A Fundie's No to a Certain Type of Academia

The three (yes, 3) creation stories of the Hebrew Bible - Ola Wikander's "Banal yet Awesome" #6
Ola Wikander – [Baalcycle] | 30 April 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu01CX_7ifs

0:49 Chapter 2, Adam's autobiography. Chapter 1, Moses' vision.

1:18 Did Mr. Mettinger (is he still alive by the way?) believe in the Elohist and the Jahvist?

2:19 From the pov of the first narrative, it's sufficient they were created the same day, day VI.

From the pov of the second narrative, while it is not totally unambiguous from the text, some racists like Isaac de la Peyrère have considered Adam was created later than mankind, is at least compatible with this being on day VI.

Panorama and closeup.

3:32 I recall Tryggve Mettinger, as lecturer to my mother, and I came along one day at age 13, gave this theory.

After the lecture, I confronted him, he said he did not necessarily think I was wrong, but he had to teach this way.

I got a fairly good impression of his person, but a lifelong disgust of the system he was, as far as I could tell from his words, caught in.

Theology at a Swedish university for me ... huge nono.

I'm missing out on the Hebrew of course, I'm not quite able to the discipline necessary to learn a non-vernacular language, whether you call it "dead" or "classic" or in this case obviously "sacred" without an actual teacher, but it's worth being free from pressure to accept this kind of misreading of, for instance, Job.

As a believing but not baptised quasi Evangelical back then or as as Trad Catholic now, I'm a Fundie, I don't accept that kind of thing. Tryggve Mettinger, if still alive, is very welcome to debate me, on a setting like correspondence and publication to both person's or my own blogs or blog, but he is not welcome to teach me in a university setting.

God really made a monster like the Leviathan (whether monster shark or T Rex) a plaything for himself, after it became a ferocious creature at the curse. God equally did not need his carcass nor that of a supposed "Tehom = Tiamat" to have preexisttng material for creation. And the moment when Babylonians started to confuse the two levels was arguably when Nimrod made a brag about being creator of the earth, while already known as and experienced as a monster killer. At Babel, which is Göbekli Tepe ...

Neither the Pentateuch nor Job is by Ezra. Nor are substantial parts of them.

4:06 I suppose you mean this passage?

Thou by thy strength didst make the sea firm: thou didst crush the heads of the dragons in the waters Thou hast broken the heads of the dragon: thou hast given him to be meat for the people of the Ethiopians Thou hast broken up the fountains and the torrents: thou hast dried up the Ethan rivers [Psalms 73:13-15]

Alludes to:

Flood (most mountains we see were mudflow in the sea during the Flood, a mountain is obviously firm)
Exodus (walls of water are another sort of miraculous firmness, not implying an actual solid, something to keep in mind before dismissing the Raqiah as non-factual)
Crossing of Jordan but also no globe spanning X cross of Eden rivers any more ...

Does NOT allude to the Baal cycle of Ugarit or the Enlil story in Enuma Elish. I'm sure they are great fun to read, enjoy, but they are not as much of an exegetic clue as you seem to think.

4:50 "heads of the dragons" ... dino-like critters in the Flood ... "heads of the dragon" ... Pharao of Egypt as precursor of Antichrist

After this "God is presented as creator of Heaven and Earth" ... well, lets see:

Thine is the day, and thine is the night: thou hast made the morning light and the sun [Psalms 73:16]

Another allusion that God is giving us night and day by rotating the cosmos around us (below the Empyrean heaven). What is the work that God performs every Sabbath? If it takes 24 hours, it's because God turns the fix stars and the Raqiah around us in 23 h 55 min per full circle, while an angel takes the Sun on an annual tour around the Zodiac. So, it is not the completion of an alternative creation account to those of Genesis 1 and 2, but an allusion to what God is still doing.

Thou hast made all the borders of the earth: the summer and the spring were formed by thee [Psalms 73:17]

Note, Emil's sister Ida is not an alias of God, the song "du ska' inte' tro de' blir sommar" is not Astrid's best theology, if the "jag gör så" is said in the person of Ida ...

But borders, that includes the four corners that the mainland actually has on a globe, where they meet the Pacific, so, the psalmist affirms that the God who revealed the place of four angels in Apoc 7:1 knows exactly what corners He means, because He made them. Inter alia, by application.

5:29 That the mythology is well attested doesn't mean its identity with Biblical themes is well attested.

Before you adress the probability of a Bible text originally giving a very Baal-cycle like story and then getting portions edited out by Pharisees, how about adressing the probability that a scholar from Israel or Egypt or Babylon told this story (as about himself) to a Swedish or possibly Swabian king whom he supplanted, as primeval ancestor of Ynglings through his stepson ...?

I mean the relevant parts of Voluspa and Gylfaginning are a far better match for the Baal cycle than Psalm 73 (or in Masoretic and Protestant versions 74). Or, at least for the Enuma Elish. What was Odin's edit? Well, he replaced a dragon like monster with a giant, which suggests he knew "there were giants in those days" (before the Flood), and he identified Flood and Creation, which some Fundie Mythology scholars consider as a good explanation of Egyptian Creation stories.