Morality and The Holy Bible :: Holy Bible Essays

Morality and the Bible Both the level-headed and salvation philosophies of the former(a) and unsanded Testaments reflect those of the cultures around them, due to much copying and borrow of polices and ideas. Furthermore, all societies around the institution have similar moral and legal codes -- which is certainly not an accident. Interestingly enough, the moral codes of the worlds religions bear a tangency semblance to each other, with only minor variations. Religions as different as Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism all have proscriptions against killing, lying, cheating, stealing, etc. This is not an accident, for reasons we shall explore below. Christians may indeed object that that there is something unique about the Bible that makes it a top-flight moral code. Unfortunately for Christians, there is actually very little law in the Bible -- either Old Testament or New -- that is original. Consider the Torah of the ancient Jews. The laws of the Babylonians, Assyrians, S umerians, Hammurapi, Eshnunna, Hittites, Mishnah, and Israelites all bear a striking resemblance to each other, due to widespread copying of laws. Shared social norms produced equal laws against sorcery, kidnapping, sale of an abducted person, false witness, business dishonesty, bribing judges, property right violations, shutting complete irrigation canals used by others, etc. The complete list of identical laws and usage is quite extensive. Nor is the New Testaments approach to the law unique. Most Christians can belike think of nothing more unique than the Apostle Pauls approach to the law, but each student of ancient Greece knows otherwise. Many of the themes that fill Pauls writings were lifted from his Graeco-Roman background. During New Testament times, the Greco-Roman world was filled with Mystery Cults, jazzy such names as Eluesinian Mysteries, the Orphic Mysteries, the Attis-Adonis Mysteries, the Isis-Osiris Mysteries, Mithraism, and many others. A park feature of these secret cults was a belief in a gilded redeemer, a heavenly being who would visit earth in benignant form, battle evil, die a sacrificial death, rise from the dead and draw close to heaven, offering salvation from death to all who follow him. Another capture on the New Testament was Greek philosophy. In particular, Greek dualism taught that the world was sharply divided into opposites good and evil, body and soul, man and woman, hot and cold, keep and death, etc. Now, the Greeks from Plato on had taught that the body is evil, but the soul is pure.