The Mythology of the Bible — And the High Cost of Taking It Literally
60% of the Bible comes from older myths and reading it literally blinded us to its real power
“It is not that the ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically. Rather, they told them symbolically and we are dumb enough to take them literally.” — Portraits in Fitness
Picture this: you discover that your family’s most treasured heirloom—passed down for generations as an authentic artifact—was actually crafted from fragments of older, more magnificent originals.
Would this crush its value, or reveal something far more profound about the artistry and wisdom of its creators?
This is exactly where we find ourselves with the Biblical narratives.
After building the foundation in “Why We Need to Bring Back the Myths” and exploring “The Two Gods of the Bible,” we’ve arrived at a startling quantitative reality: roughly 60% of Biblical stories can be traced directly back to pre-existing mythological traditions.
We’re not here to tear down Christianity—we’re here to strip away the lies and find what’s actually underneath.
The very first article in this series argued that myths, as stories told since the beginning of time, contain timeless wisdom and deeper, spiritual aspects of our reality.
We then dove into “the Gods vs the Humans,” where we showed that examining the myths of old—especially the Greek myths and the Old Testament—reveals that humans were created only to worship the gods, the gods are envious and at times meddle with humanity, and ultimately, the gods need humanity.
These gods are real forces of creation—such as chaos, love, or knowledge—and they have an impact on our world. These stories help us understand our relation to them.
Next, we dove specifically into the Bible to study the Old and New Testaments, showing what many others have mentioned before: the characteristics of the Old and New Testaments’ “God” are drastically different, to the point where we are describing two distinct entities.
The Old Testament God is the God of vengeance and belongs to the Hebrews. Under Greek and Roman transformation—along with the rise of the Christianization project—this god transforms into God “the Father.”
Sticking with the original Hebrew version, their God, Yahweh, was a warrior god and one of many gods who were the sons of the great father El Elyon; however, over time, he became known as the supreme god of the Old Testament.
These articles all share an underlying point: we should not take the Bible as a literal interpretation, because when we examine it, taking it literally, we miss out on the values and deeper esoteric insights it provides about the reality of our nature.
One of my commenters, Portrait in Fitness, captured this perfectly in the opening quote: “It is not that the ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically. Rather, they told them symbolically and we are dumb enough to take them literally.”
Unfortunately, because this knowledge is vastly powerful and enriching to the souls, it has been transformed into a literal interpretation by kings and kingdoms for centuries, misconstrued to fit their political means and imperial agendas. And that is where we are today.
Today—for the majority—we still view the Bible as literal stories, a history of a nation. This perspective has real consequential effects, as we’ve seen time and time again.
So, to reverse course, the goal of today’s article is to show the myths of the Bible quantitatively. To do this, we’ll define all the biblical stories that share a similar structure with other myths of that time, and explore the lessons these myths teach us when viewed symbolically.
There is a life-changing, miracle-working power in the faith, but our current understanding is shaped by political and historical ramifications.
When we can separate the true essence of the faith apart from these synthetic impurities, we now have a better and more valuable—and more powerful—understanding of it all.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
The Forgotten Context: A World Already Rich in Stories
One of the things we need to keep in consideration is the myths of old that took place around the timeline of the biblical stories.
The Middle East, known as the birthplace of civilization, is home to numerous stories and civilizations. These civilizations include Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion; Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization; Egypt; Babylon, one of the very first empires known to humanity; and more.
As stated in the previous article, The Two Gods of the Bible, we tend to look at the Bible in a literal sense—while at the very same time ignoring the actual literal history that took place.
When viewing the world through the biblical timeline, it’s easy to see how God created Adam and Eve, then Abraham, Jacob, and the Israelites, then Moses, then David, then the Prophets, then Daniel, then Jesus, Paul, and so forth.
But the truth is that there were societies that were already in existence before these biblical timelines and stories.
When we realize that there were other civilizations outside of those mentioned in the Bible, we begin to understand that they, too, had their own stories, myths, and legends.
And this is where the intertwining begins.
