Analysis of “Geneis as Myth” by Edmund Leach

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

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

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

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