Customer Reviews
Interesting Summary of the Creation of the Bible - By: Lithoman, 01 Oct 2008 
The Genesis of Genesis effectively.
Well written summary of the development of various primary myths, which were developed by fertile minds, to become the Best Selling piece of fiction of all time. Worth following some of the referencesin this book for other myth sources. Some of the obvious links, available elsewhere, have been left out & it is not obvious whether this is intentional.
Very interesting backgrounder of biblical time myths - By: C. Hayes, 16 Mar 2008 
Gary Greenberg's book starts out with a summary of the document theory of the bible, & tells short versions of the creation myths of the Egyptians & the Sumeriansin the time the OT was written.
Most of the book consists of short chapters on 101 "Myths" (citations from the Bible) with a short description of "The Reality" behind it, followed by one or two pages of explanations.
Gary Greenberg explains how the ancient Hebrews incorporated the Egyptian & Sumerian stories into a story that fitted their monotheistic worldview, & how you can identify traces of the original versions with deities. He also reconstructed historic situations such as the split of Israel after king Solomon, & the choices writers made because of that, & makes educated guesses as to which kingdom or tribe the writers belonged.
I am not a scholarin this field, so I have to assume the backgrounds Gary Greenberg gives are correct. As a skeptic I have the problem that I don't know how to check everything. Some of the explanations contained reasons that seemed to be disputable: name similarities, based on fragments of text. I have some sort of an antenna for disputable claims, probably fueled by reading books such as Erich von Däniken (Were the Gods astronauts?), Velikovski (Worldsin collision) & others.
Therefore I am glad to say thatin the conclusion all 101 threads are woven together again, making it a coherent hypothesis.
I'm afraid that to check it more I would have to follow the Further Reading advises with which the book ends.
A Remarkable Book About A Serious Subject - By: Peter Kenney, 23 Mar 2003 Gary Greenberg has written a remarkable book which describes how the Bible was influenced by many different myths & legends taken from cultures with which the Hewbrews came into contact. For example, early biblical history was much affected by Egyptian mythology & literature. Babylonian myths were sometimes added later & then integrated with other legends drawn from still more sources.
The author describes the Old Testament as a collection of myths. The myths are valuable because they lead us to learn the truth about the history of ancient Israel. Greenberg points out that by identifying the myths & legends which were usedin writing the Bible we are able to determine where the Jewish people were located at definite datesin history. These myths & legends can sometimes even be offerred as proof of the validity of certain biblical eventsin the same manner as archaeological sites are utilized.
In discussing the myths individually the author has grouped them chronologically into three groups as follows: Myths of the Beginning, Myths of the Founders & Myths of the Heroes.
The book includes an extensive suggested reading list & a table of useful maps.
