Inventing the Bible

Origins

Photo by Ali Hajian on Unsplash

Remarkably, there isn’t much originality in the bible, if at all. A significant portion of biblical stories, themes and characters are, in fact, taken from various historical texts (some are regarded as holy books and even predate Judaism). Against what Christians presume, the bible largely adapts literature from the Epic of Gilgamesh, Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Tanakh and the Avesta—sharing many uncanny similarities and parallels. Yes, there are other texts the bible borrows lesser from, but it clarifies why objective scholars, historians, and educators alike simply consider the bible an assembled collection of Bronze Age myths and folklore not all related.

Hollywood may love sequels, but Christianity loves them more.

You’d think this incredible certitude—in it of itself—would irreparably fracture Christian faith or culture, but it hasn’t. The reasons why will be explored later in this series. For now, let’s run through some commonalities biblical stories share with the aforementioned texts and correlate some of the iconic stories and characters to their earlier predecessors.