Hebrew Myths (9 page)

2
. Helel ben Shahar was originally the planet Venus, the last proud star to defy sunrise: a simple Hebrew allegory which has, however, been combined with the myth of Phaethon’s fall—burned to death when he presumptuously drove his father Helius’s sun-chariot. This myth, though Greek, seems to have originated in Babylon where, every year, a masterless sun-chariot symbolizing the demise of the Crown—during which a boy-surrogate
occupied the royal throne for a single day—careered through the city streets. The surrogate, a favourite of the Goddess Ishtar (who controlled the planet Venus) was afterwards sacrificed. Isaiah seems, therefore, to be prophesying that the king must suffer the same death as his surrogate. In Greek myth, Phaethon son of Apollo became identified with a namesake, Phaethon son of Eos (‘Dawn’); according to Hesiod, the Goddess Aphrodite (Ishtar) carried him off to guard her temple. Ezekiel’s King of Tyre worshipped Ishtar and watched boys being burned alive as surrogates of the God Melkarth (‘Ruler of the City’).

3
. Although
Job
XXXVIII. 7 describes the ‘morning stars’ singing together, the name ‘Helel’ occurs nowhere else in Scripture; but Helel’s father, Shahar (‘Dawn’), appears in
Psalm
CXXXIX. 9 as a winged deity. Ugaritic mythology makes Shahar, or Baal son of El, a twin-brother to Shalem (‘Perfect’). The Mountain of the North (‘Saphon’) which Helel aspired to ascend, can be identified with Saphon, Mount of God, upon which, according to Ugaritic myth, stood Baal’s Throne. When Baal was killed by Mot, his sister Anath buried him there. Saphon, or Zaphon, the 5800-foot mountain—now called Jebel Akra—on which the North-Semitic Bull-god El also ruled ‘in the midst of his divine assembly’, rises near the mouth of the Orontes. The Hittites named it Mount Hazzi, and held it to be the place from where Teshub, the Storm-god, his brother Tashmishu, and his sister Ishtar sighted the terrible stone-giant (the ‘diorite man’ as some scholars translate it) Ullikummi who planned their destruction; launched their attack against him, and finally defeated him. The Greeks named it Mount Casius, home of the monster Typhon and the she-monster Delphyne who together disarmed Zeus, King of Heaven, and kept him prisoner there in the Corycian Cave until the god Pan subdued Typhon with a great shout and Hermes, god of Cunning, rescued Zeus. The Orontes had been known as ‘Typhon’. Saphon was famous for the destructive North winds that whirled from it over Syria and Palestine. All these myths refer to conspiracies against a powerful deity; in the Hebrew alone no mention is made of God’s initial discomfiture.

4
. Lucifer is identified in the New Testament with Satan (
Luke
X. 18; 2
Corinthians
XI. 14), and in the Targum with Samael (Targ. ad
Job
XXVIII. 7).

(
a
) On the Sixth Day, at God’s command, Earth was delivered of Adam. And as a woman remains unclean for thirty-three days after the birth of a male child, so likewise did Earth for thirty-three generations—until the reign of King Solomon, before which time God’s Sanctuary could not be built at Jerusalem.
⁸¹
The elements of fire, water, air and darkness combined in Earth’s womb to produce living creatures;
⁸²
yet, though all her offspring were conceived on the First Day, herbs and trees made their appearance on the Third, sea-beasts and birds on the Fifth, land-beasts, creeping things and Man on the Sixth.
⁸³

(
b
) God did not use earth at random, but chose pure dust, so that Man might become the crown of Creation.
⁸⁴
He acted, indeed, like a woman who mixes flour with water and sets aside some of the dough as a
halla
offering: for He let a mist moisten the earth, then used a handful of it to create Man, who became the world’s first
halla
offering. Being the son of
Adama
(‘Earth’), Man called himself ‘Adam’ in acknowledgement of his origin; or perhaps Earth was called Adama in honour of her son; yet some derive his name from
adom
(‘red’), recording that he was formed from red clay found at Hebron in the Damascene Field near the Cave of Machpelah.
⁸⁵

(
c
) It is improbable, however, that God used earth from Hebron, this being a less holy site than the summit of Mount Moriah, Earth’s very navel, where the Sanctuary now stands: for there Abraham was blessed because of his readiness to sacrifice Isaac. Hence some relate that God commanded the Archangel Michael: ‘Bring Me dust from the site of My Sanctuary!’ This He gathered into the hollow of His hand and formed Adam, thus binding mankind by natural ties to the mountain on which Abraham would expiate his forefathers’ sins.
⁸⁶

Some say that God used two kinds of dust for Adam’s creation: one gathered from Mount Moriah; the other a mixture culled at the world’s four comers and moistened with water drawn from every river and sea in existence. That, to ensure Adam’s health, He used male dust and female soil. That Adam’s name reveals the formative elements of his creation: its three Hebrew letters being their initials—
epher
(‘dust’),
dam
(‘blood’) and
marah
(‘gall’)—since, unless these are present in equal measure, man sickens and dies.
⁸⁷

(
d
) God disdained to fetch Adam’s dust Himself, and sent an angel instead—either Michael to Mount Moriah, or Gabriel to the world’s four corners. Nevertheless, when Earth gainsaid the angel, knowing that she would be cursed on Adam’s account, God stretched forth His own hand.
⁸⁸

Some insist that dust for Adam’s trunk was brought from Babylonia, for his head from Israel, for his buttocks from the Babylonian fortress of Agma, and for his limbs from certain other lands.
⁸⁹

The various colours found in man are a reminder of these different kinds of dust: the red formed Adam’s flesh and blood; the black, his bowels; the white, his bones and sinews; the olive-green, his skin.
⁹⁰

By using dust from every corner of the world, God has ensured that in whatever land Adam’s descendants die, Earth will always receive them back. Otherwise, if an Easterner should travel to the West, or a Westerner to the East, and the hour of his death came upon him, the soil of that region might cry. ‘This dust is not mine, nor will I accept it; return, sir, to your place of origin!’ But whereas Adam’s body was fashioned from terrestrial elements, his soul was fashioned from celestial ones; though some believe that this also proceeded from Earth.
⁹¹

(
e
) The hour at which God created Adam’s soul has been much disputed: whether at dawn on the Sixth Day (his body being made a little later), or whether on the Fifth Day before the appearance of sea-beasts; or whether this precious thing was the very first of God’s handiworks. Some hold that the creation of Adam’s inert clod preceded not only his soul, but even Light itself. They say that God, when about to breathe His spirit into it, paused and reminded Himself: ‘If I let Man live and stand up at once, it may later be claimed that he shared My task… He must stay as a clod until I have done!’ At dusk on the Sixth Day, therefore, the ministering angels asked: ‘Lord of the Universe, why have You not yet created Man?’ He made answer: ‘Man is already created, and lacks only life.’ Then God breathed life into the clod, Adam rose to his feet, and the work of Creation ended.
⁹²

(
f
) God had given Adam so huge a frame that when he lay down it stretched from one end of Earth to the other; and when he stood up, his head was level with the Divine Throne. Moreover, he was of such indescribable beauty that though, later, the fairest of women seemed like apes when compared with Abraham’s wife Sarah, and though Sarah would have seemed like an ape when compared with
Eve, yet Eve herself seemed like an ape when compared with Adam, whose heels—let alone his countenance—outshone the sun! Nevertheless, though Adam was made in God’s image, yet he too seemed like an ape when compared with God.
⁹³

(
g
) All living things approached the radiant Adam in awe, mistaking him for their Creator. But as they prostrated themselves at his feet, he rebuked them saying: ‘Let us come before God’s presence with thanksgiving; let us worship and bow down, kneeling before the Lord our Maker…’ God was gratified, and sent angels to pay Adam homage in Eden. They bowed submissively, roasted his meat and poured his wine. The envious Serpent alone disobeyed; whereupon God expelled him from His presence.
⁹⁴

Some say that all the ministering angels conceived a hatred for Adam, lest he might become God’s rival, and tried to scorch him with fire; God, however, spread His hand over Adam and made peace between him and them.
⁹⁵

Elsewhere it is told that Adam’s huge frame and radiant countenance so amazed the angels that they called him ‘Holy One’, and flew trembling back to Heaven. They asked God: ‘Can there be two divine Powers: one here, the other on Earth?’ To calm them, God placed His hand on Adam and reduced his height to a thousand cubits. Later, when Adam disobediently ate from the Tree of Knowledge, God further reduced his stature to a mere hundred cubits.
⁹⁶

(
h
) It has been said that God did not shrink Adam’s body, but trimmed innumerable flakes off his flesh. Adam complained: ‘Why do You diminish me?’ God replied: ‘I take only to give again. Gather these trimmings, scatter them far and wide: wherever you cast them, there they shall return to dust, so that your seed may fill the whole Earth.’
⁹⁷

(
i
) While Adam lay a prostrate clod, stretched immobile across the world, he could nevertheless watch the work of Creation. God also showed him the Righteous Ones who should descend from him—not in vision, but by pre-creating them for his instruction. These Righteous Ones were dwarfed by Adam’s frame and, as they thronged about him, some clung to his hair, others to his eyes, ears, mouth and nostrils.
⁹⁸

***

1
. It is doubtful whether the masculine word
Adam
(‘man’) and the feminine
adama
(‘earth’) are etymologically related. However, such a relation is implicit in
Genesis
II, and accepted by Midrashic and Talmudic commentators. A less tenuous connexion, first suggested by Quintilian (i. v. 34), exists between the Latin
homo
(‘man’) and
humus
(‘earth’): modern linguists trace both to the ancient Indo-European root which, in Greek, produced
chthon
(‘earth’),
chamai
(‘on the earth’) and
epichthonios
(‘human’).

2
. The myth of Man’s creation from earth, clay or dust is widely current. In Egypt, either the God Khnum or the God Ptah created man on a potter’s wheel; in Babylonia, either the Goddess Aruru or the God Ea kneaded man from clay. According to a Phocian Greek myth, Prometheus used a certain red clay at Panopeus; what was left there continued for centuries to exude an odour of human flesh.

3
. A
halla
was the priest’s share in ‘the first of your dough’ (
Numbers
XV. 17–21); but the rabbis ruled that dough should be subject to the Law only if it amounted to an
omer
, and that the priest’s share should be one-twelfth of the whole, or one-twenty-fourth if mixed at a bakery rather than a private dwelling (M. Eduyot i. 2; M. Halla ii. 17).

4
. The ancient Hebrews regarded what we call olive-green as the ideal complexion. Thus it is said of Esther, in praise of her beauty, that ‘her skin was greenish like the skin of a myrtle.’ (B. Megilla 13a).

5
. Speculations about Adam’s origin vexed Christians and Moslems who knew no Hebrew. According to the Slavonic
Enoch
, based on a Greek original, ‘Adam’s name comes from the initials of the four principal winds: Anatole, Dysis, Arctos and Mesembria,’ because his body was made of dust gathered at the cardinal points of the compass. According to the Syriac
Cave of Treasures
, God’s angels saw His right hand stretched across the world, and watched while He took dust, as little as a grain, from the whole earth, and a drop of water from all the waters of the universe, and a little wind from all the air, and a little warmth from all the fire, and placed these four weak elements together into the hollow of His hand, and thus created Adam. The Moslems relate that the angels Gabriel, Michael, Israfil and Azrail brought dust from the four corners of the world, and with it Allah created the body of Adam; to form his head and heart, however, Allah chose dust from a site at Mecca, where the Holy Ka‘aba later rose. Mecca is the navel of the earth for Moslems; as Mount Moriah was for the Hebrews; and Delphi for the Greeks.

6
. An Arab tradition of Jewish origin agrees that Earth had rebelled against Adam’s creation. When Allah sent first Gabriel and then Michael to fetch the necessary dust, she protested on each occasion: ‘I invoke Allah against you!’ Thereupon he sent the Angel of Death, who swore not to return until he had accomplished the divine will. Earth, fearing his power, let him gather white, black and copper-red dust—hence the different-coloured races of mankind.

7
. That God made Adam perfect, although liable to be misled by a wrong exercise of free will, is the main moral of these myths and glosses. It deprives man of an excuse to sin, and justifies God’s command to Abraham: ‘I am Almighty God, walk before Me and be perfect!’ Nevertheless, the origin of evil continued to puzzle the sages. They invented a myth of Eve’s seduction by Samael, who begot Cain the murderer on her (see 14.
a
), though
Genesis
specifically makes Adam father Cain as well as Abel.

8
. Adam’s rebuke to the angels is borrowed from the Ninety-Fifth Psalm.

(
a
) Having decided to give Adam a helpmeet lest he should be alone of his kind, God put him into a deep sleep, removed one of his ribs, formed it into a woman, and closed up the wound. Adam awoke and said: ‘This being shall be named “Woman”, because she has been taken
out of man.
A man and a woman shall be one flesh.’ The title he gave her was Eve, ‘the Mother of All Living’.
⁹⁹