Guf ( Hebrew : גּוּף , also transliterated Guph or Gup ) is a Hebrew word, meaning "body". In Jewish mysticism the Chamber of Guf , also called the Otzar ( הָאוֹצָר , "treasury"), is the Treasury of Souls, located in the Seventh Heaven .
115-549: According to Jewish mythology , in the Garden of Eden there is a Tree of life , or the "Tree of Souls", that blossoms and produces new souls , which fall into the Guf, the "Treasury of Souls". Gabriel reaches into the treasury and takes out the first soul that comes into his hand. Then Lailah , the Angel of Conception, watches over the embryo until it is born. According to Rabbi Isaac Luria ,
230-731: A demigod (such as Heracles or Enkidu ) enfolded into Jewish religious lore, or as an archetypical folk hero . According to the Book of Samuel , Saul and the Israelites are facing the Philistines in the Valley of Elah . Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, comes out between the lines and challenges the Israelites to send out a champion of their own to decide the outcome in single combat , but Saul
345-460: A great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises he will never destroy the world with water again, making a rainbow as a symbol of his promise . God sees humankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the Tower of Babel , and divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with confusion. Then, a generation line from Shem to Abram is described. Abram,
460-461: A bowl of stew. His mother, Rebekah, ensures Jacob rightly gains his father's blessing as the firstborn son and inheritor. At 77 years of age, Jacob leaves his parents and later seeks a wife and meets Rachel at a well. He goes to her father, his uncle , where he works for a total of 14 years to earn his wives, Rachel and Leah . Jacob's name is changed to Israel after his wrestle with an angel , and by his wives and their handmaidens he has twelve sons,
575-455: A cave in the rock of Etam . An army of Philistines came to the Tribe of Judah and demanded that 3,000 men of Judah deliver them Samson. In order to avoid a war and with Samson's consent, they tied him with two new ropes and were about to hand him over to the Philistines when he broke free of the ropes. Using the jawbone of a donkey, he slew 1,000 Philistines. Samson falls in love with Delilah in
690-821: A cosmic struggle. Even the Exodus story shows combat-myth influence. McGinn believes the " Song of the Sea ", which the Hebrews sang after seeing God drown the Egyptian army in Yam Suph , includes "motifs and language from the combat myth used to emphasize the importance of the foundational event in Israel's religious identity: the crossing of the Red Sea and deliverance from the Pharaoh". Likewise, Armstrong notes
805-472: A fragment of pagan mythology about gods interbreeding with humans to produce heroes. R. C. Zaehner, a professor of Eastern religions, argues for Zoroastrianism's direct influence on Jewish eschatological myths , especially the resurrection of the dead with rewards and punishments. The mythologist Joseph Campbell believed the Judeo-Christian-Islamic idea of linear history originated with
920-502: A long period of time. The involvement of multiple authors is suggested by internal contradictions within the text. For example, Genesis includes two creation narratives . By the early 1860s, the leading theory for the Pentateuch's composition was the old supplementary hypothesis. This theory held that the earliest portions, the so-called Book of Origins (containing Genesis 1 and most of the priestly laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers),
1035-493: A male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each prospective mother— Sarah , Rebekah and Rachel —is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God and God in each case gives a son—in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites . Each succeeding generation of the three promises attains a more rich fulfilment, until through Joseph "all
1150-473: A man descended from Noah, is instructed by God to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan . There, God makes a promise to Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates ". Abram's name
1265-468: A man named Noah was righteous (because he walked with God) and blameless among the people. God instructs Noah to build an ark and directs him to bring at least two of every animal inside the boat, along with his family. The flood comes and covers the world. After 40 days, Noah sends a raven to check whether the waters have subsided, then a dove; after exiting the boat, Noah offers a sacrifice to God, who smells "the sweet savour" and promises never to destroy
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#17328512223841380-514: A number of variations and revisions of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed. The new supplementary hypothesis posits three main sources for the Pentateuch: J, D, and P. The E source is considered no more than a variation of J, and P is considered a body of revisions and expansions to the J (or "non-Priestly") material. The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis. More recent thinking
1495-549: A pillar of salt for going against his word. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never find husbands, get Lot drunk so they can become pregnant by him, and give birth to the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites . Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar , pretending to be brother and sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but God warns him to return her (as she
1610-468: A seasonal cycle of acts, Yahweh stood outside nature and intervened in it, producing new, historically unprecedented events; Eliade wrote: "That was theophany of a new type, hitherto unknown— the intervention of Jahveh in history . It was therefore something irreversible and unrepeatable. The fall of Jerusalem does not repeat the fall of Samaria: the ruin of Jerusalem presents a new historic theophany, another 'wrath' of Jahveh. […] Jahveh stands out from
1725-455: A servant to shave his hair. Samson loses his strength and he is captured by the Philistines who blind him by gouging out his eyes. They then take him to Gaza, imprison him, and put him to work turning a large millstone and grinding corn. One day, the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon , for having delivered Samson into their hands. They summon Samson so that people can watch him perform for them. The temple
1840-502: A single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Second Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However,
1955-594: A special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). In Judaism , the theological importance of Genesis centres on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land . The name Genesis is from the Latin Vulgate , in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek Γένεσις , meaning 'origin'; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית , romanized: Bərēʾšīṯ , 'In [the] beginning'. Genesis
2070-425: A stone from his sling and hits Goliath in the center of his forehead, Goliath falls on his face to the ground, and David cuts off his head. The Philistines flee and are pursued by the Israelites "as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron ". David puts the armor of Goliath in his own tent and takes the head to Jerusalem , and Saul sends Abner to bring the boy to him. The king asks whose son he is, and David answers, "I am
2185-461: A symbol of chaos, has the form of a combat myth. In addition, McGinn thinks the Hebrews applied the combat myth motif to the relationship between God and Satan . Originally a deputy in God's court, assigned to act as mankind's "accuser" ( satan means "to oppose" – Hebrew : שָּׂטָן satan , meaning "adversary"), Satan evolved into a being with "an apparently independent realm of operation as a source of evil" – no longer God's deputy but his opponent in
2300-533: Is circumcision ; and the last, which does not appear until the Book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath . A great leader mediates each covenant ( Noah , Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name ( Elohim with Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses). Throughout Genesis, various figures engage in deception or trickery to survive or prosper. Biblical scholar David M. Carr notes that such stories reflect
2415-583: Is a new act of God: "The fall of Samaria actually did occur in history [...] It was therefore something irreversible and unrepeatable. The fall of Jerusalem does not repeat the fall of Samaria: the ruin of Jerusalem presents a new historic theophany." By portraying time as a linear progression of events, rather than an eternal repetition , Jewish mythology suggested the possibility for progress . Inherited by Christianity, this view of history has deeply influenced Western philosophy and culture. Even supposedly secular or political Western movements have worked within
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#17328512223842530-505: Is about to lay the knife upon his son, "the Angel of the Lord" restrains him, promising him again innumerable descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron ) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; after proving herself worthy, Rebekah becomes Isaac's betrothed. Keturah , Abraham's other wife, births more children, among whose descendants are
2645-472: Is afraid. David , bringing food for his elder brothers, hears that Goliath has defied the armies of God and of the reward from Saul to the one that defeats him, and accepts the challenge. Saul reluctantly agrees and offers his armor, which David declines, taking only his staff, sling ( Hebrew : קָלַע qāla‘ ) and five stones from a brook. David and Goliath confront each other, Goliath with his armor and javelin, David with his staff and sling. David hurls
2760-536: Is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph , the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all humankind (the covenant with Noah ) to
2875-399: Is changed to 'Abraham' and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah (meaning 'princess'), and God says that all males should be circumcised as a sign of his promise to Abraham. Due to her old age, Sarah tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar , as a second wife (to bear a child). Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael . God then plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for
2990-497: Is declared to be unlucky to do things twice, as eating, drinking, or washing, Rabbi Dunai recognized that this was an old tradition. A remarkable custom mentioned in the Talmud is that of planting trees when children are born and intertwining them to form the huppah when they marry. Yet this idea may be originally Iranian and is also found in India. It may be possible to distinguish in
3105-432: Is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for humans, but when man corrupts it with sin, God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish
3220-513: Is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself. Describing the work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of
3335-416: Is interpreted by Christians as the " fall of man " into sin . Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel . Cain works in the garden, and Abel works with meat; they both offer offerings to God one day, and God does not accept Cain's offering but does accept Abel's. This causes Cain to resent Abel, and Cain ends up murdering him. God then curses Cain . Eve bears another son, Seth , to take Abel's place in accordance to
3450-471: Is normally excluded). Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. (It is, however, worth noting that in the Jahwist source, the patriarchs refer to deity by the name YHWH, for example in Genesis 15.) Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells
3565-668: Is not a unique event brought on by a divine choice; instead, it's one of the destructions and recreations of the universe that happen at regular intervals in Hindu mythology . This recurrence also happens in Mesopotamian floods or disasters, although is because of the discontent of the gods because of the noise made by humans, told in the Erra Epic . The Patriarchs in Hebrew bible are Abraham , his son Isaac , and Isaac's son Jacob , also named Israel ,
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3680-441: Is really Abraham's wife) and he obeys. God sends Sarah a son and tells her she should name him Isaac ; through him will be the establishment of the covenant (promise). Sarah then drives Ishmael and his mother Hagar out into the wilderness (because Ishmael is not her real son and Hagar is a slave), but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. Then, God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac . As Abraham
3795-409: Is seen when Samson was on his way to ask for the Philistine woman's hand in marriage, when he was attacked by a lion. He simply grabbed it and ripped it apart, as the spirit of God divinely empowered him. After the Philistines burned Samson's wife and father-in-law to death, Samson, in revenge, slaughtered many more Philistines, saying, "I have done to them what they did to me". Samson then took refuge in
3910-411: Is so crowded and all the rulers of the entire government of Philistia have gathered there too, some 3,000 people in all. Samson is led into the temple, and he asks his captors to let him lean against the supporting pillars to rest. He prays for strength and God gives him strength to break the pillars, causing the temple to collapse, killing him and the people inside. Academics have interpreted Samson as
4025-630: Is that J dates from either just before or during the Babylonian Exile, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after. The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in
4140-676: Is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word , Bereshit ( 'In the beginning' ). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world , the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people . Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as
4255-665: The Babylonian Exile ( c. 598 BC – c. 538 BC ). At the end of the 19th century, most scholars adopted the documentary hypothesis . This theory held that the five books of the Pentateuch came from four sources: the Yahwist (abbreviated as J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly source (P). Each source was held to tell the same basic story, with
4370-403: The Garden of Eden where he is to have dominion over the plants and animals. God places a tree in the garden which he prohibits Adam from eating the fruit of. Eve is later created from one of Adam's ribs to be Adam's companion. The biblical story of Garden of Eden, most notably in the Book of Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also in the Book of Ezekiel depicts Adam and Eve as walking around
4485-498: The Garden of Eden . In the second chapter, God commanded the man that he is free to eat from any tree, including the tree of life, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Later, in chapter 3, a serpent , portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster , convinces Eve to eat the fruit. She then convinces Adam to eat it, whereupon God throws them out and punishes them—Adam was punished with getting what he needs only by sweat and work, and Eve to giving birth in pain. This
4600-562: The Land of Goshen in the time of Joseph and Jacob , but a new pharaoh arose who enslaved and oppressed the children of Israel. At this time Moses was born; the Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born would be drowned in the river Nile, but Moses' mother placed him in an ark and concealed the ark in the bulrushes by the riverbank, where the baby was discovered and adopted by Pharaoh's daughter, and raised as an Egyptian. One day after Moses had reached adulthood he killed an Egyptian who
4715-587: The Midianites . Abraham dies at a prosperous old age and his family lays him to rest in Hebron (Machpelah). Isaac's wife Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau (meaning 'velvet'), father of the Edomites , and Jacob (meaning 'supplanter' or 'follower'). Esau was a couple of seconds older as he had come out of the womb first, and was going to become the heir; however, through carelessness, he sold his birthright to Jacob for
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4830-413: The Torah's author . It was probably composed around the 5th century BC , although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), may have been composed and added as late as the 3rd century BC. Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological , genetic , and linguistic evidence, some mainstream Bible scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical . It
4945-477: The Valley of Jezreel . But God informed Gideon that the men he had gathered were too many – with so many men, there would be reason for the Israelites to claim the victory as their own instead of acknowledging that God had saved them. At first Gideon sent home those men who were afraid and invited any man who wanted to leave, to do so; 22,000 men returned home and 10,000 remained. Yet with the number, God told Gideon they were still too many; Gideon brought his troops to
5060-584: The Victorian crisis of faith as evidence mounted that the Earth was far older than six thousand years. It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion , popularly referred to as a parashah , to be read during Jewish prayer services on Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays. The full name, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ , Parashat ha-Shavua , is popularly abbreviated to parashah (also parshah / p ɑː r ʃ ə / or parsha ), and
5175-435: The haggadic legends of biblical character those portions that probably formed part of the original accounts from those that have been developed by the exegetic principles of the haggadists . Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek Γένεσις , Génesis ; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית , romanized: Bərēʾšīṯ , lit. 'In [the] beginning'; Latin : Liber Genesis )
5290-578: The kabbalistic schools. One such aspect was the appearance of the shedim ; these became ubiquitous to the ordinary Jews with the increased access to the study of the Talmud after the invention of the printing press. The classical rabbis themselves were at times not free from sharing in the popular beliefs. Thus, while there is a whole catalog of prognostications by means of dreams in Ber. 55 et seq., and instructions for ameliorating those dreams and Rabbi Johanan claimed that those dreams are true which come in
5405-420: The land of Goshen . Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future before he dies. Joseph lives to old age and tells his brothers before his death that if God leads them out of the country, then they should take his bones with them. In 1978, David Clines published The Theme of the Pentateuch . Considered influential as one of the first authors to take up the question of the overarching theme of
5520-519: The pharaoh of Egypt asks him to interpret a dream he had about an upcoming famine, which Joseph does through God. He is then made second in command of Egypt by the grateful pharaoh, and later on, he is reunited with his father and brothers, who fail to recognize him and plead for food as the famine had reached Canaan as well. After much manipulation to see if they still hate him, Joseph reveals himself, forgives them for their actions, and lets them and their households into Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them
5635-487: The valley of Sorek . The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her with 1,100 silver coins to find the secret of Samson's strength so that they can capture their enemy. While Samson refuses to reveal the secret and teases her with false answers, he is finally worn down and tells Delilah that God supplies his power because of his consecration to God as a Nazirite and that if his hair is cut off he will lose his strength. Delilah then woos him to sleep "in her lap" and calls for
5750-448: The 16th to the 19th century treated the book of Genesis as factual. As evidence in the fields of paleontology , geology and other sciences was uncovered, scholars tried to fit these discoveries into the Genesis creation account. For example, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in the 18th century believed that fossils were the remains of creatures killed during the flood. This literal understanding of Genesis fell out of favor with scholars during
5865-520: The 3rd century BC. As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians of the Achaemenid Empire , after their conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce
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#17328512223845980-569: The Garden of Eden and planted trees, the living creatures and then the first woman. Many of the Hebrews' neighbors had a "combat myth" about the good god battling the demon of chaos ; one example of this mytheme is the Babylonian Enûma Eliš . A lesser known example is the very fragmentary myth of Labbu . According to historian Bernard McGinn , the combat myth's imagery influenced Jewish mythology. The myth of God's triumph over Leviathan ,
6095-403: The Garden of Eden naked due to their innocence. The man was free to eat off of any tree in the garden, but forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil . Last of all, the L ORD God made a woman ( Eve ) from a rib of the man to be a companion to the man. However, the serpent tricks Eve into eating fruit from the forbidden tree. Following Eve, Adam broke the commandment and ate of
6210-455: The Guf is sometimes described as a columbarium , or birdhouse . The mystic significance of the Guf is that each person is important and has a unique role that only they, with their unique soul, can fulfill. Even a newborn baby brings the Messiah closer simply by being born. The peculiar idiom of describing the treasury of souls as a "body" may be connected to the mythic tradition of Adam Kadmon ,
6325-650: The Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism . In the mythologies of India and the Far East, "the world was not to be reformed, but only known, revered, and its laws obeyed". In contrast, in Zoroastrianism, the current world is "corrupt [...] and to be reformed by human action". According to Campbell, this "progressive view of cosmic history" "can be heard echoed and re-echoed, in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Aramaean, Arabic, and every tongue of
6440-523: The Israelite camp and gave each of his men a trumpet ( shofar ) and a clay jar with a torch hidden inside. Divided into three companies, Gideon and his 300 men marched on the enemy camp. He instructed them to blow the trumpet, give a battle cry and light torches, simulating an attack by a large force. As they did so, the Midianite army fled ( Judges 7:17–22 ). Later, their leaders were caught and killed. Samson
6555-543: The Lion of Bei Ilai, since every lion can be killed, but the Rabbi refused and pointed out that this is not a normal lion. The emperor insisted, so the Rabbi reluctantly called for the lion of "Bei Ilai". He roared once from a distance of 400 parasangs , and all pregnant women miscarried and all the city walls of Rome tumbled down. Then he came to 300 parasangs and roared again, and the front teeth and molars of Roman men fell out, and even
6670-485: The Pentateuch, Clines' conclusion was that the overall theme is "the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial nonfulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs". (By calling the fulfilment "partial", Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of Deuteronomy the people of Israel are still outside Canaan.) The patriarchs , or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph
6785-518: The Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text. Genesis is an example of a work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and their ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. Notable examples are found in
6900-467: The Pharaoh to refuse, and only after God had subjected Egypt to ten plagues did the Pharaoh relent. Moses led the Israelites to the border of Egypt, but there God hardened the Pharaoh's heart once more, so that he could destroy the Pharaoh and his army at the Red Sea Crossing as a sign of his power to Israel and the nations. From Egypt, Moses led the Israelites to biblical Mount Sinai , where he
7015-470: The Sea (Ex. 15). This motif recur in poetry throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (I Samuel 2; Zechariah 9:11–16;14:3-8). Some comparative mythologists think Jewish mythology absorbed elements from pagan mythology. According to these scholars, even while resisting pagan worship , the Jews willingly absorbed elements of pagan mythology. According to the creation narratives in Genesis , Adam and Eve were
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#17328512223847130-466: The Talmud exists as a discussion about a giant deer and a giant lion which both originated in a mythical forest called "Bei Ilai". ( Bei means house in Aramaic) The deer is called "Keresh" ( Jewish Babylonian Aramaic : קֶרֶשׁ , romanized: qeresh ), it has one horn, and its skin measures 15 cubits in length. The Roman emperor Hadrian once asked Joshua ben Hananiah to show him
7245-634: The West". Other traditional cultures limited mythical events to the beginning of time, and saw important historical events as repetitions of those mythical events. According to Mircea Eliade, the Hebrew prophets "valorized" history, seeing historical events as episodes in a continual divine revelation. This doesn't mean that all historical events have significance in Judaism; however, in Jewish mythology, significant events happen throughout history, and they are not merely repetitions of each other; each significant event
7360-660: The age of the world since creation. This Anno Mundi system of counting years is the basis of the Hebrew calendar and Byzantine calendar . Counts differ somewhat, but they generally place the age of the Earth at about six thousand years. During the Protestant Reformation , rivalry between Catholic and Protestant Christians led to a closer study of the Bible and a competition to take its words more seriously. Thus, scholars in Europe from
7475-565: The analysis of the Abraham cycle, the Jacob cycle, and the Joseph cycle, and the Yahwist and Priestly sources . The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal theme of the divine promise to the stories of Genesis 1–11 (the primeval history ) with their theme of God's forgiveness in the face of man's evil nature. One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain alienated from humankind: God creates
7590-489: The ancestor of the Israelites . These three figures are referred to collectively as the patriarchs of Judaism , and the period in which they lived is known as the patriarchal age . The narrative in Genesis revolves around the themes of posterity and land. Abraham is called by God to leave the house of his father Terah and settle in the land originally given to Canaan but which God now promises to Abraham and his progeny. Various candidates are put forward who might inherit
7705-485: The ancestors of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and a daughter, Dinah . Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, rapes Dinah and asks his father to get Dinah for him as his wife, according to Chapter 34. Jacob agrees to the marriage but requires that all the males of Hamor's tribe be circumcised, including Hamor and Shechem. After this was performed and all the men were still weak, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi murdered all
7820-475: The boat, Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell "the sweet savour" and repent their choice to send the flood. Another ancient flood myth is the Hindu story of Matsya the fish. According to this story, the god Vishnu takes the form of a fish and warns the ancestor Manu about a coming flood. He tells Manu to put all the creatures of the earth into a boat. Unlike the biblical flood, however, this flood
7935-400: The book into the following sections: It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on the subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 1–11) and a patriarchal history (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding
8050-512: The divine that is distinct from the mythologies of its neighbors. Instead of seeing the god of Israel as just one national god , these writings describe Yahweh as the one god of the universe. The prophetic writings condemned Hebrew participation in nature worship, and did not completely identify the divine with natural forces. Through the prophets' influence, Jewish theology increasingly portrayed God as independent from nature and acting independently of natural forces. Instead of eternally repeating
8165-493: The earth by water again – making the rainbow a symbol of this promise. Similarly, in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh , the bustle of humanity disturbs the gods, who decide to send a flood. Warned by one of the gods, a man named Utnapishtim builds a boat and takes his family and animals inside. After the flood, Utnapishtim sends a dove, then a swallow, then a raven to check whether the waters have subsided. After exiting
8280-540: The emperor himself fell from his throne. He begged the Rabbi to send it back. The Rabbi prayed, and it returned to its place. The authorities of the Talmud seem to be particularly influenced by popular conception in the direction of folk medicine . A belief in the Evil eye was also prevalent in Talmudic times, and occasionally omens were taken seriously, though in some cases recognized as being merely popular beliefs. Thus, while it
8395-472: The entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on the flood story (chapters 6–9) with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after. The ancestral history is structured around the three patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The stories of Isaac arguably do not make up a coherent cycle of stories and function as a bridge between the cycles of Abraham and Jacob. The Genesis creation narrative comprises two different stories;
8510-545: The face of the earth, and they stopped building the city. Thus the city was called Babel. The Genesis flood narrative has similarities to ancient flood stories told worldwide. One of the closest parallels is the Mesopotamian myth of a world flood, recorded in The Epic of Gilgamesh . In the Hebrew Bible flood story (Genesis 6:5–22), God decides to flood the world and start over, due to mankind's sinfulness. However, God sees that
8625-483: The first man and woman. In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible , chapters one through five, there are two creation narratives with two distinct perspectives. In the first, Adam and Eve (though not referenced by name) were created together in God's image and jointly given instructions to multiply and to be stewards over everything else that God had made. In the second narrative, God fashions Adam from dust and places him in
8740-456: The first two chapters roughly correspond to these. In the first, Elohim , the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the heavens and the earth including humankind, in six days, and rests on the seventh . In the second, God, now referred to as " Yahweh Elohim" (rendered as "the L ORD God" in English translations), creates two individuals, Adam and Eve , as the first man and woman, and places them in
8855-409: The forbidden fruit. God curses only the serpent and the ground. He prophetically tells the woman and the man what will be the consequences of their sin of disobeying God. Then he banishes "the man" from the Garden of Eden to prevent him from eating also of the tree of life , and thus living for ever. East of the garden there were placed Cherubim , "and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep
8970-606: The forty years had passed, Moses eventually led the Israelites into the Land of Canaan. Gideon was a military leader, judge and prophet whose calling and victory over the Midianites was decisive. He went on to send out messengers to gather together men in order to meet an armed force of the people of Midian and the Amalek that had crossed the Jordan River , and they encamped at the Well of Harod in
9085-426: The generations", with the first use of the phrase referring to the "generations of heaven and earth" and the remainder marking individuals. The toledot formula, occurring eleven times in the book of Genesis, serves as a heading which marks a transition to a new subject. The creation account of Genesis 1 functions as a prologue for the whole book and is not introduced with a toledot . The toledot divide
9200-467: The guf [of Adam Kadmon]. Jewish mythology Hebrew Judeo-Aramaic Judeo-Arabic Other Jewish diaspora languages Jewish folklore Jewish poetry Jewish mythology is the body of myths associated with Judaism . Elements of Jewish mythology have had a profound influence on Christian mythology and on Islamic mythology , as well as on Abrahamic culture in general. Christian mythology directly inherited many of
9315-469: The land after Abraham; and, while promises are made to Ishmael about founding a great nation, Isaac , Abraham's son by his half-sister Sarah , inherits God's promises to Abraham. Jacob is the son of Isaac and Rebecca and regarded as a Patriarch of the Israelites as his twelve sons became the progenitors of the " Tribes of Israel ". The story of the exodus is told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Israelites had settled in
9430-677: The males. Jacob complained that their act would mean retribution by others, namely the Canaanites and Perizzites. Jacob and his tribe took all the Hivite women and children as well as livestock and other property for themselves. Joseph , Jacob's favourite son of the twelve, makes his brothers jealous (especially because of special gifts Jacob gave him) and because of that jealousy they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt . Joseph endures many trials including being innocently sentenced to jail but he stays faithful to God. After several years, he prospers there after
9545-448: The morning or are dreamed about us by others, or are repeated, Rabbi Meïr declares that dreams help not and injure not. Dream interpretation is not however a factor in considering mythologyfication of Talmud knowledge since it was at the time a part of the wider nascent development of what later became the discipline of Psychology , and also incorporated Astrology , and effect of digestion on behaviour. An example of typical mythology in
9660-505: The myth of a savior , and "an optimistic eschatology, proclaiming the final triumph of Good". The Jewish people's tendency to adopt the neighboring pagan practices, denounced as it had been by the Jewish prophets, returned with force during the Talmudic period. However, almost no mythology was borrowed until the Midrashic and Talmudic periods, when what can be described as mysticism emerged in
9775-466: The narratives from the Jewish people, sharing in common the narratives from the Old Testament . Islamic mythology also shares many of the same stories; for instance, a creation-account spaced out over six periods, the legend of Abraham , the stories of Moses and the Israelites , and many more. The writings of the biblical prophets, including Isaiah , Ezekiel , and Jeremiah , express a concept of
9890-466: The others go to their homes". ( Judges 7:4–7 ). During the night, God instructed Gideon to approach the Midianite camp. There, Gideon overheard a Midianite man tell a friend of a dream in which "a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian" ( Judges 7:13 ), causing their tent or camp to collapse. This was interpreted as meaning that God had given the Midianites over to Gideon. Gideon returned to
10005-409: The patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the context of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible means an agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of a belief.) The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land. The fulfilment of the promise to each patriarch depends on having
10120-422: The personal name Yahweh , creates Adam , the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden , where he is given dominion over the animals. Eve , the first woman, is created from Adam and as his companion. God creates by spoken command and names the elements of the world as he creates them. Genesis 1:1–2:3 creation order: In the second story (Genesis 2:4–2:25) the order is different; God created man,
10235-443: The primordial man. Adam Kadmon, God's "original intention" for humanity, was a supernal being, androgynous and macro-cosmic (co-equal in size with the universe). When this Adam sinned, humanity was demoted to the flesh and blood, bifurcated and mortal creatures we are now. According to Kabbalah , every human soul is just a fragment (or fragments) cycling out of the great " world-soul " of Adam Kadmon. Hence, every human soul comes from
10350-493: The promises given at 3:15, 20. After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by human sin and Nephilim , and God wants to wipe out humanity for their wickedness. However, Noah is righteous and blameless. So first, he instructs the Noah to build an ark and put examples of all the animals on it, seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean. Then God sends
10465-569: The relationship between man and God. The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel , God's chosen people . At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of the Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship ) into the God-given land of Canaan , where he dwells as a sojourner , as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob . Jacob's name
10580-533: The same language. As people migrated from the east, they settled in the land of Shinar (Mesopotamia). People there sought to make bricks and build a city and a tower with its top in the sky, to make a name for themselves, so that they not be scattered over the world. God came down to look at the city and tower, and remarked that as one people with one language, nothing that they sought would be out of their reach. God went down and confounded their speech, so that they could not understand each other, and scattered them over
10695-496: The similarity between pagan myths in which gods "split the sea in half when they created the world" and the story of the Exodus from Egypt, in which Moses splits the Sea of Reeds (the Red Sea) – "though what is being brought into being in the Exodus, is not a cosmos but a people". In any case, the motif of God as the "divine warrior" fighting on Israel's behalf is clearly evident in the Song of
10810-415: The sins of their people. Abraham protests, but fails to get God to agree not to destroy the cities (reasoning with Abraham that not even ten righteous persons were found there; and among the righteous was Abraham's nephew Lot ). Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot (who was living there at the same time) and his family, but his wife looks back on the destruction, (even though God commanded not to) and turns into
10925-453: The son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite ." Also possibly derived from pagan mythology is the story of the "Watchers" (Genesis 6:1–4). According to this story, heavenly beings once descended to earth, intermarried with humans, and produced the nephilim , "the heroes of old, men of renown". Jewish tradition regards those heavenly beings as wicked angels, but the myth may represent
11040-502: The sources later combined by various editors. Scholars were able to distinguish sources based on the designations for God. For example, the Yahwist source uses Yahweh, while the Elohistic and Priestly sources use Elohim. Scholars also use repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include the two creation stories, three different wife–sister narratives , and
11155-726: The text of surviving copies varies. There are four major groupings of surviving manuscripts: the Masoretic Text , the Samaritan Pentateuch (in Samaritan script ), the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and fragments of Genesis found in the Dead Sea Scrolls . The Dead Sea Scrolls are oldest but cover only a small proportion of the book. Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot , meaning "these are
11270-540: The trees are resting places for souls; sparrows can see the soul's descent, explaining their joyous chirping. The Tree of Souls produces all the souls that have ever existed, or will ever exist. When the last soul descends, the world will come to an end. According to the Talmud , Yevamot 62a, the Messiah will not come until the Guf is emptied of all its souls. In keeping with other Jewish legends that envision souls as bird-like,
11385-511: The two versions of Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. According to the documentary hypothesis, J was produced during the 9th century BC in the southern Kingdom of Judah and was believed to be the earliest source. E was written in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC. D was written in Judah in the 7th century BC and associated with the religious reforms of King Josiah c. 625 BC . The latest source
11500-463: The variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology." Tremper Longman describes Genesis as theological history: "the fact that these events took place is assumed, and not argued. The concern of the text is not to prove the history but rather to impress the reader with the theological significance of these acts". The original manuscripts are lost, and
11615-497: The vulnerability felt by ancient Israelites and that "such stories can be a major way of gaining hope and resisting domination". Examples include: In both Judaism and Christianity , a genre of literature emerged dedicated to interpreting and commenting on the Genesis creation narrative, known as the Hexaemeron . By totaling the spans of time in the genealogies of Genesis, religious authorities have calculated what they consider to be
11730-429: The water, where all those who lap the water with their tongues, were put to one side; all those who kneel down to drink, putting their hands to their mouths, were put to the other side. The number of those that lapped was three hundred; but all the rest of the troops knelt down to drink water. Then the Lord said to Gideon, "With the three hundred that lapped I will deliver you, and give the Midianites into your hand. Let all
11845-526: The way of the tree of life". (Gen.3:24) The story of the Garden of Eden makes theological use of mythological themes to explain human progression from a state of innocence and bliss to the present human condition of knowledge of sin, misery, and death . The story of the Tower of Babel explains the origin of different human languages. According to the story, which is recorded in Genesis 11:1–9 , everyone on earth spoke
11960-473: The work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth , legend , and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing
12075-510: The world and humans, humans rebel, and God "elects" (chooses) Abraham. To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist), the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham ( Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign
12190-422: The world of abstractions, of symbols and generalities; he acts in history and enters into relations with actual historical beings." Two creation stories are found in the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis . In the first, Elohim , the Hebrew generic word for God , creates the heavens and the earth in six days, then rests on, blesses and sanctifies the seventh . In the second story, God, now referred to by
12305-401: The world" attains salvation from famine, and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which the promise can be fulfilled. Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the efficacy of trying to examine Genesis' theology by pursuing a single overarching theme, instead citing as more productive
12420-534: The world-view of progress and linear history inherited from Judaism. Because of this legacy, the religious historian Mircea Eliade argues that "Judaeo-Christianity makes an innovation of the first importance" in mythology. Eliade believes that the Hebrews had a sense of linear time before their contact with Zoroastrianism, but agrees with Zaehner that Judaism elaborated its mythology of linear time with eschatological elements that originated in Zoroastrianism. According to Eliade, these elements include ethical dualism ,
12535-462: Was P, which was written during the 5th century in Babylon . Based on these dates, Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch did not reach its final, present-day form until after the Babylonian Exile. Julius Wellhausen argued that the Pentateuch was finalized in the time of Ezra . Ezra 7 :14 records that Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 458 BC with God's law in his hand. Wellhausen argued that this
12650-456: Was beating a Hebrew. Moses, in order to escape the Pharaoh's death penalty, fled to Midian . There, on Mount Horeb , God appeared to Moses as a burning bush revealed to Moses his name YHWH and commanded him to return to Egypt and bring his chosen people (Israel) out of bondage and into the Promised Land . During the journey, God tried to kill Moses, but Zipporah saved his life . Moses returned to carry out God's command, but God caused
12765-425: Was composed in the time of King Solomon by a priest or Levite . This author used the Hebrew word elohim for God. This original work was expanded in the 8th century BC, with the name Yahweh used for God. In the 7th century BC, during the time of Jeremiah , the final parts of the Pentateuch were added, specifically the main parts of Deuteronomy. This would mean the Pentateuch achieved its final form before
12880-474: Was given the Ten Commandments from God, written on stone tablets . Later at Mount Sinai, Moses and the elders entered into a covenant, by which Israel would become the people of YHWH, obeying his laws, and YHWH would be their god. Moses delivered the laws of God to Israel, instituted the priesthood under the sons of Moses' brother Aaron , and destroyed those Israelites who fell away from his worship. After
12995-407: Was the last of the judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Book of Judges . The biblical account states that Samson was a Nazirite , and that he was given immense strength to aid him against his enemies and allow him to perform superhuman feats, however, if Samson's long hair was cut, then his Nazirite vow would be violated and he would lose his strength. The first instance of this
13110-403: Was the newly compiled Pentateuch. Nehemiah 8 – 10 , according to Wellhausen, describes the publication and public acceptance of this new law code c. 444 BC . There was now a large gap between the earliest sources of the Pentateuch and the period they claimed to describe, which ended c. 1200 BC . Most scholars held to the documentary hypothesis until the 1980s. Since then,
13225-455: Was written anonymously, but both Jewish and Christian religious tradition attributes the entire Pentateuch —Genesis, Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy —to Moses . During the Enlightenment , the philosophers Benedict Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes questioned Mosaic authorship . In the 17th century, Richard Simon proposed that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors over
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