Job...
Again, what did Paul preach that wasn't from the TaNaKh?
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
They studied the TaNaKh that was written before the Hellenistic Age. Could it be that the other religions took it from the TaNaKh and from its oral traditions? I think so!
Then you are delusional because none of that theology IS IN THE TaNaKh??????? That is just the Hebrew Bible? Acts is late fiction, after Christian writers had clearly copied Greek/Persian myths.
They DID ADMIT IT however? The apologists said Satan went back in time and that is why Jesus is just like Greek mythology? They didn't say "oh it's all from the TaNakh>?
It's already been admitted by ALL of the early 2nd century apologists. You yourself said people way back must know more because it's closer in time. Well, they said Jesus was just like all the other demigods?
Now we have 21st century apologists saying it's from the OT????????? What?
Christian apologist Justin Martyr (
Dialogue 69):
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.
Early apologists admited similarities and blamed them on Satan.
Even allowing for these caveats, it is clear that substantial ideological and ritual similarities did exist. In fact they were sufficiently obvious to the early Christian apologists that they felt obliged to offer some explanation for them, particularly since, to their embarrassment, it was clear that the Mystery rituals predated their own. The most common explanation, offered by many Christian apologists including Firmicus Maternus, Tertullian and Justin Martyr, was that demons had deliberately prefigured Christian sacraments in order to lead people astray. This explanation has sufficed for Christians over countless centuries, and indeed scholastic bias towards the assumed uniqueness, primacy and superiority of Christianity is one of the major methodological pitfalls encountered by those engaged in the comparative study of Christianity and the Mysteries. Many Christian scholars have been so certain that Christianity alone, of all the world’s religions, is an original and unique revelation that at times it seems that they might almost prefer the “demonic intervention” explanation to the unthinkable possibility that Christianity was influenced by its philosophical and theological environs. This paper, however, will seek to explore and quantify the similarities and differences and to offer a more prosaic explanation for them as far as it is possible to do so at such a remove and in the light of the methodological difficulties discussed above.
There is ZERO Greek, Persian or Roman myths in the Hebrew Bible.
What these is however is Mesopotamian, Babylonian and egyptian mythology.
Genesis is Mesopotamian.
Noah is the Epic of Gilamesh
Job is Babylonian
A Deity giving laws on stone is Egyptian
Most of Moses is Egyptian mythology
You tell me where these Hellenistic concepts appear in the Hebrew Bible? You cannot because they are not there.
We haven't even gotten into Persian theology yet.
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the
Hellenic Period of the region.
The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on
Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
the seasonal drama was homologized to a
soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual
salvation, from focus on a particular
ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or
saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the
vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour,
salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (
e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of
transcendent, supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for
salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new,
cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become
acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of
sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism,
Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for
Jewish,
Christian, and
Muslim philosophy,
theology, and
mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian
communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish
Talmud (an
authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the
New Testament, and the later
patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine
soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to
nationalistic or
messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and
apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—
e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus,
Simon Magus,
Apollonius of Tyana,
Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and Roman philosophic missionaries
The early OT isn't considered historical by scholars anyways, it's a national myth.
Israel wiki
Modern
archaeology has largely discarded
the historicity of the narrative in the
Torah concerning the
patriarchs,
The Exodus, and
the conquest of Canaan described in the
Book of Joshua, and instead views the narrative as constituting the
Israelites'
national myth.
Dever, William (2001).
What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It?. Eerdmans. pp. 98–99.
ISBN 978-3-927120-37-2. “After a century of exhaustive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible "historical figures" [...] archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit.”