116 myths · Page 3 of 4
In the dark years after the Flood the world forgot God, until a boy of fourteen ran at Mastema's ravens and turned the black sky back.
Wherever Abraham pitched his tent he planted one tree, and its branches rose or fell according to the soul that stood in its shade.
Abraham protested he had no army. The angel Gabriel set him on a shoulder, set him at Babylon's gate, and watched him shake a king's throne barehanded.
God sealed east, west, and south where sky meets earth, then left the north open. Any pretender claiming divinity would fail the unfinished quarter.
The bottle should have been empty days ago. It lasted on Abraham's merit until Hagar's heart went back to Egypt. Her son was seventeen when he fainted.
Two years after Abraham walked out of the furnace, Nimrod woke from a dream with a chick on his head. It had already taken one eye.
He sat a scoffer beside every honest man in the room and asked the pair the same four questions. The fourth one was the trap.
The first prisoner went into the cell and never came out. The second one warned them, before they took it, what would happen if they won.
Manasseh filled the Temple with a four-faced idol and chased Isaiah into a tree. They sawed the cedar until the blade reached the prophet's mouth.
Go, get thee down, God said. Moses still had the tablets. In his heart he had already decided there would be no forgiveness.
A father may carry a child who has grabbed a stone and will not let go. The rabbis proved it from God carrying a people that had packed an idol.
Ishmael was fifteen when he brought the idols home to play with. Abraham was rich in cattle and silver, and sent him out with a loaf and a waterskin.
He could have climbed a rock and shouted the terms to the whole camp. The old men heard them first, and he stayed until they understood every word.
Israel had bowed to Baal Peor, and a plague killed the guilty. When the war with Midian came, soldiers blackened women's faces and took their jewelry.
The mountain smoked. Moses was gone too long. Gold left their ears as thirteen calves, and they laid the morning's manna at the horns.
At Bethel's illicit altar Jeroboam seized toward the man of God, and his arm dried in midair until he begged the same prophet to heal him.
On Carmel Elijah rebuilds a broken altar with twelve stones, one for each tribe. Fire falls, idolatry burns, and a prophet matches Moses step for step.
Joshua cuts Amalek's ranks below while Moses' arms fail on the hill, and Aaron and Hur hold them skyward until the enemy breaks at dusk.
The elders wanted a man on a horse. Samuel heard other altars under the request. God told him to listen, and the oil waited for morning.
Men of belial cast off heaven's yoke and turn a whole town. Judges search, houses fall, and even a stolen stick must drown in the Dead Sea.
The king had a verse ready. Their own God, he said, had told them to obey the crown. They offered him his taxes and kept their knees locked.
Hezekiah hired tutors for his son. Manasseh filled Jerusalem with idols anyway, and only Assyrian hooks in his flesh made him pray.
Rabbi Chanina said Molech means anything people let rule them, even a splinter or a pebble. Idol makers switch to cheaper metal when money runs short.
Scouts return with proof of a city's idolatry, courts dig until truth holds, and fire claims the square while holy writings are hidden from the flames.
A father led his child toward the fire and named Molech. One abomination was enough. Seed, flame, and a foreign name braided into a single crime.
Nimrod walked the brickworks as if the sky were a roof he could raise. Crews asked for brick and heard the word for water instead.
Isaac's eyes had failed, so he could not leave the tent. Esau's Hittite wives burned incense to their gods in the rooms around him.
Twice Balaam walked out alone to look for an omen, and twice he came back blessing. His employer had one idea left, and it was a mountain.
At Sinai the people saw sounds and lightnings unlike any storm, each voice calibrated to every heart while fire hewed words into stone before their eyes.
Gamliel mourned Akiva until the drowned man walked up the beach on one plank. A poor boy quieted another storm while merchants clutched idols that did nothing.
