???The Birth of Christianity???..pt2

Babylon Nurtures the Jewish Priesthood

Monotheism

The theology changed to reflect the new organisation. Yahweh was elevated to sole god and was deemed to require endless sacrifice to placate his wrath. Thus all Jews acquired a duty to bring offerings to the priests (who were thereby freed of more mundane tasks). Not only did this give the priesthood their daily provisions and a major slice of the butchery business but also control over the lucrative leather trades. In time, tribute to the priesthood was extended to include tithes, dispensation fees and commission on money changing (only the ?clean? shekel could be offered at the temple; no other coinage was acceptable).

Taking their cue from Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion of Persia, the returnees brought with them not only priestly monopoly and control over worship (and in a theocracy that implied control over law and social behaviour as well) but also the notion of an evil god (Satan) as a counterpoise to good god (Yahweh). Similarly, for the first time Judaism acquired angels and demons. At this point appears the curious tale of an idyllic garden (shades of Babylon), a satanic snake and a disobedient female ? which nicely explained why life was full of wickedness, why women should be subjugated and why there was death itself.

The Persians made no images of their dual gods, but for them fire represented purity and was an incarnation of the light god Mazda.. On the other hand matter (including the human body) was created by the dark god Angra Mainyu. In stark contrast, therefore, to the earlier influence of fertility rites of the Canaanite and Phoenician cities - the celebration of life - the Yahweh cult now became at heart hostile to the body. Human sexuality was to cause the priests more distress than any amount of bloodshed.

And bloodshed there was, as the colonisers (the ?Golan?) drove out (and de-Judaised!) the original inhabitants (the Am Ha-Aretz or ?people of the land?), whom they were forbidden to marry. The arrival of an organized priesthood acted as a brake on secular development which might otherwise have produced a local monarch, albeit one under Persian dominance. Both Nehemiah, ?cup-bearer? to the Persian king, and Ezra, his ?minister of Jewish affairs?, introduced interpretations and refinements of ?the Law? which kept Jewish piety compatible with the interests and security of the empire. With a brutal ruthlessness, for example, Ezra commanded Jews to ?send away? their foreign wives and children. ?Membership of Israel was now confined to the descendants of those who had been exiled in Babylon.? (Armstrong, p102).



A Sacred History Invented


While fulsome in their praise of the Persian High King Cyrus, the priest authors of official texts made clear their misgivings about ?kings.? The ambivalence is finely drawn in the tale, which now appeared but set several hundred years earlier, of an ideal kingship ? in fact, of a Golden Age of kingship. Two successive kings, each ruling for ?forty years?, showed all the right characteristics. (Forty is one of those magic numbers much favoured by the biblical authors, along with seven and twelve. Forty is used no fewer than 157 times, variously for days, nights, years, cubits and what-have-you!!) True, they had a few weaknesses but these became manifest only when they went against Yahweh?s laws and, of course, the guidance of the priests!

In this tale of Israel?s Camelot, it seems kings David and Solomon (his son) combined a brilliant mix of warrior vigilance with unfailing religious devotion. With Yahweh rooting for them, they slew, smote and heroically annihilated peoples ? including women and children ? all the way from the Gulf of Aqaba to the River Euphrates. Ancient Israel was an Empire, no less! A fabulous story emerges of David, in turns shepherd, musician and giant killer (he felled Goliath with a single shot, causing the whole enemy army to run away ? possibly the most unique battle in ancient warfare). Of Solomon we hear of 700 wives plus 300 concubines (such Hebrew virility!); of prodigious wealth; of awesome wisdom (?wiser than all men?); of a vast army of cavalry and chariots (just like the invaders from the north); of a Red Sea fleet (Israel a maritime power, just like Phoenicia!); of a monumental temple entirely sheathed in gold (beat that, Babylon!); even of an exotic visitor ? the Queen of Sheba ? paying homage.

David was chosen (?anointed?) for both himself and all subsequent generations! by a priest (the ?judge? Samuel). Once King, David returned the favour by ?anointing? Zadok and all his descendants to the position of High Priest. Thus the Zadokite clan became the nucleus of the Sadducee priesthood, the authors of the whole fantastic story.



Without a Trace

Though much honoured in legend (and Hollywood) the simple truth is that no evidence has ever been found of David, Solomon or his ?empire.? Neither secular history, nor archaeology, provides a shred of confirmation for the highly detailed and colourful biblical stories. Not a single stone or artifact from what was supposedly the world?s most fabulous temple has ever been identified. The extraordinary magnificence of the Jewish Empire is matched only by the total void when we seek confirmation from any other source.

For example, the Asiatic Greek Herodotus ? writing one of the world?s first histories in the 5th century BC ? wrote of peoples and places throughout the Persian empire and beyond. Herodotus knew of lake-dwellers in far away Europe and of barbarous tribes along the north African coast. He was familiar with the painted warriors of the Sudan and with the nomads of southern Russia.

Yet in all his work Herodotus makes no single mention of Jews or Hebrews, Judah or Israel. He speaks of the coastal cities of Sidon and Tyre but never of Jerusalem. He records the great temple of Aphrodite Urania at Ascalon but fails to mention any temple of Solomon.

He does, however, know of circumcision and says this:


'"The Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians are the only races which from ancient times have practiced circumcision. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves admit that they adopted the practice from Egypt?No other nations use circumcision, and all of these are without doubt following the Egyptian lead."
? Herodotus, The Histories, Book 2,104; Penguin, p167)


Herodotus gathered much of his information first-hand from priests and holy men. His travels took him to the frontier of Upper Egypt and to Babylon itself. He also recorded popular beliefs and legends. Speaking of the inhabitants at the eastern end of the Mediterranean he says:


'The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine?have a tradition that in ancient times they lived on the Persian Gulf, but migrated to the Syrian coast, where they are found today. This part of Syria, together with the country which extends southward to Egypt, is all known as Palestine.'
(Herodotus, The Histories, Book 7,89; Penguin, p472)


For Herodotus, this land is the home of ?Syrians known as Palestinians?. If tribesmen in the interior escaped his attention they assuredly were not the authors of a great empire which supposedly had existed a few hundred years before his own time. More than two thousand years later nothing has emerged to change our understanding:

"This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom."
(Ha'aretz Magazine, October 1999)



All that we do have is some evidence of minor regional war lords or ?city bosses? (?kings?) who, in the centuries before first Assyria, and then Babylon, overran Palestine. Yet more tellingly in the Jewish ?nationalistic? saga, we have the rationale for a theocratic state and a religious caste system. The priests are born to rule both because it is Yahweh?s design and because secular kings (even magnificent ones) transgress and run amok.

Yet kings are not excluded out of hand. The priesthood loathed the diminution of their power and the intrusion of secular laws but were delighted by the enlargement of the territory of the theocratic state, such as might be achieved by a warrior king (and as idealised in the ?empire? conjectured for Solomon). The duality of power, the conflict between king and priest, runs as a theme through subsequent Jewish history and was never resolved.

Above all, from the ?Davidic? legend we get the supposed primacy of the ?House of David? and the awful conviction that, when the hour is right, a warrior/priest (or a warrior and a priest ? keeping him on the straight and narrow!) will appear to lead the nation of Israel against the forces of darkness ? a Messiah (or Messiahs)!

It is worth noting that 'Davidic descent' as some sort of exclusive cachet ? supposedly one of the marks of Jesus ? would have been patently absurd in first century Palestine. If that fabled polygamous king and his prodigiously promiscuous son Solomon ? he of 'seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines'! ? had actually existed, the passage of a thousand years (or twenty eight generations according to to Matthew, forty three generations according to Luke) would have assured that each and every Jew ? all seven million of them ? could have made the same 'Davidic' claim!

Where are the Jews?

Persepolis gateway to the Hall of a Hundred Columns.

Beneath a seated Xerxes (486-465 BC), 3 rows of figures represent the peoples of the Persian Empire:

Elamite, Armenian, Lydian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Ionian, Gandaran, Sagartian, Sogdian, Skudra, Arab and Scythian.

Jews are nowhere in sight.

1 Kings 7.6 gives the mythical Solomon a "Hall of Pillars" in Jerusalem. The reality can still be seen ? in Persepolis.







Fictional Kingdom
no israel
"The kingdom of Israel is not mentioned in any contemporary text but only in the Bible."
?Karen Armstrong (A History of Jerusalem, p xv)
"The first millennium of Jewish history as presented in the Bible has no empirical foundation whatsoever."

? Cantor (The Sacred Chain, p 51)



Copied "Sacred Laws"
Sounds familiar? ? The sun-god Shamash gives Hammurabi his laws
hammurabi
Law 196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.
Law 200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.
From Hammurabi's Law Code, Susa (c 1750 BC) - Louvre, Paris








Copied Flood Story
gilgamesh

Sounds familiar? ? Forewarned by the gods of an impending flood, Utnapishtim builds an ark to house living things and sends out birds to look for dry land.
? Deluge Tablet, Gilgamesh (Sumeria/Iraq 2750 BC).


"Several versions of the Sumerian Flood story have been found over the years, all of them pre-dating the Bible? the flood story in the Bible is obviously a legend, and a borrowed and garbled one at that."
Magnus Magnusson (The Archaeology of the Bible Lands-BC, pp21-23)




Copied "Garden of Eden" Story
"Said to be somewhere along the river Euphrates, the Garden of Dilmun was where Babylonians believed that mankind was created. The similarities between the Dilmun epic and the Garden of Eden story found in the Book of Genesis are too similar to be ignored."
? G. Phillips (The Moses Legacy, p5/6)




Copied "Floating Baby" Legend
"The Moses birth story?is quite obviously a folk-tale, for it echoes almost word for word the birth legend of King Sargon the Great, who founded the dynasty of Akkad a thousand years earlier. The similarity is astonishing."
? Magnus Magnusson (The Archaeology of the Bible Lands-BC, p58)


"Graven Image?"
graven-image

The ivory pre-dates "Yahweh's" taboos written by 6th century priests.

Ahab died in battle in 850 BC. He enjoyed the hatred of the prophets Elijah (who 'rose to heaven in a fiery chariot') and Elisha, who instigated a military coup against Ahab's widow Jezebel, murdering her and all 70 sons.




Fictional Temple
"We have not a stone of Solomon's temple ? We have no evidence at all for Solomon and his kingdom.
We have no contemporary textural sources which mention Solomon, and, as far as I am aware, he is not referred to in any other outside contemporary texts."
? Jonathan Tubb (Curator of Syria and Palestine, British Museum)

no solomon
"Archaeology has excavated nothing in Jerusalem from the supposed time of Solomon to reveal anything but a relatively low level of culture.
As for the surrounding empires, if their records are any indication, they do not seem to have even noticed that Jerusalem was there."
? Graham Phillips (The Moses Legacy, p5/6)



Invention of "12 Tribes"
"The twelve tribe system could not have originated in the age of the ancestors ... and probably not even in the early period of the Israelite settlement in Canaan ...

The tribal names were originally geographic names of parts of Palestine, but in Genesis they become the names of persons ...
The names of the tribal ancestors are all given popular etymologies, which in no way correspond to historical reality."
? J.R. Porter (The Illustrated Guide to the Bible, p47)