The is No Good Evidence that the Bible was Plagarized from pagan myths

1) Wisdom Literature from other cultures Proverbs 22:17-18 "Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, And apply thine heart to my doctrine; For it is pleasant if thou keep them in thy belly, that they may be established together upon thy lips." First off, I don't know which translation this is, but the King James Version is more in line with the Hebrew text as far as I can see thus far, based on the Hebrew interlinear: http://biblehub.com... "Bow down thine ear, and hear the words of the wise, and apply thine heart unto my knowledge. For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee; they shall withal be fitted in thy lips." (KJV) Am. Ch. 1 " Give thine ear, and hear what I say, And apply thine heart to apprehend; It is good for thee to place them in thine heart, let them rest in the casket of thy belly; That they may act as a peg upon thy tongue" Note the differences: " "Bow down" vs "give" "the words of the wise" vs "what I say" "unto my knowledge" vs "to apprehend" "For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep" vs ""it is good for thee to place them" Amenemope adds "let them rest in the casket of they belly" which is completely absent from Proverbs 22:17-18 "they shall withal be fitted in thy lips" vs "That they may act as a peg upon thy tongue" Note with this last difference in wording actually changes the meaning of these sentences drastically, because a peg is used to block this up.http://www.thefreedictionary.com... Amenemope is saying that this wisdom would act as a bridle to the mouth, so you don't talk too much. But Proverbs is saying "they shall be fitted to your lips" meaning these words would be on your lips, you will speak them. As the NIV says "and have all of them ready on your lips." Now, wisdom literature was popular in the Ancient Near East and its to be expected that people back then would have similar syntax, similar ways of saying the same thing, and even touch on the same subjects. But this doesn't prove all out plagiarism at all. The very next verse, Proverbs 22:19, tells us to trust in Yahweh (LORD), a God not worshipped by the Egyptians. Would Solomon have plagiarized from ancient Egyptian texts? No, because as a Jew growing up, all this religious training would have given him a disdain for Egyptian religion, and he would not want to mix this with his faith in Yahweh. Egypt and her gods are condemned in Isaiah 19:1-25; 36:6 and of course we know the story of the ten plagues that humiliated the Egyptians. So why turn to Egypt for wisdom to write the book of Proverbs? Indeed, it would be extremely odd, to write 31 chapters without plagiarism, and in just these two verses go back to some Egyptian text. So my opponent needs to do a lot more in the next round to show that borrowing took place. He needs to give us either (1) a word for word statement that no one would come up with such a duplicate by chance, or (2) something that isn't just similar in wording, but is making a point that you couldn't come up with by chance, so that the only way for another person to do it to by copying. Surely Proverbs 22:17-18 doesn't fit this criteria. Any person, even without any divine inspiration of God, who is intent on giving words of wisdom, would encourage the listener to "Pay attention and listen to the sayings" (NIV) of his mouth. Surely anyone doing this word tell the listener not just to hear him, but to "apply your heart to what I teach," to take it to heart. This is nothing unique to the Bible or the Egyptian texts but to most wisdom literature of the world. So this fails as proof of plagiarism. But since Con has not presented his smoking gun, I suppose he will do so after seeing how I replied to his preliminary opening. 2) Sargon of Akkad and Moses Yes, both Moses and Sargon are said to be drawn out of water, and it probably did happen for both of them. Surely there is nothing improbable about a baby being place in a basket covered in bitumen (which would have been one of the best materials to seal the basket at that time) and sent down a river for various reasons. Adoption of children was also a common practice in the ancient world. Even if Sargon's story was a myth, that wouldn't mean that ever record of a person being drawn out of water was also a myth a well. Certain parallels are just coincidence, for example, if I invent a motif about men gathering around a water cooler, it doesn't disprove the historicity of some men in the office who gather around the water cooler. 1.Lincoln was elected to congress in 1846. Kennedy was elected to congress 1946 2.Lincoln was elected president in 1860. Kennedy was elected president in 1960. 3.The names Lincoln and Kennedy both contain seven letters 4.Both were presidents during times of major changes in civil rights 5.Both presidents were killed by an assassin's bullet on a Friday. So they were both killed in the same way, on the same day of the week. 6.Both assassins were known by three names consisting of 15 letters 7.Both assassins were killed before their trials 8.Both men were succeeded by men with the surname of Johnson Based on these parallels, someone might argue that one of these presidents was a myth, whose story was copied from the other, but they would be just as wrong as my opponent, who is looking for reasons to charge the Bible authors of plagiarism. 3) YHWH Elohim parallels to other deities Since my opponent has not outlined what polytheistic thought in the OT he is talking about, I have no idea how to respond. Yahweh is presented as being one God from the beginning of the OT. In Genesis 1 and 2 he is referred to in the singular as "He" showing just a single being, a single God is meant. However, because he is a triune God, which is made more clear in the NT, he speaks of himself as "us" in Genesis 1:26, and is spoken of as sending himself in Zechariah 2:8-9. This isn't a progression from polytheism to monotheism, but a consistent view of the plurality that exists within God, which becomes even more clear in the NT in passages such as John 1:1-3 and Matthew 28:19-20, while the entire Bible witnesses over and over that there is only one God. When my opponent poses his smoking gun, I will respond. Until then, there isn't much more that I can do since I haven't been given much evidence to argue against.