Many Christians believe the writings we call the Old Testament has always been as it is now with the books in that order, written by those whose names appear at the top, and the text having been meticulously preserved as it was passed down and copied. The Hebrew Bible is in a different order ending with Chronicles, as it puts the Torah (Pentateuch) first, and next the prophets, sacred writings and history last. Christians wanted Malachi to be last because it connects the Old with the New with the "turning of the hearts back" etc to introduce the herald for Jesus John the Baptist.

On this site we have used the Masoretic text in common use today as a plumb line to test the New Testament.. BUT the text we have was put together after 1000AD! How like what was in use at the time of Jesus and the time the gospels were compiled is it?

It should be remembered that in the time of Jesus the practise in the synagogues was as it had been since the return from the exile: as the common people spoke Aramaic and few could understand Hebrew, except the priesthood, Targums [interpreter] were used. These were translations into Aramaic from the Babylonian Hebrew texts written about 400BCE on return from exile [ see Ezra], with commentaries, so the people could understand. Even the Samaritans had an Aramaic Targum of the Pentateuch. [F.F. Bruce "The Books and Parchments" ]

So the early Jewish Christians in Palestine [mostly supposed to be poor fishermen] would know the scriptures by the Aramaic version. So for whom were gospels and letters in Greek written, and why are the Old Testament quotes from the Greek Septuagint, a translation done by 70 translators of varying ability in Alexandria, Egypt, for the large Greek speaking Jews of the lower Nile Delta? The versions of the gospels we have are obviously for use by the mission to the Jewish diaspora and gentiles. Was anything written in Aramaic for Jews only? [see " Question of Q" on this site.] As to the Greek style of the Septuagint: there is nothing like it, on any large scale, in the whole of Greek literature. If a schoolboy, fresh from the study of Thucydides, Demosthenes, and Plato, were asked his opinion of Septuagint Greek, he would condemn it in terms far from complimentary. In other words, it is not classical Greek, and commonly offends against every rule of grammar, lexicography, and orthography that the Atticists enforce. To a great extent this is due to the simple fact that the Alexandrian version is a close and often literal rendering of a Semitic text, and the Semitic languages are as opposed as they can be to Greek idioms and to the Greek methods of constructing sentences!

The Septuagint, especially in certain books, is full of features, which to us today are of the highest interest, but which perplexed and shocked official Judaism. It was a disturbing fact that the Hellenistic Jew in all parts of the world read his Bible in a form which was at variance with the Bible of the Rabbis. But this was not all. A translation, however faithful, must to some extent interpret the document which it translates and the interpretation which the Seventy put upon their Hebrew text differed in many respects from that which found favour in official circles. It can be readily understood that in these circumstances the orthodox Jews would welcome a translation made from the official text of the Bible and following the lines of interpretation which were acceptable to their teachers. If such a translation were put forth they would do their best to get it substituted for the Alexandrian Bible. The task of making the new version was undertaken in the reign of Hadrian by one Aquila.

Hebrew or Greek?

The New Testament writers appear to quote the Septuagint Greek translation from 165BCE and which represents an underlying text from over 1000 years before the Masoretic [tradition] text we now have.

What were these other texts?

It is thought that the earliest written rather than oral accounts were those of the historical records held in the southern kingdom of Judah around 950BCE and the northern kingdom of Israel's records were brought together with these about 720BCE. This is why Chronicles and Kings are similar, yet differ. The northern record also went on to the Samaritans in oral form, and was written down as the Samaritan Pentateuch just before Christ.

At the fall of Jerusalem in 587BCE the southern and northern accounts were brought together with the Deuteronomic Torah (see below) which was probably written about the time of Jeremiah [possibly by him].

The Torah of the priests i.e. the law was not written down until 597BCE at the time of the Babylonian exile. It was joined with the narratives from south and north after the return from the exile about 400BCE.

This combination of four sources went then four ways - Palestine, Egypt, Babylon, and Samaria. The Samaritian Pentateuch continued alone [they did not accept any other books.]

The Septuagint was translated in Egypt in 165BCE and continued alone.

The Palestinian and Babylonian texts came back together just after the time of Christ at Jamnia in 100AD. These, together with the oral law handed down from the priesthood [who were now defunct because of the loss of the temple and so it was necessary to write it down], made the medieval texts we have which was completed in 1524 AD.

Jerome made a translation into Latin in 404AD and went back to the text of Jamnia and the Septuagint. He worked in Jerusalem and consulted with Hebrew scribes. This version is called the Vulgate.

Up until the time the Masoretic scribes worked the text was consonants only. Vowel points were added to make reading easier and more accurate.

The Masoretic texts were copied in the Middle Ages by scribes known as the Masoretes (hence the name Masoretic Text, frequently abbreviated MT or even M). The Masoretes were trained with exquisite care to preserve the text in all its details (down to such seeming minutae as the size of certain letters in the text and their position above or below the line). They also followed very exacting techniques of checking their manuscripts. The result is a text which shows almost no deviation, and manuscripts which reproduce it with incredible precision. Had such techniques been in use from the very beginning, textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible would be an easy task.

Our earliest substantial Masoretic manuscripts date from about the tenth century. Prior to this, we have only a handful of Hebrew manuscripts. The best-known of these are the Qumran manuscripts (the "Dead Sea Scrolls" ), though there are others such as the relics from the Cairo Genizah. With only a handful of exceptions, such as the Qumran Isaiah scroll, these manuscripts are damaged and difficult to read, and the portions of the OT they contain are limited. In addition, many have texts very similar to the Masoretic- but a handful do not. Perhaps the most important of all are the Qumran scrolls of Samuel, as they represent a tradition clearly independent from the MT, and apparently better (as the manuscripts lack many of the defects which afflict MT Samuel).

Also in Hebrew, but with differences in dialect, is the Samaritan Pentateuch. The production of a sect considered schismatic by the Jews, the text (which survives mostly in recent manuscripts, and in rather smaller numbers than Hebrew bibles, as the Samaritan sect is nearly extinct) shows definite signs of editing. It also seems to be based on a Hebrew text which predates the Masoretic. This makes it potentially valuable for criticism of the Pentateuch (the Samaritans did not revere the other portions of the Hebrew Bible) -- as long as we remain aware that it has been edited to conform to Samaritan biases. (We should also allow the possibility that the MT has been edited to conform to Jewish biases!)

The different books of the Septuagint were translated into Greek by different people and some are well done and others very badly e.g. the Pentateuch is well done (but only arrived at a version accepted as good and standard in 100 BCE and the only part of the Greek Old Testament accepted by the Jewish authorities, yet the other books such as the prophets are quoted from the Septuagint by the New Testament writers!). Isaiah is a bad one - unfortunately as it contains much that is used to "foretell" the birth and death of Jesus!

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls the oldest known manuscript of the Old Testament was from 895 AD. At Qumran cave one a manuscript of Isaiah virtually complete was found and dated to 100 BCE. It is very similar to the 895AD manuscript. It is now on show at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. It is said any Israeli can read it as it is so like modern Hebrew.

Great thought the Christian community!

What they do not talk about so much is that in cave four a copy of Jeremiah was found. It was in Hebrew and was a short form, as in the Greek Septuagint. The long version we have is a Palestinian edition with additions (Jer. 27 v 19-22, 33 v 14 -26, 39 v 3-14, 48 v 45 -47). There was also another version of Exodus.

These show there have been significant textual changes made. No wonder there has been so much secrecy about some of the finds at Qumran! There have been body blows for both Christian and Jewish communities.

There were 30 changes in the organisation of the book of Jeremiah compared with the Septuagint. This cannot be blamed on poor translation.

It is noteworthy that the Septuagint version of the Pentateuch is a careful, skilled translation. It also conforms relatively closely to the Hebrew as we have it (there are exceptions, e.g. in the ages of the Patriarchs and in the order of a few chapters, but these are quite slight compared to what we see in the rest of the Old Testament). Thus it is possible that it was an official project of some kind. Still, it cannot be considered an official Jewish product, as the primary language of the translators appears to have been Greek.

And as we move away from the Pentateuch, the situation becomes much more complex. The Septuagint version of the Pentateuch seems to have been generally acceptable. The same cannot be said for the remaining books

The term Septuagint is rather misleading, as it strongly implies that there was only one translation. This is simply not the case. The Greek Old Testament clearly circulated in multiple editions. It is not clear whether these were actually different translations (as a handful of scholars hold) or whether the text simply underwent a series of revisions. But that the "final" Septuagint text differed from the earliest is absolutely certain. This is perhaps most obvious in the Book of Judges, where Rahlfs (even though he is really citing only two manuscripts, the Alexandrinus/A and the Vaticanus/B) was forced to print two different texts. Few other books show such extreme variation (except in Daniel, where the version of Theodotian has replaced the original text of the Septuagint), but all show signs of editorial work.

What's more, the direction of the critical revision of the text is clear: The translation was made to conform more and more closely with the Hebrew text. Secondarily, it was made to be smoother, more Greek, and possibly more Christian and theologically exact. (This process very likely was similar to that which produced the Byzantine text of the New Testament.)

What we really need to know is what was the underlying Hebrew text used for the Septuagint translation and how does it compare with the Masoretic text we have now?

Here is an example:

The Massoretic text,as well as the Vulgate, of Exodus iii and xix-xx clearly represent the Supreme Being as appearing to Moses in the bush and on Mount Sinai; but the Septuagint version, while agreeing that it was God Himself who gave the Law, yet makes it 'the angel of the Lord' who appeared in the bush. " Hugh Pope, The Catholic Encyclopedia .

In New Testament times the Septuagint view has prevailed, and it is now not merely in the bush that the angel of the Lord, and not God Himself appears, but the angel is also the Giver of the Law (cf. Gal. iii, 19; Heb. ii, 2; Acts vii, 30)." Hugh Pope, The Catholic Encyclopedia

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The Pentateuch.

Perhaps the portion of the Bible which best demonstrates the results of the historical-literary approach is the Pentateuch. The five books were named by the Jews of Palestine according to the opening Hebrew words:

V Elleh Haddebarim: "These are the words"

The names now used in the English translations are from the Septuagint:

About A.D. 500 a Jewish scholar wrote in the Talmud that the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, which tell of Moses' death, must have been written by Joshua. By the time of the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholic and Protestant scholars were discussing the difficulty of maintaining the Mosaic authorship of the Torah.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that at no point in the Pentateuch is it said that Moses is the author; certain portions are said to be by Moses, but not the total writing. On the other hand, there is good evidence that Moses could not have been the author. In Gen. 14:14, Abram is said to have led a group of men to the city of Dan, but elsewhere it is stated that this city did not come into existence until the time of the Judges (Judg. 18:29), long after Moses' time.[But is it - see the New Chronology below.] The conquest by the Gileadites of the area called Havvothjair took place in the time of the Judges (Judg. 10:3-4), yet it is reported in the Pentateuch (Num. 32:41; Dent. 3:14). The time of the Hebrew monarchy is reflected in Gen. 36:31, yet this passage is set in a discussion of the patriarchal period. How could Moses write of things that did not come into being until long after his death?

Other evidence also suggests that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, and that many different writers made contributions to it. There are contradictory statements, one of the most obvious of which concerns the number of animals Noah took into the ark. In Gen. 6:19 Noah is told to take two of every kind of living creature - one male and one female - but in Gen. 7:2 seven pair of clean animals and birds are required. Would a single writer be so inconsistent?

Num. 35:6-7 specifies that Levites were to receive certain territorial inheritances, but Deut. 18:1 makes it quite clear that they are to have no inheritance. According to Exod. 3:13-15 and Exod. 6:2-3, the personal name of God, "Yahweh," (usually translated as Jehovah) was revealed for the first time to Moses on the holy mountain. Prior to this revelation, Yahweh was known only as "Elohim," (translated as God) or as "El Shaddai," which means "God of the mountains" . On the other hand, however, Gen. 4:26 indicates that from very early times men called upon God by his personal name of Yahweh, and in numerous places the patriarchs use the name Yahweh (see Gen. 22:14, 26:25, 27:20, 28:13). Would a single author make statements so contradictory? In fact, the very manner in which divine names are used before the revelation of Yahweh's name in Exodus raises problems. In certain sections of Genesis "Elohim" appears exclusively (Gen. 1:1-31, 9:1-11) ; in other places "Yahweh" appears alone (Gen. 4:1-16, 11:1-9). It would appear that different traditions have been brought together.

Some stories appear more than once, in what scholars have called "doublets." For example, in Gen. 15:5 Abraham is promised many descendants, and in Gen. 17:2 the promise is needlessly repeated. In Gen. 12:11-20 Sarah is pretended to be the sister of Abraham. This story appears in a slightly different setting in Gen. 20:1-18, and is told again with Isaac and Rebekah as central actors in Gen. 26:6-11. In the last two examples, Philistine kings are mentioned and the Philistines did not settle in Palestine until the twelfth century BCE.

Also the marrying late and having a barren wife who conceives when she is old repeats through the generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

How are such repetitions, contradictions and anachronisms best explained?

It could be that Moses did write most of the material, but additions of detail and comments were put in later? If the original text could be added to or changed in any way, it only leads to questions about what else was added, what might (unknown to us) have been changed, and how we can be expected to trust its reliability.

Perhaps the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a code we have not cracked yet.

[See " So what is it all about" on this site.]

No Egyptian record exists of Moses or any of the remarkable things he allegedly did. Herodotus, who travelled extensively in Egypt gathering information, made no mention of him. Christians, of course, need to assert that the resentful and humiliated Egyptians had all references to Moses stricken from the official record, but this is pure speculation unsupported by anything, not even the Bible. In fact, it contrasts with the claim in Exodus 11:3, which says that "Moses himself was a man of great importance in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's officials and in the sight of the people." His miraculous works, even if not part of the official record, might have been preserved in unofficial ones or in folk memory, either of which might have re emerged eventually after the events were safely in the past.

Solomon had the first temple constructed as described in 1 Kings 6-7, but neither he, nor the priests, seemed to have any awareness of the second commandment's prohibition against making "any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath" (Ex. 20:4). The text describes images of oxen, lions, flowers, palm trees, and cherubim (6:23-36; 7:23-50) without any condemnation. Zealous religionists going to the trouble and expense of constructing the central temple for the entire faith would have made certain to build it in conformity with their most important precepts. That these precepts did not yet exist is the likeliest explanation of why they were ignored. Like wise; what about the incident with the carrying of the ark by those other than the priests resulting in the death of Uzziah in David's time - why did they not know that it was the rule that only priests were to do that?

Reflecting the conflict between prophet and priest, Jeremiah had denied that God instructed the Israelites about burnt offerings: "Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices" (7:21-22). Either Jeremiah refused to recognise Leviticus, making either him or it non canonical, or (as most Bible scholars now believe) Leviticus did not then exist! Exilic priests wrote it.

Moses

Given these problems with the text of the Pentateuch, a conclusion that it is fundamentally mostly the work of later authors is inescapable for all but the most obstinate zealot. Other conclusions about the history of Judaism may be suggested by the same evidence. First is the suspicion that Yahwism prior to the "reformation" of Josiah (2 Kings 22-23) was not in decline, as is generally thought, but had actually not yet caught on! Second, when Hilkiah claimed that he had found "the book of the law of Yahweh," the earliest appearance of Deuteronomy, he, or another priest,had composed it at that time and passed it off as some ancient authority as part of a successful scheme to gain status for Yahwism as the official state religion. Third, Moses may have been a fictional character created as a legendary hero for the people to look up to and yet another Jewish boy who made good like Jacob, Joseph, and Daniel, and so was the intermediary who brought what was allegedly God's word to Israel, since its presentation merely by ordinary, contemporary men would not have been convincing. This suspicion is supported by not only the absence of historical confirmation of the existence of Moses but also by the apparently borrowed biographical details. Being placed in a basket sealed with pitch and set adrift on a river is the story of Sargon of Akkad, the first regional conqueror, who had lived more than a thousand years before Moses. The story of how he was set adrift in a basket on the River Euphrates was inscribed on an Akkadian Stela:

Sargon, the great king of Akkad, am I. Of my father I know only his name.... Otherwise I know nothing of him. My father's brother lived in the mountains. My mother was a priestess whom no man should have known. She brought me into the world secretly.... She took a basket of reeds, placed me inside it, covered it with pitch and placed me in the River Euphrates. And the river, without which the land cannot live, carried me through part of my future kingdom. The river did not rise over me, but carried me high and bore me along to Akki who fetched water to irrigate the fields. Akki made a gardener of me. In the garden that I cultivated, Inanna (the great goddess) saw me. She took me to Kish to the court of King Urzabala. There I called myself Sargon, that is, the rightful king.

This translation of the inscription and a picture of the Stela of Sargon can be found in Behind the Bible, Fredericton, NB, Canada, 1990, pp. 1-2). In addition to Sargon's account, this story of the abandoned child who went on to be a great leader occurred elsewhere in mythology.

This does not necessarily mean Moses did not exist, but that he has been made into a conquering hero fit to found a nation. As founder he would have to be the person entrusted with the laws for the nation, too. Yet, despite the Egyptian obsession with death and the after life, he is not given instruction on that important subject! If the laws were formulated long after leaving Egypt, .i.e. much more than two years, then this would not be necessary as by then Israel had its own philosophy about it.

So there are three main reasons why it is doubtful that Moses wrote the Pentateuch:

The letters JEDP are a designation used by scholars to identify the component parts or sources that they understand were used to compile the first five books of the Old Testament. There have been various opinions as to whether these sources were written or oral traditions, and whether each source represents an independent strand or a stage in the development of an older source.. Some may have been preserved in the songs, ballads, and folktales of different tribal groups, some in written form in sanctuaries. The so-called "documents" should not be considered as mutually exclusive writings, completely independent of one another, but rather as a continual stream of literature representing a pattern of progressive interpretation of traditions and history.

In 1929 a Canaanite temple library, which can be dated from the fourteenth century B.CE, was discovered at Ras es-Shamra, a site on the Syrian coast. The religious documents were found to contain words most familiar to us through the Priestly writings of the Pentateuch; suggesting that part of the P material may be based upon sources as ancient as those used in J. We are, then, confronted with a literary problem that is more difficult than the simple straight line analysis would suggest. Not only do we have materials coming from different periods of time and from different groups within society, and not only are these materials brought together and blended at different periods of history, but those who added the extra materials employed an interpretative principle in accordance with their own theological convictions expanding and expounding the writings with which they worked. Further, at some points the fusion of materials is so complete that it is impossible to distinguish sources - particularly where J and E are combined.

However, even though there is still debate as to the extent of the sources and their precise nature, the insight that the Pentateuch is composite and "grew" over a long period of time has been a lasting contribution of this method of study. This is in line with what New Testament scholars understand about the growth of the Gospel traditions, witnessed by the fact that we still have four "sources" of those traditions in the four Gospels. Originally, JEDP referred to the four main sources of the Pentateuch in what was called the "documentary hypothesis" of biblical origins (sources = documents). "J" and "E" were understood to be the oldest level of the biblical traditions, dating perhaps to the time of the Davidic monarchy (1,000 BC).

The designation J was given to material that primarily used the proper name for God (YHWH, we are not sure how it was pronounced; German scholars developed the method and used the letter "J" since that is the German equivalent of "Y" in Hebrew). It was suggested that this material was written or preserved in the Southern kingdom of Judah after the division of the Kingdom in 922 BC, and perhaps as late as the 8^th century BC.[But are these dates right - see New Chronology below.] It contained the traditions of the Davidic monarchy and the establishment of Jerusalem as the centre of worship, as well as recounting the story of the emergence of Israel as a people under God's guidance. While there is some legal material in these sources, most of it is epic narrative, traditional recounting of the origins of a people and their journey through history.

E was similar material that used the generic term for deity (elohim) in referring to God. It originated in the Northern Kingdom, perhaps earlier than J before the establishment of the monarchy, although most placed it around the 8^th century BC. Rather than material about the Davidic monarchy, E contained the tribal traditions of the conquest of the land and the traditions about the covenant and the worship centres outside Jerusalem.

D was the designation given to deuteronomic material. This was understood to be instructional or preaching material that used language, concepts, and theological perspectives very similar to that found in the Book of Deuteronomy as well as some of the prophets (e.g., Jeremiah). It focused on faithfulness to God using the covenant traditions as a basis, and was concerned with obedience as proper response to God's grace. It also included much of the legal material that revolved around obedience to God as faithfulness to the Torah.

There was always debate about the exact time frame of this material, but it was generally agreed that there were two distinct phases in the editing or "redaction" of "D" material. Some saw it as living tradition that was constantly reapplied within the community. It contained traditions from Moses, but scholars thought that an early form of Deuteronomy was in place as a written document during the reign of Josiah (c. 621 BC), which he used as a basis for his reforms. A later version of this material was reedited after the exile to apply the theology of Mosaic traditions to the crisis of the exile.

The P material was understood to be priestly material, and focused on the concerns of priests serving in the Jerusalem temple. This would include the technical record keeping and legal material related to the proper functioning of the Temple and its associated activities. Material such as detailed regulations about how to observe festivals, the counting of days, the ordering of events into sequence, genealogies and statistics, as well as reflective theological material that related to the keeping of religious law.

Like D, this priestly material is understood to contain traditions from all periods of Israel's history. But the final shaping of the P traditions are considered late in the development of the final form of the Pentateuch, since the priests emerged as the leaders and wielders of power only after the return from exile. Therefore, most of the priestly material, in the form we have it now, is usually understood as post-exilic in the fifth century BC or later.

There was always debate whether there was ever an independent "P" document, or whether this material was simply a rewriting of other traditional material from the perspective of priestly concerns (such as the "second" creation account of Genesis 1). This re-writing of older material is called "redaction" (editing) and this led to ongoing discussion whether the "redactor" is simply a compiler of other material or is a creative author. This same discussion relates to the Gospels as well, where it is more obvious that common material from traditional sources is being used, but yet is given unique theological slants by each of the four authors.

In studying texts for tampering, one thing to look for is what both writers and scholars call an 'editorial seam.' This is where text changes abruptly in voice or intent. A good example is Numbers 25:1-9. When at verse 6 the villains abruptly change from Moabites to Midianites, and a previously unmentioned plague suddenly stops, we clearly have a seam.

Today, while there are still challenges from some to the idea of sources in the Pentateuch, it is generally accepted even by very conservative scholars. However, there have been significant modifications from 100 years ago and the whole scenario of "source criticism" has been vastly simplified. Rather than "sources" many scholars now talk about traditions, emphasising that Scripture grew out of the ongoing life of a worshipping community rather than simply being composed by a single individual at one time and then merely edited. This has shifted an emphasis from the "authors" of Scripture to its function within the community.

The sources or pre-canonical traditions of the Old Testament are now generally simplified into three. The material of J and E has now been combined into what is generally termed the JE epic narratives. This is an acknowledgement on the one hand that it is mere speculation to try to subdivide the text any further, and on the other hand that this material remains distinctive from other Pentateuchal material. Scholarly understanding of the deuteronomic traditions have remained fairly stable in terms of the complexity of its history within the community. And the priestly traditions are now considered to contain some much older material, although the final composition is still placed in the post-exilic era.

This simply says that there is still validity in understanding a diversity of material in the Pentateuch that arose from different time periods with different emphases, much as the Gospel material of the New Testament. Of course, this would preclude Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as we have it now, although not denying that some material may have come from Moses. This understanding has led us to a clear awareness from examination of the texts that there are obvious differences in these various strata of material, most easily seen in the development of religious laws within the various traditions. For example, the JE material allows worship of Yahweh at various outlying shrines (Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Shechem) while the D material is insistent that sacrifices are only to be allowed at Jerusalem.

Likewise, even within these traditions are evidence of a dynamic at work within the community, as seen for example, in the various systems of tithing in Deuteronomy that traces the development from a primarily agrarian economy to an urban one. Yet, most scholars now emphasise more the whole of the canonical material and affirm that study of the component parts are not as important as how the material has been "shaped" in the formation of the canonical books that exist now. That means that source analysis is simply another tool in understanding the biblical texts.

This shift to canonical and theological concerns leads to new questions in relation to the sources. The primary questions are no longer, "What is the origin of this source?" or "When in Israel's history was this material originally written" (which are historical questions). Now, the primary questions in relation to the sources focus on theological questions such as, "How did the author/redactor use this material to make his point?" or "What ideas about God does this particular arrangement of the material confess?"

Sojourn

The length of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt is now taken by many biblical scholars to be around 215 years. The key verse in the determination of this is Exodus 12:40. In the Masoretic text, this verse says:-

"Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years."

However, the Masoretic Hebrew text dates from the 4^th century AD and the earliest surviving copy is from the 10^th century. The Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX) was made under Ptolemy I in the 2^nd Century BC and the earliest copy is centuries older than the oldest full Masoretic text we possess. It records the full version of Exodus 12:40 as:-

"Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt and Canaan, was 430 years."

This rendering of the verse is also found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, again older than the Masoretic text. Josephus in his Antiquities of the Jews' (XV:2), writing in the 1^st century, also gives the length of time from Abraham entering Canaan to the Exodus as 430 years. Therefore, in the Masoretic text, it is safe to say that the words "and Canaan" - i.e. the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - have been omitted in transcription over many centuries. Furthermore, I Chronicles 7:22-27 records ten generations from Joshua back to Joseph's son Ephraim, who was a boy of around five years when Jacob arrived in Egypt. Taking a standard average generation length of 20 years, we again arrive at a sojourn time of approximately 200 years. Josephus (op.cit.) records that from the time of Jacob's entry into Egypt until the Exodus there was a period of 215 years. Adding this to the Exodus date of 1447 BC from Edwin Thiele's biblical chronology, we arrive at a date of 1662 BC for Jacob's arrival in Egypt. Alternatively, by adding 430 years, we arrive at a figure of 1877 BC for Abraham's arrival in Canaan

The impact of David Rohl's "New Chronology"

The chronologies of ancient Egypt, Israel, and Mesopotamia are based on a single system established over 165 years ago In 1822, Jean Francois Champollion deciphered the Hieroglyphic Code using the Rosetta Stone, and began the field of Egyptology. Unfortunately, six years later, he dealt the new discipline a serious setback with his misinterpretation of a military campaign mural belonging to the Egyptian 22^nd Dynasty Pharaoh Sheshonq. Champollion thought he had found "Judah the Kingdom" among the hieroglyphs of subdued cities listed in Sheshonq's inscription and concluded that Sheshonq could be none other than the Biblical Pharaoh "Shishak." Shishak, according to 2 Chronicles 12, "captured the fortified cities of Judah" five years after the death of King Solomon. The Bible goes on to say that Jerusalem was spared only after Shishak "carried off ... everything." By 1888, Champollion's "Judah the Kingdom" had been correctly translated as "Monument of the King" and associated geographically with northern Israel by virtue of its position in the Karnak mural campaign itinerary However, the identification of Shishak with Sheshonq was not overturned, and has remained the cornerstone of ancient chronology.

In the New Chronology the Pharaoh who besieges the fortified cities of Judah and subdues Jerusalem five years after the death of Solomon is re-identified as the 19^th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramses II. The well documented campaign of Ramses II against Palestine in his Year 8 corresponds more closely to that of the Biblical Shishak than that of Sheshonq. Examination of the account of Sheshonq's invasion reveals that it was directed primarily toward the northern kingdom of Israel, and that Judah was deliberately bypassed by the Egyptian army. Also no mention is made in the Bible of the northern kingdom of Israel being subdued by Shishak. On the other hand, Ramses II's campaign did concentrate primarily on Judah and the Shasu nations of the Sinai and southern transjordan, and Ramses II specifically claims to have "plundered Shalom," i.e., Jerusalem.

In addition Rohl has determined that Shisha is an acceptable transliteration of the official Egyptian nickname (Sysw) of the Pharaoh Ramses II, and that the linguistic route to the Biblical name Shishak is more straightforward than that of Sheshonq, especially if it is recognised that the final "k" was added as a play on words (which was a recognised practice used in the Bible when translating foreign names) to render the connotation of "assaulter" in Hebrew.

The New Chronology determination that the Biblical King Rehoboam (besieged by Shishak) and the Pharaoh Ramses II were contemporaries is secured by several archaeological finds and a completely independent synchronism, that being the recording of a rare solar eclipse in the reign of the 18^th Dynasty Pharaoh, Akhenaten. Shortly after the death of his father Amenhotep III, Akhenaten received a letter from his vassal Abimilku. of Tyre informing him of a fire that destroyed half of the palace of King Nikmaddu II at the city of Ugarit (north of Tyre on the Syrian coast of the Mediterranean Sea). In the charred remains of that palace, archaeologists found a tablet describing an eclipse of the sun that occurred at sunset in the month of "Hiyaru" (mid-April to mid-May). As the setting sun was considered a goddess in the Ugarit pantheon, the eclipse represented a particularly evil omen, and it was indicated as such on the opposite side of the tablet. Computer calculation has confirmed that an eclipse did occur thirty minutes before sunset on May 9^th in the year 1012 B.CE., and that this was the only total solar eclipse which occurred within one hour of sunset at this location during the entire 2^nd millennium B.CE. Rohl therefore deduces that the palace fire, and Abimilku's letter to Akhenaten, occurred after (and likely no more than a year after) the tablet recording the solar eclipse of 1012 B.C. was inscribed.

Circa 1012 B.CE. is the accepted time (in the conventional chronology) for the rise of King David in Israel, however it has until now been believed that the Pharoah Akhenaten ruled in Egypt over 300 years earlier! The letter to Akhenaten was one of 340 political correspondences written primarily in Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the day, and dating to the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun. This group of letters are collectively known as the Amarna tablets after the site in Egypt where they were discovered in 1887.

Comparisons between the frequently mentioned "Habiru" of the Amarna tablets and the Biblical descriptions of David and his band of "mighty men" (2 Samuel 10:7) have been made by noted scholars. However, due to the 300 year offset in the conventional chronology, an association with the Biblical accounts had not been seriously considered. A new study of the Amarna tablets by Rohl has revealed that the ethnic and political makeup of Palestine, and the activities of the Habiru are even more similar in their correspondence with the Biblical record that was originally thought. King Saul (a symbolic name meaning "Asked For" because of Israel's request that God appoint a king to rule over them) of the Bible is revealed in the Amarna letters as Labayu (meaning "Great Lion" ), and "the Habiru who was raised up against the lands." In Psalm 57, Saul's bodyguards are referred to as lebaim ("great lions" ). Details relating to Labayu's activities, betrayal, and death as recorded in the Amarna letters precisely match the Bible account of Saul's rise and ultimate fall on Mount Gilboa in battle with the Philistines. After Labayu's death the Amarna tablets record the pleas to Akhenaten from his Jebusite vassal at Jerusalem, and from his Canaanite vassal at Gezer, to send either reinforcement troops, or an escort, to allow them to escape before their cities were to fall to the Habiru, who were now based in "Tianna" (Akkadian: Tianna -> Hebrew: Tsiyon -> English: Zion). This sequence of events in the Amarna tablets closely corresponds to the Biblical account of David's capture of Jerusalem and his victories over the Philistines after the death of King Saul.

Finally, a letter from Labayu's son and successor, Mutbaal (identified as the Biblical Ishbaal, the only surviving son of King Saul) to Akhenaten is an answer to his being questioned by Egyptian authorities about the whereabouts of one Ayab (the Akkadian translation of the Biblical Joab). Mutbaal states, "he has been in the field for two months. Just ask Benenima. Just ask Dadua. Just ask Yishuya..." The letter implies an intimate knowledge of the major people of the Hebrew movement on the part of Akhenaten, including the Biblical David, named by the Akkadian version of his name, Dadua.

If the other associations are correct, then it would make perfect sense for Ishbaal to refer Akhenaten to David as to the whereabouts of Joab, as Joab was David's nephew and the commander of his Army (1 Chronicles 2:16, 2 Samuel 8:16)!.

The recent discovery at Tel Dan (in northern Israel) of an inscription containing the word "bytdwd" (translated by some as "House of David" ) created an international sensation. However, a variant of this same name Dadua, as well as numerous other Biblical name associations in the Amarna tablets, has been overlooked for more than 100 years! This shows the extent of the bias that the conventional chronology has imposed on historical scholarship.

David and Solomon are portrayed in the Bible as two of the greatest kings of the ancient world, yet within the conventional chronology, a suitable context for their reigns cannot be found. Quoting from the book "Archaeology of the Land of the Bible" , "The Bible is the only written source concerning the United Monarchy and it is therefore the basis of any historical presentation of the period" .

There is such a complete lack of external sources that the archaeologist, author and leading authority on the era, Donald Redford, writes in frustration that "such topics as the foreign policy of David and Solomon, Solomon's trade in horses and his marriage to Pharaoh's daughter, must remain themes for midrash and fictional treatment" . Other researchers have come to even more dramatic conclusions. Quoting from Phillip Davies' book, In Search of Ancient Israel (1992, JSOT Press, Sheffield, England), "The evidence recently accumulated by Jamieson-Drake at the least shows the impossibility of a Davidic empire administered from Jerusalem ... The range of indices considered by Jamieson-Drake makes it necessary for us to exclude the Davidic and Solomonic monarchies, as well as their 'empire,' from a non-biblical history of Palestine."

Ironically, the zeal of the early archaeologists to find evidence of the Biblical world led to a chronological framework in which it could not possibly have existed. The New Chronology convincingly resolves the long standing and disturbing 300 year discrepancy between the Bible and archaeology, and provides a more accurate, albeit radically different, context in which the Bible accounts and characters can be fully reconsidered. For example an infrastructure in Palestine of fine cities having new temples and palaces, and political correspondences from Palestine rulers to Egyptian Pharaohs that contain a reference to David, as well as many other Biblical associations.

When Jacob and his family arrived in Egypt, the Bible numbers them at around 70 people. The excavations at Tell ed-Daba (ancient Avaris) show a small village dating to this time when Jacob settled in the land of Goshen (stratum G/4). An analysis of the human remains found at the site in this stratum by the Austrians Winkler and Wifling have shown that:-

The male population derived from outside Egypt, probably from Syria or Palestine.

The females formed a separate distinct ethnic group, originating from the Egyptians of the Nile Delta region.

This is consistent with an influx of foreign males, the early Israelites, who married the local Egyptian women; it therefore closely parallels the biblical account. But gives evidence that the sons other than Joseph and grandsons of Jacob intermarried with the Egyptians and so the tribes were a mixture of at least two races! Was this why they were called a rabble later?!

Underneath the palace of Joseph at Avaris, in the lower stratum, dating to the time of the earliest settlement here, we have a building of Syrian design, classified by the Austrian team as a Mittelsaal Haus' or Central Hall house'. This building was of quite modest proportion. The tombs unearthed during the excavation of the garden of this house contained numerous Asiatic artefacts, indicating the occupants to be of Syro-Palestinian origin. From this it is possible to say:-

A man of some importance dwelt here.

As further evidence of a significant Jewish presence in Egypt, Rohl points to a tattered papyrus scroll in the Brooklyn Museum (scroll #35.1446). It has been dated to the reign of Pharaoh Sobekhotep III who held power a generation before the birth of Moses, according to the New Chronology. The scroll fragment contains a copy of a royal decree which authorises the transfer of ownership of a group of slaves. Over half the names of the slaves listed in the document are Semitic, including such common Hebrew names as Menahem, Issachar, and Asher. The bible tells us that prior to the birth of Moses, the Israelite population was subjugated into slavery by a pharaoh "who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8).

The three passages in the Bible that specify the length of the Israelite Sojourn in Egypt reveal obvious differences when carefully analysed. Exodus 12:40 in the Masoretic text, on which some translations of the Bible are based, reads as: "they sojourned in Egypt for 430 years." However, in the Septuagint and Samaritan Pentateuch texts, which both predate the Masoretic, Exodus 12:40 reads as: "they sojourned in Egypt and Canaan for 430 years." Josephus bases his account of the Exodus on the earlier texts as well. The original length of the Sojourn recorded by Exodus 12:40 would therefore have been approximately 215 years (430 years minus the 215 years Abraham and his descendants dwelt in Canaan before the Sojourn). The "and Canaan" was apparently dropped in order to harmonise with Genesis 15:13-16 which reads: "your [Abraham's] descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years ... and in the fourth generation they shall come back."

[The date of the Exodus in the new chronology is 1447 BCE, much earlier than the date given before of 1250BCE and therefore involves different Pharaohs/kings.]

Exodus 6:16-20 provides the four generations for the entire Sojourn, and exact life spans, i.e., Levi (137 years), Kohath (133 years), Amram (137 years), and Moses (120 years) totalling 527 years (527 years minus the 57 years Levi lived prior to the Sojourn minus the 40 years Moses lived after the Sojourn equals a Sojourn of 430 years, but only if you assume each son was born in the year of his fathers death!). Despite this fine piece of accounting work (most likely a harmonising performed by a Biblical editor), it is impossible to reconcile the four generation Sojourn of Exodus 6 with the 400 year Sojourn of Genesis 15, or even a 215 year Sojourn recorded in Exodus 12. [What about the fact that it would mean a period of 215 years for the three generations of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the land!] Also the four generations of Exodus 6:16-20 cannot be harmonised with the eleven generations [at least!] given for the Sojourn found in the genealogy of Joshua in I Chronicles 7:23-27. This is especially unworkable, because we are told that Amram married his father's sister!

[There are other similarities with Egypt and its history than just marrying close relations about this period.

Akhenaten, king of Egypt (1378-1361 B.C.), was the first monotheistic ruler in history. He abolished the worship of the different gods of Ancient Egypt and introduced a deity with no image, "Aten," biblical Adonai, to be the sole God for all people.

- Akhenaten was overthrown by a military coup when he used the army to force the new religion on his people, and was replaced by Tutankhamun in 1361 B.C.

- Recognising that ordinary people need a physical object for their worship, Tutankhamun allowed the ancient deities to be worshipped again, but only as mediators between the people and Aten.

- Pa-Nehesy (Biblical Phinhas ?), the high priest of the exiled Akhenaten, regarded this behaviour of Tutankhamun as heresy, and killed him.

Some are saying the resemblance to the story of Akhnenaton (Moses) and the army (Levites) and Tutankhamun (Joshua) and the episode of the golden calf and Aaron is so great as to make one think the stories of the Exodus, conquest and first kings of Israel are all "borrowed" from Egypt.

It has to be said that the similarities between the reign of Amenhotep III and that of Solomon are striking.

For those who want to explore these ideas further there is much on the internet by authors such as Charles N Pope and Ahmed Osman.]

Jacob

Joseph Levi

Ephraim Kohath

Shutilah Amram

Bered Moses

This mess of "Biblical proportion" can be explained by recognising that the Biblical editors/redactor were attempting to harmonise, knowingly or not, two or more distinctly different Sojourns. One Sojourn, according to early Bible manuscripts and Jewish tradition lasted approximately 215 years spanning eleven generations, while the other spanned portions of only four generations.

In the New Chronology model, the first Sojourn begins shortly after the appointment of Joseph by the 12^th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenemhet III, and ends with the first Exodus under Prince "Mousos" at the close of the Egyptian 13^th Dynasty (in accordance with the ancient Jewish historian Artapanas as quoted by the later Christian historian Eusebius). In the second Sojourn, Joseph, in the person of Yuya, serves the 18^th Dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and the second Exodus occurs at the end of the 18^th Dynasty (in accordance with the ancient Egyptian historian Manetho as quoted in the later works of the Jewish historian Josephus). The first Exodus coincides with a devastating plague, which leaves Egypt unable to stop the encroachment of the Hyksos. The second Exodus also is associated with a devastating plague that was at least partly responsible for the ignominious fall of Akhenaten's government, and ultimately for bringing an end to the 18^th Dynasty.

Exodus 6:26-27 seems to confirm a second Moses when it states, "It was this same Aaron and Moses...who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. It was this same Moses." The passage appears to be trying to discriminate between this Moses and another Moses who led Hebrews out of Egypt at another time and under different circumstances.

This second Exodus may not have involved the destruction of Pharaoh's army, however it was not entirely peaceful either. Those who survived Seti's assault must have made their way to Palestine to join (or rejoin) the new Hebrew/Israelite nation.

Joshua

In the New Chronology model, Tutankhamun's reign falls within the time of King David in Israel. This poses an interesting situation considering that Tutankhamun and his general Horemheb likely campaigned in Palestine and Syria. If this is the case, Tutankhamun's efforts could only have strengthened the position of the new Hebrew nation, which Egypt must have considered as an ally. Furthermore, if the identification by Osman of Tutankhamun as a second Joshua is correct, then Tutankhamun's Palestine campaigns could only have reinforced his association with the earlier Joshua of the conquest. Excavation of Jericho indicates that the catastrophic destruction of the city was associated with the first Exodus of the 13^th Dynasty. The corresponding destruction layer includes outwardly collapsed walls, extensive fire damage, and storage jars filled with charred grain, and is consistent with the Biblical account.

However, something dramatic also occurred during the reign of Amenhotep III, or shortly thereafter, as evidenced by the sudden absence of cartouches among Jericho burials. Perhaps this corresponds to military action of Tutankhamun. Archaeology also indicates that Jericho lay waste for a considerable time after this event, i.e., until the time of King Ahab as the Bible also states. The Joshua of the Canaan conquest and Hebrew Commonwealth period would be associated with the first Exodus. In the second Exodus, the role of Joshua reflects the historical activities of Akhenaten's protege, the young Tutankhamun

Conclusion about the Biblical characters.

When integrated the research of Ahmed Osman and David Rohl strongly suggests that the accounts of the major Biblical characters, such as David, Solomon, Moses, Joseph, and Joshua, relied upon two primary historical persons as their sources for each, and that the resulting narratives represent a skilful harmonising of the traditions of the elitist and highly educated Israelites at the time of the Egyptian 18^th Dynasty with the traditions of the Hebrews who left Egypt at the end of Egyptian 13^th Dynasty, and had arrived in Palestine before them. It is less clear why composite accounts would have been considered necessary by the Biblical authors/editors. Perhaps, the circumstances under which the Israelites had left Egypt and the bitterness caused by it had made it unacceptable to explicitly reveal all of the original historical associations in a linear/chronological fashion. Perhaps composite narratives were an acceptable form of preserving history in the 6^th Century B.C.E when both the story of Sesostris* and the Biblical accounts were taking on their final forms. Perhaps it was the only means of reconciling multiple traditions when it may no longer have been certain, especially to late Biblical editors, that distinct sources were even involved. Perhaps the desperate need for a unified history at that time in the Jewish experience demanded a synthesis of all the important traditions. And perhaps, history seemed to be repeating itself, and the compilers of the Bible perceived this as the hand of God in his relationship with Israel.

Having to deal with composite Biblical persons is not satisfying to those looking for truth. But, the Biblical Moses does seem to be as at home in the "eye for eye and tooth for a tooth" world of the Hammurabi Code (contemporary with the Egyptian 12^th & 13^th Dynasties), as he does in the time of the sweeping reforms of Akhenaten in the Egyptian 18^th Dynasty. Dualism and other forms of synthesis and symbolic thought were highly developed and prized in ancient times.

• Centuries after his victories there Senwosre III [Sesostris] was worshipped as a god throughout Nubia. In the records of Manetho he is fused with his predecessor Senwosre II, both sharing the name Sesostris. However great their foreign conquests may have been, it is hard to conceive how their command victories can have been inflated into those of this world-conquering hero as described by Herodotus and Diodorus.
• Sesostris I had ruled in 1940BCE and had made Egypt prosperous at the beginning of the 12^th dynasty.

He maintained peaceful relations with Palestine and Syria. Perhaps this was the Pharaoh of the time of Abraham?

Later, in the reign of Senwosre III [ also Sesostris], the king himself travelled north to overthrow the Asiatics, and reached the region of Sekmem, which is accepted by most scholars as Shechem in the hill-country of Samaria. Here Sebekkhu, one of his warriors, performed notable exploits which he narrates on his stele. Other similar records are too vague to possess much historical value. The general impression left is that Palestine was at this time mainly occupied by small tribes or communities each ruled over by a petty prince of its own

It is suggested that the three kings of Egypt were merged into one legendary figure and that this may be what has happened to Moses, Joshua and David i.e. they are each composite figures based on at least two others.

The new chronology puts Solomon in the late bronze age, which was prosperous, rather than the early iron age, which was not.

Saul was a contemporary of the Pharaoh Akhenaton of the 18^th dynasty, who was not a great military man; which allowed the rise of vassal kings such as Saul and David and Solomon. Clay tablets were found at Armana, the city of Akhenaton which would seem to confirm this. But after the alliance Solomon had made through marriage with the next Pharaoh's daughter ended on his death, then Egypt re established her hold on the territories, with an invasion.

Moses' early life would have been as a contemporary of 13^th dynasty Pharaoh Khaneferre, who campaigned in Kush [Ethiopia]. Josephus has Moses taking cities there and marrying an Ethiopian princess.

The Egyptian kings were not called Pharaoh until the 18^th dynasty, so the name for the Egyptian king was either added to the text of the Pentateuch, or the whole was written much later than the events described. Rameses II is now much later than the exodus in the new chronology and so the city they left was not called Rameses when they left it, and Genesis 47 has Jacob and family settling there generations before Moses and the exodus anyway! This alone proves additions have been made to the text at a later time - most probably when people living at the time the scribe worked knew who Rameses was - which would be at the time of the division of the kingdom in Israel after Solomon Horses and horse drawn chariots were introduced to Egypt by the Hyksos, who founded the 15^th dynasty; so what does that mean for the episode in the sea? The Hyksos were driven out by Ahmoses when he began the 18^th dynasty. Were they the Hebrews?

David and Solomon.

There is nothing outside the Bible to substantiate the stories about David and Solomon other than possibly the Armana tablets, as discussed above. The lack of inscriptions in Israel with his name is disturbing.

David is not necessarily purely mythical. He is possibly a legend rather than a myth, but either way, his exploits are much larger than his life. This is typical of myth and legend. No one knows who king Arthur was, yet volumes of astonishing mythology have been built around this romantic figure. The same applies to William Tell and Robin Hood, both likely to be entirely mythical figures of romantic legend. If there is a real man at the core, he has been quite hidden by all that has accreted about him.

Isn't it likely that David is the same? Possibly some Hebrew bandit, got a local name for himself and songs were written about him. That his deeds were magnified in typical epic fashion is proved even in the scriptures themselves. David's greatest heroic deed was killing the Philistine champion, Goliath. Or was it?. 2 Samuel tells us it was Elhanan. Common sense should convince us that someone has attributed Elhanan's deed to David, the hero. That is how legends grow. Legendary deeds are never transferred to lesser men!

The stories of the accession of David and Solomon were composed with an apologetic aim-to justify the setting up of the Second Temple priesthood as the will of God. God who used to live in a tent now lived in the Temple. The earlier Hebrew gods or heroes, David and Solomon, became the heroes of the story and the founders of the Jewish state and its Temple. The aim was to justify the Temple but it succeeded so well that it gave credence to the make-believe history and David and Solomon began to be seen as real people in an Israelite Golden Age that never existed.

It is more likely they were vassal kings under the Egyptians, and possibly their stories have been modelled on those of the Pharaohs of the time to give Israel its heroes and a proud history..

The prophetic Books.

What does all this mean for the prophetic books? Are they really prophetic or were the "prophecies" added after the events to make a spiritual point?

Until nearly the middle of the second century after Christ the Alexandrian Greek Bible was the meeting-ground of Christians and Greek-speaking Jews. Justin bears witness that in his day the Septuagint was "in the hands of all the Jews everywhere" (Apol. 1. 31). Yet Justin acknowledges that the Jews of his generation were not altogether content with the old Greek version. There was more than one cause for their dissatisfaction. In the first place it had been used with considerable success in the interests of Christianity, to which the Synagogue was by this time bitterly opposed; and it was suspected that the Christians had tampered with the text. In Isaiah 7,9 the Alexandrian Bible made the prophet foretell that a virgin should conceive, where the Hebrew did not affirm the virginity of the mother. Here and there a Christian gloss seems actually to have found its way into the version, as when the Psalmist was represented as saying "The Lord hath reigned from the tree" - a manifest reference to the cross.

Jeremiah

The differences of order in Jeremiah between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text have been mentioned above. A section missing from the Septuagint version and that found at Qumran [both much older than the Masoretic text] which is of significance is Jer. 33 v 14 - 26.. This passage is about an everlasting covenant with the house of David and the Levites. This repeats the promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 v 12-17. This promise has not been kept. Christians have, as usual, spiritualised this away because they see Jesus as replacing the King David/Messiah and the priesthood.. Why would the Jews have left out such an important promise before the removal of the temple and exile in AD70? They were oppressed with no king of the Davidic line and the priesthood was corrupt and not of the Aaronic line, so there was every reason to hold onto such a promise, just as there was in the time of the Babylonian exile in Jeremiah's day. I f it was written in Jeremiah's time it would have stayed there as it was relevant from then onwards - why would it be removed? The answer can only be that it was added after the events of AD70!

One 20^th-century German biblical scholar, Wilhelm Rudolph, has attempted to arrange the chapters of the book according to certain chronological details. He has divided the work into five sections: (1) prophecies against Judah and Jerusalem, chapters 1-25, during the reigns of kings Josiah (640-609) and Jehoiachim (609-598), and the period after Jehoiachim (597-586);

(2) prophecies against foreign nations, chapters 25 and 46-51;

(3) prophecies of hope for Israel, chapters 26-35 (probably after the death of Josiah in 609);

(4) narratives of Jeremiah's sufferings, chapters 36-45 (from a post-586 period), and

(5) an appendix, chapter 52.

Jeremiah's own prophetic oracles are found particularly in chapters 1-36 and 46-52. Baruch's writings about Jeremiah are found primarily in chapters 37-45, 26-29, and 33-36.

Daniel

The book of Daniel is apparently written by someone called Daniel who was probably of the royal household and taken away to Babylon in 606BCE.. The book is in two parts: the historical in chapters 1-6, where Daniel is referred to in the third person, and the prophetic in chapters 7-12. Chapter nine is important to Christians, who have insisted that the prophecy of the 70 weeks is predicting the coming and dying [cutting off] of the Messiah, namely Jesus. [ BUT see Daniel 9 on this site for reasons why that is not correct - it was the end of the High Priesthood, who were also anointed]. Many scholars think the chapters from 7 are additions at a later date and represent history with a spiritual agenda. Daniel is not with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible but in the last section with Ezra and Nehemiah and Chronicles as a historical rather than prophetic book, and so is given less spiritual importance than Christians give to it.

By following the thread of history, we find that the contemptible king described in Daniel 11:21-45 can be none other than Antiochus Epiphanes, who ruled over the Seleucid kingdom from 175 to 164 BC. In 167 BC, Antiochus enforced the Hellenisation of Jerusalem. He took the city by force, forbade the worship of Jehovah, set himself up as Zeus Olympius, and defiled the temple with a Greek altar - the abomination that causes desolation - on which he sacrificed swine. The date of this event is found in the Apocrypha:

On the fifteenth day of the month Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, king Antiochus set up the abominable idol of desolation upon the altar of God.... (1 Machabees 1:57, Douay Version)

Casleu, or Chisleu, is the ninth month of the Jewish Calendar, corresponding to our November or December. The 145^th year is counted from 312 BC, the beginning of the Seleucid era.

Seleucus ... in August 312 ... was able to reconquer Babylon.... This conquest marked the beginning of the Seleucid era, which is dated Dios 1 (Oct. 7), 312, in the Macedonian calendar and Nisan 1 (April 3), 311, in the Babylonian calendar.

So it was in December 167 BC that Antiochus set up the abomination that causes desolation. Three and a half years afterwards - around June of 163 BC - the end was supposed to come. Michael was supposed to appear. The dead were supposed to resurrect. The kingdom of God was supposed to replace the kingdoms of men, and the saints were supposed to live blissfully forever.

Of course, the kingdom of God failed to appear at any time around 163 BC. The contemptible king has come and gone. The Seleucid kingdom was eventually replaced by the Roman empire. The Roman empire has come and gone. The Ottoman Empire has come and gone. The British Empire was greater than all the kingdoms described by Daniel. And still the kingdom of God that was supposed to cut short the career of Antiochus Epiphanes has not appeared. The only reasonable conclusion is that the predictions in the Book of Daniel did not come true. According to Deuteronomy 18:21-22, the Book of Daniel must be disregarded as the presumptuous writings of a false prophet.

André Lacocque makes a convincing argument in The Book of Daniel that Daniel was written during the lifetime of Antiochus IV Epiphanes:

Numerous elements prove it. We will consider them rapidly: Not only was the book not received as belonging among the Prophets, but it is necessary to go all the way to the Sibylline Oracles (Book III) to find any trace of it (between 145 and 140 BCE). I Macc. I:54, which is even later (134-104), offers one text which parallels Dan. 9.27 and 11.31. We also find Daniel mentioned in the Book of Jubilees (written about 110 BCE). It is not named in Ben Sira (190-180), even though we would expect to find it, for example, in 48:22 or in 49.7,8,10. And it is only in the most recent literary strata of the Book of Enoch that we find any certain traces of it; see 104.2 (end of the first century BCE) and the 'Book of Parables' (which is still later).

External criticism is confirmed by internal criticism. The vision of chapters 10-11 leads us step by step up to the events of 165 (11.39), but before those of 164. The Author knows of the profanation of the Temple at Jerusalem by Antiochus IV (7 December, 167; see Dan. 11.31). He alludes to the revolt of the Maccabees and the first victories of Judas (166). But he is unaware of the death of Antiochus (autumn 164; see Dan. 11.40 ff.) and the purification of the Temple by Judas on 14 December 164. We can at least situate the second part of the Book of Daniel (chapters 7-12), therefore, with a very comfortable certainty, in 164 BCE.

This explains why the Book of Daniel is so accurate in describing the Ptolemies and the Seleucids, and why it incorrectly describes the rulers of the Babylonian empire. The author "Daniel" did not live at the time of the Babylonian empire, but four centuries later, under the rule of Antiochus Epiphanes. Most of the "prophecy" in Daniel is deceptively written in the form of prediction, but it is really a review of past events..

Ezekiel

This book was written by the prophet/priest Ezekiel, who lived both in Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian Exile (586 BCE) and in Babylon after the Exile, and also by an editor (or editors), who belongs to a "school" of the prophet similar to that of the prophet Isaiah. It has captured the attention of readers for centuries because of its vivid imagery and symbolism. The book has also attracted the attention of biblical scholars who have noticed that, although Ezekiel appears to be a singularly homogeneous composition displaying a unity unusual for such a large prophetic work, it also displays, upon careful analysis, the problem of repetitions, certain inconsistencies and contradictions, and questions raised by terminological differences. Though the book itself indicates that the prophecies of Ezekiel occurred from about 593-571 BCE, some scholars-who are in a minority-have argued that the book was written during widely divergent periods, such as in the 7^th century and even as late as the 2^nd century BCE. Most scholars, however, accept that the main body of the book came from the 6^th century BCE, with the inclusion of some later glosses by redactors who remained loyal to the theological traditions of their master-teacher.

What about the prophecies in Ezekiel?

The prophecy we'll look at as an example is against the Phoenician city of Tyre in Ezekiel 26, and is dated 586. To understand this we also need to know a little about Tyre. Tyre was a major seaport for the world renowned for its sailors and merchants, the Phoenicians. It was a wealthy city since it was the primary commercial seaport in the Eastern Mediterranean linking shipping to Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Spain, and North Africa with land caravans from Arabia, Babylon, Persia, and as far east as India. At this time, the main part of Tyre was an island city about a mile off the coast of what is now Lebanon. There were smaller villages on the mainland, but the city itself was an offshore seaport. Because of its location, it could be easily defended and could be re-supplied from the sea.

Ezekiel's prediction in chapter 26 about the destruction of Tyre at the hands of the Babylonians did not come about.

This is a detailed prediction. The city will be totally destroyed, including the city walls and defensive towers. The city would be levelled like a rock. In typical prophetic fashion, there is an interesting word play here, since the Hebrew word for Tyre means "rock" : the city of "Rock" will become a bare rock. The mainland villages ("her daughters" ) will also be destroyed. "I have spoken" and "says Yahweh." All of this will be a sign that God is indeed God.

It continues. It is not just "many nations" who will plunder Tyre. It will be a specific nation, Babylonia, and a specific king, Nebuchadrezzar (sometimes called Nebuchadnezzar). It seems fairly obvious here that Ezekiel had heard reports of the Babylonian march southward, and he predicts, as a prophet of God, what will unfold as Nebuchadnezzar's army punishes the nations for their rebellion. They will lay siege to Tyre, take the city and destroy it, kill its inhabitants, and loot its riches (which was a way to pay soldiers in the ancient world). He goes so far as to say that after its destruction, Tyre will never again be rebuilt. (There are actually a series of such prophecies that continue through ch 28.)

So, here is a very specific prediction coming from a particular historical circumstance, but said in all the traditional prophetic formulae that say this is a "word" from the Lord. The problem is that very little of this actually came to pass! In fact, it badly missed how history actually unfolded.

We know from other historical records, including the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, that Nebuchadnezzar did, indeed, take and destroy the mainland part of the city, and then lay siege to the island city of Tyre. However, the Babylonian army was a land based army with no ships, which made it very difficult to lay siege effectively to an island fortress that had an armada of ships at its disposal. Nebuchadnezzar spent 13 years in the siege of Tyre and was never able to take the city. He finally abandoned the attempt sometime in 573/572 and put his resources into the invasion of Egypt, having already destroyed the Israelite stronghold in Jerusalem.

The city of Tyre did pass into Babylonian rule, but that was the result of a negotiated settlement that required tribute, a form of taxation (or extortion). The city of Tyre was not destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar or the Babylonians, and in fact continued to thrive as a commercial centre.

Now, some who want to maintain the absolute inerrancy of biblical prophecy point to the fact that Tyre was eventually destroyed, and so the accuracy of Ezekiel's prophecy is vindicated. Tyre was, indeed, destroyed in 332 BC by the Greek Alexander of Macedon (Alexander the Great). He used the ingenious tactic of using rubble from the destroyed mainland settlements to build a causeway to the island, providing a land bridge for his troops. Since that time, Tyre has no longer been an island, now connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus.

So, the inerrantists would claim, the prophecy was really a long range prediction even though Ezekiel himself thought it was a short range prediction. But this raises another whole series of serious problems, and sounds far more like the rationalisation of a position in spite of contrary evidence than it does a careful analysis of the biblical text. There are still several aspects of the Ezekiel prophecy unresolved.

Even though Alexander did, indeed, destroy the city of Tyre, it was immediately rebuilt and became an important Greek, and later Roman, seaport

There is no valid reason for changing the specific reference to Babylonians and assume that it really means Greeks, or to change Nebuchadnezzar to Alexander. If the text were inerrant in the way that many claim it to be, then we should be able to read "Greeks" and "Alexander" here. Again, this sounds suspiciously like an attempt to preserve a certain view of prophecy that the evidence will not support

A prophecy needs to be relevant to the people of the day - what purpose did this have for the time of Ezekiel?

But there is even more compelling evidence from within Scripture itself, indeed, from Ezekiel himself in chapter 29, that this view is deficient. In 571 BC, 2 years or so after Nebuchadnezzar abandoned the siege of Tyre and it had become obvious to everyone that he would not be able to destroy the city, Ezekiel gives another prophecy concerning Tyre

Here, Ezekiel honestly acknowledges Nebuchadnezzar's failure to take Tyre even though he work hard trying to do so (13 years!). So Ezekiel, seemingly without any embarrassment at the failure of his original prophecy, simply changed it after the fact to fit the historical situation as it had actually unfolded

Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel saw the Babylonian invasion as part of the out working of the consequences of Israel's sins and repeated failure to serve and trust God. While God had fought for Israel in the past, both prophets vigorously proclaim, "Not this time!" So the Babylonians are unwittingly serving the purposes of God in the world, and the prophets see them as actually in the employ of God. And if they are working for God, God needs to pay their wages. Since they did not get anything from Tyre for their effort, Ezekiel affirms that God will allow them to be paid from the riches of Egypt (29:20).

Now, we do not know from historical records whether the Babylonians ever sacked Egypt. History is silent on this point. But it doesn't matter. The issue was never whether or not a certain historical event would unfold exactly in the specific way any particular prophet predicted that it would. History simply does not work that way, and that is not really the task of a prophet. The issue had always been the truth of what Ezekiel was proclaiming to the people about God and their responsibility and accountability to Him as their covenantal God. The prophet's role was to help the people respond faithfully to God in their own time. So, Ezekiel could change his prediction, and even admit that he got it wrong, because, finally, the historical prediction was not his message!

And the important fact is, Ezekiel was right! Not about all of his historical predictions certainly. But he was right in that the message he proclaimed about the nation of Israel, its responsibilities to God, and the consequences of their failure to respond to God in faithfulness was proven true in the flow of history (which is the meaning of the Deuteronomy 18 passage). That is, the community could look back at Ezekiel, and Jeremiah, and understand that they had faithfully borne witness to God, even though virtually no one listened to them at the time. They knew that not every historical prediction, or even most of them, directly corresponded to some specific historical event. But the community understood Ezekiel's proclamation about God and His work with humanity, as they saw it to be true in their own historical experience, to be a faithful witness to God.

Isaiah

Most scholars agree that when we talk about the prophet Isaiah we are actually talking about at least two people. The "First Isaiah" probably lived in Jerusalem during the second half of the 8^th century. His prophecies are recorded in chapters 1-39 of the Book of Isaiah. He saw his own nation, Judah, fight two wars and also witnessed the destruction of the Northern Kingdom (Israel). Despite all of the war around him, First Isaiah was a prophet of peace.

Second Isaiah lived among the exiles in Babylon. Isaiah may or may not have even been his name. Many scholars think that he was an anonymous prophet whose orations were simply tagged onto the end of Isaiah's. His goal seems to have been to encourage the exiles to preserve their identities and not to assimilate into Babylonian culture.

"The Second Isaiah has been called the first Hebrew monotheist." . He taught that other gods were not real and that, eventually, everyone would worship the Eternal One. He taught that the Jews could not be passive and wait for such a time.

Dr. Charles C. Torrey has written of the partition of Deutero-Isaiah (chapters 40-66):

The result has been to make a great change, in successive stages, in the critical view of the Second Isaiah affecting the extent and form, and therefore of necessity the general estimate, of the prophecy. In the hands of those scholars who now hold the foremost place in the interpretation of Isaiah, the series of chapters beginning with 40 and ending with 66 has become an indescribable chaos. The once great "Prophet of the Exile" has dwindled to a very small figure, and is all but buried in a mass of jumbled fragments. The valuation of his prophecy has fallen accordingly; partly because a brief outburst with a narrow range of themes, can never make a like impression with a sustained effort covering a variety of subjects; and partly because the same considerations which governed the analysis of the book have necessitated a lower estimate of each of the parts. (The Second Isaiah, pp. 4,5.)

After giving a brief history of the disintegration of Isaiah 40-66 in his book, The Second Isaiah, which all interested in the subject should read, Dr. Torrey continues:

The necessity of making the division into "Deutero-Isaiah" (chapters 40-55) and "Trito-Isaiah" (55-66), with all that it involves, would of itself be a sufficiently great misfortune. That it is not possible to take this step without going still farther, the recent history of exegesis has clearly shown. The subsequent dissection of "III Isaiah" is a certainty, while that of the curtailed II Isaiah is not likely to be long delayed. We have here a good example of that which has happened not a few times, in the history of literary criticism, where scholars have felt obliged to pare down a writing to make it fit a mistaken theory. The paring process, begun with a penknife, is continued with a hatchet, until the book has been chopped into hopeless chunks. (Ibid., p. 13)

Torrey accordingly proceeds to show in a very scholarly way that chapters 34, 35, 40-66 of Isaiah are a unity. (There is food for thought in the fact that his views are so out of harmony with those of other radical critics who partition "Second" Isaiah.)

The literary style of those chapters held not to be from Isaiah is very different from those which are admitted to be that prophet's.

Professor S. R. Driver explains the significance of this point as follows:

Isaiah shows strongly marked individualities of style: he is fond of particular images and phrases, many of which are used by no other writer of the Old Testament. Now, in the chapters which contain evident allusions to the age of Isaiah himself, these expressions occur repeatedly; in the chapters which are without such allusions, and which thus authorise prima facie the inference that they belong to a different age, they areabsent, and new images and phrases appear instead. This coincidence cannot be accidental. The subject of chapters 40-66 is not so different from that of Isaiah's prophecies (e.g.) against the Assyrians, as to necessitate a new phraseology and rhetorical form: the differences can only be reasonably explained by the supposition of a change of author. (An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, New Edition, 1923, p. 238.)

The theological ideas of the non-Isaianic portions of the prophecy differ from those of Isaiah. To quote Driver again:

The theological ideas of chapters 40-66 (in so far as they are not of that fundamental kind common to the prophets generally) differ remarkably from those which appear, from chapters 1-39, to be distinctive of Isaiah. Thus on the nature of God generally, the ideas expressed are much larger and fuller. Isaiah, for instance, depicts the majesty of Jehovah: in chapters 40-66 the prophet emphasises His infinitude; He is the Creator, the Sustainer of the universe, the Life-Giver, the Author of history (41:1), and First and the Last, the Incomparable One. This is a real difference.... Again, the doctrine of the preservation from judgement of a faithful remnant is characteristic of Isaiah. It appears both in his first prophecy and in his last (6:13; 37:31 f.); in chapters 40-66, if it is present once or twice by implication (59:20; 65:8 f.), it is no distinctive element in the author's teaching.... The relation of Israel to Jehovah-its choice by Him, its destiny, the purpose of its call-is developed in different terms and under different conceptions from those used by Isaiah.... (Ibid., p. 242

Second Isaiah (chapters 40-66), which possibly comes from the school of Isaiah's disciples, can be divided into two periods: chapters 40-55, generally called Deutero-Isaiah, were written about 538 BCE after the experience of the Exile; and chapters 56-66, sometimes called Trito-Isaiah (or III Isaiah), were written after the return of the exiles to Jerusalem after 538 BCE.

The prophecies of Deutero-Isaiah

Second Isaiah contains the very expressive so-called Servant Songs-chapter 42, verses 1-4; chapter 49, verses 1-6; chapter 50, verses 4-9; chapter 52, verse 13; and chapter 53, verse 12. Writing from Babylon, the author begins with a message of comfort and hope and faith in Yahweh. The people are to leave Babylon and return to Jerusalem, which has paid "double for all her sins." As creator and Lord of history, God will redeem Israel, his chosen servant. Through the Servant of the Lord all the nations will be blessed: "I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations." The Suffering Servant, whether the nation Israel or an individual agent of Yahweh, will help to bring about the deliverance of the nation. Though Second Isaiah may have been referring to a hoped-for rise of a prophetic figure, many scholars now hold that the Suffering Servant is Israel in a collective sense. Christians have interpreted the Servant Songs, especially the fourth, as a prophecy referring to Jesus of Nazareth-"He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief . . .," but this interpretation is theologically oriented and thus open to question, according to many scholars.

Jonah

Probably written sometime between 500 and 350 BCE (or perhaps 250 BCE), the message of Jonah protested the exclusiveness of a post-exilic Judaism, with its policy of a pure blood race of Jews that the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah had implemented in the 5^th century

Zechariah

The 11^th book of the Twelve (Minor) Prophets, dates from the same period as that of Haggai-about 520 BCE. Though the book contains 14 chapters, only the first eight are oracles of the prophet; the remaining six probably came from a school of his disciples and contain various elaborations of Zechariah's eschatological themes

Psalms

The following is The Hymn to Aten the sun god Re, found on a clay tablet at tel Armarna, the capital city of Akhenaton, Pharaoh of Egypt, who may have been a contemporary of David, if the new chronology is correct.

This is not to say David copied it, but that this is typical of the style of hymns of the time, and some lines are very similar to those in psalm 104.

There are also ideas similar to those in the Old testament, particularly Genesis, and those are in bold type. The lines in psalm 104 that are similar are in italics.

Hymn to Aten.

Thou appearest beautifully on the horizon of heaven,
Thou living Aton, the beginning of life!
When thou art risen on the eastern horizon,
Thou hast filled every land with thy beauty.
Thou art gracious, great, glistening, and high over every land;
Thy rays encompass the lands to the limit of all that thou hast made:
As thou art Re, thou reachest to the end of them;
(Thou) subduest them (for) thy beloved son.
Though thou art far away, thy rays are on earth;
Though thou art in their faces, no one knows thy going.

When thou settest in the western horizon,
The land is in darkness, in the manner of death.
They sleep in a room, with heads wrapped up,
Nor sees one eye the other.
All their goods which are under their heads might be stolen,
(But) they would not perceive (it).
Every lion is come forth from his den;
All creeping things, they sting.
Darkness is a shroud, and the earth is in stillness,
For he who made them rests in his horizon.

At daybreak, when thou arisest on the horizon,
When thou shinest as the Aton by day,
Thou drivest away the darkness and givest thy rays.
The Two Lands are in festivity every day,
Awake and standing upon (their) feet,
For thou hast raised them up.
Washing their bodies, taking (their) clothing,
Their arms are (raised) in praise at thy appearance.
All the world, they do their work.

All beasts are content with their pasturage;
Trees and plants are flourishing.
The birds which fly from their nests,
Their wings are (stretched out) in praise to thy ka.
All beasts spring upon (their) feet.
Whatever flies and alights,
They live when thou hast risen (for) them.
The ships are sailing north and south as well,
For every way is open at thy appearance.
The fish in the river dart before thy face;
Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea.

Creator of seed in women,
Thou who makest fluid into man,
Who maintainest the son in the womb of his mother,
Who soothest him with that which stills his weeping,
Thou nurse (even) in the womb,
Who givest breath to sustain all that he has made!
When he descends from the womb to breathe
On the day when he is born,
Thou openest his mouth completely,
Thou suppliest his necessities.
When the chick in the egg speaks within the shell,
Thou givest him breath within it to maintain him.
When thou hast made him his fulfillment within the egg, to break it,
He comes forth from the egg to speak at his completed (time);
He walks upon his legs when he comes forth from it.

The God of the sun and Nile of Egypt has become the God of the mountains and streams of Israel.

Compare the writings of one called Phahotep from the 5^th c BCE in Egypt with the Bible:

We also find parallels in other Books, such as Psalms and Ecclesiastes:

Song of Songs

This is a very difficult book. Many ideas have been put forward as to why it is in scripture. Like the book of Esther there is not mention of God. Here is nothing about festivals, the temple, or spiritual things at all, seemingly.

It is a love poem, with what she said to him, and he said to her, her comments about him to others, and a few comments from others called "the daughters of Jerusalem" . Interestingly he only seems to make one comment about her to others! This is typical of what goes on in a romance. People love to say wonderful things to each other and to tell to others how wonderful their loved one is. Women do this more than men!

She is his sister wife. This is something that happened in Egypt, but the only incidence in scripture is Abraham with Sarah as his half sister wife.

If there is not a hidden spiritual code why is the book in scripture?

The Jews say it portrays the relationship of God as husband and Israel as the beautiful wife.

Christians say it is about Christ and the church he sees as beautiful.

What can we learn from the text about the woman and the man?

She is dark skinned from being out in the sun. It seems she has been made to work in the vineyards belonging to her brothers instead of her own. This is strange for the daughter of Pharaoh! But Israel worked hard in the sun in the land of Egypt (the vineyard not her own?). But are the Egyptians her brothers? It is possible that the rulers in Egypt at the time of Joseph were the Hyksos who were a people related to the Hebrews. And when they lost power to the original people of the land the subjugation of the Israelites began.

If she is the daughter of Pharaoh, as is suggested, then she may well have been dark, especially if coming from upper Egypt. This is where Moses' first wife came from, and when he was criticised for marrying her by his brother and sister they were reprimanded by God.

The goddess Isis was black skinned and represented the best in womanhood as wife to Osiris, (the god of resurrection and rebirth), and mother to Horus, first king of Egypt.

She represented the power of love to overcome death because she took sperm from her dead husband and gave birth to Horus. In Song of Songs there is a passage about the power of love to overcome death.

There are love poems for Isis found on papyrus from Egypt that are similar in format to this book.

The wife of Pharaoh was often his sister. Abraham said Sarah was his sister, when she was really his half sister

In the Osiris Legend, Isis and Osiris, the sister and brother got married. The relationship between Isis and Osiris was purely an allegorical fable. Within a larger cosmology, it can be viewed as a type of divine love. Their relationship is an image of devotion that we confuse with sexuality, and then get frightened by the act of incest.

This concept of devoted love was carried over to common people. Devoted lovers called each other brothers and sisters. The consonants are the same in the ancient Egyptian words for both brother and husband. Likewise, the consonants in the words for both sister and wife are also the same. Since the ancient Egyptian language was written without vowels, this may have also contributed to the confusion of some historians, such as the Greek Diodorus, who reported that marriages, between brothers and sisters, were owing to and inspired by the Isis/Osiris myth!

During certain periods of the ancient history, it was lawful for ancient Egyptians, Athenians and Hebrews to marry a sister by the father's side, not however, born by the same mother. Very few Egyptians married their half-sister (from the father's side), and only if she was the legal heir, so as to inherit the throne. The Ptolemies did not observe the restrictions of the father's side, but Ptolemies were not Egyptians.

In Egyptian love-songs the words 'sister' and 'brother' simply mean 'beloved' and do not denote a blood relationship. It is symbolic of the ultimate love made in heaven, between the mythical brother and sister, Osiris and Isis.

Thanks for the above to Moustafa Gadalla as it is taken from his site "Women in ancient Egypt."

Here is an example of part of an ancient Egyptian poem:

"she has not one phrase too many.

With a long neck and white breast,

her hair of genuine lapis lazuli;

her arm more brilliant than gold;

her fingers like lotus flowers,

with heavy buttocks and girt waist.

Her thighs offer her beauty,

with a brisk step she treads on ground.

She has captured my heart in her embrace.

She makes all men turn their necks

to look at her"

. Some translations of Song of Songs have the woman as the daughter of Nadib, or a prince. (The Hebrew can mean either). There are several "Nadibs" in scripture. One is descended from Judah through Hezron and Jerameel and would be the fifth generation from going down to Egypt. So he would be more likely to be an ancestor than her immediate father.

Another was one of Aaron's sons who died for giving strange fire to God. This is not a likely candidate.

The best one is a descendant of Benjamen whose father was a brother of Saul's father, Kish.

If she is the daughter of a prince then she is not the daughter of Pharaoh who was king. But she could be the daughter of one of David's sons or brothers, making her niece or a cousin to Solomon. This would be against the Law of Moses, and so is not likely. She wishes he were her brother so they could kiss in public.

But "Sarah" means princess and so being called a princess (the daughter of a king) reinforces the connection with Sarah as wife of the king and mother of the nation.

This brings us to why she was called a "Shulamite" , which some say is the same as "Shunemite" , which would mean she came from a town Shunem in Issachar to the north. But it is more likely to mean "of Shlomo" i.e. Solomon.

So, do we have a real woman, beloved of Solomon, who is likened to Isis because she comes from Egypt as representative of the nation also coming from there?

Or is she a woman who he loved more than any other and is likened to a composite figure with all the qualities of Isis and Sarah as mothers of Egypt and Israel?

The kingdom had reached the peak of its glory under Solomon, so does this royal wife represent Israel herself conceived from Sarah and born from Isis, and now in all her glory?

As Pharaoh represented the god, does Solomon represent the God of Israel?

Later, the prophets saw Israel as the wife of Yahweh.

What do we know about the man? The text suggests he is Solomon.

The song is said to be his. The bed they lie on is said to be his. The woman's lover is the King.

If the woman is like Isis then he should be like Osiris. Osiris brought civilisation to Egypt. Solomon was able to do the same for Israel because it was a time of peace after his father had subdued the remaining Canaanite tribes and united the tribes of Israelites. Treaties were made with the neighbouring countries, often involving marriages with their princesses. Culture and prosperity was the order of the day in Solomon's reign. The ties with Egypt were strong with the marriage of Solomon to an Egyptian princess. He bought many horses from them. The song speaks of the chariots of Pharaoh, likening the girl to a prancing filly of the chariot.

Osiris was god of the rising and setting sun, and of birth and death and resurrection. He represented the male reproductive force in nature. As Solomon was reputed to have a thousand women there is a connection!

Osiris was also the brother as well as the husband of Isis.

The Canaanite god of the setting sun was Shalem, which is the root of the name Shlomo, or Solomon. It also comes from the Hebrew for peace, shalom.

In the song the man finds peace in the woman, which is a typical Jewish notion of the ideal relationship between husband and wife: she is his shabbat rest and the Shulamite.

He, Solomon, has many vineyards to her one. He has given them out to keepers. In Ecclesiastes Solomon says he had planted many vineyards.

Israel is often likened to a vine yard in scripture. The most notable passage is in Isaiah chapter 5 which begins with the song of the vineyard and is a lament for the sad state of it at that time and a warning of what is to come. "The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight." And Solomon took delight in creating gardens according to Ecclesiastes.

In fact the style of Song of Songs is similar to many passages in Isaiah, which was probably written a few generations after the time of Solomon.

So there is a powerful connection with Solomon and, even if he was not actually the writer of Song of Songs, whoever was had him in mind.

Chapters 30 and 31 of Isaiah point out that it is folly to trust in Egypt. Solomon made an alliance with Egypt by marrying Pharaoh's daughter.

Because of the style of the book being like a love poem to Isis, and the comments mostly by the woman who obviously knew Solomon well, it could be that the writer was Solomon's wife, the daughter of Pharaoh. If so it is the only work in scripture we have that was written by a woman!

If Solomon wrote this book, or is even the man in it then he was young or in the prime of life because Ecclesiastes is obviously written by an older person who has become disillusioned with life in general and now with women too. Chapter 7 v 26 " I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare." And v 28 " . while I was still searching, but not finding I found one upright man amongst a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all.!"

Isaiah Chapter 62 speaks of the land being "married" to Yahweh and " as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you."

Jerusalem is seen as a woman by Isaiah in chapter 66 v 11: " You will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts, you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance."

God, at least, does not change His view of His beloved!

If you look at the other things Solomon is supposed to have written there seems no parallel. So, although the song is dedicated to him, it probably was not written by him.

It has been suggested above that it was written by a woman, possibly by the Pharaoh's daughter Solomon married.

In Proverbs wisdom is personified as a virtuous woman, and warnings given against prostitutes and the adulteress. He (said to be Solomon) also warns against quarrelsome wives - ch.25v24:

" Better to live on the corner of a roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife!"

It was his many foreign wives who were to blame for his going astray to worship other gods. And no doubt he did not share his house with any of them! No wonder he became disillusioned with them! May be there was one he loved more than all the others, but something happened to spoil that, and he became bitter even though he could have any woman he wanted he could not have the one he wanted.

The longing of God for His beloved Israel, or Jerusalem, which had gone away from Him comes over many times in scripture.

The book of Ecclesiastes is the writing of a disillusioned man who finds wisdom, pleasures, work, advancement, and riches all meaningless. To be happy with your lot is a gift of God To eat, drink, do good and be satisfied in his work, enjoy any possessions or wealth God gives, and enjoy life with the wife he loves is the way for a man to be happy.

Solomon, who had an overabundance of all these things, had found it did not bring happiness.

Maybe the song is an expression of longing for the simple country life with the woman he loves. Many a great leader with huge responsibilities longs to get away from it all sometimes.

But the song does seems to be written from the woman's point of view, with asides made to other women; the daughters of Jerusalem, which are said as though she is a foreigner to them, possibly from the north of Israel, or Egypt.

Several times the woman says to the daughters of Jerusalem that she charges them by the female gazelles and does of the field not to awaken love until it so desires,(or is ready or willing - the verb has all these overtones.)

A hind of the field is a term of endearment for a much loved wife in Hebrew. It is used in Proverbs 5 v 19 said to be written by Solomon. Perhaps it was his term for her. What does it mean here? She is asking the beloved wives who are daughters of Jerusalem to not awaken her love until it (or she or even he) is ready.

Could it be that such a precious relationship has to be ready for total commitment before consummation?

In the spiritual sense it could mean "until you are ready to go all the way with God in total commitment."

Israel was not and later suffered exile as a divorce from the God they has abandoned.

One can see why the Jews see it as a picture of the relationship they have with God - they being the woman and he as Husband.

Paul sees the church as the bride of Christ. This has also led the Christians to see it as the church as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom.

Job

Job has to be a very ancient book. The main body of the text only speaks of "God" not Yahweh and contains no references to the Mosaic laws or Jewish festivals.

The introduction and conclusion do mention Yahweh and speak of Satan [the accuser] as though he is one particular entity. This is an idea the Jews appropriated in Babylon during the exile.

So it is likely that the first and last parts of the book were added much later as a commentary. This has serious implications because it is in those chapters 1&2& 42 that we have the reasons for Job's lament, and his reward of receiving back double what he lost.

Book of Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs, is a grouping of wisdom sayings and longer, connected poems composed from the 10th to the 4th century BC and finally collected about 300 BC. The sayings are either statements that provoke further thought or admonitions to behave in particular ways. The longer poems celebrate wisdom, encourage its observance, and personify it as a woman who at God's right hand assisted in creation. Egyptian wisdom is evident in Proverbs, making it possible to date the basis of the book to pre exilic times. Respect for women (31:10 - 31) is encouraged. The book is conventionally attributed to Solomon as the prototype of Israelite wisdom, but many sages had a hand in composing and collecting the subsections; mentioned specifically are the "men of Hezekiah."

Conclusions

The Old Testament is not what fundamental believers of both Christianity or Judaism say it is. It is not the infallible word of God of which no word can be changed. It has been changed and edited by man over a long period of time.

It contains parallels with other sacred writings from other peoples such as the Sumerians and the Egyptians, and so is not unique.

It seems the Levitical priesthood had huge influence and made the Israelites a separate people who did not get involved with practices connected with the afterlife. The gentile "worship" of the sun, moon and stars was not for them. The dying and rising again of the god was connected with the setting and rising of the sun, the waning and waxing of the moon and the procession of the stars and the seasons by the gentile nations. This gave a great emphasis to the afterlife and everlasting life. This aspect is missing in Judaism and was brought to Christianity from the gentile mystic cults.

The Judaism of the Old Testament is a manual for life in this world for the Jews.

It may not even be accurate as far as history is concerned.

There is truth in it but it has to be searched out like gold nuggets from tons of ore.

next section : is John the real Jesus?