Newspaper Article

\Tree\ of knowledge: A 12-year project on Jewish mythology bears fruit

Henderson, Jane, Post-Dispatch Book Editor

2004

Overview

This month, [Howard Schwartz] offers a vast study called \"Tree of Souls,\" heralded by Oxford University Press as \"the first anthology of Jewish mythology in English.\" He will discuss it at this year's Jewish Book Festival. (A complete listing of this year's St. Louis Jewish Book Festival is on STLtoday.com and will appear in Wednesday's Everyday section.) The Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, is a concise text, Schwartz says. Rabbis and other Jews have tried to explain the writings, and out of their explanations grew myths. In the Jewish tradition, God dictated the Written Torah to Moses, who wrote it down. But there is also the tradition of an Oral Torah, which explained the Written Torah and was finally recorded as laws and lore in the Talmud. In \"Tree of Souls,\" Schwartz separates the hundreds of myths he retells into 10 primary categories: Myths of God, Myths of Creation, Myths of Heaven, Myths of Hell, Myths of the Holy Word, Myths of the Holy Time, Myths of the Holy People, Myths of the Holy Land, Myths of Exile and Myths of the Messiah.

• Publisher: Pulitzer, Inc
• Subject: Books-titles / Judaism / Mythology / Schwartz, Howard / Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism / Writers