Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets is a work by Sabine Baring-Gould. It discusses and presents us with stories and myths from the bible from a multi-religious perspective.

The Fall of the Angels Adam Eve The Fall of Man Adam and Eve after the Fall Cain and Abel The Death of Adam Seth Cainan son of Enos Enoch The Giants Lamech Methuselah Noah Heathen Legends of the Deluge The Planting of the Vine The Sons of Noah Relics of the Ark Certain Descendants of Ham Serug The Prophet Eber The Prophet Saleh The Tower of Babel Abraham Melchizedek Of Ishmael and the Well Zemzem Esau and Jacob Joseph The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Job Jethro Moses Joshua The Judges Samuel Saul David Solomon Elijah Isaiah Jeremiah Ezekiel Ezra Zachariah

An incredible number of legends exists connected with the personages whose history is given in the Old Testament. The collection now presented to the public must by no means be considered as exhaustive. The compiler has been obliged to limit himself as to the number, it being quite impossible to insert all. He trusts that few of peculiar interest have been omitted. The Mussulman traditions are nearly all derived from the Talmudic writers, just as the history of Christ in the Koran is taken from the Apocryphal Gospels. The Koran follows the "Sepher Hajaschar" (Book of the Just) far more closely than the canonical Scriptures; and the "Sepher Hajaschar" is a storehouse of the Rabbinic tradition on the subject of the Patriarchs from Adam to Joshua. The Jewish traditions are of various value. Some can be traced to their origin without fail. One class is derived from Persia, as, for instance, those of Asmodeus, the name of the demon being taken, along with his story, from Iranian sources. Another class springs from the Cabbalists, who, by permutation of the letters of avi name, formed the nuclei, so to speak, from which legends spread. Another class, again, is due to the Rabbinic commentators, who, unable to allow for poetical periphrasis, insisted on literal interpretations, and then coined fables to explain them. Thus the saying of David, "Thou hast heard me from among the horns of the unicorns," which signified that David was assisted by God in trouble, was taken quite literally by the Rabbis, and a story was invented to explain it. Another class, again, is no doubt due to the exaggeration of Oriental imagery, just as that previously mentioned is due to the deficiency of the poetic fancy in certain Rabbis. Thus, imagination and defect of imagination, each contributed to add to the store. But when we have swept all these classes aside, there remains a residuum, small, no doubt, of genuine tradition.