As a preacher, I blamed the reality of much older accounts within more ancient cultures of the exact same stories recorded in the Bible on the devil. The only explanation I could come up with to hold onto my religious beliefs in the face of these facts was to say Satan, with foreknowledge of what would later happen, revealed these things to the Sumerians, Akkadians, and others.
What is the excuse today for dismissing the truth that nearly every civilization that long predates Biblical culture has the same mythos, with just names changed? In 2019, with all the knowledge available to us, how is it refuted that the Bible is little more than a plagiarized amalgamation of various ancient near eastern cultural mythologies, including the story of Jesus?
How do “we” continue to ignore the historical truth of the Nicean councils, the Flavius families, Marcion of Sinope, and the Piso family? There is so much historical evidence to dismiss the Bible as the word of God, yet none to validate the existence of the characters written therein. Maybe it’s time for us to finally accept the role religion (as well as nationalism and culture) has played in the destruction of society. Maybe we need to finally loose ourselves from the shackles of Biblical based fear, and acknowledge that we fell for the agenda to subdue us, and turn us into egoistic judges of good and evil. Even the Bible itself tells you that without its commands you wouldn’t know sin.
