We now come to the story relating to "The Receiving of the Ten Commandments" by Moses from the Lord, on the top of a mountain, 'mid thunders and lightnings.
All that is likely to be historical in this account, is that Moses assembled, not, indeed, the whole of the people, but the heads of the tribes, and gave them the code which he had prepared.[104:1] The marvellous portion of the story was evidently copied from that related of the law-giver Zoroaster, by the Persians, and the idea that there were two tables of stone with the Law written thereon was evidently taken from the story of Bacchus, the Law-giver, who had his laws written on two tables of stone.[104:2]
The next legend treated was that of "Samson and his Exploits."
Those who, like the learned of the last century, maintain that the Pagans copied from the Hebrews, may say that Samson was the model of all their similar stories, but now that our ideas concerning antiquity are enlarged, and when we know that Hercules is well known to have been the God Sol, whose allegorical history was spread among many nations long before the Hebrews were ever heard of, we are authorized to believe and to say that some Jewish mythologist—for what else are their so-called historians—composed the anecdote of Samson, by partly disfiguring the popular traditions of the Greeks, Phenicians and Chaldeans, and claiming that hero for his own nation.[104:3]
The Babylonian story of Izdubar, the lion-killer, who wandered to the regions of the blessed (the Grecian Elysium), who crossed a great waste of land (the desert of Lybia, according to the Grecian mythos), and arrived at a region where splendid trees were laden with jewels (the Grecian Garden of the Hesperides), is probably the foundation for the Hercules and other corresponding myths. This conclusion is drawn from the fact that, although the story of Hercules was known in the island of Thasus, by the Phenician colony settled there, five centuries before he was known in Greece,[105:1] yet its antiquity among the Babylonians antedates that.
The age of the legends of Izdubar among the Babylonians cannot be placed with certainty, yet, the cuneiform inscriptions relating to this hero, which have been found, may be placed at about 2000 years B. C.[105:2] "As these stories were traditions," says Mr. Smith, the discoverer of the cylinders, "before they were committed to writing, their antiquity as tradition is probably much greater than that."[105:3]
With these legends before them, the Jewish priests in Babylon had no difficulty in arranging the story of Samson, and adding it to their already fabulous history.
As the Rev. Dr. Isaac M. Wise remarks, in speaking of the ancient Hebrews: "They adopted forms, terms, ideas and myths of all nations with whom they came in contact, and, like the Greeks, in their way, cast them all in a peculiar Jewish religious mold."
We have seen, in the chapter which treats of this legend, that it is recorded in the book of Judges. This book was not written till after the first set of Israelites had been carried into captivity, and perhaps still later.[105:4]
After this we have "Jonah swallowed by a Big Fish," which is the last legend treated.