It puts forward the veiw that the OT was put together by someone during the Babylonain captivity. VERY interesting.
One point that I wanted to share is this. There is a scripture that seems to back up this claim. Nehemiah 8 :13-14.This scripture seems to indicate that the Isrealites had "found" something that was not there previously. So who inserted it?
"And on the second day the heads of the fathers of al the people, the priests and the levites, gathered themselves together to Ezra the copyist, even to gain insight into the words of the law. THEN THEY FOUND written in the the law that Jehovah had commanded by means of Moses that the sons of Isreal should dwell in booths during the festival in the seventh month."
Verse 16 makes it clear thatthis was a new directive that they had found.
All this seems to prove to me that the Bible is nothing but a history book and was not compiled at the time but a long time after.
:All this seems to prove to me that the Bible is nothing but a history book and was not compiled at the time but a long time after.
I don't think it even qualifies as a history book. It is merely designed to keep the masses in line with fear and superstition. It has provided safe-haven and justification for lunacy and barbarity throughout the ages and has done a great deal of harm.
Another book you might find of interest is "Myths of the Bible" by Gary Greenberg...he basically asserts that the Bible writers used the myths and legends of the neighboring culture to build the foundation of the monotheistic religions of today.
It is pretty interesting, some of the research is a little faulty, but the premise is interesting.
UO, it's kinda funny, funny sad, that is; I bought that book several years ago when I was solidly "in". As I began reading it, I realized the authors did not take the bible as the literal, factual book that JW's do, so I just quit reading. AARRGHH, might have saved me some time and grief!
I read it again a few months ago. Very compelling. It really helps one get free of bondage to Hebrew mythology. And that is a good thing.
I have beleived and will most likely always beleive that the bible contains spiritual truth. God uses the agency of men to make himself known. I have serious doubts that God handed the 613 commandments as they now exist in Hebrew Scripture, down to Moses. I believe the Laws were developmental. I believe there really was a guy named Moses, that he led SOME (not hundreds of thousands) Hebrews into the Wilderness, that the excape was seen as miraculous. That Moses had an exerience with God in the Wilderness, that the resulting Nation of Israel, it' laws and scriptures were developmental. In short, I'm not a fundamentalist. But I do have FAITH!
YERUSALYIM "Vanity! It's my favorite sin!" [Al Pacino as Satan, in "DEVIL'S ADVOCATE"]
