The Bible

The Hebrews The Torah and the Old Testament

In the Mesopotamian basin civilization, known to us today as Sumer tribal alliances that predated the amalgamation into a single empire, were allowed to exist and continued to prosper. Many of these “factions” were allied to the palace, many opposed, all retained elements of their pre-conquest cultures.

One of these tribes was known, in various sources, as the BR, Ibri, Ibru, Abiru, Apiru or Habiru. Ultimately today we know them as the Hebrews. They first appear in our story with the journey of one of their patriarchs, Abraham, Born in the city of Nippur in 2123 BCE son of Terah, of the line of Shem. In 2096 BCE Terah moved his family, from Ur to Harran (a mirror city of Ur also worshipping the same deities.) In 2048 BCE Abram was instructed by his God to move again. A critical review of Abraham’s lineage shows that he was a descendent of a line of Sumerian Royal Priests.

Along with many other tribal chieftains of the period, Abraham led members of his tribe from the Sumerian city of Ur, west towards the Mediterranean, to the "promised land" of Canaan. With the Hebrews came their Gods and Goddesses.

Contrary to popular belief the Hebrews did not originally have a monotheistic religion. Theirs were the gods and goddesses of the land from which they were native; the hierarchy of gods and goddesses who included Baal, the god of storms, who made the land fertile, and Lotan, the seven-headed dragon, known to Old Testament readers as Leviathan. Ashera, identical to the Egyptian Isis, There is Yam Nahar, the god of the seas and rivers, and other pantheons and hierarchies of gods and goddesses. A little known fact is that the Hebrews also had twelve main deities and a multitude of minor ones.

It is startling and profoundly sobering when the words of the world's oldest surviving literature - the liturgies of India and Sumer, written @4500-3000 BCE- correspond so closely to current Judeo-Christian-Islamic scriptures that an actual historical chain of descent can be followed.

Further Revisions

“Yahweh” and/or “El” The One True God(s)?

Through the intervening centuries several waves of immigration of Hebrews occurred. The settlement of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, in the city of what is now Nablus, on the West Bank. Another was the return to Canaan of the descendants of Abraham's sons who had moved to Egypt. Yet another was the return of the Babylonian captives. Each successive wave of immigration brought with it its own unique cultural tensions and changes to the religion, which shaped the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch (five scrolls).

Taken as a whole the first four books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers are indisputably the result of a very skillful interweaving of several sources. Scholars point to what appear to be different versions of the same stories within the books of the Pentateuch suggesting that the Bible was the product of several recognizable hands. Genesis reveals two conflicting versions of creation and two different genealogies of Adam’s offspring, and two apparently spliced and rearranged flood stories. Additionally there are dozens more “doublets” and sometimes even “triplets” of the same events in the narratives of the wanderings of the Patriarchs, the Exodus, and the giving of the Law.

The Doublets seem to occur primarily in Genesis, Exodus and Numbers. These are not arbitrary duplications of the same stories. They maintain certain readily identifiable characteristics of terminology and geographical focus, and most conspicuously they used different names in the narration to describe God. One set of stories consistently used “YHWH” (Yahweh) and seemed to be most interested in the tribe and territory of Judah in its various accounts. The other similar set of stories used the name “Elohim” or “El” and seemed particularly concerned with the tribes and the territories in the north of the country. It became clear that the “doublets” were derived from two distinct sources, written in different times and different places.

Evidence has it that the “Yahweh” movement originated with the court of King Solomon's son Rehoboam about 960 BCE, at that time documents were written to strongly favor the Davidic line of succession in a bid to unite the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The Yahweh ‘sect’ was concentrated in the south in Judah and is associated with temple ritual among the Jews and the Elohim ‘sect’ was in the north among the Israelites.

Though initially of the same clan and stock the Judeans felt they had a claim to rule over all Hebrews and the Israelites did not feel the same. They each developed their own countries with their own kings and both also had their own biblical versions. During the 7^th and 6^th centuries BCE these separate but similar “bibles” were merged in an effort to once again unite the tribes of Israel under one King and one Banner.

"Yahweh" is the name chosen by the Judeans for their “One True God”. The name was taken from a pagan Canaanite deity and etymologically can be traced to its origin in Sumeria as Ea (pronounced Ya also known as Enki).

A “god” El Shaddai (Meaning God of the mountain) commands Abraham to sacrifice his first-born son, an act that is not at all surprising given the nature of the pagan religions of the time. Many of these pagan religions considered the first-born to be the seed of their god. Because of this, they were often sacrificed to the god who presumably sired them.

The Judean Yahweh author has his god being familiar with and comfortable with Abraham.

“El” on the other hand wasn’t as casual as Yahweh. “El” first appears as a voice, commanding Abraham to leave his people and settle in Canaan. “El” continues to be a much more subtle god, who directs the affairs of men by revelation of the voice, hidden from the view of mere mortals.

"El" the king of the gods. "El", originally came from the word "Elohim." Elohim is a Hebrew word, which literally translates to Gods and Goddesses. The word "EL" is derived from this only to differentiate the “Lord God” highest of the high from the other Gods.

Consider as well that "EL" introduces himself to Abraham as "El Shaddai", Which means "God of the Mountain." Not "God of the Hebrews", not "God of the World", not "God of the Universe," but simply as El Shaddai, ‘God of the mountain’.

He (or an entirely different companion God) also appears as El Elyon, or El of Bethel in other, non-canonized scripture, and his name is also preserved in such Hebrew names as Isra-El and Ishma-El.

It has been proven archaeologically that these writers, writing in the 9^th through 7^th centuries BCE, committed these words to paper four to five centuries after the events they were describing. Many of the places that they describe and write about did not exist in the 9^th century BCE but came to prominence sometime between the 9^th and 7^th centuries. These writers are describing events, which allegedly occurred about 1200 BCE.

Another fact to consider is that the history of Egypt in this period is well documented, there is no evidence from the records of Egypt itself that the events of Exodus ever occurred, nor is there one iota of archaeological evidence whatsoever.

Another recent theory based upon valid scholarship is that the Hebrew “Moses” was in fact the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten who tried to change the official religion of Egypt to a monotheistic one, when his efforts failed he was exiled and later returned to sue the current Pharaoh to release his followers and the people he had converted to his “One God” religion. Though not as grand a scale as the purported Hebrew Exodus this was historically the most likely event that is documented that can be called an “Exodus” of the believers of the “One God Religion”.

Additionally, in reality, if a series of plagues had been visited upon Egypt, if thousands of slaves escaped in a mass runaway, if the army of the Pharaoh were swallowed up by the Red Sea, such events would doubtless have made it into the Egyptian records. There isn't a single word or hieroglyph describing any of these events. In fact there is much evidence to indicate otherwise.

-Fact: The baby in the reed story was borrowed from the birth story of Sargon of Akkad, circa 2242-2186 BCE, whose mother, the temple maiden Enitum, set him afloat in a basket made of bulrushes. Sargon was then rescued by Akki the Queen's midwife. He was raised by the royal daughters and later became King of Akkad

-Fact: The Egyptians never used Hebrew slaves to build their temples. No one but Egyptians were permitted to work the holy tasks, as any foreign involvement would have defiled the temple.

-Fact: Contemporary archeologists can find campsites of ancient Bedouin nomads. Some, where only twenty or so camped for a couple of months. There is no evidence at all that anywhere from three hundred thousand to a half million Hebrews, set up camp. Especially for forty years.

-Fact: There is no record of a male prince named Moses in the royal family of Egypt. There is mention of Pharaohs with the word Moses attached to their names. Moses is not a Hebrew word it is Egyptian. It has two meanings depending on the context it is being used in. The first is in a proper name, such as Thutmose, or Atmoses. It means, "unfathered son of a princess.' In its second, more ethereal, use it can mean, "birth.'

-Fact: There is no record in any other kingdom that mentions a half-million Hebrews walking by.

-Fact: We have no record of the Hebrews from Egyptian sources at all, until two centuries later, about 1000 BCE, where they first appear being mentioned in passing as a neighboring culture. Not a word about those escaped slaves over there in Palestine.

-Fact: There is a legitimate record of certain Hebrews being driven out of Egypt by the Egyptian army. This was due to a leprosy outbreak in the outer slum areas of some cities. This however, was not the Exodus.

It was a century or more after the first four books of the Pentateuch were written that the gods of the Old Testament are harmonized into a singular being.

This having been accomplished by the third major writer(s)of the Old Testament books, if the Hebrews intended to have a united people under a monotheistic religion, they couldn't very well go around having competing gods, so something had to be done! The tribes of Israel had a choice to make, and Joshua warned them that Yahweh was a jealous god.

In essence, there was no real difficulty making a choice. Yahweh was the more powerful, having demonstrated his power by intervening on their behalf in Egypt, and in the desert at Sinai. The choice was easy - it was Yahweh.

So the second great revision of Judaic religion had happened. In the original Pentateuch written in the 8th century BCE there isn't a clearly monotheistic statement to be found. By the time of the writing of Deuteronomy, a century or so later, the "singular god movement" has Joshua threatening the Israelites and making sure they became monotheistic under threat of being destroyed. (Score one for the Hebrews over the Hebrews)

The “Deuteronomists” pulled off this neat harmonization of a competing singular god with a more ancient pantheon of gods by having the Israelites reminded that their fathers had promised Yahweh that he would be their god, and so they made him their only God.

It was an easy solution, if you have conflicting gods, just get rid of the conflict by declaring they're all the same being.

They purposely revised the doctrine, removing the lesser gods from the Hebrew pantheon, and establishing rituals that set the Hebrews apart from their neighbors.

It was not a unique proposition; The Babylonians had also done the same. When Marduk became Babylon’s national ‘god’, a strange change in the mythology of the region took place - everything was rewritten with Marduk given the credit for all heroic acts, even the planet, ‘Nibiru’, was renamed ‘Marduk’. In short both the creative force of Nibiru which formed the solar system as we know it and the greatness of the earlier pantheon of gods and goddesses became notions ascribed to but one of the pantheon of the gods!

Coincidentally it was at this time that Terah, father of Abraham left the land of his birth and of his people and went westward away from Chaldea, better known as Babylon.

The book of Deuteronomy and the following books Joshua, 1^st and 2^nd Judges, 1^st and 2^nd Samuel, and 1^st and 2^nd Kings are so closely related linguistically and theologically that they are considered by scholars to be the second great literary work on the history of Israel in the Bible. Many scholars agree that the “Deuteronomistic History” was written in the days of King Josiah to serve his religious ideology and territorial ambitions of a united Hebrew Kingdom.

Manasseh (687-642 BCE) The loss of the Ark and the breaking of the Covenant

KJV 2 Kings 21
¹   Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hephzibah.
²   And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, after the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel.
³   For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove (also translated as Asherah Pole), as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.
⁴   And he built altars in the house of the LORD, of which the LORD said, In Jerusalem will I put my name.
⁵   And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.
⁶   And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
⁷   And he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the house, of which the LORD said to David, and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever:

The significance of the above verses is that Manasseh placed a “grove” or an “Asherah” pole in the Holy of Holies (< the inner sanctuary where-in the Ark rested) in the temple of Yahweh thereby desecrating the temple. Subsequently the Ark of the Covenant was removed and taken away by those priests still faithful to the covenant.

⁸   Neither will I make the feet of Israel move any more out of the land which I gave their fathers; only if they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them, and according to all the law that my servant Moses commanded them.
⁹   But they hearkened not: and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the children of Israel.
¹⁰   And the LORD spake by his servants the prophets, saying,
¹¹   Because Manasseh king of Judah hath done these abominations, and hath done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, which were before him, and hath made Judah also to sin with his idols:
¹²   Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whosoever heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle.
¹³   And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab: and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipeth a dish, wiping it, and turning it upside down.
¹⁴   And I will forsake the remnant of mine inheritance, and deliver them into the hand of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies;
¹⁵   Because they have done that which was evil in my sight, and have provoked me to anger, since the day their fathers came forth out of Egypt, even unto this day.
¹⁶   Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; beside his sin wherewith he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

According to Professor Menahem Haran’s Temples and Temple Services in Ancient Israel:

. . . there is only one single period in its history (< the Temple of Yahweh) when it was temporarily deprived of its original function and for a short while ceased to serve as a Temple to Yahweh, this occurred during the rein of Manasseh who set up vessels for Baal in the outer sanctum and introduced the image of Asherah into the inner sanctum of the Temple. This is the only happening which may explain the disappearance of the Ark and the Cheribim. We are entitled to infer that the image of Asherah was substituted for the Ark and the Cheribum. Some fifty years afterwards, when Josiah removed the Asherah from the Temple and burnt it in the Kidron Valley, beating it to dust and desecrating even the dust, the Ark and the Cheribum were no longer there.

And so it remains to this day. Manasseh broke the covenant with Yahweh by placing other “gods” in his temple. The Ark, the Sign of God on earth, the place in which Yahweh dwelt, the most powerful symbol of the Hebrews, the “proof” that they were the “chosen” was removed and taken away for safe guarding.

Josiah, the discovery of the “Book of the Law”

In 622 BCE during the reign of King Josiah the High Priest Hilkiah discovered an ancient and mysterious “Book of the Law” this document became the inspiration for a religious reform of unprecedented severity. This has to be the single most audacious thing that the Hebrew priests perpetrated on their own people.

Known to the priests and the Kings but not widely known among the people is the fact that their ultimate symbol of the Covenant between themselves and their God was removed from the Temple during the rein of Manasseh. During the atrocities he committed the priests moved the Ark to Egypt and prepared a temple on the island of Elephantine near Aswan.

In its entirety the rest of the Old Testament can be summed up as a biased History of the Hebrew nations written after the facts. All of it was written a century or two after the events that are described. It always looks like the “loyal” followers of Yahweh come out on top.

In spite of this perception Yahweh repeatedly allows his chosen people to be occupied, decimated, subjugated, sent into captivity or exile and also allows his own temple to be destroyed not just once but twice in order to teach his people a lesson.

A quick word about the “Prophets”

We now know enough about the Old Testament, both historically and archeologically to understand that a large number of the prophecies were written after the event. The “Prophets” were “redacted.” Simply put, the Prophecies were forged during some hundreds of years. Views would seem to be more authoritative appearing under the name of some famed figure of the past.

The fall of the Northern Kingdom and the Rise of Hezekiah

A god has to have a home, and the home of the god Yahweh was in heaven. But his priests on earth had to have a place for ritual sacrifices that were handed down as part of the rituals of the "El" pantheon, as well as the original pagan Canaanite god, Yahweh, which of course had been descended into the Hebraic monotheism. This place was the temple, of course, originally built by King Solomon. In the year 742 BCE, while the Deuteronomy writers were still busy getting rid of the Elohim, a member of the Judean royal family had a vision.

In it, he saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, directly above the temple in Jerusalem. In the vision, Isaiah is commanded to bring a new message to Israel. Isaiah is filled with foreboding and with good reason; King Tigleth Pilesar, who had recently ascended to the throne of Assyria had designs on Israel, and now the god of Israel had to take up the duties of defending the people of his covenant.

Isaiah is commissioned by his god to carry the message to Israel that he is the only god there is; this comes as a great problem to the Israelites who see Isaiah's concept of God as being the very god who had aided the Assyrians in their victories against them. Isaiah is largely rejected with his message, and Yahweh becomes a pensive, introspective god, who invites his followers to enter into a dialogue with him. Isaiah's second innovation was the notion that the commandments of the god should be integrated into the very lives of those who follow him, and not just be restricted to temple observance and ritual. Only by doing so would Yahweh be appeased and Israel saved. This also did not have much resonance in the lives of the average Hebrew.

In punishment for disregarding the prophet's message, Yahweh conveniently permits King Sargon II of Assyria to occupy the northern portion of Palestine and deport the population. Suddenly, the warnings of Isaiah are taken a bit more seriously as the ten "lost" tribes of Israel are marched off into forced assimilation in Assyria and Palestine becomes the land of the Jews.

To ensure that the people of Israel hear his message, Yahweh sends a succession of prophets to them. They preach from the temple and ally themselves with the political power of the Jewish kings. In so doing, the temple and the political process become allied in the fight against the military power of their neighbors. There is no longer an Elohim cult, and the Israelites are long gone. The Hebraic religion and culture becomes a Jewish one. Amos and Jeremiah were the prophets of note from this period.

Jeremiah's Failed Prophesy of Exile in Babylon The Fourth Great Revision 597 BCE to 538 BCE

Jeremiah's message basically said that God is dependent on man to carry out his wishes in the world, a view very much in contrast to the writers of Exodus, who had Yahweh being a powerful and independent god.

Jeremiah warns that only following the dictates of God would keep the newly ascendant Babylonians at bay. But it was not enough. He predicted that Babylon would conquer Palestine and the occupants of that land would spend 70 years in captivity by the rivers of Babylon. Well, the captivity happened, but it didn't last 70 years. We know from secular sources that it actually lasted from 597 to 538 BCE, a period of only 59 years.

By 600 BCE, the Babylonians were conquering bits of Palestine. By 586, Jerusalem itself was conquered and the temple destroyed. But as conquests of the period went, it was not a bitter one.

The Babylonian captivity

Two similar but slightly different theories explain how the Hebrews ultimately became monotheistic.

Zoroaster, also called Zarathustra the Persian Prophet - some scholars (with good linguistic and geographical evidence) claim that his time can be placed in the between the 7^th and 4^th millenniums BCE. He was a Persian prophet credited with founding the world's first monotheistic religion.

1. The Hebrews under Abraham were contemporaries with the Persian Magi and the religion of Zoroaster, therefore through intercultural contact and trade, they were exposed to the “One God” concept.

2. Factual historical and archeological evidence indicate that the Hebrew peoples did not completely switch over to a monotheistic theology until after being exposed to a changed version of Zoroastrianism, which survived intact for quite some time after his death. Eventually the Magi, who were the priests in the native religion that Zoroastrianism had replaced, infiltrated themselves into the religion and began to incorporate some elements from their pre-Zoroastrian beliefs. The first change was to bring back some of the old gods and then turn the various qualities of Ahura Mazda into beings. 

It was after all these changes had been made that the Hebrew people, during their Babylonian captivity, from 597 to 538 BCE came into contact with Zoroastrianism.

· It is from this exposure that the Hebrews acquired the concept of a singular God and a dualistic cosmos being torn between the forces of good and evil.

· It was here that the Hebrews acquired the concept of Satan.

· It was here that the Hebrews acquired knowledge of angels and, specifically, their seven Archangels.

· It was here that the Hebrews were exposed to the idea of a messiah who would come at the end of time to assure the restoration of Divine Law to the world.

Had the Magi not distorted Zoroaster's teachings the religious history of the world would have been remarkably different. Religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam derived from a system of ethical dualism that considered humanity a co-creator responsible for evil would have viewed the world very differently. Religions that would have been far more tolerant of other beliefs, something Zoroastrians are justly famed for, might have managed without religious wars and crusades.

Evidence for this also exists in the bible prior to the Hebrews Babylonian captivity during the time of Manasseh (687-642 BCE)

KJV 2 Kings 21

³   For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made a grove (also translated as Asherah Pole), as did Ahab king of Israel; and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

None of this is too surprising considering that the Bible, is put together from selected parts of different stories and scriptures, written by at least a hundred and fifty different people in dozens of different places at different times, many centuries apart. Add to this fact that it's not even an original most of it was borrowed from the Sumerians, Babylonians, Akkadians and even the Egyptians.

The book of Genesis is said to have originated in the time of Moses when the Hebrew people were wandering in the desert. They were recounting in their oral tradition, events that occurred thousands of years before, at the dawn of humanity.

Unfortunately, oral tradition is by definition unstable, notoriously open to mythical, legendary, and fictional embellishment. A good case in point are the Hindu “Holy Books” whose traditions pre-date Judaism. They also contain many Sumerian parallels and were for so long orally passed down from generation to generation that scholars almost automatically dismiss them out of hand as folk tales when in fact more of the Vedic scriptures can be verified than can the biblical tales of the past. Current archaeology is proving the Vedas and other Indian texts more and more accurate from a historical viewpoint every day.

Seemingly the Hebrews were recounting stories reflected from the Enuma Elish, the Atra Hasis, Gilgamesh and many other Mesopotamian epics.

This lends even more credibility to the scholastic belief that Abraham was heir to a powerful Sumerian “Priestly” dynasty originally based in Ur and then moved to Harran. This hereditary position was a Sumerian tradition. In essence the Hebrew religion was just another offshoot of the Sumerian religions.

Hundreds of years after the death of Abraham the Hebrew Bible offered to its people an unparalleled source of solidarity and identity. The details of its stories, drawn from ancient memories, fragmentary or borrowed histories and rewritten legends, possessed power not as a factual chronicle of events, but as a reminder of past glories and an inspiration to continue the struggle to achieve and overcome and eventually gain future glories.

Those simple facts, however, are widely ignored, by people who naively follow what they read in the Bible as the true and infallible word of God.

Many Hebrews were taken into captivity and those who were, were not forced to assimilate. In fact the vast majority of the population were allowed to remain in Palestine.

Among the first batch of deportees, in 597 BCE was a young priest known as Ezekiel.

Ezekiel had a great vision. It was a typical Yahwehian affair, a great and horrible thing, followed by a plan of action. And in Ezekiel's case, the plan of action was unique, indeed. He first had to eat the word of God. Yes, he was required to eat and swallow the scroll containing His word. This was to make it a "part of" himself.

Then his wife died, and Ezekiel was forbidden to mourn. Instead, he had to lie down on one side for 390 days and then on the other for 40. On another occasion, he was required to eat excrement. For a period of five years, he spoke to no one.

Yahweh had not just become a violent and jealous god, he was also demanding and irrational at times. No wonder Ezekiel complained about the burden of being a prophet.

It seems that Yahweh could not only allow his chosen people to be taken captive, he seemed to have made a circus performer out of his prophets.

The irrationality of all this was not lost on the Jews. Exiled as many of them were in Babylon, it seemed that the whole world was topsy-turvy, and practice of their religion was impossible outside their homeland. They resented their captivity and relished the thoughts of dashing out the brains of Babylonian babies.

The numerous writers of this period became known to scholars as the Priestly Writers. They gave us the books of Numbers and Leviticus, and also gave their interpretations to the book of Genesis including the account of the creation, taken from the Babylonian, Enuma Elish. They subscribe to the Ezekielian vision that God is unknowable and unseeable; it is from this revision that we now have Moses shielding himself from the sight of God by hiding behind a rock. It is also from this period that we have the Levitical proscriptions, the cleanliness laws, which do not define sin, but instead simply what is Hebraic as opposed to the hated paganism (Babylonian) religions (it would only be the Christians centuries later who would assume the Levitical proscriptions to have been descriptions of sin). All this new material was inserted into the Pentateuch about the time Cyrus conquered Babylon in 538 BCE and allowed the Jews to return to Palestine. The returning Jews wished to rebuild the temple and reestablish the kingdom it all its glory, but they had a problem. Being still governed by foreigners, they weren't allowed a king.

But a new prophet preached tranquility.

Scholars know him as Second Isaiah, as his true name is lost to history, and his message was much like that of the first Isaiah. Second Isaiah also preached that God was unknowable, hence the irrationality of trying to understand him as Ezekiel had gotten in trouble for. Yet this newer incarnation of Yahweh was a more tranquil god, who transcended the pettiness of human politics, and declared himself to be the god that Egypt and Assyria would ultimately worship alongside Israel. So Yahweh's jurisdiction seems to be transformed once again, from the god of the Jews, then all of Israel, to the whole world, and now back to just Palestine, Egypt and Assyria.

Upon the release of the majority of the Babylonian captives a new problem arose, they no longer had a king. They solved this problem by simply denying that a king was even necessary, instead heaping their veneration on the high priest of the temple, which they were allowed to have. This would be the pattern of religious practice they would maintain, even during periods when they escaped foreign domination and were able to have their own kings, until the destruction of the Second Temple, centuries later.

It was during this period, about 400 BCE, that the Torah finally became “canonized” as scripture.

The Birth of Theosophy (Theological Philosophy) 323 BCE to 45 CE

Hellenism became a major cultural influence throughout the Middle East. Successive waves of Greek influence, first brought by Alexander the Great, had brought with it knowledge of the great Greek philosophers. For several centuries running the major cultural influence in the region was Greek. The Roman Empire was a purely political affair, unconcerned with culture. It brought the Roman form of government, but it was the Greeks whose ideas spread with the Romans, which brought to Palestine a systematic philosophy the likes of which the Jews had never seen.

Greek philosophy, skeptical and secular in many ways, made a great deal of sense in its time. The first to sense the tension was the author of Solomon, a Jew living in Alexandria. He warned Jews to be true to Yahweh, and that it was fear of Yahweh, not Greek philosophy that constituted true wisdom.

Yet the seduction of Greek philosophy was too great to be ignored. The first major attempt at reconciliation was by Philo of Alexandria (30 BCE to 45 CE). Philo declared that the stories of the Pentateuch were allegorical. So the great myths of Genesis and Exodus should not be taken literally. What they had to tell us was hidden in inner meaning; and the spirit of intuitive apprehension was the way of knowing that meaning.

This theosophical “trick” didn’t make any sense to the Semitic Jews. To the enthusiastically Hellenized Romans of the era, however, searching as they were for a highly moralistic philosophy of living, and attracted as they were to Judaism for that very reason, it made a great deal of sense. They just wanted a plan for living.

Schools of thought based on Philo's interpretations of the scriptures began to spring up all around the Mediterranean basin. This dichotomy between the ethnic Jews and the converts to Philo's school was to have important consequences for development of Christianity a couple of centuries later.

The conflicts between Hellenism and ethnic Judaism was nowhere more obvious than in the northern part of Palestine, which had been so often subject to conquest and which, being on the major trade route between Asia Minor and Transjordan. This area was constantly subjected to foreign influence. This northern region apparently didn't even consider itself to be Jewish, but rather a separate nation that had been annexed, apparently involuntarily, by the Maccabean kings of Israel. So here you have Hellenized Semitics under the influence and control of Jewish kings, looking elsewhere for philosophical guidance. It was a volatile mix.

The destruction of the Second Temple, which occurred during the Roman-Jewish war of 66-73 CE also greatly, impacted Judaism. The destruction of the Temple-based priesthood made central authority for doctrine and ritual impossible, along with the ability to perform temple-based ritual. So now every local rabbi was on his own. Each had his own response to the rise of Christianity and the Diaspora into which Judaism was forced.

In certain places at certain times, various rabbinates established local schools and influenced local movements, but as a whole, Judaism split into local factions, each struggling to maintain the tradition as best it could. In the main, the maintenance of a Jewish identity and the basic cultural traditions was possible, but the rigid adherence to a single doctrinal viewpoint was not, since there was no central authority against which to measure local ideas. So it's not surprising that nearly as many schools of thought arose in the Judaism of the Diaspora as occurred in Protestantism, a millennia and a half later.

Christianity

Into this volatile mix of floundering Judaism was born a man who understood at least the rudiments of the Cynic school of Greek philosophy and the complex theology of the Semitic Jews around him. He felt that there had to be a better way to live. His name was Jesus.

Jesus was a rebel sage.  He came into the stuffy, legalistic, misogynist Judaism like a whirlwind.  His teachings flew in the face of just about everything the monotheistic male dominated religion of his people was teaching at the time.  Judaism was controlled by the Temple in Jerusalem, whereas Jesus and his disciples were from Galilee, a northern province that had been forcibly converted to Judaism a hundred years before Jesus’ birth.

Because they weren't considered "true" Jews, Jesus would have grown up with a less strict attitude toward Jewish law. He was exposed to other pagan religions and philosophies because evidence now shows that he lived within walking distance of a very sophisticated Greco-Roman city-center, and several merchant fishing towns. There is also evidence that he studied Eastern philosophy with Buddhist monks.

Be like Jesus then, in his teachings Jesus made constant use of the Old Testament. At times he quoted it with approval. At times he interpreted it and gave to it a new and even opposite meaning as he treated it with his own authority. At times he drew upon the forms of Old Testament wording to provide the framework of his instruction. In brief, the Old Testament was without question constantly before him in all that he taught. He did not follow it slavishly but used it creatively and with a deliberate selectivity that was rooted in his own experience of God.

For all that has been written about the teachings of Jesus, we actually know very little with certainty of his education and his teachings. Indeed, many skeptics doubt he ever even existed.

Yet this man left us with no writings that are verifiably his own, so all we have are the writings of a vast array of followers who ascribe to him the authorship of their various schools of philosophy and theology.

We do know that he had to be much more than a simple carpenter's son, as he was schooled in Greek philosophy, and clearly spoke and read Greek.

What we do know for sure of the teachings of Jesus paints the portrait of a maverick whose message was that there is a Kingdom of God, not of this world or the next, but which is within you, and it is there that you should look for the solution to your salvation.

Jesus also taught from the Greek tradition that people are truly people only when they are together, and added to it the distinctly Jewish notion that it is through personal change, that people are made better.

The melding of these ideas was revolutionary and sparked a movement. Make those personal changes and come together to live as part of a great movement of changed men. It was a powerful idea with a powerful resonance. The message spread like wildfire.

It wasn't long before the maverick ideas of Jesus had attracted large groups of followers in various areas in the region. These groups, never amalgamated into a single group, but largely geographically distinct, became what scholars today call the "Jesus movements." They were not yet, in any true sense, a religion. He was a rebel sage, he had students, they had rituals and were taught techniques, prayers and rites.  It was less like a religion, or a church, than it was a Way of life.

All men were equally fit for membership in this new organization, and status or privilege had no bearing. By coming together in this common ideal, the trials and inequities of life imposed by Roman rule and Judaic law could simply be circumvented.

Jesus couldn't be everywhere at once. But his followers were, and they were therefore largely left to work out the details for themselves. The teachings left by the Jesus movements make it clear that Christianity didn't appear in any miraculous dispensation of a Gospel preached by Jesus. It appeared much more gradually than that, first appearing as a secular philosophy of living which gradually, over the course of decades and even centuries evolved first into cults and then religions.

Each of these Jesus movements had its own ideas, often networking with others of a like mind, often disputing with others of conflicting ideas. There was great philosophical ferment in first century Palestine, and the Jesus movements were not immune. Rather, they were very much a part of it.

Very little of what they wrote has survived intact, but scholars are reasonably certain of a "Sayings Gospel Q" (subsequently revised at least three times), which is lost to us except where Mark quoted from it much later in "his" gospel, and a Gospel of Thomas, which have survived to the modern era in at least two versions.

The Origins of “Christianity” @ 50 AD to 140 CE

Within a few years of the death of Jesus, many of the Jesus movements had grown apart in thinking. This was particularly true of the movements in the outlying areas, such as Antioch in northern Syria.

What took place in the Jesus movement in or near Antioch in the fifth decade of the first century AD was nothing short of revolutionary. In a very short period of time, for reasons that aren't at all clear, a dramatic change occurred in the ideas and philosophy of this group.

The change was from a movement of the followers of Jesus, the social iconoclast, into a cult that worshipped Jesus the Christ, now a god.

The two major features of this cult were a fixation on the death of Jesus and it’s meaning that Jesus was thereby transformed into a spiritual presence. Worship of Jesus the Christ took the form of hymns, prayers, sermons and the like, the form of which would not be unfamiliar to modern Christians. In addition, the Greek tradition of getting together for meals, and discussing over the meal the issues (symposia) was also honored.

Soon the table fellowship became a fixture of these early Christian groups. Attending the meal came to define membership in the group. The idea of Jesus the Christ must have had a certain resonance, as these groups soon spread throughout the region.

This table fellowship ritual played a prominent role in the creation of the Apostolic myth, one in which Jesus in table fellowship with his apostles, was presumed to have guided the formation and propagation of his church (the myth of the "last supper" comes from this era of mythmaking). Unfortunately, though it was a seductive myth, it was all a fabrication, possibly by the author of Luke, writing in the second decade of the second century.

As well as the myth of the crucifixion.

The primary convert of this new cult for whom we have any certain evidence is one Saul of Tarsus, who later, after conversion as he says, on the road to Damascus, calls himself Paul.

Paul looms large in the history of Christianity because he defined the form of the Christ cult that survived the next great revision. His letters to the various congregations of the Christ cult scattered around the Mediterranean basin form the bulk of the New Testament, and the philosophical and doctrinal basis of the modern Christian church. Gone are the pithy aphorisms of Jesus the social iconoclast; now we have weighty pronouncements about doctrine as it must be believed and practiced.

Paul was only one of many writers of the period. There were many others. And he was by no means widely accepted in his time, even among the members of the Christ cult. He looms large in our modern Christian church merely because it was his writings and influence than happened to survive the next two great revisions.

The Great Heresies of Gnosticism and the Revisionism of Marcion 140 CE to 312 CE

The philosophical ferment of the time, caused by the cosmopolitan nature of Roman Empire, meant that everywhere there was a philosopher or preacher and everywhere novel and unfamiliar ideas. This ferment, caused by the Greeks, spread by the Romans, which spawned the Jesus movement, continued unabated as part of the Jesus movement transformed itself into the Christ cults. Right from Paul's time, the Christ cults themselves grew disputatious, with new ideas and heresies spreading through the cult like wildfire as each local bishop had his own ideas and sought to see them accepted. The cult became cults as "heresies" spread.

By the end of the first century, Romans hungry for a moral code began to look to the transforming Jesus movements and Christ cults for a spiritual home. Judaism still had appeal, but required circumcision, an obvious disadvantage. The Christ cults made no such demands. Indeed, membership in the Christ cult was a pleasurable affair, not requiring much in the way of embarrassing ritual and offering much amiable camaraderie amidst the table fellowship. Soon Christ cult congregations were spread throughout the Mediterranean basin.

They also offered a way out for the Jews of the Diaspora, who could not accept the Hellenized Judaism of Philo and his Hellenist predecessors, but were too distant from Jerusalem to engage in temple rituals. Here was a religion all could be a part of, without regard to ethnic origins or circumstances of social status or location.

But which cult to join? They all had their own ideas. Christianity had by now become a significant social force in spite of Roman efforts to stop it; in Asia Minor, disputations between the followers of various Christ cults was as common a pastime as discussion of football is today.

By the end of the first century, the smug confidence of the local bishops in their own ideas was about to be shattered. The doctrinal gulf between groups calling themselves Christian had grown too great to be ignored. So when intellectuals among these movements began to appear, it became obvious that something needed to be worked out. Finally, Valentinus of Alexandria, Justin of Samaria, Irenaeus (from Asia Minor, but writing from Lyons and a thoroughly loyal Roman), Marcion of Sinope (a small town in Asia Minor), Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage and a few others all converged on Rome in 140 CE with ideas of what Christianity was, that could hardly have been at greater odds.

The church was never to be the same again.

The firebrand intellectuals brushed aside the watered down ideas of the local bishops and looked at the foundations of the church, to discover that the stones of that foundation were not sound. So they set about revamping the entire doctrinal basis of the church.

One of the problems as Marcion saw it was that Christians were expected to be loyal to the Jewish god, even though they did not have to keep his law. Marcion's vision of God was as it was taught by Paul, his major influence. God was a god of mercy and compassion, a god for all mankind, not proprietary to a "chosen people."

The Jewish god, according to Marcion, was not worthy of worship. He was to be replaced by Christ, who had revealed the law that Christians should follow, as interpreted by Paul. He was a god of justice and salvation, very unlike the Jewish concept of God.

By now, the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke had long since appeared, written by followers of the Jesus movements (and John by a Christ-cult follower), and Marcion brought an abbreviated version of Luke together with ten letters of Paul to form the first canon of the New Testament. It was the first Christian scripture.

The other intellectuals rejected Marcion's ideas, primarily because he rejected the Apostolic myths outright and because he pointed out some unresolved problems left them by the bishops. But even more radical was his flat-out rejection of early "apostolic" writings where it was obvious that the writer did not share the current vision of the mission of Jesus as the Christ. One of the intellectuals, Polycarp, called Marcion "the first-born of Satan" and others, especially Tertullian and Justin wrote extensively against his views.

That opposition did not stop Marcion. He went on a preaching tour that was spectacularly successful. Congregations of Marcionite Christians were organized in Ephesus, Rome and Pontus in Asia Minor. Even whole villages soon became converts.

The Marcionite appeal lay in the fact that the doctrine was simple, understandable, but more than that, doable. Even though it had its own share of contradictions, it was resonating with the masses, and the other bishops could see that.

About this time, a strangely introspective group of the Jesus movement in Alexandria became involved in Jewish mysticism and the result evolved into a Jesus cult known as Gnosticism (to know). It was a religion that held Jesus to have been a divine teacher, but rejected outright the resurrection and doctrine of atonement.

Gnosticism took hold rapidly in Egypt, and began spreading to the other Roman provinces. The Christian bishops were horrified. By the dawn of the fourth century, the local bishops could no longer rely on their watered-down doctrines. The bishops of the principle sects headquartered in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Caesaria, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Carthage continued to squabble with each other incessantly.

The attempt by the Rome conference to deal with the problem a century and a half earlier had been a complete failure. Worse, it had spawned the development of the Marcionite church, a movement with broad appeal.

Now there was even that rapidly spreading heretical cancer of Gnosticism to contend with. There was such fierce, intractable doctrinal turmoil within the church it appeared the church was doomed. And with Roman persecution, how could the church survive?

The Unlikely Savior of The Church - The Greatest Revision Yet 313 CE to @ 430 CE

In 313, Emperor Constantine and his co-emperor Lucinius sent a series of rather flowery letters to their governors, in which they said it was "salutory and most proper" that "complete toleration" be given to anyone who has "given up his mind to the cult of the Christians" or any other cult which "he personally feels best for himself." The Edict of Milan, as this decree was called, had the effect of legalizing Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. The question history has never adequately answered is why it was issued.

Emperor Constantine was a deeply superstitious man. He was a practitioner of several religions, trying to keep his bases covered, even after his 'conversion.' He was arbitrary and capricious. He sent prisoners of war to the lions, committed wholesale acts of genocide in his campaigns in North Africa, and was known for his overbearing, egotistical, ruthless and self-righteous behavior. His nephew Julian said that his appearance was strange, with stiff garments of Eastern fashion, jewelry on his arms and it was all set off by a tiara perched on a dyed wig. Constantine apparently viewed Christianity as just one of the many cults of his realm, and he seemed to practice them all, apparently with the same depth of commitment. He wasn't actually baptized, apparently, until he was on his death bed.

Emperor Constantine for all his strangeness was nothing if not a good politician. He understood well the fact that the Christians were becoming so numerous as to represent a possible political threat should they get their act together and become organized. So to co-opt the threat they represented, he conveniently had a 'miracle' which led to his 'conversion' so he could become their ally. In 312, a year before the Edict of Milan, he fought the battle of Milvan Bridge, against a rival claimant to the emperor's throne. Among his soldiers were many Christians and they were already carrying on their swords and shields the Christian Chi-Rho sign. Well, to hear the stories, the heavens opened up, and the Emperor had a vision. And he was granted victory in his battle. At least this is the story the Christian apologists tell. Unfortunately, we don't know what exactly happened at Milvan Bridge, because the dear Emperor kept changing his story and telling different versions of the events to different people. At least six different versions have survived from different people who claimed to have heard it from the emperor himself. As he kept telling these conflicting stories, he probably remained personally converted to the Mithraic sun-cult common in the Empire at the time. As a monument to his victory at Milvan, some years later, he raised a triumphal arch.

It bore on it a testimony to the "Unconquered Sun" and referred to Jesus Christ "driving his [the sun's] chariot across the sky." He commanded the Christians to hold their services on Sun-day, and the Nativity Feast of Mithra, held on the 25th of December because it was the winter solstice and the rebirth-day of the winter sun, became the Christian nativity feast, Christmas.

Constantine became the sole Roman emperor in 324 and convened the First Council of Nicea the following year. His commandment to the bishops: Get your act together and quit squabbling. Come up with a consistent doctrine that would be universal, i.e. “Catholic”, and could be understood and practiced by all. Of course, the bishops complied. Rather than risk Imperial disfavor, they all met at Nicea, squabbled, squabbled some more, hammered out a few common doctrines (mostly with regard to the creation and the nature of the universe, and the first version of the Apostolic Creed), declared themselves in agreement on it, and departed totally unconverted to each other's views.

The emperor who was totally ignorant of the issues, hearing that his bishops had finally agreed on a common doctrine, was pleased. The bishops were certainly pleased to hear he was pleased. And then they went about preaching the same old doctrines as before.

Argument and dissension continued for the next six decades with various factions finding themselves in and then out of Imperial favor. Athanasius, the actual author of the original version of the Apostolic Creed, found himself exiled and 'rehabilitated' on no fewer than six occasions. It was eventually Imperial politics and the wealth of the Roman church, which it shared with the smaller congregations along with instructions for its use, more than theology, that finally governed the form that Christian doctrine would take, as various bishops found themselves in and out of imperial favor at various times. By 430, the council of Nicea had become an ongoing affair, designed to stamp out "heresies" (read: dissent from the Imperial view), and create a formal universal, i.e. catholic church organization, organized in a manner similar to the political structure of the Roman Empire itself.

The Council of Nicea became, in essence, the enforcer of the Imperial view of how things ought to be. This is why the Catholic Church today resembles in its government the government of the Roman Empire of the period. The headquarters of the church was eventually established at Rome, and the head of the church became known as the pope. New basilicas dotted the landscape, all built with the blessing of the Emperor, and all aligned to the new, imperially blessed, church headquarters in Rome. Constantine sent expeditions off to Palestine to "find" and build basilicas over the sacred sites of the church's early history, and return with "relics."

In order to popularize the church with the masses, the doctrinal emphasis was changed significantly. These changes were reflected in the art of the Christian church. When early Roman Christians met secretly in Rome, the art they produced reflected the pastoral nature of Jesus' teachings. Scenes of Jesus feeding the multitudes, blessing the children, and healing the sick were the themes in the art of that period. After the conversion of Constantine, the character of the art suddenly and dramatically changed to reflect the change in doctrinal emphasis. Gone are the sweet, pastoral scenes of a meek Jesus patiently ministering to his followers.

Instead, images of the crucifixion and the scourging of Jesus in the court of Pilate become common. This was to help the suffering masses identify with Jesus who was said to have suffered on their behalf. The church had became a political instrument -- be patient with your suffering under Roman rule, the masses were told, and a better life for you is prepared for you if you believe in Jesus the Savior.

It is at this time that the Chi Rho and the symbol of the fish, representing the miraculous nature of Jesus' message (at least as formulated by Paul), is replaced by the cross, symbol of death and the overcoming of suffering, as the principal emblem of Christianity.

Creation Of The Bible As We Know It and Yet Another Revision 367 CE to 1330 CE

In the midst of all this intellectual turmoil, Constantine in the year 367 gave to Eusebius, the bishop of Caesaria (a Roman port on the coast of modern Israel), a little assignment. Put together some scriptures for the emperor to present to the new churches he was constructing at his new capital of Constantinople in time for his new festival of the resurrection, to be called "Easter." Fifty copies, please.

Eusebius thoughtfully complied. We do not know which books of the hundreds available that he supplied the emperor, but we do know that Eusebius realized that it was only a matter of time before the "inspired oracles" as he called them, would have to be gathered together for Christians to study in common worldwide in the form of a scriptural library (bible). We also know that Eusebius was deeply worried about the contradictions they all contained and the political dynamite that could ensue should those contradictions become a matter of dispute among the masses, or worse, in the mind of the Emperor. As correlation and standardization were the orders of the day (under the less than gentle hand of the council of Nicea), Eusebius could clearly see an Imperial problem was brewing.

Everyone had their favorites; the various factions, with headquarters in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Caesaria, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Carthage all had their own ideas as to what was or should be scripture. And they certainly didn't agree.

We're not quite sure how the task of compiling and translating a bible fell to Bishop Jerome of Dalmatia (340-420 CE). Jerome was highly educated and had devoted his life to the study and translation of the scripture. He was a deeply devout adherent to the Roman faction, and the fact that the Rome church was wealthy and influential probably had something to do with the choice, since he had spent years in the cause of translating scripture into Latin and standardizing what are now New Testament texts for the benefit of the Roman church at the request of Damasus, the bishop of Rome. We can presume from the politics here that this certainly colored his choices.

Melito of Sardis, one of the disputants at that infamous Council of Rome of 140 CE that had spawned the Marcionite Church, had compiled a list of Hebrew scriptures that Jerome is known to have much admired. Yet Augustine intervened and convinced him to include works on a list compiled by himself (Augustine), which was similar to one compiled by Athanasius, the author of the first Apostolic Creed. We don't know all the intrigues which convinced Jerome to accede, but some were almost certain to have been political. Jerome's choice of New Testament works was governed by his choices in the works he'd already translated and standardized for Damasus at Rome.

Jerome's compilation and translation into Latin became known as the Vulgate (popular language) Bible. It was to become the standard Bible of the Roman Catholic church till the sixteenth century. It is still available, published by the Catholic Church in the original Latin, and as the Douai Version, one of the numerous English translations of the Vulgate Bible to appear in the 16th century as noted below. Centuries pass.

While the Latin bible was widely available, Latin as a spoken, understood language eventually died out among the peoples of what had been the Roman Empire. So, with that dying out, access to the bible by the common man died out as well, for bibles were available in Latin, but were not translated into local languages.

This fact greatly enhanced the power of the local clergy and the church hierarchy. Not only did they have the political power of Constantine's legacy behind them, they also now held the keys to the church in their hands, both figuratively and literally. They couldn't have been more content. They could often engage in acts of cruelty or corruption and not be called to account by an ignorant and often superstitious congregation. Nevertheless, there were occasional attempts made to get at least small portions of the scripture into the hands of the masses.

The first attempts at an Old English translation appear with Aldhelm, who in 709 published an Anglo-Saxon translation of Psalms, and the Venerable Bede, who is said to have finished a translation of the Gospel of John on his deathbed 26 years later. Unfortunately, the latter translation has not survived.

The Protestant Revision and the English Bibles 1330 to 1611

In the 13th and 14th centuries, translations of Psalms appeared by William of Shoreham and Richard Rolle, in Middle English. Their popular translations would plant the seeds for the struggle to come to break the clout of the clergy and put the Bible in the hands of the people.

John Wycliffe (1330-1384) was repulsed by papal corruption and its demands on the English for money. A true man of the people, he decided that the best way to cop a snook at the Pope would be to publish the Bible in English. By the time of his death, the translation from the Vulgate was done, and John Purvey, a close associate, thoroughly revised and 'corrected' it, with a view to publishing it.

It became the first and was the only English-language bible till the 16th century.

In 1516, a monk-scholar by the name of Erasmus at Oxford published the first Greek translation of the New Testament. What his source documents were, we do not know, but it was probably the Vulgate. William Tyndale had the ambition of translating into English the entire bible, not from the Vulgate, but from the original Greek and Hebrew.

This became his life's work.

Tyndale learned his Greek from Erasmus. His study of the Greek New Testament probably influenced his later work.Because the Roman Catholic church opposed his translation of the Bible into English, Tyndale was forced to leave England for Germany in 1524. For the next two years, staying one step ahead of Papal persecution, he managed to complete his first translation of the New Testament, which was then printed and smuggled into England and snapped up by an eager public.

Tyndale worked for years on his Hebrew translations of the Old Testament, finally completing them in 1534 and revising his New Testament in 1535. While not as violently opposed as were the earlier works, he was still betrayed by the Romanists, and was strangled and burned at the stake after months in prison in 1536. His last words were reputedly, "Lord, please open the King of England's eyes!"

Miles Coverdale, an associate of Tyndale, was the first to publish an officially approved bible in English. Coverdale was no scholar, but had based much of his work on that of Tyndale who was. A flood of translations and revisions followed. The Rogers bible appeared in 1537. The Taverner's Bible in 1539.

King Henry VIII was the first English king to ask that a bible be placed in the hands of the common man. The bible chosen was The Great Bible, a work edited by the less-than-scholarly Coverdale.

Another bible was to become the family Bible. Called the Geneva Bible, because it was cheaply mass produced in Geneva, Switzerland, it was a decidedly one-sided translation favoring the views of the notorious French religious tyrant of that city, John Calvin. Its one virtue is that it was cheap, and could thus be afforded by the masses. It became popularly known as the "breeches bible" because of Genesis 3:7, where Adam and Eve "sewed figge leaves together and made themselves breeches."

The King James Version 1604 to the present

In 1604, King James of England called a conference at Hampton Court. In attendance were 47 scholars and clerics. The agenda was to produce a bible that would satisfy the needs of all -- the clergy, the king, the common man. An ambitious goal, considering the widely disparate points of view each with a political investment.

The King James Version first appeared in 1611. Though the frontispiece written by the conference declares it to be a new translation, that's not really what it was. In fact, it was a revision of the Bishop's Bible of 1602, which itself was a revision of the Bishop's Bible of 1568, which was a revision of Coverdale's less than scholarly Great Bible, which was a rewrite of the Tyndale and Wycliffe bibles which had been translated on the run.

The King James Version did not gain immediate acceptance. It took a half century to displace the bibles that came before it, especially the Great Bible from which it was descendant, and the notorious Geneva bible of the masses which influenced it. Yet it retains much of the beautiful English of the Tyndale and Wycliffe bibles, and hence its remaining popularity. The quality of its prose, not the accuracy of its translation is why it endures. Consider the following translations of the same passage

King James Version of 1611:

Matthew 6:28-29:

"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they do not toil, neither do they spin, yet I say unto you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was never arrayed like one of these."

Good News Bible (American Bible Society, 1976):

Matthew 6:28-29:

"And why worry about clothes? Look how the wild flowers grow, they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon, with all his wealth had not clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers."

Which is the more accurate translation? The scholars will have to decide, but the beauty of the KJV's language and the power of its prose has seldom been equaled in English literature. The power of Tyndale's and Wycliffe's prose has been called some of the best in English literature.

So this is one the principle reasons, that for all its faults, the King James Version endures. It sounds like scripture. It truly sounds like it could be the word of God whether in reality it is or not. As we've seen, prose aside, the legacy of its creation alone is enough to question its authority as scripture.

But it just sounds so good!

How Objective Are The Translations, Anyway?

The answer is not very. The Geneva bible, which through its sheer popularity greatly influenced what we have today, was a blatant piece of propaganda. Other bibles, which also influenced what is now regarded as scripture, were written with clear points of view in mind, just as modern translations are now being done by theologians who come to the work with a religious axe to grind.

A point of pride among nearly all Christian theologians is that they feel the Bible, in whatever version they're talking about, appears to be reliably translated. Yet we know from our extensive scholarship that the writers of the original documents that became source material for the bible often picked up and revised earlier material, and in turn, their work was revised, often again and again. Then the translations were done and yet more revisions made, almost always with religious axes to grind in the process.

Well, if the bibles that Christian theologians use are reliably translated, there are errors, then, with the source documents. The bible is fairly riddled with errors and contradictions, and not all of them are mistranslations, deliberate or otherwise. There are errors and contradictions in the bible that are simply not resolvable in any reasonable way, not even by resorting to magic and miracles. They're just plain impossibilities.

How Reliable Is The Bible As A Source Of Guidance?

If not translated and edited properly, and full of obvious errors and logical contradictions, how reliable can the bible really be as a source of guidance?

The bible suffers from three problems in this regard. First, we can't know that what we are reading are the words that convey the meaning the writers intended. By now it should be very clear that after the multitudinous revisions, translations and editing by the many people who produced what we now call the Bible, there's way too much room for error to safely claim that it is error free.

The second problem from which the Bible suffers is the content of the Bible itself. As has often been observed, the Bible can be made to advocate anything you desire.

- You want a blatant, wrathful, vengeful god, zapping everything and everyone who doesn't stay out of His way? Exodus is the book for you.

- You want a quiet, subtle, unknowable god who seldom intervenes but can be known only by sincere prayer and soulful supplication? Paul has written the scriptures you want. It's all there in the same book.

The third problem is that the Bible has many contradictions and errors in it, not just of obvious facts, but of doctrine as well.

One must interpret matters of doctrine for oneself, because the Bible is so often contradictory on matters of doctrine.

A fourth problem relates to the Bible but is not of it. That is the problem of interpretation. The same passage of the same book of the same translation of the Bible can mean entirely different things to people.

You can ask ten priests from the same religion one question about the Bible and you will listen to ten different interpretations!

Who is right? Is anyone right? Who knows?

Conclusions

To base one's religion on a scripture as deeply suspect as the Bible, and declare it to be absolutely inerrant and reliable, is to build one's religion on what is clearly a foundation of sand.

If the lessons of recent Biblical scholarship mean anything, it is that the history of Christianity and the Bible it spawned is a very messy one that seriously calls into question the validity of the message. To deny that fact is to simply deny reality.

Yet many people continue to do just that, even in the face of evidence that they and the religion they support are clearly wrong in holding that the origins of Christianity are divine and unsullied by human politics, greed and arrogance. It can only be said that doing so is to display a form of ignorance.

Unfortunately most people believe what they believe, not because it is true, but for other, less sound reasons, one reason being that it was what they were taught, another is that to question the “faith” you were brought up in is to be immediately ostracized from it, but the primary reason is that the truth requires the painful admission that they are wrong.

What is written here is a summary of authenticated fact. It is fact gathered not by those seeking evidence to support a theory, as religionists too often do, but rather as scientists do, by gathering the evidence together and seeing what theories that evidence leads to.

It is the latter process that enables human progress. This is because humility is the basis of all intellectual advancement, spiritual or scientific. The ability to admit that you are wrong is the absolute prerequisite to gaining understanding. The presumption that the answer is revealed, and must then be supported by seeking evidence, is a sure way to lead civilization down the blind alley of arrogant egotism and the institutionalized error that prevented the Catholic church from admitting for three centuries that Galileo was right about the sun being the center of the solar system, even though the church was obviously wrong and everyone knew it.

We therefore call upon anyone who reads this page to adopt that basic, fundamental prerequisite attitude for true learning and scholarship - the humility to be able to admit that you are wrong.

The Bible is not necessarily inerrant. It is not the exclusive, divine word of God, but rather is the product of more than five score writers, editors and translators, many quite unqualified for the work they were undertaking, many with conflicting objectives, each with a serious religious, political and even social axes to grind.

The church of which you are a part came into being largely by the fiats of a Roman emperor who knew little about the religion his edicts were shaping.

To read the complete bible, and get a complete record of events of the time, one must not only read the 39 books of the Old Testament, and the 27 books of the New Testament, you must also read the 14 books of the Apocrypha (meaning “hidden”) and the 18 books of the Pseudepigrapha (meaning “false writings”). Most of these books were “edited” out of the bible by the Council of Nicea in @325 CE.

A good website to obtain more information on the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha follows: http://www.comparative-religion.com/christianity/apocrypha/

The god Yahweh you worship is directly descended from Indian. Sumerian, Philistine, Canaanite and Babylonian pagan deities that Christian scriptures now defame. To pretend otherwise is to make the same mistake the Catholic Church made with regards to Galileo. And you risk ending up looking just as foolish.

The path of the “Diffusion of Knowledge” proposed here is by no means complete as new scientific, archeological, anthropological and cultural information comes to light the information contained here will be periodically updated.

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