had been brought into being by the God of Israel, and how it had been shaped by the response of their forefathers. So far, we have been considering what the narratives meant to the Israelites. A quite different matter arises when we today designate Genesis 1–11 as myth. We are using a classification which is based upon the comparative study of the literatures of ancient and modern underdeveloped peoples. Although the terms ‘myths’ and ‘mythical’ have been used in many ways, three can be selected