I think to be fair to the authors we need to look back to ancient Sumeria. The Enuma Elish Tablets are in the British museum for those who are curious. They predate the bible by a min of 1000 years. The Atrahasis Story also predates the biblical genesis account by over 1000 years or more. This is the Babylonian version of about 1700 bc but certainly dates back to sumerian times. Humanities original religion was polytheistic[ having many different gods] again ancient Sumeria and Mesopotamia hold the keys. The beginning or creation of humanity. Atrahasis was the Sumerian king of Shuruppak and was the author of the bible initially that is spoken of not the complete bible but the beginning;)
Welcome to the SDMB, nocturn36.
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Who wrote the Bible?
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, nocturn, glad to have you with us.
When we wrote that Staff Report, we figured it was way long enough. We thus limited ourselves to who WROTE the Bible text (as it has come down to us). We deliberately did NOT discuss what other sources they might have used, and did not try to do comparative mythologies. A comparison of the Noah story and the Gilgamesh Flood story, for instance, would be a topic in and of itself.
So, agreed, there’s lots of interesting material and comparisons that we just didn’t want to go into. We figure, we’ve given a few sources, and anyone interested in digging (archaeological pun not intended) can easily find volumes on those earlier texts.