JE WI S H E A RL Y H I S T O R Y

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One thing I noticed in creationist thinking with regard to Creation vs. Evolution is that the assumption appears to be that if the theory of evolution is shown to be false, then creationism wins. However, that’s not necessarily so. It could be that both creation and evolution are false. We could disprove both theories and find that we have no working theory with which to understand or even think about our arrival onto the stage of reality. I don’t think that would be satisfactory or even possible. Personally, I don’t see how to mount an attack on the theory of evolution without resorting to scare tactics and balderdash. If I could, I would certainly write it and hope for fame, glory and riches. Obviously, some think they can overturn Darwin’s theories and they are busy as bees, attempting to do so throughout web forums all over the world at this minute. Some use words like, “Well, we have the Word of God” or “As you know, we’re created in the image of God” to establish their points. I respond to such people as I do to Casey.

In actuality, every society has its own creation myth. So, there would be many such myths to consider if we wanted to shed light on all of them. They are fascinating and they vary widely. But I would like to discuss the basis for the Judeo-Christian creation myth that is represented as the preferred theory in this “Creation vs. Evolution” debate.

Before I launch into this presentation, however, I want to underscore that I value and love the bible and many (though not all :^) of the people who use it as the focus of their worship and their faith. I see the bible as a priceless inheritance from antiquity comparable to the hieroglyphics and pyramids of Egypt, the Greek Parthenon, the Roman Coliseum, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of the Maya and others. Personally, I visited the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit when it came to town and found it a moving experience. Elsewhere on this web site I have written about my own forty-six year experience as a Christian.

It seems there are different kinds of theists. There are those who study the Torah, the Bible and the Koran, but they have no idea where it came from, who wrote it and how it came to be. They just assume their document is a true and correct presentation of reality. There are also those who study evolution in order to attack it. And surely there are similar folks from other religions. But I wish to address the part of the bible which is the foundation stone for three of the top world religions, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and for the creation myth that is assumed on this web site: the Torah.

If not banished from this forum, there are two aspects that I wish to focus on in this thread. The first is to compare that which we read from the Torah with archeological evidence. The second is to compare it with written evidence from other contemporary civilizations such as Assyria, Babylon, Persia and Egypt.

THE TORAH

The Torah was written by ancient Jews in Judah and Babylon. It is also known as the Pentateuch. It is sometimes considered to consist of the first five books of the bible:

Bereshit (ית ראש� literally "In the beginning") - Genesis ,ב�

Shemot (מות literally "Names") - Exodus ,ש�

Vayikra (ויקרא, literally "And He called") - Leviticus

Beviticus במדבר, literally "In the desert [of]") - Numbers

Devarim (דברים, literally "Things" or "Words") - Deuteronomy

However, the term “Torah” is at other times used to refer to the “continued narrative from Genesis to the end of the Tanakh, it can even mean the totality of Jewish teaching, culture and practice.” Ref

I’m going to argue that these writings are not historically accurate in the sense that we would think of if we considered the “Encyclopedia Britannica”. We trust that that document is factually correct everywhere. And, any text in that document that is not true, we consider a defect and expect it re-written as soon as possible. In contrast, the books of the Torah were written for religious reasons and for political reasons. To my knowledge, changes to these documents are not allowed. Further, these books were written as early as twenty-seven hundred years ago (roughly speaking) when people did not have access to the philosophy of the sciences that were much later used to derive our present understandings of reality.

Therefore, the narrative in the books of the Torah cannot be considered an alternative source for actual knowledge of the world. As a result, we cannot use the creation myth contained in the Torah as a reliable source for understanding our existential reality and how it came to be.

There are a great many truth claims made in the Torah that can be examined for their factual content in order to establish this claim. I list a few claims against the content of the Torah below.

The Garden of Eden was likely a King’s actual garden.

Judeans were originally polytheistic and Yahweh had a wife.

The Israelite nation was destroyed by the Assyrians of the North before became a nation.

Some Israelite refugees escaped from the Assyrians and fled southward to Judah.

Israelites and Judeans were linked by belief in a common God.

The Caananites were not massaquered. Rather, they coalesced into what became the Judean society.

The Philistines weren’t brutes. Instead, they were a cultured society.

The westward migration of Abraham did not happen.

The Sun did not stop for a day.

Jericho didn’t happen.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah are not historical.

The Israelites were never held captive in Egypt.

The Passover is a fiction.

The Exodus and the wandering for forty years is a fiction.

Kings David and Solomon were not great kings. Instead David was a village chieftan. No evidence has found that Solomon was a great king or even existed at all.

King Josiah and the secular and the ecumenical leadership were held captive in Babylon and subsequently allowed to return to Judah by the King of the Persian empire.

These stories were elaborate fabrications by King Josiah in order to centralize power around him after his return from captivity in Babylon.

The great leader was actually King Omri of the North. However, his accomplishments were downplayed by King Josiah for purely political reasons.

King Josiah desired to create a new Judean empire on the rubble of the old Israelite empire and create a Judean-Israelite empire such as had never befor existed. However, he was called to Egypt by a resurgent Egyptian power and murdered before he was able to make his vision a reality.

Temples outside Jerusalem were destroyed in order to centralize worship and power in the city of Jerusalem.

An old book was “mysteriously found” (or fabricated) and used to subjugate the people of Judah under King Josiah’s leadership and allow him to centralize power around himself. It is thought to have been the Book of Deuteronomy.

Judah is thought to have been the first state to be ruled by a document.

The Torah is a political document meant to be used by King Josiah to consolidate power for his own political purposes.

While a priceless artifact of the past and source of inspiration, having been produced for religious and political purposes, the Torah cannot be the source of truth in modern debates about anything, including evolution. Rather, it should be utilized, following established processes of historical inquiry, as a source of clues for study regarding what the ancient writers really wrote.

Below, I will justify many of these claims with evidence. However, the reader is referred to the references for a complete justification of these claims.

However, I want to be very clear. These arguments should not be construed to represent that there isn’t some god out there. I am going to declare that question out of scope for this discussion. I only wish to clear the way so that factual claims regarding evolution are unencumbered with religious superstitions. Elsewhere, I hope to discuss Arizona State University Professor Lawrence Krauss’ ideas on “A Universe from Nothing” when time becomes available.

I started to restructure material I had produced earlier. However, I realized it already had a structure that was entirely acceptable. The structure is built around video presentations that I watched and studied. They are based on books produced by an archaeologist and two biblical scholars as described below. I do not apologize for using “video” as my source material. It is a valid modality for transfer of knowledge that is as good if not better than attending a university lecture except for the lack of ability to ask questions at the end.

That which I present below reproduces some of the material gained from the video productions. Many of the links were removed because they were no longer functional due to copyright concerns.

Any links provided have been provided to help the reader to further investigate these inaccuracies but are not required to understand the material. In this debating format, I am not capable of presenting an exhaustive accounting for all the inaccuracies in the Torah. Rather, I attempt to

provide enough meat that anyone interested has sufficient confidence that I am presenting valid material and that these issues really must be accounted for if one chooses to use the Torah as a basis for scientific debate in this modern era.

I kick this off with an email to Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute.

From: Scott VigilSent: Friday, December 13, 2013 9:28 AMTo: Casey LuskinSubject: Finkelstein and Stavrakopoulou on Jewish Early History

Hello Casey,

I saw your talk, Casey Luskin: Why the New Atheists Won't Be Appeased [God & Evolution]. My son is now thirty. You know you’re getting old when you can look at a video of someone such as yourself and think, “That’s a cute kid.”

This is off the topic of evolution. However, it’s exactly onto the topic of your presentation. It may be that science is incompatible with religion. It’s sad that you feel under attack by the scientific community. However, your fears may be completely correct. And, it may be far worse than you imagined.

I have recently seen a series on the Jews and the bible. The content was written by Israel Finkelstein, an Israeli archaeologist and academic at Tel Aviv University. He is also the co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel.

If the Israeli’s can show that the archeological evidence backs up their story, that will greatly enhance their bargaining position! So, they have every motivation to show the historicity of the Old Testament. Along with Christian archeologists, they have dug with “bible in one hand, pick ax in the other”. Between 1880 and 1980, the evidence seemed fully compatible with the OT stories. Then, the whole thing collapsed like a deck of cards.

This is gorgeously produced and has helped me to understand the lives of the Jews as they sought to survive amongst neighboring super powers of the day: Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. Also in the playlist are a couple episodes of another series from Francesca Stavrakopoulou. She is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion in the University of Exeter's department of Theology and Religion.

[Link removed due to copyright claims.]

This link misses one episode from Stavrakopoulou’s series, however, that I thought was wonderful.

The Bible's Buried Secrets [BBC] Episode 3 - "The Real Garden of Eden"

[Link removed due to copyright claims.]

But, watch this last. I think its conclusions are least compelling from a historical perspective. However, if you can let go of your need to dominate the historical narrative, and want to see the people of Genesis and their lives from an aesthetic perspective as real and once living human beings, this is the most beautiful of them all.

Personally, I am willing to accept whatever the truth really is. Though different from my understanding of Christianity, this makes me feel closer to my beloved Israelites and Judeans. It depicts them as real people trying to make their way in a dangerous world.

Best,

Scott

Scott 10/31/14: YouTube links have a short half-life due to copyright concerns. If the series above are not easily found by a title search on YouTube, The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman can provide understanding regarding the lives of the Jews as they sought to survive amongst neighboring super powers of the day: Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. Francesca Stavrakopoulou also has a number of books out that should provide excellent insights if her series is any indication.

Scott 2/8/15, updated 4/17/15:

To me, it’s clear that ID as well as creationists are attempting to carve out space from evolution to show plausibility for the Adam and Eve story. How can there be original sin if there were no original humans?

ID “Meadow Model”, source (tbd time): Judgment Day: Intelligent Design On Trial (creationism vs evolution).

Here’s what I call the meadow model of ID. Unlike the tree of life posited by Darwin that shows one species branching into many, it shows a set of independent stems that continue over time, never branching out. Creationists don’t even like to use the term “species”. Instead, they opt for the biblical term, “kinds”. Though they each have their own spontaneous “genesis”, they have no relationship with one another. One can easily imagine Adam and Eve at the bottom of one of these stems, for the “kind”, human.

If you push these folks, you can see that at the root of their thinking

The bible is true. Adam and Eve were the first people. Therefore, evolution is false.

One only has to go to the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate or EvolutionFairyTale.com to see this thinking in action.

To address this objection to evolution, it then becomes incumbent on a diligent debater to disprove the historical accuracy of the bible. And this can easily be done due to recent work on this. In the early twentieth century, biblical enthusiasts went to Israel in an attempt to prove the bible. From this work, an entire model was created that seemed to support the events mentioned in the Torah (Old Testament). However, certain problems became apparent. Advances in dating methods and archeology were applied to the evidence and the biblical model fell apart.

Now we know that many events in the bible are mythological in nature and are not as presented in books such as Genesis and Exodus.

As an example, earlier biblical archeologists had placed the book of Genesis as having been written around 1300 BC due to the references to the Paraoh Ramses in the book of Exodus. However, no evidence for camels being used as a beast of burden (as represented in Genesis) was found any time earlier than 800 BC. So, the exodus of the Jews from Eqypt could not have occurred during the reign of either Ramses or Ramses II. Many other examples can also be found.

Kings David, Solomon and Josiah weren't nearly as significant as advertised. The size of their kingdom was very small. In contrast, a reportedly minor Israelite king, Omri mentioned only twice in the bible, turned out to be much more powerful than suggested. See evidence presented below. As will be shown below, great buildings from his reign have been found.

Additionally, the conquest of Canaan didn’t occur. Also, the two kingdoms, Israel and Judea, while they both worshipped Yahweh, did not appear at the same time. So, they could not have been ruled by David and Solomon. Inscriptions in stone referred to them as separate kingdoms. The sun did not stop in the sky. Per Wikipedia, at the time of Joshua, “Jericho was a heap of ruins, on which stood perhaps a few isolated huts".[4] There were no walls of Jericho to fall down. Abraham did not make his journey. Sodom and Gomorra were not destroyed as described in the bible. The holocost of Canaan isn't historical at all. In fact, Canaan was settled without bloodshed. There is no evidence of a literal “Garden of Eden”. Careful analysis of the biblical texts by Franceska Stavrakopoulou are much more consistent with the gardens maintained by great kings of antiquity.

Franceska Stavrakopoulou,

Biblical Scholar, is a strident individual who is unafraid of gathering evidence she finds and stating her theories that relate them. Many of these are directly in conflict with the dogma one receives in Sunday school. Not all her theories can be demonstrated with certainty. Those that cannot are signaled as other disciplined historians I have studied.

There is not scope in this book to prove all the above assertions. However, some evidence is provided for some of these claims.

Below are screen shots from the BBC production, “The Bible Unearthed, The Patriarchs”, based on the book, The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman . Times listed in the form xx:ww are minutes and seconds from the beginning of the episode. This information was put

together for discussion with a couple of my own childhood friends who are now professionals and have adopted a devout Christian faith since we went to school together.

Israel Finkelstein 43:20 (note time offsets for video screen pictures)

Mesha Stele 24:45

Per the wiki on the artifact,

The Mesha stele is the longest Iron Age inscription ever found in the region, and constitutes the major evidence for the Moabite language. The stele, whose story parallels, with some differences, an episode in the Bible's Books of Kings (2 Kings 3:4-8), provides invaluable information on the Moabite language and the political relationship between Moab and Israel at one moment in the 9th century BCE.[3] It is the most extensive inscription ever recovered that refers to the kingdom of Israel (the "House of Omri"); it bears the earliest certain extra-biblical reference to the Israelite God Yahweh,

and — if French scholar André Lemaire's reconstruction of a portion of line 31 is correct — the earliest mention of the "House of David" (i.e., the kingdom of Judah).[2]

According to Israel Finkelstein, the “House of David” appeared after King Omri was gone. (King Omri’s fortifications are shown below.) So, I wouldn’t think Lemaire would be correct. Nevertheless, even if he is, Omri and David appear to be listed as separate kingdoms and are not tied together. And this supports the view that the Old Testament (that is, the Torah) inaccurately tie the two kingdoms together in order to transfer the prestige of the earlier Israelite kingdom to the more primitive Judean kingdom.

See, http://www.bible-history.com/resource/ff_mesha.htm for more information on this..

Foundation Stones such as these are expected to be found in any large city of antiquity. Since no such stones are found in Jerusalem at the time of David, Finkelstein thinks Jerusalem was quite small during the fabled King’s time. These stones in Jerusalem were originally thought to indicate a great city. However, they were put in place after the death of King David.

Pictured is the original settlement location of the original village of Jerusalem, 28:04.

Settlement Boundary Discussion, 27:46.

for more information on this.

This historian has been searching for the earliest sections of the city of Jerusalem.

Since the dead were originally not buried within the city, it is thought that tomb sites might form boundaries of the original city. So, such sites were located and mapped, 25:50.

Finkelstein surveys a tomb, from the time of David, 25:14.

Depiction of Settlement of David, 28:07.

On pantheon of ancient Jewish gods, 31:28.

Co-author, Neil Asher Silberman .

This is thought to contain the earliest reference to the King David. Some have postulated that King David did not exist. However, this is strong evidence to the contrary.

Here is another depiction of the stone from The Bible’s Buried Secrets, Nova, PBS, 6:07, (not to be confused with the BBC documentary, The Bible Unearthed.)

This relief, with highlighting added, shows record of the pacification of ancient Israel. The Israelite nation was destroyed by the Assyrians of the north. According to archaeological findings by Finkelstein, Judah did not come along until later. This contradicts the Hebrew text that asserts that ancient Israel and Judah were a single dominion under kings David and Solomon. This shows clear linkage of the kingdom of ancient Israel as being ruled by the powerful King Omri. This contradiction leads one to the question of why the writers of the Torah would amplify the role of David and Solomon and diminish the role of King Omri to be nearly non-existent.

Goddess Figurine 26:54

Goddesses were quite popular in Jewish sites. This showed that ancient Jew was not monotheistic as represented in the bible. Much of the material on figurines found in ancient Judean sites was also presented by Franceska Stavrakopoulou in her material. As a note, it’s confusing to refer to these sites as ancient Judean. Finkelstein showed that the Canaanites were not massaquered as depicted in the Torah. Rather, an earlier civilization had come and gone in the area before any returning Jews from an Exodus (that was shown to have been false) would have arrived. Instead, evidence gathered by Finkelstein showed an organic development of Canaanite sheep hearders that coalesced into Judean society.

Goddess Figurine 26:59

This hairstyle appeared indicative of what is thought to be a fertility goddess.

Goddess Figurine 27:17

Goddess Figurines 27:29

Bronze Bull 27:50

Other small figurines of worship also can be found in ancient Jewish settlements. They enhance the view that the people were originally polytheistic. Not pictured here are artifacts clearly showing Yahweh and the fertility goddess as associated in a presentation produced by Franceska Stavrakopoulou entitled, “Did God Have a Wife?”

Bronze Bull close-up, 27:58.

Great Buildings of Megiddo

Megiddo is described by Finkelstein and Silberman in The Bible Unearthed. At that site, we find massive ruins establishing King Omri as a truly great king. Improvements in dating methods show this to be too early to have been attributed to the period of Kings David and Solemon.

Oldest Known Biblical Text (one of two), 30:43.

According to Bart Ehrman, 50,000 ancient texts exist from the size of a fragment such as this to full codices. They all have differences and make for an incredible problem in determining what was originally written.

Megiddo Structures, 35:28.

Seeds and Olive Stones of Megiddo, 36:24.

Above are olive stones from Miguido as they are being prepared for dating.

Radio Carbon Dating of Seeds and Olive Stones of Megiddo 36:27

This is the facility Finkelstein and others used to perform the dating of the Megiddo sites.

King Omri’s Sebastia 41:17

These pictures will hopefully motivate the reader to read from Finkelstein, Silberman and Stravrakopoulou or find their documentaries online.

Omri Palace, 41:24.

Omri Palace, 41:53.

Omri Palace , 41:57.

Omri Palace, 42:00.

Omri Palace, 42:06.

Omri Palace discussion, 42:10.

Omri Palance, 42:43.

Omri Palace, 42:50.

Omri Palace, 43:03.

Kings of North Don’t Get Fair Hearing, 44:53.

Silberman explains that it is the Judeans that get to tell the final history in the Torah (books of the old testament). In that book, the people of the northern Israelite nation and King Omri don’t get reviewed as favorably as if they were telling their own history. Instead as described above,, the power and prestige are incorporated into the history of Judah and associated with kings David and Solomon in order to act as a backdrop and context for King Josiah.

Josiah as New David, 48:20.

King Josiah is seen as inserting himself into the biblical narrative after he and the priests are released from Babylon after its defeat by Persia. He is posited to have conveniently “found” the book of Deuteronomy to establish a centralized power base in Jerusalem. This allowed him to destroy temples in the countryside, centralize power in Jerusalem and create a more efficient state. As an example of this, Finkelstein shows how ceramic water jugs were standardized during King Josiah’s reign.

However, early in his reign, King Josiah was summoned by a resurgent Egyptian leader and subsequently murdered. While unsuccessful as a ruler, King Josiah is said to have been a great and just king in the biblical text. His major accomplishment, however, appears to have established Judah as the first country ever ruled by a document.

The reader might see this narrative as entirely different than that learned in Sunday school. Yes, the evidence seems to point to a much different history then that portrayed in the bible and by modern Jews and Christians. What emerges is a beautiful and sad story of the aspirations and hope of King Josiah after being released from Babylonian captivity only to have been dashed upon his murder. However, it was a story that Finkelstein saw as bringing him closer to his ancient people. As an individual who’s grandfather had a Jewish surname, it does the same for me (my mother’s maiden name is Kitzman.) I encourage everyone to read books by Finkelstein, Silberman and Stravrakopoulou. I certainly have not been able to do their works justice in this writing.

Let’s take the idea that the sun was stopped in the sky so the Israelites could win their battle. I’ll cover this one from my physics background. Have you ever jostled your coffee cup and spilled coffee on your lap? The circumference of the earth is 25,000 miles. It takes 24 hours to revolve once. That means those at the equator are traveling about a thousand miles an hour along the line of the equator. (We, north of the equator are going a bit slower.) Imagine that you are flying in a fighter jet at a thousand miles an hour in Egypt. And you decide to dive into one of those pyramids exactly perpendicular to its face. That would stop you immediately. This is the kind of impact that would occur at the equator if the earth stopped revolving as depicted in the bible. Assuming anyone would have lived through such a cataclysmic event, it would have been recorded by all peoples of antiquity. No record for such an event has been found.

Clearly, the bible is not of sufficient accuracy that it can be used to disprove evolution. For purposes of this book, the narrative that emerges from current archaeological, biblical studies and rational

arguments is entirely consistent with evolution. It does not require the invention of a repackaged version of creationism, such as Intelligent Design.

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