|
Introduction
This article is not intended to convince anyone of anything. It is much too
loaded a subject to engender anything but angry disagreement from those who
know what they were told in Sunday school is true. This is intended only for
those who have a skeptical interest in the jewish foundations of the
Christian religion.
These foundations are to be found in the several Old Testament canons and
some related writings. All Christian religions and all of Islam are based
upon the people of the OT having actually had the experiences recounted.
Abraham has to have had a covenant with god. Moses had to receive the Ten
Commandments. Those are the two critical events and modern archaeology finds
no evidence for either. On the contrary it has found evidence showing they
cannot have happened.
There has to have been a convenant between Abraham and Yahweh else there is
no Christian New Covenant. Abraham and Moses have to have been prophets of
Yahweh else Islam has no basis and critical parts of the Koran are false.
And for Jews, if none of these are true what are they doing agonizing over a
ham and cheese sandwich?
What is the Old Testament?
The Old Testament is a Christian name for the pre-Jesus books. There is no
common agreement as to which books form the canon of the books which are
studying for the instruction of the faithful. Even where there is agreement
on the books, there is no agreement on the words of the books as they are
different. There is also no disagreement what the Old Testament means, from
the Catholic useful for instruction to the Jewish all there is.
The Jews have their selection of books. Roman Catholics and Protestant sects
have different selections. Orthodox Catholics use the Greek Septuagint.
These are the collections with official approval of some organized religion.
Not that organization confers fact but it at least raises it above personal
opinion to something that educated people have considered. And not that
considered thought matters when there is a working presumption that the Old
Testament has religious value.
Some stories are found in only one collection but are commonly known and
told by groups which do not consider the source part of their canon. For
example the story of Daniel in the lions' den is only found in the
Septuagint book, Bel and the Dragon.
Some stories are found in material with no canonical standing whatsoever.
Moses is at time referred to as a prince of Egypt. Walt Disney made a movie
of that story. It is found only in the writings of Josephus. Josephus
claimed to be a priest of the Jerusalem temple who turned traitor and sided
with Titus in the 76 AD revolt. He claimed nothing but being a common
priest, not a high priest, not a scholar. He merely tells a story.
Are the stories credible?
The ancient position
There is a certain mentality which believes in the literal truth of the
stories in the Old Testament. When they are Christians they are commonly
called born again or fundamentalists. Among Jews they are called the
Orthodox. I will not bother addressing such fools.
The median position
There is a more reasonable school of thought which discounts everything
prior to and including the stories of the united kingdom of Israel as
mythology. Jewish archaeologists in Israel from respected universities
support this position. The popular work, The Bible Unearthed by Finkelstein
and Silberman who are Jewish, Israeli, PhD archaeologists is a good
introduction as far as it goes. As far as it goes means it is strictly
academic in content even though the style is for non-academics.
The recent position
This differs from the median position primarily in when it was created. In
light of the fact that the captivity in Babylon is a myth there was no
impetus to create the religion in the 7th c. BC. Based upon the presumption
that the first mention in history is the original, the Septuagint is the
first mentioned in history. The mention of an original in another language
first appears some two centuries later.
Those who support either the median or the recent position agree all the
stories about a united Israel and the stories leading up to it such as
Exodus are myths. A less polite way to say this is they are a pack of lies.
The recent position holds all of the stories in all of the books are a pack
of lies. Myth implies rather more than the deliberate creation of a religion
merits.
This position is often referred to as the Copenhagen School for some unclear
reason. I came to these conclusions before I heard of the Copenhagen school.
That is not a brag but rather it does not take a life time of study to see
the obvious.
Definitions
Bibleland
I use bibleland as a shorthand way of referring to places mentioned in the
Old Testament without specifics.
I use it as often places mentioned in the bible cannot be confirmed to exist
and none of them can be confirmed to exist as described in the bible.
Using the term avoids getting bogged down in specifics where they add
nothing to the narrative.
As I will show below, there is no history in the Old Testament. Thus I
distinguish real history from the invented history in the Old Testament.
Jews and Judeans
Today's name Jews is a name which evolved out of Judeans, people who lived
in Judea. It did not originally mean a religion but natives of Judea as
today Palestinians are natives of Palestine. So the terms Jews and Judeans
are used interchangeably here.
Pack of Lies
Many consider it impolite to call the bible a pack of lies. I do this
because the normal terms used to discuss it assume it is true. This keeps
reminding the reader, and me, of the reality.
hebrew
Similar to "pack of lies" using the lower case H for hebrew keeps in mind
the very existence of this language in ancient times is not only
questionable and far from certain.
Jews and Judaism and Judea and Judeans
All of these names derive from Judea via the Greek Ioduminae. Back then
there was no difference between where a person lived and his religion.
Although hopelessly mixing terms, a Jew was a Judean who followed the
religion of Judea which was called Judaism.
The standard of evidence
As the bible is completely wrong about Egypt archaeologists had to learn
what it was like from the physical evidence. Other civilizations have been
reconstructed from the physical evidence without other knowledge of the
civilization. The standard for the Old Testament is the same, that the
civilization of bibleland can be reconstructed solely from the physical
evidence.
Percentagewise bibleland is the most dug place in the world. There is no
excuse for not finding the same physical evidence as is found for other
civilizations.
Egypt has more digs and more archaeologists. But in bibleland, which in this
case includes modern Israel as well and parts of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan,
professional and amateur archaeologists and thieves have swarmed the land
for a century and a half. During this time the local population has
increased five to ten times greater than a century and a half ago. All of
those new people dig the ground to build homes and cultivate news lands for
food.
Particularly in Israel highways and high rises and parking garages have been
built. And still nothing has been found which would confirm the bible
stories as real history.
Israel's museums are also evidence as they display what has been found in
Israel and the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They contain large amounts of
Roman period artifacts and a much lesser number of Greek period architects.
Pre-Greek artifacts are but a handful. And in many cases they are as likely
Egyptian as they are of local origin.
Because of all of this digging and searching, intentional and accidental,
not finding evidence to support the Old Testament stories indicates the Old
Testament being total fiction.
In addition to the above the standard of evidence precludes logical
fallacies such as "who else could it be" as that is begging the question.
The standard rejects bible context around a find unless the artifact has
intrinsic evidence of a bible context. It is so common it appears to be a
journalistic requirement that when reporting on a new archaeological find in
bibleland the find itself is described in a bible context. Whatever words
describe the find itself, several times as many words weave a bible story
around the find.
A find is just a find until it is published in the professional literature.
This is the academic standard. After it is published only after other
archaeologists have evaluated the find can an opinion be given. Note in this
context, the Biblical Archaeological Review is not a professional
publication. It is a news stand magazine.
The standard requires the use of the scientific method in general as well as
the criteria peculiar to the science of archaeology. Perhaps the most
important of those in provenance. Almost all of the sensational finds from
bibleland, past and present, have no provenience. That makes them essentially
worthless.
It is also worth noting that the sensational finds from bibleland were made
when the people who found them can best be described as adventurers before
the science of archaeology came into being. It is telling that nothing
significant has been found since the requirements of science have been
applied. Frankly the adventurers finds in the 19th c. need be reevaluated.
None of the above are loaded against the bible. They are exactly the
criteria for evaluating archaeological finds any place else. There is no
scientific argument for relaxed standards when it comes to bibleland. In
fact, just the opposite. The 19th century adventurers who came to the Near
East described every find in terms of the bible and they were uniformly
making it up. Unfortunately those old finds are still presented in the bible
context.
What is important to know is that in the beginning of the 20th century the
above rules began to be applied to finds in bibleland. And with that the
sensational finds dried up in the professional world. Only the so-called
biblical archaeologists continue to make sensational finds. It is not
credible to suggest the professionals are less competent or less lucky than
the biblical archaeologists.
Archaeologists and Biblical Archaeologists
The class of biblical archaeologists are those who invent the bible context
for everything they find. Roman era finds include extraneous narrative such
as "while the Jews chaffed under Roman rule" which has nothing to do with
the find and everything to do with preserving the Hollywood view of
bibleland.
These people may or may not have degrees in archaeology. In Egypt the PhD
prover is required to get a digging permit. In bibleland pro-Old Testament
credentials are often sufficient to get a digging permit. These people tend
to publish in the newspapers and in newsstand magazines like Biblical
Archaeological Review which does its best to pretend to be a professional
publication.
Even real arkies have an opening paragraph.
Historians and biblical historians
The history of bibleland
Prehistoric bibleland
Assuming you are not in the fundamentalist category you know humans along
with all primates arose in Africa. Some left such as orangutans and gibbons
showing it did not take any particular intelligence. Australopithecus, an
early species of hominid also left Africa. There were others.
And we, Homo Sapiens, left Africa. The easiest way out of Africa was down
the Nile, east along the coast and through bibleland. Otherwise swimming or
boats are needed. Thus bibleland has been continuously inhabited by people
for some 60,000 or more years. Note that 60,000 years ago the sea level was
some 300 feet lower. The Red Sea was much smaller in those days and swimming
or rafting is not out of the question as a means of crossing out of Africa
into Asia.
Because of this continuous human habitation for 60,000 or more years, more
than simple evidence of human habitation is needed to find evidence of the
bible stories.
Egyptian rule of bibleland
Bibleland appears in real history with Herodotus
Three different ways they could and should have been mentioned but nothing.
by name | by circumcision | by tribute
The coming of the Greeks with Alexander
Conquers Tyre and then marches directly to Egypt bypassing Judea as though
it did not exist. The simplest explanation is that it did not exist.
There are two inventories of Alexander's conquests. In such inventories one
would expect exaggeration rather than minimalization. There is no mention of
Judea.
The absence of mention
Ordinarily the absence of mention is little more than a curiosity as far
less and 1/10th of one percent of ancient writings have survived. In the
case of the bible people it has more importance.
For example, Herodotus collected tall tales as well as facts. One presumes
this was to satisfy the expectation people have that travelers will tell
entertaining tales of strange people and places.
What makes the silence of Herodotus on bible people interesting is that if
they existed they were the strangest people in all the world. They had only
one god. Even stranger, when they are mentioned in real history, no one
remarks upon this strangest of all people who have only one god.
The simplest explanation is that they had more than one god. And that is
what real history and archaeology shows. The narrative of the Old Testament
is at most that of a Yahweh cult among other cults in bibleland. The claim
of unanimity in Yahweh worship is belied by facts from real history.
There is no mention of Judea for any reason in Greek records of their Asian
kingdom. Even the revolt of the Maccabes is not mentioned by them. This
suggests it was either a very minor event or another fictional tale.
The coming of Rome with Pompey
Pompey of the Triumverate was given a three year commission to eliminate
pirates instead of the usual 'do the job and come home' charter. Instead of
three years it took four months. He used his charter to expand the influence
of Rome in the region. Mainly he committed Roman troops to the highest
bidder. This lead to permanent garrisons and quickly to Roman rule.
The people of bibleland
The people did not rise above shepards and dirt farmers before the Greeks.
Every major population center including all of those attributed to Soloman
have been identified as outposts of other civilizations.
The people of bibleland made no contribution to civilization, ever, of any
kind. Our religious culture has a foundation in treating the people of
bibleland as praiseworthy, noble, religious and so forth. The problem is
what they had for a religion does not pass muster as a religion today save
for indigenous peoples far from civilization as it was solely a
ritual/taboo, genital mutilating, animal sacrificing religion. It was
religions like this in Africa that inspired missionaries to save them from
themselves.
We can look at the good guys of bibleland in many ways and usually wrong
because of religious prejudices but one thing no one can disagree with. At
no time did they ever contribute anything to human civilization.
There was no art, architecture, literature, science, engineering, math,
astronomy, or anything these people contributed. They are a cipher in
history.
Further they did not leave written contracts, administrative records, royal
decrees or any of the other types of written material that are found in
quantity in other civilizations. Nor have records upon which the Old
Testament could have been based been found. In all of bibleland not a
single, authentic inscription of a single bible passage been found. The only
exceptions are where the material was borrowed from other civilizations such
as the prayer to Ra which is in the book of Psalms as, may his light shine
upon you.
They did not invent monotheism. Believers try to salvage the bible by
declaring them henotheists, a word invented to salvage a belief they were
monotheists from the clear statements in the Old Testament. But even if one
believes they were monotheists because of the bible, the bible says it was
revealed to them so they did not invent it. And if one wants to go the
secular route and say it was a human invention then there is no basis for
saying it got the right god.
And before bragging about monotheism, consider they are the only religions
which start wars based upon religious beliefs. Going by body count montheism
is a very bad idea.
The religion of bibleland good guys
Ritual/taboo as a religion
When the Judeans first appear in real history they have a religion with
appears to be closely related to the Judaism of today as practiced by the
Orthodox. Today the Orthodox Jews do not consider Conservative and Reform to
be the Jewish religion but I am not going to get into that can of worms.
They can fight it out and the winner can get in touch with me.
Christians commonly consider it to have been superior to the religions of
other peoples of the time. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Other religions generally condemned body mutilation and where tolerated it
was reserved for people of a certain station such as a senior male priest of
a female deity. The other religions had no rituals required of the people.
All religious duties were carried out by priests.
These other religions fostered ethical thought as opposed to obedience to
religous dogma. A person was to achieve a better life through his own
efforts. They had no objections to art in any form and often sponsored it
for their temples.
They practiced animal sacrifice which was considered primitive by the
surrounding religions of the first millennium BC. They practiced ritual
genital mutilation which was condemned by both the Greeks and Romans.
Calling it circumcision and our familiarity with it does not change it from
ritual genital mutilation as a religious practice. As Abraham and his
covenant are myths it is not possible to claim it is a divine requirement.
In fact this primitive nature is about the only thing which argues for it
being an ancient religion. This is the kind of religion explorers in the
wilds of Africa reported finding a century ago. No amount of lipstick can
make Judaism look better.
The other religions of bibleland
This is the worship of a female deity under the name of Ashara in older
times and as Astarte in the 1st and 2nd c. AD. Ashara was the consort of
Yahweh according to an inscription found in bibleland. Believers tacitly
admit she was worshiped but assert without evidence that her worship was
eliminated about the 3rd c. BC.
Many votaries or house shrines have been found in bibleland. Here are some images of
them. Notice some are of Ashara alone and others of Ashara and Yahweh. I
can find no mention of any objects with Yahweh alone.
There is mention of BYT STRT in Jerusalem. Whereas BYT YHWH is translated as
temple of Yahweh (also house of the lord) believers do not translate the
other as temple of Astarte. They translate it as Strato's Tower. There is no
explanation of who Strato was or what this tower was for. The translation as
Strato's Tower is firmly based in the false belief the Judeans worshiped
only YHWH.
What the religions prior to the Yahweh cult do as worship ceremonies we do
not know. Nothing has survived except maybe the description of a temple
ceremony found in the books of Maccabe. That describes a ceremony to a
nature god such as Dionysus.
The gods of other peoples named in the Old Testament they are from the
Ugarit pantheon of which Yahweh and Ashara are members. This implies the
mythology of fanciful battles against those gods was simply a method the
Yahwehist creators had for condemning those who still worshiped them.
The elaborate, draconian punishments meted out to those who did not perform
rituals or violated taboos or worshiped other gods is the same sort of thing
we see in leftist dictatorships. But this also shows exclusive Yahweh
worship and the rituals and taboos were imposed on the people by these
punishments.
If this religion had grown up over generations to connect their
customs to a god we would not expect there to be a need for such strict
punishments. In Rome if someone did not celebrate a holy day it was their
own loss to miss out on the fun. Blasphemy was not tolerated and in times of
famine and plague everyone was required to make a ritual offering in the
temple of the patron god of city but that was usually no more than burning
some incense.
This was a religion of the people going back to prehistoric times. The
customs in the religion were more or less equally old. People would have
nothing but these customs and religion. The idea of needing to enforce them
would be a foreign as a law requiring Americans to eat hamburgers or watch
TV.
That the Yahweh cult and customs and behavior had to be enforced at all
shows it was not the religion or the customs of the people. That these
draconian punishments continued into New Testament times shows there were
still problems imposing this religion at that time.
Between Alexander and the Romans
Some time between Alexander and the Romans the religion of Judaism appeared
in history. This religion is defined by the genital mutilation, ritual/taboo
lifestyle, and animal sacrifice. Herodotus made no mention of them or anyone
who could have been them. There is no evidence this religion existed before
the arrival of Alexander.
It has the characteristics of an invented religion. It appears suddenly in
history as did Islam, the Latter Day Saints and the Scientologists. Their
seminal events were the Koran, the Book of Mormon and Dianetics
respectively. It imposes new customs upon a people which require punishments
to make happen like the imposition of communism.
The question that has to be
answered
In light of what bibleland was like before the arrival of the Greek
influence, how could the Old Testament come into existence?
Nothing significant written about bibleland in the Old Testament is true.
The people were not even at a level of civilization to create the Old
Testament much less preserve it over centuries. Further the religion
described in the Old Testament was not the religion of the people of the
region at any time even into the 2nd c. AD.
We have a collection of books which religious tradition says was written
over centuries with the last book written two to three centuries before the
arrival of the Greeks. Those who reject religious tradition say it was
created after the return from Babylon which would make it about three to
four centuries before Alexander. Yet only after Alexander do we have
evidence the people of the region we advanced enough to create the Old
Testament.
Either creation was before there was a civilization to create it or it was
created after Alexander. The former is in the impossible category and until
there is evidence of such a pre-Alexandrian civilization there is no
rational reason to assume it existed.
The only rational conclusion is the Old Testament was created after
Alexander.
This presents us with another issue but first a digression.
From ancient writings we first learn of a version in a dead language of
Judea which spoke Aramaic at that time in the writings of Josephus in the
late 1st c. AD. Josephus claimed to be a priest of Yahweh and can thus be
considered authoritative. He wrote that Septuagint was not the original but
a translation from that archaic language. From this we learn the Septuagint
in Greek was considered the original Old Testament in his time.
It is fairly well known that when the New Testament quotes the Old it uses
the Septuagint not the archaic Judean language commonly called Hebrew. Note
calling it Hebrew is not reasonable as the Hebrews are only found in the Old
Testament and then only in the parts that all but fundamentalists agree is
fiction, pack of lies if you will. Calling the language Hebrew backdates the
invention of the Hebrews. But that is the custom. While I will call it lower
case hebrew this is not to be taken as accepting they ever existed.
The problem with Josephus claiming the Septuagint was a translation is what
this priest of Yahweh gives as his best evidence, the forged letter of
Aristeas. This is the letter that is the only source of all the mythology of
how it was translated. But the letter is not authentic and it was the best
Josephus had for evidence. So we have no credible source of the Septuagint
being a translation from "hebrew."
So we have no reason to believe the Septuagint is a translation. For all we
know it may be the original. But what is meant by original?
Around the 4th or 5th c. AD the idea of an approved, official set of books
was invented, the official canon. Above I noted the different official
canons of the Jews and of Christian sects. Back before the idea of official
books was invented we have little idea why books were included or excluded
from the OT.
No canonical collection of the Old Testament in hebrew has survived from
ancient times. Similarly there is no consistent collection of books of the
Greek Septuagint. Most rely upon the Greek Orthodox usage of the Septuagint
as the official collection.
The absence of a canonical collection of Old Testament books is not hair
splitting. Josephus wrote that in comparison to the many Greek books on
religion which contradict each other the Jews have only 22 book. Here is a
priest telling us the number in his time is different from the number today.
Some believers have tried to explain this by lumping together several books
into one. The problem with that is it is nothing but imagination as today's
books are always found separate no matter how far back in time there are
records. By chance they might be right but they have nothing to go on but
the conclusion the number of books was always the same and then inventing
arguments to support that conclusion. That is a logical fallacy. It is
arguing to a preconceived conclusion.
Chicken or egg?
So which came first? The hebrew or the Greek? As the hebrew could only have
been created after Alexander one could consider the question as meaningless
as the chicken and the egg question. But from Josephus we learn that the
Greek and Roman worlds has assumed the Greek Septuagint was the original.
And the only grounds Josephus has to say the original was in hebrew is a
forgery.
Religious tradition has it the New Testament was written by the Apostles
(the original disciples of Jesus) and Paul. That would make the creation in
the mid to late 1st c. AD and likely before Josephus wrote about an
original. Skeptics put the creation of the gospels in the mid 2nd c. AD and
not by anyone who was alive when Jesus lived. (Assuming for the moment there
is a real person behind the gospels which is far from clear.) In either case
all citations of the Old Testament are from the Greek Septuagint as is the
theology. If the skeptics are correct then what Josephus wrote did not
change popular opinion in favor of the Septuagint a half a century later
indicating Josephus was either not widely read or not widely believed in his
time.
So even if there was an original, non-Greek Old Testament its creation would
have been more or less contemporaneous with the Septuagint, after Alexander
and before Rome. The Septuagint became the only version known throughout the
Roman empire. This is important. The early Christians were barely more than
a sect of Judaism. The Judea/Jewish enclaves in Alexandria, Athens, Rome and
other major cities used the Septuagint. If there was a more correct original
version the correctness of it was not of interest to Jews or the Christian
sect of Judaism outside of bibleland. If it were, Josephus would not have
had to use a forgery to claim there was an original version.
At this point which was the original language of the Old Testament is almost
inconsequential. But given the period in which it had to be created there is
still a problem. In the time between Alexander and Rome the spoken language
of bibleland was Aramaic. In fact there is no evidence "hebrew" was ever a
spoken language. As it is only in writing the only indication is it was an
invented liturgical language.
It could not have been an archaic language as we have examples of what are
considered older forms of it. It is given bible names like proto-hebrew or
proto-canaanite. The proto means it was different. So the older one wants
the hebrew version to be the more like the proto language it has to be. Yet
it is different from the proto language.
One can argue the books of the Old Testament were revised to reflect changes
as the language evolved but then we have to address the fact there is no
evidence it was ever a spoken language and while it was "evolving" the
spoken language was Aramaic. A language cannot evolve if not spoken unless
it is an invented liturgical language. The Latin of the Roman Catholic
Church has words for atom bomb and satellite.
Many may not like my conclusions but there are clearly faults with the
common description of the Old Testament and its hebrew. The faults can be
resolved with a creation of the hebrew between Alexander and Rome. In fact
the later the creation the more easily other matters are explained.
The traditional idea of authorship has as many if not more problems than my
suggestion. I have given many reasons against it. Another is the belief the
impetus for its creation was the return from captivity in Babylon in the 5th
c. BC. There was no captivity in Babylon therefore no impetus to create
these stories.
For example even granting the story of Exodus is fiction, a pack of lies,
the description of Egypt is entirely wrong. The older the creation of the
story of Exodus the more difficult it is to explain why it is all wrong
about Egypt in the times of Abraham and Moses. For example, king of Egypt is
like president of the US. Pharho is the equivalent of White House. The
person of the king was never confused with the administrative complex
referred to as Pharho. There are many more examples.
In fact regarding Exodus it appears the authors had no idea where it was.
There is a tale of wandering before the fourty years of wandering
curse. The promised land, bibleland, is about a one week walk from the Nile
Delta. By the time they get around to the golden calf thing they should have
been in bibleland for months. The number of people involved in Exodus could
have formed a line from the delta to Jerusalem and passed their possessions
from hand to hand all the way there.
So why do they write as though Egypt were a distant land instead of one of
the closest? The clearest answer is they had no idea where it was.
The author(s) also had no idea that Egypt ruled bibleland on up to the
Euphrates river in Mesopotamia at the time of Exodus.
In fact when adventurers (it is hard to call them anything else) first went
to Egypt they did so to uncover its biblical past. They were using the bible
as a guide. It eventually became clear the bible was completely wrong about
ancient Egypt. Near the turn of the 20th c. it was the recognition that the
bible was completely wrong when it came to Egypt that the science of
archaeology was born. So something good came of the bible nonsense. First it
created the interest and then that caused the creation of the science.
|