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Conclusion

  The Old Testament did not emerge in isolation. Its writers lived among older and more powerful civilisations, including Egypt, Canaan, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. They encountered their myths, laws, prayers, royal ideas, wisdom teachings and beliefs about the gods. In some cases, biblical writers seem to have adapted older stories directly. In other cases, they drew from traditions that were already widely shared across the Ancient Near East. This does not mean that the Jews simply copied other religions without thought or originality. They took familiar ideas and gave them a new direction. A Mesopotamian flood story became a story about human violence, divine judgement and covenant. Ancient law codes became part of a covenantal way of life centred on justice and responsibility. Canaanite images of storm gods and divine councils were reshaped around YHWH as the supreme God. Egyptian wisdom, religious objects and royal imagery were adapted into Israelite stories about liberatio...
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Why Did the Returning Judeans Need Their Own Stories?

  When Babylon conquered Jerusalem in 587/586 BCE, the impact on Judah was devastating. Jerusalem was captured, its walls and major buildings were destroyed, and the temple, the centre of religious life, was burned. The Judean monarchy came to an end, and leading members of the population, including administrators, priests, skilled workers and members of the elite, were taken to Babylon. Judah was no longer an independent kingdom. It became a province under Babylonian control. It is important not to imagine that every person in Judah was deported. Many people remained in the land, especially farmers and poorer communities. At the same time, a large and influential Judean community developed in Babylon. This meant that Judean identity was now divided across different places: some were trying to survive in a damaged homeland, while others were building new lives in exile. For those in Babylon, exile was more than a political defeat. It raised painful religious questions. If Jerus...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
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Satan, Angels and Possible Zoroastrian Influence

  The Persian period is important because it placed Judeans in direct contact with the Iranian world for generations. After Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, Judah became part of the Persian Empire. Judeans who returned to Jerusalem still lived under imperial rule, while many others remained in Babylon and other parts of the empire. This meant that Jewish communities were not only exposed to Persian administration, language and politics. They were also living near Iranian religious ideas, stories and rituals. Over time, some scholars have suggested that this contact may have influenced later Jewish beliefs about angels, demons, judgement after death, resurrection and the struggle between good and evil. However, this is one of the most debated areas in the study of biblical religion. There are real similarities between later Jewish and Zoroastrian ideas, but similarity is not the same as proof of direct borrowing. A further complication is that the oldest Iranian t...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
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Egyptian Influence in Israelite Stories and Religious Traditions

  Egypt deserves special attention because it is one of the most important settings in the Old Testament. Egypt is not only the place from which Israel escapes in the book of Exodus. It also appears in the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Solomon, Jeremiah and many later biblical figures. For the biblical writers, Egypt was both familiar and powerful. It represented wealth, learning, military strength, royal authority and ancient religious tradition. At the same time, it could represent oppression, foreign control and the temptation to rely on human power rather than God. This makes Egyptian influence a complicated subject. The Old Testament contains Egyptian names, loanwords, imagery and cultural settings. But this does not mean that every biblical story set in Egypt was copied from Egyptian texts. In many cases, the writers may have used Egyptian ideas, objects and symbols while changing their meaning to fit Israel’s own understanding of God. Moses and Egyptian Memory T...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
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Parallel Stories

  Creation Narratives Genesis Genesis contains two major creation accounts. Genesis 1 presents a structured creation in six days, followed by divine rest. Genesis 2 focuses more closely on the formation of the human being, the garden and human relationships. In Genesis 1, creation happens through divine command. God speaks, and the world is ordered. There is no battle between gods, no creation from the corpse of a defeated monster and no divine family drama. That simplicity is striking when compared with Mesopotamian myths. Enuma Elish The Babylonian Enuma Elish describes creation through conflict. The god Marduk defeats the sea goddess Tiamat and forms the world from her body. Human beings are then created to take over the labour of the gods. There are clear similarities with Genesis: water before creation, the ordering of the cosmos and humanity’s place in the world. However, the differences are just as important. In Genesis, the waters are not a goddess. God does ...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
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Literary Borrowing, Shared Tradition, or Polemic?

  When readers notice similarities between the Old Testament and older Egyptian, Mesopotamian or Canaanite texts, the first reaction is often to ask, “Did the Bible copy this?” That question is understandable, but it can be too narrow. Ancient writers did not always create stories from scratch, and they did not always borrow in a simple, word-for-word way. They often worked with ideas, themes and literary patterns that had been circulating for generations. There are at least three useful ways to understand these similarities: literary borrowing, shared tradition and polemic. Literary Borrowing Literary borrowing happens when a writer seems to know a particular earlier text and adapts it for a new audience. This is more than two stories having a similar theme. It usually involves a close sequence of ideas, matching images, unusual wording, similar structure or a strong historical connection between the two cultures. The more specific the similarities are, the stronger the ...
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
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