Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical DevelopmentGoldziher, Ignác
Religion
Mythology among the Hebrews and Its Historical Development
Goldziher, Ignác
Jewish mythology; Judaism -- History -- To 70 A.D.
the subject in hand which cannot be left unnoticed, that the notion of
the bôrê and yôṣêr ‘Creator’ (the terms used in the cosmogony in
Genesis), as an integral part of the idea of God, are first brought into
common usage by the Prophets of the Captivity, especially the Babylonian
Isaiah, who is particularly fond of the expression bôrê.[721] The older
Prophets also know Jahveh as Creator of the world; but it is
self-evident that they do not so strongly emphasise the idea, or refer
to it so frequently, as for instance the Isaiah of the Captivity. Amos
IV. 13, for example, says, ‘For lo, he that formeth mountains and
createth wind, and declareth to man what is his meditation, that maketh
the dawn winged and walketh on the high places of the earth—his name is
Jahveh the God of Hosts.’ This passage stands in no relation whatever to
the cosmogony of Genesis; indeed, in speaking of the dawn as gifted with
wings (see _supra_, p. 116), it refers rather to the mythical
conceptions of antiquity, as also the older Isaiah frequently does. The
Prophet of the Captivity, on the other hand, refers to the ideas of the
cosmogony in Genesis, as is clear in Is. XL. 26, XLV. 7 (where he speaks
of the Creator of light and darkness), XLII. 5, XLV. 18, especially this
last passage, which refers to the banishment of the tôhû through the act
of creation. By the story of creation the celebration of the Sabbath was
established on entirely new grounds. Whilst in the older conception
(which finds expression in the Decalogue in Deuteronomy V. 15) the
Sabbath has a purely theocratic significance, and is intended to remind
the Hebrews of their miraculous deliverance from Egyptian slavery after
long servitude, the later version of the Decalogue (Ex. XX. 11)
justifies it by referring to the history of the Creation, in which after
six days of work the Creator took rest.
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