Bee1
New member
If the books of the Old Testament contained God's unique revelation, they might reasonably be expected to be original. If on the other hand they were writings typical of the Middle East between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, they would be likely to contain material plagiarised from other works and from neighbouring peoples. Which pattern does the Old Testament best fit? Did any biblical stories exist before God revealed them to his chosen people?
The Old Testament is not a single work but a collection of ancient Jewish writings. As a cursory glance shows, it is an amalgamation of laws, genealogies, chronicles (or histories), myths, proverbs, poetry, songs, eroticism, propaganda, prophecy, allegories, morality tales and humorous stories.
To take a well-known example, the story of Noah's ark (Genesis 6-8) closely parallels the story of a flood given in the Epic of Gilgamesh14. Gilgamesh is an Assyrian work dating from around 2500 BC, almost 2,000 years before the biblical account was written. The story from Gilgamesh is the more complete version. In fact the biblical account appears to be an amalgamation of two derivative versions of the Gilgamesh story. Odd details are lost in the biblical account: for example where in Gilgamesh a raven, a dove and a swallow are sent to find dry land, in the biblical version only a raven and a dove are sent. Both stories appear to explain rainbows. In the biblical version Jahveh places his bow in the sky as a reminder of his covenant not to cause such a flood again. In the older version the goddess Ishtar dedicates her spectacular necklace with the "jewels of Heaven" made by the sky god. The Jews would certainly have known this epic. It was to be found in many Eastern libraries — fragments have been found in Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt15. A Babylonian version of the story is also known, again older than the biblical version, and again more complete. There is also a well-known Greek version of the story.
The story of Moses" mother hiding her infant son in a basket of rushes caulked with pitch, and entrusting him to the river, is also adapted from an older Middle Eastern story.
The original river was the Euphrates, the role of Pharaoh's daughter was played by the goddess Ishtar, and the child grew up to be the Mesopotamian king, Sargon of Akkad. In ancient times rivers were thought of as the embodiment of gods, so in the original tale the mother was entrusting her child to a deity, not abandoning him to the elements. The story of Moses, which may be found in Exodus 2:1-10, dates from about 1,000 years after that of Sargon.
The pagan origin of many Old Testament stories has long been known. Sometimes the scribes who did the borrowing did little to disguise their plagiarism, for example failing to amend the text to its new home. Thus, in the Jerusalem Bible, Proverb 22:20 makes reference to thirty chapters of advice and knowledge, alluding to the Wisdom of Amenemophis, on which, as is confirmed in a footnote, "this whole passage is based". Psalm 104 contains material from the Hymn to the Sun of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, dating from around 1340 BC. Other psalms were originally written in honour of Baal18. Again, biblical texts are so similar to older pagan Canaanite texts that it has been possible to explain certain odd-looking Hebrew passages by referring to the Canaanite versions — they turn out to be either mistranslations or mistranscriptions 19.
So are the above statements ,not my own of course ,totally without merit and a complete fabrication to discredit the teaching in the Old Testament.These examples are just a couple, there are many more.
The Old Testament is not a single work but a collection of ancient Jewish writings. As a cursory glance shows, it is an amalgamation of laws, genealogies, chronicles (or histories), myths, proverbs, poetry, songs, eroticism, propaganda, prophecy, allegories, morality tales and humorous stories.
To take a well-known example, the story of Noah's ark (Genesis 6-8) closely parallels the story of a flood given in the Epic of Gilgamesh14. Gilgamesh is an Assyrian work dating from around 2500 BC, almost 2,000 years before the biblical account was written. The story from Gilgamesh is the more complete version. In fact the biblical account appears to be an amalgamation of two derivative versions of the Gilgamesh story. Odd details are lost in the biblical account: for example where in Gilgamesh a raven, a dove and a swallow are sent to find dry land, in the biblical version only a raven and a dove are sent. Both stories appear to explain rainbows. In the biblical version Jahveh places his bow in the sky as a reminder of his covenant not to cause such a flood again. In the older version the goddess Ishtar dedicates her spectacular necklace with the "jewels of Heaven" made by the sky god. The Jews would certainly have known this epic. It was to be found in many Eastern libraries — fragments have been found in Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt15. A Babylonian version of the story is also known, again older than the biblical version, and again more complete. There is also a well-known Greek version of the story.
The story of Moses" mother hiding her infant son in a basket of rushes caulked with pitch, and entrusting him to the river, is also adapted from an older Middle Eastern story.
The original river was the Euphrates, the role of Pharaoh's daughter was played by the goddess Ishtar, and the child grew up to be the Mesopotamian king, Sargon of Akkad. In ancient times rivers were thought of as the embodiment of gods, so in the original tale the mother was entrusting her child to a deity, not abandoning him to the elements. The story of Moses, which may be found in Exodus 2:1-10, dates from about 1,000 years after that of Sargon.
The pagan origin of many Old Testament stories has long been known. Sometimes the scribes who did the borrowing did little to disguise their plagiarism, for example failing to amend the text to its new home. Thus, in the Jerusalem Bible, Proverb 22:20 makes reference to thirty chapters of advice and knowledge, alluding to the Wisdom of Amenemophis, on which, as is confirmed in a footnote, "this whole passage is based". Psalm 104 contains material from the Hymn to the Sun of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten, dating from around 1340 BC. Other psalms were originally written in honour of Baal18. Again, biblical texts are so similar to older pagan Canaanite texts that it has been possible to explain certain odd-looking Hebrew passages by referring to the Canaanite versions — they turn out to be either mistranslations or mistranscriptions 19.
So are the above statements ,not my own of course ,totally without merit and a complete fabrication to discredit the teaching in the Old Testament.These examples are just a couple, there are many more.
