Continuity and Disconintuity

I'm not pondering covenantal vs. dispenational theologies, nor the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. I'm thinking again about the continuities and discontinuities between true and false religion. The above book, Documents from Old Testament Times, and another book I read this summer, The Bible as History, while not exactly the height of scholarship, does bring some good information to light. For many, including me at times, the similarities between true, biblical religion, and other religions can be troubling. What are we to make of the fact that other nomadic peoples had tabernacles? Or that the Moabites worshipped a god, Chemosh, and spoke of him in much the same manner as the biblical prophets (i.e. "we were oppressed by Israel because Chemosh was angry with the land")? The ideas of psalms, penitential prayers, burnt offerings, temples, proverbs, songs of worship, mercy, and even the idea of the king being the God's son, are not unique (or always original) to Jewish relgion, and what are we to make of that?

Much of the time we evangelicals place great emphasis on the uniqueness of biblical religion, as well we should. But we often do so in a way that is not entirely proper, leaving us open to being shaken when we learn, for instance, that one of the Psalms is Baal-hymn edited so that Yahweh's name appears instead of Baal's. It is claimed that many of the proverbs in the Bible are not originally Jewish, but Egyptian, Caananite, etc., and there seems to be good evidence for this. How then is biblical religion unique?

It seems that there are two ways for true religion to be recognized. First, it is original, fundamentally original. God must be the God who created the universe, He must have been speaking to mankind since the beginning, His character, His love and mercy, but be the character, love, and mercy. Therefore, critical aspects of biblical religion will be unique, not in any way borrowed or adapted from other religious traditions. However, what happens when another religious text predates the Bible (such as the Hindu scriptures)? What about when biblical practices are adaptations from surrounding religions?

In that case, there is another way to recognize true religion. God, by His acting in common grace, God can establish ideas that are resonant with the truth in cultures and religions of all kinds. Given that Christians do not (or ought not) believe that the world is entirely evil in every way to the utmost degree, we should expect to find truth and good ideas in culture. Furthermore, many religious ideas are inherited, if altered in transmission, from original and true sources. For example, Moses meets the Midianites in the desert, and they worship the Lord. Melchizedek would be another example of a person who shares in a true revelation of God. It is no surprise, then, for more divergent traditions to maintain some vestige of the original truth, which is not a novelty created by that tradition. It is therefore not strange to find adapted religious practices, proverbs, and songs in the biblical tradition. It's actually pretty cool.