(July 1, 2016 at 3:01 pm)Minimalist Wrote: I don't put too much stock in that stuff. There was far too much cultural cross-pollination going on due to trade and the occasional conquest. Ideas moved along the trade routes even more easily than goods.
No that is precisely the point. Europe and Mesopotamia are in very close proximity to Egypt and this proves that that traveling and "Cross pollination" are how all religions start.
No different than say telling a joke on social media, spread it around long enough, the details change but the motifs overlap and do that over and over you won't always have a direct connection to the original starting point.
To assume that those similar stories are not a result of cross pollination considering the close proximity of northern Africa/Mesopotamia and Europe would be a mistake.
Even the bible itself references pagan gods. If they had no prior connection to those ideas they wouldn't have had anything to demonize to gain converts to Christianity.
