Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

How can such a widely studied book like the Bible still hold secrets?

Many intelligent and otherwise well informed readers will find much of the material in this book new and quite startling, although Bible scholars, and anyone with a background in comparative mythology will be familiar with it. Callahan gathers material together from many sources — literary analysis, archeology, and history — and uses comparative mythology to demonstrate how Bible stories that do not make much sense when taken literally can be understood when their mythic content is revealed.

Secret Origins of the Bible covers both the familiar and the more obscure chapters of the Bible and is a great reference source to discover what’s behind the many odd stories in the Bible.

• Is there historical evidence for the Exodus or Joshua’s conquest of Canaan?
• Why does so much material in the Bible seem repetitive and even contradictory?
• What contributions did the mythology of ancient Egypt and other surrounding cultures make to modern Christianity?
• How were tales from rival sources altered toward a more masculine outlook?
• What is the evidence that Bible stories of the creation, the race of giants, the flood, and the tower of Babel were derived from earlier tales told by the Sumerians and pre-Israelite Semitic peoples?
• Which ancient mythic themes influenced the Nativity, Passion, and Resurrection narratives of the Christian Bible?
• What Bible stories suggest that along with Yahweh, the Israelites worshiped and acknowledged other deities such as Chemosh and Azazel, and some form of tree worship; and that their primitive polytheistic religion included worship of a goddess who was the consort of Yahweh.
• How does linguistic analysis of Biblical names reveal their original hidden meanings?
• How did a new idea—the concept of a perfect God—inspire the idea of the perfect word of God which led to belief in biblical inerrancy?