Mythology and Folklore Blog

 Sinbad: First Voyage. The Arabian Nights' Entertainments by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1898). Original Source   Plot: Sinbad is a sailor who meets another man named Sinbad.The two sit over a banquet telling stories such as follows.  Sinbad had inherited a lot of wealth at a young age. He wasted a lot before he god wise. He sold his goods and joined some merchants. They set sail selling all sorts of things on various islands.  They had stopped for the night on an island and it began to shake. Turns out it was the back of a sleeping whale!  Sinbad didn't make it onto the boat and was cast to the waves.  He enventually drifted upon an island. He found some herbs and water and went to explore. HE then found some people! They told him of a civilization they had on the island and he was saved.  Thoughts: This story seems a little anticlimactic to me. Ok so a guy gets shipwrecked and he finds some people to help him. What is the point of tha...

Theoretical Job Story source: Folk-lore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian and Jewish by J. E. Hanauer (1907). Original Source Authors Note: The fact that Jobs's wife was tested to determine his faith or excess of faith intrigues me. If God was waiting to see if Job was loyal why didn’t god just stop when Job continued to praise him through his sickness and other trials? Why did God have to also test his wife? The only logical explanation I can come up with is that if God was simply testing the resolve of Jobs's faith he would have stopped with Job unless the definition of his extends to his family as well. I.e. if Job had a truly genuine faith then his family will be faithful as well. It is for this reason that I present the following scenario depicting the problem with this statement. There once was a man named Job. He was for all the world blameless. All those around him turned to him for godly advice. He never practiced sin and lived an upright and blameless life. One day...

Lot and the tree of the Cross Story source: Folk-lore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish by J. E. Hanauer (1907). Original text Plot: Adam is scared to die so he sends his son for a piece of fruit from the tree of life.  Instead, the angel gives him a branch.  Seth planted the branch after finding his father Adam dead upoan return.  After the flood, the narrative starts again witt Lot. Lot was prompted to water the tree by an angel.  On his way, he saw a traveler dying of thirst.  Lot stopped and gave the man some water. then the man turned out to be the enemy. Lot went back and filled to the water only to have the same thing happen agian 2 more times. Lot fell asleep in exhaustion and was visited by an angel he forgave him of his sins and said the tree was watered. Lot died in peace, the devil convinced Hiram to cur it down for the temple. the architect threw it away. It was then passed through a series of mundane occurances until eventually was u...

 Job and His family   Story source: Folk-lore of the Holy Land: Moslem, Christian, and Jewish by J. E. Hanauer (1907). Direct Source Plot : Job has large family and lots of money. To prove sincerity, God deprived him of health and wealth.  His wife served him for 7 years; supporting him and nursing him. One day the devil came and asked her to praise him and he would restore their lost wealth.  She went to ask Job if that was ok and he was so mad he swore if he ever got healthy by God again that he would give her 100 lashes.  God then restored jobs health and children and made him even richer than before.  Job felt bad about the oath he made so god found a way to release him from that oath and they all lived happily ever after.  Authors note: This is a pretty straight forward tale that I am well familiar with. In fact, I have preached on this story a number of times. It always strikes me as interesting how the majority of the book of Job is not centere...