This is the Sylvia conflagration of 8th grade world history, Rev McCollum’s Bible class as a Jr, World Religion at UGA, Kerygma Bible study, Disciple Bible Study and a lay person’s guide to the Bible class taught by Walter Brueggeman. All the errors are my own. All the opinions are my own. Here goes:
The Children of Israel when they left Egypt (if they actually did and that is another argument for another time), left a culture that used hieroglyphs and an elaborate court system of recording taxes, land purchases and grain, business transactions and a bunch of myths, legends, and how-to regarding the dead. Prior to showing up in Egypt, Jacob and his bunch of hooligan boys were illiterate. There is no writing to be found in Canaan dating to this time. I make the assumption that if Joseph were illiterate when he showed up as Pharaoh’s 2nd in command, he didn’t remain that way for long. The business of taxes and grain collection was complicated and involved. Same as it is today.
It is natural to assume that if Moses was brought up in Pharaoh’s palace, he must have been literate as well. After all, Deuteronomy says that the 10 commandments were ‘inscribed in God’s own hand on tablets of stone’, not once but twice. Someone had to be able to read them.
By the time that David/Solomon show up, the Israelites clearly have some sort of written records. 1st Kings talks all the time about the ‘annuals of the King’. Psalms has headings and song markings. Samuel the prophet kept ‘notes’ that are the basis for 1st and 2nd Samuel. We do not have the records of the kings that are referred to, nor do we have the notes of the prophets. Even the Torah, if it was written by then, was in pieces and parts. Just as we have myths and legends about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Paul Bunyan, etc,; there were creation myths, hero stories (Samson, Gideon etc.) and the histories. The Book of Job is probably the most ancient of books in the Bible in its complete form and it definitely was a narrative poem/play that was acted out over and over.
What was probably already inscribed by the time of David/Solomon were the priestly laws and the stuff about The Temple although even that has been edited and amended, which you can tell because many times there is a repetition or a slightly different story that is inserted. I guess even then, Bible scholars were arguing.
Some of the prophets like the first 40 chapters of Isaiah were written at the time of the Kings. Others were written just after the Exile and still others were written after the return to Israel but they were written as if they were previous to the calamity.
When Solomon died after being bad with his foreign wives and forgetting the God who had taken care of him and his father, he left the kingdom to his stupid son Rehobam. Building a Temple, multiple palaces, all the horses and stables and such, all that costs tons of money which when the gold from plunder ran out, Solomon took from his subjects. After all, he was king. At his death, many of his subjects wanted a reduction in taxes and the conscription of men. Rehobam, being a do-do, didn’t listen to his elders and listened to his young, dissipated friends who said, bring on more misery.
This resulted in 11 of the tribes breaking away and following a different king, Jeroboam. They formed the Northern Kingdom, also known as Israel or Ephraim. Only Judah was left to Rehobam. The Southern kingdom, with its capital, Jerusalem was known as Judah.
Here is the map of the divided kingdom.
To the north of the Northern Kingdom lay Assyria. Assyria was the first of many conquerors of Israel/Judah. As a matter of fact, a video that I listened to at church recently said that Assyria was the first true empire and set the stage for the next 3,000 years of conquerors taking over a land, establishing their system, putting their people in power positions and actually ‘mining’ the conquered for resources, manpower and money. Prior to that, you swept in, destroyed the towns, took all the good stuff, killed all the men and then swept out (sound familiar, David???). Ever since then, Assyria, then Babylon, then Persia, then Greece, then Rome, then the French, then English, then the Germans, then the English again have followed this same sequence of empire building. Some would say that the United States is doing the same thing. Assyria, 21st century.
Assyria destroyed the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC. Assyria decimated the population, taking anyone and everyone that moved away and putting their own people there to marry with the scrawny leftovers. These were the beginnings of the Samaritans, so called because the capital of the Northern Kingdom was Samaria and the major worship center was ‘the high places like Shechem’ (sound familiar???) The Southern Kingdom, Judah, held on through the decline of Assyria and the takeover of Babylon but fell to the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Here is where I am going to get in trouble with my rabbi friends who read this blog. I will apologize ahead of time for making you mad but right now, in the state I am in, I am laying out what I think happened.
Okay, off the wealthy and popular people of Judah go to Babylon. It is green in Babylon. Remember, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon? One of the 7 wonders of the Ancient World? Where is Babylon? Oh, the intersection of the Tigris and the Euphrates. The records from the time say ‘there were no poor people in Babylon’. Can’t say that now, can we? The Babylonians were incredible record keepers. They inherited the original cuneiform records and took it from there. Taxes, grain purchases, irrigation records. But more than that, they wrote down, on rocks and scrolls made from vellum, sheep’s hide, their myths, legends, and religious rites. Many that look strikingly similar to our Torah. They developed an outstanding education system. The Israelites would surely have been exposed to this .
Most Bible scholars think this is when much of our early Bible was codified, argued out and written down.
Some of the more striking pieces of literature to come out of this period were the questions of why, if they were God’s chosen people, why had the captivity happened. Thus the ‘prophets’ and the writing of 1st and 2nd Kings to point out where the kings went wrong and why God had allowed the Children of Israel to be taken from their land that He had promised them. Looking back by having a prophet pronounce doom and gloom while it was happening.
Even when the Persians overran the Babylonians and allowed the Israelites to return, only a small number went back. After all, why would they? Jerusalem was devastated. Babylon/Persia was a hustling/bustling business world. But if you were a Jew, you wanted your children to KNOW where they came from and why you did what you did (the kosher laws, the non-conformity to other gods’ worship). Thus the written scrolls and books and the teachers of the Torah, the histories, and the wisdom writings.
Without a temple to worship at, the synagogues became the center of religious life and the transmission of knowledge. You need codified documents for this. Otherwise, you have a bunch of different religions all making similar claims. Almost, a university or at least scholars picking about and fleshing out the stories, histories, and Laws. And this ‘university’ was not in Jerusalem. It was in the cosmopolitan cities of Babylon and Persia. Their influence is clearly evident.
So, bottom line, when do I think the Bible was written? Sometime between 550 and 400 BC for the most part with small exceptions for Daniel (120 BC), most of Psalms and Proverbs (David and Solomon) and some of Isaiah (pre 586). I am not saying that written records, oral traditions, campfire stories did not exist. But the books we are studying, the ones we debate and argue over were complied, codified AND ARGUED over in the 500s. And those compilers had a strict agenda. And not always agreed upon agenda. But one that is prevalent all the way through was to show why God chose the Children of Israel and what He does when they don’t obey Him or His Laws.
In case you are wondering, I did learn at Church of St Andrew and from my mother, herself a Bible Scholar, that Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible. I just don’t believe that. Don’t worry if you think I am a heathen. You are in great company.
A friend that I sent this post to for reading wanted me to add how this affects my faith. Well, since I spend more faith time doubting than I do in solid belief, this is just one more layer of problems to add to the many I already have with our religion.
But what does shine through in the Bible, probably in spite of the editors, is how BADLY God wants to be in relationship with us.
Dirty, mean, dishonest, cheating folk that He reaches out to over and over and over again. It is almost like He says ‘well, if they don’t get it through a great story (creation, flood, patriarchs), maybe they will get it through heroes. No, well, how about songs? Poems? Pithy sayings? No? Well, let me try another way. ‘ Strip away the hamstringing of horses, killing of babies and families, stupid warring, mean kings and that is what I see. God searching for ME. And right now, that is enough in Bible Land.
May it always be so.
No comments:
Post a Comment