I don’t think the Bible was ever intended to be taken literally.  The idea was conceived after the breakthrough of the printing press in a doomed attempt to coordinate readings.  In the 16th century people might have believed it would work.  But this presupposes a mental homogeneity which it is now obvious it does not exist.  The consequences of inevitable individuality is something literalists don’t seem to think about.  Maybe they don’t realise the need for conscious reflection at all?

Instead the Bible is written to convince about the benefit of only worshiping one god.  The ancient Hebrew were desert herders which become partially settled down in the Levant.  There they organised their society around the worship of the god Yahveh.  Eventually, Yahveh came to be perceived as the only god worthy of worship.  Thereby Judaism can be said to have originated.

The Old Testament was written by many authors over the course of 300 – 400 years.  Although there was an oral tradition earlier the writing started in the 7th century BC.  By the 4th century BC it was a text we would recognise.  By then the Old Testament had undergone much editing.  The largest part is written in Hebrew and a smaller part in Aramaic.  The text in Aramaic is written as last after the Jews had started to change from speaking Hebrew to Aramaic.  This about a gradual cultural change which had taken several centuries.

What people think about as Genesis is actually two different ones.  They are even written in the opposite order to the one they are usually found in the Bible.  It is noticeable in that the first one is more sophisticatedly written.  Anyway the point with them is one not needing many gods with different areas responsibility.  The latter is called polytheism and was the normal when they were written.

The story of the Fall was written to answer a mistakenly asked question.  This question is:

Why do humans want to be evil?

This question is mistaken since ill will does not exist.  Instead we should ask the question:

Why is so much of what people naturally want labelled evil?

I think the answer usually is:

Because it was against the self-interest of individuals with absolute power.

In some cases the answer is instead:

Because to many of those which could write did not see any own opportunity to get it.

The later type of condemnations may already have been formulated by Buddhist monks towards the end of the writing process.  However, in that case I don’t think the Tanakh’s authors knew about them.  These ideas has been ascribed the Old Testament in retroactive form.

The Flood is one of several stories resembling each other from the area.  All these stories are inspired by an unusually big flood which happened in Iraq.  The area around Tell Fara was devastated by such around 2900 BC.  Stories vaguely resembling the Flood are found here, there and everywhere in the world.  I think single ones or groups of such were inspired by devastating local disasters.  Descriptions of how they happened strongly resemble such.

Some parts of Exodus may have been inspired by a natural disaster.  Around 1600 BC the island of Thira in the Mediterranean exploded.  The consequences of this volcanic eruption resembles details of this story.  There were also some immigration from Egypt to the Levant in the 16th to 12th centuries.  It was at most a few thousand Egyptians joining the Hebrews.  More is not historically credible.

Interestingly there is a group of Jews claiming to be descended on their fathers’ side from the ancient Hebrew priesthood.  Oftentimes their members have a surname derived from the Hebrew word for priest (kōhēn).  It has turned out that barely half of them in fact have a common male line only ancestor.  We can call him Aaron after the priesthood’s mythical patrilineal ancestor.  In contrast the Samarian members of the group has an entirely different genetic origin.  I see this as a result of them originally being different cultures.  Later they have influenced each other to higher or lesser degrees.

The New Testament was originally written in Ancient Greek.  Its different parts were written over the course of about 100 years.  Although very little of it holds true I think Jesus has existed.  The individuals denying this today are most often motivated by dislike of certain obstinate Christians.  Those are people who want to make Jesus into a 16th century European monk.  Or an American slave plantation owner living in the 19th century.  Or whatever role model they have to require the impossible from others.

On the other hand no mass conversions were needed for Christianity to take over.  The number of Christians only needed to increase by 3–4% per year.  This is enough for their number to have grown from a few thousand to about 30 million in just 300 years.  This mean the majority of the Roman Empire’s population had converted.  Bart Eherman has calculated this.  Since I am familiar with exponential growth this makes complete sense to me.  A great deal seem to have trouble imagining anything such.

 

Uploaded on the 14th of February 2023.