logical purpose, while avoiding the literalist trap. That is a challenge in part because not all of the experts agree about what can be learned from careful attention to the texts. Vawter explains that Genesis is "folk history, not circumstantial history, which means that historical and legendary elements frequently and inevitably appear side by side" (34). In that connection, Campbell cites the similarity of the first part of Genesis, apparently written in the fourth century BC, to the Babylonian creation myth dating from about 3000 BC (112). Vawter (38-9)
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