101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

Preface xiii
breakup of Solomon’s empire to a punishment by God for his apostasy. And Jeroboam,
first king of Israel after the break from Judah, not only set up golden calves at
cult sites, but established rival temples to the one in Jerusalem. And, throughout the
period of the monarchy, biblical writers tell us that the Hebrews constantly succumbed
to the religious influences of the Canaanites and Philistines.
Under King Josiah (640–609 B.C.), many severe religious reforms were instituted
and strong opposition to idol worship emerged. Whether pure monotheism became
part of Hebrew religion at this time we can’t know for sure. But, by this time, the earlier
beliefs had become embedded in Hebrew traditions and writings. Ultimately, a
single redactor or, most likely, a school of redactors sometime after the fifth century
B.C. gathered the main sources and traditions together and produced the first version
of biblical history in its present form, editing as best they could to eliminate inconsistencies
between monotheism and earlier religious beliefs.
While myths often are based on erroneous or fictional history, they are literary
artifacts. Just as artifacts from different layers of an archaeological site show us the historical
and cultural development of a people, the existence of mythological layers tells
us something about the people who believed in those myths. In 101 Myths of the Bible,
we will look at the layers of mythological artifact and see what the stratifications reveal
about how biblical history and culture came to be.
For convenience, I have arranged the biblical stories so that they closely follow their
order of appearance in the Bible. I also have divided the collection into three sections,
“Myths of the Beginning,” “Myths of the Founders,” and “Myths of the Heroes.”
Because so many people believe the authors of the various Bible books were divinely
inspired, and since this book explores the sources for many Bible stories, I prefer to
think of this collection as a restoration of God’s footnotes for the Bible, putting back
in the source citations the authors left out.