Man that's a wacky one
Really? :think: You seriously think that kids finding candy is an homage to fertility??? :rotfl: That kid is just after candy dude. I wonder who made eggs. I wonder who made rabbits. :think: So if I own rabbits ever after this, it is homage to Ish? Moving on, who made the days? Who made 'that' day? So since we are talking 'origins' lets get you up to speed, and I'm sorry to be pedantic playing to your seemingly snarky. It was necessary to bust you out of 'overtly smug.'
Funny that supposed Sumerian culture 'borrowing,' most every 'comparison' to me looks more like blatant fabrication by the sloppy and/or painfully obvious liberal. You probably didn't know so may be excused for a bit of misplaced smug. You have spent too much time reading fiction on an atheist website, however. They are worth less than your time. Even in this link, it is easily seen for what may be similarity, but it is more than obvious that 'copy-cat' is far far from the Sumerian stories. This author does a better objective comparison by showing how far removed each are as well as explaining interpretation. However, he falls for a few overt commentaries when he suggests that the garden of Eden from the Bible is the same. They are very different.
First, if they existed, then "it doesn't matter who else saw them." :dizzy: (Not you, the dumb websites and books that make this garbage up). The Sumerian 'angels' were children of gods, many of them. There is little in comparison when the Hebrew OT describes it's messengers as spirit, and that they are created rather than birthed children. The differences far outweigh anything alike between the stories. You may as well say Lucas created Star Wars 1-7 from the Sumerian account. This is how bizarre the comparisons actually are.
You clearly aren't getting what I'm putting out there. Pagan traditions were adopted and then adapted to fit Christian beliefs. The eggs once were part of a pagan fertility practice, and when Christian religion moved in to town the former pagans wanted to accept Christianity while still clinging to their beloved traditions. What's an easy way to do that? To repackage pagan tradition as Christian. So, now the eggs have no greater meaning beyond fun for children to find, and through this outlet they found their way into modern Christianity. That's a compliment to the brilliance of those who spread Christianity, not a knock on the religion. Stop and think for a moment before reacting in anger.
I'm assuming this is referring to angels. Well I hate to burst your bubble again, but Sumerian culture and religion is older than Judaism. Since both involve angelic beings, anyone can easily conclude that angels were first present in Sumerian myths before being put into Jewish (and eventually Christian and Muslim) tradition
Take a course in world history for me. Maybe throw in a religion course or two. Then get back to me on my "fiction."
It isn't quite. The way it happened is that the Church, in coming into a culture, taught Christ and celebrated with a culture. If that culture, at their new found faith, celebrated by hiding eggs, it wasn't the church adopting paganism, the symbols lost the meaning because the observance was societal and celebratory. There are a few missionary stories about adopting a culture's practices as well as identifying what they had right, then using it to illustrate a Christian point. However, before a culture gets a hold of rabbits and chicks, they were God's first, so they rather adopted those symbols into their culture. There is no problem on Resurrection Sunday (I don't call it Easter/Ishtar though am not hung up on it), with kids eating candy.
Fully aware, and even gave a link. No bubble to burst.
I provided a link so you could compare instead of parroting another.
For you or from you? I took specifically this class in Bible college.
I have a BA in this, which course more do you recommend? I find the secular offerings incredibly biased. Again, that is why I gave a link. A fellow should compare the two accounts.
It is fiction. No doubt. That again, is why I provided one of many of these kinds of links. Let me say 'incredibly thin conjecture and musings' from reading many accounts, not just Sumerian (I had to, was part of the class). When I compare a Sumerian or other account with the OT, it always looks like an incredible stretch and wishful thinking with extra splashes of conjecture. Here is a history PhD prof. While he does rightly tie some similarities together, he also rightly attributes reasons why one might be seen in the other. Most importantly, he says that there are far more differences than similarities.
Again, I said they adopted pagan traditions, not paganism. I can't make it any more clear than I have.
:up:
If I use a link, I'll cite it. That's a big deal to me. Otherwise, I'm pulling info from my noggin
For. And preferably not one from a university with a vested interest in maintaining Christianity's religious supremacy. I attended a private Christian university myself, but they weren't shy in showing us all sides. However, if you understand that Sumeria and its traditions came prior to Judaism, and Judaism naturally borrowed a little here and there, your education isn't lacking.
If you're willing to objectively look at both sides, I can't fault you. However if you're just going to discount secular, non-partisan offerings as inaccurate, I am hesitant to call you objective.
Since the apparent disagreement between us was about Angels, and I now understand you to agree with me that Angels were present first in Sumerian culture before being borrowed by Judaism, I can't say I understand what "fiction" we're disagreeing on here
Bias is like that, and we make assumptions, especially about our bought and paid for education. Rather, I specifically gave the link so this part could be avoided. 1) it is imho, 'easy' to see there is very little similarity in accounts (to me VERY easy). It would make one wonder where these secular professors were getting their information from, because I had to look myself (I don't remember if it was a secular professor or a different debate at the time).
In agreement with the second link, there is far more different, and the 'angels' aren't in the Sumerian rendering. "Angels" rather looked the same to some professor/historian (no idea who first or second perpetrated this) and so he speculated they were similar. I gave a few glaring differences but there are many more. The Sumerian demi-gods were children of gods. The "messengers" (angels) of the Bible are not. The demi-gods were not messengers to men, weren't created being, etc. Again, you can find some similarities between Star Wars and the Epic of Gilgamesh, but that doesn't mean Lucas is even aware of the other. It just happens to have similarities is all, and that is as far as that comparison can go. While there are some similarities between the OT and Sumeria, the professor also said that the Sumerians could have gotten them from Abraham's descendants. Moses didn't write these things down until many years after they had been in Egypt. It is very hard to draw concrete conclusions like some secular professors try to do (usually after a name for themselves rather than a better reason like historical accuracy). Again, I gave you links so you could at least look at what I see as thin and stretching. I don't even think the Gilgamesh Epic is as close as the story of Noah and the ark. There is a lot more different than the same and the moral of each story is completely different.
