T. W. Doane’s “Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions” analyzes the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. One of its chapters compares the stories of Moses with those of the Roman God Bacchus found in the Orphic Hymns. Doanne’s work suggests that the Jews copied the biblical story of Moses from the Roman tale of Bacchus. The following analysis, however, shows the opposite is more likely true, providing a confident rebuttal to Doane’s claim.

Doane notes many striking similarities. Like Moses, Bacchus in the Orphic Hymns had and used a staff and could change it into a serpent. Like Moses, he divided and passed through the Red Sea for himself and his army, divided other waters using his staff, drew water and wine from a rock, and wherever he walked, the land flowed with wine, milk, and honey.

Like Moses, he had two mothers. One was biological; the other adopted him. His army enjoyed the sun’s light at night, while the Israelites under Moses similarly enjoyed a pillar of fire at night.

The following are the facts showing that Jews did not copy the Bacchus tales into the Torah.

Bacchus is an ancient Roman god. The worship of Bacchus began about 200 BCE, long after the Torah existed. He was said to be the child of the chief god Jupiter and Semele, a human. Jupiter raised him to be one of the gods. He became the god of wine, agriculture, fertility, and revelry in Roman mythology. He was similar to the former Greek god Dionysus, who was first thought to be the god of fertility but later evolved as the god of wine and pleasure. Bacchus was the patron of the arts and the protector of the theater. His festivals, the Bacchanalia, were celebrated with enormous enthusiasm and ecstatic revelry.

Scholars established that the Orphic Hymns were composed in either the late Hellenistic period, around the third or second century BCE, or during a later time, in the early Roman era, around the first or second century CE.

This historical context of the origin of Bacchus and Orphic Hymns, significantly after the story of Moses was written, shows that the similar events between Bacchus and Moses were not copied from the Torah. Instead, it is more plausible that the Bacchus tales were borrowed from the Torah, a conclusion that enlightens our understanding of these religious narratives.

It is also likely that the author or authors of Orphic Hymns added wine to the Torah’s depiction of Canaan, later called Israel, as a land flowing with milk and honey and to Baccus’ staff causing wine and water from a rock because Bacchus is associated with wine.