IN the great mass of our materials two groups are distinctly recognisable: 1. The legends of the origin of the world and of the progenitors of the human race, the stories down to the tower of Babel, their locality being remote and their sphere of interest the whole world; 2. The legends of the patriarchs of Israel: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the latter's sons, the locality and the sphere of interest being Canaan and adjacent lands. Even in their character the two groups are most plainly distinguished: the narratives of the first group speak of God in a way different from that of the legends of the patriarchs. In the latter the divinity appears always enveloped in mystery, unrecognised or speaking out of Heaven, or perhaps only in a dream. In the earlier legends, on the contrary, God walks intimately among men and no one marvels at it: in the legend of Paradise men dwell in God's house; it is assumed that he is in the habit of visiting them every evening; he even closes the ark for Noah, and appears to him in person, attracted by his sacrifice. Furthermore, in the legends of the patriarchs the real actors are always men; if the divinity appears, it is regarded as an "Myths"--let no one shrink from the word--are stories of the gods, in contradistinction to the legends in which the actors are men. Stories of the gods are in all nations the oldest narratives; the legend as a literary variety has its origin in myths. Accordingly, when we find that these primitive legends are akin to myths, we must infer that they have come down to us in comparatively ancient form. They come from a period of Israel's history when the childlike belief of the people had not yet fully arrived at the conception of a divinity whose operations are shrouded in mystery. On the other hand, these original myths have reached us in comparatively faded colors. This we can perceive in the narratives themselves, where we are able in In all this we can see the essential character of the religion of Israel. The fundamental trait of the religion of Jahveh is unfavorable to myths. For this religion from its very beginning tends toward monotheism. But for a story of the gods at least two gods are essential. Therefore the Israel which we observe in the Old Testament could not tolerate genuine and unmodified myths, at least not in prose.
It is not proposed to present here a theory of the origin and primitive significance of myths. Only a few observations may be permitted. A certain series of myths may be interpreted on the assumption The primitive legends are followed in Genesis by the legends of the patriarchs. The distinctive feature of these legends is that they tell of the progenitors of races, especially of Israel. At the foundation of these legends lies the theory that all races, Israel included, have come in each case from the family of a single ancestor, which gradually expanded. This theory is not supported by observed facts, for no human eye observes the origin of races; on the contrary, it is the remnant of a primitive poetic conception of tribal life. In earliest times the individual man counts for little. There is much more interest in the destinies of the race: the tribe, the nation, are regarded as real entities much more than at the present day. Thus it comes that the destinies of the race are regarded as being the destinies of a person: the race sighs, triumphs, is dejected, rebels, dies, comes to life again, etc. Thus too the relations of races are regarded as the relations of individuals: two races it is said, are brothers, i. e., are closely related and equal; if one of them is regarded as richer, stronger, or nobler, it is said to be the firstborn brother, or it comes of a better mother, while the other is younger, or comes of a concubine. Israel being We are not putting a new meaning into the legends which treat of such race-individuals, when we regard their heroes, Ishmael, Jacob, Esau, and others, as tribes and try to interpret the stories about them as tribal events; we are simply getting at their meaning as it was understood in primitive times in Israel. In these legends the clearest matter is the character of races: here is Esau, the huntsman of the steppes, living with little reflexion from hand to mouth, forgetful, magnanimous, brave, and hairy as a goat; and there is Jacob the herdsman, a smooth man, more cunning and accustomed to look into the future. His uncle Laban is the type of the These legends have not hitherto received full justice, even when it has been recognised that they are legends. Even the most superficial reader can distinguish for himself the chief original sources in Genesis from which the present redaction was constructed, now commonly called the writings of the Elohist, of the Jahvist, and of the Priestly Code. Since the sources of the Elohist and the Jahvist were written down in the ninth or eight century B. C., some commentators have been disposed to think that the legends themselves originated in the main in the age of the Israelitish kingdom and furnished therefore no revelations of primitive history. But in reality these legends are much older. The tribal and race names which they preserve are almost all forgotten in other records: we know nothing of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, of Abel and Cain, of Esau and Jacob, nothing of Hagar and scarcely anything of Ishmael, from the historical records of Israel. Hence we must conclude that these races all belong to prehistoric times. This is particularly evident in the case of Jacob and Esau, We call these legends "historical" when they reflect historical occurrences, "ethnographic" when they contain chiefly descriptions of race and tribal relations. Thus we characterise the legend of the treaty of Beersheba and the various legends of migrations as "historical," but those of Jacob and Esau as "ethnographic." Alongside these narratives of Genesis are also "ætiological" legends, that is, those that are written for a purpose, or to explain something. There is no end of the questions which interest a primitive people. The instinct for asking questions is innate in man: he wants to know of the origin of things. The child looks into the world with wide eyes and asks, Why? The answer which the child gives itself and with which it is for the time satisfied, is perhaps very childish, and hence incorrect, and yet, if it is a bright child the answer is interesting and touching even for the grown man. In the same way a primitive people asks similar questions and answers them as best it can. These questions are usually the same that we ourselves are asking and trying to answer in our scientific researches. Hence what we find in these, legends are the beginnings of human science; only humble beginnings, of course, and yet venerable to us because they are beginnings, and at the same time peculiarly attractive and touching, for in these answers ancient Israel has uttered its most intimate feelings, clothing them in a bright garb of poetry. Some of these questions are the following: There is a desire to know the reasons for the relations of tribes. Why is Canaan the servant of his brethren? Why has Japhet such an extended territory? Why do the children of Lot dwell in the inhospitable East? How does it come that Reuben has lost his birthright? Why must Cain wander Childish as these explanations now seem to us, and impossible as it was for the men of old to find out the true reasons of such things, yet we must not overlook the profundity of many of these poetic legends: they are all based on the assumption that the tribal and national relations of that day were not due to chance, but that they were all the results of events of the primitive world, that they were in a way "predestined." In these legends we have the first rudiments of a philosophy of history. Along with the above we find etymological legends or features of legends, as it were, beginnings of the science of language. Ancient Israel spent much thought upon the origin and the real meaning of the names of races, mountains, wells, sanctuaries, and cities. To them names were not so unimportant as to us, for they were convinced that names were somehow closely related to the
The Lombards, we are told by another legend, were originally called Winili. But on an occasion the women of the tribe put on beards as a disguise, and Wodan looking out of his window in the morning The famous Thuringian castle, the Wartburg, is said to have derived its name from the fact that the landgrave, having strayed thither during a hunt, exclaimed, "Wart, Berg, du sollst mir eine Burg werden" (Wait, mountain, thou shalt become my fortress). Similar legends are numerous in Genesis and in later works. The city of Babel is named from the fact that God there confused human tongues (balal, xi. 9); Jacob is interpreted as "heelholder" because at birth he held his brother, whom he robbed of the birthright, by the heel (xxv. 26); Zoar means "trifle," because Lot said appealingly, "It is only a trifle" (xix. 20, 22); Beersheba is "the well of seven," because Abraham there gave Abimelech seven lambs (xxi. 28 ff.); Isaac (Jishak) is said to have his name from the fact that his mother laughed (sahak) when his birth was foretold to her (xviii. 12), and so forth. In order to realise the utter naïveté) of most of these interpretations, consider that the Hebrew legend calmly explains the Babylonian name Babel from the Hebrew vocabulary, and that the writers are often satisfied with merely approximate similarities of sounds: for instance Cain (more exactly Kajin) from kaniti, "I have acquired." (iv. I), Reuben from rah beonji, "he hath regarded my misery" (xxix. 32), etc. Every student of Hebrew knows that these are not satisfactory etymologies. Investigators have not always fully perceived the naive character of this theory of etymology, but have allowed themselves to be misled into patching More important than these etymological legends are those whose purpose is to explain the regulations of religious ceremonials. Such ceremonial regulations play a great part in the life of primitive races, but many of these customs had become in part or altogether unintelligible to the one who observed them in the earliest times of which we have authentic record. For customs are far more persistent than opinions, and religious customs are particularly conservative. And even we, whose religious service has undergone a vigorous purging in the Reformation and again at the hands of rationalism, see and hear in our churches many things which we understand only in part or not at all. Ancient Israel reflected deeply upon the origin of these religious practices. And if the grown people became too blunted by custom to be able to perceive the strange and unintelligible features of the custom, they were roused from their indifference by the questions of the children. When the children see their father perform all sorts of curious customs during the Feast of the Passover, they will ask--thus it is expressly told, Ex. xii. 26; xiii. 14--What No Israelite could have given the real reason for all these things, for they were too old. But to relieve this embarrassment myth and legend step in. They tell a story and explain the sacred custom: long ago an event occurred from which this ceremony very naturally sprang, and we perform the ceremony representing the event in commemoration of it. But this story that explains the custom is always laid in primitive times. Thus the ancient race gives the entirely correct impression that the customs of their religious service originated in the immemorial past: the trees of Shechem and Hebron are older than Abraham! We perform the rite of circumcision in memory of Moses, whose firstborn was circumcised as a redemption for Moses whose blood God demanded (Ex. iv. 24 ff.). We rest on the seventh day because God at the creation of the world rested on the seventh day (a myth, because In all this matter we are constantly hearing of certain definite places, such as Bethel, Penuel, Shechem, Beersheba, Lacha-roi, Jeruel, etc., and of the trees, wells, and stone monuments at these places. These are the primitive sanctuaries of the tribes and families of Israel. Primitive times felt that there was some immediate manifestation of the nature of the divinity in these monuments, but a later time, which no longer regarded the connexion as so clear and so self-evident, raised the question, Why is this particular place and this sacred memorial so especially sacred? The regular answer to this question was, Because in this place the divinity appeared to our ancestor. In commemoration of this theophany we worship God in this place. Now in the history of religion it is of great significance that the ceremonial legend comes from a time when religious feeling no longer perceived as self-evident the divinity of the locality and the natural monument and had forgotten the significance of the sacred ceremony. Accordingly the legend has to supply Aside from the foregoing we may distinguish a number of other sorts of legends, of which at least the geological deserves mention. Such geological legends undertake to explain the origin of a locality. Whence comes the Dead Sea with its dreadful desert? The region was cursed by God on account of the terrible sin of its inhabitants. Whence comes the pillar of salt yonder with its resemblance to a woman? That is a woman, Lot's wife, turned into a pillar of salt in punishment for attempting to spy out the mystery of God (xix. 26). But whence does it come that the bit of territory about Zoar is an exception to the general desolation? Because Jahveh spared it as a refuge for Lot (xix. 17-22). All these ætiological legends, then, are remote from the standards of the modern sciences to which they correspond; we regard them with the emotion with which a man looks back upon his childhood. But even for our science they have a great value, for they furnish us in their descriptions or implications of definite conditions the most important material for the knowledge of the ancient world. Very frequently various types of legend are combined in one. The flight of Hagar (xvi.) is to be called ethnographic because it depicts the life of Ishmael; ethnologic, because it undertakes to explain these conditions; in one feature it is allied interpretation of the names Lacha-roi and Ishmael.--The legend of Paradise treats all at once a number of questions.--The legend of Bethel explains at once the worship at Bethel and the name of the place.--The legends of Beersheba (xxi., xxii. ff., xxvi.) contain remnants of history, telling of a tribal treaty established there, and at the same time certain religious features, as the explanation of the sanctity of the place, and finally some etymological elements.--The legend of Penuel explains the sanctity of the place, the ceremony of limping, and the names Penuel and Israel. And so on. Etymological elements, it may be noted, never appear alone in Genesis, but always in connexion with other features. In many cases the origin of the legends will have been revealed with what has already been considered. Thus, in most etymological legends it can be shown quite clearly that those features in the legend which explain the name were invented for this very purpose. The incident of Abraham's giving Abimelech seven (sheba) lambs at Beersheba (xxi., 28 ff.) was surely invented to explain this name; also the laughing (sahak) of Isaac's mother (xviii. 12-15), etc. The narrative of Judah, Er, Onan (xxxviii.) and the others is plainly nothing but a history of the Israelite families, just as the legend of Dinah (xxxiv.) is merely a reflexion of the attack upon Shechem. But, on the other hand, the investigator is to be warned not to be too quick to jump at the conclusion 15:1 Compare the material gathered in my work Creation and Chaos, 1895. 27:1 Cp. Genesis xlix.THE VARIETIES OF LEGENDS IN GENESIS.
SOME LEGENDS ARE FADED MYTHS.
MONOTHEISM HOSTILE TO MYTHS.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MYTHS.
PATRIARCHS REPRESENT TRIBES.
ETHNOLOGICAL LEGENDS.
ETYMOLOGICAL LEGENDS.
CEREMONIAL LEGENDS.
MIXED LEGENDS.
ORIGIN OF THE LEGENDS.
