The Biblical Writers Have Robbed From More Ancient Stories- Or Have They?

[Starise]

On 12/8/2020 at 3:34 PM, Justin Adams said:

He is a fake. See Dr Heiser's site "Sitchin is wrong". http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/

Which is why I said this-

On 12/8/2020 at 1:43 PM, Starise said:

I don't consider either of these serious historical authors. They have however, pointed out some anomalies of history that can't be ignored. Many of Sitchin's conclusions are disputed by other experts in Sumerian tablets. In other words there is strong reason to believe Sitchin didn't get it entirely right either with respect to his conclusions or with respect to his interpreting some of the tablet meanings as found.

I  think there is some value in looking at his work if we know what we're looking for. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water.JMO.

22 hours ago, kingdombrat said:

We know from the Epistle of Peter those Fallen Angels from Genesis 6 are locked away in chains and complete darkness until Final Judgement.   But, that does not mean after Noah's remnants began to repopulate the Earth [Like Abraham's family] were PAGAN, that other Fallen Angels still roaming Earth did not go to human women and procreated again.   There is a [firm belief] that Goliath was a Nephilim and why I mentioned it.

Exactly.

22 hours ago, kingdombrat said:

The only way this would happen could be Noah's offspring committing incest. 

This seems the most logical answer, but I'm open to other explanations. Goliath was a Nephilim IMHO.

This is drifting from the OP. That's ok maybe we can get back around to it. Not addressing you specifically here.

These ideas have some commonality. The strategic plan of Lucifer and his army is to hinder God's plan in any way they can.

One way to do that is to make it look like those "dumb Christians" copied stories from other cultures. Another way they do it is to make it seem a story was completely made up, i.e. God taking the captive Israelite slaves out of Egypt after 400 years in bondage. 

Only now has more evidence recently been found to confirm this, yet the archeologist who is in charge of the projects say the Jewish artifacts aren't a confirmation. We know it happened.

The other way Lucifer has been attempting to muck things up is by polluting the human gene pool. He did it first in order to try and stop Jesus birth. Even until the very end when Herod ordered all of those babies to be killed. I personally think he has been messing around with human DNA ever since. I'm not so sure it was all just an attraction to human women. Over the years I think "they" have gotten better at it to the point that a human can be easier to manipulate without giantism. The royal bloodlines are steeped in evil with secret organizations for generations. Some vessels have been made to be easier to inhabit if you catch my drift. This is only an opinion. 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by Starise

[Michael37]

22 hours ago, kingdombrat said:

We know from the Epistle of Peter those Fallen Angels from Genesis 6 are locked away in chains and complete darkness until Final Judgement.   But, that does not mean after Noah's remnants began to repopulate the Earth [Like Abraham's family] were PAGAN, that other Fallen Angels still roaming Earth did not go to human women and procreated again.   There is a [firm belief] that Goliath was a Nephilim and why I mentioned it.

 

Also:

There are still mentions of sons of God and sons of man after the "Flood."

The only way this would happen could be Noah's offspring committing incest.   There is a thought I copied and will paste that explains this.

 

If the sons of God were human males, this interpretation would imply that God had commanded the sons of Shem and/or Japheth not to have sexual relations with the daughters of Ham and/or Canaan. The violation of this command evidently would have produced a second generation of Nephilim.

The alternative view is that Nephilim means giant capable of felling or casting down those of lesser strength and stature, and that "sons of God" refers to the previously godly line of Seth, which became corrupted by choosing wives from the godless line of Cain.

See Scofield Reference Notes & Strong's Concordance.:

Quote: The uniform Hebrew and Christian interpretation has been that verse (Gen_6:2) marks the breaking down of the separation between the godly line of Seth and the godless line of Cain, and so the failure of the testimony to Jehovah committed to the line of Seth (Gen_4:26).

Gen 4:26  And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

Strongs H5303
נְפִל    נְפִיל
nephı̂yl    nephil
nef-eel', nef-eel'
From H5307; properly, a feller, that is, a bully or tyrant: - giant.
Total KJV occurrences: 3

[Justin Adams]

Scofield is absolutely wrong. The 'sons of God' in Psalm 82 are exactly that. Holy ones that failed in their Deut 32 mandate to look after the nations.

The 'sons of Seth' idea was just another red herring that Augustine favored. He was a Latinist and really only understood Latin well.

There is so much disinformation about the whole thing. It is a travesty and flies in the face of God's Divine Council Worldview.

Darby and Scofield both erroneously put out a great deal of anti-God information.

The fallen holy ones like this disinformation drive as it takes the believer's eyes off the real truth. The apostle calls them 'archons', which they are and will be replaced by believers in the eschaton.

[Starise]

7 hours ago, Justin Adams said:

Darby and Scofield both erroneously put out a great deal of anti-God information.

And I think this is key here. It was what they truly believed. Doesn't make it true.

 

[Paul James]

On 12/8/2020 at 9:18 AM, teddyv said:

I'd agree with Justin on his points there.

I see the Creation story mainly as a redemption of the pagan/polytheistic stories of the surrounding nations of Israel, as well as the elevation of humans to be image bearers of God, rather than an apparently unintended consequence of the actions of the gods and unimportant. The language and imagery are consistent with other ANE stories.

Israel was needing an identity as it moved out from 400 years of cultural submersion in Egypt.

Moses fellowshipped with God as a man with his friend.  He talked with God and God talked with him.  God told him to write down what He was to say to him (Exodus 17:4; 34:27).  Therefore, the first five books of the Bible were dictated by God to Moses as a permanent memorial for the Israelites to show their origins and to know that God is in total control of the universe and everything in it.

[JohnD]

On 12/7/2020 at 10:32 AM, Starise said:

I wanted to kick this around in the Biblical Defense thread because of late, this has been something I'm reading more and more about.

Most skeptics of the Bible are constantly saying the old Bible stories have been borrowed from Older Sumerian writings.

Take the flood for instance. It is a fact most cultures speak of some kind of a huge flood. This argument is used to water down the reality of the Biblical flood and the reasons for it. 

While I don't doubt the undisputed presence of these stories, I don't think Biblical writers mined them. To me this is the lowest form of attack. To imply this happened seriously discredits the scriptures to those who were already looking for ammunition to attack the word of God, and confuse others who are looking for real answers.

It isn't only the flood examples that are used, but I'll start there. If you have other references to this please speak up. 

According to some gnostics and many others most , if not all of the Bible was mined from other sources.

My first question to them would be, why would any thinking scholar do such a thing?  Jewish history isn't so bland as to feel the need to omit or add to their God inspired writings. Imagine the any other culture, let's take the Greeks for now. So here they are all meeting and trying to decide on writing about their history and one of them says, " Hey we don't have anything interesting  from 1000 BC until 500BC. How's about we borrow from  those old Sumerian texts we have, I mean, No one's going to know".  I don't see any people or culture repeatedly robbing stories that sound nice for a book about their culture.

So why are the Biblical writers  being accused of such? Especially since this word is claimed to be inspired by God Himself.

 

The Gilgamesh epic? ← I'm a bit rusty...

If memory serves things like this ancient writing rather affirms (as extra biblical accounts) that what the Bible says happened actually took place. The extra biblical accounts have pagan additions or limited human understanding at the time included in these accounts. But they essentially confirm God's eyewitness account as dictated to the prophets (2 Peter 1:21).

Skeptics of all kinds try to debunk God's account (the Bible) by the fact that it came at a later date... but recall the very purpose for the Bible is to reconcile mankind (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) to an eternal God who predates all things (Isaiah 46:10). 

[Justin Adams]

On 12/10/2020 at 1:15 AM, Michael37 said:

The alternative view is that Nephilim means giant capable of felling or casting down those of lesser strength and stature, and that "sons of God" refers to the previously godly line of Seth, which became corrupted by choosing wives from the godless line of Cain.

Psalm 89. God's council in the sky. The Augustinian sethite idea never held water and is sexist to boot. Saying the ladies were 'godless'. Nothing in scripture upholds this dumb theory.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Justin Adams

[Justin Adams]

14 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Skeptics of all kinds try to debunk God's account

It is perfectly coherent to understand that the Hebrew writers were often engaging in polemics against pagan stuff. They extolled YHWH over the Baals, and societies that were littered with pagan deities. YHWH is far higher than those silly pantheons - pantheons that began in Deut 32 when God scattered the nations at Babel  and put lesser 'holy ones' in charge of them. Psalm 82 tells us what God thought of them. And the 'sons of God' are his retinue of spiritual council member that are supposed to carry out His wishes.

The Scofield and Darby disasters did much harm to our Believing brothers and sisters.

[Justin Adams]

Scofield's 'adjusted' bible was given freely to hundreds of seminars. Is it any wonder then that all the pre-trib stuff is preached?

It is our house that should be cleaned out first, but detractors will always seem to get us to focus on minutiae rather than the real culprits. Sometimes that is us!!

Edited March 1, 2021 by Justin Adams

[Starise]

45 minutes ago, JohnD said:

The Gilgamesh epic? ← I'm a bit rusty...

If memory serves things like this ancient writing rather affirms (as extra biblical accounts) that what the Bible says happened actually took place. The extra biblical accounts have pagan additions or limited human understanding at the time included in these accounts. But they essentially confirm God's eyewitness account as dictated to the prophets (2 Peter 1:21).

Skeptics of all kinds try to debunk God's account (the Bible) by the fact that it came at a later date... but recall the very purpose for the Bible is to reconcile mankind (2 Corinthians 5:18-20) to an eternal God who predates all things (Isaiah 46:10). 

 

The epic of Gilgamesh some might argue is a corresponding story to Goliath. Personally I don't see strong connections there. Study of giants in antiquity shows we had many giants and even entire tribes of giants. The epic of Gilgamesh Is I believe, NOT a fable or a made up story. This was a giant that could pick up lions by the tail like small cats. I would hope most Christians understand ( or should) the seriousness of extra-biblical writings. At least some of the quandry is also which books were seen as solid canon and which were not, because obviously if the books aren't canon they are "extra-biblical" books. As @Justin Adams points out, the story goes so much deeper than God telling the Israelites to wipe out their surrounding neighbors and eliminate entire tribes of people. Atheists would be quick to jump on this to say God was cruel,  we need to dig to see the rest of the story I think, especially the long term spiritual implications of it. 

I always defer to what is considered solid canon and then use extra Biblical texts to sometimes help better understand it. Never allowing an extra biblical text to change a meaning in canon, only expand on one.

I am studying Ugaritic texts, named after texts recovered from ancient Ugarit.. Here's an example of a view held on these texts-

The tablets have been used by scholars of the Hebrew Bible to clarify Biblical Hebrew texts and have revealed ways in which the cultures of ancient Israel and Judah found parallels in the neighboring cultures.^[7] The tablets reveal parallels with Israelite practices described in the Bible; for example, Levirate marriage, giving the eldest son a larger share of the inheritance, and redemption of the first-born son were practices common to the people of Ugarit as well.^[8]

Unique among the Ugarit texts are the earliest known abecedaries, lists of letters in alphabetic cuneiform, where not only the canonical order of Hebrew-Phoenician script is evidenced, but also the traditional names for letters of the alphabet.^[1]

To know the texts better we need to know a little about Ugarit. It was a polytheistic pagan city. The sad thing about the similarity to Hebrew texts is  the Hebrews, were in fact, many times through the Bible, actively engaging in worship of these heathen gods. Not only are there similarities in the texts themselves but also similarities in how they did things. We can still use the texts for some literary explanations and to maybe see how the cultures cross pollinated. 

For me, the most important ideas to consider when refuting any attempts by scholars and others to say Bible stories were copied, would be to make these sorts of comparisons. When we see the profound differences between the stories. They could still argue stories were borrowed, yet I haven't seen any solid proof so far that this is so. It's usually a story that has the same event yet it's either explained as something different or it's not the same story at all.

I would need to see closer correlations in order to even consider it. So far there has been no solid evidence for the to indicate borrowed stories. Borrowed traditions, maybe.