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solar phenomenon, and Noah a representative of the sun-god (see p. 180 f.). But the utility of this distinction is largely neutralised by a universal tendency to transfer mythical traits from gods to real men (Sargon of Agade, Moses, Alexander, Charlemagne, etc.); so that the most indubitable traces of mythology will not of themselves warrant the conclusion that the hero is not a historical personage.—Gordon differentiates between spontaneous (nature) myths and reflective (ætiological) myths; and, while recognising the existence of the latter in Genesis, considers that the former type is hardly represented in the OT at all. The distinction is important, though it may be doubted if ætiology is ever a primary impulse to the formation of myths, and as a parasitic development it appears to attach itself indifferently to myth and legend. Hence there is a large class of narratives which it is difficult to label either as mythical or as legendary, but in which the ætiological or some similar motive is prominent (see p. xi ff.).

2. The influence of foreign mythology is most apparent in the primitive traditions of chs. 1-11. The discovery of the Babylonian versions of the Creation- and Deluge-traditions has put it beyond reasonable doubt that these are the originals from which the biblical accounts have been derived (pp. 45 ff., 177 f.). A similar relation obtains between the antediluvian genealogy of ch. 5 and Berossus's list of the ten Babylonian kings who reigned before the Flood (p. 137 f.). The story of Paradise has its nearest analogies in Iranian mythology; but there are faint Babylonian echoes which suggest that it belonged to the common mythological heritage of the East (p. 90 ff.). Both here and in ch. 4 a few isolated coincidences with Phœnician tradition may point to the Canaanite civilisation as the medium through which such myths came to the knowledge of the Israelites.—All these (as well as the story of the Tower of Babel) were originally genuine myths—stories of the gods; and if they no longer deserve that appellation, it is because the spirit of Hebrew monotheism has exorcised the polytheistic notions of deity, apart from which true mythology cannot survive. The few passages where the old heathen conception of godhead still appears (1$26$ 3$22.$ $24$ 6$1ff.$ 11$1ff.$), only serve to show how completely the religious beliefs of Israel have transformed and purified the crude speculations of pagan theology, and adapted them to the ideas of an ethical and