A question about the flood myth, baraminology, and Pangaea

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Edit to Add: It dawns on me that this may have been the primary motivation for the reforms of guys like Paul, in trying to reconcile the brutal war-god of the ancient Hebrews with the Hellenic values he picked up, growing up as a Jewish Roman in a Greek-populated area. The entire New Testament boils down to trying to make those two competing value-sets work harmoniously, with obvious success... since people like us pointing out the clash seems to have no effect upon the believers.

That's a very good point.  That might also explain the unusual success of the Christ narrative, in that it was appealing to Hellenistic Jews.  But what in particular of the narrative is specifically Hellenistic?

It's not that the narrative is Hellenistic; it's that the influence of Hellenistic thought on culture (which the Romans emulated, after conquering the territories formerly occupied by Alexander the Great and his follow-ons) meant that the old Hebraic value-set was already an anachronism and needed to be moderated-- for instance, the eating of pork. It's pretty clear to me that Paul's goal was to fight the Hellenisation of Jews exposed to that culture, which is why we have all his railing against their religious practices. I'd venture to say that 75% of the Bible is written to give the Jews a sense of identity and prevent assimilation into the various cultures that dominated them.

Strangely enough, in her follow-on book to Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia called Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, author Elizabeth Gilbert goes into a fair amount of detail about the differences in Hellenistic and Hebraic (which the Christians call "Biblical") philosophical outlooks. I was all but forced to read it, but I actually enjoyed it a great deal.