The "Am I Wrong" Series

In light of the fact that I have to write a two page paper (reflection) every week for one of my classes, and the even greater fact that I am lazy, I will be starting what a "Am I Wrong Series." The class is Messianic and Apocalyptic Literature. As I have stated before, being a Religious Studies major at a state institution is enough to drive any evangelical conservative believer up the wall, but the professor and I really don't agree an much. Shocker I know. I do have to say he is a great guy and teaches his view very well. So its not him I have a problem with, just what he teaches. That kinda sounds like the whole, "I support the troops, but not the war" which I hate, but that is for another time.
Anyway all I'm going to do is post my papers and let you all in on the ramblings of an incoherent mind. As another aside, maybe the government should use me to torture prisoners. I'm sure they would pick water boarding over having to listen to me for any amount of time.
Here it goes.

My reflection this week is on the idea that civilizations outside of the Israel nation are what influenced their prophecies. The feeling I get is that you and the textbook both imply civilizations such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites, etc. are where the Israelites got their ideas of who a king and Messiah should be. I would freely acknowledge that there are experts on both the historical and archaeological basis for this opinion who are much smarter than I am, but I would like to submit, that there are also experts, who are just as wise, who would disagree. A comparison of the facts for and against this argument would require much more space than a two page paper, so I would like to offer up just one observation against influences outside of the Israel nation directing their ideas of a king and Messiah. The observation is this, how can it be said that other civilizations influenced the basis for Israel’s beliefs if those beliefs are gone and Israel’s still remain. Core Jewish beliefs also have remained greatly unchanged for at least the last 4000 years.
If it were true that Israel borrowed the basis for their ideas from these civilizations, would it not stand to reason that the Jewish beliefs would have died out with the other religions also. While there may still be small factions of people who carry the beliefs of these other ancient religions, I think we can agree that they are not practiced on near the same scale as Judaism, and to a larger extent Christianity. Would this not lead us to believe then Israel had the stronger of the religions. If this then is true, how can it be said that they were influenced by a weaker society. I would admit that the style of certain writings may have been influenced by other cultures, but to say the basic beliefs of the writings were influenced does not stand to reason.
The example was made in class that people may like a certain style of song but not hold to the particular beliefs of the song or artist. We all hear it from time to time in interviews with musicians about who influenced their style. Many times a particular group draws form total different sources to make their sound completely new, but there are still noticeable phrases or sounds that remind us of other groups. To say that a musician who may borrow styles and sounds cannot be independent does again not hold true.
If we can believe then that Israel was the stronger religion, and we agree that there are similarities between beliefs, how can the two be rectified. One observation could be that they have a common source or influence themselves to draw from. As it was also stated in class, many different civilizations have a story of a worldwide flood. Let us, just for the sake of time, take this as true. Thus it is easy to see how different civilizations have common beliefs and similar stories. If the Israel story is the one that has passed the test of time, how can it be said that they only borrowed it from another people. Could other people have not borrowed it from Israel?
As I said before, there are obviously many people who would come down on both sides of this debate, and I do not believe that the point of this paper is to try and settle once and for all the debate. These are only my musings of what was presented in class in