FOLK-LORE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.[1]
A work from the pen of Sir James Frazer commands the respectful attention of all who are interested in the history of civilisation and its primitive origins. But the subject becomes more important when traces of such primitive culture are sought for in the ancient records of the Bible. In a way, the Bible has been throughout the ages a kind of touchstone for every new idea which swayed the western world. Every new theory put forward, every new system, every new phase in the evolution of the human mind was successively, though not successfully, applied to the Bible either with the object of elucidating its supposed true meaning in the light and with the help of the latest theory, or with that of vindicating the truth of the new theory by its agreement with Holy Writ. The history of the exegesis of the Bible proves in consequence to be one of the most fascinating; there are many chapters in it, from Philo to Frazer. Philosophy and mysticism, especially that of the Neo-Platonic school, found their mysteries and speculations already told by Holy Writ, and so one can go from century to century and realise that the Bible has always stood in the centre of the spiritual life of the West.
And when in the last century a new interpretation was started of the ancient Myths of Greece and Rome in the light of the then newly discovered Indian literature, and the first beginnings of comparative mythology led to a new
- ↑ Sir James George Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament. Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend, and Law. 3 vols. London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1918.
