Rubbish!
Francesca Stavrakopoulou PhD
9:30
The idea that the Israelite religion was extraordinary and different from religions of surrounding religions and cultures and this deity is somehow different and extraordinary and so this deity is wholly unlike all other deities in Southeast Asia. Historically this is not the case. Nothing unusual or extraordinary about Yahweh.
Yahweh is the name of the state god of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and, later, the Kingdom of Judah. His name is composed of four Hebrew consonants (YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton) which the prophet...
www.worldhistory.org
Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El. Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that “the Most High, El, gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.
Consensus on Gospels
1:05:35. Mainstream consensus
Judaism - Myths, Rituals, Beliefs: Biblical myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. They are concerned with the creation of the world and the first man and woman, the origin of the current human condition, the primeval Deluge, the distribution of...
www.britannica.com
Myths
Biblical
myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of
Genesis, the first book of the
Bible. They are concerned with the
creation of the world and the first man and woman, the origin of the current human condition, the primeval
Deluge, the distribution of peoples, and the variation of languages.
The basic stories are derived from the popular lore of the
ancient Middle East; parallels can be found in the
extant literature of the peoples of the area. The
Mesopotamians, for instance, also knew of an earthly paradise such as
Eden, and the figure of the
cherubim—properly
griffins rather than angels—was known to the
Canaanites. In the Bible, however, this mythical garden of the gods becomes the scene of man’s
fall and the background of a story designed to account for the natural limitations of human life. Similarly, the
Babylonians told of the formation of humankind from clay. But, whereas in the pagan tale the first man’s function is to serve as an earthly
menial of the gods, in the scriptural version his role is to rule over all other creatures. The story of the
Deluge, including the elements of the
ark and the dispatch of the raven and dove, appears already in the Babylonian myths of
Gilgamesh and
Atrahasis. There, however, the hero is eventually made immortal, whereas in the Bible this detail is omitted because, to the
Israelite mind, no child of woman could achieve that status. Lastly, while the story of the
Tower of Babel was told originally to account for the stepped temples (
ziggurats) of
Babylonia, to the
Hebrew writer its purpose is simply to inculcate the
moral lesson that humans should not aspire beyond their assigned station.
Scattered through
the Prophets and Holy
Writings (the two latter portions of the Hebrew Bible) are
allusions to other ancient myths—e.g., to that of a
primordial combat between
YHWH and a monster variously named
Leviathan (Wriggly), Rahab (Braggart), or simply Sir Sea or Dragon. The Babylonians told likewise of a fight between their god
Marduk and the monster Tiamat; the
Hittites told of a battle between the weather god and the dragon Illuyankas; while a Canaanite poem from Ras Shamra (ancient
Ugarit) in northern Syria relates the discomfiture of Sir Sea by the deity
Baal and the rout of an opponent named Leviathan. Originally, this
myth probably referred to the annual subjugation of the floods.
Legends and other tales
Legends in the
Hebrew Scriptures often embellish the accounts of national heroes with standard motifs drawn from popular lore. Thus, the Genesis story of
Joseph and Potiphar’s wife recurs substantially (but with other characters) in an Egyptian papyrus of the 13th century BCE. The account of the infant
Moses being placed in the bulrushes (in Exodus) has an earlier counterpart in a Babylonian tale about
Sargon, king of
Akkad (
c. 2334–
c. 2279 BCE), and is paralleled later in legends associated with the Persian Cyrus and with Tu-Küeh, the fabled founder of the Turkish nation.
Jephthah’s rash vow (in
Judges), whereby he is committed to
sacrifice his daughter, recalls the Classical
legend of
Idomeneus of Crete, who was similarly compelled to slay his own son. The motif of the letter whereby
David engineers the death in battle of
Bathsheba’s husband recurs in
Homer’s story of Bellerophon. The celebrated judgment of
Solomon concerning the child claimed by two contending women is told,
albeit with variations of detail, about
Buddha,
Confucius, and other sages; the story of how
Jonah was swallowed by a “great fish” but was subsequently disgorged intact finds a parallel in the Indian tale of the hero Shaktideva, who endured the same experience during his quest for the Golden City. On the other hand, it should be observed that many of the parallels commonly cited from the folklore of
indigenous peoples may be mere repetitions of biblical material picked up from Christian missionaries.
The Hebrew Bible also contains a few examples of
fables (didactic tales in which animals or plants play human roles). Thus, the serpent in
Eden talks to
Eve, and
Balaam’s *** not only speaks but also seeks to avoid an
angel, unseen by Balaam, that is blocking the road, while trees compete for kingship in the celebrated
parable of Jotham in Judges. Finally, in the
Book of Job (38:31) there are allusions to star myths concerning the binding of
Orion (called “the Fool”) and the “chaining” of the
Pleiades.
Dr. Joel Baden OT Historian, Harvard , Yale Divinity
23:11
"Why would anyone think the Bible stories are anything but fiction"
This kind of argument has been tried again and again and again. I’ve discussed every one. (See Okay, So What about the Historicity of Spartacus?) It’s always of this form: P1. We should not doubt [x] existed. P2. The evidence for Jesus is better than for [x]. P3. The same standards of evidence...
www.richardcarrier.info
All mainstream scholars agree Jesus
as demigod is a mythical savior deity. They all agree the Gospels are myths about him. They simply conclude that those myths contain some
kernels of fact, and that Jesus was
originally not a flying, magic-wielding supergod. But they agree the super-Jesus, the only Jesus about whom we have any accounts at all,
didn’t exist. They think some mundane Jesus did, who was dressed up with those legends and beliefs later. But that still admits he belongs to a reference class that the Hannibals of the world
do not: that of mythically-attested savior gods who speak to their followers in dreams and visions. So we actually need
more evidence for Jesus than we have for Hannibal, to be sure Jesus isn’t just like all
other mythical savior gods, who
also had amazing stories about them set on earth history, and who
also appeared to people in dreams and visions—yet never plausibly existed.
