Von Rad correctly observed that “the special aetiological concern of the ancient myth cannot move forward after the ‘demythologization’ practised by the editor.”77 If it is assumed that the passage is an “erratic boulder” cut out of a rock of unknown origin, how can we reconstruct the original purpose and significance? The passage is not arbitrarily placed here. Any aetiological purpose of the story is only a twentieth-century guess. 4. The passage is not a fragment of ancient material which after