SPENTA MAINYU
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: "Ignorance is an affront."
	YOU ARE IN DARKNESS.
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by Mudarras Kadhir Gaznavi

Apart from, the Dead Sea Scrolls; a papyrus from the 2nd century B.C. (containing the Ten Commandments which does not conform to the classical text); the Geniza / Genizeh (Cairo) pieces of the 5th century B.C., the oldest known part of the Old Testament is written in the 9th century B.C. The first Greek translation is known as the Septuagint, which is said to have been done by the Jews of Alexandria. This was accepted as the authoritative version until 7th century A.D. St. Jerome made a Latin translation based on the Hebrew texts. This was called the Vulgate and was sent to various places around the world until the 7th century A.D. There is an Aramaic translation as well.

In its general framework the Old Testament is the story of god's dealings with Israel as his chosen people. This 'chosenness' of Israel is conceived by reference to the ultimate redemption of all mankind. But this 'chosenness' is not exclusive to Israel. Sumerians also have written in their clay tablets that they were a superior people chosen by the gods. In addition to being the chosen people of YHVH in the Old Testament and in the remnants of the Hagarene teaching in Kuran, the supreme being has elevated Israel to a higher level, but following the death of the Hagarene Messenger the desert Arabs have transformed the Hagarene teaching into the Arab nationalist ideology called Islam and those parts of Kuran written by them  has adopted a critical attitude towards the Jews. These desert Arabs have declared also that god had chosen the Arabs as a nation, and Kureysh as the tribe for his final revelation, thus Arabs and the Kureysh tribe has become the last chosen people of god.

Although the Old Testament begins with the story of creation, it is neither an attempt at a history of the world nor of the Universe. The references it contains to the created Universe and  the nations outside Israel form a part of its general purpose, which is to describe the ways of god in his relations with Israel. That purpose dominates the Old Testament.

• The Hexateuch (Pentateuch + Book of Joshua): The account of how Israel has become a nation and  invaded and possessed the Promised Land.

• The Prophets: The story of Israel in the Promised Land;  establishment and development of the monarchy; messages of messengers to the people.

• The Hagiographa or 'writings': Speculation on the place of evil and death in the design and working of things (Job and Ecclesiastes); the poetical works; and some additional historical books. The Apocrypha of the Old Testament includes various types of literature, the purpose of which seem to be  filling  some of the gaps left by the canonical books and to carry the history of Israel to the 2nd century B.C.

THE CHRONOLOGY

Extensive studies that have been going on for the last couple of hundred years on the Old Testament made clear that the first five books of the Old testament - the Torah / the Pentateuch / five Books of Moses - were written by four sources. If we are to go by what we are told, Moses must be the 'fifth writer'(!), because supposedly he had written his own death (This is too much!). These sources may be individuals or a group of persons. All the written bits and pieces  were brought together in 500 B.C. and the Torah / Pentateuch came into being. Torah (Teaching) gives the record of the acts of the supreme being  and the legislation underlying its entire subsequent account. When the events told in the Pentateuch reaches a conclusion, the end of Israel's captivity in Egypt and its wanderings come to an end, and we find Israel ready to enter the Promised Land. The Pentateuch is the supposed account of Israel's beginnings. The belief that the first five books of the Old Testament were god's revelation and were written by Moses himself is obligatory for Jews. There are things which Jews excluded from these five books. These are the works of the Hellenicised Jews of Alexandria.

The Old and New Testaments, bound together, form the Bible. The word testament means a covenant or bond and the two Testaments outline this relationship with god in contrasting ways:

• The Old Testament outlines the relationship with god according to the divine(!) law;

• The New Testament  does it according to the holy spirit.

Christians regard the New Testament as the fulfilment of the Old Testament, because the figure of Jesus and the events of his life supposedly fulfil the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah. We shall deal with that story later.

Here we begin with the Old Testament. Some say it is primarily a prophecy. A religious message. A religious message in reported speech; revealed with the means available at the time of its origin; and told in a style and language in line with the intellectual level of those days. Some others say (rightly) that there is nothing divine in this book, it is just the history of a people, written over a period of hundreds of years by various authors.

• There are various styles in it.

• It was rewritten many times over,

• It was edited by various individuals and groups of people on numerous occasions.

• It was 'expurgated'.

Conclusion: In the light of the research done on the Old Testament there is no doubt that those parts which do not deal with the actual history of the groups of people are inventions by the people living on this Earth. Therefore it is a book which was invented, imagined, thought, written and rewritten by human beings. There is nothing divine in it. It is mainly a compilation of the regional myths and legends of various peoples, and an adoption of certain aspects of the regional religions, compiled and edited to facilitate the progress of a certain group of people into nationhood. For example what we know as the song of Miriam is thought to have originated in the Late Bronze period - 13th century B.C. (Check the chronology in this page).

If, for a second, we take Bible as a whole, the nearest section to our time, second epistle of Peter is thought to have been written not earlier than the second quarter of the 2nd century A.D. In short the book called Bible was written over a period of hundreds of years. Majority of the Biblical works are thought to have been brought together as the Bible (biblios - Old Testament + New Testament) between the 6th century B.C. and the 1st century A.D.

Well! Could the Bible be proven as a document of faith?

Faith is a kind of belief. Belief begins where knowledge, evidence, and proof cease to exist. The believer does not need a proof or evidence. Any evidence or proof which contradicts the belief of the individual is rejected. Believer  just believes. That's all! In what, in whom, and why? It does not make the slightest difference at all! 

It is an account of a people and their god. The Old Testament is not a neutral or objective story of events. On the contrary, it is very much biased. The Old Testament has its roots in the ancient ages and its own times. There are treatises, thrillers, sermons, legal texts, hymns and love songs in it. One can find in this book, historiography, novel, legends, anecdotes, and folk-tales. What a mixture!

Historians and archaeologists give more weight to some books as opposed the other ones which are considered 'literary'. Most assignment of occurrences in the Old Testament to corresponding dates in Egyptian, Persian, Syrian and Greek Calendars are arbitrary and hypothetical. A chronology of the Old Testament is impossible on the basis of the materials in the book. This impossibility leaves us with the fundamental conclusion that these materials were intended not primarily as a chronicle but as a testimony of faith. A faith which had the central aim of creating a nation. This purpose dominates both the form and the content of the Old Testament and is built into the structure of its several parts. When we look at the book from that angle this is the verdict: The Old Testament is a collection of various materials, the worst part of which is the 'crude' editing that shows.

When we look at  the book closely the existence of the different accounts of creation and global flood is taken as an evidence of different authors. Furthermore there are contradictions within the book. A few paragraphs ago I wrote that according to  the research done on the book there were at least four writers. So, let us deal with these different authors first. Of these four authors, two are thought to have written the sections of Genesis and Exodus probably around 800 B.C. It may have been earlier according to some others. One of these authors was called 'J' and the other 'E', because 'J' called his god Jehovah (Yehova-Yahveh-YHVH) and 'E' called his god Elohim. In fact there are those who claim that Yahvists (like writer 'J' called their god Yahveh) were not a group of people but generations of peoples who have never stopped writing about YHVH, and that is why we have versions of the same stories over and over again in the Old Testament. The stories of creation,  Adam and Eve ('original sin'),  the global flood, and  the tower of Babel are all their products. The most optimistic dating of 'J's work extend to c. 950 B.C., but even then, more than three hundred years had  passed since the supposed dates for the Exodus.  Robin Lane Fox writes in The Unauthorized Version: "These narratives were composed from unwritten stories whose status as true history is non-existent." 'J' was writing in the southern kingdom of Judah, and 'E' came from the northern kingdom of Israel. There is 'D' who wrote the Deuteronomy and 'P' who belongs to the Priestly Tradition.  According to Genesis YHVH formed the man (adãm) from the dust of the Earth (adãmah) and blew into his nose the breath of life. Thus man came to life. The writer 'J' instead of getting involved with the creation of the world and the mythological  prehistory was interested in the familiar historical periods.

Who was Abraham's god? YHVH? Rabb? El? El Shadday? 'Almighty'? Which one? 'J' says that mankind worshipped YHVH since the time of Adam's grandson. While 'P's account  seems to be hinting that sons of Israel had never heard of YHVH until he became visible to Moses in the burning bush. The writer 'P' has YHVH say to Moses that he was really the same god as the god of Abraham. The fact that 'P' has felt the need to have this explanation in his account suggests a controversy on this matter in those days. YHVH tells Moses that Abraham knew him with another name and did not know the name YHVH. We are told that Isaac's (I'zak) god was called 'fear' or 'kinsman', and Jacob's (Ya'kub) god was called the 'mighty one'. Of course, we should keep in mind that the perception of 'god' in those days was very different than today, but one can detect the effort to create a chain, a continuity. Could anybody give a sensible answer to the following question: If all these gods were one and the same god why did this god made himself known under four different names? Since a sensible answer is impossible we will only say that these gods were the personal gods of the persons concerned, there never was  a sole god. The stories are futile inventions.

Do you remember Abraham sitting  down and eating(!) with his god at Mamre, Hebron and  Ya'kub wrestling  with his god El until daybreak. This early concept of an anthropomorphic (human-like) god (of writer 'J') wandering among mankind and appearing to them would become an anathema for  Israel later on; when 'E' takes up the matter and begins writing down his account,  he makes clear by his approach that he considers the intimacy between the divine(!) and mankind unseemly. He amends the old legends and makes god speak to Av'ram-Abraham through an angel (since the humans involved in these fruitless matters considered mankind a flock of morons, communication between a divine being and  man could only be possible via an 'interface' ).Consequently the stories became less anthropomorphic.

Old Testament page 2