I Don't Recommend the Two Babylons For Refuting Roman Catholicism

Back then, I remembered having read the book "Babylon: Mystery Religion" written by Ralph Woodrow. The book itself had an informative side. Years later, I wanted to personally get a copy of that book only to find out he's written "Babylonian Connection?" which somewhat made sense. But what disappointed me was that Woodrow himself fell into ecumenism. But while reading his book, it did expose some of Alexander Hislop's logical fallacies such as the frequent use of guilt by association.

Here's another issue that I have with many Christian publications with their anti-Catholic literature. Exposing Roman Catholicism is also a must but they don't bother to refuse Roman Catholicism in a scholarly way. While books like "Catholics and Evangelical Beliefs Compared" and "Truth Encounter" are very scholarly but "The Two Babylons" isn't. When I decided to read the book myself there's just a lot of contradictions which came to be. I could probably name the whole stories revolving around Nimrod, Semiramis and Tammuz to name an example. I'll discuss some of these in the next paragraph. Be ready to be faced with one contradiction over the other! Apart from the entertainment value - the book is actually pretty useless for any useful academic discussion.

I remembered reading the stories of Nimrod and Semiramis. One after the other, they just contradict each other. Even commentator Vernon McGee has stated it as a legend than a fact. The accounts are so convoluted and many of them don't even make sense. In one source you read that Cush married Semiramis and had a son named Nimrod. Yet the Bible says that Nimrod is not Cush's only son. We later read in some other unreliable sources that Semiramis was a product of incest between Ham and his mother. Others state that Nimrod and Semiramis are actually Cush's children or that Semiramis is a daughter of Ham and Nimrod married his cousin Semiramis. We also have conflicting accounts of Semiramis and her son Tammuz. Some say that Tammuz was the result of incest between mother and child. Others say that Tammuz was Semiramis' illegitimate child who she later married. All these are conflicting accounts that we might as well out into the trash bin. So where did Hislop get these records in the first place?

Also another thing we must take note is that pagan mythologies vary from country to country. One country may have a lot of gods and goddesses that not everyone has information on the Internet. Let's just assume that Semiramis and her illegitimate son Tammuz are also existent. While reading "Babylon Religion" by David W. Daniels (though I don't recommend it either), it's easy to see how the stories are distorted. Maybe Semiramis and her husband/son Tammuz did exist and that Nimrod was called "the husband of his mother" because Tammuz was claimed to be Nimrod reincarnated. But one thing we got think is that trying to write history from mythology will never work. I could give more of my thoughts on the next paragraph.

The names of pagan gods may trace back to the earlier versions of the pagan gods. Bacchus means Bar Cush or son of Cush so Bacchus is based on Nimrod. Hermes means son of Ham so Hermes is Cush. Yet Zeus their common father is a blend of both Tammuz and Nimrod. What's even worse to think is that later myths that every goddess were supposedly based on Semiramis. It goes as weird as to say that while Cush is the father of Nimrod but he becomes Nimrod's son. So let's say that Cush is the father to both Nimrod and Semiramis (sibling marriage was very common during Genesis) then Semiramis later becomes Nimrod's or Cush's mother, sister and daughter. Cush may have ended up becoming Tammuz's son. Try to write the history of paganism using mythology and you're going to get a super contradictory account that any good historian wouldn't accept.

Another issue I have is that did Hislop really do any real research or at least use his common sense to realize that paganism also copies from the Bible? He should realize some important facts about paganism. It's highly possible that the priests of Dagon decided to have their own fish-shaped miters because they saw the Old Testament priests have their own miters. It's possible that the sun god was created as a counterfeit to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's possible that pagan myths later decided to create a series of their own counterfeit virgin births when they read Genesis 3:15. It's a good thing that Daniels actually pointed out that some stories of paganism also copied from the Bible. Stories of a baby found in a basket in pagan mythology were later written after the Exodus after Moses' true to life incident. Stories of a child crushing the serpent were written way after Genesis 3:15 was published. The story of Hercules also has some similarities with Samson. Hercules killed a lion with his bare hands and lifted gates with his own two hands just like the historical Samson did. 

Does this mean that I've defected to the Vatican? The answer is no. I'm just simply pointing out that some anti-Catholic literature are faulty. You can't trust all books or websites about the Vatican either. Some of them are just meant to sensationalize instead of keeping with the goal of refuting Roman Catholicism. Some of them end up portraying Roman Catholics as criminals instead of victims of false teachings that need the Gospel. While some Christian writers do have good intentions but some of them are just as misguided as those who preach a watered-down presentation of the Gospel. They may be teaching a non-watered down Gospel but they're also guilty of being overly offensive and cheesy towards the lost. Instead, try to get some scholarly literature like "Truth Encounter" to help refute Roman Catholic teaching. I suggest practicing exegesis to find out how verses are taken straight out of their context or to study church history to refute the claims of Rome.