Quick Thoughts on “The Old Testament is just a collection and rehash from older sources”

Someone asked me the following:

How can one respond to the statement:

“The OT is just a collection and rehash from older sources” (for example: Sumerian)

Usually non-believers use this approach to undermine the Genesis narratives, stating that there are civilizations much older than the Hebrew people, thus, the books from the Hebrews have been inspired by previous texts from those folks.

Here’s my reply:

Very good question. I do think often the objection is too simplistic.

• Sometimes those who attack the Bible with the “Copycat” Thesis are plainly wrong about the parallel. I think of for example the claim of the parallel of the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe which I critiqued here. There’s also the example of Horus being what Jesus copied which is refuted here.
• There’s also times the OT is engaging in polemical theology against other gods when it echoes Ancient Near Eastern materials. I think this book demonstrate that ‘polemical theology’ is a trait of the Old Testament. The objection in the statement mentioned above is too simplistic to assert its merely rehashing older materials; again, you can’t fault the Old Testament writers for knowing things from other cultures but there is more going on than merely recollecting and rehashing old materials. There’s far more critical aspect of what’s going on.
• Sometimes God in His Sovereignty allow the greater cultural practices to be what they are so that they would be used by God in the Scripture as a motif/theme/symbol of greater spiritual reality. Its a case of God using what the people understand to teach and help them understand greater truths. I think of the examples of circumcision, the genre of Covenants, King (God being a King) and ceremonial purity are prime examples of this. Yet I also see the Old Testament appropriation of such institutions and practices are also very different because I understand there’s a streak of a theology of grace running through the OT and even many of these things is embedded in a theology of promise or anticipate God’s grace through fulfillment of promises unlike pagan practices.
• There’s times where the OT and pagan sources have similar reports of events such as the Flood. If such a traumatic event was true we wouldn’t be surprised that surrounding ANE region have similar narratives but differences in the details and the theology. I take the Noahic account to be not so much of rehashing of older sources but God providing the proper interpretation of the events and the accurate account of what happened while other streams of accounts by pagans started being filtered according to their polytheistic worldviews.
• By the way I think this might be helpful even for Old Testament copy cat thesis even though it is addressing Jesus and the New Testament copycat thesis.

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