Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27400 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Very interesting backgrounder of biblical time myths
Gary Greenberg's book starts out with a summary of the document theory of the bible, and tells short versions of the creation myths of the Egyptians and the Sumerians in the time the OT was written.
Most of the book consists of short chapters on 101 "Myths" (citations from the Bible) with a short description of "The Reality" behind it, followed by one or two pages of explanations.

Gary Greenberg explains how the ancient Hebrews incorporated the Egyptian and Sumerian stories into a story that fitted their monotheistic worldview, and how you can identify traces of the original versions with deities. He also reconstructed historic situations such as the split of Israel after king Solomon, and the choices writers made because of that, and makes educated guesses as to which kingdom or tribe the writers belonged.

I am not a scholar in this field, so I have to assume the backgrounds Gary Greenberg gives are correct. As a skeptic I have the problem that I don't know how to check everything. Some of the explanations contained reasons that seemed to be disputable: name similarities, based on fragments of text. I have some sort of an antenna for disputable claims, probably fueled by reading books such as Erich von Däniken (Were the Gods astronauts?), Velikovski (Worlds in collision) and others.
Therefore I am glad to say that in the conclusion all 101 threads are woven together again, making it a coherent hypothesis.
I'm afraid that to check it more I would have to follow the Further Reading advises with which the book ends.

A Remarkable Book About A Serious Subject
Gary Greenberg has written a remarkable book which describes how the Bible was influenced by many different myths and legends taken from cultures with which the Hewbrews came into contact. For example, early biblical history was much affected by Egyptian mythology and literature. Babylonian myths were sometimes added later and then integrated with other legends drawn from still more sources.

The author describes the Old Testament as a collection of myths. The myths are valuable because they lead us to learn the truth about the history of ancient Israel. Greenberg points out that by identifying the myths and legends which were used in writing the Bible we are able to determine where the Jewish people were located at definite dates in history. These myths and legends can sometimes even be offerred as proof of the validity of certain biblical events in the same manner as archaeological sites are utilized.

In discussing the myths individually the author has grouped them chronologically into three groups as follows: Myths of the Beginning, Myths of the Founders and Myths of the Heroes.

The book includes an extensive suggested reading list and a table of useful maps.

Interesting Summary of the Creation of the Bible
The Genesis of Genesis effectively.
Well written summary of the development of various primary myths, which were developed by fertile minds, to become the Best Selling piece of fiction of all time. Worth following some of the references in this book for other myth sources. Some of the obvious links, available elsewhere, have been left out and it is not obvious whether this is intentional.