Creation account may have pagan links

[davidinalameda]

http://www.southbendtribune.com/stories/2005/02/24/faith.20050224-sbt-MICH-D4-Creation_account_may.sto

DUH!

It's among the most famous sentences ever written: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

The Bible opens by depicting the creation from the cosmic viewpoint, after which it repeats the story from an earthbound vantage.

Some may be shocked by the idea that the first account (Genesis 1:1-2:3) might have links with ancient pagan myths. But conservative as well as liberal scholars consider this likely. However, they differ on the extent and meaning of the relationship.

[Warpy]

1. Oh, bugger. Everything before the Adam and Eve

silliness was pretty much cribbed from the Sumerians. Where they got it is anybody's guess.

[Igel]

2. Yeah, those wacky German Bible critics in the 1800s and

into the 1900s were a load of laughs. The assumption was that older texts were only true to the extent they could be proven to be true; not only was no unproven statement was to be taken at face value, but they were assumed to be false until proven otherwise.

Other scholars of ancient texts were like-minded in their utter lack of regard of their core texts. Homer's Troy, indeed Homer, had to be non-existent. Their goal was to show that old texts were obligatorily wrong; that way their scholarship could be more open-ended. That Homer's Greek is archaic even by classical Greek standards was beside the point. (Of course, in the mid 1900s this flipped for non-Western cultures: oral histories were taken to be gospel, unless proven to be wrong.)

Conservative religious organizations in the US frequently use older, less "German critic" tainted sources, and are still fighting the battle. Much of the German critics' work is ensconced in commonly available sources.

In any event, it's hard to argue with some things. One guy I know said that of course Babylonian pagan sources would be similar to the OT. After all, the Truth predates all known civilizations, so they all knew the truth, and corrupted it.

[starroute]

3. This seems somewhat deliberately dumb

Either that, or the writer is pussyfooting so as not to feed Biblical literalists more than they can take at one gulp. But describing Genesis as though it told the same story from two different perspectives is a coverup job. It's very obviously two radically different stories cobbled together, and with all the seams still showing.

Speaking delicately of "links with ancient pagan myths" is also a falsification. The most ancient myths everywhere from Africa to Australia to Tierra del Fuego *all* cover the same themes -- the creation of the first people, their disobedience and/or screwup, and how sex and death came into the world as a result.

Other kinds of origin myth appeared later, and there are plenty that don't include the theme of the Fall, but it's still extremely widespread, especially in Africa. And it's got to be at least 100,000 years old.

[Spinzonner]

4. God is a pagan

unless it worships itself

[Stunster]

5. You mean....

.... the authors of Biblical texts shared many of the cultural presuppositions, ideas, and literary methods of their era and general location?

Why, that's astounding, incredible, and completely disproves everything in the Bible!

Oh wait.

We observed in biblical fundamentalism an effort to try to find in the Bible all the direct answers for living -- though the Bible itself nowhere claims such authority.

And they are given answers -- simplistic answers to complex issues -- in a confident and enthusiastic way in fundamentalist Bible groups.

The Bible did not come down from heaven, whole and intact, given by the Holy Spirit.

More here.

And there's this, too:

...the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (5) for the sake of salvation...

Oh, I see, so the Bible contains those truths which God wants to communicate for the purpose of salvation.... but not everything in the Bible is a truth God wants to communicate for the purpose of salvation. So, not everything in the Bible is free from error, just those specific spiritual, religious, and moral truths which God wanted us to know to assist our salvation. Yeah, that's what I thought. Why can't the fundies see that? And why can't the Bible-mockers see that? Why do both of them insist on reading the Bible fundamentalistically, and accept it or reject it upon the basis of the same flawed, fundamentalist reading??? It's a real puzzle to me....

However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion,(6) the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.

To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture.(7) For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another.(8)

....Now the books of the Old Testament....though they also contain some things which are incomplete and temporary, nevertheless show us true divine pedagogy.
(excerpted from Dei Verbum "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" (Second Vatican Council - Nov. 18, 1965)