But Bates has also acknowledged an allusion to the "biblical myth" of Samson, saying, "I feel attracted by religion.

Just as biblical myths transmit the religious spirit of an age, so the "stories" workers swap around the office coffee machine, taken together, convey the prevailing spirit within a company.

In doing so, Mr. Yerushalmi adds, Freud was ironically committing an act of "deferred obedience" to his father while at the same time maintaining his filial independence through his radical reinterpretation of biblical myths.

In 2008 he was writing a book on "biblical myths and falsehoods".

By evoking characters from Greek and biblical myth, Faulkner offers yardsticks against which you can measure his modern characters.

In recent years, Mr. Darwish's poetry has grown increasingly dreamy and introspective, borrowing freely from Greek, Persian, Roman and biblical myths.

Wölfli's creations treat the eye to a roller-coaster ride through a terrain bounded by Piranesi, biblical myth, illuminated manuscripts, tantric mandalas and Swiss cuckoo clocks - in other words, a dizzying multi-cultural universe.

They treat the eye to a ride through a multicultural terrain bounded by Piranesi, biblical myth, illuminated manuscripts, tantric mandalas and Swiss cuckoo clocks.

This practice mimics a biblical myth about St. John the Baptist, who was said to have done the same thing in his lifetime.

The biblical myth of knowledge as sin is the most profound myth ever invented.