Question about Christianity borrowing from ancient Greeks...

[derrick09]

Hi everyone recently I saw a history program on television the other day and it was mentioning about the various doctrines of the afterlife notably the doctrine of hell, from various religions. And as you would expect, they spent quite a bit of time discussing the Christian view of hell. What troubled me about that segment, was, many of the historians that were being interviewed were claiming that Christianity borrowed many of the ideas or details about hell from the ancient Greeks. I was wondering if anyone has heard this argument before and if you know of any apologists who have responded to it? I know there are many skeptical arguments that says Christianity or Christ himself borrowed form this or that ancient pagan god or religion but many of them have been responded to such as the ones that are tossed around in the Lee Strobel book The Case for the Real Jesus. But this one in particular is somewhat new to me, and I was just curious if anyone has heard of and or have heard a good response to it. Thanks for your time and God bless.

[Canuckster1127]

I'll take a swipe at this because I've said some similar things at times, and it gives me an opportunity to lend some perspective.

First off, yes, I think there has been some greek pagan influence upon our views on many things. This is inevitable in part because Greek and Roman religion and culture were similar in some regards and the pantheon of gods, interchangable. Hades and hell in Pagan religion was clearly defined and when Christianity became the state religion of Rome in the early 4th century, there was a merger of sorts between the Christian church and the Roman Temple system which resulted in a merger and synthesis of the two organizationally and philosophically. Much of this in the English speaking world finds a great deal of reinforcement and imagery around it in Dante's inferno (even though it was written in Italian) and translated.

That said and recognized, it should be expected, that due to the nature of natural revelation and the commonality of man in origins back from the flood and Babel that there would be common themes even outside Judaism and other cultures of the time. We see that in things like, similar moral codes to the 10 commandments, flood narratives universally in most cultures and some similarity in creation accounts.

I know from my studies in Biblical Literature that it's a strong temptation to look at literature or even oral tradition and assume that because two things are similar, if one is assumed to be older then it is likely that the newer one has been influenced by the older one. That's often true. However, it is not universally true and it leaves us open to a common error in thinking, and that is that correlation means causality. In other words, just because two things are similar, doesn't necessarily mean that the two things are a result of one contributing to the other. Another possibility is that both have been influenced by another independent tradition that contributed to both of them which yields a similar tale, but in effect, neither is dependent upon the other, but rather this older independent tradition.

Face it. We have special revelation through the Bible but this doesn't mean that there aren't elements of truth or even similarity from other sources. In fact, it would be amazing if there were not. Similarity when there is a common base, even going farther back, can argue as much for a common independent cause as influence one upon the other. Then two they're not even mutually exclusive and there can be varying elements of both.

The difference for us is that we believe the Bible by inspiration provides us with clarity that cuts through all of this and is directly from God.

[MarcusOfLycia]

I studied the history of the church about and discovered that this is the case in a lot of ways.

Primarily, we in the non-Jewish world have some differences in fundamental worldview (in many ways, this does not conflict at all with our faith in Christ; in other ways, its often worth looking at the Jewish perspective in our weaknesses). I know Greek dualism and a lot of what Plato and Socrates had to say was adopted in some of the theology of the early established church (Augustine. for instance and as much as I like him, was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy). In later years, Christians even tried to identify Greek philosophers from the ancient world as Christians, even suggesting that Christ had appeared to them. I think this may have more to do with the fact the Christian worldview was kinda based on the Greek philosophies in many ways and not that Greek Philosophies were near perfect pre-Christ "Christian" ideas.

I suppose the best thing we can do to try to tell the differences would be to read traditional Jewish texts and then Socrates and Plato and just compare, side-by-side, any important differences. But, like I said, not all influence is bad. One of the aspects of Greek philosophy is the idea of an almost scientific inquiry on matters of religion, and that is where a lot of our Theology comes from. I guess it can be taken too far when we think we have the answer to every question regarding God though (which wouldn't make much sense anyway because He's infinite and we very much are not).

[dayage]

I would be curious to see if they were comparing popular teachings about Hell or Biblical text on Hell, to these other religions.

Someone on this sight put out the challenge that the same was true about the teachings on Satan. It did not take much time, in reading the book he quoted from, to see that the author was not arguing against the Biblical text, but popular teachings.

Or you may try reading something like: “The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots” – by T. J. Wray. This includes Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Egyptian influences on Satan as well as the Persian; and it is online.

I've been reading it. This guy does not seem to know much about the Bible. He compares Satan to other evil gods. Satan is an angel, not a god. He says Satan, like these others, rules the underworld. No he doesn't. The "underworld" will one day be his prison, but he is not there now. He compares the depiction of having horns and a tail. Satan doesn't have these. Wray compares Enki, "artfully adept at circumventing the divine will," with Satan. Satan can only follow the will of God. He can not act without God allowing it. Wray does not even seem to know that there is a difference between Sheol and Gehenna. Sheol (Old Testament) is the equivalent of Hades in the New Testament. This is the holding cell for the dead. It used to have two compartments, one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous (see Luke 16:20-26). Now that Jesus has paid our dept, the righteous go straight to Heaven. Gehenna is the same as The Lake of Fire. Both of these names are from the New Testament. The Old Test. name for Gehenna was Tophet (Isaiah 30:33). If fact both words refer to the Valley of Hinnom. Hades/Sheol will be cast into The Lake of Fire/Gehenna (Revelation 20:13-15). Sheol/Hades is just the county jail. After sentencing you go to the federal penitentiary. Both are bad but one is worse.

He makes a lot of his comparisons between these other ancient stories and popular myths about Satan. He apparently can not find what he needs in the Bible. Another thing is that the Bible does not teach dualism, Satan is a created being and not equal to God.

In fact, I can wrap up Wray's evidence like this, "there is a possibility that these other stories could have influenced the Biblical descriptions of Satan, so let us just assume they did." He has no proof and in fact his examples show the opposite. They show that it is unlikely the Jews barrowed these ideas.