Not Influenced by Surrounding Nations

It's actually Genesis 3, but we'll let you off .Either way, I always read this story as being about sex. At the end of chapter 2, it's pointed out that Adam and Eve are unashamed of their nakedness. As soon as they eat of the tree, all this changes - 'the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.' God comes storming in and curses Eve and all her descendants with a future in which 'thy desire shall be to thy husband'. I had always interpreted this as the awakening of sexual desire. I looked through a few other translations to see if the King James interprets this passage different to most, but there doesn't seem to be much difference (except for the New Living translation, which changes it to a desire to control her husband).And I'm not the only one who interpreted it this way. In the epistles Paul informs us that there was no sex in Paradise - it was man's original sin that brought sex into the world (too lazy to search for passages right now, but I can do if you disagree). Genesis 3 is all about sex - I thought that was the standard interpretation even for Christians.Edited by caffeine, : spelling

Hi caffeine, Everyone is entitled to believe whatever their desires are. But that does not make something true.Since we are talking about the accuracy of the Bible I would like to point out a couple of things.Man was created in Genesis 2:7.God planted a garden and put the man in it in Genesis 2:8.Genesis 2:9 tells us the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in the midst of the garden.In Genesis 2:17 man was commanded not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.My question to you then is,What was the object the first man was commanded not to have sex with?There was no animals.There was no woman.There was only fruit trees.So no the other stories has nothing to do to influence what is actually written in the Bible.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Marduk is a proper noun, that means you capitalize the first letter. You seem to talking absolutes. I'm not sure how you think you can do that.I have never said the two are the same.I am showing that two neighbouring cultures have both used imagery of their deity engaged in physical combat with a sea monster. You said you couldn't see any link between the two. You clearly can and that is why you are trying to argue that the OT references are metaphorical. I was building a case, which means using lots of disparate pieces of supporting evidence. I am not trying to convince you that this means the Israelites were influenced by their neighbours, I suspect this is not possible. It could reference that, or it could be a reference to God dividing the waters in Genesis 1. I am not disputing that there are other alternative understandings of this scripture. Then again, with that interpretation the end of the verse,"[and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness."raise more questions.And there is also Isaiah 27.If we assume that these descriptions are supposed to be entirely unrelated to actual sea monsters, we still have to explain why the authors decided to use those particular metaphors. Could it be an attempt to demythologize that which was commonly believed by the Israelites?A case of "They believe that the chief god attacked a sea monster, that doesn't fit in with our view of Yahweh, so lets show that he did, but only a metaphorical sense."The same kind of process that religious people do today. "No no no! God didn't literally create the world and everything in it in six days", some people say, "that's just a story that has an important underlying meaning...that it is by God's divine will that everything exists". Scientific accuracy is irrelevant to this discussion, we're just establishing evidences of similarities and possible influences. So they both have the creator of the world also creating the moon and that both were sources of light. Do we agree that in both accounts man is made using Clay and some divine essence? So I wouldn't find that the verb 'know' is sometimes used as a sexual euphemism by the Israelite authors? I wouldn't find that snakes have been used as phallic or fertility symbols? I wouldn't find that eating has been used as a metaphor for sexual activity? Gilgamesh isn't in the flood story of the Epic of Gilgamesh, he's being told it by the 'Noah' character as a historical event. Objective point of view? Maybe you can't divorce yourself from your established personal interpretation of the text too easily? Have you attempted to take a step back from that interpretation and consider some other ideas? For instance: the concept that Genesis is completely free of the fantasy of other legends is one view. But from where I am standing, there is lots of the fantasy of other legends (and fables) going on in Genesis.So let's try and objectively look at these things, without assuming that the various books of the Bible are either true or false.Anyway, by an absolute divine decision that cannot be revoked, the earth and its inhabitants are destroyed by a flood. Also by divine decision, some inhabitants are chosen to survive by building a waterproof boat and putting lots of animals on it that eventually moors on a mountain, birds are sent out but cannot find land and a sacrifice is offered because it smells good to the divine. Nothing is necessarily the case in history, Peg, take off your absolutist hat for a while please. However, we aren't just talking about two different cultures coincidentally saying that a person should be punished like for like. They use the same examples! Not "An arm for an arm", not "injury for injury", but specifically:"If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out... If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken...If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out"Compared with"fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him."I fail to see how you could not conclude that there was some kind of outside influence to the Leviticus quote here. If a teacher asked her pupils to write a set of laws, and two pupils wrote that then the teacher would conclude:1) that the pupils colluded with one another
2) that the pupils both copied from a common sourceI know the Christian apologetics response: The common source was God, but the authors of the Code of Hammurabi corrupted it and the Bible authors were truer to the original meaning (and Jesus subsequently clarified it further). However, denying outright that this is evidence that the Israelites may have been influenced by their neighbours is just that: outright denial! Erm, yes. The evidence is very much against the idea that the Americans completely independently developed the idea of capital punishment and that they inherited from the Europeans that they once were. Though I'm not suggesting that it couldn't be independently invented, its an obvious punishment to think of. However, if the Americans had decided to stone someone to death for the crime of sacrificing their child to a god or for being a wizard or to set fire to witches, I'd conclude it was likely that this was influenced from other cultures (or common perceptions thereof). Assuming the conclusion isn't the most clear thinking in the world, is it? Anyway it seems you have conceded that the claim you made, "that the Hebrews were not influenced by the beliefs of the nations around them. ", is hyperbole even by the standards of the craziest Christian apologetics. If this reasoning was valid - Islam would clearly be the true religion, because the Qur'an says that the writings were not merely divinely inspired, but dictated directly from God!In fact, if I bring up the Book of Enoch you will say that its not in your Old Testament therefore it doesn't count. But what can you say if I argue that it was inspired by God? What would you say if I argued that the Babylonian writings were inspired by Marduk, and that the Israelites just copied from the true Holy Works? I think you'll find that this line of reasoning doesn't settle the debate. So neither of us should be using it. Then again, because a lot of the text defines itself by what it doesn't believe in and how it is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from those guys over there believe, one might conclude that in itself was evidence that they were in fact influenced by those guys over there.If they had defined themselves completely divorced from those things, there might be a better case to be made. If you are trying to be different from those guys over there, you are still being influenced by them. Once again, assuming that the Bible is a universal absolute book that is always in total agreement with itself won't get us anywhere. It is many books written by many people, some with differing views about Yahweh, el etc.You don't establish that Exodus doesn't weakly imply that there was an acceptance of the real existence of other deities by some of the Authors or editors of some parts of the OT by quoting 2nd Kings. We all know that there are other parts of the OT that are strongly monotheistic. This is not in debate. Ah. Well in German all Nouns begin with a capital Letter, so in the German Bible the Moon would be capitalised. Yes, and I'm not getting confused between Yahweh and other gods. It is quite clear. Yahweh is put in comparison to the other gods as being the greatest among them.

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I think we both agree that the Israelites were very definitely influenced by other powers. Indeed - much of their identity seems to be defined in the relationships to them. They often worshipped their gods, or went to battle because of them. So that's established.I still think that the fact that the human authors of the OT were surrounded by people who were influenced by their neighbours means that it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the OT authors were likewise influenced by their neighbours in their beliefs, practices and customs. It is clear that there are differences, just as every culture is unique, and that some of those differences are at times startling and interesting.I believe that there are a variety of clues that would indicate that the ideas of the OT authors was influenced by these sources.1. There are cultures that have the chief deity wrestling with a sea monster, splitting the waters in two, creating a firmament which holds back the waters.2. Other near eastern religions have a moment of divine will where the firmament is opened to cause a flood, though one man and his associates is chosen to be saved by building a boat that contains lots of animals, that the boat comes to rest on a mountain, that birds are used to scout for land and that a burnt sacrifice is offered at the conclusion because divinity likes the smell of burnt meat.3. Some of the laws are very closely worded to other near eastern laws.4. The creation of man is from clay and divine essence.There are others, detailed in Message 7 but I think these alone are strong enough to show the influences of other nations.Furthermore, being divinely inspired doesn't necessarily mean 'being completely divorced from the beliefs, ideas, customs and culture that one comes from'. Since there are no rules on being divinely inspired, it might be the case that being inspired means that your understanding of God, while a revelation, is still coloured by the biases and flaws inherent in the human condition.Even if we assume that nobody that was not divinely inspired didn't go back and tinker and get away with it.

yes sorry, chpt 3 it is.im always surprised when i hear that people interpret the account in a sexual way. I've studied the bible for the best part of 15yrs and can honestly say that i dont see any sex in it.the key to the issue lies in the serpents words to eve "Is it really so that God said you must not eat from the tree"the issue of right and wrong (good & bad) at that time was purely based on Adam & Eves continued obedience to Gods law. I say LAW and not LAWS because in the garden there was literally only 1 rule to obey...'Dont eat from the 1 tree because it belonged to God and if you do, you will die' ...Now the serpent (satan) challenged this law by inducing eve to take it. When she reply's to the serpents question she says "From all the trees of the garden we may eat but as for the tree of knowlege of good and bad God has said, you must not eat from it that you do not die"then the serpent says " You positively will NOT die...you will become like God"so he contradicted God by telling Eve that she would not die but her situation would improve because she would become LIKE GOD. So now she looked at the tree differently and thought there was something
good in it for her...she ate from it and later on she offered it to her husband.This action put them at odds with God because it was a rejection of his authority. From this point on they became independent from Gods standards and adopted their own way of thinking. Previously they were completely dependent on God for knowledge of what was good and bad, but afterward, they were dependent on their own knowledge of what was good and bad. This is why they saw their nakedness and proceeded to cover up.Where is the sex in that??? Paul clearly shows what brought about sin upon mankind when he says at Romans 5:19"For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners"the 'disobedience' was the Action of Adam turning aside from obeying his God. It had nothing to do with sex. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

as i said though, the account clearly shows that it is in reference to the physical nation of Egypt. So for the Hebrews, it wasnt a religious belief as such. Its got nothing to do with the account of creation which was a religious belief.Ezekiel 32:2'Son of man, lift up a dirge concerning Phar′aoh the king of Egypt, and you must say to him, ‘As a maned young lion of nations you have been silenced.
'And you have been like the marine monster in the seas, and you kept gushing in your rivers and kept muddying the waters with your feet and fouling their rivers.'the above scripture shows again that Pharaoh has been described as such a beast...its a simile...its not a religious teaching about God literally battling with sea monsters.The book of Daniel also describes the various nations as wild beasts because of the way they behave and cause destruction to each other.
After describing such beasts he goes on to explain that "These huge beasts ... are four kings that will stand up from the earth." Daniel 7:17 We could put any sort of meaning to it we choose, but the bible presents its own meaning and I would prefer to accept the bibles own interpretation rather then anything we might fancy up ourselves.the bible is open to interpretation, but that doesnt mean that the interpretation is going to be accurate. Perhaps the bible is NOT open to interpretation but rather it interprets itself...this is how we allow God to speak, its his word and the interpretation should belong to him alone. by this reasoning, we can say that Christians and Muslims are influenced by each other because both believe in a God.Christianity is influenced by the Occult because both worship A diety.All religons are one in the same because all worship a god of one sort or another. So that would make Gilgamesh one of the Nephilim and one of Noahs grandsons...yet the bible account says that all the Nephilim died in the flood waters.Do you see how they are absolutely unrelated. have you taken a step back and asked yourself if perhaps the other legends have been influenced by the Genesis account.If After the flood, the family of Noah spread out in the earth, then the grandchildren of Noah would have known of the story and perhaps as they went their separate ways, the stories developed from what they knew of the actual event... over time the various interpretations get distorted until there are hundreds of conflicting stories.Moses comes along much later and at Gods direction writes an accurate account of what really happened. Tell me if the American govt is influenced by the Iranian government. Both use capital punishment...did america think this up by itself or were they influenced to practice it?You see what i'm trying to get at is that justice is universal. The americans did not have to be influenced by any other nation to determine that for some crimes capital punishment should be administered.One similarity in a law does not mean that the law maker was influenced by another. If we look at the law as a whole, we'd probably find many instances where it is quite different. This thread was about their religious teachings and practices...the debate about which religion is the true religion is not applicable here. Every religion says its the true religion.The hebrews had a religion that was quite different to all others around them, that fact is established. You will need to provide evidence for this statement. The Hebrews were wholly monotheistic, they worshiped 1 God only. It was against their religion to be invovled in the religious practices of the nations around them and when some did get involved they were cut off from the congregation.So if you are unable to show how the writers of the bible promoted polytheism, then your statement is inaccurate and very misleading. No, i dont agree lol.We are not talking about individuals here, we are talking about the 'Teachings' the 'Old Testament Writings' of the Jews. Not some individuals who did involve themselves in the practices of the nations around them.The question you need to focus on is Did the Writers of the OT promote the worship of false gods? Did the Writers promote the mixing of company with the nations around them? Did the Writers ever admit that the false gods of the nations were on equal par with their God?the answer to all these are NO, No and no.They never did because they were NOT influenced by them. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

I'm not talking about Ezekiel, that is clearly a simile. I was talking about the Psalm 74. There are certain things which are indisputable, but I don't think that we can say that any text can 'present its own meaning'. That simply doesn't make sense. Well, we can say that Muslims were influenced by the Christians and the Jews because they both believe in the God of Abraham and that Jesus was a real person who had important things to say about God.I'm not sure what the Occult is, so I can't say if Christianity was influenced by it. It is certainly derived from the real meaning of 'cult' which is to say 'religious practices' or 'attending to the gods'.I have no idea why we would conclude that all religions are one and the same. That is nothing to do with my argument at all.

The Israelites had many unique and startling and interesting features. They were not exactly the same, nor did they believe in exactly the same things as their neighbours

I've said it in just about every post, but I'm not sure it sank in. No you are just talking nonsense. You've already agreed that they are related, now you are saying they aren't? (and later you will present an argument that assumes that they are, so surely you must think they might be related?)How on earth is Gilgamesh one of the Nephilim? He has nothing to do with Noah. He goes to visit some person who he is not related to in any non-trivial fashion whose name was Utanapishtim. He does this because Utanapishtim was born mortal but became immortal and Gilgamesh, having lost his good friend Enkidu, wants to gain immortality.Utanapishtim tells him how he became immortal, and in so doing he tells Gilgamesh the story of the flood. How do you go from a guy called Utanapishtim who is analogous to Noah telling a story very much like Noah's to some other guy to the...peculiar conclusion that Gilgamesh is a Nephilim and one of Noah's grandsons?That's like me telling you the plot to the modern Battlestar Gallactica and how it is clealy influenced from Moses' story of his travelling out of Egypt to the promised land and then you concluding that must mean that Admiral Adama is Moses' grandson.No no, I get it, this kind of error can only come from someone who is unable to detach themselves from their committed opinion that what's in the Bible is as factual as the Presidency of George Bush. If you aren't capable of simply looking at the text as you would any other writing for even one thread, then we aren't going to be having a dialogue at all and there's no point continuing. Yes, and I'm sure they have. Yes, we've covered this. Alternatively, since the other flood accounts were written earlier, what happened is that Utanapishtim (or Zisundra) and his family spread out, the tale developed and took on a life of its own and then Gilgamesh met Utanapishtim heard the tale first hand, and had it inscribed (either by his own hand or through a scribe) and that Genesis account, being written down much later is in fact a corrupted copy of a much earlier story which being recorded by interviewing an eyewitness makes it more reliable.Or, the Zisundra story is a massively exaggerated story possibly based on a Near East flood that happened and how somebody survived it and it got blown out of all proportion first by the Sumerians, then the Babylonians and finally the Israelites.Either way, it doesn't change the fact that it is evidence that the Israelites were influenced by their neighbours. Neither thought it up themselves. Did you even read what I wrote about this? Fuck it, I'll repeat the whole thing and you can read it again. I'll bold the important bits.

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Nothing is necessarily the case in history, Peg, take off your absolutist hat for a while please. However, we aren't just talking about two different cultures coincidentally saying that a person should be punished like for like. They use the same examples! Not "An arm for an arm", not "injury for injury", but specifically:

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"If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out... If he break another man's bone, his bone shall be broken...If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out"

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Compared with

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"fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he has injured someone, so shall it be done to him."

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I fail to see how you could not conclude that there was some kind of outside influence to the Leviticus quote here. If a teacher asked her pupils to write a set of laws, and two pupils wrote that then the teacher would conclude:

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1) that the pupils colluded with one another
2) that the pupils both copied from a common source

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I know the Christian apologetics response: The common source was God, but the authors of the Code of Hammurabi corrupted it and the Bible authors were truer to the original meaning (and Jesus subsequently clarified it further). However, denying outright that this is evidence that the Israelites may have been influenced by their neighbours is just that: outright denial!
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The evidence is very much against the idea that the Americans completely independently developed the idea of capital punishment and that they inherited from the Europeans that they once were. Though I'm not suggesting that it couldn't be independently invented, its an obvious punishment to think of. However, if the Americans had decided to stone someone to death for the crime of sacrificing their child to a god or for being a wizard or to set fire to witches, I'd conclude it was likely that this was influenced from other cultures (or common perceptions thereof).

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That was exactly my point. So stop assuming that the Bible is the inspired word of God and all the other Christian baggage you brought into this debate, OK? That fact was never under dispute. You made a claim that "the Hebrews were not influenced by the beliefs of the nations around them", you have since retreated to "The authors of the OT were not influenced by their neighbours" and you have even jumped all the way to the retreated position of "The religion had differences". Look down, your Christian baggage is showing again. I already posted the Exodus quotes in Message 21, have you forget what happened a dozen posts ago?I have already demonstrated, and you have agreed, that the bible agrees that many Israelites worshipped other deities, even if we concede that every single verse in the OT forbids it, so your claim that, "The Hebrews were wholly monotheistic, they worshiped 1 God only" is falsified even if we only look to the Biblical text.Finally, the baggage. You claimed that " if you are unable to show how the writers of the bible promoted polytheism, then your statement is inaccurate and very misleading. ", which would imply that that I claimed that bible promoted polytheism. In the section you quoted, I didn't even claim that the OT accepts other deities. I said "You don't establish that Exodus doesn't weakly imply that there was an acceptance of the real existence of other deities by some of the Authors or editors of some parts of the OT by quoting 2nd Kings."How is this statement "very misleading"? and what has it got to do with saying that the OT promotes polytheism? I suspect you need to turn down the sensitivity on your righteous indignation device there. I wouldn't laugh if I were you.

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If they practised these things they almost certainly believed them to be true. If they believed them to be true, they were almost certainly part of their religion. There might have been some kind of Priestly tribe, some kind of Aaronite grouping, that tried to impose one religion above all others - but that doesn't mean that the Israelites didn't have Asherah as part of their religion. Where did they get that idea?

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Yes they did get those ideas from the surrounding nations

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So which is it. Did they or didn't they? I'm getting confused. A lot of what we are talking about predates 'jews', but either way we are talking about a group of people called the Israelites, sometimes called the Hebrews (especially by Christians, presumably because of the NT book of the same name) who believed they descended from the twelve sons of a guy called Israel.We are talking about the religious beliefs they practised, and the religious ideas that the OT writers were trying to impose upon them, and how the OT writers were influenced by the myths, legends and the like that the laiety believed in even if they themselves rarely if ever believed in it. We are talking about the evidences that we can find that might indicate that some of the less monotheistic beliefs of Israelites, and the authors of the OT were also Israelites of course, may be fossilized in the text still. It might not be obvious, but there might be a clue here and there. Together, a collection of clues might mean we think, hey - there is some evidence that even the Authors of the canon books of the Old Testament were influenced by the beliefs, practices, customs and laws of the surrounding nations. Why? It's not the topic. I have not read a single religious text that promotes the worship of false gods (except maybe Discorianism and maybe some of the difficult to understand Far Eastern ideas). So the answer to the question is an obvious, trivial, no they didn't. Tricky to answer. In some cases: yes (Lev 19:34, the Book of Ruth) in some cases: no.(I'm sure you know some examples tere) For reasons highlighted above, obviously not.However, some of the Authors (why are we capitalising that anyway?) did write about Yahweh being greater than other gods.

Oh really! With what hieroglyphics? There was no written Hebrew alphabet at the time of Moses. If you are referring to the Pentateuch, (Genesis, Exodus, Levitcus, Numbers & Deuteronomy for those who don't know what thew Pentateuch is). Moses did not write it, it was written over the course of several hundred years by a number of different authors, which is why there are contradictions,and different styles of writing.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Im sorry but Psalm 74 is also referring to Egypt as being a sea monster.
Ps 74:13'You yourself stirred up the sea with your own strength; You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters.'We can let the bible interpret the meaning of this verse by taking other verses into consideration before drawing a conclusion. As i said, the bible is a Whole and it must be taken as a whole.

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Exodus '21Moses now stretched his hand out over the sea; ...converting the sea basin into dry ground, and the waters were being split apart'

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Nehmiah 9:11'And the sea you split before them, so that they crossed over through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their pursuers you hurled into the depths like a stone in the strong waters'

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Psalm 78:13'He split the sea, that he might let them pass over,
And he caused the waters to stand like a dam'

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Exodus 14:28'And the waters kept coming back. Finally they covered the war chariots and the cavalrymen belonging to all of Phar′aoh’s military forces and who had gone into the sea after them'

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Isaiah 51:9-10 ' Are you [God] not the one that broke Ra′hab to pieces, that pierced the sea monster? 10Are you not the one that dried up the sea, the waters of the vast deep? The one that made the depths of the sea a way for the repurchased ones to go across?

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Ezekiel 29:3 '...Here I am against you, O Phar′aoh, king of Egypt, the great sea monster lying stretched out in the midst of his Nile canals...'

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Ezekiel 32:2'Son of man, lift up a dirge concerning Phar′aoh the king of Egypt, and you must say to him, ‘As a maned young lion of nations you have been silenced. And you have been like the marine monster in the seas'

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it does make a lot of sense. You may have noticed how the verses from each of those scriptures are talking about the same thing...when you read the context of the verses and you put them together you get a complete picture. When you take the bible as a whole, that means take into consideration ALL the bible books, then they are able to work together to draw the conclusion for you.In this case, the sea and the sea monster is clearly a reference to Moses crossing the Red Sea and their fleeing from the Egyptians. its one thing to say hebrews had similarities to their neighbours, its quite another to say their religion was influenced by them.To be influenced by them they would have adopted their beliefs...this is not the case. The religious teachings and beliefs of the OT are in stark contrast to the other nations.If however you are saying that the hebrews themselves (Aside from their religion & beleifs and teachings) was influenced to follow the nations around them, then sure, many of them were and did. And as i said, the OT has plenty of examples were this was the case.But those who WROTE the OT, were not influenced by them. The OT does not contain promotion or teaching of pagan religious practices and right at the outset i thought i had made clear that were were talking about the OT as being the evidence for this thread. Gilgamesh was a Demi God. The account specifies this. If Gilgamesh was a demigod, it means he was part god. The only ones in the genesis account who were 'part-god' were the Nephilim. They were the offspring of the Angels who had relationships with women. Now if the account of Gilgamesh is true, then he being a demi god implies that he must have been one of the nephilim becasue After the flood, all the Nephalim had perished.This makes the Gilgamesh account completely different to the genesis account which specifically says that all demi-gods (Nephilim) perished in the flood waters.Therefore the genesis account cannot possibly be related to the gilgamesh account. i've studied it long enough to be convinced that the bible really is an inspired book. To assume it is not before giving it a chance sounds defeatist to me, but each to their own. Exodus does mention 'other gods' but it does not equate to polytheism.
If you take the bible as a whole and look at other writers and see what they wrote about these things, you will notice that the belief/teaching in the OT is that the nations gods are 'valueless' 'fake' 'man made' 'not real'this means they did not view those nations gods are 'Alive'
to the writers of the OT, they were nothing more then man made idolsTell me how this equates to a polytheistic religion?

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Isiah 44:15 'And it has become [something] for man to keep a fire burning. So he takes part of it that he may warm himself...He also works on a god to which he may bow down. He has made it into a carved image, and he prostrates himself to it... He prostrates himself to it and bows down and prays to it and says: "Deliver me, for you are my god".

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Jerimiah 10:14 'Every man has behaved so unreasoningly as not to know. Every metalworker will certainly feel shame because of the carved image; for his molten image is a falsehood, and there is no spirit in them. 15 They are vanity, a work of mockery.'

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Habakkuk 2:18 'Of what benefit has a carved image been, when the former of it has carved it, a molten statue, and an instructor in falsehood? when the former of its form has trusted in it, to the extent of making valueless gods that are speechless?'

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Psalm 115:4 Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of the hands of earthling man.
5 A mouth they have, but they cannot speak;
Eyes they have, but they cannot see;
6 Ears they have, but they cannot hear.
A nose they have, but they cannot smell.
7 Hands are theirs, but they cannot feel.
Feet are theirs, but they cannot walk;
They utter no sound with their throat.
8 Those making them will become just like them,
All those who are trusting in them.

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Asherah was never a part of the OT religion. When they stopped their worship of Yahweh then they got involved in pagan worship.But the writings in the OT never changed. If the writers were influenced in the same way as some of the people were, then we would have an OT that promoted polytheism... but we dont. The OT has not changed in thousands of years and this is evidence in itself that the religion of the Hebrews did not fall under the influence of the pagan nations.

Agreed. Yes, yes, I know. That is why I said "this kind of error can only come from someone who is unable to detach themselves from their committed opinion that what's in the Bible is as factual as the Presidency of George Bush. If you aren't capable of simply looking at the text as you would any other writing for even one thread, then we aren't going to be having a dialogue at all and there's no point continuing.".Your argument only works IF AND ONLY IF both the story of Utanapishtim and the story of Noah are true. All you have basically argued here is the rather obvious: If one story is completely true, then the other story is not completely true. It doesn't make it completely different. It is a singular difference. I have outlined an array of things that they share in common, where they are very similar. If you still believe this, tell me and I'll stop bothering to debate you. You are having clear problems discussing this topic. You apparently can't ever turn off 'Genesis is true' mode which is critically hampering our ability to compare it with other texts to see if there is any evidence that it was influenced from other sources. Several of our other communication difficulties stem from this kind of thinking, and it is just leading to a pointless dialogue.If this is the case I will collate the evidence so far, present a few more pieces and virtually 'walk away'.

Hi Mod, What is the Gilgamesh problem?As I understand it the people that followed Gilgamesh around 2300 BC would have been descendants of Noah and his sons. Which would have been followers of Nimrod in the building of the tower of Babel.If this is the case and the story of Noah was true they would have a flood story similar to the one told by God's chosen people.They would probably have a lot of things in common but still a lot of different beliefs.Just curious to the thinking here.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

That's absolutely right.On the other hand, if the story of Utanapishtim is true, then Moses was a descendant of Utanapishtim's and so on and so forth, or if the story of Zisundra is true, then Moses was a descendant of Zisundra etc etc The Gilgamesh problem is a problem Peg and I are having with discussing the Epic of Gilgamesh. When considering the Epic of Gilgamesh, Peg is trying to fit it into the context of the Genesis flood account also being true and is coming to crazy conclusions like Gilgamesh being a Nephilim, which leads to, "Therefore the genesis account cannot possibly be related to the gilgamesh account." While also saying that the flood accounts in the Epic of Gilgamesh may be corrupted versions of One True Flood Account^TMIf the flood account of another region was true, then the author(s) of Genesis might have heard a corrupted version (or they may have modified an earlier version) and so we would expect them to have a lot of things in common but with differences.Peg is swinging between saying that the account in the Epic of Gilgamesh might be a corrupted version of Noah's tale, to saying that that the account in the Epic of Gilgamesh is completely different and "cannot possibly be related".Have you read the flood account in the Epic of Gilgamesh? You can read it here. Do you agree that while they are obviously different, there are some startling similarities that needs an explanation?It is difficult to peg Peg down and it is making it impossible to have a coherent conversation. Trying to do it long posts has proven difficult, so I thought I'd get it cleared up in a single post dedicated to the Epic of Gilgamesh. If we can't get such a clear and simple issue straightened out, then more complex discussion is going to be hopeless, yes?

Hi Mod, If you have to get the issue of Gilgamesh straightened out you may be fighting a losing battle. It has been going on a long time.It has been a long time but if my memory does not fail me the Tablet XI is or was in the posession of one of your countryman.It came from the library of one of the Assyrian king's. It was written in the 7th centry BC.My biggest problem with the story is the english words used to describe some of the things of that day as they did not exist until after the 5th century AD.But I also have problems with some of the words the Bible translaters chose to use also.One of those words appear in the following verse, (book) when it simply means writings. Moses had to finish his writings that God had told him to write. These writings were to be kept in the side of the ark of the covenant.This was somewhere around 1475 BC.That is the reason I have never paid any attention to the Epic of Gilgamesh. And the reason I was looking for information.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

I'm not trying to get that settled - that fits into "more complex discussion".All I am trying to settle is that if the similarities highlighted are really there then the two accounts are not 'completely different' and that the similarities would require an explanation. Coincidence wouldn't suffice.Who influenced who, what do scholars say about the relative dates of the documents and stories, what are the best translations and so on are issues way down the road. If Peg and I can't get over the simple beginning hurdle, we aren't going to get anywhere near to being able to discuss those kinds of issues sensibly.And that's the problem

My dilema is that i dont believe it can be claimed with any degree of certainty that the bible writer took the legend of the flood from existing accounts

Hi Peg.
You aren't reading what I am saying. Why am I writing this? To explain to any other people that are reading why I'm stepping out.Firstly, I have said it so often that I am bored of repeating it, I am not claiming any certainty (though you periodically are). I have said the exact opposite over and over again.Second, you have not highlighted a dilemma above. The dilemma is that you are perfectly capable of grasping the possibility that that tale of Utanapishtim was influenced by the real tale of Noah. You are completely incapable of conceding the possibility that the tale of Noah was influenced by the real tale of Utanapishtim. You are also having difficulty conceding that both tales may be influenced by another tale, and that none of the tales may be true.You realize that this is inconsistent reasoning, but you also think that by accepting Noah's story may have been taken from Utanapishtim's will lead to a slippery slope of the Bible is lies therefore atheism. And that's why you are in a dilemma, I'd wager.Take Care,
Mod