .

ANTHROPOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY

The principal exponent of anthropological mythology was Andrew Lang1. The main aim of the method was to account for the 34 35 37 39 40 1

J. Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, 1910. 38 Skinner 452. Ibid. 181. 38 Ibid. 442. Ibid. 535. S. R. Driver, The Book of Genesis, 1904, 108. Burney 395 ff. A. Lang, Mythology, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1875 9 ; idem, Custom and Myth, 1893; idem, Modern Mythology, 1897; idem, Myth, Ritual and Religion, 1887. 4*

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presence of irrational elements in myths, particularly Greek myths, and it hoped to achieve this end on the basis of three suppositions. The first was that all races had passed through the same stages of intellectual development. The second, was the doctrine of survivals 2 . This doctrine was apparently worked out by Tylor in opposition to theologians who argued that the culture of Adam in Genesis was man's original culture, and that lower cultures, such as those found in Australia were degenerations 3 . It was based on the presence in developed cultures of customs and practices which made little sense. If the same customs and practices could also be found in less developed cultures, and now in contexts where they did make sense, it could be argued that in the developed cultures the customs and practices were survivals, and proof that the developed cultures had once been at the lower level of culture in which the customs and practices made sense. Thus there had been no degeneration in the development of the human race, but a gradual upward climb from the lower states evidenced by contemporary primitives, to the higher states of modern civilisation. Lang took over the doctrine of survivals from Tylor; (anthropological mythology has been described as "the gospel of Tylor according to the exegesis of Lang" 4 ). Lang's use of the doctrine of survivals involved comparing the irrational elements of sophisticated myths with those of primitive myths, and concluding that the irrational elements were survivals 6 . This conclusion was useful in the light of the third supposition of the method, which was that primitives regarded the objects of the natural world as personal forces 6 . Myths were the explanations by savage primitives of natural phenomena 7 and it was the savage personification of these forces which had given rise to the irrational elements in myths, which in turn were to be found as survivals in For an excellent treatment of Lang see R. M. Dorson, The British Folklorists 166 ff. 206 ff. 2

3 4 5 6

7

See especially M. Hodgen, The Doctrine of Survivals. A Chapter in the History of Scientific Method in the Study of Man, 1935. A summary is found in Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, 1966, 11 ff. See also Dorson 193 ff. A leading representative of this view was Archbishop Whately. Dorson 196. For Tylor's views on mythology, see Dorson 189—191. See Lang's essay, The Method of Folklore, in: Custom and Myth, 10—28. Lang, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 144: "the savage mind regards even the most abstract phenomena as persons, with human parts and passions. That idea alone will account for much that is strange in mythology. But we must remember that, to the savage, Sky, Sun, Sea, Wind are not only persons, but they are savage persons. Their c o n d u c t . . . is what uncivilized men think probable and befitting among beings like themselves." Ibid. 143: "When a phenomenon presents itself the savage requires an explanation, and that explanation he makes for himself, or receives from tradition, in the shape of a myth."

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53

sophisticated mythological systems. It will be seen that the aims and principles of anthropological mythology were straightforward. Proponents of the method, particularly Lang, worked with typical Victorian industry to assemble vast numbers of examples to illustrate the theory. The effect of anthropological mythology on Old Testament interpretation was complex. In the first instance, the method was not directly applicable to the Old Testament, since the latter contained no myths with irrational elements which needed to be explained. However as a general theory of mythology with considerable influence in its day it succeeded in stemming the tide of comparative and astral mythology, and prevented these alternatives from gaining any great hold over the thinking of Old Testament scholars. The doctrine of survivals was accepted by British Old Testament scholars, but as applied to the Old Testament, it tended to strengthen attempts to find reminiscences of history behind the patriarchal and similar traditions. The notion of progressive revelation was important here. If the Old Testament was seen as the record of man's gradual movement from a primitive type of religion to the ethical monotheism of the great prophets, and if the doctrine of survivals helped this reconstruction by showing that customs and practices mentioned in the earlier parts of the Old Testament were survivals of Israel's more primitive life, then the whole endeavour encouraged scholars to see in the patriarchal and similar traditons evidence for a historical primitive existence of Israel. Logically, it would have been possible to regard the great figures of early Israelite history as myths of an astral or tribal variety, with the survivals of earlier customs and beliefs being attracted to these figures; but few inclined to this sort of explanation. In practice, the doctrine of survivals diminished the need and scope for mythical interpretation8. 8

For a representative presentation of this sort of view see R. L. Ottley's Bampton Lectures for 1897, Aspects of the Old Testament, 1897. Progressive revelation is discussed on p. 66, and the following passage shows how progressive revelation and the doctrine of survivals tended towards establishing historicity: — "The oldest narrative gives a vivid portrait of patriarchal life: its simple forms of worship, its family priesthood, its sacrificial feasts, its sacred customs and social institutions. Moreover there are features in the story which point to a comparatively low standard of ethical and religious development, especially the use of cunning and violence, together with a certain element of sexual licence. We notice also obvious traces of the close affinity that existed between the religion of the Hebrew patriarchs and the common ideas and practices of the neighbouring Semitic tribes. . . . These indications of a very rudimentary religious condition are valuable, not only as enhancing the credibility of the narratives, but also as deepening our consciousness of the divine influence which actually guided the Hebrew race from the first, controlling the development of faith, accepting what was rude and primitive as a needful stage in a

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The point that was most widely taken from anthropological mythology was that myth was the attempt to explain things 9 . Not only cosmological phenomena were included under this heading, but Israelite customs, tribal relationships and justification for cultic sites and practices. Consequently, the scope of myth was both contracted and enlarged. It was contracted in that it now was concerned only with traditions where explanations of things were to be found. There was no question of looking for a mythical origin for large parts of Israel's history before and even after the establishment of the monarchy. It was enlarged in that in the Old Testament, explanations are to be found in both the Urgeschichte and later traditions; thus all could equally be classed as containing mythical (i. e. explanatory) elements. At a later stage, there was undoubtedly some reinforcement for this approach from Gunkel's categories of aetiological sagas. However, only as much of Gunkel was taken as was needed. Turning to consider some actual examples of this type of myth interpretation in the Old Testament, we find that T. K. Cheyne was a pioneer in British scholarship. His "Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel" was not published until 1907, but it embodied his thought on the subject of the traditions of Genesis from as far back as 1877, when he had considered Polynesian myths to be a rewarding area of comparison with the biblical traditions 10 . Although Cheyne was to some extent prepared to follow first, comparative mythology, and later Winckler's astral mythology, his use of North American as well as Polynesian myths in the 1907 version of his book clearly indicated his acceptance of these myths as a guide to Israel's primitive past, and therefore the origin of elements of her mythology 11 . An important book published in the same year as Cheyne's was A. R. Gordon's "The Early Traditions of Genesis"12 in which a whole chapter was devoted to myth and legend, with the result that there was some theorising. Gordon accepted that primitive man conceived the world of nature in terms of personal forces13 and also that myth arose from

9

10 11

13

constant upward movement, and gradually raising the ancestors of Israel above the general level of their age" (113—114). See S. Baring-Gould, The Origin and Development of Religious Belief, 1869, a work which had great influence, according to my colleague Mr. R. P. McDermott. Cheyne, Traditions and Beliefs of Ancient Israel, xvi. 74. Ibid. 74 (on Gen 3 21-22): "primitive man feels no difficulty in combining facts that are real with facts that are merely divined in accordance with mythological theories (i.e. explanations of origins). Facts of the latter kind will of course differ in various countries, but there will be an analogy between them, and the fundamental ideas 12 will agree." A. R. Gordon, The Early Traditions of Genesis, 1907, 76—96. Ibid. 79: "The primitive mind . . . looks out on Nature . . . not as a dull dead sphere where abstract laws operate, but as the bright and beautiful home of personal Beings, who display their grace and power in the works of Nature".

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attempts to explain the origin of things14, but he separated these two points so as to distinguish between " a more direct, spontaneous, poetic form of myth" and "a more reflective style of myth" 1 5 . The first type arose from the primitive conceptualising in terms of personal forces, and the second represented attempts to explain the origin of things. Gordon gives no justification for this distinction, which drives a coach and horses between the two principles which, when taken together, enabled anthropological mythology to explain the irrational elements in myths. However, Gordon's position is interesting as illustrating the tendency of Old Testament interpretation to take from anthropological mythology just sufficient to deal convincingly with the Old Testament material. We can only surmise that Gordon separated the two principles because while he wanted to understand some narratives as myths (i. e. explanations), he did not want to regard them as the explanations of savages. There is one area of Old Testament interpretation where it would be fruitful to explore the link with anthropological interpretation if historical resources allowed. I refer to Robertson Smith's approach to myth. Robertson Smith was the editor of the 9th Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and as such, invited Lang to contribute the article on Mythology. Again, Robertson Smith shared with Lang an admiration for McLennan16 and an interest in totemism, which latter social phenomenon was one of the bases for the view that man personified the world of nature. In his last series of Burnett Lectures delivered in 1891, the first series of which had been published as the famous "Religion of the Semites", Robertson Smith apparently dealt with Semitic mythology, including a comparison of the Urgeschichte of Genesis with the Babylonian myths and epics, in which the dependence of the former on the latter was said to be overexaggerated. Alas, little if anything of these lectures survives, and one can only surmise what the effect of their publication might have been on British Old Testament mythological theory17. What was the fate generally of anthropological mythology ? We have seen that its importance for the Old Testament was in providing material for slightly different approaches to myth, and in keeping rival theories at bay. In itself, anthropological mythology was attacked from two quarters. First, there were those who doubted whether the 14 15 16

17

Ibid. 80ff. Ibid. 79—80. Cp. Dorson 207 and W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, 1907 2 , xi. Cp. J . S. Black and G. Chrystal, The Life of William Robertson Smith, 1912, especially 535ff. See also the remarks of J . Muilenburg in the Ktav edition of The Religion of the Semites, 1969, 12—13.

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doctrine of survivals could properly be applied to myths in the same way that it could be applied to customs. A great critic along these lines was the Hungarian Rabbi Moses Gaster, who made his home in England, and who produced brilliant articles which traced folktales back through many centuries and many cultures, thereby strengthening his conviction that common elements in such traditions were the result of diffusion18. Another type of criticism came from R. R. Marett who was worried by the idea that survivals were simply relics trom the past. In Marett's view, "survivals" might arise in sophisticated cultures from those of lower intellect who were to be found in any society. There was also the possibility that where religious belief was concerned, survivals might rather be revivals of old practices 19 . In the light of these criticisms, it will be seen that Lang's position was really weaker than appears at first sight, and it would seem that in later editions of "Myth, Ritual and Religion" Lang so compromised his position on primitive mentality that his overall position was jeapodised. According to Dorson, the later Lang "in asserting the godliness of early man . . . elevates the savage mentality, and so injures his thesis that survivals or borrowings from savages explain the irrational elements in myths and fairy tales" 20 . The other criticism against Lang was an attack of his view of primitive mentality. Already in a review of Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind" published in 1865, Müller had warned of the dangers in interpreting evidence about the thought processes of primitives, and especially of the danger of the modern scholar deciding what the primitive ought to think, or what the scholar imagined he would think if he himself were a savage21. Müller never ceased to utter such warnings, and in his "Anthropological Religion" had appendices on the subject. So clearly did Müller anticipate the twentieth century criticisms of men like Tylor, Frazer and Lang that if he did not succeed in his own lifetime in discrediting Lang's theory, at least those who today admire his qualities as a scholar can feel satisfaction in the way he anticipated one reason that would spell its demise. 18 19 20 21

See Dorson 275 ff. Ibid. 288. Ibid. 171. Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, II 250—285.

Chapter 5 Hermann Gunkel That Hermann Gunkel occupies a major place in the history of Old Testament scholarship, particularly because of his concern for the classification of Israelite literature, including what he called the sagas of Genesis, needs no justification1. However, it is not easy to know where to begin a presentation and assessment of his work. In the first place, there is disagreement about the extent to which his work during the first 45 years of his life, that is .roughly up to 1907, was influenced by his predecessors, and how far his literary classificatory work was the result of his own originality2. Secondly, he was not the most exact of writers. He was capable of defining a term or stating a principle in one paragraph, and then of contradicting it soon after3. Thirdly, from roughly the age of 45, in what I shall call for the sake of convenience his second as opposed to his first period4, his views on the relationship between myth, saga and Märchen underwent an important change, which was only partially reflected in his writings. His great commentary on Genesis, for example, in its third and for all practical purposes final edition5 was never brought into line with the views of his second period as fully as Gunkel would have liked, while a fourth revision was contemplated but never carried out 6 . Again, Gunkel could reissue an important work like his "Die israelitische Literatur", but not with the full revision that his new views demanded, but merely an appendage containing comments on how his new views generally affected the position presented in the work7. In many ways, Gunkel resembled Herder. He had a love for poetry, and insisted that exegesis was an art and not a science, and 1

2 8 4

5 6 7

For a valuable recent study of some aspects of Gunkel's life and work see W. Klatt, Hermann Gunkel, 1969. Klatt 106ff. The point will be discussed at length later. The division into first and second periods affects only Gunkel's views about the origin of myth, saga and Marchen. Later editions were substantially reprints of the third. Klatt 134. H. Gunkel, Die israelitische Literatur, 1963, a reprint of the 1925 edition, which was a reprint of the 1906 edition from Kultur der Gegenwart, 1906, together with the Nachtrag of 1925.

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therefore needed to be undertaken with imagination 8 . Preoccupation with the minutiae of exegesis was abhorrent to him if it did not lead to conclusions about the life and spirit of Hebrew literature 9 . Again, Gunkel's re-telling of biblical stories could be as poetic and romantic as Herder's, as witness his exposition of the book of Ruth 10 . In his second period, he became more and more interested, as Herder had been, in the folk literature of the world, and its application to Old Testament interpretation. It is no wonder that we find in Gunkel's writings a number of glowing tributes to Herder 11 . Unfortunately, it is sometimes as difficult to grasp the essentials of Gunkel's thought as Herder's. I intend to approach Gunkel by considering in turn each of the three problems mentioned in the first paragraph. In his illuminating study of Gunkel, W. Klatt has explored the background to his literary classificatory work12. He has rejected the commonly-held view that Gunkel was influenced by German literary critical work of his day 13 , and after noting the influence of Herder and the brothers Grimm, has preferred to allow to Gunkel the merit of having classified independently the various types of literature in the Old Testament, including for our purposes, the various types of saga14. Klatt may well be correct in all this, but what I miss in his book is any reference to Gunkel's possible familiarity with the work of de Wette and Ewald. An earlier chapter has already shown that de Wette had explained the origin of many biblical traditions along lines later adopted by Gunkel, except that de Wette had not classified the various explanations into literary types. Again, Ewald had devoted a good deal of energy to investigating the nature of the saga in the Old Testament, again anticipating Gunkel in some respects. The nearest Klatt gets to mentioning de Wette and Ewald in this respect is in a blanket reference to prominent Old Testament scholars who preceded Gunkel 8 9 10 11

12 13

14

H. Gunkel, Reden und Aufsätze, 1913, 14—15. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 66ff. Reden und Aufsätze 22; Genesis, 1910 3 , 105, on Gen 1 3 "Eine schöne Erklärung des Eindrucks von Finsternis und Licht bei Herder . . . " Klatt 106 ff. Ibid. 110: "Daß Gunkel seine Gattungsforschung bewußt aus der Germanistik übernommen habe, halte ich demnach für ausgeschlossen." Klatt notes on the same page that the saga and its attendant historical problems had been "heftig diskutiert" in theology since the Enlightenment. However, Gunkel's originality regarding the "Gattung" of the saga had still to be allowed. Ibid. 112: "Als Ergebnis muß deshalb festgehalten werden: Gunkel hat seine gattungs- oder literaturgeschichtliche Methode von selbst gefunden. Inspiriert war er durch die ästhetische Betrachtung des großen Herder, als dessen Testamentsvollstrecker er sich verstand."

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in the nineteenth century 16 . Otherwise, there is short discussion of the possible influence on Gunkel of a one-time associate of Ewald, E. H. Meier16. Gunkel's knowledge of the work of de Wette and Ewald on myth and saga would be an important subject for future research, and the latter would show how far Dr. Klatt had said the last word on the subject of Gunkel's indebtedness to his predecessors. If there is some uncertainty about the influence on Gunkel's literary classificatory work, his relation to the myth interpretation of his day can be more clearly established. He was in friendly contact with the Assyriologist H. Zimmern, who contributed to Gunkel's "Schöpfung und Chaos" translations of relevant Mesopotamian myths and epics17. Zimmern was not perhaps so ardent an astral mythologist as Winckler and Jensen, but he did incline to this view18 and thus it is not surprising to find that in his first period, Gunkel accepted astral mythological interpretation, and was prepared to find traces of astral myths in the Old Testament. In "Die israelitische Literatur" he mentioned as astral myths elements from the Samson cycle, Elijah's translation to heaven, and the story of Esther 19 . The story of Jonah was a myth of the sun god "who was swallowed by a sea monster each evening, or in winter" 20 . However, Gunkel's conservatism in the matter is to be noted. While accepting astral mythological interpretation, he only saw its application to the Old Testament as relevant to small areas. The second problem in understanding Gunkel arises from his inexactness in the use of key terms. By the time the Genesis commentary reached its third edition, it might reasonably have been expected that inconsistencies of expression would have been ironed out. However, the reader of the commentary is faced with a number of annoying contradictions. One of the important assertions of the commentary is that because myths are stories about gods, there are therefore no myths in Genesis. By way of reinforcement of this, chapters 1—11 of Genesis are called ur-sagas (Ursagen)21. But in discussion of Gen 2—3, Gunkel repeatedly calls the narrative a myth 22 . Again, on page xiv 15

18 17 18 19 20

21

22

Ibid. 47. Of course, in connection with Gunkel's work on the Psalms, there are numerous references in Klatt to de Wette and Ewald. Ibid. 112ff. Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit, 1895, 401 ff. See for example his Der babylonische Gott Tammuz, 1909. Die israelitische Literatur 19. Ibid. 19, Jonah is a sun god "der am Abend oder in Winter vom Meeresungetüm verschlungen wird." Genesis, 3rd ed., xv: "Da die Genesis also keine eigentlichen, reinen Mythen enthält . . ." Ibid. 4ff. Note the section on page 28 headed "Die Erklärung des Mythus".

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it is stated, not unreasonably in the light of the thesis that Genesis contains no myths, that the religion of Yahweh was from the first inclined to monotheism, and that for a story about the gods (i. e. a myth) one needs at least two gods23. However, on page xxiii we are told that Gen 2 2 ff. is a myth, because God himself is involved24. Such contradictions do not give the impression that Gunkel had worked out his thoughts and categories carefully. A possible reason for the contradictions will be advanced later. We next consider the change in Gunkel's view about the origin and relation of myth, saga and Märchen26. Throughout his life, Gunkel accepted the definition of the brothers Grimm, that myths were stories about gods. For his first period only, he accepted the rest of the Grimm thesis, which was that the saga had arisen from the myth, and that the heroes of sagas were thus formerly gods. The whole thesis was stated in "Das Märchen im Alten Testament", so that Gunkel could disagree with it in view of his newly-held views26. It was partially stated in the first two editions of the Genesis commentary 27 . In the second period Gunkel was influenced by Wundt's "Völkerpsychologie", and by Gressmann's application of the views there stated to the patriarchal narratives28. Wundt sought a psychological explanation for religious and magical beliefs, and in applying this approach to folk traditions in general, somewhat reversed the scheme of the brothers Grimm which had held the field for so long. According to Wundt, a developed mythological system was a late phenomenon in the development of a people; therefore sagas could not have arisen from myths. Wundt preferred to use the term myth as a general term (Oberbegriff) embracing Märchen, saga and legend, and denoting what there was of the divine in each. Thus Wundt used such terms as Mythenmärchen and Göttersagen29. Of the three types, Märchen, saga and legend, Märchen was the most primitive, and the other types had arisen from it. Clearly, Wundt's scheme was influenced by current anthropological theories. Because Märchen was the form of folk 23

24

25 26 27

28

29

Ibid. xiv: "Der eigentliche Zug der Jahve-Religion ist den Mythen nicht günstig. Denn diese Religion ist von Anfang an auf den Monotheismus hin angelegt; zu einer Göttergeschichte gehören aber mindestens zwei Götter". Ibid. xxiii: " A m siebenten Tag ruhen wir, weil Gott bei der Weltschöpfung am siebenten Tage geruht hat (2 2ff., ein Mythus, weil Gott selber darin handelt)." Compare the section in Klatt 129—138. Das Märchen im Alten Testament, 1917, 7—8. Genesis, Ist ed., vii; 2nd ed., xvii: "Göttergeschichten sind überall die ältesten Erzählungen der Völker; aus den Mythen ist die Gattung der Sagen erst entstanden." W. Wundt, Völkerpsychologie, II Mythus und Religion, 1909. Gressmann, Sage und Geschichte in den Patriarchenerzählungen, ZAW 30 (1910), 1—33. Wundt op. cit. passim.

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tradition most common among primitive peoples, it must therefore be the most primitive form of folk literature, and the basis for other forms 30 . In theory, then, Gunkel accepted Wundt's account of the relation between myth, saga and Marchen, although he did not use myth as a general term and preferred to continue to define myths as stories about gods31. How did he apply the theory, however ? Once again we run up against unclarity and inconsistency. In the first two editions of the Genesis commentary, the theory that saga had arisen from myth was applied to the Urgeschichte, or the ur-sagas, as Gunkel called them, only. The patriarchal sagas (Vatersagen) were treated differently, and regarded as arising from relations between tribes, or as other types of aetiology32. The immediate question is why Gunkel should have used the word saga to describe these two different types of literature 33 . Leaving that aside, we find that when in the 3rd edition of Genesis Gunkel adopted Wundt's view of the relation between Marchen and saga, he did not apply the insight to the Urgeschichte, but only to the patriarchal sagas! He omitted the passage found in the first two editions of the Genesis commentary about the saga having arisen from the myth, thus confirming the impression given in those editions that the statement was meant to apply not just to the Urgeschichte but to the other so-called sagas. However, having omitted this passage in the third edition of the commentary, and having altered the exegesis of much of the patriarchal narratives as a result, he nevertheless left the exegesis of the main parts of the Urgeschichte untouched, as though he were still adhering to the Grimm thesis that the saga had arisen from myth 34 . The attractiveness of Wundt's thesis to Gunkel is easy to see. Already in the second edition of the commentary he had confessed that he was less inclined in the new edition than in the first, to explain the patriarchal narratives in aetiological terms. He was inclined, rather, to regard the aetiological elements as secondary, and to admit that the understanding of the details of the narratives was beyond the 30

31

32 33

34

Gunkel explicitly made this point in the Nachtrag to: Die israelitische Literatur 59. Also in: Das Märchen im AT 7. Das Märchen im Alten Testament 6. Myths are narratives in which gods play the main role. Klatt 132. Gunkel never made clear the basis for his distinction between the ur-saga, the patriarchal saga and the hero-saga (Heldensage). Klatt 129 can only quote Die israelitische Literatur 19 in connection with Gunkel's distinction, but there, the distinction is stated rather than justified. Klatt 129 if. appears to miss the inconsistency in Gunkel's thought on this.

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powers of scholarship35. Faced with this dilemma, it is clear how Wundt's position offered him the solution he sought. All details in the traditions could now be explained analogically, on the basis of a comparison with the folk traditions of many nations. In the third edition of the commentary, therefore, there was much reference to folk tradition and literature. Adopting Wundt's position also enabled Gunkel to reject once and for all the astral mythological interpretation of parts of the Old Testament, to which he had earlier inclined. Comparison with folk traditions gave a better explanation for elements of narratives than the supposition that they were the remains of astral myths, and thus in the Nachtrag to "Die israelitische Literatur", the astral mythological interpretation advanced in the text, was disowned36. Why was it that Gunkel could contradict himself by both denying that there were myths in Genesis, and by calling parts of the Urgeschichte myths 37 ? The answer perhaps can be got from a comparison of the three editions of the Genesis commentary. In the first edition, in a passage discussing myths in general, Gunkel wrote "Many myths answer questions." He immediately illustrated this from the ur-sagas of Genesis, and following the illustrations, concluded "all these questions deal not with Israelite matters but matters of universal concern" 38 . In the second edition, the concluding sentence read "But all these questions •— and this is characteristic of myths as opposed to sagas — deal not with Israelite matters but matters of universal concern" 39 . By the third edition the same sentence had become "But all these questions — and this is characteristic of these myths (i. e. those from the Urgeschichte which had just illustrated the point that "many myths answer questions") as opposed to the sagas •— deal not with Israelite matters but matters of universal concern" 40 . The comparison of the three editions shows that Gunkel progressively 35

38

37

38

39

40

Genesis, 2nd ed., x: "ich gegenwärtig weniger geneigt bin, die Sagen als Einkleidungen von Stammesverhältnissen oder Ereignissen zu erklären als früher; mir scheint jetzt, es sei das Ethnographische oder Ätiologische mehrfach nachträglich zu den Sagen hinzugekommen und die Sagen selbst seien uns letztlich unerklärbar". Die israelitische Literatur 59: "Solchen Märchenstuffe haben sich nun auch sehr vielfach in den Sagen des AT erhalten, auch in solchen, in denen wir früher Reste von Mythischem gesucht hatten, so in den Erzählungen von Jona, von Simson, von Esther u. a.". In Genesis, 3rd ed., 119, we find the statement "der Schöpfungsmythus (gehört) zum ältesten Bestände der israelitischen Sagentradition". Genesis, 1st ed., viii: "Viele Mythen antworten auf Fragen. . . . Alle diese Fragen betreffen nicht israelitische Dinge, sondern solche, die die ganze Welt angehen". Genesis, 2nd ed., xviii: "Alle diese Fragen aber — und auch dies ist für die Mythen im Unterschiede von den Sagen charakteristisch — betreffen usw.". Genesis, 3rd ed., xv: "Alle diese Fragen aber — das ist für diese Mythen im Unterschiede von den Sagen characteristisch — betreffen usw."

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sharpened the distinction between the ur-sagas and the patriarchal sagas by emphasising the universal as opposed to the national scope of the former. It is also clear, however, that Gunkel was operating with not one, but two definitions of myth. As well as being stories about gods, myths were stories which answered questions of universal concern. Thus on the one hand, there were no myths in the Urgeschichte, because there were no stories about gods (ignoring the statement about Gen 2 2 ff. above). However, in so far as stories in the Urgeschichte explained matters of universal concern, they were myths. This unravelling of confusion in Gunkel's thought also helps to explain another problem, namely, why he continued to see the Urgeschichte as largely arising from myths when the rest of the sagas of Genesis were now explained as formerly Märchen. If stories in the Urgeschichte were myths in the sense of explanations of matters of universal concern, their dependence on non-Israelite myths could be accepted without difficulty, particularly as Babylonian myths such as the Enuma elish were themselves similar attempts at explanation. Unfortunately, we have yet one more piece of inconsistency to point out. Gunkel brought his Wundt position to its logical conclusion in his book "Das Märchen im Alten Testament". Here he classified the many types of Märchen believed by him to underlie parts of the Old Testament tradition. In some cases, he offered new explanations of passages, compared with his earlier works. For example, in "Schöpfung und Chaos" he had described the figure of Leviathan in Job 40 ff as a form of Tiamat or Tehom41. Further, the figure of Leviathan in Psalm 104 was described as a piece of faded mythology42. However, in "Das Märchen im Alten Testament" Gunkel compared both Leviathan and Behemoth in Job 40ff. with the type of "nature-fable" (Naturfabeln) in which the lion is king of the animals43. Gunkel did not state whether he had now abandoned the faded mythology theory, whether Behemoth and Leviathan arose directly from Israelite Märchen or whether, (a third possibility), there was fusion between myth and Märchen with originally mythical figures being described in terms of a common Märchen. Again, under the heading of Märchen about giants (Riesenmärchen) Gunkel added to references which included Samson and Goliath, the sons of God of Gen 6 1-444. This is interesting, because even in the third edition of Genesis, Gunkel had continued to treat this fragment as of clearly mythical origin, and therefore as originally foreign to Israel. It is a matter of great regret 41 42

43 44

Schöpfung und Chaos 56. Ibid. 58: "In V 104 ist diese Verdunkelung des Mythologischen noch weiter fortgeschritten." Das Märchen im Alten Testament 20. Ibid. 94.

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both that Gunkel did not revise his commentary for a fourth edition, and that he did not, as far as I can discover, write the book "Der Mythus im Alten Testament" to which he referred in the footnotes of "Das Märchen im Alten Testament" 45 . There is a final, and perhaps humourous sidelight to the rather piecemeal way in which Gunkel tried to apply his Wundt views to works he had already written. It has been stated above that after the third edition of Genesis, subsequent editions were merely reprints. However, this is not true in one respect at least. In the seventh edition (1966) on page 15, Gunkel discusses the talking serpent in the Garden of Eden and comments "There was a time, so ancient man would reply to us, when animals could talk, the time of Märchen" 46 . This makes reasonable sense in itself, and fits the context well. However, in the third edition, instead of Märchen, the word Mythus appears, a word so out of keeping with the general tenor of the whole passage in the third edition, that it is no wonder that the copy which I consulted in the Tübingen Stift had been altered by a frustrated Stiftler to read Märchen! This survey of Gunkel has been deliberately negative and critical, because I think that his achievements in the sphere of myth and saga have been overrated, and because the inconsistencies in his thought have not been sufficiently exposed. Gunkel was a master at classification and comparison, both of which are important and illuminating activities. However, without the backing of adequate theory, they can be dangerous, and can give the impression of achieving more than they actually do. To classify together sagas which seem to have a common interest in the cult is useful and helpful. It may even be justifiable to call such sagas "cult-sagas" (Kultsagen). To take the further step, however, and to say that such sagas resulted from traditions preserved at cult centres, or were generated as explanations of cultic practices, is no more than a guess. Logically, the most that can be said is that there are sagas which have in common an interest in cultic matters. Again, the comparison of biblical traditions with folklore in general is important, and, as T. H. Gaster has said, still largely neglected by Old Testament scholars47. It is one thing, however, to note similarities between biblical stories and certain folktales, and quite another to say with Gressmann in the article which so influenced Gunkel, that while names like Abraham are real names it 45 46

47

Ibid. 41. Genesis, 7th ed., 15: "Es war das eine Zeit, so würde der Antike uns antworten, wo die Tiere noch sprechen konnten; die Zeit des Märchens." T. H. Gaster, Semitic Folklore, in: Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, 1949—50, 968: "Unfortunately, the vast majority of Biblical scholars have been slow to appreciate the implications of a folkloristic approach".

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no more follows that the incidents connected with them are in any sense historical, than is the case with Hänsel and Gretel in German folk literature48. There could be a number of reasons for similarity between biblical incidents and folklore, including the possibility that historical incidents had absorbed elements from folk tradition in the course of oral transmission, a possibility already reckoned with by Ewald49. That the comparative method can lead to quite different conclusions depending on presuppositions is clear from a comparison between Gunkel's "Das Märchen im Alten Testament" and Frazer's "Folk-Lore in the Old Testament", both published within a year of each other. Whereas Gunkel's comparative approach led him to negative historical conclusions on the whole50, Frazer's attempt to compare Old Testament customs and laws with world folk literature tended in the opposite direction51. In my view, and following Gaster, future research ought to take seriously the comparisons adduced by Gunkel in his "Das Märchen im Alten Testament". It should, however, be undertaken with full awareness of Gaster's comment with regard to the work of Gunkel and Gressmann, that "it is a method attended with inherent perils and pitfalls"52. Perhaps this survey of Gunkel has served to illustrate precisely this point. Gressmann, ZAW 30 (1910), 9: "Obgleich Hans und Gretel wirklich Personennamen sind, wie niemand bezweifeln wird, bleibt dennoch das nach ihnen benannte Märchen ein Märchen und kann durch keine Kunst der Apologetik als eine Geschichtserzählung hingestellt werden. Um einen Ausweg aus diesem Dilemma zu finden, muß der Grundstock der Patriarchenerzählungen etwas genauer untersucht werden." The exact relation between Gressmann's article and the third edition of Gunkel's Genesis is not clear to me. Both were published in 1910, and both quote each other. Presumably there was some cooperation at proof stage or earlier. 49 See above p. 28. 50 Cp. H. Weidmann, Die Patriarchen und ihre Religion, 108: "Aufs Ganze gesehen, rechnet (Gunkel) nur sehr vage mit der Möglichkeit, daß in den Genesissagen geschichtliche Erinnerungen bewahrt worden sind." 51 J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, I 1918, x : "The scope of my work has obliged me to dwell chiefly on the lower side of ancient Hebrew life revealed in the Old Testament, on the traces of savagery and superstition which are to be found in its pages . . . the revelation of the baser elements which underlay the civilization of ancient Israel . . . serves rather as a foil to enhance by contrast the glory of a people which, from such dark depths of ignorance and cruelty, could rise to such bright heights of wisdom and virtue." 52 Gaster 982.

48

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5

Chapter 6 Myth and Ritual So far in this book, I have been concerned mainly, although not exclusively, with German Old Testament scholarship. The next four chapters move away from Germany, and concentrate on Britain, America and France. This is because in the twentieth century, the main innovations in the understanding of myth came from these countries. German scholarship, as will be shown in a later chapter, did not advance very much beyond the positions already established by the time of Gunkel. The present chapter will be concerned with the origin and presuppositions of the myth and ritual position in Britain. In this chapter I shall speak of the myth and ritual position rather than the myth and ritual school, and I shall concentrate on the writings of S. H. Hooke, referring to his collaborators in the famous myth and ritual symposia only where appropriate. This is because there never really was a myth and ritual school, and because Hooke was the theoretician of the position, and applied it more widely to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East than any other British scholar. At the outset, it should be stated that Hooke's position was concerned less with myth, than with a particular view of the nature of the early religion of Israel 1 . Myth had its part to play in demonstrating that Israel's early religion was as alleged by Hooke, and in some cases, the myth and ritual position was worked out with respect to the interpretation of Old Testament traditions. However, the essentially secondary role of myth in Hooke's system should be borne in mind. Before outlining the influences out of which the myth and ritual position grew, I ought to warn the reader that my conclusions can be regarded as no more than tentative, in view of the fact that when the 1958 symposium "Myth, Ritual and Kingship" 2 was published, the contributors themselves seem to have been uncertain about the exact origins of the position. Thus G. Widengren wrote "This British line of research was started by Professor Hooke by means of a combina1

2

It should not be forgotten that the sub-title of Myth and Ritual, 1933, was "Essays on the Myth and Ritual of the Hebrews in relation to the Culture Pattern of the Ancient East." Myth, Ritual and Kingship, 1958.

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tion of exegetical, anthropological, and folk-loristic methods" 3 and he further described Hooke as "the inspiring force of the 'school'" and "the leader of the 'school' " 4 . On the other hand, H. H. Rowley wrote that the essays published in "Myth and Ritual" were "largely a mise au point of studies which had been going on for some time, but mainly outside this country" 6 a statement accepted by Hooke himself, with the qualification that his own impulse to collect the contributions for "Myth and Ritual" had not come from these quarters 6 . Again, in the memoir of Hooke 7 it was stated that "Hooke became internationally noted as the pioneer of the exploration of the myth-and-ritual patterns of the ancient religions of the Near East with a view to the investigation of their relation to that of the Hebrews" 8 and "it was Hooke who correlated Fraser's (sic) 'brilliant guesswork' with subsequent discoveries and not only gave the investigation shape, but put it on a scientific footing" 9 . Against this, Hooke, partly, at least, disclaimed his following of Frazer 10 , although I think that S. G. F. Brandon was right to see the myth and ritual position against the background of Frazer and the writings of Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray on ancient Greek religion" 11 . As I see it, the myth and ritual position would not have arisen had it not been for three factors — the emergence of the ritual theory of myth, the publication of certain Babylonian and Assyrian texts about the new year festival, and the diffusionist anthropology which apparently dominated England in the 1920's. The origins of the ritual theory of myth have been partly traced by S. E. Hyman 12 , who claimed to find the theory in incipient form in Frazer's "The Golden Bough". Hyman argued that myth for Frazer was Tylor's rationalist " a fiction devised to explain an old custom, of which the real meaning and origin had been forgotten" and Frazer's understanding of the evolution of custom was Tylor's "to dwindle from solemn ritual into mere pageant and pastime" 13 . Frazer apparently often approached a 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12

13

Ibid. 152. Ibid. 152. 153. 8 Ibid. 1. Ibid. 236. E. C. Graham, Nothing is here for tears. A Memoir of S. H. Hooke, 1969. Ibid. 58. Ibid. 59. Myth, Ritual and Kingship 4. Ibid. 262. S. E . Hyman, The Ritual View of Myth and the Mythic, in: Myth, A Symposium, 1958, 84—94. See also J . Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth, 1966, and G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and other Cultures, 1970, 8ff. Hyman in Myth: A Symposium 84, quoting J . G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, IV 1915, 153 and 214. 5*

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synthesis of the two positions with "myth . . . the actual dwindling or later form of the rite"14. Hyman then shows that the initiative in framing the ritual theory of myth passed to the classicists Jane Harrison, Gilbert Murray, F. M. Cornford and A. B. Cook, resulting in the definition in Harrison's "Themis" that a myth is "the spoken correlative of the acted rite, the thing done; it is to legomenon as contrasted with or rather related to to dromenon"15. Hyman does refer to Robertson Smith, but not, as Old Testament scholars might expect, to mention his view of the relation of myth to ritual, but to describe how Robertson Smith influenced those researches of Frazer which led to "The Golden Bough"16. At this point, by way of diversion, it may be useful to consider Robertson Smith's view of the relation of myth to ritual, because it is often assumed that on this matter, Robertson Smith was a forerunner of the myth and ritual position17. In "The Religion of the Semites" Robertson Smith asserted that many, but not all myths were derived from rituals, in two senses. In the first place, myths, as stories about gods, offered explanations about religion and its rites. However, the myths were not obligatory in the sense that the rituals were. Their purpose included the stimulation of the interest of the worshipper, but performance of the rite alone had beneficial value18. This, as is obvious, is different from regarding myth as to legomenon in relation to to dromenon. In the second place, myths arose as explanations of rites when the meaning of the latter had been forgotten, from which it followed that it was not possible to use a myth to discover the original meaning of the rite. The rite could, however, furnish a clue to the meaning which the myth had put on it19. In either case, myths were secondary, because either they were optional to the rite, or later attempted explanations of it. Robertson Smith could therefore discard myth as an important phenomenon of study in the history of ancient religion, although he would not deny that myths could, at a later stage, embody the philosophy and poetry of a people. If we look back to Frazer's estimation of a myth as "a fiction devised to explain an old custom, of which the real meaning and origin had been forgotten" 20 we are clearly closer to Robertson Smith than Harrison. 14 15 16 17

18 19 20

Hyman 85. Hyman 85 quoting J. Harrison, Themis, 1912, 328. Hyman 84. Kirk 12 states that the ritual theory of myth was acquired by biblical scholars "for the most part" from Robertson Smith and Frazer. His qualification is important and noteworthy. W. Robertson Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 19273, 17. Ibid. 18. See above note 13.

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We might say that Frazer's contribution to the ritual theory of myth was rather through his theories of magic, which were an essential part of Harrison's system, and incidentally, of the myth and ritual position. Robertson Smith, on the other hand, held a different view of the relation between myth and ritual compared with Hooke's myth and ritual position which, as will be shown, was identical with that of Harrison. The second factor which made possible the emergence of the myth and ritual position was the publication, in the first decades of the present century, of ritual texts and commentaries pertaining to the Babylonian new year festival. H. Zimmern drew attention to these in publications in 1906 and 191821, and some of the rituals were again edited and published in 1921 by Thureau-Dangin22. From the rituals, documentary evidence was obtained that the Epic of Creation, Enuma dish, was recited at the new year festival on the fourth evening. In addition, the text VAT 9555 ( = KTAR 143; there is also a complementary duplicate VAT 9538), which was a commentary on the ritual, appeared to give documentary support to the view that Bel-Marduk underwent death and resurrection at the festival. Indeed, the text was published by Langdon in 1923 in his "The Epic of Creation" under the heading of "The Death and Resurrection of Bel-Marduk"23. For our purposes, the above facts now need to be put in perspective. It should not be imagined either that the publications referred to began the speculation that led to the myth and ritual position, or that the publications inevitably led to this position. Apparently, the possibility of Marduk's death and resurrection had been put forward by Jensen on the basis of the Enuma elish as early as 1900, and agreement with this possibility had been asserted in German scientific literature after that date24. However, it is well known that Jensen was an astral mythologist, and so his position was not turned to an interpretation of the new year festival that would be of use to the myth and ritual position. Indeed, the best proof that acceptance of the death and resurrection of Marduk did not necessarily lead to an 21

22

23

24

H. Zimmern, Zum babylonischen Neujahrfest, in: BSGW 58, 3, 1906, and 70, 5, 1918. Zimmern was not the first editor of these texts. F. Thureau-Dangin, Rituels accadiens, 1921, 86ff., 127ff. For translation and summaries of some of the texts in English see S. H. Langdon, The Epic of Creation, 1923, 20ff. A. Sachs in: Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 19552, 331 ff. For text and translation of VAT 9555 etc. see H. Zimmern op. cit. BSGW 70, 5, 1918,14—21; S. H. Langdon, The Epic of Creation, 34ff. For a more recent examination and interpretation see W. von Soden, Gibt es ein Zeugnis dafür, daß die Babylonier an die Wiederauferstehung Marduks geglaubt haben ?, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie N. F. 17 (1955), 130—166. My authority for this is S. A. Pallis, The Babylonian akltu Festival, 1926, 200 and202.

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understanding of the new year festival in myth and ritual terms is provided by Langdon's "Semitic Mythology" published in 1931 25 . Langdon argued that the ritual of Marduk's death and resurrection had been devised by the priests of Babylon on the basis of the Tammuz myth, in order to make the whole cult of Marduk in Babylon more endearing to the people. "The cult of the dying god Tammuz had been throughout the long history of Sumer, Accad and Babylonia the one which held the greatest attraction for all men. Not in war nor in the valour even of a triumphant Marduk did men really place their trust and hope, but in the sufferings of the martyr Tammuz, ever victorious over death, ever restoring a perishing world . . . All these things the speculative priests of Babylon knew, and they were zealous for their god. He must become Tammuz the martyr, victorious over death, and so they sought to secure for him the adoration and love of humanity hitherto bestowed upon the dying god" 26 . What made the published material about the Babylonian new year festival important for the myth and ritual position, then, was its interpretation in a particular way. Two sources are important for Hooke's position. First, we must note Frazer's interpretation of the Babylonian Sakaea festival. Basing himself on Berosus's account of this five-day feast in which masters and servants changed places, Frazer pointed out that " a prisoner condemned to death was dressed in the king's robes, seated on the king's throne, allowed to issue whatever commands he pleased, to eat, drink, and enjoy himself, and to lie with the king's concubines. But at the end of five days he was stripped of his royal robes, scourged, and hanged or impaled" 27 . Frazer regarded the liberty granted to the criminal to invade the royal harem as so serious, that the only reason could be that the condemned man was soon to die vicariously for the king. The substitutionary death would itself be an amelioration of an earlier form of the ritual in which the king himself had been put to death. The purpose of the ritual killing of the divine king was to ensure that his soul and strength would be transferred to his successor before they were impaired by old age and weakness. In the prefaces to the abridged version of "The Golden Bough", Frazer regarded this interpretation as strengthened by Zimmern's 1918 publication of the ritual and commentary texts referred to above 28 . It seems beyond doubt that Hooke accepted, if not Frazer's comparison of the Sakaea and Akitu 25 26 27

28

S. H. Langdon, The Mythology of All Races, Vol. 5, Semitic Mythology, 1931. Ibid. 325. J . G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, abridged edition, 1957, 371. For a fuller account of the Sakaea festival, together with a different interpretation so far as this concerns the Akitu festival, see S. H. Langdon, The Epic of Creation, 57 ff. Frazer ibid. vi.

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festivals, at least his interpretation of the ritual death and resurrection of the divine king as deriving from the actual killing of the divine king in order to preserve his vitality for the community. In "Myth and Ritual" Hooke wrote: "Behind the dramatic representation of the death and resurrection of the king lies the original custom of killing the king when his physical vigour showed signs of diminishing, a custom which still survives among the Shilluk of the Upper Nile" 29 . Hooke's authority for the practice among the Shilluk was the very passage from the abridged edition of "The Golden Bough" in which Frazer's interpretation of the Sakaea festival occured30. It thus seems clear that in approaching the Babylonian material, Hooke was predisposed by his reading of Frazer to interpret it in terms of a ritual death and resurrection for magical purposes. The other important influence on Hooke's understanding of the Babylonian new year ritual and commentary material was Pallis's "The Babylonian akitu Festival" which was extensively referred to by Hooke in a paper on the Akitu festival published six years before the first myth and ritual symposium31. After a long and painstaking investigation of all the relevant sources, Pallis concluded that "the festival centred round two cult actions, 1) Marduk's death and 2) Marduk's procession to bit akitu where his victory over the evil powers takes place followed by the act of creation (i. e. the primitive determination of destiny)" 32 . In the death ritual, the dead Marduk was probably represented by a doll, the rest of the characters being performed by male and female members of the priesthood 33 . The purpose of the ritual was to ensure the continuance of what was materially and spiritually necessary for the well-being of the community 34 . In Pallis's book, Hooke found all that he needed for a myth and ritual interpretation of the Babylonian new year festival, namely that it was a ritual drama designed to produce certain consequences for the well-being of the community, and that the Enuma elish, because it was recited in the course of the ritual was an example of a myth arising from a ritual, and indeed itself an important part of that ritual. However, before leaving Pallis, it is worth noting what Hooke did not take from him. Pallis's position was, as Hooke stated, based on "a purely anthropological point of view" 36 . The anthropology, 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

Myth and Ritual 8. Ibid. 8 note 1. Hooke, The Babylonian New Year Festival, Journal of the Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society 13 (1927), 29—38. Pallis 249. Ibid. 265. Ibid. 306. Hooke loc. cit. 29.

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however, was that of V. Gr0nbech, and particularly that found in his "Primitiv Religion", in which "primitive" was understood in the sense of non-urban 36 . Pallis took this definition so seriously that he could not regard the Akitu festival, which was in his view "urban", as expressing an essentially primitive outlook. Though he held that in primitive culture "the myth is always subsequent to and absolutely dependent on the cult on all central points" 37 in urban civilisation, the drama could lose touch with the way of experiencing life which was characteristic of primitives. In this case, the connection between cult and myth was weakened, and the latter expanded theologically and poetically. The Enuma elish was a development of a cult text, whose original form was beyond recovery. Its use on the fourth day of the new year festival was essentially an "urban" use, in which magical ideas were prominent. Such magical ideas would not be found in the primitive hunting and agricultural stages of culture, where men were in much closer living touch with the world of nature. The urban nature of the Akitu festival as evidenced by the extant documents made it difficult to say whether it was a survival, with the participants merely acting out traditional roles, and difficult to know how those who participated and watched could penetrate back in experience to the agricultural outlook. Although the "means of existence for the new year" were created "spiritually as well as materially" by the festival, it could not be stated with confidence how this was done 38 . Frazer's interpretation of the Sakaea festival was rejected by Pallis 39 . These anthropological qualifications on the part of Pallis were not accepted by Hooke, who was somewhat vague about the "urban" nature of the festival, and certainly did not see magic as a cultural latecomer. The third factor behind Hooke's myth and ritual position was the diffusionist anthropology of the 1920's, and in particular the influence of the so-called Manchester or heliocentric school 40 . The importance of diffusionism for Hooke was that it made him consciously oppose the attempts of Robertson Smith in particular, to illustrate ancient Israelite religion from pagan Arab religion. "The Arab religious customs, the sacred nature of stones, trees, wells, mountains, the 36

37 38 40

V. Gronbech, Primitiv Religion: Populâra Etnologiska Skrifter 12, 1915, Iff. To avoid footnotes in Scandinavian I quote from the French summary 44: "Nous appelons ici primitive une civilisation qui suppose le contact immédiat avec la nature par opposition à notre civilisation à nous, fondée sur la vie de la ville et pour laquelle le rapport des hommes entr'eux est l'essentiel." Pallis 220. 39 Ibid. 220. 254. 268ff., 295—306. Ibid. 293. See F. M. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology, 1957, 148—149. Also S. G. F. Brandon in: Myth, Ritual and Kingship, 264ff.

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sacred communal meal, must be regarded . . . as the membra disjecta, the relics of a pattern with which the nomad peoples were once in contact, but have now lost" 41 . As we shall see, for Hooke, but not for some of his collaborators, the early religion of Israel was based on a degeneration or breaking-up of a pattern of influence from the great centre (s) of Near Eastern civilisation, a thesis of great importance, whose potential was never perhaps fully realised in the presentation of the myth and ritual position. One of Hooke's most illuminating essays on diffusionism involved tracing the Epic of Gilgamesh to Melanesia, with the conclusion that since in Melanesia the form of the epic was connected with funerary rites, the same must have been true in Babylon and Israel, where remnants of the epic were detected in the Elijah cycle42. We leave the influences behind Hooke's myth and ritual position, and turn now to consider the position as applied to the Old Testament. At the risk of repetition, let me state what exactly Hooke was trying to prove. It would have been possible to argue that the Babylonian myths and epics had arisen from rituals in Babylon and Mesopotamia in general, that these myths and epics had spread throughout the ancient Near East, and that through literary borrowing and influence, they had found their way into the Old Testament, though considerably transformed by the genius of Yahwism. This, however, was not Hooke's position. He wished to show that what he called a pattern, which consisted at the very least of a particular type of religion in which rituals and myths played a complimentary and mutually necessary role, had spread from Mesopotamia to the ancient Near East. What the Hebrews had taken over was some form of this pattern in which ritual and myth were still virtually inseparable. Thus if Hebrew myths showed any resemblance to Babylonian myths, this was not the result of literary borrowing. It was the result of a much more far-reaching influence which extended to religious attitudes and practices. The essential structure of Hooke's demonstration of his position was as follows. It started from an understanding of the Babylonian new year festival in particular, and other religious practices in general, in terms of rituals accompanied by myths, whose purpose was to control the uncertain forces that surrounded man's existence. The myth was related to the ritual as the thing said to the thing done — Harrison's understanding of the ritual theory of myth 43 . The "pattern of this 41 42 43

Hooke, The Mixture of Cults in Canaan, in: The Siege Perilous, 1956, 254. Hooke, Some Parallels with the Gilgamesh Story, in: The Siege Perilous, 51—65. Hooke, Myth and Ritual, 3: " I n general the spoken part of a ritual consists of a description of what is being done, it is the story which the ritual enacts. This is the sense in which the term 'myth' is used in our discussion."

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type of religion was particularly exemplified in the new year festival, which contained the elements of the dramatic representation of the death and resurrection of the god, the recitation or symbolic representation of the myth of creation, the ritual combat depicting the god's triumph over his enemies, the sacred marriage and the triumphal procession"44. Turning to the religion of Canaan, where the chief evidence was that of the Ras Shamra texts, elements of this same pattern could be found. However, the Ras Shamra evidence provided myths rather than rituals, although some of the myths referred incidentally to ritual practice. The religion (i. e. rituals) of Canaan had, therefore, to be inferred in three ways. First, on the basis of archaeology and references in Classical writers 46 ; second, on the basis of the Ras Shamra texts, where it was assumed ex hypothesi that the myths had arisen from rituals which could therefore be reconstructed on the basis of the myths; and third, on the basis of the negative evidence of the Old Testament, where certain prohibitions were framed with Canaanite ritual practices explicitly in mind 46 . Fortunately, these different sources overlapped to some extent, so that a tolerable picture of the religon of Canaan was possible. The picture that emerged was of an agricultural religion, concerned with the fertility of the crops. The link with the Babylonian pattern was through sacred prostitution, which was a degeneration of the sacred marriage 47 and certain episodes in the Ras Shamra texts, such as the conflict between Baal and Koser, which was to be compared with the combat between Marduk and Tiamat 48 . What was the exact relation between the Babylonian pattern and Canaanite religion? On this crucial point there was a certain vagueness. In "Myth and Ritual" Hooke contrasted the urban Babylonian Akitu festival with Canaan, where there was "no centralized government to hold the pattern together" 49 . He therefore spoke in terms of the breaking-up of the pattern on Canaanite soil, with the various ingredients of the Akitu festival being distributed among the important turning points of the Canaanite agricultural year 50 . However, in his Schweich Lectures, Hooke preferred to speak of the "New Year ritual in its later form in Babylon" 51 as having thrust the agricultural elements into the background, so that the Canaanite myths from 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

Myth and Ritual 8. Ibid. 74if. Ibid. 71 ff. Myth and Ritual Reconsidered, in: The Siege Perilous, 181—182. The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual, 1938, 36—37. Myth and Ritual 70. Ibid. 70. The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual 38.

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Ras Shamra retained elements which had once been more central in Babylon 62 . In turn, this led to the suggestion that in Mesopotamia, Canaan and Israel, the close resemblances in the new year ritual represented "independent developments of a common central ritual, of which the Tammuz ritual may have been the earliest form" although the later (unspecified) introduction of elements from Babylonian ritual was not to be ruled out63. Hooke returned to the question in "Myth, Ritual and Religion" where, with "no wish to be dogmatic on the point", he rejected the view that "both the Ugaritic and the AssyroBabylonian complex of ritual and myth stem from some . . . early Semitic agricultural type of ritual" in favour of "Assyro-Babylonian influence working upon an indigenous Canaanite pattern" 64 . The significance of this vagueness will be pointed out shortly. In the case of the Old Testament, Hooke had at his disposal rituals and texts possibly influenced by myths, but no direct evidence of a ritual use of myth. Hooke's procedure was to establish the existence in ancient Israelite religion of rituals derived from the Babylonian pattern, and then to infer ex hypothesi that myths had accompanied these rituals, and then survived in adapted form in the traditions of the Old Testament. Of course, the Old Testament had already been used to help reconstruct Canaanite religion. On the positive side, Hooke saw survivals of the Babylonian pattern in official Hebrew ceremonies. Thus the booths at the Feast of Tabernacles were connected with the sacred marriage, where the bridal chamber of the god was decorated with greenery66. The slaying of the first-born in Egypt went back to the ritual practice of killing the king, and other connections could be found between the Passover and Babylonian ritual 86 . The earlier, and discontinued practice of deciding by means of a foot race which priest should clear the ashes from the altar at the beginning of the Day of Atonement, was parallel to the foot race at the Babylonian new year festival which symbolised the victory of Nebo over Zu 67 . Hooke also tried to support the existence of the myth and ritual pattern in Israel by claiming that "the persistence of such elements as the ritual combat and the sacred marriage on into Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic" was inexplicable "if these images of the divine action had never been anything but literary survivals" 58 . One needed 53 Ibid. 57. " Ibid. 57. 54 Myth, Ritual and Religion 12. 55 Myth and Ritual 12. 56 Ibid. 12 and The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual 48if. 57 The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual 53. 58 Myth and Ritual Reconsidered 181. See also the complete essay: The Myth and Ritual Pattern in Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic, in: The Labyrinth, 1935, reprinted in: The Siege Perilous, 124—143.

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to accept that these elements "once formed part of religious experience, as cultic acts are intended to do" 69 . In other words, the poetic remains of stories such as Yahweh's conquest of Rahab, remains which then turned up in such books as the Apocalypse in the New Testament, were evidence for the myth and ritual pattern. However, Hooke did not show why these images needed to be more than literary survivals in order both to become part of religious experience, and to take on new symbolic significance in later apocalyptic. If the existence of the myth and ritual pattern was established in Israel's early religion to Hooke's satisfaction, how were the mythical traditions of the Old Testament to be interpreted ? In one of his last publications, Hooke suggested that both accounts of creation in Gen 1—2 had been used at the Israelite new year festival, with Gen 1—2 4 a used as a liturgy of creation, the seven days of the festival corresponding to the seven acts of creation 60 . In the Schweich Lectures, Humbert's suggestion along these lines had merely been noted 61 . The tradition of Cain and Abel was thought to derive from a ritual myth which accompanied the killing of a victim whose blood drenched the soil in order to fertilize it 62 . Cain, originally the officiating priest, would become temporarily unclean, and his mark would be a sign that he had performed a ritual act for the benefit of the community 63 . In the tradition of Joshua's capture of Jericho, the blowing of the trumpets was to be connected with the blowing of trumpets at the new year festival 64 . As mentioned earlier, the Elijah cycle was derived in part from the Epic of Gilgamesh, and was evidence of the use of this myth in connection with funerary rites in Israel 66 . This is a selection of Hooke's interpretations, which did not, however, deny historicity to the Old Testament traditions, but saw them as taking up and incorporating into oral traditions elements derived from Israel's earlier myth and ritual religion66. It is now time to assess Hooke's position, and much will be made of the vagueness about the relation of the Mesopotamian to the Canaanite and Israelite patterns. In "Myth and Ritual", Hooke's own position was consistent. He posited an unbroken Babylonian pattern, and saw it breaking up on Canaanite soil, so that both among the Canaanites and the Hebrews features of the pattern had been 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Myth and Ritual Reconsidered 181. Hooke, Middle Eastern Mythology, 1963, 121. The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual 56 and note 1. Cain and Abel, in: The Siege Perilous, 69. Ibid. 70. Also: Middle Eastern Mythology 126—126. Middle Eastern Mythology 149. See above, note 42. Middle Eastern Mythology 142—143.

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distributed among the seasonal high points of the year 67 . However, two of Hooke's collaborators held positions not consistent with Hooke's. On the one hand, T. H. Robinson was prepared to state, on the basis of the Akitu festival, that "the myth-ritual pattern as it appeared in preexilic Jerusalem" consisted of the removal ofYahweh and Anath from the Temple, their occupation of a sacred hut, the recital of the story of creation issuing in the victory of Yahweh, the divine marriage, followed by the death and resurrection of Yahweh 68 . Ignoring the fact that Hooke himself never went as far as to speak of the death and resurrection of Yahweh 69 , what is perplexing about this position is that it implies the survival of the unbroken Babylonian myth and ritual pattern in the Israelite new year festival, as opposed to Hooke's view that the pattern had broken up on Canaanite soil. The same difficulty arises from Oesterley's essay on "Early Hebrew Ritual Festivals", where it was asserted that the Israelite new year festival "was originally adapted primarily from the Babylonian akitu Festival, or some early form of it to which both were indebted" 70 . However, Oesterley's reconstruction of the festival in Israel saw it as much more akin to the Babylonian festival in its completeness, compared with what would have resulted from Hooke's theory of the break-up and distribution of the pattern. It is true that "Myth and Ritual" never pretended to present a unanimous picture of scholarly opinion71. However, the fact that such important differences in basic presuppositions existed in the essays, without any overall attempt to discuss the implications of these differences, was bound to give the impression to some readers that the evidence for the myth and ritual position was stronger than it actually was. The same is even more true of the second symposium, "The Labyrinth". In this collection, an important essay by A. R. Johnson discussed the place of the king in the cult at Jerusalem 72 . Johnson's presuppositions were far from those of Hooke, his essay showing the influence of Wheeler Robinson's theory of corporate personality, and Mowinckel's work on the Psalms 73 . However, in Hooke's own contribu67 68 69 70 71

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Myth and Ritual 12—13. 70. Ibid. 188—189. Myth, Ritual and Kingship 12. W. O. E. Oesterley, Early Hebrew Ritual Festivals, in: Myth and Ritual, 124. Myth and Ritual xviii: "in this volume, although there are apparently a variety of opinions about the precise nature, significance, and place (or places) of origin of the 'pattern' of myth and ritual under discussion . . ." A. R. Johnson, The Role of the King in the Jerusalem Cultus, in: The Labyrinth 71—112. I have tried to outline some of the presuppositions of corporate personality in my article: The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality: A Re-examination, JTS 21

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tion to the symposium, he spoke of Johnson's essay as though it confirmed the existence in the Jerusalem cult of a cermony corresponding to the Akitu festival 74 , and he seemed to try to reconcile this view with his own theory of the break-up of the pattern in Canaan and Israel by stating that "the urban religion of the Hebrews shared in the ritual pattern dominant in the ancient east, and was characterized by a cultus in which the king had a central place and still retained much of the ancient divinity attaching to the person of a king"75. What is significant here is the mention of the urban religion of the Hebrews, presumably as opposed to agricultural religion. It seems as though Hooke was trying to reconcile his earlier view of the break-up of the pattern on Canaanite soil with the persistence of the Babylonian Akitu pattern in the Jerusalem cultus by supposing that at an agricultural level the pattern had broken up, but that at an urban level it had been retained, or in Israel had developed along lines similar to those in Babylon. In this respect, the view held in the Schweich Lectures, and quoted above76, takes on new significance. Here, it will be remembered, Hooke suggested that the Mesopotamian, Canaanite and Israelite patterns were based on a common Semitic pattern, although the introduction of Babylonian elements could not be ignored. Was Hooke trying to say that Israel's agricultural pattern, no longer now a breaking-up but an independent development of a pattern had (1970), 1—16. With regard to Mowinckel's Psalmenstudien II, 1922, two points should be noted. Although he declared himself to be a follower of Granbech in matters anthropological (22 note 1) he did not accept Granbech's definition of primitive, preferring instead a definition of pre-logical as opposed to logical (225). On this definition, for Mowinckel even "die höchste Blüte der ägyptischen Kultur" was primitive, and the possession of material culture did not alter primitive ways of thought (226). Pallis's different use of Granbech, especially in regard to the "urban" nature of Babylon has been discussed above. Secondly, Mowinckel seemed to understand two things by myth. First, it was a way of experiencing, and in this sense connected with the cult, since what the cult was meant to actualise was received and experienced by the worshipper through his mythical outlook (79ff.). Second, what the cult was proclaiming and actualising would become the basis of a myth in the sense of a tradition. But now, instead of asserting an ever-present truth, the myth would project the truth back to the beginning of time, where it would take on the nature of sacred history. In this sense, elements of Märchen as well as actual history could be taken up into the myth, and become parts of a sacred history which was the symbolic basis for the life and hopes of the people. See, in particular, the long statement of Mowinckel's view of myth on 45 note 1. 74

75 76

The Myth and Ritual Pattern in Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic, in: The Labyrinth 216; The Siege Perilous 127. I suspect that Hooke claimed rather more for Johnson's essay than Johnson would have done himself. For references see note 74. See above notes 51—53.

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produced one result, whereas the "urban" pattern perhaps influenced by Babylon had produced a different result ? The matter was never, to my knowledge, fully discussed by Hoolce. In any case, and ignoring Hooke's later reversion to something like the breaking-up theory", the position will not stand examination. What we are asked to accept is that the highly sophisticated city-state of Ugarit, which on Hooke's own admission had nothing resembling the "urban" Babylonian festival, was somehow less urban than Jerusalem which did have a pattern resembling that of Babylon. But this is special pleading. If the pattern was broken up even in a city-state like Ugarit, or alternatively not sufficiently developed from an agricultural to an "urban" festival there, why was this not also true of Jerusalem ? This, then, is my main criticism of Hooke's position, and where appropriate, that of his collaborators. Once again, we find the use of a comparative method which leads to disparate results because of lack of a really coherent overall theory. My second criticism would be that at the end of the day, Hooke had not shown why the similarities between Old Testament traditions and ancient Near Eastern myths and epics must be explained in terms of the myth and ritual pattern rather than as literary survivals. This criticism is strengthened, I think, by a statement in Hooke's article on the Gilgamesh Epic, where in connection with cycles of stories about prophets such as Elijah, Hooke said "while these stories contain undoubted historical material, they also contain a great deal of purely mythical matter whose form has been determined by existing story forms with which the Hebrews had become familiar in the course of their settlement in a country pervaded by the influence both of Egyptian and Babylonian culture" 78 . But if elements of Hebrew myths had taken the form of existing story forms which had preceded the Hebrews into Canaan, why could this not be true of the myths themselves, and in any case, what was the relation between myths and the existing story forms ? Again, we see that there was much which was not sufficiently worked out in Hooke's position. The major criticism which has been levelled at Hooke by his critics has concerned the most vulnerable point in his position, namely his diffusionist anthropology. H. Frankfort has criticised the notion of the culture pattern 79 and S. G. F. Brandon, in an essay that deserves the most careful attention, has criticised Hooke's use of cult objects to prove the diffusion of cult ideas 80 .1 have no intention of reproducing " See above note 54. 78 The Siege Perilous 57. 79 H. Frankfort, The Problem of Similarity in Ancient Near Eastern Religions, 1952. 80 Myth, Ritual and Kingship 266 ff. Brandon also draws attention to the uncertainty among the Myth and Ritual collaborators as to whether the pattern was derived

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these arguments, which are well set out and discussed in the last of the Myth and Ritual symposia81. I would merely add that in view of the fact that according to one authority, some 160 different uses of the word "culture" have been detected in anthropological literature 82 , the use of the same word in the phrase "culture pattern" may need further explanation. I wish to draw attention rather to attacks which have been made against what I have earlier called the two other bases of Hooke's position, namely, the ritual theory of myth, and the particular interpretation of Babylonian material utilised by Hooke. The attack against the ritual theory of myth has been led by the classicists J . Fontenrose83 and G. S. Kirk 84 , and I propose to refer to the conclusions of the latter, which arise from discussion of Greek myths chosen precisely because their connection with rituals was clear and undisputed. Kirk writes "in none of these cases 86 does the ritual determine the real significance, or even the basic narrative core, of a substantial myth. On the contrary, the association with ritual is nearly always trivial and casual, and has no effect on the essence of whatever narrative themes are used. It is preferable, therefore, to assess the narrative elements independently of their ritual associations — unless these can be shown to be notably closer and more significant than in the instances I have discussed"86. After stating that the myths have been chosen because of their connection with rituals, and that "such cases are few in comparison with the number of Greek myths that have no evident or plausible ritual connexion whatever" Kirk concludes that "it is barely conceivable that they indicated the genesis of all the rest, but there is nothing to suggest it, and much to suggest the contrary" 87 . What is striking about this conclusion is that it could be equally well applied to the Babylonian material relevant to the discussion. from Babylon or Egypt or both (271), as well as the uncertainty whether we have the spread of a pattern, or similar independent attempts to control the natural and spiritual environment, which produce similar results (272—273). 81 82 83

84 85

86

Myth, Ritual and Kingship 3ff. 261 ff. Also: Myth and Ritual Reconsidered 173—183. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology, 18. J . Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth. Fontenrose considers that the the smiting of the king at the Akitu festival should be interpreted as arising from the annual relinquishing of office by a magistrate (7). He also criticises Frazer's theory of king sacrifice (4ff.) and Harrison's interpretation of the Palaikastro Hymns, so important to her statement of the ritual theory of myth (29—34). G. S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures, 8ff. The cases are the myths associated with the octennial Charila festival at Delphi, the octennial Septerion festival at Delphi, the Daedala festival at Plataea in Boetia, and the Attic festival of the Aiora (16—18). 8 ' Ibid. 19. Op. cit. 18.

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There is no doubt that the Enuma elish is in some way connected with the new year ritual, and yet in this case it can be said that the association with the ritual "has no effect on the essence of whatever narrative themes are used". Indeed, we need to be reminded at this point that the Enuma elish itself contains no hint of the death and resurrection of Marduk which was supposed to be part of the ritual drama. The same can be said of the Epic of Gilgamesh, for in spite of Hooke's attempts to connect the epic with funerary rites, many of the details remain unexplained on this hypothesis, and Brandon is surely right to see the text as exhibiting the world view of the Babylonians regarding death, thereby assessing the narrative elements independently of their ritual associations88. Again, when we remember the extent to which Hooke's position depends ex hypothesi on the deduction of rituals from myths in the case of the Ras Shamra material, and myths from rituals in the case of Israelite religion, we see, in the light of Kirk's conclusion, what great weight has been placed on the comparatively few Babylonian myths which demonstrably have a ritual connection. We must conclude that the attack on the particular form of the ritual theory of myth used by Hooke is such as to be damaging to his position in general. Hooke's own claim that he did not hold that all myths derived from rituals hardly alters the case 89 . In his position, the supposition that the particular myths and rituals he was talking about had a myth and ritual origin, was vital to the argument. The other attack relevant to Hooke's position has come from a fresh look at VAT 9555 etc., which was earlier thought to provide documentary evidence for the death and resurrection of Marduk. In a fresh edition and translation, W. von Soden has made three points of relevance to the myth and ritual interpretation of the new year festival 90 . In the first place, he has disputed the translation of a key word which was earlier supposed to mean "mountain" and to denote the underworld to which the dead god descended91. In von Soden's 88 89

91

Brandon in: Myth, Ritual and Religion 278ff. Myth Ritual and History, in: The Siege Perilous 43: " I have no intention of putting forward the view that all myths are ritual in origin, and there can be no doubt that many myths from our culture area are aetiological myths . . . but I cannot help feeling that the ritual myth which is magical in character, and inseparable from the ritual which is directed to certain fundamental needs of an early society, whether pastoral, agricultural or urban, is older than the aetiological myth which has no magical potency, and does not seem to satisfy any more fundamental need than curiosity." 9 0 W. von Soden in: Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie N. F. 17 (1955), 130—166. Cp. S. H. Langdon, The Epic of Creation, 34—35. Langdon translates line 1: " t h a t is Bel who was confined in the mountain" with a footnote on "mountain" — " T h a t is the 'lower world'." Cp. Zimmern in: BSGW 70, 5, 15. R o g e r s o n , Myth

6

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view, the word should be rendered "Ordalstatte" i. e. a place in which the god was subjected to an ordeal 92 . Secondly, the phrase which in Langdon's translation of line 10 appears as "Give life to Bel" should be translated "Keep Bel alive" 93 . Third, the translation which appears as "when the gods bound him he perished from among the living" in Langdon's translation of line 13, is based on an unacceptable restoration of a damaged text, although von Soden does not himself offer any plausible conjectural restoration 931 . Finally, von Soden makes much of the fact that the text originates not from Babylon but from Assyria 94 , but yet describes happenings in Babylon. Because the Semitic as opposed to the Sumerian Babylonians did not represent their gods as undergoing humiliation, unless they were gods representing evil forces (the Enuma elish is also evidence of this) von Soden concludes that VAT 9555 is a text designed to reinforce political ends, namely, the particular hatred of Marduk the god of Babylon by Sennacherib king of Assyria. Accordingly, the text concerns a judgement of Marduk the god of Babylon by other gods headed by the god Asshur. However, it does not speak of the death of Marduk, nor the resurrection inferred from the death; neither has it any connection with the twelve-day new year festival 96 . Before commenting on von Soden's contribution, I wish further to draw attention to another reassessment of Mesopotamian material which, while not directly relevant to the new year festival, is pertinent to the many assertions of Hooke 9 6 that the new year festival was derived from the Tammuz ritual. In an article "Tammuz and the Bible" 97 , E. M. Yamauchi argues on the basis of the Sumerian text "The Death of Dumuzi" 9 8 that in the Sumerian version of the "Descent of Inanna" there was no resurrection of Dumuzi, a resurrection which had formerly been inferred on the basis of the Adonis, Attis and Osiris cults. On the contrary, "The Death of Dumuzi" shows that Dumuzi had to remain in the underworld as a substitute for Inanna. On the basis of this interpretation, Yamauchi further argues that the end of the Accadian parallel myth "The Descent of Ishtar" 9 9 where 92

Von Soden 140—141. Langdon 35; von Soden 142; Zimmern 15, "Mach Bel (wieder) lebendig!" 93a Von Soden: "Eine plausible Ergänzung ist mir noch nicht eingefallen." 94 Ibid. 131 ff. 157ff. 95 Ibid. 158. 165—166. 96 E. g. The Origins of Early Semitic Ritual 38. 97 E. M. Yamauchi, Tammuz and the Bible, Journal of Biblical Literature 84 (1965), 283—290. 98 For a translation of this t e x t see S. N. Kramer, The Sumerians, 1963, 156—160; idem, Mythologies of the Ancient World, 1961, 110—115. 99 Cp. E. A. Speiser, in: Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 106ff. 93

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the line "on the day when Tammuz comes up to me" is found, should not be understood in terms of a resurrection of Tammuz, but along the lines "of the ascent of spirits to smell the burning incense and to partake of the offerings made for the dead" 100 . Finally, Yamauchi cites two articles by Lambrechts 101 which maintain "that the belief in the resurrection of Adonis and in the resurrection of Attis was a late development". Yamauchi concludes that the identification of Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Osiris and Baal as dying and rising vegitation gods must be abandoned. The articles by von Soden and Yamauchi raise very large issues, which in the first place must be argued out by the specialists in the field. It would certainly be wrong for a non-specialist in these fields like myself to hail the articles as sounding the death knell of all that has been written about the Babylonian New year festival, and the Tammuz cult. For example, the fact that women were sitting in the Jerusalem temple area and weeping for Tammuz in the time of Ezekiel still presumably means that they were taking part in some kind of cult which was abhorrent to the prophet 102 . However, the articles should make the reader aware that a good deal of what has been taken for granted in the past about the nature of ancient Near Eastern religion and the interpretation of mythical texts is at least due for a thorough re-examination, and that until such a re-examination has been carried out, the utmost caution should be followed in the application of theories to the Old Testament based on older unexamined interpretations of the ancient Near Eastern material. In all positions, facts must be distinguished from theories. If Hooke's theories have been severely questioned, this is not true of the facts on which they were based. It remains that there was a new year festival at Babylon, that Canaanite religion was in some way connected with fertility, that Hebrew religion in its prophetic form was a reaction against this, and that the king did play some central role in the Jerusalem cultus (although here I prefer Kraus's 103 reconstruction to Johnson's). But the interpretation of these facts must be reconsidered. Indeed, it seems to me the merit of Hooke that in opposing the positions of people like Robertson Smith, and by insisting on an historical anthropological approach, he asked the right questions, and the ones that have to be faced today. With all the help we can get from the various branches of anthropology and linguistics, we 100

Yamauchi 286. P. Lambrechts, La "résurrection" d'Adonis, in: Mélanges Isidore Levy, 1955, 207—240; Les fêtes "phrygiennes" de Cybèle et d'Attis, Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome 27 (1952), 130—166. 102 Ez 8 14. 103 H.-J. Kraus, Worship in Israel, 1966, 179ff.; idem, Psalmen. 1961, 197—205. 101

6*

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must ask how the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia affected Canaan, how ancient man experienced reality, how he conceived the relation between ritual acts and his well being in the world. The answers to these question will help towards a better understanding of the ancient myths and epics, and in turn, a better appreciation of those Old Testament narratives which display striking similarity to them.

Chapter 7 The Old Testament versus Mythopoeic Thought Since the second World War, two books have been particularly influential in disseminating an approach to the use of myth in Old Testament interpretation different from anything hitherto described. This approach has asserted, to a greater or lesser degree, that there is no myth in the Old Testament; it has used myth as a foil to the Old Testament, a means of showing the distinctive genius of the latter by contrast. This method is, of course, reminiscent of Gunkel; but whereas he defined myth in literary terms, the approach under consideration has used ideas about the mythical perception of reality, and has further applied these to the question of religious revelation, so that the contrast with the Old Testament has been in epistemological and revelatory terms. In other words, whereas Gunkel saw the spirit of Yahwism transforming literary forms into forms amenable to its own religion, the new approach has posited a mode of experiencing reality and the nature of God, different in the Old Testament from that in mythical thought. The two books concerned are the symposium known variously as "Before Philosophy" and "The Intellecture Adventure of Ancient Man" 1 and the monograph by G. E. Wright "The Old Testament Against its Environment" 2 . The relation between these two works is that Wright's is self-confessedly dependent on the other for its understanding of ancient Near Eastern religion. "Before Philosophy" is organised in the following way. An opening essay by H. and H. A. Frankfort describes mythical thought, and there follow expositions of the thought of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia designed to illustrate in those areas the mythical thought outlined in the opening chapter. 1

2

H. and H. A. Frankfort, J. A. Wilson, Th. Jacobsen, W. A. Irwin, The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, 1946. The book is referred to as "Speculative Thought" in the notes to H. Frankfort's Kingship and the Gods, 1948. The British edition, Before Philosophy, 1949, lacks the contribution by Irwin, which was in fact an essay on speculative thought among the Hebrews. However, Irwin's contribution does not seem to have had any great influence in the use of myth in Old Testament interpretation. It has very little itself to say about mythopoeic thought, and is a straightforward exposition of Old Testament teaching on a number of subjects. It will be left out of account in the present chapter. References will be to the British edition. Before Philosophy. G. E. Wright, The Old Testament against its Environment, 1950.

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It is clear, then, that the opening chapter is of the greatest importance, because it contains the presuppositions of the whole book with regard to mythical thought. Yet this chapter is highly unsatisfactory in that its assertions are almost totally unsupported by evidence. Fortunately, some writers3 have recognised that the source for the Frankforts' view of mythical thought is the second volume of Cassirer's "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" 4 and indeed, an examination of this volume confirms the opinion. A consideration of Cassirer is therefore essential to the argument of the present chapter. Cassirer was a neo-Kantian philosopher of science and history, and in the second volume of his "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms" he set himself the task of describing a theory of cognition which could be applied to the mass of records about the attitudes of primitive peoples, which had accumulated up to the second decade of the present century. In particular, he wished to dispute the widely-held view that the thought of primitives was pre-scientific in the sense of being irrational or ill-informed attemts to explain natural phenomena. On the contrary, primitives might produce explanations which were strange to modern ideas, but this did not mean that primitive thought had no logic or laws of its own. The fact was that it was necessary to understand primitive thought not from the standpoint of modern science, but in its own terms. Much of this second volume, then, was devoted to interpreting evidence about primitives; but Cassirer's aim went a good deal further than this. Primitive thought was but the beginnings of mythical thought, a type of thought carried to great refinement not only in the ancient civilisations, but which still coexisted along with scientific thought, as witness the unsuccessful attempts of modern (i. e. up to roughly 1920) science to free the concept of force from mythical overtones5. Further, it was from mythical thought that had come the highest expressions of religious belief and much of the symbolism on which the culture of the modern world rested. Mythical thought, then, did not become scientific thought. It had a life and laws of its own, and in the later periods of the world's history, ran parallel with scientific thought. It was important evidence for understanding the human spirit. 3 4

5

P. Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher (Revised ed.), 1959, xxvi. E. Cassirer, Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, I I Das mythische Denken, 1925. English trans.: The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, I I Mythical Thought, 1955, to which reference will be made. Philosophy of Symbolic Forms I I xvii. I t is interesting to compare with Cassirer's statement on this point, the essay by S. Toulmin, Contemporary Scientific Mythology, in: A. Maclntyre, Metaphysical Beliefs, 1957. Toulmin describes how the Second Law of Thermodynamics has been understood as though it had metaphysical implications (32 ff.).

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Although mythical thought was not to be judged from the standpoint of what Cassirer called empirical consciousness, it could best be described in contrast to the latter, and accordingly, the subject was approached from the angle of Kantian epistemology. At the risk of over-simplification, it can be said that Kant understood perception as a reciprocal relationship between sense impressions which came in on an observer from outside, and the a priori "forms" which the mind of the observer imposed upon the impressions, so that they were not undifferentiated, but perceived as objects, that is, as having a definite form in space, time and number, and related to other objects such that the observer perceived an organised and comprehensible world. Kant devoted much attention to the a priori forms of space, time and number which the mind imposed upon sense impressions6. Cassirer accepted all this, but disagreed with Kant on one fundamental point. For Kant, the development of science was the carrying to full actuality of the principles on which rested the possibility of all perception. For Cassirer, there was a mode of perception whose principles could not be developed into science. This was mythical perception. Perhaps the most striking difference between mythical thought and empirical consciousness was the immediacy of awareness characteristic of the former. In empirical consciousness, at the moment of perception, there was an analysis and synthesis of the object perceived. The impressions were broken down into individual elements so that they could be built up again into a whole, and yet previous perception of wholes was the basis on which the breaking down into individual elements took place. It was quite different with mythical consciousness. In the moment of perception there was no analysis and synthesis, and it was not possible for previously perceived wholes to be used as a frame of reference against which the observer could perceive the object which now confronted him. There was "a mere subjection to the impression itself and its momentary presence" 7 . This did not mean, however, that there were no forms imposed upon sense impressions by the mind, in mythical thought. Underlying the mythical forms of both space and time was the earliest apprehension of the alternations of night and day and light and darkness; and interestingly from our point of view, Herder's interpretation of Genesis 1 was quoted with approval by Cassirer8. In actual life, the principle of mana was important in the mythical conception of space. Mana was I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781 1 , 1787 2 . English Translation by N. Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, 1933. For expositions of Kant's thought the reader is referred to S. Körner, Kant, 1955; R. P. Wolff, Kant, A Collection of Critical Essays, 1968. ' The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II 35. 8 Ibid. 97.

6

88;

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understood as a "character" with which any object or event could become invested, so that the object or event was marked off from the general run of impressions. Thus "the primary spatial difference is this between two provinces of being: a common, generally accessible province and another, sacred precinct which seems to be raised out of its surroundings, hedged around and guarded against them" 9 . Space was further used to make the world intelligible by the translation of felt qualities into spacial images. Thus animals which had particular importance became the basis of totemic systems, and totemic animals had influence over parts of the area inhabited by a primitive people 10 . In the case of time, it was again experience and feeling which marked off certain events as significant, so that life became organised in accordance with them. Religious festivals were particularly important. However, "the intuition underlying all this is that temporal, like spatial, intervals and dividing lines are not mere conventional distinctions of thought but possess an inherent quality and particularly an essence and efficacy of their own" 11 . The purpose of mythical number was not to differentiate between objects, but to establish identity between them. "Things bearing the same number are mythically 'the same'" 1 2 and number was a vehicle of religious signification. In the mythical view of causality, the principle of pars pro toto was important. The part did not represent the whole; it was the whole, and thus in magic a victim could be destroyed by destroying " p a r t " of him such as his hair 13 . How did Cassirer view the thought of the ancient Near East and the Old Testament ? The picture is not as clear as one would wish, because Cassirer's main concern was with primitives, and only incidentally did he describe the development of mythical thought as evidenced by ancient civilisation; that is to say, he gave no deliberate and coherent picture of ancient as opposed to primitive thought in all its aspects. Insofar as the Babylonians and Egyptians used name magic 14 they were presumably no different from primitives in their concept of causality. However, leaving this aside, it is worth noting Cassirer's descriptions of the higher achievements of Babylon and the Old Testament. The Babylonian organisation of the world in terms of seven planets, although far removed from the totemic spacial organisation of, say, the Zunis, was nonetheless based oti the same principle 9

10 11 12 13 14

Ibid. 85. See also Cassirer's treatment of mana in: Language and Myth, 1946. Reference are to the Dover edition, 1953, 62 ff. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms II 86ff. Ibid. 108. Ibid. 142. Ibid. 68ff. l l l f f . Ibid. 41.

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of coordination18. But the astral religion of Assyria and Babylon showed a marked development away from the sensuous, and from the deification of natural powers. An individual heavenly body was not worshipped as a godhead "in its immediate corporeity" but was rather " a partial revelation of the universal divine power" 16 . In the case of the Old Testament, writing of the prophetic view of time Cassirer argued that the rise of monotheism had had an important effect on the mythical consciousness of time. Time now had reference to human history, but the God of the prophets was one who stood at the end of time so that "all true consciousness of time becomes a consciousness of the future" 17 . The prophetic condemnation of idolatry represented a dilectical movement within mythical thought, whereby without becoming empirical consciousness, mythical thought refined its own concepts. The criticism in Deutero-Isaiah of the worship of idols represented a criticism of the idea of identity in mythical thought — the idea that the representation was the thing represented18. However, it must be stressed that for Cassirer, these achievements of Babylon and Israel represented an achievement within mythical thought and not outside it. Empirical consciousness only began to emerge with the Greeks. For other ancient cultures it was the case that "there is still no detached objective reality in the sense understood by analytical theoretical cognition — because the intuition of reality remains, as it were, fused with the world of mythical imagination, feeling and faith" 1 9 . Having outlined Cassirer's position, it is time to evaluate it. Unfortunately, it is today so easy to criticise the sort of anthropological material and interpretation upon which the whole position was built, that it is easy to overlook the merits of what Cassirer was trying to achieve. The difficulty about the anthropological material is that Cassirer was heavily dependent on writers like Frazer and LevyBruhl (although not necessarily on the latter's theories of pre-logical mentality) 20 and the weakness of these writers, as Sir Edward EvansPritchard has so clearly shown, is that their material was often collected by untrained observers, and in any case manipulated by their famous synthesisers in an uncritical way21. To take a specific example, 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Ibid. 92—93. Ibid. 113. Ibid. 120. Ibid. 240. Ibid. 239. See G. S. Kirk op. cit. 246 note 16. E . E . Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, 1965, 9ff. 88. See also Evans-Pritchard's warnings against the use of concepts like mana taken from their context, HOff.

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Cassirer's theory of mythical causality involves the view that when a man practises magic, he believes that the performance of the rites will achieve what he desires, and that therefore a particular view of the mechanics or causality of the magic is involved22. However, as Paul Radin has pointed out, this is not at all necessarily the case. Radin has described how Winnebago Indians, before they hunt deer, shoot a poisoned arrow into the deer trail. Yet this is not any trail, but one selected on the basis of all the skill and knowledge of the hunter. Radin received "a prompt and amused denial" when he asked whether the shooting of an arrow into a trail of which the hunter had no knowledge would be effective23. In other words, the "magical" action of shooting the arrow was only part of a larger operation which included the accumulation of wisdom and experience. Indeed, Radin later wrote about the great care taken among many tribes "not to demand impossible tasks from their deities. One does not ask rain from a cloudless sky during the dry season, nor security against capsizing in a canoe when foolishly setting out during a terrific storm" 24 . Another writer has summed up the matter neatly by saying "If a man is observed to chant spells when he plants his crops, it may be that he believes that this will help his crops to grow; it may be that he attributes no causal efficacy to it whatever, but that it expresses his interest in what he is doing, like a sea-shanty; it may be that it not merely expresses his interest in what he is doing but helps him, in his view, to do it more carefully" 26 . My own criticism of Cassirer would be along slightly different lines. It would be to the effect that in assessing the culture of ancient Mesopotamia, he had ignored evidence which, on his own description of empirical consciousness, indicated that in that area, empirical consciousness was held alongside mythical thought (assuming for the moment the existence of the latter). In the Code of Hammurabi, there is a section on medical practice from which it is clear that medical practitioners in Mesopotamia at the beginning of the second millenium B. C. knew how to set bones and carry out operations on the eye26. The commentary by Driver and Miles admits that there are many extant texts in which illness is cured by exorcizing the demons believed to attack sick persons and to cause their malady, but the commentary goes on to say that "although magical texts are numerous 22 23 24 25

26

Cassirer op. cit. 51—53. P. Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher, 15—16. Radin 23—24. W. G. Runciman, The Sociological Explanation of Religious Beliefs, Archives europ^enes de Sociologie 10 (1969). Reprinted in: Sociology in its Place, 1970, 66. Compare Ancient Near Eastern Texts 175. G. R . Driver and J . C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 1952, I 416ff.; I I 78ff.

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and the physician was prepared to make use of their prescriptions, there are in existence hundreds upon hundreds of simple medical recipies, which do not in the least rely on magic; they begin with the diagnosis and follow it at once with a plain scientific treatment without wizardry of any kind" 27 . It would seem that here we have not mythical thought, but the observation and classification of empirical consciousness, of which modern scientific thought is a development, as maintained by Kant. That this should should coexist with mythical thought would present no difficulty to Cassirer; he was aware that Kepler, who for Cassirer was the first person to state with clarity the scientific view of time as opposed to the mythical, was also widely consulted in his day as an astrologer, astrology being for Cassirer a developed form of the mythical view of causality28. My criticism, then, of Cassirer, is that he should have looked further afield than the Greeks for the origins of empirical consciousness, and should at least have asked whether it was to be found in ancient Mesopotamia (not to mention Egypt). How are we to regard Cassirer's overall thesis of the existence of a mythical consciousness alongside empirical consciousness ? Probably, the attempt to maintain this on the basis of pure epistemology must be adjudged a failure. Not only was the anthropological interpretation used by Cassirer suspect, but subsequent studies have tended to suggest that there is no difference in kind, although there may be a difference in degree, when the perception of modern scientific man is compared with that of primitives29. However, it would be rash to write off as useless the work of one of the great thinkers of the present century. His warning that "mythical thought" with all its religious and symbolic overtones does not inevitably merge into scientific thought, and is not to be regarded as an immature version of the latter, must be taken seriously, and I shall return to the question in a later chapter, in consideration of an attempt to say the same sort of thing from an existential standpoint30. We now turn to examine "Before Philosophy", the organisation of which has already been described31. It has also been stated that the crucial opening chapter is dependent for its view of mythical thought 27

Driver and Miles I 416, quoting R. C. Thompson, A Dictionary of Assyrian Chemistry and Geology, xiii-xiv.

28

Cassirer 139—140; A. Armitage, John Kepler, 1966, 81 ff.

29

See the symposium Language in: Culture, ed. H. Hoijer, 1954, 176—179.

30

For other criticisms of Cassirer see Radin xxii-xxvi; Kirk op. cit. 263ff.; D. Bidney, Myth, Symbolism, and Truth, in: T. A. Sebeok, Myth: A Symposium; also the relevant essays in P. A. Schilpp, The Philosophy of Ernst Cassirer, 1949.

31

Sec above, p. 85.

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on Cassirer. It now remains for this to be substantiated32. The aim of the book, according to the first chapter, is to describe the bounds within which the speculative thought of the ancient Near East operated. This speculative thought, it is said, should not be judged from the standpoint of modern scientific thought, but its own laws and logic must be understood. Of great importance is the principle of pars pro toto. This principle is important for the mythical view of causality. The categories of space and time, but not number are discussed. Although there is no use of the concept of mana in connection with the mythical consciousness of space, we read that "the spatial concepts of the primitive are concrete orientations; they refer to localities which have an emotional colour"33, not a bad way of expressing what Cassirer called the translation of felt qualities into spatial images. Although, then, the Frankforts have avoided using the very difficult German philosophical language of Cassirer, it is clear from the aims and organisation of the first chapter of "Before Philosophy", not to mention the treatment of themes such as causality and space, that the dependence on Cassirer for the view of mythical, or speculative thought, is very great. It can confidently be asserted that any criticism which can be levelled against Cassirer's view of mythical thought on both anthropological and philosophical grounds, apply with equal force to the mythical thought described in this opening chapter and cornerstone of "Before Philosophy". However, there is one important respect in which the Frankforts perhaps do not follow Cassirer. A statement of fundamental importance in the first chapter is that "for modern, scientific man the phenomenal world is primarily an 'It'; for ancient — and also for primitive — man it is a 'Thou' " 3 4 . Now nowhere do we find in Cassirer a statement to this effect. Where the relation between I and Thou is employed, it is to describe the development of the awareness of the individual self as part of the community in mythical thought, or to express relationships with the divine on the analogy of the personal relationship. The I-Thou relationship is reserved exclusively for personal relationships, as opposed to relationships with the nonpersonal world36. Of course, it may be that in speaking of experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou, the Frankforts are expressing in their own words something put differently by Cassirer. Possibly it is their way of saying that in mythical consciousness, the object of immediate ex32

33 31 35

References to Cassirer by contributors to Before Philosophy are to be found at 32. 36; Kingship and the Gods 362; Th. Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture, 1970, 319. Before Philosophy 30. Ibid. 12. Cassirer op. cit. The reader should check this from the index entry "Thou" on p. 265.

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perience grasps the whole of man's attention. Or it may correspond to Cassirer's statement that "all the forces of nature are for myth nothing other than expressions of a divine or demonic will" 36 . However, it is difficult to be certain. Yet another possibility is that someone other than Cassirer is the authority for the statement. On page 14 of "Before Philosophy", an aphorism of Crawley, (presumably A. E. Crawley, author of "The Mystic Rose" and other works) is quoted to the effect that "primitive man has only one mode of thought, one mode of expression, one part of speech — the personal". Unfortunately, no reference to the source of the aphorism is given, and thus it is not easy to see whether it constitutes any authority for the view that ancient man experiences the phenomenal world as a Thou, or not. An obvious question is whether the Frankforts were in any way influenced by Martin Buber's " I and Thou", of which the English translation appeared in 1937. Since the later chapters in "Before Philosophy" are meant to be expositions of ancient thought in the light of the principles worked out in the first chapter, we might hope to get more light on the subject from these. Unfortunately, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou does not mean the same thing for the Frankforts on the one hand, and Th. Jacobsen on the other. In Jacobsen's section entitled "The Mesopotamian attitude toward the phenomena of nature", his position is reasonably clear. For Jacobsen, ancient Mesopotamian man did not regard the objects of the natural world as inanimate, but as possessing individuality, will and qualities. As he was in contact with different objects, he began to learn the specific qualities associated with each one. He learned, for example, that flint is hard, dark and heavy, but prepared to flake. He thought of flint as personality with these particular qualities, and in some cases associated these qualities with a divine being who was immanent in the object, while also transcending it. For example, the goddess Nidaba was closely associated with the qualities of the reed, which could be used for writing and for making musical pipes. "The goddess was . . . the power in all reeds; she made them what they were; lent them her mysterious qualities. She was one with every reed in the sense that she permeated it as an animating and characterizing agent; but she did not lose her identity in that of the concrete phenomenon and was not limited by any or even all of existing reeds" 37 . As I understand this, Jacobsen is saying that ancient Mesopotamian man was able to recognise and abstract from the phenomena of nature, definite qualities. He was able to classify objects, and to 36 37

Ibid. 49. Before Philosophy 144.

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recognise flint as flint on the basis of previous experience, and to know that the piece of flint he was now holding would have the same characteristics as previous pieces of flint. For him, therefore, experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou meant understanding the characteristics of each class of objects as an expression of a definite personality which was both immanent and transcendent with regard to any given one of a class of objects. That this is different from what the Frankforts meant by experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou is clear from two passages. In "Kingship and the Gods", Henri Frankfort summarised mythical thought by saying that "it betrays an inability, not to think clearly, but to abstract from the world of perceptions"38. Since Jacobsen's position clearly demands the ability to abstract from the world of perceptions, it cannot be an example of mythical thought in Frankfort's sense. In "Before Philosophy" the Frankforts stated, in illustration of the difference between scientific thought and experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou, "an object, an 'It', can always be scientifically related to other objects and appear as part of a group or series. In this manner science insists on seeing 'It'; hence, science is able to comprehend objects and events as ruled by universal laws which make their behaviour under given circumstances predictable. 'Thou', on the other hand, is unique. 'Thou' has the unprecedented, unparalleled, and unpredictable character of an individual, a presence known only in so far as it reveals itself" 39 . I do not see how the Frankforts' stress on the unprecedented, unparalleled and unpredictable nature of Thou can be reconciled with Jacobsen's position where the same specific qualities are always to be found in one of a definite class of objects 40 . Finally, if further proof is needed of the difference between the Frankforts and Jacobsen, it is provided by the latter's assertion that "it is quite clear from our texts that, in themselves, they (reeds) were never divine. Any individual reed counted merely as a plant, a thing, and so did all reeds" 41 . Let me make clear at this point exactly what I am trying to say. I am not suggesting that Jacobsen's exposition of Mesopotamian thought is incorrect or invalid. I have none of the expertise required for such an assertion. My point is that Jacobsen's exposition of experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou is different from that 38 39 40

41

Kingship and the Gods 262. Before Philosophy 13. Italics mine. Compare Jacobsen op. cit. 144: "Now this characteristic personality which confronts one here, in this particular lump of flint, may meet one also over there, in another lump of flint, which seems to say: 'Here I am again — dark, heavy, hard, willing to flake, I, F l i n t ! ' " Ibid. 144.

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of the Frankforts, and I would go on to say that Jacobsen's exposition shows that ancient Mesopotamian thought was that of empirical consciousness (to take up Cassirer's term), with its ability to abstract, compare and classify. If I am correct, the implications for "Before Philosophy" are that the essays should not be read as expressing an overall viewpoint, but as separate entities. We have already seen that the Frankforts' position is vulnerable insofar as it is based on Cassirer. We now see that far from illustrating their position, at least one of the detailed essays undermines it, and should not therefore be regarded as necessarily falling under the same criticisms as those that can be applied to the first essay. For Old Testament scholarship, it would not be fair to condemn a writer because he had referred to, or based his position on "Before Philosophy". Much would depend on what parts he had referred to. We have not entirely finished with "Before Philosophy", for the exposition of Old Testament thought which it contains must be examined. The final essay, again by the Frankforts, is entitled "The Emancipation of Thought from Myth". One of its aims is to show that there was an emancipation from myth in ancient Israel, but this statement must be qualified. The Frankforts did not wish to suggest that there had been a complete emancipation. We read that "the processes of mythopoeic thought are decisive for many sections of the Old Testament . . . Even the great conception of an only and transcendent God was not entirely free from myth, for it was not the fruit of detached speculation but of a passionate and dynamic experience. Hebrew thought did not entirely overcome mythopoeic thought. It created, in fact, a new myth — the myth of the Will of God" 41 ". These words could have been written by Cassirer; they are certainly in full accord with his position, for he accepted that mythical and empirical thought could coexist, although he did not in fact believe that this had been the case in Israel. However, in allowing some emancipation from mythopoeic thought in ancient Israel, the Frankforts went beyond Cassirer, and it is important to know why. As I understand their argument, it is that for ancient Near Eastern man apart from Israel, society was believed to be closely integrated with nature, and nature was the manifestation of the divine. Israel had achieved a different understanding of the relation between nature, God and society. Society was not closely integrated with nature; the Hebrews, as a people chosen by God, stood in direct relationship with him, a relationship not mediated through nature, but rather through history. Nature could reveal something of the glory of God, but not God himself. It was ancient Israel's belief in God's absolute trans«» ibid. 244.

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cendence over against nature which made this striking contrast between Israel and her neighbours, and this difference was the result of Israel's nomadic origins. "In the stark solitude of the desert, where nothing changes, nothing moves (except man at his own free will), features in the landscape are only pointers, landmarks, without significance to themselves — there we may expect the image of God to transcend concrete phenomena altogether" 42 . There are several comments to make about this argument. In the first place, it assumes that there was no real concept of transcendence in the ancient Near East outside Israel, a view which seems to me to be contradicted by Jacobsen's statement that some of the Mesopotamian gods "e. g. Enlil, god of the storm, transcend the limits of the phenomenon with which they are associated in that they will and act beyond it, they are the powers broadly active in human life, guiding and shaping human history" 43 . Secondly, the argument depends on a somewhat romantic view of the life of the desert, a view which is not supported by the quotation of any evidence. Third, and most serious, the Frankforts have not shown that ancient Israel was emancipated from mythopoeic thought in any sense that could have been accepted by Cassirer, who is the mainstay of their position. Cassirer's concern, as we have seen, was with the sort of empirical perception of which modern science is the logical development, and for this reason, he regarded the Old Testament as a sublime and noble expression of mythical thought, because he found there no evidence of empirical consciousness. The Frankforts on the other hand have given no evidence for Cassirer's understanding of empirical consciousness among the Hebrews, and the reason is that for them, the mythical thought from which the Hebrews had become emancipated was not Cassirer's mythical thought, but a mythical thought based on the puzzling business of experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou. It is only if we assume this that we can understand the argument about Israel's emancipation. The point of the passage about the life of the desert is to show that if in the desert, natural objects point beyond themselves, then they will not have the character of a Thou; they will lead to a transcendent view of a God on whom nature is dependent. Thus we see that this part of their argument is based on the one factor which does not appear to derive from Cassirer, and which in any case is, as I believe, contradicted by Jacobsen's evidence. It is not my desire to maintain that there was no difference between the religious outlook of ancient Israel and her neighbours; on the contrary, I would want to maintain this. My objection is that the 42 43

Ibid. 247. Toward the Image of Tammuz 321.

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Frankforts have not let the facts speak for themselves, and that by giving the impression that expositions of ancient Near Eastern thought must be read in the light of theories about mythical thought, they have done less than justice, at least to the ancient Mesopotamians (I do not feel competent to make any comments about ancient Egypt). The attempt to discover how ancient man experienced nature is an important one, but it must be approached along different lines from those of the Frankforts, and must begin with a readiness to find examples of empirical consciousness among the ancients. I conclude this chapter with a consideration of G. E. Wright's "The Old Testament Against its Environment". This book has been widely read by students of the Old Testament; it has popularised the position presented in "Before Philosophy", and is a good example of the exposition of the Old Testament in opposition to mythical thought. If my treatment appears to be critical and negative, the reader should understand that I do not dispute the general position of Wright's book, namely, that Israel's faith was unique in comparison with the faiths of the ancient Near East. There is much in the book that I admire, and my purpose here is to expose the difficulties of interpreting the Old Testament in relation to myth, especially when this is based, as it seems to be in Wright's case, on a good deal of secondhand information. Wright's dependence on "Before Philosophy" is repeatedly acknowledged. The important second section of the first chapter is said to be "heavily indebted" to it 44 , and long quotations are to be found on pages 20 and 94. Further, there are long quotations from Frankfort's works "Kingship and the Gods" and "Ancient Egyptian Religion" on page 106. Frankfort is described as "an expert on ancient polytheism" on page 20. In his use of "Before Philosophy", Wright has not avoided ambiguity in understanding the attitude of ancient man to the phenomena of nature. At one point, we are told that at the beginning of the third millennium in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and also presumably Palestine-Syria, "the forces and powers of the universe had been distinguished and the category of personality applied to them. They could thus be known and understood". This seems to be a presentation of Jacobsen's position about ancient man's experience of the phenomena of nature, a view borne out by the immediate continuation of Wright's text, where a reference to Jacobsen is made46. However, we are soon told that man had not come to identify the forces and powers of nature by rational analysis, "but by the experience of power and force in nature as encountered 44 45

The Old Testament Against its Environment 19 note 17. Ibid. 17 note 15. R o g e r s o n , Myth

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in the struggle for existence" 46 . This statement is then the bridge to something which seems more like the position of the Frankforts. Ancient Near Eastern man "did not distinguish between reality and the force in or behind it.. . . Nature is alive, and its powers are distinguished as personal because man has directly experienced them. . . . They are known to him because he has experienced them, not as objects, but as personalities so much greater in power than his own that of necessity he worships and serves them" 47 . It seems redundant to assert that ancient man had applied the category of personality to forces which he had experienced as personal in the first place, and the statement that ancient man did not distinguish between reality and the force in or behind it is clearly at odds with Jacobsen's view of the relation between Nidaba and an individual reed. If Wright has not succeeded in avoiding the ambiguity in "Before Philosophy" regarding experiencing the phenomenal world as a Thou or in personal terms, neither has he seen that the Frankforts have meant two things by mythical thought, one epistemological and based on Cassirer, and the other an understanding in terms of immanence in nature. This is clear from Wright's account of how Israel broke free from mythical thought. Wright, correctly in my view, rejects the idea that Israel's different outlook from that of her neighbours resulted from her nomadic desert origins, pointing out that pre-Islamic Arab life was polytheistic 48 . Wright prefers to explain Israel's uniqueness in theological terms, and he stresses God's revelation or self-disclosure to Israel, especially in history. It is not my purpose to discuss this part of Wright's position, much of which I would accept. What is relevant to the present discussion is that as set out by Wright, this view of Israel's uniqueness entails a definition of mythical thought in terms of belief in the divine immanence in nature. Wright seems to have ignored the epistemological side of the position of the Frankforts, derived from Cassirer. But has he ? We have to consider briefly the second part of the concluding essay of "Before Philosophy". In this second part, the Frankforts discussed how the Greeks had become emancipated from mythical thought, except that here, they were not meaning by mythical thought divine immanence in nature, but Cassirer's view of mythical as opposed to empirical consciousness. The Greeks had begun the process of continuous critical appraisal of cosmological theories, and this marked them off from these peoples who explained the origin of the world in terms of cosmogonies because the latter claimed "recognition from the faithful, not justification 46 47 48

Ibid. 16—17. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 13 note 8.

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before the critical" 49 . However, the Frankforts saw that although empirical thought could be found among the Greeks, it was to be found alongside mythical thought, especially where the Greeks experienced "an undissolved relationship between man and nature" 80 . Returning to Wright, we find that in a discussion as to whether the prophets were using pure metaphor when they addressed the mountains or heavens, calling them to witness Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh, Wright states "it is important to note that Israel did not conceive of an inanimate nature any more than did the polytheists . . . the Israelite, like the early Greek Philosopher continued to think of the elements of nature as possessing a psychic life of their own" 81 . Wright's source of evidence for this latter statement is the passage from "Before Philosophy" describing the Greek experience of an undissolved relationship between man and nature. Clearly, Wright has confused the two types of mythical thought discussed in "Before Philosphy". If he wishes to maintain that there was a similarity between the ancient Hebrew and the ancient Greek, he ought to show in the phrase of the Frankforts, that in Israel there was continuous appraisal of cosmological theories. He has not done this because he has not seen the distinction between mythical thought as divine immanence in nature, and mythical thought as opposed to empirical consciousness52. One final point concerns the extent to which Wright believed that Israel had broken completely with mythical thought. The Frankforts, as we have seen, did not assert a complete break. Although it is difficult to be dogmatic, it may be that Wright did assert a complete break. Certainly, the statement "the God of Israel has no mythology" 83 contrasts with the statement of the Frankforts that "the great conception of an only and transcendent God was not entirely free from myth" 8 4 . Wright also states that "The religion of Israel suddenly appears in history, breaking radically with the mythopoeic approach to reality" 85 . It would be wrong, however, to press this point too far. The aim of this chapter has been to expose the problems that arise from opposing the Old Testament to mythical thought. Any person who wishes to make such an opposition must, it seems to me, face the following questions. Is the mythical thought concerned based on epistemology ? If so, has a fair picture been presented of the people 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

Before Philosophy 251. Ibid. 252. The Old Testament Against its Environment 36. Ibid. 28, where Wright seems to argue that the "primary or original sense" of the term myth is divine immanence in nature. Ibid. 26. Before Philosophy 244. The Old Testament Against its Environment 29. 7*

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whose thought is contrasted with that of the Old Testament ? Further, have adequate grounds been advanced in order to maintain why ancient Israel's consciousness of the world should be different from that of her neighbours ? If by mythical thought is meant simply a different religious outlook, does it help to use the term mythical thought? Might it not be clearer simply to describe the difference in outlook between Israel and her neighbours without recourse to the notion of mythical thought, bearing in mind the possibility that epistemological considerations might be brought into the discussion unnoticed ?

Chapter 8 The Structural Study of Myth The structural approach to myth, pioneered in France by Claude Lévi-Strauss since the second world war1 has been described as a watershed in social anthropology2. For the time being, this does not appear to be an overstatement as far as publications in English are concerned. The approach to myth can only have been known to scholars for a little over ten years, yet already, at least one major book and one major article on myth have acknowledged indebtedness to Lévi-Strauss3, a classicist has applied a structural approach to ancient Greece and the ancient Near East 4 , and two social anthropologists have noted the possibilities of the method for the Old Testament6. It will not be possible in the present chapter to give an exhaustive account of Lévi-Strauss's system; this would in itself require many 1

Lévi-Strauss's principle publications on myth are : The Structural Study of Myth, in : Myth: A Symposium, 50—66. The same essay forms chapter xi of Anthropologie Structurale, 1958, E . T. Structural Anthropology, 1968; La Geste d' Asdiwal, in: École Pratique des Hautes Études, Section des Sciences Religieuses E x t r . Annuaire 1958—1959, 3—43, E. T. in : E . R . Leach, The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, 1967, 1—47; Four Winnebago Myths: A Structural Sketch, in: S. Diamond, Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin, 1960, reprinted in: J . Middleton, Myth and Cosmos, 1967, 15—26; Mythologiques, 1964—68: I. Le Cru et le cuit; I I . Du miel aux cendres; I I I . L'Origine des manières de table; Rapports de symétrie entre rites et mythes de peuples voisins in: T. O. Beidelman, The Translation of Culture, 1971, 161—178.

2

Nur Yalman in: The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, 88. See K . O. L. Burridge, Tangu Traditions, 1969, vii; Marguerite S. Robinson, " T h e House of the Mighty Hero" or " T h e House of enough Paddy" ? Some implications of a Sinhalese Myth, in: E. R. Leach, Dialectic in Practical Religion, 1968, 122—152. See especially 124 ff. G. S. Kirk op. cit. E. R . Leach, Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden; an examination of some recent developments in the analysis of myth, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Ser. I I Vol. X X I I I , No. 4, 1961, 386—396; Genesis as Myth, Discovery, May 1962, 30—35, reprinted in: Myth and Cosmos, 1—14, and in: E. R . Leach, Genesis as Myth and other essays, 1969, 7—23; The Legitimacy of Solomon: some structural aspects of Old Testament history, Archives européennes de Sociologie 7 (1966), 58—101, reprinted in: Genesis as Myth 25—84. Mary Douglas, The Abominations of Leviticus, in: Purity and Danger, 41—57.

3

4 5

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pages. My aim will be to say sufficient about Lévi-Strauss to enable the reader first to judge for himself what relevance structural theories may have for the Old Testament, and second, to assess those applications to the Old Testament which have already been made by anthropologists6. In the second part of the chapter, I shall consider the possibility of the usefulness of modified structural approaches, to the Old Testament. Finally, a word should be said about the placing of this chapter at this particular point in the book. Since the structural approach is the most recent development in understanding myth, at least among anthropologists, the present chapter might have merited a later position in the book. However, some of Lévi-Strauss's points are not without interest in comparison with the preceding chapter, and this explains my choice of order. The structural study of myth is the attempt to apply to the analysis of myths certain procedures developed in structural linguistics. By way of closer definition, structural linguistics means that approach to language which has followed the lines laid down in F. de Saussure's celebrated "Cours de Linguistique Générale"7. Further, Lévi-Strauss has been influenced by the so-called Prague school of linguistics, and especially the work of R. Jakobson in the field of phonology8. As far as I am aware, Lévi-Strauss gives no formal definition of myth. Indeed he says that he rejects any attempts to say precisely what is mythical and what is not, and that we must not be surprised to find him dealing with stories, legends and pseudo-historical traditions in his "Mythologiques"9. In practice, then, Lévi-Strauss applies his analyses to traditions which elsewhere in the book have been described as classified into myth, saga, Märchen and so on. For fuller treatments of Lévi-Strauss's theories of myth see The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism passim; Esprit, Nov. 1963, 547—653, and May 1967, 771—842; E . Fleischmann, L'Esprit humain selon C. Lévi-Strauss, Archives européennes de Sociologie 7 (1966), 27—57; G. S. Kirk 42ff.; E . R. Leach, Lévi-Strauss, 1970. ' Cours de Linguistique Générale, 1949 4 . For a succinct account of Saussurian linguistics see R. Barthes, Elements de Sémiologie, 1964, Eng. Tr. Elements of Semiology, 1967. 8 See R. Jakobson and R. Halle, Fundamentals of Language, 1956; Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology, 233. For an illuminating account of the influence of linguistics upon Lévi-Strauss see the introductory essay: Social Anthropology and Language by E . Ardener in: Social Anthropology and Language, 1971. 9 Le cru et le Cuit 12: "Il ne faudra pas non plus s'étonner si ce livre, de son propre aveu consacré à la mythologie, ne s'interdit pas de puiser dans les contes, les légendes, les traditions pseudo-historiques, ni de faire largement appel aux cérémonies et aux rites. Nous rejetons, en effet, les opinions trop hâtives sur ce qui est mythique et ce qui ne l'est pas, et revendiquons pour notre usage toute manifestation de l'activté mentale ou sociale des populations étudiées, dont il apparaîtra en cours d'analyse qu'el permet de compléter le mythe ou de l'éclairer . . . " 8

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Fundamental to Lévi-Strauss's position is the Saussurian distinction between langue and parole, where parole denotes the speech acts of individuals, and langue is the system which underlies such speech acts. Langue has been succinctly described as a "systemized set of conventions necessary to communication. . . . It is the social part of language, the individual cannot by himself either create or modify it; it is essentially a collective contract which one must accept in its entirety in order to communicate. Moreover, this social product is autonomous, like a game with its own rules, for it can be handled only after a period of learning"10. However, the rules of this particular game are largely unknown to speakers of a given language, and structural linguistics seeks to discover the structure of this "collective contract", this "game with its own rules". There is no doubt that when such structures are described, this leads to a better understanding of the nature of languages as systems of communication. For example, the principle of double articulation has distinguished between significant units (that is, units, each one of which has one meaning; i. e. words, or more exactly "monemes") and distinctive units (that is, units which themselves do not have meaning, but which are the smallest necessary elements out of which significant units are built; i. e. "phonemes"). The distinction having been made, it has been discovered, for example, that in American Spanish, with only 21 distinctive units there are produced 100,000 significant units 11 . The phonological work of Jakobson has concentrated on the distinctive unit side of double articulation, and Jakobson has tried to maintain that the phonetic systems of all known languages can be described in terms of around a dozen distinctive features. Further, Jakobson has invoked the binary principle, in describing phonological systems in terms of the presence, absence or irrelevance of the distinctive features12. The binary system, or system of binary oppositions is one of the most important features of Lévi-Strauss's approach to primitive mentality and myth. It would appear that certain aspects of neurocerebral perception function in a binary manner, and the same is true of the codes used in cybernetics. Lévi-Strauss seems to assume that the system of binary oppositions worked out in the phonological branch of linguistics reflects the basic structure of the human mind, and in his book "La Pensée Sauvage" he worked out the implications of this assumption for primitive mentality. Starting from the socalled neolithic revolution13, the immense technological step forward 10 11 12 13

Barthes, Elements of Semiology, 14. Ibid. 39. Ibid. 80ff. La Pensée Sauvage, 1962, Eng. Tr. The Savage Mind, 1966, 13—15. See also Sonia Cole, The Neolithic Revolution, 1959.

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found among neolithic man, Lévi-Strauss argued that such technological advances were not accidental discoveries, but the result of trial and error and experimentation. Further, such discovery was based on an interest in objects in themselves, and not just in relation to their usefulness to neolithic man, and that underlying such activity was a most sophisticated mode of classifying the objects of the natural world. This method of classification was not the same as would be found in modern science ; but it was based on a logic of oppositions, and in turn reflected the fact that the human mind perceived the world in terms of oppositions, high/low, light/dark, fresh/dry and so on. Thus it can be seen that Lévi-Strauss has synthesized a number of factors. He has combined a binary understanding of phonological systems with the facts about primitive classification recorded by ethnologists, and has made certain assertions about the functioning of the human mind in general, and the primitive mind in particular. Before I discuss the implications of this for the understanding of myth, it will be worth while to think back to the positions described in the previous chapter. There, it was noted how the assumption of the theory of mythopoeic thought was that mythopoeic thought tended to see things as wholes, rather than analysing the objects of the natural world. Primitive and ancient man was subjected to a stream of undifferentiated impressions from the world around him, and responded more to their quality than their quantity. The objects of the natural world were experienced as a Thou. Lévi-Strauss's position is as different as could possibly be. Even with primitives, the human mind interposes a grid between sense impressions and perception, and that grid is in terms of oppositions. Primitive man can differentiate between the objects of the natural world and can classify them in a way analogous to modern science. Thus Lévi-Strauss can conclude that whereas it has often been said that primitive thought and scientific thought, faced with the same phenomena, understand them differently because the types of thought rest on different working processes of the mind, the truth is that "the difference lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things to which it is applied". And again "what makes a steel ax (sic) superior to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second. They are equally well made, but steel is quite different from stone. In the same way we may be able to show that the same logical processes operate in myth as in science, and that man has always been thinking equally well; the improvement lies, not in an alleged progress of man's mind, but in the discovery of new areas to which it may apply its unchanged and unchanging powers"14. Clearly, these conclusions, if 14

Structural Anthropology 230.

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correct, have wide implications for the understanding of the ancient Near East and the Old Testament, and once again raise the question of the validity of many of the assumptions on the basis of which it is asserted that ancient man experienced the world in such and such a way. Both Cassirer and his followers on the one hand, and Lévi-Strauss on the other, may be wrong. But equally, they both cannot be right. Let us now see how Lévi-Strauss's interest in linguistics and primitive classification affects his understanding of myth. The first assumption is that myths are like langue; they are something given in culture, which the individual cannot himself vary or modify, but which he takes over. Since it has been possible to describe the structure of langue the same ought to be true of myth. Following Jakobson, Lévi-Strauss seeks to reduce myths to systems of binary oppositions, which in turn reflect the basic functioning of the human mind, and its tendency to analyse the natural world in terms of oppositions. At this point, however, Lévi-Strauss gives the whole enterprise a neat twist. No system of classification is perfect; there are always anomalies in such systems. In the case of primitive man, such anomalies raise problems at some level below that of conscious thought. For example, why is man so similar to, yet so different from the animals of the natural world around him ? Why is it that death and life seem to be dependent one on another, and so on? According to Lévi-Strauss, myths resolve these problems by blurring them. In whole series of myths, an important role is played by mediators, that is, by objects which do not fit neatly into classificatory systems, and which are in some sense analogous to the two sides of a problem which needs to be resolved or blurred. By means of the repitition of the cycles of myths, the problems are overcome. It will be seen that like Cassirer, LéviStrauss uses myths as a means to an end, the end being the maintenance of the view that mythical thought works in a particular way, in this case, in terms of oppositions. However, Lévi-Strauss is not content to leave the matter there. He wishes to posit a "meaning" for myths, and does so by his theory of the resolution of problems at some level below that of conscious thought. Clearly, the word "meaning" is being somewhat stretched here ; at any rate, one should distinguish between Lévi-Strauss's use of myth to demonstrate the nature of primitive thought, and his theory of the "meaning" of myth. When it comes to the actual analysis of myths, Lévi-Strauss stresses what is known in Saussurian linguistics as the syntagmatic axis of language 16 . Briefly, the meaning of a word in a stretch of speech will depend on two factors (axes) — the associative axis, or the "meanings" which have come to be associated with the word considered 15

See Barthes op. cit. 58ff.

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in isolation, and the syntagmatic axis, or the influences asserted on the word by other words in the context. The exact balance of the two axes in the structural analysis of myth is a moot point to which I shall return. But on the whole, Lévi-Strauss seems to stress the syntagmatic axis at the expense of the other; he is more interested in the form than in the content of myths. I now describe Lévi-Strauss's analysis of the Oedipus myth, not because this is a good example of his method, because it is not, but rather because the content of the myth will be familiar to readers, and will afford comparison with the comparative mythological interpretation of the same myth16. Because the form is more important than the content, the myth must be analysed by breaking down the myth into its constituent parts, called "mythemes". Then, mythemes indicating similar notions must be grouped together to form "bundles" and finally the oppositions between the bundles must be sought. In the case of the Oedipus myth, the above procedure will produce the following bundles of oppositions : 1. the over-rating of blood relationships (e. g. Oedipus marries his mother, Jocasta) ; 2. the under-rating of blood relationships (e. g. Oedipus kills his father, Laios) ; 3. monsters are slain (e. g. Cadmos kills the dragon) ; 4. the names of some of the principle characters of the myth refer to difficulties in walking straight, and standing upright. Now while the opposition between 1 and 2 is quite clear, that between 3 and 4 is not. Lévi-Strauss explains as follows. The dragon, like similar monsters, "is a chthonian being which has to be killed in order that mankind be born from the earth"17. Therefore, 3 has to do with the autochthonous origin of mankind. But this latter fact is denied in the Oedipus myth, because the monsters which symbolise the autochthonous origin are killed by men. In 4, Lévi-Strauss points to the fact that in some cultures, chthonian ancestors of the human race are lame. Thus 4 points to the persistence of the idea of the autochthonous origin of mankind, and is in opposition to 3, where such origin is denied. The myth thus consists of two pairs of oppositions, and this enables its "meaning" to be discovered. According to LéviStrauss, Greek culture believed that the first of mankind to be born were autochthonous, whereas it was a matter of daily experience that all men were born from two human parents. There is a contradiction here that is overcome by being blurred in the myth. In 3 and 4, the autochthonous origin of man is both affirmed and denied. In 1 and 2 is blurred the tension "born from one or born from two ?". Set out as baldly as I have presented it, the analysis of the Oedipus myth and its alleged "meaning" may well appear incredible 16 17

See Structural Anthropology chapter xi for what follows. Structural Anthropology 215.

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to the reader who has met nothing of this sort before. However, before dismissing the whole endeavour, the reader should see the method at work elsewhere, especially in the "Mythologiques". Meanwhile, several points of dissatisfaction should be recorded. In the first place, while the syntagmatic axis is certainly stressed in the procedure of breaking the myth into mythemes, and discovering the oppositions between the bundles of mythemes, Lévi-Strauss has permitted himself a good deal of associative, or we might even say, symbolic freedom, in interpreting the myth. This is particularly true of the interpretation of 3 and 4, which in any case smacks of artificiality. Second, there is the insuperable problem of understanding how the myth can have a meaning at a structural level, a level below that of conscious thought. In discussion with Paul Ricoeur, Lévi-Strauss denied the sentence by which Ricoeur had summed up Lévi-Strauss's "La Pensée Sauvage", namely, "Je caractérise d'un mot la méthode: c'est un choix pour la syntaxe contre la sémantique"18. Lévi-Strauss replied "pour moi, il n'ya pas à choisir . . . pour autant que cette révolution phonologique . . . consiste dans la découverte que le sens résulte toujours de la combinaison d'éléments qui ne sont pas euxmêmes signifiants"19. Unfortunately, the discussion of this point is not followed up. Whether or not we are satisfied with the explanation, it seems that Lévi-Strauss is applying a very specialised sense of "meaning" derived from phonology, to the question of the "meaning" of myths. It is now time to ask how this method could be of use to the Old Testament. First, it is important to know Lévi-Strauss's own attitude. In the discussion between Ricoeur and Lévi-Strauss already referred to, Lévi-Strauss was asked why he had confined his analysis to the myths of primitive societies (with the exception of the Oedipus myth), and why he had not considered traditions such as those contained in the Old Testament20. In reply, Lévi-Strauss explained that in the Old Testament, the traditions had been very much the subject of deliberate reinterpretation. Structural analysis could only be applied if the myths could be traced back to their original forms, and this enterprise, if at all possible, would require expertise which LéviStrauss did not have21. This is an absolutely fair point when one 18 19 21

Esprit, November 1963, 607. 2 0 Ibid., 628ff. Ibid. 637 . Ibid. 631—632 "D'abord, parce que l'Ancien Testament, qui met certainement en oeuvre des matériaux mythiques, les reprend en vue d'une autre fin que celle qui fut originellement la leur. Des rédacteurs les ont, sans nul doute, déformés en les interprétant; ces mythes ont donc été soumis, comme dit très bien M. Ricoeur, a une opération intellectuelle. Il faudraut commencer par un travail préliminaire, visant à retrouver le résidu mythologique et archaïque sous-jacent à la littérature biblique, ce qui ne peut évidemment être l'oeuvre que d'un spécialiste".

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considers Lévi-Strauss's general position. He is concerned with the myth as given in culture, not with myth as deliberately used in a hermeneutical system. This is perhaps also the sense of his enigmatic saying that he hopes to show not how men think through myths, but how the myths think through men22. In other words, he is stressing that myths are a social product which exert their influence on man, and not vice versa. Personally, I would not necessarily want to argue that the same was not true of myths used within a hermeneutic system. However, that apart, the point is that for Lévi-Strauss's approach to myth, based on the analogy of linguistics, the unconscious structure is the matter of most concern. Lévi-Strauss's attitude is also consistent in the light of his view of the difference between primitive and more advanced societies. We have already seen that Lévi-Strauss sees no essential difference between primitive and scientific thought, or more exactly, the working processes of the primitive and scientific mind. This, however, is not to say that there is no difference between primitive and more advanced societies. In articulating the difference, Lévi-Strauss once again draws on concepts familiar from Saussurian and Prague linguistics, and especially the theory of the pressure put on structure by the event 23 . Stated in other terms, Lévi-Strauss sees the difference between primitive and more advanced societies as consisting in their respective attitudes to history 24 . Both are concerned with history, but whereas primitive societies try to remain impervious to the substance of history (i. e. try to prevent the event from shattering the structure) "modern societies interiorize history, as it were, and turn it into the motive power of their development" 26 . It is therefore precisely because primitive societies manage to neutralise the effect of history on their structures, that their myths are amenable to structural analysis. Conversely, there is no doubt that Lévi-Strauss would regard the ancient Israelites, with their great concern to intériorisé history and to turn it into the motive power of their development, as constituting a society in which the event had shattered the structure, thus making a synchronic analysis of traditions impossible. Granted, then, Lévi-Strauss's own doubts about the applicability of structural analysis to the Old Testament, what can be said positively 22

23 24

25

Le Cru et le cuit 20: "Nous ne prétendons donc pas montrer comment les hommes pensent dans les mythes mais comment les mythes se pensent dans les hommes, et à leur insu." See also Leach, Lévi-Strauss 51, and Kirk 44. See Barthes 23 ff. See the chapter "Time Regained" in: The Savage Mind. G. Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1961. Eng. Tr. Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1969, 39. The chapters entitled " 'Primitive' Peoples and 'Civilized' Peoples" and "Clocks and Steam Engines" should be noted.

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about it? First, if it were possible to recover the "original" forms of the traditions underlying, say, Gen 2—3, Lévi-Strauss's analysis would explain something which myth interpretation has often sought to explain, namely, the reason for certain details in the myths. It will be remembered that Gabler, Müller and Gunkel were in turn exercised by the question of the origin of the details of myths. Gabler resorted to the historical mythical interpretation of Gen 2—3 ; the details in Gen 2—3 were there because the events actually happened, although they were wrongly perceived and interpreted by the primitive mind. Müller invoked the "period of forgetfulness" during which descriptions of natural phenomena ceased to be understood, with the result that the bizarre details of myths resulted from names whose real meaning had been forgotten. Gunkel put the problem one stage further back by deriving myths from Märchen. Lévi-Strauss's answer would be that the myths originated from the attempt to "explain" features of life by means of the mediation of natural objects which did not fit clearly into the classificatory system. The material used in the myth would be taken from the classification of the natural phenomena known to the society; but the articulation of the myths would be a product of the unconscious workings of the human esprit. Lévi-Strauss would say nothing about the present meaning of traditions of Gen 2—3 in their biblical context, but only about the origin of the raw material underlying the traditions. Nevertheless, if Lévi-Strauss were right, an important problem would have been solved. Secondly, it might be possible to understand some Old Testament traditions in the light of Lévi-Strauss's theories of primitive classification. It is in the light of these two points that we should understand part of the attempt of Leach, and the attempt of Mary Douglas, to apply structural methods to the Old Testament. Two things must be said at the outset about Leach's article "Lévi-Strauss in the Garden of Eden". First, Lévi-Strauss himself regarded this article as in part a deliberate joke 26 . Second, Leach did not carry out the procedure that Lévi-Strauss would have carried out had he written the article; that is, Leach makes no attempt to distinguish between Gen 2—3 in its present form, and the original sources on which it is based. Further, Leach shows little inclination to learn from Old Testament scholarship, and seems to be unaware of that body of opinion which regards Gen 2—3 as a conflation of sources27. Be that as it may, Leach's understanding of Gen 2—3 is in terms of a narrative generated by the problem of how the relationship between an original man and 26

27

Esprit Nov. 1963, 633: "C'est un travail très brillant, et, en partie seulement, un jeu." See the evidence summarised by C. Westermann, Genesis, 1966—, 255 ff. There is also a list of scholars who have maintained the unity of the story.

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woman from whom the whole human race has descended, could be anything but incestuous. The answer is that the relationship was incestuous, and resulted in the life of toil to which man is now subject. Other oppositions expressed in the narrative include those between nature (the animals) and culture (the man), between whom the woman is a mediator, and those between man and woman, where the serpent is the mediator. In the opening of the article "Genesis as Myth", Leach discourses on the classification system which is presupposed in the opening chapters of Genesis. First of all, of course, the creation story proceeds by way of the making of divisions or oppositions: — heaven is distinguished from earth, light from darkness, day from night, evening from morning, and so on. Leach sees larger oppositions between the static creation of the first three days, and the living creation of the fourth to sixth days. The distinction static/living is justified on the grounds that the plants created on the third day are things "whose seed is in itself" as opposed to the bisexual fish, birds and animals of days five and six. Further oppositions are between fish and birds (day five) corresponding to the opposition of land and sea; the tripartite division of cattle, beasts and creeping things (day six) corresponds to the static triad of grass, cereals, fruit trees (day three). Ultimately, the static creation corresponds to death, and the living creation to life. Mary Douglas's chapter "The Abominations of Leviticus" sets out from the classificatory scheme presupposed in Gen 1, and suggests that a number of the unclean beasts of Lev 11 and Dtn 14 can be explained as creatures which do not fit into the classificatory scheme. Thus, for example, animals which creep, crawl or swarm, defy the classification. "Since the main animal categories are defined by their typical movement, 'swarming' which is not a mode of propulsion proper to any particular element, cuts across the basic classification. Swarming things are neither fish, flesh nor fowl. Eels and worms inhabit water, though not as fish; reptiles go on dry land, though not as quadrapeds; some insects fly, though not as birds" 28 . In assessing these contributions, one has to be aware of the great amount of chaff to be found among Leach's wheat. In "Genesis as Myth" for example, the classification begun with Gen 1 is carried through to chapter 4, and it is shown that not only the stories of the fall, but also of Cain and Abel fit into the scheme underlying Gen 1. If Gen 1 does indeed reflect a classificatory system to be found among the Hebrews, it would not be impossible for narratives which were written earlier than Gen 1 to reflect that scheme; but Leach's ex28

Purity and Danger 56.

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position seems to require a much closer dependence of the subsequent chapters on Gen 1, and this suggests his ignorance of the normally accepted dating of the opening chapters of Genesis. Professor Douglas has done her homework more carefully, and only claims that the abominations of Leviticus do not fit the classificatory scheme of the Priestly writer. Also, she is aware that her approach does not solve all the problems. However, even when all the above allowances are made, it seems to me that at least Dr. Leach and Professor Douglas have shown the possibilities of structural analysis as applied to the Old Testament, and thereby have thrown down a challenge to Old Testament scholarship. Clearly, the establishment of classificatory systems in the Old Testament, in terms of oppositions, would help to discover how the Hebrew mind perceived the world of nature. That Gen 1 might reflect something of Hebrew "natural science" is a possibility which, of course, Old Testament scholarship has noted. Recent anthropological work as described above sets such suggestions in a more meaningful context 29 . We are on very different ground, in my view, when we turn from Leach's analyses of the opening chapters of Genesis to his excursions into the later traditions of Genesis, and into Israelite history. Leach's most important contribution in this field, "The Legitimacy of Solomon" attempts to find structural significance in the history of the succession to David's throne. Bearing in mind Lévi-Strauss's views of the effect of history on structure, it is clear that this venture of Leach's would meet with even less approval than his analysis of the opening chapters of Genesis. In the event, while professing to find structural significance in a historical narrative, Leach virtually eliminates the diachronic element by means of a combination of absurd historical scepticism, and an ignorance of Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern scholarship. By the time he has finished with the succession narrative, he has reduced it to something that must be understood in the light of the thought processes of Palestinian Jews of the third century B. C.30. I do not intend to reproduce here the objections that I have urged elsewhere against this side of Leach's application of structural theories to the Old Testament. In this enterprise, Leach has leaned too heavily on information and communication theory, matters which have increasingly interested Lévi-Strauss, but without altering his position 29

See G. von Rad, Das erste Buch Mose, 1964 7 , 52: "Daß P seine großen Glaubensaussagen in der Form und in engster Verbindung mit der sakralen 'Naturwissenschaft' seiner Zeit tut, sollte nicht bestritten werden." Eng. Tr. Genesis, 1963 2 , 64. Also W . H. Schmidt, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift, 1967 2 , 181 ff. The schemes of Leach and Douglas would still work with what Schmidt reconstructs as the original form of Gen 1.

30

The Legitimacy of Solomon 59; Genesis as Myth 26.

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fundamentally 31 . Suffice it to say that Leach has put forward no cogent theoretical backing for these analyses of the Old Testament, other than rejecting Lévi-Strauss's reservations as being overcautious. It seems to me that Lévi-Strauss is the best judge of this. However, I find myself in the position of rejecting Leach's grounds for his analyses of Old Testament historical traditions, while approving of some of his results, and this leads to the second part of this chapter, in which I ask whether a modified structural approach to myths is possible. The question is raised because in two notable books, Burridge's "Tangu Traditions" and Kirk's "Myth: its Meaning and Functions in ancient and other Cultures", modified structural approaches have been used with some success. It might therefore be possible to arrive at a slightly less objectionable logical basis for structural analysis, which would accommodate Leach's excursions into Israelite history. As I understand both Burridge and Kirk, they are in the position of being dissatisfied with Lévi-Strauss's theories about the "meaning" of myths, yet in their respective fields they have found that LéviStrauss's results have given clues that have led to a deeper understanding of traditional material. Again, as I understand it, their modifications are slightly different. Kirk has tended to stress form rather than content, or to use the linguistic analogy, the syntagmatic axis. In his analysis of ancient Near Eastern traditions, Kirk has suggested that in some narratives there may be a "productive juxtaposition of themes whose independent interest is primarily as mere narrative" 32 . In turn, investigation along these lines may reveal a deeper side to traditions than has been suspected, as I shall illustrate later. Burridge's approach, while not ignoring the syntagmatic axis, is more associative and symbolic. Also, my impression is that Burridge is concerned with a level of thought closer to conscious thought, than is Kirk. Neither writer, in my view, gives a coherent logical basis for his position; but then neither pretends that he has done so. Burridge, after noting a number of criticisms of Lévi-Strauss admits that "the formulae obtained by Lévi-Strauss's method" hold good for the traditions collected in his own fieldwork. He thus concludes "if fieldwork cannot invalidate a method—should the method be followed ? If formulae are self-explanatory — can they pose any further 31

32

For criticisms of Leach's position see my article: Structural Anthropology and the Old Testament, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 33 (1970), 490—500; A. Malamat, Comments on E. Leach: "The Legitimacy of Solomon — some structural aspects of Old Testament history". Archives européennes de Sociologie 8 (1967), 165—167. For Lévi-Strauss's concern with information and communication theory see E. M. Mendelson, The "Uninvited Guest", in: The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism 124ff. Kirk 118.

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problems?" 33 . The implied answers to these rhetorical questions seem to be yes and no respectively. Ultimately, Burridge seems to think that what the structural method reveals is that in any society, there is a dialogue between myths and culture which results in "an incomparably richer understanding of the culture concerned" 34 . Burridge continues "one can obtain at least an outline of the symbolic system within which members of a culture have their being, and this in terms of interrelated clusters of ideas which are themselves quite clearly tied to, or more closely associated with, particular sets of activities. Further, since the engagement is on the level of the collective, since two forms of collective are being engaged as thesis-antithesis to yield a synthesis, one may obtain a reasonably precise evaluation of the possibilities of awareness which a particular culture holds out to its members, and different kinds of awareness may be seen as attaching to particular processes in the life cycle as well as to particular relationships" 36 . Further, for Burridge, the dialogue between a people and their myths is "the living dialectic of history" 36 . By this Burridge seems to mean that as new situations arise, the old myths both challenge and are changed by the new situations and in being changed, come to express new possibilities of awareness among a people. Thus Burridge's approach to structural analysis is in terms of process, and for this reason, he can see the usefulness of the method beyond the primitive sociétés who are so far Lévi-Strauss's exclusive concern. Kirk, like Burridge, is impressed with Lévi-Strauss's results. "In its broad lines, his (Lévi-Strauss's) approach is the only one that accounts for most of the Brazilian evidence" 37 . And again "what Lévi-Strauss has succeeded in doing is to demonstrate that some myths in some cultures can have a kind of explanatory function that had not previously been suspected. From now on it will always be necessary to consider the possibility that any myth, even in the western tradition, is concerned to provide a model for mediating a contradiction, in terms of structure as well as content" 38 . However, Kirk, although he has perhaps remained closer to Lévi-Strauss's position than has Burridge, is somewhat more vague about the justification for his position. Later, I shall suggest a possible way in which both positions might be justified in terms of Saussurian linguistics. For the moment, I wish to illustrate the results of both Burridge and Kirk, and at some length, because their results, if not 33

K. O. L. Burridge, Lévi-Strauss and Myth, in: The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism 114. 34 Ibid. 109. 35 Ibid. 109. 36 Ibid. 110. 3 38 ' Kirk 81. Ibid. 83. Rogerson,

Myth

8

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necessarily their theories, are not without interest for students of the Old Testament. In presenting some of the examples and conclusions from Burridge's "Tangu Traditions", I must warn the reader that the exercise is entirely second hand. I have no knowledge of New Guinea language or culture. The reader must therefore make his own reservations about my presentation of what follows, and best of all, read "Tangu Traditions" for himself. The Tangu are a people of some 2,000 souls living in the northern part of New Guinea. Their main mode of subsistence is horticultural; they clear and plant fresh sites each year and grow root crops in them. They supplement their horticultural activities with hunting in the forest and bush. Their settlements are located near banana, areca-nut and coconut palms; they have developed an interesting mode of longdistance communication by means of the slit-gong, which is made from the hollowed section of a tree trunk. With the slit-gong, Tangu can signal to particular individuals or groups by means of call-signs, and inform them, for example, that game has been caught in the forest. Tangu are polygamous, and the preferred type of marriage is cross-cousin. A married male stands in a special relationship to his male relatives by marriage, who are called his brothers. Similarly, a married female stands in special relation to female relatives by marriage, her "sisters". Further, in the unmarried state, male and female relatives are "brothers" and "sisters". This creates an interesting tension between the marriage bond and relationships with brothers and sisters, whether the brothers and sisters are real or adopted. An important aspect of life among the Tangu in former times was the garamb. This was some sort of men's house, where boys spent a period before circumcision, that rite being the necessary prelude to a boy becoming a man. In Tangu symbolism, the garamb is still a living factor, and corresponds to the womb. The instruction given by the men to the boys in the garamb corresponds to the idea among the Tangu of human reproduction, in which the male sperm is thought of as milk which nourishes the child in the woman's womb. Circumcision, and emergence from the garamb is a new birth, in which the son becomes independent of his father. On the female side, girls are thought to grow naturally into adulthood, and in the past underwent no corresponding rites39. The themes which emerge in Tangu myths can be stated in terms of oppositions. There is the opposition between the marriage bond 89

For the foregoing, see Tangu Traditions 3ff. There is a brief account of the garamb also in Burridge's contribution to: The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism 107 ff.

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and the brother/sister relationship, between the immature boy prone to irresponsible behaviour and the adult man. Because community life is a network of reciprocities, and because this network can only be maintained if members of the community act responsibly and morally towards each other, the theme of the reciprocal and moral is opposed to the singular and irresponsible. The singular and irresponsible can take a number of forms. It may be the divine, that is, the supernatural power in natural phenomena such as storms, or in some cases a supernatural person. The point about the divine is that it can have no stable relationship with the community, and is not obligated to it in any way. The singular may take the form of an orphan, who is outside communal reciprocities; the irresponsible may be a person whose actions are immoral from the Tangu standpoint. A favourite theme of the myths is the opposition of the elder and younger brother of whom the elder represents adulthood, and the younger, the boy not yet become man. Sufficient has been said to enable three myths to be considered. Number six of Burridge's myths is entitled "Nimbamung" 40 . Nimbamung was a blind man who lived alone with his dog. One morning, guided by his dog, he went into the forest to catch tree grubs, and having found a suitable tree began to rip away the bark and to flick the grubs into a bamboo barrel. An elder of two brothers, Ambwerk41, was close by the place. He realised that the man was blind, so he approached the tree, and began to flick the grubs into a barrel of his own. The blind man heard the noise, but thought it was caused by the dog, which he accordingly scolded. Ambwerk followed the blind man home. The home was an underground dwelling reached by uttering a spell over a particular shrub. Ambwerk followed the blind man into the dwelling, around which coconuts, bananas and areca-nuts grew in plenty; also, meat hung from the rafters of the house, and yams were piled on the floor. As Nimbamung began to eat, so did Ambwerk. The blind man still blamed the dog for the noise. The following morning, after Nimbamung had left the house to go hunting, Ambwerk ate his fill in comfort, collected as much food as he could carry, and returned home, having memorised the spell to open the shrubbery door to the world above. Back at Ambwerk's home his younger brother Tuman wanted to know where the food had come from. When told by Ambwerk, Tuman wanted to visit the house for himself. Ambwerk taught his brother the spell for entry to the house, advised him to find Nimbamung in the forest and to follow him back 40 41

Tangu Traditions 226—228. Ambwerk and Tuman are the regular names for the two brothers in the myths, Ambwerk being the elder and Tuman the younger. 8*

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home. Ambwerk also warned Tuman not to inferfere with the blind man's dog if it wanted to eat some of his food. All happened as before. Tuman found Nimbamung hunting tree grubs, and followed him home. When the blind man began to eat, so did Tuman. But Tuman ignored the advice about not interfering with the dog, and when it nosed its way into Tuman's food, he hit it on the nose. The dog's yelp warned Nimbamung that a stranger had invaded his home. Taking his adze, Nimbamung swung about with it wildly, until he struck Tuman, who was hiding behind some bamboo barrels, a mortal blow between the eyes. Nimbamung found, cooked and ate the corpse, and hung the skull and bones under the porch of the house. When after five days Tuman did not return, Ambwerk went to Nimbamung's house. He saw the skull and bones hanging from under the porch, and knew what had happened. He gathered together his villagers, and they went armed to the house. Ambwerk uttered the spell for entry, and entering first, struck Nimbamung with his spear. The others followed suit, and the dog was also killed. Faggots were piled around the house, which was then burned, together with Nimbamung and the dog. According to Burridge, in this myth, Nimbamung represents the solitary. Ambwerk is the adult who succeeds in overcoming the solitary, while Tuman is the adolescent who is not sufficiently prudent, and who is himself overcome. Further, the underground dwelling suggests the garamb, and the blow between the eyes delivered at Tuman suggests part of the circumcision rite. In this way is evoked the fact that not all boys in the garamb survive the period of apprenticeship and initiation. The action taken by Ambwerk against Nimbamung is not solitary action, but communal action by all the villagers. Although Ambwerk strikes the first blow, the others follow suit. This suggests that the solitary can only ultimately be overcome by the community. The burning of the house is to be understood against the background that in order to plant and cultivate a garden, a site must be fired in order to be cleared. In this way, the wild is replaced by the ordered. Finally, blindness is associated with insight, and lack of it. A person who has not been initiated is in a sense blind, and one who has been initiated can see the light. Burridge suggests that in relation to the two brothers, Nimbamung is " t h a t which becomes perceptiveness in one who is aware, and rashness in one who is not" 4 2 . A myth about the origin of culture is the Paki myth 43 . Once, men and women did not know how to cultivate gardens. Instead, they ate the bark of trees, seeds and roots. Paki 44 decided to teach men how 42 44

43 Ibid. 240. Ibid. 347—350. The name is not explained by Burridge. From the context, Paki is clearly a form of the divine, who gives culture to mankind.

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to cultivate. He hung his harvested crops on a high pole that reached up to the sky, and told the men and women that they could have all that hung on the pole if they could cut the pole down. Cutting the pole down proved to be difficult, and only after it had been discovered by accident that all the chips cut from the pole had to be burned, was the pole finally severed. However, the pole still stood upright, held in position at the top by a stout piece of cane. A boy was sent up the pole to cut the cane, but he could not sever it. This was because Paki had entered into the cane. Paki then told the boy to tell the people that the pole would only fall if the men and women below had intercourse together. The boy, however, was too shy to pass on the information, and on reaching the ground offered another excuse for his failure to cut the cane. A second boy, older than the first, was sent up, but he was likewise unable to cut the cane and likewise too embarrassed to pass on Paki's message. Finally, a boy who was a braggart was sent up the pole. He passed on Paki's message, the people followed Paki's instructions, and the pole fell to the ground. The people seized the food which fell to the ground and consumed it all. The only exception was that two orphans, brother and sister, kept their share without eating it. In a dream, Paki showed them how to burn off a clearing and how to plant a garden with the seeds from the food they had collected. He showed them how to work together, and that human sexual intercourse would help to make the crops fruitful. He taught them how to work together to produce their food; in other words, how to organise community life as known among the Tangu. The orphans became husband and wife and had many descendants. The other people died. Burridge explains that some of the features of this myth are derived from common aspects of Tangu life. A felled tree will often be held up because its branches are caught up with, and bound by vines and canes to other trees. Trees are felled by fired chips being placed in a cut made in the trunk, so that the trunk burns through. At important feasts, Tangu hang food on poles. From the symbolic point of view, certain themes are clear. The first two boys who climbed the pole were too young to be realistic about the facts of human procreation, whereas the third represents maturity, as well as the unashamed attitude of adolescence. The three boys, then, represent the passage from youth to manhood. The brother and sister suggest the tension between the marriage bond and the brother/sister relationship. Paki, as the divine, and unobligated, chooses orphans, themselves outside the communal reciprocities, to whom to reveal his secrets. Paki also represents the power of the male and of procreation, which is made effective in human life through the marriage bond. Another theme is that of over-indulgence and responsibility. The men and

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women apart from the orphans act irresponsibly by consuming everything that has fallen from the pole. It is the orphans who become, through their carefulness in keeping what they found, the first humans to move from the wild state to the state of culture. A third myth, Burridge's number two among his myths 45 tells how in a certain village, the men killed all the pigs, and how the flesh was divided up among the adults. The children were given none, and when their requests for a share were denied, they set off themselves in search of food, taking with them their fishing spears and bows and arrows. When it came on to rain and storm, they took shelter under a large stone. The stone happened to be the home of a fairy woman, and the fairy and the children enjoyed a shared meal. At nightfall, the children went to sleep, and the fairy woman went out, shutting the door of the stone, so that the children were imprisoned in it. When the children did not return home, the anxious parents followed their tracks, found their spears and bows and arrows outside the stone, and heard the cries of the children from inside the stone. The parents could do nothing. They quarrelled among themselves, blaming each other for not sharing their meat with the children. Then they returned to the village. The fairy woman had not forgotten the children, and opened a doorway in the stone. However, only two children found their way out, awoken by the sun which beat on their eyelids. They returned to the village, but because of extreme hunger, could not speak until they had been fed by the villagers, who had to massage the children's hps and stomachs in order to help them to swallow. When the boys had revived sufficiently they told their story. The parents returned to the stone, but it was too late. The door was shut, and the other children starved in the stone. In this myth, the divine is represented first by the rain, and then by the fairy woman. The divine is the singular. It has no reciprocal obligations with man in community, and this explains the odd behaviour of the fairy woman. She can pity the children, and open the door for them, but she does not ensure that they all escape. The children are contrasted with the adults. The latter represent reciprocal cooperation, and for that reason share the food among themselves, but exclude the children who cannot yet share fully in communal life. However, Burridge does not make the point, which seems clear from the myth itself, that the selfishness of the adults in not sharing with the children is irresponsibility which leads to disaster. Burridge doubts whether the stone, as the home of the fairy woman, can represent the garamb, but the latter is at least suggested by the rays of the sun which waken the two boys so that they emerge into the light. Further, 45

Ibid. 205—206.

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the boys are fed by the members of the community, and thus they share in communal life as opposed to their earlier exclusion from a share in the pig meat. Only three of Burridge's thirty-odd myths have been described here, and the case made out is necessarily weaker than if there had been space to deal with all of them. It will have emerged, I hope, that Burridge's interpretations show how the details of the myths are important, and how through the interpretation of the details of the myths, they can be said to communicate an awareness of the problems that arise from life in community, and in relation to the singular. It would have been easy for Burridge to ignore the details, and to have explained the Paki myth, for example, simply as an explanation and justification of the present state of things in Tangu life. In fact, Burridge's interpretation goes deeper than this. An important question is whether what Burridge has "found" in the myths was really there, especially as he sometimes gives the impression that had it not been for Lévi-Strauss's inspiration, he would not have seen the myths in the light he has 46 . Although Burridge is not explicit on the point, my impression is that Lévi-Strauss has helped him to find what was really there, and what he might otherwise have overlooked had he continued to be bound by the presuppositions of other approaches to the interpretation of myths. Burridge can talk with authority about the way in which the awareness of the Tangu has been developing, how old incidents and narratives have taken on new overtones of meaning, and how new thoughts have been deposited in the narratives 47 . It seems to me, then, that by means of his interpretations of the myths, Burridge has justified his claim to have found among the Tangu a dialogue between myth and culture, which is for the participants a way of growing in awareness about themselves and their life together in the world. Two points, finally, are of interest. In several of the myths there are aetiological conclusions48. Yet it is clear that the aetiologies are in no way the main feature of the myths, nor is it possible to believe that the need for aetiological explanation has generated the myths in all their details. This is a reminder of what has been said earlier in this book, and in particular, Gunkel's later feeling that some aetiological elements in Old Testament narratives might be secondary, comes to mind. Secondly, Burridge is able to give an example of a myth that must be comparatively recent, because it concerns one Mambu, a sort of apocalyptic prophet who was active just prior to the second World 46 47 48

Compare Tangu Traditions vii; Lévi-Strauss and Myth 113—114. Tangu Traditions 417. Ibid. 315. 355.

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War49. This myth develops the themes of the contact between the Tangu and Europeans, and how Tangu can come to terms with the modes of thought and behaviour of the latter. Of greatest interest are Burridge's observations that although Mambu was an historical figure, known to and seen by the Tangu, the tradition is not a piece of historical reporting. The historical and narrative Mambu are one in that they teach that Europeans must be forcibly ejected from New Guinea because they will not enter into reciprocal relations with the Tangu. But "the events in which Mambu was concerned have been converted into more durable principle and then retranslated into narrative events" 50 . It is tempting to see this principle as expressing what many have thought to be true of biblical traditions, New Testament as well as Old. Kirk devotes his attention first to a number of Sumerian myths, including Enki and Ninhursag, Enlil and Ninlil, and Inanna and Shukalletuda61. I do not intend to describe his treatment in detail, because the myths may be unfamiliar to some readers, and much space would have to be devoted to an exposition of their content. By way of summary, Kirk finds in these myths the theme of irregular or irresponsible sexual relations, and the disasters that follow. Analogous to this theme is that of irrigation, and the fact that if irrigation is used irresponsibly, then disaster will also follow in this case. Kirk does not claim that this is what the myths are primarily about, but he draws attention to details which are not normally included in standard interpretations of these myths, and suggests that the juxtaposition of these details reveals the tensions mentioned above. If there is anything in what he says (and Sumerian experts are notoriously cautious about generalising on the basis of material which, as they know better than anyone else, is still not fully understood) we can at least note that the theme of dangers which follow from irresponsible action is a common theme in the Tangu traditions. Kirk's interpretation of the Epic of Gilgamesh is discussed here more fully, because acquaintance with the epic on the part of the reader can be more confidently taken for granted. Kirk for the most part follows the Accadian version of the epic, and sees underlying it a tension between nature and culture. That such a tension was real to ancient Mesopotamian man is evidenced by Jacobsen52. 49

See Burridge's book Mambu: A Melanesian Millennium, 1960; Tangu Traditions

51

403 ff. Kirk 90 ff.

52

60

Tangu Traditions 407.

Ibid. 146; Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz, 364: " T h e contrast and rivalry of two ways of life, of the desert and the sown, goes through all Near Eastern history; it is of a nature to seek literary expression spontaneously, independently at varying times and places."

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In the epic, the tension is represented by the two figures Enkidu and Gilgamesh. Enkidu is at first the wild counterpart of Gilgamesh, but then is brought from nature into culture by the harlot. She teaches him how to clothe himself, eat solid food and rub the hair from his body. With culture, greater understanding comes to Enkidu, but also a certain weakness, since he is now no longer able to keep up with the animals amongst whom he once lived. Immediately before Enkidu comes to Uruk, the contrast between him and Gilgamesh is striking. "Enkidu has rejected the animals and become wise like a god, while in the city Gilgamesh, who is king and should be wise, behaves like a wild beast"53. Kirk regards the details of the penetration of the forest to slay Humbaba as "too uncertain to form the basis of further speculation" 64 . Gilgamesh's spurning of Ishtar's propositon that he should become her husband provides Kirk with some interesting oppositions, in that Gilgamesh's reply is to the effect that Ishtar has reversed the roles of most of her previous lovers. The lion has been confined to the hunter's pit, the stallion subjected to whip and spur; the herdsman has been turned into a wolf and the gardener turned into some animal like a mole. Kirk thinks that the grouping by pairs — nature-culture twice65, culture-nature twice66 is remarkable. In the incident of Enkidu's death, the latter seems to attribute his death from sickness to the culture of which he has become part, as opposed to the life of the wild in which death tends to come suddenly, and before old age and corruption are reached. Following Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh seems to revert to Enkidu's former wild role. He rejects the world of culture, and dressed in animal skins roams the desert. The insertion in the epic at this point of the voyage to visit Utnapishtim causes some difficulties to Kirk's interpretation, but Kirk argues that the theme of Gilgamesh becoming an animal is not entirely overlaid by the addition of this story. Gilgamesh becomes an animal in an attempt to reject death by rejecting culture, since the animals seem to symbolise freedom and lack of restraint. However, Gilgamesh finally returns to Uruk, washed and clothed. He has returned to culture, and has accepted as inevitable the death he must face. He has discovered that although culture in one sense did little for Enkidu, in another way it gave him wisdom and comfort. Culture is not to be entirely blamed for disease and death; it has its own real compensations, and a man should not alter his life to try to avoid his inevitable end. 53 55

56

54 Ibid. 147. Kirk 147. I. e. the lion (nature) has been captured by the hunter (culture) and the stallion (nature) subjected to the restaints of whip and spur (culture). I. e. the herdsman (culture) has become a wild animal (nature) and similarly with the gardener.

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It must be stressed that Kirk does not suggest that this interpretation is the only interpretation possible of the epic, and he does not deny that other interpreters have been right to see it as concerned with man's inevitable fate in death. He does think, however, that the whole myth reveals "a persistent preoccupation that overrides the mechanical complexity of narrative accumulation, explores the relations of nature and culture, resignation and despair, disease and sudden death, mourning and madness. It balances one against the other, investigates ways out of the confrontation, and achieves, as a myth perhaps should, a valuation that is complex, ambiguous, emotional and personal" 67 . In my view, by his concentration on and manipulation of details of the myth not normally dealt with by interpreters, Kirk has revealed a richness that might not otherwise have been suspected, and has justified his claim to show that "Gilgamesh is something more, on the speculative plane, than an investigation of man's attitude to death; and the investigation of death is itself more subtle than had been supposed" 58 . I have concentrated, at length, on giving readers some idea of the sort of interpretations of traditions that have been inspired by Lévi-Strauss's structural approach. The question now is whether such interpretations can be given a more satisfactory basis in theory. Much as one is impressed by Burridge and Kirk, one cannot occasionally avoid the feeling that they are sawing away the branch on which they are sitting, by rejecting a good deal of Lévi-Strauss's theory while accepting his results. I suggest that a simple theoretical grounding for this new approach to myth could come from the acceptance of two assumptions; first, that Lévi-Strauss's analogy between langue and myth (i. e. traditional stories) is valid. Second, that what LéviStrauss has really done is to make interpreters aware that there is something analogous in myths to the syntagmatic axis of langue. It surely hardly needs to be argued that myths in the sense of traditional stories are, like langue a social product taken over by man in society. This is also true of literary compositions such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is generally acknowledged to have grown from traditional and popular stories 69 . The same would be true of many Old Testament traditions, especially those dealing with the period before the monarchy. Leaving aside interpretations of traditional stories in terms of astral mythology or myth and ritual and the like, usual interpretations have stressed almost exclusively the associative or symbolic axis of « Ibid. 151. « Ibid. 152. 59 The evidence is summarised by S. G. F. Brandon, Man and his Destiny in the Great Religions, 1962, 89.

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the traditions. A good example is Brandon's fine and scholarly exposition of the Epic of Gilgamesh60. Enkidu is mentioned as representing man before civilisation, and it is stated by Brandon that through the figure of Enkidu, the author(s) of the epic expressed the view that "the arts of civilised living had rendered men different from the animals, with which they were originally akin" 61 . However, no further use is made of the contrast between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Gilgamesh's reversion to the wild state is not mentioned, and the overall result is that Brandon's interpretation lacks the depth and subtlety of Kirk's. In my view, the interpretation of traditions from cultures long since dead and thus accessible only through literature, as well as traditions from primitive peoples where it still remains difficult to experience the impact of traditions on the actual members of the community, may be assisted by the recognition of a syntagmatic axis. To try to understand an ancient language by recourse simply to the associative lexical features of words, would be to court disaster. The same may be true of traditional stories, and the writings of Lévi-Strauss and those influenced by him may have shown this to be the case. Thus it is worth asking whether a traditional story may make its impact on its hearers by a combination of associative and syntagmatic factors, and whether attention to the syntagmatic axis may enable the modern interpreter to penetrate more adequately to that impact. The analogy with Saussurian linguistics would be simply that in language, meaning is conveyed to hearers by a proper tension between the two axes. I would not want to go any further than this, and try to suggest why and how traditional stories originate, at any rate, not on the basis of the linguistic analogy. It seems to me to be essential for the linguistic analogy that myths and traditions should be accepted as "given" in the way that language is given. Lévi-Strauss, in my view, becomes unconvincing as soon as he tries to extend the linguistic analogy, to explain how myths originate to resolve contradictions by means of the blurring of binary oppositions. Neither am I in any way invoking the phonological aspect of linguistics. My point is that in seeking to interpret traditions, we should concentrate not just on what certain elements of the narrative symbolise, but should look for contrasts and oppositions, should expect to find these in elements of the story whose symbolic nature would not have been suspected, and expect these elements to take on new significance in the light of other contrasts expressed in the story. Clearly there are dangers in all this, especially the danger of finding too much in such traditions. Yet the results as produced by Lévi-Strauss in his "Mythologiques" and by Burridge 60 61

Ibid. 89 ff. Ibid. 90.

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and Kirk in their respective spheres make the risk well worth running. Finally, following Kirk, I would not want to suggest that all traditions are amenable to this sort of treatment. I now turn to some specimen interpretations of Old Testament traditions, in order to indicate how the foregoing can be applied in that field. What follows can best be described as a free composition on themes first stated in detail by Leach in the latter part of "Genesis as Myth" and in "The legitimacy of Solomon". My view is that while Leach's reasons for his results are to be rejected, he, like the others, has successfully demonstrated that there is something like a syntagmatic axis to the traditions. Some elements of the interpretations offered will hardly be original, but will have occurred in religious instruction for the past three thousand years. Again, the sections dealing with Ruth and Tamar will say nothing that was not discussed in a different context by the Rabbis 62 . What will be new is that traditions will be shown to be exploring common themes, such as the tension involved in Israel being a chosen people created by God, yet having ties of kinship with surrounding peoples. And these themes will be explored against the background of what has been earlier illustrated in Tangu and other traditions. The inclusion of traditions in the following exposition is not meant to imply that they do or do not have a basis in history. In fact, I think that most of them do have a basis in history but that, to quote Burridge's phrase "the events have been translated into more durable principle and then retranslated into narrative events". The book of Ruth ends with a genealogy which gives the ancestry of David 63 . Whether or not this is original to the story, it is clearly no important part of the main structure of the narrative, and can hardly have generated all its details. In the narrative, there is a contrast between Israelite men who take Moabite wives, and die without offspring, and a Moabite woman who is taken as wife by an Israelite Boaz, with great blessing resulting. Further, while the Israelite men had left their own country before indulging in their mixed marriages, the Moabite woman had entered the Israelite country before her marriage to the Israelite. There is also a contrast between the fortunes of Naomi. The result of her sojourn outside Israel is that she is left without posterity, and would change her name from "Pleasure" to "Bitter". With her return to her home, the fortunes are reversed. However, the greatest stress is on the foreign woman Ruth, who becomes a member of the divine community. It is emphasised that in returning with Naomi to Bethlehem, she is not only forsaking 62 63

See M. D. Johnson, The purpose of the Biblical Genealogies, 1969, 146ff. Ruth 4 18-22.

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her own people and gods, but is becoming a convert to the God of Israel64. Her behaviour is exemplary, not only in her loyalty to her mother-in-law, but on the occasion when she could have played the harlot to Boaz and did not66. Thus the inclusion of Ruth into the divine community is seen to be possible, on the basis of her loyalty and obedience. The relations between Israel and Moab (and also Ammon) are again explored in the Lot cycle66. The end of this cycle relates how, after the death of Lot's wife and the death of the fiancés of Lot's daughters, the daughters trick Lot into incestuous sexual relations with them, the result being the birth of the ancestors of the peoples of Moab and Ammon67. In this way is expressed an awareness of kinship between Israel, and Moab and Ammon, since Lot is Abraham's nephew; but the origin of these related peoples arises from incest. Further, when one compares the Lot and Abraham cycles, one sees how the irresponsibility of the former contrasts with the obedience of the latter. Lot chose the best part of the land for himself and associated with the inhabitants of Sodom. By divine grace, he was able to escape from Sodom before its destruction, but the action of his wife, and the subsequent action of his daughters, showed how much this grace had been in vain. Abraham, on the other hand, showed the utmost obedience to the divine will when he was prepared to sacrifice Isaac. Thus the existence of Israel was based not only on divine initiative in giving Abraham and Sarah a son when both were humanly incapable of producing offspring, but on the supreme obedience of Abraham. Relationships with neighbouring peoples who are not heirs of the divine promise are explored in the contrasts between Isaac and Ishmael, and Esau and Jacob. Ishmael, Abraham's son by his union with an Egyptian slave woman, becomes the ancestor of a group living in the desert. His wife is an Egyptian68. Further, a contrast is found here between the desert and the cultivated land, a theme also apparent in the Esau and Jacob story. Jacob represents the civilised and Esau the wild. Esau's behaviour in selling his birthright is an irresponsible use of his privileges. As the ancestor of Edom he contracts a mixed marriage with one of the daughters of Ishmael69. Thus Edom is felt to be related to Israel, and yet the latter's distinctiveness is expressed by the purity of the blood. 64

R u t h 1 16-17.

65

Ruth 3 6-18. Gen 13. 19.

66 67

G e n 1 9 30-38.

68

Gen 21 21. Gen 28 9.

69

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Several traditions further elaborate the theme of the purity of the blood in ancient Israel. The curious story of Judah and Tamar 70 can hardly have been generated with all its details simply to be an aetiology about the origin of two branches of the tribe of Judah. Judah, the ancestor of the tribe bearing his name, takes to wife a non-Israelite, the sons accordingly being of mixed blood. Tamar, who is presumably a full-blooded Hebrew, is married to the eldest son, who loses his life for some unspecified wickedness in the sight of God. Since Tamar is childless, the next son's duty is to act as levir, but he refuses to do so, and is killed by God. In desperation, Tamar plays the part of a harlot in order to trick her father-in-law into intercourse with her. The resulting children are pure-blooded, and preserve the purity of the continuing tribe of Judah. Here again, obedience and restraint are stressed. Tamar, for all that she has acted the harlot, is declared by Judah to be more in the right than him, and it is noted that he did not have intercourse with her again71. In the tradition of Jephthah's judgeship72, we learn at the beginning of the story that Jephthah was the son of an irregular union between his father and a prostitute. For this reason, he was driven out by his brothers, and he settled abroad. We are not told explicitly that he married a foreign woman, and that his only child, a daughter, was the result of a mixed marriage, but it is difficult to infer otherwise from the story. Thus the point of the death of Jephthah's only daughter after his victory is that for all he has delivered Israel from her enemies, he is unable to introduce a mixed line into the people, through his half-blooded daughter. Abimilech is similarly a half-blooded leader who has no offspring, at least if it is right to regard the concubine who lived in Shechem and who was Abimelech's mother, as a foreigner. That this is a real possibility is clear from the opening of Judges 9. An interesting exploration of the themes of relations with foreigners, and irresponsible action, is to be found in Gen 34. Here, Shechem son of Hamor, who is explicitly referred to as uncircumcised, dishonours Dinah the daughter of Jacob and Leah. It is Hamor's desire that the Israelites should ally themselves in marriage with his own people. The sons of Jacob avoid this difficulty by a dishonest trap. Agreeing to the arrangement if all Hamor's males are circumcised, Simeon and Levi take advantage of the weakness of Hamor's males immediately following the circumcision, and kill them to the last man. Thus a serious intermixing is prevented. Yet the dishonest action of Simeon and Levi is regarded as irresponsible action, and is punished by the decline of those tribes73. 70 72

Gen 38. Judges 11.

71 73

Gen 38 26. Gen 49 5-7.

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To conclude this chapter, let me sum up what I think is to be learned from Lévi-Strauss and the structural approach. In the first place, Lévi-Strauss has said some important things about primitive mentality and primitive classification. Although this part of his work is connected with myth, it does not stand or fall with his theories about myth. His view of primitive classification was as much worked out with respect to kinship and totemism as in connection with myth. If this part of his position proves to be enduring, as I suspect it will, this will have far-reaching consequences for our views of how ancient man perceived the world around him. Secondly, Lévi-Strauss tries to explain the origin and meaning of myths. In this field, I think he is unlikely to be proved to be right; but structural interpretation of myths is in its infancy as yet, and there may be more surprises to come. If this part of Lévi-Strauss's thesis is sustained, then we shall understand better precisely why narratives like Genesis chs. 2—3 have as the raw material the particular details that they do. Thirdly, whether my suggestions for a simple theoretical grounding are right or not, Lévi-Strauss has shown that a syntagmatic axis cannot be avoided in the attempt to interpret myths. In the case of the Old Testament, this principle will apply mostly to the traditions beginning from Genesis 12, and up to the establishment of the monarchy. This will be because first, the traditions of Gen 1—11 have been particularly the object of deliberate theological shaping and interpretation. Second, after the establishment of the monarchy, traditions which described the Israelite Kingdoms were generally based on historical records and subjected to theological interpretation. Thus, third, it is precisely those traditions in between, traditions with a long oral history, yet less the subject of concentrated theological expression than with Gen 1—11, which will most reveal the possibilities of awareness among the collective memory of the people. I would even want to go further and say that it was because many of the traditions expressed an awareness informed by the earliest holding of Israel's distinctive faith, that these traditions, in many cases based on historical fact which had been translated into more durable principle and then re-expressed in narrative form, became so easily incorporated into the larger theological works of the Yahwist and Priestly writer. Whether there is any truth in all this or not, it is clear that as a result of Lévi-Strauss's writings, the approach to myth will be affected for a long time to come.

Chapter 9 Le Symbole donne à penser "Le symbole donne à penser" is the theme which dominates the "Philosophie de la Volonté" of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur1, and which gives rise to an interpretation of myth in general and its application to the Old Testament in particular. Accordingly, the "Philosophie de la Volonté", and especially the volume entitled "La Symbolique du Mal", is the subject of the present chapter. However, at the outset, some explanation is needed before I devote another chapter to the consideration of a scholar who is not an Old Testament specialist. To be sure, M. Ricoeur has done his homework on the Old Testament and ancient Mesopotamia very well indeed; but he would no doubt readily admit his lack of real expertise in these fields and his indebtedness to scholars like Jacob, Eichrodt and von Rad. There are three reasons, then, why M. Ricoeur is considered here. First, like Cassirer, he is influenced by Kant 2 , and further, he argues for the autonomy of mythical language and its connection with symbolism. He thus tries to solve some of the problems that concerned Cassirer, but in a different way. Secondly, Ricoeur is to some extent a phenomenologist ; that is, one concerned with the meanings implied in the relation between object and subject in human experience. As such, he is allied to the phenomenological approach to the history of religions, and particularly to the work of scholars such as G. van der 1

2

Paul Ricoeur is Professor of Philosophy at the Sorbonne. He is described by Barthel, Interprétation du langage mythique et théologie biblique, 289, as "un philosophe existentialiste informé par la foi chrétienne". The Philosophie de la Volonté is not yet complete. The volumes so far are Le Volontaire et l'involontaire, 1950; Finitude et culpabilité I L'Homme faillible, 1950; Finitude et culpabilité II La Symbolique du Mal, 1950. Important articles bearing on the same subject, to which reference will be made here are: Le Symbole donne à penser, Esprit July—Aug. 1959, 60—76; Guilt, Ethics and Religion, in : Talk of God, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, Vol. 2, 1969, 100—117 ; The Problem of the Double-sense as Hermeneutic Problem and as Semantic Problem, in: J. M. Kitagawa and C. H. Long, Myths and Symbols, Studies in Honor of Mircea Eliade, 1969, 63—80. The phrase "le symbole donne à penser" is translated in "Guilt, Ethics and Religion" as "the symbol 'invites' thought" but this is not adequate, as the inverted commas round "invites" show. In this chapter, I shall leave as much of the French as possible untranslated. See L'Homme faillible 55 ff.: Guilt, Ethics and Religion, 112. 115.

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Leeuw and M. Eliade 3 . Thus a consideration of Ricoeur will enable me to mention the influential phenomenological approach to the interpretation of myth. In fact, Ricoeur goes beyond the approach of Eliade and his followers in several important respects, and his work is probably to be regarded as an example of a critical use of the phenomenological approach to comparative religion. Finally, my impression is that the "Philosophie de la Volonté" has not been widely read by Old Testament specialists. The present chapter will therefore seek to bring it more closely to their attention. It is no easy task to state briefly and clearly what the phenomenology of religion is about. This is partly because religion is not so much an object or phenomenon, but rather a relationship which is expressed in rite and word. As I understand it, the phenomenology of religion seeks to say something objective about religion by analysing the structures of religious experience. It does this by examining the various symbols through which man expresses his encounter with the sacred. These symbols can be natural objects such as stones, or the sky; they can be rites and ceremonies, they can be narratives, i. e. myths. In practice, the phenomenological approach to religion, while aware that there are sociological and historical factors in religion, wishes to discover common threads which run through the religious experiences of all mankind. This inevitably leads in the writings of the phenomenologists to what looks like the old Frazerian practice of putting together indiscriminately, customs and practices drawn from quite differing places and times. The phenomenologists are in fact highly conscious of the presuppositions of what they are doing, and seek to avoid the traps into which Frazer and others fell4. However, it is not surprising that something of a cleavage should have appeared between the phenomenologists, and anthropologists brought up in the empirical British and American traditions. The latter suspect the phenomenologists of lack of proper understanding of the materials with which they deal, while in turn, the anthropologists are accused of being narrow in outlook, and lacking the insight that a wide phenomenological spread could bring to their own particular fields 5 . 3

4

5

See La Symbolique du Mal 157. In "Guilt, Ethics and Religion" Ricoeur defines phenomenology as "the description of meanings implied in experience in general whether that experience be one of things, of values, of persons, etc" (101). See G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation (trans, by J. E. Turner from the 2nd ed. of Phänomenologie der Religion, 1933), especially chapters 107— 109, and M. Eliade Traité d'Histoire des Religions, 1964, l l f f . See the essay "The History of Religions in Retrospect : 1912 and after" in: M. Eliade, The Quest. History and Meaning in Religion, 1969, 12—36. Eliade loc. cit. 58: "From Max Müller and Andrew Lang to Frazer and Marett, from Marett to Lévy-Bruhl, and from Lévy-Bruhl to historians of religion today one R o g e r s o n , Myth

9

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In the case of myth, the phenomenologists have tended to link myths with ritual6, and they have been strongly influenced by Malinowski's functionalist interpretation of myth7. A representative definition of myth is to be found in Eliade's "Myth and Reality" where it is stated that "Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the 'beginnings'. In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence . . . myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred (or the 'supernatural') into the World. It is this sudden breakthrough of the sacred that really establishes the World and makes it what it is today" 8 . That this is possibly what some myths are about, I would not deny. In practice, Eliade's method appears to me to force a general theory on all myths; one is reminded of the writings of Lang, where the general theory having been propounded, there follow numerous examples to illustrate it. But the whole method is notoriously circular, and while the results may look impressive when a few examples are gathered from here, there and everywhere, one wonders how applicable the method would be if confined simply to Burridge's Tangu traditions, where some could fit Eliade's definition, but others would certainly not9. I must confess that my prejudices are away from Eliade's method, and much more towards the concentration in depth on smaller areas. At the same time, I must make it clear that what I am criticising is Eliade's generalisations about myth. I am not saying notices a progressive loss of creativity and an accompanying loss of interpretative cultural syntheses in favor of fragmented, analytical research." From another angle, Kirk op. cit. 255 criticises "the uncritical nature of much of Eliade's work". 6

G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 413: "the living myth itself is the precise parallel of celebration; it is, indeed, itself a celebration, so that the discovery of the close relationship between myth and rite has, in recent years, led not only to the understanding of many myths which were previously enigmatic, but has also elucidated, for the first time, the essence of myth as such". Eliade, Traité d'Histoire des Religions, 345: " L a fonction maîtresse du mythe est de fixer les modèles exemplaires de tous les rites et de toutes les actions humaines significatives."

7

B. Malinowski, Myth in Primitive Psychology, originally published in 1926; reprinted in: Magic, Science and Religion, 1954, 93—148. Kirk 7 note 4 remarks on Eliade's indebtedness to Malinowski, as well as giving a critique of the latter at 19—23. M. Eliade, Myth and Reality, 1964, 5—6. The myth of Paki might fit, but certainly not those of Nimbamung or the children imprisoned in the stone. Against this, it could be urged that only the story of Paki should be classified as a myth on Eliade's hypothesis, but it would then be necessary to show why the story of Paki should be treated differently from the others.

8 9

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that his massive output on many subjects is worthless ; on the contrary, there are many ways in which I am grateful to Eliade, especially regarding his methodological surveys10. The extent of Ricoeur's indebtedness to Eliade will be made clear later. A t this point, it is simply worth noting that in the "Philosophie de la Volonté", Ricoeur does not apply a generalised theory of myth to the Old Testament, but rather works out a theory of myth on the basis of a detailed study of the Old Testament, as well as ancient Greece and Mesopotamia. It is now necessary to place this work of Ricoeur's on the ancient world in the general context of the aims and organisation of the "Philosophie de la Volonté". The work as a whole is a phenomenological description of the volonté, by which is meant man's will, his acts of volition, the relation of the conscious and the unconscious, and the deliberate and the unintentional; also included are man's awareness of human fallibility and moral fault. Throughout the work, the author makes it clear that in his view, no philosophy (at least in the sense of phenomenological description, and perhaps more) can be carried out without presuppositions. I t is necessary to call in question "la chimère d'une philosophie sans présuppositions et partir du langage plein" 11 . If it ignores symbolic language (in the sense to be defined and discussed shortly), philosophy becomes orientated and thus limited12. Therefore, although the opening volume, " L e Volontaire et l'involontaire" is meant to be an empirical description of the relation between the conscious and deliberate and the unconscious and unintentional aspects of volition, Ricoeur is emphatic that this enterprise involves the deliberate exclusion of what is implied by symbolic language about evil. "C'est en effet en mettant entre parenthèses la faute, qui altère profondément l'intelligibilité de l'homme, et la Transcendance qui recèle l'origine radicale de la subjectivité, que se constitue une description pure et une compréhension du Volontaire et du l'Involontaire" 13 . In the second volume, "L'Homme faillible", the balance is partially redressed by a description of the human consciousness of fallibility. Y e t even here, Ricoeur feels that this part of the endeavour can only take place by "bracketing out" the symbolic language about evil. This latter language gives a completeness, because it can express certain aspects of the subject which are inaccessible to philosophy14. W e thus reach the theme which haunts the whole work — "le symbole 10 11 12 13 14

For example, the essays in The Quest. La Symbolique du Mal 26. Ibid. 26. Le Volontaire et l'involontaire 7. " L e passage de l'innocence à la faute n'est accessible à aucune description même empirique, mais à une mythique concrète". L'Homme faillible 10. 9*

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donne à penser". If it is impossible for philosophy to be without presuppositions; if the answers to questions are to some extent implied both in the way that the questions are asked, and in the fact that these particular questions and not some other questions are asked, then what is the source of the presuppositions ? M. Ricoeur seems less to answer this question directly, than to claim that since there must be presuppositions, there is no reason why they should not be "given" through symbolic language. In the case of the "Philosophie de la Volonté", the symbolic language will be that which expresses man's experience of moral evil and of his unworthiness in the presence of the divine. Above all, it will be those symbols which express the paradox of the serf-arbitre, that is, the paradox of the "libre arbitre qui se he et se trouve toujours déjà lié" 16 . A philosophy informed by such symbols will be more adequate than one which ignores them, and will be "pensée à partir du symbole" 16 . For the purposes of the "Philosophie de la Volonté", the symbolic language which needs to be taken into account is that to be found in ancient Israel and Greece, and ancient Mesopotamia in so far as the latter was the background out of which the experience of ancient Israel grew. M. Ricoeur's point is that whether we like it or not, our western culture is built upon a judeo-hellenistic heritage, and that this heritage is at the base of what Ricoeur calls our cultural and philosophical memory 17 . However, what is true of ancient Israel and Greece is not true of India, Africa and China. These have played no part in our cultural development, and they are therefore of no assistance in the attempt to analyse a symbolism which will assist a modern western philosophical description of the human volonté. Thus it will be seen that M. Ricoeur has philosophical and historical reasons for including a survey of the Old Testament in a work of philosophy, and his claim that the symbolic language of the Old Testament has relevance for modern philosophy is one that is bound to interest Old Testament scholars. It is now time to consider in some detail exactly what M. Ricoeur understands by the terms symbol and myth. In the Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture, a symbol is defined as "a language which designates a thing in an indirect way, by designating another thing which it directly indicates" 18 . This rather obscure statement receives some elucidation in "La Symbolique du Mal" 19 . Here, Ricoeur's 15 16 17

18 19

L'Homme faillible 13. Le Symbole donne à penser 73. La Symbolique du Mal 26—27. Is there an echo here of Jung's theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious ? Guilt, Ethics and Religion 102. See especially 17ff. Also Le Symbole donne à penser 63ff.

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starting-point is the cosmic symbol as understood by Eliade, according to whom an object in the natural world can take on significance for the primitive mind beyond its immediate particularity, and establish and express a relation with the sacred. But Ricoeur concentrates his attention on the human side of this process. To say that the sacred is given through a natural object is only another way of saying that the object concerned enables man to express and therefore to understand his ration to the sacred. Thus "être symbole pour ces réalités c'est recueillir dans un noeud de presence une masse d'intentions significatives qui, avant de donner à penser, donnent à parler" 20 . However, not only are there cosmic symbols, but symbols which arise in dreams and symbols which are expressed in poetry, and these lead to the development of a vocabulary by means of which man expresses his understanding of his interior life. Words and phrases become symbols by referring beyond their literal meaning to interior and mental states. The reference is facilitated by a connection between the literal meaning and the symbolic reference, but the connection is not the result of conscious reflection. It is intuitively "given" in the first instance, and then is apparent to conscious reflection. "Le symbole est le mouvement du sens primaire qui nous fait participer au sens latent et ainsi nous assimile au symbolisé sans que nous puissons dominer intellectuellement la similitude" 21 . Again, certain points need to be clarified. As I understand it, Mr. Ricoeur is not saying that every time a person uses a word or phrase in a symbolic sense, that person is aware of both the literal meaning, the symbolic meaning, and the connection between the two. Ricoeur's point is rather that when the philosopher examines such symbolic language, the way in which the symbol works becomes apparent. In his contribution to the Eliade Festschrift, M. Ricoeur investigates the workings of the symbol at three levels, the hermeneutic the lexical semantic, and the structural semantic 22 . However, the analysis of the symbol thus carried out leads Ricoeur to the conclusion that something is inevitably lost in such analysis, and that in order to understand the symbol fully, one must accept that there is an enigma about symbolism, which is that "in it, the equivocality of being comes to be conveyed with the help of the multivocality of our signs"23. The same point is later expressed in the following words "if there is an enigma of symbolism, it resides completely on the plane of manifestation, where the being's equivocality comes to be said in 20 21 22 23

La Symbolique du Mal 18. Ibid. 22. The Problem of the Double-sense as Hermeneutic Problem and as Semantic Problem. Ibid. 74.

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the equivocality of discourse" 24 . These quotations help us to see the existential purpose of M. Ricoeur's concern with symbols. They are an expression of man's being, and if seen in this light, and investigated accordingly by the philosopher, may provide the latter with insights in his quest for understanding the nature of man. Ricoeur links all this with the symbol as understood by the phenomenology of religion, because as a believer in God, he wishes to see also in the symbols an expression of man's awareness of existence in the presence of the divine. Thus by way of summary we might say that for Ricoeur, a symbol is a word or phrase which in addition to its literal meaning has come to denote an aspect of man's being. While the connection between the literal and symbolic meaning may not be apparent to the ordinary man, for the philosopher it is a means of understanding man's existence. Having dealt with symbol, we turn to myth. Formally, Ricoeur's definition of myth resembles that of the phenomenology of religion. Myths are "traditional narratives which tell of events which happened at the origin of time and which furnish the support of language to ritual actions" 25 . In "La Symbolique du Mai" there is a further elaboration of this statement, not very clear and not wholly convincing. Here, M. Ricoeur tries to argue that myths always take the form of narratives because they are derived from dramas 26 . In practice, however, M. Ricoeur seems to say something else, and it is this something else which is both the most original and most interesting aspect of his position. Briefly, the point is that a myth is a symbol, but on a higher level than the symbols just discussed (what I shall call, following Ricoeur, primary symbols), but dependent on them. If I may clarify this by anticipating what is to come later, the various symbols used in the Old Testament to express human evil are irreconcilable and contradictory when placed side by side. They indicate the paradox of the "serf-arbitre". The myth of the "fall" in Genesis 3 "explains" the paradox by depicting the passage of the representative man from innocence to fault, at the same time indicating that evil comes from outside man but not from God, and that man's destiny is to be liberated from evil27. It is in this sense that Ricoeur states in his Royal Institute of Philosophy lecture that "myth refers us to a level of expression, more fundamental than any narration and any speculation. Thus, the narrative of the fall in the Bible draws its significance from an experience of sin rooted in the life of the community: it is the cultural 24 25 28 27

Ibid. 79. Guilt, Ethics and Religion 101. La Symbolique du Mal 161. Ibid. 154—155.

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activity of the prophetic call to justice and to 'mercy' which provide myth with its sub-structure of significations"28. Two important points follow from this view. First, it is impossible to understand a myth without first analysing the primary symbols of which the myth is an "explanation". This constitutes an important difference between Ricoeur's position and that of Eliade and the phenomenologists. While the latter work primarily from the myth to its explanation, Ricoeur seeks to work from basic symbolic elements to the myth 29 . In turn, Ricoeur seems to me to escape one of the damaging criticisms of Eliade, namely, that he gathers material uncritically from many places, in order to point to conclusions which are difficult to verify. In contrast, Ricoeur's method and results can be checked much more easily. Indeed, what is striking is that Ricoeur could almost be providing a philosophical justification for Burridge's work on Tangu traditions, which, as pointed out in the previous chapter, involved a discussion of those aspects of Tangu life which featured symbolically in the myths, before the latter themselves were examined30. Taken to its logical conclusion, Ricoeur's position would demand that no myth could be interpreted unless we had access to the primary symbolism which it presupposed, because ex hypothesi the meaning of the myth could only be established by working from the primary symbols to the myth. The second point is that the myth is autonomous. It cannot be rationalised, or regarded as allegory. In a sense it is an interpretation; but it is an interpretation of symbols which cannot themselves be reduced31 and it is itself a symbol in virtue of the way in which it interprets the primary symbols, thereby expressing what can only remain a paradox for philosophy. Yet for all that Ricoeur upholds the autonomy of the myth, he also insists that the myth must be demythologised by "contact with physics, cosmology and scientific history"32. Its aetiological aspect must be called into question, because 28 28

30

31

Guilt, Ethics and Religion 102. La Symbolique du Mal 157—158: "Si les phénoménologues de la religion ont été plus soucieux de remonter du récit à la racine pré-narrative du mythe, nous ferons le trajet inverse de la conscience pré-narrative à la narration mythique; c'est en effet dans ce passage que se concentre toute l'énigme de la fonction symbolique du mythe." This passage echoes what is said about the primary symbols in the Eliade Festschrift, namely that the enigma of the symbols is apparent when one passes from analysing them into components, and turns to synthesis. This sentence should not be understood as though I were saying that Ricoeur and Burridge reach the same conclusions about the meaning of myth. For Burridge, myths are much more a way of learning about a given culture and society; for Ricoeur, they are an insight into human existence. 32 Guilt, Ethics and Religion 101. See Le Symbole donne à penser 66.

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the modem thinker, unlike primitive and ancient man, cannot accept the account which the myth gives of the origin of things. However, it is precisely by being demythologised that the myth takes its place as a "dimension of modern thought" 33 . We are forced to look behind the myth to the primary symbols which it presupposes, and it is in the investigation of these symbols, together with the way in which they are "explained" in the myth, that the totality of the symbolic language reveals the "equivocality" of human existence. It is interesting to pause at this point, and to note how Ricoeur has tried to solve the problems that concerned Cassirer and LéviStrauss. Cassirer tried to preserve the autonomy of the myth while allowing for a difference between modern scientific outlook and the outlook of ancient and primitive man, by positing a mythopoeic thought. Lévi-Strauss on the other hand denied that there was any basic difference between primitive and modern thought, and regarded myths as exhibiting to some degree the structure of the human mind. Ricoeur's position seems to be somewhere between the two, but perhaps closer to Cassirer. While he allows for a difference between the scientific and the primitive and ancient outlook, he finds that common to both is a symbolism in language which is a clue to man's basic existence. We now turn to Ricoeur's treatment of ancient Israel, Greece and Mesopotamia. By way of introduction, it must be remembered that this treatment comes in the context of a philosophical investigation into the human volonté, and that the primary concern is with symbols and myths which express man's awareness of moral failure and sin. Ricoeur examines the primary symbols under three headings — souillure (which elsewhere Ricoeur explains as "the idea of defilement or stain : the idea of a quasi—material something which contaminates from the outside, which harms by means of invisible properties" 34 ), péché (sin) and culpabilité (guilt). Underlying this threefold division is the idea of historical development — that souillure is more primitive in point of time than péché and that culpabilité only emerges with the stress placed on individual responsibility at the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel36. But with regard from the passage from souillure to péché, Ricoeur qualifies his position by saying that "l'écart de sens entre souillure et péché: cet écart est d'ordre 'phénoménologique' plutôt que 'historique'" 36 . Even so, there are difficulties in the position, which strike the Old Testament specialist. Even if we 33 34 35 36

Ibid. 102. Guilt, Ethics and Religion 103. La Symbolique du Mal 104; Guilt, Ethics and Religion 104. La Symbolique du Mal 51.

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allow that individual responsibility was first stressed by Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and I am ill-disposed to concede the point, the fact remains, as M. Ricoeur knows well, that the myth of Gen 3 was put into its present form by the eighth century B. C. at the latest, a good deal earlier than the rise of the symbolism for culpabilité which it is supposed to presuppose. M. Ricoeur does not directly answer the objection, but I think he would reply in two ways. First, his discussion of the symbolism for culpabilité is much more relevant to ancient Greece than the Old Testament; and secondly, all the necessary tensions which the myth of Gen 3 presupposes are already to be found in the symbolism for souillure and péché. Accepting that something like this would be M. Ricoeur's answer to the difficulties outlined, we can turn to the detailed treatment. Souillure derives initially from cosmic symbolism, in which the sacred is located in places and things. To contravene the taboo associated with such places and things is to be affected by souillure ; there is no differentiation between the ritual and the moral, and the sexually impure is the impure par excellence. Souillure is symbolised especially in the cult, and in the words which accompany cultic acts 37 . Yet the tensions of the "serf-arbitre" are incipient in the symbols for souillure. If souillure comes from contravening a taboo, punishment comes to be expected, giving rise to a causality of punishment — if you suffer, you have broken a taboo. But the problem of the person who suffers without being aware of having broken a taboo gives a new dimension to souillure, that of something which has grasped and is affecting a man in spite of himself. At the same time, the punishment which follows souillure is known to be limited punishment, after which a man will be restored. Thus the element of salvation is already present, and it is this aspect of souillure which is its most striking gift to Israel's symbolic vocabulary. The plea in Ps 51 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin . . . Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (v. 2. 7) shows how the practice and language of the cult designed to remove souillure have given rise to a wider symbolism for forgiveness and salvation 38 . The difference between souillure and péché is that the latter is more moral, and is experienced in relation to the divine. The divine may be singular or plural, but vital to péché is that it should be an 37 38

La Symbolique du Mal 40. Ibid. 40.

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experience in the presence of deity conceived in personal terms 39 . In the Old Testament, the context for péché is provided by the covenant. Yet it is not an examination of the law codes of Israel which provides the main source for the understanding of the symbolism of péché. "C'est moins dans la lettre (des) codes que dans leur vie et dans la direction de leurs transformations qu'il faut chercher l'expérience hébraïque de péché. Or cette vie, ce dynamisme qui entraînent les codes, se révèlent dans d'autres documents que les codes, dans des 'chroniques' qui racontent des histoires de péché et de mort, comme les Chroniques de Saïil et de David; dans les 'hymnes' où chante la détresse, l'aveu, l'imploration; dans les 'oracles' à travers lesquels le prophète accuse, avertit, menace; dans les 'sentences' enfin, ou l'impératif du code, le lamento du psaume, le rugissement de l'oracle, se réfléchissent en sapience" 40 . By way of summary, it can be said that an examination of this material reveals the following tensions. First, while the prophets condemn individual acts of transgression, they are saying in effect that such acts are the sign of something more radical, namely, alienation from God. It is in this context that the symbols of Israel as a harlot or an unfaithful bride are significant. Secondly, while on the objective side the prophets declare that sin is sin, whether the people recognise it or not, and that the God of the Covenant will punish Israel for wrongdoings, on the personal level there is the discovery that the wrath of God implies salvation as well as destruction. Alienation from God is still in a sense a relation with him, and in the terms of the covenant, to be punished is to be brought back to him. The anger of holiness is the anger of love41. In the section on péché, Ricoeur says something of the actual terms used for sin on the Old Testament. The words KBn "to miss the mark" and AW "to follow a tortuous path" denote deviation from the normal, regardless of motive. SWS implies the intention to do evil, while m© denotes "la situation même d'égarement, de perdition dans laquelle se trouve le pécheur" 42 . M. Ricoeur certainly avoids the so-called root fallacy here ; that is, he does not argue from a presumed etymology to what the Israelite must allegedly have meant when he used a particular word. Rather, as argued earlier, his position would be that a presumed etymological connection was of interest to the modern philosopher who wished to see how the symbolism works. Yet there is still something unsatisfactory about this section, which is damaging to M. Ricoeur's general position. While allowing 39 10 41 12

ibid. 54—55. Ibid. 56. La Symbolique du Mal 71—72. Ibid. 74ff.

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that the imagery of péché is not confined to single words or roots, but includes notions such as harlotry, unfaithfulness in marriage, being empty and hollow, being inconstant as dust; in practice, M. Ricoeur derives his understanding of Israel's experience of sin less from an examination of these symbols than from a much wider consideration of the prophetic oracles, the piety of the psalms, and the life of ancient Israel as expressed in the longer narratives of the Old Testament 43 . One cannot avoid the impression that what looks to be a very interesting position on symbolism when expressed in short articles is less convincing when worked out in detail. Some of the difficulties involved in the section on culpabilité have already been mentioned above. In practice, this section is devoted to attempts to resolve the individual awareness of guilt, and Ricoeur discusses the scrupulous conscience of Pharisaism, the Greek concern with fate and hubris, and the teaching of St. Paul 44 . In conclusion, the reciprocal nature of the symbols for souillure, péché and culpabilité is stressed. "Les derniers (symboles) dégagent le sens de ceux qui les précèdent, mais les premiers prêtent aux derniers toute leur puissance de symbolisation" 45 . In this brief summary, all the attention has been focussed upon the symbolism in the Old Testament, because this has been M. Ricoeur's primary concern. However, some attention is devoted to Mesopotamia, and it is argued that there are close similarities between the Mesopotamian and Hebrew experience of sin and the desire for forgiveness. In particular, the "Prayer to Every God" 46 brings us close to those tensions in the experience of sin which Ricoeur has argued for the Old Testament 47 . It is important to bear this last point in mind as we turn to consider Ricoeur's treatment of myth, by way of reminder that he is concerned to use ancient Israel and Mesopotamia as well as Greece to provide him with a general theory about symbolism and myth as insights into general human existence. For Ricoeur's argument will be that the myths of the ancient world are attempts to explain what is a basic human experience of fault in the presence of the divine. Further, although he will show that in the event the explanations are significantly different, he will try to preserve some basic unity within the difference. This leads us to a part of "La Symbolique du Mal" 43

44 45 46 47

See the quotation above (note 40) as confirming the source for much of what Ricoeur says about the Old Testament experience of sin. La Symbolique du Mal 99—145. Ibid. 145—146. Ancient Near Eastern Texts 391—392. La Symbolique du Mal 51—53: "La lamentation 'pour n'importe quel dieu' contient déjà, sur le mode de la litanie, l'essentiel de la confession hébraïque."

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which I find not at all clear, and in one respect contradictory 48 . This is the section which explains why whole series of myths are to be found in primitive and ancient societies. In language not only reminiscent of, but acknowledged as indebted to Lévi-Strauss 49 , Ricoeur states that the purpose of myths is to restore for primitive and ancient man a relation with the totality of things which has been broken. Primitive man does not live in a rapport with the world of nature; his universe has been fragmented, and his myths represent the attempt to overcome this fragmentation. Yet the fragmentation is itself indicated in the multiplicity of myths 6 0 . Ricoeur's point in saying this seems to be a desire to posit a basic unity in the myths of ancient Israel, Mesopotamia and Greece. There are many of these myths because they seek to overcome the fragmentation described. But now M. Ricoeur asserts that in order to get a coherent message out of the diversity of myths, it is necessary to divide them into four main types. The first is the "drama of creation", the second is the myth of the "fall"; the third is the Greek tragic treatment of the tragic hero, and the fourth is the myth of the exiled soul 51 . What I find least satisfactory about this is that M. Ricoeur should have resorted to statements worked out in relation to primitives by Lévi-Strauss, and then applied them to ancient Israel and Mesopotamia, especially as elsewhere it seems to be implied that the myth of Gen 3 was the work of the Yahwist who modified earlier stories. There is a good deal of obscurity here in Ricoeur's notion of the origin of myths, the more so when he regards the great Greek tragedies as functioning like myths 6 2 . We are on firmer ground when M. Ricoeur describes the three ways in which the myths "explain" the tensions indicated by the primary symbolism of evil. First, they set the human condition in the context of a general history of origins; second, they relate immediate human experience to a beginning and an end, and third, they express the enigma of human existence 63 . Ricoeur first considers the "drama of creation" which is to be found above all in the Enuma elish5i. In this myth, order (as opposed to chaos) is not original but terminal. Chaos is earlier than order, and evil is contemporary with the genesis of the divine. This entails that 48 49 50

51 52 53 54

Ibid. 158—161. Ibid. 159. Ibid. 160: "L'aspect chaotique et arbitraire du monde des mythes est ainsi la contrepartie exacte de ce décalage entre la plénitude purement symbolique et la finitude de l'expérience qui fournit l'homme en 'analogues' du signifié." Ibid. 163 ff. Ibid. 199ff. Ibid. 14&—149. Ibid. 167 fi.

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man is not the origin of evil, that evil is as old as the earliest of the divine beings, and that the order on which the present world rests is itself the result of a victory in which evil means were used to overcome evil. Thus it is no surprise to find that evil and corruption are part of the life of the gods, and that man is a pawn in the whole game. The nature of man is indicated by the fact that he is created from the blood of one of the defeated gods of chaos. Thus in the "drama of creation" evil existed from the beginning, and neither god nor man can escape its power. An outlook is therefore set up which is quite different from that of the myth of the "fall" where evil in some way comes into a world in which it was not original. The contrast between the two types is further borne out by other comparisons. The myth of Enki and Ninhursag, which begins with what some people have regarded as a picture of paradise, continues in very different terms, and in no way suggests that evil came later into an originally good world. In the case of the flood narrative, while in the Old Testament the incident is God's reaction to human wickedness, and is followed by the establishment of a covenant, the motive for the flood in the Atra-hasis poem can hardly be said to be the offending of God's holiness. Further the inclusion of the story of the flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh shows that it was used in quite a different way in Mesopotamian literature compared with the Old Testament. Thus M. Ricoeur can conclude that "au moment où le mythe biblique paraît le plus proche d'une source babylonienne . . . les images qu'il paraît reprendre à sa source babylonienne sont affectées d'un signe nouveau qu'elles tiennent de l'intention générale du type de la chute . . . le même matérial d'images supporte une vision des choses radicalement différente" 56 . Ricoeur finds "une forme recessive" of the drama of creation in the Old Testament. Here, he follows those scholars who have found in the royal cult of Israel traces of ritual combat and the enthronement of Yahweh 56 . Yet according to M. Ricoeur, the life of Israel has transformed the images of the older myth. Because there is no theogony, there is no combat "in the beginning". The enemies of Yahweh become peoples within history, such as Egypt and the Philistines, and salvation is worked out within history. Thus as evil becomes historic and the enemy becomes human, a new type of myth is required. "C'est à cette exigence que répondra le mythe adamique" 57 . In this latter, the serpent is perhaps the last remnant of the drama of creation 68 . This brings us to Ricoeur's consideration of Gen 3, but at the outset it must be said that it is unfortunate that Ricoeur has created 55 56

La Symbolique du Mal 175. 57 Ibid. 187 if. Ibid. 193.

58

Ibid. 194.

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the impression that historically the drama of creation preceded the myth of the "fall" and that the latter arose to meet a new need as the former was transformed. In my view, it is beyond the present knowledge of Old Testament scholarship to say whether or not this might have been so, and it would have been preferable if M. Ricoeur had left the relationship between the two types as "phenomenological". In treating Gen 3, M. Ricoeur stresses once again that the myth is unintelligible unless it is regarded as an interpretation of the primary symbols for human evil in the Old Testament, which "donnent à penser" in respect of the myth 69 . The fact that the myth concerns representative man is to be understood as arising from that Old Testament piety in which the sinner confessed not only his sinful actions, but the estrangement from God which was the root of those actions, an estrangement which was also felt to be not just a personal estrangement, but a universal human estrangement. Yet this same piety was aware that the estrangement was not entirely the fault of the human race, although God was entirely justified in his judgement of human sin. The myth, then, seeks to resolve these tensions. It describes the entrance of evil into a world where evil is not original, thus expressing the holiness of God and the justice of his condemnation of evil. In the structure of the drama, the serpent symbolises evil as being in some sense outside of man, and already there; but it is also a part of ourselves which we do not recognise — it symbolises also the seduction of ourselves by ourselves80. Similarly, Eve, though separate from Adam in the myth, is nevertheless a part of that humanity common to male and female. It is not so much that in Adam all men sinned, as that all women sinned in Adam and all men were seduced in Eve 61 . The myth also stretches out by way of drama the moment of the transgression, the instant of the passage from innocence to fault. But in so doing, the myth was expressing what is always true, namely, the tension between man's ontological existence, and his historical existence; or, to quote Kant, "l'homme est 'destiné' au bien et 'enclin' au mal" 62 . It should be made as clear as possible that nowhere does M. Ricoeur suggest that there is a doctrine of original sin here. Such speculation he would regard as taking place at a different level from that of the myth. Indeed, the myth might be the cause of such speculation, but it contains no such speculation itself. Nor does it provide any answer 59

60 61

Ibid. 222: "Le mythe n'anticipe la spéculation que parce qu'il est déjà une interprétation, une herméneutique des symboles primordiaux dans lesquels s'est constituée la conscience de péché qu'il précède. C'est en interprétant lui-même d'autres symboles qu'il donne à son tour à penser." Ibid. 240—241. 62 Ibid. 239. Ibid. 236.

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to how the transgression of Adam was "transmitted" to the human race. To ask such questions of the myth is to overlook the primary symbols which it presupposes, and the experience which those symbols indicate. Of course, the myth is in some sense an explanation of the primary symbols. But no explanation is needed in the sense of explanation understood by later, speculative, ages. Rather, the myth of Gen 3 puts in juxtaposition the symbols which represent ancient Israel's experience of God and evil so that the structure of this experience is apparent. It is because the relationship with God and evil is itself a paradox that the myth is also paradoxical. M. Ricoeur's treatment of the other types of myth are beyond the scope of this present study. Of passing interest to Old Testament students is the fact that M. Ricoeur sees in the book of Job a type of the Greek "tragic" myth, dominated by the tragic hero who is not aware of having offended the moral law, and who yet seems predestined to suffering 63 . This part of M. Ricoeur's treatment is a reminder that although he sees significant structural differences between the various types of myth which he analyses, he believes that there is an underlying unity. In a final section entitled "Le Cycle des Mythes" it is reaffirmed that in spite of the differences between the myth of the "fall" and the other myths, the former "par sa complexité et ses tensions internes, réaffirme à des degrés variables 1'essential des autres mythes" 64 . In attempting to assess M. Ricoeur's exposition, we should probably distinguish between his claim to have worked out a viable theory for the interpretation of all myths on the one hand, and what he has suggested for understanding the Old Testament on the other. In the case of the first point, M. Ricoeur's approach can hardly be said to have been applied to a sufficiently large area for it to be tested properly. But even when we look at the area where it has been tested, some uneasiness is difficult to avoid. For example, the demonstration of the structural differences between the Hebrew and Babylonian view of evil and the way in which the respective myths of these peoples reflect that structure, is highly illuminating ; but can we in this case really reconcile the myths together and accept that they are part of a common system of myths ? The very way in which M. Ricoeur tries to relate Gen 3 to the other types of myth about evil reveals the difficulties of such a position. M. Ricoeur writes that in Gen 3, Eve and the serpent are "contre-pôles" to Adam, and that it is "de ces contre-pôles il reçoit une profondeur énigmatique par quoi il communique souterrainement avec les autres mythes de mal et rend 63 64

Compare the sections on pages 199—217 and 289 ff. of La Symbolique du Mal. Ibid. 287.

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possible ce que nous appellerons plus loin un système des mythes du mal" 66 . However, we are not told how the myths "communiquent souterrainement", nor indeed what is meant by "souterrainement". Are we back to theories of the collective unconscious, the world of the Jungian archetypes ; and for whom do the myths form a cycle ? For the ancient Hebrews and Mesopotamians, or merely for the modern researcher who collects and correlates the myths ? Leaving this aside however, let us assume only that M. Ricoeur has at least plausibly demonstrated two things in the area with which he has been concerned. Let us assume that he has demonstrated first, that some narratives (myths) or dramas in the ancient Near East and Greece reflect the structure of the views of their respective societies about the origin and nature of evil and suffering; and second, that the narratives and dramas presuppose a primary symbolism. The great gain as I see it is that the interpretation of such narratives and drama is put on a more objective footing. First, in the case of Gen 3, the meaning of the tradition can be established in the light of the primary symbolism which is to be found elsewhere in the Old Testament. In turn, the tradition is seen to be less isolated in relation to the rest of the Old Testament than is sometimes supposed 66 . Further, once the main meaning of the whole narrative is discovered, the various pieces of disparate material which make up the tradition can be properly related to each other. Second, M. Ricoeur's approach may help to show how myths can be demythologised without the danger of something essential being lost in the process. Normally in demythologising, the interpreter expresses in terms of a modern world view what he thinks a myth is saying. But if he can be sure that a myth is relating together the tensions of a primary symbolism, and if he can discover that symbolism, then his demythologising will be more likely to be objective. But perhaps we should ask whether complete demythologising is possible. If a myth like Gen 3 expresses the tensions of the "serfarbitre", how is it to be demythologised? Whatever modern language is used, we are left with a paradox. That paradox springs from the equivocality of man's being, or as the Old Testament theologian might say, of man's understanding of his true nature in the presence of God. We are then brought back to one of M. Ricoeur's most insistent points, which is that such understandings of man's nature and being cannot be ignored, but must become a dimension within modern thought. 65 66

Ibid. 220. Compare von Rad, Genesis, 82: "Die Inhalte von 1. Mos. 2 und namentlich 3 stehen in auffallender Isolierung im AT. Weder ein Prophet noch ein Psalm noch ein Erzâhler nimmt irgendeinen erkennbaren Bezug auf die Geschichte vom Siindenfall." Eng. Tr. 98.

Chapter 10 German scholarship since Gunkel: other recent developments The last three chapters have been concerned with approaches to the problem of myth in the Old Testament which took place outside Germany. It is now time to return to where we left off in the survey of German scholarship. By way of summary, it can be said that there has been little advance on the position as it was left by Gunkel. By and large, the definition of myth as stories about the gods has been accepted, and thus little room has been found in the Old Testament for myth. Rather, attention has been concentrated on examining the way in which ancient Israel adapted myth, and in particular, on how myth was "historicised". The phenomenological approach seems to have made little impact on German Old Testament scholarship. As a result of the demythologising controversy initiated by Bultmann in respect of the New Testament, some small attempt has been made to argue that it is possible to speak of God only in mythical language, and that therefore there must be myth in the Old Testament; but this point has been swamped by the preference for a form critical approach to the understanding of myth. Where there has been advance beyond Gunkel, it has been by way of refinement of definition of terms and methods 1 . The position of Gunkel, with certain refinements, has been upheld in subsequent scholarship by Eissfeldt in particular. In a review article of Gunkel's "Das Märchen im Alten Testament", Eissfeldt welcomed the new approach which saw Märchen as the most primitive of the types of myth, saga and Märchen. In his view, the parallels brought by Gunkel from comparative folklore shed a good deal of light on what had previously been only partly explained 2 . At the same time, 1

2

No methodological advance is found in E. Meyer, Die Israeliten und ihre Nachbarstämme, 1906, but rather an application of the older view that saga had arisen from myth. Cp. Weidmann, Die Patriarchen und ihre Religion, 90. O. Eissfeldt, Die Bedeutung der Märchenforschung für die Religionswissenschaft, besonders für die Wissenschaft vom Alten Testament, ZMR 33 (1918), 65—72. 81—85. Reprinted in: Kleine Schriften, I 1962, 23—32, to which reference is here made. See 25: "Der neuen Betrachtung stellen sich vielen Erscheinungen als durchsichtig und klar dar, deren die ältere Forschung nur mit Künstelei und Zwang Herr zu werden vermochte". R o g c r s o n , Myth

10

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Eissfeldt uttered some important warnings. The practice of using comparative folklore to illuminate the Old Testament traditions had its dangers, and Gunkel had not been free from error in his use of the method. In the first place, it was possible to go too far in drawing parallels, as in the case of describing poetic imagery as remnants of Märchen, instead of allowing that the poetic spirit could draw its images from nature 3 . Secondly, some parallels could be superficial 4 ; and thirdly, by describing as Märchen Ahab's ruse of dressing someone else as king while himself adopting ordinary clothes at the battle described in I Kings 22, Gunkel had not allowed that actual historical happenings could both generate or copy Märchen5. In addition, Eissfeldt could not accept Gunkel's view that in the Jacob-Esau cycle, the saga had developed from original Märchen 6 . Thus it will be seen that although there was some diminution in the sphere and application of Märchen, the essential position of Gunkel was accepted warmly. In an article published a generation later 7 , Eissfeldt used the Ras Shamra texts as an opportunity to discuss the relative spheres of myth and saga. Accepting that myths were stories about the gods, while sagas were stories about people and places presented in a poetic and supernaturalist manner 8 , Eissfeldt found that the position worked well in respect of the Ras Shamra literature. The stories of Keret and Dan'el were sagas, and the other texts were myths. The Old Testament had no myths, because at least two gods were required for myths 9 ; but neither did the Old Testament have any sagas like those of Ras Shamra, because of its different religious outlook. In his "Introduction to the Old Testament", Eissfeldt retained his position as outlined above 10 . 3 4 6 6

7

8

0

10

Ibid. 28—29. Ibid. 29—30. Ibid. 31. Ibid. 31: "Hier — und von anderen Fällen gilt Ähnliches — scheint mir doch der Umweg über das Märchen zur Sage ein Irrweg zu sein." O. Eissfeldt, Mythus und Sage in den Ras-Schamra-Texten, in: Beiträge zur Arabistik, Semitistik und Islamwissenschaft, 1944, 267—283; Kleine Schriften, II 489—501. Ibid. 496: ". . . in Anlehnung an den üblichen Sprachgebrauch, der dichterisch Erzählungen von Göttern als Mythus, Erzählungen aber, die geschichtliche Personen und bestimmte geographische Gegebenheiten mit dem Rankenwerk dichtender Phantasie überziehen, als Sage bezeichnet . . .". Ibid. 499: "Denn zum Mythus, der ja von Göttern erzählt, gehören mindestens zwei sich einigermaßen gleichberechtigt gegenüberstehende Gottheiten." Compare Gunkel's statement in Genesis, 3rd ed., xiv: "zu einer Göttergeschichte gehören aber mindestens zwei Götter". Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 19643, 42 ff. Eng. Tr. The Old Testament. An Introduction, 1965, 33 ff.

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In the work of Alt and Noth, Gunkel's stress on Märchen was not taken up. Their position rather resembled that of Ewald, and possibly the earlier position of Gunkel. The main reason for this was their desire to recover the historical realities which underlay the biblical traditions, coupled with a wide knowledge of Palestinian topography and archaeology. Alt's attempt, in his influential article on the religion of the patriarchs 11 , to discover in the ancient Near East social and religious parallels to the life and faith of the biblical patriarchs, was clearly inimical to the later Gunkel's attempt to explain the origin of the traditions by reference to comparative folklore. Accordingly, Alt and Noth stressed the saga, and particularly the aetiological saga12. Sagas were seen to be closely bound with particular places and localities, from which they were formed into cycles, which then became the property of tribal groups. By an examination of the tradition history of the Old Testament narratives, it was possible to trace the narratives back to various inter — tribal relationships, or aetiologies13. However, in spite of their greater knowledge of actual conditions in the ancient Near East, it is to be doubted whether Alt and Noth achieved any more objectivity in this particular field of their much wider activities, than did their predecessors back to Ewald. The concern for history was also apparent in the handling of myth. In a youthful lecture, but one which nevertheless marked out a position from which he never departed 14 , Noth described how the Old Testament had historicised myth. In his understanding of myth, Noth stressed its psychological rather than its literary aspects. Following Wundt, Noth saw myth as arising from primitive man's experience of the yearly cycle of nature, plus his tendency to personify natural forces 18 ; both ideas, as we have seen, had their roots in nineteenth century anthropology. A new point made by Noth was that there was an apparent contradiction between the timeless apprehension of the cycles of nature, and the personification of natural forces resulting in stories which had a temporal sequence. At an early stage of human development, there was no awareness of the contradiction, but later, the contradiction tended to bring myth and history 11 12

14

15

A. Alt, Der Gott der Väter, 1929. Reprinted in: Kleine Schriften, I 1959, 1—78. A. Alt, Josua, in: Werden und Wesen des Alten Testaments, 1936, 13—29; Kleine Schriften, I 176—192; M. Noth, Das Buch Josua, 1953 2 ; idem, Uberlieferungs13 geschichte des Pentateuchs, 1948. Ibid. passim. Compare the remarks of H. W. Wolff in: M. Noth, Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, II 1969, 8. M. Noth, Die Historisierung des Mythus im Alten Testament. First published in: Christentum und Wissenschaft 4 (1928), 265—272. 301—309. Reprinted in: Gesammelte Studien, II 29—47, to which reference is here made. For Noth's dependence on Wundt see 30—31. 10*

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together, resulting in the cosmological and theogonic myths of the ancient world 16 . Noth's point, then, was that the tendency to historicise myths was not peculiar to Israel; but Israel had historicised myth more radically than any other people in the ancient world, because her religion was historical, and had arisen on the ground of historical events 17 . In illustration of his thesis, Noth presented much which has since become very familiar in Old Testament scholarship, such as the historicisation of the battle of the gods in the Babylonian creation myth. The most important section, however, was that on eschatology, where on Noth's admission myth ought to play a part in Israel's religious thinking. But even here, Noth could find no room for myth. Rather he distinguished between eschatology and future hope, and argued that in Israel the future hope was expressed in the desire for an historical restoration of the glories of Israel and Jerusalem. If the Israelite vision went beyond this, it was to an end to history, just as the creation had been the beginning of history 18 . What is striking about this lecture is that Noth made no attempt to understand the nature of the type of thought which produced myth, nor to ask exactly how Israel's thought was different from that of her neighbours. Further, there was no examination of the notion of history. Indeed, the starting-point of the lecture was a quotation from Schleiermacher which made a distinction between history (which then in Noth's lecture became equated with the faith of Israel) and nature (which was equated by Noth with myth) 19 . It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a comparatively modern understanding of the notion of history had been forced upon the ancient Israelites by Noth. The interests of von Rad have been more theological than those of Alt and Noth, although in some respects he has followed their line. Like Noth, he can find no true mythology in the Old Testament 20 . 16

17 18

19

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Ibid. 31. 35: "So gewiß der reine Naturmythus im altorientalischen Weltbild und Kultus vorherrscht, so finden wir doch bei den kosmogonischen Mythen eine Verbindung mit der Geschichte, und vor allem im Anschluß an das Königtum erscheinen mythologische Schemata bereits weitgehend historisiert." Ibid. 47. Ibid. 44—46: "So ist die künftige Endzeit die Vollendung der Geschichte, wie die Schöpfung der Eingang der Geschichte war; sie ist auf das allerstärkste durch geschichtliche Gegebenheiten bedingt und in ihnen verwurzelt." F. Schleiermacher, Uber die Religion, ed. R. Otto 1899, 45. 57: "Zur äußeren Natur, welche von so Vielen für den ersten und vornehmsten Tempel der Gottheit, für das innerlichste Heiligthum der Religion gehalten wird, führe ich Euch nur als zum äußersten Vorhof derselben . . . Geschichte im eigentlichen Sinn ist der höchste Gegenstand der Religion, mit ihr hebt sie an und endigt mit ihr." G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments, I 19624, 168: "Mythisch sollte man diese Erzählungen vom Sündenfall bis zum Turmbau nicht nennen. Mag noch so

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In his commentary on Genesis he argues that many of the patriarchal narratives were originally aetiologies. In the course of time, the aetiological connections were broken, and the narratives took on new significance21. The modern interpreter must pay attention to their present structure and context as expressing Israel's encounter with her God. The similarity of this position to that of de Wette is striking; although it must be noted that von Rad would not call the present structure and function of the narratives "mythical" as did de Wette. The most original work within the position so far covered in this chapter is that of C. Westermann. Not only has he taken some account of the phenomenological approach to myth, but he has sought for objective comparisons between Israelite and non-Israelite saga, and has questioned the exact meaning of the word saga and how far it should be used in Old Testament interpretation. I shall take the points in reverse order. First of all, it is important for readers of Westermann that they should be aware of the fact that he declines to use the word saga, because he believes it to be misleading22. Of course, Westermann is addressing himself to German readers; but it cannot be imagined that the English word saga is free from ambiguity either. According to Westermann, Sage in German is traditionally closely bound up with Heldensage (hero-saga)23. But those narratives of the Old Testament which were called sagas by Gunkel — and Westermann has no quarrel with Gunkel's famous statement that "Genesis is a collection of sagas" — are in no sense stories about heroes, about their daring exploits and their attempts to make a name that will go down to posterity. The narratives which Gunkel called sagas are essentially narratives about the semi-nomadic type vieles in ihnen stoffgeschichtlich letztlich aus alten Mythen stammen, so ist doch die Geistigkeit dieser Erzählungen eine so klar durchsichtige und verständige, das sie eher in der älteren Weisheit ihre geistige Prägung erhalten haben mögen, und das wäre geradezu der Antipode zu jeder Form archaisch-mythischen Denkens." There are many similar such statements. 21

22

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Idem, Das erste Buch Mose, 1964', Eng. Tr. Genesis, 19632, 10: "Die Mehrzahl dieser alten Einzelerzählungen (i. e. those gathered and used by the Yahwist) waren 'Ätiologien', d. h. sie erfüllten ehedem den Zweck, irgendwelche stammesgeschichtlichen oder lokalen oder kultischen Gegebenheiten zu erklären." 12: "In den meisten dieser Fälle stürzt doch durch die Verkümmerung des ätiologischen Skopos nahezu das ganze alte Sinngebäude der Sage in sich zusammen." C. Westermann, Arten der Erzählungen in der Genesis, in: Forschung am Alten Testament, 1964, 9—91. See the important note 23 on page 39. Ibid. 39 note 23: "Anders als bei dem isländischen Wort saga ist das deutsche Wort Sage traditionell derart fest mit der Heldensage verbunden . . . " But compare Gunkel Genesis, 3rd ed., VIII: "Sage ist — das Wort wird hier in keinem anderen als in dem allgemein anerkannten Sinne gebraucht — volkstümliche, altüberlieferte, poetische Erzählung, die Personen oder Ereignisse der Vergangenheit behandelt."

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of extended family, and their motifs are not heroic. For this reason, Westermann prefers to use the term Erzählung (a more neutral term for account or story) in connection with the book of Genesis. If Westermann has an important point against the exact meaning of the word Sage as applied to the Old Testament, he has a stronger point about what he regards as its misuse in Old Testament scholarship. Accusing Gunkel of a certain amount of unclarity, he argues that the term "aetiological saga" is in fact a contradiction. If by saga one means (as Gunkel certainly did mean)24 a type of narrative which deals with private and family events, then it is not impossible that such narratives should have aetiological elements or motifs. But as soon as Gunkel classifies, not the aetiological motifs into various classes, but describes the sagas themselves as ethnological aetiologies or cult aetiologies and so on, he has shifted his ground without realising it 26 . Either a saga is a narrative about the events in a patriarchal family, or it is a narrative generated to explain the appearance of a particular site or the origin of a particular practice. It may be the latter, and as such may circulate among people of the patriarchal family type of social organisation; but a story circulating among a people is not the same as a story about that people. Westermann may seem to be splitting hairs here, but his point is an important one. I t is that the presence of an aetiological element in a story must in each case be carefully examined in order to ascertain its relationship to the story as a whole. If, as will often be the case, the aetiological element is found to be secondary, it will be incorrect to call the narrative as a whole an aetiological narrative. Further, aetiological motifs may occur in the Urgeschichte, in the patriarchal narratives or in historical narratives, and it would clearly be impossible to lump all such narratives together on the basis of the presence of the aetiological motifs. Thus a distinction should be drawn between the saga (or Erzählung, as Westermann would prefer to call it) as a story emanating from a particular social background and concerned essentially with events in the life of a patriarchal family, and aetiological motifs which can arise in many different types of social setting. In all this, Westermann is strongly influenced by Jolles's "Einfache Formen", and especially the description in the latter of the background and content of the Icelandic saga, which appears to offer close parallels both to the Urgeschichte and the patriarchal narratives26. What we get, then, is an 24

25 26

Gunkel op. cit. ix: "sie (the traditions of Genesis) behandelt vorwiegend die Geschichte einer Privatfamilie". See also the continuation of the passage. Westermann 40ff. Westermann 36—39. Compare A. Jolles, Einfache Formen, 62—90. On page 87 Jolles discusses the Old Testament, and finds a distinction between the saga-like patriarchal narratives, and the historically-orientated narratives of the monarchy.

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important refinement of Gunkel's position, based on comparative studies which enable Westermann to make out a strong case for a particular Sitz im Leben for the saga. Westermann is no less interesting on myth. He takes note of the phenomenological position as represented by Pettazoni 27 and is obviously impressed with the possibility of having a method which allows for cross-cultural comparisons28. Yet his instincts are against the way in which the phenomenological method brings together material irrespective of time and place; thus his desire is for a method which allows for cross-cultural comparisons, combined with an approach which studies particular areas in depth and considers historical developments within them. For Westermann, the solution lies in the form critical method 29 . It is a presupposition of the form critical method that similar literary types (or Gattungen) in different societies have arisen from similar backgrounds within those societies. If this were not so, then a comparison between Icelandic and Israelite sagas would be out of the question. Therefore, at the level of the Gattung, cross-cultural comparisons are possible. However, given a particular society, it is possible to study a particular Gattung in depth, and thus allow for its historical development. In this way, Westermann hopes to combine phenomenological and historical insights 30 . Along with this position he holds two others. The first is the Wundtian view that the Märchen is the most primitive literary form and that myth (in the sense of stories about the gods) develops in more sophisticated cultures 31 ; the second is the phenomenological view of the function of myth, according to which myths conserve and explain the present order of the world and society. Thus we can understand Westermann's assertion that the original Gattung of the narratives from which Israel has taken her creation stories is those institutions which, by myth-ritual means, secure the preservation of the existing world order32. Interesting as is the blend of various positions which Westermann has achieved, his approach is not without difficulties. In particular, he runs into trouble in trying to defend the ideas that all myths are originally connected with rituals, and that the Gattung allows cross27 28

29 30

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Westermann, Genesis, 1966, 28. Idem, Das Verhältnis des Jahweglaubens zu den außerisraelitischen Religionen, in: Forschung am Alten Testament, 189 ff. Ibid. 191. Ibid. 191: "bestimmte Wandlungen bei Texten mit einer gleichbleibenden GrundStruktur lassen Bewegungen erkennen, die sich als Wandlungen in der Zeit, also, recht verstanden, als Entwicklungen nachweisen lassen. So läßt sich die phänomenologische Betrachtungsweise durchaus mit der religionsgeschichtlichen vereinen." 32 Genesis 324. Ibid. 30.

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cultural comparison. An actual case concerns the Flood narrative. Westermann notes that nowhere in ancient Near Eastern literature is there any hint of a connection of the narrative of the flood with a ritual33. Since ex hypothesi the Flood narrative must have arisen from an institution concerned with preserving the present world order, Westermann appeals to Frazer's "Folk-Lore in the Old Testament", and on the basis of parallels found there, concludes that the Flood narrative was once originally connected with ritual34. Unfortunately, Westermann does not choose his examples well. The first concerns an aboriginal race of South-West China, where at important festivals, ancestral tablets made from the tree in which an ancestor survived a flood, were worshipped. But nothing is said in Frazer's account about the connection of the narrative with a ritual, and Westermann does not mention a concluding paragraph in which it is warned that the account betrays Christian influence 36 . Similarly, in citing Lucian's account of the commemoration of the deliverance of Duecalion at Hierapolis on the Euphrates, Westermann again overlooks Frazer's conclusion, which is that Semitic influence on the story is unquestionable36. Only the third illustration is a possible parallel. According to Frazer's account, there was an annual ceremony among the Mandan Indians of North America at which the part of the man who had escaped the flood was acted out. He collected from each wigwam in the village an edged tool. These tools were then thrown into a deep pool in the nearby river, as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Water 37 . In this way, the Mandans hoped for deliverance from a flood catastrophe. The point of the edged tools was that it was by means of such tools that the canoe was made in which the man escaped the great flood. I find it hard to be convinced that such a North American practice observed in the nineteenth century of our era allows the conclusion that several millennia before our era in Mesopotamia, flood narratives were connected with rituals designed to preserve the existing world order. T. H. Gaster, in his up-dated edition of Frazer's book has pointed out that not a few of the North American flood stories seem to betray the influence of the Bible38. In my view, we 33 34

35 36 37 38

Ibid. 68. Ibid. 68—69. To be fair to Westermann, his interpretation of the Flood narrative in Genesis is apparently going to concentrate on the present structure of the biblical narrative within its context. I have chosen to criticise only a minor theme; yet it is often such minor themes which reveal the contradictory presuppositions on which more important work rests. J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, I 213. Ibid. 155. Ibid. 293. T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament, 1969, 114.

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ought to allow for the possibility, in connection with the Mandan Indians, that a flood story influenced by the biblical account has been linked with a ceremony designed to avert the disaster and damage that result from the river flooding and breaking its banks. Incidentally, Westermann does not mention that there are many flood stories recorded by Frazer where there is no record of a connection with a rite or ceremony. An interesting example of the operation of Westermann's position is to be found in his treatment of the figure of the serpent in Gen 2—3. In a survey of previously-held views39 he mentions the theory that the serpent is a mythical figure. This is then described in terms of three possibilities. First, that the serpent is the bringer of life and wisdom; second that the serpent is a god of the underworld, and as such the bringer of life and death, and third that the serpent represents the anti-divine forces of chaos. Westermann wishes to reject these views, in the light of the biblical assertion that the serpent was one of God's creatures40 and prefers to argue that in the biblical narrative, the serpent is simply an animal, and that the question of the origin of evil is purposely left as a mystery. Although this position is justified primarily from the biblical text, one of the supporting arguments is interesting. Westermann notes the Märchen-like features of the narrative, especially the fact that the serpent is a talking animal, and concludes that the story which was used by the biblical editor came from that primitive background which produces Märchen, as opposed to that more advanced culture in which cosmogonies arise41. The implication therefore seems to be that because the serpent originates from a pre — mythical background (i. e. a background in which developed myths have not yet arisen) therefore it cannot be a mythical figure in its use by the biblical editor. As stated earlier, Westermann's conclusion does not rest on this argument alone; but considered in itself, this argument is hardly convincing, and is another example of how the notions of myth and Märchen can be made to support conclusions in modern Old Testament interpretation. In the case of myth, as with saga, Westermann's real contribution lies not in advancing a new methodology, but in providing a critique of older positions which Westermann still broadly accepts himself. The treatment of Gen 1 is noteworthy in two respects. First, following 39 40

41

Westermann, Genesis, 323. Ibid. 324: "Hätte J mit der Schlange wirklich die Verkörperung einer Jahwe feindlichen Macht oder einer Jahwe feindlichen Vorstellung gemeint, dann hätte er nicht im gleichen Atemzug sagen können, Jahwe habe sie erschaffen." Ibid. 324: "Dieser Kreis von Erzählungen hat, wie das Märchen, seine Wurzeln in den primitiven Kulturen, in deutlichem Unterschied zu den Kosmogonien, die zu den Hochkulturen gehören."

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W. H. Schmidt42, careful attention is paid to the tradition history of the chapter, which is seen to have very complex origins. This largely undermines any attempt to see Gen 1 simply as an Israelite version of an ancient Near Eastern myth43. Secondly, the thesis of Gunkel in "Schöpfung und Chaos" is challenged, according to which traces of a struggle between Yahweh and forces of chaos, however represented, in the prophetic books and the psalms, is proof of a widespread knowledge in ancient Israel of the Babylonian creation myth44. Westermann argues that the theme of the battle between gods representing the forces of order and chaos was not originally connected with creation in the ancient Near Eastern myths, at least as far as the latter are represented by Sumerian and Canaanite myths. According to him, it was in Babylon that the theme of the battle between the gods was first combined with an account of the creation of the world. Further, Gunkel confined himself largely to the Enuma elish, whereas today we have available new material, such as that from Ras Shamra46. Westermann does not deny that in poetic parts of the Old Testament traces can be found of the theme of the victory of Yahweh over the powers of chaos. What he disputes is that such traces imply knowledge of a creation myth, and thus he calls into question one of the major premisses of Gunkel's position. If Westermann is correct in this argument, as I believe him to be, some of the theories about the Israelite new year festival which use arguments similar to those of Gunkel, may have to be re-examined. K. Koch in his important book "Was ist Formgeschichte?" does not break any new ground in the understanding of myth in Old Testament interpretation. Unfortunately, he adds some confusion to the understanding of saga, which needs to be exposed. The section on saga draws attention, as did Westermann, to the work of Jolles46. A new factor which Koch adds, however, is that "corporate personality" aids in the understanding of the significance of saga for the ancient Israelite. Koch declares that "nowhere in the Old Testament do we have such a clear idea of 'corporate personality' as in the saga, where the fate of whole groups of people is described in terms essentially 42 41 44 45

46

W. H. Schmidt, Die Schöpfungsgeschichte der Priesterschrift, 1967 2 . Westermann, Genesis, 116 ff. Ibid. 41 ff. Ibid. 43. Compare the Statement of W. G. Lambert, A new look at the Babylonian background of Genesis, JTS 16 (1965) : "The Epic of Creation is not a norm of Babylonian or Sumerian cosmology. It is a sectarian and aberrant combination of mythological threads woven into an unparalleled compositum." K. Koch, Was ist Formgeschichte ? 1964. Eng. Xr. The Growth of the Biblical Tradition, 1969.

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'personal' " 47 . Later, it is argued that for the Israelite, the saga bridged the gap between the past and the present, because corporate personality enabled the Israelite to identify himself so closely with the heroes of the saga48. Elsewhere, I have tried to argue that as used by Wheeler Robinson (and it is the latter to whom Koch's footnotes refer) corporate personality meant several different things, including corporate responsibility and corporate representation49. It is only corporate representation which will help Koch here, but this aspect of corporate personality is based on Levy-Bruhl's theories of pre-logical primitive mentality, and stands or falls with those theories60. The ancient Israelite may indeed have identified himself closely with the heroes of his nation, just as modern readers are still able to do. The introduction of corporate personality into the argument is not helpful, and indeed is another example of the indiscriminate use of unexamined concepts in the attempt to interpret difficult Old Testament traditions. When we turn to Hempel's article "Glaube, Mythos und Geschichte im Alten Testament"61 we find ourselves almost in another world. This article is a comment from the Old Testament side on the demythologising controversy aroused by Bultmann, a controversy largely confined to New Testament specialists and philosophers of religion62. Hempel rejects Bultmann's definition of myth, according to which myth expresses "man's understanding of himself in the world in which he lives" so that "myth should be interpreted not cosmologically, but anthropologically, or better still, existentially"63. Hempel prefers to follow the position of Lohmeyer who asks "how else can we believe in God or speak of the gods, unless we conceive of him or of them as working and having their being in this world among us men in the same mode as men speak and work ?"64. It is true that myths express something about man's understanding of his existence, and thus can be interpreted existentially, but the existential interpretation does not exhaust the meaning of myths. Myth dares to speak about the divine power which man experiences as the ground 47 48

49

50 61

52 53 54

Ibid. 176. Eng. Tr. 154. Ibid 176 n. 25 Eng Tr. 176 n 25: "the Israelite can relate his own life to that of the hero, because the conception of 'corporate personality' is natural to him". See my article: The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality: A Re-examination, J TS 21 (1970), 1—16. Ibid. 9ff. J. Hempel, Glaube, Mythos und Geschichte im Alten Testament, ZAW 65 (1953), 109 if. Reference is here made to the Sonderdruck, 1954, which has different pagination. See the two English volumes Kerygma and Myth, 1953, 1962. Kerygma and Myth, I 10. Hempel 4; Kerygma and Myth 126.

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of his existence not just from a human standpoint; it dares to speak of this power as an absolute over against man and the world, and in order to do so, myth uses analogies drawn from human relationships and actions 55 . These ideas, taken from Lohmeyer, will serve as sufficient background to Hempel's argument. As I understand Hempel, he is saying three main things. What follows in this paragraph is a fairly free presentation of the three points; Hempel's thought, not to mention his German, is far from easy to understand. The first point is that although myth (in the sense of an indispensable way of speaking of the divine in human language) cannot be separated from world view (Weltanschauung), it does not follow that because Old Testament myth expresses a world view that is pre-scientific, it can therefore be demythologised by eliminating the world view in favour of a modern scientific standpoint. What must not be overlooked is the fact that Old Testament myth has its roots in a real experience of God, and is not just simply a naive way of understanding the physical world. Secondly, Israel demythologised myths that she took over from her neighbours in the ancient world, but she demythologised them from the standpoint of faith. It was not that Israel developed a cosmology quite different from that of her neighbours; clearly she did not, as a comparison of Genesis 1 with Babylonian and Ugaritic cosmology shows. But she brought a different insight into the nature of God to bear on the commonly accepted cosmological views. While this resulted in Israel discarding much from contemporary mythologies, a certain amount was retained in order for Israel to express mythically her unique faith. Hempel's third point is that it was not so much that Israel historicised myth, as that she mythologised history, as past events were presented as the working out of the divine purpose. It now remains to spell out Hempel's position in greater detail. Hempel approaches the subject by classifying myths into various literary classes and by examining how Israel dealt with each type that was taken over from her neighbours. Theogonic myths, by which Hempel seems to understand myths about the exploits of the gods, were radically transformed in Israel. Here, in rather an old-fashioned way, Hempel is prepared to see myths of the exploits of the sun god behind such narrratives as those of Samson and Jonah 86 . The second class of myths, those expressing love between a god and a goddess, can also be traced in the Old Testament in such narratives as the Song of Songs and the Book of Esther, but these myths too have been radically transformed 57 . The same is less true of the other three classes 55 56

Lohmeyer ibid. 127—128. Hempel 5—7. " Ibid. 9—14.

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of myths considered, namely, cosmogonic myths, with their implications stretching over into eschatology, soteriological myths, also with eschatological implications, and revelation myths. Compared with ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies, the myths of Gen 1 and 2—3 have been given a distinctly Israelite dress; but they remain myth. An existential interpretation (i. e. an interpretation devoted to the human understanding of self) is, of course, possible for Gen 2—3; but the intention of the Yahwist was not just to express human self-awareness, but to explain the present state of the world and human nature in terms of divine purpose58. It is in elaboration of this point that Hempel makes some important observations about the mythologising of Israel's history 69 . He regards it as a mistake to distinguish between narratives like Gen 2—3, set at the beginning of time, and narratives like the Court Chronicle of David which appears to present a secularised view of the last days of David's reign, working out themes in terms of human lust, rivalry and ambition. Hempel's point is that secularised as the Court Chronicle may appear to be, it nevertheless presupposes a world view in which the divine word of judgement is worked out, albeit by human agencies. It is narratives like Gen 2—3 which provide the basis for the world view which underlies narratives like the Court Chronicle, and the difference between them can be exaggerated, quite apart from the fact that the distinction often made by modern scholarship would have been foreign to the biblical writer 60 . The Urgeschichte is thus the necessary presupposition of the historical narratives of the Old Testament61. But if the Urgeschichte provides the mythical beginning in terms of which Israelite history must be read, the eschatology of the Old Testament is the way in which historical elements, for example, the figure of David and the covenant between the house of David and God, are mythologised in order to express the last things62. 68

59 80

81

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Ibid. 14ff.: "Darüber aber darf nicht verkannt werden, daß es dem Jahwisten nicht darum geht, sich selbst zu verstehen, sondern den gegenwärtigen Zustand seiner Welt zu erklären, den Zustand des Daseins, in dem er und alle Menschen seiner Tage — und aller Tage, setzen wir hinzu — leben, ursächlich zu begreifen." Ibid. 16ff. Ibid. 15: "Daß zwischen dem, was wir Geschichte nennen . . . und dem, was wir Mythos nennen, dem unmittelbaren Handeln Gottes unter uns Menschen, sei es zum Segen oder zum Fluch — daß zwischen 'Geschichte' und 'Mythos' ein qualitativer Unterschied, ein Unterschied des unmittelbaren Wirklichkeitsgehaltes besteht, ist ein dem antiken Schriftsteller fernliegender Gedanke." Ibid. 21: "Hier geht es wirklich um die Urgeschichte, ohne welche die Volksgeschichte keine Sicherheit besitzt und ohne welche die gesamte Geschichtsschau einen ihrer großartigsten Züge verlöre: Die Einheit aller Geschichte in der Einheit des weltordnenden und weltregierenden Gottes." Ibid. 23—26.

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Similar points about eschatology are made in Hempel's consideration of soteriological myths63. There is much material which cannot be discussed here, about sacral kingship, the suffering servant, and the teacher of righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However,Hempel's consideration of these various figures, and their importance in Old Testament eschatology leads him to further comments on the inadequacy of the idea that myth is simply historicised in the Old Testament64. Undoubtedly the most important part of Hempel's article for our purposes is that which deals with the revelation myth 65 . The thesis is that while Israel demythologised the idea of the immediate and unmediated presence of God, mythical means of expression for God's indirect presence and activity were retained and developed. Such means of expression included the communication of God's word in dream or vision, the appearance of a messenger of God in quasihuman form, and circumlocutions for God's presence like the terms "name" and "glory". Hempel maintains that in these and similar ways, Israel expressed the experience of a God over and against man and the world; a God who both predicted and shaped the future destinies of men and nations, and acted with freedom to reverse his promises so as to bring unexpected punishment or blessing. In particular, Hempel stresses the experiences of the prophets, and sees in their wrestlings with God — their unwillingness to fulfil their mission, the pain brought upon them by the fulfilment of their mission, their conviction of the difference between the divinely-given word and merely human ideas — the supreme example of what lies at the back of the Old Testament descriptions of God's revelation66. Hempel recognises that there is a "rationalistic" criticism of such belief and expression in the Old Testament, especially in the Wisdom literature. Yet the Old Testament discovers that precisely when "reason" has done all it can to understand the ways of God, myth breaks through with overwhelming power, and Job finds himself confronted by the creator, and in that confrontation comes to an acceptance of his position which would have been impossible on the basis of "reason" 67 . Hempel does not suppose that there is no difference between the world view of the Old Testament, and the modern world view. Clearly 63 64

65 66

Ibid. 29 ff. Ibid. 44: ". . . die Historisierung des Mythos niemals ein Vorgang ist, der alle Rätsel löst, dort zumal nicht, wo die Geschichte selbst kraft des in ihr sich vollziehenden Gotteswaltens 'mythisch' und damit zur Grundlage eines neuen Mythos wird, in dem die 'neuen Dinge' in ihrer gottgewirkten Herrlichkeit die 'alten Dinge' überstrahlen, die der Kultus jetzt vergegenwärtigt". Ibid. 51 ff. 67 Ibid. 57. Ibid. 55—56.

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there is a difference. The problem for modern man is to know what it means to say that God is at work in human events, and to discover how and when he is. The problem for the Old Testament was to distinguish between true and false claims to be speaking the word of God, in a context where it was taken for granted that words from God were to be had. Yet Hempel does not think that the Old Testament experience of God as expressed in the revelation myth is beyond the experience of modern man. The experience of the mystic, and the experiences of prayer and forgiveness known to the modern believer, have something in common with that knowledge of God which Israel could only express mythically 68 . Thus Hempel's final conclusion is that if myth is defined too narrowly, it will be excluded from the Old Testament, to the detriment of a proper understanding of the presentation of Old Testament history, and Israel's language about divine activity in the world 69 . Hempel's views are important for several reasons. Firstly, they are an important counterweight to the excessive concern with history and form critical interpretations of myth, which, as described above, have been such a feature of recent German scholarship. Secondly, by describing as mythical the various Old Testament ways of expressing the indirect presence and action of God in the world, Hempel has introduced the notion of analogical language into the discussion of myth, from the Old Testament side, and in this respect, his contribution is to be read in the light of Ricoeur's approach to the matter. Third, Hempel is not frightened to allow the possibility that there is a link between modern religious experience, and that which underlies Israel's mythical expression of God's action in the world. Hempel brings little evidence to support his views, outside of what has been said by Old Testament scholars on various aspects of the material which he interprets. His approach is not epistemological, but rather pietistic, and his case rests on its intrinsic coherence and appeal. All the same, his position is most suggestive, and some of the pointers which I think he has given will be taken up in the final chapter. A contribution which follows a line not dissimilar from that of Hempel is W. H. Schmidt's "Mythos im Alten Testament" 70 . This article is noteworthy for its careful attempts at definition of terms, 68

69

70

Ibid. 59: "Es gibt keine Mystik, es gibt keine Gebetsforschung, die mehr sein will als Gemütserleichterung durch Aussprechen dessen, was die Seele bedrückt und quält, die nicht den 'mythischen' Zug in sich trugen." Ibid. 61: "Der Offenbarungsmythos des AT erweist sich, wenn ich recht sehe, nicht so sehr als ein Stück vergangenen Weltbildes, eines Unreichs der Dämonen und Geister, sondern als so fest im Wagen des Religiösen selbst verwurzelt, daß die Lösung ohne Verletzung des 'religiösen' Erlebens selbst unmöglich erscheint". EvTh 27 (1967), 237—254.

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and qualification of generalisations. Schmidt distinguishes between myth as story (Erzählung), and mythical conceptions (Vorstellungen). In the description of myth as story, the phenomenology of religion position is largely followed. Myths are stories about gods, about happenings which occurred and will occur on the yonder side (jenseits) of history. The stories justify the present state of things, are closely connected with ritual, and enable the primordial events to be experienced in the present. All this is familiar ground. However, Schmidt has some slight qualifications to register, at least as far as the connection between myth and the cult is concerned in the ancient Near East, although in the event, the qualifications do not lead to any significant conclusions71. By mythical conceptions, Schmidt appears to mean, along with Bultmann, a pre-scientific view of the world. Because the term "demythologising" (Entmythologisierung) has been used by Bultmann to denote a particular hermeneutic method as applied to the New Testament by modern scholarship, Schmidt proposes that the term "demythicising" (Entmythisierung) should be used to describe Israel's own handling of myths that she adapted from her neighbours 72 . Briefly, Schmidt's position is that while Israel demythicised the myths that she took over from the ancient Near East, she could not dispense with the mythical conceptions of the ancient world, although she sought to transcend them in language about God. Like Hempel, Schmidt regards the idea that myths were historicised by Israel as an inadequate description of the matter. In the case of Israel's use of the myth of the fight with the powers of chaos, in the psalms and the prophetic literature, the mythical fragments have not been transformed into history. Rather, they express the uniqueness of the God of Israel over against the so-called gods and powers of the other nations of the world. Here, we are still in the realm of myth, but myth subservient to Israel's faith 73 . Schmidt also follows Hempel in pointing out that in some cases, history has been mythologised in the Old Testament 74 . On the question of Israel's approach to mythical conceptions, there is an interesting exposition of Ps 139, in which it is pointed out that although the cosmology of the Psalm involves the familiar ancient Near Eastern view of the world, the Psalmist transcends this world view when speaking of the presence of God from which man cannot hide. Further, the Old Testament language about the immanence and transcendence of God is deliberately contradictory, for only so can 71

72 73 74

Ibid. 240 note 7. In the event, Schmidt argues that the non-connection of myth with the cult in the Old Testament is evidence for demythicising. See 250. Ibid 242. Ibid. 246ff. Schmidt pays particular attention to Ps 77 1411. and 89 7-9. Ibid. 247 ff.

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it describe the reality to which it points 76 . In this latter observation, Schmidt seems to me to come close to the view of Hempel that myth is an indispensable way of talking about God, yetSchmadt emphatically rejects such a definition of myth, and the way in which he does so is methodologically interesting. In the section in which he describes the mythologising of history, especially with regard to eschatology, Schmidt warns that similar as are myth and history in some respects, they are not to be identified in the Old Testament 76 . This last point is a fair one if we are meaning that the modern investigator, in order to speak meaningfully at all about the mythologising of history, must have separate ideas about the nature of myth and history. This is different from saying whether the biblical writer was aware of any such distinction. However, in arguing against the view that myth is a necessary way of speaking about the divine, Schmidt seems to confuse myth as imposed on the Old Testament by the modern scholar, and myth as understood by the biblical writer. Schmidt's argument seems to be that right through the Old Testament writings, there is opposition to myth (by which at this point Schmidt seems to mean stories with a polytheistic content which funtion in a particular way together with the cult to preserve the present world order). However, if we define myth as a necessary way of speaking about God, how can we account for this Old Testament opposition to myth ? 77 . But the answer is that it is we who have defined myth, and as long as we know what we are doing, there is no reason why we should not define myth in more than one way in order to do 75

Ibid. 252 ff. Ibid. 247: "Darum bedeutet die Historisierung des Mythos zugleich eine Mythisierung der Geschichte. . . . Das erlaubt aber gewiß nicht die Folgerung, daß im Alten Testament Mythos und Geschichte gleichberechtigt und unterschiedslos nebeneinander treten. Die mythisch-geschichtlichen Aussagen müssen also auf ihre Intention hin befragt werden; daß sie auf geschichtliche Wirklichkeiten aus sind, bleibt ja deutlich." " Ibid. 249: "Wäre der Mythos eine dem Glauben angemessene 'Ausdrucksform', dann bliebe die Auseinandersetzung, die das Alte Testament vom Jahwisten über die Prophetie bis zur Priesterschrift mit dem Mythos führt, unerklärlich. Ein sehr weites Verständnis, das den 'Mythos' als genuine Sprache der Religion bzw. als Ausdruck jeder Gotteserfahrung überhaupt auffaßt, ist also für die Exegese ungeeignet; denn es erlaubt nicht, die Interpretation, die die Bibel am Mythos vollzieht, auszusagen". Schmidt seems to use the term myth in two senses at once when he continues "Israel hat seinen Glauben nicht ohne Mythos ausgesprochen, vielleicht — zumal im Hinblick auf die Schöpfung — nicht aussprechen können. Wo aber der Mythos in die Glaubensaussagen eindringt, da wird er verändert, umgestaltet oder gar überwunden.". The first sense seems to indicate the indispensable way of expressing the divine, the second use refers to the phenomenological definition of myth as a story with particular functions. 76

R o g e r s o n , Myth

11

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full justice to what is a complex phenomenon. Further, it seems to be a presupposition of Schmidt's position that the biblical writer saw in the myths of Israels's neighbours nothing more than alien polytheistic ways of understanding the world. He seems to take it for granted that Israel could have seen nothing of value in the myths that would assist the expression of faith in the God of Israel. Whether or not this last point is true is something that cannot be merely taken for granted, especially as the work of another scholar has suggested that in retaining parts of myths in the Old Testament, the biblical writers deliberately created a tension between the mythical and the biblical world views precisely in order to express what needed to be expressed 78 . Thus, helpful and suggestive as Schmidt's article is in general, it betrays the common mistake of starting from a definition of myth proposed by modern investigation, and then of insisting that to the biblical writer myth could have meant no more or less than what the modern definition entailed 79 . 78

B. S. Childs, Myth and Reality in the Old Testament, 19622. Child's book will be considered shortly. 79 This survey of recent German writing on m y t h in the Old Testament does not pretend to be exhaustive, b u t hopes to have covered the main methodological points t h a t occur in this scholarship. No reference has been made to t h e position in Barth's Kirchliche Dogmatik I I I , 1,1957 3 , where m y t h and saga are discussed in relation to the creation narratives in Genesis. This is because as far as I can understand Barth, his definitions are his own (cp. 88: "Der Nicht-Fachmann muß den Versuch wagen, sich hier selber zurechtzufinden") and look as though they have been framed in order to support the particular exegesis of Genesis which Barth wishes to p u t forward. As against t h e general stream of Old Testament thought since Wundt, Barth regards Märchen as variation or degeneration (Abart) of m y t h (91). H e rejects the idea t h a t myths are stories of the gods, as being superficial, b u t his own positive definition "Der wirkliche Gegenstand und Inhalt des Mythus sind die wesentlichen Prinzipien der (im Gegensatz zur konkreten Geschichte) allgemeinen, an bestimmte Zeiten und Orte nicht gebundenen Wirklichkeiten und Verhältnisse des natürlichen und geistigen Kosmos" (91) leads t o a somewhat unorthodox understanding of the Enuma dish on 95ff. I find the definition of saga on 88 quite incomprehensible. Two other publications should be mentioned. The first volume of the Wörterbuch der Mythologie entitled: Götter und Mythen im Vorderen Orient (Ed. H. W. Haussig) 1965, does not deal with the Old Testament, b u t covers t h e rest of the ancient Near East. In the introduction, myth is defined not as "Göttergeschichte oder Märchen vergangener Zeit" b u t as "reales Leitbild" (v). "Was einst in der Vergangenheit Wirklichkeit wurde, ist wiederholbar und festgefügtes Schema, das nicht nur die Gegenwart, sondern auch die Zukunft umfaßt. Dadurch aber gibt er den Halt, den nur die Religion zu bieten vermag: Die Sicherheit gegenüber dem Unentrinnbaren und Unfaßbaren der täglichen Bedrohung, gegenüber der Unsicherheit unserer Existenz". This definition is strongly reminiscent of the phenomenological-functionalist approach. However, the introduction is not frightened to go further and to mention "ein weiterer Aspekt des Mythos". The wider aspect is the fact t h a t

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Under the heading of "recent developments" I propose to examine briefly three contributions from North America, and two from British scholarship. The most original and most detailed of these contributions is B. S. Childs's "Myth and Reality in the Old Testament" 80 . Basically, this book is a variation of the theme "the Old Testament versus Mythopeoic Thought" except that the conflict is worked out very differently when compared with Wright's "The Old Testament Against its Environment". Childs rejects the two main definitions of myth which he sees as having been influential in modern biblical scholarship. These are the "broad" definition, which Childs traces from Heyne to Bultmann, according to which myth is a pre-scientific world view; and the "narrow" definition, by which Childs means the form critical approach initiated by Gunkel, but going back to the brothers Grimm81. The first is rejected on the grounds that it represents a basically rationahst position. The second has contributed some useful insights to biblical study, but is too narrow. In Childs's view, the definition which should be adopted is the phenomenological position, which Childs summarises as follows: "Myth is a form by which the existing structure of reality is understood and maintained. It concerns itself with showing how an action of a deity, conceived of as occurring in the primeval age, determines a phase of contemporary world order. Existing world order is maintained through the actualization of the myth in the cult" 82 . All this is familiar enough, but two points should be noted. The first is that in discussing Mesopotamian myths, the "Alle Aussage religiöser Tatbestände, die nicht theologische Spekulation und Abstraktion bleiben will, mündet in den Mythos. In der ihm eigenen bildhaften Sprache und Begriffswelt kann er das sonst Unaussprechliche und nahezu Unbegreifliche umschreiben und dadurch lebendig werden lassen." This point then leads to the conclusion that "So verstanden, ist Mythologie nicht auf die Religionen vergangener und gegenwärtiger polytheistischer Anschauungen beschränkt, sondern reicht auch in den Bereich der großen monotheistischen Religionen hinein." The readiness of this introduction to admit of more than one way of understanding the complex phenomenon of myth, is in welcome contrast to some of the positions discussed above. A study of the manner in which Israel assimilated elements from the mythology of her neighbours is contained in Annemarie Ohler's Mythologische Elemente im Alten Testament, 1969. The thesis here maintained is that in the pre-exilic period, Israel fought hard against mythology, and assimilated little. In the exilic period and after, because Israel was more exposed to foreign influences through the sojourn in Babylon, etc., more mythology was absorbed. During this period, however, the fact that the faith of Israel was much more developed and firmly held, made it possible for mythology to be assimilated without the danger to Israel's faith that there would have been in the earlier period. 80 81 82

For publication details, see note 76 above. Myth and Reality in the Old Testament 13—16. Ibid. 29—30. 11»

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only example which is given by Childs of myth connected with the cult, and actualising the existing world order, is the Enuma elish, and this, apparently, as interpreted in "Myth and Ritual" 83 . In the case of Egyptian mythology, no example of connection with the cult is given, unless we are to infer that the myths were closely connected with ceremonies concerning the king84. The second point is that Childs's real concern is to establish the nature of the mythical world view, and in particular to argue that it had little sense of chronological time 86 . In this part of the argument, although Childs gets some help from phenomenologists of religion such as Eliade and van der Leeuw, he also draws on other writers such as Cassirer. In other words, his position is somewhat eclectic. But the difficulty of putting such descriptions under the umbrella of phenomenology is that one is not sure of the exact status of the mythical view of the world that is being presented. Is the position epistemological, as in the case of Cassirer's categories of mythical space and time; or do we have to deal simply with a naive world view? Further, is it entirely fair to assume that because Mesopotamian myths are allegedly similar to the myths of primitives, therefore the view of time as held in ancient Mesopotamia can be reconstructed from alleged primitive views of time? I find this part of Childs's argument least satisfactory. The nearest he comes to putting forward any data on the basis of which the Mesopotamian view of time can be described, is in the assumption that the astrological preoccupation of the Babylonians meant a cyclical view of time 86 . However, one would want a much more detailed discussion of the matter if one wished to be confident that the conclusions were reliable. In slight mitigation of this last complaint, it should be stated at once that in contrasting the biblical views of space and time with the mythical views, Childs does not postulate the vast difference in outlook that is found in "The Old Testament against its Environment" 8 7 . Childs finds that regarding both time and space, the biblical view is essentially the mythical view, with certain significant alterations. In the case of the biblical view of time, "the Old Testament pattern does not conceive of strictly primeval time which returns in end time" 88 . Reality is determined not by primeval acts, but by the initiatives of God in history, creating for himself a chosen people. Secondly, although the Endzeit will be a return to the Urzeit, these 83 84 85 88 87

88

Ibid. 27 and note 1. Ibid. 27—29. Ibid. 23—24. 73—75. See especially 73 note 1. Ibid. 40. The Old Testament against its Environment 29: "The religion of Israel suddenly appears in history, breaking radically with the mythopoeic approach to reality." Myth and Reality in the Old Testament 78.

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two "times" will not be identical as in mythical thought. Rather, both will have their unity in the will and purposes which the God of Israel has revealed. In the case of space the biblical difference is that the holiness which is thought of as attaching to certain places is in the Old Testament connected to a place which only becomes holy in the course of Israel's history, and which is dependent on God for its status as holy 89 . Also, while the mythical category of space has as its goal a return to the past, Israel looks forward to a new creation in the future. This new creation would be the consummation of God's acts in Israel's history, which latter was "the history of God's space entering into the world of the 'old space'" 9 0 . While there is much in all this that I am not happy about, partly because there is too much concentration on prophetic imagery and little attention to wisdom teaching and the historical writings, it must be said that Childs has kept well within the phenomenological ground that he marked out for himself. His account of the conflict between the mythical and biblical views of time and space is a credible account, given the phenomenological presuppositions, of how the faith of Israel might have altered the emphasis within what remains a mythical view. However, this is not the most noteworthy part of Childs's book. The most noteworthy part, in my view, is his treatment of certain Old Testament passages, among them Gen 1 and 2—3. In the treatment, it is assumed that by taking up certain fragments from myths of surrounding peoples, the biblical writers deliberately created a tension between the faith of Israel, and the world view implied in mythology, so as to express important theological truths. In the case of Gen 1, it is argued that the description of chaos in v. 2 deliberately uses mythological elements in order to stress the existence of a negative factor in creation. God is the creator, and there is no suggestion of a pre-existent force of evil, or of a dualism inherent in creation. Yet there is that in the created world which man finds threatening, and Childs believes that it is this that is expressed by the deliberate use of mythical elements in Gen 1. In Gen 2—3, Childs argues that the serpent retains sufficient mythical overtones to be able to indicate the paradox of evil that has come into God's world91. While I think 89

90 91

Ibid. 92: "Holiness is not an impersonal force stemming from a primeval act, but that which belongs to the convenant God and shares his being." Ibid. 94. Ibid. 43: "the OT writer struggles to contrast the creation, not with a background of empty neutrality, but with an active chaos standing in opposition to the will of God". 49: "Demonic elements of a Canaanite myth were associated with the serpent who epitomized that which is sinister and strange among the animals. The Yahwist retained the demonic character of the snake arising out of the myth, but affirmed that he was a mere creature under God's power. The tension created in the language

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that it is difficult to verify this (not to mention many other interpretations of Gen 1—3), in the sense that I do not see how we can really know what the mythological element would have meant to the biblical writer and reader, nor whether it would have created the posited tension, what is welcome about this approach is the readiness to allow an element of theological awareness to the biblical writer. Although Childs himself rejects the definition of myth "as a symbolic expression of transcendental reality which is not capable of being otherwise expressed" 92 he has found room for something very much like this view, in his phenomenological approach. It is a pity that he, like others, does not explicitly recognise the need for a multi-definitional approach to myth. In rejecting the symbolic approach to myth, Childs was explicitly rejecting the position worked out by J. L. McKenzie in his article "Myth and the Old Testament" 93 . The work of McKenzie deserves the closest attention. He is deeply aware of the problems of the definition of myth 94 but is prepared to state that in spite of the difficulties of such definition, one should tackle the question of myth in the ancient Near East and the Old Testament without having worked out a philosophy of myth 95 . He has recognised the importance for the general discussion, of the Old Testament idea of nature 9 6 and he makes some important qualifications of commonly held positions. For example, he recognises that while modern research has shown the importance of ritual for understanding myth, it must be allowed that there is much ancient Near Eastern mythology "for which no place has been found in the cult". He concludes that "until a place has been found for it, it seems that we ought to leave open the possibility that the single explanatory principle of myth, if there be such a principle, is to be sought outside the myth-ritual pattern" 97. Again, writing of the important work done by anthropologists on the nature of myth, he of this broken myth reflected, although inadequately, the incomprehensibility of a reality denied existence in the creation, yet which was active and demonic in its effect on the creation." 82 93

91

95 96

97

Ibid. 30 note 1. Childs ibid. 30 note 1. J. L. McKenzie, Myth and the Old Testament, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 21 (1959), reprinted in: Myths and Realities, 1963, 182—200, to which reference is here made. Ibid. 182 ff. With reference to Bultmann, McKenzie permits himself the comment (266—267 note 30) "that if B. had spent as much space on the definition of myth as I have here, we should have been deprived of a piquant controversy". Ibid. 185—187. See his article: God and Nature in the Old Testament, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 24 (1952); Myths and Realities 85—132. Myths and Realities 187.

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warns that "when we deal with the peoples of ancient Mesopotamia and Canaan we are not dealing with primitives. The men who built the cities, the industries, and the commercial networks of the ancient world, wrote its literature and created its art cannot be placed on the same level with the Semangs of the Malay peninsular" 98 . In practice, McKenzie's position owes a certain amount to Cassirer and the Frankforts, although it is not an uncritical acceptance of what these last-mentioned have written. McKenzie is quick to point out that the civilised peoples of the ancient Near East could distinguish between " I t " and "Thou" 99 . He does, however, work with a theory of mythopoeic thought, although I am not entirely clear whether its status is epistemological, or something else100. However, I wish to concentrate on what to me is McKenzie's most important and original point. In apparent dependence on an article by G. Henton Davies which will be considered later 101 , McKenzie argues that a good deal of confusion has been caused in discussions of myth by the assumption that ancient Near Eastern myth, at least, is closely connected with religion in general, and polytheism in particular. This latter assumption has then made it inevitable that no myth should be found in the Old Testament 102 . McKenzie prefers to set out from the commonly acknowledged point that myth is an attempt on the part of man to control the unknown forces which surround him. If this is so, the only way in which man can express, and hope to control such forces, is by means of symbols which seek in some way to grasp the unknown reality. Of course, the unknown reality will in some cases be unknown because of the inadequacy of the science and deductive processes of ancient civilised man, but as I understand him, McKenzie wishes to go further, and to say that in addition to myth arising from inadequate science, there is a genuine intuition of what McKenzie calls transcendental reality, which myth attempts to express103. In the event, the attempt at expression of this intuition, which must be symbolic, is not greatly succesful in the ancient Near East outside Israel. In a remarkable passage McKenzie maintains that "in attempting to tell 98

Ibid. 185. Ibid. 188. 100 There certainly seems to be some following of Cassirer's view of mythical causality. See ibid. 189. 101 G. Henton Davies, An Approach to the Problem of Old Testament Mythology, PEQ 1956, 83—91. McKenzie does not directly cite Henton Davies in his argument; but he does cite the article in his own article, and presumably cannot have been uninfluenced by Henton Davies's similar point about not tying the definition of myth too closely to terms such as polytheism. 102 McKenzie 191. 103 Ibid. 188. 99

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stories which symbolized the transcendental reality they succeeded only in telling the story of the phenomenal world over again on a larger scale. They did not break through the limits of the observation of phenomena, and their symbols symbolized the unknown without signifying its 'wholly other' character. They did not attain the divine; they brought the divine down to their level, and doubtless they thought they had attained it in reducing it" 104 . The language of the Old Testament is no less mythical (in the sense of attempted symbolic expression of transcendental reality) than that of other ancient Eastern peoples, and Israel's thought no less mythopoeic. But there is a difference between Israel and her neighbours. That which was unknowable to the latter, was partly made known to Israel through God's disclosure of himself106. The result was that in adapting myths from other peoples, Israel removed all that was incompatible with what was known of God. But the revelation could not be a total revelation. " I t is not a tenable view that God in revealing Himself also revealed directly and in detail the truth about such things as creation and the fall of man". Thus "all they (the Hebrews) could do was to represent through symbolic forms the action of the unknown reality which they perceived mystically, not mythically, through His revelation of Himself" 106 . The presuppositions of McKenzie are openly those of a believer in God, who sees in religions other than Judaism and Christianity a seeking after God which is only partially successful because based on man's and not God's initiative. Thus he is prepared to allow that one must see in ancient Near Eastern myths more than just primitive mentality, or a naive view of the world; he asserts that the myths reflect a truly transcendent dimension. This approach to myth will hardly satisfy those who do not share McKenzie's belief in God, and who might argue that such an approach is neither scholarly nor objective. The believer in God can respect such an argument, but he is not forced to accept it. However objective scholarship seeks to be, it cannot lack presuppositions. It is asking a lot of Christian scholars who are seeking to understand the Old Testament as the revelation of God, that they should approach the question of myth while leaving out of consideration the reality of the God whom they believe to be the source of the unique witness contained in the Old Testament. Naturally, it is hoped that an investigation of the problem of myth will yield results acceptable to those of any faith or no faith, and the 104 105

106

Ibid. 191. Ibid. 198: "Hebrew religion is unique precisely in that the unknown is not totally unknown. In their own belief the character of this God was known through His revelation of Himself." Ibid. 199.

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final chapter will attempt to formulate such results. In the meantime, whether or not one accepts McKenzie's view of mythopoeic thought, his general position is a reminder to Christian scholarship that it cannot expect to reach conclusions of value to theology if it bases itself on purely phenomenological or epistemological premisses. It must take its courage in both hands, and run the risk of being regarded as non-objective and non-scholarly. The final work from North America considered here is T. H. Gaster's "Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament", and as already mentioned, this is meant to be an up-dated version of Frazer's "Folk-Lore in the Old Testament". Its recent appearance is welcome because it serves to remind scholarship, especially English-speaking scholarship, of the folklore side of the discussion. As is to be expected from an approach from comparative folklore, Gaster's emphasis is on the existence of traditional stories which, like available building materials, were taken by the biblical writers so that they could erect a literary building which expressed their beliefs in God's dealings in the world of man. Such traditional stories were used not only in the opening chapters of the Old Testament, but are the basis of narratives right through to the Book of Esther; fragments of them are also to be found in the phrases through which the prophets expressed messages. The value of comparative folklore is that it aids the identification of traditional stories within the Old Testament narratives, which might otherwise have been overlooked. It also sheds light on Israelite customs, and the forms of such things as psalms and narratives. Within the Old Testament itself, myth functions to express existential experience, and as such is the natural language of religion. It is paradigmatic, for the situations expressed in Old Testament myths and stories (Gaster tends to use the phrase "myths and stories" without differentiation) "are paradigms of the continuing human situation; we are involved in them. . . . we are all expelled from our Edens and sacrifice our happiness to the ambitions of our intellects. All of us metaphorically flee our Egypts, receive our revelation, and trek through our deserts to a promised land which only our children or children's children may eventually enjoy" 1 0 7 . When myth portrays history in paradigmatic terms, history becomes a matter of religion. Along with this approach, which seems to allow an easy modern approach to understanding myths, Gaster posits a mythopoeic thought, which in some respects confesses dependence on Cassirer108. One of the elements of this mythopoeic thought is that where modern thought personifies the divine, mythopoeic thought personalised it. "The God 107 108

Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament xxxiv. Ibid, xxxvi.

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who led the Israelites out of Egypt by his strong hand and outstretched arm was indeed the dynamic of history, but he was that as a person, not a personification. The wind is the breath of God; the thunder his voice. These are not just literary images or concepts; wind and thunder are here parts of a person, not impersonal forces" 109 . It is difficult, however, to make any proper comment on this, because it is all so brief and elusive. Gaster would probably be the first to admit that the value of his book lies in the material that he has collected and edited. The method, of course, is not without its dangers. Can we really be sure that in Judges 19 the body of the raped woman was cut into twelve pieces, not to summon the twelve tribes, but because of an ancient notion that the body consists of twelve essential parts 110 ? On the whole, however, Gaster is well aware of the pitfalls 111 and there is no need for a corrective to him such as was given by Eissfeldt to Gunkel's "Das Marchen im Alten Testament". Gaster's book is a timely reminder that the comparative folklore aspect must not be ignored in the final analysis. This chapter ends with a mention of two articles by British scholars. The first, by G. Henton Davies, has already been referred to112. Its main point is to argue against the view that the Old Testament could not have developed a mythology, because the latter is essentially polytheistic. Henton Davies tries to overcome the division between the faith of Israel and her neighbours on the polytheism versus monotheism score in two ways. First, following H. H. Farmer 113 he points out that viewed from the angle of religious experience, there are unifying tendencies in polytheism. In the experience of prayer, in particular, there is a concentration on one deity, or a concentration on several deities in such a way that a unity of a supernatural reality is sought. This is a phenomenon which could certainly be borne out from the modern great polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism, and is an important point. Henton Davies could also have mentioned in support of his argument the well-known tendency of the identifying of gods in syncretism, and in any case, of worship and prayer directed towards a dominant god within a pantheon. Thus in this part of the argument, Henton Davies in no way wishes to confuse the faith of Israel with that of her neighbours; but he wants to stress the importance of an experiental approach to polytheism, and to underline the limitations of a purely literary approach. 109 110 111

112 113

Ibid. xxxv. Ibid. xxxi. See the article "Semitic Folklore" in: Funk and Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend, II 982. An Approach to the Problem of Old Testament Mythology, 1954. Ibid. 89. Compare H. H. Farmer, Revelation and Religion, 1954 lOOff.

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From the Israelite side, Henton Davies argues that corporate personality as applied to the Israelite conception of Yahweh by A. R. Johnson indicates the possibility of understanding the personality of Yahweh in terms of one and many114. The point here seems to be that if unifying tendencies can be stressed within polytheism, a multiplicity within the unity can be detected in Israel. However, apart from serious reservations which I have about such uses of the theory of corporate personality118 I am not sure that this part of Henton Davies's argument is strictly necessary. The point surely revolves around the religious experience of the Israelites in prayer and worship. Did they experience God in such activities as a "multiple unity" ? Surely not. There is a difference between experience, and how divine activity is to be expressed when traditions about the origin of the world, or God's acts in history are concerned. In such matters, it is right, as Henton Davies has done, to point to the richness of the Old Testament ways of expressing the presence of Yahweh among his people, and to want to define this as myth. I would not accept, however, that the Israelite epithets for the divine presence any more imply a lack of unitary experience of God, than do the modern believer's address to God in terms of Lord, Father, Creator, or his speaking of the glory, name and power of God. With this one reservation, it seems to me that by questioning the common assumption that polytheism involves myth and monotheism does not, Henton Davies has introduced an important new point into the discussion. In an article entitled "The Mythologising of History in the Old Testament", W. Johnstone has launched an attack from the side of British scholarship against the over preoccupation with the idea of the historicising of myth116. His main points are that the concepts of both history and myth are external to the Old Testament, and that it is therefore wrong to use one category to deny the presence of the other. Emphasis on the historicising of myth implies that "history is the category supremely expressive of Israel's understanding of reality"117. Not only does Johnstone find this last point dubious, but, as he well says, the position "leaves mythical material undisposed of; what mythical material it does dispose of it accommodates within a construct, e. g. Heilsgeschichte, whose historical character cannot be taken for granted"118. It is not my purpose to trace out in detail Johnstone's arguments, which on the whole follow familiar paths. 114

Ibid. 89.

See ray article: The Hebrew Conception of Corporate Personality; and especially 11—12. 116 See Scottish Journal of Theology 24 (1971), 201—217. 115

117 118

Ibid. 209. Ibid. 209.

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I wish instead to concentrate on the implications of a single paragraph of some importance. In discussing whether the Old Testament looks at things mythologically, myth here meaning a mode of conceptualising reality, Johnstone writes: " 'Myth' as defined by historians of religion or others may exhibit a range of features; these may be closely paralleled by a certain number of analogous features within the Old Testament. But this is not to say that the Old Testament equals myth. The underlying material fallacy is simply that 'myth' is a category just as external to the Old Testament as 'history'. It is a pattern that is not to be imposed upon, but answered out of the Old Testament" 119 . Johnstone thus prefers to describe certain aspects of what he calls Israel's Vorstellungsweise (mode of conceptualising) and to see how far they reproduce the form and function of myth. There seem to me to be two weaknesses in this argument. First, what is meant by saying that myth is a category external to the Old Testament? If the meaning is that myth is a concept defined by modern scholarship, then the point is a fair one. But in that case, myth is just as external to ancient Near Eastern literature and life as it is to ancient Israel. It should therefore not be imposed upon the former any more than the latter. But carried to its logical conclusion, this argument entails that we ought not to impose myth anywhere. What Johnstone seems to mean by saying that myth is a category external to the Old Testament is that myth defined, in such and such a way is an external category. This is borne out by his later arguments which look for parallels in the Israelite Vorstellungsweise which reproduce the form and function of myth. Here, the underlying argument is that ex hypothesi myth is a category external to the Old Testament; but we know what myth is through an examination of other cultures, thus we look for parallels in the Israelite Vorstellungsweise with myth as understood from other cultures. But this argument only holds if I say not that myth is a category external to the Old Testament, but myth defined in such and such a way is a category external to the Old Testament. Then, the argument holds because it becomes a tautology. But suppose I choose to define myth differently. Suppose that I follow Cassirer in understanding bymythapre-scientific type of epistemology which embraces the Old Testament as well as surrounding cultures. It is true to say that myth is a category external to the Old Testament, in the sense that the Old Testament has not isolated and defined the notion of mythical epistemology as opposed to scientific epistemology. But it is not true to say that within the terms of my definition myth is a category external to the Old Testament. My definition has been deliberately framed so as to explain 119

Ibid. 211.

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a phenomenon within the Old Testament, namely, a particular prescientific outlook. Thus Johnstone's objection to defining myth as a symbolic way of expressing transcendent reality, and to finding myth in this sense in the Old Testament, falls to the ground, as far as logic is concerned. Johnstone's second weakness as I see it, is that he makes a distinction between "imposing" myth upon the Old Testament, and seeking parallels between Israel's Vorstellungsweise and features of myth found in surrounding cultures. But is there any difference between these two procedures ? Is not "imposing upon" in this context a rather emotive way of saying "finding in" ? Johnstone's otherwise fine and important article confirms a weakness that has been indicated time and again in this chapter. Modern scholarship has been more concerned to find and sustain a definition of myth than to look at particular problems which scholars have tried to elucidate over the years with the help of the notion of myth, variously defined. It is more important that the problems should be solved than that the impossible task of finding an adequate and all-purpose definition of myth should be persisted in. The material surveyed in this chapter bears out the rather pungent sentence of Fontenrose, to the effect that "In both scholarly and popular usage myth has acquired a variety of meanings; we throw traditional tales, magico-religious beliefs, theology, false beliefs, superstitions, ritual formulae, literary images and symbols, and social ideals into a common pot and call the mixture mythology" 120 . 120

J . Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth, 53.

Chapter 11 Conclusions Towards the end of the previous chapter, I began to suggest that myth has been used in so many senses in Old Testament interpretation, that it would be impossible and undesirable to try to find a single definition for the term, and to force all relevant material or evidence into the mould that resulted. In this final chapter, I hope to make this point in greater detail, and to support the contention that what is necessary in discussing myth in relation to the Old Testament is not so much to try to find a satisfactory definition of the term, but to identify the problems which Old Testament scholarship has tried to solve with the help of the concept of myth, however and variously defined. However, it must be noted at the outset that it is not just that myth has been used to try to solve problems in the Old Testament; the Old Testament itself has often been drawn into wider discussions about myth, and used as a means of proving points within the wider discussions. Thus it will be impossible to escape from this side of the question, and my position will accordingly be less clearly focussed than if I could talk simply about the use of myth to solve Old Testament problems. Notwithstanding this, my main concern will still be to see how myth has been used to solve Old Testament problems, many of which will be seen to be inter-connected. The final result of the enquiry will be to indicate the multi-dimensional nature of the term myth 1 . The first step must be to summarise the different senses of myth which have been discussed in the foregoing pages. Again, two difficulties should be borne in mind. First, we have noted an overlap of the terms myth, saga and Marchen. In the following analysis, I shall speak only of myth, and I shall mean that the attributes listed have indeed been connected with myth. This will not also mean, however, that none of the attributes have also been attached to saga and Marchen. In some cases, they will have been; but it will be simpler for the moment to speak only of myth. Secondly, we must remember the distinction noted in the above paragraph, between the use of myth for the Old Testament, and the use of the Old Testament for myth. It is difficult to separate these in what follows. I would set out the different meanings of myth under twelve headings, recognising 1

Cp. E. Buess, Geschichte des mythischen Erkennens, 1953, 14—15.

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that the analysis could be done differently, and probably more satisfactorily. 1. Myths are attempts to explain things 2 . The things so explained can be many and various, including the origin, nature and functioning of the world; the origin of social organisation; social habits and customs; and religious beliefs and practices. Myths may also seek to explain unusual natural phenomena, and the cause of historical events. It must be noted that such explanations fall roughly into two groups. First, they may be the result of a pre-scientific outlook. Admittedly, the notion of a pre-scientific outlook begs a number of questions, and can sometimes lead to the equation of ancients and primitives. But as long as we are aware of what we are doing, we can accept that some explanations in some myths have arisen from deductions based on what from our present scientific standpoint we would regard as inadequate scientific knowledge of the world. Secondly, some explanations arise from the processes that operate in the growth and transmission of folklore and oral traditions. This is especially true of aetiologies explaining social organisation, customs or beliefs, where the explanation arises not from inadequate scientific knowledge, but from inadequate historical knowledge. It is further to be noted that deductions based on inadequate historical knowledge are to be found in modern societies, and are also the lot of the professional historian, whose deductions may be shown to be false in the light of fuller historical knowledge. When we are faced with myth as explanation, we must not pre-judge the issue as to whether we have deductions on the basis of inadequate science, or history. We may have either or both in any given case. We must also be careful not to presume that inferences based on a pre-scientific view can be translated into a modern worldview without there being any remainder. 2. Myths arise from personifications of natural phenomena 3 . Clearly, there is a close connection between this view and the view just described, insofar as such personifications might be the result of inadequate scientific knowledge. However, it is worth keeping this view separate from the first, because it often involves a view of primitive mentality. Even though the theory of primitive mentality may not be based on any thought-out epistemology, it differs from pre-scientific outlook because it often presupposes mental processes 2

8

This view is so diffused among the writings discussed above, that it is pointless to try to identify the writers who have used it. I have particularly in mind here the position of the mythical school, and the position of Lang and his followers. We might say that for the mythical school, myths arise from not only the personification but the supernaturalisation of natural phenomena. Both the mythical school and Lang worked with a rudimentary idea of primitive mentality.

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different from those of moderns. It will be obvious that to describe something in terms of pre-scientific outlook is to assume the normal functioning of the mental processes within the limitations of inadequate knowledge, rather than postulating different mental processes compared with moderns. 3. Myths are stories arising from misunderstood descriptions of the workings of nature. This is the view most clearly represented by Muller and his followers. As stated by Muller, it is a psychological and linguistic theory which seeks to describe how the human understanding, together with human language, developed at the dawn of man's history. It is not a theory about primitive mentality, Muller being bitterly opposed to the way in which data which could support such a theory was collected and interpreted. 4. Myths are narratives about humans and human events, but the narratives are in fact in the first instance derived from astral or similar phenomena. This is, of course, the view of astral mythology. Compared with view 3, its presuppositions are diffusionist, whereas those of the latter are evolutionistic. View 4 can take several forms, from the view that seeming historical positions are entirely false, being derived from astral phenomena, to the view that historical traditions have a basis in fact, but are influenced in their presentation and in some of their details by the personification of astral phenomena, or by beliefs about the Zodiac. 5. Myth is a mode of cognition distinct from empirical consciousness. It would be wrong to call this a theory of primitive mentality, because it has been given an application not only to primitives, but to the civilised men of the ancient world. Although heavily dependent on data about primitives collected up to the 1920's, as expressed and worked out by Cassirer from the standpoint of Kantian epistemology, the view sought to describe the view of space, time and number in the thought processes of the primitive and ancient worlds. It has probably been more deeply influential in Old Testament interpretation than the simpler theories of personification of natural phenomena, or primitive mentality. This is because the latter are only really tenable on the basis of a crude identification of the ancient Israelites with primitives. The application of the theory of mythopoeic thought to the ancient Near East has made it much more attractive for Old Testament interpretation. Cumbersome as the terms may be, we should probably do well to distinguish between pre-scientific outlook, primitive mentality and mythopoeic thought. 6. A myth is a text inextricably bound up with a rite. The performance of the myth/ritual achieves or preserves the well-being of man and the world. This is a complex understanding of myth, which underlies the positions of men such as Hooke and Eliade. Not

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only does it depend on the inextricable connection between the myth and the rite, but also some theory of mythopoeic thought or prescientific outlook. Further, it has been complicated by dependence on theories of magic, functional anthropology, and the phenomenology of religion. There can be quite considerable variations within the position. 7. A myth is a text less closely connected with a rite, designed possibly to interest the worshipper or to explain the meaning of a rite where the original meaning and purpose of the latter have been forgotten. It is necessary to distinguish this view, represented chiefly by Robertson Smith, from view 6. First, such a distinction helps to indicate that there is more than one view of the relation between myth and rite which asserts a close connection between the two. Second, the epistemological presuppositions of view 7 need in no way resemble those of view 6. Third, an overlap between view 7 and view 1 is obvious, in the sense that the explanation of the rite by a myth may arise from the operation of the processes of folklore and oral tradition. In the case of view 6, it is not so easy to see a connection with view 1. View 6, in some of its functional and phenomenological forms, would also say that myths were explanations, but explanations in the sense that through myth/ritual means, they enabled the cosmic status quo to be maintained. 8. A myth is one of a series of narratives which, taken together, enable primitives to solve problems at a level below that of conscious thought by the blurring of binary oppositions. No more comment is needed on this position advocated by Lévi-Strauss. 9. A myth is a narrative which expresses the tensions of a primary existential symbolism. Again, there is no further need for comment on the position of Ricoeur. 10. A myth is a single story, or longer stretch of narrative, which expresses the ideals, hopes and faith of a people. This view does not seem to be tied to any particular epistemology, or to be limited to primitives or ancients. It would underlie the position of a folklorist such as Gaster; it would embrace that phenomenon which has been called the mythologising of history; it was certainly defended by de Wette in his mythical understanding and interpretation of the whole Pentateuch. 11. Myth is a necessary way of speaking of transcendent reality. This view is a characteristically theological one. In many cases, its theological presuppositions have not been worked out. Rather, the conviction has been brought to the Old Testament narratives that they are saying something deeper than would appear on the surface, and that this something deeper cannot be exhausted or explained away when narratives are regarded as partly the product of preR o g e r s o n , Myth

12

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Conclusions

scientific outlook or primitive mentality. De Wette grounded such a view in the philosophy of religion of his day. The position generally overlaps with others already described. Insofar as it would assert the necessity for such expressions of transcendent reality to become the symbolic basis for the apprehension of transcendent reality by worshippers standing within a given religious tradition, it would overlap with some of the phenomenological versions of view 6. There would also be some overlaps with view 9. 12. A myth is a story about the gods. This view has been kept until last, because unlike the other views, it is a form critical, or literary view. Myth is here defined not in terms of outlooks and mentalities, but as a literary form in contrast to other forms which are defined as saga, Märchen, legend and fable. Even so, this purely literary approach moves easily towards and merges into theories about outlooks and mentalities, especially when the question becomes not that of the sphere of myth as opposed to, say, saga, but the origin of such forms as myth and saga. When this point is reached, there is some overlap with views 1, 2 and 6. Now that the different uses of the notion of myth have been roughly distinguished, certain general comments can be made. Of the views described above, we can say that numbers 3, 4 and 5 are probably false. While 3 and 4 have in any case ceased to have any real influence in Old Testament interpretation, 5 is still influential, and although its bases may be untenable, the problems it seeks to answer remain important in a way that is not true of the other two theories. Of the remaining views, 8 and 9 have yet to prove themselves, although both contain much that is incidentally highly illuminating. There is much that can be accepted as true in the remaining views. Other general observations can be made as follows. Some views seek to explain the origin of myths, although there is not necessarily any agreement about what sort of stories myths are. These are views 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8. Other views take myths or myth (where this is understood as a type of mentality) as given, and seek to explain the meaning and function of myth or myths. These are numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. Some views can be seen to belong to both groups. In views 3, 5 and 8, myth is primarily a means to an end, which is the maintenance of theories about primitive mentality. Also, these three views are all closely connected with theories about language. In discussing the problems which scholarship has tried to solve with the help of the concept of myth, I shall discuss in turn the origin of myths, the problem of primitive mentality, and the relation of the Old Testament to modern belief.

179

The Origin of Myth I. THE ORIGIN OF MYTH

It may seem tautologous to speak of the concept of myth being used to solve the problem of the origin of myths ; in fact, I am referring to a complex set of operations. In the first place, scholarship has tried to explain the origin of stories such as the Greek myths. This has been done partly by appeal to primitive traditions, and partly by appeal to ancient Near Eastern texts, including the Old Testament, where, it might be argued, mythical traditions can be traced back closer to their origins than with Greek literature. Thus, the Old Testament has been employed, along with other areas of evidence, to try to solve a problem the solution of which would then be read back into the interpretation of the Old Testament. The whole operation is to some extent circular, and this explains why the aims of the enterprise, stated baldly, appear to be tautologous. In the area of the quest for the origin of myths, it can be said that depending on the questions asked, progress has or has not been made. If one is concerned with the question that troubled Miiller and Lang, namely, the origin of the crude and repulsive elements in myths, little progress towards a solution can be reported. From the anthropological point of view, one imagines that one reason why Malinowski's functionalist interpretation of myth became so attractive was that it offered a way out of the deadlock of trying to discover the origin of myths by drawing attention to their function. With the current reaction against functionalism, the structuralists, at least in the person of Lévi-Strauss, are again interested in the origin of myths. It will be of great interest to see how far Lévi-Strauss convinces other scholars that he has discovered anything significant about origins. But on the whole, this side of the problem seems to be no further advanced, except perhaps that we should be more ready in Old Testament interpretation to ask whether the cruder aspects of certain Old Testament traditions may not already be survivals which were not understood literally by the sophisticated, and perhaps the less sophisticated among the ancient Israelites. If the question concerns what scholarship has increasingly called saga, progress can be reported. The work of comparative folklore, and the study of the growth of traditions has shed a great deal of light on problems which were recognised and discussed in relation to the Old Testament by George and Ewald in the 19th century. It is to be hoped that Old Testament interpretation will take note, for example, of such studies as Fontenrose's discussion of the growth of the traditions surrounding the martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury4, or Ruth 4

Fontenrose, The Ritual Theory of Myth, 15—20. 12*

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Fixuiegan's work on oral literature in Africa6. On the form critical side, if the sense of "origins" can be sufficiently stretched, it would be interesting to see a detailed investigation of the importance of the Icelandic saga for the understanding of Old Testament traditions, by someone who was qualified to speak about both areas of study. II. THE PROBLEM OF PRIMITIVE MENTALITY

This again is an area where the Old Testament has been used together with other material to try to answer a question, the results of which would then be taken back and used in Old Testament interpretation. On this front, I think it would be possible to report significant progress, and to say that from a number of different angles it is becoming clear that the notion of a primitive mentality different from that of moderns must be abandoned. Extensive reference has already been made in chapter 8 to L£vi-Strauss's views on this subject. From the British empirical tradition of anthropology, Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard has also criticised the notion of primitive mentality6. He has been particularly concerned to criticise the unexamined generalisations on which such theories have been based, and has argued that one will in fact find a wide range of mental abilities among both primitives and moderns, with a good deal of overlapping between the two groups7. Again, it should be noted that P. Radin has for many years contended that among primitives there can be found a few who are capable of philosophic abstraction and speculation8. From quite a different angle, R. G. Collingwood's book "The Idea of Nature"9 seems to me to make out a formidable case against primitive mentality, although it is not Collingwood's particular intention to do this. Collingwood seems to me to show that the difference between the various theories about the nature of the universe from the Greek atomists to contemporary science lay not in any change or improvement in the powers or functioning of the human mind. On the contrary, as new facts about the universe were discovered by experimentation, the bases of the premisses with which the human mind had worked were enlarged, so that conclusions could be drawn which would have been impossible without the discovery of the new facts. 5 6 7

8

9

Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa, 1970. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Theories of Primitive Religion, 1965. Ibid. 86ff. Cp. 88: "There is no reputable anthropologist who today accepts this theory of two distinct types of mentality." P. Radin, Primitive Man as Philosopher. See also the collected essays edited by S. Diamond, Primitive Worlds, 1964. R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of Nature, 1945.

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But at every stage of theorising about the world, the conclusions which were drawn on the basis of evidence available, represented the full exercise by the human mind of its logical powers. What I find striking about Collingwood's book is the way it illustrates Lévi-Strauss's contention that the difference between a primitive stone axe and an iron axe lies simply in the special problems which result from the different materials out of which the implements are made 10 . In my view, it is legitimate to see an analogy between how the discovery of new materials affects man's technological achievements by offering new possibilities of manufacture, and the way in which the discovery of new facts about the world offers new possibilities for theorising about the nature of the universe11. Thus on the grounds urged above, as well as the arguments put forward in the chapter on Cassirer12, I would maintain that attempts to interpret ancient texts on the basis of theories of primitive mentality or mythopoeic thought must be abandoned. Having said this, I must make it clear that I am not arguing that there is or was no difference in the outlooks of primitives, ancients and moderns. Neither would I dispute that some myths have arisen from the personification of natural forces, or from deductions based on inadequate scientific knowledge when compared with our scientific knowledge13. Differences in the way that primitives and moderns classify their worlds have been illustrated by Lévi-Strauss, and I have mentioned the latter's use of the analogy of clocks and steam engines to distinguish between primitive and modern societies. Further, it should be noted that anthropologists are not agreed among themselves as to the best way of expressing theoretically the differences between primitives and moderns. In the new edition of "Primitive Man as Philosopher", P. Radin has taken issue with the view of some British anthropologists that the difference between primitives and moderns is that the latter reflect on their own thinking processes, whereas the former do not 14 . 10 11

12 13

14

See chapter 8 p. 104. A similar point was made by Professor E. R. Laithwaite of Imperial College, London, on the BBC radio 4 programme "New Worlds" on 28 October 1971, regarding the way in which the invention of plastics had affected the possibilities for modern technology. See above p. 91. I would stress again the dangers of supposing that in every case, a myth arising from a deduction based on inadequate science expresses nothing more than the inadequate science. Radin xxvi, criticising G. Lienhardt, Modes of Thought in Primitive Society, Blackfriars, June 1953, 269—278. The view criticised by Radin is also presented by Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger, 73 ff.

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Granted then, that theories of primitive mentality and mythopoeic thought cannot be maintained, but that it would be foolish to maintain that there was no difference at all between primitive, ancient and modern outlooks, how does the matter affect the Old Testament? Under the Kantian influence generated by Cassirer, writers have often concerned themselves with the categories of space, time, number and causality16. However, it must be questioned whether these are the correct areas of attention, or whether differences in these areas can be conclusively maintained. I see no objective way of discovering if ancient Israelites in fact imposed a different a priori form of space on their sense impressions compared with moderns. With regard to time and number, the ability of the Israelites, at least from the monarchy onwards, to write historical records of the reigns of kings seems to me to demonstrate no difference between us in these matters. It might be argued, on the basis of that commonplace of Old Testament scholarship, that the ancient Israelites did not understand what we call secondary causes but attributed everything to their God, that a difference can be found with regard to causality; but even here, caution is needed. It is clearly false to say that the ancient Israelites did not understand the causation of many technological processes. To assert this would be to overlook the importance of the so-called neolithic revolution16 and to put the Hebrews in a position inferior to neolithic man. It is mainly in the areas of the interpretation and re-presentation of historical events in the written tradition, and in attempts to solve the problem of evil that one finds the Old Testament viewing things as directly caused by God, where moderns would look for secondary causes. However, the problems of evil, and free will and determinism are problems which admit of no satisfactory logical solution even in our own day. We must hardly be surprised if in the Old Testament we find writers dealing with, say, the problem of evil in terms of two of the major logical possibilities within monotheism, namely that God is directly responsible for evil17 or that there is a limited dualism18. It may be as dangerous to generalise about the understanding of causality by ancient Israelites on the basis of Old Testament attempts to solve the problem of evil, as it would be to generalise about modern understanding of causality on a similar basis. A further point is that the Old Testament interpreter must be careful not to rush to conclusions when looking for "proof" for Israelite world views. Does the statement that God hardened Pharaoh's heart mean that For example, Childs, Myth and Reality. See chapter 8 note 13. « Am 3 6. 1 8 I Kings 22 20-23. 15

16

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the Old Testament writer thought that and nothing else? Was he completely unaware of human self-will and capriciousness ? May it not be possible that he understood the events in terms which were much later expressed by R. Akiba in the formula "All is foreseen but freedom of choice is given" 19 ? If I am correct in maintaining that differences between the outlook of the Old Testament and modern outlooks must be sought elsewhere than in the categories of time, space and number and causality, where should the search be made ? I suggest that it should be made in that complex area where social institutions including language, both reflect and affect one's understanding of life in the world. Small examples of such differences can be seen in the different ways in which the British and Germans organise their education. As cultures become separated by religious outlooks, the social and linguistic differences become greater. Anthropologists speak of the experience of "culture shock" which happens when field workers find themselves in a culture very different from their own, and experience a sense of isolation. The Old Testament scholar cannot, unfortunately, do field work among ancient Israelites; but if he were able to be transported back several thousand years so as to live in ancient Israelite society, he would undoubtedly suffer an initial "culture shock" 20 . But it must be stressed that great as initial culture shock can be, and great as can be the differences in social institutions including language, which reflect and affect the understanding of life in the world, these differences can be overcome. The languages of primitives can be learnt, and their culture can be tolerably understood. A classic example is the way in which Sir Edward EvansPritchard learned to regulate his life when living among the Azande, according to the practices of divination which so deeply affected the life and outlook of that people21. I would conclude this part of my discussion of the problem of primitive mentality, then, by saying that although there will obviously be differences between the Old Testament world view and a modern world view, these differences may have to be sought along other lines than is often the case, and they may not turn out to be vast or unbridgeable. So far, I have approached the problem of primitive mentality from the angle of discussions about primitives. I want now to approach the problem from the angle of moderns, and at the same time to bring the discussion back to myths as stories, as opposed to mythopoeic thought which has indirectly been the issue under discussion in this 19 20

21

Mishnah Tractate Aboth 3 16. The writer suffered a mild dose of culture shock at the beginning of a year's stay in modern Israel. See Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft. Oracles and Magic among the Azande, 1937.

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section. It must never be forgotten that in modern cultures, there can be found processes akin to those which with regard to the Old Testament are said to have produced myths. The most abvious area is that which is well known to folklorists. In a report of the proceedings of the anthropological section of the 1971 meeting of the British Association22, it was stated that a researcher had collected a number of examples of "myths" which were in current circulation, especially in conversations in public houses. One example concerned the employment of student labour in the building of motorways, and in particular the use of this labour to dig though old churchyards at night, so that the susceptibilities of (Catholic?) Irish labourers would not be offended. The stories were told as through this occurrence was recent, although the researcher was never able in fact to trace them back to an actual recent happening 23 . The immediate conclusion to be drawn from this, as well as other examples which could be adduced, is that if such things can happen in our modern society, then they could equally have happened in ancient Israelite society. I would not dispute this conclusion, nor its implications for the Old Testament, but I would want to make two further points. The first is that if we can draw parallels between the way in which traditions are generated and circulate in ancient and modern societies, then the presence of such traditions in ancient societies should not make us conclude immediately that the latter were necessarily naive and incredulous, and lacking in historical sense, especially when it is known that a particular ancient society did have historical records of its own. Second, we must ask whether, in both ancient and modern societies, such traditions do not express something, at a greater or lesser level, of the hopes and ideals of the people among whom they circulate, and whether in some cases their primary meaning is not symbolic. In the case of the example about the student labourers, the tradition may well express something about contemporary attitudes towards students, for example, their alleged indifference to traditional views of what must be treated with reverence. A more substantial point is that there can be found in modern culture that process which has been called with reference to the Old Testament the "mythologising of history". An example from recent British history is the way in which the so-called Battle of Britain has come to be understood by many who were alive at the time. The "few" in their youth and bravery have come to symbolise what is best in British courage and devotion; they have symbolised national hopes and ideals. Further, the "myth" has been perpetuated and 22 23

See the "Guardian" newspaper, 8 September 1971, p. 1. It is not suggested that there is ultimately no basis of fact behind such traditions.

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actualised by being embodied in annual ceremonies, including ceremonies of a religious nature. It is tempting to compare the Old Testament account of the battle between David and Goliath24. Whatever the historical reality underlying this tradition, in its present form the tradition uses the simplicity, youth and reliance upon God of David to express something of the hopes, faith and ideals of the ancient Israelites. If there is any validity in such comparisons between ancient and modern examples of the mythologising of history, it may point to one way in which some ancient traditions can be evaluated so as to bring out what they symbolise.

III. T H E OLD TESTAMENT A N D MODERN B E L I E F

The third problem which Old Testament scholarship has sought to resolve with the help of the concept of myth is that of the relation of the Old Testament to modern thought and belief. Here, the attempted solution has taken different forms ; but before these forms are described, it must be pointed out that underlying such attempts to make the Old Testament relevant has been the assumption of some sort of gulf between the Old Testament and modern times. An overlap between this point and the problem of primitive mentality is obvious, and once again we become aware of the complexity and interrelatedness of the problems which I am seeking to isolate. In the late 18th century, the assumption of a gulf was encouraged by writings such as Lessing's "Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts"25, which put forward the idea that man had passed through various stages of development from his earliest history to modern times, stages of development which were analogous to the growing-up of a child into manhood. According to one form of this theory, which apparently went back to Augustine 26 , the ancient Israelites portrayed in the Old Testament represented man in the childhood of his development towards the manhood he was believed to have achieved in the 18th century. In the present century, the same sort of developmentalist view (although not necessarily in relation to the Old Testament) was maintained by supposing that one could equate the mental processes of primitives and modern children, an argument which Lévi-Strauss used as a target for a particularly strong bombardment 27 . In the 24 25

26 27

I Sam 17. G. E. Lessing, Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, 1780. See Perlitt, Vatke und Wellhausen, U f f . ; J. H. Randall, The Making of the Modern Mind, 1926, 455ff. See Perlitt 17. C. Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, 1969, chapter vii (trans, from Les Structures élémentaires de la Parenté, 1967 2 ).

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Conclusions

second half of the 19th century, the model of biological evolution as applied to the mental and spiritual development of man was the main presupposition of a gulf between the Old Testament and the contemporary age. Granted the assumption of a gulf between the Old Testament and the present age, whether the present age was the late 18th century or the second half of the 20th century, attempts to bridge the gulf took two main forms. On the one hand, the Old Testament was rationalised. Its traditions, and the outlook allegedly evinced by them, were placed at a definite point on a scale which led from antiquity to the present age, a scale which indicated man's development from lower to higher mental and spiritual attainments. The Old Testament was thus reduced to evidence for a stage of man's development towards a goal, whether that goal was the religion of reason, the religion of the New Testament, or something else. The other approach, asserted that there was something intrinsically valuable in the intuitions about God and the world perceived by primitive and ancient man, and expressed in the Old Testament traditions. The part played by the concept of myth in these approaches was complex, and it would be wrong to suppose that there were not factors besides myth involved. However, the important uses of the concept of myth were as follows. In the rationalising approach, attention was diverted towards supernatural elements in narratives, and these in turn were said to be the result of naive conceptualising. It was all the same whether this was the naive conceptualising described by the mythical school, or the personification of natural phenomena which in different ways was employed in framing the theories which I have described as comparative mythology, astral mythology and anthropological mythology. Two things were achieved at a stroke. First, the supernatural elements, which were offensive to the standpoint adopted by the interpreters, were explained away. At the same time, they were explained away in a manner which preserved some integrity for the Old Testament tradition, insofar as the supernatural elements were shown to be not falsifications, but understandable ways of expression given the rudimentary stage of development of those who expressed themselves in terms of the supernatural. The same result could be achieved with the help of the notion of saga. In this case, the supernatural in traditions could result from the distance in time between events described in the Old Testament and their being committed to writing. The oral transmission process would tend to heighten the supernatural, and narratives could be further contaminated by the common superstition expressed in folktales. On the other side, the view that something intrinsically valuable could be perceived by ancient or primitive man in his alleged innocency

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and openness to the impressions of nature, was a romantic view. The concept of myth, again understood in terms of some sort of primitive mentality, nourished this romantic view by surrounding primitives and ancients with an aura of mystery. What has been said so far has assumed a gulf between the Old Testament and the present age; but some uses of myth have denied such a gulf. This is particularly true of approaches where it has been asserted that the Old Testament is free from myth. The use of the category of history over against myth has tried to rescue the Old Testament, by claiming that there was a mode of understanding reality or the self-disclosure of God, different among the ancient Israelites compared with ancient Israel's neighbours. From a different angle, some approaches have suggested the unity of man's religious experience and needs, or the unity of his existential self-understanding. One would think of de Wette, and Ricoeur respectively in connection with these last points. In my view, those who have tried to minimise the gulf between the Old Testament and the present age, when it comes to matters of religious understanding, have been closer to the truth. We are today far more wary of the rationalism and positivism on which the existence of the gulf was maintained; more wary of the predisposition of earlier interpreters to regard primitives and ancients as inferior to moderns, and to interpret evidence about them accordingly. The important question is whether, in matters of spiritual awareness and understanding, man's achievement is closer to his scientific achievements, or closer to his artistic achievements. It is obvious that the scientific achievements of any age are dependent on the achievements of the preceding ages. In this sector, advance could be likened to climbing a ladder, except that each age does not have to climb the ladder from the bottom. Rather, each generation finds itself on a particular rung, dependent on the achievements of previous ages, from which it can climb to the next rung or two. But in artistic matters, it is not possible to take for granted in the same way the achievements of previous ages. It is meaningless to speak about improving on the art, philosophy or drama of ancient Greece. It is rather that in such matters, each generation has to climb the ladder from the bottom, and has to climb it in its own way. Of course, religious understanding and expression are not unrelated to scientific achievement, and in the past two hundred years, theology has benefited from a dialogue with science, one of the gains of which has been that the respective spheres of theology and science have been better understood. Ultimately, however, I would want to assert that openness to transcendent reality is no more directly related to scientific achievement than is the ability to produce great art, literature or philosophy, and that the man of

188

Conclusions

God can be found in all ages. Granted this, the modern theological interpretation of the Old Testament should be more prepared than is sometimes the case to find theological insight and sophistication in the Old Testament. In the first place, interpretation should be ready to distinguish between the origin of the elements of a tradition, and the meaning of a tradition taken as a whole, and within the terms of the faith of the Old Testament. Such a distinction was stressed in the name of myth by de Wette, and the commentary by von Rad on Genesis is noteworthy for the singlemindedness with which the distinction is maintained. Secondly, attention to what Ricoeur has called the primary symbolism may help in the process of demythologising. For example, if there is any truth in the assertions that the Old Testament use of concepts like the name, presence and glory of God are ways of trying to express what later theology has described as the immanence and transcendence of God, we may be more ready, and perhaps correct, to interpret passages such as Gen 18 in terms of attempts to express immanence and transcendence. In Gen 18 and the following chapter, whatever may be the sources underlying the composition, the narrative as it stands, with its tension between God, the three men and the two angels may have more theological sophistication than is commonly recognised. Again, attention to primary symbolism may make it less easy to suppose that some narratives express an outmoded scientific world view, and nothing else. All this is another way of saying that whereas in the past, the concept of myth as applied to the Old Testament has often been worked out in the context of disciplines other than theology, in the future, one ought to recognise that there is myth in the Old Testament, but to recognise this in such a way that alien interpretations are not imported into the Old Testament. One way of achieving this would be to adopt a literary and functional definition of myth 28 . From this point of view, myths would be stories or literature which expressed the faith and world view of a people. Myths would have much to say about origins, and they would express a people's intuitions of transcendent reality. Märchen would be stories whose aim was to entertain or amuse. They would have particular forms and recurrent themes, as recognised in folklore studies. They would express, but not as deliberately as myths, the hopes and values of the circles from which they originated. Saga would be traditions arising from the folk transmission of events which occurred either in the prehistoric period of a people's life, or in nonliterary circles within the historical period. These definitions would 28

For what follows, I am very much indebted to Kirk op. cit. 31 ff.

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not depend on the presence or absence of the divine, gods, rituals or religion. Rather, the distinctions would be based on function. Once the distinctions were made, it would have to be recognised that all three types could mutually contaminate each other. For example, historical traditions might contain pure specimens of saga or Marchen, but the traditions might be myths in that they deliberately presented historical events in terms of a particular world view. If such definitions found any favour, they would enable the presence of myth, saga and Marchen to be recognised in the Old Testament, and in the other literatures of the world. It would still be necessary, however, to understand each example of the forms in terms of the particular witness of the Old Testament to the God of Israel. If it be objected that these definitions are really too vague and qualified to be of any use, I would not quarrel. If the present study only indicates something of the great complexity of the notion of myth, and if it only makes future scholarship more cautious about the use of the concept, then the study will have been worth while.

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Index of Modem Authors Allwohn, A Alt, A Ardener, E Armitage, A

13 note 68 147—148 102 note 8 91 note 28

Baring-Gould, S 54 note 9 Barr, J 12 note 60 Barth, K. 9 note 40, 16 note 1, 162 note 79 Barthel, P. 1, 2 note 5, 4 note 21, 8 note 38, 9 note 39, 21 note 37, 23 note 41 a, 128 note 1 Barthes, R. 102 note 7, 103 notes 10—12, 105 note 15, 108 note 23 Baur, E. 9 note 40, 10 note 43, 11 note 54—55 Bauer, G. L 8—9, 17 Bidney, D 91 note 30 Black, J. S 55 note 17 Bloomfield, L 33, 40 Boscawen, W. St. Chad 43 Brandon, S. G. F 67, 79, 81 note 88 Brown, J. W 16 note 1 Brown, R. jnr. 41 note 37, 42 note 42, 47 note 16 Buber, M 93 Buess, E 174 note 1 Bultmann, R 145, 155, 160, 163 Burney, C. F. 37 note 17, 44, 47 note 17, 51 Burridge, K. O. L. 101 note 3, 112—120, 124, 130, 135 Cassirer, E. 86—92, 95—99,128,164,167, 169, 176, 182 Charbonnier, G 108 note 25 Cheyne, T. K. 2 note 6, 9 note 40, 10 notes 42, 43, 16 note 1, 27 note 57, 43, 50, 54—55 Childs, B. S 163—166,182 note 15 Cole, Sonia 103 note 13 Collingwood, R. G 180—181 Cook, A. B 68 Cornford, F. M 68 Cox, G. W 35 note 12 Crawley, A. E 93 Davies, G. Henton 170—171 Davies, T. Witton 27 notes 57—58, 28 note 62, 29 note 69 Delitzsch, F 48 Denecke, L 27 note 61, 28 note 62 Diamond, S 101 note 1 Dillmann, A 29

Dorson, R. M. 34 note 5, 42 note 40, 44 note 50, 51 note 1, 52 notes 2, 4, 55 note 16, 56 Douglas, Mary 52 note 2,101 note 5,110— 111, 181 note 14 Driver, G. R 90—91 Driver, S. R 51 Eichhorn, J. G. 2 note 6, 3—8, 15 note 74, 17 note 7, 22 note 40 Eichrodt, W 128 Eißfeldt, 0 145—146 Eliade, M 129—131, 164, 176 Evans-Pritchard, E. E 89, 180,183 Ewald, H 16, 27—32, 39, 58, 65,147 Farmer, H. H 170 Finnegan, Ruth 179—180 Fleischmann, E 102 note 6 Fontenrose, J. 67 note 12, 80 note 83, 173, 179 Frankfort, H. & H. A.. .79, 85—100, 167 Frazer, J. G. 44, 56, 65 note 51, 67—71, 89, 129, 152—153 Fries, J. J 19, 21—22 Gabler, J. P. 3 note 13, 5—10, 12 note 56, 109 Gaster, M 56 Gaster, T. H 64—65, 152, 169—170 George, J. F. L 1, 16, 24r—27, 30 Goldziher, 1 33 note 4, 37—40 Gordon, A. R 54—55 Gressmann, H 50, 60, 65 note 48 Grimm, J. & W. . .27—28, 33, 58, 60, 163 Granbech, V 72 Gunkel, H. 14, 16, 27, 50, 54, 57—65, 66, 109,119,145,149—151,154,163 Halle, R 102 note 8 Harrison, Jane 68—70 Hartlich, C. & Sachs, W. 1—2, 4 notes 20, 21, 8, 9 note 39, 14 note 72, 19 note 26, 21.

Haussig, H . W 162 note 79 Hempel, J 155—159, 160 Henson, Hilary 41 note 38 Herder, J. G. 1, 2, 9—12, 22, 29, 36, 57—58, 87 Heyne, C. G. 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 note 44, 163 Hodgen, Margaret 52 note 2 Hoijer, H 91 note 29

Index of Modem Authors Hooke, S. H Hyman, S. E

66—89,176 67—68

Jacob, E 128 Jacobsen, Th 85 note 1, 93—97, 120 Jakobson, R 102 Jensen, P 45, 47 note 17, 59, 69 Jeremias, A. . .45, 47 notes 15,16, 48—50 Johnson, A. R 77—78, 83, 171 Johnson, M. D 124 note 62 Johnstone, W 171—173 Jolies, A 27 note 61, 150 Kant, I. . . . 5, 86—87, 128, 142, 176, 182 Keesing, F. M 72 note 40, 80 note 82 Kepler, J 91 Kirk, G. S. 67 note 12, 68 note 17, 80—81, 89 note 20, 101 note 4, 112—113, 120— 124, 129 note 5, 130 note 7, 188 note 28 Kitagawa, J. M 127 note 1 Klatt, W. 57 note 1, 58—59, 60 note 25, 61 notes 32—34 Koch, K 154—155 Körner, S 87 note 6 Kraeling, E. G 9 note 40, 27 note 57 Kramer, S. N 82 note 98 Kraus, H.-J. 2 note 6, 9 note 40, 16 notes 1, 3, 24, 27 note 57, 50 notes 30, 31, 83 note 103 Kuhn, A 33, 41 Lambert, W. G 154 note 45 Lambrechts, P 83 Lang, A. 34 notes 6, 9, 41 notes 35, 36, 43, 51—53, 55—56, 128 note 5, 175 note 3, 179 Langdon, S. H. 70, 81 note 91, 82 note 93 Leach, E. R. 101 notes 1, 3, 5, 109—111, 124 Leeuw, G. van der 128—129, 164 Leo, H 30 note 77 Lessing, G. E 185 Lévi-Strauss, C. 35 note 12, 101—111, 122—123, 127, 140, 177, 180—181, 185 Lévy-Bruhl, L 89, 129 note 5, 155 Lienhardt, G 181 note 14 Littledale, R. F 43 note 45 Lohmeyer, E 155—156 Lowth, R 2, 3, 12 Lücke, F 16 note 1 McDermott, R. P McKenzie, J. L McLennan, J. F Malamat, A Malinowski, B Manuel, F. E Marett, R. R Meier, E. H Mendelson, E. M Meyer, Ed

54 note 9 166—169 55 112 note 31 130, 179 10 note 41 56, 129 note 5 59 112 note 31 145 note 1

Meyer, G. W Michaelis, J. D Middleton, J Miles, J. C Mowinckel, S

203 2 note 5, 19, 21 2 101 note 1 90—91 77 note 73

Muilenburg, J 55 note Müller, A 31 note Müller, F. Max 33—44, 47 note 14, note 21, 109, 129 note 5, 176, 179 Murray, G Nöldeke, Th Noth, M Oesterley, W. O. E Ohler, Annemarie Ottley, R. L

17 77 56 68

29 147—148 77 162 note 79 53 note 8

Pallis, S. A 69 note 24, 71—72 Palmer, A. S 34 note 7, 44 Perlitt, L. 14 note 71, 16 note 2, 27 note 58, 29 note 70, 185 notes 25, 26 Rad, G. von 16, 24, 111 note 29, 128, 144 note 66, 148—149, 188 Radin, P 86 note 3, 90,180 RandaH, J. H 185 note 25 Renouf, P. Le Page 42 note 39 Ricoeur, P 128—144, 177, 187 Robinson, H. Wheeler 155 Robinson, Marguerite S 101 note 3 Robinson, T. H 77 Roscher, W. H 45 Rowley, H. H 67 Runciman, W. G 90 note 25 Sachs, A 69 note 22 Saussure, F. de 102 Sayce, A. H .43, 47 note 14 Schelling, F. W. J . . . 4 note 22 Schilpp, P. A 91 note 30 Schleiermacher, F. , .19, 21, 148 Schmidt, W. H. I l l note 29,154,159—162 Sebeok, T. A 34 note 5, 91 note 30 Skinner, J 51 Smend, R. 9 note 40, 11 note 52, 14—15, 16 note 1, 21—22 Smith, G 43 Smith, N. Kemp 87 note 6 Smith, W. Robertson 55, 68—69, 72, 177 Soden, W. von 69 note 23, 81—83 Speiser, E. A 82 note 99 Steinthal, H 33 note 4, 37, 44 Stucken, E 45 Thureau-Dangin, F Trigger, B. G Tylor, E. B

69 33 note 3 52, 56, 67

Umbreit, F. W. C 31 note 77 Vries, J. de 3 note 10, 12, 27 note 61

204

Index of Modern Authors

Weidmann, H. 12 note 60, 48 note 19, 50 note 30, 65 note 50, 145 note 1 Wellhausen, J 16, 29 Westermann, C. 14, 109 note 27,149—154 Wette, W.M.L. de 1, 16—24, 31, 58—59, 149, 178, 187—188 Widengren, G 66—67 Wilson, J. A 85 note 1 Winckler, H. 45—47, 50 note 33, 54, 59

Wright, G. E 85, 97—100 Wolff, H. W 147 note 14 Wolff, R. P 87 note 6 Wundt, W 60—62, 147, 151 Yalman, N 101 note 2 Yamauchi, E. M 82—83 Zimmern, H. 45, 50 note 33, 59, 69, 82 note 93

Subject Index (including non-biblical texts and mythological names) Adonis 83 Aetiology 17, 18, 23, 54, 61, 81 note 89, 119, 126, 147, 150, 176 — see also saga Akitu festival 71—72 Anthropology 3, 6,10, 40—41, 52, 68, 72, 77 note 73, 89, 177,179—181,183 —, see also diffusion, evolution, primitives Attis 83 Baal Bel Binary principle

83 seeMarduk 103—105

Causality, mythical concept of Classification, primitive Culture pattern Degeneration Diffusion

88, 90 5, 127 74—76

52 46, 56, 67, 72—73

Enkidu 47, 49,120—121 Enuma elish 47, 63, 69—72, 81—82, 140—141, 162 note 79, 164 Epic of Gilgamesh 47, 49—51, 73, 76, 79, 81, 120—122, 141 Epistemology 85—100,104 Etymology 18, 23, 35—39, 40, 42 Evolution 14—15, 41, 45, 52,185 Fable (German: Fabel) 7,13, 26,178 Fafnir 36 Folklore 9, 14, 27, 62—63, 145—146, 169—170, 175, 184, 188—189 Gilgamesh Greek myths Grimm's law Hercules Humbaba/Huwawa Ishtar/Inanna

47,49,121—123 3, 35, 80 33, 35 29, 37 49, 121 48—51, 82—83, 121

Legend (German: Legende) 12—13, 26, 60, 178 Leviathan 38, 63 Magic 69,71—72,90 Mana 87, 89 note 21 Märchen (Folk tale) 13 note 67, 26, 60— 65, 145—146, 153, 162 note 79, 174, 178, 188—189

Marduk/Bel-Marduk 47, 49, 69—70, 74, 82 Miracles 5—6, 25 Myth and ritual 66—84, 130, 152, 160, 164, 166, 177 astral mythology . . 46—51, 53—54, 59 comparative mythology. . . .33—44, 54 defined by Barth 162 note 79 defined by Bultmann 155 defined by Eil3feldt 146 note 8 defined by Eliade 130 defined by Ewald 27 defined by George 24—26 defined by Hempel 156—157 defined by Hooke 73 note 43 defined by van der Leeuw . . 130 note 6 defined by Lévi-Strauss 102 defined by Mowinckel 77 note 73 defined by Noth 148 defined by von Rad 148—149 defined by Ricoeur 132—133 defined by de Wette 19—24 defined by G. E. Wright . . .99 note 52 definitions in 18 th century 1, 6—7, 9, 12—13 versus dogma 20 Mythopoeic thought 39, 41, 77 note 73, 85—100, 164—166, 176, 187 Number, mythical concept of 88—89, 176 Nimbamung myth 115—116, 130 note 9 Oedipus myth 35, 106—107 Oral transmission . . 7, 9, 13, 27—29, 175 Oriental mentality 6, 8, 11, 12 — see also mythopoeic thought and primitive mentality Osiris 83 Paki myth 116—118, 130 note 9 Phenomenology 128—131, 149, 151, 160, 161 note 77, 162 note 79, 164, 177 Primitive mentality 3, 23, 27, 33, 37 note 18, 40—42, 52—53, 54 note 11, 55—56, 72, 85—100, 127, 175, 180—187 —, see also mythopoeic thought and oriental mentality Primitives 3, 9, 40, 41, 52, 54 note 11, 55—56, 72, 86, 89—90,167, 175 Progressive revelation 53 Prophets, the 20—21, 39, 89, 160

206

Subject Index

Ragnarok 47 Rahab 38, 43 note 48, 51, 76 Ras Shamra 74—75, 8 1 , 1 4 6 , 1 5 6 Rationalism . . 5 — 6 , 1 4 — 1 5 , 1 8 , 185—187 Revelation 4—5, 85 — see also progressive revelation Ritual see under myth Sacred, the 129—130, 133, 137 Saga (German: Sage) 1, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 24, 28, 29,39, 54, 57—65,146—147,149, 154—155, 174, 178, 188—189 defined by Barth 162 note 79 defined by Eißfeldt 146 note 8 defined by Ewald 27—28 defined by Gunkel 149 note 23 defined by Westermann . . . 149 note 23 equated with myth in 18 th century . . 1 Sakaea festival 70—72

Sanskrit 33—35 Space, mythical concept of 87—88, 165, 176 Speech, earliest 2, 3, 5, 10—12, 33, 34, 36 Supernatural, the 4—6, 9, 14, 17, 22, 26—27 Survivals, doctrine of 52, 56 Symbols 19, 4 6 , 1 2 9 , 131—134 Taboo 137 Tammuz/Dumuzi 47—48, 70, 83 Tannin 38 Tehom 30 note 74, 63 Tiamat 47, 63, 74 Time, mythical concept of 88—90, 1 6 4 — 165, 176 Totemism 55, 88, 127 Zodiac, the

47, 51

Index of biblical references Genesis 1 13 note 6 5 , 1 5 note 74, 25, 30, 59, 76, 87, 110—111, 153—154, 157, 165—166 13 58 note 11 l u 3 114 3 2 4—6, 20, 38, 48, 59, 76, 109, 127, 153, 157, 1 6 5 — 166 22 60, 63 2 5 if 30 3 4r-6, 20, 38, 48, 59, 64, 109, 127, 134, 137, 1 4 0 — 144, 153, 157, 1 6 5 — 1 6 6 3e 10 321-22 54 note 11 324 10 48,76,110 4 419 ff 39 note 27 624 11 6 26, 5 1 61-4 30,63 7 25,51 7h 30 note 74 8 25,51 82 30 note 74 9 25,51 918-27

111-9 12 13 1414 15

1715-21

18 19 19 24 1930-38 20 20i7ff 2121 2131 22 23 26 26 7 27 28 9

29 32 ff

32 a 32 24 ff 34 341-2 38 38 26 39 7ff 49 49 5-7

18 11 49,126 38 49, 5 1 , 1 2 6 126 49 49, 51 126 Exodus

3 2-3 7—9 12 16 32 11 2333-43

Numbers

214-9 22 28 ff 14

Deuteronomy Joshua

28

9—20 11 13 2427

157 22 49 22

17—19 22 22 20-23

9 25 75 2 9-12 19 19 35 18 I Chr 110 2116 75

I I Chr 18 11—12

17 6 9 , 1 8 , 2 5 , 3 0 , 3 9 IO12-13 28,127 125 9 48 11 17 18

Leviticus

I I Samuel 119-27

Est

110

Job 712 76 38 i f f 9 40

I Kings

73,76 146 182 note 18

I I Kings

I Chronicles

I I Chronicles

59 9 25, 2 8 22 25, 28

Esther 49, 5 9 , 1 5 6 , 1 6 9 Job

143 43 158 63

Psalms 137 126 51 160 note 73 126 7714 160 note 73 1129-40 3 9 89 7-9 63 1 4 — 1 6 37, 38, 43—44, 51, 104 139 160 59, 156 159-19 37 note 17 Song of Songs 19 170 Cant 156 Ruth Ezekiel Ruth 49, 124 814 83 116-17 125 note 64 3 6-18 125 note 65 Jonah 418-22 124 note 63 J o n 29,59,156

17 17,125 9 18, 125 note 67 28 48 125 note 68 18 38 18 28 49 7 1 2 1 8 , 1 4 6 1012 1 2 5 n o t e 6 9 1810 18 19 24

Judges

I Samuel

29 3 6 28—29 9 2 8 — 2 9 22 43 ff

Amos 182 note 17 Luke

7—8