Secret Origins of the Bible

Presented by Tim Callahan, Religion Editor of Skeptic

About the Speaker

Tim Callahan is the Religion Editor of Skeptic magazine and has authored books that critically examine the Bible including Bible Prophesy- Failure or Fulfillment? and Secret Origins of the Bible. The 59 year old animated movie artist and self- trained scholar began by defining myths as stories of cosmological significance with supernatural agency (the gods) as the explanatory mechanism for how the world works, how a people came to be and their place in the universe.

About the Event

Announcements

It was noted that this meeting date coincided with “Darwin Day.”

Jason Pittman of our group had hosted the first Freethought Movie Night on March 7 at 7PM, where those in attendance viewed Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”, which incidentally was a film our nascent group watched back when we were just a collection of five or six guys assembling in a condo in Jenison, MI. For more information on future movie nights and location or to suggest films to see, e-mail Jason: .

Our Annual Board Meeting is scheduled for March 22, ‘03 at 9AM and will be at the Seaver’s house.

Presentation

Our special guest speaker for this meeting, Tim Callahan, was flown in from southern California to arrive to our “lovely” Michigan weather in Feb. Callahan is the Religion Editor of Skeptic magazine and has authored books that critically examine the Bible including Bible Prophesy- Failure or Fulfillment? and Secret Origins of the Bible. It is the latter one that he took as his topic for this information-rich, well-researched presentation. He had copies of this book for sale to our group. His main thesis was that, rather than being a divinely inspired book of inerrant material given to humankind by a single God to a single people living at one time in history, the Bible is a collection of myths and stories handed down from many ancient civilizations and strung together with deletions, insertions and redactions to tell politically and culturally biased mythic tales. Virtually all the central elements of “The Greatest Story Ever Told” were in place centuries before being reshaped to tell of the adventures of a chosen Hebrew tribe. Callahan masterfully peeled back the familiar layers of the Bible that have come down to us to reveal the original underlying archetypal concepts, pagan rituals and ancient belief systems that culminated in the Holy Bible.

The 59 year old animated movie artist and self- trained scholar began by defining myths as stories of cosmological significance with supernatural agency (the gods) as the explanatory mechanism for how the world works, how a people came to be and their place in the universe.

While many religious skeptics are not surprised to learn that the Bible God, Jesus and even the Christian holidays have earlier pagan origins, it was more of an eyebrow raiser to learn how many of the Bible’s other personages had their origins as gods and solar heroes and to what degree the accounts of the chosen tribe of Israel were based on pagan festivities. There are several ways to determine that what one is reading is not an historical account of actual events. One is where there are at least two different accounts of the same event, creating internal contradictions (an example being the two disparate Genesis myths having an Adam and Eve created together and in the same book Adam created first, then Eve created from his rib [after Yahweh had paraded all the different animals before him, being clueless as to what sort of creature should be his mate and “helpmeet”]) Another clue is different use of language-sometimes anachronistic and sometimes with linguistic borrowings from tribes or nations that would not have interacted yet with the people of the presented myth. Supposed eyewitness accounts of events where glaring geographical, temporal and cultural errors were made by alleged natives of the region, also highlights the presence of non-contemporary redaction.

The first biblical person Callahan dealt with was the Danite, Samson who was a local folk hero fused with the character of a sun god. As with most of the people in the “Good Book” who are given special attention, he was born of one of the ubiquitous barren women who gave birth via supernatural intervention from the obliging Yahweh and, of course, with an angel announcing a coming son who would be a deliverer of his people. Samson, being a Nazarite (a holy man), was supposed to have no contact with the dead, abstain from alcohol and women and keep himself apart from others as part of his holy vows. However, he drank, partied and whored lustily and slaughtered famously, so he seems to have been more than a “lapsed” Nazarite. He is shown with little piety and relates more to the half-god Herakles (Hercules) and Gilgamesh-also refashioned solar deities- than any of the judges in the Book of Judges. The main thing linking him top this holy order was his abundant mane of hair. The Nazarites were not to cut their hair unless one dies around them (thereby defiling them) whereupon they must resume, from scratch, their lives as neophyte holy men. The actual reason for the attention placed upon his hair was that this linked him to representations of the sun. His name even translated to “sunlight” and his birthplace was next to that which translated to “house of the sun.”

Solar heroes were also associated with lions (the male lion’s mane- like solar rays- referenced the sun as well) and could tear them apart with their bare hands (also like Gilgamesh and Herakles). The story of him collecting honey for a wedding feast from the carcass of a lion that bees inhabited relates to many earlier traditions. Bees were thought to spontaneously generate from animal bodies and this was symbolic of rebirth, a major theme of sun-worship (the dying and reborn sun; the “unconquered sun”= Mythra, later being refashioned as Jesus) and that Samson was harvesting the honey when the sun was in the constellation Leo (the lion) further heightens the mythic tale. His bride to be deceives him by providing the answer to the riddle he posed to the hated Philistines (who were referred to disparagingly as “the uncircumcised”). The betrayal is seen as adultery or “plowing with my heifer.” The cow was associated with fertility goddesses in Egypt and Canaan. He burns with anger and kills 30 Philistines. Bindings “melt” from him, or he burns through them or is possessed with a fiery rage throughout this tale, betraying his solar god association. He leaves his betraying wife-to-be and returns to find that she has wed his best man. Furious, he ties foxes tails together, sets them on fire and releases them into Philistine fields, seemingly expending a great deal of unnecessary effort in this destruction. But foxes, being reddish, are likened to the sun and were used in the same way as part of a Roman festival for Demeter (or Ceres; where we get “cereal” from) with the association of this deity with grain and fields. This practice was imported from the Near East. This was seen as a sacrifice to the gods to avert grain blight, which, being reddish and coming from the strong sun (after grain was rained upon) furthered the associations. The Philistines burn the father of the bride and Samson’s erstwhile betrothed in retribution, causing him to go on a massive killing spree.

Then the Philistines locate Samson at his “lair” a term associated with wild animals, themselves related to solar heroes. But he slays 1,000 of them with his great strength (again, like Herakles) and the jawbone of an ass. As in other myths both biblical and extra-biblical, after he becomes thirsty from his lethal effort, the rocks split and bring forth waters. This relates to the ancient idea of a divided water above and below the Earth, kept apart by the gods with the potential of destructive release from both sides (see the Bible’s creation myth with the firmament and Noah’s and many other non-biblical flood gods Deluge.) The ass related to the destructive aspects of the sun. The dry, hot desert wind- sirocco- means “the ass’ breath” and related to the Egyptian ass-headed god, Set. Solar deities (Shamash, Gilgamesh, Amon-Ra, Marduk, [= “brightness of day”], etc.) are usually depicted carrying sickles. The ass’ jawbone was sharpened and used as such a tool in ancient societies. This links up with the harvest festivals from pagan myths.

After whoring in Gaza, this putative Nazarite’s enemies wait to capture him at dawn. Representing the sun, they could not take him in the night-because he was not there-and the sun was seen as weak in the dawn. The famous story of him ripping posts from the ground and carrying them great distances represented the belief of the sun entering and exiting the sky through “gates” standing between pillars of the East and West.

Delilah asks him point blank how to destroy him and after sufficient pestering, gets him to tell her (though he takes her down blind alleys a few times first-never seeming to “get it” that she is striving to do him in!). His hair (the symbol of his potency) is shorn and his captors (aided by Delilah’s treachery) blind him-these being solar allusions-the “hair of the sun” and the sun seen as an eye. He is set to toiling at a mill wheel-the circuits of the wheel, like the sun’s travels, having to do with his solar identity that the Yahwists tried to hide by making him a Nazarite. He is brought to the Temple of Dagon where his hair grows back and he pulls down the pillars killing thousands of Philistines and himself.

Delilah represents the night or the sun’s demise and in countless myths the agent of the sun-stand- in’s death asks him how to bring about his own destruction. This makes the winter solstice events occur, keeping the cycle of life abiding. The shearing of the hair is emasculating and humiliating, countering the sun as strong, proud, and vigorous. The sun as an active, volatile, masculine deity is overcome by the constant, cooler, feminine agent. As a side note, Michelangelo’s famous “Day” and “Night” sculptures are depicted as a man and woman respectively. Delilah’s counterparts in other mythologies change to night hunting owls whose taloned legs perch atop a vanquished lion (the sun). The names of many of these sun-destroyers relate to lunar beings and are seen also as fertility figures (keeping the cycle of life abiding). Of course the lunar cycle and its association with female menstruation is well known. In the Judgment of Paris, we see the Greek counterparts of lunar phases related to female deities: the waxing moon= virgin= Athena; the full moon= mature woman in prime= Aphrodite; the waning moon= crone= Hera. Also Zeus, representing the sun, carries off Europa who represents the moon in a grand fertility myth.

As noted in a presentation by one of our members regarding the holidays, Christianity, having no system of greater and lesser gods, had to transfer the pagan gods’ attributes to saints, displacing the older concepts (just one example being Brigit.) Sometimes they become heroes or sorcerers. Ancient death goddesses wove and bound and Delilah binds Samson in a portrayal of enshrouding the Earth in darkness. These goddesses were associated with the power of the night and deep seas-mysterious, unfathomable wombs out of which creation flows and harkening back even to the chaos and darkness that all of Creation is made from and that even God emerged out of, before he became separate in the post-Exile myths. Later supplanting of the feminine power gave them negative connotations and the sun was to overcome the night.

Next, Callahan turned to the worship of Yahweh before the Exile, a time of henotheism, where local tribal gods ruled over distinct lands and had little or no power beyond those borders. They were more like kings ruling over subjects, before the time of mortal kings among these people. A major point Callahan makes is that there was in no sense a monotheistic notion among the Israelites at the time. Other gods were freely acknowledged and worshiped but they could be worshiped one at a time only, and the one being worshiped at that time held sway and was honored over the others. But when one addressed a different deity, that one took its place as the most highly regarded god. Later, when the Yahwists make a major break with tradition and create a single God that rules over all the Earth, he is shown as a “jealous” god, frequently commanding that other gods, idols and images (that reference other gods) be destroyed or ignored; not something a sole Creator of all should have had to worry himself over if there hadn’t been such a vast number of gods that were already firmly established.

The henotheistic gods made covenants with their people, ordered wars, commanded genocide, made real estate deals and gave over spoils to their chosen people. They demanded human and other animal sacrifices (and were pleased with the odor of burnt flesh) and gave divine justification for taking over lands the people had nothing to do with. If one lost a war to another people who worshiped a different god, it was not seen as being a shortcoming of one’s own god but rather that your people’s deity “lifted its protection” from your tribe because it was displeased. This primitive belief sounds eerily familiar regarding modern America when the same thing was said about the God that “blesses” the U.S. “lifting His protection” over us for our sinful ways when we were attacked on September 11.

The stories in the Bible of the Exodus and Joshua’s gory conquest of Canaan have no historical or archeological support but were tales of a people making their own myths to satisfy political and national desires and wishes. Another member of our group once spoke of the numbering done in the Bible and when we look at the numbers of people vanquished in these god-directed slaughters, we see an account far over-reaching the population densities of the time in many cases. Yahweh made strict and specific laws regarding diet, what clothes and materials could be worn, what customs could be practiced, the great importance of circumcision and countless other seemingly insignificant orders if they came from that later “God the Father Almighty” but were perfectly in keeping with a god sovereign only over a single specially chosen people who sought precise codes of dress, diet, etc. to remain distinct from other tribes. The harsh penalties for breaking them (seen as “sins” more than “crimes”) related to the context of the times. The problem that arose centuries later was when this henotheistic god of one people became melded with the monotheistic “true” God of all. The fundamentalists took the ways and beliefs of that ancient tribe out of the context of their location in time and geography as well as their knowledge level and culture and, believing that their account was divinely inspired, sought dogmatically to use this local, ancient mythic system to address global and modern concerns.

The Creation stories derive from the ancient, virtually universal Combat Myth. There is chaos that a god emerges from and has to organize and he must vanquish a great sea dragon. The Genesis story breaks from this in that there is a God existing already that fabricates out of nothing, rather than from the sea of chaos. There are, however, translations with sprinklings of the standard myth where God breaks the dragons of the water and crushes the head of Leviathan. The beast is usually divided (as God does the waters in Genesis). Some aspects are retained from those of Baal and Marduk but others are removed-it would make no sense for a Creator who starts out with nothing to make his own beast to battle, so they become the elements he has to master. Originally gods were deemed flawed and intricately linked to the Creation-often their own bodily parts made things appear—but the Bible God existed outside of that which emerged, so was allowed as perfect but with evil forces (not of Him) inherent in Creation. This allowed for the creation of Satan not seen in other myths. Life was begotten by the union of male and female deities (the many myths of a Father Sky fertilizing a Mother Earth or a more sexual union) in most creation myths but “made” with the Bible God after the transition from a female Creatrix (or at least co-Creator) to a sole, male Creator. The Combat Myth still comes down to us in fairy tales. The goddess becomes a princess guarded by a dragon that a knight has to slay. She is often asleep and the male represents the sun god kissing the dormant winter enshrouded Earth with warmth and beginning anew the cycle of life. There are also many stories where the sea beast swallows one who later emerges alive and this represents resurrection from the primordial death and chaos.

Those who ruled-kings and gods-were the ones who “rested” so by having Yahweh rest after Creation, he is asserting his divine rule. Changes in society were seen as “unrest” and caused gods to send down plagues and floods. As to the latter, there are a great many Deluge myths often in the same basic pattern of Noah and the ark. Noah’s name means “rest.” The Flood narrative has internal contradictions of the kind seen throughout the entire Bible, including making a distinction between “clean” and “unclean” animals and the deluge from rain alone or no such clean/unclean distinction made and the waters coming from below as well as above (relating to the firmament and divided waters again) and even the number of days of flooding (150 in one account!). Forty is a common number in the Bible because it was a sort of all- purpose number that meant a long duration. In one account, a raven seeks land-in another a dove does and thrice. In one myth God forgives and is satisfied but this becomes a God who realizes inherent evil in humankind (a manufacturer flaw perhaps?) and vows never to drown all the beings on Earth again. Older myths have a deity holding back the waters of chaos and destruction, making an ordered world. The bow in the sky echoes Marduk’s action to show established order. All seem to be based on the older tradition of gods of limited intellect and control over their creations (and certainly not omniscient), retained in the Bible even though that god was later reworked into representing a perfect being.

Noah’s drunken state (typical for him; the best Yahweh could find to restock humanity) causes him to be seen naked by his son, Ham. In true biblical fashion of assigning grave sin to a minor offense and afflicting someone other than the perpetrator, Ham’s descendants are cursed for all time by being slaves and this begins with Ham’s son, Canaan. This becomes a later justification for the war against the Canaanites. Tribe names were often derived from a god or special hero name, i.e. the Moabites from the deity Moab, and so on. In modern times, since the descendants of Ham were regarded as dark-skinned and “divinely” cursed into slavery, justification was seen for African bondage in the U.S. by fundamentalist believers. That there is a code of rules as to the treatment of one’s slaves in the Bible, rather than any problem seen with the practice itself, only fueled this sense of justification.

Almost universal in mythology is the idea of gods fashioning beings that either become or threaten to become “as one of them” and evoke a response from the gods of limiting the created beings. The Nephalim, created by the union of the “sons of God” (shouldn’t this itself be a problem for modern believers?) and mortal women (a very common mythic theme) were the giants and long- lived ones, begetting tales of humans living for hundreds of years in the Bible. God shortens their life span to take them out of the semi-divine status. It became too close to ancestor worship for the mythmakers. Of course, other famous stories spring to mind in this vein, including the building of the Tower of Babel where Yahweh sees fit to confound languages to halt the construction of this structure going into heaven (good thing our space launches didn’t likewise bother Yahweh-or bang into the firmament, for that matter) and the Original Sin myth where the first humans would have knowledge belonging only to the gods and be immortal. Again Yahweh curtails and curses them. The Tower of Babel myth is another later version of one where one god is angry that a rival god is getting too much attention from the people so he confounds their language so they cannot worship the rival. Prometheus and countless other intercessors can be found in other myths, who sought to give forbidden power or knowledge to the mortals.

In this vein, Pandora (translates to “gift of all”) is as Eve; both commanded not to release godly things upon the humans. Pandora began as a fertility goddess before mythic changes. Women are used in myths as symbols for ushering humanity into maturity. Eve hauls Adam into adulthood where they realize shame, know of their own mortality and are no longer in the childlike state of dwelling in a carefree world made just for them that is free of pain and toil. The serpent tells Eve she will be like a god if she eats the forbidden fruit. Serpents are related throughout mythology to immortality (the shedding of their skin akin to rebirth) healing (Moses uses a bronze snake on a staff to heal his people in the Exodus, and we have the caduceus as the symbol of medicine, among countless examples), and wisdom (Jesus said to his disciples to be as wise as serpents.) So it is an apt creature for its role in the Garden of Eden. Serpents are also seen as representatives of the original primeval goddess, the divine “mother of all things” and life-giver. Goddesses are often depicted with snakes in world iconography (holding them, suckling them, giving birth to them) and with trees-being a tree goddess with a snake-or part of a tree of wisdom with a snake entwining it. Asherah, who was the consort of Yahweh in the older traditions, was depicted as half tree and there are many other “pillar figurines” of this type. Eve is not surprised at a talking snake, showing a possible affinity.

Myths abound with goddesses who are able to give or withhold a sacred life and/or wisdom conferring fruit that is guarded by a serpent (see as one example Herakles and the Golden Apples…when he becomes fully divine he marries the Greek counterpart of Eve!) In the older version of the story, Yahweh and a goddess (who transforms into what we know as Eve in later renditions) create humankind. A seraph (winged snake; again see the caduceus and other similar icons) shares the secret of being godlike to “ha-Adam” and Yahweh clips the seraph’s wings and drives mankind from paradise.

The rib story relates to a Sumerian myth of the god Enki eating forbidden herbs who is then cursed with death by the goddess Ninhursag. She relents and makes deities to heal parts of Enki’s body. Nin-ti (“lady of the rib”) is in charge of healing his rib. Nin-tu (“lady of life”) is actually created from Enki’s rib in some versions-all long before the biblical stories. Gods and goddesses sprouting from the bodies of other deities is a very common mythic theme (Athena from the head of Zeus being just a single example.) As noted, many patriarchs and other “special” people of the Bible are born from virgins, barren women, women too old to conceive or by other extraordinary means. In many older myths, the Goddess makes the mortal beings but is under a male deity’s supervision. Eve giving birth to Cain says that she has gotten a man by the help of Yahweh, where “gotten” can be translated as “made” or “begotten.” Enki, Marduk and Ea all help mother goddesses make the first humans. Cain, by the way, is associated with the Greek Hephaestos, the son of the chief god and his consort. So Eve descended in status from being a goddess; the “Mother of All” and consort and co-creator with Yahweh to the cause of the “Fall of Mankind.” Naming held great power for the ancients and showed the dominance of the name-giver, therefore in the later re-workings of the ancient stories Adam came to name Eve, showing her subservient status.

As to Cain, just mentioned, we come to a story with fascinating, seldom- explored underpinnings. God asks Cain, the farmer, where his shepherd brother Abel is after Cain has killed him (an odd question for an all-seeing/knowing deity). This comes to us as a presentation of sibling rivalry (when Yahweh prefers Abel’s offerings-as is typical of myths, gods who can do and make anything always need offerings from humans), but our Bible scholar presenter showed us that Cain was the mythic progenitor of the Kenites who were itinerate metal workers and how Cain assumes the role of Hephaestos, the lame blacksmith (armor and weapon- maker) of the gods. People with such skills were held in a degree of awe and fear; admired for their rarefied “powers” and often seen as sorcerers too. Cain is famously “marked” by Yahweh, after slaying his brother, so that he will not be harmed but must live apart from “his people” (yet another oddity in the Bible, if it is understood as a literal record—since there would have to be a world “peopled” for this story to make sense, but he is the first offspring of the original two humans! Also, his descendants would have had to be produced by a mating between he and Eve his mother- (as the only female around) and the brothers and sisters that issued forth eventually would similarly have had to commit incest to populate the world).

The mark of Cain associates him with the wandering metal smiths who were not to be harmed but not assimilated into the tribes they wandered amongst and these nomadic people “bore a mark” to identify them with their elite clan. As mentioned earlier, the myths often have the gods limiting people in power, which is the reason the Greek Hephaestos and the Norse version, Volund, are lame. This stops them from making weapons for rival tribes (“hobbles” them).

One idea presented in another book this secretary read has to do with Cain (representing one tied to the land) and Abel representing the shepherd, is that Cain slaying Abel is a way of showing civilization emerging from the pastoral existence: when a people settle and are bound up with the land they need to protect the crops grown and livestock raised, they need walls, a protecting class and then those who farm, those who store and distribute and trade-work for food, a monetary system, etc., etc. The idea that Callahan presents is that Cain, in offering a blood sacrifice (animal) is required to make an even greater sacrifice to Yahweh-that is, his human sibling. He is condemned but exonerated too-this, from a deity who slays without mercy over the tiniest infractions (or “hardens the hearts” of some so that he can be justified in perpetrating more lethal destruction) elsewhere in the Bible. The mark is understood as representing that its bearer is ritually cleansed. In many other cultures such a mark would show that a person who had killed another’s kin had made payment to that family and therefore was protected against retribution by the wronged family members.

The list of descendants of Seth (the replacement son for Eve) and Cain are altered to take away from Cain and make a more direct connection between Seth and Noah, the redeemer (who brings humanity closer to its edenic beginnings, before the Fall). The 1st two generations in Seth’s line become essentially Adam and Cain; Enosh= “mortal man”= Adam and Kenan= Cain. In the reworking of the list, Noah’s brothers become (by translating the names intro their representative skills) the founders of music, animal husbandry, metal smiths, etc.-or the occupations of humankind. Cain’s line becomes unnecessary if his descendants (that do not include Noah) died out in the Flood.

The story of Moses can be found in parallel myths, including that of Sargon of Akkad whose mother, a priestess, knew her children were to be slain so she gave birth in secret and placed the male (of course) baby in a tar- daubed basket woven of rushes, and placed it in the Euphrates River whereupon it was later discovered by a royal gardener. This tale predates the one of Moses by 800-1100 years and since pitch was not found in the Nile Valley but was in Mesopotamia, this indicates that the story was imported. The earliest record of this type originated some 2000 years prior the one of Moses! Typically, these narratives hold that a male child will be born who will overthrow a king and he is told that this will come to pass by an oracle. Why, Callahan asks, would it just be the male children killed by the ruler (in the Moses rendition), except that it fits the older motif? Moses’ name a play on the words “to draw out” in Hebrew but the princess who finds Moses would not be speaking this language.

Callahan talks of typologies-repeated mythic themes with understood meanings by the people of the time. One such is the meeting at the well in the Moses tale. This results in marriage as it generally does in these stories.

History and the presented story of the Exodus do not jibe as to the timeframes of ascendancy or reduction in power in Egypt, roles of major players, Thutmose’s loss of army, lifetimes related to events, etc. To make some people fit their alleged times, we have to lose others (”…if we find Joseph, we lose Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” in Callahan’s words.) There are references to common camel use before they were widely domesticated and coins used that were not in circulation and expressions referred to that were not used until centuries later. There are later wars between people where some involved tribes would not be “a blip on the radar screen” at the time. After the liberation, Jethro proclaims that now he knows that Yahweh is greater than all other gods. This is a major idea in Callahan’s presentation-there simply was no monotheism before the Exile in those lands and times. There was “monolatry”, during the time of divided monarchies. This refers to worshiping one god exclusively but accepting the existence of others that are seen as lesser gods. But even these times of monolatry are rare in the history of the Israelites who believed and worshipped many gods, pre-Exile).

The story of Aaron and Moses confronting Pharaoh to let their people go cannot be seen as any more believable than a couple of slaves before the Civil War in the U.S. confronting the plantation owner with the same demands. Callahan regards the Exodus story as second only to the Creation in the quantity of miraculous elements. Only that it appears in the sacred Bible, he asserts, are the fanciful stories of plagues, the Passover, the miracles at the sea, manna, and the pillars of fire and cloud given any serious attention in this tale of a 40 year sojourn. Again we have the number 40 and this is echoed when Moses ascends Mt. Sinai for 40 days. This was also considered the length of a generation but in one account of the time of descendants in Israel we have 400 years, yet in another it is rendered as four generations (so each would have to be 100 years in duration).

This secretary took another 13 pages (front and back each page) of notes on this oral presentation, and culled from Tim Callahan’s book, but I will pick up the pace here. Perhaps I will write up a separate summary of other points neglected or glossed over here at another time. Before a more full treatment is given to another major theme, I will present a number of smaller concepts in abbreviated fashion:

Besides the goddesses being eclipsed in the biblical redactions, actual historical examples of the matrilineal society at the time has been altered to make them reflect the later male-biased one. There are many passages left intact that indicate inheritance was passed on from the female line. This creates further internal contradiction in the Bible where the older tradition has not been totally extirpated amid the patriarchal one. Sarah, to name just one Bible woman (and who was bold and headstrong), named Isaac, and as mentioned, naming showed dominance, though this is altered to have Abraham do the naming. Isaac, by the way, is referred to as Abraham’s only son, though there is Ishmael too, but this would not fit the myth of Isaac’s nearly completed sacrifice as well, since he would have another lad to fall back on. Later Isaac is ominously missing from further accounts making it seem likely that in the original he was in fact killed by his father but that this was later replaced by the alternate story (Yahweh’s slight of hand, replacing a ram for the boy) to make it more acceptable.

The “Twelve Tribes” probably originated with the twelve months of the year and the lunar phases within related to lunar cults. Moon deities can be seen in modified manner in the names of the tribal leaders.

Esau was one of a vast number of biblical people who originated as a god. His name relates to his animalistic, “hairy” nature; a hunter governed by his appetites (like Herakles, Samson, etc.).

Jacob’s famous ladder probably referred to a stairway in the form of a ziggurat like those in Babylonian temples. Also referred to as the “Gate of Heaven” or the “Gate of God” which translates to Bab-ilu= Babylon. His wrestling with an angel (or god) parallels other myths of Herakles, Proteus, the Scottish Janet and others and shows that the god of this time was not the later omnipotent one we are more familiar with.

Another typology is that of the rival twins. One such is Perez and Zerah. Often they result from incestuous relations—this itself is a common motif—the issue of such a relationship goes on to make history.

A seven year drought foreseen is another typology appearing in many other non-biblical myths including The Epic of Gilgamesh, which many other major biblical themes can be traced to as well, including perhaps the original Flood Myth.

Joseph’s (of the “coat of many colors”) wife’s father’s name can be traced to Ra; his daughter’s name linked to the goddess associated with Baal and Yahweh. These are just a couple examples of older myths that get fragmented and resurface in pieces and parts throughout the Bible. Joseph’s sons end up as symbols of the typology of the younger son superceding the older- usually favored- one. Joseph’s “prophetic” dream regarding “bringing in the sheaves” is out of place for the nomadic shepherds of the time (Joseph’s family even proclaims this occupation to Pharaoh). His son, Benjamin, was a child at the time of the migration but in a redaction he has sired ten children in this same time period!

Solomon’s Temple, supposedly to honor Yahweh alone, in actuality is all about symbols of fertility and potency, solar worship, and other more ancient traditions. Even its non-load-bearing pillars represented the sun’s passage between pillars and through gates- this was represented for the ancients as a human-like god riding a fiery chariot (see the Samson myth earlier). The earlier deities sexed with mortals, needed weapons and conveyances and had other human-like qualities-some of which are retained in the Bible, as to God. He is highly anthropomorphic, showing that He is a creation of the human mind.

Callahan makes clear that the Exile is a major turning point for the religious practices and beliefs of the Jews. It forever severed any ties the worship of Yahweh had with the Canaanite pantheon, divorced gods from consorts and it is where a tribal deity limited in scope and territorial reign became the Almighty Creator of all; the “one, true God.” The causes are many but one major reason probably had to do with the exiles in Babylon trying not to assimilate into the surrounding people and cultures, so they adhered to strict laws and customs that were distinct from those around them. Goddess worship dissipated because it was too close to Ishtar (who would become Ashtart in other versions). The Jews that returned to their homeland after a half century away were determined to intensify their new belief structure as they repopulated the region, extirpating the older ways as they did so. Since the old flawed gods were replaced with an all-good one, they had to make a clearer separation of good and evil, and a system of reward and punishment for those who adhered or broke from their Almighty God’s directives. This made for a clearer idea of an afterlife (before it was more nebulous and seen as below ground and easily evoked by the fortune tellers of the day). With a clearer Good vs. Evil concept, an evil protagonist emerged with the eternal struggle between these forces (and beings). Satan went from God’s prosecutor to the focus of all and ultimate evil. This set in motion the idea of a grand and ultimate battle-Armageddon—at a future time.

The return from the Exile was seen as a second Exodus with Nehemiah in the role of Moses. The pre-exile worship of other gods was seen as sinful and the reason for God’s wrath. Humans were all guilty of sin and in need of salvation, setting up the later Pauline ideas of a Messiah figure. Resurrection themes became dominant, though probably influenced greatly from the myriad of earlier fertility cults among people of the ancient world. Osiris in Egypt, Ishtar and Tammuz in Mesopotamia, Baal in Canaan and Dionysus in Greece among others exemplified these themes.

“When myths are distorted as literal truth, they will almost certainly be used by agents of repression, burdening society with unreasonable limitations and irrational directives, and in extreme cases, inciting assassination and war.” Tim Callahan in Secret Origins of the Bible.

Secretary: Charles LaRue