What if...

To all Christians out there: You say that Satan is the greatest deceiver of all to the point that you will even insist that atheists like me were deceived by Satan that is why I "deny" God's existence ( based on 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

But as a greatest of deceivers, is it possible that Satan most likely used something to bring more souls into hell than be contented to a merely 1% of the world's population? Mas marami di hamak ang Kristiano sa mundo (about 3 billion compare to us atheists.). Hindi kaya ang Bible eh ang kasangkapan ni Satan sa panloloko sa tao?

Now what if the greatest deceiver's tool in deceiving the world is no other than the Bible itself?

Dazed and Confused

Trivia lang guys.

Do you know that the Christian Bible has many contradictions. WHAT? You don't believe me? Why not read it yourself. Here are few samples:

Rom.3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

1Kgs. 8:46 "...for there is no man that sinneth not,...."

(2Chr. 6:36)

Prov.20:9 "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?"

Eccl. 7:23 "For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."

Mark 10:18 "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God."

Rom. 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."

(Also 1 John 1:8 & 10, Rom. 3:12, 5:12, Gal. 3:22)

Versus

Gen. 6:9 "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God."

Job 1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.

Job 1:8 "...my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?" (Job 2:3)

Gen. 7:1 "And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."

Luke 1:5-6 "In the days of Herod, the king of Judaea,there was a priest named Zacharias, of the division of Abia: andhe had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.(RSV)

Num. 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent."

1Sam. 15:29 "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent."

Versus

Jonah 3:10 "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."

1Sam.15:11 "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king...."

Exod. 32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Psalms.42:10 "... for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you."

Gen. 6:6 "And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

1Sam. 15:35 "...and the LORD repented that he had made Saul king over Israel."

Now, itanong mo sa pari, sa pastor,sa ministro, sa Jakono o kahit itanong mo kay Soriano, and they'll give you different answers na para kang nag take a still in a defective Merry-Go-Round.

Maybe that's what Christian meant when they say that when you read the Bible, you're under the spirit.

CHAO!

Biblical Morality

I was intrigued by the quote that I saw in the Internet, something that was said by a certain T.B. Wakeman “The word moral does not occur in the Bible, not even the idea.”

What? How can that be?

I grew up as a Christian and believed that the Bible was the foundation of morality…well…I thought it was, but hey, we can find the Ten Commandments in its pages, right? There is also this Jesus fellow who taught me to be good. That can be counted, right?

Since the Bible was inspired by God and every Christians know that God is good they blame the decay of society and the lost of moral values as the result of the decline in Bible reading and the lack of God belief. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series and one of the founders of Moral Majority agrees and said, “…since moral conditions have become worse and worse in direct proportion to humanism’s influence, which has move our country from a biblically based society to an amoral “democratic” society. “

Ok…so let us talk about morality base in the Bible.

Since Christians all agree that God inspired the Bible, let us look at God’s morality first.

According to Christian claims, God is suppose to be a god of love (1 John 4:16; Psalms 145:15-16 and Matthew 5:9), a righteous judge (Genesis 18:25), fair (Ezekiel 18:25) and impartial (Roman 2:11).

However, reading the Bible will also give us a different personality.

1.) That this God is a jealous god.

A perfect, omnipotent being getting jealous?

Exodus 20:5, 34:14, Deuteronomy 4: 24, 5:9, Psalms 79:5, 78:58, Joshua 24: 19, Ezekiel 16:38, 38:19, Zechariah 8:2 and Nahum 1:2

2.) He orders plunder.

Exodus 3:22, Deuteronomy 20:14 and Ezekiel 39:10

3.) He deceives.

"O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived...." (Jer. 20:7).

"if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel" (Ezek. 14:9).

"Ah, Lord God! Surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reaches unto the soul" (Jer. 4:10).

"...God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess. 2:9-12).

2Chron. 18:18-22, 1 Kings 22:20-23 and Jer. 15:18.

4.) He command killing (even innocent women and children).

"ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put 10,000 to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword" (Lev. 26:7-8).

"the Lord said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. And Moses said to the judges of Israel. Slay every one his men that were joined to Baal" (Num. 25:4-5).

"Vex the Midianites and smite them" (Num. 25:17).

"But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breathes. But thou shalt utterly destroy them...as the Lord thy God has commanded thee" (Deut. 20:16-17).

"So Joshua smote all the country of the hills...he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded" (Joshua 10:40).

"As I listened, god said to the others, 'Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children...." (Ezek. 9:5-6).

So I guess Thomas Jefferson was right about God when he said, “A being of terrific character – cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.” In addition, Thomas Paine was correct when he said, “All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes."

Reflecting from Xenophanes’ quote…if an ancient culture creates a god, it will reflect their standard of morality, the same on how horses and lions will create their gods.

Now let us talk about God’s only begotten son Jesus.

Many people, and unfortunately even some freethinkers and agnostics, think that Jesus was a great teacher. People like Thomas Paine calls Jesus as such and Robert Ingersoll who was very impress with the so-called “Sermon on the Mount”.

When I was still a Christian, I also thought that this Man-God excel not only as a teacher but also in regards to ethics. I was 12-years old at that time.

Bible believers say that Jesus’ morality is at its best in the Sermon in the Mount (AKA the Beatitudes). You can see it in Matthew 5:3-11. Well they may be admirable, but it has little value as a moral code. The Beatitudes are unrealistic. If we take away most of its supernatural rewards, what is left are a bunch of Consuelo de bobo (hollow consolations).

The reason behind this is obvious. Jesus is teaching ethics base on the promise of divine rewards and treats of supernatural punishments. He does not teach by the content of his moral code but on his conception of himself and his divinely appointed mission.

How about Jesus’ other moral precepts?

Most of his teachings we re-hashed from other teachers and some were lift from the pages of the Old Testament. The Golden Rule for example was advocated by Confucius (Doctrine of Mean 13) 500 years before Jesus and you can also find it in the Seven Rules of Hillel.

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor that is the whole Torah ... (b.Shabbat 31a)

Isocrates (436–338 BCE), the ancient Greek rhetorician have also said ,"Do not do to others what would anger you if gone to you by others.”

Matthew 5:39 can also be found in Leviticus 19:18 and in the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

I am good to people who are good.

I am also good to people who are not good.

Because Virtue is goodness.

I have faith in people who are faithful.

I also have faith in people who are not faithful.

Because Virtue is faithfulness (Tao Te Ching 49)

In addition, the same teaching is seen in Confucianism, the Buddhist’s Dhammapada and at the Indian Ramayana.

Someone said, "What do you say concerning the principle that injury should be recompensed with kindness?" The Master said, "With what will you then recompense kindness? Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness." (Confucianism. Analects 14.36)

Conquer the angry one by not getting angry (i.e., by loving-kindness); conquer the wicked by goodness; conquer the stingy by generosity, and the liar by speaking the truth. (Dhammapada 223)

A superior being does not render evil for evil; this is a maxim one should observe; the ornament of virtuous persons is their conduct. One should never harm the wicked or the good or even criminals meriting death. A noble soul will ever exercise compassion even towards those who enjoy injuring others or those of cruel deeds when they are actually committing them--for who is without fault? (Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda 115)

Christian apologist Norman Giesler insisted that Jesus ethics is an ethics of love, but American author Ruth Hurmence Green disagrees – “They told me the Bible was a book about love, but I studied every page of that Bible, and I couldn’t find enough love to fill a salt shaker.”

There are other Bible stories that saturated with obscenities, degeneracy and immorality. Some have questionable moral values and others even promote profanity and corruption.

Here are some samples:

Genesis 19:8

Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

2 Samuel 13:11-14

11 But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, "Come to bed with me, my sister."

12 "Don't, my brother!" she said to him. "Don't force me. Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don't do this wicked thing. 13 What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you." 14 But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

Genesis 34 The defilement of Danah

Genesis 38 The narratives of Judah, Omar and Tamar

Genesis 30: 14-16

14 During wheat harvest, Reuben went out into the fields and found some mandrake plants, which he brought to his mother Leah. Rachel said to Leah, "Please give me some of your son's mandrakes."

15 But she said to her, "Wasn't it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son's mandrakes too?"

"Very well," Rachel said, "he can sleep with you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes."

16 So when Jacob came in from the fields that evening, Leah went out to meet him. "You must sleep with me," she said. "I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." So he slept with her that night.

Genesis 30: 3-6

3 Then she said, "Here is Bilhah, my maidservant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and that through her I too can build a family."

4 So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, 5 and she became pregnant and bore him a son. 6 Then Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son." Because of this she named him Dan.

Genesis 16 The story of Abraham and Sarah and the illicit intimacy with Hagar.

Genesis 30: 25-43 Jacob’s trick Laban.

[Visit The Bible Unmasked for more examples.]

When confronted by these issues, Christian apologists like William Arndt say, “When it speaks of sin, it describes it in its ugliness, so that disgust and horror enters the heart of the readers. Not once for a moment, does it leave the high moral level of stern opposition to unrighteousness in all its form.”

What moral value? Ah OK…Peter called Lot a “righteous man” (2 Peter 2:7) even when Lot was giving his daughter to be rape by a mob. What moral value does it show…that giving your daughter to be rape is a good thing to do…I don’t think so?

There are countries out there that did not even heard of this Christian Bible and there are those who do not care about it, yet they even have a higher moral value compare to Bible-believing western nations. Japan for example – where honesty and honor are of the highest value, deems the Bible as  重要ではない. Most countries in Asia values cleanliness, respect to the elders and reverence to their parents yet they knew nothing of Yahweh, nor Moses, Jesus and Paul yet compare to the most pious Christian nation, their place are not riddled with crime, vices and corruption.

Ironic isn’t it?

Hotdog!!!!

Ezekiel 23:20
"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emissions has like that of horses." (NIV)

Comment : And you call the Bible a moralist's handbook? I never knew those Egyptians are that "hung".
Oh come on!
Jumbo hotdog! Kaya mo ba 'to! Talk about a moral book ala Xerex.
Hahaha!

John the Atheist

Flat-Chested Girls?

So what's wrong with flat chested girls huh?


Song of Songs 8:8 We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

The Most Advanced Ancient Book of All Time?

According to Christians...the Bible is advance...advance in what????

Let's look at their claims:

“It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in…” (Isaiah 40:22)

And again…

(Amos 9:6) “The One who builds His upper chambers in the heavens And has founded His vaulted dome over the earth, He who calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth, The LORD is His name.” (NASB)

Now is the Earth a dome?

In Isaiah 40:22 for example, the word “circle” doesn’t mean a spherical Earth. The word “chug” refers to a circle…a flat circle. Notice the word “tent” or “dome” in those verses. As specified in Amos 9:6, this vaulted dome or “raki’a” (See: Genesis 1:6-8) is what the ancient Hebrew believe to cover the entire world. It is said that this solid vault or dome held the Sun, the moon and the stars (Gen.1:14-19; Psalms 19:4, 6) and it also provided the boundaries to the divine (Job 22:14 and Proverbs 8:27)

It also separated the water “above” from the water “below”. In fact according to these ancient Hebrews the blue color of the sky was attributed to the chaotic waters above the dome. This solid dome has windows and trap doors in which it release the rain and snow when opened (Gen. 7:11, Isa. 24: 18 and Mal. 3:10)

According to rabbinic traditions, in Nachmanides Commentary on Torah (Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman 1194-1270) “Let the expanses become fixed; for although the heavens were created on the first day, they were still in fluid form, and they become solidified only on the second day when the Divine said "Yehee Raqiyaa." (Also see: Nachmanides (Raban), Commentary on the Torah, vol. 1, pp. 33, 36.)

This is clearly not scientific foreknowledge.

Now here's something real funny.

According from a certain site owned by a certain Eliseo Soriano...the Bible have the forknowledge regarding the use of crying. Now can that only be found in the pages of the Bible? My papaya naman! It is ancient folk wisdom that crying is good for our health. It isn't new. Practitioner's of folk wisdom have routinely encouraged people to allow themselves to cry comforting the suffering soul that ' a good cry will help you feel better'.

For example:

The ancient Hawaiians assert there are two chemical reactions within the human body that can accomplish Reconnection with Source Oneness. The first is the "sacred tear” beneath our sadness and hopelessness. Beneath that tear lies the second chemical reaction, said to be more powerful than all the healing agents known to humankind. It comes "out of the blue" with the power of a jackhammer, shattering the seriousness of the entire human estate. A power instantly freeing and balancing to all the body's chemistry. This is the power of laughter. When it comes in this manner, it comes through the "na'au" (gut level) and will pierce the hopelessness of any situation or attitude. It is not a power to be taken lightly, for the ancient Hawaiians say it holds the chemistry of immortality and will instantly heal any terminal disease. It’s said to be the "laughter of God" which shatters the ridiculousness of hopelessness.

Let's talk about history:

One of the best weapons used by Christians to confirm the Bible story is Hezekiah's Tunnel. According to them the discovery of the tunnel built by King Hezekiah authenticates the passages written in the book of Kings. 2 Kings 20:20 states that Hezekiah, "Made the Pool and the conduit and brought water into the city" and in 2 Chronicles 32:30 that he closed the upper outlet of the waters of Gihon and directed them down to the West side of the City of David. This refers to the tunnel which connects the ‘Spring of Gihon’, through the rock to the reservoir called the Pool of Siloam.

"And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?" 2 Kings 20:20

"And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?" 2 Chronicles 32:2-4

"This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works." 2 Chronicles 32:30

It was discovered in 1838 when it was explored by the American traveller, Edward Robinson, and his missionary friend Eli Smith.

Let me get this straight, just because something was discovered by archeologists means the whole Bible is literally true. Let me share to you this quote:

In summary, the Bible is not a book of history, yet it contains history and culture, which is more or less borne out by archeology. It’s a book of teachings, and it’s the ideal way to learn the patterns of history. And if we understand that the reason why we’re learning history is to learn lessons, then we have to pay extra special attention to what is going on in the Bible.

Christians are well delighted when archeological proof confirms parts of their beliefs. However, since parts of the Bible are historically true still does not make that the rest of the Bible is true as well. The Bible is still not an accurate history book. It tells about some stories about people and events that might happen in the past and were confirmed by archeologists, but still, the fact of the matter, the Bible should not be in use as historical actuality and that the stories in the Bible are NOT metaphors from which facts can be dig out by the reader.

So let us talk about the tunnel, According to Bible scholars, the book of Kings and Chronicles was written possibly between 450 and 435 BCE. There are even some suggestions that these books were written hundred of years after the events took place (See: I Chronicles 9:1-3). The said tunnel was already been constructed before 701 BCE during the reign of Hezekiah. That means the tunnel already existed when both books were being wrote. Obviously the story was already known by the writers and they just incorporated it on their narratives.

I can think of a lot of historical facts that were incorporated in fiction. For example Cold Mountain by Fraszier is historically accurate as to the civil war events but the tale is fiction. There are others like Les Miserables, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Noli Me Tagere and Florante and Laura. The settings are facts but don't tell me Crisostomo Ibarra and Maria Clara are real persons.

Until next time,

Ciao!

The Bible in a Skeptic’s Eye (Part 2)

In our continuing series, we will now look on the development of the New Testament Cannon.

According to most Bible scholars we have a better idea on how the New Testament took shape. Edgar Johnson Goodspeed (1871-1962) theorized that the surviving Pauline letters were first collected after the publication of the Books of Acts, about 95 CE and the Epistle of the Ephesians was compiled as an encyclical or “covering letter” to head this collection, being paraphrased from several of the authentic letter. This theory was widely accepted among New Testament scholars.

Basing on this theory, the original nucleus of the New Testament was the epistle of Paul, to which was added the “catholic” epistles written by James, Peter, John and Jude and the Pastoral Epistle, a supplement to the Pauline collection dating from 100 -105 CE. The Gospel was added later…they were gathered together into a “four fold evangel” about 150 CE. The whole New Testament was known as the Evangelion (Evangel) and the Apostolos (Apostle).

The first generation of the Church fathers such as Ignatius (35-107), Papias (60-130) and Justin (100-165) were more concern with the Old Testament compare to the New Testament. In fact, a definitive list of the canonical book for the New Testament came from a heretic named Marcion (d. 160).

Marcion, a shipping magnate in the Black Sea port of Sinope, traveled to Rome in about 139CE. He taught that many of the Christian literature were corrupted by Jewish ideas and that the Jewish God of the Old Testament was strict and had condemned all humanity. According to Marcion, Jesus Christ who was absolutely unrelated to the Jewish God will released Christians from this god’s clutches.

Marcion compiled only the letters of Paul (Galatians, I and ii Corithians, I and ii Thessalonians, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians) and a “purified” version of Luke’s gospel. If it’s not for Marcion, the Christian Church never would have possessed a “New Testament”.

By 95CE, there are still evidence of apocryptic books being included in the New Testament. The Codex Sinaiticus includes the book Shepherd of Hermas and the Gospel of Barnabas. The Codex Alexandrinus contains the Epistle of Clement, which was said to be written by Clement, Bishop of Rome to the Corinthian church.

The Muratorian Fragment, discovered in Milan by L.A.Muratori and was published in 1740 – was said to be written in 200CE and have rejected most of the apocryptic book, yet it also rejected I and ii Peter, Hebrews, James and iii John. It also included the Apocalypse of Peter, a book that tells the story of how Peter was granted a vision of heaven and hell.

According to Papias (c 60-130) Bishop of Hierapolis, Mark got his information from Peter himself. Papias also said that the authority of the gospel of Matthew and Mark was base on a certain John the Presbyter.

Clement of Alexandria (150-215 CE) said that the earliest gospels were those with Jesus' family tree.

Irenaeus (c.130-200) Bishop of Lyons, gave the first historically documented list of the four gospels and its authors in 180CE. In all the many available gospels in that time, he chooses only 4 which according to him, “As there are four winds, there should be four Gospel.”

Irenaeus believed that Matthew published his gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in the book the gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who learned on his breast himself, produced his gospel when he was living in Ephesus in Asia.

Irenaeus was also the first to give a chronological sequence of the writing of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He also drew up a list of writing he considered as canonical. His list consist of 22 books which includes The Shepherd of Hermans but he left out Philemon, ii Peter, ii and iii of John, Hebrews, Jude and Revelations.

But even with Irenaeus’ list, Origen (185-254) who in 230 CE defined what he believed to be the cannon of the scripture for the New Testament included the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s 13 Epistles, I Peter, I John and Revelation. He also stated that the first gospel was written in Hebrew by Matthew.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) stated that Mark copied and abbreviated Matthew.

The truth in this matter is that Mark is the first Gospel, with Matthew and Luke borrowing passages both from that Gospel and from at least one other common source, lost to history, termed by scholars 'Q' (from German: Quelle, meaning "source").

In the Festal Letter of Athanasius (c. 296-373) Bishop of Alexandria to the Egyptian Churches in 367 he said that there are only 27 books considered as canonical. Athanasius list was confirmed by a council under Pope Damasus.

Pope Damasus (304-384 CE) proclaimed the list of the canonical books in the New Testament which was identical to the modern Bible we have now in 374 CE. Over a period of time, at the Council of Laodicea (363) the bishop agreed to the list and his cannon was later been approved by the Council of Rome in 383 and was reconfirmed at the Council of Carthage in 393, 397, and 419 CE.

However, some churches disagreed. The Book of Revelation for example, was not considered divinely inspired until the 8th century. In the Codex Claromontanus, a 6th century manuscript, the Book of Hebrews was omitted while the Epistle of Barnabas was included and placed between the Epistle of Jude and the Book of Revelation.

Even today, some Christian church, with very old roots, has different set of New Testament books. The East-Syrian Nestoriam Church has cannon of only 22 books. The Ethiopian Church has 38 books which includes the Shepherd or Hermas, i and ii Clement and the Apostolic Constitution.

The Bible in a Skeptic’s Eye (Part 1)

How can a document, tampered with by kings, tyrants, fools and scholars be the “true” and “inspired” word of God?

According to Christians, the Bible is the inspired word of God and for some it is even inerrant. However, looking at its history, we find that the book has been repeatedly revised and re-written.

Today, in this series, we are going to explore the history of this book.

We begin with the Old Testament.

There are no “autograph’s of the Old Testament that survived. The text we now possessed was transmitted to us by generation of scribes and there are ample evidence of how these scribes both wittingly and unwittingly altered the documents they were copying. There is no reason to suppose that the documents in our Old Testament, at least in the period before they regarded as sacrosanct, did not suffer from the usual type of scribal corruption.

The Old Testament was written during the course of more than one millennium, approximately in the period of 1200-100 BCE. Nine volumes from Genesis to Kings were written in 561 BCE in the time of the Jewish captivity and were edited about 400 BCE. The first five books were separated and canonized to become the written Torah, the four remaining were canonized (with an additional two) two centuries later.

In the development of Israel’s history, the Tanack gradually took form and reached completion in the late Persian period. The first move toward canonization can be seen in Deuteronomy. The Deuteronomist stated that their law was completed and that nothing can be added or removed (Deut. 4:2; 12:32) and that God made the law binding on all generation (Duet. 27:4-8). Scholars suggested that the Book of Deuteronomy was formed in the late 7th century BCE, a product of the religious reforms carried out under king Josiah, with later additions from the period after the fall of Judah to the Babylonian empire in 586 BCE.

The Book of the Law was found in the temple of Jerusalem and was ratified as a divine law of the land (2Kings 23:3)…well that was according to legend. M. L. de Wette suggested that King Josiah had Deuteronomy created as a type of "pious fraud" to further his agenda of religious reform. In that time, the study of the Law eventually becomes more vital than offering and sacrifices. Yahweh, the god introduced by the Jahwist writers (The Jahwist, also referred to as the Jehovist, Yahwist, or simply as J, is one of the four major sources of the Torah postulated by the Documentary Hypothesis (DH). It is the oldest source, whose narratives make up half of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers) becomes the creator of heaven and earth and the only god in existence.

The second step toward canonization was recorded in the Ezra tradition. During the festival, Ezra read publicly from “the Book of the Law” and instructed the people in the law (Neh. 7:73; 8:18).

The contents of the prophetic cannon appeared to be established between the forth and second centuries in two general groupings: The former Prophets and the Latter Prophets. The Former Prophets were recognized as a Deuteronomic history (Joshua, Judges, i-ii Samuel). The Book of Kings (1 and 2Kings) was written in 600 BCE.

The Hagiographa or Writings are an amorphous literary collection with an obscure history. The Psalms were attributed with King David. The wisdom writings were attributed primarily to Solomon.

The earliest mention of the collection of the Hagiographa were found in the prologue to Ben Sira’s word that he called “other books of our fathers”.

Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, most of our OT documents and actual manuscript evidence for the text of the OT was relatively late.

The Cairo Genizah for example was dated within the 7th and 6th century CE but some so-called “earliest” fragments were dated to the 9th and 10th century.

The Cambridge Codex XIII, a complete Old Testament was made in early as the middle of the 9th century. The Cairo Karaite manuscript of the Prophets may be of the late 9th century.

The Aleppo Sephardic Codex was dated in the early 10th century. The Pentateuch Codex (4445) that is now housed in the British Museum is also of the 10th century. The St. Petersberg Prophet Codex is dated 916 CE and the six manuscripts in the Firkowitsch collection at Leningrad belong to the 10th century. The Codex Urbinus 2, now in Vatican, which contains the whole Old Testament, is also dated to the 10th century. The famous Codex L from Old Cairo was dated 1008.

The earliest printed Hebrew scripture were just portions and was also printed in the late 15th century. Example, the Psalms at Bologna in 1477, the Pentateuch at Bologna in 1482, the Megilloth also in Bologna in 1482 and the Pentateuch in Faro in 1487.

The first complete Hebrew Bible to be printed was issued at Soncino in 1488, the second was on naples in 1492 to 1493 and the third at Brescia in 1492. The first great Rabbinic Bible was printed by Daniel Bomberg at Venice in 1516 to 1517. The text was prepared by Felix Pratensis. The second Rabbinic Bible was compiled by Jacob Ben Hayyim, a Masorah, in 1524-1525 at Venice. Paul Kahle edited the text of the 3rd edition of Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica (Stuttgarst 1937) and used a purer Ben Asher text base on the Leninggrad manuscript.

Round and Round It Goes