FREE ESSAY ON GENEIS AS MYTH

GENEIS AS MYTH

Genesis As Myth
In the book, Genesis As Myth, by Edmund Leach. He
stated that everybody had different views on myth's in Genesis. 
For example German theologian who defined myth as the
"expression of unobservable realities in terms of observable
phenomena." This German theologian, who is relating this to
the devout Christian, which indicates that all sanctimonious
Christians believe that the bible is strictly a myth. I in the
other hand disagree to that argument because, the Christians
believed that the bible was not a myth, and the events that
happened in the bible are true. My reasoning for that remark
is, that most Christians were raised to believe that the bible
was true and we weren't able to argue with it's readings. We
feel that the importance of the myth is more likely to be less
probable. This German theologian believed that communica?
tion has an important role in myth's throughout the bible. I
believe that all mythological systems that recur in stories, oc?
cur in many different versions. He stated that "man is created
in Genesis, and then he created all over again. And, as if two
first men were not enough, we also have Noah in chapter
eight." A quote from the bible that states "I am the Alpha and
the Omega, the beginning and the end, saith the Lord." The
German Theologian says that "God against the world and the
world itself for ever dividing into opposites on either side: male
and female, living and dead, good and evil, first and last."
In a different example Edmund Leach stated that
"Solomon the wise, the great king, the builder of the temple,
nevertheless is a sinner in that he loved many strange woman,
together with the daughter of Pharaoh, woman of the moabites,
Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and hittites." Taken as its
face value, the text of the old testament represents the relation
between the various tribal groups involved as one of "binary
segmentation" of the most consistent kind.
The view that history in the old testament has more in com?
mon with production than with history in an "ordinary aca?
demic sense" is not itself at all new. Relatively orthodox Van
Rad points out that "Sauls disasters seem to follow one upon
another with the inevitability of Greek tragedy" I Think That
Van Rad demonstrated the existence of a kind of patterning
which was not previously suspected in the previous verses of
the bible.
To illustrate another point, Edmund Leach expresses that
the "So-called primitive ignorance of paternity is nothing else
but a very imperfect knowledge that intercourse is a necessary
though not sufficient condition of the woman being 'opened
up'." 
Jesus is a legal status as a man and his essential natural
as God. Joseph is the husband of Mary, and in this legal
sense he belongs to the "lineage" of David. The divine basis
derives from the fact that the male fragment of his conception
was the holy spirit which entered Mary's body by a unnatural
route. Edmund Leach indicated that "Mary was impregnated
through the ear."
In conclusion I feel that Edmund Leach was a very good
author and his logic was very influential in my understanding
why myth's can miss-guide one's judgement and beliefs. I've
tried to see the connections between the facts and the myth's
as we know them. In this book of Genesis and Myth's. I feel
that it is hard to determine the myth's from the facts, as we
discussed in class earlier. Although this book helped me look
into things more deeply. It made me wonder what is actually
true or is it a myth?