In any case, what is certain is that Judaism has many elements in common with Egyptian and other religions and cultures in the region, including the following:

Henotheism or monotheism.
God equated to the Sun and described as having war chariots.
Creation myth.
Psalms.
Prayers.
Covenant.
Code of moral conduct inscribed on stone or clay.
Ark.
Kings.
Prophets.
Temple.
Spring and fall festivals.
Animal sacrifices.
Male circumcision.
Prohibition against eating pork. — Apollodorus

That being said, do note that in exodus, God made the Hebrews kill a lamb and put its blood on their door mantels. The lamb was seen as a sacred creature to the Egyptians and this was a way where God essentially had them reject many of the religious/cultural tenants of their polytheistic faith. But whether there was a resurgence of such beliefs in the Hellenistic era is of course another discussion.

Of course, if we look at it from a modern Western perspective, we may find it difficult to accept that the authors of the Hebrew Bible could have equated the God of Israel with the Sun in any other way than metaphorically. However, the perspective changes if we consider that this was written many centuries ago in a totally different cultural environment and that even Plato equates the source of truth with the Sun which in Greek religion was a deity. If the Egyptians, Babylonians, Canaanites, and Greeks, all saw the Sun as a deity, what are the chances of their Hebrew neighbors seeing it as a “metaphor”? Probably, zero. — Apollodorus

I think you make some very good points! I would however, disagree in a certain sense with regard to the idea that the sun was literally seen as a deity, or rather, THE deity. In a certain sense I’m sure there were mixtures of cultural practices where many Jews did have these notions, that being said, God being the sun as a deity in and of itself seems like a stretch. The fact that many times in the OT where God talked to prophets like Abraham at night I think would be sufficient to at least put a roadblock in that idea. If the sun is down, and it’s opposite is all that is visible, why would God speak at night? Now one could argue that maybe God is NOT the sun but can simply work through it instead, but that is traditionally how God was seen as operating anyway. There’s always been the idea that certain natural object have divine qualities, but I think the point of disagreement we have is whether or not those are intrinsic or external. Is the sun divine intrinsically, or does it simply have divine qualities from the Creator working through it?

You are quite right. What I was getting at is that something doesn’t necessarily have to be PROVEN to be true for it to actually be true. If that makes sense.

Not everything needs to be empirically established to be true. If Empiricist-positivism was the arbiter of truth, than many things we take for granted could not be used. Even concepts such as "mental" could not be used as there is no empirical evidence for such things. Its actually a very interesting issue in the problem of consciousness. I can link an article if you would like.

I think you raise some very great points. And I absolutely agree with many of them. Although I think there was a bit of misunderstanding as I absolutely believe that almost all other religions do, indeed, have many elements of universal truth. Those elements, from a Catholic perspective at least, are good. That means that the things objectively true in Judaism, Islam, Paganism, etc are GOOD things precisely because all truth stems from God. So yes, there almost certainly were foreign elements involved in Judaism (which I appreciate the history lesson as I was unaware of the extent of Hellenistic influence in Judaism. So thank you for that) but that, as long as it doesn't change the core doctrines of BC Judaism are not necessarily bad.

This is a concept that live on in the Church to this day. Much of the Catholic philosophy has been influenced by Hellenistic philosophy. St. Thomas Aquinas had a deep respect for Aristotle and the Scholastics were very keen on studying the Hellenistic philosophers. But the fact that the philosophy does not contradict revealed dogma means that it can certainly influence Catholic thought and be a good thing to incorporate. At the end of the day, ALL TRUTH is good, no matter what religion or philosophy discovers it.

If you asked someone like Heinrich Rommen, a Catholic political philosopher, he would agree that there is a lot of similarity between Christian teaching and Greek philosophy. An important point he would make, though, is that truth is objective, not relative. This being the case, and truth stemming from God, who is the Truth (John 14:6), even truth that comes from a non-Christian source is still from God. Since the Church was designated as the mouthpiece of God (symbolism of the keys given to St Peter), the Church then becomes the heir to all truth previously known through reason. To put it simply, all things that are true, having been discovered by Greeks, Asians, Celts, etc, belongs to the Church. He discusses this in depth in an earlier chapter of his book,The State in Catholic Thought

Fair point. At the same time, if that sailor who "sees ahead" spots a storm, he can warn/instruct the other members of the crew to reduce the sails and batten down hatches before the storm hits.

I agree that there are significant benefits to a reservist/militia-based military. I think on of the elements people forget about peacetime militaries is their ability to teach people new skills and act a a medium for social mobility. A young man with no technical skills can go into the military and be taught engineering, and he can then bring those skills into the civilian world. This can all be very beneficial for boosting the average skill of the population, especially when new forms of technology are introduced. Not only this, but now that a significant portion of the population has a baseline of military skill, then even when they get out, if their country is invaded, they still have the skills to fight. They also now have the ability to train new civilians to fight, which has been shown extensively in the invasion of Ukraine.
One of the things that has to be considered when making a decision like this is what is beneficial for the common good. This includes individual rights, of course. But the individual needs to, at times and with prudence, submit some rights to the common good, so that the individual may be benefited in the end through the action of the political community. A lot of these questions depend on what one views to be the ultimate end (Telos) of the state.