I remember reading in a book somewhere that the old testament stole a lot of ideas from other religions, but I can't find any info on the net.

quote:Originally posted by Raw_Power:

I remember reading in a book somewhere that the old testament stole a lot of ideas from other religions, but I can't find any info on the net.

It didn't steal it from other religions really but rather the stories that appear in the old Testament also appear in similar form in the ancient Mythology of Mesopotamia/Babylon and other places including Egypt.

How popular was the old testament during its peak?

The Patriarchs were actually nomadic Assyrian Kings and Princes. Nimrod and Tower of Babel is actually Mesopotamia's tale of Gilgomesh. The Nephilim were half assed explanations for large Greek influenced statues they came upon before they were even aware of the Greeks. Kings and Judges were Babylonian.

I don't know specifics, but the documentary hypothesis postulates that the old testament came from the synthesis of four ancient middle eastern religious traditions.

The Genesis was a mixture of Middle Eastern myths, including The Patriarchs. The Exodus may be based on the Hyksos even though the Plauges of Egyypt is considered pseudoscience. The History of Joshua may be distorted since no destruction of Jericho happened during the assumed period o fthe Israelite invasion. And the histories, except the division of Israel into Israel and Judah, is considered accurate, even though biased to Judah. The rest of the book is considered historically reliable.

the flood came from the epic of Gilgamesh.

quote:Originally posted by hespeaks:

The Genesis was a mixture of Middle Eastern myths, including The Patriarchs. The Exodus may be based on the Hyksos even though the Plauges of Egyypt is considered pseudoscience. The History of Joshua may be distorted since no destruction of Jericho happened during the assumed period o fthe Israelite invasion. And the histories, except the division of Israel into Israel and Judah, is considered accurate, even though biased to Judah. The rest of the book is considered historically reliable.

I just wanted to add that quite a bit of it was borrowed from The Book Of The Dead.

Cheers,

Lost

Suddenly i remember why i don't post in this forum as much as i used to.