Up to the mid-19th century, a myth was just that—a myth. The Greek stories of gods and African spirit folk tales were regarded as untrue, whereas the findings of historians who compared documentary records were generally regarded as true. So was Genesis 1 to 11. But during the 19th century, ideas about what constituted a myth underwent rapid evolution. Myths were no longer regarded as stories devoid of truth, while truth was regarded as acceptable even if intertwined with myth. In the 20th century, Freud,1 a number of other writers, and people such as Velikovsky,2 came to regard myth as
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