Hi doma,
I've been writing about the origins of religion for quite a while! It's something which interests me. You may not know this but I was already aware of the influence of Babylonian mythology and ritual on the book of Genesis before you brought your theory across. I have been posting on the subject for a while!!
But I have a different kind of interest in it than you do. I am interested in the origins of society and in the history of thought. I don't accept your thesis that the trinities are all the same one and there's a controlling but invisible hand behind it all. But I do see the continuity of ideas influencing the way we think about things. Philosophies leave a residue in our culture, rather like the tide leaves its mark on a beach. I find that kinda fascinating in and of itself.
So, embedded in the language we speak, there are roots of a common Indo-European language parts of which are identifiable to linguistics experts. When we cast a week as a seven day cycle, we are following Babylonian tradition. When we celebrate birth in the dead of winter, we are doing something which would have been familiar to the solstice worshippers at Stone Henge, although now we call it Christmas. When we take a day of rest on the day of the Sun, we are reflecting Constantine's conflation of the Roman god Sol (Sun in Latin) and the Jewish Sabbath. We are a product of a continuous tradition.
What are we seeing in these ancient books when they describe the world around them. Are the giants in the book of Genesis Neanderthals, perhaps? Was the wild and hairy Enkidu in the Book of Gilgamesh a Neanderthal? - can we perhaps get a glimpse of another of our ancestors through these books?
And then, are we still worshipping vestiges of the gods of the Sumerians and Egyptians in the triune form of the Christian God and when we close our prayers? And do artists render a vision derived from the priests of Babylon when they paint a triangle in the firmament and call it God?
Culture is a river. I am delighted to describe its meanderings. For their own sake. I have no axe to grind.
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