Brainwashed from the Cradle to the Grave

"Ingraham presents a thoughtful and well-researched treatise on the origins of religious thought. He outlines his thread of thought well, and follows the outline to a considered conclusion. " American Literary Press reviewing staff "The authors arguments against many Christian doctrines and tenets are presented with clarity and supported through his interpretation of his own research and his own experiences. For these reasons, the work makes an interesting and powerful statement of faith and conviction. " American Literary Press reviewing staff

Preface I wrote Brainwashed, From The Cradle To The Grave, "A 21st Century Spiritual Awakening," to share with you an experience in my life that not only changed my entire life, but compelled and obligated me to share the experience and outcome of it with humanity. The majority of you who read it will be incapable (through no fault of your own) of encompassing, comprehending, understanding and acknowledging the full scope and reality of it, and most importantly, accepting and modifying your life because of it (if you so chose to) because of how you were raised, what you were taught and what you now believe and accept as truth. The only way that I was able to accept, and more importantly deal with what I was learning from this experience and what was happening to me because of it, was for me to put aside everything that I was taught in all avenues throughout all stages and phases of my entire life, and to start a complete new learning process using common sense based on facts and reality. Words cannot express what that experience was and is like. I have gone through great pains to explain and detail in every way the origin and outcome of this experience. It is detrimental that you read the 'Introduction' first because it explains the issues that created the experience, set it up and then put it into motion. Hopefully, you will see (even if you cannot comprehend and/or accept) what transpired in the experience that caused the transition and transformation in and of my life, and why I feel compelled (regardless of the outcome) to share it with you.

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Introduction My memory about my childhood is very good. It goes back to the age of two. I remember living on the first floor at 22 Kendell Street in Roxbury, Massachusetts with my mother and a younger and older brother. My father did not live with us but came by to see the family once in a while during the early years of my life. My mother was a musician and an organizing member, secretary and musician for a newly organized Missionary Baptist Church in the area. She was seriously into her religion and very dedicated to it. She went to church all of the time and took us with her every time. We were what I call 'Raised in Church.' Back then, the Missionary Baptist Church Society was not what it has become today. Things like: marriage commitment, sexual behaviors, not working on the Sabbath and the religious observance of it were strictly enforced. In spite of my religious teachings and surroundings, I was a very mischievous 'Brat,'a 'Little Devil.' I comprehended and understood to a certain extent, what I was being taught in Sunday School and what the Minister was preaching about in his sermons, but didn't practice any of it because no one was teaching me how to nor was anyone doing it themselves including the ministers. So, there was no reason for my young immature mind to believe that I had to do right, be good, and treat others the same way that I wanted to be treated, and so, I didn't. Instead, I continued my devilish ways, especially mocking what I saw the adults do. We used to go to church every Wednesday night to a service called Prayer Meeting. During the testimony part of that service, people in the congregation would start singing a familiar song. The congregation would join in. At the end of the song the person who started it would stand up and testify about God's goodness and mercy in their life, thank him for it, and ask the congregation to pray for them. The majority of them would always begin their testimony with the statement that they are a converted, baptized and born again Christian. They would then share with the congregation what that song meant to them. Before long, I started doing the same thing. I used to sing a song called 'It's nobody's fault but mine. If I die and my soul be lost, its nobody's fault but mine.' When I finished, I would testify about God's goodness in my life using v

most of the words that I had heard other people use. In reality, what I was doing and saying meant 'Nothing' to me. Instead of someone stopping me and trying to make me understand that what I was doing was making mockery of God and of their religious belief, they did the opposite. They praised me and thought that what I did was cute. So I continued doing it. We also used to go to Bible Study. There the Bible would be taught and discussed. The more I went, the more I learned. The more I learned, the more I questioned what I was being taught. At first I questioned contradictions in what I was being taught. I soon realized that the contradictions were because of opposing and contradicting scriptures on the same text elsewhere in the Bible, and because of the personal understanding, interpretation and explanation of the meaning of the scripture by the person who was teaching and/or discussing it. When I questioned the discrepancies, I got misleading and/or unsatisfactory answers. I usually continuously pursued the issues until I got the one response that always shut me up. That was that I was too young to understand. When I got older, it changed to 'Only Christians can comprehend and understand The Bible.' Even though I was confused, questioned parts of The Bible, and did not understand certain parts of it, I was taught to and believed in it. I accepted its contents as the 'Absolute Truth.' My belief in it is the issue and basis for the contents of this book. Death is something that I feared and did not understand. I feared it because I was taught, and The Holy Bible says that 'Every man born of a woman will surely die.' It further says that when, where, and/or how death will come to each individual is uncertain and unknown to man, and that when it comes, the soul (Spirit) that lived in the human body, leaves it and sleeps, rests, or is in limbo until the end of all human life on this earth, and then, Armageddon. I was taught that Armageddon is the time when God is going to judge the 'Soul' of every human being that existed on this earth. Those who pass will go to Heaven and live there forever. Those who fail will go to Hell and spend eternity there. Heaven, I was taught, is a place where the streets are paved with gold and where there is nothing but peace and happiness. Hell, I was taught, is a place created by God to punish those who did not live as the Bible says they should have. It consists of nothing but fire. The souls of those who do not go to heaven will go there and continuously burn forever. It is controlled by a fallen angel named Lucifer (also known as the devil and Satan) who at one time was God's archangel. He betrayed vi

God and was thrown into hell. I was really scared of Hell. I didn't want to live as the Bible says I have to in order to go to Heaven, nor did I want to go to Hell. I wanted to have fun in the early and prime years of my life, and then live as the Bible says I should in my elderly years. The uncertainty of when I am going to die prevented me from doing this. It troubled me for many many years, especially when a loved one, family member or someone close to me died unexpectedly. It kept crossing my mind that it could have been me. More important than that was the fact that, regardless of what anyone said, I knew that they didn't live as the Bible says they had to in order to go to Heaven. In spite of this fact, I watched the ministers at the funerals pacify the bereaving family members by intentionally misleading them into believing that the loved one's soul had gone, or was going to Heaven. This really concerned me deeply. I had to find out the truth about my existence and afterlife. This fact, along with what I was taught, what I saw, and my religious experience mainly in the Black Church Society, compelled me to find a logical, sensible, reasonable and satisfactory answer for the creation and purpose of human life, and of my existence. I started my research with the church and its doctrine because this is where I was taught my religious morals and spiritual beliefs. The doctrine of the Church is the Holy Bible, and so my first endeavor was to find out the origin of the Holy Bible. In the appendix of this book is a copy of an essay I wrote in January of 1996 about the origin of The Holy Bible. Please compare what I wrote then with what I'm writing now. You will see that my knowledge then is different and not as advanced as my knowledge now. That essay (along with other material available to the public) when compared with the contents of this book will verify the transition in my way of thinking. This came about because of what I learned and accepted as a result of my research of the origin of The Holy Bible. I was raised on the King James version of the Holy Bible. The origin of it is where I began. In 1604, King James I of England, as head of the Church of England, called a conference at Hampton Court to consider ecclesiastical matters. The main topic at that conference was to discuss and endorse a Bible to be used in all the churches of England. Various English translations such as: the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Matthew, Coverdale, Great and Geneva Bibles, were in existence and in use in vii

different churches. Instead of endorsing one of these Bibles, it was suggested that the Church of England have its own Bible. King James I accepted the suggestion and approved another suggestion of bringing together scholars — forty-seven of them — to translate the Bible into an authorized version for the Church of England. The scholars did not want to nor did they base their version on any of the preexisting versions and went to the root of the Bible and the 'Holy Scriptures 'that make up the Bible to create their version. The King James version consists of two testaments: the old and the new. The Old Testament was based on The Canon of the Septuagint, a Hellenistic Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around the third century BCE. The New Testament was based on certain writings that had circulated in the Christian communities after Jesus' death. These writings were considered 'Sacred' by Saint Athanasius, a Greek theologian and Roman Catholic Church Father. In 382 CE, he submitted them and they were approved and canonized by the Council of Rome and called The New Testament. The revisers and translators worked in three main groups — one at Oxford, one at Cambridge, and one at Westminster. Every part of the Septuagint and the New Testament was gone over at least fourteen times, and finally the work was finished in 1610 and published in 1611. It was dedicated to King James, and known as the King James Version or the Authorized Version. A research into the origin of the Septuagint was my first task. I found out as I said earlier that it is a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. And so I researched the origin and formation of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible, called the Jewish Canon or Tanach/Tanak in Hebrew, is also known as Kitebe Kodesh (Holy Scriptures). It is organized into 24 books or scrolls. It contains three parts, the Torah or 'Law' (Teaching or Instruction is a better translation.); The Nevi'im or Prophets, and the Kethuvim or Writing. I started researching the origin and the formation of the Torah. The first thing I found out was that there was an 'Oral' Torah before the written Torah. The Oral Torah was passed on from generation to generation by word of mouth until the written Torah came into existence. I decided to research the history of the Jewish People to find out how the Oral Torah originated, what it consisted of and how it was incorporated into the written Torah. The following is what my research revealed. viii

Chapter One

History of the Jewish People The following is a summary of Jewish History from the time it came into existence until it was written down. Prior to it being written down, it was passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation. Although scientists believe that our earth is from two to three billion years old and that man has lived on the earth for approximately one million years, modern civilization is a comparatively new event in world history. The transition between primitive and modern civilization occurred only six thousand years ago in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Asia Minor and of the Nile River in North Africa. In both Mesopotamia and Egypt, the lands surrounding the valleys were drying up and forming deserts. It seem like nature was forcing humans who had roamed these lands for hundreds of thousands of years to come together in large groups near the rivers. To become civilized, these human beings needed three things: protection from marauders, ways of getting food, and protection from each other. The Tigris-Euphrates region, the high hills to the north, and the desert to the south, provided some protection. In the Nile Valley, the great deserts and the Mediterranean Sea gave men safety from invaders. Likewise, it was easy to obtain food in both regions without cultivation. This new security gave the people of these two regions the time to devote themselves to the third requirement for civilization. Protection from each other was the one necessity that nature could not supply. Men had to supply it themselves. It was during this time that what we now call religion came into existence. At last men had the opportunity to invent government, (a system of laws by which people living in larger cities and spread out over wider areas could cooperate with each other for their mutual welfare), and to create and worship their own God (idol) and/or worship other Gods. In these two cradles of civilization, the beginnings of Jewish history took place. 1

In Mesopotamia the people made rapid strides in organizing their way of life. They invented the wheel and the arch, and their metalworking and gem-cuffing reached heights of excellence seldom surpassed. Trade and cultural contacts reached far and wide. Likewise, they developed the world's first system of writing. Numerous examples of their wedge-shaped or cuneiform letters have been discovered by archaeologists, giving evidence of what must have been an abundant literature. In the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, the foundation for a science of mathematics also was laid. In the fields of government and religion, too, a high degree of organization was evident. First of all, Mesopotamia was organized into a system of city-states, most of which were quite small. Although one city-state was able at times to conquer another, no one city-state ever succeeded in asserting itself over all the others. Apparently the idea of uniting all the city-states was regarded as a sin against the gods. Second, the city-state was a government ruled by a god; the city and its lands were the god's estate; the temple, his home. All community activities were based, therefore, upon religion; even the economic life was organized about the temple with its gardens, fields, and storehouses. The people, each in his place, were the god's... retainers, workers on his estate. Third, each city was ruled by an earthly city-king or city-priest of the local temple. Although the offices of the city-king and the city-priest were not identical, the authority which each exercised was often for all intents the same. Each ruled as the earthly representative of the god and managed the estate. Where there were both a king and a priest, the authority of the priest generally was subordinated to that of the king. According to Mesopotamian tradition, the authority of the city-king came down from heaven at the beginning of time. Recent archaeological evidence indicates, however, that the government originally was composed of a city assembly. From these beginnings there emerged gradually the city-king, first as an emergency measure and later as a permanent institution. Nevertheless, the tradition was maintained that the city-king held his authority as a result of divine election. Finally, the religion of Mesopotamia represented a highly developed polytheism. The people believed that there were many gods, some of whom were males and some females. These gods represented the phases of nature, such as the sky, stars, storms, etc., and they were worshipped by the bringing of sacrifices. Religion in Mesopotamia was also anthropomorphic because it was believed that the gods not only existed in the image of man but also had human needs. For 2

example, the gods and goddesses also were represented by humanshaped idols, and the priests who ministered in the temple would bring these human-like figures food and wine three times daily. At the head of the pantheon or organization of the gods was Enlil, lord of the storm. While the cults of the various gods were carried on in the cities where it was believed they had their seats and where each god's prestige rose or fell with that of the city with which he was identified, the gods themselves were not conceived to be mere local gods. Their existence as well as their functions was recognized by all the people of Mesopotamia. There was, however, an order among the gods, and frequently disputes ensued. Whenever a war broke out between the city-states, it was attributed to the fact that a legal battle also was going on in the state of the gods. The victory in battle of one city-state over another represented the endorsement of that city's claim by Enlil, the king of the gods. Calamity on earth also reflected the anger of the gods because of some affront. It was the function of the priests to serve the gods, to calm the gods in their anger and thus maintain peace and stability. Because of the comparatively advanced stage of civilization found in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley, it was inevitable that many wandering groups of people were attracted to the area from the south hill country and the desert regions. Some came as invaders, others settled peacefully. Among the many people who settled in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley was a group of wandering tribes called Habiru. The Habiru actually were a mixed group made up of no one people. They represented a social class of semi-nomads who lived in Mesopotamia but who were unable to become completely a part of an organized community. They would wander from one area to another, for example, settling in each one only temporarily. The Habiru would support themselves by pasturing their flocks or by serving as skilled craftsmen, such as smiths and musicians. They were not necessarily always peaceful in their activities. At times some of the Habiru would seek to make their living by raiding caravans, and weak outlying communities, or by hiring themselves out as mercenaries. It is believed that some of the Habiru were the early ancestors of the Jewish people. I point, for example, to the similarity between the names of Habiru and Hebrew. Moreover, archaeological evidence tells us that the Habiru tribes were living in the very regions and in the same 3

period of time associated with Abraham. This fact testifies further to the kinship between the people who are called the Habiru and the Hebrews. Not all Habiru tribes, however, became part of the Jewish people. Some of the Habiru groups became the ancestors of what came to be called, many hundreds of years later, the Arab people. Only those groups who moved ultimately into the land of Canaan, which is called today Israel and Palestine, and who associated themselves with the traditions of Abraham in Mesopotamia and later of Moses in Egypt came to be regarded as the founders of the Jewish people. Three terms are used as names for the Jewish people. The earliest ancestors were called Hebrews. When the Hebrews under Moses, as we shall see, entered into a covenant or agreement with their God, Yahweh, they came to be called Israelites. The term Hebrew continued in use, however, being retained as the name by which the Israelites referred to themselves whenever they spoke with foreigners. The term "Jewish people" came into use during the Greek period following the conquest of Jerusalem by Alexander the Great in the year 332 BCE. The period of history connected with Abraham is known as the period of the patriarchs. A patriarch is a father, and the term applies to Abraham and his descendants, Isaac and Jacob, who, according to the tradition stated in their Bible, are considered to be the fathers or the founders of the Jewish people. The patriarchal period refers, however, in its broadest sense, to the period of Jewish history beginning with Abraham, and continuing until the Hebrews began to live in Egypt. Some say that the age of the patriarchs lasted from 1850-1720 BCE, others believe that it covered a longer period, from approximately 2000 to 1720 BCE. When Abraham came upon the scene of history, the civilization of the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley already was in a state of decline. After nearly fifteen hundred years of growth, Mesopotamian civilization had begun to decay because of the numerous invaders who gradually were able to overrun the country. As a result, many people began to move from place to place in search of better living conditions. It is possible that Abraham left Mesopotamia not only because of the political unrest in the Tigris-Euphrates River Valley but also because of the dissatisfaction with the religious teachings of his time. The belief may have begun to develop that if the god they worshipped were truly God, he could not be pictured like a man or woman, nor could he have human needs. What the exact nature of the religion which Abraham and the other Habiru groups practiced is not certain. It is believed that 4

Abraham and the other tribes, like many other people of the time, worshipped their gods under the name of El, and that there were many such Elim, or gods. One such El was Shaddai, who was the god of the mountain. Therefore, in saying that Abraham and some of the early Hebrews chose to develop their own ideas of God, we must not assume that Abraham and his followers understood the idea of the one God as we understand it today. Some scholars tell us that the patriarchs neither had a father-son relationship nor were worshipers of the same god. They point out that not one but many families may have become dissatisfied with the polytheistic and anthropomorphic religious environment of Mesopotamia. Each of these families or clans, as a result, began to worship its own god, generally the god of its leader or patriarch. This ancient practice has been called by some modern scholars "practical monotheism" or "implicit monotheism." In time, these groups migrated to different parts of the land of Canaan, where they worshipped at the already established local shrines. The various patriarchal gods took on the names of the gods of these respective holy places. It is interesting to point out, however, that only the names of the patriarchal gods were changed in the process of the migration. The scholars tell us that the clans continued to worship their respective gods in the sanctuaries in Canaan in the same manner as they had previously in Mesopotamia. Later on, these same scholars tell us, even as the separate stories of the patriarchs were worked into one tradition so the different one-gods also were unified into one God. This tendency accounts for the fact that Yahweh is referred to by many different names in the Torah. What seems to have been unique, however, in the relationship between the patriarchs and the one-god was not necessarily the fact that God was one but the idea that the bond between this one-god and the patriarchs was in the form of an agreement called a covenant or, in Hebrew, a brit. There was a personal relationship between the patriarch and his god. The patriarchs apparently treasured their covenant relationship because they believed that their respective covenants held forth for them the promise of a land inheritance and the attainment of a posterity which would become a great nation, both of which were essential for their survival as semi-nomads. This relationship was guarded zealously not only by the individual but also by the family connected with this god. The god of the patriarchs was both a personal god and a patron god of the clan. The religion of the early Hebrews, however, was not free from what today is called primitive thinking. 5

Despite any objections which the patriarchs may have had to the religions of Mesopotamia, they also had anthropomorphic aspects in their god-concept. Abraham's god was called El. The Jewish Bible is founded and based on the relationship and history of Abraham and his god. It has never been proven and probably never will be proven that Abraham really existed, that he did this or that, but what has been proven is that his life and times, as reflected in the stories about him, fit perfectly within the early 2nd millennium, but imperfectly within any later period. This is one of the most important contributions which archaeology has made to Old Testament study. According to the Jewish Bible, Abraham's god chose him to be the formation of a 'Special People' to be his instruments of his divine plan for mankind. Abraham accepted his god's offer and entered into a covenant with him. It called for his god to give the land of Canaan to him and his descendants and to make his descendants as numerous as the stars. It was a covenant patterned after the Promissory Royal Grant to loyal servants of the king with no further action required by the servant except continued loyalty. It bounded Abraham's god to him and his descendants and was one of unmerited favor stating that circumcision of all males must be performed as a sign of the covenant. Abraham could not comprehend what his god wanted as a participant in the covenant nor how his god could fulfill his promise and give him descendants when his wife (Sarah) was childless and beyond child bearing years. As a result, they took matters into their own hands and had a child through a surrogate mother Hager, who was Sarah's maid servant. This was the beginning of deception that plagued the patriarchs. This particular one caused some disruption and bad feelings in the household, especially when Abraham's god fulfilled his promise; however, it ultimately worked itself out after the birth of a son, Isaac, to Abraham and Sarah. The name Isaac is a word play on the Hebrew which means "to laugh." This was because Sarah laughed when she overheard the visitors say to Abraham that she would bear a son in her old age. The son born to Hager, Ishmael, goes on to become the father of a great nation, namely the Arab People and the Islamic faith. The use of a surrogate mother or concubine to bear children was not unusual in the ancient Near East. It was done to insure the lineage and provide additional children that were necessary to continue to provide for the wellbeing of the family. 6

After Abraham's god fulfilled the first phase of the covenant by giving him a descendant, Abraham's faith in his god increased; however, it appears that his god felt the need to test his faith after he did not have enough faith and belief in him to fulfill his promise of giving him a descendant, and took matters into his own hands. He told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to prove his devotion to him. Without questioning, Abraham obeys what his god has commanded and proceeds to sacrifice his son. His actions reinforced his god's favor in him and at the last moment he intervened and Isaac was saved. Isaac fathered two sons, Jacob and Esau. At birth Jacob was born while seizing the heal of his brother Esau, the first born. Because of this Jacob was given a name which means "to seize at the heal or beguile." When the two boys had grown, Jacob, through deception, managed to get the birthright from Esau. The birthright or 'bekorah' was a practice where the eldest son received a double portion of the inheritance as compared to the younger sons. Before Isaac died, he gave Jacob "The Blessing." It was a continuation of Abraham's god's blessing to him which was to be passed on to each generation. Jacob was later renamed Israel. He continued his deceptive ways by engaging in another deception that resulted in him having two wives (Leah and Rachel), and two maidservants (Bilhah and Zilpah) along with twelve sons and one daughter. The cycle of deception continued to haunt Israel in the Joseph cycle of stories. The tension of continuing the line was somewhat in doubt in the Jacob/Israel stories. However, the tension was not so much to do with having sons to continue the covenant, but whether the favored wife, Rachel, will have a son. After much ado, Rachel finally bore a son called Joseph who became the focus of the next cycle of Jewish history. The series of stories about Joseph serve to explain several things. First, they serve to set up the Exodus account by explaining how the Hebrews came to be in Egypt. Second, the stories also continue to explain Abraham's god's interaction with humans and the continuation of his covenant with Abraham. Lastly, the final blessings by Jacob/Israel serve to tell about the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The story of Joseph began with Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery with a Midianite caravan. The brothers did this because they were jealous of Joseph. He was their father's favorite and he was an interpreter of dreams. These dreams had Joseph reigning over his family. His ten older brothers despised him because of his feelings of superiority. After selling him into slavery they told their father that he 7

had been killed by wild animals. They even splattered Joseph's coat of many colors with blood as evidence. Joseph, however, was brought to Egypt, where because of his ability to interpret dreams he became governor of Egypt, second only unto Pharaoh. Foreseeing a famine, he had large bins built to store the excess grain in years of plenty. Then followed seven years of famine which extended to lands as far away as Canaan. Only in Egypt was there food, and among those who came to Egypt to buy food were Joseph's brothers. In time, Joseph and his brothers were reconciled, and Jacob/Israel came with his family to live in the land of Goshen, on the borders of the Nile River. According to tradition, the Hebrews came to Egypt during the time of Joseph. In 1720/10 BCE, Egypt suffered one of her rare invasions from the outside. Internal strife in Egypt between the competing XIIIth and XIVth dynasties, each of which wanted to rule, so weakened the military strength that a group of people from Asia, using horses and chariots for the first time, easily overran the Nile River Valley and gradually established themselves as the rulers of Egypt. These people were called the Hyksos, a term that originally meant "foreign chiefs" or "chiefs of a foreign country," however, later the Egyptians interpreted the name Hyksos to mean "Princes of the Desert," or "Shepherd Kings." The early ancestors of the Jewish people came to Egypt during the Hyksos rule. Both were shepherd people, coming from the distant east and settling in the Nile River Delta area known as Goshen. It was during this same period, therefore, that Joseph presumably became governor, and that Jacob/Israel and his family descended into Egypt. The Hyksos ruled Egypt for more than 150 years (1720/10 1560/50). Then a revolt led by Egyptian nobility who had taken refuge in Southern Egypt expelled the Hyksos. The Hyksos had carried out in their day a social revolution that was to have far-reaching effects long after their time. The new social climate of Egypt provides us with an explanation for the enslavement of the Hebrews. Although some of the Hebrews may have left Egypt with the defeated Hyksos, the great majority of them undoubtedly remained in Goshen where they continued their semi-nomadic way of life. During the next three centuries, under the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties (1550 - 1224 BCE), Egypt was to undergo a period of intense nationalism, marked internally by a series of oppressive policies. As the Pharaohs sought to expand their empire abroad and to undertake ambitious building projects at home, they had need for large and cheap sources of labor. The fact that the peasants now were regarded 8

as the serfs of the Pharaoh instead of the nobility undoubtedly fitted in well with Pharaoh's plans. It is possible to assume further that the Pharaohs, once having had their appetites whetted by the availability of free peasant labor, were not content to limit their sources of manpower. Consequently, the Hebrews, who had enjoyed the right to settle and to conduct their business under the more liberal Hyksos policy, were gradually enslaved under the new oppressive Egyptian attitude. At first only small groups were put into forced labor. The number was supplemented, by the addition of other Habiru groups captured by the Egyptians in Canaan. Finally, there arose with the XIXth or XVIIIth dynasty a new pharaoh who knew not Joseph. Eventually the entire group of Habiru was enslaved. The total enslavement of the Hebrews continued until there arose a liberator by the name of Moses. Generally, when we think of slaves, we have a picture of an individual who is sold to a master. This definition of a slave is correct, but it does not include the type of slavery in which the Hebrews found themselves. They were not personal slaves. Following the expulsion of the Hyksos, the government headed by the Pharaoh replaced the nobility as the primary owner of slaves. The Hebrews, as a result, became in the course of time government slaves who, as a group, carried out the orders of Pharaoh. Consequently, they were permitted to live with their families in their own homes. They owned sheep and cattle that they were allowed to pasture on the shores of the lake areas surrounding the city in which they lived. In the springtime of the year, shepherd people generally offered the sacrifice of a lamb. Apparently, it was the practice even in Egypt for the Hebrews to gather as a group and to conduct this ceremony in an outlying area three days' journey from the many different cities in which they worked. It is probable that Moses seized on one of these occasions as the time for the escape from Egypt. He undoubtedly knew that it was also Pharaoh's custom to send his slaves into the outlying areas in the springtime to assist with the planting of the wheat crop and to help with the calving and lambing of his herds and flocks. Likewise, Moses may have known that a series of calamities in recent years had befallen the Egyptians. All of these circumstances may have been interpreted by Moses as signs that the time was at hand for the exodus. Egyptian records are completely silent about the Exodus. It may have been a big event for the Hebrews but it was no more than a minor incident in Egyptian history. A series of letters discovered in the city of Amarna in Egypt describes how a group of Habiru invaded Canaan 9

more than a hundred years prior to the Exodus. Therefore, the fact is now accepted that all Habiru groups did not undergo the Egyptian experience. Also, some Habiru wandered directly into Canaan where they became identified later with the Hebrews of the Exodus. The precise identity of Moses and his family origins never may be known. In fact, there were those early modernists who would deny the historicity of Moses altogether. Contemporary modern scholars, on the other hand, are inclined to acknowledge the reality of Moses. At the same time, they feel that the Biblical narrative is more of a "biography of Israel than a biography of Moses." The present view can be summarized as follows: "Though we know nothing of his career save what the Bible tells us, the details of which we have no means of testing, there can be no doubt that he was as the Bible portrays him, the great founder of Israel's faith." The origin of the name Moses was Egyptian. It comes from an Egyptian verb, "to beget a child." Even the Pharaohs used this verb as part of their names. For example, the name Raamses which belongs to the Pharaoh of the Exodus means "the god Ra had a child." Raamses was the child. The biblical story associated with Moses' birth is legendary, resembling in many ways the stories told about Sargon I of Akkad and other ancient national heroes. It was customary for people in early times to clothe real people, especially great leaders, with fanciful legends of miraculous preservation. It is also questionable whether Moses ever descended from a Levite family. Some scholars feel that this family lineage deliberately was assigned to him by later writers who wanted to show that their own position and prestige were derived from the ancient authority of none other than Moses. According to the stories about Moses that the Hebrews orally passed on from generation to generation, he led the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt and directed them to the Sinai desert wilderness region. This was a logical step for him to take because previously, when he had killed an Egyptian, and fled from Egypt to escape prosecution, he had gone to the desert wilderness regions associated with Mount Sinai. Here he met a group of people known as the Kenites. They were semi-nomadic smiths in the employ of the Egyptian government. They worked the copper mines to be found in the areas of Sinai and further to the east in the southern part of Canaan and Midian. Likewise, they had commercial contacts with Palestine and had borrowed the alphabet developed by the Canaanites. The Kenites worshipped a god whom they called Yahweh 10

and whose home was on the top of a mountain believed to have been Mount Sinai. The Kenites in the time of Moses were both more worldly and prosperous than the poor and ill-fed people living today in the Sinai peninsula. It was here among the Kenites that Moses had learned about the God Yahweh. It was the same God Yahweh who subsequently "appeared" to Moses, while he was pasturing his sheep in the Sinai region and who had inspired him to return to Egypt. Moses believed that, if the former slaves were to be transformed into a free people, they had to enter into a covenant with this very same God Yahweh. Thus, it was inevitable that at the time of the exodus he should lead them to the very mountain region with which the God Yahweh was associated. Once the people had assembled at Mount Sinai, Moses built an altar at the foot of the mountain. He also set up twelve pillars, supposedly to represent the people according to the twelve tribes. He then sacrificed animals, dashing half the blood against the altar. This was a symbol of Yahweh's participation in the ritual. The other half of the blood he had poured into basins while he read to the people "the book of the covenant." As soon as the people pledged themselves to accept and obey Yahweh's demands, Moses took the basins of blood and sprinkled the blood upon the people. Then the leaders of the people went to the top of Mount Sinai where they ate together. Thus was the covenant between Yahweh and the people sealed. The Book of the Covenant consisted of a set of commandments and laws. Among documents which have been unearthed by archaeologists are copies of international treaties made in Western Asia during the period between Abraham and Moses. These treaties tell of the relationship between a king and his subjects. A careful study of them will show that Moses, by borrowing the form of these international treaties, developed the framework for the Ten Commandments and the covenant between Yahweh and the former slaves. The discovery of the international treaties revealed much information about two kinds of covenants which were in existence in ancient times: (1) a parity covenant in which both parties bound themselves together as equals; and (2) a suzerainty covenant in which one party was the giver of the covenant and the other party was bound to obey the commands of the giver or the suzerain. The later type of covenant was used very often among the Hittite people when their kings made treaties or covenants with their vassals. To his vassal, the suzerain "gives" a covenant, and within the covenant the vassal finds protection and security. As the inferior party, 11

the vassal is under obligation to obey the commands issued by the suzerain, for the suzerain's words are spoken with the majesty and authority of the covenant author. To make a covenant in no way infringes upon the sovereignty of the great king. And yet the covenant is not just an assertion of his power over his inferior, as though the vassais were forced into obedience. The most striking aspect of the suzerainty covenant is the great attention given to the king's deeds of benevolence on behalf of the vassal. The vassal's motive for obligation is that of gratitude for what has been done for him. Appropriately, the covenant is couched in the dialogue form, "I and thou." Legal demands are preceded by a preamble in the style, "thus saith the great king," and by a historical prologue that recounts the king's deeds of benevolence. The nature of the suzerainty treaty probably was known to Moses. In adopting it, however, he introduced two distinctive elements into the relationship between the freed slaves and their God Yahweh. Moses' first unique contribution was to establish the covenant not with an individual nor even an entire family, but with a whole people. No other people of ancient times, as far as anyone knows, tried to explain its life as a group so completely in terms of an agreement with one God, as did the former slaves of Egypt while they were in Sinai. Not even the covenants that the Patriarchs had made with their one God were so allembracing. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel made their agreements between themselves as individuals, or as members of a family and their respective one Gods. For Moses, however, the covenant bound together an entire people and the one God Yahweh. This achievement was unique indeed and formed the basis upon which the religious life of ancient Israel developed. Through the covenant, various Hebrew slaves and their families became Israelites. The Sinaitic covenant was a relationship that imposed upon the people certain requirements. Yahweh, on the other hand, was a sovereign king and was, therefore, not legally bound. Since he had entered willingly into the relationship for the welfare of the former slaves, Yahweh could bring the relationship to an end whenever He chose. There was also a second unique feature of the covenant established by Moses. Whereas the Sinaitic covenant was based upon an already accomplished act of grace and issued in stringent stipulations, the patriarchal covenant rested only on the divine promise and demand of his worshiper, only his trust. For example, in the agreements established with the patriarchs, it was not Abraham who made certain promises which He would carry out in the future (that Abraham's descendants 12

would inherit the land of Canaan). No obligation whatsoever was placed upon Abraham. Even the act of circumcision was merely a sign, and not an obligation as it later became, of the covenant. The circumcision served to indicate that a covenant existed. In a way it was Abraham's guarantee, or better perhaps, his proof that his god had made a covenant with him. The covenant of Moses, on the other hand, was almost exactly the opposite. It "imposes specific obligations upon the tribes or clans without binding Yahweh to specific obligations, though it goes without saying that the covenant relationship itself presupposes the protection and support of Yahweh to Israel." After the covenant had been established, Moses and the people wandered in the desert some say forty years. During their wandering and their stay in Kadesh Barnea, many other roving tribes joined themselves to the followers of Moses. Soon it became apparent that the broader pasture lands, lying to the north in the fertile regions of Canaan, were needed for the enlarged herds. The time was at hand at last for Moses to plan the entrance into Canaan. As he weighed the different possibilities, Moses realized from the report of his spies that the direct route northward was guarded by strong Canaanite fortresses; moreover, failure of the rebel group successfully to invade Canaan through the south convinced him that a less direct route was necessary. The path, therefore, had to lead through the land of Jordan which lay to the east. It was difficult to trace all of the wanderings of the Israelites while in the desert-wilderness. At one time, it was thought that the land of Canaan was inhabited by a group of people whose culture was rather primitive. Since the discovery of the Rash Shamra tablets in 1929, however, a new picture of the Canaanites has been drawn by archaeologists. The Canaanites had, indeed, a highly developed form of civilization that flourished under the protection of the Egyptian empire. In fact, one scholar has stated that the life of the Israelites "was crude in comparison to the highly sophisticated culture of Canaan." For example, the Canaanite city of Beth-Shan has been excavated. The findings revealed a considerable degree of wealth. The houses were well built, and their contents indicated that an active trade was carried on with Syria and Cyprus. Occasionally, objects of art even from Egypt were found. In contrast, excavations from the Israelite towns established in the hill country during the period of 1200 - 1000 BCE, indicated the presence of poverty everywhere. House walls were crude and ill-planned. Art was exceedingly primitive, and there was no evidence of trade with foreign 13

peoples other than with immediate neighbors. Even the fortifications were poorly built. Canaanite civilization attained its greatest achievements between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries BCE. From the excavations at Rash Shamra we know that in addition to inventing for business purposes two original alphabets that used consonants instead of pictures, the Canaanites possessed an extensive literature. For example, three mythological epics, as well as parts of other myths, rituals, and hymns have been discovered by the archaeologists. In their language and style many of these Canaanite literary findings showed striking similarities to Hebrew poetry, especially to such early poems as the Song of Miriam (Exod. 15), The Song of Deborah (Judges 5), the Blessings of Moses (Deut. 33), and the twenty-ninth and sixty-eighth Psalms. The Canaanite influence also is found in later Hebrew passages which date in their present form from the period 650 - 350 BCE (especially in Ezekiel, Habakkuk, the parts of the Book of Isaiah written during Babylonian Exile, Job, and Songs of Songs). It can be proven also that substantial parts of Proverbs, for example, were direct borrowings from the Canaanite literature. Dr. Albright, the noted American archaeologist, writes that "there can be no doubt whatever that Hebrew poetic literature was under immeasurable obligation to Canaanite poets ........ who fashioned the vehicle and cultivated the style that has given Biblical verse most of its formal appeal... Through the Bible the entire civilized world has fallen heir to Phoenician (Canaanite) literary art. Canaanite civilization also was distinguished by its highly formalized religion, which consisted of a pantheon or organization of gods. At the head of all the gods stood the king or the father-god, El, and his wife, Asherah. He was, however, a leader in name only, for the chief active deity was the great storm-god, Baal, who riled from a high mountain in the north and who was regarded as the lord of all the gods and the creator of mankind. In order to carry out their highly organized religious life, the Canaanites built many temples. They also used sacred trees and special hills as places for their altars. To assist the people, there was also an organized priesthood. While the Canaanites looked upon their gods as universal gods, the Canaanite religion, on the other hand, represented "an extraordinarily debasing form of paganism, specifically of the fertility cult." Fundamental to their religion was the myth of Baal, whose death and resurrection symbolized for them the death and rebirth of the annual 14

nature cycle. The Canaanites, therefore, developed a series of elaborate rituals, many of which can be described as imitative magic, because they believed that by acting in a certain way they could influence the gods to do the same. For example, in order to induce the gods to bring rain, they would call out a "rainmaker," who would climb a tree and pour water upon the ground. For the same reason sacred prostitutes, both male and female, were maintained in the temples in order to reenact the Baal cycle. As the myth was reproduced through the ritual of prostitution, the forces of nature were thought to be reactivated and the desired fertility in soil, beast, and man guaranteed. These rituals led inevitably to certain debasing practices, including, in addition to sacred prostitution, homosexuality and other orgiastic rites. Even the three major female deities, Asherah, Astarte, and Anath, were portrayed as sacred prostitutes or pregnant mothers. Fortunately, the Hebrews borrowed primarily the literary rather than the spiritual achievements of the Canaanites. The ethical and moral heights reached in the Bible were not discovered in the writings unearthed at ancient Ugarit (Rash Shamra). In fact, many sections of the Bible must be understood precisely as reactions to and, consequently, as protests against licentiousness of the Canaanite fertility cult. Politically, the land of Canaan was part of the Egyptian empire. The Canaanites developed a system of city-states, each of which was ruled by a king. In the center of the city was the king's palace, while all about were the huts of the common people. Since he was able to control a certain amount of territory around his city, the city also became a citystate. Archaeologists tell us that the kings must have had access to large groups of laborers, because many of the cities were protected by tremendous fortifications. The Canaanite city-state in many ways resembled the feudal system of the Middle Ages, with its lords and peasants and walled cities. There was, however, no organized overall system of government that united all the Canaanite city-states into a strong political unit. Nor was Egyptian rule strong. As long as the kings paid their tribute to Pharaoh, they were left free to rule their respective city-states as they chose. Moses died before the Israelites entered Canaan. Before he died, he passed the leadership to Joshua. The entrance of the Israelites into Canaan must be viewed against the backgrounds of both Canaanite civilization and international politics. The international scene was favorable to the Israelites. There was an international vacuum, marked 15

by chaos in Mesopotamia and Egyptian weakness. To the east, in the Mesopotamian river-valleys, there were no military powers which could interfere. The empires of the Tigris-Euphrates river valleys were to lie dormant for nearly six hundred years. No longer could the armies of Pharaoh protect adequately their interest in Canaan. The decline in Egypt, moreover, brought with it a group of corrupt Egyptian governors over the city-states. These men were exceedingly oppressive and greedy. Unrest was rife among the people, and often they rose in revolt against their kings and the Egyptian governors. Archaeological excavations point out that just prior to the invasion of the Israelites, Canaanite culture had entered upon a period of decline. Houses, tombs, fortifications, and standards of art became poorer. Some of the people even moved out of the city-states. Favored by the international situation, the Israelites moved swiftly into Canaan, and in a series of surprise attacks gained a strong foothold. Their success became all the more remarkable when it is remembered that they had neither chariots to use in pitched battles on the flat plain country, nor heavy equipment to lay siege to the fortified city-state. Joshua had to plan his strategy in such a way that the Israelites, with only bows, slings, staves, stones, and a few swords and spears as weapons, could triumph. Therefore, he sought out as his obvious targets those areas which were thinly populated and difficult even for the Canaanites to control. The land of Canaan was never completely conquered by Joshua nor did the Israelites, after Joshua died, lived in peace. Fighting between the Israelites and the Canaanites continued for more than several centuries. While Joshua's campaign enabled the Israelites to settle in the hill country, it was still necessary for the next generations to deal with the remaining unfriendly and unconquered city-states. Also, some of the defeated city-states offered, from time to time, renewed resistance. Again, there were new invaders with whom the Israelites had to deal. Continued military action, therefore, was always necessary, and archaeological evidence indicates that every Canaanite city which has been explored was destroyed at least one to four times during the next two centuries. One of the first acts of Joshua after his military victories was to bring the family-clans together. He selected as his meeting place, the city of Shechem in northern Canaan. Shechem was chosen advisedly, for it was not only an important political and religious center but also a city in which he found people sympathetic to his cause. Apparently, some of the Habiru who had never gone to Egypt and had 16

entered directly into Canaan had chosen Shechem as a site for settlement. Archaeology gives clear evidence of this fact. In 1887, an Egyptian woman, living near Tell el-Amarna, about two hundred miles south of Cairo, found over three hundred clay tablets inscribed with strange characters. These tablets proved to be nothing less than a file of the Egyptian foreign office during the first part of the fifteenth century BCE. They represented correspondence between two pharaohs and their military commanders in Canaan. These letters revealed the intrigues, jealousies, and feuds between the local governors and also portrayed with a wealth of detail the politics, trade, and commerce, the mythology, and the warfare of the times. Since the first discovery, many other finds have been made at Tell el-Amarna. Of importance to us at this point, however, is the fact that one of the Amarna letters told that the king of Shechem had made a treaty with some of the Habiru. By this treaty, Egypt lost control of Shechem, for the King of Shechem, Lab'Ayu, gave the city over to the Habiru. The ceremony which Joshua supposedly enacted with the people at Shechem is described in the Book of Joshua, Chapter 24. In the pres ence of the assembled family-clans and their leaders, Joshua reviewed their sacred history. He began with the period of the patriarchs. His emphasis, however was upon the great events of the Exodus from Egypt and the conquest of the lands of Transjordan and the Canaanite hill country. Following this summary, Joshua put a challenge to the people. He asked them to decide whether they would serve Yahweh or would follow other gods. The gods to which Joshua referred, were not only the gods of the Canaanites that the Habiru had found in Canaan, but also the gods of the fathers that they had brought with them from the land of Mesopotamia. To this challenge, the people, both those who had been at Sinai and those who had never undergone the Egyptian experience, replied, " .... but we will serve Yahweh" (Josh. 24:21). Once the people accepted Yahweh as God, the time was at hand to reaffirm the covenant with Yahweh. For those family-clans that had been in the Sinai desert, it was only a matter of renewing their allegiance to Yahweh. For those Habiru who had settled directly into Canaan, however, it was a service of initiation into the covenant with Yahweh. After the covenant at Shechem was entered into by the Hebrew slaves, former Habiru slaves and Habiru of Canaan, they became one people called Israelites and over whom Yahweh ruled. From year to year, there were three occasions on which the people would gather together: Pesach, in the springtime; Shavuot, in the early 17

summer; and Sukkot, in the fall at the harvest season. Of these three festivals, only Pesach had been known to any of the Habiru prior to their entrance into Canaan. Pasach was an ancient nomadic festival celebrated by shepherd peoples in the spring of the year. Shavuot and Sukkot, on the other hand, were agricultural holidays celebrated by the Canaanites. As the Israelites lived in Canaan and themselves became agricultural people, they borrowed these two festivals. However, whatever they borrowed, they impressed their own stamp of Yahwism. Each holiday became the celebration of an important event in the history of Israel with Yahweh. For example, the Canaanite Shavuot became the time of the giving of the commandments at Sinai, and the Canaanite Sukkot came to represent the long period of wandering in the desertwilderness, where the Israelites had lived in temporary homes called "Sukkot" or booths. Even the Pesach celebration bore this new imprint. The lamb which shepherds sacrificed in the springtime now became identified with the lamb which the Hebrew slaves slew in Egypt so that they could paint their door posts as a sign for the angel of death (Exodus 12: 21-23). The whole Passover, moreover, became the occasion for the celebration of the Exodus from Egypt. These three festivals' reunions were observed in a threefold pattern. First, the elders would review the great story of how Yahweh had saved his people from slavery in Egypt. Second, the people would pledge themselves anew to their covenant with Yahweh. Finally, they would listen to the reading of the regulations which the covenant placed on them. An understanding of this last procedure is most important as we trace the history of the birth of the Torah. The covenant that Moses established between Yahweh and his people included a group of laws which represented the people's responsibility to Yahweh. These laws were part of the Book of the Covenant. As the people underwent new experiences, so these laws of the covenant needed further enlargement and interpretation. This process was accomplished by Moses and the elders as they sat at the Tent of Meeting and judged the people. Joshua, it will be recalled, also read from a Book of the Covenant at Shechem when he initiated the Habiru into the covenant. These laws, therefore, were so important to the covenant with Yahweh that they were reread and reinterpreted each time the Israelites gathered at Shechem to celebrate a festival. Two different kinds of laws supposedly were developed by the Israelites. Apodictic and Casuistis: however, it is known as a result 18

of archaeological excavation that similar collections of laws were in existence at an even earlier time. The most famous example is the Code of Hammurabi, the king of Babylonia who ruled in the eighteenth century BCE. In 1897, the French scholar Jacques de Morgan was excavating the city of Susa in what is today Iran. Susa is claimed to be the Shushan of the Biblical books of Esther and Daniel. During the digging, three large pieces of stone were unearthed. When the pieces were put together, an impressive monument stood seven feet five inches tall. At the top was a scene of King Hammurabi standing before the god Shamash. Most important, however, were the many lines of cuneiform writing which were carved into the monument. When translated, these lines threw more light on life in ancient Babylonia than did any other single discovery. No less than 250 laws of Hammurabi were inscribed on this stela or monument. Archaeologists have wondered why the stela of Hammurabi, who reigned in Sippar in ancient Babylonia should have been discovered in Susa, some 230 miles distant. The best guess is that a king of Persia who is known to have raided Babylonia some five hundred years later carried off this impressive monument as booty. Since the discovery of the Code of Hammurabi, five other codes of Cuneiform law have been unearthed. These finds have pushed back the evidence for the existence of codes of law to a time before 2000 BCE. As a result of the discovery in Susa and the finding of other codes used by the ancient Assyrians, Hittites, and others, scholars today are inclined to accept the following. By the time of Moses, the kinds of laws found in the Book of the Covenant were widely known and accepted by many people. Therefore, while it may never be known just how many laws Moses actually authored, it is no longer denied that Moses was a great lawgiver. It was he who set the pattern for all future laws that were to become part of the covenant relationship between Yahweh and his people Israel. The laws of Moses and the laws that later were developed in the spirit of Moses became part of the great oral tradition upon which the present Torah was established. It is possible that some of these laws were preserved even in written form. After Joshua died, the Israelites, unlike the Canaanites, did not choose to set up their own city-states. They preferred to establish a confederacy made up of their family-clans. The nucleus for such an organization had been in existence during their wanderings in the Sinai 19

desert-wilderness. At that time, it was no more than an organization of smaller family units. Now it had expanded into a formidable organization. Not only had the family units grown into larger clans but also many other wandering groups had attached themselves to the Israelites. In Canaan, too, the clans had been joined both by the Habiru, who had come directly into the land, and by local residents who had gone over to the Israelite standard after the victories of Joshua. Finally, the Confederacy had been formalized at Shechem where the tribes, as they now could be described, renewed or were initiated into the Covenant with Yahweh. The Confederacy, however, was at the most a loosely knit organization. While the tribes had a common basis of worship and a sense of mutual responsibility that had been defined for them by the Covenant with Yahweh at Shechem, they tended to remain primarily localized groups. Only in great emergencies or when stirred by the call of an inspired leader did several of the groups cooperate-operate. Nearly two centuries were to pass before the twelve tribes were to become a united political unit. During the nearly two hundred years of Confederacy, twelve leaders, called judges, arose from time to time in certain trouble spots in order to help the people defend themselves against their "oppressors." The word "judges" is not to be confused with its present-day meaning, which is restricted to legal functions. When the Israelites called a person a "judge," they looked upon him as a leader who protected the rights of the people both by judging legal disputes and by taking military action. A judge, therefore, was more like a ruler, and this interpretation has been confirmed by archaeologists. The Rash Shamra tablets contained passages in which the term "judge" was equated with "king" or "prince." The Israelite judges, therefore, were primarily military champions or "deliverers," and, because their exploits gained for them recognition from the other tribes of the Confederacy, many people often came to them to seek legal advice. In this way, the laws of the Covenant were further interpreted. The position of the judge in ancient Israel, however, also differed from that of a king. His was not a hereditary office. Instead of being passed on from father to son, the authority of a judge was invested by a special endowment of Yahweh. The judges, the people believed, were set apart from ordinary men. Unlike the others, the judges were believed to possess some special gift, some special outpouring of divine grace. Each judge became a charismatic leader because, in the words of 20

the Bible, "The spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him." The events of the judges took place between the time of the death of Joshua (c 1226-1200 BCE) and that of the first king, Saul, who began to reign c 1020 BCE. They resolved the issues and crisis of the Israelites during the twelfth and eleventh centuries BCE. In the eleventh century BCE, there was a striking difference in the political organization between the inhabitants of Canaan and those on the other side of Jordan. In contrast to the loose tribal confederation of the Israelites were the highly organized states of Moab, Ammon, and Midian. Instead of depending upon a spontaneously arising leadership, these countries had kings who exercised strong control over their subjects. Aware of the declining power of the Canaanite city-state, and recognizing that Egypt no longer could exercise strong military control over its empire, these three kingdoms began to look with jealousy upon Israel's holdings both in Jordan and in Canaan. The Moabites were severely defeated in one battle. In the years that followed, a series of attacks by the Ammonites, both in Jordan and in the Canaanite hillcountry, were met effectively by Jephthah, a judge from the city of Mizpah in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin. Still another oppressor group was the Midianites, or the Arabians, as they also are called. Their raids struck deep into the heart of the valley Jezreel and also swept almost to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the south. These attacks put such great fear into the hearts of the Israelites that they made themselves the dens that are in the mountains, and the caves, and strongholds. They had to flee from the valleys into the hill country where they took refuge in mountain caves. Archaeology has cast considerable light on these terrifying events. The Midianites had learned how to domesticate the camel, and for the first time in history, as far as is known, they used these animals for warfare. Finally, Gideon, a leader from the tribe of Manasseh was able to defeat the Midianites. The period of the judges marked an era of great development in the material civilization and social organization of the Israelites. This increase in wealth, coupled with the fact that a new enemy was about to invade Canaan from the west, was to have far-reaching implications. Many Israelites began to concern themselves with the organization of a more stable government. Two unsuccessful attempts subsequently were made to replace the tribal Confederation with strong leadership. Both ventures failed because the individuals proved themselves to be a tyrant and corrupt administrators respectively. 21

Nonetheless, the forces unleashed by the growing prosperity of the Israelites continued unabated, opening the way for a new step in the political evolution of Israel. The Israelites were not the only people to enter the land of Canaan during the twelfth century BCE. In 1187, just a few years after the death of Joshua, there was an invasion along the Mediterranean coast by a strange people, called the "People of the Sea." These invaders established themselves quickly on the coastal plains and fortified five citystates. The "People of the Sea" are known to us as the Philistines, and it is from them that the name Palestine is derived. Some scholars believe that originally they came from the islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and most particularly the Island of Crete. A large group of the Philistines had tried to conquer Egypt, but they were defeated; however, later they were successful in their invasion of Canaan. The Canaanite city-states, under the Egyptian policy of "divide and conquer," had never learned to cooperate-operate with each other, and, as a result, they were no match for the Philistines. For nearly 160 years, the Israelites, too, lived in constant fear of the "People of the Sea," whose chariots ruled the plains and whose fortified cities guarded the great trade routes of the ancient world. The strangle hold that the Philistines were to have upon the Israelites becomes even more dramatic when it is realized that the Philistines had introduced the use of iron into the land. Until this time, men had used much softer metal for their implements. First copper and then copper mixed with tin to form bronze were the metals used by the ancient man. Now the Philistines had brought the secret of using the much harder and more durable iron. At first, the iron was used for weapons; later on, agricultural implements were made of this more efficient metal. However, the methods of producing iron were guarded very closely by the Philistines, so that all who wanted implements of iron had to deal with them. Thus, the Philistines were able to maintain not only a military but also an economic control of Canaan. It was not until the first kings of Israel, Saul and David, were to break the Philistine monopoly that metalworking was developed by the Israelites. The introduction of iron resulted inevitably in a higher standard of living for the people. The struggle between the Philistines and the Israelites soon was to reach a climax. While Joshua had chosen to establish the covenant of Yahweh at the city of Shechem, it seems that in time the city of Shiloh became the central shrine of the Confederacy. To Shiloh the tent of 22

meeting, together with the Ark containing the Tablets of the Covenant, had been brought. Here, too, a priesthood had begun to develop to help in the celebration of the three festivals. Archaeologists tell us that the city of Shiloh was destroyed, presumably by the Philistines, about the year 1050 BCE. This humiliating defeat climaxed the Israelites' growing demand for a new kind of leadership. They sought a person who could help them make the transition from their ineffective tribal Confederacy to a more stable form of government. The person who came forth to meet the new challenge was Samuel, who, as a child, had grown up at Shiloh under the training of Eli the priest. Known as a judge-prophet, he was the first of the last of the judges, and, at the same time, the first of a new line of leadership. He played a major role in establishing the monarchy. Many scholars believe and the monarchists claimed that Samuel, as Yahweh's prophetic spokesman, took the initiative in selecting Saul as the first king of Israel. When he saw the young man, he knew at once that he was the one man who could save the Israelites from the Philistines. He, therefore, took the initiative and anointed Saul secretly. Shortly afterwards, the opportunity came for Saul to be crowned publicly. The Ammonites had attacked the city of Jabesh-Gilead in Jordan. The Ammonites were ruthless in their methods and promised to make a treaty if every man in Jabesh-Gilead would permit his right eye to be gouged out. The people of the beleaguered city sent out a hasty appeal for help to the other tribes. Saul was among those who heard the appeal, and he responded in the spirit of the judges. Symbolically, he took a yoke of oxen and cut the oxen in twelve pieces; then he sent a part to each tribe to invite them to join him in the liberation of Jabesh-Gilead. The tribes responded, and after the victory they offered to Saul the throne. He accepted and was crowned in Gilgal "before Yahweh." During his reign, Saul did not try to reorganize the Confederacy. He did not attempt to impose even a system of taxation, preferring to depend upon voluntary contributions. His very army was composed of a group of volunteers whom he recruited from among his supporters. He continued to live unpretentiously, without the usual fanfare that surrounds a royal court. He had neither a harem nor a hierarchy of court officials. In fact, recent archaeological excavations that unearthed Saul's palace at Gibeah, three miles north of Jerusalem, showed that it was more like a fortress than a palace. It was far from magnificent, containing few quarters for servants and courtiers. Pottery fragments indicated that the household vessels were rather simple and practical, 23

bearing little ornamentation, while the bronze arrowheads and stones for slingshots give evidence that the techniques and equipment used for war also were quite plain. No wonder that Saul has been called the "rustic king" of Israel. The major crisis confronting Saul as King of Israel was the enemy from the west. The Philistines had become bolder, and their forces continued to attack the outlying Israelite settlements. At first Saul mobilized the tribes and stemmed the Philistine advance. He was able not only to break the Philistine monopoly on the production of iron, but also to drive them out of the hill-country; however, his efforts to deal with the Philistines soon became complicated because of his personality and the growing popularity and leadership of David, a young man of considerable personal charm and gallantry, whose undertakings were marked with repeated success, appeared on the scene of Israelite history. The people claimed that upon him the Spirit of Yahweh rested. In one last desperate effort to gain the favor of Yahweh, Saul and a small band of Israelites tried to prevent the Philistine's march into the plains of Jezreel. The outcome was decisive. Although the Israelites were routed, Saul and his son Jonathan fought the enemy to the very end. When all hope was gone, Saul fell upon his sword, and the next day his head was posted on the walls of the nearby Philistine fortress. After their victory at Mount Gilboa, the Philistines were the undisputed masters of the Israelites. They were in control of Canaan from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan Valley. Within seven years, however, their power was to come to an end for all time. From the depths of defeat, the Israelites were to rise to new glories. Under the leadership of David and his son Solomon, Israel was to enter upon a golden age. The "golden age," it must be pointed out in all fairness, was to have brilliant as well as less sparkling-in fact, even dim-aspects. On the other hand, it was to be a period of unexampled prosperity, attended by unheralded territorial growth and an amazing flowering of the peaceful arts; on the other hand, it was to represent an era in which, though wealth came to some and slavery to others, all paid the price of an increase in the powers of the state and a burden quite without precedent in Israel. In David's ensuing baffles with the Philistines, he finally roundly defeated them, and once and for all, they were shut up in their cities in the coastal plain bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. The Philistine Military power, and also their monopoly over the production and use of iron, was broken. At last the Israelites, nearly two hundred years after 24

they had first come into the land under Joshua, were able to enter upon their golden age in the land of Canaan. Once the Philistines were contained, David turned his attention to the neighboring kingdoms that had continued to harass the Israelites. In quick succession, he subdued the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Amalekites, and the Arameans. He also made a treaty with the King of Phoenicia. So brilliant were his military achievements that David's empire stretched from the mountains of Lebanon in the north, to the borders of Egypt in the south, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Desert of Arabia in the east. Within the boundaries of Israel now lay the great trade routes from Egypt to Babylonia, and from the islands of the Mediterranean, to the lands of Arabia, Africa, and even to far-off India. Neither before nor since the time of David has the territory of Israel been greater or embodied such strategic positions. David was not only a military genius but also a skilled statesman and organizer. One of his first steps was to choose a new capital city. Mindful of the jealousies and rivalries existing between the tribes in the north, which had supported King Saul's heir, and those in the south that had supported him, he sought a neutral site. David found his answer in the city of Jerusalem. From the time the Israelites first entered Canaan, they had carefully avoided this heavily defended city-state. Built on a mountain, Jerusalem's fortress-like appearance had defied the poorly armed Israelites. David wanted Jerusalem, however, for his capital city precisely because it had never been part of any Israelite territory and, in addition, lay right on the boundary between the northern and southern tribes. He laid seize to the mountain fortress, and, once Jerusalem was captured, he made it his royal court and established there the seat of his authority as king over all Israel. David's next step was to reorganize the tribal Confederacy. Originally, leadership in the Confederacy had depended upon a person's status in his tribe or upon the divine charisma. David abolished the system by making all leadership dependent upon the authority of the king. He replaced, therefore, the "elders" who sat at the gates of their cities and had served as judges for the people. In their stead, he selected judges who recognized that their authority came from the crown, He also appointed many other officials. Archaeologists tell us that the organization of David's court resembled in many ways that of Egypt. He realized, however, that if his authority were to be deeply rooted, it had to rest upon the religious foundations of the Covenant. He therefore had to bring the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. For many years 25

the Ark had remained in Shiloh, where it had been cared for by the priests. Shortly thereafter, the Ark was captured by the Philistines, and the city of Shiloh completely destroyed. This catastrophe had intensified the Israelites' demand for a king who could ward off their enemies. For some reason (that I could not find out) the Ark was returned by the Philistines to the Israelites. David ordered it and the Ark was placed upon a new wagon and brought amid great pomp and ceremony to its new home. Thus, the religious center of the Israelites was shifted from the confederate sanctuary at Shiloh, to the royal shrine in Jerusalem. In religion, as well as in government, David succeeded in establishing the central authority of the king. The golden age for Israel that had begun with David soon was to reach its zenith under the dazzling accomplishments of his son Solomon. The reign of Solomon was a period of great material prosperity. Unlike his father, Solomon, was not a military man. Nonetheless, like his father before him, he was a skilled politician and an able diplomat in international dealings so that he was able to bring to fulfillment the policies and programs which David had begun. In all truth, it can be said that in the combined reigns of David and Solomon, a period of only fifty to sixty years, Israel rose "from political obscurity," to the rank of a small empire that could command the political attention and economic envy of nations round-about. The reigns of David and Solomon, however, were not without their shortcomings. Each ruler had his own personality defects. Both father and son loved to indulge themselves in the manner of oriental monarchs. At times, they were over impressed with their royal position; and, as a result, they frequently permitted their authority to get out of hand. For example, David thought nothing of sending a man to his death because he wanted to marry the man's wife. Also Solomon, despite his loyalty to Yahweh, permitted altars to foreign gods to be built even within the royal palace whenever it suited the politics of his international plans. Since many of Solomon's alliances were sealed by marriage, numerous foreign noblewomen, together with their servants and gods, were brought into his harem. In addition to their self-centered attitudes, both David and Solomon showed at times considerable lack of judgment in the manner in which they governed their people. For example, when it became evident to Solomon that taxes alone could not support his elaborate building programs, he resorted to drafting a labor force. The slave labor was drawn not only from conquered people but also from the Israelites 26

themselves. It is recorded that he drafted eighty thousand Israelites to work in the stone quarries and seventy thousand men to serve as laborers. Thus, the achievement of new material splendor and international prestige during ancient Israel's golden age under David and Solomon was purchased at a very high cost-the cost of the life and liberty of its people. The inevitable consequences of David and Solomon's misrule were not long in coming. It took the form of a revolution and the division of the united kingdom into two separate kingdoms. The break had made its first appearance during David's reign, when the ten northern tribes which originally had been loyal to Saul's heir Ish-Bosheth had tried to set up their own kingdom. While David chose to put down the rebellion, Solomon paid little heed to these sectional differences between the north and the south. Moreover, his policy served to intensity further the existing differences. Consequently, as soon as Solomon died, the spark that lit the successful fire of revolution was kindled. The northern tribes, under the leadership of Jeroboam, came to Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and pleaded that the yoke be lightened. It seems that Solomon's forced labor policy and taxation measures had fallen most heavily upon the more prosperous northern tribes. Rehoboam, however, did not sense the seriousness of the situation and instead threatened to use even more stern measures than his father had to bring the rebels into line. The smoldering spark of discontent now exploded into a blazing inferno of rebellion. The northern tribes gathered in council and proclaimed Jeroboam as their king. Jeroboam then appealed to Egypt for help. The Egyptians were more than willing to come to his aid, for a new Pharaoh who wanted to restore Egypt's once-great military empire had ascended the throne. When Rehoboam received news of the impending Egyptian invasion, he had to forget all about Jeroboam's rebellion and muster all his strength against Egypt. This Egyptian political maneuver gave Jeroboam the opportunity he needed to secure his newly established kingdom. Thus, in the year 922 BCE, ancient Israel at the time of her greatest prosperity and international prestige was divided in two by rebellion. The northern ten tribes were henceforth to be known as Israel. Only Judah and Benjamin to the south remained loyal to the dynasty of David and were to be called Judah. The Golden Age of David and Solomon was more than a period of prestige for ancient Israel. It was also an age of great literary achievement. These were the years when the royal scribes began to write for 27

the first time the biographies of their kings. There is a record of these chronicles. There were many other literary creations, too. The golden age was the time when the Torah received its present outline. As aforementioned, the Torah represents the work of four different schools of editors. The individual works are called "constitutions" or "traditions." The golden age produced the first written edition. It did not come into existence until after the division of the United Kingdom, and came into being as a result of forces unleashed during the golden age. The emergence into the iron age had brought great changes into the life of the ancient Israelites. In possession of this superior raw material, the kings of Israel were able to effect an economic revolution. A new and higher standard of living was made possible for the people. In agriculture, iron pruning hooks and sickles displaced crude stone implements. Each farmer could now own iron axes, mattocks, and plow points with which to till the soil. The substitution of hard iron nails for the softer copper ones initiated improvements in construction techniques and made possible the previously undreamed of building programs of David and Solomon. The people, too, were building and living in excellent homes. As the Israelites mastered the use of iron, they began to free themselves from the chores of eking out a meager existence. Their new-found leisure time enabled them to partake of the many refinements of civilization that their neighbors had developed. They imported objects from abroad and immersed themselves deeply in the international culture of their day. They also turned to their Canaanite neighbors and learned from them the ways of their religion. Brewed in this ferment of increasing prosperity and the mixing of religious cultures, there was born in ancient Israel a religious crisis. The crisis threatened to destroy the religious foundations of Israel that had been laid by Moses and so carefully nurtured in the succeeding generations. The problem was: could the covenant of Yahweh, fashioned in a desert-wilderness and reaffirmed by Joshua in the primitive settings of Shechem, still serve a cosmopolitan, wealthy, and culturally sophisticated people? There lived in Judah at the time a group of people who believed that the answer to this challenge could be put in the affirmative. They, therefore, set themselves the task of making the covenant relationship with Yahweh as meaningful to the Israelites of their generation as it had been to their ancestors before them. Out of their labor came the first written edition of the Torah.

28

Chapter Two

The Origin of the Torah These champions of Yahweh have been called by scholars the writers of the J. School. The use of the letter "J" arose in Germany at the end of the last century. Since the writers in the golden age emphasized the name Yahweh, which in German is spelled "Jahveh," scholars came to identify them as the J. School. Their individual names, however, are lost to history, and nothing is known of their activities. Their contributions, on the other hand, have continued to live on through the ages. Fortunately, the writers of the J. School did not need to start from scratch. By the time of the golden age the traditions of ancient Israel were rich and full. What originally had begun as loosely knit oral memories had developed over the years into a unified body of familiar oral and written traditions. For example, each year during the celebration of the nature festivals of Pesach, Shavuot, and Sukkot, the stories of the exodus from Egypt and the memories of the patriarchs were recalled. In time, the fixed order in which these stories were told formed a standard part of the celebration. In the same manner, religious rituals became accepted customs and were repeated with each occasion. In addition, the J writers were heir to another significant oral and written source, which, as we shall see, stemmed from the surrounding cultures. The writers of the J. School, thus, had much material with which to work. Their task was not to create something new but to make the accumulated traditions meaningful to the new generation. Before we turn to the Torah version of the golden age, it is important to examine the material that the J writers found in the literatures and traditions of the surrounding Mesopotamian and Canaanite cultures. The most famous of all is the Epic of Gilgamesh, discovered in 1872 by George Smith, a young British archaeologist. One day Smith was busy sorting clay tablets which had been discovered in the library of King Ashurbanipal (669 - 633 BCE) in Nineveh, located on the Tigris River in Mesopotamia. Slowly and laboriously George Smith divided the tablets of the Assyrian king into six 29

groups for convenience: war, business, literature, mythology, and so on. On this day, as he picked up a fragment to see to what group it belonged, his hand suddenly stopped in midair. The little clay tablet described how a ship had rested on a mountain top. This was followed by a story of the sending out of a dove which found no resting place and returned to the boat. George Smith realized that he had discovered a parallel version to the Biblical story of Noah and the Flood. As he examined the tablets further during the course of the next few years, he concluded that they constituted a continuous series of legends giving the history of the world, from the Creation, to some period after the rebellion of man. There were stories of how the world was created, the role of the serpent, how death came into the world, how man discovered that he was naked and clothed himself, the rebelliousness of man and the destruction by a flood, the building of an ark, flight of the dove and the raven, and other incidents which paralleled the Bible accounts. Since the time of George Smith, other ancient literary documents describing these same events have been found not only in Nineveh but also in other places as well. The Flood story particularly is known from many sources. Scholars believe today that these ancient legends, created to explain the origins and early history of the world, were widely used by many people throughout the Fertile Crescent area, stretching from Mesopotamia in the east to Canaan in the west. In fact, archaeologists today can show that the discoveries in Nineveh, are themselves based on even older traditions going back to the people of Sumer, who lived in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley before 3000 BCE. The Sumerians are believed to have been the inventors of writing, and they, too, had stories dealing with the creation of the world and the Rood. The Epic of Gilgamesh contained two famous stories, both of which have their parallels in the Bible: (1) Gilgamesh's attempt to find everlasting life, and (2) the destruction of the world by flood. Gilgamesh, the central hero of the epic, was two-thirds god and onethird man. Gilgamesh sought the immortality of the gods by building for himself lasting monuments of his greatness in his home city of Uruk. He was, however, an arrogant ruler, and he oppressed his fellow townsmen. When the people of Uruk appealed to the gods of heaven for relief, the same goddess who had created Gilgamesh pinched off a piece of clay and made the second principal character of the epic. His name was Enkidu, and he was Gilgamesh's double. 30

Enkidu was an uncivilized man. His body was covered with shaggy hair, and he fed on grass and played at the watering places with the animals, who were his friends and whom he protected. One day, one of Enkidu's enemies tried to civilize him by enticing him with a young girl. As soon as Enkidu tasted of the young girl's love, he became tame and no longer sought to run with the animals. He preferred now to lead his life among humans. In time Enkidu and Gilgamesh became fast friends, because each respected the other for his great strength. Together they set out on a hazardous expedition against a monster who lived in Cedar forest. Despite the warnings of the people that their journey might bring them disaster, they were successful in killing the monster. In a dream, however, Enkidu had a foreboding of his own death as punishment for slaying the monster, and shortly after he died. The rest of the Epic dealt with Gilgamesh's long and fruitless quest for endless life. Enkidu's passing had brought home to him the reality of death. Fearing his own demise, Gilgamesh undertook a long and dangerous journey to the place where Utnapishtim, the hero of the flood, lived. Gilgamesh asked him about death and life, but he was advised only to accept the fact that life was not permanent. No house was built forever, and no contract was ever sealed, counseled Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh, still undeterred, asked Utnapishtim why he had been able to live endlessly. The reply was the story of the flood and how he had been saved through his obedience to the god Ea. When he had finished recounting the story of the flood, Utnapishtim set a test to try Gilgamesh's heroism. Gilgamesh was not to sleep for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh, however, was all too mortal, and he failed the test. As he was about to return to Uruk, Utnapishtim's wife suggested that her husband reward Gilgamesh for his perilous journey. He consented and revealed to Gilgamesh that if he could grasp a certain thorny plant which lay at the bottom of the sea, he could have eternal life. Tying heavy stones to his feet, Gilgamesh descended to the bottom of the sea, where he obtained the plant and called it "Man Becomes Young in Old Age." Returning home, Gilgamesh stopped for the night. While he was bathing in a pool of water, however, a serpent stole the plant. Immediately the serpent shed its skin. Frustrated in his search, Gilgamesh returned to Uruk. He now knew that 'when the gods created mankind, death for mankind they set apart.' The flood episode represented only one scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh. When the great gods of the city of Shuruppah had decided 31

to destroy mankind by a flood, the god Ea disclosed the divine decree to Utnapishtim, who was to be the hero. Ea told him to build a ship and to take aboard "the seed of all living things." The ship, moreover, was to be so many cubits high, and so many wide, and to provide certain rooms for different needs. After the ship was completed, Utnapishtim brought aboard his possessions, the animals, the members of his family, and the necessary craftsmen. In dramatic poetic fashion, the ancient Babylonian author of the epic then described in detail the approaching storm. Six days and six nights the wind blew, and on the seventh the storm subsided. When Utnapishtim looked outside, he noticed that "stillness had set in," and that all of mankind "had returned to clay." The landscape was as level as a flat roof. Finally, the ship came to rest on Mount Niser. On the seventh day, Utnapishtim sent forth a dove, but it returned, having found no resting place. The same happened when he sent out a swallow. Finally, he let free a raven; it found food and did not come back to the ship. So Utnapishtim offered a sacrifice on the top of the mountain. As the gods smelled the sweet flavor of the offerings, they gathered about Utnapishtim. There they held a council and decided that henceforth Utnapishtim and his wife, who had been human, should be like unto the gods. Because of their strong universal influence, it is not surprising to find that the stories of the Gilgamesh Epic and other similar sources were used by the Israelites, too. Undoubtedly, even during the time of the Patriarchs, they were well known. These legends of the creation and early man formed part of the oral and written traditions that were handed down from generation to generation, from father to son. There was to be one major difference, however, between the version used by the Israelites and those treasured by the other peoples. As we are about to see, the Israelites were not indiscriminate borrowers. While they made use of these traditions which were readily available, they changed them to present their own views about Yahweh and the meaning of life. The Israelites infused these accounts with their belief in a One God with whom they were bound in a covenant relationship. These stories were for them only vehicles for expressing their covenant faith. At one time it was believed that the Israelites originated all the stories in the Torah; however, archaeological discoveries, as we have seen, have given us reason to revise this point of view. Today, we know that the ancient writers used materials already in existence. The firsts to do so in formal written fashion were the writers of the J. School. 32

For the J. Writers, there could be no doubt that the covenant with Yahweh was just as valid in the golden age as it had been in the days of Moses and Joshua; consequently, they set themselves to their task with a literary skill and success unparalleled, perhaps, in human history. To accomplish their goal of making the old Mosaic tradition meaningful to the sophisticated generation of the golden age, the writers of the J. School presented a new interpretation of history. There were two steps in their program. First, they explained to the people that Yahweh was the God of all history, even from the beginning of the world. Despite the fact that Moses had introduced the name Yahweh to the Hebrews for the first time in the Sinai desert-wilderness, the writers of the J. School undertook to show that in reality, Yahweh was also the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The patriarchs may have called him by different names, they pointed out, but it was no other God than Yahweh himself who had made the covenants with the fathers. Finally, the J. Writers reached back to the very beginnings of Creation and made Yahweh not only the God of the Exodus and the God of the Patriarchs but also the Creator of the world itself. Yahweh was, therefore, the God of all history. Second, they pointed out that Yahweh was more than the God of all history. He was also a God who had a special relationship with the Israelites. They recalled the old promise which Yahweh had made to Abraham that his seed would both inherit the land of Canaan and become a great nation. Moreover, they remembered that this promise was repeatedly renewed and sealed by a covenant. It was given also to Isaac and to Jacob, and renewed to Moses. This promise began to find its fulfillment, though never a complete fulfillment, in the days of Abraham; in the golden age, however, the J writers firmly believed that the original promise was at last being fulfilled completely. The Torah edition of the J. School was organized in three parts; (1) The primeval traditions contained the narratives from the creation of the world to the time of Abraham. These stories dealt not with Israel alone but with all mankind. (2) The patriarchal narratives covered the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, concluding with the account of Joseph in Egypt. In these episodes, a great emphasis was placed upon Yahweh's promise to Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. Moreover, the different accounts of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were unified by the J writers and made to fit into the main theme of Yahweh's promise to Abraham. (3) The fulfillment of the Promise to Abraham, recounted the sojourn in Egypt, the wanderings in 33

the Sinai desert-wilderness, the murmurings and rebellions of the people, and the conquest of the land of Canaan. In presenting their interpretation of the primeval tradition, the J. Writers wanted to provide their generation with the necessary background material which would indicate why Yahweh, in order to fulfill his plan for mankind, had to choose Israel for special training. They accomplished this goal by emphasizing two points: (1) Yahweh, as the Creator and Father of all mankind, was concerned in every generation with how his children lived; (2) despite Yahweh's concern, from the very beginning man has insisted upon rebelling against Yahweh. The J. Writers, therefore, were interested not so much in writing a detailed history or a scientific treatise of the Creation and early history of the world as they were in selecting illustrations to emphasize their purposes. From a present day historical or scientific point of view, there are many gaps in the J writers' account; however, from the standpoint of the J writers, the narrative represented the complete story of man's continuous failure to obey Yahweh. The J. Writers had one motivating purpose, namely, to lead their contemporaries to the inevitable conclusion that Yahweh had to choose Abraham and his descendants if His plans were to be fulfilled and that they were the heirs to this tradition. The J. School of editors started their constitution with their Creation story. It can be said that the J. Writers were not so much concerned with the specific details of the order of Creation as they were with the kind of life situation in which man found himself. For example, they did not describe the details of the creation of the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars, etc.; instead, they began their account simply with the phrase "in the day that the Lord made heaven and earth" (Genesis 2:4b). Interested primarily in man, they told that he was made of the dust of the earth and that he was to live out his life on the earth. Man was to be a tiller of the soil; therefore, they gave him the name "Adam" which in Hebrew is derived from the same root as adamah, meaning "earth." Man also needed to relate himself to other humans; he needed a 'helpmeet.' Marriage was to be a necessary part of his existence; consequently, they derived the Hebrew word for woman, ishah, from the Hebrew ish, meaning "man." It was proper, the J. Writers taught, that a man should leave his mother and father, and should cleave unto his wife. Man, however, was a creature who lived not only with himself and with others; he could be given responsibilities; thus, Yahweh placed man in the Garden of Eden and entrusted him with the care of the garden. 34

The J. Writers wished to point out that from the very beginning, man's relationship with Yahweh was such that man could choose either to obey or disobey Yahweh. As they developed the story, they explained that man preferred to abuse his relationship and, consequently, to disobey Yahweh. Adam, for example, ate the forbidden fruit. The J. Writers also wished to explain that death was a natural consequence for human existence. Adam and Eve realized not only that were naked but also that all human life was mortal and that they, too, would die. Moreover, during their lifetime, man and woman would need to toil in the sweat of their brow for their sustenance. Life could not be lived, concluded the J. Writers, without effort, nor was it devoid of pain. By telling this story, the writers of the J. School, like the author of the Epic of Gilgamesh, gave their answer to the universal questions that undoubtedly circulated among the ancient storytellers: Why was man and woman attracted to each other? Why was it proper to wear clothes? Why must there be the pain of childbirth and the misery of hard work? Why was the serpent hated by man? To these, however, they added one more question. It was the deeper question of why man, from the very beginning, having been created by Yahweh, refused to obey his Creator. In the story of the Garden of Eden, and also in the episode of Cain and Abel, the J. Writers illustrated the record of man's rebellion against Yahweh. The defiance was best expressed in Cain's protest, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Violence and corruption, they concluded, accompanied all human life. They also pointed out that the first city to be built was by Cain, a murderer, and that the father of musicians and the forger of metals was a descendant of Cain. The climax of the rebellion came, in the eyes of the J. Writers, in a story of unknown origin in which the sons of God, let alone man, proved themselves defiant by stealing girls from the earth. Thus Yahweh, who was described by the J. Writers as having human feelings, was "sorry," grieved to the heart that he had ever created man. It now became necessary for Yahweh to choose one branch of the human family; subsequently, he selected Noah, who was the most righteous man of his generation, in order to carry out his plan for mankind. The J. Writers were familiar with the flood story of Utnapishtim and with the other ancient sources of the deluge and, without a doubt, borrowed heavily from them. At the same time, it must be repeated once again that the writers used these traditions only as vehicles for presenting their own views about life. 35

The Flood story of the J. Writers may be summarized as follows: When Yahweh decided to destroy man, only Noah found favor with Yahweh; therefore, Noah was commanded to go into the ark with his family. He was to take with him seven pairs of all "clean" animals, and only a pair each of the unclean. After everyone was gathered in the Ark, Yahweh shut them in and the rain began to fall. It fell for forty days and nights. The Ark was lifted high above the earth, and all forms of life were blotted out from the face of the earth, except those which were with Noah in the Ark. At last the rains from heaven stopped, and the waters began to recede. After forty days, Noah sent forth a raven to see if it could find a dry place. A week later he released a dove, but both the raven and the dove returned to the Ark, for the waters still covered the earth. Noah waited another seven days. When the dove returned with an olive branch in its mouth, Noah knew that the land was beginning to dry. So Noah built an altar and brought sacrifices from every clean animal. Finally, the J. Writers related how Yahweh, delighted with the sweet smell of the sacrifices, promised never again to curse the ground. Yahweh, too, realized that man had been given the power to do evil even from the time of his youth, from the very moment when he was old enough to know the difference between good and evil. Once again, therefore, Yahweh had shown his concern for man's welfare. The seasons of the year and the regularity of night following days were to be the signs that Yahweh did not wish again to destroy his creatures. In the telling of the Rood story, the J. Writers reaffirmed for their generation the basic truth that it was Yahweh who had directed the destiny of mankind from the beginning. Man might choose not to follow the ways of Yahweh, but Yahweh still carried out his purpose. If need be, He might destroy even his creatures, leaving only those who, He believed, would be faithful to Him. While the similarities between the adventures of Noah and Utnapishtim, his Babylonian counterpart, are many, two important differences should be noted. In the Babylonian account, there were many gods who not only decided to destroy mankind but also held a council to declare that Utnapishtim was now to be like the gods. For the J. Writers, on the other hand, there was only one God, and this God was Yahweh. Moreover, in contrast to the caprice of the Babylonian gods, Yahweh acted in keeping with a purpose. For example, the Babylonian gods might make Utnapishtim important because they liked the sweet smell of his sacrifices. For Yahweh, however, the fragrance of the sacrifices was only a reminder to Yahweh that he had preserved a righteous 36

man through whom the divine plan could be fulfilled. Again, Utnapishtim was saved because the god Ea betrayed the secret of the other gods to destroy mankind. Noah, on the other hand, was the human counterpart through whom Yahweh enacted his plan. The whole Flood story, beginning with Noah's entering the Ark together with his family and the animals, was part of Yahweh's plan to make a new beginning in history. The inevitable selection of Abraham became necessary, according the J. Writers, because of the events that followed the Rood. These were: the drunkenness of Noah, and the construction of the Tower of Babel. Not even Noah, whose very rescue from the Flood was to have marked a new beginning in history, proved himself equal to his responsibilities. The J. Writers related how Noah's children found him naked and in a state of drunkenness. Thus, he was disqualified according to the requirements of Yahweh. Many centuries later, the Rabbis, commenting upon Noah's inadequacies, pointed out that Noah was only relatively righteous. In contrast to the wickedness of his generation, Noah appeared to be a righteous man; however, had he lived in the time of Abraham, he would not have been righteous at all, for Abraham, they emphasized, would have been righteous no matter in which generation he would have lived. The J. Writers had a twofold purpose, however, in telling the story of Noah's drunkenness. They wished to show that Noah was inadequate and also to emphasize that the people of their own generation were like Noah. For example, the story of Noah's drunkenness reflected the J. Writers' concern with the overwhelming impact which the religion of Canaan had made upon the Israelites. The cultural backgrounds of the Canaanites and the Israelites were quite different. The Canaanites were agriculturists, and their gods were responsible for making the soil fertile. The Israelites, on the other hand, had a nomadic shepherd background, and their God Yahweh was the one God who controlled not only the destiny of man but also the forces of nature. When the Israelites settled in Canaan and began to be farmers, however, many of the Israelites believed that they had to worship the gods of the Canaanites. Otherwise, they argued, the land would be barren. In time, many of the Canaanite rituals became familiar practices among the Israelites. The story of Noah's drunkenness was the J. Writers' way of describing the struggle between the Canaanite fertility gods and the Israelite God Yahweh. Noah, who had been saved by Yahweh to fulfill 37

Yahweh's plan, failed in his responsibility precisely because he, too, had succumbed to the ways of the Canaanites with their wine-drinking and sexual license. This story was the J. Writers' warning to their generation that if they as a people were to be true to their covenant responsibilities with Yahweh, they had to guard themselves against the enticements of the Canaanite religion. The dramatic significance of their argument was heightened when Noah, realizing what he had done, pronounced a curse upon his son who, symbolically, was called Canaan. The record of man's rebellion against Yahweh also was the theme of the J. Writers' interpretation of the Tower of Babel story. Archaeology has shown that a particular type of tower raised successive terraces high above the plain was the most characteristic form of architectural construction in ancient Mesopotamia. The tower was called a "ziggurat," which in the Akkadian language meant "to be high or raised up." Some of the towers had a shrine on top and were, accordingly, temple towers. So far, archaeologists have made a list of thirty-three such structures in twenty-seven different cities. Two of the most famous ziggurats were discovered at Ur and at Babylon. The J. Writers used the historically accurate allusions to the rise of civilization contained in the story of the Tower of Babel to illustrate their thesis of man's rebellion. While early man built the world's first great, flourishing civilization, characterized by a great city and especially by a great tower, this same man also became corrupt. In fact, it was necessary for Yahweh to scatter the people of Mesopotamia to all parts of the earth and to diversify their languages in order to overcome man's own efforts to deify himself and to worship his material possessions. In this manner, the J. Writers brought the period of the primeval history to a close. Man, having failed to find the fullness of life, had rebelled against Yahweh. He had not learned to live in peace with his neighbor. This conclusion led the J. Writers to the next theme of their Torah edition. The time now had come for Yahweh to choose Abraham, and through Abraham and his descendants, to carry out His purpose in the world. When the golden age of Israel began in the tenth century BCE, more than seven hundred years had elapsed since the Hebrews had entered Egypt, and a thousand years perhaps since Abraham had lived. During this long interlude, the many stories of the old patriarchal traditions had undergone slow but radical changes. As aforementioned, the 38

patriarchs were tribal heroes, unrelated to each other. Each one worshipped a separate god. By the time of the golden age, the popular tradition had made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob father, son, and grandson; moreover, they all worshipped now the same God Yahweh. From their descendants also came the twelve tribes who, as a group, descended into Egypt, where they were enslaved. Thus, when the J. School began to write in the tenth century BCE, the old ancestor heroes had lost their individuality. They had become personifications of the people of Israel itself. The names Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had become synonymous with the early history of the Hebrews. Into this revised patriarchal tradition the J. Writers wove their theme. The Patriarchal history begins with the story of Yahweh's threefold promise to Abraham; |go] unto the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you.... and by you all the families of the earth will bless themselves." Here is the keynote to the entire J. history: (1) To possess a land, (2) To become a great nation, and (3) To be a blessing through whom all the other nations would be blessed. The first two of these three themes, it will be recalled, are part of the promise that had been made to Abraham. The third, most scholars feel, was original with the J. Writers. The threefold promise, whether based entirely upon tradition or in part original, runs, nonetheless, like a thread throughout the entire work of the J. Writers. Their primary purpose in retelling the stories of the patriarchs was to show that whatever happened to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was in accordance with Yahweh's plan. The patriarchs did not seek a new land merely to find better pasture grounds or more profitable outlets for their cattle business. They went to Canaan because it was part of Yahweh's promise that Israel should possess the land. On the other hand, the J. Writers pointed out that it was not easy for the patriarchs always to achieve the promise. Time and again, the patriarchs found themselves in embarrassing situations, even despairing that Yahweh would help them. Yahweh, however, never abandoned his people whom He had chosen. Each time, at the critical moment, the J. Writers told, Yahweh intervened to save the situation and to renew the 39

promise. The thread of this theme can be seen as we examine the narratives connected with each patriarch. The J. Writers told three different stories about Abraham in which the promise of Yahweh was on the verge of being lost. The first story concerned Abraham's wife, Sarah. During a famine, Abraham took his family to Egypt where food was available. In order to gain Pharaoh's favor, Abraham used Sarah, who was a beautiful woman, as a lure. When Pharaoh wanted to marry her, Abraham did not protest. He even lied, claiming that she was his sister. If the marriage had taken place, the promise of Israel's future through the seed of Abraham would have been impossible. At the very last moment, however, Yahweh intervened, and the J. Writers describe how Abraham and Sarah were sent away from Egypt with great riches. Upon his return to Canaan, Abraham called once again upon the name of Yahweh. The second incident occurred between Abraham and Lot. Because of a quarrel between their shepherds, Abraham suggested that they divide the land between them. The future fulfillment of Yahweh's promise hung in delicate balance upon Lot's decision at that moment. If Lot were to choose the land of Canaan instead of the area of the Jordan Valley, Yahweh's promise to Abraham that he would possess the land would be lost. The J. Writers told, however, that Lot chose the area of the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Once again all turned out well, and in the next verses they described how Yahweh renewed again his promise to Abraham. The third threat to the fulfillment of Yahweh's promise was the fact that Abraham had no son. For lack of an heir who could carry on the family line, the promise of Yahweh would remain forever barren. The barrier appeared even more insurmountable because Eliezer, Abraham's slave, was destined to inherit the family fortune. In a moment of weakness, Sarah offered Hager, her handmaid, to Abraham as a wife. Little did she realize that her offer would not solve the problem. Although Yahweh was concerned with Ishmael, who was born to Abraham and Hagar, the fulfillment of Yahweh's promise, according to the J. Writers, could be accomplished only through Sarah, whose family was related to Abraham's. Nonetheless, Yahweh once again renewed his promise by sending three messengers to Abraham at Mamre as he sat in the door of his tent. They told him that despite the fact that both he and Sarah were old, a son would be born to them. Sarah, however, was more skeptical, and she laughed at the very thought that even Yahweh could accomplish such a result. The J. 40

Writers played upon this incident and told that the name "Isaac" was taken from the same Hebrew root as the word "laugh." Shortly after, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Because of Abraham's favorite role in Yahweh's plan, he was informed in advance of Yahweh's intentions. The J. Writers even permitted him to intervene on behalf of the doomed cities. The fact that not even ten righteous men were to be found in Sodom and Gomorrah was used by the J. Writers to emphasize further the wisdom of Yahweh's choice of Abraham as the instrument through whom His promise was to be fulfilled. The J. Writers did not emphasize the life of Isaac. Their story of his birth was very fragmentary, and what we do have of it contains much material from the later editors of the Torah, namely E and P. The three incidents which the J. Writers did emphasize, however, indicated clearly that Isaac, like his father Abraham, was to be the instrument of Yahweh's promise. First, the very fact of Isaac's birth was in itself important. Despite the laughter of Sarah and the doubt of Abraham, a son was bom to them in old age, as Yahweh had promise. The second episode in which the J. Writers advanced their interpretation of history was the manner in which a wife was selected for Isaac. Just as Abraham's marriage to Hager could provide no acceptable heir according to the terms of Yahweh's promise, so the promise would be voided if Isaac were to marry a local girl. A wife had to be sought for him in Mesopotamia where the family homestead was established. The J. Writers, in relating this story, took full advantage of its drama. Would the servant of Abraham be able to find a suitable partner for Isaac? If Eliezer did, would she be willing to return to Canaan? Everything, however, turned out according to plan. For the J. Writers, nothing happened by chance. Yahweh was concerned constantly with his chosen people. Little else was told by the J. Writers about Isaac. He seemed to be more like a carbon copy of his father. Like Abraham, he, too, tried to escape a famine but went to the land of the Philistines instead of Egypt He also claimed that his wife Rebekkah was only his sister. (The use of the term "Philistines" is a good example of an anachronism. As mentioned earlier, the Philistines did not enter Canaan until 1187 BCE. One of the cities which they took over was Gerar. the city identified with Isaac. It was only natural, therefore, for the J. Writers, who wrote after the Philistines came to Canaan, to say that Isaac went to the land of the 41

Philistines.) Once again, however, Yahweh intervened at the crucial moment, and the promise was renewed. In contrast to the life of Isaac, the story of Jacob was told in great detail by the J. Writers. Each episode, however, fitted carefully into the outline of history in which Yahweh guided the outcome. Nonetheless, Jacob's path to success also was strewn with many obstacles. In fact, in the very birth of Jacob, the fulfillment of the promise was put to a severe test. Like Sarah, Rebekkah too, was barren and bore a son only after Yahweh had made her a special promise to this effect. When she finally gave birth, she bore twins. Jacob, however, was born last, and the family inheritance, including the fulfillment of the promise, belonged to the eldest. Since the tradition of Israel was continued through Jacob and not Esau, the J. Writers had to explain away the problem of the order of Jacob's birth. This goal they achieved by telling two stories. The problem of the birthright gave the J. Writers little trouble. Since Esau had meager understanding of the meaning of the inheritance, the J. Writers concluded that it must have been of small worth to him; consequently, he was most willing to sell his birthright to Jacob for no more than a mess of pottage. The problem of securing his father's blessing as the first born, however, proved to be somewhat more difficult. The J. Writers, aware that an oath or a blessing even though pronounced in error was irrevocable, solved the problem by permitting Jacob to trick his father. With the help of his mother, Jacob covered his arms with hairy garments and appeared before the aged and almost blind Isaac. At first Isaac was not deceived, and he thought "the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau." Despite his doubt, he pronounced the blessing of the first-born over Jacob. In this manner, Jacob gained both the birthright and the privileges which Yahweh would confer upon Abraham's descendants. No sooner had the J. Writers resolved one problem than they were confronted with another. Because of the animosity between the two brothers, Jacob had to flee the land of Canaan. Once again, the promise that the patriarchs would inherit the land was jeopardized. The J. Writers were fully aware of their problem, and they explained away their dilemma by telling three stories about Jacob. The J. Writers wove into each of these incidents their theme of Yahweh's concern for the patriarchs so that his plan for all mankind could be fulfilled through Israel. 42

The first story, which in its present form contains some of the E. Writer's material, dealt with Jacob's departure for Haran. The J. Writers pictured Jacob in a very dejected mood. Despite all that he had done to outsmart his brother, it seemed as though Esau had won after all. Since Esau was a hunter, a man who knew how to handle a bow and arrow, there was no doubt in Rebekkah's mind that he would seek his revenge. Therefore, she persuaded Isaac to send Jacob to Haran in Mesopotamia to find for himself a wife among their kinsmen. Jacob, understanding his mother's intentions, obeyed his father's wishes to go to Haran. With heavy heart, he set out on his way, reaching Beth-El that same night. Taking one of the stones of the field as his pillow, he lay down to sleep, and dreamed a dream. There was a ladder reaching to the heavens, and angels were descending and ascending. Then Yahweh appeared beside him and renewed the threefold promise given originally to Abraham: (1) that he would give to Israel the land; (2) that he would make Israel a great and numerous people; and (3) that through Israel all the families of the earth would bless themselves. When Jacob awoke in the morning, he realized that Yahweh had spoken with him. Strengthened by this promise, Jacob made a vow to be faithful to Yahweh, providing, of course, he be successful on his mission to Haran. The second story that the J. Writers told combined a series of legends. Originally, these legends were no more that entertaining adventures that had befallen Jacob. The J. Writers, however, retold these legends to emphasize that Yahweh did concern himself with Jacob's welfare. For example, the familiar story of the well was reinterpreted to teach that it was not coincidence alone that Jacob found Rachel, who was his mother's brother's daughter. Again, the old legend that Jacob possessed great herds of cattle and many flocks of sheep had special significance for the J. Writers. To them it was not by mere chance that Laban's flocks gave birth to streaked, speckled, and spotted offspring, which then belonged to Jacob. Jacob had to be a man of wealth because Yahweh was guiding his destiny. Later, Jacob would need to use this very wealth to win over his brother Esau with lavish gifts. The third story was the account of Jacob's wrestling with the angel when he was returning to Canaan. Yahweh had kept his promise, and Jacob had become prosperous. Now it was necessary for Jacob to reaffirm the vow which he had made as a dejected young man when he first went to Haran. This story, too, was based upon an older non-Israelite source in which the angel's role originally had been taken by a night 43

demon. All through the night the angel wrestled with Jacob; neither could outmaneuver the other. Finally the angel blessed Jacob, even though Jacob came out of the contest limping. Strengthened now by the renewed promise of Yahweh, Jacob went on to meet his brother Esau, and a reconciliation took place. The J. Writers had carried the story full circle. Jacob, now a prosperous man, not only was back in the land of Canaan but also was married and had many sons through whom the line on inheritance could pass. There no longer remained any question that the promise of Yahweh could be fulfilled. The patriarchal narratives were brought to a close by the J. Writers with the introduction of a short story. The stories of Joseph formed a bridge between the account of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the enslavement in Egypt. Although the J. Writers did not choose to mention the promise of Yahweh even once in their story of Joseph, it is quite obvious to the modern reader that the theme of Yahweh's concern and purpose in human affairs was woven into every incident. For example, even though Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, it was not the evil intention of his brothers which was responsible for Joseph's becoming governor of Egypt. The very actions of his brothers were only a part of Yahweh's plan. Again, it was not a question of economics which prompted Jacob to move with his family to Egypt. The Hebrews settled in the land of Goshen because it was Yahweh's intention that they be enslaved in Egypt. In this way, the J. Writers set the stage for the appearance of Moses, the Exodus, and most important of all, the establishment of the covenant relationship in the Sinai desertwilderness. The origin of the Joseph story went back undoubtedly to popular folklore. Many years before the appearance of the J. Writers, Hebrew storytellers were very familiar with the exploits of Joseph. Archaeologists today feel that the core of these stories is historically valid, because the ancient storytellers colored their accounts with much authentic Egyptian material. In this way the ancient Hebrew storytellers preserved the traditions of Joseph which were to play such an important part in the J. Writers' account of Yahweh's plan to let all mankind be blessed through Israel. The version of the Joseph cycle of stories that the J. Writers used, however, was based not only upon authentic traditions but also upon popular stories which in their origin had nothing to do with Joseph. Because of their popularity the Joseph narratives had attracted to them 44

many other popular stories. The account of Joseph and Potipher's wife is, perhaps, the best illustration of this process. In the British Museum in London is an old Egyptian papyrus manuscript. 1225 BCE. It tells the story of two brothers, Anubis and Bitis, and the circumstances of the plot are very similar to the biblical story of Joseph and Potipher's wife. Bitis was the younger brother, who lived in the same house with Anubis. Just as Joseph was entrusted with all the affairs of Potiphar, so Bitis was given the responsibility of caring for all his older brother's property. This warm relationship between the two brothers was disturbed, however, by the wife of Anubis. One day when Bitis went to the house to get some seed for planting in the field, the wife tried to seduce him. Angrily, Bitis resisted and rejected the offer of his brother's wife. When he saw Anubis, however, he told him nothing about the incident. The wife, in the meantime, was seized by a strong feeling of guilt. Later that same evening, she complained to her husband that she had been mistreated by Bitis. Anubis was greatly angered, and Bitis had to flee from the house for his life. In the Egyptian account, Anubis finally learned the truth and killed his wife, throwing her body out to the dogs. The J. Writers, in their reinterpretation of the story, did not tell what happened to Potipher's wife. They were concerned more with the fact that Joseph was imprisoned. There he would be able to interpret dreams and come to the attention of Pharaoh. The story of Potipher's wife, for the J. Writers, provided another illustration of how Yahweh's purpose operated in human life. The third part of the J. Writers' reinterpretation of history — the Exodus from Egypt, the establishment of the covenant in the Sinai desert-wilderness, and the experiences leading up to the conquest of the land of Canaan — is found today in the books of Exodus, Numbers, and Joshua. These events were reviewed fully earlier, so it is unnecessary to repeat them here. What is important to restate, however, is the historical setting within which the J. Writers wrote. The J. Writers lived in the golden age. The Israelites were not only prosperous but also international-minded. They eagerly welcomed all kinds of ideas from the farthest corners of the earth. Encouraged by their new-found wealth and influenced by the thinking of their neighbors, the Israelites during the age of David and Solomon began to challenge the effectiveness of the old Mosaic religion. They were now cosmopolitan worldly people. The covenant relationship with Yahweh, however, had been established in a desert-wilderness when they were 45

no more than newly freed slaves. Perhaps, they concluded, a new religion was now in order. The answer to this religious challenge was given by the J. Writers. The old religion was still valid. It had only to be modernized, they argued, not rejected. They set themselves, therefore, to this task and wove a reinterpretation of history into the oral and written memories of Israel. Yahweh was not just the God of the Exodus; he was nothing less than the God of all mankind, the Creator of the world itself. Yahweh, moreover, had a special relationship with Israel. Israel was to be the instrument by which Yahweh used to carry out his purpose in the world — that man finds the fullness of life by learning to live with Yahweh and with his fellow man. At first man rejected Yahweh; therefore, to accomplish his goal, Yahweh had to make a threefold promise to Abraham. By the terms of this promise, He would give the land of Canaan to Abraham's descendants, Israel would become a great nation; and all the nations of the world would bless themselves through Israel. Now, in the golden age, reasoned the J. Writers, the promise of Yahweh was being fulfilled. The very evidence of David's and Solomon's reigns proved the fact of fulfillment: was not the conquest of the land of Canaan complete? Was it not evident to all that Israel was a great nation, enjoying abundant material prosperity and international prestige? Were not the nations of the world turning to Israel for leadership? Indeed, the period of Israel's greatest influence was yet to be, believed the J. Writers. There can be no doubt, concluded the J. Writers, that the covenant-relationship with Yahweh was just as valid now, if not more so, than it had been in the days of Moses. In the golden age, the Torah received its written outline. It remained now for the other schools of editors and writers to enlarge that outline. The united kingdom of the golden age came to an end in the year 922 BCE. Despite the brilliant efforts of the writers of the J. School to weld the people together through a modern interpretation on the covenant relationship with Yahweh, the rivalry between the northern and the southern tribes was too deeply ingrained to be overcome. Moreover, Solomon's forced labor policy and taxation measures had served only to intensify the existing differences. The consequences were inevitable. In the next generation the leaders were unable to cope with the crisis. They had neither the personal charm nor the political prestige with which to keep the fighting factions from destroying the empire which David and Solomon had built. As a result, the bitterness and the resentment between the north and the south continued to grow, 46

until at last revolution broke asunder the kingdom. Never again was Israel to attain such status as a political power as she had during the golden age. Towards the end of her two hundred year existence as an independent kingdom, Israel experienced briefly a political and economic revival that recalled the prosperity and prestige of the golden age itself. Jeroboam II, a man of dynamic personality and strong ambition, ruled Israel for forty years (786 - 746 BCE). He renewed the treaty with the Phoenicians, who were then at the peak of their commercial and colonial activity in the Mediterranean Sea. Once again the marketplace teemed with merchants, and the rich were able to build for themselves both luxurious summer and winter homes. Literally, the people of the northern kingdom during this period reveled in the comforts and luxuries of the ancient world. The reign of Jeroboam II was not only a period of national revival but also an age of religious ferment which saw the production of the northern equivalent of the J. Writer's edition of the Torah. Ever since the division of the kingdom, Israel had begun to emphasize what it considered to be the true Mosaic tradition. It was in the north that the traditions of the old tribal confederacy, which David had minimized, were preserved most strongly. In fact, Israel's first capital city was Shechem, where originally Joshua had brought the Israelites to reaffirm their covenant with Yahweh. It was in the north, too, that the idea of leadership through "charisma," through the spirit of Yahweh rather than through heredity, remained strongest. Perhaps this may explain, in part at least, why the Israelites had so many political upheavals and were never able to establish one royal line, as happened with David in Judah. The spirit of the north, quite obviously, was different from that of the south. It was inevitable, therefore, that, in an age of restored nationalism and renewed material prosperity and international prestige, Israel, too, should want to bring together her sacred historic tradition. Out of this ferment came the writings of what scholars have called the E. School because of the preference for the name Elohim instead of Yahweh for God. In Israel, there was a strong force present that worked constantly to corrupt the pure worship of Yahweh. The northern kingdom, unlike its sister southern kingdom, was closer to the culture of the Fertile Crescent. Its territory was more accessible, and, as a result, the religious ideas of the surrounding nations were able to spread to Israel quickly and easily. 47

In 1929, with the discovery of the Rash Shamra tablets, there emerged a clear picture of the religion of the western part of the Fertile Crescent. The peoples were polytheists, believing in the existence of many gods. There was one god, however, who stood out above all the others, and whose life and death was told in the famous Epic of Baal. Baal was the storm-god, the god of rain and fertility who was pictured in the form of a bull, an animal, which represented strength and birth. In the beginning Baal was one of many gods; however, after a victorious struggle with a water dragon, his new-won fame brought him prominence. In time Baal, together with his sister Anath, began to build a temple. Suddenly their plans were interrupted by their brother Mot, the god of the summer drought, who killed Baal and carried his body into the underworld. All the gods, except Anath, mourned deeply the death of Baal, the lord of the earth. Anath, instead, was enraged and undertook a long and difficult search to find her brother. When she did, a furious struggle ensued. Mot was killed, and Baal was brought back to life and placed again on his throne. With Baal's resurrection, the gods in heaven rejoiced once again. The Epic of Baal formed the basis of a very practical religion for the farmers of the western part of the Fertile Crescent. Baal's death and resurrection represented for them the conflict waged in nature, namely, the changing of the seasons. Spring paralleled his birth, and fall his death. By dramatizing in a religious ceremony the story of Baal's birth and death, these peoples believed that they could guarantee the fertility of the soil and their own well-being. When the Israelites settled in Canaan, they turned as previously explained, to the gods of the land. They did not mean to turn away from Yahweh, but soon Baal and Yahweh stood side by side. Especially in the popular religion was there a tendency to confuse the two. Yahweh often was referred to as "Baal." The Israelites also worshipped Yahweh according to the rituals of Baal. They took over the sacred trees and special altars that were located on hilltops. The Israelites also began to name their children after Baal. Some of the people even carried around small figurines or statues of the Canaanite gods. The stories about Elijah were used by the ancient writers to illustrate the basic conflict between the worshipers of Yahweh and the followers of Baal. While these narratives were based upon popular legends, the Biblical writers, attempting to restore the true Mosaic worship of Yahweh, wove them into the Books of Kings to prove that Yahweh and not Baal was the true God. 48

The work of the E. Writers, despite a number of differences, tells fundamentally the same story as do the writers of the J. School. "It is probable that J and E go back to a common original. It is reasonable to regard them as parallel recessions of a common original transmitted in different parts of the land, though both contain material handed down independently." The E. Writers, however, in contrast to the J. Writers, attempted neither to present a new interpretation of history nor to show that Yahweh was the creator of the world. Their goal was to develop a sense of national pride; consequently, their interest lay in describing the history of Israel's historic experiences. The E story began, therefore with the call to Abraham. Other main themes that they pursued were: (1) the deliverance from Egypt; (2) the wandering in the wilderness; and (3) the conquest of the land of Canaan. These three elements are found in the books of Exodus and Numbers. A summary of the E. History can be found in the book of Deuteronomy. The E. Writers, in relating their national epic, emphasized the importance of Moses. In this way also they hoped to bring about a return of the people of their generation to the pure Mosaic tradition. For example, they attached considerable significance to the fact that the name Yahweh was revealed for the first time in the days of Moses (Exodus 3). The J. Writers held that the name Yahweh was known from the beginning of the world. Again, whenever a miracle took place, the role which Moses played became more exaggerated in the E. Version. For example, The J. Writers recorded that a natural force, an east wind, had caused the waters of the Red Sea to be pushed back; for the E. Writers, on the other hand, the waters parted only after Moses had raised his rod. According to the E. Writers, Moses was the most important person in the history of Israel. Only to Moses did Yahweh speak "mouth to mouth," and appear "face to face." To all others, Yahweh no longer spoke directly as He did in the J. Writers' accounts. Yahweh now made His will known through dreams, as in the cases of Abimelech, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph, and through the sending of angels or messengers. The E. Writers also gave prominence to the Book of the Covenant found in Exodus. This earliest body of law was presented as the basis of the Sinaitic covenant, and its specific ordinances were regarded as those to which the Hebrews originally had agreed when they entered the covenant. Moses, therefore, was pictured writing the words of Yahweh "in the book of the covenant" that appears also to have 49

included the "words" of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. This book, however, was to be distinguished from the "two tables of stone" inscribed by God with "law and commandment." It is doubtful whether the Book of the Covenant in its present form actually stems from the time of Moses. The Book of the Covenant, as we have seen, was not a fixed code of law. As the Israelites learned to live in Canaan, they met situations that were unknown in the days of Moses and even Joshua. These conditions called for a clearer understanding of the basic laws of the covenant with Yahweh. For nearly two hundred years these explanations and interpretations of the old laws as well as the enactment of new laws were directed by the various judges who arose in Israel and by the elders in the meetings of the various tribes. The present Book of the Covenant, therefore, reflects the settled, agricultural environment of Canaan rather than the semi-nomadic shepherd life of the Sinai desert-wilderness. Nonetheless, the E. Writers sought to develop a sense of national pride by giving prominence to those persons and places connected with the northern kingdom. Special emphasis was placed also upon the incidents connected with Beth-el and Shechem, two important northern shrines. Again, in keeping with northern traditions, the E. Writers preferred to use the term Horeb for Sinai and Amorites for Canaanites. The words Sinai and Canaanites were part of the southern or J. Tradition. Within their outline of national history, the E. Writers championed the cause of Yahweh, whom they preferred to call Elohim. It was Elohim, not Baal, who called Abraham to go to the land of Canaan. Nor was it Baal who saved the Hebrews from the bondage of Egypt and guided them in their wanderings through the desert-wilderness. It was Elohim who not only had rescued them from the bondage of Pharaoh but also had enabled the Israelites to settle in the land of Canaan. Elohim had been the God of Israel from the very beginning of its history. Into this broad outline, covering the periods from the patriarchs to the entrance into the land of Canaan, the E. Writers wove many incidents that indicated the evils of the Fertile Crescent religions and emphasized the positive aspects of the worship of Israel's God. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac was such an example. Near the city of Jerusalem, the capital city of the southern kingdom of Judah, was the valley of Hinnom. Here for many generations the Canaanites had practiced child sacrifice. In order to gain the favor and to influence their gods they would bring their eldest sons and through an act of religious 50

faith, offer them as burnt offerings to the gods. This practice was widespread throughout the Fertile Crescent. Not even the Israelites, whether of the northern or the southern kingdom, escaped this practice. As they took over more and more of the Baal worship, they also began to participate in this ceremony. Even the kings were not exempt from this failing. For example, Ahaz, the king of Judah, burned his own son as an offering in the Valley of Hinnom. Jerusalem was being besieged by an enemy, and the king, already terror-stricken, hoped by this pagan rite to win the favor of some god who would then save the city. The E. Writers were concerned about this trend in the northern kingdom. They recalled that their ancestors were different from their neighbors in this respect. While the patriarchs had offered animal sacrifices, they had never participated in the sacrifice of human beings. The E. Writers chose to emphasize this point, therefore, by telling the story of Abraham. Whether the narrative of the near-sacrifice of Isaac was created by the E. Writers or was part of an old tradition is not certain. Whatever the origin, the fact remains that in either instance the story of Abraham and Isaac was woven by the E. Writers into the national epic of the northern kingdom in order to counteract the growing Baal influence and to emphasize that Yahweh did not require the sacrifice of children. Yahweh, they emphasized, wanted the children of Israel to live and to fulfill their responsibilities under the covenant. Midway in the history of the northern kingdom (c. 850 BCE) there was a reawakening among the people of Mesopotamia. After nearly six hundred years of military insignificance, a mighty political force arose in the Tigris-Euphrates river valley. A new Assyrian Empire was beginning to stir again, and within a hundred years they were to become the most important political and military power of the time. Both Israel to the north and Judah to the south were to feel the effect of Assyria's might. In 721 BCE, the Assyrian armies attacked the kingdom of Israel. The Israelites, no match for the world's mightiest military force, were defeated. This marked the end of the northern kingdom. Never again was the kingdom of Israel to be restored. The kingdom of Israel, as we know, was composed of ten out of the original twelve tribes. After the victory of the Assyrians, no more is heard of the northern tribe. A number of interesting theories have been put forth to explain this mystery of the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel." For example, some say that the American Indians are the ancestors of the Israelites. In similar fashion, the ten tribes have been identified with a 51

host of other people. The truth of the matter, scholars contend, is that the ten tribes were neither lost nor preserved in some distant part of the world. The Assyrians practiced a simple policy of forced migration with their defeated enemies. They would take the leaders and a substantial segment of the defeated population and move them into a different country. Then they would bring into the defeated country other peoples. In this way the Assyrians would keep their conquered lands populated, and, at the same time, would forestall any future rebellions. This same policy was applied to the northern tribes of Israel. The Assyrians forced a large group of the leaders and the people to migrate, presumably to the Tigris-Euphrates area. There the people assimilated. They married their neighbors and took over their practices so that they could not be identified any more as Israelites. Into Israel itself, in the meantime, the Assyrians brought other people. These, too, chose husbands and wives from among the remaining Israelites. Many of them became followers of Yahweh, and today a small group of their descendants still lives in Israel. They are known as Samaritans. Interestingly enough, their Bible consists only of the Five Books of Moses and the Book of Joshua, preserving the main literary sources that formed the basic writings of the E. School. When the northern kingdom was destroyed, the E. School came to an end. The E. Document, however, was preserved. A writer from the J. School, living in the southern kingdom of Judah, either was familiar with the tradition of the north or had a copy of the E. Document. For him this literary record was no less sacred than his own J. Materials. Even though the kingdoms had separated, each shared a common historical tradition and was bound in a covenant relationship with the same God Yahweh. This J. Writer, therefore, took the E. Tradition and combined it with his own J. Version. Since this editor was himself a follower of the J. School, he gave preference to the J. Material. For example, whenever the two versions recorded the same event, it seems that he retained the J. Account and discarded presumably the E. Interpretation. On the other hand, whenever the two sources supplemented each other, he appears to have used both materials by combining them into one continuous narrative. This new document has come to be known as JE. In support of the J. and E. Writers, there arose both in Israel and in Judah a group of men which has left an indelible imprint upon Israel's ancient religion and particularly upon the story of the birth of the Torah. These religious giants were the prophets of the eighth, seventh, and early sixth centuries BCE, who were not only the staunch defenders of 52

the covenant but also the champions of social justice, which they considered to be the heart of the agreement between Israel and Yahweh. The prophets, according to the time of their appearance, have been divided generally into three groups. The point in history around which these distinctions are made is the Babylonian exile which took place in 587/6 BCE. This was the year in which the Babylonians, who had succeeded the Assyrians as the world's most powerful empire, conquered the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the Holy Temple. The Babylonians then transported many of the Jewish people to Babylonia, where they lived in exile for fifty years Finally, in 536 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus, who had destroyed the Babylonian power, issued a decree permitting the people to return to the land of Judah. The E. Tradition was incorporated into the J. Version to form what we have called JE, presumably during the last years of the reign of King Hezekiah (715 - 687 BCE). Nearly a half century was to pass before another significant step was to be taken in the birth of the Torah. During these decades, Judah was to go through a dark age because of the new king Manasseh, a true vassal to Assyria, who used his long reign (687 642 BCE) to prove his loyalty. He began by reintroducing the same foreign religious practices that his father had tried so hard to root out. For example, he brought into the Temple the worship of the sun, moon, and stars which the Assyrians regarded as deities, and he also erected altars so that they could be worshipped. Since the Assyrians sanctioned astrology, magic, and divination, Manasseh also revived the old cult of necromancy. He also restored human sacrifices, even offering his own son, because this, too, was an accepted way in Assyrian circles to court divine favor. Once Manasseh began introducing pagan practices to please his Assyrian overlords, however, he opened the gates wide to a whole host of influences. His actions also gave encouragement to the Baal worshipers among the people. Soon the high places which Hezekiah had destroyed were rebuilt, and the local shrines outside of Jerusalem which had been closed were reopened. Even sacred prostitution was practiced openly once again in Judah. Under Manasseh, therefore, conditions were not favorable for significant developments in the birth of the Torah. With the death of Manasseh in 642 BCE, and the assassination of his son Amon two years later, and with the coming to the throne of the youthful Josiah, who had been trained carefully by the priests, a new chapter in the development of the Torah was to unfold. The turning 53

point came in the year 621 BCE, the eighteenth year of King Josiah's reign (640 - 609 BCE). One day, while workmen were repairing the Temple in Jerusalem, an old scroll entitled the "Book of the Covenant" was discovered. The finding of the manuscript was reported to Josiah, and he had its contents read to him. As he listened, Josiah realized that the scroll was a very ancient document, reporting what seemed to him to be the very words which Moses had used when the Israelites were about to enter the land of Canaan. Immediately, Josiah began to tear his garments. Having been trained by the priests, he realized at once that the words of Moses urging the Israelites to keep the covenant really was being directed at him, for neither he nor his father had been loyal to the covenant with Yahweh. Deeply stirred, Josiah ordered that the people of Judah be summoned to the Temple for a ceremony of covenant renewal. When they were assembled, he read to them the contents of the newly discovered "Book of the Covenant," and together they renewed their covenant with Yahweh. Having reaffirmed the covenant, Josiah undertook to carry out a thoroughgoing religious reformation. His first step was to eliminate all pagan practices from the Temple. The worship of Baal and of the Assyrian gods was abolished. Child sacrifice was forbidden, and the practice of sacred prostitution prohibited. He then proclaimed that the Temple was to be the central sanctuary for all Judah. Here the true worship of Yahweh would be watched over carefully by the official priests. To insure the centrality of the Jerusalem Temple, he ordered that all high places wherever sacrifices could be brought to the gods should be torn down. He closed the Temple at Beth-el as well as other shrines dedicated to Yahweh and he disqualified their priests from performing any religious functions. Finally, Josiah climaxed his reformation by ordering that the long-neglected feast of Passover, which commemorated the heroic struggle of Moses and the Hebrews to free themselves from their Egyptian masters, be celebrated once again in its full and proper manner. Thus, Josiah sought to re-establish the covenant with Yahweh that had been neglected and even violated by his father, the priests, and the people of the land of Judah. The tradition of covenant renewal provided the priests of the seventh century BCE, with the perfect means of restoring the true worship of Yahweh. It was quite apparent to them, however, that they could do nothing during the long reign of Manasseh. Patiently biding 54

their time, they waited until Josiah came to the throne. Having trained him from early childhood, they had every reason to believe that he would be responsive to the idea of publicly renewing the covenant. Even during the dark days of Manasseh, therefore, new hope welled up within the small but faithful priestly group. The reformation under Josiah marked a turning point in the story of the birth of the Torah. For the first time, a book of the laws of Yahweh was established as the basis of national life. When Josiah ordered that the "Book of the Covenant" be read before the people, he was establishing a "constitution," as it were, which was to be the guiding rule for all the people. It was a book to be studied and to be followed by all the people. The principle of a Torah book, in contrast to a Torah literature, thus began to take shape in the minds of the people. This step was most important for the future of Jewish life, for it laid the foundation stone upon which later generations erected the superstructure of Judaism. The events in the time of Josiah, in effect, foreshadowed the importance of the reading of "the book of the law" by Ezra some two centuries later when the Torah in its completed form became the constitution of Jewish life. The "Book of the Covenant" that the workmen had allegedly "discovered" in the Temple forms today the nucleus of the Book of Deuteronomy, and its priest-editors are known as the D. School. Their influence is said to have extended from around 700 - 650 BCE, when the composition of the "Book of the Covenant" may have begun, until sometime during the Babylonian Exile (586 - 536 BCE) when the Book of Deuteronomy attained its present form. The D. Writers are responsible not only for the Book of Deuteronomy but also the present form of the books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel, and I and II Kings. They had reworked the existing records from the time of Joshua to Josiah and preserved them for mankind. Like the authors of the J. and E. Schools, the D. Writers remain anonymous; however, they did develop a style and philosophy all their own. The D. Writers wanted not only to preserve a tradition but also to teach and to inspire the people to carry out the terms of Yahweh's covenant. They chose, as a result, a style completely different from that of the J. and E. Writers. Instead of being storytellers, they were more like Rabbis or Ministers who give sermons, or even like debaters who try to convince people of the truth of what they are saying. The style of the D. Writers, therefore, was hortatory or didactic, for they felt that 55

they had to teach the people of Judah how to be faithful to the covenant. Consequently, the D. Writers used certain phases that they kept emphasizing over and over again. They warned the people not to go after or to serve other gods, nor to do that which is evil in the eyes of Yahweh, but to hearken unto the voice of Yahweh. Moreover, the people are to be faithful to Yahweh, they taught, so that "it may be well with you" and that "you may prolong your days in the land." The language and style of the D. Writers was also a reflection of their formula of reward and punishment: obedience to Yahweh's commands would bring victory and prosperity; disobedience would bring Yahweh's judgment of suffering and failure. The D. Writers, although composed by priests in Jerusalem, the capital of the southern kingdom, are regarded by scholars as part of the northern tradition. This conclusion is derived from the tradition of Joshua's renewal of the covenant at Shechem, a northern shrine, and also from a similarity in proper names used by both the D. and E. Writers. At the time of its discovery, the Book of the Covenant basically consisted only of the material now found in chapters 12 to 26 of Deuteronomy. With time, however, this material was enlarged upon until it came to have its present form. The D. Writers, like the J. and E. Writers before them, were concerned with the fact that the people regarded the covenant with Yahweh as an ancient ceremony with little practical value for their own times. Therefore, almost from the outset they, too, dwelled upon the idea that the law of Moses was binding for all generations. While projecting themselves backwards to the time of Moses, the D. Writers really were speaking to the people of their own generation. Thus, they speak through Moses to the people. Once they sounded the obligation for covenant renewal, the D. Writers began to review the laws of Moses, i.e., the contemporary laws which for the sake of effectiveness were being presented as the "Words of Moses." They began with the Ten Commandments, known in Hebrew as The Ten Words, which represented for them a summary of their religious reformation. After explaining the significance of the Sinai experience, the D. Writers introduced a second summary which sought in positive terms to convey to the people their responsibilities. This passage, known in Hebrew as the Shma, from the first Hebrew word, meaning "hear," has taken on unusual significance for Judaism. For Jewish people, the first line, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One," has become 56

its watchword, and together with the remaining verses has formed an essential part of the prayer book. After presenting these two summaries, the D. Writers turned their attention to their interpretation of the meaning of Israel's History. They explained to the people that Israel stood in a unique relationship with Yahweh. It was not because their ancestors were more numerous than other peoples that a covenant had been made with them. Yahweh had redeemed Israel from Egypt and established the covenant because of his love for Israel. Yahweh knew that Israel was numerically the smallest of the nations; nonetheless, he chose to be faithful to Israel and to keep His covenant with them throughout all generations. It is important, therefore, reasoned the D. Writers, that Israel now should remain faithful to Yahweh and keep the commandments, statutes, and ordinances of the covenant. The very knowledge of Yahweh's choice of Israel should itself lead the people to consecrated service. Israel should remember that Yahweh did not choose Israel because of any special righteousness on its part cautioned the D. Writers. The entire experience in the Sinai desert-wilderness they stated, was to teach the people that it was the wickedness of the people of Canaan, the Amorites, coupled with Yahweh's faithfulness to the promise made to Abraham that his seed would inherit the land, which resulted in their entry and conquest of the land. Therefore, neither smug complacency nor self-sufficient righteousness should become the people now, for it was still because of Yahweh's and not necessarily the people's faithfulness that the covenant remained in effect. Lest the people deny this, the D. Writers reviewed the story of Israel's own rebelliousness in the desert-wilderness, where time after time they sought to reject Yahweh. Israel, in the view of the D. Writers, was a holy people. Yahweh had chosen them to be "His own treasure, out of all the people that are upon the face of the earth." Therefore, it was important for Israel to avoid all temptations from the surrounding cultures. Just as Moses had warned the people against intermarrying with the Amorites and adopting their culture, so the D. Writers believed that the people now should remove all foreign influences from the land and should return to their true state as a holy people. Israel should abolish everything which defiled the community, and not the least of these were idolatrous practices and the sexual abuses. Israel's task as Yahweh's treasure, however, was not just to separate itself from the influences of pagan culture. It was also to dedicate itself to special service on behalf of Yahweh. Israel was to be a loyal 57

worshiper of Yahweh and a true champion of Yahweh's justice. Thus, the D. Writers incorporated in the Book of the Covenant detailed elaborations of the many ritual and ethical responsibilities that the people should pursue. There were the ritual obligations of appearing three times yearly at the Temple in Jerusalem — on the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover), the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and on the Feast of Tabernacles (Tabernacles) — and of bringing the required and free-will offerings. There were the social or ethical responsibilities as well. Israel was to plead the cause of the legally weak or helpless: the orphan, the widow, and even the stranger who comes to dwell in the land. All members of the community, whether rich or poor, free or slave, of high or low esteem, were to be equal before the law. No Israelite was to exploit another through murder, adultery, theft, dishonesty, false witness, or the taking of interest. Injustice in any form destroyed Israel's holiness as a people. As a capstone to their demand for social justice, the D. Writers reminded their generation that many years ago their ancestors, too, had once been slaves in Egypt. In keeping with their formula of reward and punishment, the D. Writers placed both immediately before and after the Book of the Covenant two passages of curses and blessings. It is their final warning to the people that if they obey faithfully, they will be blessed with good harvests and a high level of general social welfare; if not, then all kinds of disasters will befall them and they will be destroyed. The people did not heed the warning and in 598 BCE, the Babylonian armies descended upon Judah; Jerusalem was besieged and conquered, the Babylonians withdrew temporarily only to return shortly afterwards and besiege Jerusalem again. The Judeans fought bravely, but were no match for the mighty military strength of Nebuchadnezzar. Within a few months the walls were breached; within a year, the city and the temple were destroyed. In 687/6 BCE, a final exile of Judeans was carried out. The destruction of the nation had been accomplished, and the period of The Babylonian Exile was about to begin. With the Babylonian exile the last phase used in the birth of the Torah came into existence. The period between the conquest of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (587/6 BCE) and the edict of the Persian King Cyrus permitting the deported people to return to Judah (536 BCE) is known as the Babylonian Exile. Despite their tragic military defeat, the exiles were to undergo during these years a period of great spiritual ferment. During 58

the Exile and the events immediately following, the Torah was to receive the form in which we have it today and to become, as it were, the constitution for the development of Judaism in the future. Although the Temple in Jerusalem lay in ruins and many of the priests had gone into exile, the priestly influence was able to re-establish itself quickly in Babylonia. This influence was evident already in Ezekiel, who lived at the very beginning of the Exile. In his description of the new Temple, Ezekiel's priestly background came to the fore. The restored community, as he envisaged it, would be centered in the priesthood and the activities of the Temple. This new priestly emphasis which took hold in Babylonia proved to be of tremendous significance for the birth of the Torah. The years of the Babylonian captivity represented an era of intense religious activity. Prophet and priest alike felt destined to strengthen the sense of covenant between Israel and Yahweh. The people, too, recognizing that they were no longer held together by a common national allegiance, devoted themselves to the twofold task of (1) studying their ancient traditions to discover their meaning for the new age, and (2) committing their heritage to writing so that it might be preserved for the future. The Babylonian Exile, thus, became a period of continuous creativity. This was the age in which the synagogue came into being; also, it was the time when the Torah in its completed form was born. Among those who had come to Babylonia were the priests of Jerusalem. Although King Josiah, during the Deuteronomic Reformation, had tried to emphasize the ritual role of the priests, the people still remembered them as teachers, as the transmitters of the rules and procedures by which Yahweh was to be worshipped and served. To the priests, therefore, the people turned for leadership, for many of them not only had learned the tradition by heart but also had brought along copies of the ancient writings. While scholars differ about how familiar the priests were with the JE and particularly the D. Traditions, they agree on the fact that they did not have a tradition of their own. Therefore, the priests undertook a twofold task: (1) to preserve and teach the various traditions as they knew them, and (2) to record their own priestly heritage. Out of this creative urge emerged a series of writings which modern scholars have assigned to the P. School, after their priestly authors and editors. The P. Writings can be recognized readily because of their emphasis upon ritual observance and concern for detail. Their careful consideration of details is demonstrated further by their interest in 59

genealogies. Above all, however, the P. Writings can be detected because of a point of view. First of all, an atmosphere of worship pervaded their work. There were no dramatic narratives about human affairs as those found in J. and E. Traditions: P. was concerned with instructing the people how to worship Yahweh — as worship was understood, of course, by the Jerusalem priests. Second, the P. Writings were governed by a theological purpose. From the P. School's point of view, Yahweh's revelation followed a prearranged, systematic plan. There were four successive stages to this plan, each one marked by the granting of certain privileges and the placing of responsibilities. Revelation for the P. Writers emphasized what Yahweh gave to man instead of what man discovered in seeking his God. This preference was to have far-reaching implications for the future of Judaism. Since the P. Writers were the last editors to rework the text of the Torah, it was their imprint that became the dominating influence in Jewish life. For example, their strong Yahweh-centered emphasis upon revelation ultimately grew in later years into the belief that the entire Torah, and not just the commandments, had been delivered by Yahweh to Moses at Sinai. In their time, however, the P. Writers noted four successive stages in the process of revelation, each of which portrayed Yahweh's purpose: the selection of Israel for special service. The four stages of the revelation were: (1) the Creation; (2) the covenant with Noah; (3) the covenant with Abraham; and (4) the covenant at Mt. Sinai. Like the J. Writers, the P. School was familiar with the creation stories of ancient Babylonia. Today, thanks to archaeological discoveries, we have the text of one of the Babylonian accounts. On March 4, 1875, more than two years after he had found the now famous clay tablets containing the Gilgamesh Epic and its flood story, the English archaeologist George Smith told the scientific world that he had discovered in addition seven tablets describing the creation of the world. Although there were many gaps in the original text of the Seven Tablets of Creation, recently discovered fragments have made Smith's account more complete. The Babylonian story of creation was contained in a long poem that was recited each year during the New Year's celebration. It began with a picture of the earliest imaginable period of time when only two gods were in existence. They were Apsu, the fresh water, and Tiamat, the salt water. In time, several generations of gods sprang from the first pair. Soon enmity arose between the generations, until finally Apsu decided to destroy his descendants. Under the leadership of Ea, the wise earth60

and-water god, however, the younger gods joined together and slew Apsu. The bereaved mother-goddess, Tiamat, planned her revenge, but the younger gods were prepared. They had chosen Marduk, the principal god of the city of Babylon, as their champion. In the ensuing battle Marduk was victorious, and immediately thereafter he undertook the process of creation. First, Marduk split Tiamat's body, like a shellfish, into two parts. From one half he made the sky, and from the other half he established the firmament. Then he caused the moon to shine at night, after which he set the constellations in their course. Finally, Marduk proclaimed that he would bring blood and bone together and establish a "savage." This savage would be called "man," and it was to be savage man's destiny to serve the gods so that they might be at ease. To draw the blood for savage-man, Marduk and the gods chose the god Kingu, who had undertaken to lead Tiamat's revenge. Since he was guilty, they severed his blood vessels and from his blood fashioned mankind. When all was done, the gods sat down at a banquet and feasted, and then the gods took over their assigned stations of heaven and earth, over which they were to rule. While both the P. and Babylonian Versions contain materials not found in the other (the P. Version tells of the creation of animals, fish, and fowl; the Babylonian story, the building of the temple Esagila) you will recognize in the comparison below, the elements which they do hold in common. P. Writer's Version

Babylonian Version

1. The unformed earth the deep.

1. The watery chaos of and Apsu and Tiamat.

2. Creation of light.

2. Birth of Marduk "Sun of the Heavens."

3. Creation of the firmament and the sky.

3. Sky is fashioned from half of Tiamat's body.

4. Gathering of water together to form the earth.

4. Forming the earth from other parts of Tiamat's body.

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5. Creation of the lights the firmament.

5. Setting up the in constellations.

6. Creation of man to the have dominion over animal life.

6. Making man for service of the gods.

7. Resting of God on the banquet. Seventh day.

7.

The

divine

As you can see, the P. Writers, like their earlier predecessors, were not indiscriminate borrowers. They, too, adapted what they needed, but, in turn, they then poured into the material their own interpretation and emphasis. For the P. Writers, a conflict between gods was incomprehensible. Yahweh, to them, was the undisputed sovereign of the universe. He alone was not created, and without His supporting power, the world would return immediately to primeval and meaningless chaos. Carefully, therefore, the P. Writers detailed the account of creation, emphasizing the creative act of Yahweh. As the climax of all creative acts came man. In the P. Writer's conception of creation, man was to be created "in the image of Yahweh," and not, as in the Babylonian account, to be a "savageman" fashioned from the material of the most guilty of the gods. Man was to be Yahweh's "image" or representative on earth, in the same way as the image or statue of a king was regarded as the symbol of the ruler's power wherever it was set up throughout a kingdom. Thus, Yahweh blessed man so that he could multiply and have dominion over an other living creatures. As a fitting conclusion, and in keeping with their emphasis upon ritual observance, the P. Writers closed the account of Creation with the Sabbath Day. Since the Sabbath was one of the basic institutions of Israel, they sought to enhance its meaning for their generation by making Sabbath rest the goal of Yahweh's creative work. The P. Writers were familiar not only with the Creation Epics, but also with the Flood Stories so characteristic of the Ancient World. The present text of the Torah preserves the P. Account of the Rood. Unlike the Creation Story, which was placed side by side with the earlier J. Account, the P. Flood Story is interlaced with the J. Version. Only the skillful scholarly eye can often detect the differences. The P. Version gives the following account of the Flood. The generation in which Noah lived was corrupt; he alone was considered a 62

righteous man. When Yahweh decided to destroy the earth that was filled with violence, He commanded Noah to build an ark. The measurements of the ark and those people and animals to be saved were carefully outlined. Only Noah and his family and two of each kind of animal, male and female, were to survive in order that Yahweh, after the flood, might establish a covenant with them. Noah was six hundred years old when he and his family and the designated animals entered the ark. For 150 days the water covered the earth, and all perished except Noah and those who were with him in the ark. Finally Yahweh remembered Noah, and he stopped the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven so that the waters began to recede. The ark rested on Mount Ararat. When the earth had dried sufficiently, Noah, his family, and all the animals went out from the ark. Yahweh then established a covenant with the survivors, promising them never again to destroy the earth. As a token of his promise, Yahweh placed the rainbow in the sky. In setting forth their interpretation of the Flood Story, the P. Writers sought to impress upon their generation ideas which they felt were fundamental. For example, they emphasized the basic importance of the sacrificial system by describing how Yahweh through the new covenant gave man the privilege of eating meat, providing it was bloodless and had been properly sacrificed or slaughtered. Previously, man had been forbidden, according to some scholarly interpretations of the P. School, to eat any meat at all; man was to be a vegetarian. Also, the dignity of man, that he had been created in "the image of Yahweh" and that Yahweh's was good, was emphasized by the P. Writers when they prohibited the wanton shedding of a man's blood. Finally, they pointed out that Yahweh originally had made his covenant with all men and not merely with Israel. All the nations of the world were descended from Noah and his sons; thus, the covenant with Noah was universal in its scope. Jewish tradition has continued to emphasize the universal significance of the laws of Noah. There are seven altogether, and they have been called "The Seven Laws of the Sons of Noah" or simply the "Noachian Covenant" or "Noachian Laws." They are binding upon all men. Those who wish to take on the additional responsibilities of Judaism may do so; however, the seven laws of Noah represent for Judaism the minimum essentials for the establishment of a civilized society, and from which no man or nation is exempt. The Rabbis who 63

lived after the Torah was completed did not differentiate between the different Schools of Writers. For them, the Torah was all of one piece. Like their predecessors, the P. School believed that Abraham would be the father of many nations, and, more particularly, to him and his descendants the land of Canaan would be given as an everlasting possession. Thus, with Abraham, too, Yahweh had established a covenant. As a consequence, Abraham's name was changed from Abram, meaning "may the (divine) father be exalted," to Abraham, which, according to the P. Writers, meant "father of a multitude." The covenant, moreover, was to be sealed by the rite of circumcision which the priests regarded as a basic institution of the Priestly Religion. Whoever refused to be circumcised broke, in their opinion, the covenant. He was to be excluded from the community of Israel and the claim that his heirs would inherit the land would automatically be forfeited. By recounting the story of the Cave of Machpelah, the P. Writers also sought to encourage their people in exile. Abraham and Sarah had been buried, they taught, in a cave near Hebron. Even though the promise was not fulfilled in their own lifetime, at least in death the patriarchs would come to inherit the land with their posterity. In this way the P. Writers sought to impress upon the exiles the ultimate fulfillment of the promise. The P. Writers believed that Yahweh's special revelation had been given to Israel at Mount Sinai. In the beginning, Yahweh had established the Sabbath for all men. The covenant with Noah also was universal in its emphasis. Mankind, however, did not wish to accept the responsibility of a covenant relationship. It was necessary, therefore, for Yahweh to pick a special people with whom His covenant could be established. He began with Abraham, the father of all peoples; finally, he selected only Israel to be a Holy People, separated from all the other nations in order that He might dwell in their midst. At Mount Sinai, moreover, Yahweh revealed the laws and institutions that were to be followed if Israel was to be a holy people. Thus, the P. Writers carefully detailed all procedures, for neither ethical nor ritual impurity would be permitted to defile the Holy People. This material was introduced into the JE Account between the story of the making of the covenant and the departure from Sinai. The version of the Ten Commandments as they are best known to us today also comes from the period of the P. School. It is said that the P. Writers took the original shortened form of the Commandments and 04

elaborated upon it in keeping with their own point of view. The D. Writers had done the same thing before them. Apparently, a common tradition had grown up around the original Commandments, so that both the D. and P. Schools were familiar with the same interpretations and developments. It is in the Fourth Commandment particularly that the P. point of view was emphasized. The D. Writers had based the setting aside of the Sabbath as a day of rest upon the fact that Israel once had been enslaved in Egypt; therefore, as a free people it was now fitting for them to observe a day of rest. The P. Writers, on the other hand, concerned with the ritual purity of Israel, ascribed the Sabbath as a day of rest to the fact that such was Yahweh's intention in the very act of Creation. Each of the four stages of Yahweh's systematic plan of revelation, according to the P. Writers, used its own special name for Yahweh. In fact, it was not until the fourth phase — the Revelation at Sinai — that they introduced the name Yahweh itself. In the first two stages, the P. Writers used the name Elohim, which has been translated as "God." When the revelation was given to Abraham, Yahweh was made known by the name of El Shaddai, often translated as "God Almighty." Only when the revelation was directed to Israel alone at Sinai did the name Yahweh appear. The Babylonian Exile witnessed the birth of the Torah book. Ever since King Josiah had established the "Book of the Covenant" as the basis of national life, the thought of a "Constitution," as it were, continued to pervade the thoughts of the people. Out of the religious ferment of the exile, this Constitution was to emerge. After the destruction and exile, remorse and contrition seized the people, rising out of their sense of sin and estrangement from Yahweh. The simple faith in Yahweh's nearness and immanence in Israel's History was shattered. It was as if the Ancient Covenant had been broken. By acts of repentance the people sought to heal the breach that had opened between them and Yahweh and to renew the Covenant. This meant, first, to observe the Torah that was given the people as a basis of the Ancient Covenant. By this alone could Israel hope to be reinstated in divine favor. The idea of collecting all the ancient traditions into one book that could serve as the Constitution of the penitent community came into being. The leaders of the community undertook to finish the task begun by the creator of Deuteronomy: to compile and complete the Torah Book. 65

JED and P. were looked upon as parallel schools, each of which developed simultaneously from antiquity until they were brought together in the Torah Book. The unifier(s) of the Torah Book was of the Priestly group. The unifier(s), however, remains shrouded in the mystery of history. The anonymous editor(s) began with the J. and E. Traditions that had been blended together shortly after the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 721. Into this narrative the editor(s) inserted at various points the Priestly Tradition, which had grown up among the Jerusalem priests. Finally, the editor(s) inserted the Book of Deuteronomy into the Priestly Edition of JE just before the story of Moses' death. (Deut. 34) Thus, the Pentateuch took shape, and the Torah was born. It consisted of 5 scrolls; Bereshith, ("In the Beginning") Shernoth, ("Names") Wayigra, ("And he called") Bemidbar, ("In the wilderness") and Davarim (Words.) The unifier(s) used from the J. Writer's Tradition; The Creation Story, The Flood, Noah's Drunkenness, The Towel of Babel, The Patriarchal Traditions, chronology, and readings on Mosaic Covenant Traditions. From the E. Writer's Tradition; the Traditions of The Patriarchs, the Joseph Story, The Traditions of Bondage and Exodus, the Birth of Moses and The Mosaic Covenant Traditions were used. From the D. Writer's Tradition; their Book of The Law better known as The Book of The Covenant was used. From the P. Writer's Tradition, the unifier(s) used; their Creation Story, the genealogy from Adam to Noah, The Flood, The Covenant with Noah, the traditions of; (1) the Patriarchs, (2) the Exodus, and (3) the wandering. These traditions included; The Nazirite Laws, offerings, appointed offerings, vows and tithes, purification of priests, priestly provisions, and etc. Although the Torah was born during the Babylonian Exile, nearly 150 years elapsed before it was recognized as the Torah Constitution of Israel.

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Chapter Three

The Prophets (Nevi'im) The next part of the Hebrew Bible is Nevi'im (the Prophets). Through my research, I found out the following: In support of the J. and E. Writers, there arose both in Israel and in Judah a group of men that has left an indelible imprint upon Israel's ancient religion and particularly upon the story of the birth of the Torah. These religious giants were the Prophets of the eighth, seventh, and early sixth centuries BCE, who were not only the staunch defenders of the covenant but also the champions of social justice, which they considered to be the heart of the agreement between Israel and Yahweh. The Prophets, according to the time of their appearance, have been divided generally into three groups. The point in history around which these distinctions are made is the Babylonian exile which took place in 587/6 BCE. This was the year in which the Babylonians, who had succeeded the Assyrians as the world's most powerful empire, conquered the city of Jerusalem and destroyed the Holy Temple. The Babylonians then transported many of the Jewish people to Babylonia, where they lived in exile for fifty years. Finally, in 536 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus, who had destroyed the Babylonian power, issued a decree permitting the people to return to the land of Judah. The following groups of prophets now may be distinguished. Those prophets who lived before the Babylonian exile began in 587/6 BCE are known as the preexilic prophets. Those who delivered their message from 587/6 - 536 BCE are called the exilic prophets. The prophets who spoke in the name of Yahweh after the people had returned from Babylonia are referred to as the post-exilic prophets. Their names are as follows: Yehoshua (Joshua), Shophetim (Judges), Shemuel (Samuel), Melakim (Kings), Yeshayahu (Isaiah), Yeremiyahu (Jeremiah), Yehezkel (Ezekiel), Hoshea (Hosea), Yoel (Joel), Amos (Amos), Ovadyah (Obadiah), Yonah (Jonah), Micah (Micah), Nahum (Nahum), Havakkuk (Habakkuk), Tsephanyah (Zephaniah), Haggai (Haggai), Zekaryah (Zechariah), and Malaki (Malachi). 67

The pre-exilic prophets have come to be designated by scholars as the preliterary prophets. This title refers to the fact that none of the actual writings of these prophets has been preserved. The books listed under the heading of the preexilic prophets, they note, contain only stories about the prophets and their activities. The writings of the other prophets, who they prefer to call the literary prophets, they point out, have been preserved in the books bearing their names. In Judaism, all of the authors of the pre-exilic Prophet's Books were believed to have been divinely inspired. The Book of Yehoshua (Joshua) was written by the inspired Yehoshua; while the Books of Shophetim (Judges) and Shemuel (Samuel) were the products of the inspired authorship of Shemuel. The Prophet Yeremiyahu (Jeremiah) was the author of Melakim (Kings). Let us now turn to the evidence that preserves for us the records of the pre-exilic Prophets and seeks to understand the historical settings for their messages. The growth of the Prophetic Movement can be traced by noting the shift from the Prophet as a member of a professional group to that of a lone individual who spoke in the name of Yahweh. In the beginning, the Prophets moved about as a group. Although there are records of such activity as early as the time of Shemuel (Samuel) (I Sam. 10: 1-12) we do not know who these Prophets were. Their names are lost to us. We do know, however, that they were professional soothsayers who would make predictions for a fee. Some scholars today refer to them as mad enthusiasts. Employing musical instruments and ritual dances, the professional prophets frequently would work themselves up into an artificial state of emotional excitement before prophesying. In contrast to the professional Prophets stood the individual Prophets. They went alone, and frequently were very lonely people. They used neither music nor dance to work themselves up into a state of frenzy. Sometimes they would appear suddenly out of nowhere, as it were, to announce their message. At other times, they would dwell among the people, prophesying as the occasion demanded. The role of the individual prophet was to explain to the people of his day what was involved in the covenant relationship with Yahweh. It is improper, therefore, to look upon them as fortune-tellers, or even as wise men who foretold specific future events. A careful check of the prophetic predictions will show that whenever they did try to predict specific events, they were more often wrong than right. Their predictions went wild again and again. The Prophets had no special occult or magical power. They were concerned with pointing out to the people of their respective 68

generations that the will of Yahweh must prevail and not with foretelling specific, isolated events. Their message, simply stated, was: if Israel would continue to violate the terms of its covenant with Yahweh, then Israel would be punished; if, on the other hand, the people were faithful to Yahweh, they would receive Yahweh's blessings. The Prophets saw everything from the standpoint of the divine will. If they pointed to the future, it was only to give warning of the events of their own day. A more appropriate term for the Prophets, therefore, than "foretellers" would be "forthtellers." The Prophets told forth the status of Israel's covenant relationship with Yahweh and set before the people the inevitable consequences of their actions. The Prophets were Yahweh's earthly spokesmen for the divine plan of reward and punishment. The role of the Prophets was not to introduce to the people of their day a new interpretation of the covenant with Yahweh, but to cause the people to return and to fulfill the original obligations of the old covenant relationship with Yahweh. The Prophet Writings were written between the sixth and fourth centuries BCE, and the collection completed around 200 BCE.

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Chapter Four

The Writings (Kethuvim) The Kethuvim or Writings is the last part of the Hebrew Bible. It consists of a selected group of writings written after the Prophets, and prior to the third century BCE, by Jews. The writings are; Tehillim (Psalms), Iyyov (Job), Mishle (Proverbs), Ruth, Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs), Ooheleth (Ecclesiastes), Ekah (Lamentations), Esther, Daniel. Ezra-Nehemyah (Ezra-Nehemiah), and Divre Hayamim (Chronicles). The collection was completed around 90 BCE. The traditional order and the extant Hebrew texts all derive from one Hebrew source of the first century CE, called the Masora. All books in the Tanak (Hebrew Bible), prior to and including Shemuel has been extensively edited by writers who shared the theology of the Deuteronomy Source. The origin of the 'Masora Version' is unknown. About 90 CE, a Rabbinical Council met at Jamnia and canonized the Hebrew Bible thus making it authoritative as scripture for the Jewish community. About 250 BCE, a group of scholars in Alexandria met and began to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek because of the increasing hellenization of the population and Greek becoming the official language of the region. This process of translation took almost two hundred years to complete because the Hebrew Bible was in a constant state of change, new material was being added until about 90 BCE. The final translation chose to contain more books than the Hebrew Bible contains now as well as the order and titles of the books being different. This translation is called the Septuagint and is abbreviated "LXX." The reason for this name was that by legend it took seventy scholars seventy years to complete the translation. The Septuagint later became The Old Testament' of Christianity and in later years, translations were made from it or patterned after it. Translators later improved and altered it to include books of apocrypha and pseudepigrapha translated from text now lost. The Canon of the Septuagint was entirely different from that of the Masora. 70

The contents of this Canon of the Septuagint are what the fortyseven revisers and translators based their rendition of the King James Version of the Old Testament on. The rendition of their interpretation of the contents of the Septuagint after being edited if necessary and approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury and King James, then became King James' authorized version of The Old Testament to be used in the churches of England.

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Chapter Five

The King James Version Of The New Testament My research into the King James Version of the New Testament was more complicated than my research into his version of the Old Testament. The reason for this is that more literature, writings and interpretations were available and involved. The first thing I found out is that the forty-seven revisers and translators based their rendition of the King James Version of the New Testament on the Roman Catholic adaptation and canonization of their New Testament. I will now explain how this came about. Stories of Jesus' life and death were passed on after his death by word of mouth and in writing. The writings were numerous and all different. Some were gospels, books, letters/epistles, notes and etc. Some were authentic, some were not. Some of them or part of some of them were used to create the Roman Catholic New Testament. Many writings considered sacred were not canonized by the Roman Catholic Church but were still accepted by some early Christians as credible. In earlier centuries, many Christians had cherished other Gospels and writings that they sincerely believed to carry the revealed truth about Jesus. It is only from the perspective of later centuries that these texts that nourished the faith of generations of Christians can be called noncanonical. Distinction between the canonical and non-canonical gospels did not exist in the period of Christian origin. Besides the four gospels canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, there were other gospels. (Copies of many of them are available today.) There is what may be called a miracle gospel (the Sign Gospel), infancy gospels (the Infancy Gospels of Thomas and James), and a passion gospel (Gospel of Peter). There are saying gospels: "Q" (the shorthand designation for the Synoptic Sayings Source), The Gospels of Thomas and Mary, the Secret Book of James, and the Dialogue of the Savior. There are fragments of gospels whose full character and ancient titles are unknown. These fragments include: the Gospels of the Hebrews, 72

Nazoreans, and Ebionites, the Egerton Gospel and the Oxyrhynchus Gospels 840 and 1224, the Secret Gospel of Mark (an esoteric edition of a New Testament gospel), and some free floating Jesus traditions we call Orphan Sayings and stories. There are many other available writings and literatures that are not mentioned, researched nor included in this book. The reason is that they were not considered nor included in the King James version of the New Testament. What I have done is summarize the contents of the writings in the King James version of the New Testament. They are as follows: The Gospel of Matthew Although Matthew is the first book (Gospel) of the New Testament, and is traditionally regarded as the earliest Gospel, it is now generally accepted as postdating the Gospel of Mark from which the author drew considerable material. It was clearly written for the Jewish Christians to prove that 'Jesus' was the Son of David, and the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament. There are about sixty references to the Jewish prophecies and about forty quotations from the Old Testament. Matthew traces Jesus' lineage starting with Abraham with repeated declarations that he is the 'Son of David.' Jesus' mission to the Jews is especially emphasized in Matt. 10:5-6, and 15:24, however, Matthew was not written exclusively for the Jews, but ultimately for the whole church. Its purpose was to provide its readers with an eye witness account of Jesus' life to assure its readers that Jesus was God's son and the long awaited messiah foretold by the Old Testament Prophets. Matthew was composed in the last quarter of the first century CE. The traditional ascription is to Saint Matthew and dates from the second century CE. The Gospel of Matthew is based on the Gospel of Mark and the Sayings Gospel Q. The outline of Mark's Gospel is evident in Matthew. Matthew employs the same basic plot as Mark: (1) Jesus' baptism and initial ministry in Galilee, (2) Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi and the transfiguration, (3) Journey to Jerusalem and debates in the temple, (4) Concluding tragic death and resurrection. However, Matthew does not simply repeat Mark's story. While Mark begins with John the Baptist's preaching, Matthew launches his 73

gospel with a genealogy and birth narrative that shows Jesus to be the son of David and thus both the King and the Anointed. At the Gospel's conclusion, the author appends a commissioning scene in which the risen Jesus sends the eleven out to baptize the whole world. The Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark was written to and for the Romans. It is the most concise account of the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Mark is generally thought to be the oldest surviving written Gospel. The document itself never mentions its author, nor the place, time, or circumstances of its origin, but scholars have inferred that the Gospel was composed at about the time of the Roman Judean War (66-70 CE), perhaps in Greek-speaking Syria. Most scholars use the traditional name "Mark," perhaps the 'John Mark' mentioned in Luke's Acts of the Apostles (Acts 12:12, 25; 15:37-39). If Mark's is the first gospel, its 'predecessors' would not have been evangelists in a literary sense, but instead prophets, teachers, missionaries, or community organizers, who passed along memories and stories of Jesus in their own particular social and church situation. When composing his text, Mark drew on many sorts of existing material for his own new purposes of narration. Identifying Mark's sources, and judging whether they were available in written or oral form, make a difficult enterprise. It is believed that there was a pre-Marcan "Passion Narrative" used not only by Mark but also by John (and perhaps also by the Gospel of Peter). The Gospel of Mark is written in a lively and direct story-teller's style. During the process of copying and recopying Mark's Gospel, Christian scribes introduced some major expansions into the text, most famously at the end of the story. Unsatisfied with the bleak conclusion showing the terrified women running away from the tomb (at 16:8), early copyists preferred to continue with additions of various lengths to portray the risen Jesus appearing to his Disciples and commanding them to begin the work of evangelization. These additions are traditionally called the "Shorter Ending" and "Longer Ending" of Mark, though it would be more appropriate to term them shorter and longer "Supplements."

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The Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke is the first of two books addressed to a man named Theophilus. Luke opens his two-volume narrative with a statement of his motive and purpose (1:1-4). Luke tactfully expresses dissatisfaction with previous narratives about Jesus and implies that his gospel will set the record straight and assure readers (addressed through Theophilus) of the integrity of their tradition. The Acts of the Apostles begins with an address to Theophilus that refers to the gospel as "the First Book." The author therefore intends both works to be read together. Luke-Acts comprises over one fourth of the total text of the New Testament. In his sprawling narrative, Luke is comprehensive in recording the events beginning in Jerusalem before the birth of Jesus and ending with Paul preaching the gospel in Rome. It is nothing less than a story of the working out of God's plan to offer salvation to humankind. This salvation was anticipated by Israel, definitively announced by Jesus, and continues to be offered through the church. Luke-Acts carefully connects what God does in Jesus and through the church to the promises made to Israel through its Prophets. Luke sets the story of Jesus within this larger story. In Luke, unlike the other Gospels, Jesus is not the prime mover of the narrative, though he is, of course, its central figure. It is God who determines the course of events in the story. Luke expresses this by describing certain events as predetermined or directed by the Holy Spirit. Although God directs the story, He does so from "offstage." God speaks directly only twice to certify the divine mandate of Jesus' mission (3:22; 9:35). In his preface, Luke acknowledges that there already was a tradition of gospel writing before he began his project. Among the works to which he alludes, at least two served as his literary sources: the Gospel of Mark, from which Luke takes his narrative framework, and the Sayings Gospel Q, an important fund of teaching ascribed to Jesus. In addition, about one-third of the material in Luke's Gospel has no known literary source (and so is called special Lukan material). Some of it was traditional and some of it was composed by Luke. Within the special Lukan material is some of the most famous teachings in the gospel tradition: the stories about Martha and Mary, the Ten Lepers, Zacchaeus, the Parables, the Prodigal Son, Lazarus and the Rich Man, and etc. Luke shows a strong interest in the universalism of the Christian message. Jesus' offer of salvation comes first to Israel, but is meant for 75

the whole World. Luke's writing was written to the Gentiles and shows sensitivity for a gentile audience. He regularly translates or omits Aramaic terms in his sources, and often substitutes Greek names for Semite ones. He omits Mark's story about the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30), the one story most likely to offend Gentiles. He depicts Jesus freely interacting with non-Jews and using them as positive examples in his teachings. Luke presents Jesus so as to be intelligible to Greco-Roman readers. He sets Jesus' birth in the context of World History (2:1) and traces his genealogy all the way to Adam (not simply to the Jewish progenitor Abraham, as in the genealogy offered by Matthew). Although Luke affirms that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah foretold in the scriptures, he is the only Synoptic Writer to present Jesus also as a "Saviour," a Hellenistic title for Divine Deliverers. Luke-Acts was intended to be seen as a Charter Document for a church taking stock for the long haul: showing it how to understand its past, (its Jewish roots) and how to live in an open-ended present, by following the teachings of Jesus (in his Gospel) as modeled by the earliest disciples (in Acts), and by a continual openness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John The Gospel of John is unique among the four Gospels. It records much about Jesus' Ministry in Judea and Jerusalem that the Synoptic Gospels omit, and reveals more fully the mystery of his personhood. It is almost totally different from the other three (Synoptic) Gospels. In John there is nothing of Jesus' teachings in parables or his associating with the outcast. He performs no exorcisms and barely gives ethical teaching. Virtually nothing is found here of the synoptic eschatology. Jesus accomplishes miracles, but in the Greek they are called "signs" —just what the synoptics' Jesus refuse to give. They are done solely to prove that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. This focus on Jesus' divinity — established not by birth narratives as in Matthew and Luke, but by the sonorous theological language of the hymn to the eternal divine word become human (1:1-18) — are both more prominent and at the same time simply taken for granted. Jesus speaks not like the first century itinerant teacher that he in fact was, but as if he was from Heaven, revealing the nature of God. All the Gospels paint a Christian, that is, a post-resurrection, portrait of Jesus, but this Gospel far more 76

than the others. The later Christian creeds were based on the theological language of John's Gospel much more than on that of the Synoptic Gospels. The author of the Gospel of John, like those of the Synoptic Gospels, is anonymous and only a century later was identified with John, the son of Zebedee (and he with "the disciple Jesus loved most"). According to several ancient sources, the elderly Apostle while residing at Ephesus, was requested by the Elders of Asia to write a 'Spiritual Gospel' in order to counteract and refute a dangerous heresy about the nature, person and deity of Jesus led by a persuasive Jew named Cerinthus. John states his purpose for writing his Gospel in 20:31 ("that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God"). The author of John probably drew from a variety of sources. It appears the writer knew of the Gospels of Mark and Luke, but not Matthew. The Gospel appears to be highly structured on both the level of time (the Jewish festivals which Jesus replaces) and themes, such as words, signs, and controversies. There are two parts to the Gospel that are very different. Part one is chapters 1-12 that contains Jesus' public ministry shown as being not to successful. Part two is chapters 13-21 where the focus shifts to the disciples. The work divides, at the beginning of chapter 13, roughly into two halves: (1) the account of Jesus' public career, with its miracles (signs) and the discourses they occasion, and (2) the last supper (consisting mostly of Jesus' farewell instructions to "his own"), followed immediately by his arrest, trial, and execution, and finally the resurrection. The Gospel appears to also be worked at by more than one person. It has been added to and rearranged. Chapter 21 definitely appears to be an appendix added after chapter 20. This can be seen in the endings of each chapter which seem to repeat each other. The date of writing is placed sometime after 90 CE, but before 140 CE The place of writing has traditionally been put in Ephesus. Acts of the Apostles Acts of the Apostles is a History Book of the early church. Acts is the second of two Books written to Theophilus in order to fill a need in the Gentile Church for a full account of the beginning of Christianity. Acts selectively covers the first thirty years of the Church's History. As a church historian, Luke traces the spread of the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome mentioning no fewer than 32 countries, 54 cities, 9 77

Mediterranean Islands, 96 different persons by name and a variety of Governmental Officials and administrators by their precise titles. Archaeology continues to confirm his amazing accuracy in all his details. It was written about 90 CE. The next part of the New Testament consists of 21 Letters or Epistles from various people. Thirteen of these Letters are ascribed by tradition to Paul (known as 'Apostle' to the Gentiles); however, only seven are felt by scholars to actually be written by Paul. They are Romans, I and II Corinthians, Philippians, I Thessalonians, Philemon, and Galatians. Before I summarize the contents of these letters, I will tell you a little about the author.

Paul Paul was born Saul in Tarsus of Cilica, a prosperous commercial center on the south coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey). His parents were wealthy Jews of Tarsus. He was born a Roman citizen. Tarsus was known for its many philosophical schools; however, Paul, being a Pharisee, was sent to Jerusalem to be educated in accord with his strict Jewish faith and traditions. He studied in Jerusalem under Gamaliel I., and was proud of his Jewish heritage. He was converted to Christianity about 34 CE. We only have some letters by Paul's own hand as a source of information about his life and they provide little detail. He was and is considered as one of the organizers of the early Christian Church. After his conversion, his whole life changed. He astonished the Jews by beginning to preach the Gospel of Christ in their synagogues. He was so successful in converting the Jews that he had to secretly flee the city. He was arrested and stayed in jail four years. Legend has it that he died in Rome about 64/5 CE, by beheading on Nero's orders. Though Paul had a theological education, his letters are only records of his thoughts and not theological abstracts. They are responses to practical situations and were often written in situations of conflict. When reading Paul's Letters, you will see that he had an eschatological viewpoint. He saw Christ's return as imminent and everyone should be prepared. I Corinthians This letter was written by Paul approximately 54 CE, while he was staying in Ephesus. The purpose of the letter was to deal with several 78

problems that had come to his attention that were endangering the Christian life of the community at Corinth. The letter is divided into two distinctive sections. The first part is Chapters 1-6 that contains Paul's reaction to the message sent to him about the church by Chloe. The second part is Chapters 7-15 that are Paul's answers to the problems posed on the letter from the church. Chapter 16 contains a conclusion. II Corinthians Paul's second letter to the Corinthians was written from Macedonia in the autumn of the year 55 CE; but this Epistle, though less complicated than the first by editorial treatment, also contains elements of various dates and origin. It was written during a difficult period in his relation with the church at Corinth. In the first part of the letter, Paul discusses his relationship with the church at Corinth, explaining why he had responded with severity to insult and opposition in the church and expressing his joy that the severity had resulted in repentance and reconciliation. Then comes an inserted passage on instructions about keeping company with pagans. What follows concerns the happy issue of the mission to the Corinthians undertaken by Titus; it forms the original conclusion of the letter. The rest of the Epistle would perhaps be better understood as coming from a distance in time and from the pen of an impassioned disciple. It flows in the same current of thought and style as the praise of the apostolate in the first part of the Epistle.

Romans This letter was written by Paul probably during a stay in Corinth, but certainly from somewhere in Greece. It was most likely written during the time Gallio was proconsul of Achaia that would be about 51/2 CE, but a date of as late as 56-58 CE, also has been suggested for the writing. It is unclear why Paul wrote this letter. It contains no clear summary of Paul's thoughts. It is believed that he wrote it to prepare the way for his planned visit to the church at Rome. His plan was to work among the Christians there for a while and then, with their support, to go on to Spain. He wrote to explain his understanding of the Christian faith and its practical implications for the lives of Christians. It is a real letter expressing real concerns, even if they were not unique to the 79

Roman church. These concerns deal with an almost unrelieved picture of humanity without Christ, justification of all by faith that depends not on the Law, but on faith, and on their individual God given talents or gifts and how to exercise them without envy or jealousy. The formulas of conclusion, which multiply towards the end bear witness to surcharges and retouchings. Galatians Paul's letter to the Galatians was probably written while he stayed in Ephesus. It has been dated sometime between 54-56 CE. It was written in order to bring back to true faith and practice those people who were being misled by this false teaching. He began by defending his right to be called an Apostle of Jesus Christ. He insists that his call to be an Apostle came from God, not from human authority, and that his mission was especially to the non-Jews. His concern in this letter is with Christian freedom. He writes because he saw the rending that could take place in a community when some observed prescriptions of the Jewish Law and others did not. He saw the impairment of common worship and table fellowship. He also saw the centrality of Christ being compromised because observance of regulations had some part in salvation. Thus Paul says that if the Law is necessary, Christ is not the only way to salvation, but Christ is the only way. Ephesians It is believed that the Epistle to the Ephesians was probably presented originally as the letter to the Laodiceans mentioned in Colossian. The style of this spurious Epistle is turbid and obscure. Even though authorship is attributed to Paul, it is not believed that he wrote it. As to the foundation of it, the author replaces the cosmological and soteriological gnosis of Colossians by a gnosis that might be called mainly ecclesiological, integrating the myth of salvation by the Christ into his own myth of the church. It is suppose to concern God's plan. In the first part, the writer develops the theme of unity by speaking of the way in which God the Father has chosen his people, how they are forgiven and set free from their sins through Jesus Christ the Son, and how God's great promise is guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. In the second part he appeals to the readers to live in such a way that their 80

oneness in Christ may become real in their life together. Its composition goes back to the first third of the second century. Thessalonians The first of the Thessalonians, if authentic, as it seems to be, would date from the year 51 CE, the oldest document of Christian literature to which an approximate date can be assigned. It was written to encourage and reassure the Christians there. He gives thanks for the news about their faith and love; he reminds them of the kind of life he had lived while he was with them, and then answers questions that had arisen in the church about the return of Christ. It is not free from editorial surcharges and the long passage on the resurrection must be a late insertion. Imitated from the first Epistle and specially coordinated with the insertion of the resurrection of the dead, the Second to Thessalonians is, for the most part, a theological dissertation on the conditions of the Second Advent. Confusion over the expected return of Christ continued to cause disturbance in the church. This Second Letter to the Thessalonians deals with the belief that the day of the Lord's coming had already arrived. The author tries to correct this idea, pointing out that before Christ returns, evil and wickedness will reach a climax under the leadership of a mysterious figure called 'the Wicked One' or Antichrist, who would be opposed to Christ. It is not written for the instruction of a particular community but aimed rather to dissipate the general uneasiness of Christian thought in regard to the Parousia, impatiently expected and continually postponed. The document is conceived in the spirit of the Synoptic Gospels and is probably not earlier than the first quarter of the second century.

Philippians Paul's letter to the Philippians was written between 59 and 61 CE. It was written to the first church that he established on European soil, in the Roman province of Macedonia. It was written around the time Paul was in prison, and at a time when he was troubled by the opposition of other Christian workers towards himself and was distressed by false teaching in the church at Phillipi. Though of mediocre compass, this Epistle has the appearance of being a compilation of two letters. 81

Towards the middle is a clean cut, following on a vehement outburst against Judaism that recalls the fiery apology of Paul in Second Corinthians. Moreover, in the first part of the Epistle it reads that Epaphroditus, Paul's messenger to the Philippians, has just left the Apostle after being long at his side, while in the second part we are told that this same Epaphroditus is just come to him, bringing the help for which Paul thanks the Philippians. Plain proof that the Epistle is a compilation made up of two short letters placed in inverted order, the first belonging approximately to 59, the second to 60. To the two letters thus brought together were added, about the beginning of the second century, certain elements of Christian gnosis and anti-Jewish polemic. Philemon Philemon was a prominent Christian, probably a member of the church at Colossae and the owner of a slave named Onesimus. This slave had run away from its master, and then somehow he had come in contact with Paul. Onesimus had become a Christian. Paul's letter to Philemon is an appeal to Philemon to be reconciled to his slave, whom Paul is sending back to him, and to welcome him not only as a forgiven slave but as a Christian brother. It was supposedly written around the same time Paul's Epistle to the Colossians was written.

Colossians The Epistle to the Colossians, which some critics would attach to a hypothetical captivity at Ephesus, seem rather to have been written while Paul was a prisoner in Rome between 59 and 61 CE, but the authenticity of Colossians is contestable. In it there is developed a mystical gnosis in affinity with that in Romans, though sensibly different in its formulas, and akin to the Epistles to the Hebrews. This gnosis has the appearance of being affirmed in opposition to another of Judaizing tendencies that may possibly be the cult of Zeus Sabazios. Certain incoherences in the editing of the Epistle lead us to think that a document of Christian gnosis was attributed to Paul, as an afterthought, by means of the additions concerning his captivity, an authentic letter being utilized at the end for establishing a close relationship between the Epistle to the Colossians, and that to Philemon, as we now have them. The authenticity of the latter, as a whole, presents no great diffi82

culty. But the Epistle to the Colossians should rather be referred to the beginning of the second century. The church that it was written to had not been established by Paul, but was in the area for which Paul felt responsible, as he sent out workers from Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province in Asia. Paul had learned that there were false teachers in the church at Colossae who insisted that in order to know God, and have full salvation, one must worship certain "spiritual rulers and authorities." In addition, these teachers said, one must submit to special rites such as circumcision and must observe strict rules about foods and other matters. Paul writes to oppose these teachings with the true Christian message. The heart of his reply is that Jesus Christ is able to give full salvation and that these other beliefs and practices actually lead away from him. Only in union with Christ is there hope of salvation for the world. Paul then spells out the implications of this great teachings for the lives of believers. It is noteworthy that Tychicus, who took this letter to Colossae for Paul, was accompanied by Onesimus, the slave on whose behalf Paul wrote to Philemon.

Hebrews This letter is of unknown authorship to an unknown readership. It has been ascribed to Paul, but the style of writing and the fact that the author indicates he belongs to a later generation (Heb 2:3-4) seems to rule out Paul as the writer. The book was probably written in the late first century, but was said to have been written to a group of Hebrew Christians based on references in the letter. These Christians who, faced with increasing opposition, were in danger of abandoning the Christian faith. The writer encourages them in their faith primarily by showing that Jesus Christ is the true and final revelation of God. Though it is called an epistle or letter, it has few of the characteristics of the classic letter style. Rather, it is a discussion of a major theological issue relating to Christian revelation as being the final revelation of God. The writer draws on many references in the Hebrew Scriptures to prove his case. Also, the writer continues to exhort his readers not to give up their faith, even in the face of persecution, but to hold on because their salvation and hope is in Christ.

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I and II Timothy and Titus (The Pastoral Epistles) The Pastoral Epistles consist of I and II Timothy and Titus. They are referred to as "pastoral" because the main concern of these letters seems to be dealing with the role of church members and conduct of the churches. The author of these letters traditionally has been thought of as Paul. The reason for this belief is related to the personal notes found in the letters. For this to be true, Paul would had to have been released from prison in Rome, traveled to Asia and Macedonia, and then perhaps to Crete. Then he would have been arrested again, tried, convicted, and executed in Rome sometime in the early to mid sixties. Many scholars feel that the letters were written by a much later author writing in Paul's name and addressing the concerns as Paul would have addressed them. As discussed previously, this was a common practice of the time. This would place the writing of these letters in the early second century. The major concerns of the letters appear to be two-fold. The threat of serious heresy and the urging of preventative measures to stabilize the church and make it witness more effective. The heresy that was being dealt with is uncertain, but some of the behavior of the heretics are described. To combat the heresy "sound doctrine" is to be preached and leaders of the church must be capable teachers and exhibit conduct above reproach. The writer expresses concern for the leaders of the church and proceeds to describe the function of each.

James The author of this letter identifies himself as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ." (1:1) One view of the identity of James is that he is the brother of Jesus. However, the excellent Greek style that is used would be unlikely for a person of that background. Also the discussing of the abuse of Paul's letters in the church and the fact that there was a discussion in the early church about who wrote this letter seems to lead to the obvious conclusion James, the brother of Jesus was not the author. It is difficult to identify the audience for this letter, but they seemed to be experiencing much difficulty with poverty, sickness, giving to the poor, and the attractiveness to the culture of the secular world. 84

The Epistle begins with the standard introduction, but that is as far as it resembles the classic letter style of the time. There seem to be no coherent development of a major theme, but the writer seems to deal with several issues in small sections. These issues include: how to deal with wealth and generosity, wisdom, testing, ethical conduct, and encouragement towards works of compassion as a demonstration of faith. The issue of good works as addressed by the writer seems to be almost a counterpoint to Paul and his theology of justification by faith alone. The writer of James tells his readers that good works are a necessary part of one's faith and part of Jesus' love command. While it seems to contradict Paul's position, it does not. Paul's main problem was with circumcision and dietary regulations as a means of salvation, not with works of compassion that Jesus commanded. Thus, the writer of James could have been writing to correct abuses of Paul's theology. I Peter While this letter claims to come from the Apostle Peter, the Greek style used would seem to come from a person more educated than Peter would likely have been. The letter was probably written the latter part of the first century by a follower of Peter who wished to address a new situation in Asia Minor in the spirit of Peter. The suggestion that Peter gave Silvanus (5:12) the authority to write it in Peter's name is also possible, but the situation described in the letter takes place in the late first century long after Peter's death. The letter is a summary of Christian exhortation. It serves to tell the newly baptized converts of their new life in Christ, how to live this new life in Christ and putting this new life in perspective with Christ's suffering and resurrection. The letter also aims to socialize the new converts by giving them a coherent view of their new life in terms of Christian stories and symbols. II Peter While the author of this letter claims to be Peter, it more likely to be someone writing in Peter's name. It is thought by many scholars to have been written in the late first or early second century owing to references concerning the delay in Christ's return. The place of authorship is impossible to determine from the letter. 85

There seems to be two main points to this letter. The first is a defense of God's lordship over all creation and the fact that Christ will indeed return in a final judgment of creation. This defense is made in the face of increasing pressure from heretics who were stating that Christ would not return and there was no final judgment. The second point is a response to the heretics. The author denounces these people and restates the prophecy of Jesus returning in final judgment.

Jude The letter of Jude is one of the general Epistles of the Christian Scriptures. The author of the letter describes himself as "a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James." This would seem to make Judas one of the brothers of Jesus described in Matthew 16:33, and Mark 6:3. However, the evidence in the letter would seem to indicate a later date for the letter that would make such an authorship unlikely. The author challenges the readers to contend for the faith "once for all delivered to the saints" (v. 17) and to "remember" the word of the Apostles (v. 17). This seems to suggest that the author is not contemporary with the Apostles. The letter does not conform to the style of the classic Greek letter. It does not identify the readers nor does it have a closing greeting. It seems to be addressed to a general audience about the inroads being made by heretical groups who endanger the faith. The heretics are described as those who "set up divisions." (V. 19) Scholars think these heretics may be an early sect of the Gnostics. The author denounces the heretics and warns of severe punishment. I, II, and III Epistles of John These epistles of John were supposedly written between 90-100 CE. Of the three Epistles attributed to the Apostle John, the first, like the Epistle to the Hebrews, does not affect the form of a letter. It consists of instruction, dogmatic and moral, perhaps originally founded on a rhythmical discourse as those found in the fourth Gospel. The successive editions of the Epistle seem to have been coordinate-ordinate with those of the Gospel itself; whence it would follow that the last edition, directed against gnosticism, cannot be earlier than the middle of the second century. This would also be the date of the two smaller Epistles, which have only the appearance of letters, the designation of the author being 86

deliberately vague, as well as that of the recipients. The two were intended to act as convoy to the first in its final form, the second condemning the Docetic Christology, perhaps especially that of Marcion, while the third blasts those leaders of the community who oppose the Johannine writings. All three Epistles, like the fourth Gospel, were worked into their present form in Ephesian surroundings.

Revelation This book was written by a John of Patmos. This John has been by tradition equated with John the Apostle. Most scholars feel that this is not the case. The John who wrote the Revelation is an unknown who lived on the island of Patmos. From the material contained in the book, scholars have categorized it as a type of a "Prophetic" Book written about 95/6 CE. Revelation makes use of traditional images. Thus it is kind of an allegorical narrative. There are two levels of meaning: the old story evoked by traditional images and the new story that is the substance of the narrative. Revelation contains letters to seven churches in Asia Minor. The writer's main concern is to give his readers hope and encouragement, and to urge them to remain faithful during times of suffering and persecution. For the most part the book consists of several series of revelations and visions presented in symbolic language that would have been understood by Christians of that day, but would have remained a mystery to all others. They deal with roughly similar problems in which each church is told to repent or face having its relationship with Christ broken. The problems generally deal with how the individual churches are living out the faith in Christ. It seems most of the churches are involved in some type of compromise, such as, tolerating sexual immorality or eating food sacrificed to idols. It tells of the New Jerusalem where God will reign for eternity and there will be eternal peace for those who have been found worthy and whose names have been written in the book of life. The seven churches dealt with are Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. In the next chapter I will share with you my assessment of my research into the origin of the King James Version of the Holy Bible, and what I now accept as truth about it and its contents as a result of my research. 87

Chapter Six

Assessment of My Research This is my assessment of my research into the contents of the King James Version of The Holy Bible, and of any other version that is based on the Torah, Hebrew Scriptures and/or the New Testament Scriptures canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Before I get into my assessment, I would like to address what I was taught about the authorship of the Holy Bible. I was taught and it is still being taught that the contents of the Holy Bible was written under divine authorship of God by writers inspired by him. My assessment of that teaching is as follows: The idea of books entirely God-made, but written in the languages of men, in the native dialects of particular peoples and in the idiom of given times, an idea widely spread in the ancient world and retained in Christian orthodoxy, is inconsistent and self contradictory. Professional authors are relatively newcomers in the history of our race. But even if they were more ancient than they are, we can hardly imagine anything more indiscreet, not to say more flagrantly impious, than to put God among these worthies, where he has to be furnished with assistants, as though he could not dispense with them, to write down what he would say and attend to the publication of his works. Theologians tax their wits to explain how God can be, in any real sense, the author of books that he has neither written himself nor dictated word by word. Their explanation is that He suggested them. How do they know that? Do they really understand what they are saying? Had they taken the pains to look into the matter, without thought of axes to be ground, they would have seen that the books themselves make not the slightest claim to the divine origin attributed to them by theologians, but are in fact made up, in the human manner, of tradition and teaching; of rules political, social and ritual; of liturgical chants; of oracles deemed prophetic (not uncommon in the Ancient World, and of which we should be hard put to it to find the fulfillment); of collections of moral precepts such as we find among all Nations; and of a group of 88

myths, clearly recognizable as such, to account for the origin of the world and of mankind. All of which has undergone an age-long process of glossing and amalgamation clearly due to human initiative, and not even to be thought of as proceeding from God's initiative in any part or stage of it. What anthropomorphism could be more naive than that which counts the authorship of books among the attributes of God? These remarks, it will be said, apply to the Old Testament only. They apply equally to the New. A long, slow process brought the Gospels to their present form without any sign of divine initiative at the beginning or the end or at any point between the two; at a given time they were selected, from among many, by the Church authorities and the text of their content finally determined. The same is true of the Acts of the Apostles. It is well worthy of note that the author of the Gospel and of Acts, who wrote the prologues to Theophilus, assumes full responsibility for his work, for his method and for the object he has in view. The Apostolic Epistles, authentic or not, are personal works called forth by particular occasions. Moreover a considerable part of them are forgeries, for which it would be unseemly enough to make God directly responsible. And what about the Book of Revelation - the Apocalypse of John? The best that can be said of it is that for centuries men have taxed their wits to find in it a meaning that is not there, for the simple reason that the meaning that is there was immediately contradicted by the course of events. Alas, this glowing prophecy was not fulfilled. Who can believe that it came entirely from God? In short, the idea of God as author of books is a myth, if ever there was one, and a myth redolent of magic. A book written by the hand of man and filled throughout with the light of God is as inconceivable as a square circle. The books reputed all divine are simply not filled with truth from beginning to end - far from it! They contain as many errors as books of their kind, written when they were, could be made to hold. To this notion of divine authorship, so artificial and fragile, the Church committed her future and compromised it in so doing. Persuaded that her Sacred Books were filled with truth for all time, she has not hesitated to oppose them to the scientific movement of our age. We know what has come of that. In spite of this, the Church is still convinced, and would have it believed, that her Sacred Books contain nothing contrary to truth about the order of the universe, and that the Bible, though knowing nothing about the matter, does not contradict it, but only uses the common language of mankind that speaks of things as they seem to be. Can she really believe that by a subterfuge of this kind, 89

which amounts to charging the Scriptures with ignorance, she is really safeguarding their divine authority? Is there any denying that the first chapters of Genesis profess to give a true account of the creation of the world, the origin of humanity up to the Deluge and the genealogy of all the people? All that is unadulterated myth, the babblings of humanity's childhood, but not unmingled with sublimity. If God is the responsible author of the story he must have been ignorant of the constitution of the universe which, on the orthodox hypothesis, he had created, and equally ignorant of the long and confused pre-history of the race which he had brought into being and established on the earth to serve him. Not only at this starting point, but along the whole line of historical and literary criticism, the traditional doctrine is in complete collapse. To begin with, consider the question that concerns the authenticity of the documents. Since God is their author, the divine guarantee covers their attribution to the particular scribes whose names they carry. What an embarrassment is thereby erected by the Pentateuch alone! The attribution of this collection to Moses is attested by Jewish tradition, but equally, it would seem, by the New Testament and by the authority of the Christ himself who, in a certain passage of the fourth Gospel (John 5:46) declares that Moses wrote concerning him. And yet it is the almost unanimous verdict of critics that the oldest source from which the compilation is derived goes no further back than the time of the Israelite monarchy, while the bulk of the cultural legislation contained in it is later than the Babylonian captivity. Not a page, one might even say not a line, can be traced to him whom the tradition of Israel and of the Christian Church regards as the founder of the Jewish Religion. To explain the divinity of the sources, the Papal Commission of Biblical Study declared, in a memorable decree, that Moses had secretaries. The secretaries of Moses! A brilliant discovery, to be sure! But we have nothing to do with them since, if these interesting persons ever existed, we should have to admit that not a trace of their work has come down to us. This, far from being a solitary case, is only one of the more conspicuous and significant. The case of Isaiah is also worth recalling. The book named after Isaiah as it appears in the Bible contains much besides the authentic oracles of the prophet who was contemporary with Ezechias. Notably one whole section, the last twenty-four chapters, were written, as all the evidence shows, either in the presence of the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus or shortly afterwards. Nonetheless they were reputed the work of Isaiah for the sole reason that in the 90

process of copying the manuscript they were attached to the roll that had Isaiah's name on it. Speaking generally we may say that the oracles of the ancient Prophets have been systematically completed and interpolated in the process of coming down to us. Has the veracity of God nothing to do with the false attribution of these additions to the authors of the original oracles? The question assumes a more difficult aspect, if that be possible, when we turn to the books of the New Testament. Here all the writings have human authors who either name themselves or are expressly indicated by tradition. Everyone knows that the Church recognized and retained four Gospels respectively attributed to the apostle Matthew, to Mark (reputed a disciple of Peter), to Luke, who was a disciple to Paul, and to the apostle John. Now it is morally certain, and admitted by the majority even of moderate critics, that these attributions are, to say the least, approximative, the books not having been written all at one time by single hands nor given their present canonical form from the beginning. Many, moreover, are of the opinion that not one of the Gospels is the work of the apostolic person whose name it bears, and that the Apostle John, in particular, had nothing whatsoever to do with writing the Gospel attributed to him. But, if God is their guarantee, his veracity demands that each of them be integrally the work of the author assigned by tradition. I have already mentioned the Acts of the Apostles, a book that, like the third Gospel, presents conditions somewhat peculiar. Alone among New Testament writings these two carry a dedication, of a well-known type in Greco-Roman antiquity. Luke was not the author of the dedications to Theophilus, the general prologue (Luke 1,14) forbidden me to include the author of it in the first Christian generation. Furthermore, the part of the prologue to Acts that has been preserved implies that the former book to Theophilus did not contain the birth stories and related only the 'ministry' of the Christ up to the time of his death. Finally all the evidence shows that the second part of the original prologue to Acts, in which the proper object of the book was stated by the original author, has been mutilated by a writer who understood that object in a different manner from the author to Theophilus and who, in consequence, had to reconstruct his book from beginning to end as, in fact, he has done. All this later writer has conserved of Luke's work is certain fragments of his memoirs of which the original author to Theophilus had made a fuller use. It follows that Luke wrote neither the third Gospel nor Acts. He wrote only certain passages of the latter book, and we are compelled 91

to recognize at least two stages in the composition of both books. It would seem, however, that the veracity of God forbids us to observe and record such things, and obliges us to maintain that both books, in their canonical edition, are from the hand of Luke. According to tradition, Paul wrote fourteen Epistles and the veracity of God demands the belief that all are truly his. But the Epistle to the Hebrews is positively not from him; the second to Thessalonians is almost certainly apocryphal; so is the Epistle to the Ephesians; many holds that the Epistle to Timothy and to Titus, in their main contents, cannot be his. Also, there is much to be said against the full authenticity of the Epistles to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, and to the Colossians. Here is a group of questions that the veracity of God forbids me to even raise. As a matter of fact, I will abstain from the cruelty of further evidence to verify what is so apparent. I did not mean to spend so much time explaining why the Bible could not have been written by divine authorship or divine intervention, but I wanted to show you that it was impossible for the Creator to have had anything whatsoever to do with either the writing or the contents of the Holy Bible. What really amazes me about this is that it is so plain that the Religious Societies of the world would have to be either 'brainwashed' or gullible and stupid not to have realized this. But you see, we only know and act on what we are taught. I am a perfect example of this. If I had not questioned the Bible, I would still be 'brainwashed' today. I will go further into this in my last chapter. Now to get back to my assessment of my research. The root of the Old Testament Scriptures conies from the J. School of writers and the Constitution (Tradition) they created. The content of that Constitution is the cause of this modern world being in the confused religious state of being that its in. It is this school of writers who unintentionally misused the authority of the mighty pen and misled their people, and eventually, the majority of the entire Religious World, into accepting and believing something that they made up and knew wasn't true. The first thing they did wrong was to use the Epic of Gilgamesh to format their Creation Story. Worse than that and the most catastrophic brainwashing event in the existence of mankind was for them to make Yahweh, [their mythical God of Mount Sinai] the creator of this earth. The reason for this is that there has to be and really is a Creator of this earth and his name is not Yahweh. Not only is his name not Yahweh, he did not make a covenant with any human being nor 92

chose or make the Israelites a special people. Everything in the Torah, Hebrew Scriptures, Old and New Testaments and even the Koran is based on this falsehood. The J. Writers had no idea of the impact their constitution would have on future world religion(s). They had no idea of the word archeology and what it represents today. They did not know then that one day, the same epic that they formatted their creation story from would come into existence. The only thing they wanted to do was to unite their people under one god with a moral code and constitution. Yahweh was the God they chose to do this under and from then on, they were the creators of the laws of Yahweh and the messengers and enforcers of his will. They created and/or copied parts of fictitious and mythical legends and stories to support and solidity their falsehood. This was done to explain to their people how and why Yahweh chose them to be his 'Special People.' The (P) School of writers accepted and agreed with the J. Writers falsehood about Israel being the Creator's "Chosen People" and their explanation of how and why he chose them, but did not agree with nor accept their creation story and created their own, based on the same Epic. This added insult to injury because when the Unifier(s) of the Torah unified the different Constitutions (Traditions) into the Torah of the Hebrew Bible, both Creation stories were incorporated into it, even though they were different. The P. School's account begins with the opening verse of Genesis (1:1) and continues through Chapter 2, verse 4a. (The "a" means that only the first half of verse 4 belongs to this Creation story.) The J. School's Version of the Creation Story is found in Genesis 2:4b-25. The raising of two questions immediately will dramatize the obvious differences between the J. and P. Creation Stories. (1) On what day was man created? And (2) Was man created alone? A rapid review of the Bible text will indicate that in the P. Version both male and female alike were created on the sixth day (Gen. 1:27-31). In the J. Version, however, there is no listing of days; moreover, man is not the last act of Creation. He is among the first things created (Gen. 2:7), and woman is, as it were, an afterthought (Gen. 2:18-25). As stated in the introduction of this book, the contradicting Creation Stories was one of the many contradicting scriptures in the Bible that I questioned in my youth and was told that the Holy Scriptures do not contradict each other and that I was too young and/or had to be a Christian to properly discern and understand the Bible. The E. and P. Schools of writers did not accept the J. Writers use of Yahweh as the God of: Creation, Noah, and the Patriarchs because their 93

'Oral Torah' taught them different. So, they used Elohim in their Constitutions when they referred to the Creator of this earth and to the god of the time before Moses. Regardless of what name they called him, each tradition incorporated into the Torah (J, E, D and P), taught its people, followers and readers to believe that the Creator of this earth chose them to be his 'Special' People. This falsehood has been passed on from generation to generation for over three thousand years and was taught to me via the King James Version of the Holy Bible via the Septuagint and Hebrew Bible. In reality, I do not need to assess the rest of the King James Version of the Old Testament because I now realize and know that the God they refer to throughout their entire Old Testament is the Mythical god(s) of the Israelites and Jewish people, and not the Creator of this earth. To prove my point, I will share with you a few other creations of the Jewish people's god(s) that are not creations of the Creator of this earth. Please bear in mind that the creator(s) of the Jewish People's god(s) is also the creator(s) of the actions and deeds of the god(s). Let's start with Noah and The Flood Story. Please reread and compare the following: the J. and P. Writers' versions of it, and what the unifier(s) used from each of them in the Torah. Now reread the Flood episode in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Can there be any question in your mind whatsoever that Noah's Flood Story was formatted from the Flood episode in the Epic of Gilgamesh and not created by the Creator of this earth? If you agree with me, then you will also have to agree that Noah's drunkenness never happened because Noah never existed. This earth and all of the life within it was never destroyed by water. How can water (regardless of how much) destroy sea life? The Flood Story and Noah's drunkenness were created and used by the J. School of writers to set the stage for Abraham to come on the scene and through him, the Jewish People become the Creator of this earth's 'Chosen People.' I was always curious about the storytelling form of the scriptures. I couldn't understand how the storytellers knew things that were impossible for them to know. For example, what the Creator of this earth was thinking, what his plan for mankind is, what he said to people that they were not there to hear, about the creation of Lucifer and other so-called angels, about Lucifer's fall from grace, how sin first came into existence, what the angels said to people like Abraham and Sarah, and other conversations that they describe that they were not present to hear. (Like the conversation between the Creator and Noah.) It's easy to understand, now that I realize that these storytellers and not the Creator 94

of this earth were the creators of these mythical stories. They knew the outcome of them because they created them. Two of their most damaging creations are Satan and Hell. Both of these have to be and are fictitious. I will explain this later. Look at the story of Moses, and him leading the Israelites to the Promised Land (Canaan). Why would anyone have to fight and kill people to gain access to a land that the Creator promised to give them especially when the Creator commanded them not to kill? The only way that this makes sense and something like this could have happened is that the Creator of this earth never could have and never did make such a promise. I'm not saying that someone named Moses or someone like him did not exist, nor that the exodus never happened. I believe that the exodus did happen, however, I do not believe that it was orchestrated by the Creator of this earth to fulfill a promise that he never made. Regardless of how it came about, it was used by the J. Writers to create and fulfill the promise by Yahweh to Abraham and his descendants and to prove that they were Yahweh's Chosen People. The Creator of this earth had nothing to do with it. I hope that you acknowledge this as being true and accept the fact that the Hebrew Bible and everything that branched or branches from it accept and refer to the mythical god(s) Yahweh, Elohim, etc. as the Creator(s) of this earth. I was taught to believe this and believed it until my research proved different. In spite of the irreparable damage and negative effect that this has had and is still having on mankind, there is a crucial positive effect that maybe never would have happened if the J. School of writers never told their people that their god Yahweh is the Creator of this earth. As explained in the History of the Jewish People, man created idols to worship and called them gods thousands of years ago. Satan is a god created by man. Gabriel, Michael and other angel are creations of man. There were and are all different kinds of mythical creations and gods, and they were and are all fantasized creations of man; however, there is only one Creator of this earth. He is not mythical, genderized, or visible to mankind, but really exists. When the J. School of writers falsely credited their god Yahweh with the creation of this earth, they made mankind aware of the fact that a creator of mankind with a purpose for mankind exists. From the beginning of the creation of this earth until present, no creature nor creation from this earth knew of its creator. Mankind is the first. Thousands of years ago our ancestors started trying to solve the mystery of creation. There were many different interpretations. Some were written down, some were not. The Epic of 95

Gilgamesh is a good example of what was written down. The J. School of writers created the first communication from mankind to the Creator. How? Please let me explain. Before The J. Writers Tradition came into existence, mankind prayed and gave sacrifices to various gods; however, none of them was the Creator. So, the Creator didn't have to listen nor respond because he wasn't being addressed. After the J. Tradition came into existence, people started communicating with the Creator of this earth even though they called him Yahweh. Even until this day, people still communicate with the Creator whenever they address the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Many times in church services during someone's prayer, they will refer to God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Many times the Creator responded and responds when addressed, and many times he did not and do not. I will go into more details regarding this later. What I am trying to make you understand now is that the unintentional misleading falsehood of the J. Writers created communication between mankind and the Creator of this earth. Whenever something positive happened in Jewish history, Yahweh was praised and credited for making it happened. Whenever something negative happened, the people were taught to believe that Yahweh allowed it to happen to punish them for disobeying and not following his laws. As time went on, they created the Talmud, Mishnah, Gemara, Midrash, and other similar written documents to clarify, update and modernize their Religion. All of these were based on their interpretation of the Torah. Even though Israel had its ups and downs prior to and after the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish People accepted, believed and practiced what their religion taught them, however, this was interrupted and their religious beliefs questioned when an agitator appeared on the scene teaching something different than what they had been and were being taught. Who this agitator claimed to be, I really do not know. The powerful Jewish religious leaders believed that he was claiming to be their long awaited Messiah. According to their religious teachings, this was impossible. They were taught that a Messiah was going to come, rescue them from this earth and take them to a special place prepared for them called "Heaven." The Messiah was suppose to come from the Tribe of David. Now they knew that this agitator did not come from the Tribe of David, and therefore could not be their long awaited Messiah. (Please do not forget that the teachings they referred to were initially created by the J. School of writer. If no one was aware of or understood 96

how the J. School of writers created their Constitution, and had not fulfilled the prophecy of a Messiah coming from the Tribe of David by creating and sending one from that tribe, one would never come into existence.) This agitator called himself Jesus (a common name used back then). Reliable records show, and I believe that he appeared on the scene sometime around 28 CE. I also believe the following: That he could have represented himself as the Son of God, that this representation called into question and affected the credibility of the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish Religion, his teachings contradicted those of the Jewish Religion, and that he was crucified as a result of the aforementioned. When Jesus appeared on the scene, no one knew who he was nor where he came from. He had never been seen before. He was a person of ordinary features. He would teach people who would listen, his definition of: the purpose for the existence of mankind, how to achieve that purpose, and the reward for those who do so. His teachings were simple and always the same. His theme was "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He would then use parables to illustrate his theme. Mediterranean groupism dictate some grouping around Jesus if his attack on familial and political communities made sense to his audiences. I'm sure that it did, therefore, I believe that He had followers and maybe even disciples. I also believe that those followers were sent to village houses and not urban centers to spread the teachings of Jesus. I do not know if he had any type of organized social programs for others to adopt and follow; however, I do know that he had a magnificent vision of the Kingdom of God here on earth and that by his own actions he practiced what he preached. I do not believe that Jesus performed any kind of magic or miracles whatsoever to support his teachings. His downfall and arrest occurred when he went to Jerusalem (for the first time) during the Passover. The spiritual and economic egalitarianism he'd taught elsewhere exploded in indignation at the Temple as the seat and symbol of all that was nonegalitarian, patronal, and even oppressive on both the religious and political levels. The confined and tinderbox atmosphere at the Temple at Passover, especially under Pilate, was not the same as the atmosphere in the rural reaches of Galilee, and the soldiers moved in immediately and arrested him. Pontius Pilate was an ordinary second-rank Roman governor with no regard for Jewish religious sensitivities and with brute force as his normal solution to even unarmed protesting or resisting crowd. Like 97

any Roman governor he was also careful to distinguish between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, the important and the unimportant, the aristocrat and the peasant. Jesus was hung and crucified. His dead body was left on the cross for the scavengers, dogs, and wild beasts. If any of his followers were there, they knew this and fled. There was no one present at the crucifixion who spoke in Jesus' behalf before or after his death, nor did anyone claim his remains. They were devoured by the scavengers, dogs and wild beasts. As we know, the death of Jesus was not the end of his life. After his death, those who believed in him before his execution continued to do so afterwards. Different stories and interpretations about him, his teachings and his death were passed on by word of mouth and in written form. From what I understand, Stephen, a Hellenistic convert, was one of the first followers of Jesus to openly continue his teachings. Peter and Paul were also in the forefront of evangelical activity. James, another follower of Jesus met Paul in Jerusalem around 38 CE. It is believed that Paul was born around 1 CE in Taurus. He had a religious conversion in 34 CE at Damascus, to faith in the Christ whom he had previously opposed. He never described the vision that converted him. Whatever the contents of it may have been, its occurrence was a sudden explosion produced by the intense and inward workings of faith; out of which there leaped forth the answer to the riddle of the crucifixion. The answer was this — death has not held Jesus captive: he is alive with God, on the point of returning as the Christ with the kingdom. He set out as an independent missionary about 45 CE. He went about the world founding church after church without fixing his abode anywhere. In such conditions, epistolary relations were the only means by which control could be maintained between the churches and their founder; without them these newly formed communities would have run the risk of dissolution. Paul, is the best known of the first Christian missionaries to the pagan world; but he was not the one and only missionary, nor even quite the first; he was simply the most active. The legend of Paul has been greatly amplified. As I said earlier, tradition credits Paul with writing fourteen Epistles. With modern technology that number has been down sized to seven. These Epistles, written to Paul's newly formed churches to give them a foundation for this newly found religion, were not sufficient by themselves to hold these newly formed communities together because they did not have a solid foundation. No one knew or was told anything 98

about their object of deification other than Paul's viewpoint that was questionable and unsatisfactory. To solve the problem, the Synoptic Gospels were created by Paul and some of his peers and followers. These fictionalized and mythical storytelling creations solidified the early Christian movement. Whenever a serious problem arose, these writings were expounded on, revised, edited and updated to relate and deal with the problems regardless of what they were and of what had to be done to these writings to deal with the problem. This is explained a little better in the next chapter. As explained earlier, a selection of the available writings were later accepted and canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. These writings were called the New Testament. They were authorized for use in the Roman Catholic Churches. From these writings, the King James Version of the New Testament was born.

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Chapter Seven

What I Learned From My Research! What I learned from my research and have now applied to my life will completely blow your mind. The reason is that it is in total disagreement with what you were taught to believe and accept as truth about the creation of this earth, the creation and purpose of humankind, and the afterlife (if any) of mankind. In the introduction of this book, I told you about me being brought into this world, what I was taught, how I was taught, and the source of what I was taught. This influenced every aspect of my life. I told you how I feared death and explained why. You can not imagine the effect that the information I found out through this research has had on me, and how it has changed my way of thinking in all avenues of my present and future life on this earth. I know now that the origin of the Torah and any writings that stem from it was and is based on mythology and fiction instead of reality and facts. When the Creator of this earth, who is not fictitious, was included and incorporated into these writings as the foundation for them, all of the fictitious writings became misleading because they were and are now accepted as truth. The authors of the Torah (especially the J. School of writers) created fictitious people, places, things, events, and etc., and falsely credited the Creator with creating them. Some of these creations include: Heaven (not the sky), Hell (Armageddon), sin, demons and evil spirits, Angels or Archangels (Lucifer, Michael. Gabriel), the Serpent Story, the Flood Story, the Patriarchs and etc. In other words, the content of the Torah is a lot of mythological and fictitious stories superbly combined, entwined, and interweaved into a Constitution by a group of people who took it upon themselves to create what they believed was an honorable way of life for their people. Hopefully you will accept the fact as I have that their intentions were honorable. I sincerely believe that they believed that this was their only way of establishing morals for their people and uniting them with a Code of Ethics and laws to enforce it. They wanted their people to 100

believe that the morals, Code of Ethics and laws came from Yahweh, who is not only the God who gave Moses the Ten Commandments, but the God over all of the other gods and the God who created this earth. Most important, they created the Ten Commandments myth to convince their people and anyone else that Yahweh gave the Ten Commandments to Moses because the Israelites were his 'Chosen People', and that he did this to fulfill the covenant he made with Abraham. (Another of their creations.) Before I go any further, let me continue to amaze you by explaining the truth about some of their creations.

I. Heaven The Heaven described in the Bible does not exist nor will it ever come into existence. The Creator created humankind from the elements of this earth to live on this earth. I will go into more detail later. The only true and logical definition of heaven is the firmament or sky above.

II. Hell There is no such place as the Hell described in the Bible. Also, there will be no such thing or event like or called Armageddon. Hell is a man made Biblical word, used to describe the place where anyone who does not believe in and live by the laws of God (Yahweh) will go and spend eternity. It is described as being an eternal furnace for eternal punishment for the wicked and unrighteous. Please allow me to elaborate on this. If the Creator of this earth did not and is not going to create a Heaven for the righteous, he is not going to create an eternal burning place for the unrighteous. However, there is a Hell for humankind. I will explain when, where, and what it is later. I believe that the writers of the Torah created their Hell to put fear into the lives of those who chose not to obey the code of ethics and laws of God (Yahweh). If you comprehended what you read in the introduction of this book, then you will see that it not only served its purpose then, but is still serving its purpose because it worked on me almost three thousand years after it was created.

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III. Sin Sin is another creation of the writers of the Torah. According to them, there was no such thing as sin on this earth until one of the Creator's angelic creations (Lucifer, also called Satan and the Devil) rebelled against the Creator, and the Creator threw him and any angelic creation who sided with him out of Heaven. Now that I know the full scope of that story, I can not believe that I was so brainwashed and gullible to believe that something like that actually happened. First of all, sin is wrong, sin is bad, sin is evil and sin is the opposite of good. Whatever you chose to call sin, please believe me that it was intentionally created by the Creator billions of years ago. It did not come into existence after man disobeyed God. Man never disobeyed the Creator and ate from a forbidden tree of life in a never existed Garden of Eden. How could he have when he never knew of nor ever communicated with the Creator? The serpent was never cursed and made to crawl on its belly for tempting imaginary creations Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit. The serpent and other reptiles like it were created to crawl on their bellies hundreds of thousands of years before human-like creatures were ever created. There were many myths and mythical traditions about the serpent in existence around the time the Epic of Gilgamesh was in use. The J. School of writers borrowed from them to format and construct the 'Fall of Man' in their creation story. The Serpent (Nahash) was considered a mysterious and evil inciter. It personified the power of darkness and is said to be the most ancient figure by means of which mysterious powers of evil were designated. In Talmudic literature it is known as Nahash Hakadmon. The most dreaded spirit was and is Satan. He is described as the mortal enemy of Israel. He is said to have six submissive demons known as; Kezef, Af, Heima, Mishbar, Mashbit, and Mechaleh. While these names are Hebraic, the idea was taken from Persian occultism.

IV. Angels Angels, as we know them, are fictitious and the creations of man. The J. School of writers said that they were created by Yahweh to carry out his will. I understand and can accept that now because I know the following: (1) they (the J. Writers) created Yahweh, the creator of this earth, (2) they created him in the image of man (mainly because they 102

had never seen the Creator of this earth and could not even imagine what he looks like), (3) they created the angels in the image of man, (4) their purpose for the angels was and is to carry out the will of Yahweh, and (5) their will was the will of Yahweh. Therefore, the Creator had nothing whatsoever to do with the angels that are in the Bible. He did not create them nor use them to carry out his will. I sure wish you understood what I am saying. This is not fiction, it is fact and reality. I no longer believe in angels as they are presented in the Bible; however, I do believe in spirits and in spiritual creations, but only in those created by the Creator. I have never visually seen any of them just as I have never visually seen the Creator, but I believe that he (who is without gender), exists because I believe with all of my being that he created me (mankind). The fictitious stories created in the Torah were expounded on and exaggerated by later writers and editors of the other parts of the Hebrew Bible, (the Prophets and the Writings) who based their writings and editing on the falsified contents of the Torah. The Jews enjoyed the local, national and even international recognition and prestige that the contents of the Hebrew Scriptures were bringing to them. Even though there were other religions in existence with their traditions in writing, none of them were as organized nor recognized by the Creator of this earth as the Jews were. They were looked upon and accepted by many as God's chosen people. They only socialized with their own kind, acted like they were better than anyone else, and considered all nonJews Gentiles. They were also very powerful. Other people wanted to become a part of them and worship the God who created the Heavens and Earth, but was not allowed to. This was around the time that Jesus came on the scene. V. Jesus This was the hardest part of my research for me to deal with. As I explained to you earlier, 1 was taught to and believed the contents of the Holy Bible as the absolute truth. It was hard enough for me to believe and accept what I found out about the Hebrew Bible but I just could not accept what I was finding out about Jesus. The more I researched, the more I found out. Things got so bad that I refused to believe what I was finding out. I was just so confused that I did not know what to do. You see, I truly believe in Jesus and I have had experiences in my life that 103

would not allow me to accept what I was finding out about him. Please let me explain why. As explained in the introduction, I was raised in the church. Please read my Profile in the appendix (4). Note the date and compare my religious beliefs, then with what I am sharing with you now. Also, please read and include in your comparison, the dates (1969/70) and the writings and comments on the back of two of my record album jackets that are in the appendix (1&2). You can see the transition in my religious beliefs from 1969/70 to 1982, and from 1982 to present. Hopefully you will also see how sincere my belief was in God and Jesus. I believed what I was taught, but I refused to be the kind of Christian the religious community was trying to teach me to be. Not in their teachings, but in their actions. As stated in my Profile, I made a 'Deal' with God. Let me explain how this came about. (I suggest you read the History of The Ronald Ingraham Concert Choir (RICC) in the appendix (5) to better understand what 1 am about to say.) In 1960, I started playing the piano. I did not realize that it was a gift (from the Creator) until many years later. I never went to any school for music nor received any formal education in music, but made many musical accomplishments of which some are mentioned in the History of RICC. Around 1970, I stopped charging a fee for my musical talent because I felt that it was a gift from God. I did not feel right charging a fee for something that I believed God gave me free of charge. In 1976, I realized that there was something different about my music. The incident that convinced me of this happened on July 11, 1976, at City Hall in Boston where RICC performed in concert for the Queen of England's first official visit to the United States. After the concert, a father brought his son to me, and with tears in his eyes, thanked me for what happened to his son during the concert. He said that before the concert, his son had shown no emotion whatsoever throughout his entire life, and during our concert, he saw emotion from him for the first time in his life. Words can not express what that did to me. As I am writing this now, my mind goes back to that day and I have to hold back the tears as I think about what and how I felt as I looked into that child's eyes. I grabbed him and hugged him so tight, then I hugged his father. I will never forget that day. That incident is one of the many incidents that convinced me beyond any shadow of doubt that there was something different about my music. Then came the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts & Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria from January 15, 1977, to February 12, 1977. You have to read my Profile to fully understand the 104

scope of this event. A national talent search was conducted to give unknown but qualified talent a chance to expose their talent to the World through this festival. The chance of my group going was next to none. I wanted to go so bad that I had the gall to put God to a test by making a deal with him. The deal was that if he allowed us to go, I promised to acknowledge him in my life and be as honest, real and sincere with him as I possibly could be. Guess what? He not only fulfilled his end of the deal but followed through by not only removing all obstacles that got in the way, but made it possible for us to perform at the best site that Nigeria had to offer. Please let me elaborate on this because I am trying to help you to understand what I believe (with all of my heart and soul) that God has done for me, and why it was just impossible for me to accept or even believe what I was finding out about Jesus. When the impossible happened and we went to Nigeria, my troubles were just beginning. Our delegation was poorly organized and because we were unknown, I had to go out on my own to get my group to perform at the festival. We were scheduled to perform at a 300 seat auditorium but was told by our delegation heads that we were going to perform at the featured site of the festival that was the 5000 seat Main Hall of the brand new National Theatre. When we went to the hall for a dress rehearsal, the person in charge laughed at me when I told him that we were performing that night in that hall. He told me that I must be crazy if I think an unknown group like mine was going to perform in that hall. I asked to see whoever was in charge of scheduling events for the hall. He showed me where to go and told me that other American unknowns were told by our delegation heads that they were also performing in that hall and had gone through the same process I was going through and not one of them was allowed to perform in that hall. My fate would be the same he said as he smiled and walked away. As I walked into the office, I saw our delegation head sitting down and heard the committee head scolding her for how poorly we were organized and represented. I heard them tell her that no American would perform that night nor any other night until their committee met with our delegation. Then I was asked what I wanted. After humbling myself and explaining our situation to them, the committee changed their mind and agreed not only to let us perform that night, but in the Main Hall. When the person in charge of the hall was told that we were performing and to provide me with whatever I requested, he was very angry and intentionally locked the piano just before we were to perform. When I asked for the 105

key, he said that he did not have one nor know where one was. I did not know what to do. Everyone took their cue from me. This was the most important performance in our life. If we did not perform, I was afraid that we would not get a golden opportunity like this again. I decided to let my choir sing one song. As they did, I stood on the sideline and watched the results of my many years of hard work unfold before me. When it was over, it was instant stardom. (Please read one of the newsclips that is in the appendix 6) Can you comprehend what I am trying to get you to see? God had kept more than his end of the deal. It was now up to me to keep my end. I started as soon as we arrived back in the United States and have continued since. I have fallen by the wayside many times and he has been and is always there to pick me back up. There is so much more that I could tell you about my experiences in life that has convinced me beyond any shadow of doubt that there is a God, but this book is not about those experiences, it is about being spiritually brainwashed. I just used those experiences as examples to try to convince you that I truly believe in God and Jesus, and why. I want you to understand that I had no idea that I was going to find facts about Jesus from my research that was in complete opposition to what I was taught and believe. Even though I understood them, I refused to accept them. Through my research, I found out that nobody knows exactly when Jesus came on the scene nor where he came from. All that I can accept from my research regarding Jesus is the following; (1) a man named Jesus did exist, (2) He appeared on the scene around Galilee around 28 CE, teaching exactly what I now believe, (3) that his teaching was in opposition to that of the Jews, (4) that he was arrested, found guilty of blasphemy and crucified because of it and his teachings, and (5) that His remains were eaten by scavengers. That's it in a nutshell. All of the above was either exaggerated, revised or edited when The New Testament was formatted. Everything other than the above that is in the New Testament was created by various writers, editors and revisers to give credibility to this new religion called Christianity. Please reread that last sentence and then review the contents of the New Testament to see what is fact and what is fiction. I would do it for you but it would degrade it so bad and that is not my intention. I do not enjoy doing this and I am trying my best not to offend anyone, but that is impossible and so, I am trying to be as less offensive as I can to anyone and everyone who feel offended. 106

The Catholic Church, which was established after Jesus' death, chose which writings from the many available writings, would be read in their churches. The first canon of The New Testament was compiled by Marcion in the second century. His selection was rejected by the church. In 382 CE, Saint Athanasius, a Greek theologian, church father, and Bishop of Alexandria, made a recommendation of which of the many writings would become a part of The New Testament. It was approved and then canonized by the Council of Rome. These writings, although revised many times, are what now make up the King James Version of The New Testament. All writings that are not in the New Testament because they were not considered or were rejected by Saint Athanasius are called apocrypha or noncanonical writings not to be read to the congregation. The Roman Catholic Church's interpretation of scripture derives authority from the tradition of the church doctrine rather than from the Bible. They consider it inconceivable that there should be any disagreement between their church and the tradition that has been committed to it apart from the Bible as well as in and through it. So, the Bible does not establish the tradition of the Church, but supports it. Therefore, the Church has the right, authority, and duty to define the true Christian teaching without depending upon private study or interpretation of the Bible to arrive at the truth. This is how the Church could and did deify Mary (mythical mother of Jesus), and how it can, have and will deify others. Their Bible is regarded as a collection of infallible documents. The Latin Vulgate is the authorized version of the Hebrew Scriptures for the church. It consists of 46 books. The Pentateuch (5), Historical (16), The Didactic (7), and Prophetical (18). Some of them are not in the King James Version nor the Christian Bibles, and are considered by them apocrypha. Before Jesus appeared on the scene, the Jews and their religion, which was considered locally, nationally, and internationally to be the true religion, monopolized the religious communities of the world. When the Jews heard about Jesus and found out that his teachings were in dire opposition to what they were taught, teaching and believe, they publicly condemned him and his teachings. When Jesus had the audacity to come to their Passover trying to teach their people the opposite of what they were being taught, the Jewish leaders created a scene to get Jesus arrested and crucified. His death was used by the Jews as an example to warn others of what would happen to anyone who pretended to be the Messiah and/or disrespects something as sacred to them as their Passover. I understand why the Jewish leaders did what they did. They 107

were only upholding and defending what they were taught and brainwashed into believing. Even though I understand this, I can not overlook the truth about the matter. Have you ever heard the saying 'What is done in the dark will eventually come to the light'? That is a very true saying. Verification of this fact can be seen in the Jewish leaders' reactions when the truth about their creator was being exposed by Jesus. Let me explain. Jesus was believed to be and maybe represented himself as the Messiah sent by the Creator of this earth to save humankind. The Jews knew better because they were taught through their Bible to believe that their God Yahweh, whom their Torah falsely attributed the creation to, was going to send them a Messiah through the Tribe of David. They did not know what nationality Jesus was, but they did know that he was not from the Tribe of David. The falsehood that the J. Writers created (almost a thousand years earlier), telling their people that Yahweh is the creator of this earth finally came to the light. The Jews living in the generation when Jesus appeared on the scene did not know about the falsehood and because they did not, they are responsible for Jesus', death. You cannot blame them for what they did because they did not know any better. To this day, most of them still do not know the truth about their existence and will live their entire lives here without ever finding it out. Now let me tell you what I believe and accept from my research about Jesus, the Christianity movement and the King James Version of the New Testament. I will start with Jesus. The part played by myth in the Christian tradition concerning Jesus is as undeniable as it was inevitable in the origin of the Christian movement and New Testament; but the witness to the Christian fact does not entirely dissolve into a myth, and the fact itself is not a myth. The messianic myth supports Jesus, but Jesus together with the myth supports the Christian religion; the distinctively Christian myth of Jesus - God did not exist before Christianity, but was formed inside that religion, and formed stage by stage, to the glory of God. I found out and accept the fact that the part played by myth in the birth of Christianity is more easily determined by the historian than is the part played by Jesus himself. While the Christian Religion was not created by myth alone, so, certainly, it was not created by Jesus alone; its creator was neither Jesus without the myth, nor the myth without Jesus. Jesus is at once a historical person and a mythical being who, supporting the myth and supported by it, was finally made by it into the Christ, Lord and God, for the faith that so acknowledged him. To say this is not to reduce 108

the part of Jesus to an occasional cause. On the other hand, to present, as the sole and total cause of Christianity, one human being who, considered as divine, was also the very object worshipped by that religion would only be to create another myth. The Christian myth of salvation was, in a manner, called into being and set on foot by Jesus himself, to be afterwards elaborated in the first age of the Christian religion. That Jesus was one among a number of agitators and enthusiasts who appeared in Judea between the years 6 and 70 of our era; that his appearance is to be placed towards the middle of this period or the beginning of its third; that it had, in one form or another, a messianic character; that Jesus was crucified as a pretended Messiah by sentence of Pontius Pilate — all this has the highest degree of probability; to be more exact, the whole Christian movement becomes unintelligible if these beginnings are suppressed. No consistent argument authorizes their elimination and there is nothing to replace them. The tradition that has preserved for us the memory of Jesus was at its origin entirely different from historical tradition. From the very beginning it was a tradition of 'faith', and almost immediately afterwards the tradition of a 'cult' that grew continually more impassioned and developed until it attained complete 'Deification' of its object. Memory, in a word, was transfigured into faith and adoration. In all strictness the Gospels are not historical documents. They are catechisms for use in common worship, containing the cult-legend of the Lord Jesus Christ; that, and no other, is the content they announce; that, and no other, is the quality they claim. Even the teaching attributed to Jesus is constructed, for the most part, to meet the needs of Christian propaganda, for the edification of the earliest communities, or, yet again, especially in the fourth Gospel, to elaborate a mystical theory of salvation by Jesus Christ. After Jesus' crucifixion, his teachings lived on by word of mouth through those who believed in him and his teachings. Shortly afterwards, Christianity was born. Jesus and his teachings were used as its foundation. The earliest Christians were Jews. The tradition that has preserved for us the memory of Jesus was at its origin, entirely different from historic tradition. From the very beginning, it was a tradition of faith, and almost immediately afterwards, the tradition of a cult that grew continually more impassioned and developed until it attained complete deification of its object. Even though Paul (then known as the "Apostle to the Gentiles") did not find nor organize the first Christian 109

church, he is considered an organizer and the prime founder of the Christian church. After being converted from Judaism to Christianity, his whole life changed. He astonished the Jews by beginning to preach the Gospel of Jesus in their Synagogues. He was so successful in converting the Jews to Christianity that he had to secretly flee the city to escape persecution. During his travels, He founded and organized many churches. These churches were poorly organized and he wrote letters/epistles to the different churches detailing the issues being presented. He had an eschatological viewpoint. He saw Jesus' return as imminent and everyone should be prepared. One issue he did not address was an account of Jesus' life and the beginning of Christianity. This is how and why the Synopsis Gospels came into existence. At Paul's insistence, three Gospels addressing this issue were written to three different Christian communities. Mark was the first. It was written to the Romans. Matthew was next. It was written to the Jewish believers, and was formatted from Mark. Luke was last. It was written to the Gentile church community and used writings from Matthew and Mark in its Gospel. It's not hard to understand the predicament the church leaders were in. They needed to authenticate the reality of Jesus as the long awaited Messiah. They had no evidence whatsoever of where Jesus came from. This brought into question the credibility of the entire Christian movement. The only resolution that Paul and his associates felt they had, in order to save Christianity was to create a life for Jesus before the time he came on the scene, so they did. Matthew did this by associating Jesus with Yahweh. After all, he was writing to converted Jewish believers, and they were awaiting a Messiah. He searched the Hebrew Scriptures thoroughly, and from them, linked Jesus to them. He used Hebrew Bible revelations, promises and prophecies to prove that Jesus was their long awaited Messiah. He then falsely linked Jesus' lineage to Abraham with repeated declarations that he was the Son of David. He used about sixty references in his Gospel to the Jewish prophecies and about forty quotations from the Hebrew scriptures. His purpose was to provide his readers with an eye witness account of Jesus' life and to assure his readers that Jesus was God's son and the long awaited Messiah foretold by the Prophets. I hope you understood what I just said. If you did, then you have to accept the fact that Matthew did the same thing at the beginning of the New Testament, that the J. School of writers did at the beginning of the Old Testament. In spite of the facts that Jesus condemned the religious ways and teach110

ings of the Jews, and that the Jews knew Jesus was not their long awaited Messiah, Matthew intentionally falsely linked them together. By doing this, he destroyed the true credibility of the rest of the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole. Mark did not address this issue, and even though it was written first, it was placed second in the New Testament after Matthew because it did not address Jesus' early life. Luke is more comprehensive than Matthew in its created version of Jesus' early life. It adds to Matthew's Version (the same way and the E. School of writers added to the J. School of Writer's writings) to improve, support, and give more credibility to their knowledge of the early life of Jesus. It provided the Gentile Churches with a compelling recording of events in Jesus' life from pre-birth to the created fictitious ascension of him. It also falsely linked Jesus to the Tribe of David, and intentionally falsely traced his genealogy back to Adam. Luke's purpose was to give a connected and orderly narrative of the life of Jesus as seen by eyewitnesses (That were not there) (Luke 1:1-4). Before Luke, the Gentile churches had no complete or widely circulated Gospel about Jesus. The Gospel of John is unique among the four gospels. It created and recorded much about Jesus' Ministry in Judea and Jerusalem that the Synoptics did not know about or omitted. It also reveals a mystery of Jesus' personhood. It was written to counter-act gnosis and refute a dangerous heresy about the nature person and deity of Jesus. One of the persuasive leaders of this heresy was a Jew named Cerinthus. The purpose for the writing of John is stated in John 20; 31. It says "That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." It was the last of the available Gospels accepted and canonized for use in the New Testament. The most important questions about Jesus that I had to deal with, understand, and try to explain to you are; (1) Where he came from? And (2) Why? I honestly do not know where He came from. I found nothing credible in my research that gave me a reasonable explanation or satisfactory answer. However, after accepting what I now believe about Jesus, common sense dictates one of the only two reasonable explanations. Either God created a body and put a pre-existed or programmed spirit in it to control it, or Jesus was an ordinary human being who found out (as I did), the truth about the existence and purpose of mankind, and tried (as I have) to make mankind aware of it. (I will respond in more detail to this question in the final chapter.) Regardless of which one is true, the outcome is the same. 111

Why Jesus came here, or the purpose for him coming is much easier to explain because he tells us in his teachings, and verifies it by his deeds and actions while on this earth. Let me share with you my assessment of Jesus' purpose on this earth, his accomplishments while here, and his legacy. Jesus' purpose on this earth (regardless of how he got here) was: (1) to correct the falsehoods and the aftermath of the falsehoods that the J. School of Writers attributed to the Creator, and (2) to make mankind aware of the truth about our existence and purpose for our existence. Quite naturally, the Jews were not going to believe what Jesus was saying. You already know what they were taught and believe to this day as the absolute truth. Jesus going to Passover with his teachings is like me going to a KKK meeting, telling its members that I am a messenger from the God who they were taught to believe in, and that all nationalities of people are going to live side by side in the true Heaven that will be on this earth. Can you imagine what that would do to their clan if the leaders allowed me to say that? Worse than that, Can you imagine what they would do to me? Jesus never really corrected the falsehood of the J. School of Writers. Instead, he involuntarily became a part of it. (Thanks to Matthew and Luke) So he did not achieve that part of his purpose. Most of the other part of his purpose was accomplished in spite of the context it was put in. Before I comment on this, let me again remind you of Mankind's purpose for being here, and how we can accomplish it. (if we want to) Our purpose is to live on this earth in peace and harmony with each other. This can be done by controlling the evil forces (spirits) that comes into our lives, and doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. That's it. Jesus' message to the world is in the New Testament, and in spite of the context and mythical surroundings it is in, the message is still there. Please let me emphasize that I never said that any writers of any part of the Holy Bible intentionally misled anybody for their personal gain. I believe that every writer wrote, edited or revised the Holy Bible for the improvement of their religious communities. However, the truth cannot be overlooked. The truth about the real life and death of Jesus was not good enough to create the foundation for the Christianity Movements that we have today nor the legacy of Jesus. Only with falsehoods, myths, magic, fiction, and the deity of Jesus could Christianity have obtained the place it now holds in history. Look at the deity of Mary (mythical mother of Jesus). How about the fictitious site of Jesus' Birth? Worse than that. 112

look at the money making fictional birthday of Jesus. Please let me tell you how and when December 25th came into existence as being the day of Jesus' Birth. In 354 CE, it was adopted as Jesus' birthday by order of Bishop Liberius of Rome. It was noted later that it would fall within the rainy season in Palestine and shepherds would not be in the fields at that time. Since 274 CE, under the Emperor Aurelian, Rome had celebrated the "Feast of the Invincible Sun" on that day. Jesus' Birth was added to and is still now being celebrated on that day. The true birth date of Jesus is unknown. As I conclude what I have learned from my research, I hope that your impression of me and your reaction to this book is not what I know that it will be. Before I address this, I am going out in style. If you can, and/or when you finish the last chapter, you will have one of two opinions of me. You will think I am either a complete 'Fruitcake' or a reprisal for Humankind endorsed by the Creator. Either one or the other. Nothing in between.

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Chapter Eight

Conclusion And now, the climax and conclusion to Brainwashed. This is going to be a Hellified climax. What I am going to do in this last chapter is apply the knowledge I received from my research to the knowledge I have accumulated from man's research and his findings regarding the creation of this earth. Then I will put the Creator's purpose for my life and humanity in their proper perspective and places in this world. I will only address the parts of the beginning of this earth that man has evidence to support. In other words, I will not address things like when and how the sun and the moon came into existence because man does not know. Therefore, he has no evidence regarding its origin. I agree with Man's explanation and definition of the earth's beginning from the time they were able to trace its existence to present. There is however, one significant difference. We use two different words for the same meaning. To resolve this, I substitute the word Creator for their word evolution. Common sense makes me aware of the fact that it is impossible for something to evolve without first being created. For example; The typewriter did not evolve into the computer; the icebox did not evolve into the refrigerator; the airplane did not evolve into a spaceship. All of these original creations were improved and continue to this day to be improved. All of these improvements are creations. In other words, the improvements did not happen naturally (evolution). Someone or something had to make them. Regardless of who or what it is, their title is Creator of the improvement. Evidently man does not agree with this; therefore, his definition of evolve or evolution and my definition of The Creator means the same thing. You will understand this better as we go on. I believe that this earth and everything in it were created by a Creator. I do not know where the Creator came from, what the Creator is, nor when or how the Creator came into existence. (I will use the male gender when referring to the Creator; however, the Creator does not have a gender.) I believe that the Creator's goal was to create a world similar to the nature world we have today. In order to do this, he 114

experimented. The foundation of this world and everything in it is based on experiments. The Creator did the same thing that Mankind has done to create the man made world we have today. The difference is that he did it on a level of technology unknown to man. For example; Mankind would not even know where to begin to create a spirit. In spite of all of the advanced technology that man has acquired, he does not have the slightest idea of how to begin to create a spirit that can control a living creation. Because of this fact, man has never tried an experiment like this. The closest that he has come to this is cloning creatures and keeping a spiritless body alive. There is one very important thing I hope that you the reader realizes and accepts from this book. That is that a human body is a structure created to house and be controlled by a spirit. The spirit never ages but the human body does. Only the Creator can create spirits. He created creations and then tested them. He improved those he considered successful and wanted to advance, and discarded those he did not. This process continued until he either achieved his goal or changed his mind. As you can see, it took billions of years for him to accomplish what we know that he has accomplished thus far. You have no idea of what his accomplishment entails. He had to create the original species of every creation he created from scratch. He created all of our physical structures from the contents of this earth. For all of his living and breathing creations except for mankind, he created and programmed free spirits to control them. (A programmed free spirit is a spirit that is programmed to do certain things in certain areas and free to do whatever it wants to do in the unprogrammed areas.) For example: a dog's spirit is programmed to reproduce, but the dog can choose what dog it wants to reproduce with. Let us go back around three and a half billion years ago when man estimates that the Creator created the earliest known life form. It was called Unicellular Organism. Between 600 million and one and a half billion years ago, the Creator created bacteria, algae and fungi. He also improved the Unicellular Organisms to primitive Multicellular Organisms. During the next 150 million years, He created marine invertebrate creations. Also Conodonts, Ostracods and seaweed. Between 350 and 450 million years ago, He created air breathing creatures and animals. The Euthycarcinoid (Greek for straight crab) is believed to have been one of these first creations. According to the 420 million years old fossil found, it had 16 segments, 11 of which each carried a pair of legs. Can you imagine how many experiments the Creator had to go through to create the different sizes and varieties of crabs that we 115

have today? He also created fishes, ammonites (mollusk) and amphibians during that time. Around 350 million years ago, He created and developed winged creatures and insects. Dragon flies were one of his earliest winged creations. There are millions of winged insects in existence today. The Creator created the original of every single one of them. Evolution had nothing whatsoever to do with any of them, and not one of them evolved into what it is today. Reptiles were his next creation that He developed. He created many species and offsprings. Some of the earliest creatures he created around 330 million years ago include; the Dimetrodon, Rhamphorhynchus and Brontosaurus (lizard). The Dinosaurs were another of the Creator's creations that appeared on the scene around 220-250 million years ago. They flourished on this earth for about 165 million years. Scientists count some 350 known species. The dinosaur originated from the reptile species. The Creator split the dinosaur into two major groups; Saurischians lizard-like hipped carnivores sauropods, and Ornithischians birdhipped bipedal (duck-billed) herbivores. The most primitive dinosaur known to man is called the Eoraptor. It existed around 228 million years ago. Some of the other species that the Creator created from the dinosaur and around the year they existed (in millions) are as follows; Herberasaurs (225) Plateosaurus (225), Lesothosaurus (200), Dilophosaurus (190), Stegosaurus (190), Allosaurus (150), Diplodocus (150), Iguanodon (140), Sinornis (140), Deinonychus (100), Hornalocephale (75), Parasaurolophus (75), Triceratops (75), and Tyrannosaurus (65). Around 65 million years ago, during the Dinosaur age (the Cenozoic Era, Paleocene period), a global mass extinction occurred. Some say an asteroid struck the earth and caused it. Whatever it was, the Creator either caused it or allowed it to happen. Many species were hit hard. The great crocodile-like creatures that had flourished before completely disappeared. Most creatures that the Creator allowed to survive were small. The elephant was one of the first mammoths that the Creator created after his mass extinction. The lineage of elephants traces back some 65 million years. Ancestors gave rise to various branches as well as to the direct line leading to living elephants. The Creator created early proboscideans in Africa and southwest Asia. Let me share with you how His experiments with the ancestors of the elephants led up to the elephants of today. I will start with the Moeritherium. Its remains, found in Africa, dated from about 50 million years ago. It was a hog116

size creature that had two small tusks in each jaw. The Creator took what he learned from the Moeritherium and used it in his creation of the Deinotherium. The Deinotherium lacked upper tusks. Its lower jawbone curved backward to reveal tusk like front teeth. The teeth were used for digging. These changes did not happen because of Evolution, but because the Creator improved his creation. Do you not think that the original Deinotherium did not know how to handle and use the different structure of its body? Quite naturally it did because the Creator programmed its spirit to make the adjustment. The Palaeomastodon was the name of the created improvement to the Deinotherium. Its body style was one of the improvements. In fact, it began the main line of today's elephants. When the Creator created the Mammut, it was during the early Oligocene epoch (35 million years ago). It had prominent tusks and a long trunk. The trunk allowed it to eat leaves from treetops. Evolution did not and could not cause this to happen. As I said earlier, the Creator improved his creations and modified the programmed free spirits that controlled them. He also provided food to feed all of his creations that needed food, and controlled the population of all of them. I am not going to complete the lineage of the elephant. Hopefully you got the point I was trying to make. I want to get to mankind and our origination and lineage. Mankind's origin traces back to the ape. The first ape was created between 25 and 30 million years ago. Scientist nor I think of mankind as descended from a common primate ancestor (apes, monkeys). The two lines divided off perhaps as long as 20 or even more million years ago. Between 8 and 20 million years ago, the Creator created and experimented with the following ape-like creatures; the Proconsul, Aegyptopithecus, Pongid Ape, Kenyapithecus, Ramapithecus, Sivapithecus, Rudapithecus, and Dryopithecus. None of these primates has been accepted as a human progenitor. However, the Chimpanzee has. Humans and Chimpanzees share ninety-eight percent of the same genes. From the features and genes of the chimpanzee, the Creator created the Australopithecus around 4 million years ago. It was the first of the hominid species that he created. His next creation of that species was the Australopithecus Afarensis. It was the first upright walking hominid. It was created around 3.4 million years ago. Next he created the following Australopithecus; Africanus (2-3 Million years ago), Robustus and Boisei (1-2 million years ago). The Homos were next. Homo Habilis (2 million years ago), Homo Erectus (1.5 million years ago), and Homo Sapien (400,000 years ago). Then He created the 117

Neanderthal who flourished on this earth from about 130,000 years ago to about 35,000 BCE. After 30,000 BCE, the Neanderthals disappeared off the face of this earth. Theologians do not have the answer to how this was done. They do not want to accept the fact that a Creator exists and that he did it. They admit that they do not think one can achieve that level of change except for replacement. In other words one population taking over from another. However, that is exactly what happened. Here is another fact that amazes and astonishes theologians; they saw no signs whatsoever of hybridization. The remarkable thing about the creation of this earth is that every population that took over from another (in the human, reptile, mammal, winged creation and any other living creature) was more advanced then the other and theologians have no reasonable explanation. Evolution is an impossible and unacceptable answer. There is only one explanation. That is that a Creator exists. The Religious Society supposedly agrees with this. The Scientific World does not. Between 20 and 50 thousand years ago, the Creator made most of his final adjustments and improvements on the human body. Then He put an unprogrammed spirit in it to control it. This was the first time He had done something like this on this earth. He had done just about everything he was going to do to the human species. Now he was going to experiment and still is experimenting with unprogrammed spirits controlling human bodies. One of His logical ultimate goals would be for the spirits to learn how to live in and control the human bodies, and to live in peace with other spirits housed in human bodies. If this is true, and I believe it is, I believe that it was at one time, an impossible goal. The only possible way for this to happen was and still is for humans to do unto others as they would have them do unto them. That is the only way. The Creator had to find a way of making mankind acknowledge this and then want to do it. After all, the unprogrammed spirit can do anything that it wants to because it is a free spirit, and the Creator cannot make it do anything it does not want to do. The biggest stumbling block was and still is the evil forces. Please let me explain these forces before I go any further. Good and bad came into existence on this earth when the Creator created them. They are part of creation. He created good and evil forces to balance things out. It's impossible to have all bad and no good, and vice versa. For example; imagine a lion happily chasing a zebra for a meal. He catches him and the zebra's heart leaps for joy as he is being devoured. How about this one? A mother gazelle smiling as she 118

watches a predator munch on her newborn for an appetizer. The predator thanks her as it prepares to eat her for its main course. That does not make any sense does it? Nor does it make sense for there to be good spiritual forces without there being evil ones. Positives without negatives. Reproduction without death. The Creator had to and did create opposites to balance and control the existence of his creations on this earth. Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit had nothing whatsoever to do with the future of Mankind. It is just a myth. As I said earlier, Satan or the devil is also a myth created by man and does not exist in the real World. The first thing that the Creator had to do with the unprogrammed free spirit (that would control His human creation) was to cultivate it and to make it aware of the good and evil forces that it would have to deal with throughout its existence. All living creation that has spirits to control them are programmed to acknowledge and deal with good and evil forces. For example, look at the cockroach. From birth, it knows about danger and will scurry for cover if it is in a dark place and a light suddenly comes on. That amazes me. How big can a programmed spirit be that gives a baby roach from birth the instinct to run when something happens that it has never experienced before? Better than that, when does this spirit enter and take control of this baby roach? How about newborn turtles? As soon as they hatch, they sense danger as they hastily make their way to the water. The natural good instincts that the spirits that control the turtles are born with are programmed good forces. On the other hand, the natural bad instincts that the spirits that control the predators of the turtles are born with, are programmed evil forces. The results keep the population of the turtles under control and provide food for other creations. The Creator not only provides food and nourishment for the survival of all his living creations, he programs the spirits that control them with the natural instinct of where and how to find and get it. Just about all living creations have a predator and/or a way of being fed and controlled. If they did not, they would die. This was masterfully done by the Creator. It took the Creator thousands of years to cultivate and then try to civilize Man. This was done through a process dealing with the communication of the human spirit and the other spiritual forces (good and evil) that spiritually relate to each other. Thoughts, ideas, dreams, nightmares, premonitions, visions and etc. falls within this relationship. Through this process man has been taught and has learned (over a period of thousands of years), how to; live off this earth, create from it, 119

and create from what the Creator originally created. There are only two creators that created creations on this earth. They are the Creator and mankind. (Mother Nature and Man made.) Hominids, (Mankind's ancestors) were creating several million years ago. Unearthed relics verify the fact that chopping tools, (such as hand axes) were created and made from stone back then by the nomadic hunters. These creations were the first unnatural creations on this earth. They started the transformation of the cultural conditions on this earth and the alteration of our environment, human biology, and our planet. Flint tools fashioned by hunters a half million years ago now litter the desert around Azrad oasis. Carbon-dating of Stone Age digging in mountains of Swaziland reveals that 43,000 years ago, primitive Africans mined iron ore and probably used the tints from it as body paint. Boats were made and used around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago. Artwork date back over 30,000 years ago. There are bulls escorted by horses painted on the walls of the Lascaux Cave in France. These painting date back from 15,000 to 30,000 years ago. Bone and ivory figures were excavated and dated as being carved about 15,000 years ago. Distinct human races can be traced about 10,000 years ago. (I refer you back to the History of the Jewish People) Mixed breeding was created back then when different Human Races intermingled with each other, and it continues to this day. Most Humans do not know their true ancestry. The transition between primitive and modern civilization occurred about 6,000 years ago in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Asia Minor and of the Nile River in North Africa. This area is called the Cradle of Civilization. This is where what we now call Religion originated. Religion is man made. Do you understand what I just said? Please let me say it again. Religion was created by man, not God. There was no Religion before Mankind, and no reason whatsoever for what man has created and calls Religion. Mankind created idols and then worshipped them. They created the idols (gods) from their imaginations. As aforementioned in the History of the Jewish People, they created all kinds of idols (gods). None of these gods were nor can be real. This is when fiction, mythology, mysticism and other avenues of the occult came into existence. Man drew pictures of things he imagined and envisioned, and of living creatures (humans, lions, snakes, elephants), and creations (mountains, the sky, moon, sun, etc.). He then worshipped them. He created fictional stories about them. They were passed down from generation to generation and were put into writing after it was created and man learned how to write. The story about the 120

serpent being an evil inciter is one of them. To this day, many people believe this fable to be true. I used to until I wrote this book. This is one of the many things I learned the truth about. As mentioned earlier, various creation stories were created and orally pass down until they were committed to writing. Before and during this time, no one knew nor was made aware of; (1) Why, how, and when Human Beings came into existence. (2) How this earth was created, and (3) The identity of the Creator. In reality, they knew nothing of the truth of creation nor the Creator. Please do not forget that not one of the Creator's other creations knew either. They were all doing what they were either programmed to do and/or limited to do as free spirits. Remember I told you that there was a positive outcome from the J. School of writers intentional falsehood crediting Yahweh with the creation of this earth? Well, let me explain to you now what it was and still is. When they credited Yahweh with creating this earth and fictionalized how he did it, they brought the real creator into existence. By this I mean that mankind was made aware of the Creator for the first time. Regardless of what they called him, whenever they mentioned the Creator of Heaven and Earth, they were addressing the Creator. This created for the first time on this earth, communication from a creation of the Creator, to the Creator. Regardless of if the Creator responded or not, he received the communication. Do you understand what I am saying? Please try to. I do not believe that the Creator expected something like this to happen. It was the greatest thing that ever could happen between the Creator and an unprogrammed spirit that he created. The Creator could not take advantage of what the J. Writers did and relate to humans, nor advance the communication between him and humanity because of the way the communication was established. The J. Writer's misrepresentation created a false foundation for the relationship between the Creator and Mankind. So, even though this great breakthrough had happened, it was based on a falsehood. The only way that this could be corrected was for mankind to be made aware of the truth. This was when, where, and why, Jesus came into existence. As I said before, I do not know for sure how Jesus came into existence. If you accept what you have read in this chapter, then you know that the Creator could have created a body for Jesus' spirit to live in. If this is true, then we have to deal with where Jesus' spirit came from. There is only one logical answer that I can come up with. That is that Jesus' spirit is an unprogrammed spirit that lived in a human body in the past 121

and had achieved the Creator's goal for the unprogrammed spirit. Please note this fact. In spite of the contents of the Hebrew Bible, anyone who lived by the Ten Commandments in actions and not in words could accomplish and achieve the Creator's purpose for mankind. I truly believe that someone back then did. If this is true, then one of their spirits was put into a newly created human body. It was named or called Jesus. He appeared on the scene around 28 CE, and I have explained what happened after that. The only other possible answer to how Jesus came into existence would be; (1) that he was born like everyone else, somewhere in the area that he started teaching in, and (2) that he found out the truth about the purpose for the existence of mankind and how to achieve it. Before I go any further, I have to explain to you the recycling process the Creator uses regarding his creations from this earth and the spirits that control them. Every living creation made from this earth is recycled back to the earth. Man was made from the earth and its remains go back to the earth. The same thing happens to the spirits. They are recycled over and over again until the Creator have finished with them. Then they go back to where they came from. All of his programmed spirits are recycled and used over and over again until the Creator reprograms them or destroys them. I am sure that you do not understand what I just said, so let me try to explain it to you. Everything used by the Creator to create all of his creations on this earth, came from the soil of this earth. The spirits that the Creator put in creations to activate them come from a place other than the soil of this earth and are not visible to human vision no matter how much magnification is used. When a programmed or unprogrammed spirit enters the creation, it becomes a living creation controlled by that spirit. In other words, the brain controls the body and the spirit controls the brain. The spirit can only control what is intact. If there is any faulty connection between the brain and any part of the creation that the brain connects with, the spirit will not be able to control that part of the creation. If ever the spirit loses connection with the brain or cannot connect with it, it leaves the creation and is recycled and reused to control a new creation of the same species. The remains or the carcass of the unusable creation is recycled back to the earth. Let me give you an example to help explain what I just said a little better. You buy some live lobsters and cook them. As soon as they touch the boiling water, the spirits that controlled them leaves their bodies and are recycled into newborns of their same species. You eat the edible 122

parts of them and that part is recycled beginning with the waste from it that your body does not use. The inedible remains of the lobsters are recycled back into the earth beginning with you throwing them away. The recycling process of human beings is basically the same except there is no cannibalism that I know of. When the unprogrammed spirit that entered a human body leaves it, it is programmed. It has all of the things on it that it experienced while in the human body. Please let me say that again. When an unprogrammed spirit (that entered a human body when it was a fetus) leaves that body, it is a programmed spirit. It has programmed the kind of life it lived while in the human body. It has programmed the kind of life it will live if it is put into another human body. It and not the Creator has determined its destiny. It and not the Creator has made the decision whether it will be recycled or not. If and when a human programmed spirit is recycled, it is not erased. It enters the new embryo or fetus as a programmed spirit. The life of the fetus it takes over reprograms it. This process has been repeated over and over again, and will continue until the Creator ends it. (Please do not misunderstand programmed and unprogrammed human spirits. A recycled spirit is programmed and continuously reprogrammed by humans, but not by the Creator, therefore, it is still considered an unprogrammed spirit. If and when a programmed human spirit is acceptable to the Creator, it will not be recycled. The accepted programmed spirit will eventually be put into a newly created human body just like I believe that Jesus' spirit was. It will then take its place on this earth and live with and among other creations that the Creator created). When the spirit that controls a human species loses connection with its brain, it leaves the body and stays in limbo (aware of everything that is attached to it) until one of these two things happen: (1) All of its attachment (if any) are released from it, and it is recycled into a human fetus, or (2) All of its attachments (if any) are released from it and it is used for the purpose it was created for. I know that you are lost now for sure and I do not blame you. Maybe I am telling you more than you can handle and deal with especially if you believe me. I am only going to explain a few more things and keep the rest to myself. I am explaining things as I am to try to help you to understand what I am saying. I told you at the beginning of this chapter that this is a hellified climax. Let me go back to (1) and blow your mind with my explanation of the attachments to the human spirit and where they come from. If you recall, I told you that the Creator put into the human species unprogrammed spirits. When a man impregnates a woman, the sperm that 123

creates the embryo not only consist of their physical genes, but also their spiritual genes. The biological parents of a child have physical as well as spiritual attachments to that child and any and all children they bring into this world. Have you ever heard a mother say that she knew her child (who was sometimes hundreds of miles away) was in trouble without being told, and she was right? That is because of the spiritual bond between that mother and her child. Some bonds are strong and some are weak. It depends on the relationship between the parent and the child. Regardless of the path that either parent's lives take during their existence on earth, each and every biological parent is responsible for each and every child they bring into this world. The child did not ask to come here and had nothing whatsoever to do with how it got here. The parents are held liable regardless of the circumstances involved. That is why the spirit of a person who creates a life has that spiritual life attached to theirs. It cannot be removed until the attachments) and all unacceptable life created from it expires. The spirit cannot be released until all of the attachments and branches are removed from it. Then it is recycled if it did not achieve its purpose. If it did, it stays in limbo until the Creator uses it for the purpose it was created for. If it is recycled, it is put into the fetus of a human being unerased, and the process I explained earlier begins all over again. Sometimes humans relive past experiences of their spirits. They are in your subconscious mind. People have been known to do things that they were made aware of through their subconscious mind. Have you ever saw something in a dream that you never saw before? I know that I have many times. Have you ever wondered what it was and how it is possible? Please allow me to explain. When you dream, your mind is idle. It allows you to go into your subconscious mind. Since your mind is controlled by your spirit, and you have given up control of it at the time, it wanders sometimes into past lives of your spirit that have not been completely erased. In other words, past lives of humans are not totally erased. Sometimes they surface when the conscious mind is idle and the subconscious mind takes over and reveals past lives and memories through dreams, hypnosis and etc. You are not only a part of every human life you share in creating, but a part of every life that stems from what you create. You are not free to be recycled until all of the lives that stemmed from you are accepted or recycled. For example; A couple who practices the KKK ideology has a baby. Five years after birth, the couple are killed in a car accident. While their spirits are in limbo, they not only learn the truth about 124

mankind's existence and purpose, but have to watch the life of the child they created unfold without being able to intervene. Now this is where my interpretation of Hell enters into the picture. You see, after finding out that they were taught wrong, and that there is nothing whatsoever that they can do to rectify it, they will still have to watch helplessly, the outcome of the false teachings they taught that child. To add to this misery, they will also have to helplessly watch, the outcome of any and all human life that stems from that child and their teachings. There is no excuse that can save them from this horrible excruciating punishment regardless of what their reasons may be. The climax of this excruciating pain is knowing that once all of their attachments are removed, the following is going to happen: (1) they are going to be recycled without the ability to maintain and transfer what they learned from their previous human life to their new human life, (2) they will repeat the same process they are now experiencing over and over and over again, and (3) that this is their destiny until the Creator destroys their spirit. To me, that is Hell. Their only hope is that during one of their lifetimes on this earth, they find out or are taught the truth about their existence, and achieve the purpose they were created for. Please believe me, I know what I am talking about. Please let me share this experience from my life to prove it. My grandfather died in the sixties and my ex-wife and I went with the rest of my family to Connecticut to bury him. It was snowing when we were returning home. I was driving. I hit a sheet of ice, panicked, and hit the gas pedal instead of the brakes. The car went out of control, flipped over two times and landed on its hood on the other side of the Connecticut turnpike. My ex-wife went through the windshield and I blanked out for several seconds. When I came to, no one was seriously hurt. If you saw the car after the accident, you would not believe that anyone survived. It was only through the mercy of the Creator that we did. If I had died in that accident, I would now be like one of the spirits I just described. Instead of writing this book like I am doing now, I would be in total misery. Words cannot express my gratefulness and gratitude to the Creator for letting me live. Now when this body dies and I leave it, I will have the satisfaction of knowing that if I did not achieve the purpose that I was created for while living in this body, it was my choice. I cannot and will not blame anyone but myself because I knew the truth. No one is forced to satisfy the purpose the Creator created them for. After all we are free spirits. The choice is ours. The Creator does not and cannot force anyone to do anything they do not want to do. The 125

Creator will not be offended nor punish any human spirit for the choice it makes. As I said earlier, the Hell in the Bible is man's creation, not the Creators'. Any suffering a human spirit goes through is brought on by that spirit or an attachment, and not the Creator. Unnecessary suffering can be avoided if the free spirit that controls a human is made aware of the truth about its existence from the very beginning. That way, it can decide and determine its destiny based on fact and not fiction. It makes that choice, not the Creator. I am writing this book because mankind has a right to know the truth about our existence so that we will make judgments and decisions throughout the rest of our lives based on it. We have the right to know the true facts. If the KKK couple only knew the truth about their existence, I truly believe that they would have raised their child different, or maybe not even had a child. If parents only knew the responsibility they are taking on by bringing a helpless unsolicited child into this world, they would have second thoughts. As intelligent as we are suppose to be, it is so pathetic that we are as ignorant as we are about bringing new life into this world. Who are we that we think we can take it upon ourselves to freely create and bring innocent new lives into this world without bearing any responsibility for our actions? We have the audacity to play god with the new lives formatting them the way we want to and according to our beliefs (regardless of if they are right or wrong) without considering the best interest of the child. We do not understand our obligation to these new lives until it is too late. The KKK parents were never taught the truth about their existence. How can they teach the child something they do not know? This is so cruel to the child because it totally depends on them for everything. I am sure you know that a newborn child can do nothing for itself. Its spirit begins being reprogrammed from the fetus stage of life. It will not only program what it sees, but also what it hears. It can and will only do and believe what it is taught to do and believe. Since it is not programmed to reproduce, it will only reproduce if it is taught how to. An experiment will prove this fact, but no one this far has done one. I know that it's true because sex nor how to reproduce came natural to me. If I never saw or was made aware of a man and woman having sex, I would never do it. I am sure that I would at least be curious about it, but someone would have to tell me about it and tell me or show me how to do it in order for me to have knowledge of it. Many people in this society do not believe this only because they were taught to believe different and do not know any better. As pitiful as it is, it's true. I have heard too 126

many people lie and say that it came natural to them just to be in with the 'In-Crowd.' I have also heard people with homosexual tendencies say that they were born with them. This is untrue. If you put an unprogrammed tape or compact disc in a player, nothing will playback when you turn it on. The only way you can get something to playback on it is to program something on it. As I have clearly said before, the Creator put into mankind, his first unprogrammed spirit. All of the Creator's other living and breathing creations on this earth are housed and controlled by programmed spirits. All of the Creators programmed spirits are programmed to reproduce. If they were not, the creations that they were put into would not reproduce and would no longer exist. No programmed spirit has to tell or show another programmed spirit how to reproduce. If you are taught a falsehood, you will believe it until you are not only taught the truth, but accept the falsehood as untrue. I again go back to Jesus and his purpose for returning to this earth. As I said earlier, I believe that the spirit that controlled Jesus' body lived earlier in another human body and achieved the purpose it was created for. It was just waiting in limbo until the Creator replenished this earth with newly created human bodies to house the programmed free spirits that he approves of. The Human World was so misled about the truth and purpose of our existence that the Creator allowed Jesus to return to this earth to give mankind a chance to know the truth about our existence. I am sure that the Creator felt that it was unfair for humanity to automatically continue to be recycled without a possible chance of succeeding in accomplishing the purpose it was created for. Especially when you look at the destruction we have done and continue to do to his foundation of this earth and just about everything within it. It was no need for him to continue the experiment when success was impossible under those present circumstances. The only logical thing for him to do was either improve the chances for success or end the experiment. Jesus was his answer. Jesus' purpose for returning to this earth was to give anyone who believed and accepted what he said as truth, the opportunity to achieve the purpose they were created for. Let me explain to you some of the damages that the J. Writer's falsehood did, and is still doing, to the human race. (1) Mankind believes that we look like the Creator. How absurd! (if you remember what you read about this in the History of The Jewish People, then you will know where this falsehood originated.) The Creator did not know what we were going to look like until 127

he experimented. Some hairy male humans today show features of our true ancestors. No creation of the Creator knows what he looks like. (2) Mankind does not know its place on this earth. Because of this, and the advancement and technology in our creation over that of all of the other creations, mankind has taken over the earth. Instead of being a part of it, we have taken it as our own. We made from it our own world and now control it, its occupants and every other part that we have the ability and technology to control. Because we do not know any better, we have taken the Creator's role away from him. We have taken to a certain extent, the control of both nature and the environment from him. Take a look at today's Man-made World. This accomplishment did not come free. During the process, we have changed the physical structure of this earth with our buildings, and changed the structures of this earth's land and water environments with the pollution from the machinery we build and from the chemicals we mix, use, and discard. This has poisoned the soil of this earth and has caused the human body a lot of the problems and sicknesses we now experience. When you review mankind's advancements and accomplishments from our inception to present, they are beyond belief. However, when you assess the damage to the perfected natural world that the Creator has created, one of the two has to go. The two cannot and will not co-exist. We have to either conform to the Creator's purpose and place for our kind in his world or no longer exist in it. We are the Creator's greatest and worst creation so far, mainly because of the J. Writer's falsehood. It's like a bitter sweet victory. On the sweet side we have an unprogrammed free spiritual creation (mankind), communicating with its creator. On the bitter side we have mankind being falsely taught the purpose for its existence and how to obtain it. Look at the kind of world mankind have changed and made it into because of being misinformed. In the eyes of mankind, government and not the Creator controls it. Because mankind created religion, it is categorized and accepted as a personal belief and spiritual way of life. That is the foundation that the societies of this world are structured on. That is also the reason why mankind is in the situation that we are in today. It allowed the J. Writers to brainwash not only their generation, but future generations into believing something they knew was not true. As a result, mankind as a whole accepts and acknowledges the Jew's God Yahweh as the creator of this earth and mankind instead of the true Creator. As a result, mankind accepts the Torah's mythical Adam and Eve as the first Human Beings. It is totally impossible for the Humans today to have evolved from Adam and Eve. 128

Every race of people (and there are hundreds of them) was created individually by the Creator. Do you think that the Creator only created one kind of a Human Being? If you recall, the Creator created an assortment of every creation he created. He not only created different kinds, colors and sizes of Humans Beings, he created them at different times and put them in different locations all over this earth. We are so 'Brainwashed' that we are not even interested in finding out the truth. Somehow, some way, we have to learn the truth, and of our purpose and place on this earth before it is to late. The longer we inhabit this earth without this knowledge and conforming to it, the more damage we are going to do to it. Can you possibly understand the situation that the Creator is in? He cannot and will not allow this to continue for to much longer. It is only a matter of time before he reconstructs this earth and repairs the damage mankind has done to it. It may be today, tomorrow or a hundred years from now. No man knows when, but it has to happen, I assure you. If you research the Jewish people's way of life, you will see that it is also their religion. The foundation of the Jewish religion is the Torah. It is based on The J. Writer's misrepresentation of their god Yahweh. Over the years, their Religious leaders expounded on the Torah with additional laws, bi-laws, and commentaries on it. They were modernized interpretations, viewpoints and explanations of the Torah with additions, commentaries and their interpretations of how Yahweh wanted them and only them, his chosen people, to live. The Gentile World believed what they were saying. The Gentile World copied the Hebrew Bible and other Nations in the World started believing in and living by the standards of the Hebrew Bible. This religion was the most organized religion of its time. Again, I want to make this important point. The J. Writers intention was to unite their people under one god. It was not their intention to purposely harm anyone. The successors of the Torah did not know what the J. Writers did. As a result, They believe and accept the contents of the Torah as the 'Absolute Truth.' Can you understand now why Jesus had to come on this earth? Can you accept the fact that if someone like Jesus did not come, mankind probably would not be in existence today. The Creator put Jesus on this earth to save mankind. Regardless of where He came from and how He got here, I believed that Jesus saved mankind from extinction. I use myself as the perfect example. I am not saying that my programmed spirit is going to be one of the spirits that the Creator accepts, I am saying that I now have a choice to be one of those spirits if I want to. 129

The only way I got that choice was finding out the truth about my existence. Now that I know, I can and do enjoy to the fullest extent, the balance of my life while in this body. Now I can and do base the rest of the decisions I make in this life on reality, and not fiction. Jesus came here to tell whoever would listen, the same thing I have learned from my research. I give you the same message that Jesus did, except that mine is more explicit. Jesus' message was simple and to the point. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. He did not come here in a majestic way, instead, he came here in the most humanly humble way possible. He came here in the body of a human being and was just like any other spirit living in a human body. He was nothing like the deity mysticism and mythology have made him to be. If you understand what I have told you this far, and put it in its proper context, you cannot help seeing that the Jesus that has been deified is not the same Jesus who came to this earth to save mankind. I cannot even imagine what Jesus went through to save mankind. Very few people listened to him, and only a few of those who did. wanted to and did believe him. The majority of those who believed him were poor. If they were not poor, they probably would not have even listened to him. How many people today will even consider what I have said as being true? Will you? Mankind is so brainwashed that we cannot even use common sense. At one time I thought that common sense came natural as we developed and matured. I now know that it does not and that even though it is there, we have to be taught to use it. If we are not taught the truth about our existence, then the common sense we use will be based on what we are taught. For example: mankind has not been taught what I have tried to explain to you about the human body and its purpose. If we were, then we would not have spent and continue to spend the trillions upon trillions of dollars we spend trying to improve it. Nor would we continually throw away the trillions of dollars we throw away (by putting it in the ground) to bury the remains of human bodies after they die. Some of us bury these remains in super expensive caskets with all of the elaborate trimmings and then put them in steel containers or vaults to protect them from the bugs and to slow down their recycling process. To me, it is preserving and ritualizing a shell. Now I ask you, what sense does that make? What possible reasonable explanation can anyone give that will justify this if you believe that the human body is an earthly creation that temporarily houses your spirit, and that it has to go back to the earth from whence it came? If society was taught the 130

truth about what happens to the programmed spirit when the human body dies, there would be only one reason why any spirit would fear losing its human body, and why a doctor or anyone would try or even have to try to keep it alive. That reason is that it failed to accomplish the purpose it was created for. Under the conception that I have explained to you in this book, wouldn't it only make common sense for the programmed spirit to be glad when the body dies? As I have said earlier, the common sense you use will be based on what you were and are taught to use the common sense on and not on something you was not taught and is in opposition and contradict what you were taught. We mourn the death of a body because we are not taught the truth about our existence and purpose on this earth. If we were, we would be selfish and stupid to mourn the death of a human body when we know that its spirit achieved its goal and will live again in another human body. I am trying my best to make this plain. I hope that 1 am making sense to you. The Jews could not accept what Jesus was trying to get them to understand because what they were taught and believed was in total opposition of what He was trying to teach them. Jesus could not and did not prevail against the establishment and I know that I won't. All that I can do is the same thing that Jesus did and that is to try. The established religious societies will not allow me nor my message to prevail. If they did, it would destroy them. Those who unjustly use the church for their own personal gain would no longer be able to do that. They will not be able to say that God called them to preach and teach a ministry that is based on falsification. My intention is not to expose them nor any religious group for any wrongdoing. In spite of what I have said in this book, it is not my intention to persecute the church. I do not blame the Religious Society for what they are doing nor for what they have done. They are only doing what they were and are taught to do. Moreso in actions than words. My reason for not condemning the church is that in spite of all of its false teachings and unnecessary rituals, enough of the truth that is needed to accomplish the purpose for mankind's existence is still in it. So, if you live by its teachings in your actions instead of just words, you can still accomplish the purpose for your existence. If you remember what I said in my introduction, you will recall that the actions of the church confused me more than their teachings. Through my research, I have found out and now understand why the Religious Society acts the way it does. Their actions contradict and are not in sync with their teachings on the contents of the Bible. The only 131

thing that the Creator did for the Jews in their Bible was be used to unite their people. Any and everything they said that he did for them, they did it themselves and credited it to him. Anything bad that happened to them, they said that Yahweh did it to punish them for disobeying him. Anything good happened, it was the opposite. So you see Yahweh was and still is in a win all situation. The true creator, and the real issues regarding mankind's purpose on this earth, never were addressed. If you have understood what I have said thus far, then you should have no problem whatsoever understanding why the world is in the condition it is in today. The World today, is a modernized version of the World in Biblical days. The church is doing the same thing that the church back then was doing, only much worse and on a much larger scale. The church has to learn and accept the truth about its existence by separating fact from fiction. Then it has to set the record straight and practice what it preaches and teaches. Not in words, but in actions. That is exactly what I did. Please reread my profile in the appendix (4). You will see that I acknowledged God's presence in my life seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You have no idea what that is like unless you experience it for yourself. The church taught me that but was not practicing it. I could not deal with God in my life all of the time. I had no privacy, could not hide my thoughts, and I am not even going to mention what misery he caused my sex life. I was not even trying to be a Christian, I was just trying to keep my end of the deal that we made. However, it was so hard doing things that I knew that he disapproved of right in front of him. You cannot even imagine how many times I wanted to break our agreement. That was 22 years ago. Now, he is my best friend. I am still tempted and tested sometimes by the evil forces, and still make some bad choices and decisions, but not without the awareness of his presence. God (the Creator), being my best friend, has been and still is always there to help me through them. Now I do not know what I would do without him. I talk to him all of the time. You cannot begin to imagine how great I feel knowing that I have someone like the Creator to talk to, and knowing beyond any shadow of doubt that he not only listens, but responds when necessary. From the time I made that agreement with him until present, He has done every single thing I have asked him to do. Knowing this just freaks me out sometimes. I'm talking about having a personal conversation with the creator of this whole entire earth. I know that he hears me. He has never ever failed me. I just wish I could make you understand. The last thing I asked him to do was to let me share what I have learned from this 132

research with mankind. If you are reading this book, then you know that he granted that wish. Not only did he grant the wish, but made me aware of what I am sharing with you. I started this project in 1986. I wrote four other versions before I wrote this one. Not one of them even slightly resembles this. It is not my intention to scare anybody with the contents of this book nor make anyone do anything that they do not want to do. My sole purpose is to make anyone who reads this aware of the truth about their existence and purpose for mankind's existence, and to tell you how to achieve it if you so desire. Why am I doing this? Because you have the right to know. If I was on the other side of the fence, I would forever be grateful if someone did for me what I am doing for mankind. Again, I want to make it very clear that what you do with what I am telling you is entirely up to you. Even if you do not accept what I am telling you, at least you are made aware of it. That is all that I want to do. Before I go any further, I again want to explain to you (if you are interested), how to achieve the purpose your spirit was created for. If you accept what you have read thus far, then you know that the purpose and goal of an unprogrammed spirit is to live in and program the spirit to live in and control a human body in a manner that is acceptable to its Creator. To achieve this, an unprogrammed spirit must master two things. The first and most important is the hardest. It is to control the evil spirits and forces that the spirit encounters while in the human body. The other one is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. These two things go hand in hand. You cannot accomplish one without the other. The hardest evil force to control is 'anger' and 'revenge.' Now these may be two evil forces instead of one, but they are entwined together, and one does not work without the other. When someone or something makes you angry, you react. Your reaction can come in many different ways, but whatever way it is, it is a type of revenge. It is your way of saying at that time, or a later time, that you did not appreciate whatever caused your anger and that this is your response to it. If you do not do this, then you have a very serious problem because you are incapable of making people aware of things that you disapprove of or that make you angry. This evil force was the hardest for me to control, and I am still having problem today dealing with it. My greatest consolation is knowing and accepting the fact that whoever the perpetrator was, of the deed that caused me to want to avenge it, really do not know any better because they were never taught any better. Even though they do not know any better, they are still held 133

accountable for their actions, and will have to accept the consequences for them. That is my revenge. Now knowing that, I would be outright stupid to try to get even with someone and in return, suffer the consequences for my actions. Can you understand what I am saying? My satisfaction, (regardless of how I feel about their stupidity) is knowing without a doubt that they are going to be punished for their actions. In spite of my satisfaction, I really feel sorry for them, You see, the real pitiful part about it is that when they are being punished, they do not know they are being punished nor do they know for what reason. Therefore, they continue doing their misdeeds over and over again, and being punished over and over again. Here is the real sad part about it. They finally realize and understand the consequences of their misdeeds when their body dies and their now programmed spirit leaves it. Then it is too late. They have become a recyclable spirit waiting until all of their attachments are removed, and then being recycled. If you remember and understood what I told you earlier about the recycling process, then you know that their spirit will never learn by its mistakes and will continue making the same mistakes over and over again in each human body it occupies until it expires. Its only hope is that it learns the truth (like I did) while in a human body, and programs its spirit to serve the purpose that it was created for. I wish that I could share with you some of the evidence that I have seen and/or was made aware of that verifies this fact. Some of it has been so intense that it is frightening beyond belief. My reason for not sharing it with you is that I do not want to offend nor scare anyone. Again I say, my sole purpose for this book is to make anyone who reads it aware of its contents. That's it. You deserve the right to know the truth about your existence. Whether you accept it or not, and what you do with it is entirely up to you. If I offend anyone during the process, it is not intentional, and I apologize. Another evil force to control is the desire to kill another human being, regardless of the reason. It amazes me how we can kill people we do not know and people who have done nothing to us, just because we want to and/or are told to. In all other living and breathing creations, these forces are either programmed in them or accessible to them to balance and control them. We call it natural instinct. Most of these living creations have a prey and a predator. It is a part of their life's cycle to kill, be killed, and then recycled to begin the process all over again. I do not know when, where or how mankind got the desire to kill one another. Maybe from our ancestors. Creatures of the same species 134

have fought each other for millions of years. The same thing has happened to mankind from our beginning until we became civilized. After that, our ancestors started making prisoners of some of the people they conquered and using them as slaves. That is how and when slavery came into existence. No other creation on this earth had or have fought and captured their same species and made them serve them. If you look at the History of the civilized man, you will see that mankind, like other creatures fight and even kill each other to control their domain and the surrounding area to a certain degree. Those who cannot accept and abide by the ruler of that dominion either challenge him or move on. If the challenger wins, he becomes ruler. If he loses, he either submits to the winner or moves on. Now that I think about it, I know how mankind got the desire to kill. He was taught to, and I just explained one of the main reasons why. It did not come natural because his spirit is not programmed. This is why we have to master and exclude any thoughts of killing another human being in programming our spirit. If this is done right, our spirit that we are programming will not kill a human being when it is put into and controls another human body. In spite of the fact that the Ten Commandments in the Torah very clearly states that Thou shall not Kill, the Jewish people did not and still do not interpret it the way I do. To me it means that it is wrong for a human being to kill another human being. To the Jews, (who were taught that conquering and killing others was a way of life), it means that it's a sin to kill one of their own. They killed many innocent human beings to conquer the land of Canaan, a country they claim that Yahweh promised them. Is that the way Yahweh fulfilled his promise? Do you think that the Creator endorsed them killing those innocent human beings? To this day, they are killing other nationalities of people, and other nationalities of people are killing them. This is because of the many teachings and interpretations of the Torah. Because these teachings were and still are misleading, mankind has advanced from the weapons and artillery used four to five thousand years ago to the nuclear arsenals we have today. There are other evil forces that the unprogrammed spirits that control humans have to deal with, but the aforementioned are the worse. Regardless of how powerful these forces are, they cannot make you do anything. On the opposite side of the evil forces, there are the good forces. They do the complete opposite of the evil forces. It is then your option to decide which suggestion of the two forces you are going to accept. This is why you are accountable for your actions while on 135

this earth. Neither of these forces can make you do anything. Because they cannot, you are held responsible for the actions you program on your spirit. It's not hard to understand if you are in the right frame of mind. This is why I told you at the beginning to try to put aside your religious and social teachings when reading this book because it's impossible to understand what I am trying to make you aware of if you try to put it in any context with what you were taught. One other important thing I want to bring your attention to is the selfishness we are taught, and how to correct it. I never knew that I was as selfish and self centered as I found myself to be until I dabbed a little bit into astrology. It said that a negative trait of a person born under my sign is sensitivity. It said that our feelings are very sensitive and are very easy to hurt; however, we have no problem offending anyone who crosses us without any consideration for their feelings. Quite naturally I did not believe nor accept this. I could never do this. Even though I did not accept it, it stayed in the back of my mind. One night when I was cruelly chastising one of my choir members for not doing what I asked him to do, it popped in my mind. I did not want to even acknowledge what I saw myself doing, but I could not deny it. That incident really opened my eyes. How could I so freely hurt other people's feelings and at the same time be so sensitive about mine? I did not like what I saw in me. I had no idea that I was like that. It had never been brought to my attention. Since then, I have tried to be considerate of other people's feelings. It did not come easy and it took a while for me to make the adjustment. There are many other people out there who are exactly like I used to be and do not even know it. How can they? They were never properly made aware of it nor taught to acknowledge it and how to correct it. If you are interested in being a better person, please do this one thing. Before you criticize or say something negative about someone, look at yourself and see if you have the same fault that you found in that person. If so, keep it to yourself until you clean up your act; then tell them. I guarantee it will make you a better human being. This will be almost impossible for you to do because we were never taught how to. I cannot and do not expect for you to be able to do this overnight and just from reading this book even if you accept its contents as the absolute truth. It takes time. We need to stop applying criticisms to other people before applying them to ourselves. We can judge and find the same fault that we have in other people but cannot see it nor find it in ourselves. For example; A man can criticize another man for cheating 136

on a good woman while at the same time, he has a good woman that he is cheating on. How about this one? A young thug can break into a house and rob its occupants of their possessions without any remorse, but let someone do the same thing to him and he will want to and try his best to get revenge. Here is another one; A drunk driver can kill an innocent person and expect society to be lenient and accept his drunkenness as an excuse, but he cannot and will not accept nor forgive a drunk driver for killing one of his loved ones. These are called doubled standards. I am sure that you have heard the expression 'What is good for the goose is good for the gander.' Let me paraphrase that and say 'Do not do anything to others that you cannot accept back in return.' Again, please take this personal, and if you have not, please apply it to yourself. I guarantee you, it will make you a better person. Once I realized my double standards about my sensitivity, it made me aware of a lot of other doubled standards that I had. I was never taught to correct myself before trying to correct someone else. Most of you who read this will skip right over this part without understanding and applying what I am telling you to your life. Without doing it, your spirit will not be properly programmed, and it, without a doubt, will be recycled. The unprogrammed spirit that we are programming can not be programmed properly and achieve the purpose it was created for without being made aware of its purpose and how to achieve it. This has to be done in order to achieve that purpose. You have to do unto others as you would have them do unto you in all phases of life. If you are interested in achieving that purpose, please take this advice on how to start. 'Give Up Your Privacy.' Pretend that someone lives in your mind and knows your every thought. I guarantee you that your whole life will change. It will be impossible for you to do many of the wrong things that you are used to doing. The bottom line to this is that in 'Reality,' there is something in each and every one of our minds that truly does know our every thought and action. It records this information on our Spirit and programs it. Please let me say this one more time. The Creator has nothing whatsoever to do with deciding which programmed spirit is or is not recycled. That decision is entirely up to each individual spirit. The innocent 'Brainwashed' victims who are expecting to see God and Jesus in the image of mankind will have a rude awakening. Not only will they not see what they expected, they will finally realize their purpose for being on this earth and know that they did not achieve it. There will be no one there for them to blame, no one there to beg for mercy from, and no one there to change their destiny. 137

As I said before, Jesus was our only hope and possible solution. The Creator put him on this earth and he tried his best to save mankind from extinction. Jesus not only tried to make mankind aware of the purpose for our existence and how to achieve it, but he also tried to properly link up our communication with the Creator that the J. School of writers introduced to mankind. The Jews did to Jesus exactly what anyone in their frame of mind would have done. Jesus may not have accomplished all that he was sent to accomplish, but I know that his presence on this earth created the Christianity movement. Even though this movement's foundation was and still is structured improperly, it was not done intentionally. It was done to give the new movement some badly needed credibility. That is why I refuse to criticize the people who did this. I understand why and truly believe that their intentions were honorable. I can sympathize with this but cannot overlook the fact that mankind was and still is being misled because of what they did. Let me explain one thing to you that you may not have ever though of. The societies and cultures of today are based on and branch off from ancient traditions and teachings. Our social and religious teachings branch off from the misrepresentations and incorrect teachings of the Torah. The scientific world disqualified the teachings of the Torah as factual when it became apparent through archeology and the advancements in technology that this earth was not created in the way the Torah said it was. They have concrete evidence that this earth is at least billions of years old instead of the few thousands of years claimed in the Torah. Earlier in this chapter I told you about the million years old bones found of pre-existing creations. To top this off, the original tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh inscribed on them were found verifying the fact beyond any shadow of doubt that the Creation Story in the Torah was formatted from it. Instead of correcting these false teachings and trying to find out the truth about our existence, the decision was made to down play these findings. So my friends, mankind does not know how we got here, knows that he does not know how we got here, and is not even interested in finding out how we got here. The Scientific World knows how deep the teachings of the Torah are embedded in the foundation and formation of this world's Religious Societies and the effect it has on other societies. They also know what is in store for them from these societies if they attempt to confront them and address this issue; and so, they do not. Also, research into the existence of a Creator was and still is avoided. When anything about nature 138

is addressed that cannot be logically explained, evolution is used as a response. After mankind became reasonably civilized, An organized way of life had to be established. It was structured and divided into two entities; government and religion. Government controls the physical life and religion controls the spiritual life. By doing this, separation of religion and government was established with government over ruling religion if and/or when they clashed. Government only deals with physical issues, not spiritual ones. Over the years, government have created a physical purpose and goal for mankind on this earth and continuously spend trillions upon trillions of dollars trying to achieve that impossible goal. The reason that it is impossible is that their goal is not in agreement with that of the Creators', and the Creator has already achieved his physical goal for mankind. Instead of researching and formulating a foundation to deal with mankind's spiritual purpose, government left it to the Religious Societies' discretion to create and format the doctrine for their followers. Government's only concern is the physical aspects of human life. The only stipulation to the Religious Community as a whole was and is that it must conform to the guidelines set by the government. As long as government sees a physical body abiding by its laws, rules and regulations, it does not care whatsoever about what controls that body nor what happens to it after it dies. By giving the Religious Societies this authority, their doctrines and teachings (regardless of what they are) will be the foundation from which human beings program their spirits. Therefore, mankind's only hope to find out the truth about its existence and purpose in life lies in the hands of the Religious Communities. Their doctrines will program the spirits that control the Human Bodies and determine the destiny of the programmed spirits. World governments do not care what your religious beliefs are nor if they are true or false as long as they do not conflict with or go against the laws, rules and regulation of their government. Even if they know that your religious practices are false, they will not intervene. Hopefully you will agree that the government does not care about what happens to you after your body dies. So, if your Religious Society does not teach you the truth about your existence, you will never find out while living in your human body. The misrepresentations and false teachings of the ancient traditions have caused mankind to be in the situation we are in today. An excellent example of this is the Creation Story in the Torah. Not only does our government allow mankind to believe and continue 139

to teach something that they know is incorrect, (Just like they do about Columbus discovering America in 1492.) they endorse it by adding God to the Pledge of Allegiance. Even if they did try to correct it, society as a whole would not have accepted it, and still will not. Because these misconceptions have not been addressed and/or corrected, religion has become the farce that it is today. My mother sent my brother and me to church for religious teachings and at the age of six and seven, we were raped by a deacon of the church. We are just two of the millions that this and other misdeeds have happened to. It continues to this day happening in Religious Societies all over the World. Not only were we spiritually misled, we were raped on top of it by a deacon of the church. Have you any idea of the innocent lives that have been and is being destroyed because of the false teachings, misrepresentations, misuses, and abuses of authority by Church leaders and officials? It would not be so bad if they were and are aware about the truth of their existence and made their decision to do what they had done and/or are doing based on it, but they do not. As I said earlier, they will be punished for their actions without knowing nor understanding why until they are recycled. Isn't that pitiful? And there is nothing that can be done about it because the majority of us have been and still are 'Brainwashed.' Our spiritual and mental objectives and purposes in life are not in agreement with the Creator's objective and purpose for our existence on this earth. In other words, we are a failed experiment. That includes you if you do not know the truth about your existence. You know what that means don't you? If not, then ask yourself the following questions, and then answer them. (1) What are my spiritual and realistic physical objectives in this life? (2) Do I believe that there is a purpose for my existence and mankind's existence on this earth? (3) If so, what is it? and (4) Am I programming my spirit properly to achieve it? If any of your answers are not in agreement with the Creators', or do not correspond with nor entail those of the Creators', you will not be one of his programmed free spirits that will live in and control the bodies of his future generation of human beings on this earth. Before I completed my research for this book, my response to those questions would have been as follows; (1) My spiritual objective was to go to Heaven. I was satisfied with the spiritual and physical accomplishments I have made thus far. My physical objective was; to work, earn and save enough money so that I could live reasonably comfortable in my later years, to take care of my physical body as best I could 140

so that I would not have to depend on anybody to take care of me, and finally, to die peacefully. I did and still do believe that there is a purpose for my existence and the existence of mankind on this earth. And (3) I believed that it is for mankind to learn how to live in peace and harmony with each other. I do not believe that my answers nor the way I was programming my spirit was in total agreement with nor achieved the Creator's purpose for my existence. Therefore, if my body died before I learned what 1 have learned through my research, my unexceptable spirit would have been recycled and I would have started life all over again without any of the knowledge I had learned in this body. If I die now, I may not still make it, but I will have a better chance of making it now that I have accepted what I have learned from this research. If I do not make it, it will be because I chose not to and not because I did not know how to. The choice is mine and I can now make my decision based on fact and not fiction. I sure hope that your response to those questions is better than mine. Some people do not have any religious beliefs and live their life based on the standards set by their government. Government and not religion rules mankind. Therefore mankind accepts what the government dictates to us instead of the Creator. We respect and fear the Government more than we respect and fear the Creator. Anyone who thinks that Yahweh is the Creator does not even know who the 'Real' Creator is. Government and not the Creator controls the different societies of humans that makes up mankind. The government's response to those same questions would be that it allows mankind religious freedom in any reasonable and legally acceptable way as long as it is subservient to and controlled by the government of that land. The reason why religion is subservient to and controlled by Government is that Government knows that Religion is man made and therefore, the Religious Beliefs and Gods of Religions are man made. Government knows that Religion as a whole, is the greatest 'Cult' in the World. This is also the reason why religion is subservient to the Medical World, and medicine and surgery override prayer. As I have said earlier, the Scientific World has the evidence to prove that Religion is man made, and their Evolution Theory supersedes and contradict today's interpretation and definition of Religion. Can you see how mixed-up we are? Mankind's physical objective is to make a person live as long as possible. The Medical World does not even know that the human body has been naturally perfected by the Creator for the purpose intended. The brain has even been enlarged for future use. The Medical World 141

does not know this and have no explanation for why the Human body, as perfected as it is, only uses five percent of its total brain capacity. Scientifically, mankind does not acknowledge the existence of a creator and credits the creation of this world and everything within it to evolution. Now I ask you, doesn't this ignorance explain and confirm why mankind is in the mental state of mind that we are in? Mankind does not realize nor accept the fact that the spirit and not the body is what is being perfected. Do you really know and accept that fact? Seriously, have you ever thought about or looked at life the way I am trying to get you to do it? Regardless of how many body parts they create and/or replace, the body will still age and die. Your spirit does not die nor age. Because of what our ancestors were taught and how it has been past down to our generations, we have been taught and are teaching our children to live this life and build a future life based on false hope. In other words, the future life that mankind has been 'brainwashed' into believing in does not exist. We have been masterfully fooled by the crafty and skilled evil forces. They took our strongest link (which is our religious belief), and shattered it piece by piece. They 'brainwash' us into believing that we can pretend to live the kind of life the Bible teaches and still go to heaven. When a loved one dies, we are pacified by being misled into believing that they went to heaven. We even fantasize them going to this make believed Heaven. We are taught to believe this and live our entire life believing it until our body dies. At that time, when we realize the truth about our existence, and really need someone to comfort us, no one will be there. The lies that had been instilled in us throughout our entire life (regardless of what they were and where they came from) will not be an acceptable excuse. There will be no judge to plead our case to. We will have to watch helplessly, the outcome of the actions that result from the life we lived, and the choices we made, while in the human body, regardless of our reasons. Worse than that, we will realize that; this same thing has happened to this spirit before in past lives, it is going to happen to it over and over again in the future, and that there is nothing whatsoever that we can do about it. The only difference between human spirits and other living creation's spirits is that we program the spirits instead of the Creator. There is no one looking out for mankind's interest. The church is not, nor is the government. Guess what? I am, and I am writing this book to prove it. I have nothing earthly whatsoever to gain by doing it, and everything to lose. The Church Society is going to condemn me and call me the Antichrist, the same thing they did to Jesus. The government 142

does not care as long as I obey their laws. The same as in the time of Jesus. What in this book have I said to hurt anybody? I have tried to get everyone to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus did the same thing and the church, not the government, crucified him. Two thousand years later, the church is going to do the same thing to me. In the time of Jesus, it was impossible for him to go into the synagogues and teach the message that he brought. Well, my friends, you have read this book. Now ask yourself. What would you do if you were sifting in the congregation at a church service and heard me testify based on the contents in this book? Be honest now. Well, I know what would happen, and because I know, I would never go into a church and try to teach the contents of this book. I'm a 'CHICKEN.' They would try to crucify me right in church. Can't you see that this is a repeat in history? I am nothing like Jesus was even though our circumstances are the same. Jesus was not only bold enough to go to one of the most sacred rituals of the Jewish People, he then had the nerve to speak his mind, and stand by what he said. Please do not forget, according to the New Testament, Jesus was the Jew's (God's chosen People) long awaited Messiah from the Tribe of David, whose coming was foretold by the Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Now I ask you; Don't you think that the Tribe of David would know if Jesus came from their Tribe? They have traced their lineage from the time of David to Jesus and know beyond any doubt that he was not a descendant of their Tribe. To this day, the Jews deny that Jesus was a descendant of the Tribe of David or their long awaited Messiah, and are still waiting for him to come from the Tribe of David. If you do not believe me, ask them. Maybe you will believe them. So you see, the New Testament contradicts the Hebrew Scriptures that it is based on. Does this make any sense? Someone has to be and is wrong. Please believe me, it is not the Jews. Let me again explain this to you in case you have not gotten it by now. The History of The Jewish People and the Religion of the Jews root from each other. The Old Testament or the Hebrew Scriptures is the History of The Jewish People. If you did not understand this from what you read in chapter one, then you missed it. If you missed that, then you also missed the fact that when Ministers preach from and/or we relate to the Old Testament and its contents, we are all referring and relating to the Jewish People's History and to their God Yahweh. They are Yahweh's 'Chosen People,' Not the 'Creator's.' This misunderstanding has today's Religious World worshipping Yahweh and his actions that the Jewish writers created instead of the Creator. Now I 143

understand why the Pharaohs back then considered themselves Gods. They knew who Yahweh and the other Gods were, and knew where they came from. Over the course of time, Yahweh and the Creator became one. So you see, it was impossible for Jesus to be the Jew's long awaited Messiah or the son of their God Yahweh. Jesus' coming brought the truth to the light. The Jews couldn't and didn't accept it. Jesus never did anything to the Jewish people but try to help them. In return, they killed him. They did not know any better then, and two thousand years later, still do not know any better. How can they? The same Torah is still being instilled in them from birth. Well, guess what? We are no better off than they are because their Torah is a part of our religions today. The teachings that Jesus condemned then have not been abolished nor changed and are in existence today. They are the first five books of the Old Testament. The Religious Societies of the world today are preaching and teaching from these books. They are preaching and teaching what Jesus condemned and gave his life for. Please do not forget, the Torah was in circulation several hundred years before Jesus came. As a matter of fact, the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint was in existence when Jesus came. As I said earlier, that is why I believe that he came here. Again I will say, the situation now, is the same as it was back then. It's just a modernized version. Again I say, the Jews are teaching the same doctrine they were teaching before Jesus came here. They crucified him for condemning it. Most of the religions of the world today are founded and based on that same doctrine. That is why I will not go into today's Religious Societies and try to tell them the same thing that Jesus tried to tell the Jews. It is impossible for them to accept it. Jesus could come back again and they would do the same thing to him. Do you know why? Because he would not deliver the kind of message the Religious Communities would be expecting and misled into believing. Instead of hearing and seeing the fantasized Deity confirm the fabled New Testament, they would hear him give the same message and teachings that he gave almost two thousand years ago. History would then be repeated because they would do a modernized version of the same thing they did to him before. I am not stupid. I know if they would do that to him, my fate would be worse. So, I am using this book to relay my message to whoever will read it. Even if you do not understand it. Maybe one day you will. I just hope that it is not too late! Nowhere in this book have I attacked the Church. I have attacked their teachings through their actions. Then I defended their actions 144

because I know that they do not know any better. I have explained this to you and also have explained why I cannot have ill feelings against anyone for doing something negative that they have no understanding of what they are doing. It just does not make any sense. In spite of what the Religious Societies may think about me and the contents of this book, the Black Church is a part of my culture and I love it especially after I found out the truth about it and put it in its right perspective. As of the writing of this book, I play for a church and donate my time and services. I love them very much and would do nothing to hurt them. I love them so much that I had second thoughts about publishing this. I just did not and do not want to hurt them and I know without a doubt that this will. I had to make a choice and I feel obligated to mankind to share my findings with you. My life will change after this is published. I will not even go to the church I have grown to love dearly. I do not want to see the Religious Community ostracize them and brand them as a traitor. I cannot even imagine what this will do to them because they know the kind of a person I am and it will cause great confusion because I know that some of them really love me. I do not want to even think about what this will do to my sweet and loving wife. I know that she truly loves me and I also know her religious teachings and beliefs. I am telling you this hoping that you will see the sacrifice I am making for mankind. I have been advised many times to keep what I am telling you to myself and let time, and nature run its course. I seriously thought about it but just could not, regardless of any circumstances, let mankind destroy itself without at least trying to help save it, when I knew that I could. If this book helps just one person, this writing is not in vain. No one really cares about us like the Creator. He has heard many of humanity's cries, and answered many of our prayers. He has also punished us very severely for making a farce of what we claim he stands for. Its time for mankind to be what we can make it be and that is the Creators greatest earthly creation. A free spirit living in and controlling a human body. If we do not hurry up and get on the right track, it is going to be all over before we realize and understand what is happening. I do not think that the Creator is going to give us another chance. In other words, 'This Is It.' If we do not take heed and try to fulfill the purpose we were created for, Mass Extinction is next. It is so pitiful. You just do not, and worse than that, cannot understand. The earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan were only a small sample of Mass Extinction and of how quick and effective one of the Creator's acts (and I do not mean magic) can be. Look at the other recent earthquakes and 145

catastrophes happening throughout the world. Earthquakes are just one in his mighty arsenal of weapons that can completely wipe out mankind. What kind of defense can we put up against our Creator? None whatsoever. The Creator cannot and will not allow mankind to exist too much longer because we are destroying the foundation that he built this earth on. Let me explain. The Creator did not structure the foundation of this earth to deai with all of man-made's structures and pollution. They have seriously damaged, changed, and off set the balance of this earth. The longer we are allowed to continue doing this, the more damage we are doing. Look what we have done to the ozone layer. Look at how we have polluted this earth's water supply and destroyed and continue to destroy so many of the Creator's creatures and creations. It was not structured to deal with and filter out the pollution from the chemicals we have mixed and continue to mix into our atmosphere. We cannot even begin to imagine the damage we are continuously doing to this earth. The worse part about it is that it's impossible for us to change because we do not know any better. We were never taught the true purpose for our creation and existence. Again I tell you, it was not for us to take over the world and try play God of the Universe. It is for us to live in harmony with each other and in peace with other creatures. The Creator has no other alternative than to destroy mankind if we fail again to comprehend the reality of our existence and purpose here. There should be a universal agreement that every Human Being born be made aware of the purpose for their existence and how to achieve it. I have not the slightest idea of how to even begin to accomplish this. All that I know is that mankind should be obligated to make its future generations aware of the truth about our existence and how to achieve the purpose we were created for. Each individual spirit should have the right to determine its own destiny. In reality, they do not, did not, and will not. What makes it so bad is that mankind as a whole, is not even given a reasonable chance to program our spirits properly. Our priorities in life have been misrepresented because of our misconception and misunderstanding of our place and purpose on this earth. Money, health, power, and sex are mankind's priorities in this life. How to get as much of each of them as we can is our goal. What we have done to each other and mankind over the course of time, to obtain these priorities, is what has put this world in the condition it is in today. From our birth, we are taught violence and how to kill before we are taught and can reasonably understand the meaning of death. Thanks to televi146

sion and the media, our children are taught to glorify killing another human being without them understanding and being taught to understand the true meaning of life, death and purpose of Human existence. We have no idea of the true meaning of love. We only deal with and accept our interpretation of it. Love is something that we have to be taught over a period of years. It does not come over night nor just by the showing of affection, hugging, kissing, and/or having sex with someone. It is something that needs to be properly defined and then practiced. This should be one of our priorities in life. We should be taught to fall in love with the personality and character of a person instead of their looks, sexual attributes, and abilities, and/or financial status. If mankind had not been misled by the misrepresentations of the writers of the Holy Bible, this would be a different world today. Hopefully, this book will at least make those of you who understand and accept its contents, aware of the Creator's purpose for mankind and deal with it accordingly. Those of you who like the proposition and accept and abide by it, will have no problem dying. Why? Because you know that once your body dies; you have properly programmed your spirit, you have fulfilled your obligation, and will live in and control another human body in the future. As I said earlier, each individual, and not the Creator, determines their destiny. Those who do not accept the proposition will want to and try their best to live in their body as long as possible because they know that when their body dies, they are going to be recycled. They also know that a future life in another Human body is not guaranteed, and that if they do have one, the kind of life it will be is unknown. You, the reader, now have a choice. Regardless of what you accept or reject in this book, you have a choice. It is up to you and you alone. It has not been pre-destined nor could it be, because you make the choice. Your decision will remain with your spirit until it is either reprogrammed or destroyed. After the next mass extinction, all of the Human spirits that are not programmed properly will be destroyed. This could happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or even in the next millennium. We just do not know when. Only the Creator knows. What I do know for sure is that there will be a mass extinction of mankind soon. Do you remember the mass extinctions I told you about earlier? If you recall, the last one I told you about, the inhabitants were completely wiped out without leaving a trace, and were completely replaced by new inhabitants. Do you remember reading that? Well my friends, that is exactly what is going to happen to mankind. Then the Creator is 147

going to replace mankind with a carbon copy of the human structure that we have today. Then he is going to house and control his newly created human bodies with the programmed spirits that achieved the purpose they were created for. These programmed spirits will remember everything they did while in their other human bodies and be the successful completion of the experiment that began millions of years ago. If for any reason a problem arises with the human body, the Creator will either repair it or create another one. I sure hope that you understand what I am saying. This is the last time I am going to tell you this. It is not the human body that is being experimented on. It has already been perfected to the Creator's satisfaction. What our objective is, is to perfect the spirit that controls it by properly programming it. One of man's greatest misconception is trying to preserve the human body. The body is not built to last forever, but the spirit is. In my conclusion I want to share with you how I now live my life on this earth. Most Religious Rites and Rituals are excluded from my activities. Instead I enjoy life to the fullest. In the frame of mind I now find myself in, common sense dictates to me that religion was created by mankind. This fact is verified in the History of Mankind. This does not prevent me from going to church and enjoying the culture I was raised in; instead, it allows me to put it in its right perspective and accept it for its true worth. The creation of Religion in the beginning was not bad because the Creator was not involved. The Creator did not and still does not mind mankind worshipping idols as long as it does not interfere with his purpose and objective for mankind. Please try to understand this. The Creator created every living, breathing, and spiritual creation on this earth. Why would he care who or what we worship? Regardless of who or what it is, we are still worshipping him because he created it. Does that make sense to you? The only problem the Creator has with any Religion is if its doctrine and teachings are contrary to his purpose and objective for mankind. Now you know that makes sense don't you? We praise and thank God for what we call miracles but don't blame him for disasters. We don't have the common sense to realize that both of them are caused or sanctioned by him. Haven't you ever questioned why God allows cruel and evil things to happen to churches and in sanctuaries? For example: church bombings, and the recent killing of 7 innocent people in a church in Texas. Well, here is your answer. Religion, not being created by the Creator receives no special privileges, treatment, or protection from him. Religious sites of worship are 'Sacred' to mankind but not to the Creator. We are so 148

pitifully Brainwashed that if and when there is a threat of disaster, we run to our site of worship for a place of refuge that is man made and cannot nor will not serve that purpose. We do not have the common sense to realize this because of what we were taught to base our common sense on. Look at all of those people who died in Guyana listening to Jim Jones. They were not worshipping the Creator, they were listening to and worshipping Jim Jones' God. The Creator had nothing whatsoever to do with their belief, and did nothing to stop them from doing what they did. The same thing applies to us. He has nothing whatsoever to do with our religious beliefs nor the decisions in life we make because of them. It is our decision if we want to deal with Religion in this life. As long as it does not prevent us from achieving the purpose for our existence, it will have no bearing whatsoever in us achieving a future life in a Human body. As I clearly said earlier, we make the decision if we are going to achieve the purpose for our existence, not the Creator. Life is so different to me now that 1 know the truth about my existence. I'm just super happy. I love partying and having a good time, and believe me I do. I feel as if I'm the richest man in this world. All of the money in this world cannot buy what I have. It is impossible for words to express just how I feel. I have not one single problem on this earth. If you can recall in the introduction of this book, my greatest fear was death. Well no more my friends. That is the least of my concerns. If you do not know why, then you did not understand or accept what you read in this book. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm always happy. I don't have any inhibitions as long as they don't interfere or conflict with me achieving my purpose for being here. I deal with and live within man's laws but don't allow them to control my life. I do any and everything I want to do as long as I don't hurt anyone in the process. I allow no one to control me because by allowing it, I'm programming my spirit that way. Since I'm responsible for the way my spirit is programmed, I'm going to program it in the way I think that it is in accordance with the purpose it was created for and nothing else. I would never give anyone (I don't care who it is), the authority to control my mind to the extent that I allow them and their belief to program my spirit. It hurts me to my heart to see so many people being misled like this, but there is nothing that I can do because they don't know any better and are irreparably Brainwashed. I feel such compassion for them but there is nothing that I can do about it other than what I'm doing through this book. 149

Please let me tell you the worse part about this whole experience. I switched the tables around and put myself in the place of you the reader and here is my opinion of the contents of this book. "I think that Ronald Ingraham is a complete FRUITCAKE. He is the Antichrist and must be destroyed or banned from the Religious Communities of the world." I can agree with and understand why anyone would feel this way. The only thing that changed my opinion is this experience and what I learned from it. For those of you who have this negative opinion of me, please try to use common sense instead of your Religious Teachings to justify to yourself why, because the rest of your life on this earth and your afterlife will be based on it. I had no idea that I was going to find out what I did. Now put yourself in my shoes if you possibly can. Do you think that I had a legitimate reason for doing the research? Do you think that you and I have a right to know how the Bible that we believe in came into existence? Do you disagree with the concrete evidence I have presented to you? What would you do if you uncovered what I uncovered? Well, that is the position I am going to leave you in as I conclude this Book. Those of you who can comprehend but not accept the contents of this book will remember it for the rest of your existence, especially in your time of peril. Those of you who can not understand it will pass it off as though it was nothing and maybe laugh and joke about it. You are the ones I pity the most. Do you know why? Because when you recall this event, (and you will) you will remember that you had the audacity to laugh and joke about your destiny (HELL) that you could have changed, or at least improved. I assure you that it will not take the Creator long to decide how much longer he is going to allow mankind to exist. If he is not satisfied with our response to his last reprisal for mankind, mass extinction of mankind is right around the corner. We brought this on ourselves by not knowing our place on this earth. The Creator cannot allow us to continue destroying what it took him billions of years to create. I sure hope you understand this. Regardless of the choices you make during the rest of your life on this earth, you have been made aware of the true purpose for your existence and how to achieve it. You can either accept or reject it. The decision is yours.

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Something To Think About: Something You Will Remember: Your Spirit, my Spirit and the Spirits that control every Human Being living on this earth today, have lived on this earth before. Not one of us has achieved the purpose we were created for, if we had, we would not be here now. If any one of us created a spiritual creation that achieved the purpose we created it for, would we destroy it and begin all over again? 'No, and neither would the Creator.' Ronnie H. Ingraham P.S. I forgot to tell you something very very important. I cannot conclude this book without at least giving you an idea of what is in store for those who program their Spirits properly and achieve the purpose they were created for. My friends, you have no idea and words cannot begin to express what is in store for you if you are one of them. The fictitious Heaven described in the Holy Bible is not even in the same class as what you will experience. Religion as it is known today will not even exist. Sickness nor poor health will never be a problem again. War and fighting will not exist. Eternal peace and happiness will be your destiny. It will be an eternal paradise beyond belief. Here is the icing on the cake. Communication with the Creator. Need I explain this? There is nothing more anyone in their right mind can ask for... All of this for just doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. That is only fair. What more can anyone in a reasonable frame of mind ask for? Again, the decision is yours. There is no punishment for your decision unless you make the wrong one. If you do, then your punishment is the consequences for the negative things you did to others while on this earth. Doesn't that make sense? Once your debt is paid, you are recycled and start all over again. So you see my friends, you and only you control and decide your future. Please do yourself a favor and base that decision on fact and not fiction. You owe it to yourself.

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Essay "The Holy Bible" By Ronald Ingraham January 31, 1996 Holy is defined in Webster Dictionary as Sacred, dedicated to religious use. Bible is derived from the Greek Nord Biblio which means 'Book.'

Book: Origin - Ancient Mesopotamia now called Iraq. They developed writing on clay tablets. Then it was modernized to the papyrus scrolls produced in Egypt. These scrolls were unrolled as they were read. The earliest book contained prayers, rituals and incantations, laws and government, records, medical and scientific observations arid epics previously passed down orally Next came book binding and the gradual development of the codex. (which was folding leaves or pages contained within two or more wooden tablets covered with a wax writing surface and held together by rings.) By the fourth century, these codices had largely replaced the scrolls. The codex marked a revolutionary change from the rolled manuscript. Great Bibles and service books were produced. Examples are the Book of Kells (8th century) and the Winchester Bible (pre-13th century.) The Holy Bible is a book containing the sacred writings of Judaism and Christianity. It consist of two parts. The first part called 'The Old Testament' by Christians consist of the sacred writings of the Jewish People and was written in Hebrew, except for some portions in Aramaic. The second part called 'The New Testament' was composed in Greek and records the story of Jesus and the beginning of Christianity. Translated in whole or in part into more than 1500 languages. The Bible is the most widely distributed book in the world. Its influence on history and culture is incalculable.

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The Old Testament: The Old Testament was written over a period of 500 years by Jews, for the Jews and only the Jews. They are not a nationality or race of people, but people who trace their decent from a group of people their writers call the Israelites, and who are united by the religion they call Judaism. They believe that their religion is founded on 'Covenants' God offered them and they had accepted, and that Yahweh (their name for God) had agreed to make them (and only them) his specially 'Chosen People' and protect them, but only if they obeyed his laws. They believed these covenants were made with Noah, Abraham, and his descendants. Because of this belief, they didn't and don't believe that Jesus was the 'Messiah.' The Jewish High Priest and his associates feared him as a threat to the 'Established Order', and persuaded the Roman Governor (Pontius Pilate) to have him crucified. The Jews don't acknowledge, accept nor believe in the New Testament. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: In 90 AD, The Rabbinic Council canonized the Hebrew Bible. It was organized into 24 books or scrolls. It contained 3 parts; the Torah (Pentateuch) or law, the Nevi'im or Prophets, and the Kethuvim or Writings. The Torah (Pentateuch) Yahweh's Law: In earlier times, Torah meant the 'Oral Instructions' of the priest on rituals, legal and moral questions. It was not different from those of other surrounding nations except that there were some unique commandments given, however, without specific rewards and punishment. For example; The Ten Commandments. The Torah consist of five books and is a complete Religious Law for the Jewish Nation. It is based on 4 principal sources. The oldest Judah (J) written in Judah, the Southern Kingdom, about 950 BC, Ephraim (E) another version written in Israel, the Northern Kingdom, between 900 and 750 BC, Deuteronomy (D) compiled in the 7th century BC, and Priestly (P) source added about 550 BC, some parts of which are very old. The Torah Collection was completed around 400 BC. 156

The Nevi'im or Prophets: The Prophets are divided into Former Prophets; (Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and I and II Kings) and the Latter Prophets; (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.) All of the Prophets were Jews. The writings were written between the 6th and 4th century BC, and the collection completed around 200 BC.

The Kethuvim or Writings: These writings were written after the Prophets and prior to the 3rd century BC, by Jews. They consist of; Psalms, Job, Proverb, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Ester, Daniel, Ezra - Nehemiah and I and II Chronicles. The collection was completed around 90 BC. The traditional order and the Extant Hebrew Texts all derive from one Hebrew source of the first century AD called the Masora. All books in the Old Testament prior to and including Samuel have been extensively edited by writers who shared the theology of the Deuteronomy Source. The origin of the 'Masora Version' is unknown. The Old Testament, long used in the Christian church was derived not from the 'Masoretic', but from an entirely different text called the 'Septuagint.' It is a Hellenistic Jewish translation into Greek about the 3rd century BC, and became the Old Testament of Christianity, and later translations wore made from it or patterned after it. Translators later improved and altered it to include books of apocrypha and pseudepigrapha translated from texts now lost. The Canon of the Septuagint was 'entirely different' from that of the Masora.

The New Testament: The story of Jesus and the beginning of 'Christianity' was handed down by word of mouth until it was put into writing because so many different stories were being told. The New Testament consist of 27 books. Of these, 4 are Gospels, (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) one is History, (Acts of the Apostles) 21 are letters from various people, (Romans, 1st & 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1st & 2nd Thessalonians, 1st & 2nd Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, James, 1st & 2nd Peter, 1st, 2nd, 157

& 3rd John, and Jude) and one is a type of "Prophetic" book (Revelations.) All of these books were written between the 1st and 2nd century AD. Some of the writers were known and some weren't. There are 3 main sources for historic information about Jesus - The New Testament, a Jewish historian named Flavius and a Roman historian named Tacitus. The New Testament by far provides the most information, but according to history, it is not accurate. From it we can roughly deduce that Jesus was probably born around 6 - 4 BC. According to Luke 2:21, Jesus was named by the angel Gabriel. (Jesus is simply the Greek form of the old Hebrew name "Joshua") There is no mention of his childhood other than him going to the Passover Festival at age 12. He 'never' went to school (John 7:15-17) and his occupation was suppose to be that of a carpenter. There were nor are any pictures of him. The New Testament have a vague physical description of him, and from some references, he was assumed to be of ordinary appearance. His ministry didn't start until he was around 26 years old. He made radical statements that undermined the separateness of Judaism and led logically to the admission of Gentiles into the community. Thus, there emerged a church embracing Jews and nonJews that was interpreted and based on a 'New Covenant' inaugurated by him. He was crucified after being arrested by the Jews and charged with 'Blasphemy' after admitting to their high court (The Sanhedrin) that he was the Son of God. Although they rejected him as the Messiah, many of his teachings are a part of their religion. After his crucifixion, his followers formed the 'First Christian Community' in Jerusalem. It was called "The Way." They were first referred to as Christians in Antioch (Syria) about 50 AD. It was derived from a man called Christus, who had suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberias at the hands of one of the procurators, Pontius Pilate. There were many so called Sacred letters, books and writings circulated and used in Egypt, the Syriac-speaking churches and other Christian communities, and these communities only used the writings they considered Sacred. Opinion varied from community to community. The process of unifying the Christian Society by deciding which of these writings would be used in all of their churches began with the canonizing of what would be called 'The New Testament.' In 382 AD, Saint Athanasius, a Greek theologian and church father made his decision of which of the many writings would become a part of The New Testament. It was then approved and 'Canonized' by the Council of Rome. The writings that weren't included were considered and called 'Apocrypha' 158

(Non-canonical, writings not to be read to the congregation.) There were also Sacred writings that weren't included in the Old Testament for the same reason, and anything written after the third century BC wasn't included regardless of its authoritative because of its late origin. 'Christianity': Christianity is the religion founded upon the teachings of Jesus Christ. He sought to prepare people for the coming of God. Only those who repent and do God's will can enter the Kingdom. It spread very rapidly and united many races, classes and religious beliefs into a brotherhood. It remained one great community for 1,000 years, then the Greek Catholics broke away from the Roman Catholics in 1054. The Reformation in the early fifteen hundreds created another group called the Protestants. They later sub-divided into many denominations, 'Versions of the Holy Bible': There were and still are many many versions of the "Holy Bible.' Some have just the Old Testament in them, some have just the New, some have both, some have both with apocrypha books in them and etc... The Apocrypha (especially the Old Testament) may be viewed as a Fourth Collection. Fourteen of these books were accepted by early Christians and Greek-speaking Jews outside of Palestine especially in Egypt. These books shed valuable light on the History and Religious thoughts of the period between the two testaments called by some as the 'Intertestamental' period. In Greek and Latin Bibles, these books are dispersed throughout the Old Testament; however, in Bibles used by the Protestant denomination, they are either omitted or are made a separate section at the end of the Old Testament. They are regarded as Canonical (scripturally accepted) by Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Churches, but not in Judaism or Protestantism. Some early versions are; The Aramaic Targum (Jews), The Septuagint (Greek), Peshitta (Syriac), Vulgate (Latin), (The Roman Catholics accept this version) Armenian, Gothic, Egyptian Coptic and Ethiopic versions. The Old Testament was written for Jews and the religion called Judaism. The New Testament was written for Jews and non-Jews and called Christianity. There were other religions, religious beliefs and Bibles written for them. Some before Judaism and Christianity. For 159

example Hinduism, the world's oldest known religion. It dates from about 4500 BC. Their Bible is called Bhaqauad-Gita; Taoism, Confucianism. Buddhaism and Islamism dates from 500 BC to 500 AD. All of these religions have their own Bibles and name for their God(s) or Higher Power(s). The Holy Bible in my estimation is a very good book. I believe that the problem in the Christian Society who is suppose to believe in it and live by it, is that they don't.

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A Profile Of Ronald H. Ingraham Written July, 1982 As I look back over my life span, I would like to share with you a short profile of how I come into existence, why I am what I am today, and my plans for the future. I was born out of wedlock to a poor woman who had 3 children before me and one after me. My father was a musician with a bad drinking habit. My mother kept him away from us so that we wouldn't grow up like him. She dedicated her life to us and raised us as best she could. But, that wasn't good enough for me. I was an extremely bad child. Without a father around to put this important input in my life, I RAN WILD... My mother used to go to church all of the time and took us with her whenever she went. She was a pioneer member of the St. John Missionary Baptist Church. As a child, I did as most children do, copy what they see adults do. There was a quartet at the church called The Bibletone Gospel Singers who could sing very well. I liked them, so I got my brothers together and we started a singing group calling ourselves The Ingraham Brothers and went around singing in different churches in our community. Also, during testimony services I used to watch people in the congregation sing a song, and then testify of God's goodness in their lives. So, I started doing it. I used to sing a song "It's nobody's fault but mine." If I die and my soul be lost, it's nobody's fault but mine. After the song, I would testify of God's goodness in my life. However, the words of that song meant nothing to me. There were very few kids around who could beat me lying and stealing. I even went to court and lied so well on my mother until the Judge took my brother and I away from her and put us in foster homes. Yet, I was in church testifying that Christ was in my life. But you see, I was only doing what I had seen other people doing. No one took the time to sit me down and tell me what religion was all about because they didn't know themselves. Instead, they thought what I was doing was cute and patted me on my back. 161

I lived in foster homes until I was able to take care of myself. At the age of 12, I gave my life to Christ and was baptized by Reverend Hester at the Twelfth Baptist Church. In reality, my life hadn't changed at all. I just felt guilty one Sunday morning and went and joined the church. My baptism did nothing for me either and I went through my teenage years claiming salvation when in reality, I didn't know what it meant. All of those years I walked around with my eyes wide open and not seeing a thing. No one tried to help me get my life together. How could they? They were doing the some thing I was doing. THAT'S WHY I WAS DOING IT! What our society falls to see and understand is that our children can only be what we teach them to be. Not in our words, but in our actions every day, 24 hours a day because our children are watching us when we don't think they are. If we don't show our children how we believe in and fear God at all times, how can we expect anything different from them? Our children are duplicates of us, however, we fail to understand this and when our children go astray, we place the blame elsewhere. In 1960, my mother taught me how to play my first song on the piano. Later that year I started playing for the Gospel Chorus of The St. John Missionary Baptist Church while my mother played for the Senior Choir. Through this talent, I got to visit other churches and denominations and saw how they worshipped. When I saw the Holiness Movement, I was amazed. These people seem to have a better time in their services than we did. I liked what I saw and wanted to become a part of their movement. I was told that the Baptist Movement was wrong and that I had to be Saved, Sanctified, and filled with the precious Holy Ghost if I wanted to become a part of their movement. I was CONFUSED and Afraid. Some unknown force seem to take these people's mind and body over at times, and they would shout and speak in tongues I didn't understand. I decided to watch this movement and see if it was what I really wanted before getting into it. So I stopped claiming salvation and watched the Holiness movement. In this movement I saw people professing to be Saved, Sanctified, and filled with the Precious Holy Ghost living not only worse than the Baptist Faith I came from, but WORSE than the people who didn't go to church at all. To add insult to injury, some of the Ministers and Church Leaders were living WORSE than their members. There were more illegitimate babies in their movement than any other that I've seen. I've never seen as many homosexuals in the street as I've seen in this movement. Most of the ministers and church leaders, male or female, were 162

either married and going with someone other than their spouse, homosexual, or both. I saw self-made Bishops, Ministers, Elders, Evangelists, and their PAWNS STEALING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD. Taking MONEY from the POOR and NEEDY and stuffing their pockets. Buying big cars, property, and new churches for their own personal gain. I just couldn't understand how they could believe in God and do the things I saw them do. In 1961, I organized a young people's choir at St. John's and called the St. John Juniors. This choir is still in existence today. Their name was changed to the Kelly Choir. From that choir I took I took 4 girls and started a group. We called ourselves the Gospel Parisians. Bill Moss, a well known singer in the city organized a group and asked me to play for them. The group was called "Bill Moss and the Celestials." To me, Bill was a genius and a great influence in my music. He taught me how he wanted his original songs played, and we toured the country off and on for about four years. During our travels 1 got to personally meet many popular professional singers and was very disappointed in what I learned about them. To me, they were all HYPOCRITES. I couldn't understand how they could sing so well and sincere in front of audiences and be something else behind closed doors. All of this added to my confused religious beliefs. The only one of them who had a positive impact on me was Mahalia Jackson. She told me of the many sacrifices she had to make to get where she was at. I didn't understand what she meant then, but found out as I climbed the ladder of success. In 1965 when I reorganized the New Hope Concert Choir, I made them aware of my musical objectives and my religious confusion. I refused to pretend to be something that I wasn't and tried to instill that in my choir member's minds. I did openly what the Church Society was doing behind closed doors. 1 believed that if I couldn't hide from God, WHY SHOULD I HIDE FROM MAN. The Black Church Society accepted R.I.C.C. in our early years. Some of them even tried to get me saved. I refused every time because I knew that I couldn't live the way the Bible says I should. I wasn't going to make a FOOL of myself trying to FOOL GOD. I didn't let my opinion and decision influence my group because Religion to me is a personal thing and I didn't want to be held responsible if my belief was wrong, for leading INNOCENT SOULS ASTRAY. I allowed some Evangelists to work with my group through Bible classes and before long, about half of my group claimed they were Saved. The Evangelists told them to come out from amongst us. The next thing I knew, my 163

group had split. The newly saved members left us because we weren't saved and joined the Evangelists' churches and church choirs. I picked up the pieces and continued on. The more I got into being a leader of a Religious group, the more corruption I saw in the Black Church Society. When I spoke out against it, I was condemned especially by the SAVED SOCIETY. They didn't want to hear me of all people telling them that they were living wrong. I watched them take in INNOCENT SOULS, and once they had them in their folds, DESTROY THEIR MINDS. Instead of teaching them to FEAR GOD, they teach them to fear man. Before long, these INNOCENT SOULS ARE AS CORRUPT AS THEY ARE. Things got worse when I allowed my group to perform at a local Night Club for a week doing Gospel Music. Bethel Pentecostal Church, where we had performed at 22 times without ever receiving a dime, BANNED US from singing in their church. What hurt so bad was that this church was a HOMOSEXUAL'S HAVEN from the pulpit to the door. The assistant pastor was having sex with one of my friends, and one of the female ministers was going with my barber's sister-in-law. My barber told me that this MINISTER CHARGED his sister-in-law's sexual preference, made her break up with her boyfriend, and the two women became lovers. He doesn't believe in or go to church anymore because of that. He said that his sister-in-law went to church normal, looking for religion, and turned into a LESBIAN. I can't and never will understand how these people can condemn us for singing gospel songs in a Night Club, and they GET OFF ON HOMOSEXUAL'S PREACHING TO THEM. I'm in no position to nor Do I CONDEMN HOMOSEXUALITY, BUT THE BIBLE DOES AND THAT'S WHAT WE'RE SUPPOSE TO LIVE BY. The more I spoke out against what I saw, the more enemies I made, and the more the Black Church Society CONDEMNED me. Before long, I couldn't take my choir in a church around here to sing without the people looking at us like we were a BUNCH of FREAKS. We couldn't even buy an AMEN. In 1975, I stopped letting my choir sing in churches around here and looked elsewhere for support. I wasn't going to force my group on anyone nor was I going to PLAY WITH GOD. I added other types of music to our repertoire and looked elsewhere for support. I wasn't too successful because the Black Organizations were a part of the Black Church Society, had their own groups they supported, and/or were JEALOUS of our success. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to break up my group nor did I want to give into the Powerful Black Church Society. I decided to wait and see what would come my way. All during 164

this time I was getting closer to my interpretation of God and didn't even know it. In 1976, I auditioned R.I.C.C. for a national talent search to go to Africa to represent the Black Communities of the U.S.A. at The 2nd World Black & African Festival of Arts & Culture. The odds were so great against us going. I knew we didn't have a hope or a prayer but I still entered us in it. I told God if we got to go, I knew he was in the plan. There were hundreds of applicants from this area and thousands nationally. Not only did we get to go, but come in as Top Contender in our discipline in the entire country. I knew then beyond any shadow of doubt that God was in my life and had smiled on me. When we got to Africa, our delegation was so poorly organized until I had to go out on my own to try to get to perform. Because God was in the plan, we performed more than the 15,000 artists who were there from all over the world. Our first performance was at the newest and best site Nigeria had. When the Choir was on stage waiting to perform for the thousands in the audience and the millions who were going to see us via satellite throughout Africa and Europe, I found out that the piano was locked. No one had the key. I had to decide whether to let the Choir sing without me playing or wait until another time. I decided to let them sing one song. I stood on the sideline and watched my many years of hard work unfold before me. When it was over, it was INSTANT STARDOM. I'm not going to go into anymore details because they're not important to me anymore. God was in my life and I knew it. My life was changing and I was riding on CLOUD 9. I had no idea then that I was going to have to make a choice between stardom and God. When the time come for me to make my decision, I chose God. I thought that my group was experiencing the same thing I was, but I was wrong. I apologize to them for choosing God over fame and fortune because if I played the game like our sponsors wanted me to, RICC would be a household word in the Black Communities of this country by now. Instead, I condemned them and they used their influences and kept our name and accomplishments from the Media and Public in this country. They gave an Awards Banquet in New York for the U.S. Delegation, and gave everyone who went to Africa an award except us. So you see, I made enemies everywhere. When we came back home from Africa, we came back as the same NOBODIES we were before we left. There was so much JEALOUSY from our PEERS and enemies here until we weren't even recognized at home for this great accomplishment. One of the reasons 165

I'm sure is because everyone wanted to go and we were the only ones in the entire New England area who qualified and went. In 1979, when Dolores Jackson died, our PEERS and ENEMIES were so glad. They thought that R.I.C.C. was dead. They didn't know what I'm telling you now. If they did, maybe they would understand that FAME & FORTUNE was mine two years before she died if I wanted it. Dolores knew where my head was at. She even kept some things from me that she knew I wouldn't approve of. I LOVED Dolores for herself, NOT HER VOICE. I WAS WORRIED ABOUT HER SOUL, NOT HER VOICE. I believe that God prepared me for her death, and that I prospered more than anyone else from it. When I was told that she wasn't expected to live after her blood clot, I didn't know one minister in this city who I could go to, to help Dolores make peace with God. DEATH IS NOTHING TO PLAY WITH. When the doctor told us that Dolores' brain was dead, and they wanted permission to pull the plug, the family said No. I went to her sick room and talked to her and God as Humble as I knew how. The next morning, we had 3 different kinds of weather within an hour. Then my phone rang. It was one of her kids who was at the hospital. She told me that the SAME DOCTOR who told us that Dolores' brain was dead, was in her room, heard her cough, and saw her move her arm. I said THANK YOU JESUS. I KNEW GOD WAS DEALING WITH HER, AND WHATEVER HE DID WAS ALL RIGHT WITH ME. AS close as I was to Dolores, it was out of my hands. After Dolores DIED, MY LIFE WAS VERY DIFFERENT. NOT ONLY DID I BELIEVE IN GOD, I FEARED HIM. Immediately, I stopped doing things that I knew were wrong and started getting my act together. I know that I have to pay the same debt she paid, and I don't want to do it alone. I want this SAME GOD that I believe in now, to be there to carry me from mortal to immortality. I don't want any surprises. Little by little my life started changing. THE REVENGE AND HATE in my heart started leaving me. Now I LOVE EVERYBODY. If I didn't, a lot of people here today would not have been invited. I feel so good and free now. And most of all, I'M NOT CONFUSED ANYMORE. AS FOR MY FUTURE PLANS, I WANT TO LIVE SO GOD CAN USE ME, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, AND ANYHOW ...... THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND PATIENCE ..... Ronald H. Ingraham

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To The Reader Dear Reader: Thank you so very much for reading this book. Whether you accept the facts in it or not, you have been made aware of the true purpose for the existence of mankind. I stumbled on it by accident. I never expected to find out what I found out, and it completely blew my mind. It took me years to digest what I have written in this book. If you will recall, I was seeking and trying to find spiritual meaning and understanding for my existence. I researched the source from which I was taught and found out that that source is not the one that I now choose to accept. I choose to acknowledge and accept the Creator of Heaven and Earth as the God responsible for my existence and the purpose for it. I no longer believe in not accept Yahweh, the God of Mount Sinai and of the Jewish People, as the Creator of Heaven and Earth. This title was later given to Yahweh as explained in the book. Yahweh is the God of the Hebrew scriptures. Yahweh is the God of the Old Testament. Yahweh is the God that the New Testament is based on. Yahweh is the God I was taught is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Yahweh is the God who is credited with and being identified in our churches today as the Creator of Heaven and Earth. I now know and accept the fact that the Creator of Heaven and Earth and of mankind, never considered any of his human creatures a 'special people.' Every human being is equal as far as our Creator is concerned, and there are 'NO' exceptions whatsoever. We are entitled to believe and accept what we want to, but this entitlement does not change that fact. Common sense dictates that we should be honest at least with ourselves if with no one else. Before writing this book, I didn't do that because the honesty and common sense I used throughout most of my life was based on a falsehood. What I've uncovered and explained to you in this book have to be and will be condemned by the Religious Societies of this world. If they accept it, it will destroy them. I understand this, and it is not my intention to destroy, get rid of, nor even harm them in any way whatsoever. My only intent and hope is for them to update and adjust their teachings to correspond with what archeology now confirm as facts about 173

past religious beliefs and the true Creator of heaven, earth, and all that is within it. They will 'NEVER' do this, and so I sincerely apologize to them and accept whatever consequences they deem appropriate. Regardless of what it is, I have 'No' regrets. Those whom I have offended from the results of my research, I apologize from the bottom of my heart. It is nor was my intention to offend anyone. I was looking for a spiritual understanding for my existence and found it through my research. Those of you who feel that I should not have shared these findings with the public, I give my 'Deepest Sympathy.' Ronald H. Ingraham

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