Introduction

This chapter analyses aetiological myths in the Bible that deal with the origins of holy places in Palestine as well as the circumstances of their inception. The whole of the Bible has been treated as a sacred text. Anthropological terminology is, however, gradually entering Biblical Studies. In the context of myths, this authority tends to be a religious one. Aetiology describes the causes and circumstances of the origins of any arrangement or institution whose inception demands explanation. In this work the term 'holy place' is applied to all those places where according to the Bible ritual ceremonies were conducted. Many of the fundamental axioms accepted in the study of biblical texts and the society of ancient Palestine have been challenged over the course of the last quarter century. A transitional stage in this 'anthropologisation' of contemporary Biblical Studies was the so-called Myth and Ritual School.