If we are to believe the old testament then why not the same stories written by the Sumerians long before them

Question

The earliest versions of creation of earth, creation of man, tower of babel, flood, etc. They were all written thousands of years before the old testament, it is obvious that they were taken from the earlier versions, they talk of two gods in charge, one wrathful, one a benefactor of man. In Genesis it speaks of single and plural gods, are we to only believe words from a certain time in history and ingore the rest??

that should be ignore, sorry

Answer 1

I'll second that.

Those who have researched religion and history know that the Hebrew and Christian religion "borrowed" things from other cultures and things and ideas that had gone before them.

Answer 2

It's not just the Sumerians. Many civilizations had these stories.

Heck, one need only look at the Epic of Gilgamesh for the flood story almost identical to Noah.

And guess when that was written? Oops.

Answer 3

True. That would suggest Polytheism.

The writers of the Bible stole many for their ideas from other civilizations and religions. But having a monastic, male God suited the Patriarchy.

Answer 4

Gilgamesh = father of Shem or in other words, Noah.

The Gilgamesh epic is not a Babylonian fairy tale, although it is the way it is translated, but an actual historical document which Moses consulted and translated into Hebrew as part of his record we know as the book of Genesis. “Gilgamesh” is viewed by scholars as a proper name and no attempt is made to translate it, but a closer examination suggests that it is in fact a title. No competent Sumerian scholar can honestly deny once it is pointed out to him that "gilga" occurs in the Sumerian expression "pa gilga ia" and is commonly translated by scholars as "my fifth great grandfather" where pa = fore; gilga = father; ia = five; my.

Anyone with a real knowledge of Sumerian and other ancient languages should also recognize, once it is pointed out to him that writing characters in the opposite direction was a common way in all of the most ancient languages of indicating a person who had gone to the netherworld [i.e. MESH=SHEM]. For example, we have an ancient Greek vase of Orpheus and Eurydice: The name of one of them is written in the opposite direction as a way of saying that this person had descended to the underworld. The underworld was sometimes viewed as a reverse image or mirror image of the present world, hence this tradition.

Thus we have Gilgamesh = "the father of Shem," or in other words, Noah.

Answer 5

Don't forget that the Greeks had humanity being created out of the clay of the earth......

There are MANY stories that are found in other cultures that are later found in the Bible..... Despite what one of the co-hosts of "The View" said

Answer 6

Most of Ephesians.....