How the Anti-missionaries use Unequal Weights and Measures
Part 4: Alleged Pagan Influences
By
James Scott Trimm

As we have stated in parts 1 through 3 the Torah teaches us a principle of using equal weights of measures:

35 You shall do no unrighteousness: in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure.
36 Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin, shall you have: I am YHWH your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.
(Lev. 19:35-36 HRV)
 
13 You shall not have in your bag diverse weights–a great and a small.
14 You shall not have in your house diverse measures–a great and a small.
15 A perfect and just weight shall you have; a perfect and just measure shall you have, that your days may be long upon the land which YHWH your Elohim gives you.
16 For all that do such things, even all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto YHWH your Elohim.
(Deut. 25:13-16 HRV)

This is a principle that tells us that we must use the same standard of measurement in judging others as we use when judging ourselves.  In the same way we must judge the beliefs of others by the same standards that we judge our own beliefs.  Likewise we must not judge the contents of the so-called “New Testament” by a different standard that we judge the Tanak.

Anti-missionaries like Tovia Singer violate this principle because they regularly judge the contents of the so-called “New Testament” by a stricter standard than they judge the Tanak.

An argument that proves too much, proves nothing at all.  In this case an argument which would also disprove the contents of the Tanak is not a valid Jewish argument against the contents of the so-called “New Testament.”

Alleged Pagan Influences

The Anti-missionaries will argue that there are pagan influences in the so-called “New Testament.”  For example they will accuse the concepts of the virgin birth, the resurrection and the deity of Messiah to be pagan influences on the so-called “New Testament.”

This is an example of unequal weights and measures because there are similar alleged pagan influences in the Tanak.

For example regarding the Creation account in the Torah “… it is claimed that there are similarities between the Babylonian and Old Testament accounts.  A tabulation is given by A. Heidel in The Babylonian Genesis illustrates this.” (The Old Testament; A Beginning Survey by Dane R. Gordon; 1985 p. 20 referencing The Babylonian Genesis 2nd Ed.; 1951 p. 129)

Scholars also see many parallels between the Babylonian flood story and that of Noah as found in the Torah.

“The name of the Babylonian Noah was Utnapishtim.  Like Noah he was warned by a god, Ea, the benevolent god of the earth, to build a ship and to take on board ‘the seed of all living things.’ … The vessel was loaded and there followed a wild storm which blew for six days and nights.  When it subsided Utnapishtim opened a hatch and looked out upon the water.  All mankind had returned to clay.  He sat down and wept.  But the level of the water fell and the ship grounded. … Utnapishtim then left the ship and offered sacrifice.”
(The Old Testament; A Beginning Survey by Dane R. Gordon; 1985 pp. 19-20)

There are also parallels between the Torah and the Babylonian Code of Hammurapi.  For example the Torah reads:

23 But if any harm follow, then you shall give life for life,
24 Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 Burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
(Ex. 21:23-25 HRV)

And if a man maim his neighbor, as he has done, so shall it be done to him:
(Lev. 24:19 HRV)

And we read in the Babylonian Code of Hammurapi:

“If a man has destroyed the eye of a man of the gentleman class, they shall destroy his eye …. If he has destroyed the eye of a commoner … he shall pay one mina of silver. If he has destroyed the eye of a gentleman’s slave … he shall pay half the slave’s price.”

Scholars also see strong parallels between many Pslams in the Tanak and Egyptian Psalms to other deities.  For example Psalm 104 is said to have a remarkable resemblance to the Hymn of Aten. (Pritchard, James B. “The Ancient Near East, An anthology of Texts and Pictures“, Princeton University Press, 1958, page 227.)

Another alleged pagan influence on the Tanak may be found in the names of the two protagonists of the Book of Esther are named Ester and Mordecai.  These two names  parallel those of the Babylonian god Marduk and his consort the goddess Ishtar.

However like a man who lives in a glass house throwing stones, the Anti-missionaries do not use equal weights and measures in this regard.  While the Tanak itself also contains alleged pagan influences the anti-missionaries attack the so-called New Testament for containing such alleged pagan influences.

The fact is that both the Tanak and the so-called “New Testament” are filled with alleged pagan influences because HaSatan is himself a counterfeiter

Anti-missionaries violate the Torah principle and do not use equal weights and measures when they attack the so-called “New Testament” for having alleged pagan influences when they know quite well that the Tanak itself is filled with such alleged influences.

 

 

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