Ancient Israel 2. [antikvár]

PREFACEIn the first volume of this work the reader has been made acquainted with Jewish myths dealing with the origin of the world, angels and demons, paradise and hell, the creation of Adam and Eve, and also with some of the legends related of the Patriarchs Abraham and Isaac. The present volume deals exclusively with the legends clustering round Patriarchs, Prophets, and Priests, the friends and favourites of God, the Biblical personages like Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron. The reader is again introduced to the rich and abundant storehouse of Talmudical and post-Talmudical literature, to that vast legendary lore wherein the Jewish popular imagination has given full expression to its beliefs and ideals, its yearnings and hopes. Legendary lore, it must be remembered, is a branch of national literature; it is popular poetry, the poetic creation of the people, the anonymous work of the mind and soul of the people. The pious belief and the religious yearning of a people find their expression in the many legends clustering round the founder of the national religion and round the national heroes and saints.Legendary lore has rightly been called the " religious heroic epic and the " popular religious philosophy of history ". Legends wander from generation to generation, from age to age, from nation to nation, and from country to country, but they always bear the traces of their origin, namely, the mind and soul of the people.Israel has no saints in its history, but just as in the Christian