Are the Stories in Genesis in the bible taken from others?

A tablet from Epic of Gilgamesh

Are the Stories in Genesis in the bible taken (plagiarized) from other ancient stories?

The Akkadian text of the Epic of Gilgamesh was first discovered in 1849 AD by the English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. Layard was seeking evidence to confirm the historicity of the events described in the Hebrew Bible, i.e. the Christian Old Testament, which, at the time, was believed to contain the oldest texts in the world. Instead, his excavations and those of others after him revealed the existence of much older Mesopotamian texts and showed that many of the stories in the Old Testament may actually be derived from earlier myths told throughout the ancient Near East.

Genesis was written in roughly 550 BC. Tradition tells us that Moses (Moses was born in Egypt sometime in 1391-1392 BC) is the author of Genesis, as well as the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and most of Deuteronomy, but modern scholars, especially from the 19th century onward, see them as being written hundreds of years after Moses is supposed to have lived, in the 6th and 5th centuries BC.

The Epic of Gilgamesh began as a series of Sumerian poems (containing similar Genesis stories) and tales dating back to 2100 B.C., but the most complete version was written around the 12th century B.C. by the Babylonians.

Question 1: Which story came first?

Question 2: Who copies who?

See evidential research:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Giants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_of_the_gods_(Sumerian_paradise)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Garden-of-Eden

https://interestingliterature.com/2019/08/epic-of-gilgamesh-analysis/

https://drivethruhistory.com/archaeology-and-the-ancient-creation-stories/

The Aramaic bible

 

The Aramaic Bible

Do you know that the original books of the bible (both the Old Testament and New Testament) were originally written in an Aramaic context. (Some said that the OT was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the NT in Greek and Aramaic. In some of the latest Greek New Testament, the publishers are retaining some of the Aramaic words and phrases to make it as close to the original meaning as possible, because in every translation, the original intent and message somehow gets lost or diluted). 

Aramaic was the earlier language from where we get the Hebrew. (Like we get English from the Latin language). Jesus came during the time when ALL the people listening to Him were listening in Aramaic. (Mel Gibson in his movie "The Passion of Christ" used the Aramaic language to be as close to the original as possible).

 Jesus spoke Aramaic. The early prophets up to the time of Moses all spoke Aramaic, because it was the language of the whole Middle Eastern region (or some called it the Near Eastern region).

That is why, when we speak about understanding the bible within its context, we need to understand several keys i.e. context of culture, language, idioms, symbolism, mystical style, psychology, and literary amplification (adding more information to a sentence).

Until World War I, people living in that part of ancient Biblical lands which today is known as Kurdistan, in the basin of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, retained the simple nomadic life as in the days of the Patriarchs. The ancient culture of early Christians was unknown to the western world (particularly the contemporary Christian world), and the Aramaic (Syriac) language was thought to be dead. 

But in this so-called “Cradle of Civilization,” ancient Biblical customs and Semitic culture, cut off from the world, were actually still preserved. Scholars are finding it essential to understand the Near Eastern culture in order to understand the bible.

Question: How then can we understand the bible better?

Answer: The bible has to be understood from its original setting. By right, you need to have a good clear Aramaic translation of the bible. You really have to understand the idioms and the nature of the Near Eastern people. 

Deep down, the root of so many problems today is a misunderstanding of this point: 

The Bible was written TO Near Eastern people, so it contains their idiomatic terms of speech, psychology, culture, belief systems, customs, and manners. It wasn't written to us here in the Western world, but the Bible is still applicable FOR us. 

Unfortunately, because of this mistake, we've formed all our dogmas, doctrines, and theologies before understanding the Near Eastern religious attitudes and background, and we still do this today. (That's why you have more than 40,000 denominations with all their self-righteous interpretation of the bible - What a tragedy !!).

The Jewish Story in History

The Jewish Story in History 

The following playlist is one of the best video production ever made (in my opinion) on the Jewish history. 

Most of the videos fills in the story as per the Torah and the Christian bible, but it also includes historical writings that enlightens, elaborates, amplifies or just simply explain the historical background of most of the Old Testament writings. 

If ever you have never read the bible continually in chronological order, (because the bible is not arranged in chronological order), and you want to have a whole perspective view with its proper Context with Historical relevance, these videos really do these excellently.

Enjoy.

This is the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-DNOnmKkUaYVJIFmU_RBihx8wezolzqL

This is the beginning of the playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN6VVEUlyeE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6xD35Wjqgw

and much more:...