The legend is born after defeat and becomes a victory for the defeated people who do not write the history of their defeat and compensates for it by writing a legend that transforms defeat into a long-term victory associated with religious belief.
History is written by the balance of power that does not pity the weak, but the legend rebuilds defeat differently and grants the defeated what they were deprived of in reality: cohesion, identity, and continuity.
After the Babylonian exile, the Jews faced a complete collapse of their conception of the world, the loss of their land, the fall of their city, the destruction of their temple, and the disruption of the connection between heaven and earth. In such circumstances, political narrative alone is not enough because politics explains how the state fell but does not answer whether we should continue.
In the realm of answers, the legend appeared as a psychological and historical necessity; defeat turned into permanent disgrace, but when reformulated within a universal narrative, it comes in the form of a worldly test or temporary punishment in a long divine era, thus transforming the catastrophe from a political fall into a spiritual stance revitalizing hope for survival anew.
When a people loses their land, they create a homeland within the mythical text.
In this case, the text is not merely a record of events but is the establishment of a fictional mythical homeland. The homeland, which could no longer be possessed by sword, was repossessed with words, promises, and rearranged memory.
But these myths were not created out of nothing; as the Jews rebuilt their narrative, they were the children of the ancient East, breathing its culture, symbols, creation stories, the flood, paradise, and humanity's struggle with the deity, all of which were present in the memories of Sumer, Babylon, Canaan, all originating through the mythic reformation of defeat.
The Torah did not invent mythology but reinterpreted it within a strict monotheistic doctrine, and multiple gods turned into one god, cosmic chaos into a moral order, and the struggle between divine powers into a struggle between man and duty. In this process, the legend was not abolished but was refined and subjugated to a new meaning suitable for the stage.
The genius of the mythical text is that it did not deny the defeat but refused to let it be the end. It didn't say the exile didn't happen but said that the exile is part of a larger cosmic story. Thus, history is transformed from a record of loss to a narrative of anticipation, and memory shifts from the burden of defeat to a promise of victory.
In this realm, the legend is a survival mechanism. It is the way by which peoples protect themselves from ultimate breakdown and a defeat which is told as a phase, thus postponing death and opening the door to return, even if in imagination.
That's why myths should be read as deep psychological and political documents; they reveal how peoples think and how they rebuild themselves when everything, even the land, is taken from them. Cities may fall, and states may be erased, but as long as the text exists, the people remain possible.
History is written by the victors, but the myth is written by those who refuse to allow defeat to be their final record.
