Designed as an introduction to the topic of „The Bible in Culture", this article is, by its very nature, synthetic. The author merely wanted to signal the necessity of a new approach to the Biblical literature which was by no means being created in isolation, independently of rich cultural milieu. For Israel, such an environment was not only a great civilization of Egypt, Anatolia or Mesopotamia but also traditional religions of Syria and Palestine. The metaphor of the seed sown into the soil, to which the Gospel so often refers, has its deep meaning also when applied to the Old Testament. Biblical authors were firmly rooted in the culture of their era, transgressing the borders of the chosen nation. However, with time a tendency would appear of Israel closing itself to the influence of the pagan world. Christ, neverthe- less, addresses his good news to all peoples (Mt 28,19), which presupposes its inculturation depending on the milieu of a given epoch.

The obscure gloss Phix, which is attested in Hesiod’s Theogony, is thought to denote the same Theban monster that bears the name Sphinx in later sources and appears in the Oedipus saga. The present paper argues, however, that the word Phix cannot be convincingly shown to be cognate with the word Sphinx, since the origin of the latter seems to be a Greek word for a strangling monster – as linked with the verb σφίγγω – whereas the former is probably of non-Greek and possibly even non-Indo-European origin. Subsequently, the article proceeds to discuss a number of ancient Near Eastern sources, in particular those featuring infant-killing spirits, in order to demonstrate the emergence of the sphinxes in Greece from the Levant.