[BurntHombre]

Just a heads-up -- Glenn Miller over at Christian Thinktank posted the first installment of his response to the common objection, "Is Genesis merely a rip-off of other ANE lit?"

The question below gives some background:

"Hi Glenn;

Most of the skeptics (and atheists) believe that Old Testament writers borrowed from “epic of Gilgamesh” and other pagan sources found “at least one thousand years before Old Testament”… They often tell me: “Why do you believe a book that contains Sumerian/pagan stories” ... They say: “especially Genesis 2:5-23 has amazing similarities with religion of Sumerians :There was Sumerian “paradise” called DILMUN and a Goddess made 8 vegetables in a garden, one of the Gods was sick (He has a problem with his RIB) The Goddess cured his RIB and that’s why she was called ‘woman of life’(NINTI) so The RIB story in Torah borrowed from this source even the story of eating apple is of pagan origin and according to sumerian legends the first human created from dust JUST LIKE TORAH SAYS”

I hope you can help me out here because it seems no one wants to give an answer about these stories…(maybe these are really “tough” questions)

Thank you…"

The response is too long to go into here, but I figured some of you might find this interesting.

[cuziamthecaptai]

Originally Posted by BurntHombre

Just a heads-up -- Glenn Miller over at Christian Thinktank posted the first installment of his response to the common objection, "Is Genesis merely a rip-off of other ANE lit?"

The question below gives some background:

"Hi Glenn;

Most of the skeptics (and atheists) believe that Old Testament writers borrowed from “epic of Gilgamesh” and other pagan sources found “at least one thousand years before Old Testament”… They often tell me: “Why do you believe a book that contains Sumerian/pagan stories” ... They say: “especially Genesis 2:5-23 has amazing similarities with religion of Sumerians :There was Sumerian “paradise” called DILMUN and a Goddess made 8 vegetables in a garden, one of the Gods was sick (He has a problem with his RIB) The Goddess cured his RIB and that’s why she was called ‘woman of life’(NINTI) so The RIB story in Torah borrowed from this source even the story of eating apple is of pagan origin and according to sumerian legends the first human created from dust JUST LIKE TORAH SAYS”

I hope you can help me out here because it seems no one wants to give an answer about these stories…(maybe these are really “tough” questions)

Thank you…"

The response is too long to go into here, but I figured some of you might find this interesting.

Um..... well much of the NT is borrowed from other cultures:

The Egyptian mythical Horus, god of light and goodness has many parallels to Jesus. [Leedom, Massey] For some examples:

Horus and the Father as one
Horus, the Father seen in the Son
Horus, light of the world, represented by the symbolical eye, the sign of salvation.
Horus served the way, the truth, the life by name and in person
Horus baptized with water by Anup (Jesus baptized with water by John)
Horus the Good Shepherd
Horus as the Lamb (Jesus as the Lamb)
Horus as the Lion (Jesus as the Lion)
Horus identified with the Tat Cross (Jesus with the cross)
The trinity of Atum the Father, Horus the Son, Ra the Holy Spirit
Horus the avenger (Jesus who brings the sword)
Horus the afflicted one
Horus as life eternal
Twelve followers of Horus as Har-Khutti (Jesus' 12 disciples)

http://members.tripod.com/~pc93/GNOSHIST.htm

Sometimes I think the only difference between atheists and fundies is that atheists took the world religion course before they were exposed to CCC in college. A good world religion course does more to de-convert people than the most thorough evolution or psychology course out there.

[Qingu]

From what I've skimmed of the article, it's semantics (in addition to out-of-context appeals to authority). Call it borrowing, call it plagiarizing, call it influencing, call it a connection; the reality is that there is just as much "connection" between the Hebrew and Babylonian myths as there is a connection between Vedic and Greek myths. Admittingly, nobody goes around saying "The Greeks and the Indians stole all of their myths from a nascent Indo-European Aryan group!" but the issue is the word "stole," not whether or not the myths are intertextually connected.

I think another problem is that when secularites point out that the Hebrew myths borrow, or are connected, to the Babylonian myths, Christians tend to get very defensive and assume some sort of pejorative meaning in this fact. There is not; all cultures borrow myths from cultures before them, and then mold them into something different. It's not "ripping off" or "stealing," it's just how mythology works. Pretty much every mythology has vestiges of an older mythology.

[BurntHombre]

Originally Posted by Qingu

From what I've skimmed of the article, it's semantics...

I think the arguments are far more substantive than mere semantics, and pretty devastating, too. But I suppose that's up to the reader to decide.

[Qingu]

Originally Posted by BurntHombre

I think the arguments are far more substantive than mere semantics, and pretty devastating, too. But I suppose that's up to the reader to decide.

Which ones would you like to discuss?

[airon]

I think that all the religions and mythologies are so similar because there is a universal truth out there that lies along those lines. Each religion is just a distortion of the actual truth. Of course, I'm going to say that Christianity is the truth of all the ages, but anyone could make that claim, so I'm not going to argue it.

[cuziamthecaptai]

Originally Posted by airon

I think that all the religions and mythologies are so similar because there is a universal truth out there that lies along those lines. Each religion is just a distortion of the actual truth. Of course, I'm going to say that Christianity is the truth of all the ages, but anyone could make that claim, so I'm not going to argue it.

Universal Truth:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/anth.../ch8/chap8.htm
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/ehb1.html

Besides, wouldn't the mythology that were earlier be more likely to be correct?

[airon]

Originally Posted by cuziamthecaptai

Besides, wouldn't the mythology that were earlier be more likely to be correct?

But if you look at things from a Christian worldview - which I do - then we believe that God created the world and adam and eve before there were any other religions. after they were banished from the garden and people began to spread out (specifically, the Tower of Babel) other mythologies began to appear. So that makes mine the oldest.

But, like I said, anyone can make that claim, so I won't argue it.

[airon]

Originally Posted by cuziamthecaptai

Universal Truth:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/anth.../ch8/chap8.htm
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~kruger/ehb1.html

Um, yeah, I'm stupid, you're going to have to explain that to me.

[cuziamthecaptai]

"universal truth" in terms of human conduct, is an illusion. We have social rules and social interactions based upon survival. that is, it's an advantage that we work togehter and have rules of socieity (i.e. no murder, no stealing). Since murder and stealing is likely to hurt any type of society, each society condems them and it becomes a 'universal truth.'

Since many people can't handle life unless there are explanations, it's common for societies to come up with myths, such as Gods (or one God) did everything, from thunder to making the world to making humans.

Since people are similar, and people in socieites are similar, there are going to be universal mores and universal explanations.


I don't understand how a person can see that other mythologies predate theirs, see their holy book as a large collection of other religions, and yet feel that their religion is the 'true one.'

Basically, the christian took mythology of the middle east (one God, sun of God, Sun of God and One God same god), merged it with pagan mythology (died for mankind, rose after 3 days, baptized) and then simply asserted that their religion is true because their religion includes a son of God that rose after 3 days.

but I guess this is wehre presuppositional apolgetics comes in

[airon]

[QUOTE=cuziamthecaptai]"universal truth" in terms of human conduct, is an illusion. We have social rules and social interactions based upon survival. that is, it's an advantage that we work togehter and have rules of socieity (i.e. no murder, no stealing). Since murder and stealing is likely to hurt any type of society, each society condems them and it becomes a 'universal truth.'[[QUOTE]

We aren't talking about human behavior. We are talking about a system of beliefs that transcends humanity. Throw all the rules and regulations of the different religions (the things you are debunking as "universal truths") out the window and think of "universal truth" as some type of supernatural existence. A god.

Since many people can't handle life unless there are explanations, it's common for societies to come up with myths, such as Gods (or one God) did everything, from thunder to making the world to making humans.

Many? How about all? This, to me, suggests there may be something more out there.

Since people are similar, and people in socieites are similar, there are going to be universal mores and universal explanations.

Why are they similar?

I don't understand how a person can see that other mythologies predate theirs, see their holy book as a large collection of other religions, and yet feel that their religion is the 'true one.'

Basically, the christian took mythology of the middle east (one God, sun of God, Sun of God and One God same god), merged it with pagan mythology (died for mankind, rose after 3 days, baptized) and then simply asserted that their religion is true because their religion includes a son of God that rose after 3 days.

but I guess this is wehre presuppositional apolgetics comes in

You are right, the point is unarguable from any perspective. That's why I won't try.

[Qingu]

The more I study Babylonian religion, the more I think those Babylonians had the right idea. Their cosmology, unlike Judaism and Christianity, goes back countless thousands of years....
http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr211.htm

I also think the "order out of chaos" creation myths are much more accurate than creation ex nihilo, since this is apparently what happened in real life.

I also really like the Gilgamesh epic. "Immortality" is achieved through our accomplishments. I would definitely believe this stuff over Christianity.

[cuziamthecaptai]

Originally Posted by airon

Many? How about all? This, to me, suggests there may be something more out there.

No, not all. Native americans don't talk about Gods, they talk about spirits. The greeks and romans talked about many Gods. Monotheism is a relatively new construct.

Originally Posted by airon

Why are they similar?

Take murder for example.
Society A: murder is okay; will be rewarded.
Society B: Murder is bad; will be punished.
Society A quickly crumbles away because most people are murdered and those who aren't are too scared to stay within the socieity.
Society B lives on.
In a few generations, only society B's exist. you give me one universal truth, and I'll show you how that universal truth can be explained by simple natural selection.

That's what really sucks about evolution from a fundy perspective: not only does it explain life so we don't need a creator-myth it also explains how a creator-myth can be so popular in human socieities.

Originally Posted by airon

You are right, the point is unarguable from any perspective. That's why I won't try.

but you'll believe in it. That's like saying

My religion is a composite of other religions, there is nothing special about my religion, other than I am current in it. My belief set is a mix of previous belief sets and I have absolutly no proof that my religion matches reality. But I was born into it, so I'm gonna keep believing in it.

[Qingu]

Originally Posted by cuziamthecaptai

That's what really sucks about evolution from a fundy perspective: not only does it explain life so we don't need a creator-myth it also explains how a creator-myth can be so popular in human socieities.

I don't like using "evolution" in non-biological contexts. Fundamentalists have enough trouble understanding this theory already, and so many of them conflate evolution with other theories such as the big bang and relativity, that I am very wary of using "evolution" to describe non-biological processes.

I think you should stick a modifier in front: "social evolution."

[cuziamthecaptai]

Originally Posted by Qingu

I don't like using "evolution" in non-biological contexts. Fundamentalists have enough trouble understanding this theory already, and so many of them conflate evolution with other theories such as the big bang and relativity, that I am very wary of using "evolution" to describe non-biological processes.

I think you should stick a modifier in front: "social evolution."

But it is a biological process. Socialization is a biological process, just ask the birds (flocking behavior) and the bees (complete specilization of behavior). How else to explain the emergence of universal social behavior and universal development of mythology?