Agrippina wrote:

jparada wrote:Interesting, could you provide specific examples of extra-biblical creation accounts? I know the biblical account has paralells with a Sumerian myth, but that seems to be all about it. Anyway, the creation accounts are not what most interests me, since i regard them as pure myth. I'm actually interested more in the stories of the Patriarchs, which could be regarded at least to have a historical core. Through these histories is made the claim that the Israelites are close kin to a number of peoples living in their inmediate vicinity, that is the Arameans and the peoples of the Jordan East Bank. If these peoples have similar stories it could be at least established whether they contain some history.

Unfortunately I'm a little pressed for time, as today is my last free day before we go away on holiday, so I can't go into a long discussion right now.


The Babylonian exile not only gave the priests and "historians" of the Jewish people a lot of time to invent their history and to formulate their religion, it also influenced both the history and the religion. Try getting hold of a copy of the books I've mentioned, the Wiseman one is available on Gutenberg, the others on Amazon.

You might find some answers on these sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabonidus_Chronicle
http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/chron00.html

The clay tablets from Babylon confirm the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, and contain other information about Babylon.
If you want mythology, there are dozens of websites about this.

To draw one comparison, from Babylonian mythology on Cain and Abel:

The Sumerians 'saw' another dispute between the minor gods Emesh (summer) and his brother Enten (winter). Each of these brothers had specific duties in creation - like Cain the farmer and Abel the herdsmen. The god Enlil put Emesh in charge of producing trees, building houses, temples, cities and other tasks. Enlil put Enten in charge of causing ewes to give birth to lambs, goats to give birth to kids, birds to build nests, fish to lay their eggs and trees to bear fruit. And the brothers quarreled violently as Emesh challenged Enten's claim to be the farmer god.

Some reading about the influence on Judaism:
http://www.realdevil.info/1-1-1.htm

Creation myths:
http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Ca-Cr/Creation-Stories.html

In the meantime, if you ask specific questions, I can give quick replies. I'll be a little more organised when I get back from my trip. Must rush jusr now.

Thanks, will be checking it. What about the patriarchs, I mean from Abraham to Jacob.

Figment of someone's imagination?

Honestly, it seems that they were mere inventions.

I think it was Hugo Winckler who suggested that they were manufactured from stories from Hittite mythology, and the creation of the stars, I'm not sure about this entire.y. There is some mention of it in some of the research I've read but I'm a bit fuzzy about that. Can I come back to you on this?

OK I knew I had it somewhere. The Nuzi tables from the Hurrian capital of Kirkuk:

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2006/02/great-discoveries-in-biblical-archaeology-the-nuzi-tablets.aspx

These stories would have been circulating in the area, and they predate the Jews, so the story of Sarah and Hagar was copied and modified from the stories of the Hurrians.

Alfred J. Hoerth's book is on that links recommended page Agrippina I am sure you did not mean to link such a thing lol.

Agrippina wrote:OK I knew I had it somewhere. The Nuzi tables from the Hurrian capital of Kirkuk:

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2006/02/great-discoveries-in-biblical-archaeology-the-nuzi-tablets.aspx

These stories would have been circulating in the area, and they predate the Jews, so the story of Sarah and Hagar was copied and modified from the stories of the Hurrians.

I can't find any reference to "stories" in that link. It seems to refer to some administrative records which show some social practices that paralell the ones described in the late Genesis chapters.

Here's another one:
http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/biblicalarchaeology.html

Genesis:

The first chapter of Genesis is copyright infringement of Babylonian (Sumerian) origin.

Grace wrote:Genesis:

The first chapter of Genesis is copyright infringement of Babylonian (Sumerian) origin.

Which may be a 'copyright infringement' of some earlier civilisation's explanation of how it all began...
The fact that there may be similarities in the discovered written records does not that they were not a re-hash of some earlier imaginings.
The origins of Genesis are probably lost 'in the mists of time'.
Would you like to expand on your OP Grace?

I'd like to expand my OP, but there doesn't seem to be any interest in it. I was hoping to be able to go book by book to the end. But as you said, "the origins of genesis are probably lost 'in the mists of time.' " Maybe the entire OT is lost 'in the mists of time.'

We may not know who wrote the OT, but we do know it wasn't Hebrews, it was people from different lands. We know there was a heavy Greek influence in the NT, but isn't there a way to figure out by writing style and vocabulary who the perps may have been?

There was one interesting rumor that Shakespeare may have written Psalms 46 in 1610. Shakespeare was 46 years old with the King James version was completed. Did someone translate Shakespeare's words from English to Greek? or did Shakespeare know Greek? The word Shake is found towards the end of the first paragraph, and the word spear(e) is found towards the end of the third paragraph. There were no copyright laws in olden times, so what authors did to prove ownership was to hide their age, birth date, or address within their works.

Alan B, thank you for being nice, you could have ripped the OP to threads, but you didn't... thanks!

Grace wrote:
We may not know who wrote the OT, but we do know it wasn't Hebrews, it was people from different lands. We know there was a heavy Greek influence in the NT, but isn't there a way to figure out by writing style and vocabulary who the perps may have been?

What, the OT not written by Hebrews? What are you on about. (Sure, parts of it - e.g. parts of the Pentateuch - do go back on earlier works, but have probably been reworked by whoever wrote those parts of the OT. For the overwhelming majority of the OT, no scholar doubts it was written by the Hebrews. Not a single one.

There was one interesting rumor that Shakespeare may have written Psalms 46 in 1610. Shakespeare was 46 years old with the King James version was completed. Did someone translate Shakespeare's words from English to Greek? or did Shakespeare know Greek?

Uhm, we have copies of psalm 46 in Greek and Hebrew and Church Slavonic and Latin and Aramaic and Arabic that all predate Shakespeare by *centuries*!

The Jews have long rejected Christian translations as unreliable and distorted to favour Christian doctrines, yet they as well have psalm 46, and even Talmud - probably completed sometime about the 5th century, has references to it. Other Christian nations that got their bibles translated _before_ or pretty much simultaneously with the KJV - the Germans, the Swedes, the Dutch...

The Coptic, Geez, Georgian, Syriac and Aramaic translations from Antiquity also have Psalm 46, ... so your Shakespear must have been an unusually time-travelling fellow for his time.

Shakespeare was a friend of King James. King James wanted the Bible re-translated from Greek to English. All 54 scholars who translated the works that would become The King James Version, knew Shakespeare. I think Shakespeare helped spice it up a bit.

Take a look at The Song of Solomon. Not written by Solomon, agreed? The perps of this book copied the style of Aristotle and Plato. So who would do such a thing? Here's my conjecture: They were a group of barely educated teenage males messing with the Christian world.

As if the fraud of The Song of Solomon wasn't bad enough, look what happened somewhere between 1952 (Revised Standard Version), and 1971 (The Living Bible); Someone thought the play-like headings identifying the speakers was a great idea. The headings are not in the original text. Who was that someone?

Shakespeare does know The Doctor...:whatever the simile is for "in the know":

Exodus:

There are no records outside the Bible of Israelites in Egypt, their enslavement, or their escape. No events in this book are found any where in Egyptian records, or uncovered by modern day archaeologists.

Exodus doesn't mention the pyramids, or the well known wars between Persians, Assyrians, and Hittites.

There is no mention of well known pharaohs, only the title, 'Pharaoh' is used as the name of the pharaoh -- ridiculous!

There is no reference to the 10 plagues of Egypt any where outside the Bible.

So, who wrote the book of Exodus in the Bible? Of course no one knows because the writer(s) are anonymous. But this much we can know -- it was not Moses, Joseph, or Pharaoh. The writer(s) were painfully ignorant of the world outside their little nomadic tent city. They were not scholars, and their education was only barely passing being that they could not spell the names of people or places correctly.

I'm going to guess that it was a group of very young idealistic males, hungry for adventure, but hopelessly stoned on the fumes of acacia wood. Acacia wood was mentioned 25 times in the book of Exodus.

I'd like to expand my OP, but there doesn't seem to be any interest in it.

Seems it might take orff, Grace...

Edit. Although perhaps not in the way you want it to.

Grace wrote:Shakespeare was a friend of King James. King James wanted the Bible re-translated from Greek to English. All 54 scholars who translated the works that would become The King James Version, knew Shakespeare. I think Shakespeare helped spice it up a bit.

No he didn't - just fucking compare it to earlier German, Swedish, Hebrew, Greek ... copies and you'll notice it's pretty much the same. Or did Shakespeare befriend Martin Luther, Saint Mesrob (a 5th century scholar), the Talmudic rabbis, ...?

Take a look at The Song of Solomon. Not written by Solomon, agreed? The perps of this book copied the style of Aristotle and Plato. So who would do such a thing? Here's my conjecture: They were a group of barely educated teenage males messing with the Christian world.

Uhm, again, we know the Song of Solomon predates the existence of Christianity. Your theory falls simply on that claim.

Grace wrote:Take a look at The Song of Solomon. Not written by Solomon, agreed? The perps of this book copied the style of Aristotle and Plato. So who would do such a thing? Here's my conjecture: They were a group of barely educated teenage males messing with the Christian world.

Could you tell us more about the similarity of style in the Song of Solomon and the works of Aristotle? That would be really interesting.

Even if you're right, I wouldn't consider an ability to copy the style of Plato and Aristotle to be part of being barely educated. No offence, Grace, but this all reads like you don't know what you're talking about.

Grace wrote:Exodus:

There are no records outside the Bible of Israelites in Egypt, their enslavement, or their escape. No events in this book are found any where in Egyptian records, or uncovered by modern day archaeologists.

Ancient Palestine was, however, ruled by Egypt (when it wasn't ruled by the Assyrians, Medes or Persians or even, occasionally, independent) for long periods so the ancient Israelites would not have been totally ignorant of Egypt and, given the nature of ancient near Eastern kingdoms to take slaves as tribute after wars, it would be pretty surprising if Israelite slaves weren't kept by the Egyptians in at least modest numbers (none of which argues for a literal truth of Exodus, of course, merely a possible allegorical reason for its writing).

A major problem in asking who "wrote" the OT is that these stories changed over time; Many would have been originally oral "histories" or simple morality tales before being written and we can be reasonably sure that there will have been various different versions told and written before the "official" versions were collected and, still later, became "authoritative". Are we asking who first told the story, who wrote the story as we have now, or everything in between?

Grace wrote:Exodus:

There are no records outside the Bible of Israelites in Egypt, their enslavement, or their escape. No events in this book are found any where in Egyptian records, or uncovered by modern day archaeologists.

Exodus doesn't mention the pyramids, or the well known wars between Persians, Assyrians, and Hittites.

This is true - however, the mention of the Hittites in the Bible were once a source of ridicule, because it was well known no such civilization ever had existed. Until they dug it up, of course.

There is no mention of well known pharaohs, only the title, 'Pharaoh' is used as the name of the pharaoh -- ridiculous!

There is no reference to the 10 plagues of Egypt any where outside the Bible.

Accurate.

So, who wrote the book of Exodus in the Bible? Of course no one knows because the writer(s) are anonymous. But this much we can know -- it was not Moses, Joseph, or Pharaoh. The writer(s) were painfully ignorant of the world outside their little nomadic tent city. They were not scholars, and their education was only barely passing being that they could not spell the names of people or places correctly.

Uhm, spelling was not conventionalized back then as it is now - spelling correctly or not wasn't even a thing in any language at that time.

I'm going to guess that it was a group of very young idealistic males, hungry for adventure, but hopelessly stoned on the fumes of acacia wood. Acacia wood was mentioned 25 times in the book of Exodus.

If you're going to present a hypothesis, proof (or at least sufficient indications that there's anything to it) of the hypothesis is what any rational approach will require. More reasonable theories, based on the age of the language in the torah, on stylistic evidence, etc, posits a few distinct authors or traditions (jahvist, elohist, etc), and that it was went through quite a bit of compilation and redaction during and immediately after the exile. A hypothesis suggested as early as antiquity was that Ezra partook in the compilation/redaction, altho' this hypothesis of course somewhat relies on other traditions and material out of the Bible.

It's not exactly like Exodus provides much in way of satisfying any hunger for adventure - have you even read the book? It's full of things like "Thou shalt not raise a false report: put not thine hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness.", "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again.", ...

Grace, it does seem you confuse "bible" and "pentateuch" quite often, as well - a thing you really should try avoiding if you want any respect in circles where people that actually know anything about this topic. I would suggest though, that you try to approach the evidence rationally - what you're doing now is no better than what the most religious people do, only you strive to get the opposite result.

Also, I see you haven't really acknowledged a single time when you've been demonstrably wrong.

I've spent 20 years reading, and taking notes. So, everything that was said and written about this fairy tale book is wrong? I don't think so.