Fable

Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament

In the NT (Authorized Versionand Revised Version) ‘fable’ is the translation of μῦθος. But it is not the myth charged with high moral teaching as in Plato, for both word and thing have degenerated into the expression of fantastic, false, and profitless opinions, μῦθος is opposed to the historic story (λόγος) or to actual fact (ἀλήθεια); cf. article‘Fable’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) , vol. i. This is seen in the references:  1 Timothy 1:4 ‘Neither to give heed to fables … the which minister questionings rather than a dispensation of God’ [Revised Version];  1 Timothy 4:7 ‘profane and old wives’ fables’;  2 Timothy 4:4 ‘turn aside unto fables’;  Titus 1:14 ‘not giving heed to Jewish fables’;  2 Peter 1:16 ‘We did not follow cunningly devised fables.’

The Pastoral Epistles give a vivid picture of the state of religious feeling in Ephesus, and the Roman Province of Asia generally, in the years a.d. 60-70. It was a favourable soil for the rank growth of the fables and curiously wrought embellishments of OT history, mention of which we find in the Pastorals. There is no difference of opinion as to their origin. They were Jewish, and the Gnosticism supposed to be found in them is as yet incipient and hardly conscious of itself.

For an explanation of the origin of those fables we must turn to the accretions of legend and allegory that grew up in the Jewish mind round the great scenes and personages of the OT. It was said that an oral law, ‘the law that is on the lip,’ supplementary to the written law, had also been given on Sinai, and handed down by teachers from Moses through the centuries. This was added to and illustrated by the teaching of the Rabbis, and in course of time became a supplement to the written law of the Pentateuch-a supplement so ponderous that often the text was overlaid and almost buried in the commentary. To this our Lord made reference when He asked ‘Why do ye also transgress the commandment of Cod because of your traditions?’ ( Matthew 15:3). These rank growths, in deference to which they ‘paid tithes of mint and anise and cummin and left undone mercy and faith,’ had run riot in the Asian Church. Men were turning back from the worship of ‘the King, eternal, incorruptible, invisible, the only God,’ to old wives’ fables, the profane and senile curiosities of people in their dotage. Jewish and heathen speculations had seduced their minds from the essential parts of the Christian faith.

We have specimens of these ‘feigned words’ in the numerous legends of the Talmud, the farfetched subtleties of Rabbinical teaching, and in the allegorizing of Philo. Timothy, therefore, was sent to recall the Church to the pure milk of the word, and to nourish it on ‘the words of the faith.’ ‘Such,’ says J. H. Newman, ‘was the conflict of Christianity with the old established Paganism; with the Oriental Mysteries, flitting wildly to and fro like spectres’ ( Development of Christian Doctrine , 1878, p. 358). In  2 Peter 1:15 the writer is replying to a taunt by which the opponents of Christianity tried to turn the tables on the teachers of the Faith. These had denounced the religious fables with which men were deluding themselves, and to that the reply was a ‘tu quoque.’ The Christian doctrine, they said, was also built upon fable, and its preachers were Fraudulent and sophistical persons (σεσοφισμένοι) who for ambition or filthy lucre’s sake were exploiting the churches. To this the author of 2 Peter replica: ‘We did not follow cunningly devised fables,’ In proof of his religious certainty- certitudo veritatis -he writes, ‘we were eye-witness of his majesty’; and for certitudo salutis he adds, ‘we have the day-star rising in our hearts.’ The answer is still valid. Against the charge of following sophistical fables the modern apologetic turns to ‘the fact of Christ,’ and the heart stands up and answers, ‘I have felt.’

W. M. Grant.

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Fable . For the definition of a fable, as distinct from parable, allegory, etc., see Trench, Parables , p. 2 ff. Its main feature is the introduction of beasts or plants as speaking and reasoning, and its object is moral instruction. As it moves on ground common to man and lower creatures, its teaching can never rise to a high spiritual level. Worldly prudence in some form is its usual note, or it attacks human folly and frailty, sometimes in a spirit of bitter cynicism. Hence it has only a small place in the Bible. See Parable.

1. In OT . There are two fables in the OT, though the word is not used; it is perhaps significant that neither is in any sense a message from God. (1) Jotham’s fable of the trees choosing their king illustrates the folly of the men of Shechem (  Judges 9:8 ). (2) Jehoash’s fable of the thistle and the cedar (  2 Kings 14:9 ) is his rebuke of Amaziah’s presumption a rebuke in itself full of haughty contempt, however well grounded.   Ezekiel 17:3-10 is not a fable, but an allegory. In Bar 3:23 ‘authors of fables’ occurs in the list of wise men of the earth who have not yet found Wisdom. Sir 13:17 would seem to be a reference to Æsop’s fables; so   Matthew 7:15 . This type of literature was freely used by later Jewish teachers, and Æsop’s and other fables are frequently found in the Talmud.

2. In NT . ‘Fable’ occurs in a different sense. It is used to translate the Gr. ‘myth,’ which has lost its better sense as an allegorical vehicle for truth, whether growing naturally or deliberately invented, as in Plato’s Republic , and has come to mean a deluding fiction of a more or less extravagant character. The ‘cunningly devised fables’ of   2 Peter 1:16 are apparently attempts to allegorize the Gospel history, and the belief in the Second Advent. The word occurs four times in the Pastoral Epp., with a more definite reference to a type of false teaching actually in vogue at Ephesus and in Crete. These fables are connected with ‘endless genealogies which minister questionings’ (  1 Timothy 1:4 ); they are described as ‘profane and old wives’ fables’ (  1 Timothy 4:7 ), and contrasted with ‘sound doctrine’ (  2 Timothy 4:4 ). They are ‘Jewish,’ ‘the commandments of men’ (  Titus 1:14 ), and the ‘genealogies’ are connected with ‘fightings about law’ (  Titus 3:9 ). The exact nature of the teaching referred to is disputed, but the following points are fairly established, ( a ) The references do not point to 2nd century Gnosticism, which was strongly anti-Jewish, but to an earlier and less developed form, such as is necessarily implied in the more elaborate systems. The heresies combated are no indication of the late date of these Epistles. ( b ) The heresy may be called Gnostic by anticipation, and apparently arose from a mixture of Oriental and Jewish elements (perhaps Essene). Its views on the sinfulness of matter led on the one hand to an extreme asceticism (  1 Timothy 4:3 ), on the other to unbridled licence (  Titus 1:15-16 ). ( c ) There is much evidence connecting this type of teaching with Asia Minor Col., Tit., Rev., Ignatian Letters, and the career of Cerinthus. Ramsay points out that Phrygia was a favourable soil, the Jews there being particularly lax. ( d ) The fables may be specially the speculations about æons and emanations, orders of angels, and intermediary beings, which are characteristic of all forms of Gnosticism; the passages are so applied by 2nd cent. Fathers. But we are also reminded of the legendary and allegorical embellishments of the narratives of the OT, which were so popular with the Jewish Rabbis. Semi-Christian teachers may have borrowed their methods, and the word ‘myth’ would be specially applicable to the product.

C. W. Emmet.

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

It represents man's relations to his fellow man; but the Parable rises higher, it represents the relations between man and God. The parable's framework is drawn from the dealings of men with one another; or if from the natural world, not a grotesque parody of it, but real analogies. The fable rests on what man has in common with the lower creatures; the parable on the fact that man is made in the image of God, and that the natural world reflects outwardly the unseen realities of the spiritual world. The MYTH is distinct from both in being the spontaneous symbolic expression of some religious notion of the apostate natural mind. In the fable qualities of men are attributed to brutes. In the parable the lower sphere is kept distinct from the higher which it illustrates; the lower beings follow the law of their nature, but herein represent the acts of the higher beings; the relations of brutes to each other are not used, as these would be inappropriate to represent man's relation to God.

Two fables occur in Scripture: (1) Jotham's sarcastic fable to the men of Shechem, the trees choosing their king ( Judges 9:8-15). (2) Joash's sarcastic answer to Amaziah's challenge, by a fable, the sarcasm being the sharper for the covert form it assumes, namely, the cedar of Lebanon and the thistle ( 2 Kings 14:9).  Ezekiel 17:1-10 differs from the fable in not attributing human attributes to lower creatures, and in symbolizing allegorically prophetical truths concerning the world monarchies; it is called Chidah , "a riddle," from Chaadad "to be sharp", as requiring acumen to solve the continued enigmatical allegory.

The fable of Jotham (1209 B.C.) is the oldest in existence; the Hebrew mind had a special power of perceiving analogies to man in the lower world; this power is a relic of the primeval intuition given to Adam by God who "brought every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, unto Adam to see what he would call them." Other nations were much later in this style of thought, the earliest prose fables in Greece being those of the legendary Aesop, about 550 B.C. Many of the proverbs are "condensed fables" ( Proverbs 26:11;  Proverbs 30:15;  Proverbs 30:25;  Proverbs 30:28).

The analogies in the lower creatures are to man's lower virtues or defects, his worldly prudence, or his pride, indolence, cunning (compare  Matthew 10:16). "Fables" mean falsehoods in  1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7, "old wives' fables";  Titus 1:14, "Jewish fables," the transition stage to gnosticism;  2 Peter 1:16, "cunningly devised (Greek text: sophisticated) fables," devised by man's wisdom, not what the Holy Spirit teacheth ( 1 Corinthians 2:13); incipient gnostic legends about the genealogies, origin, and propagation of angels ( Colossians 2:18-23).

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Fable. A fable is A Narrative In Which, Being Irrational, And Sometimes Inanimate, Are, For The Purpose Of Moral Instruction, Feigned To Act And Speak With Human Interests And Passions. - Encyclopedia Britannica. The fable differs from the parable in that -

1. The parable always relates what actually takes place, and is true to fact, which the fable is not; and

2. The parable teaches the higher heavenly and spiritual truths, but the fable, only earthly moralities.

Of the fable, as distinguished from the parable, we have but two examples in the Bible:

i. That of the trees choosing their king, addressed by Jotham to the men of Shechem,  Judges 9:8-15.

ii. That of the cedar of Lebanon and the thistle, as the answer of Jehoash to the challenge of Amaziah.  2 Kings 14:9.

The fables of false teachers claiming to belong to the Christian Church, alluded to by writers of the New Testament,  1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7;  Titus 1:14;  2 Peter 1:16, do not appear to have had the character of fables, properly so called.

See Parable .

Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words

1: Μῦθος (Strong'S #3454 — Noun Masculine — muthos — moo'-thos )

primarily signifies "speech, conversation." The first syllable comes from a root mu---, signifying "to close, keep secret, be dumb;" whence, muo, "to close" (eyes, mouth) and musterion, "a secret, a mystery;" hence, "a story, narrative, fable, fiction" (Eng., "myth"). The word is used of gnostic errors and of Jewish and profane fables and genealogies, in  1—Timothy 1:4;  4:7;  2—Timothy 4:4;  Titus 1:14; of fiction, in  2—Peter 1:16 .

 Matthew 28:15 Luke 5:15

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) Any story told to excite wonder; common talk; the theme of talk.

(2): ( n.) The plot, story, or connected series of events, forming the subject of an epic or dramatic poem.

(3): ( n.) A Feigned story or tale, intended to instruct or amuse; a fictitious narration intended to enforce some useful truth or precept; an apologue. See the Note under Apologue.

(4): ( n.) Fiction; untruth; falsehood.

(5): ( v. i.) To compose fables; hence, to write or speak fiction; to write or utter what is not true.

(6): ( v. t.) To feign; to invent; to devise, and speak of, as true or real; to tell of falsely.

Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary

a fiction destitute of truth. St. Paul exhorts Timothy and Titus to shun profane and Jewish fables,  1 Timothy 4:7;  Titus 1:14; as having a tendency to seduce men from the truth. By these fables some understand the reveries of the Gnostics; but the fathers generally, and after them most of the modern commentators, interpret them of the vain traditions of the Jews; especially concerning meats, and other things, to be abstained from as unclean, which our Lord also styles "the doctrines of men,"

 Matthew 15:9 . This sense of the passages is confirmed by their contexts. In another sense, the word is taken to signify an apologue, or instructive tale, intended to convey truth under the concealment of fiction; as Jotham's fable of the trees,  Judges 9:7-15 , no doubt by far the oldest fable extant.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

μῦθος, lit. 'a word, a speech.' The English word is not used in the N.T. in the sense in which it is now often employed, signifying a supposed incident to teach some moral truth; but has the sense rather of myths , false stories (as the Greek word was used by later writers), which in one passage are called "profane and old wives' fables."  1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7;  2 Timothy 4:4;  Titus 1:14;  2 Peter 1:16 .

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 1 Timothy 1:4 4:7 2 Timothy 4:4 Titus 1:14 2 Peter 1:16 Judges 9:8-15 2 Kings 14:9

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

An idle, groundless, and worthless story, like the mythological legends of the heathen and the vain traditions of the Jews. These were often not only false and weak, but also pernicious,  1 Timothy 4:7   Titus 1:14   2 Peter 1:16 .

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Judges 9:8-15 2 Kings 14:8-10  2 Chronicles 25:17-19

Daniel B. McGeer

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( Μύθος , a Myth), a legend or fictitious story, applied in the N.T. ( 1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7;  2 Timothy 4:4;  Titus 1:14;  2 Peter 1:16) to the Jewish traditions and speculations which were prevalent in the apostolic days, and were afterwards embodied in the Talmudical writings. (See Fleischmann's Comment. in  1 Timothy 1:4.)

1. Taking the words fable and parable, not in their strict etymological meaning, but in that which has been stamped upon them by current usage, looking, i.e., at the Esopic fable as the type of the one, at the parables of the N.T. as the type of the other, we have to ask (a.) in what relation they stand to each other as instruments of moral teaching? (b.) what use is made in the Bible of this or of that form? That they have much in common is of course obvious enough. In both we find "statements of facts, which do not even pretend to be historical, used as vehicles for the exhibition of a general truth" (Neander, Life of Christ, Harper's ed. page 67). Both differ from the Mythus, in the modern sense of that word, in being the result of a deliberate choice of such a mode of teaching, not the spontaneous, unconscious evolution of thought in some symbolic form. They take their place so far as species of the same genus. What are the characteristic marks by which one differs from the other, it is perhaps easier to feel than to define. Thus we have (comp. Trench, On Parables, page 2)

(1.) Lessing's statement that the fable takes the form of an actual narrative, while the parable assumes only that what is related might have happened;

(2.) Herder's, that the difference lies in the fable's dealing with brute or inanimate nature, in the parable's drawing its materials exclusively from. human life;

(3.) Olshausen's (on  Matthew 13:1), followed by Trench (1.c.), that it is to be found In the higher truths of which the parable is the vehicle. Perhaps the most satisfactory summing up of the chief distinctive features of each is to be found in the following extract from Neander (1.c.): "The parable is distinguished from the fable by this, that in the latter, qualities or acts of a higher class of beings may be attributed to a lower (e.g. those of men to brutes), while in the former the lower sphere is kept perfectly distinct from that which it seems to illustrate. The beings and powers thus introduced always follow the law of their nature, but their acts, according to this law, are used to figure those of a higher race... . The mere introduction of brutes as personal agents in the fable is not sufficient to distinguish it froml the parable which may make use of the same contrivance; as, for example, Christ employs the sheep in one of his parables. The great distinction here, also, lies in what has already been remarked; brutes introduced in the parable act according to the law of their nature, and the two spheres of nature and of the kingdum of God are carefully separated from each other. Hence the reciprocal relations of brutes to each other are not made use of, as these could furnish no appropriate image of the relation between man and the kingdom of God."

Of the fable as thus distinguished from the parable we have but two examples in the Bible:

(1.) that of the trees choosing their king, addressed by Jothaml to the men of Shechem ( Judges 9:8-15);

(2.) that of the cedar of Lebanon and the thistle, as the answer of Jchoash to the challenge of Amaziah ( 2 Kings 14:9). The narrative of  Ezekiel 17:1-10, though, in common with the fable, it brings before us the lower forms of creation as representatives of human characters and destinies, differs from it in the points above noticed,

[1.] in not introducing them as having human attributes;

[2.] in the higher prophetic character of the truths conveyed by it. The great eagle, the cedar of Lebanon, the spreading vine, are not grouped together as the agents in a fable, but are simply, like the bear, the leopard, and the lion in the visions of Daniel, symbols of the great monarchies of the world.

In the two instances referred to, the fable has more the character of the Greek Αϊ v Νος , or supernatural Tale (Quintil. Inst. Orat. 5:11), than of the, Μῦθος , or Myth; that is, is less the fruit of a vivid imagination, sporting with the analogies between the worlds of nature and of men, than a covert reproof, making the sarcasm which it affects to hide all the sharper (Muller and Donaldson, History,Of Greek Literature, volume 1, c. 11). The appearance of the fable thus early in the history of Israel, and its entire absence from the direct teaching both of the O. and N.T., are, each of them in its way, significant. Taking the received chronology, the fable of Jotham was spoken about B.C. 1209. The Arabian traditions of Lokman do not assign to him an earlier date than that of David. The earliest Greek Αϊ v Νος , or proper fable; is that of Hesiod (Op. Et D. 5:202), and the prose form of the fable does not meet us till we come (about B.C. 550) to Stesichorus and AEsop. The first example in the history of Rome is the apologue of Menenius Agrippa, B.C. 494, and its genuineness has been questioned on the ground that the fable could hardly at that tine have found its way to Latium (iiller and Donaldson, 1.c.). It may be noticed, too, that when collections of fables became familiar to the Greeks, they were looked upon as imported, not indigenous. The traditions that surround the name of AEsop, the absence of any evidence that he wrote fables, the traces of Eastern origin in those ascribed to him, leave him little more than the representative of a period when the forms of teaching, which had long been familiar to the more Eastern nations, were traveling westward, and were adopted eagerly by the Greeks. The collections themselves are described by titles that indicate a foreign origin. They are Libyan (Arist. Rhet. 2:20), Cyprian, Cilician.

All these facts lead to the conclusion that the Hebrew mind, gifted, as it was, in a special measure with the power of perceiving analogies in things apparently dissimilar, attained, at a very early stage of its growth, the power which does not appear in the history of other nations till a later period. Whatever antiquity may be ascribed to the fables in the comparatively later collection of the Pancha Tranta, the land of Canaan is, so far as we have any data to conclude from, the fatherland of fable. To conceive brutes or inanimate objects as representing human characteristics, to personify them as acting, speaking, reasoning, to draw lessons from them applicable to human life — this must have been common among, the Israelites in the time of the judges. The part assigned in the earliest records of the Bible to the impressions made by the brute creation on the mind of man when "the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them" ( Genesis 2:19), and the apparent symbolism of the serpent in the narrative ofthe Fall ( Genesis 3:1), are at once indications of teaching adspted to men in the possession of this power, and must have helped to develop it (Herder, Geist Der Ebrdischen Poesie, Werke, 34, page 16, ed. 1826). The large number of proverbs in which analogies of this kind sre made the bases of a moral precept, and some of which (e.g.  Proverbs 26:11;  Proverbs 30:15;  Proverbs 30:25-28) are of the nature of condensed fables, show that there was no decline of this power as the intellect of the people advanced. The absence of fables accordingly from the teaching of the O.T. must be ascribed to their want of fitness to be the media of the truths which that teaching was to confer. The points in which brutes or inanimate objects present analogies to man are chiefly those which belong to his lower nature, his pride, indolence, cunningand the like, and the lessons derived from them accordingly do not rise higher than the prudential motality which aimis at repressing such defects (comp. Trench, On the Parables, 1.c.). Hence the fable, apart from the associations of a grotesque and ludicrous nature which gather round it; apart, too, from its presenting narratives which are "nec verne nec verisimiles" (Cicero, De Invent. 1:19), is inadequate as the exponent of the hbiher truths which belongs to man's spiritual life. It may serve to exhibit the relations between man and man; it fails to represent those between man and God. To do that is the office of the PARABLE, finding its outward framework in the dealing of men with each other, or in the world of nature as it is, not in any grotesque parody of nature, and exhibiting, in either case, real and not fanciful analogies. The fable seizes on that which man has inl common with the creatures below him; that parable rests on the truths that man is made in the image of God, and that "all things are double one against another."

It is noticeable, as confirming this view of the office of the fable, that, though those of AEsop (so called) were known to the great philosopher of righeteousness at Athens, though a metrical paraphrase of some of them was among the employmenmts of his imaprisonment (Plato, Phaedo, page 60, 61), they were not employed by him as illustrations, or chanuels of instruction. While Socrates shows an appreciation of the power of such fables to represent some of the phenomena mf human life, he was not, hue says, in this sense of the word, Μνθολογικός . The myths, which appear in the Gosgias, the Phaedrus; the Phaedo , the Republic, are as unlike as possible to the AEsopic fables, are (to take his own account of them) Οὐ Μῦθοι Ἄλλα Λόγοι , true, though figurative, representations of spiritual realities, while the illustrations from the common facts of life which were so conspicuous in his ordinary teaching, though differing in being comparisons rather than narratives, come nearer to the parables of the Bible (compare the contrast between Τὰ Σωκρατικά , as examples of the Παραβολή and the Λόγοι Αἰσόπειοι , Aristot. Rhet. 2:20). It "may be said, indeed, that the use of the fable as an instrument of teaching (apart from the embellishments of wit and. fancy with which it is associated by such writers as Lessing and La Fontaine) belongs 'rather to childhood, and the child-like period of national life, than to a more advanced development.' In the earlier stages of political change, as in the cases of Jotham, Stesichorus (Aristot. Rhet. 1.c.), Menenius Agrippa, it is used as an element of persuasion or reproof. It ceases to appear in the higher eloquence of orators and statesmen. 'The special excellence of fables is that they are Δημηγορικοί (Aristot. Rhet, 1.c); that "ducere animos solent, praecipue rusticorum et iniperitoruni" (Quintilian, Instit. Orat. 1.c.). — Smith, s.v.

2. The Μῦθοι , or "fables" of false teachers claiming to belong, to the Christian Church, alluded to by writers of the N.T. in connection with "endless genealogies" ( Γενεαλογίαι Ἀπέραντοι .  1 Timothy 1:4), or with disparaging, epithets ("Jewish," Ι᾿Ουδαικοί ,  Titus 1:14; "old wives', Γραωδεῖς ,  1 Timothy 4:7; "cunningly devised, Σεσοφισμένοί ,  2 Peter 1:16), do not appear to have had the character of fables, properly so called. As applied :to them, the word takes its general meaning of anything false or unreal. Thus Paul exhorts Timothy and Titus ( 1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7;  Titus 1:14) to shun profane and Jewish fables, as having a tendency to seduce men from the truth. By these fables souce understand the reveries of the Gnostics; but the fathers generally, and most modern commentators, interpret them of the vain traditions of the Jews. The great reservoir of Jewish tradition is the book, or rather the books, called the Talmud. At the time of the Christian aera, the traditions, as they were called, of the law (by which was meant the decisions of the doctors on disputed points of the Mosaic code, and the extravagant fables with which they adorned their comments) had attained so great a bulk and so high a degree of veneration as quite to supersede the law itself in the common estimation. These traditions which were supposed to have been handed down, some from the law of Moses, and some from a period far anterior, were, for the most part, mere directions for ridiculous ceremonies, questions of absurd casuistry, and fables which by their absurdity alone would have disgusted any other nation. Some of these fables and legends are too impious and blasphemous to be quoted, but we select a few specimens.

Adam, of whose knowledge we can hardly form too high an idea; was said to be endued with magic. " God, "say the Talmudists, "gave him a precious jewel, the very sight of which would cure all diseases; this came afterwards into the possession of Abraham, but after his death, because, by resson of its exceeding brightness, it was likely to be worshipped, God hung, it in the sun." Our first parents were, according to rabbinical tradition, of a gigantic stature; and this legend has been borrowed and improved by the Mohamedans. The transmigration of souls is much insisted on in the Talmud, and the soul of Adam is said to have passed successively into the bodies of Noahs and David; it will also pass into the Messiah. This doctrine they took from the Egyptian mythology, and it is still ucore ancient than their residence in Egypt. Abraham was the person to whom, they say, it was first revealed, and he taught that the souls of men passed into women, beasts, birds, and even reptiles, rocks, and plants. The spirit of a man was punished by passing into a woman; and if the conduct of the man had been very atrocious, it took some reptile or inanimate form; and if a woman act righteously, she will, in another state, become a man. Thus the ass that carried Balsam, the ravens that fed Elijaha, the whale that swallowed Jonah, are all supposed to have possessed reasonable, transmacigarated souls.

The Mishna says, "The two tables of stone were upwards of two tons weight, but the moment God's word and commandments were engraved thereon by the shanzir, they became as light as a feather. When Moses left the mount and cace within sight of the nmolten calf; and heard the multitude shouting, he was alarmed; so that when the rays of the molten calf, which were of gold, came in contact with the tables of stone, the letters thereon immediately flewr away, and the tables of stone returned to their former weight, which was more than Moses could support, and therefore he threw them down, and they brake in pieces." It is also said that Moses was the richest man that ever was or ever will be. His riches consisted of diamonds, which be obtained possession of in the same way that every laborer gets rewarded, by being considered worthy of his hire. Moses never looked for any emolument from the Jews, and God therefore rewarded him in this manner. The two tables of stone were one solid mass of diamonds, and the chippings that came from the two tables were his own perquisites. But what was truly wonderful and astonishing, as the chippings flew off, they became regular and beautiful in their form.

This circumstance gave the wicked Jews occasion to charge him with breaking the tackles purposely, in order that he might have the opportunity to obtain more chippings. It is said that Elijah the prophet is going about the world as an ambassador of God, and is everywhere present at one time, and is in his person a venerable old man, wearing a long beard. When Messiah shall appear, there will be a great feast, at which every Jew will be present, This feast will consist of fowl, of fish, and of flesh, which God created for the purpose at the beginning of the world. First, God provided a large fowl or bird, called Agal Loshder; also a large ox, called Shur Abur; and two large fish, called Leviathan. When God created these two great fish, male and female, being of such immense size, lest they should multiply, God slew the female, and buried it in salt, there to remain until it is wanted for this great feast. Then all the Jews that have been born, or that have existed since the creation of the world, will be restored to life. The table will be spread, and the provision placed upon it, and it is so ordained that each one will take his station according to his conduct in the present life. Moses will sit at the head of the table, and next to him Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets in rotation. Rabbi Simon says he was once sailing in the Great Sea, when he and the mariners espied a fish of such enormous size, that, although they had a fair wind, after they saw one eye of the fish, they sailed five days longer in a direct line before they reached the other eye of the same fish, which confirmed his belief in the report of the size of the leviathan. Much also is related concerning the size of the ox, which is said to be so immense that he eats up the whole of the grass that grows upon a thousand hills every day. The bird, also, is said to be of enormous size, and it is stated that one day this bird, in her flight, dropped an egg, which broke, and the yolk drowned fifty cities and villages (Stehelin, Jewish Traditions. passim). (See Talmud).

In the genuine fables and traditionary narratives of remote antiquity, especially those of the ancient classics, many correspondencies with the Biblical history are found, such as intimate that these traditions were derived from this history. Of such a nature are the tales concerning a golden age of our race, an apostasy, a general flood, a future restoration. It may with safety be inferred from these traditions that the records in the book of Genesis concerning the apostasy, etc., are not philosophical myths; for, were they nothing more than the emanations of some Hebrew philosopher, how could they have been spread abroad among all nations? These popular traditions point us to the time when the human family were collected into one place, and afterwards separated into various branches. In this separation every tribe took with it the traditions that were common to all. (See Mythology).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

fā´b ' l ( μῦθος , múthos ):

(1) Primitive man conceives of the objects around him as possessing his own characteristics. Consequently in his stories, beasts, trees, rocks, etc., think, talk and act exactly as if they were human beings. Of course, but little advance in knowledge was needed to put an end to this mode of thought, but the form of story-telling developed by it persisted and is found in the folk-tales of all nations. More particularly, the archaic form of story was used for the purpose of moral instruction, and when so used is termed the fable . Modern definitions distinguish it from the parable ( a ) by its use of characters of lower intelligence than man (although reasoning and speaking like men), and ( b ) by its lesson for this life only. But, while these distinctions serve some practical purpose in distinguishing (say) the fables of Aesop from the parables of Christ, they are of little value to the student of folk-lore. For fable, parable, allegory, etc., are all evolutions from a common stock, and they tend to blend with each other. See Allegory; Parable .

(2) The Semitic mind is peculiarly prone to allegorical expression, and a modern Arabian storyteller will invent a fable or a parable as readily as he will talk. And we may be entirely certain that the very scanty appearance of fables in the Old Testament is due only to the character of its material and not at all to an absence of fables from the mouths of the Jews of old. Only two examples have reached us. In  Judges 9:7-15 Jotham mocks the choice of AbimeItch as king with the fable of the trees that could find no tree that would accept the trouble of the kingship except the worthless bramble. And in   2 Kings 14:9 Jehoash ridicules the pretensions of Amaziah with the story of the thistle that wished to make a royal alliance with the cedar. Yet that the distinction between fable and allegory, etc., is artificial is seen in   Isaiah 5:1 ,  Isaiah 5:2 , where the vineyard is assumed to possess a deliberate will to be perverse.

(3) In the New Testament, "fable" is found in  1 Timothy 1:4;  1 Timothy 4:7;  2 Timothy 4:4;  Titus 1:14;  2 Peter 1:16 , as the translation of muthos ("myth"). The sense here differs entirely from that discussed above, and "fable" means a (religious) story that has no connection with reality - contrasted with the knowledge of an eyewitness in  2 Peter 1:16 . The exact nature of these "fables" is of course something out of our knowledge, but the mention in connection with them of "endless genealogies" in  1 Timothy 1:4 points with high probability to some form of Gnostic speculation that interposed a chain of eons between God and the world. In some of the Gnostic systems that we know, these chains are described with a prolixity so interminable (the Pistis Sophia is the best example) as to justify well the phrase "old wives' fables" in   1 Timothy 4:7 . But that these passages have Gnostic reference need not tell against the Pauline authorship of the Pastorals, as a fairly well developed "Gnosticism" is recognizable in a passage as early as Col 2, and as the description of the fables as Jewish in  Titus 1:14 (compare   Titus 3:9 ) is against 2nd-century references. But for details the commentaries on the Pastoral Epistles must be consulted. It is worth noting that in  2 Timothy 4:4 the adoption of these fables is said to be the result of dabbling in the dubious. This manner of losing one's hold on reality is, unfortunately, something not confined to the apostolic age.