PRE-HISTORY LEGENDS
CREATION OF THE WORLD. The Bible opens with stories of a seven day creation, sequenced, if not timed, by evolution; telling how one thing led to another and culminated in mankind. It tells how man progressed from hunter-gatherer in the garden of plenty to a settled agricultural existence and of the tensions which that change created. It tells of how people developed different skills, broke up into tribes or nations and even how they came to need religion, a code that all could follow. All this was framed into individual stories framed by ancient shamans to provide reason for the world around them to their followers. Stories, parables, not facts. The stories lived on within the tribal memory of inundation of their lands by flooding, of the Nile or some other mighty river. The first experience of such devastation. The stories tell of new inventions, brick and mortar, and of how new knowledge threatened the shamatic leaders. The people were divided by conflicting ideas, even new languages to express them. Finally, in this section, we come to the tale of Abraham. How famine in their lands caused them to seek aid in Egypt. From there they were ejected as a threat to monarchy, but returned, begging for food, a generation later, leading to their enslavement in Egypt. Of course these ideas were woven into a narrative for consumption around desert campfires. Only much later were they written down and so conserved for the deception of the credulous and literally minded. |
FORMATION OF A PEOPLE It is adversity that brings a people closer together. Out of the depths of slavery, the people fought back bringing plague and disaster to their masters. Finally, discovered in their group treachery, the remnants fled to join their fellows in the desert pursued by a war-band of Egyptians seeking revenge; evading them in the sea of reeds that such brigands knew well This was the tale of what grew into the Exodus legend. The exiled nation wandered the desert seeking a foothold thus becoming a viable nation and hardened warriors, through the inspired leadership of Moses, and his successors. The Gods and ways of ancient Egypt were reimagined. A new God, superior to all others, was created; a God caring specially for the embryo nation; a God who guided them through the desert providing for them in their need, but demanding obedience to new laws that brought the people closer together gave them a national coherence, an identity; An identity which they have maintained to this day. Having built up their strength and numbers Israel invaded Canaan, slaughtering its inhabitants and forming a powerful nation amidst competing tribes. The tales of heroic kings and national glory emerge from this time of conflict. |