In his novel, The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill attempts to explain the differences between Sumerian beliefs, and the early Semitic beliefs. In order to do this, Cahill goes back to Sumerian mythology and compares it to the early Jewish Bible. Throughout the first three chapters, Cahill brings forth a list of amazing and astonishing similarities between the two. For example, in his book, Cahill describes an ancient Sumerian myth: “Ut-napishtim and his wife, who have become “as gods” in the garden paradise of Dil mun” (The Gifts of the Jews p.
38).
Cahill then further explains the incredible similarity that this ancient myth has with the Jewish Bible: “may also remind us of Adam and Eve, whose desire to become “as gods” precipitates their exile from a garden called “Eden”- a name which may itself be a borrowing from the Sumerian” (The Gifts of the Jews p. 38).
In my opinion this fascinating similarity shows an evolution in the thought of the different peoples in the second millennium B. C. The most interesting attribute of Cahill’s book is his way of describing the story of the Early Israelites in Egypt.
In the Bible, Abraham is described as a man that was seeking only to find God and religion in his nomadic journeys through the desert. In contrast, Cahill sees Abraham as a man that looks for “pleasure and security” (The Gifts of the Jews p. 93).
This shows how Cahill looks deeper into the story of Abraham and the Israelites, before they were enslaved by the Egyptian pharaoh. Another example is Cahill’s in-depth thought of the time period when the Israelites were under Egyptian rule. First, Cahill describes how the pharaoh’s methods of genocide of the Israelites was inefficient.
The Essay on Cults And Jews
Cults are becoming more and more of an issue for Jews every day. Many cults are beginning to target Jews. They say you can believe in Jesus yet remain a Jew, or many other things like that. It is important for people to educate themselves of these cults and their recruiting techniques so that they will not be taken advantage of by these cults. Cults now are very different than they were in ancient ...
When the pharaoh decrees that any male baby that is born must be killed, but if the baby is female, she may live. According to Cahill, this order could not be historical because: “if you want to kill off a people, you must assassinate their women, their baby factories, not their men.” (The Gifts of the Jews p. 100).
