Egyptian Mythology VS The Bible

'Sister-wife' .... shudder

Trying to combat facts like the Exodus never happening... this is basically a thread of trying to go against your own common sense.

Really telling. Really disturbing.

The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, but also the New, borrows heavily from a number of different religious, mythical and cultural traditions of the societies around the Middle East, North Africa and Near East.

The comparative mythology of the Bible is a HUGE field, with scholarship dating back a good 150+ years. The scholarship covers a massive diversity of viewpoints, from absolute biblical literalists with young earth creationist beliefs, though liberal Christian with allegorical/non-leteralist tendencies, through to atheist and skeptic examinations.

If you are really interested in education on this subject, I'd suggest a couple of books.

Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions (link is to the full, free online version) - this is the old (1880s) Gutenberg study on comparative mythology. Not the easiest to read, and definitely surpassed by more modern scholarship in places, but very solid overall and an interesting into the thinking of the time

Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament: A comparative study, with chapters from Sir James G. Frazer's 'Folklore in the Old Testament' -

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006. - More of a Christian literalist bent (Pentecostal, I think) but a good backgrounder

Ancient Near Eastern Texts - James B. Pritchard - The standard work on comparative biblical mythology for about 40 years.
http://www.brill.com/context-scripture-volume-1-canonical-compositions-biblical-world
The Context of Scripture. Hallo, William W., and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., eds. - HUGE three volume work providing, in sometimes overwhelming detail, a full background of the cultural, social, historical, ethnographic and religious background of the biblical authors. Volume 1 is most relevant to your questions. Replaces Prichard as the standard work, but much longer and convoluted.


Be warned though. The subject is deep, involved and difficult. If you are a biblical literalist, you WILL have preconceptions challenged, particularly regarding the Old Testament.

Joseph Oz said:

This thread was about finding the REAL facts

Click to expand...

Please, you should start from Genesis. And more importantly the Exodus never happened. And I'm willing to bet my house that none of that stuff involving a random person coming into Egypt and just usurping a pharaoh outta nowhere.

not combating them.

Click to expand...

o rly?

Joseph Oz said:

How can we combat this?

Click to expand...

Your words.

The debate over the Exodus is due to the fact that no supporting evidence can be found. Archaeologists have long looked for concrete evidence of the Exodus, but have found none as yet. Even the dating of the Exodus as yet remains controversial, ranging from 1400 BC to 1250BC. Given this situation, skeptics have argued the Exodus probably never happened.

Joseph Oz said:

Egyptian Mythology tells a lot of the most important stories of the Bible in incredible accuracy, but PREDATES the Bible by very many years.

Click to expand...

Not just Egyptian mythology.

The Old Testament borrows variously from the Enuma Elish and Atra-Hasis of Assyrian and Babylonian mythology, the story of Emesh and Enten and the other 'debate' stories of the Sumerian creation myths, the Gilgamesh, Atrahasis and Ziusudra deluge stories and the Adapa myth.

Most of the major motifs and stories of Genesis, and a lot of the Exodus and other parts of the Torah, all predate the writing of the Bible, even in the most generous scholarly interpretations.

The creation of man from earth and clay and woman from a rib, an unspoiled garden, a leader dumped into a river as a baby, a leader dumped into a river as a baby, all of these are present in Sumerian myths that that pre-date the Torah by at least 1000 to 1500 years.

Another point here, Joseph, is how accurately the Bible describes Egypt. There is no collaborating Egyptian of anything having to do with the Exodus. There is no evidence the Egyptians were using slaves to build. Evidence from the pyramids makes it plain there were built by paid, dedicated workers, who at one point, even went on strike for more beer. The Bible is very unclear about exactly when and where the Exodus took place.

Simply because the Bible is pre dated by pagan myth,does not discount it's validity.

Moses is considered the author of the Torah.
Before Moses were the generations of Abraham who was from Ur of Chaldees.
Back further to Babylon and Mesopotamia.

Just because a story is older does not change our God, it validates him.
Consider who Christians Worship today,the God of Abraham and his generations.
We abide in the promises of God to Abraham,in that many nations would be blessed through his seed and it came to pass.

We have record in the Bible of the first people after the flood and who they became.

In point of fact, Now Faith, the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch was debunked years ago by modern biblical studies. Many laity still hold to this myth. However, I work out of the academic world of biblical scholarship and so do not share their view.

And so what if Moses didn't write it? I don't understand whst the problem is. When the writer is writing his life story, it is usually in the first person---and it is not written that way. It doesn't say "I"--always "Moses"---as though someone else is writing about him. It never read to me like Moses was writing it anyway. It doesn't matter if Moses himself didn't write it. I don't recollect anywhere it saying---"I, Moses, am writing this"--I don't recollect Jesus saying anything about the authorship of the book.

It was a major traditional belief, however, MMK, that Moses did write it. Many Christians today absolutely insist on that.

why? What does it matter? Jesus quoted from I, Jesus believed it, is that not enough for anyone? I really could care less who wrote it. Besides, those people often used scribes to write down the stuff they said--not everyone wrote things down themselves. I don't really understand what the big deal about it is-----but I guess that's just me.

Well, for one thing, MMK, the world of scholarly biblical studies is in fact interested in who wrote what, when, where. For another, teh Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch sanctifies the Torah. For example, all the OT laws are sacred and holy, on the grounds that God handed them down to Moses. Take Moses out and it is a very different story. For example, I hold that these laws were written much later than the time of Moses and then projected back to him kin order the sanctify them. I hold the tests were not at all written until centuries after the time of Moses and therefore contain considerable spin-doctoring or mythic elements. I then seriously challenge the notion that Scripture is inerrant, a fundamental dogma among many Christians.

Hoghead1 said:

Well, for one thing, MMK, the world of scholarly biblical studies is in fact interested in who wrote what, when, where. For another, teh Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch sanctifies the Torah. For example, all the OT laws are sacred and holy, on the grounds that God handed them down to Moses. Take Moses out and it is a very different story. For example, I hold that these laws were written much later than the time of Moses and then projected back to him kin order the sanctify them. I hold the tests were not at all written until centuries after the time of Moses and therefore contain considerable spin-doctoring or mythic elements. I then seriously challenge the notion that Scripture is inerrant, a fundamental dogma among many Christians.

Click to expand...

I understand that---however, it was never written in the first person singular--nothing is said test reads "I did this or that" always uses Moses. How does having a different author than Moses make what is said of any less value or truth??? As for when they were written, that doesn't matter to me either. This was all still good enough for the Jews, and good enough for the disciples and for Jesus, and if He accepts the Torah, I am not going to argue with Him about it. To say that not having Moses be the writer wiped it out for Christians seems ridiculous to me as the Jewish religion is not going down because of that, nor is the Christian religion. Bottom line for Christians is still Jesus---not Moses. He followed Torah.

Good question, Mmk. It very much depends on the individual. For example, I came out of a very strong background in contemporary biblical studies. I am good with languages and did think of doing my doctorate in biblical studies, but then decided on theology. So far me, it's a must to get down the exact, who, how , when, where, why. For others of a less academic bent, that might not be so important. I very much identify with liberal Christianity. I do not think the Bible is or has to be inerrant to have value. However, many conservative Christians, fundamentalists, insist on an inerrant Scripture. To them, the Bible is the Word of God. To me, the reality is that the Bible is the Word of Man. The Word of God is revealed though and subject to the limitations imposed by the Word of Man. Of course, that is blasphemy to conservative Christians. When it comes to the NT, I also hold there is a considerable amount of spin-doctoring going on. Note that I am not saying that it is all myth, but it is not all direct eyewitness and fact either. We really don't know the human, historical Christ, just the Christ of kerygma and myth.

For me---God gave the information He wanted man to have to a man, who wrote it down in his own manner of speech, for the time and culture. To me, it is the word of God, no matter who or when it was written. God works with man, very seldom overrides him. He wrote the 10 commandments Himself--that, to me has always been highly important for it is the only one of 3 times where His writing is mentioned. The other being Jesus writing on the ground, and the writing on the Babylonian wall. If He is writing down something Himself, it means more to Him than just speaking it. Though they may not be the exact words of God as He gave them to each person, they are the "thoughts" that He expressed and still, to me, the word of God.

Yes, MMK, but what about the rest of the Bible. Did God really reveal all those OT laws? Did God really sanctify slavery, as per Ex. 21? Did God really tell Moses to conquer without mercy? Did God really kill all those innocent First-born? Divinely inspired as it may be, the Bible is the product of a semi-barbaric, sexist, racist, pre-scientific culture and it view of God is then subject to the limitations imposed by these prejudices.

Apparently Jesus believed in the bible ===as I said, that is good enough for me. He came to fulfill what was written. It is what He was raised on. Unless you believe that Jesus Christ was sold a bill of goods for 33 years and God the Father let Him die for nothing.