The Bible, Not As Original As You'd Think

[Subduction Zone]

(twice)

I saw the one, since you made it easy to find. It was a clear violation to me. I do not have any doubts about the other. I wonder if some people do not know that the identity of the person that posted a rating is visible to all?

 

[Prestor John]

The Hebrews borrowed Adam and Eve from the Babylonian myth. They are considered didactic literature. And, the myths of Sumer were written on clay tablets long before the Hebrews.. The Northcoast Canaanites also had writing that predates the Hebrews by 2000 years.

You are assuming that the Genesis account was "borrowed".

We do not know how Moses came to the information he recorded. It could have been a written record, an oral tradition or a direct revelation.

However, if there was an Adam and if he received revelation about future events, then the myths of Babylon and Sumer came from him.

 

[Prestor John]

I did. Claims made without reliable links.

Yet you responded to my post without any understanding of what I had said.

Where is your "reliable link" that the story of Christ was a reproduction of the Horus myth?

 

[Prestor John]

I don't care about Horus.. The story of Adam and Eve was taken from myth of Sumer and it was written down on clay tablets 1500 years before there were any Hebrews.

Babylonian Origins of the Creation Myth of Adam and Eve

Nov 21, 2012 · Babylonian Origins of the Creation Myth of Adam and Eve Babylonian Creation Myth. Babylonians had this legend of the Creation and Fall of Man, some 1,500 years or more before the Hebrews heard of it. The cuneiform inscriptions relating to the Babylonian legend of the Creation and Fall of Man, which have been discovered by English archæologists …

Apocrypha The First Book of Adam and Eve: Babylonian Origins of the Creation Myth of Adam and Eve

…. are not, however, complete. The portions which relate to the Tree and Serpent have not been found, but Babylonian gem engravings show that these incidents were evidently a part of the original legend. The Tree of Life in the Genesis account appears to correspond with the sacred grove of Anu, which was guarded by a sword turning to all the four points of the compass. representation of this Sacred Tree, with "attendant cherubim," copied from an Assyrian cylinder, may be seen in Mr. George Smith's "Chaldean Account of Genesis." Figure No. 1, which we have taken from the same work, shows the tree of knowledge, fruit, and the serpent. Mr. Smith says of it:
"One striking and important specimen of early type in the British Museum collection, has two figures sitting one on each side of a tree, holding out their hands to the fruit, while at the back of one (the woman) is scratched a serpent. We know well that in these early sculptures none of these figures were chance devices, but all represented events, or supposed events, and figures in their legends; thus it is evident that a form of the story of the Fall, similar to that of Genesis, was known in early times in Babylonia."

I don't understand why you are not getting what I am saying.

Adam was not a Hebrew. The account in Genesis never claimed that the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall were Hebrew events. It only claims that they were events that happened.

Do you believe that ancient Sumer knowing about these events disproves the Genesis account of the same events?

I don't understand what you believe this proves....

 

[Subduction Zone]

You are assuming that the Genesis account was "borrowed".

We do not know how Moses came to the information he recorded. It could have been a written record, an oral tradition or a direct revelation.

However, if there was an Adam and if he received revelation about future events, then the myths of Babylon and Sumer came from him.

It appears that she has studied this matter more than you or I so the accusation of an assumption is not well founded. Scholars that have studied Exodus have concluded that it never happened. Again this is not an assumption. Moses appears to be fictionalfictional, and we know that the Adam and Eve story is fiction. You appear to be guilty of the sin that you keep claiming others have performed. It looks like you are assuming that Moses was real. What reliable evidence do you have of his existence?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yet you responded to my post without any understanding of what I had said.

Where is your "reliable link" that the story of Christ was a reproduction of the Horus myth?

I don't think that is the claim here. The claim is only that unlike the claims of Christians, the Jesus story is not unique.

 

[sooda]

I don't understand why you are not getting what I am saying.

Adam was not a Hebrew. The account in Genesis never claimed that the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall were Hebrew events. It only claims that they were events that happened.

Do you believe that ancient Sumer knowing about these events disproves the Genesis account of the same events?

I don't understand what you believe this proves....

Adam and Eve is an allegory about the first people to discover agriculture.

When they were hunter-gatherers in God's garden, they were taken care of and depended on God. When they began collecting seeds and planting them, they were more independent and self sufficient.

 

[sooda]

You are assuming that the Genesis account was "borrowed".

We do not know how Moses came to the information he recorded. It could have been a written record, an oral tradition or a direct revelation.

However, if there was an Adam and if he received revelation about future events, then the myths of Babylon and Sumer came from him.

No one is assuming the story is borrowed. A similar story is found on clay tablets in Babylon and Dilmun that are 2000 years older than the Hebrews.

The Israelites were just Canaanites.

 

[1213]

You gave a post a "funny" rating as an attempt to attack another member.

If somebody attacked, I think it was Audie who said:
“…You have not the faintest clue about geology, and would not care to learn anything.”

But I don’t have reason to complain, if person willingly shows that she makes baseless claims about things that she doesn’t know. It just was funny.

 

[Subduction Zone]

If somebody attacked, I think it was Audie who said:
“…You have not the faintest clue about geology, and would not care to learn anything.”

But I don’t have reason to complain, if person willingly shows that she makes baseless claims about things that she doesn’t know. It just was funny.

That would in all probability have been an observation. Even the least bit of understanding of geology leads to a conclusion that the biblical flood was a myth. And do you want to learn why you are wrong or was Audie correct?

 

[sooda]

You are assuming that the Genesis account was "borrowed".

We do not know how Moses came to the information he recorded. It could have been a written record, an oral tradition or a direct revelation.

However, if there was an Adam and if he received revelation about future events, then the myths of Babylon and Sumer came from him.

Moses didn't write the Pentateuch .. Genesis and Exodus were not written down until 800 years after the death of Moses... who by all accounts never existed. He was probably a literary device for the Exodus myth.

 

[sooda]

No magic needed for the great flood.



God has given life and therefore has also right to decide how long life He gives. If people use life for evil, I don’t see why God should give eternal life to them.



I don’t see any reason to think they were innocent. Bible tells all life on earth was corrupted and violent.



There is lot of:
1. Oil and gas fields, results of vast amount of dead organic material, as there should be, if the flood happened.
2. Current continents, result of the collapsed original continent that was broken and sunk.
3. Vast sediment formations, orogenic mountains as a result of flooding water carrying stuff and result of movements of the broken continent parts.
4. Marine fossils on high mountains.
5. Also all stories about great flood in ancient history are a sign that perhaps it really happened. After all, it is not just Biblical story.

None of those 5 things are evidence of a global flood.. A geologist would laugh you out of town.

You think oil and gas fields were laid down in 2900 BC?

 

[Prestor John]

Adam and Eve is an allegory about the first people to discover agriculture.

When they were hunter-gatherers in God's garden, they were taken care of and depended on God. When they began collecting seeds and planting them, they were more independent and self sufficient.

I understand that that is your opinion.

Do you believe that all these nations recording this story somehow proves it to be an allegory?

 

[Prestor John]

No one is assuming the story is borrowed. A similar story is found on clay tablets in Babylon and Dilmun that are 2000 years older than the Hebrews.

The Israelites were just Canaanites.

But you claimed in post # 146,

"The Hebrews borrowed Adam and Eve from the Babylonian myth."

That is an assumption.

 

[Prestor John]

Moses didn't write the Pentateuch .. Genesis and Exodus were not written down until 800 years after the death of Moses... who by all accounts never existed. He was probably a literary device for the Exodus myth.

Thank you for sharing your opinion.

 

[Quagmire]

You could post a list of how Jesus was really based on Ronald McDonald and people on the internet would be stupid enough to believe it...

Ronald McDonald (1 million BC)
Born of the virgin Grimace
Baptised by the Hamburgler
Had 12 disciples
Was crucified by the Burger King then came back to life
etc.

As testified to by the recent archaeological discovery of an ancient Judean hamburger joint called the Fast Supper.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I understand that that is your opinion.

Do you believe that all these nations recording this story somehow proves it to be an allegory?

Not opinion. She does have evidence for those claims. What evidence do you have for your claims?

 

[joelr]

Jesus is not a copy, These inaccurate claims are not new and get so tiresome...

"Proponents of this view, known as mythicists, say that Jesus was nothing more than a copy of popular dying and rising fertility gods in various places from around the world, some of these gods would include Tammuz in Mesopotamia, Adonis in Syria, Attis in Asia Minor, and Horus in Egypt.




So, let us uncover the many reasons ‘why scholars know that Jesus is not a copy of pagan religions’. And when I say “scholars” it is not solely those of a Christian orientation but from diverse other backgrounds and religious views as well, including atheists.

1. Professional scholars unanimously reject the claim that Jesus is a pagan copy.
Today just about every scholar in the relevant historical specializations unanimously rejects the notion that Jesus is a copy of pagan gods. It seems that the available evidence has persuaded them against these alleged parallels. For instance, T.N.D Mettinger of Lund University opines:"

22 Reasons All Scholars Agree Jesus Is Not A Copy Of Pagan Gods

That article is full of lies and has no understanding of what religious syncretism is.
First of all with the exception of a few fundamentalist scholars all biblical age PhD are in agreement and are mythicists. Including the scholar they mention Ehrman.
They are not mythicists that believe Jesus was only a myth (they do believe he was a man) but what's important is that they believe the supernatural stories in all religions are myth.

So they are mythicists for all practical purposes. So #1 above is actually a lie, R. Price, Gary Haberman, Carrier, Ehrman, Eline Pagels, T. Thompson, W. Pervoe, etc...most PhDs in bible related history believe the stories of a demi-god to be myth.


Even ancient Christian apologists knew Jesus was similar to pagan gods-

Christian apologist Justin Martyr-

"When we say…Jesus Christ…was produced without sexual union, and was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call Sons of God. [In fact]…if anybody objects that [Jesus] was crucified, this is in common with the sons of Zeus (as you call them) who suffered, as previously listed [he listed Dionysus, Hercules, and Asclepius]. Since their fatal sufferings are all narrated as not similar but different, so his unique passion should not seem to be any worse."


Tertullian, in Prescription against Heretics 40, makes exactly the same argument as Justin.

The article also fails to understand cultural differences and thinks because there are differences that means there is no myths being taken from pagan sources. Historians do not say things like that-

"Every single one of those beliefs was different from every other. The differences are what establish them as different gods, and not just revamped versions of the same god. The differences are irrelevant. Cultural diffusion and syncretism by definition always produces differences between the originating, existing beliefs and the resulting, new beliefs. So it is illogical to argue that because God A is “different” from God B, that therefore God B’s mythology was not adapted from God A’s. To the contrary, ideas that are witnessed as pervasive (many different kinds of virgin births; many different kinds of resurrections) are seen as bearing a cultural commonality (“a” virgin birth; “a” resurrection), and that commonality is then adapted to a specific belief system, creating a new religion. The process always involves transformation: the creation of differences. Those differences are what is brought by the native, adopting culture, and then added, to transform the adopted culture."


I'm not sure about Horus and that post isn't sourced but this article IS sources and briefly looks at 6 dying/rising messiah gods who for sure pre-dated Jesus.
there isn't any question that this is true and apologists and church fathers back then never tried to deny it, they argued that their version was the best version.

Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier



3. We actually know very little about these pagan secretive religions
lie, see the Carrier link for a pile of details.

4. Most of what we know of secretive pagan religions comes after Christianity, not before it.
6 pagan dying/rising sin-forgiving demigods pre-date Jesus for sure
So you call out Dorothy Murdock for making stuff up but it's ok for this writer to change facts around?

5. The Jewish were a people who refrained from allowing pagan myths to invade their culture.
following the Persian invasion of Judea we first see Persian/Zoroastrian concepts appear in the OT.
Heaven/hell, a war between good/evil, Satan, the world ending in fire, personal savior deities.
They don't announce they are copying, slowly over time religious leaders have "revelations".
Everyone wants the latest greatest concepts in their religion also.

6. The New Testament canon is history unlike much of the pagan secretive mysteries

That's an actual lie. The gospels are not considered reliable as historical documents.
Wiki, Historicity of Jesus:
"The historical reliability of the gospels refers to the reliability and historic character of the four New Testament gospels as historical documents. Little in the four canonical gospels is considered to be historically reliable."

7. Unlike the pagan secretive religions, Jesus is an ancient figure we can actually know about, what he thought of himself, and what he did as a historical figure of history:
same, gospels are not reliable, obviously myth
Gospels are anonymous.

8. The Jesus of history does not fit the profile of someone that would be a myth.
Outright lie. Jesus rates high on the rank-Raglan scale
(Jesus (18), and Buddha (15)) higher than Buddha.
Gospels are written in all mythic style and no historical style.
24:35 a PhD explains some of the gospels mythic style

10. Evidence of dishonest pseudo-scholar work – Dorothy Murdock:
Richard Carrier has pointed out a few flaws in her work as well.
Atheist activist and Christ mythicist Richard Carrier criticized her use of the inscriptions at Luxor to make the claim that the story of Jesus' birth was inspired by the Luxor story of the birth of Horus.

11. None of the mythicists are actual scholars in the relevant fields of expertise.

Oops, Carrier is. Bart Ehrman is.


12. Jesus’ virgin birth is unique

no way, is this a joke? Virgin births are all over mythologies
Virgin Birth: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

13. Jesus’ death had a radical impact on his disciples; a feat that no pagan god can boast.

Didn't even convert all of the Jews? 300 years later Rome was 4% Christian?

14. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is unique.

Not even a little - Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

15. The notion that Jesus is a copy parallel of Mithras is rejected by scholars
It is, this is a common red herring used to put down the mythicist ideas. Mithras wasn't a dying/rising savior god. Ok. There were plenty of others.

Then they try to argue that because there were differences between a bunch of pagan gods Jesus couldn't be a copy. They also leave out many details of why they are similar. They are arguing against plagarism. That isn't what happens with myths. Nothing in the Matrix was not taken from older myths, but it was presented in a new way. In religion we (always) see cultural diffusion and syncretism.

"The differences are what establish them as different gods, and not just revamped versions of the same god. The differences are irrelevant. Cultural diffusion and syncretism by definition always produces differences between the originating, existing beliefs and the resulting, new beliefs. So it is illogical to argue that because God A is “different” from God B, that therefore God B’s mythology was not adapted from God A’s. To the contrary, ideas that are witnessed as pervasive (many different kinds of virgin births; many different kinds of resurrections) are seen as bearing a cultural commonality (“a” virgin birth; “a” resurrection), and that commonality is then adapted to a specific belief system, creating a new religion. The process always involves transformation: the creation of differences. Those differences are what is brought by the native, adopting culture, and then added, to transform the adopted culture."

It's like comparing Thor to Hercules, both sons of a sky-father and Earth-mother, both strong, fight giant serpents or dragons, feats of strength etc..obvious they are in a similar class of myth.
But early worshipers of Thor would say "no he's really different, blahblah...

Anyway the "22 reasons.." article is full of outright lies.

 

[sooda]

Thank you for sharing your opinion.

excerpt:

Like Noah, the Sumero-Armenian Ziusudra/Xisuthros had three sons, including one named "Japetosthes," essentially the same as Noah's son Japheth, also related to Pra-japati or Jvapeti, son of the Indian Menu, whose other sons possessed virtually the same names as those of Noah, i.e., Shem and Ham.

As Oxford University Hebrew professor George Henry Bateson Wright says in Was Israel ever in Egypt? (51):

JAPHETH - Ewald...shows, with great probability, that this was a god of the north, as Ham was of the south, once again in imitation of Hindu mythology.

Moreover, the fact, that in the Armenian legend, derived from "Assyrian or Babylonian documents," the three sons of Xisuthros, who corresponds to Noah, are Zervin, Titan, and Japetosthe, is very instructive, suggesting that the unknown foreign word was retained in its original form...

"Coincidentally," it was said that the Egyptian god Osiris was shut up in his ark on the very same day that Noah was likewise so disposed, as I relate in Suns of God (90):

When Osiris's enemies pursue him, he enters into his "boat" on precisely the same date recorded of "Noah's" entrance into his ark, Athyr 17th...long before the biblical tale was invented. Noah is not a Jewish "patriarch" but a sun god, and the tale of entering and exiting the Ark signifies the sun's death and resurrection.

The story of the eight passengers in a boat is an astral myth, reflecting the solar system. These eight are equivalent to the Egyptian octet of gods, who sail the ocean in a ship.

Also of interest in this quest are the words attributed to the Babylonian priest Berossus, who described the Flood, giving it a much older date:

The Babylonian Flood itself predates the biblical by about 33,000 years, which demonstrates that the two inundations do not reflect one "historical" flood. Nevertheless, the story of Xisuthras or Ziusudra, the Babylonian Flood king, matches the later biblical account of Noah in important details, a common develoipment with myths. Berossus is even recorded as stating that Ziusudra's ship landed "in the mountains of the Korduaians of Armenia," possibly the Kurdistans, located in the same area where ark-hunters have claimed to have found pieces of "Noah's ark."


Is Noah's Ark Real? | The Myth of Noah's Ark

 

[sooda]

"5. The Jewish were a people who refrained from allowing pagan myths to invade their culture."

Hogwash.. They borrowed stories from the Canaanites and other cultures around them. They borrowed Daniel from a 1500 year old Syrian poem.