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Well, it is a collection of stories edited for morality - but where those stories originally came from is the extremely interesting point. The bible for example

Well, it is a collection of stories edited for morality - but where those stories originally came from is the extremely interesting point. The bible for example seems to contain two, dual, and opposing creation myths (genesis and the garden of eden) - these two stories almost certainly started out as different belief systems and were homologized. Anyways, this article links to one about another impact at the end of the Younger Dryas period (~12k years-ago) (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60867-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60867-w) - when global sea levels rise dramatically, the mega-predators of the earth vanish, human civilization seems to appear, and we're left with (metaphorical?) stories about mega-floods and mega-monsters. There is a kernel of truth in all our rituals. As absurd as many of them are, they're like living history - a confused and tangled misremembering of... _something that actually happened_. And it makes one much more sympathetic to people who believed in an angry god if one understands they saw a city literally get smited from the heavens. Very interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

timhand 5y ago
From a christian perspective it's more that these stories are framed from a point of view. '“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Much attention is focused on how to reconcile Genesis 1 and science. But this is the wrong debate. Genesis 1 should be read not against current science books but against other stories of origins, especially the stories of the cultures surrounding ancient Israel: the Babylonians, Canaanites and Egyptians. Genesis 1 is best read as a polemic against these stories. Beneath some superficial similarities the Biblical account presents a profoundly different understanding of God, the world and humanity.' [1] [1] https://pbcc.org/sermons/in-the-beginning-god/ https://pbcc.org/sermons/in-the-beginning-god/
omega3 5y ago
Why do you think the two myths are opposing?
- erulabs 5y ago
  It's not so much that they're opposing in that they counter each other, it's just that from a literary perspective, there are two separate creation events in the first two books. Genesis 1 starts with a creation story: > In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth And after the entire creation of the world, Genesis 2 begins and seems to have forgotten the world was already created: > This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created There are a number of examples like this that make scholars believe the books were collected from different belief systems and then arranged together - sort of like a best-of compilation of existing religions.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Why do you think the two myths are opposing? Because different events occur, and the shared events occur in different order and context? When two different narratives notionally referring to the same events have those features, they are said to be opposing or conflicting narratives.
mrlonglong 5y ago
Yes, that one is interesting. I believe it might be related to the flooding of the Black Sea circa 6,000 BCE. It is local enough to the region to become a story over millennia. The Eyptians may have heard about it and told Plato about it perhaps.

timhand 5y ago

From a christian perspective it's more that these stories are framed from a point of view. '“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Much attention is focused on how to reconcile Genesis 1 and science. But this is the wrong debate. Genesis 1 should be read not against current science books but against other stories of origins, especially the stories of the cultures surrounding ancient Israel: the Babylonians, Canaanites and Egyptians. Genesis 1 is best read as a polemic against these stories. Beneath some superficial similarities the Biblical account presents a profoundly different understanding of God, the world and humanity.' [1] [1] https://pbcc.org/sermons/in-the-beginning-god/ https://pbcc.org/sermons/in-the-beginning-god/

omega3 5y ago

Why do you think the two myths are opposing?

erulabs 5y ago
It's not so much that they're opposing in that they counter each other, it's just that from a literary perspective, there are two separate creation events in the first two books. Genesis 1 starts with a creation story: > In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth And after the entire creation of the world, Genesis 2 begins and seems to have forgotten the world was already created: > This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created There are a number of examples like this that make scholars believe the books were collected from different belief systems and then arranged together - sort of like a best-of compilation of existing religions.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Why do you think the two myths are opposing? Because different events occur, and the shared events occur in different order and context? When two different narratives notionally referring to the same events have those features, they are said to be opposing or conflicting narratives.

mrlonglong 5y ago

Yes, that one is interesting. I believe it might be related to the flooding of the Black Sea circa 6,000 BCE. It is local enough to the region to become a story over millennia. The Eyptians may have heard about it and told Plato about it perhaps.