When I was in prison over the neutrality issue (1967-1969) there was a real genius of a brother who was what we then called a congregation overseer. He had "advanced" bible study (i.e. study the Society's publications) with accelerated learning and Socratic methods. (i.e. He'd call on you out of the blue and ask questions to put you on the spot.) His name was Tollie Padgett. (He went on to be, along with his wife, a Missionary when he was released from incarceration.)
His (Tollie's) explanation for the link between pagan myth and Christianity was quite clever. It goes something like this:
The angels who rebelled in heaven aligned themselves with Satan in opposing Jehovah's kingdom under his son. Their intent and purpose became that of diluting any possibility that this Kingdom could succeed by using a number of methods at their disposal. The most obvious method was creating a substitute which would siphon off mankind's need for rescue.
These demonic angels, under Satan, did not know exactly how Jehovah would inaugurate the Kingdom when the time came to launch the project. It was, after all, a "sacred secret".
Consequently, with intimate knowledge of Jehovah's "methodology" and standards of justice, the demons set about trying to guess at how it might work and perpetrate "getting the jump" on a false, substitute one of their own.
The pantheon of Greek "gods" was, therefore, a pantheon of fallen angels. The mischief and often unpredictable wrath of these demonic overlords necessitated constant appeasements such as human sacrifice.
An observance (by the demons) of how Jehovah responded to Abram's willing sacrifice of his son, Isaac tipped the balance. The hero demi-god who must die was born in myth.
Etc etc.
In other words, Tollie's explanation makes all of mythology a demonic false front to usurp or hijack the actual workings of Jehovah's own plan of salvation. What the demons could not figure out was the part of God's government whereby He uses humans as co-judges and co-regents (144,000).
I only bring this up to demonstrate a couple of points.
The human imagination is more than up to the task of explaining ANYTHING! Moreover, that imaginative "something" can be made rational-sounding and linked to biblical scenario.
Reality is this. In ancient times, the human mind was a marketplace. One tribe or culture rubbed against a foreign one and ideas were exchanged. The best of both worlds blended. This served to RESHAPE what once was into a more "workable" theory of how the world worked.
Among all ancient peoples there was a sort of religious "truce". Many disperate religions co-existed side by side. Only the Jews were radical enough to get their hump up about rubbing shoulders with contrary viewpoints.
But, being absorbed into vast and superior cultures (such as Persion, Babylonian and Greek/Roman) did the job anyway. Jews were transmuted against their will.
The "Old" testament demonstrates this glaringly. The redactors of scripture had to retro-fit contradictory versions of the same ancient stories side by side when the Babylonian diaspora was regathered into a patchwork nationality.
So called "doublets" about Creation, Noah, Abraham, etc. are nothing more than BEFORE and AFTER demonstrations of pagan influences.
There was never any such thing as PURE RELIGION in any national group because of the constant sifting and intermixing in the religious marketplace of ideas.
Nothing is so astoundingly influential as a "better" idea or a better story.
The most obvious example of INFLUENCE is the ROMAN EMPIRE'S love affair with all things GREEK!
The most powerful and long-lived empire on the face of planet earth was just a smitten carbon-copy of the Greek ethos, religion and culture renamed and modified.
This imprinting was as dynamic on Jews and Christians as it was on latter day immigrants who arrived on America's shores from European ethnicities and cultures. They became a cultural soup blended, seasoned and refined into something ELSE. History uses the term "melting pot".
Religion is the largest melting pot of all.
