From a Muslim perspective, I’m used to seeing Judaism,
Christianity and Islam as episodes within the same religion
(which is not to deny their differences) – a series of
revelations emanating from the same cultural locus. But since so
many of the Abrahamic stories are inherited from earlier
civilisations, even from the very first to write down stories,
it may be that my definition of one religion, or at least one
civilisation, should expand to include the earliest myths.
Stories so early that we can reasonably guess their roots reach
deep into our pre-civilised hunter-gatherer past. Myth doesn’t
mean untruth any more than a great novel does. Myth is
heightened truth. A myth is perhaps more ‘true’ than reality
because reality unfiltered is unstructured and unexplained. The
fact that God uses human myths to talk to humans need not
perturb the religious. “wa tilka al-amthal nadribuha lil-nas
la’alahum yatafakiroon,” says the Qur’an. “We rehearse these
parables to people in order that they may think.” From a reli