Jewish mythology

Jewish mythology refers to the collection of traditional stories and beliefs that are part of Judaism. These myths have significantly shaped Christian and Islamic mythology, as well as the broader Abrahamic cultural tradition. Christianity directly took over many narratives from Jewish tradition, including those found in the Old Testament. Islam likewise shares numerous tales, such as a creation story unfolding over six periods, the account of Abraham, and the stories of Moses and the Israelites.

Tanakh

Within the Tanakh, the writings of prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah present a view of the divine that sets it apart from the mythologies of neighboring cultures. Rather than portraying the god of Israel as merely one national deity among many, these texts describe Yahweh as the single God of the entire universe. The prophets condemned Hebrew participation in nature worship and did not fully identify the divine with natural forces. Through their influence, Jewish theology increasingly depicted God as separate from nature, acting independently of it.

Instead of endlessly repeating a seasonal cycle of events, Yahweh stood outside nature and intervened in it, producing new, historically unique occurrences. Scholar Mircea Eliade described this as a new kind of theophany—God’s intervention in history, which was irreversible and unrepeatable. For example, the fall of Jerusalem did not repeat the fall of Samaria; it was a fresh historic theophany, another expression of Yahweh’s wrath. Yahweh thus stands apart from abstractions, symbols, and generalities, acting in history and engaging with actual historical beings.

Creation narrative

The Book of Genesis contains two creation stories. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic term for God) creates the heavens and the earth in six days, then rests on the seventh, blessing and sanctifying it.

The order is: Day 1—light (and time); Day 2—the firmament, with stars set in it later; Day 3—a ring of ocean around a single circular continent, with God commanding the earth to produce plants; Day 4—lights in the firmament to rule day and night (the sun and moon); Day 5—living creatures; Day 6—the first man, Adam; Day 7—rest. In the second story (Genesis 2:4–2:25), the order differs: God creates man, then the Garden of Eden and trees, then living creatures, and finally the first woman, Eve, from Adam’s rib as his companion. God creates through spoken commands and names the elements as he makes them.

Many of the Hebrews’ neighbors had a “combat myth” about a good god battling a chaos demon, such as the Babylonian Enûma Eliš or the fragmentary myth of Labbu. Historian Bernard McGinn argues that this imagery influenced Jewish mythology. The story of God triumphing over Leviathan, a chaos symbol, follows this pattern.

McGinn also suggests the Hebrews applied the combat myth to the relationship between God and Satan. Originally a deputy in God’s court tasked with accusing humans (the Hebrew word satan means “adversary” or “to oppose”), Satan evolved into a being with an apparently independent realm of evil—no longer God’s deputy but his opponent in a cosmic struggle. Even the Exodus story shows combat-myth influence. McGinn believes the “Song of the Sea,” sung after God drowned the Egyptian army in Yam Suph, uses motifs and language from the combat myth to highlight the foundational event of Israel’s religious identity: crossing the Red Sea and deliverance from Pharaoh.

Similarly, scholar Karen Armstrong notes parallels between pagan myths where gods split the sea during creation and the Exodus story where Moses splits the Sea of Reeds—though in Exodus, what is brought into being is not a cosmos but a people. The motif of God as a divine warrior fighting for Israel appears clearly in the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) and recurs in poetry throughout the Hebrew Scriptures (1 Samuel 2; Zechariah 9:11–16; 14:3–8). Some comparative mythologists believe Jewish mythology absorbed elements from pagan mythology, even while resisting pagan worship.

The origin myth of Adam and Eve appears in Genesis. In the first creation narrative, they are created together in God’s image and told to multiply and steward creation. In the second, God forms Adam from dust, places him in the Garden of Eden, and gives him dominion over plants and animals.

Origin myth

God forbids Adam from eating fruit from a specific tree. Eve is later created from one of Adam’s ribs as his companion. The Garden of Eden story is detailed in Genesis chapters 2 and 3, and also referenced in the Book of Ezekiel.