Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Bucky Ball]

Lesson #1 in any field dealing with history and historical cultures : Presentism. Don't do it.
"Uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism..._analysis)
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Presentism (the Historian's fallacy)

[tackattack]

When your stated stance is the Bible, Torah, tanakh, zophar, Septuagint are not real you descibe your bias, preventing exploring belief at the time.

The Israelites pre-law were polytheist and practical nomads. Are we discussing Jewish belief in an afterlife, pre law belief in afterlife or modern Jewish thought on an afterlife and what are the limits and assumptions frame the discussion.

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-...-1.5362876

[Bucky Ball]

One finds, when one actually studies the Bible in the recognized main-line (non-Fundamentalist) centers of academic Biblical Studies, that scholars do not take the combined mythic traditions which ended up in the Bible, literally, (any longer)  The (ignorant) meme "so they are not *real*" if not literally true, is a common Fundamentalist view of ancient Near Eastern literature, not shared by actual scholars. The *in order for them to be "real" that have to be "literally" true* thing, actually went out at least 75 years ago, if not longer, as textual criticism, and form criticism, and archaeology revealed what it did.

In his well know seminal work, "Jesus Christ and Mythology", the well-known Christian scholar Rudolph Bultmann writes about the power of mythology in ancient cultures. .... not with the ("presentist") common misunderstanding of "oh that's just a myth", but how for ancient writers, mythology was an authentic and powerful method the ancients tried to transmit what they thought was "truth".
In ancient Near Eastern literature, many literary forms were used: poetry, allegory, symbolic writing, and various forms of narrative writing. The ignorant presentist idea that the truth of a text rests in its literal truth long ago (actually was never totally) went out as accepted by academics, and the liberal traditions of Biblical Scholarship.

In 1952, a team was set in place by the world-famous, preeminent scholar, archaeologist and pioneer discoverer of Holy Land historical sites and documents, Dr. William Foxwell Albright, the professor of Semitic languages at the Johns Hopkins University. Their job was to write criticisms and scholarly work concerning all biblical texts. The team was composed of the most respected biblical scholars in the US and Europe, including Dr. John W. Bailey, Professor Emeritus, New Testament, Berkley Baptist Divinity School, Dr Albert E. Barnett, Professor Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Dr. Walter Russell Bowel, Professor, The Protestant Episcopal Seminary, Virginia, Dr. John Bright, Professor, Union Seminary and many others.

The team of 124 clergymen and scholars came mostly from conservative, mainline universities and churches for the most part, the likes of whom will never be seen again in one place, whose names evoke the utmost and deepest respect, even if one completely disagrees with their religious views. They wrote the huge 13 volume set, now considered a valuable rare book, called "The Interpreters Bible". Today it is usually kept under lock and key in seminaries and libraries. This set includes an introduction to scholarship and looks at every single verse and word in the Bible, discusses their origins and possible meanings from various points of view. It has been updated in the 1990's, but the original scholarship is still the central fundamental summary of knowledge, which summarized scholarship from the Medieval period (1850's -1950's) and is therefore considered to be an interesting historical snapshot. It is also an assurance that these absolutely respected leading intellectuals from the 20th Century scholarship, of whom most were religious, have agreed to have each other's names associated with their own and that they felt comfortable with what each other were saying in an academic setting and commanded world-wide respect as conservative, careful, and sincere, life-long teachers, academics and scholars.

On page 15 of "The Interpreters Bible", Dr. Herbert F. Farmer, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University wrote about the indispensability of the texts, their importance and how the "truth" of them should be approached, after an exposition of the traditional conservative Christian view of person-hood, sin and the salvific actions of Jesus (aka Yeshua ben Josef), known as "the Christ" in human history.

"The reason has to do with the evidence afforded by the texts themselves, and calls for fuller treatment. Scholarly research into the texts themselves, has convincingly shown that they cannot be accepted in detail as they stand."

The Biblical texts contain (which can be seen as changing even from verse to verse) a number of sources. For example the Documentary Hypothesis (https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtigay/JapanVol.pdf )
has worked out line by line, which source was drawn upon, by editors/compilers of the texts. Also in work cited above, every verse is examined by multiple scholars as to their origins and meaning. One of the huge contributions to scholarship in the past 150 years, was the advances in understanding of origins as archaeological excavations in the Near East found so many important sources, (for example when the Royal Library at Ashurbanipal was excavated (at Nineveh) in the late 1800's), the source material was compared to what was in the Bible. Even the god "Yahweh Sabaoth", came to be understood as one of the sons of El Elyon, (his father-god) from the Babylonian pantheon, and brother of the god "Sin" who was the antecedent-precursor of the Arabian god "Allah". Yahweh had a consort/wife, whose name was "Ashera" .. who is briefly mentioned in the Bible. 

The Babylonian mythic origins (a paper on which I will post at some point) include :
poisonous plants, life-giving ribs, Eve, death by eating plants, "bread of heaven", water of life, plants which offer immortality, and snakes which bring about death, and most important, Chaos and Order. As was pointed out above, Martin Buber, well-known Hebrew scholar, in "Good and Evil" Part2, masterfully demonstrates how the Babylonian concept of chaos and order forms the foundation of the "Garden myth" (Adam and Eve). 

So with that little aside on the utter ignorance of the Fundy/uneducated/childish position which says "your stated stance is the Bible, Torah, tanakh, zophar, Septuagint are not real" we can resume discussing Genesis. 

There is no "pre-law" period (vs "post-law")in the history of Israel. Archaeology has demonstrated there is a continuum (in all Semitic settlements) and knows what the customs and civil life, religion and laws looked like. The idea that there was a radical change at some point is not supported by history. Israel was a monolateralist polytheism ... they accepted there were many gods, but agreed to worship only the War God, Yahweh Sabaoth, so he would help them in their battles. (The "Lord of Hosts" ... a host is an army in battle formation). It remained this way until after the Exile, when Isaiah began to insist on monotheism.
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10...chapter-11

The "pre-law" assumption would rest on the idea that the Exodus actually happened, and that at a point in history, something changed, over-night. It did not. Egypt controlled the entire Near East, including Canaan. It would make no sense to go from one place Egypt controlled to another they controlled. The Egyptian officials WROTE to their superiors at home, and they have those documents, and know what they talked about. They never once mention a large group moving out of Egypt up to Canaan.

For most of its history Israel was 1st a Confederation of Tribes, then briefly a kingdom, then two kingdoms. When the Northern Kingdom seceded and needed symbols to set up in place of the symbols in the temple, the symbols (which were in place of the two sphinxes (supposedly) on the cover of the ark in Jesrusalem), the North chose two Golden Bulls. (!!) ... which is a hint of things to come.

[GrandizerII]

Taboo: the Bible Version (starring Lot and his two daughters)
Genesis 19:30-38

Now for some sexy time (depending on one's sexual fantasies).

In order to escape the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we saw Lot and his two daughters move to a small town by the name of Zoar, even though the original plan was to head straight to the mountains. Now all of a sudden, in the first verse of this passage, we see that they leave Zoar in order to go settle in the mountains and live in a cave. It's not clear to me why they did so, but it's obvious that this serves as justification (plot-wise) for what's about to happen.

You see, the daughters of Lot were getting really anxious, with their biological clocks ticking, and they had no one around to make babies with. No one ... except for their father. So they plan to have him drunk and then have sex with him. The first night was sexy time with the elder daughter, and the second night was sexy time with the younger daughter. On both nights, Lot was completely unaware of what happened.

As a result, both daughters became pregnant by their own father. The elder daughter gave birth to Moab, the father of the Mobites; the younger daughter gave birth to Ben-Ammi, the father of the Ammonites. It's clear that this story was meant to reinforce the stigma towards the Moabites and the Ammonites.

It's a weird story for sure, and I remember the first time I read this as a kid (this would've been early teens or a bit before), I felt really naughty and even wondered if it was a sin for me to read this story (that's how guilty it made me feel). In fact, this was actually the first time I was ever exposed to the whole idea of incest, and it was ... traumatizing. Imagine how innocent I was at the time, only for this innocence to be destroyed by the contents of the Bible itself, lol.

Thankfully, I was later exposed to some classic Taboo cassettes, and that helped me overcome the trauma eventually. Incest fantasies FTW ... as long as it's not with your own flesh and blood, in which case "ewww".

[Bucky Ball]

... and the answer will surprise you. 
I shall wait, and provide some clues that history offers, after I let others post their views. 

[Bucky Ball]

No takers ? 

So here's the background, and  what I see when I read about Lot. Sorry ... it's complicated. 

The Kingdom of Israel lasted for (only) 120 years. Saul, David and Solomon. Pretty short time, in historical terms. 
What happened before the Kingdom, and the facts about the breakup into two kingdoms are important. 

In the Levant, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levant ) in the ancient Near East, there was a group of Semites who organized themselves on the basis of male kinship bonds, into tribes. There were 13 tribes in ancient Israel. They all had their own territories, except the thirteenth tribe, the Tribe of Levi. The Levites were the priests, and were allowed to live within the territories of the other tribes, as they had a special function, (much as in the US, churches have a tax exempt status, today). The tribes were loosely organized into a "Tribal Confederation". This Tribal Confederation was the first known existence of the nation or political entity of Isra-El, (which means "walks with El). 

In a way it could be seen as similar to the precursor of the United States, when the 13 colonies were a confederation of colonies, with a loose organization, or the Confederate States in the South in the US during the Civil War era, with no absolute central authority. The tribal confederation was formed by the first certainly historical "Judge", whose name was Deborah, and she lived about 1200 BCE. 

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsou...doms1.html Before that, the tribes of Semites were independent, and there was no notion of an "Israe-El".  "El" or it's longer version "Elohim" was seen as the chief god in a council of divine beings in certain parts of the confederation's territories. They got the notion from the Babylonians council of gods, in which El Elyon was the highest god of the council of gods, (plural) which was also called the Elohim. 

There was no capital at that time in Israel, and no central authority, there was also no temple at that time, and no central worship site. Each of the tribes had their own shrines to the gods, which included the Yahweh god, and in some, (for sure in Dan, Shiloh, Beth-El, and Jerusalem), his consort or wife, Ashera, was venerated also. Statues of her have been found in Jerusalem, Dan, and Beth-el. The Levites were the priestly class that spanned the tribes, but each worship site had it's own customs, families and traditions. Among the worship centers were locations named Beth-el, Dan, and Shiloh in the North, and Jerusalem in the South. Each of the sites had their own customs, and traditions, and scrolls, and sets of priests. Sets of priests ... very important. Groups of priests.  

Don't forget, there was NO Bible at this time, and no common national "story", or national myth. No Genesis, no Exodus, or anything else. The Hebrews were operating at that point without those scrolls. The Bible was written/assembled about 700 years later. So here we have the Hebrews operating during this period, without any central organizing documents or scrolls. No common national story. No Bible. 

To counter political threats, discussed below, the tribes decided they needed a central leader, to lead them into battle. Both Judges 18, and 19 start out by stating, "At that time there was no king in Isra-el", emphasizing that the chaos which was happening, (and would be recounted in the chapter to follow) was due to no central leader. To us it sounds like a simple reminder. To the Hebrews of the day, it served as a *special* reminder to them, that the chaos in the story to follow, happened because there was no king yet, ie no central authority to organize them, if they were all attacked. The scroll served as a *justification-reminder* of why they had chosen, (and needed, and continued to need), to have a king. 


One of the best known Judges and priests of this period was Samuel and he lived in a Northern city called Shiloh. He was a member of a distinguished priestly family, which thought of themselves as descendants of a figure called Moses. Remember this : Moses was very important to the priests of the North. He was seen as their "ancestor" and their identity derived from him. 

Shiloh had a "tabernacle", (actually a "tent" with an arc), which contained some tablets, on which was carved some of the laws of the day. This was actually the first time we know about an "arc", in the Bible. Exodus had not been written yet, thus the "story" of the arc, had not been formed ("remembered" in a literary fashion) yet. The first known arc was already in Shiloh, long before the Bible was written. In the ancient Near East, there were many "arcs". 

The motivations for the tribes to decide to anoint a king was a political decision which scholars think happened due to the invasions of the "Sea Peoples" (commonly called "Phoenicians"). Over and over in history, threatened groups find that a strong central authority is a good way to oppose a common threat. Much as a central Federal government was opposed in the early US, there were elements in the tribes which opposed the concept of "kingship", as they thought it opposed the way of life. 

One of the prominent members of the opposition to the kingdom, was the prophet Amos. He opposed the kingdom for a number of reasons, and one of them was he knew of the possible abuses of power that one central authority would give the priests and prophets who were centered in the location from which the king would come. He wrote "Fallen is the Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up". He thought a change to a central authority was a threat to the authenticity of what the tribes were all about.  Anyway ... it's important to recognize that there is a political background to many, if not all the accounts put into the texts, and there is a REASON the accounts are as they are. In any case the power of the priestly class was used to confer legitimacy on the monarchy, and the priests and prophets had to be kept happy.  

So the kingdom was established. 

Solomon, had many wives. Many. A figure of 500 is used to count them. It is said that EVERY king and leader in the Levant was his father-in-law. The wives came with a price. Both the named daughters of Lot (he had 2 others, unnamed) were said to be the mothers of the Moabites, and the Ammonites. Two of Solomon's wives were the daughters of the kings of Moab and Ammon. When they arrived in Solomon's capital, they brought priests and altars to their god Chemosch. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosh

Those shrines remained in place for 400 years. 400 years. (!) 
They were STILL THERE, and in place, when the Lot story was being compiled/edited/redacted.
They posed an immanent threat to other priest groups and cults.
The Judean priests wanted them gone.


After the Exile, Josiah decided that he would get rid of them. (This is also where the Book of Deuteronomy just happened to be "found", in the temple. Heh heh). 
The Judean priests HATED their competition. The de-legitimization of the ancestors of the competition was the literary motivation of the Judean priests to portray the competition as illegitimate. 

"King Josiah of Judah 2 Kings 
22 Josiah was eight years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for thirty-one years. His mother was Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah from the town of Bozkath. 2 Josiah did what was pleasing to the Lord; he followed the example of his ancestor King David, strictly obeying all the laws of God.
The Book of the Law Is Discovered
3 In the eighteenth year of his reign, King Josiah sent the court secretary Shaphan, the son of Azaliah and grandson of Meshullam, to the Temple with the order: 4 “Go to the High Priest Hilkiah and get a report on the amount of money that the priests on duty at the entrance to the Temple have collected from the people. 5 Tell him to give the money to the men who are in charge of the repairs in the Temple. They are to pay 6 the carpenters, the builders, and the masons, and buy the timber and the stones used in the repairs. 7 The men in charge of the work are thoroughly honest, so there is no need to require them to account for the funds.”
8 Shaphan delivered the king's order to Hilkiah, and Hilkiah told him that he had found the book of the Law in the Temple. Hilkiah gave him the book, and Shaphan read it. 9 Then he went back to the king and reported: “Your servants have taken the money that was in the Temple and have handed it over to the men in charge of the repairs.” 10 And then he said, “I have here a book that Hilkiah gave me.” And he read it aloud to the king.
11 When the king heard the book being read, he tore his clothes in dismay, 12 and gave the following order to Hilkiah the priest, to Ahikam son of Shaphan, to Achbor son of Micaiah, to Shaphan, the court secretary, and to Asaiah, the king's attendant: 13 “Go and consult the Lord for me and for all the people of Judah about the teachings of this book. The Lord is angry with us because our ancestors have not done what this book says must be done.”
14 Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to consult a woman named Huldah, a prophet who lived in the newer part of Jerusalem. (Her husband Shallum, the son of Tikvah and grandson of Harhas, was in charge of the Temple robes.) They described to her what had happened, 15 and she told them to go back to the king and give him 16 the following message from the Lord: “I am going to punish Jerusalem and all its people, as written in the book that the king has read. 17 They have rejected me and have offered sacrifices to other gods, and so have stirred up my anger by all they have done. My anger is aroused against Jerusalem, and it will not die down. 18 As for the king himself, this is what I, the Lord God of Israel, say: You listened to what is written in the book, 19 and you repented and humbled yourself before me, tearing your clothes and weeping, when you heard how I threatened to punish Jerusalem and its people. I will make it a terrifying sight, a place whose name people will use as a curse. But I have heard your prayer, 20 and the punishment which I am going to bring on Jerusalem will not come until after your death. I will let you die in peace. The men returned to King Josiah with this message."

There are countless other political/literary references to groups of squabbling / competing groups of priests / political interests ... as we shall see when we get to other stories written into the texts. 

[GrandizerII]

I'll be away from home for the next few days, so may not be able to post much during this time.

Any atheists willing to take on Genesis 20 (Abraham and Abimelek)? Don't care what style you adopt in commenting (and from what angle), so long as you reflect on the specific text itself. The more atheists who comment, the better as well. It need not be one atheist at a time or anything like that. And you are free to have at the passage even if you've never read much from the Bible. And no need for formality (if you don't want to). After all, this is supposed to be a chill thread before anything else.

I'll be back to posting in a few days, and if no one's posted any thoughts on Genesis 20 in a specific and adequate enough manner, I'll do so myself.

[Bucky Ball]

There are three "wife-sister dramas", 2 with Abraham, and 1 with Isaac. Other than some sort of affirmation that these were beautiful desirable women, and the patriarchs were somehow being protected, not sure what to take away from them. There has been a lot written on these stories, and supposedly they might have one source.

Interesting that in Hurrian Society, one could formally adopt a wife, thus making her a "blood relative" ... (in a sense) .. and the assimilation of that culture had been well underway for a long time. It (Hurrians) may also be the answer to the "Ur" origins of the Abraham story. Maybe there is a flashing memory of that here.
https://www.ancient.eu/Hurrians/

Never really followed it along, but there is a definite literary theme of "deceptions" and then how they are discovered, (Joseph and his brothers, etc), and who is responsible for the discovery.

[GrandizerII]

Genesis 20
Abraham and Abimelek

A story very similar to an earlier one in Genesis (specifically, Genesis 12:10-20). Almost as if one of them is the source material for the other, or they are both copies of an older story that may or may not have been written down. As Bucky pointed out, there is also a third story later on in Genesis very similar to these two, which involves Isaac and Rebekah instead of Abraham and Sarah. And funnily enough, Abimelek is involved in that story as well.

So a question (to Bucky or anyone else who may be in the know): what's the deal with having Sarah be Abraham's actual sister (as pointed out in Genesis 20)? Is it to show that Abraham wasn't being dishonest or something? Or is it just one of those curious story bits that serve no real point beyond what it's saying?

Of course, I also (once again) question the morality of a god who would do what Yahweh supposedly did to Abimelek and his household. There seems nothing right about punishing someone for a "sin" they had no idea they were committing. And definitely not their whole household.

Note what Abimelek says to God in verses 4 and 5:

Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Did he not say to me, 'She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, 'He is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands."

This time around, as punishment, God temporarily prevents Abimelek's household from having children (though this may not be as mild a punishment as I'm thinking). And when Abraham prayed to God for Abimelek, Abimelek and his women were able to have children again. Still, as mild a punishment as this one might have been (and this perception of mildness is purely subjective, of course), this passage still remains yet another passage that shows just how morally questionable the Bible God is to the modern civilized mind.

[Drich]

Genesis 20
Abraham and Abimelek

A story very similar to an earlier one in Genesis (specifically, Genesis 12:10-20). Almost as if one of them is the source material for the other, or they are both copies of an older story that may or may not have been written down. As Bucky pointed out, there is also a third story later on in Genesis very similar to these two, which involves Isaac and Rebekah instead of Abraham and Sarah. And funnily enough, Abimelek is involved in that story as well.

So a question (to Bucky or anyone else who may be in the know): what's the deal with having Sarah be Abraham's actual sister (as pointed out in Genesis 20)? Is it to show that Abraham wasn't being dishonest or something? Or is it just one of those curious story bits that serve no real point beyond what it's saying?

Of course, I also (once again) question the morality of a god who would do what Yahweh supposedly did to Abimelek and his household. There seems nothing right about punishing someone for a "sin" they had no idea they were committing. And definitely not their whole household.

Note what Abimelek says to God in verses 4 and 5:

Now Abimelek had not gone near her, so he said, "Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Did he not say to me, 'She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, 'He is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands."

This time around, as punishment, God temporarily prevents Abimelek's household from having children (though this may not be as mild a punishment as I'm thinking). And when Abraham prayed to God for Abimelek, Abimelek and his women were able to have children again. Still, as mild a punishment as this one might have been (and this perception of mildness is purely subjective, of course), this passage still remains yet another passage that shows just how morally questionable the Bible God is to the modern civilized mind.

The key to understand this passage is again in the why Abraham gave to the reason he did this.. "11 Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’
Do you assume Abraham was wrong or could not know the minds of these people? Let's say you were a white western reporter walking into an ISIS encampment at the hight of jihad john head removal campaign. Do you think you could accurately access whether or not they were going to imprison you and take you head on a internet broadcast?

Would you feel bad if seal team came in and busted you out even if women and children died? women and children who would cheer when you head was being sawed off by a dull knife..

So why is God the bad guy here?

He did not kill anyone just show this murdering ban of non believing a-holes He was who He said he was which was to ensure total respect and obedience when it came to Abraham peeps.

You guys don't even have a moral issue when your side rights a wrong, rather you seem to want to always side with evil men, and be wronged by God.