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old testament page 1

The reformers rewrote Israel's history. Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings were revised according to the new ideology. The editors of the Pentateuch added passages to the older narratives of 'J' and 'E' giving the Exodus myth a Deuteronomist interpretation, as a result of which YHWH became the author of a holy war in Canaan. Amazing! As you see there was not a divine author. Writers were human beings.

After the exile, 'P' wrote and inserted his thoughts into the Pentateuch. He gave his interpretation to the events described by 'J' and 'E'. He did not stop there and added two new books, Numbers and Leviticus. The 'glory of God' which would become a very important idea in the history of God, also belongs to him: Man and woman can only see an afterglow of the divine presence, that is the 'glory (kavod) of YHWH.' This 'glory'(!) was thought to have left its mark on the face of Moses when he came down from the 'mountain': 'His face shone with such an unbearable light that Israel could not look upon him.' The writer 'P' was not very happy with the Exodus story, he did not like the idea of an anthropomorphic God. Therefore he wrote his version of the Exodus story, and since he could not imagine YHWH accompanying the Sons of Israel during their wanderings, he had the 'glory' of YHWH - not Himself - fill the tent where He met Moses. 'P's most important contribution to the Old Testament was of course the account of creation(!) in the first chapter of Genesis. His source was Enuma Elish. 'P's world is not divine - not composed of the same stuff as YHWH. Separation is the key notion in 'P's theology. Temple was central to 'P's Judaism. Sabbath acquired a new significance with 'P' s theology.

Elohists' style is not as powerful as Yahwists. Their God or rather Gods (because elohim is plural) have receded to their celestial place; they are much less human-like; they communicate with man only from the clouds via 'messengers', or in dreams. In the Elohists' writings a great friendship towards Joseph and Ephraim tribes is evident, and this led to the thinking that the Elohists may have lived in mid-Palestine possibly in the times of either David or Solomon (Shelomo-Shlomo). But according to a more widely accepted opinion Elohists have come after 750 BC. may have lived only among the tribes of Joseph and Ephraim and collected their traditions. The stories of Abraham presenting Sarai as his sister, of Jacob misleading his father-in-law belong to the Elohists. 'Elohim' was plural originally, evidence of the notion of a plurality of Gods in the beginning. This word must have acquired a singular meaning later on thanks to monotheists, who must have realized that this description in the Old Testament - the presumed revelation by the 'sole' God - needed an interpretation fitting the essence of the belief system. Especially Moses ben Maimonides interpreted this plural word, 'elohim' in a singular context to rectify the situation created by the incompetence of the writers of the Old Testament. In Genesis 6:2 appearing in the earliest Hebrew texts we saw 'elohim' in the plural: 'The sons of Gods (bene ha-elohim) saw the daughters of men that they were fair.' But in the later modern texts it is translated in singular context. Who are these 'bene elohim' - the 'sons of Gods'? According to the Oxford Companion to the Bible they are the divine members of God's heavenly host. This title, the 'sons of Gods' are not strange to us. They show themselves in the Ugaritic mythology. There Gods were called as a whole the 'children of El.' There are sons or children of Gods also in the Phoenician and Ammonite inscriptions. They refer to sub-ordinate or lesser deities of the pantheon. This shows that the term was widespread in the western Semitic belief systems.

Despite the disputed dates of the Laws of Hammurabi one can safely say that they are earlier than even the oldest sections of the Old Testament. The Old Testament is said to have copied a lot from them. The law defined in Deuteronomy is nothing original, but basically a simplified version of Hammurabic Laws.. The name 'Deuteronomium' means the repetition of the Law. Its language resembles the language of the rabbis which we meet in Talmud later on. In Deuteronomy we come across the references to separation between the people and kohanim (priests), and between the state and kohanim. It is understood that together with the writing down of the Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges and Kings were also revised, and those sections which are not acceptable, against the politics of the day and in open contradiction with monotheism were either deleted or softened. These happened following the return from the Babylonian exile, around the end of 550 BC.

The Judaic Law reached its final form in those sections said to have been wrritten by the kohanim (priests). These are thought to be the mutual efforts of a school of people. Ezra is in this group of people. They have revised all the Books of Moses, and presented their rules as belonging to Moses. The Leviticus, and the section from Exodus 25 to Numbers 10 are written by this group of people. They are known to have lived under the Iranian rule. The book of Leviticus is about the Levitical priesthood, with the main outlines of Israel's sacred calendar. When taken together Exodus and Leviticus summarize the establishment of Israel as God's 'people on contract'. They also tell us about the enactment of the cultic and other laws that were to mark Israel's life as a 'people on contract.'

Especially after the discovery of the Sumerian clay tablets it became obvious that the hymns, proverbs, phrases in the Old Testament have their origins in Sumer. A lot of things written in the Old Testament are claimed to have been written not by the Israelites but were copied and adapted from other texts originally written in other languages. In his book titled The Inquirer's Text Book, Robert Cooper tells us about his 13 conferences where he looks at the Old and New Testaments critically. According to him the studies on the Old Testament were conducted when the deciphering of the cuneiform script has only just begun and no one had any idea of the clay tablets and Sumer. Robert Cooper writes that 'The first five books of the Old Testament could not have been written by Moses himself because papyrus was not in use then and the texts were written on stones.' According to the famous Jewish philosopher Spinoza, the first five books of the Old Testament - The Pentaeuch - must have been written at least 100 years later than the return from the Babylonian exile.

Again Robert Cooper points out that the Book of Proverbs in the Old Testament could not belong to king Solomon (Shelomo-Shlomo); it is a collection of sayings belonging to another nation, and the name of Solomon is inserted later, because we read in Proverbs 25: "These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Hezekiah lived 250 years later than Solomon, and Robert Cooper asks: 'There have been no written material on this subject, so how did they know that these phrases belonged to Solomon?'

Now let us have look at the Songs of Solomon: No one knew why this section of obscene poems was included in the Old Testament. Taken as they are, they had no relationship either to the belief system or to history. When the Sumerian clay tablets in Istanbul Archaeological Museum, were read all the pieces fell into their places. Because it became clear that these songs in the Old Testament were originally the hymns sung at the Sumerian new year celebrations. Sumerians had an agricultural economy. They believed that if Goddess Inanna married the God Dumuzi there would be abundance. The Sumerian poets and writers created a long legend based on this belief. This legend has come to us written on these Sumerian clay tablets. According to this 'invented' story Inanna marries Dumuzi, Inanna descends to the underworld, cannot come up, God of Wisdom promises to send someone to substitute Inanna, Inanna comes up, looks for her husband Dumuzi, finds him sitting on his throne and enjoying himself, she is in angry, gives her husband to Jinns, then regrets her decision, takes the matter to the assembly of Gods, there they decide that Dumuzi's sister the Goddess of Dreams should stay in the underworld for half a year, as a result of this Dumuzi spends the winter in the underworld, then comes up and unites with his wife Inanna, this occasion is celebrated by the marriage of the king of the day and the chief priestess, thus the new year begins. The 'Songs' in the Old Testament was written to be sung during these celebrations, the king and the chief priestess sung these songs to each other. These celebrations and ceremonies which make up the Sumerian fertility cult are described today as the 'sacred marriage ceremonies.' This fertility cult is understood to have continued until the time of Jesus and even later times. Many many texts which are not related to the belief system were excluded from the Old Testament but these 'songs' remained. The reason may be their acceptance as 'sacred.' The story in Ezekiel 14 looks like related to the efforts of erasing from the records the Sumerian Goddess of Love Inanna (she is known as Ishtar in Akkad, Ashtarte in Israel, Aphrodite in Greece, and as Venus in Rome) and her cult. The Story in the Old Testament, Song of Solomon 1:2-4, 3:11, and 4:9-11 proves to us that these ceremonies continued during the times of king Solomon. 

Moses' father-in-law has three different names, Jethro (Exodus), Reuel (Exodus), and finally Hobab (Judges). We are told that Moses married to Zipporah / Tsippora, the daughter of a Midianite priest with those names. Therefore, either Moses had three wives, thus three fathers-in-law; or there were two other persons in the Old Testament who were also called Moses(!), which means that there were three persons in total, called Moses; or maybe this father-in-law had three names.. This is ridiculous! (Check the pages on Moses in this Site).

Read Numbers 12:1: "And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman." What is this? Didn't he marry Tsippora/Zipporah the Midianite as we were told in the Exodus story? Either he married again in the meantime and this Ethiopian woman is his second wife together with Tsippora, or Tsippora may have died, or they may have separated or divorced. Maybe Midianites were Abyssinians or Midian in reality may have been Abyssinia(!). With all this nonsense one has no choice but to say that this story is just a creation of a number of incompetent authors and editors over a period of time.

What do you understand from the 'darkness over the land of Egypt'? In could well be a sandstorm which blocked the sunlight. But the Egyptians suffered from it while the Israelites in bondage in Egypt did not. Why?.

Check the strange short story in Exodus 4:22-26: Who met whom? Who was cross with whom and why? Who did Zipporah / Tsippora circumcise? Whose life was saved by the operation? Who wanted to kill whom? God is furious with whom? Here is the story : 'Rabb / El Shaddai / El (the God of Abraham, of Moses, and later of Islam called 'Allah') is speaking to Moses and orders him to go to the Pharaoh, tell him that Israel is his son, even his firstborn, so the Pharaoh should let them go to serve Him (Rabb), if the Pharaoh refuses, He (Rabb) will slay his firstborn; then Rabb meets him ('Him?' You immediately want to ask 'Pharaoh or the son? ' Wait, there is more) the story suddenly takes a strange turn and Zipporah/Tsippora (wife of Moses) enters the scene, takes a sharp stone, cuts off the foreskin of her son, casts it at his feet, and says that he is surely a bloody husband to her.' Here one immediately thinks that Rabb/El Shaddai/El must have met the Pharaoh. The logic of the story told, dictates a meeting between God and the Pharaoh. If, so why did Tsippora enter the scene? Tsippora is the wife of Moses, and she has her son with her. If we follow the logic of the story, this boy should have been the one Rabb wanted to kill. If so, why would Rabb want to kill Moses' son? Tsippora calls the one who meets them as her 'husband,' so that person must be Moses. If so, why would Moses want to kill his son? Tsippora throws the foreskin at the feet of Moses? Why? Woman and child belong to him. And the one who wants to kill the child is not Moses but Rabb, and Rabb wants to kill the son of the Pharaoh not the son of Moses. There are those who interpret this strange story, as God being infuriated because Moses was still uncircumcised, God tried to kill him, but the wife of Moses quickly circumcised him and saved his life. What is all this? Another example which shows the ulterior motives and the incompetence of the writers of the Old Testament, and the gullibility of the believers. This whole story is just nonsense. (Check the Moses page in this site for an extended discussion and the possible ulterior motives) Unfortunately one cannot find answers to those questions.

That is not all! How could Moses describe his own death? Deuteronomy 34:5-6 tells us the story:"So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knew his sepulchre unto this day." The first sentence seems to belong to God, telling us what happened. But we were told that Moses had written the first five books of the Od Testament. Where is the truth? The second sentence is strange; "he buried him." Who buried whom? Did Moses bury himself? Were there two people called Moses, so both the interred and the person who interred the body were called Moses, thus "he buried him"? Did God bury Moses? May be someone else did it, someone the writers of the Old Testament forgot to invent. At the end of the last sentence we read the words, "unto this day." Unto which day? Someone has written this fairy tale of course, and he must be referring to the date of his writing the story. The 'reporter' is neither YHWH nor Moses, but an individual or a group of people. There is nothing divine here. One can see the nonsense clearly.

The scholars agree on the fact that there is no existing evidence, archeological or otherwise for the first 11 chapters of Genesis (How could there be?!). There has been nothing concrete to support the creation story; nothing credible to prove the existence of Eden; no one has found anything to point to the existence of the Flood or the Tower of Babel. Why? The actual inventors of the stories, Sumerians, and the developers, the Zoroastrians were all gone. There were no witnesses around. The only witnesses are to be found in the texts of the Books. Were they real, historical, or invented? No one can tell. Genesis is thought to have been compiled between the 10th and 5th centuries BC. Let us have a look at the first 11 chapters:

The Old Testament is the Judaic scripture containing the history of the Jews and all the centuries of Hebrew thought. The Old Testament begins with the creation (!) of the universe and human race. Then man sins (Here the 'male' is tempted by the female who is thought by the males as the 'evil' (!) itself; check the summary of the story in the pages on the 'Supreme Being' in this Site); then a sequence of events follows leading up to the Flood; then comes Exodus. then adoption of YHWH; then the 'Promised Land' - Canaan etc.

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