(Denver;25966)
Right, but again that's based off of only what's been dug up. You cannot simply dig up an oral tradition that was much older.I go to what Christ said in the New Testament, specifically in Revelation:Revelation 3:16If the Bible borrowed from other religions, then that presents a real problem for a book that claims to be the Word of God. I would argue, for example, that Hebrew idioms preceeded the Greek ones. I would go a step further and say that using an idiom varies greatly from taking a story. Language is a language, a story is a story.I've actually had a chance to study a lot of the epics you mention, I'd add the Ugaritic texts and some of the other records of Ba'al and so on and so forth. I know the similarity, so I know where you are coming from.However, I go back to this. The argument that gods existed before God and only later became a single deity seems to defy logic.My point would be that these similarities were not borrowed from the other epics. My point is that these so called original epics were a corrupted form of the much older original verbal accounts. I can point the the story of giants which manifests itself in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. It survived a tremendously long time here with the North American tribes, and carried the same tenant that God punished a decidedly wicked and evil race with a flood. Everyone likes a unique national identity, but it's absolutely remarkable that so many traditions are so very similar.
I understand why you feel inclined to that conclusion. However, I think it's perhaps an unnecessary inclination.I do not think that the Biblical texts using stories from previous sources says anything as to it's credentials. It doesn't undermine the message. In fact, I believe that we can take away from where the scriptures deviate from the base source.For me, I think it highly unlikely, given my study of the Biblical texts, and the amateurish study into these other texts, that the Biblical tradition came first. In fact, I find that that would almost take away from the understanding and authority of the text. I believe that the texts were very often acting as correctives. Most especially within the book of Genesis, which is evidenced by the lengths to which the author goes to never once depict God as "in the sky" or "heavens", where elsewhere in the Torah this is allowed.However, I think the empirical evidence leads one to see that the Biblical tradition sprung from the previous. I also don't see anything wrong with that. I had a hard time at first, and so like I said, I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think we have to create such a dichotomy here.
Right, but again that's based off of only what's been dug up. You cannot simply dig up an oral tradition that was much older.I go to what Christ said in the New Testament, specifically in Revelation:Revelation 3:16If the Bible borrowed from other religions, then that presents a real problem for a book that claims to be the Word of God. I would argue, for example, that Hebrew idioms preceeded the Greek ones. I would go a step further and say that using an idiom varies greatly from taking a story. Language is a language, a story is a story.I've actually had a chance to study a lot of the epics you mention, I'd add the Ugaritic texts and some of the other records of Ba'al and so on and so forth. I know the similarity, so I know where you are coming from.However, I go back to this. The argument that gods existed before God and only later became a single deity seems to defy logic.My point would be that these similarities were not borrowed from the other epics. My point is that these so called original epics were a corrupted form of the much older original verbal accounts. I can point the the story of giants which manifests itself in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America. It survived a tremendously long time here with the North American tribes, and carried the same tenant that God punished a decidedly wicked and evil race with a flood. Everyone likes a unique national identity, but it's absolutely remarkable that so many traditions are so very similar.
I understand why you feel inclined to that conclusion. However, I think it's perhaps an unnecessary inclination.I do not think that the Biblical texts using stories from previous sources says anything as to it's credentials. It doesn't undermine the message. In fact, I believe that we can take away from where the scriptures deviate from the base source.For me, I think it highly unlikely, given my study of the Biblical texts, and the amateurish study into these other texts, that the Biblical tradition came first. In fact, I find that that would almost take away from the understanding and authority of the text. I believe that the texts were very often acting as correctives. Most especially within the book of Genesis, which is evidenced by the lengths to which the author goes to never once depict God as "in the sky" or "heavens", where elsewhere in the Torah this is allowed.However, I think the empirical evidence leads one to see that the Biblical tradition sprung from the previous. I also don't see anything wrong with that. I had a hard time at first, and so like I said, I understand where you are coming from, but I don't think we have to create such a dichotomy here.