There are fewer sins more scorned upon in the literary world than plagiarism. The Bible as a literary work must plead guilty to this sin.
Lets focus on Noah’s Flood, written in 950BC. We all know the story:
“Hosa Noah!” God says, “Quick, build a ship, beeeg rains coming.”
Noah builds boat, herds family and animals aboard. Huge downpour. Rain stops, Noah releases a dove. Ship comes to rest atop a mountain.
“Christ, that was close!” Noah says, starting up his braai and offering one of the planets only two sheep as a sacrifice to his Maker.
“Shweet,” says God. “And bless you.”
Now repeat the above story but change the name of Noah to Atrahasis. Two accounts, virtually identical, but the latter was written 700 years earlier.
This is just one fascinating story from the oldest literary work in the world, the Epic of Gilgamesh. If you were to read the whole thing you would find more than one myth stolen by the writers of Genesis.
Of course there are a couple of differences in the two flood accounts.
For example, the Old Testament god shows absolutely no remorse for his genocide, while in the Gilgamesh account the goddess Ishtar weeps and and shows sorrow for her wrongful actions.
Bummer . . . I am afraid an agnostic’s search for God will have to bypass Genesis.
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