Books like Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East

Pro tip you can sound clever and original if you have access to a large body of hand me down knowledge and a green audience. Performing and entertaining for young people has made me intimately aware of this. Borrowing goes on all the time in Camp culture, Education, comedy, Music and the arts. It apparently was also true for the writers of the bible who borrowed much from the cultures around them both Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Stories in the Bible seem to reworkings of various Sumerian, and Egyptian favorites. This is not bad in itself great artists often steal the good stuff but it brings into question the idea of a stand alone culture be it genius or divine inspiration. This is a source book on parallels (of which there are many) of middle eastern stories and laws and the good book. I knew about this fact in a bloodless abstract way but this source book puts some meat on the bare bones of this notion.