Thursday 5 November 2015

Bible Stories Plagarism

We all know the story of the God who created the world and the universe in six days while resting on the seventh and the tale of the small child born on the 25th December to a virgin and wrapped in cloth and placed in a manger with only shepherds in attendance.

The early Christians also knew about these stories because when it came to creating their own religious idol, they stole these tales from already established religions, the creation story already told by the Persian scriptures of the Zoroastrians and the virgin birth comes from Mithra, one of the Roman religions.
Christians may say that the Bible is the written Word of God but the Bible is simply a retelling of ancient superstitions and legends in a splendid piece of plagiarism.

Garden of Eden
Creationists will argue that the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve is how the human story begins but the Persians Avesta long told the same story of how their God, Ormuzd, created the world and the first two humans with a man, Enkidu, created from the earth by a god. He lives amongst the animals in a natural paradise until he is tempted by a woman, Shamhat. He accepts food from this woman and is forced to leave the place where he lives and encounters a snake which steals a plant of immortality from him.

Noah's Ark
A man is warned of an imminent flood by a god and is instructed to build a large boat in order to survive. After the flood, the boat lands on a mountaintop where the man sends out a series of birds to find dry land. These details sound like they were taken directly from the book of Genesis, you’d find the exact same information in the story of Utnapishtim, found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.  

Ten Commandments
In the Bible, the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and were written on stone tablets however the Egyptian Book of the Dead from around 2600 B.C., they are also handed Ten Commandments which include not blashpheming, not committing adultery, not killing and not stealing.

Satan and Angels
The Bible is full of details of angels, demons and Satan but the Zoroastrians were the first to believe in angels, put forward the idea of Satan, and explain the battle between the forces of good and evil.

Tower of Babel
Hebrew Scriptures got this one first with a story of early humans raising a tower whose top should reach the sky, but when it approached the heavens, the gods, introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language.

Parting of the Red Sea
The Christian who wrote this story was evidently familiar with the legends related of the Sun-god, Bacchus, as he has scribbled out the name Bacchus and inserted Moses. In the hymns of Orpheus, Bacchus had a rod with which he performed miracles, including parting Seas to allow his followers dry travel.
There is also a Hindu fable to the effect that when Crishna was being chased by King Madura, the Lord divided the river Yumna to allow him to cross to safety.

Jonah and the Whale
Whether it was the Hindu fable of Saktideva being swallowed by a huge fish and emerging unhurt or the Grecian tale of which sees Hercules swallowed by a whale, the Christians didn't get to this story first either.

Virgin Birth
The idea of virgins giving birth to religious icons was a well worn path long before Christians threw their own into the ring. Amongst those born of virgins were India's Buddha, Codom of the Siamese, Fo-hi in Chinese fables and llorus, who had the epithet of 'Saviour' who was born of the virgin Isis.

Wise Men
The second part of the Christian Nativity includes three wise men turning up with presents. They must have been tired because in earlier religions they also turned up at the birth of Buddha, Crishna, Rama who is the seventh incarnation of Vishnu and Confucius.

King Herod
For Herod replace with Crishna whose family was told by a heavenly voice to flee as the reigning monarch, King Kansa, sought the life of the infant Saviour, and to accomplish his purpose, he sent messengers to kill all the infants in the neighbouring places.

Miracles
Raising the dead, healing the sick, restoring the maimed, the deaf and the blind, that would be Crishna or Buddha who also cured the sick, the deaf and the blind. Could have been Ilorus the Egyptian saviour who did the same or Esculapius of the Ancient Greek religions who strode around Greece performing the same miracles. Bacchus, was a great performer of miracles, among which his changing of water into wine,

Of course it could all be just a massive coincidence rather than early Christians just picking the best bits from the other pre-existing religions and attributing them to their newly made up deity.

6 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Falling on a bruise said...

Massive coincidence then that they came up with the same stories that where already knocking around for other gods.

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Falling on a bruise said...

I would be very interested to hear what other conclusion there could possibly be for the later stories attributed to Christian characters being almost exactly the same as those attributed to earlier characters from other religions.
It can only be
1- they took the old stories and changed the names and settings
2- the Christian God/Jesus acted out the exact same scenarios in the exact same set of historical events.



Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Falling on a bruise said...

My friend the vicar thinks what may have happened is that the whole Jesus thing was probably very boring so they 'borrowed' other bits to make it a bit more appealing and sexy to attract newcomers who wouldn't have known about the other religions stories, many back then being illiterate.
It is only a thousand or so years later that we can compare the texts and see the similarities and see who stole what from who.
His bottom line is it obviously worked else Christianity wouldn't still be around so the ends justify the means.