Is the Bible plagiarism?

Question

someone just answered 1 of my questions stating that the Noahs Ark story is Fact because many cultures have stories about a "great flood". not going to get into the flaws of that arguement here, but it got me thinking:
Different god's impregnating virgins/humans stories go way back, heaven/hell obviously thought up before Jesus came along, miracles like "walking on water" previously described (ancient Egyptian Mythology the God Horus walked on water, and in ancient Greek Mythology the giant hunter and son of the gods Orion walked on water. Both Hindu and Buddhist traditions have stories about walking on water. --Wikipedia), rising from the dead stuff = old hat, the Golden Rule can be attributed hundreds of years BC, the 10 commandments already long part of human morality...etc

How many other "Bible Facts", that are the supposed basis of Christianity, are just lifted from other cultures and religions? Is the Crucifiction the only truly Christian idea or has that been done before too?

Answer 1

whoa

Answer 2

I guess a lot depends on how you define plagiarism. Just because a legond that may or may not be true describes an event doesn't mean that a later telling of a similar or identical event is subject to the same questions of authenticity. If you said you saw me at work yesterday, I'd say you were a liar. I had yesterday off. But if you said you saw me at work today, I'd have to ask where you were at, because here I am! I'm at work! Similar events, yet the one saying you saw me yesterday has serious flaws.

OK, now about the flood stories, while I believe the Noah's Arc story is the most accurate, since I'm a Christian, it is striking how similar they all are, and it would not be a major alteration to my understanding of doctrine and dogma to say that some aspects of the other stories were correct, even that they clarified aspects of the flood. In fact, I would go a step further: Moses didn't write that story from direct, personal knowledge. He wasn't there when the flood happened. He wrote about it from historical chronologies from other cultures. The same way that the authors of history text books today take histories from other historians and compile a book. It's a practice that's existed for thousands of years, and continues today. Is it plagiarism? No, it's research.

Because of my understanding of how God works through a prophet, and through Moses specifically, I believe that God prevented Moses from putting any errors in the Torah, but Moses did his research the same as anyone else. The same goes for the apostles. Except in the case of the apostles, they were writing about what they saw most of the time. Come to think of it, so was Moses, it was just Genesis that was historical beyond what he saw.

Being from another culture doesn't keep it from being true.

Crucifiction was the standard method of Roman capital punishment. It's not a Christian idea.

On specificially to the walking on water story: Yes, many cultures have stories of great men walking on water. No people in those society were put to death for saying, "I saw him walk on water." In the case of the Apostles, first James was put to death for saying he saw it, then the others one by one. They kept saying it, even when death was iminant. None of them redacted. If they had, don't you think the Roman or Jewish authorities would have used that? We have plenty of stories of the Romans and the Jewish leaders in the first three centuries and how they dealt with Christians, but none of them ever used the arguement that one of the early apostles had recanted. 10 out of 12 died saying that Jesus had raised from the dead, walked on water, and cured people of uncurable illness. One was Judas that betrayed him, and the last was John who lived to be 90 before dying.

Answer 3

hi Ann,i think the chief problem of Christianity & doubting it's credibality based on 2 main facts the first is that jesus simply never wrote the bible, his 12 student did that's why christanity lost a unifying theme of it's idology due to the diversity of thse students this diversity was inherdited to their adherents with a larger scale, the 2 fact is the atmospher of secrecy & darkness that pops of medivals surronded the religiuos teachings where reading the bible was asacred mission involves only top bishops add to this the delicate relatioship between the roman emperor & the pop that in the beging of christanity the state was more powerful that theemperor used religion (through the help of the pop) to supress people &made them subordinated to the state so u could imagine that the pope may have interfer in canceling the versus that will cause trouble with the emperor secondly when the situation got reversed & the state deteriorrated infavor of the church the pope add versus that ensure his authority

Answer 4

Look up Mithra
He was a "god" that was born in a cave on Dec. 25th
He died, for other sins, by crucifixion
Raised three days later
Plus there are many more similarities to Jesus.
Problem is, the religion he was a part of was around 1500 years before Jesus

Answer 5

Nice question! Most people just state arguments and ask how we respond. I like this question!

The crucifiction is actually the part in God's plan that ends sacrifices (Found in hundreds of religions) Insead of people constantly sacrificing good clean animals like sheep, Jesus came down and became the sacrifice for everyone. It's pretty sweet, and relates to many other religions, only a little backwords, because God died for us. All other similar ideas are where people die for their God.

As for the Noah Ark, It's true that tribes and cultures all around the globe have a story of the Great Flood, from the same time period. I'd like to add to that in a more geography-type way. In the bible it mentions about water spurting from the ground. This would explain the theory of the earth, in which it once a giant super continent. When the great flood happened, water below the earth, and shot up with greater force than a volcanoe, but in the same way. This split the continents apart (which at the same time explains why the continents fit like a puzzle) and created much larger oceans and stuff. Interesting, no?

Answer 6

there is an ark story of Gilgamesh... the ark is shaped like a cube and would roll around the ocean like a volleyball

the ark of Noah... written by a dessert people.. well... we have modern battleships and cargo ships and oil tankers and superfreighters that discovereed its a great combination of easyiest to build and stability

the ark remains an indication the biblical story is the true story and the 157 other ledgends variations from the biblcal original

Answer 7

Have you thought about this possibility: that many myths were actually based on the bible. It's the other way around?

For example: The Chinese have their so called "golden age" which was but a plagiarism from the account of Edenic life.

Another is the myth of Hercules, and mighty warriors. These are in reality fictionalized account of what is found in Genesis chapter 6 (? ) or (5). Genesis gave an account of how certain angels called 'sons of God' took human wives gave birth to giants (nephelim) who were famous for their size, might, and evil deeds. These and other Greek stories are actually plagiarism from the Bible, do you agree?

Answer 8

Yeap

Answer 9

there are no bible "Facts"
they are all just a collection of stories meant to teach us how to live a good life with each other.

And you need to do a little more research on the bible before you start spurting off with these questions.

The bible is a two part book... The old testament.. (before Jesus) and the New testament (teachings of Jesus)
The old testament is basically Jewish teachings, and the new testament is Christianity.

And YES Christianity was a rather unique religion for its time. It taught peace and love instead of war and hate for others.

Answer 10

Hanging from a tree as an act of divine sacrifice -- Mithras, Odhinn). Resurrection from the dead -- Mithras, Osirus.

There is nothing original in the Bible, it was all stolen from pre-existing religions.

Answer 11

What happened before the flood happened. The bible writes little about it except in Genesis 6. What is a reality is that fallen angels, satan, etc. try to usurp God's identy. Be assured God came first, so God's Word came first.