The Bible, plagiarizing the Greeks
By AliBabuh
@AliBabuh (25)
United States
November 7, 2007 2:05pm CST
Eurydice was bitten fatally by a snake. Her husband Orpheus was paralyzed with grief. Orpheus, the father of songs, took his lyre to the underworld, where he charmed Hades with his grief-stricken song. Hades agreed to release Orpheus' wife from death... As long as Orpheus could walk up out of the underworld without looking back...
But of course he glanced back, and his wife was consigned to death. This glancing back surfaces again at Sodom and Gomorrah: Lot's wife looks back, and is transformed into a pillar of salt. Some commentators have suggested that Christianity's concept of a life after death is directly lifted from this "Orphic" conception of death; the cults of Orpheus were contradicted by other conceptions of death, that suggested, like Epicureanism, that there was nothing after life.
The parallel is so distinct between Lot and Orpheus, it implies other parallels: Didn't Socrates face his death in precisely the same manner as Jesus? Isn't Jesus a Socratic figure, more than anything else?
1600 years before Christ, the Babylonians had a story about a god warning a wise man to build a boat that would endure a flood that was to destroy all mankind. Any other interesting stories that seem to source the bible?
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1 response
@SEOGUY (906)
• United States
8 Nov 07
Their are alot of simularities but the time line is wrong. The greeks were much later in this, the stories first oringenated in Sumer, wich later became Babylon and asyria. It was during Babylon that the stories were retold in other countries as Egypt. The Hebrews Coming from mesopotamia (Sumer et.al) Took the stories with them. This is not to say the stories have a factual baces if truly understanding the alogorical content. But the greeks are the plageros here.
2 people like this
@AliBabuh (25)
• United States
8 Nov 07
Really, do you think so? I thought that since there was so much less remaining of Babylonian and Assyrian texts than there is of Greek texts, it would be a bit tendentious to accredit the Mesopotamians with the myths.
While I accept your point of the Hebrews coming from Mesopotamia, certainly the Greeks came right through there again in the 4th century in the form of Alexander.
What are some other tales that evidence Assyro-Babylonian traditions in "Greek" literature?
@SEOGUY (906)
• United States
9 Nov 07
first I wopuld read the epic of Gilgamesh, and then Enuma Elish, Borrowed from the kingdom of Sumer early Mesopitamian pre- babylonian dating over 2000 years befor Moses and over 3000 years befor the Greeks (@4500 B.C.E) In these stories of early mesopotamia, later the Babylonians You will see the paralels of the creation story of Eden all the way to Pre-Egyptian period. wich by the way the names of Joseph and Abraham are mentioned and are the oldest historical names that can be proven to exist, only if you know where to look. If one was looking for the heberw names of these two you would not find them, but you can find their names in the Egyptian languge. So the story of the bible where after Noah, (Gilgamesh) buit an ark and after the "craft" came to dry land in the land of Shinar,(Sumer). The three sons build Asyria, (Grandson of Noah) and Mizeram (Egypt) and Babylon. The three first kingdoms after the destruction by flood of lower Sumer.
