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Closely associated with the former objections that the Bible is unscientific and full of miracles and therefore could not possibly be inspired of God is the objection that it is full of myths. For most people the term "myth" denotes stories that are not really true that have been made up and passed down by races or nations of people to explain their origins or the origin of the world and man and the problems and basic principles of life and religion. Liberal theologians say they use the term "myth" in a slightly different and more respectful sense, but when all is settled, they also deny that the so-called Biblical myths are historical realities. Many ordinary people, when they say the Bible is full of myths mean nothing positive at all, not even that the great stories of the Bible concerning creation, the fall, the flood, or Jesus Christ convey some great truth even though they are not strictly historical. They simply mean the Bible, or at least a great deal of it, is pure fairy tale or fantasy. They do not have "myth" in the true sense of the word in mind at all; it is just their way of debunking the Bible out of hand. But secular or liberal scholars have suggested a real connection between the Bible and myth with which we will deal in this article. Occasionally one will come upon someone who has been influenced by such "scholarship" who thinks that the Bible has been proven to be full of myths borrowed from other sources and thus has been demonstrated to be false, not inspired.

The word "myth" comes from the Greek word mythos. It appears five times in the NT and always in the most negative sense of an untrue story or pure fiction, a fable:

"As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work-which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm." (I Timothy 1:3-7,NIV)

"If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly." (I Timothy 4:6,7)

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3,4,NIV)

"For there are many rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach-and that for the sake of dishonest gain....Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth." (Titus 1:10-14,NIV)

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:16,NIV)

So, for those of us who believe and know the Bible to be inspired, the case is closed. The Bible does not contain myths but is truth because that's what it says about itself. We have already shown that the witness of the Bible is credible in other areas, so we see no reason to disbelieve it when it says it is not myths. But for the sake of those who set aside or reject the claim of inspiration or have been influenced by liberal "scholarship", we will condescend to answer the objection that the Bible contains myths.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines myth as:

"A story that is usually of unknown origin and at least partially traditional, that ostensibly relates historical events usually of such character as to serve to explain some practice, belief, institution, or natural phenomenon, and that is especially associated with religious rites and beliefs."

Related are the terms "fable", "folktale", and "legend." Webster defines each of these as follows. A fable is "a fictitious narrative or statement...of supernatural or highly marvelous happen-ings...intended to enforce some useful truth or precept, especially one in which animals and even inanimate objects speak and act like human beings." A folktale is "a tale circulated by word of mouth among the common people, especially a tale traditional among a people and characteristically anonymous, timeless, and placeless." A legend is "a story, incident, or notion often fanciful, fabulous, or incredible, attached to a particular person or place." Since many of the characteristics in the definitions for these terms are true of most of the stories of the Bible, or at least this is the thinking of many, it is no wonder that many would assert that the Bible is full of myths.

The World Book Encyclopedia says, "We study mythology because it is the religion of a primitive people. And it is their science and literature as well. It is their religion because it tells what the gods do and what the people should do to please the gods. It is their science because it explains natural events by making up supernatural causes for them." (1955 edition, Vol.11, p.5375)

Considering the definition of the word "myth" it is no wonder that some have charged the Bible with being full of myths, because the Bible covers some of the same issues and contains some of the same elements used in the definition of myth. But this in itself does not mean it too is mythological and false. Just because many ancient stories are false, it does not necessarily follow that all ancient stories are.

Most people when they hear the term "myth" think of Greek mythology. Many of the names and ideas of Greek mythology have found their way into our language and literature, including our calendar and the names of the planets. The World Book says,

"The basic sources for classical Greek mythology are Hesiod's Theogony and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which date from about the 700's B.C....[These works] contain most of the basic characters and themes of Greek mythology....According to the Theogony, the universe began in a state of emptiness [a vast hole] called Chaos. [From this there rose Love, which created the goddess Gaea (Earth). From these two came the sky and the mountains, the sea, and the animals. Chaos also brought forth two gloomy creatures, Erebus (Darkness) and Nox (Night). And from these black beings, strangely enough, sprang two beautiful beings, Light and Day. (Many gods and goddesses of Greek mythology held similar positions in Roman mythology, but under different names in most cases [following each in parentheses below].) Gaea (Terra) and Uranus (the king of the sky or Heaven) were mother and father to twelve children who grew to gigantic size and were called Titans. Uranus, the first ruler of all things, proved to be very cruel.] Uranus became jealous of his children and confined them within the huge body of Gaea. Gaea resented the imprisonment of her children. With Cronus (Jupiter), the youngest Titan, she plotted revenge. Using a sickle provided by Gaea, Cronus attacked Uranus and made him impotent (unable to breed children). Cronus then freed the Titans from inside Gaea. Because Uranus was impotent, Cronus became king of the sky. During his reign, the work of creating the world continued. Thousands of divinities were born, including the gods or goddesses of death, night, the rainbow, the rivers, and sleep. [His period of rule was called the Golden Age, because everyone on earth was good and happy.] Cronus married his sister Rhea, who bore him three daughters and three sons. But Cronus feared that he, like Uranus, would be deposed by his children. He therefore swallowed his first five children as soon as they were born. To save her sixth child, Zeus, Rhea tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone wrapped in baby clothes. Rhea then hid the infant on the island of Crete. After Zeus grew up, he returned to challenge his father. He tricked Cronus into drinking a substance that made him vomit his children. The children had grown into adults while inside their father. Zeus then led his brothers and sisters in a war against Cronus and the other Titans. Zeus and his followers won the war. They exiled the Titans in chains to Tartarus, a dark region deep within the earth. The victorious gods and goddesses chose Zeus as their ruler and agreed to live with him on Mount Olympus [the highest mountain in Greece]. The divinities who lived on Olympus became known as Olympians....Several ranks of divinities existed among the Olympians. The top rank consisted of six gods and six goddesses. The gods were Zeus (Jupiter), ruler of all divinities; Apollo, god of music, poetry, and purity; Ares (Mars), god of war; Hephaestus (Vulcan), blacksmith for the gods; Hermes (Mercury), messenger for the gods; and Poseidon (Neptune), god of earthquakes and the ocean (and horses). The goddesses were Athena (Minerva), goddess of wisdom and war; Aphrodite (Venus), goddess of love; Artemis (Diana), twin sister of Apollo and goddess of hunting; Demeter (Ceres), goddess of agriculture; Hera (Juno), sister and wife of Zeus; and Hestia (Vesta), goddess of the hearth. Three important gods became associated with the 12 Olympians. They were Hades, ruler of the underworld and brother of Zeus; Dionysus (Bacchus), god of wine and wild behavior; and Pan, god of the forest and pastures. {Other gods include Asclepius (Aesculapius), god of healing; Eros (Cupid), god of love; and Hypnos (Somnus), god of sleep.} There were several groups of minor divinities in Greek mythology. Beautiful maidens called nymphs guarded various parts of nature. Nymphs called dryads lived in the forest, and nymphs called nereids lived in the sea. Three goddesses called Fates controlled the destiny of very man. The Muses were nine goddesses of various arts and sciences. All these divinities became the subjects of specific myths and folk tales. Greek mythology also has a number of partly mortal, partly divine beings called demigods. Heracles (called Hercules by the Romans) probably ranked as the most important demigod. Heracles symbolized strength and physical endurance. Another demigod, Orpheus, became known for his beautiful singing. Nearly all the Greek gods, goddesses, demigods, and other divinities became the subjects of specific cults. Many cults became associated with certain cities. The people of Delphi, famous for its oracle (prophet), especially worshiped Apollo. The citizens of Athens looked to Athena as their protector. Ephesus became the center of the cult of Artemis....Greek heroes became almost as important as the divinities in Greek mythology. Heroes were largely or entirely mortal. They were born, grew old, and died. But they still associated with the divinities. Many heroes claimed gods as their ancestors. (The World Book Encyclopedia, Field Enterprises: Chicago; 1973, Vol.13, pp.818,819; bracketed material-1954 edition, Vol.11, p.5375)

The number and prominence of gods and goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology serves to illustrate how pervasive mythology was throughout the world in ancient times, including NT times and the times of the OT.

Certainly there is no connection between the Bible and Greek mythology; in fact no one seriously suggests so. Nevertheless, some elements of Greek myths have their counterparts in the Bible. Consider the Greek account of the creation of man:

"For a time the gods had the earth to themselves, according to Greek and Roman myths, but it was a lonesome place. Then the (son of a) Titan, Prometheus, molded a clay figure in the image of the gods and breathed life into it. Prometheus wanted to bestow some helpful gift upon this creature of his skill because he was very proud of it. But his brother Epimetheus had given all the good qualities to the animals-a hard shell to the tortoise, swiftness to the hare, slyness to the fox, strength to the bear, and fierceness to the tiger. What remained for man? Prometheus knew of something more valuable than any of these. So from the home of the gods he brought back a tube of that wonderful thing, fire. The gods were very angry and severely punished Prometheus and the race of men....Pandora was sent to earth with a box of evils. As a result, the world became so wicked that Zeus (Jupiter) saw he must sweep it clean of its people and give it a new start. He caused a great rain to fall and a flood to cover the earth. When it passed, only virtuous Deucalion and Pyrrha were left. They repeopled the earth by casting over their shoulders the stones which lay about them on the mountaintop." (Ibid., 1954 ed., Vol.11, pp.5376,5377)

Rather than Greek/Roman mythology, some students of the ancient peoples of the Near East have suggested there is a connection between the mythology of that region and the Bible.

Until the advent of modern archaeology, little was known outside the Bible about the gods and customs of the people of Canaan. The gods Baal, Chemosh, Molech, and Dagon and the goddess Asherah or Ashteroth are mentioned often in the Old Testament but without much detail concerning them. But our knowledge of them was dramatically increased by certain archaeological discoveries beginning in the 1800's and continuing into the present century. In the 1860's the French excavated several cites along the coast of ancient Phoenicia (present day Lebanon)-Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos (see map, p.14). Over 5,000 inscriptions from these cites were published in 1881, and, as James B. Pritchard writes,

"The gods of the Canaanites mentioned in the Bible were the same gods of the Phoenicians. Ashtoreth is named more than 40 times; and the name of Baal is common. Later in the 1930's excavation at Ras Shamra further north, the ancient city of Ugarit, "more light was thrown on the nature of Canaanite religion than had come from the entire preceding century of excavation and study." An extensive library of mythological and legendary poetry was found on clay tablets along with many inscriptions on other materials. "Ugarit...supplied a Canaanite bible, texts amounting in quantity to about half the size of the Hebrew Book of Psalms." The material dated "from about the fourteenth century B.C., a period earlier by several hundred years than any previously known Canaanite material.

"Before the discoveries of 1929 and 1930 practically nothing was known of the theological organization of the various gods and goddesses worshiped in Canaan. Now it is apparent that gods were not merely patrons of particular places, but that they were arranged in a highly-organized system, each having his function and authority....expressed in mythological terms. Undisputed is the place of El, the Bull, Father Shunem, who dwells at the Sources of the Floods. His wife, the Mother of the Gods, is Lady Asherah of the Sea. Among their children are: Baal, the rain- and fertility-god, 'the rider of the clouds'; the Maiden Anath, his sister; and Mot [Death], the dreaded enemy of Baal." There were also found pictorial representations of the gods and goddesses. (Archaeology and the Old Testament, James B. Pritchard; Princeton U. Press:Princeton,NJ; 1959, pp.91-113)

"A most dramatic episode in the Baal myth is the death and resurrection of Baal, the god of rain and fertility. In this recital, students of ancient drama have seen a reflection of the changes in the season: the spring rains, followed by the summer drought, when all vegetation dies, and the renewal of vegetation shortly after the life-giving rains in the fall....Anath takes the body of Baal, slain by Mot, and gives it burial with proper ceremonies....Anath then makes her way to the supreme god El to tell him of the death of Baal....El proceeds to choose one of Lady Asherah's sons to take the place formerly occupied by Baal. After passing over a weakling, he chooses Ashtar to set on Baal's throne. But he proves unequal to the position....After a large gap in the text, Anath proceeds to dispatch the villain Mot, who had killed her brother Baal, in a significant ceremony....Following another missing portion of the text, there appears a triumphant hymn on the resurrected Baal, which contains a refrain emphasizing the return of plenty: 'The heavens fat did rain, the wadies [creek beds dry except in the rainy season] flow with honey.'

"...[T]he cult of Canaan was concerned with fertility in field, flock, and family. Ugaritic mythology pictures the gods as engaging in most human activities: they sacrifice, eat, make war, kill, build houses, relax and 'twiddle their fingers,' ride on beautiful jackasses....By a kind of sympathetic magic the union of the gods, resulting, as it was believed, in the fertility of flocks and family, was effected, or at least stimulated, by similar actions among humans in the temples of the gods [by 'sacred' prostitution]." (Ibid., pp.115-125)

Beyond certain similarities of style of language and poetic form, Canaanite mythology bears little resemblance to the Bible. The myths liberal scholars most often cite as a source for Biblical writings are those of the Babylonians and Assyrians (the Assyrians having assumed the Babylonian stories). The five main accounts that supposedly supply the Bible with some of its material are (1) "The Gilgamesh Epic," (2) "The Atrahasis Epic," (3) a Sumerian account of the flood called "The Eridu Genesis," (4) "The Ennuma Elish," and (5) "The Adapa Myth." These are the five works we will concentrate upon in this article. "The Gilgamesh Epic" is a tale about the hero Gilgamesh and his quest for immortality. The flood account is only part of the story. "The Atrahasis Epic" is an earlier Babylonian account of the flood, and the Sumerian account, the so-called "Eridu Genesis," is earlier than the Babylonian. "The Ennuma Elish" is the Babylonian account of creation. "The Adapa Myth" is often compared to the biblical story of the fall.

During the same time that the Canaanite cities were excavated, the mid-1800's, archaeologists uncovered ancient Assyria. An arch-enemy of Israel in the times of the kings of the northern kingdom and their eventual conquerors, Assyrian history was known only from the Bible record until this time. Its glories and even its existence had long passed into oblivion. Then from the earth of the region of the upper Tigris River [Nineveh, Mosul, Nimrud, Khorsabad, Tell Balawat, and Ashur], a huge amount of artifacts, inscriptions on tombs and other objects, and clay tablets were unearthed, copied, and taken to museums for study and analysis. Archaeologists uncovered at the ancient cite of the Assyrian capital Nineveh the entire library of the last great king of Assyria, Ashurbanipal (668-626 B.C.). Among the writings was found a Babylonian account of the biblical flood which was part of a work called "The Gilgamesh Epic."

"The episode of the Flood represents only one scene in the epic of Gilgamesh, one in which the hero of the Flood, Utnapishtim, recounts the story of how he escaped the general destruction of mankind. The great gods of the ancient city of Shuruppak (modern Fara) resolved to destroy mankind by a flood. The god Ea disclosed the divine decree by allowing Utnapishtim to hear the following advice:

After a conversation between Utnapishtim and Ea, there follows the description of the building of the ship:

Measures of bitumen, asphalt, and oil were stowed away in the vessel.

The loading of possessions, animals, family, and craftsmen now takes place:

The time for the flood had arrived. The poet describes in detail the approaching storm:

One day, a second day, Mount Nisir held the ship

After a council of the gods, Enlil went aboard the ship, touched the foreheads of Utnapishtim and his wife, and blessed them thus:

Hitherto Utnapishtim has been human.

Henceforth Utnapishtim and his wife shall be like unto us gods." (Ibid., pp. 165-169)

There are a number of obvious and remarkable similarities between the Babylonian and Biblical accounts, but there are many more important differences as well. Like the Biblical account, the Babylonian myth says God sent a flood in which all mankind except those on a boat are destroyed. God tells a man to build a boat and gives him the dimensions. Both boats were sealed with pitch (bitumen) and carried "the seed of all living things." Others beside the man and his wife enter the boat. The length of time of the flood is given, and in both the boat rests on a mountaintop. In both accounts, the man sends out a raven and a dove to test for dryness. In both, sacrifice is made to God (or the gods) after leaving the boat, and God (or the gods) smells the aroma of the sacrifice and is pleased. In both God blesses the man and his sons (or he and his wife), making a covenant with them.

But there are also important differences. In the Babylonian account, the man makes the boat out of his house! Surely there is not nearly enough material in one's house to construct an ark the size necessary to house the animals. The dimensions are quite different. Whereas the Babylonian ark is a cube, equal in length and width, a rather unrealistic if not impossible shape for such a vessel, it has been noted that the Biblical dimensions of the ark were in the same proportion as modern ocean-going vessels, an optimum proportion for sea-worthiness, especially the wild seas of the flood. In the Babylonian myth, Noah builds the ark in only seven days! And the flood lasts only a very unrealistic seven days compared to the 40 days of rain and deluge and 150 more days of the waters on the earth before the ark comes to rest in the Bible. How were the Biblical writers possessed of such superior intelligence to change these elements of the story if they borrowed it from the Babylonians as some suggest?

But the most significant differences between the two accounts are moral and theological. The Babylonian is "grossly polytheistic" while the Biblical account is an "exalted monotheism." Secondly, in the Babylonian account (not shown above) "an effort was made to hide from mankind the coming of the flood, but the biblical account gives abundant opportunity to repent." It was the god Enlil who was angry, but another god Enki was partial to the man and warned him. Thirdly, there is a great difference in the moral or theological principle behind the flood. In the Babylonian story, the god Enlil sent the flood because he "could not sleep because the increasing number of people on earth made too much noise" [from another Babylonian account of the flood called "The Atrahasis Epic"]. Thus "the deluge comes as a result of the caprice of the gods." Far different from man's universal and desperate wickedness described in the Biblical account. (H. F. Voss, "Flood (Genesis)," The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia; Eerdmans:Grand Rapids,MI; 1982, Vol. 2, pp.320-321)

Actually the flood story in the Gilgamesh epic is somewhat misplaced in comparison with the Biblical order in that no account of creation precedes it but the adventures of the hero, Gilgamesh. Utnapishtim (Atrahasis) told Gilgamesh the story of the flood to explain to him how he obtained immortality.

"The first tablet of the [Gilgamesh Epic] opens with the introduction of the central character of the story, Gilgamesh....[H]is greatness is described in terms of his being two-thirds god and one-third man. In an arrogant way Gilgamesh has been oppressing those who lived in the famed Uruk....When the people...appeal to the gods of heaven for relief from his unseemly tyranny, the goddess Aruru, the creatress of Gilgamesh, is called upon to make his double to be his match. Thereupon, she washes her hands, pinches off clay-in Genesis the Lord God fashioned man out of the dust of the earth-and creates the second principle character of the epic, the valiant Enkidu. Enkidu is an uncivilized man, in that he feeds on grass and jostles with the animals at the drinking places. All his body is shaggy with hair. His friends are the animals, of whom he is the protector. A hunter who has been thwarted in his fieldcraft by Enkidu, who tears up his traps, is advised to set a trap for Enkidu himself. He obtains a harlot-lass from Gilgamesh, and the hunter and the harlot go to the watering-place to await the arrival of the animals and their friend Enkidu." (Pritchard, op.cit., pp. 171-173)

Enkidu falls for the woman and is immediately tamed and civilized, gaining wisdom and understanding.

"Enkidu is brought into Uruk, where he engages Gilgamesh in combat [which neither wins and whereupon they soon become friends]....[They] embark on a hazardous expedition against the monster Humbaba [or Huwawa] who lives in the Cedar Forest....The expedition...is successful; the monster Humbaba is killed. Gilgamesh, the attractive hero is proposed to by the goddess Ishtar...[but Gilgamesh insults her]. Ishtar goes to the god Anu and asks him to create the Bull of Heaven to destroy Gilgamesh. After the snorting bull has killed hundreds of men, Enkidu and Gilgamesh slay the bull and tear out his heart....After this triumph the two heroes lie down to sleep. Enkidu has a dream foreboding his death as a penalty for slaying Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. Soon afterwards, as he lies on his deathbed, he reviews the events of his life [and curses the harlot for luring him from his former carefree days with the animals]....The god Shamash hastens to remind Enkidu of the benefits which have come to him because of the harlot: not only food and drink, but the friendship of Gilgamesh, who will mourn him after his death:

Why, O Enkidu, cursest thou the harlot-lass.

Who made thee eat food fit for divinity.

And gave thee to drink wine fit for royalty,

Who clothed thee with noble garments,

And made thee have fair Gilgamesh for a comrade?

And has not now Gilgamesh, thy bosom friend,

Made thee lie on a noble couch?

He has placed thee on the seat of ease, the seat at the left,

That the princes of the earth may kiss thy feet!...

Soon Enkidu dies. The remainder of the epic has to do with Gilgamesh's long and fruitless quest for endless life. Enkidu's death has brought home to his friend the reality of death....'When I die, shall I not be like Enkidu?' Goaded by grief and fear, Gilgamesh undertakes a long and dangerous journey to the place where lives Utnaphishtim, the hero of the flood, that he might ask him about death and life. At one stage of his journey Gilgamesh meets with Siduri, the ale-wife, who listens to his story of grief and then counsels him to accept the fact of death and to enjoy life....:

The ale-wife said to him, to Gilgamesh:

'Gilgamesh, whither rovest thou?

The life thou pursuest thou shalt not find.

When the gods created mankind,

Death for mankind they set aside,

Life in their own hands retaining.

Thou, Gilgamesh, let full be thy belly,

Make thou merry by day and by night.

Of each day make thou a feast of rejoicing,

Day and night dance thou and play!

Let thy garments be sparkling fresh,

Thy head be washed; bathe thou in water.

Pay heed to the little one that holds on to thy hand,

Let thy spouse delight in thy bosom!

For this is the task of mankind!...

After crossing difficult mountains and sailing across the waters of Death, Gilgamesh at last meets Utnapishtim, who discourses on the theme of the lack of permanency with specific reference to the transiency of life itself....[Dissatisfied,] he persists by asking Utnapishtim how it was that he achieved his deathless state. The reply is the long story of his salvation from the flood through obedience to the god Ea. At the conclusion of the recital of this story, Utnapishtim sets a test for Gilgamesh to try his heroism: 'Up, lie not down to sleep for six days and seven nights.' But the weak humanity of Gilgamesh is soon apparent:...[he sleeps seven days!]. At the departure of the disappointed hero, the wife of Utnapishtim intercedes to persuade her husband to reward him for his perilous journey. Thereupon, Utnapishtim reveals a hidden thing: a thorny plant at

at the bottom of the sea, if grasped, will assure life. By tying heavy stones to his feet, Gilgamesh descends to the deep and obtains the plant, which he calls 'Man Becomes Young in Old Age.' However, on the homeward journey, Gilgamesh stops for the night, and while he is bathing in a cool pool of water, a serpent snuffs the fragrance of the plant and carries it off. Immediately the serpent sheds its cast skin-a sure sign of the powers of the magic plant which Gilgamesh once had but has now lost. Frustrated in his search, Gilgamesh returns to Uruk, the city from which he had set out on his useless quest. He now knows that 'when the gods created mankind, death for mankind they set aside.'" (Ibid., pp.175-183)

One can hardly believe that anyone would mistake this tale for a source of Biblical material, but some modern liberal "scholars" have suggested just that! Enkidu, protector and friend of the animals and tamed from wildness by a woman, is supposed to be the source of the account of Adam and Eve! The mention of "food fit for divinity" and being "clothed with noble garments" is supposed to remind us of the Fall! The mention of a serpent and a magic plant that would bestow eternal life is supposed to remind us of the scene in the garden of Eden and the tree of life! All real stretches of the imagination. There are many other great differences between the message of this myth and the Bible message. Can you spot some?

The Atrahasis Epic is an earlier version (1600 B.C. or earlier) of the Babylonian account of the flood. Atrahasis ("the wise one") is another name for

Utnapishtim. This epic is also often hailed as the source of the Biblical story of the flood. The order of events is much more like Genesis than the story in Gilgamesh in that in it, creation does precede the flood. Basically, the story line is this:

At one time, the higher gods called Anunnaki did all the work, but it was too great, so they turned it over to a younger generation of gods called Igigi. Their leader and father was Ellil (or Enlil). The gods divided the earth and the sky, Anu taking oversight of the sky and Ellil the earth. The Igigi bore the workload of creation for 3,600 years, digging the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers as well as many canals. The work was so burdensome that they complained against Ellil and gathered around his house in rebellion. All of the gods gathered there and Ea (or Enki) said he didn't blame the Igigi for complaining since the work was so hard. He counseled that Belet-ili (also known as Mami, Ninhursag, or Nintu), "the womb-goddess," create man to do the work instead. She objected that this was Enki's (Ea's) job, not hers, but she would do it if he would give her clay. Enki commanded that a god be slaughtered and that his flesh and blood be mixed with clay as material for making man who would then be a mixture of god and clay. A ghost was also to be brought into existence from the god's flesh to take his place so he would not be forgotten. "Geshtu-e, a god who had intelligence" was slaughtered. Mami called together all the gods, and spat on the clay mingled with the flesh and blood of the slain god. Then Enki, with all the womb-goddesses present, "trod the clay" while, at his insistence, Mami chanted an incantation to him. She then pinched off 14 pieces of the clay and put 7 of them on the right and 7 on the left, two by two, from which were created 7 pairs of human beings. After 1200 years of multiplying, "the country became too wide, the people too numerous. The country was as noisy as a bellowing bull. The God grew restless at their racket, Ellil had to listen to their noise. He addressed the great gods, 'The noise of mankind has become too much, I am losing sleep over their racket. Give the order that suruppuisease [a plague] shall break out.'" Atrahasis is then introduced into the story as a man "Whose ear was open to his god Enki. He would speak with his god, And his god would speak with him." He complained to Enki and asked how long the plague would last. Enki instructed him to tell all the elders of his city to quit praying to their gods and seek out Namtara (god of fate and demon of the underworld) by offering him bread so he would "wipe away his hand" (remove the plague). The elders followed this advice, building a temple for Namtara, and the plague was stayed. After another 1200 years, the situation was repeated. Too many people, too much noise, God was irritated and couldn't sleep, so he ordered a drought and famine: "Cut off food supplies to the people! Let the vegetation be too scant for their hunger! Let Adad [the storm god] wipe away his rain. Below let no flood-water flow from the springs." This time Atrahasis is instructed to offer bread to Adad, a temple to him was built, and evidently the drought ended after killing almost everyone except one or two families. Evidently then the situation was repeated after another 1200 years (there are gaps in the tablets) and Enki was counseled by the gods to send a flood. He objected that that was Ellil's kind of work, not his. A disagreement ensued between Ellil and him, Ellil being for, Enki against, a flood. Enki secretly warned his friend Atrahasis of the flood by speaking to the wall of his house, "Dismantle the house, build a boat, Reject possessions and save living things." Atrahasis gathered "birds, cattle, and wild animals" on board. A storm raged, the flood ensued, and the gods were sorry, grieved and wept, and criticized and blamed Ellil for the wicked order to send the flood. It lasted 7 days as in Gilgamesh, Atrahasis offers sacrifice afterwards, the gods smelled it and gathered together, etc. Ellil was angry when he had seen the boat and found out someone had escaped death. Enki answered that it was he who, in defiance of Ellil, had instructed Atrahasis to escape by building the boat. Ellil decreed a "pasittu-demon" to kill one-third of the infants from then on [and that some women should remain celibate, and others should be barren] to control childbirth and the population. (Myths from Mesopotamia, Stephanie Dalley; Oxford U. Press: Oxford; 1992, pp. 9-35)

The Sumerians were the predecessors of the Babylonians. Their civilization flourished in the same area before the Babylonians came there to rule. The Babylonians evidently borrowed much of their mythology for their own. For example, a Sumerian account of the flood, sometimes called "The Eridu Genesis," dating from earlier times, 1600 or 1700 B.C. has been found. It is called "The Eridu Genesis" because the setting for the story is the ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, which was located down the Tigris/Euphrates near the Persian Gulf, and which the Sumerians said was the first city to be established in the world. Although it exists now only in very fragmented form, the account evidently follows the order of events of Atrahasis and the Genesis story-creation of the universe, the world, and the animals coming first.

One cannot deny the striking parallels between these stories and the Genesis account. On the other hand, the differences are far greater and more important. There is actually no evidence to show that the Bible writers got their story from the Babylonians. The fact that not only the Babylonians but every nation and people on earth have a flood story containing at least some of the Bible elements shows not that the Bible writers borrowed pagan myths, but that there really was a world-wide flood, the story of which was passed down to all peoples from the event itself. All nations and peoples came from one of the three sons of Noah-Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Voss also writes:

"Flood stories have been discovered among nearly all nations and tribes....[T]hey have been found on all continents. Totals of the number of stories known run as high as 270....LaHaye and Morris [in their book The Ark on Ararat] concluded (p.237) that 88% of them single out a favored individual or family; 70% point to survival due to a boat; 66% see the Flood coming as a result of human wickedness; 67% speak of animals saved along with human beings; 57% record that the survivors end up on a mountain; and 66% indicate that the hero or favored one receives warning of the coming catastrophe. The universality of the flood accounts is usually taken as evidence for the universal destruction of humanity by a flood and the spread of the human race from one locale and even from one family." (Ibid., p. 319)

About three years after the flood story in the Gilgamesh Epic was published in the 1870's, "[George] Smith published a volume giving translations of the contents of about twenty fragments of the seven-tablet [Babylonian] account of Creation....The Babylonian story of Creation is contained in a long poem....which begins with a picture of the earliest imaginable period of primordial time, when only the divine pair, Apsu, the fresh water, and Tiamat, the salt water, was existent. Nothing else had come into being....In time, several generations of gods sprang from the first pair. Alienated from the older Apsu and Tiamat, the younger gods joined together, and, under the leadership of Ea, the wise earth- and water-god, succeeded in slaying the primordial Apsu, who had resolved to destroy his descendants. This act of violence the primordial Tiamat, the mother, determines to avenge by a well-planned attack on the gods. Much of the dramatic poem deals with the preparation for her attack and the choice and equipment of Marduk as a suitable champion to oppose this ancient goddess of the primordial chaos. Marduk, who was the principal god of the city of Babylon at the height of its power, is given the tokens of authority by the gods in assembly....Finally, the conflict between Tiamat and Marduk...began....The dramatic triumph of the heroic Marduk over the villainous Tiamat and her band is a prelude to the process of creation. In the myth, the conflict is inseparable from creation, which follows immediately....When Marduk had vanquished the host of Tiamat, he turned to the rebellious goddess herself, whom he had bound up, and began the process of creation:

The lord trod on the legs of Tiamat,

With his unsparing mace he crushed her skull.

When the arteries of her blood he had severed,

The North Wind bore it to places undisclosed.

On seeing this, his fathers were joyful and jubilant,

They brought gifts of homage, they to him.

Then the lord paused to view her dead body,

That he might divide the monster and do artful works.

He split her like a shellfish into two parts:

Half of her he set up and ceiled it as sky,

Pulled down the bar and posted guards.

He bade them to allow not her waters to escape.

He crossed the heavens and surveyed the regions.

He squared Apsu's quarter, the abode of Nudimmud,

As the lord measured the dimensions of Apsu.

The Great Abode, its likeness, he fixed as Esharra,

The Great Abode, Esharra, which he made as the

firmament.

Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places.

He constructed stations for the great gods,

Fixing their astral likenesses as constellations.

He determined the year by designating the zones:

He set up three constellations for each of the twelve months.

In her belly he established the zenith.

The Moon he caused to shine, the night to him

entrusting.

He appointed him a creature of the night to signify

the days:

When Marduk hears the words of the gods,

His heart prompts him to fashion artful works.

Opening his mouth, he addresses Ea

To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:

"Blood I will mass and cause bones to be.

I will establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name.

Verily, savage-man I will create.

He shall be charged with the service of the gods

That they might be at ease!..."

The wise Ea suggests that one of the gods be handed over as material for the creation of man. As they seek out the most guilty among the forces of Tiamat, the gods reply:

"It was Kingu who contrived the uprising,

And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle.

They bound him, holding him before Ea.

They imposed on him his guilt and severed his blood vessels.

Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.

He imposed the service and let free the gods.

After Ea, the wise, had created mankind,

Had imposed upon it the service of the gods-

That work was beyond comprehension;

As artfully planned by Marduk, did Nudimmud create it-...

Finally, after building a lofty shrine in Babylon, the gods feast.

The great gods took their seats,

They set up festive drink, sat down to a banquet.

After they had made merry within it,

In Esagila, the splendid, had performed their rites,

The norms had been fixed and all their portents,

All the gods apportioned the stations of heaven and earth.

The strongest link connecting this epic with the account in the first chapter of Genesis is the order of events shared by both. Before setting in parallel columns the correspondences, it must be pointed out that each contains elements not shared by the other, such as the creation of animals, fish, and fowl in Genesis, and the account of the building of the temple in Esagila in the Babylonian story. But certain common elements in the two accounts can be matched as follows:

BABYLONIAN	GENESIS
1. The primordial watery chaos of Tiamat and Apsu.	1. Existence of un-formed earth and the deep.
2. Birth of Marduk, "Sun of the heavens."	2. Creation of light.
3. Fashioning of the sky of the from half of the body of Tiamat.	3. Creation of the firmament, the sky
4. Squaring of Apsu's quarter (the earth?).	4. Gathering the water together to form the earth.
5. Setting up of the constellations.	5. Creation of lights in the firmament.
6. Making man for the service of the gods.	6. Creation of man to have dominion over animal life
7. The divine banquet.	7. Resting of God on the seventh day.

The nature of the relationship between the account of Creation in Genesis and the Babylonian story, reaching back as it does into the early part of the second millennium B.C., is still far from certain." (Ibid., pp.184-193)

Merrill F. Unger wrote:

"It is commonly recognized by scholars that there are numerous interesting parallels between the account of creation given in Babylonian literature, particularly Enuma elish, and that given in Genesis 1:1-2:3. Although these similarities are genuine, they are commonly exaggerated and erroneous conclusions are frequently drawn from them....[T]he similarities...are in some respects striking. But in the over-all picture the likenesses serve to accentuate the differences, which are much more radical and significant....(1) One account is intensely polytheistic, the other strictly monotheistic....The great gods themselves plot and fight against each other....Genesis, in striking contrast, is lofty and sublime. The one God, supreme and omnipotent, is in superb control of all the creatures and elements of the universe. There is an infinite gap between Him as Creator and the creature or the creation....Other fragmentary inscriptions add contradictory elements to the perplexing account in Enuma elish. One found be George Smith at Nineveh speaks of 'the gods in their totality' as having created the world and its contents. Another from the ancient Assyrian capital city, Ashur, lists 'the great gods' Anu, Enlil, Shamash and Ea as creators of the universe and, together with the divinities called the Annunakit, as having formed the first two human beings, named Ulligarra ('the establisher of abundance') and Zalgarra ('the establisher of plenty'). Another tablet from Babylon asserts that Anu created the heavens and that Ea created lesser deities and mankind. Another inscription ascribes the creation of the sun and moon to Anu, Enlil and Ea. The Eridu story of creation ascribes mankind's creation to Marduk assisted by a goddess, while a mutilated and weather-worn tablet from the First Dynasty of Babylon ascribes man's creation to a goddess who mixed clay with a slain god's blood. [Stephanie Dalley writes, "Thus we cannot speak of 'the Mesopotamian view of creation' as a single, specific tradition, and this in turn shows the futility of claiming a direct connection between genesis as described in the Old Testament and any one Mesopotamian account of creation....Each city may have had its own local traditions about creation, which differed even in essentials from those of other cities." Myths from Mesopotamia; Oxford U. Press:NY; 1992, p. 278)] In the greatest possible contrast to the confusion and contradiction of these polytheistic narratives the Genesis account with chaste beauty and simplicity, which are eloquent evidences of its divine inspiration, presents the one Eternal God as Creator and Sustainer of all things. He creates all things out of nothing. By His omnipotent word He speaks worlds into being....(2) One account confounds spirit and matter, the other carefully distinguishes between these two concepts....Apsu and Tiamat, the parents of the gods, are personifications of cosmic matter (the primordial sweet and salt water oceans respectively) and their offspring in turn personify cosmic spaces and natural forces. This leads to the false assumption underlying Babylonian thought that divine spirit and cosmic matter are coexistent and coeternal....One of the sublimest features of the Genesis account is the power of the spoken word of the Creator. 'And God said' (Gen. 1:3,6,9,11,14,20, 24,26) is the divine fiat that majestically brings the universe and all it contains into existence....The [Babylonian] gods are consistently portrayed as craftsmen who create by physical toil as on the human level. A comparison [of the two accounts] reveals that the similarities on the whole are not particularly striking when the close affiliation between Hebrews and Babylonians during the course of their history is taken into consideration. The differences are, in fact, much more important and the similarities no more than one would naturally expect....However, in one aspect the similarity is of such a nature that it could hardly be accidental. This is in the matter of the sequence of events in creation....It seems certain that there is some connection between the two accounts. Four possibilities exist. The Genesis account is drawn from the Babylonian tradition. The Babylonian is drawn from the Genesis narrative. These traditions arose spontaneously. The two accounts go back to a common source....[The first view] has enjoyed widespread adherence [but]...the simplicity and sublimity of the Biblical account in contrast to the complexity and crudity of the Babylonian version offer weighty reasons against it.....[Moses could have taken the Babylonian account and by divine inspiration rid it of all the error and polytheism. But] It seems inconceivable that the Holy Spirit would have used an epic so contaminated with heathen philosophy as a source of spiritual truth. ...[The second] view is extremely unlikely, if not historically impossible. Enuma Elish antedates Genesis by almost four centuries....However, there is a possibility that the Hebrew account in one form or another may have been current centuries before. [The third view] refuses to account for the facts in any rational way. [Fourth,]... These are not traditions peculiar to Semitic peoples and religions, which have developed out of their common characteristics. They are traditions common to all civilized nations and antiquity. Their common elements point to a time when the human race occupied a common home and held a common faith....Early races of men wherever they wandered took with them these earliest traditions of mankind....Modifications as time proceeded resulted in the corruption of the original pure tradition. The Genesis account is not only the purest, but everywhere bears the unmistakable impress of divine inspiration when compared with the extravagances and corruptions of other accounts...." (Archaeology and the Old Testament; Zondervan:Grand Rapids,MI; 1954, pp.31-37)

Some have seen in another Babylonian myth, the Adapa Legend, elements of the Genesis account of the fall of man. Alexander Heidel writes:

"Adapa was a semidivine being, the provisioner of Ea's temple in the city of Eridu. Ea had created, or begotten, him to be a leader among men; he had granted him divine wisdom, but he had not granted him the gift of eternal life. One day, as Adapa was out on the Persian Gulf catching fish for the temple of Ea, the south wind suddenly arose, overturned his boat, and threw him into the water. Enraged at this, Adapa cursed the south wind, which the Babylonians pictured to themselves either as a bird or some composite creature with wings, and, by uttering this curse, he broke one of the wings of the south wind, so that for seven days it did not blow the cool gulf breezes over the hot land. For this incident Adapa is called before Anu, the sky-god, to give an account of his deed. But before he ascends to heaven, Ea, his father, instructs him. He is to wear long hair and to clothe himself with a mourning garment, to excite the compassion of Tammuz and Gizzida, the gatekeepers of heaven. They will ask him the reason for his mourning, and he is to tell them that he is mourning because they, Tammuz and Gizzida, who formerly lived on earth, have disappeared from the land of the living. They will be touched by this sign of reverence for them and will intercede for him. Ea tells Adapa that in heaven he will be offered the food of death, but he is not to drink of it; also the water of death he will be offered, but he is not to drink of it. Adapa is brought before Anu and is called into account. He would probably have been condemned. But at the right moment Tammuz and Gizzida interpose on his behalf and plead his cause so successfully that Anu decides not only to let him go unpunished but even to bless him. Anu becomes calm and begins to think matters over. He probably reasons: This man is already half a god; he knows the secrets of heaven and earth; he is in possession of divine wisdom; so why not admit him fully into our circle by conferring immortality upon him? Thereupon he issues the command: 'The food of life bring him, that he may eat!' The food of life is brought, but Adapa, mindful of his father's advice, declines to eat; the water of life is brought, but he declines to drink. Anu looks at him and laughs, saying to him: 'Come here, Adapa! Why hast thou not eaten, not drunken? Art thou not well?...Take him and [bring] him back to his earth!' If Adapa had eaten and had drunk, he would have become one of the lesser gods and would have lived forever. But since he had declined Anu's offer he was sent back to earth and eventually had to die, like all other men. From fragment No. IV it is quite clear, moreover, that, by refusing the food and the water of life, Adapa not only missed immortality but also brought illness and disease upon man. This, together with the statement in fragment No. I that he was a leader among mankind, apparently implies that he was in some way regarded as man's representative. Hence we may conclude that, by refusing to eat and drink, Adapa missed the chance of gaining immortality for mankind as well....[I]t is a misnomer to call the Adapa Legend the Babylonian version of the fall of man. The Adapa Legend and the biblical story are fundamentally as far apart as the antipodes....Adapa failed to obtain the priceless boon of immortality not because of any sin or disobedience on his part but because of his strict obedience to the will of Ea, his father, the god of wisdom and the friend of man. And...there is not the slightest trace of any temptation, or any indication whatever that this legend is in any way concerned with the problem of the origin of moral evil....If it is at all permissible to speak of a fall, it was a fall of the gods, not of man....Of the Babylonians can be said what Cicero has said with reference to the poets of Greece and Rome: 'The poets have represented the gods as inflamed by anger and maddened by lust, and have displayed to our gaze their wars and battles, their fights and wounds, their hatreds, enmities and quarrels, their births and deaths, their complaints and lamentations, the utter unbridled license of their passions, their adulteries and imprisonments, their unions with human beings and the birth of mortal progeny from an immortal parent.'...Since all the gods were evil by nature and since man was formed with their blood, man of course inherited their evil nature....Man, consequently, was created evil and was evil from his very beginning. How, then, could he fall? The idea that man fell from a state of moral perfection does not fit into the system or systems of Babylonian speculation." (The Babylonian Genesis; U. of Chicago Press: Chicago; 1963 [1942], pp. 122-126)

Gordon J. Wenham writes:

"[One] theory...holds that Gen. 1 either used the Babylonian creation story, Ennuma Elish, or at least is generally dependent on the Mesopotamian traditions. Indeed, this used to be the consensus view: from...1895...to 1964....However, Lambert...[in 1965] pointed out that there were decisive objections to [this theory]....Subsequent discussion of the relationship between Babylonian thought and Genesis has therefore concentrated on the Atrahasis epic....[T]his, the standard Babylonian account of creation, sees creation as a prelude to the flood, just as Gen. 1-11 does. Nevertheless, it is still quite improbable that there is a direct literary dependence of Genesis on Atrahasis. The general thrust and the various details of the narrative are too different to make this probable. The similarities can be explained by the origin of both accounts in neighboring countries in roughly the same chronological period. [Some scholars] have argued that closer parallels are to be found in Egyptian literature....These writers underline the tenuousness of the relationship between Mesopotamian and Hebrew tradition. But it is doubtful whether the parallels cited actually demonstrate dependence on Egyptian sources....Most likely [OT writers] were conscious of a number of accounts of creation current in the Near East of their day, and Gen. 1 is a deliberate statement of Hebrew view of creation over against rival views. It is not merely a demythologization of oriental creation myths, whether Babylonian or Egyptian; rather it is a polemical repudiation of such myths....There thus runs through the whole Genesis cosmology 'a conscious and deliberate anti-mythical polemic' (Heidel, Babylonian Genesis, 91). The author of Gen. 1 therefore shows that he was aware of other cosmologies, and that he wrote not in dependence on them so much as in deliberate rejection of them....Gen. 1 is more than a repudiation of contemporary oriental creation myths; it is a triumphant invocation of the God who has created all men and an invitation to all humanity to adore him who has made them in his own image." (Word Biblical Commentary; Vol.1, pp.8-10)

Besides these and other specific cases of supposed borrowing from heathen myths, it has often been claimed that Old Testament writers were influenced by mythology in other ways as well. Horsnell in the ISBE writes:

"T.H. Gaster has offered a useful and concise presentation of the ways in which scholars have found an influence of ancient Near Eastern mythopoeic thought on the OT (IDB, III, 481-87). Gaster categorized such supposed influence as figurative expressions, allusions, and direct parallels. Examples of figurative expressions are: (1) the voice of God as thunder (2 Sam. 22:14); (2) the wind as winged (2 Sam. 22:11; Ps. 104:3; Hos. 4:19), which reflects the ancient Near Eastern idea that storms were caused by the flapping of the wings of a large bird; (3) the sun as winged (Mal. 4:2), which reflects the idea of the winged solar disk; (4) references to a mountain in the north (Isa.14:13; Ps.48:2) where the gods assembled; (5) the Promised Land as a land 'flowing with milk and honey' borrows from ancient Near Eastern mythological concepts of paradise; (6) the idea of a Book of Fate, which recorded a person's days even before birth (Ps.139:15f.); (7) references to lilit, 'night hag' (Isa.34:14); resep, 'Canaanite god of pestilence' (Hab.3:5); and the latter's sons, beneresep (Job 5:7), all of whom reflect divine beings in ancient Near Eastern mythology. All the above ideas are readily explicable as borrowed mythological ideas that the OT has used in a purely figurative way without any commitment to the underlying theology.

"The allusions are: (1) The idea of primordial revolt of the gods in heaven. In Ps. 82:6f. Yahweh metes out judgment upon certain 'gods,' and in Isa. 14:12-15 the king of Babylon arrogantly aspires to divinity and heavenly enthronement (Canaanite mythology is reflected in helal, 'day star,' and sahar, 'dawn,' which are names of gods, and in the reference to 'the mount of assembly,' i.e., the mountain in the north [see above] where the council of the gods convened). Again, however, there is no evidence that the biblical writers accepted the underlying theology. They made figurative use of a borrowed mythological idea in order to demonstrate Yahweh's supremacy over nature and created beings. (2) Mythological and astrological ideas. Job 38:31f. refers to 'the chains of the Pleiades,' 'the cords of Orion,' and 'the Bear with its children,' but once again there is no evidence that the underlying theology of these mythological and astrological ideas is accepted; in their present use they emphasize the power and sovereign rule of Yahweh. (3) The wondrous child...(Isa.7:14; 9:6f.), which, Gaster said, reflects ancient myths 'familiar especially from the Iranian lore of the Saoshyant (Savior) and from Vergil's Fourth Eclogue-of the virgin-born hero and of the Miraculous Child who is to usher in the New Age....[But] any perceived influence of ancient mythology on these two Isaianic passages rests on supposed evidence that is weak and tangential. The poem of Vergil (70-19 B.C.) is too late to have any influence. (4) Traces of ancient Hebrew hero myths....[but these] provide no evidence that we are dealing with mythological ideas....(5) The annual dying and reviving of the deity, who died or slept in the nether world during the dry summer and revived with the return of vegetation in the autumn....The arguments adduced for this view are weak....

"Three major examples of 'direct parallels' between ancient Near Eastern mythology and the OT are: (1) The story of Yahweh's battle with a dragonlike creature. This does not occur as a complete narrative in the OT, but a number of passages allude to various

aspects [of it]....The monster against which Yahweh is said to have fought is variously called Leviathan (liwyatan-Job 3:8; 41:1; Ps.74:14; Isa.27:1; 2 Esd.6:49,52), Rahab (Heb. rahab-Job 9:13; 26:12; Ps.89:10; Isa.30:7; 51:9), Tannin (tannin), i.e., 'dragon' or 'sea monster' (Job 7:12; Ps.74:13; Isa.27:1; 51:9), Yam (yam), i.e., 'sea' (Job 7:12; Ps.74:13; Isa.51:10; Hab.3:8), and Nahash (nahas), i.e., 'serpent' (Job 26:13; Isa.27:1). It had several heads (Ps.74:13f.) and had apparently made the gods afraid (Job 41:25). Yahweh subdued and killed it (Isa.27:1) by smiting it (Job 26:12), by cutting it to pieces (Isa.51:9), by piercing it (Job 26:13; Isa.51:9), by crushing it (Ps.89:10), and by bludgeoning its heads (Ps.74:13f.). Yahweh also defeated the monster's allies (Job 9:13; Ps.89:10)....This story resembles the Ugaritic "Myth of Baal" (in which Baal wages a victorious fight with Yam, the god of sea and rivers) and the victorious fight of Marduk against the monster Tiamat in the Mesopotamian creation epic. The story occurs elsewhere in variant forms in Sumerian, Egyptian, and Phoenician mythology....That the OT uses traditional mythological concepts in the above passages cannot be denied, but there is no evidence of a commitment to the underlying theology....The OT uses them to demonstrate the power and supremacy of Yahweh over nature....As R. K. Harrison said: 'Where the language of myth was countenanced in the OT writings, it carried with it a very different meaning for the Hebrews than for the pagan nations of the Near East' (Into. to the OT, pp.452f.). (2) The stories of Creation and Paradise....(3) The biblical story of the Deluge...." (ISBE, Vol.3, pp.458-459)

As with the Old Testament, so also major elements of the New Testament have been assigned by liberal religious scholars to the status of "myth." M.J.A. Horsnell writes:

"The English term 'myth' entered into the arena of modern theological and biblical debate primarily through the work of D. F. Strauss, who provided a mythological interpretation of the life of Christ....He maintained that the Gospels are composed of myths, legends, materials deriving from the authors' literary activity, and a residue of historical materials. Myth, for Strauss meant 'religious imagery' in contrast to the Gospels' essential content of truth and historical facts. For Strauss the following narratives are largely mythical and therefore unhistorical: the Birth, Infancy, and Childhood narratives; the narratives dealing with the relations between Jesus and John the Baptist; the miracle stories; the Transfiguration account; the description of the entrance into Jerusalem; predictions of the Passion; the Passion story; and the Resurrection and Ascension narratives....A scholar who was influenced by Strauss and who has profoundly affected the modern understanding of the NT is Rudolph Bultmann....Theology must undertake the task of stripping [NT preaching] from its mythical framework, of 'demythologizing it'....His argument for the influence of Gnostic redeemer mythology on the NT...has been strongly contested in the light of recent Gnostic research." (ISBE, Eerdmans: Grand Rapids,MI; 1986, Vol. 3, pp. 460-461)

Josh McDowell writes:

"One major argument against the historicity of the Jesus of the NT has been the similarity of mythological elements found in pagan religions during the same time the early Christian church was active. One source asks: 'If you Christians believe the stories of Jesus' miracles, if you believe the story of Jesus' miraculous birth, if you believe the story that Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended into Heaven, then how can you refuse to believe precisely the same stories when they are told of the other Savior Gods: Herakles, Asklepios, the Dioscuri, Dionysos, and a dozen others I could name?' Christian college students are often devastated to hear of ancient religions which contained stories of resurrections, dying saviors, baptismal initiations, miraculous births, and the like. The inference, of course, is that the early Christian writers borrowed these stories and attributed them to Jesus as they formulated the Christian religion. Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide states: 'If we add to all these disturbing factors the statement that in the ancient world there were not less than a round dozen of nature deities, heroes, philosophers, and rulers who, all long before Jesus, suffered and died, and rose again on the third day, then the skepticism of most non-Christians can easily be understood....The imprisonment of the savior of the world, his interrogation, the condemnation, the scourging, the execution in the midst of criminals, the descent into hell-yes, even the heart blood of the dying gushing out of a spear wound, all these details were believed by millions of believers of the Bel-Marduk mystery religion whose central deity was called the savior sent by the Father, the one who raises the dead, the Lord and the Good Shepherd.'...[But there are] several main fallacies of those who allege that mystery religions influenced Christianity. #1: Combinationalism and Universalism. The error of first combining all the characteristics of all mystery religions from the fifteenth century B.C. all the way up to the fifth century A.D., and then comparing this caricature to Christianity. Even Albert Schweitzer recognized this...: 'They manufacture out of the various fragments of information a kind of universal mystery-religion which never actually existed, least of all in Paul's day.'...#2. Coloring the evidence. [For example] The taurobolium was primarily associated with the cult of Cybele and Attis. It has been suggested as the source of the inspiration for Revelation 7:14: 'and they have washed their robes...in the blood of the lamb'; and I Peter 1:2: 'that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood.' It has also been suggested as the inspiration for Christian baptism....The rite, as described by the ancient writer, Prudentius, called for the high priest being consecrated to be led down into a deep pit. The top of the pit is covered over by a wooden mesh grating. Then a huge bull, draped with flowers, has its breast pierced [and the priest is showered from head to toe by the blood spewing down upon him]....[But] there are several reasons [this] cannot be the source for any Christian doctrine or practice. First, the passage describes the consecration of a high priest, not a new convert. Second, there is no indication that the early Christians used actual blood in their rituals....Third, Christians (especially Jewish Christians) would have been repulsed by the practice....'The NT emphasis on the shedding of blood should not be traced to any pagan source. The NT teaching should be viewed in the context of its OT background-the Passover and the Temple sacrifices.' #3. Oversimplification and exaggeration. [For example] Ceremonial washings have been observed as a means of purification by religions all over the world and from long before the time of Jesus. It has therefore been suggested that Christians copied their rite of baptism from pagan religions around them....[But] Christian baptism is a demonstration of the believer's identification with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection. For the mystery cults it was different. Herman Ridderbos...states that 'nowhere in the mystery religions is such a symbolism of death present in the "baptism" ritual.'...An alleged example of resurrection in ancient myth is provided by the early Egyptian cult of Isis and Osiris. The myth has Osiris being murdered by his brother Seth who then sinks the coffin containing Osiris's body in the Nile River. Osiris's wife, Isis, the goddess of heaven, earth, sea, and the unseen world below, discovers her husband's body and returns it to Egypt. Seth, however, regains the body, cuts it into fourteen pieces, and scatters it abroad. Isis counters by recovering the pieces....[Nash writes,] 'Sometimes those telling the story are satisfied to say that Osiris came back to life....But some writers go much too far and refer to Osiris's "resurrection."'...Which mystery gods actually experienced a resurrection from the dead? Certainly no early texts refer to any resurrection of Attis. Attempts to link the worship of Adonis to a resurrection are equally weak. Nor is the case for a resurrection of Osiris any stronger. After Isis gathered together the pieces of Osiris's dismembered body, he became 'Lord of the Underworld.' As Metzger comments, 'Whether this can be rightly called a resurrection is questionable, especially since, according to Plutarch, it was the pious desire of devotees to be buried in the same ground where, according to local tradition, the body of Osiris was still lying.' One can speak then of a 'resurrection' in the stories of Osiris, Attis, and Adonis only in the most extended of senses. And of course no claim can be made that Mithras was a dying and rising god. French scholar Andre Boulanger concludes: 'The conception that the god dies and is resurrected in order to lead his faithful to eternal life is represented in no Hellenistic mystery religion.' If the 'savior-gods' mentioned above can be spoken of as resurrected, then we need to differentiate Jesus' resurrection from theirs. Jesus was a person of history who rose from the dead never to die again. He appeared in the flesh several times before His ascension, and the story was told by eyewitnesses. James D. G. Dunn concludes: 'The parallel with visions of Isis and Asclepius...is hardly close. These were mythical figures from the dim past. In the sightings of Jesus we are talking about a man who had died only a few days or weeks earlier.'...From the earliest Greek mythologies all the way through Roman times, it was common to ascribe deity to outstanding individuals...The Jews were different. For them there was only one God. It is therefore remarkable that Palestinian Jews [the disciples], and among them one of the most respected of their Pharisees [Paul], would begin proclaiming the deity of one who had walked among them....Is it possible that these Jews could have shaped their message from the mystery cults? Not likely....Nash gives six differences between the deaths of the so-called savior-gods and that of Jesus: (1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else....(2) Only Jesus died for sin....As Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods, 'has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.).' (3) Jesus died once for all....In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated death and resurrection depict the annual cycle of nature. (4) Jesus' death was an actual event in history. The death of the god described in the pagan cults is a mythical drama with no historical ties. (5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily....(6) And finally, Jesus' death was not a defeat but a triumph....Fallacy #4. Who's influencing whom? This error is probably the most serious methodological fallacy committed by those charging that Christianity borrowed its doctrine and practices from the mystery religions....The key here is dating. Most of the alleged parallels between Christianity and mystery religions, upon close scrutiny will show that Christian elements predate mythological elements. In cases where they do not, it is often Jewish elements which predate both Christianity and the myth, and which lent themselves to both religions...[Concerning baptism, Nash indicates] 'pagan washings after A.D. 100 come too late to influence the NT and, indeed, might themselves have been influenced by Christianity.' [Concerning the Taurobolium, it] post-dates the NT writings by almost a hundred years....[and] 'The idea of a rebirth through the instrumentality of the taurobolium only emerges in isolated instances toward the end of the fourth century A.D....' [Concerning rebirth,] There is only one reference attaching 'rebirth' to the cult of Cybele and Attis. The reference is a fourth-century A.D. interpretation from Sallustius, whom one would expect was influenced by Christianity, not vice-versa. Only two debatable references, both from the second century A.D. 'use the imagery of rebirth.' Nash continues: 'While there are several sources that suggest that Mithraism included a notion of rebirth, they are all post-Christian. The earliest...dates from the end of the second century A.D....' Though statements abound in popular literature that Christianity borrowed its gospel story from the myths of the pagan world, the tide of scholarly opinion has turned against this thesis. Moreland puts it: 'It cannot be emphasized enough that such influences are seen by current NT scholars to have little or no role in shaping the NT picture of Jesus in general or the resurrection narratives in particular. Both the general milieu of the Gospels and specific features of the resurrection narratives give overwhelming evidence that the early church was rooted in Judaism. Jesus, the early church, and its writings were born in Jewish soil and Gentile influence was minimal.'" (A Ready Defense; Here's Life Publishers: San Bernardino,CA; 1992, pp. 163-171)

The claim of liberal scholars that the NT was mostly myths was based largely upon the theory of the last century that the NT documents were written long after the events they supposedly portrayed. McDowell writes:

"F. C. Bauer, along with other critics, assumed that the NT Scriptures were not written until late in the second century A.D. He concluded that these writings came mainly from myths or legends that had developed during the lengthy interval between the lifetime of Jesus and the time these accounts were set down in writing. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, archaeological discoveries had confirmed the accuracy of the NT manuscripts. Discoveries of early papyri manuscripts bridged the gap between the time of Christ and existing manuscripts from a later date. In 1955, Dr. William F. Albright, recognized as one of the world's outstanding biblical archaeologists, wrote: 'We can already say emphatically that there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the NT after circa A.D. 80, two full generations before the date between 130 and 150 given by the more radical NT critics of today.' Eight years later he stated in an interview that the completion date for all the books in the NT was 'probably sometime between circa A.D. 50 and 75.' Dr. John A.T. Robinson...[for years].... accepted the consensus typified by German criticism that the NT was written years after the time of Christ....But, as 'little more than a theological joke,' he decided to investigate the arguments....The results stunned him....He concluded that the NT is the work of the apostles themselves or of contemporaries who worked with them and that all the NT books, including John, had to have been written before A.D. 64....With the arrival of [his] Redating the NT (1976)...the date has been pushed back to as early as circa A.D. 40 for a possible first draft of Matthew....There is, then, strong evidence that the formative period [between events and writings] was no more than seventeen to twenty years in length, possibly as little as seven to ten years for an Aramaic or Hebrew version of Matthew spoken of by Papias....[Albright] added that the period is 'too slight to permit any appreciable corruption of the essential center and even of the specific wording of the sayings of Jesus.'" (Ibid., pp. 79-80)

In general, the idea that the stories of the Bible whether Old or New Testaments, are based on heathen myths fails simply because there is a vast difference between ancient myth and the Bible. [As E.M. Blaiklock says of the Gospel of John,] "Simply read. These men were not writing fiction. This is not what myth sounds like. This is history and only thus set down because it was reporting." (Ibid., p.172)

And as Norman Geisler put it as we noted in our article on miracles, "The NT is not the literary genre of mythology." The same may certainly be said of the OT as well.

The contention made by liberal scholars through their study of comparative mythology that the biblical accounts of creation, the flood, etc., are derived from Near Eastern myths reminds me of the "evidences" for evolution set forth by scientists. The claim that the universe and all living things had a supernatural cause, a Creator, is unacceptable to their naturalistic presuppositions; therefore they must search for another cause, another explanation. Whatever evidence they find in nature or the fossil record they eagerly seize as proof of their theory, no matter how slight is the evidence or how it may be countered by other evidence. Thus the tooth of an extinct pig has been hailed as the remains of an evolutionary link in the emergence of man! It is the same with the bits of material in myths that are similar to elements of Bible stories. The myths must have "evolved" into the Bible accounts. For them, the idea that the Bible has a supernatural source is unacceptable to their naturalistic bias; the writers of Scripture must have got their material and their inspiration from somewhere else, from some natural source. And as they search mythology, they think they find what they are looking for.

"Probably the most influential German church historian and theologian of his day [and no conservative, either], Adolf von Harnack, shortly after the turn of the century, wrote: 'We must reject the comparative mythology which finds a causal connection between everything and everything else, which tears down solid barriers, bridges chasms as though it were child's play, and spins combinations from superficial similarities....By such methods one can turn Christ into a sun god in the twinkling of an eye, or one can bring up the legends attending the birth of every conceivable god, or one can catch all sorts of mythological doves to keep company with the baptismal dove; and find any number of celebrated asses to follow the ass on which Jesus rode into Jerusalem; and thus, with the magic wand of "comparative religion," triumphantly eliminate every spontaneous trait in any religion.'" (Ibid., p. 173)

The "bottom line" of our lengthy and somewhat involved response to the objection that the Bible is based on or contains myths is that there is no reason at all to reject the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures on these grounds. The contention that the Bible contains or is based upon myths is itself a myth.

Leon Stump, Pastor of Victory Christian Center

Background from Greenfield Graphics.