Let us now merely glance at some other Old-Testament fables.
Noah and his Deluge are mainly mythical, as this story is almost a literal copy of the Chaldean, though found substantially in the writings of many other nations. It readily fits the allegorical method of interpretation in almost every particular. The Chaldean account as written by Berosus, and found recently by the late George Smith of the British Museum on the clay tablets, is so much like the story in Genesis that the latter must have been copied from the former; and the slight variations in the two narratives are no greater than might have been expected as between Chaldea and Palestine. The Jews obtained it from Babylon, as there is no mention made of this miracle in any book of the Bible written before the Captivity. The books of Psalms, Proverbs, Chronicles, Judges, Kings, etc. are silent on this subject. Josephus defended the Noachian Deluge on the sole ground that an account of it was held by the Chaldeans, never pretending that the Chaldean account was taken from the Jewish record.
But it is useless to dwell on the story of a universal deluge of water. It is in the light of modern science physically impossible and absurd; and such men as Buckland, Pye Smith, Hugh Miller, and Hitchcock, with many other distinguished Christian scientists, give up the doctrine of a universal deluge while claiming a partial one. And here, again, the ancient astronomy comes in with an explanation of partial floods of waters by the natural results of the “precession of the equinoxes,” in which, at certain periods during the change of the polar axis of the earth, great physical convulsions must follow, with wide eruptions of water, making a partial overflow and suggesting the idea of a universal deluge. Four such cataclysms must have occurred while the sun was making one journey through the twelve zodiacal constellations. Prof. Huxley has recently well said: “But the voice of archæology and historical criticism still has to be heard, and it gives forth no uncertain sound. The marvellous recovery of the records of an antiquity far superior to any that can be ascribed to the Pentateuch, which has been effected by the decipherers of cuneiform characters, has put us in possession of a series once more, not of speculations, but of facts, which has a most remarkable bearing upon the question of the trustworthiness of the narrative of the Flood. It is established that for centuries before the asserted migration of Terah from Ur of the Chaldees (which, according to the orthodox interpreters of the Pentateuch, took place after the year 2000 b. c.) Lower Mesopotamia was the seat of a civilization in which art and science and literature had attained a development formerly unsuspected, or, if there were faint reports of it, treated as fabulous. And it is also no matter of speculation, but a fact, that the libraries of this people contain versions of a long epic poem, one of the twelve books of which tells the story of a deluge which in a number of its leading features corresponds to the story attributed to Berosus, no less than with the story given in Genesis, with curious exactnesss.
“Looking at the convergence of all these lines of evidence leads to the one conclusion—that the story of the Flood in Genesis is merely a version of one of the oldest pieces of purely fictitious literature extant; that whether this is or is not its origin, the events asserted in it to have taken place assuredly never did take place; further, that in point of fact the story in the plain and logically necessary sense of its words has long since been given up by orthodox and conservative commentators of the Established Church.”
The only rational interpretation of the extraordinary stories of the Pentateuch and other scriptures is to regard them as mythical and allegorical, borrowed from the astrological systems of more ancient peoples. It is very difficult to present within the limits here allowed what has grown into ponderous volumes in elucidating the matter in hand.
The story of Jonah and the Fish, taken as a literal story, is incredible, though the notorious Brooklyn preacher thinks that it must be literally true, as that God might have so diluted the gastric juice in the stomach of the fish as to make Jonah quite indigestible! This whole story is found in earlier pagan writings, and is fully explained by the astronomical phenomena. The earth is a huge fish in the ancient mythology, and on December the 21st the sun (Jonah, the type) sinks into its dark belly, and after three days—to wit, December 25th—it comes forth. The Sun-god is on dry land again.
There is a Hindoo fable much like this. In Grecian fable Hercules was swallowed by a whale at Joppa, and is said to have lain three days in his entrails. The Sun was called Jona, as can be shown from many authorities. The nursery-tale of “Little Red Riding-Hood” was also a sun-myth, mutilated in the English story, showing how the Sun was devoured by the Black Wolf (Night), and came out unhurt. Scores of similar sun-myths could be narrated.
But there are geographical inaccuracies which show its mythical character. Instead of Nineveh being “three days’ journey” from the coast where Jonah was vomited out, it is distant some four hundred miles of hill and plain, and the size of the city was not twenty by twelve miles, but more nearly eight by three miles. Moreover, the city showed no signs of decay till about two hundred and fifty years after the alleged warning of Jonah. It is truly astounding that intelligent men can be so blind. It was recently admitted by high Christian authority that there is not a particle of proof for this story except that Jesus had referred to Jonah as being “three days and nights in the whale’s belly.” If Jesus did say this, he used it as an illustration. He probably stated a current tradition, if he said it at all.
Let us now try our key in the closet-door of the Samson story.
According to the Bible account, Samson performed twelve principal exploits; and if you will turn to any good dictionary of mythology you will find a wonderful likeness to the twelve labors of Hercules in the Greek myth of the Sun. Time can be taken to examine only one—the cutting off of Samson’s hair while reposing in the lap of Delilah, and the consequent loss of his strength. Professor Goldhizer says: “Long locks of hair and a long beard are mythological attributes of the sun.”... “When the powerful summer’s sun is succeeded by the weak rays of the winter’s sun, its strength departs.” But as the sun becomes ascendant again he renews his strength, just as Samson’s strength returned when his hair grew out again. The seven locks represent the seven planetary worlds. The constellation Virgo represents Samson’s wife; and Delilah, in whose lap he dallied and lost his strength, represents the months of autumn, before the winter came to hand him over to the Philistines, the dreary time of the winter months. The story of Samson is found in the sun-myths of all the Sun-worship-ping nations, and the story of Hercules was known in an island colony of the Phœnicians five hundred years before it was known in Greece; and the story is almost as old as humanity itself. The very name Samson (or Samp-shon) in some languages means the sun; and there is not an exploit recorded of him that does not yield to the solar interpretation; and when modern ministers undertake to explain how Samson caught three hundred foxes and set fire to their tails, they never think to mention (if they happen to know it) that in the ancient festival of Ceres a fox-hunt was enacted in the theatres of Rome in which burning torches were bound to the foxes' tails. We have an explanation of this from Prof. Steinthal: “This was a symbolical reminder of the damage done to the fields by mildew, called the 'red fox' in the last of April. It was at the time of the Dog Star at which the mildew was most to be feared; and if at that time great solar heat followed too close upon the hoar-frost or dew of the cold nights, the mischief raged like a burning fox through the corn-fields. Like the lion, the fox is an animal that indicates the solar heat, being well suited both by its color and long-haired tail.” Bou-chart gives a similar explanation and application, and so do many other writers. It remains for ministers of this nineteenth century to dole out the ancient fables of the past as literal history to the grown-up children of to-day. The story of Samson in all its details yields to the key of ancient symbolism. Why not admit the fact that this is a solar myth, and thus get clear of all the blasphemy and absurdities of a literal interpretation?