Hi Dewandelaar,
Thanks for reading! :)
"What I do not understand about the floodthing: why are there so many tales in different continents that are covering the same event"
Yeah, that's something I didn't get around to discussing in the article (which was long enough, as it was, and it's off-topic of the point I was trying to make). Of course, JWs say that there's so many similar tales about floods from around the World that it MUST be true.
The Flood account likely IS based on a real historical flood event (eg Black Sea deluge hypothesis or another flood event that occurred as the ice age was coming to an end, circa 11th century BC), but obviously it has grown to hyperbolic proportions (as tall tales tend to do). Floods would grab the attention of ancient men as they were devastating events, and a common fear in a time of history when agrarian empires were prevailing: flooding meant devastation of one's crops, not to mention the loss of life. The Nile, Tigris and Euphrates overflowed their banks with regularity, so it wasn't exactly as shocking or as out of the ordinary to ancient men as it is to us (we've built dams and levees, for one).
The flood stories also contain a protagonist who manages to survive due to his craftiness: usually the individual is apointed as King, so the element of Gods' delegating their authority to humans to create gov't reappears. That motif is found in the older Sumerian Flood legend with Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah who was listed in the Sumerian King List (who may be a fictional character created later, and used to justify the existing power structure).
Here's a page that looks at similar motifs shared in the Hebrew version and the earlier Sumerian myths:
http://www.noahs-ark-flood.com/parallels.htm
As far as those myths appearing in other cultures, remember that Europeans have been spreading Christianity around the World, and it's likely the versions found in Hawaii, Japan, China and even American Indian culture are local adaptations of a common origin, or even those versions originally told them by missionaries 500 years ago.
For instance, did you know that some Japanese believe that Jesus died in Japan? This shows the depths of syncretism that occurs, given enough time:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Little-Known-Legend-of-Jesus-in-Japan-183833821.html
But even going back further, there was much more cultural interchange in the past than realized, even before Persia's Royal Court circa 500BC (which was a sprawling empire, with representatives sent from India to N. Africa). Vedic initiates from India likely wandered in the foreign culture of Mesopotamian region circa 600BC, rejecting all material concerns by stripping off their clothes, and eating grass to emulate cows (a practice known as 'browzing'). This sounds alot like the source of Daniel's account of King Nebuchadnezzar going mad and eating grass.
"Also... why are there so many myths about halfgods dating from that time. It is all surcumstantial evidence but nevertheless there must be some good things in it?"
Likely the same reason there's many movies and TV shows about vampires in the 1990's: trends happen. "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" caught on, and it led to a string of imitators, including the Twilight stories. A new genre suddenly springs up, and everyone wants to get a piece of the action with their "me, too" versions. Same thing likely happened with the Hercules legend, or Odysseus in Homer's writings, etc. Thematic borrowing, with nothing new under the Sun.
Here's comparisons between Jesus and others, and it's hard to deny the similarities between these legends when it's laid out:
http://listverse.com/2009/04/13/10-christ-like-figures-who-pre-date-jesus/
That's not to say that a Jewish rabbi named Jesus didn't actually live (who became the center of the legend): I suspect he DID (as does NT scholars like Bart Ehrman). Christopher Hitchens has some interesting observations on the historicity of Jesus Christ, comparing him to Socrates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQw9sNmNEeA
"One thing with the Genesis account that has been wrinkling in my brains this morning though is the fact that the writer of Genesis wrote this account some 2000 years after the creation, flood incident, babylonic happenings, abraham stuff etc. I have always wondered why it is Moses who wrote the history of the complete mankind and not someone that was closer in the timeline (like Noah)."
There are no OT scholars who actually believe that "Moses", the character from the Bible, actually wrote the Torah (for one, he records his own funeral, something that even the author of 2nd Peter didn't do!). Instead, the thinking is that many authors (redactors) contributed to the work over centuries, so it's not as old as you'd think. In fact, John Van Seters looks at the idea of Genesis actually being a late ADDITION to the Torah, in his book, "Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis".
It's a HUGE topic, but essentially the thinking is that while 50% is legal code, note that it starts off with a narrative that shows what happens when people don't follow the one rule they've been given (Adam and Eve).
It's a mistake to read the Torah as if it were intended to be a literal historical record of actual events and people, when that was not the goal of ancient authors in the period. But that doesn't stop Christian literalists from trying to make it so, even if it means accepting absurd fantastical beliefs (such as talking serpents, magic fruit that bestows wisdom, etc).
Adam
