{"id":234,"date":"2008-11-20T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-20T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2008\/11\/20\/234\/"},"modified":"2014-09-20T09:21:47","modified_gmt":"2014-09-20T14:21:47","slug":"234","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Responses to the Debunking of Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched the recent NOVA science show on PBS about the Bible (The Bible’s Buried Secrets<\/a>), regarding what archeology tells us about the Hebrew Testament and the formative era of Judaism. To put it bluntly, what archeology tell us is that a lot of what is said in the Hebrew Bible \/ Old Testament isn’t true. Especially in Genesis, the first book. OK, so we’ve know for a long time that the Earth and heavens weren’t made in a week, and that Adam wasn’t formed out of the mud with Eve being pulled from his ribs. But most of the great stories about Abraham and Jacob and Moses also turn out to be fabrications and retrojections from later events, events such as the Babylonian exile, events which do have historic foundation. Even David, although confirmed as an historic figure, was taken down a few notches from the powerful and glorious king that he is made out to be in scripture.<\/p>\n

According to NOVA, the \u201cnation of Israel\u201d most likely gained its identity between 1200 BCE and 1000 BCE as a mix of refugees from southern Canaanite cities that were in turmoil (as Egyptian dominance subsided), and local nomads in the high country around Jerusalem (where the urban refugees were settling). There may well have been former Canaanite slaves in the group who had managed to run off from central Egypt, and perhaps there were charismatic leaders amidst them who inspired the Moses character. And those groups may well have wandered in the desert country between the Nile and the Canaan highlands for many years. So there were folk-tales available from which a narrative of a great past could be weaved, a past that was fabricated to deal with problems of the day (such as the crisis of conquest by Assyria and Babylon). <\/p>\n

Interestingly, one of the biggest retrojections onto the days of Moses was the idea of monotheism; archeology shows that the early Jews continued worshiping a variety of gods, including the Canaanite fertility goddess, for many centuries after King David and Solomon. They finally decided that it was best to stick with one god, YHWH, in order to deal with the foreign invaders. That was the god which the Egyptian refugees encountered in their wanderings (being worshiped by villages in southern Sinai, perhaps the Biblical \u201cMidian\u201d), and was thus remembered by them as their protector.<\/p>\n

(It would be interesting to research whether the memory of Asherah<\/a>, the Canaanite fertility goddess whom the early Jews sometimes referred to as the \u201cwife of YHWH\u201d, lasted into New Testament times and contributed to the formation of the Virgin Mary myth in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels.)<\/p>\n

The interesting thing is that many of the people who were contributing to this research and offering this interpretation were either from Israel or otherwise had typical Jewish surnames. I’d say that it is a good bet that many of the people who were debunking the great myths of the Jewish nation were and are Jewish. And that impressed me. These people seemed very relaxed about what they were doing and saying. No one was threatening their well being for saying that the great stories of the Bible aren’t literally true. Now compare that with the situation in Islam. Not too many years ago, a very early manuscript of the Quran<\/a> was found in an obscure mosque in Yemen. Since then, only a handful of western scholars have been allowed to see it. Those who suggest that it may have been an ‘evolving work’ (such as Dr. Gerd Puin<\/a>) have encountered hostility. You can find strong refutations by Islamic thinkers of the idea that the Yemen verses might show the \u201cofficial version\u201d of the Quran to have significant differences from what Mohammad or his immediate associates wrote during their lifetimes. E.g.<\/a> <\/p>\n

So, it might be a while until you see a NOVA episode regarding the \u201cburied secrets of the Quran\u201d. And that’s a shame. It is said that Islam is a relatively \u201cyoung\u201d religion; the NOVA special would indicate that the \u201cIsrael nation\u201d identity was formed over 1600 years before the life of Mohammad. Well, the Jews are certainly acting quite admirably and maturely about what science is saying about their most sacred foundational myths and stories. Let’s hope that Islam will learn to live up to this example.<\/p>\n

MORE IMMATURITY: I was listening to NPR yesterday and the announcer said that the \u201cliberal blogosphere\u201d (e.g. Daily Kos, Huffington Post) is somewhat upset with President-elect Obama for showing some centrist tendencies, e.g. considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, meeting with Senator McCain, and not committing to the prosecution of Bush Administration officials for torture. Plenty of immaturity out there; and perhaps Barack Obama has aged decades over the past two years. Perhaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched the recent NOVA science show on PBS about the Bible (The Bible’s Buried Secrets), regarding what archeology tells us about the Hebrew Testament and the formative era of Judaism. To put it bluntly, what archeology tell us is that a lot of what is said in the Hebrew Bible \/ Old Testament isn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4686,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/4686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}