Study Suggests Bible Could Be Based On Popular Fairy Tales
Study Suggests Bible Could Be Based On Popular Fairy Tales
February 4, 2016
Religion has been a motivating factor in some of the greatest atrocities in human history. The idea that beliefs in different creationist fairy tales somehow makes a person inferior has been used to justify murder, rape, war and genocide over the centuries. A new study, though, finds those deeply held religious beliefs could very well be based on our favorite fairy tales.
Fairy Tales May Have Influenced Religions
New research , published in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science, has found that many of the world’s most iconic fairy tales are much older than originally thought. This has several implications for anthropological research, but it could also very well shake the foundation of religious beliefs.
“The findings… open up the possibility that popular folktales influenced writings in Greek and Roman mythology, the Bible and other religious works.”
This isn’t the first time that scholars have claimed the Bible was simply influenced by other works. In fact, the story of Jesus Christ shares striking parallels with many religious deities that predate Christianity. This new research, though, may be the first to suggest that major religious cornerstones were influenced by bedtime stories.
Jamshid Tehrani, one of the study’s co-authors, stated that the research suggested many popular folk tales are between 4,000 and 6,000 years old. To put into perspective just how old this makes these fairy tales, you only need to understand this:
“Versions of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ‘Rumplestiltskin’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ have probably been around since before the existence of many modern European languages, like English, German, Russian and French, and would have originally been told in a now extinct ancestral language from which those tongues evolved.”
So the tales we grew up hearing retold and re-imagined in stories ranging from Shrek to Once Upon A Time are older than the language we speak. In fact, they’re so old that the original tongue they were spoken in doesn’t even exist anymore.
Tracing the Inception of Fairy Tales
The researchers in this study undertook the daunting task of tracing these fairy tales by investigating how the stories were shared across and between populations. Next, they created a “family tree” to trace dozens of tales to their original inception.
The implication that these tales influenced the Bible will undoubtedly be studied more, but it seems they already share very specific qualities with Judeo-Christian beliefs. For instance, some of these fairy tales were eventually adopted by the Brothers Grimm, and as explained by Discovery when interviewing co-author Sara Graca da Silva:
“Many of the tales in Grimms’ collection were actually told by women… Later, however, some of these stories underwent various adaptations as they were collected (very often by men), ‘becoming manuals of proper behavior and a reflection of cultural and social expectations… Bad girls are usually portrayed as ugly and greedy, for example.'”
So these stories, many originally told by women, were altered in an effort to keep women in their place. It sounds eerily similar to the historical moment when religious leaders opted to turn Mary Magdalene into a prostitute — rather than canonize The Gospel of Mary , which portrayed her as an apostolic leader.
There will obviously be much debate over whether the Bible was influenced by Rumplestiltskin and Beauty and the Beast. After all, the NRA’s recent decision to re-imagine fairy tales with guns could get awkward if Republicans find out the mother of Jesus was actually Little Red Riding Hood.
When asked about the “ enduring appeal ” of fairy tales, though, Tehrani may have revealed a little too much about people’s deeply held religious beliefs:
“I think humans everywhere have always been fascinated by beings and objects with special powers, whether wizards or Jedi, magic mirrors or time machines.”
I guess it call comes down to whether we’re taught to believe in The Gospel of Dumbledore or the Holy Texts of TARDIS.
http://reverbpress.com/religion/study-bible-possibly-based-on-fairy-tales/
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So these stories, many originally told by women, were altered in an effort to keep women in their place. It sounds eerily similar to the historical moment when religious leaders opted to turn Mary Magdalene into a prostitute — rather than canonize The Gospel of Mary, which portrayed her as an apostolic leader.
I always thought they were fictional.
I'm convinced that the bible is based on stories that control and manipulate people's behavior. That doesn't mean it doesn't have a positive and good influence but it also has a bad and evil element too.
What's the positive side about drowning the entire earth? How about offering up your daughters for gang rape? Or asking someone to murder their newborn?
Good thing this article wasn't about the koran. Otherwise there would be murder, rioting, and acts of terrorism.
All religion is based on killing and suppressing people. The point of religion is to manipulate large populations. Every religion is a variation of each other.
Even Buddhism?
Good question Nigel - I don't really know too much about buddhism so I will modify my statement to say I believe "most" religion are based on killing and suppressing people.
Good thing this article wasn't about the koran. Otherwise there would be murder, rioting, and acts of terrorism.
You've studied the Koran and you know this to be true, right?
Religion has been a motivating factor in some of the greatest atrocities in human history.
I think not the motivating factor. Can we distinguish between those who use religion as a means of control and those who strive toward the ideal presented in the texts?
Do you believe there are people who haven't been perverted and can still strive to follow the teachings? I don't know if I do. I'm so tainted by all the hypocrisy of those who judge and demand that others practice "family values" and yet we constantly find that these same people break the very values they hold others accountable to.
I'm so tainted by all the hypocrisy of those who judge and demand that others practice "family values" and yet we constantly find that these same people break the very values they hold others accountable to.
I think they're called Republicans.
Color me not surprised. Anyone who believes in a literal translation of the bible (especially Genesis) has the right to do so, but I have the equal right to say they're fools.
Bad girls are usually portrayed as ugly and greedy, for example.
Ya see how things have changed ? Now bad girls are considered "hot" :
Could it be that the fairy tales, many of which came after the bible was written, was written based on stories of the bible? I don't take the bible literally, as an example. I think of it both as a historical record, and a sort of parable for the human condition.
Humans are humans-- reading the bible, one sees just about all of our human failings, in one way or another. Fairy tales also speak of human failings... Although I can't quite put an exact story in the bible to Rapunzel, etc.
I guess one of my favorite fairy tales is the one about stone soup. The soldier was clever, and managed to feed everyone with his stone soup, because he tricked them into cooperating. There are many great stories in the bible, and they have a lesson of some sort-- so do fairly tales.
I would place the Bible into the same grouping as Edith Hamilton's Mythology, a good read which attempts to explain what was at the time (and a few things that continue to linger) unexplainable.
Do I myself place any weight in either, I do not but continue to give the road to those that may as it is their right to believe what they choose.
Though I myself am an a-religious individual as Augurwell mentions, religion like ideologies are fine, that is until you throw humans into the mix.