Nonsense. Read Hebrews 11.
That isn't even a response? Read Hebrews? I'm familiar with Hebrews, how does this relate in any way to the places the the writers took the mythology from? Hebrews 11 is a bunch of nonsense about faith? The resurrection thing was first encountered during the 2nd Temple Period 5-300BC while the Persians occupied Israel. The Persians already had all of the myths found in Christianity in their religion:
There exist many similarities between Zoroastrianism and
Abrahamic religions as pointed about already by
The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906).
[94] While some scholars consider that key concepts of Zoroastrian dualism (good and evil; divine twins Ahura Mazda "God" and Angra Mainyu "Satan"), image of the deity,
eschatology,
resurrection and
final judgment,
messianism,
revelation of Zoroaster on a mountain with
Moses on
Mount Sinai, three sons of
Fereydun with three
sons of Noah,
heaven and
hell, angelology and demonology, cosmology of six days or periods of creation,
free will among others influenced Abrahamic religions,..
As to Hellenism, it's known in history that from 300-100BC Hellenism spread through and influenced most religions in the Mediterranean area. Judaism was one (they lived with them for over a century!)
Some of the changes taken by Judaism and other religions were:
-the seasonal drama was homologized to a
soteriology (salvation concept) concerning the destiny, fortune, and salvation of the individual after death.
-his led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual
salvation, from focus on a particular
ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or
saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure.
-his process was carried further through the identification of the experiences of the soul that was to be saved with the
vicissitudes of a divine but fallen soul, which had to be redeemed by cultic activity and divine intervention. This view is illustrated in the concept of the paradoxical figure of the saved saviour,
salvator salvandus.
-Other deities, who had previously been associated with national destiny (
e.g., Zeus, Yahweh, and Isis), were raised to the status of
transcendent, supreme
-The temples and cult institutions of the various Hellenistic religions were repositories of the knowledge and techniques necessary for
salvation and were the agents of the public worship of a particular deity. In addition, they served an important sociological role. In the new,
cosmopolitan ideology that followed Alexander’s conquests, the old nationalistic and ethnic boundaries had broken down and the problem of religious and social identity had become
acute.
-Most of these groups had regular meetings for a communal meal that served the dual role of
sacramental participation (referring to the use of material elements believed to convey spiritual benefits among the members and with their deity)
-Hellenistic philosophy (Stoicism,
Cynicism, Neo-Aristotelianism, Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Neoplatonism) provided key formulations for
Jewish,
Christian, and
Muslim philosophy,
theology, and
mysticism through the 18th century
- The basic forms of worship of both the Jewish and Christian
communities were heavily influenced in their formative period by Hellenistic practices, and this remains fundamentally unchanged to the present time. Finally, the central religious literature of both traditions—the Jewish
Talmud (an
authoritative compendium of law, lore, and interpretation), the
New Testament, and the later
patristic literature of the early Church Fathers—are characteristic Hellenistic documents both in form and content.
-Other traditions even more radically reinterpreted the ancient figures. The cosmic or seasonal drama was interiorized to refer to the divine
soul within man that must be liberated.
-Each persisted in its native land with little perceptible change save for its becoming linked to
nationalistic or
messianic movements (centring on a deliverer figure)
-and
apocalyptic traditions (referring to a belief in the dramatic intervention of a god in human and natural events)
- Particularly noticeable was the success of a variety of prophets, magicians, and healers—
e.g., John the Baptist, Jesus,
Simon Magus,
Apollonius of Tyana,
Alexander the Paphlagonian, and the cult of the healer Asclepius—whose preaching corresponded to the activities of various Greek and
Roman philosophic missionaries
Hellenistic religion - Beliefs, practices, and institutions
Notice how important salvation, a savior figure and redeemed souls is in these concepts, this was a major part of Hellenistic religion.
The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great
Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the
Hellenic Period of the region.
The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on
Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.
Also heaven is another Greek myth adopted by the Hebrews:
]only in
Hellenistic times (after c. 330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the
Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an
afterlife in heaven. -
Sang Meyng Lee, Born 1963; 2005-2008 Adjunct Professor at San Francisco Theological Seminary,
"
Second Temple Judaism[edit]
During the period of the
Second Temple (c. 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian
Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the
Diadochi, and finally the
Roman Empire.
[47] Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them.
[47] Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians,
Greeks, and Romans.
[48][49] The idea of the
immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy[49] and the idea of the
resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology.
[49] By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers.
[49] The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians,
Greeks, and Romans the idea that
the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there.
[47] The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC).[40] Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.[40]" (Sanders/Wright)
