It is now not only admitted by intelligent and honest theologians that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, but they all admit that no one knows who the authors were, or who wrote any one of these books, or a chapter or a line. We know that the books were not written in the same generation; that they were not all written by one person; that they are filled with mistakes and contradictions. It is also admitted that Joshua did not write the book that bears his name, because it refers to events that did not happen until long after his death.
No one knows, or pretends to know, the author of Judges; all we know is that it was written centuries after all the judges had ceased to exist. No one knows the author of Ruth, nor of First and Second Samuel; all we know is that Samuel did not write the books that bear his name. In the 25th chapter of First Samuel is an account of the raising of Samuel by the Witch of Endor.
No one knows the author of First and Second Kings or First and Second Chronicles; all we know is that these books are of no value.
We know that the Psalms were not written by David. In the Psalms the Captivity is spoken of, and that did not happen until about five hundred years after David slept with his fathers.
We know that Solomon did not write the Proverbs or the Song; that Isaiah was not the author of the book that bears his name; that no one knows the author of Job, Ecclesiastes, or Esther, or of any book in the Old Testament, with the exception of Ezra.
We know that God is not mentioned or in any way referred to in the book of Esther. We know, too, that the book is cruel, absurd and impossible.
God is not mentioned in the Song of Solomon, the best book in the Old Testament.
And we know that Ecclesiastes was written by an unbeliever.
We know, too, that the Jews themselves had not decided as to what books were inspired — were authentic — until the second century after Christ.
We know that the idea of inspiration was of slow growth, and that the inspiration was determined by those who had certain ends to accomplish.
In very late 2006 or very early 2007 some friends of mine convinced me that I should take a Bible study. As my wife had within the previous few years took on the mantle of a professing Christian, the friends intimated that my following in her steps would be good for me and for my wife. Having long been at least agnostic, and leaning very heavily towards atheism, I told them several times that they would probably be wasting theirs and my time. Well they didn’t listen and they finally wore down my resistance.
I would meet with them once a week for what was supposed to be a 1 hour study. Inevitably that 1 hour stretched into 2 or 3 hours. There was not one page of their study material that I did not question or have some legitimate objection too. I was not trying to be difficult or mean to them—they were friends after all—but what they were saying and the stuff from the Bible just made no sense to me. I was excited because I was finally laying out and writing down what was heretofore just a vague feeling or sense. I was getting organized and I researched and researched everything, I was learning about the Christian history and its dogma…and it did not bode well for the Christians. I started this blog in November of 2007 to try to keep some track of what I was learning.
I learned that the earth, sky, waters, animals, plants, and the human race are not roughly 6,000 years old. There is just too much conclusive evidence that this is not true
I learned that there was no Adam and Eve (4000+- BC) as portrayed in the Bible. There are thousands of anatomically modern skeletons and hundreds of thousands of human bones that go back hundreds of thousands of years. There is no doubt, at all, that modern humanity did NOT begin 6000 years ago. Then there are the tens of thousands of bones of human type species (Homo-erectus, Homo-habilis, Homo-neanderthal, etc.) that did not make it through to our times, and they made and used tools and fire and there is some evidence of art. They walked upright and didn’t live in trees and surely they were our long lost cousins. I also learned that All of humanity alive today has their ultimate roots in Africa. The fact that there was no Adam and Eve has tremendous consequences down the road.
I learned that there was never a whole earth covering flood (2350+- BC) that destroyed all of mankind except for a mythical man, his wife and three sons and their wives. The evidence against the flood has been known since the 1700’s and keeps getting stronger as the years go by. I learned that people keep searching this one mountain in modern day Turkey for remains of Noah’s Ark in vain and that at least 5 people have perpetrated a hoax on the public by announcing they have found the Ark. One person even doctored some wood planks at home to try to make them look old enough to have come from such a vessel.
I learned that there was never a Tower of Babel scenario (2000+- BC) such as told in Genesis. We now know beyond a doubt that there were already millions of humans spread ALL over the earth at that time. The Biblical story is nothing more than a fairy-tale, a crude attempt to try to explain the different languages that were spoken at the time the story was written.
I learned that Moses was probably a fictional character, as we know that the work attributed to him (The first five books of the Bible…the Pentateuch) was written by more than one person (3-4) and was probably written around 600-550 BC as a fictive work passed off as holy to bring the Hebrews tribes together again after the exile in Babylon.
I learned that the Exodus as described in the Bible is just a fairy tale. Archaeologists have been scouring the Sinai for over a hundred years looking for signs of at least a million people passing through and living on the land for 40 years…they have found Nothing! They did find evidence of much earlier humans visiting and living there, but no Israelite signs from the era supported by the Bible story. This also means that there was no exodus of Hebrews trodding across the Red/Reed Sea, no burning bush, no water spouting rock, no Ten Commandments carried down Mount Sinai, no golden calf, and no manna from heaven.
I learned that Joshua did NOT fight the battle of Jericho. Extensive archaeological work has determined that most all of the towns he was supposed to have squashed were already empty and in ruins at the time indicated in the Bible—both the 1400’s BC and the 1200’s BC theory. But then he was a fictional character anyway so it doesn’t matter.
I learned that Moses couldn’t have written at least some parts of Genesis because he wrote (probably in the 1400’s BC) that Abraham came from “Ur of the Chaldee’s” but we know from history that the Chaldeans did not control the city until around 600-500 BC.
Also Moses wrote that Abraham rescued Lot from the city of Dan which did not exist under that name at the time of Moses. 300 years later the town of Laish was captured by the tribe of Dan and renamed Dan.
I learned that God cannot defeat Iron Chariots used by us war-like humans.
I learned that God does not answer prayers…at least not of those with limb amputations. Not once in all of recorded history has God ever restored some poor person’s amputated arms or legs and there have been many, many millions of people who have suffered this. You may even know someone from the armed forces who lost a limb or two in Iraq or Afghanistan…or Viet-Nam. The Bible tells us that Jesus raised the dead and threw out spirits or demons and healed some really bad diseases, and he himself was supposed to have risen from the dead, but no mention of limb re-growth anywhere.
I learned that God was really really mean. One mistake in the garden and He curses Adam and Eve and ALL the billions of their offspring to a miserable life with disease and famine and wars and all manner of horrible torture and deaths. He orders the tribes of Israel to murder man, woman, and child of innocent villages or towns. He fire-bombs villages, He orders running thru pregnant women with swords, bashing babies skulls against the walls or rocks, beheading hundreds or thousands, tossing live people into the fires and who knows what else. And, the animal cruelty you don’t even want to know about. All in all, the God as described in the Bible is a horrible figure…not God-like at all. Of course we know that the entire God ordered killing was just the Hebrews way of conquering territory and booty. There was no God to order all that murder and mayhem.
-end part 1
Warning: This video has a few cuss words…easily offended–don’t watch.
“We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent there will be no need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always—do not forget this Winston—always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.” George Orwell
No orgasms, no loyalty, no love, no laughter, no art, no literature, no science. Sounds like a religious nut jobs wet-dream. Pat Robertson and crew would be behind this 100%. Pat of course is a Dominionist (Sarah Palin is one also I hear), whose goal is either a nation governed by conservative Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of Biblical law…primarily the Old Testaments first 5 chapters—the Pentateuch.
“In his 1992 study of Dominion Theology and its influence on the Christian Right, Bruce Barron PhD, writes,
“In the context of American evangelical efforts to penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader consensus.”
According to sociologist Sara Diamond, the defining concept of dominionism is “that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns”. In 1989, Diamond declared that this concept “has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right.” In 1995, she called it “prevalent on the Christian Right”. Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take “control of a sinful secular society.”
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism
They got their wish in 2000 (as they predicted) in electing ol’ GWB. Of course there is still that controversy over his actually being “voted” in. From that point the religious right had control of the Republican Party. Its members are overwhelmingly evangelical fundamentalists. The “teabagger movement” (who are totally controlled by outsiders) is really pissed that a black-man, who they deem an Islamic Fifth Columnist, has control of “their America”…and he was actually “voted” in…How dare those lefty liberals.
The 2012 election cycle is going to be pretty exciting. Keep an eye out for all those Republicans who might enter the primaries. Really scary religious fundamentalists are waiting for their chance to take over.
Christians nowadays are in a very unstable position although they will deny it strongly. Arguing philosophy and exegesis of the Bible is pretty much a waste of time now. The thing that is killing religion in our times is science and the unstoppable uncovering of evidence that disproves most of the foundation of all religions. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are all irrevocably tied to the Bible. All that believers in Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, or Allah can do nowadays is say they don’t believe the sciences that contradict their theology.
The believers in God have to deny that we can accurately date tens of thousands of artifacts and human bones and artwork and structures that are scattered all over the earth and give live testimony to our civilizations verrry looong past. The many evidences we have for our past are real and tangible and their provenance can be scientifically proven…and there is so much of it. The followers of God and Allah sometimes say that it doesn’t matter what evidence there is, God is outside of the evidence and cannot be proven…or disproven.
Perhaps true. But, what can be proven beyond a doubt, is that certain things that are described in the infallible ‘Word of God’ inspired Bible are not true and not infallible or factual and that a lot of the stories are not to be trusted as actually happening. Another thing that stands out is the actual explanation of the supposedly unfolding drama is stupid. The most stupid part is that Satan knows he will fail because it’s part of the drama that God set up…preordained from the very beginning if you will.
If you believe the story of Gods plan you have to accept the fact that God actually created this WHOLE drama from the beginning. He created all Evil, Satan, the Demons, He set up the Fall, giving us Original Sin, He was the playwright, the creator of unimaginable human suffering and death. A loving God creates two humans and actually sets them up for failure and then kicks them out of his care and lets these poor people try to survive with nothing…that part of the story is both scary and a not very bright explanation of a Gods actions. Wake up Christians…A true humane God would not do these things.
Some things to consider:
1. We know that the flood described in the Bible never happened.
2. We know that humans and civilizations were spread all over the earth in the time of the deluge and Tower of Babel.
3. We know that Neanderthals were walking the earth for tens of thousands of years before a supposed Adam and Eve were created.
4. We know that Homo sapiens or ‘modern humans’ were walking the earth tens of thousands of years before the Biblical folklore was even thought of.
5. We know that Moses did not write the Pentateuch.
6. We know, although fundamentalists deny it, that there are many, many contradictions and falsehoods in the scripture.
7. We know that the Hebrews conception of ‘God’ changed mightily over the years. They once had a pantheon of gods and worshiped idols at late as 500BCE.
8. There is no evidence outside the Bible, in other historic documents or the archeological record, for a mass migration from Egypt involving hundreds of thousands of people.
9. No evidence for Joshua’s knocking down of Jericho’s walls or destruction of Ai and other cities.
10. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or were destroyed by “Sea People”-Philistines, or others.
Just the first 4 things above are enough to prove the Bible false.
Religion is a construct of the human mind…its explanation of creation is a story from a very old tribe
of Sheep/Goat herders, in the language, and with the worldview, of the times it was written in. The Old and New Testament scriptures are very different views of God, and how he treats and interacts with humans…they are not compatible…and not ‘Gods’ word.
I’ve written of this subject before, but no one seems to know the answer to it. If some Christian scholar out there in the ‘ether’ reads this and has a response. I would appreciate hearing from you.
Genesis 11:31. This verse describes Abraham as living in the city of Ur, and associates that location with the Chaldean’s. However archaeological evidence indicates that the Chaldean’s did not exist as a tribe at the time of Abraham, or Moses, for that matter; they rose to power as much as 1000 years later.
“And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”
Genesis 14:14: This verse refers to Abram pursuing some surviving kings of Sodom and Gomorrah to the city of Dan. However the archaeology says that place name did not exist until at least 300 years later
“And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants,
born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.”
So is there any evangelical fundamentalist theist out there that can explain how Moses can be writing about these things long before they existed. Sure seems to be proof that Moses was redacted, revised or otherwise rewritten. So, that would mean that the Pentateuch was not clearly written by Moses, and is likely not the ‘Inspired Word of God.’ It was tampered with probably sometime after the Jews return from exile, as by then ‘Ur of the Chaldee’s’ was properly used and the original city of Laish…was renamed Dan.
So, we all know that Moses wrote of Abraham as coming out from “Ur of the Chaldeans” in Genesis 11:31
“Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.”
We also know that Moses wrote of Abraham coming to the rescue of his nephew Lot, in the city of Dan, in Genesis 14: 14-15
“When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. 15 During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. 16 He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.”
So what we end up with in the timeline is this: Dates are ‘roughly’ and may vary slightly from sect to sect.
Abraham Born 2020 BCE-Died 1845 BCE
Moses Born 1595 BCE-Died 1475
City of Laish–renamed Dan 1200-1100 BCE
Chaldean tribe comes into existence 1000-900 BCE
Chaldeans take over the city of Ur c.627-625 BCE. Ur then became known as “Ur of the Chaldeans”
Moses died a few hundred years before the city of ‘Dan’ existed.
Moses died about 800 years before “Ur of the Chaldean” existed. Not the city, but the Phrase.
How did he write about it? He didn’t. The Pentateuch was rewritten and redacted well after Moses died. From this evidence, there is no real doubt about the Documentary Hypothesis.
“Quite a different view on the section of Genesis treating of Abraham, and indeed of the whole of Genesis, is taken by modern critical scholars. They almost unanimously hold that the narrative of the patriarch’s life is composed practically in its entirety of three writings or writers called respectively the Jahvist, the Elohist, and the priestly writer, and denoted by the letters J, E, and P. J and E consisted of collections of stories relating to the patriarch, some of older, some of later, origin.”…
…”Finally, the moral to be drawn from the various events narrated is more clearly set forth in this third writing and, according to the critics the moral standpoint is that of the fifth century B.C. Lastly, after the time of Ezra, this last history, P was worked up into one with the already combined narrative J.E. by a second redactor R. JEP, the result being the present history of Abraham, and indeed the present book of Genesis; though in all probability insertions were made at even a later date.”
So, what all of this is saying, is that Moses couldn’t have written the parts that are ascribed to him, and whoever did write it, had to be from a time much later than Moses. Therefore parts of the Bible are false.
If someone can prove parts of your religious belief are wrong; why should anyone believe your religion is true? What else could they be wrong about?
For later: Do Christians believe that God made us immortal, and Adam & Eve caused us to die because of their sin?
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The Most Honest Three Minutes In Television History http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML3qYHWRIZk Jeff Daniels Extreme caution: there is VERY STRONG language in this video from YouTube
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