Jewish myth and legend
Jewish myth and legend comprises a vast body of stories transmitted over the past 3,000 years in Hebrew and in the vernacular dialects spoken by Jews, such as Yiddish (Judeo-German) and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). These stories have played an important role in the history of Jewish religion and culture.Virtually all the standard types of folktales are represented. Conspicuously absent, however, are pure fairy tales, because fairies, elves, and the like are foreign to the Jewish imagination, which prefers to populate the otherworld with angels and demonssubservient to God.
Significance and characteristics
Apart from their intrinsic appeal, Jewish myths and legends claim attention for three special reasons: (1) Those incorporated in the Hebrew Bible are now part and parcel of the cultural heritage of the Western world and have exerted a profound influence on its literature and art. (2) During the Middle Ages, Jews were among the principal transmitters of Middle Eastern and North African tales to the West, so that many familiar Eastern stories can be traced to Jewish compilations. (3) Since these stories have been accumulated through centuries of constant migration, they provide an unrivalled body of “clinical” material for studying the processes by which popular tales in fact travel and are transformed.
Not all of the stories are of Jewish origin; many have parallels elsewhere and are derived from tales the Jews picked up from their non-Jewish neighbours in the lands of their dispersion. Even what is borrowed, however, is usually impressed with a distinctive Jewish stamp. The tales were often adapted to point up some precept of the Jewish religion, to illustrate some facet of Jewish life, or to exemplify some trait of Jewish character and temperament. The dominant feature of the stories is their religious and moral tone; most of them are told specifically as part of the homiletic exposition of Scripture. Such stories are taught to Jews from early childhood as a regular part of their religious education. To the tradition-minded Jew, therefore, they are more than mere literary fancies. Biblical characters and events are presented more in the lineaments of later legend than in their original biblical form, and popular notions about heaven and hell, reward and punishment, the coming of the messiah, and the resurrection of the dead derive mainly from these sources rather than from Scriptureitself.
A distinction must be made between myth and legend. In common parlance, a myth is a story about gods or otherworldly beings. In this sense, therefore, there can be no original Jewish myths, because Judaism is a rigorously monotheistic religion. Nevertheless, from the earliest times, Jews have not disdained to borrow the myths of their pagan neighbours and adapt them to their own religious outlook. If, however, the term is interpreted in a larger sense to mean the portrayal of perennial concerns in the context of particular historical events, myth is indeed one of the essential vehicles by which Judaism conveys its message. It is only when historical happenings are translated into this wider dimension that they cease to be mere antiquarian data and acquire continuing relevance. In Judaism, for example, the Exodus from Egypt is projected mythically from something that happened at a particular time into something that is continually happening, and it comes to exemplify the situation and experience of all humans everywhere—their emergence from the bondage of obscurantism, their individual revelations at their individual Sinais, their trek through a figurative wilderness, even their death in it so that their children or children’s children may eventually reach the figurative “Promised Land.” By the same token, the historical destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem is transformed by myth into a paradigm of the continuing mutual estrangement of God and humans, their exile from one another. Legend, on the other hand, implies no more than a fanciful embroidering of purportedly historical fact. Unlike myth, it does not transcendthe historical and the local.
Sources and development
Myth and legend in the Bible
The vast repertoire of Jewish myths and legends begins with the Hebrew Bible. Their overall purpose in Scripture is to illustrate the ways of God with humans, as exemplified both in historical events and in personal experience. The stories themselves are often derived from current popular lore and possess abundant parallels in other cultures, both ancient and modern. In each case, however, they are given a peculiar and distinctive twist.
Myths
Biblical myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. They are concerned with the creation of the world and the first man and woman, the origin of the current human condition, the primeval Deluge, the distribution of peoples, and the variation of languages.
The basic stories are derived from the popular lore of the ancient Middle East; parallels can be found in the extant literature of the peoples of the area. The Mesopotamians, for instance, also knew of an earthly paradise such as Eden, and the figure of the cherubim—properly griffinsrather than angels—was known to the Canaanites. In the Bible, however, this mythical garden of the gods becomes the scene of man’s fall and the background of a story designed to account for the natural limitations of human life. Similarly, the Babylonians told of the formation of humankind from clay. But, whereas in the pagan tale the first man’s function is to serve as an earthly menial of the gods, in the scriptural version his role is to rule over all other creatures. The story of the Deluge, including the elements of the ark and the dispatch of the raven and dove, appears already in the Babylonian myths of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. There, however, the hero is eventually made immortal, whereas in the Bible this detail is omitted because, to the Israelite mind, no child of woman could achieve that status. Lastly, while the story of the Tower of Babel was told originally to account for the stepped temples (ziggurats) of Babylonia, to the Hebrew writer its purpose is simply to inculcate the moral lesson that humans should not aspire beyond their assigned station.
Scattered through the Prophets and Holy Writings (the two latter portions of the Hebrew Bible) are allusions to other ancient myths—e.g., to that of a primordial combat between YHWH and a monster variously named Leviathan (Wriggly), Rahab (Braggart), or simply Sir Sea or Dragon. The Babylonians told likewise of a fight between their god Marduk and the monster Tiamat; the Hittites told of a battle between the weather god and the dragon Illuyankas; while a Canaanite poem from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in northern Syria relates the discomfiture of Sir Sea by the deity Baal and the rout of an opponent named Leviathan. Originally, this myth probably referred to the annual subjugation of the floods.
Ancient myths are utilized also in the form of passing allusions or poetic “conceits,” much as modern Westerners may speak of Cupid or the Muses. In the prophetic books, for example, there are references to a celestial upstart hurled to earth on account of his brashness and to the imprisonment of certain rebellious constellations.
The prophets used myths paradigmatically to illustrate the hand of God in contemporary events or to reinforce their prophecies. Thus, to Isaiah the primeval dragon was the symbol of the continuing force of chaos and evil that will again have to be vanquished before the kingdom of God can be established on earth. Similarly, for Ezekiel the celestial upstart serves as the prototype of the prince of Tyre, destined for an imminent fall; and Habakkuk sees in the impending rout of certain invaders a repetition on the stage of history of YHWH’s mythical sortie against the monster of the sea.
Legends and other tales
Legends in the Hebrew Scriptures often embellish the accounts of national heroes with standard motifs drawn from popular lore. Thus, the Genesis story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife recurs substantially (but with other characters) in an Egyptian papyrus of the 13th century BCE. The account of the infant Moses being placed in the bulrushes (in Exodus) has an earlier counterpart in a Babylonian tale about Sargon, king of Akkad (c. 2334–c. 2279 BCE), and is paralleled later in legends associated with the Persian Cyrus and with Tu-Küeh, the fabled founder of the Turkish nation. Jephthah’s rash vow (in Judges), whereby he is committed to sacrifice his daughter, recalls the Classical legend of Idomeneus of Crete, who was similarly compelled to slay his own son. The motif of the letter whereby David engineers the death in battle of Bathsheba’s husband recurs in Homer’s story of Bellerophon. The celebrated judgment of Solomon concerning the child claimed by two contending women is told, albeit with variations of detail, about Buddha, Confucius, and other sages; the story of how Jonahwas swallowed by a “great fish” but was subsequently disgorged intact finds a parallel in the Indian tale of the hero Shaktideva, who endured the same experience during his quest for the Golden City. On the other hand, it should be observed that many of the parallels commonly cited from the folklore of indigenous peoples may be mere repetitions of biblical material picked up from Christian missionaries.
Folktales in the Hebrew Bible sometimes serve to account for the names of places in Palestineor for the origins of traditional customs and institutions. Thus, the familiar story of the man who must struggle with the personified current of a river before he can cross it is localized (in Genesis) at the ford of Jabbok simply because that name suggests the Hebrew word abḳ(“struggle”), and Samson’s felling of 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass is placed at Ramath-leḥi because leḥi is Hebrew for “jawbone.” Similarly, a taboo against eating the thigh muscle of an animal is validated in Genesis by the legend that Jacob was struck in the hip when he fought with an otherworldly being at Penuel (“Face of God”). The custom of annually bewailing the vanished spirit of fertility is rationalized in Judges as a lamentation for the hapless daughter of Jephthah.
The Hebrew Bible also contains a few examples of fables (didactic tales in which animals or plants play human roles). Thus, the serpent in Eden talks to Eve, and Balaam’s ass not only speaks but also seeks to avoid an angel, unseen by Balaam, that is blocking the road, while trees compete for kingship in the celebrated parable of Jotham in Judges. Finally, in the Book of Job (38:31) there are allusions to star myths concerning the binding of Orion (called “the Fool”) and the “chaining” of the Pleiades.
Contemporary interpretations
The tendency to interpret biblical tales and legends as authentic historical records or as allegories or as the relics of solar, lunar, and astral myths is now a thing of the past. The modern folklorist is interested in the legends because they push back to remote antiquity several tales and motifs long known from later literature. For the theologian, however, they pose the deeper problem of distinguishing clearly between the permanent message of Scripture and the form in which it is conveyed. The process of “demythologization” is one of the central concerns of modern religious thought. It recognizes that the natural language of religious truth is myth; thus, the continuing relevance of ancient scriptures depends not on the total rejection of that vehicle but rather on the expansion and remodeling of it—i.e., on “remythologization” rather than demythologization. In the final analysis, the traditional portrayal of God himself is simply a mythical representation of ultimate reality, but that reality transcends the particular images in which it happens to be expressed. At the same time, it is important to note that, whereas in the modern world scriptural myths are generally understood as metaphors, in the ancient world they were accepted as literal statements of fact. Gods, for example, were not merely “personifications” of natural phenomena but rather the effective potencies of the phenomena themselves conceived from the start as personal beings.
Myth and legend in the Persian period
In 539 BCE the Jews came under Persian domination and consequently absorbed a good deal of Iranian folklore about spirits and demons, the eventual dissolution of the world in a fiery ordeal, and its subsequent renewal. This introduced new elements into Jewish popular mythology: hierarchies of angels; archangels such as Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel (modeled loosely upon the six Iranian spiritual entities, the amesha spentas); and the demonic figures of Satan, Belial, and Asmodeus (corresponding to the Iranian Angra Mainyu [Ahriman], Druj, and Aēshma Daeva). There was also a preoccupation with apocalyptic visions of heaven and hell and of the Last Days. Unfortunately, no Jewish texts of this genre from the Persian period are extant, so these new elements can be recognized only inferentially from their survival in later times—notably in products of the ensuing Hellenistic Age, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The principal monument of Jewish story in the Persian period is the biblical Book of Esther, which is basically a Judaized version of a Persian novella about the shrewdness of harem queens. The story was adapted to account for Purim, a popular festival, which itself is probably a transformation of the Persian New Year. Leading elements of the tale—such as the parade of Mordecai, dressed in royal robes, through the streets, the fight between the Jews and their adversaries, and the hanging of Haman and his sons—seem to reflect customs associated with Purim, such as the ceremonial ride of a common citizen through the capital, the mock combat between two teams representing the Old Year and the New Year, and the execution of the Old Year in effigy.
Myth and legend in the Hellenistic period
Historiated Bibles and legendary histories
Judaism entered a new phase in 330 BCE, when Alexander the Great completed his conquest of the Middle East. The dominant features of the Hellenistic Age, which began with Alexander’s death in 323, were an increasing cosmopolitanism and a fusion of ancient Middle Eastern and Greek cultures. These found expression in Jewish myth and legend in the composition (in Greek) of stories designed to link the Bible with general history, to correlate biblical and Greek legends, and to claim for the Hebrew patriarchs a major role in the development of the arts and sciences. It was asserted, for instance, that Abraham had taught astrology to the king of Egypt, that his sons and those of Keturah had aided Heracles against the giant Antaeus, and that Moses, blithely identified both with the semi-mythical Greek poet Musaeus and with the Egyptian Thoth, had been the teacher of Orpheus (the putative founder of one of the current mystery cults) and the inventor of navigation, architecture, and the hieroglyphic script. Leading writers in this vein were Artapanus, Eupolemus, and Cleodemus (all c. 100 BCE), but their works are known to us only from stray quotations by the early Church Fathers Eusebius and St. Clement of Alexandria.
The Jews also adapted the current Greek literary fashion of retelling Homeric and other ancient legends in “modernized,” novelistic versions, well seasoned with romantic elaborations of their own traditions. A paraphrase of Genesis found among the Dead Sea Scrolls ornaments the biblical narrative with several familiar folklore motifs. Thus, when Noah is born, the house is filled with light, just as it is said elsewhere to have been at the birth of the Roman king Servius Tullius, of Buddha, and (later) of several Christian saints. When Abraham’s life is threatened, he dreams of a cedar about to be felled, an omen that is said to have presaged the deaths of the Roman emperors Domitian and Severus Alexander. (Although the parallels are of later date, they illustrate the persistence of age-old traditions.) The same trend toward fanciful elaboration of scriptural tales is manifested also in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs(“testaments” meaning last wills), in which the virtues and weaknesses of the sons of Jacob are illustrated by moralistic legends. There is also a lengthy paraphrase of early biblical narratives, mistakenly attributed to Philo Judaeus, the famous Alexandrian Jewish philosopher of the 1st century CE.
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
The principal monuments of Jewish literature during the Hellenistic period are the works known collectively as the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The former are certain later writings excluded by Jews from the canon of the Hebrew Bible but found in the Greek Septuagint version. The latter are other late writings not included in any authorized version of the Scriptures and spuriously attributed to biblical personalities.
The Apocrypha include several Judaized versions of tales well represented in other cultures. The book of Tobit, for instance, turns largely on the widespread motifs of the “grateful dead”and the demon in the bridal chamber. The former relates how a traveller who gives burial to a dishonoured corpse is subsequently aided by a chance companion who turns out to be the spirit of the deceased. The latter tells how a succession of bridegrooms die on the nuptial night through the presence of a demon beside the bridal bed. Similarly, in Bel and the Dragon (2nd century BCE) there is the equally familiar motif of fraud that is detected by the imprint of the culprit’s foot on strewn ashes; the story reappears later in the French and Celtic romance of Tristan and Iseult. In the story of Susanna and the Elders (also 2nd century BCE), a charge of unchastity levelled against a beautiful woman is refuted when a clever youngster (“Daniel come to judgment”) points out discrepancies in the testimony of her accusers. This well-worn story has a close parallel in a Samaritan tale about the daughter of a high priest in the 1st century CE; the motif of the clever youngster who surpasses seasoned judges recurs later in the Infancy Gospels and in the tale of ʿAlī Khamājah in The Thousand and One Nights.
The Pseudepigrapha also contain a number of folktales that have parallels in other traditions. The Martyrdom of Isaiah (1st century CE?) tells how the prophet, fleeing from King Manasseh, hid in a tree that opened miraculously, though he eventually perished when it was sawn asunder. Similar tales are related in the Talmud and in the later Persian epic Shāh-nāmeh (c.1000 CE).
Myth and legend in the Talmud and Midrash
Midrash and Haggada
Toward the end of the 1st century CE, the canon of the Hebrew Bible was formed when certain Hebrew writings were recognized as the authoritative corpus of divine revelation. The study of the Bible became an essential element of the Jewish religion, which meant that the sacred text had to be subjected to a form of interpretation that would bring out its universal significance and permanent relevance. The process, known as Midrash (“interpretation” or “investigation”), involved the spicing of homiletic discourses with elaborative legends—a pedagogic device called Haggada (“Storytelling”). Originally transmitted orally, the legends were eventually committed to writing as part of the Talmud (the authoritative compendium of Oral Law and commentary on it), as well as in later compilations geared to particular books or sections of the Hebrew Bible, to scriptural lessons read in the services of the synagogue, or to specific biblical characters or moral themes.
The range of Haggada is virtually inexhaustible; a few representative examples must suffice. With regard to biblical characters, both Moses and David were born circumcised; Cain had a twin sister; Abraham will sit at the gate of hell to reproach the damned on Judgment Day; Aaron once locked the angel of death in the tabernacle; Solomon understood the language of animals; King Hiram, who supplied materials for the Temple, entered paradise alive; and the flesh of Leviathan will feed the righteous in the world to come.
In such fanciful elaborations of Scriptures, Haggada does not disdain to draw on Classical tales from ancient Greece and Rome. The men of Sodom, it is said, subjected itinerant strangers to the ordeal of Procrustes’ bed; the earth opened to rescue newborn Hebrew males from the pharaoh, as it did for Amphiaraus, the prophet of Argos, when he fled from Periclymenus after the attack on Thebes; Moses spoke at birth, as did Apollo; Solomon’s ring, cast into the river, was retrieved from a fish that had swallowed it, as was that of Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, in the story told by Herodotus; the Queen of Sheba had the feet of an ass, like the child-stealing witch (Onoskelis) of Greek folklore; and no rain ever fell on the altar at Jerusalem, just as none was said to have fallen on Mt. Olympus.
There are other familiar motifs. Moses qualifies as a husband for Zipporah by alone being able to pluck a rod from Jethro’s garden; David’s harp is played at night by the wind, like that of Aeolus; and Isaiah, like Achilles and Siegfried, has only one vulnerable spot in his body—in his case, his mouth.
Legends are developed also from fanciful interpretations of scriptural verses. Thus, Adam is said to have fallen only a few hours after his creation, because the Hebrew text of Psalms 49:12 can be literally rendered “Adam does not last the night in glory.” Lamech slays the wandering Cain—a fanciful interpretation of his boast in Genesis 4:23–24. Melchizedek is immortal, in view of Psalms 110:4: “You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” And the first man is a hermaphrodite (this notion has analogues elsewhere), because Genesis 1:27 says of God’s creation, “Male and female he created them.”
Fables and animal stories
Midrash also uses fables paralleled in non-Jewish sources. Aesop’s fable of The Lion and the Crane is quoted by a rabbi of the 1st century CE, and the tales of The Fox in the Vineyard and of The Camel Who Got Slit Ears for Wanting Horns likewise make their appearance. Material is also drawn from medieval bestiaries (manuals on animals, real or imaginary, with symbolic or moralistic interpretations). Bears, according to the bestiaries, lack mother’s milk; hares and hyenas can change sex; only one pair of unicorns exists at a time; and there is a gigantic bird (ziz) that reaches from earth to sky.
Contribution of Haggada to Christian and Islamic legends
Several of the stories related in Haggadic literature were later adapted by Christian writers. The legend that Adam was created out of virgin soil was taken to prefigure the virgin birth of the second Adam (i.e., Jesus); while the story that the soil in question was taken from the site of the future Temple was transformed into the claim that Adam had been molded out of the dust of Calvary. Similarly, the legend that, at the dedication of the Temple, the doors swung open automatically to admit the Ark of the Covenant was transferred to the consecration of a church by St. Basil (329–379); and the Talmudic tale that the bronze Nicanor gates of the Temple had floated to Jerusalem when cast overboard during their shipment from Alexandriawas applied to the doors of a sacred edifice erected in honour of St. Giles (fl. 7th century).
Nor was it only the Christians who absorbed Haggadic legends. The Qurʾān, the sacred book of Islam, likewise incorporates a good deal of such material in its treatment of biblical characters such as Joseph, Moses, David, and Solomon.
Myth and legend in the medieval period
Jewish contributions to diffusion of folktales
The Middle Ages was a singularly productive period in the history of Jewish myth and legend. Medieval Jews played a prominent role in the transmission of Middle Eastern and Asian tales to the West and enhanced their own repertoire with a goodly amount of secular material. Especially in Spain and Italy, Arabic versions of standard collections of folktales were translated into Hebrew and then into Latin, thus enabling the stories to spread to the Christian world. The Indian collection of animal tales known as The Fables of Bidpai (Sanskrit: Panca-tantra), for example, was rendered into Hebrew from the 8th-century Arabic version of ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Muqaffaʿ; and, in the 12th century, John of Capua’s Directorium humanae vitae (“Guide for Human Life”), one of the most celebrated repositories of moralistic tales (exempla) used by Christian preachers, was developed from this Hebrew translation. So too the famous Senbād-nāmeh (“Fables of Sinbad”)—one of the sources, incidentally, of Boccaccio’s Decameron—was rendered from Arabic into Hebrew and then into Latin. The renowned romance of Barlaam and Josaphat—a Christian adaptation of tales about the Buddha—found its Jewish counterpart in a compilation titled The Prince and the Dervish, adapted from an Arabic text by Abraham ben Samuel ibn Ḥisdai, a leader of Spanish Jewry in the 13th century.
Hebrew versions of medieval romances
Hebrew translations were also made from Latin and other European languages. There are several Hebrew adaptations of the Alexander Romance, based mainly (though not exclusively) on a Latin rendering of the Greek original by Callisthenes (c. 360–327 BCE). The central theme is the exploits of Alexander the Great, and the narrative includes fanciful accounts of his adventures in foreign lands and of the outlandish peoples he encounters. There is a Hebrew reworking of the Arthurian legend, in the form of a secular sermon in which Arthurian and biblical scenes are blithely mixed together. Finally, there is a Hebrew Ysopet (the common title for a medieval version of Aesop) that shares several of its fables with the famous collection made by Marie de France in the late 12th century.
Jewish contributions to Christian and Islamic tales
Apart from these Hebrew translations of Arabic and European works, a good deal of earlier Haggadic material is embodied in the Disciplina clericalis of Peter Alfonsi (died after 1122), a baptized Jew of Aragon originally known as Moses Sephardi. This book is the oldest European collection of novellas; it served as a primary source for the celebrated Gesta Romanorum(“Deeds of the Romans”) of the same period itself a major source for European storytellers, poets, and dramatists for many centuries.
Haggadic material was also absorbed by Arabic writers during this period. Not only does the Qurʾān incorporate such material, but the Egyptian recension of The Thousand and One Nights seems to have drawn extensively on Jewish sources. Its tales of The Sultan and His Three Sons, The Angel of Death, Alexander and the Pious Man, and the legend of Baliqiyah most likely come from a Jewish source.
Major medieval Hebrew collections
From the 11th to the 13th century, comprehensive collections of tales and fables were compiled in Europe, both for entertainment and edification; standard examples are the Spanish El novellino and the aforementioned Disciplina clericalis and Gesta Romanorum. Jews, especially in Morocco and in Islamic Spain, produced similar collections. Two of the most important were The Book of Comfort by Nissim ben Jacob ben Nissim of Al-Qayrawān (11th century) and The Book of Delight by Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara of Spain (end of the 12th century). The former, composed in Judeo-Arabic, is a collection of some 60 moralizing tales designed to comfort the author’s father-in-law on the loss of a son. Belonging to a well-known genre of Arabic literature and derived mainly from Arabic sources, it is permeated by a preoccupation with divine justice, which was typical of the Muʿtazilite school of Islamic theology. It was later translated into Hebrew. The Book of Delight consists of 15 tales, largely about the wiles of women, exchanged between two travelling companions—a form of cadre, or “enclosing tale,” later adopted on a more extensive scale in the 14th century in the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (c. 1342–1400). Typical is the tale of The Silversmith and His Wife, which relates how a craftsman, persuaded by his greedy wife to make a statue of a princess, gets his hands cut off by the king for violating the Islamic law against making images, while his wife reaps rich rewards from the flattered princess. Although most of the stories are taken from Arabic sources, some have parallels in rabbinic literature—including the famous tale of the matron of Ephesus, who, while keeping vigil over her husband’s tomb, makes love with a guard posted nearby to watch over the corpses of certain crucified robbers. When, during one of their trysts, one of the corpses is stolen and her lover therefore faces punishment, the shrewd woman exhumes the body of her husband and substitutes it. This tale is found already in the Satyricon of Petronius (died 66 CE) and was later used by Voltaire (1694–1778) in his Zadigand by the 20th-century English playwright Christopher Fry in his A Phoenix Too Frequent.
Of the same genre but deriving mainly from west European rather than Arabic sources are the Mishle shuʿalim (“Fox Fables”) of Berechiah ha-Nakdan (“the Punctuator”), who may have lived in England near the end of the 12th century. About half of these tales recur in Marie de France’s Ysopet, and only one of them is of specifically Jewish origin. Berechiah’s work was translated into Latin and thereafter became a favourite of European storytellers.
Among anonymous compendiums of this type is The Alphabet of Ben Sira, extant in two recensions, probably of the 11th century. This is basically a collection of proverbs attributed to the famous sage of the apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach). In one of the recensions the proverbs are illustrated by appropriate tales. The author is represented as an infant prodigy who performs much the same feats of sapience as are attributed to Jesus in some of the Infancy Gospels.
Medieval legendary histories and Haggadic compendiums
Two other developments mark the history of Jewish myth and legend during the Middle Ages. The first was a revival of the Hellenistic predilection for large-scale compendiums in which the history of the Jews was “integrated,” in legendary fashion, with that of the world in general and especially with Classical traditions. Two major works of this kind, both composed (apparently) in Italy during the 9th century, are Josippon, by a certain Ben Gorion, which presents a fanciful record from the Creation onward and contains numerous references to foreign nations; and the Book of Jashar, a colourful account from Adam to Joshua, named for the ancient book of heroic songs and sagas mentioned in the Bible (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18). There is also the voluminous Chronicles of Jerahmeel, written in the Rhineland in the 14th century, which draws largely on Pseudo-Philo’s earlier compilation and includes Hebrew and Aramaicversions of certain books of the Apocrypha.
The other development was the gathering of Haggadic legends and tales into comprehensive, systematic compendiums. Works of this kind are Yalquṭ Shimʿoni (“The Collection of Simeon”), attributed to Rabbi Simeon of Frankfurt am Main; Midrash ha-gadol (“The Great Midrash”), composed after the death in 1204 of Moses Maimonides, whom it quotes; and the Midrash of David ha-Nagid, named after the grandson of Maimonides. About 100 years later a similar work on the Prophets and holy writings, Yalquṭ ha-Makiri (“The Collection of Makhir”), was compiled by Makhir ben Abba Mari in Spain. It has been suggested that the production of such works was spurred by the necessity of providing “ammunition” for the public disputations with Christian ecclesiastics that the church forced upon Jewish scholars during this period.
Myth and legend in the modern period
Kabbalistic tales
In the 16th century, Jewish myth and legend took several new directions. The disappointment of messianic expectations through the dismal eclipse of the pretender Shabbetai Tzeviincreased interest in occult speculation and in the mystical lore of the Kabbala. Important schools of Kabbala arose in Italy and at Safed, in Palestine, and tales of the miraculous Faust-like powers of masters such as Isaac Luria (1534–72) and Ḥayyim ben Joseph Vital (also known as Ḥayyim Vital Calabrese) circulated freely after their deaths.
Another reaction to the dashing of messianic hopes is represented by the beautiful story of the Kabbalist Joseph della Reyna and his five disciples, who travel through the world to oust Satan and prepare the way for the Deliverer. Warned by the spirits of such worthies as Rabbi Simeon ben Yoḥai and the prophet Elijah, they nevertheless procure their blessing and are sent on to the angel Metatron. The latter furnishes them with protective spells and spices and advises Joseph to inscribe the ineffable name of God on a metal plate. When, however, they reach the end of their journey, Satan and his wife, Lilith, attack them in the form of huge dogs. When the dogs are subdued, they beg for food, and Joseph gives them spices to revive them. At once they summon a host of devils, which causes two of the disciples to die of terror and two to go mad, leaving only Joseph and a disciple. The messiah weeps in heaven, and Elijah hides the great horn of salvation. A voice rings out telling Joseph that it is vain to attempt to hasten the footsteps of the Redeemer.
The repertoire of Jewish tales and legends was seasoned by other elements. During the 16th century the age of the great European navigators—stories began to circulate about the discovery of the Ten Lost Tribes in remote parts of the world.
Judeo-German (Yiddish) tales
In the 16th century, Judeo-German (Yiddish) came to replace Hebrew as the language of Jewish tales and legends in Europe, primarily because of the desire to render them accessible to women unschooled in the sacred tongue. The synagogal lessons from Scripture were embellished in Yiddish in the so-called Taitsh Humesh (“Yiddish Pentateuch”), in the more fancifully titled Tzeʾena u-reʾena (“Go Forth and See”; compare Song of Solomon 3:11), and in adaptations of the story of Esther designed for dramatic presentation on the feast of Purim. The Hebrew Chronicles of Josippon also assumed Yiddish dress. More-secular productions include a verse rendition of the Arthurian legend, titled Artus Hof (“The Court of King Arthur”) and based largely on Gravenberg’s medieval Wigalois, and the Bove Buch by Elijah Levita(1469–1549), which retold the romance of Sir Bevis of Southampton.
These “frivolous” productions were offset by collections of moral and ethical tales. The main examples of these are the Brantspiegel (1572; “Brant Mirro”), attributed to Moses Henoch, and the Maʿaseh Buch (1672; “Story Book”), a compendium of 254 tales compiled by Jacob ben Abraham of Meseritz and first published at Basel. The latter, drawn mainly from the Talmud, was supplemented by later legends about medieval rabbis. Jewish legends also circulated in the form of chapbooks, a large selection of which is preserved in the library of the Yiddish Scientific Institute in New York City.
Judeo-Persian and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) tales
A similar development, though on a lesser scale, took place among Jews who spoke other vernacular dialects. Major monuments of Judeo-Persian literature are poetic embellishments of biblical narratives composed by Shāhīn of Shīrāz in the 14th century and by Joseph ben Isaac Yahudi (i.e., “the Jew”) some 300 years later. These, however, are exercises in virtuosity rather than in creative storytelling. Versified elaborations of the story of Joseph appear in Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) in Coplas de Yoçef (“Song of Joseph”), composed in 1732 by Abraham de Toledo and embodying a certain amount of traditional Haggadic material. From a revival of literary activity in the 18th century comes a comprehensive “legendary Bible” called Me-ʿam LoʿḥḲ ą, “From a People of Strange Tongue” (compare Psalms 114:1), begun by Jacob Culi (died 1732) and continued by later writers, as well as several renderings of standard Hebrew collections and a number of Purim plays. Judeo-Spanish folktales were still current in Macedonia and Yugoslavia until the Nazi occupation of the early 1940s, but these stories drew more from Balkan than from Jewish sources.
Hasidic tales
The rise of the Hasidic sect in eastern Europe at the end of the 18th century engendered a host of legends (circulated mainly through chapbooks) concerning the lives, wise sayings, and miracles of tzaddiqim, or masters, such as Israel ben Eliezer, “the Besht” (1700–60), and Dov Baer of Meseritz (died 1772). These tales, however, are anecdotes rather than formally structured stories and often borrow from non-Jewish sources.
Droll stories
To the popular creativity of the ghetto belong also the droll tales of the Wise Men of Chełm (in Poland)—Jewish counterparts of the German noodles (“stupid people”; hence “noodle stories”) of Schildburg and of the more familiar Wise Men of Gotham (in England). These too were circulated mainly in Yiddish popular prints. A typical story is that of the two “sages” who went for a walk, one with an umbrella and the other without one. Suddenly it began to rain. “Open your umbrella,” said the one without one. “It won’t help,” answered the other, “it’s full of holes.” “Then why did you bring it?” rejoined his friend. “I didn’t think it would rain,” was the reply.
Modern Israeli folktales
The gathering of Jews from many lands into the State of Israel has made that country a treasure trove for the student of Jewish folktales. Assiduous work was undertaken by Dov Noy of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, aided by enthusiastic amateurs throughout the country. Mainly, however, the stories are retellings of traditional material.
Here the universal rule of the God of Israel is unmistakably proclaimed. Yet in the same book (3:1–2), after referring to the deliverance from Egypt—an act recognized as similar to that occurring in the affairs of other peoples—the prophet, speaking for God, says: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth.” Thus, the exclusivism has two focuses: one universal, the other particularistic. The ultimate claim of the universalistic position is found in Malachi 1:11: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations.” This, however, in no way negates the special covenantal relationship between God and his people, because this universalistic theme emphasizes that special bond. To interpret Judaism’s stance toward other religious systems in any other way is to fail to do justice to its inner dialectic. It is neither a bland latitudinarianism that admits any or all viewpoints and practices nor a fanatical intolerance but rather a subtle interplay of affirmation and rejection. The latter is directed primarily against idolatry—the basic failure of the peoples who are the objects of the same divine solicitude as is Israel. If the religions of the nations are rejected because of their failure to know God fully and truly, the peoples themselves are not. Living under the covenant with Noah, their fulfillment of such responsibilities provides for their acceptance, for they are not expected to live within the realm of Torah.
Relation to Christianity
Judaism’s relation to Christianity is complicated because of the close historical interconnections between them. From a Judaic standpoint, Christianity is or was a Jewish heresy, and, as such, it may be judged somewhat differently than other religions. Christianity’s claim to be the true fulfillment of the covenant—and, thus, the true Israel—has given rise throughout the centuries to polemics of varying intensity. The rise to power of the church and the embodiment of its anti-Judaic sentiments and attitudes in the political structures and processes of Christian nations made sharply negative Jewish responses inevitable. Nevertheless, during the Middle Ages, Jewish thinkers attempted to avoid designating Christianity as idolatry; some even argued that, because Christianity was derived from Judaism, it was fulfilling—at least on a moral plane—the divine purpose.
In modern times the relation between the two religions has undergone changes necessitated by the newer situations into which the Jewish community has moved. This does not mean that the polemical-apologetic stance came to an end. The rejection of Judaism as a living religion by some Christians has continued, though it was argued less on dogmatic than on scholarly grounds. The Jewish response has often been countercriticism. Beyond this, however, there has been a growing inclination within the Jewish community to respond to the development of an affirmative theology of Judaism in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches by providing a theology of Christianity within Jewish thought. Occasional formulations in this direction have appeared, but some within the Jewish community have seen no need for such a movement.
Beginning in the early 1960s many Christian churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church, began to rethink their relationship to Judaism. During the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), Pope Paul VI issued the declaration Nostra aetate (“In Our Era”), which recognized the moral and historical integrity of Judaism, a remarkable reversal of centuries of Catholic teaching. Nostra aetate also acknowledged Judaism as a vibrant religion with an identity independent of its role in the formation of historical Christianity. Most mainline Protestant churches responded with a declaration similar to Nostra aetate. During his pontificate, St. John Paul II(1978–2005), who had a great theological admiration and understanding of Judaism, further improved Catholic-Jewish relations.
Relation to Islam
The emergence of Islam in Arabia in the 7th century CE brought Judaism face to face with a second religious movement that derived some of its ideas and structures from the older tradition. In this case, as in that of Christianity, the new religion claimed a special relation with Judaism. Muhammad held that the faith he proclaimed was none other than the pristine religion of Abraham, the father of Ishmael (the progenitor of the Arabs) and Isaac (from whom the people of Israel descended). That religion had been distorted by both Judaism and Christianity, and Muhammad, the “seal” of the Prophets, had been called by God to restore it to its purity. The confrontation between Judaism and Islam, like that between Judaism and Christianity, was coloured by political and social considerations both before and after Islam spread beyond Arabia to other areas of the Middle East (including Palestine) and to parts of Europe. During the subsequent period, the intellectual development of the Islamic world and the emergence of theologians and philosophers of the highest order challenged Judaism and exerted considerable influence on similar thinkers within that community. Given the strong monotheism and the anti-iconic attitude of Islam, many of the questions that arose between Judaism and Trinitarian and iconic Christianity were not an issue between Judaism and Islam. Rather, the crucial point of dispute was the nature of prophecy, which arose because of Muhammad’s claim concerning his culminating role in the prophetic tradition. Thus, during the medieval period there were polemics directed against that claim, as well as expositions of the nature of prophecy that, without dealing directly with Muhammad’s claim, could be taken to undercut it—as in the case of Moses Maimonides’ The Guide for the Perplexed. Nonetheless, Islam too was understood to contribute to the fulfillment of the divine purpose. From the late medieval period onward, the intellectual engagement between the two religions diminished with the general decline in the Turkish empire that then embraced the Muslim world. In modern times it has not yet been renewed for many reasons, the most important of which has been the political and military conflict between the State of Israel and the Arab countries of the Middle East.
Relations with other religions
Judaism’s encounters with religions other than Christianity and Islam have been in large measure limited to the past. In the Hellenistic world, it confronted and rejected the varieties of syncretistic cults that grew up. Within the Sāsānian empire it was forced to deal with Zoroastrianism, but the outlines of its response have not yet been entirely disentangled from the literature of the period. In the modern world, particularly in the most recent period, it has come face to face with the religions of the Middle East and Asia, but beyond a few tentative explorations nothing tangible has appeared. Because of the growing interest and exchange between East and West, however, Jewish thinkers will not be able to rest with older formulations concerning the nature of other religious systems. Without compromising its own faith or falling into an uncritical relativism, Judaism may indeed seek a new way of understanding and relating to the varieties of religious systems facing it on the world scene.
The role of Judaism in Western culture and civilization
Its historic role
Judaism has played a significant role in the development of Western culture because of its unique relationship with Christianity, the dominant religious force in the West. Although the Christian church drew from other sources as well, its retention of the sacred Scriptures of the synagogue (the Old Testament) as an integral part of its Bible—a decision sharply debated in the 2nd century CE—was crucial. Not only was the development of its ideas and doctrines deeply influenced, but it also received an ethical dynamism that constantly overcame an inclination to withdraw into world-denying isolation.
It was, however, not only Judaism’s heritage but its persistence that touched Western civilization. The continuing existence of the Jews, even as a pariah people, was both a challenge and a warning. Their liberation from the shackles of discrimination, segregation, and rejection at the beginning of the modern era was understood by many to be the touchstone of all human liberty. Until the final ghettoization of the Jew—it is well to remember that the term ghetto belongs in the first instance to Jewish history—at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance, intellectual contact between Judaism and Christianity, and thus between Judaism and Western culture, continued. St. Jerome translated the Hebrew Bible into Latin with the aid of Jewish scholars; the exegetical work of the scholars of the monastery of St. Victor in the 12th century borrowed heavily from Jewish scholars; and the biblical commentary of Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac of Troyes) was an important source for Martin Luther (1483–1546). Jewish thinkers helped to bring the remarkable intellectual achievements of the Islamic world to Christian Europe and added their own contributions as well. Even heresies within the church, on occasion, were said to have been inspired by or modeled after Judaism.
Its present role
In the modern world, while the influence of Jews has increased in almost every realm of cultural life, the impact of Judaism itself has diminished. The reason for this is not difficult to find. The Gentile leaders who extended emancipation to the Jews at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th were eager to grant political equality, but they also insisted that certain reforms of Judaism be accepted. With the transformation of Judaism into an ecclesiastical institution, largely on the model of German Protestant churches, its ideas and structures took on the cast of its environment in a way quite unlike what had ensued in its earlier confrontations with various philosophical systems. Indeed, for some, Judaism and 19th-century European thought were not merely congruent but identical. Thus, while numerous contributors to diverse aspects of Western culture and civilization are to be found among Jews of the 20th and 21st centuries—scientists, politicians, statesmen, scholars, musicians, artists—their activities cannot, except in specific instances, be considered as deriving from Judaism as it has been sketched above.
The two central events of 20th-century Jewish history were the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. The former was the great tragedy of the Jewish people, while the latter was the light of a rebirth, which promised political, cultural, and economic independence. The rest of the world has been forced to reconsider and reorient its relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people because of these two events. At the same time, the centres of Jewish life have moved almost exclusively to Israel and North America. The virtual absence of official anti-Semitism in North America allowed Jews to flourish in pursuits previously the preserve of Gentiles. Along with these developments, theological considerations and practical realities, such as interfaith marriage, have made Jewish religious culture a point of interest for many non-Jews.
In the early 21st century, Jewish religious life continued to fragment along ideological lines, but that very fragmentation animated both moral imagination and ritual life. While ultra-Orthodox Judaism grew more insular, and some varieties of Liberal Judaism moved ritual practice even farther away from traditional observance, a vital centre emerged, running from Reform Judaism to modern Orthodoxy. This centre sought to understand Judaism within a broader context of interaction with other cultures while leaving unaffected the essentials of belief and practice. Predicting the future of Judaism is not an easy or enviable task, but there is reason to hope that the world will continue to draw upon the religious and cultural traditions of Judaism, both past and present.
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