The Hebrew Bible or Old Testament contains many myths. However, it should not be thought myths are untrue. These myths were used by the ancients to illustrate various truths of life. Essentially, these myths are archetypal in nature and ring a chord in mankind's psyche. There is no doubt that these myths have had a powerful effect on Western culture. Joseph Campbell states about myths:
Throughout the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind. It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestation. Religion, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister,sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth (Campbell 3).
In the Hebrew Bible, such In the Hebrew Bible, such myths as the Creation, Adam and Eve, and the Fall all serve the purpose of demonstrating some of the great archetypal truths of mankind and humanity's relationship to God and existence. Myths assist people in their search for their religious identity. These myths consist of images, metaphors, selecting the way their lives.
Dreams express a central part of reality and are an integral component of religion. The stories of dreams direct one to the universe and of human existence. Myths inner significance of the universe and of human existence. Myths are quite religious. As Leonard J. Biallas states:..... for their narratives deal with the Absolute Reality at the core of the self, the essence of the self, which is both transcendent (true for all times and places) and immanent (true here and now). Myths convey concrete notions about how this Absolute Reality at the core is...