OTT (Old Testament Tales)
May 2020
The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible holds a special and quite unique place in religion. It is revered by all the main monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They all respect the Abrahamic traditions and regard Moses as a central prophet. The main figure is Yahweh as the one true God of all the world.
In this article I am going to look at Yahweh, his commandments and sayings and some of the stories that are contained in this fascinating collection of books.
The first 5 books are called the Torah and contain the books of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Levicticus and Deuteronomy. These are also called the Pentateuch, from a Greek word meaning “fivefold volume.” In the Jewish faith, the Torah was written by Moses, so it is called “the book of the Law of Moses.” I shall mainly look at these first 5 books in this article.
In this article I will explore the following topics :-
When was the Old Testament written and by whom?
Two versions of the creation of people
Original Sin
God walking through the garden?
Noah’s flood story is based on the older story of Gilgamesh
Yahweh - I will get you, your children and your children’s children.
Collecting sticks can be dangerous for your health
Amalekites – destroy them, kill, kill, kill them all.
Abraham and Isaac
The Ten Commandments
Don’t poke your slaves in the eye or else
Joshua, Jericho and the Ban (or Herod vs Yahweh)
Final thoughts
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When was the Old Testament written and by whom?
The Old Testament is a collection of many books that cover the Creation to the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Kings, the prophets and some history.
The dating and composition is complex and contains many different authors which were pulled together into this collection. Dating Archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman argue that "the astonishing composition came together … in the seventh century BCE". Critical scholar Yehezal Kaufmann (1960) dates the oral form of the covenant to the time of Josiah who died in 609 BCE. An even later date (after 586 BCE during the Babylonian Exile) is suggested by David H. Aaron.
The Old Testament contains more books than the Hebrew bible which contains 24 books. The Protestant Old Testament contains 39 books, the Catholic 46 and the Eastern Orthodox 49.
In Judaism, the Torah or Pentateuch, the first 5 Books, are believed to have been written by Moses. This is contested and contains at least some additions not least because the death and burial of Moses are referred to at Deut 34: 1-12.
Some scholars propose a compositional date between the 16th and 13th centuries BCE because Exodus and Deuteronomy connect the Ten Commandments with Moses and the Sinai Covenant between Yahweh and Israel. The Exodus is supposed to have taken place about this time.
However, other scholars prefer a later date. After the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, exiled Judeans were permitted to return to Judah. It is believed that the 1st five books reached their present form around this time.
Some of the stories of the Pentateuch may derive from older sources. American physiologist and science writer Homer W. Smith points out similarities between the Genesis creation narrative and that of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, such as the inclusion of the creation of the first man (Adam/Enkidu)) in the Garden of Eden, a tree of knowledge, a tree of life, and a deceptive serpent. The genesis tale of the flood is also found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Deluge tablet dates back to circa 1800 BCE and so pre-dates the Old Testament.
Two versions of the creation of people GEN 1 and Gen 2
The first book of the Old Testament is called Genesis and describes how Yahweh created the universe. It is a creation myth which has pervaded western culture, but it is flawed in many ways as witnessed by the two accounts of the creation of people in Genesis.
The first is at Genesis 1:26–27 -
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
In the second account, God creates Adam and then Eve from one of Adam’s ribs in a longer version (Genesis 2:5–7, 2:15–4:1). In this Yahweh creates Adam at a time when the earth was still void, forming him from the earth’s dust and breathing “into his nostrils the breath of life.” Yahweh then gave Adam the Garden of Eden to tend but, on penalty of death, commanded him not to eat the fruit of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” Subsequently, so that Adam would not be alone, God created other animals but, finding these insufficient, put Adam to sleep, took from him a rib, and created a new companion, Eve.
The fruit of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil.” is first referred to by Yahweh at Genesis 2: 16. Eve is tempted by the snake to eat the fruit of this tree at Gen 3: 1-6.
Original sin
Original Sin is not mentioned as such in the Bible. The Christian doctrine of Original Sin resulting from the Fall of Man came later. St Augustine of Hippo (354-430CE) worked on a Latin translation of St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. He interpreted Paul as having said that Adam's sin was hereditary: "Death passed upon [i.e., spread to] all men because of Adam, [in whom] all sinned", Romans 5:12. For Augustine, Original sin became a concept that man is born into a condition of sinfulness and must await redemption. This doctrine became a cornerstone of Western Christian theological tradition, however, it is not shared by Judaism or the Orthodox churches.
Over the centuries, a system of unique Christian beliefs developed from these doctrines. Baptism became understood as a washing away of the stain of hereditary sin in many churches, although its original symbolism was apparently rebirth. Additionally, the serpent that tempted Eve was interpreted to have been Satan, or that Satan was using a serpent as a mouthpiece. There is no mention of this identification in the Torah and it is not held in Judaism.
This concept of Original Sin was also used to justify mysogeny. Eve had been the first tempted and the first to fall and then had persuaded Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. Incidentally the fruit is not directly referred to as an “apple” just fruit so possibly a grape or pomegranate. Whatever the fruit was, the early fathers of the Christian Church held Eve responsible for the “Fall of man” by eating it. All subsequent women inherited Eve’s position as the first sinner.
Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240? CE) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. Of Berber origin, he was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature.
In his treatise, On the Dress of Women, Tertullian told his female readers, "You are the devil's gateway... the unsealer of that forbidden tree... the first deserter of the divine law" who destroyed "God's image, man." He went on to explain that they were responsible for the death of Christ: "On account of your desert [i.e., punishment for sin, that is, death], even the Son of God had to die.".
In 1486, the Dominicans Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprengler used similar tracts in Malleus Maleficarum ("Hammer of Witches") to justify the persecution of "witches".
Other than suffering the consequences of disobeying God’s command not to eat the fruit, it is not stated what the fruit does. Somehow it imparts a knowledge of good and evil to the eater. This has been interpreted as knowledge of or indulgence in or pleasure in anything that is considered immoral. Often it has been associated with sexual desire not least because Adam and Eve realise they are naked once they eat the fruit and make fig-leaf clothes. However, how would sexual desire be a sin in any way to the first couple on the planet?
Gen 2: 16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
There is no comment on why this knowledge is dangerous, but I believe the symbolism is really that they (early humans) have disobeyed God’s natural order in some manner.
The most forensic and funniest description I have ever seen of the creation of human beings and their fall is by Irish comedian, Dave Allen and can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGASvVqzOa0
God walking through the garden – huh?!?
Gen 3:8 says, “And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
It is difficult to interpret a symbolic or other similar type of meaning to this verse that would allow God in some physical form to be taking a stroll through a garden. The most plausible explanation I have read is that the Adam myth is based on other myths or stories of an early Middle eastern civilisation. In this a King has a garden for which he has a gardener (Adam) who abuses his position. Maybe Adam ate fruit from the king’s favourite tree and/or had a liaison with a young lady friend in the king’s favourite spot in the garden. Such a story might have come about because gardens were much more revered in the desert areas of the Middle East than in our “green and pleasant” England - witness the Hanging Gardens of Babylon being named as one of the seven ancient wonders. In Greek myths, men and women are often punished by the gods for making love within a temple precincts. If the Genesis story is based on a tale of a gardener eating a king’s favourite fruit and/or taking some afternoon delight in the garden with Eve then the idea of Adam (and Eve) being scared (and naked) because they have heard the king (God) walking through the garden makes some sense. It also explains the expulsion from the garden as Adam would simply have been sacked by the King. However, it also means that the tale is an adapted copy of some older story.
Noah’s flood story is based on the older story of Gilgamesh
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a long Akkadian poem on the theme of human beings’ futile quest for immortality. A number of earlier Sumerian stories about Gilgamesh, the quasi-historical hero of the epic, seem to have been used as sources, but the Akkadian work was composed about 2000 BC. One of the Sumerian poems mentions Gilgamesh’s journey to meet the flood hero, Utnapishtim, as well as a short version of the flood story. In this, Utnapishtim is warned of a flood which the gods are going to send to destroy all life. He is commanded to build a boat and he takes his family and animals on board. The flood arrives and all other humans are drowned. The flood lasts and Utnapishtim releases a dove and swallow which both come back to him. He finally releases a raven which does not come back. The boat comes to rest on a mountain and Utnapishtim disembarks with his family and sacrifices to the gods.
Gen 6: 13 tells the story of Noah and the similarities are too numerous not to be ignored. The earliest Akkadian versions of the unified epic are dated to ca. 2000-1500 BCE and so predate the biblical accounts. The biblical story must therefore have been based on an earlier flood story and amended to include Yahweh.
Yahweh - I will get you, your children and your children’s children.
Yahweh is a hard God to warm to. He is quite extreme in the commandments especially when it comes to worshipping Yahweh alone as the one true God. I cite the following examples of Yahweh’s intolerance to worshipping other gods.
Exod 20: 5, You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
Exod 34:7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
Numbers 14:18 'The LORD is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.'
Deut 5: 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
However, the punishments that can be passed down to children and other generations do not extend to death penalties as these stop with the perpetrators.
Deut 24: 16 Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.
Ezekiel 18:20 The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.
Having read all these, it is difficult to feel any sympathy, empathy or any type of human compassion towards a being that will pass punishments onto the third and fourth generations. Most people will empathise with a person retaliating against another person who harms them. However, I cannot believe any sane person would think it justifiable for someone to punish the children or grandchildren or great grandchildren of an offender. This would be regarded as totally and unjustifiably over the top. Can you imagine harming the infant great grandchild of someone for something they did to you? Only a mentally unbalanced person or psychopath would take such action. Christians who accept the Old Testament as divinely inspired and Yahweh as God must also have to grapple with the belief that Yahweh is the Christian Trinity (most Christians believe that God comprises of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). Jesus is therefore the co-author of the above statements on punishing people down to the third and fourth generations.
However, even these extreme threats to future children failed to stop the Israelites from worshipping other gods. The Second Book of Kings is basically a list of Kings who either “did what is pleasing” to Yahweh because they stopped the people from worshipping other gods on the high places or they “did what is displeasing to Yahweh” and allowed the people to worship other gods on the high places. In some cases the kings themselves worshipped other gods. Read the beginning of almost any chapter in this book and you will understand what I mean (2 Kings 3 and 2 Kings 8:16 onwards to chap 18 and chap 21 - 24). It was not only the Kings and their subjects who strayed from only worshipping Yahweh. There had previously been a long history of the Israelites not accepting Yahweh as the one and only God despite their claim to monotheism. Even the Israelites who had seen Moses, the Ten Plagues and the parting of the Red Sea started worshipping a golden calf (Exodus 32) as soon as Moses had gone up the mountain to receive the 10 commandments. The parting of the Red Sea is commonly regarded as the greatest miracle in the Old Testament. If the sight of that and other “miracles” did not induce the children of Israel to commit themselves to worshipping Yahweh alone then it is difficult to see what incitement possibly could.
Collecting sticks can be dangerous for your health
Suppose a man was found to be collecting sticks on the sabbath. How should he be suitably punished? A strict telling-off? A slap on the wrist? A fine? The children of Israel were not sure and so asked Moses to ask Yahweh for advice in this story at Numbers 15: 32-36.
32 And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. 33 And they that found him gathering sticks brought him unto Moses and Aaron, and unto all the congregation. 34 And they put him in ward, because it was not declared what should be done to him. 35 And the Lord said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses.
Presumably this man was collecting the sticks for firewood. There is no sense of embarrassment or any attempt to justify the execution of the man for this “crime”. It is an action which is completed at the command of Yahweh himself and presumably therefore must be regarded as a good act.
Amalekites – destroy them, kill, kill, kill them all*.
(* This is not a quote from the Old Testament. Fans of the 1963 film “Jason and the Argonauts” will recognise that King Aeetes issues this command when he orders a skeleton army to attack Jason and his compatriots. It seems appropriate to me to use it here.)
The Amalekites’ unrelenting brutality toward the Israelites began with an attack at Rephidim which is recounted in Exodus 17:8-13. The Amalekites later joined with the Canaanites and attacked the Israelites at Hormah at Numbers 14:45. In Judges 3:13 and Judges 6:3 they banded with the Moabites and the Midianites to wage war on the Israelites. They were responsible for the repeated destruction of the Israelites’ land and food supply. Yahweh does not like them for this as seen in the following 2 accounts.
Exodus 17:14 14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven.” 15 Moses built an altar and called it The Lord is my Banner. 16 He said, “Because hands were lifted up against[a] the throne of the Lord,[b] the Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation.”
Deuteronomy 25:19 “Remember what the Amalekites did to you along the way when you came out of Egypt. When you were weary and worn out, they met you on your journey and attacked all who were lagging behind [typically women and children]: they had no fear of God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land he is giving you to possess as an inheritance, you shall blot out the name of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!”
The systematic extermination of an entire race is called genocide nowadays. There is still a debate going on in scholarly circles regards whether this command has been carried out or if any Amalekites exist whether this should be fulfilled or can now be discarded.
Abraham and Isaac
In Genesis 22, Abraham is ordered by Yahweh to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
(The site of this is believed to be where the dome of the Rock is sited in Jerusalem on Temple Mount).
Abraham almost completes this task.
9 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
At the last minute, Abraham is stopped by an angel who provides a ram to be sacrificed in Isaac’s stead.
12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. 13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
This story is held up as great sign of Abraham’s faith in that he is willing to kill even his son to fulfil Yahweh’s will. However, ask yourself what you would do. Might you baulk at the task or even consider whether this was some kind of devil asking you to commit murder rather than Yahweh? Such people who hear voices (usually at midnight in graveyards) asking them to commit evil acts are usually put away for the protection of society. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would actually go as far as Abraham did even if Yahweh did appear before them and asked them to kill their child and burn the body on a mountain top. You also have to consider what Isaac thought about Abraham afterwards. Knowing that his own father would kill him must have been slightly disturbing to say the least. Abraham had tied up the boy and had the knife in his hand to do the deed. I can’t see that Isaac would not have been affected by this. Religious people say this was a test of faith, but I wonder what purpose it would serve? If Yahweh is all-knowing then he should have known what Abraham would do. Why put him (and Isaac) through it all? It is difficult to see Abraham or Yahweh in any kind of good light in this story.
Christopher Hitchins gives a forthright view of this story. You can hear what Hitch has to say about this at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVoloVvsupM
The 10 Commandments
The 10 Commandments are listed twice in the Old Testament at Exodus 20: 1-17 and Deuteronomy 5: 6–21.
They have been held up as an ideal moral code for centuries. The Christian church accepted them and that Yahweh is God very early on in its history. However, it was contested. Marcion (an important figure in 2nd century Christianity) had rejected the Hebrew bible and drew up a Christian canon basically containing Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s letters. Marcion believed the wrathful Yahweh was a different God from the forgiving God of the New testament. It was Tertullian (who has been called "the father of Latin Christianity” and "the founder of Western theology.") who argued for the Old testament. Tertulian had argued that Christ had been a Jew, hence what had been sacred to him — Judaic scripture and the 10 Commandments — must also be sacred to his followers.
But how moral are they? What do they deal with?
Commandments 1-4 lay down the relationship people need to have with Yahweh. You should not worship other gods or take the Lord’s name in vain. You should also not make any graven images and/or worship them and you should keep the sabbath day as a holy day of rest.
Commandments 5 – 9 deal with the relationships that people should have with each other. You honour your parents, don’t kill people, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal and don’t lie.
Commandment 10 tells you not to covet your neighbour’s wife, servants, ox or anything that is his.
As human societies go I do not see anything in Commandments 1-4 that will help such societies along. We have already seen that the man collecting firewood falls foul of not keeping the Sabbath day and is executed for it. Yahweh tells people that he is a jealous god in the 2nd Commandment and this also contains one of many times he threatens to visit the iniquity of fathers upon their children to the third and fourth generation.
Commandments 5–9 are different. They are all commendable in my view.
Commandment 10 raises difficulties for me. Firstly, it seems to apply to men alone as it specifically refers to a “neighbour’s wife”. Does this mean that a wife can covet a neighbour’s husband and it would not be a sin? On one hand, it may seem beneficial to say a woman cannot sin in this way. However, the real reason why women are not included is that they are listed and regarded as just another item owned by the man like his cattle etc. Does this commandment sound like the words of an eternal, omnipotent, spirit being who has created the entire universe? Or does it sound like the words of a jealous, insecure man, a nomadic shepherd who lives in his tent with his wife and his belongings and doesn’t want anyone else to get their hands on them?
Secondly, Commandment 10 is unique in that it deals with thoughts rather than deeds. To covet means to wish for, yearn for or long for. It is unreasonable to think that a man could stop himself from ever being attracted to another man’s wife or servant or goods in his own mind. The thought would appear of itself so the sin would have been committed before you were even aware of it. This is the equivalent of a thought crime. Yahweh is trying to control how people think. It is manifestly wrong and also impossible to adhere to.
Let us look at what other sets of laws or codes there were from which people derived moral or ethical instructions. The two most famous are the Laws of Hammurabi and the Code of Ur-Nammu.
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian code of law of ancient Mesopatamia. It is dated to about 1754 BCE and currently housed in the Louvre Museum. The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that both the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence. The laws covered such subjects as:
Slander
Ex. Law #127: "If any one 'point the finger' at a sister of a god or the wife of any one, and can not prove it, this man shall be taken before the judges and his brow shall be marked (by cutting the skin, or perhaps hair).”
Fraud
Ex. Law #265: "If a herdsman, to whose care cattle or sheep have been entrusted, be guilty of fraud and make false returns of the natural increase, or sell them for money, then shall he be convicted and pay the owner ten times the loss.”
Theft
Ex. Law #22: "If any one is committing a robbery and is caught, then he shall be put to death.”
Liability
Ex. Law #53: "If any one be too apathetic to keep his dam in primly condition, and does not so keep it; if then the dam break and all the fields be flooded, then shall he in whose dam the break occurred be sold for money, and the money shall replace the crops which he has caused to be ruined."
Divorce
Ex. Law #142: "If a woman quarrel with her husband, and say: "You are not congenial to me," the reasons for her prejudice must be presented. If she is guiltless, and there is no fault on her part, but he leaves and neglects her, then no guilt attaches to this woman, she shall take her dowry and go back to her father's house."
Adultery
Ex. Law #129: "If the wife of a man has been caught lying with another man, they shall bind them and throw them into the waters. If the owner of the wife would save his wife then in turn the king could save his servant."
Perjury
Ex. Law #3: "If a man has borne false witness in a trial, or has not established the statement that he has made, if that case be a capital trial, that man shall be put to death.”
As aside on Hammurabi’s law on adultery This states “If the owner of the wife would save his wife then in turn the king could save his servant." It seems to me that this is a very canny addition by Hammurabi. If the husband of the wife decided to forgive her and save her then he could not have the male adulterer executed automatically. Any punishment to the adulterous man would be up to the king.
In ordinary cases this would not matter, but any enemies in the royal court could be gotten rid of by the king in these cases. A royal decree could read “You can’t blame the husband for wanting his wife back but the perpetrator must be punished as an example to the rest.” This would make an execution of an enemy look noble and moral.
You can also imagine that anyone found guilty of adultery might want to ingratiate themselves with the king and possibly sweeten his royal judgement with a little bribe. Plus any one spared would naturally be grateful to the king and allied even more firmly to him.
The Code of Ur-Nammu is the oldest known law code surviving today. It is from Mesopotamia and is written on tablets, in the Sumerian language c. 2100–2050 BCE. Among the surviving laws are these:
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1. If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed.
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2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed.
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3. If a man commits a kidnapping, he is to be imprisoned and pay 15 shekels of silver.
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6. If a man violates the right of another and deflowers the virgin wife of a young man, they shall kill that male.
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9. If a man divorces his first-time wife, he shall pay (her) one mina of silver. (6)
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10. If it is a (former) widow whom he divorces, he shall pay (her) half a mina of silver.
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14. If a man accused the wife of a man of adultery, and the river ordeal proved her innocent, then the man who had accused her must pay one-third of a mina of silver.
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18. If a man knocks out the eye of another man, he shall weigh out ½ a mina of silver.
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19. If a man has cut off another man's foot, he is to pay ten shekels.
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20. If a man, in the course of a scuffle, smashed the limb of another man with a club, he shall pay one mina of silver.
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22. If a man knocks out a tooth of another man, he shall pay two shekels of silver.
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25. If a man's slave-woman, comparing herself to her mistress, speaks insolently to her, her mouth shall be scoured with 1 quart of salt. (22)
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28. If a man appeared as a witness, and was shown to be a perjurer, he must pay fifteen shekels of silver.
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31. If a man flooded the field of a man with water, he shall measure out three kur of barley per iku of field.
It is clear from these 2 sets of laws that people have always thought the items covered in Commandments 5-9 (i.e. honouring your parents, killing people, adultery, lying and stealing) needed to be dealt with when living communally. If nothing else people would restrict or define behaviours for their own self-preservation. A community where a strong man could do as he liked would mean that you may be his next victim. To live together people would band together and say not only is killing/stealing/adultery wrong, but we as a community will punish anyone who does. This prevents an individual strong man from abusing the weak. Human beings could not have operated together if this had not been so. The idea that moral or ethical stances sprang from the 10 Commandments is therefore erroneous. They existed before Moses ever made his way up Mount Sinai. They had to as they developed not out of any divine commandments on high, but out of the human desire to band together and live in an orderly manner in social groups.
Finally I will end with a quote from "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris.
“If you think that it would be impossible to improve upon the Ten Commandments as a statement of morality, you really owe it to yourself to read some other scriptures. Once again, we need look no further than the Jains: Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: 'Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being.' Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept. Christians have abused, oppressed, enslaved, insulted, tormented, tortured, and killed people in the name of God for centuries, on the basis of a theologically defensible reading of the Bible.”
Don’t poke your slaves in the eye or else
Yahweh is clearly quite content for people to have slaves. At Lev 25:44-46, Yahweh declares:
44"'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45You may also buy some
of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.”
However, if you have a slave then don’t poke out their eye or you’ll have to let them go.
Exodus 21:26 “An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye. 27 And an owner who knocks out the tooth of a male or female slave must let the slave go free to compensate for the tooth.
No matter what angle you come from, having slaves has been almost universally condemned except by people who owned slaves and quoted the bible to try and stop the Abolitionists from freeing them.
Joshua, Jericho and the Ban (or Yahweh vs Herod)
At the beginning of the book of Joshua, the Israelites crossed the river Jordan and proceeded to take the land which Yahweh had promised them. The leadership of the people had been passed on from Moses to Joshua. The first city they besieged was Jericho. Yahweh told them to put the city “under the ban” except for a harlot who had helped 2 of Joshua’s spies when they sneaked into Jericho. Putting a city “under the ban” meant that any gold, silver, iron and bronze recovered/looted would be consecrated to Yahweh’s treasury, but all the men, all the women, all the children and all the animals would be killed. And this is what the children of Israel do when they take Jericho – they kill all the men, all the women, all the children and all the animals. See Joshua 6: 17-19 for the ban and Joshua 6 :21 for the massacre. At Joshua 8:19 they sack the city of Ai and Joshua 8 :22-26 tells how they slaughtered 12,000 people. Joshua 10: 28 has more killings under the ban. – Makkedah, Libnah, Lachish, Gezer, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, Kadesh-barnea to Gaza.
According to Joshua, many 1000s of people were slaughtered so the Israelites could inherit their land flowing with milk and honey. And who were these people who were killed? Were they the enemies of the Jews? Let us look at the timeline. Joseph (of Technicolour-coat fame) had been sold into slavery and ended up in Egypt as an adviser to the Pharoah. He is usually dated to living about 1750 BCE. His brothers and family had followed him to Egypt and so the Jews had settled there. Moses is supposed to have led the Jews out of Egypt some time after 1500 BCE. The Jews had therefore been in Egypt for 250 years or so according to the Old Testament before the Exodus. If this is true then the people who were slaughtered under Joshua’s leadership when the Promised Land was conquered would not have known about the Jews. Those peoples who lived there were not the enemies of the Jews. They were just the people who happened to live in what is now Israel. And these were the people that Yahweh commanded the Jews to slaughter. This is the whole basis of the Holyland/The Promised Land.
If a Christian was asked “Who is the nastiest person in the New Testament?” I am fairly sure most Christians would say “Judas, the man who betrayed Jesus”. If the Christian were then to be asked “Who is the 2nd worst person?” I think most people would say King Herod. Herod was responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents in the Gospel of Matthew 2: 16. When the Magi visited Herod and told him they had come to seek the infant king of the Jews in Bethlehem, Herod asked them to let him know when they found the child. The Magi found Jesus, but did not tell Herod of his whereabouts. In order to rid himself of this potential rival, Herod ordered his army to kill all the male children under 2 years of age in Bethlehem. See Matthew 2: 16-17. This is portrayed in many artworks with soldiers pulling babes away from their mother’s breasts and stabbing them with swords. The historical Herod was a nasty man. He had his wife and children killed. However, there is no evidence (outside of the one biblical reference in Matthew’s Gospel) that he ordered any such infanticide in Bethlehem. The Jewish historian Josephus, who extensively records Herod’s crimes in his “Antiquiities of the Jews”, is silent on baby-murdering. However, let’s assume that Herod did order the massacre of all the male children under 2 years old in Bethlehem. How many children would this be? Bethlehem was a small town (“Oh little town of Bethlehem”) with 1000 maybe 2000 people. What sounds reasonable for a small town - 10 baby boys? Maybe 20. Howabout 50 to be on the safe side. Let’s say that Herod was responsible for the killing of 50 baby boys in Bethlehem. How does this compare with Yahweh? Under Yahweh’s instructions, the children of Israel put at least 10 cities under the ban and thereby killed all the men, all the women, all the children and all the animals. In Ai alone 12,000 men and women were killed according to the story. The Amorites are all killed at Joshua 10:12 where Yahweh is said to have made the sun stand still in the sky. Presumably Yahweh did this in order to give the Jews extra time to kill the Amorites as there were so many of them. Joshua 10 : 28-43 lists all the cities taken and how all the people were subsequently slaughtered. How many thousands of people does this take in? And how many babies under 2 years of age? Maybe 50 at least in each of the 10 cities?
Suddenly Herod isn’t looking too bad, is he?
In the story Herod had wanted to kill one baby whom he saw as a threat to his reign. He was thwarted in this by the Magi and so sent his soldiers to kill all the male children under 2 years of age. No one would argue that this is the act of a good man, but there is a kind of logic to it. He tried to kill one baby, failed and so widened the net, but he didn’t send his army to kill every baby or every inhabitant of Bethlehem. Think what you want about him, but Herod was not a psychopath even in the Gospel. Yahweh on the other hand commanded the Israelites to kill every man, every woman and every child in 10 cities. If I had to make a choice I’d rather take my chances with Herod than with Yahweh.
Final thoughts
The Old Testament contains many other discrepancies and dubious (or frankly insane) examples of how to behave as commanded by Yahweh. There are so many other stories that you would need a book as long as the Bible itself to describe them. The bare bones of some others (which may form a Part 2 to this article) are below:-
Adam 135 years old when he fathered Seth and lived until he was 930 years old Genesis 5:5.
Methuselah lived to 969 years old! Genesis 5:21–27.
Lot was willing to give up his daughter to a mob to save 2 angels when they visited Sodom and Gomorrah – Gen 19: 7.
If a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).
Circumcision. Why did the creator Yahweh give men a foreskin in the first place if he wanted it cut off? Alternatively couldn't he just make it fall off with time?
The Book of Job - Yahweh agrees to allow the devil to torture Job to test the extent of his faithfulness. This is so that Yahweh can win a bet he has made with the devil about how faithful Job is.
The biblical stories are wonderful, fantastical and a superb and unique collection which have influenced the Western world and beyond. However, there are so many inconsistencies in the commandments of Yahweh and so many mad, bad and dangerous ways to behave that they cannot be held up as a source of moral or ethical guidance. You may as well look to the Greek myths for divine guidance as look to the Old Testament. They are tales that have been made up, enhanced and told down the centuries in exactly the same way that the Greek myths were manufactured to describe such things as natural events or to give some basis on how to treat strangers.
I shall finish with a short clip from Richard Dawkins that summarises my readings from the Old Testament and a quote from The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris.
Richard Dawkins on Yahweh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbZ_4vx9iwQ
“It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe. The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology. To rely on such a document as the basis for our worldview-however heroic the efforts of redactors- is to repudiate two thousand years of civilizing insights that the human mind has only just begun to inscribe upon itself through secular politics and scientific culture. We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.”
As always, don’t just take my word for things. Read the bible yourself and check the quotes and stories listed above and come to your own conclusions.
Solidarity
Brian Madican
April 2020