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If you have tried to read the old testament, it is confusing, full of
contradictions. In it we have a creation story and the histories of
characters and groups of people.
After the creation, it is written in Genesis 1:26 that God created man and woman in his own likeness (Adam and Lilith), but over the page we come to Genesis 2:21-25 which tells of woman (Eve) being created from Adam's rib? Why are there two contradictory accounts? Perhaps the second story is a fantasy to justify men's rule over women? Scripture, as well as science and philosophy, declares the eternity and equality of sex. This is a fact, without which there could have been no perpetuation of our species. The masculine and feminine elements, exactly equal and balancing each other, are as essential to the maintenance of the equilibrium of the universe as positive and negative electricity, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, the laws of attraction which bind together all we know of this planet whereon we dwell and of the system in which we revolve. It seems that the perpetrators of this story were not happy in their relationships and that the battle between the sexes was well entrenched and the story of the tree of forbidden fruit an invented myth to justify morality and provide someone for man to blame when thinks go wrong. The only evil in the body is in using the body to cause harm to self and others. The the requirement for clothes stimulates business for the farmers, garment makers and traders, capitalism has been around for a long time. Cain, Able and Seth The sons of Adam and Eve then went on to have children and the lineage is described, but where did their wives come from? Genesis 4. Did they mate with their sisters and daughters? Now in Egypt, Seth was the brother of Osiris and worshiped as a god in Egypt and maybe Adam and hi family never existed, rather they are metaphorical to provide and explanation of life where there was none? King David As we move into the period around 10000bc to the time of David and Solomon, God is Known as Yahweh and he has a female counterpart known as Asherha. While there is no proof, David may have a real person and his son(?) Solomon was reputed to have had over 700 wives while Abraham may have gone on a mission to Egypt where he sold his wife to Pharaoh and profited well. This story introduces the idea of circumcision, while this does set men apart, the real value is tat it helps to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases and in biblical times, people despite modern morality were sexually much freer than we are today. Of geographic note, the Sahara was rapidly turning from savannah and forest and becoming the desert we know today, and there may have been a population exodus that Egypt had to absorb or send on. Moses To me Moses is more interesting as he is said to have written the 10 commandments of which the real value is that they are a formula for world peace. Also interesting is that the time of Moses is about the time of Pharaoh Akhenaton who lived about 1351bc-1336bc and was the first known pharaoh to introduce the idea of the one God. There is much speculation that Akhenaton upset the priests of the old temples so much that when he died and his young son Tutankhamen took command, the priests actually assumed control and restored the temple of Amun which is why Tutankhamen is also written as Tutankhamun. According to biblical scholars, Akhenaton and Moses lived about the same time and there is a reasonably good theory that Moses may have been close to Akhenaton as a priest or advisor. So when the priests of Amun gained power, he got out of town with his followers to avoid losing their heads. At that time Sinai was much less of a desert than it is now. There were forests and grasslands so life as wandering herders may have been reasonably pleasant aside from harassment by thieves. There is also a story that the Canaanites were a constant thorn in the side of the Pharaohs and that the ruling Pharaoh, possibly Ramses II gave the land of Canaan to the wandering Jews as he reasoned that they would become more peaceful citizens and pay taxes. These stories are just stories and speculation and as much as people try, there is as yet no proof, just a possibility that some old testament characters and events may be true. While the old testament portrays great characters and events featuring great seduction, incest, perversion, genocide and mass slaughter, the importance is that the concept of human decency was evolving and that people were attempting overcome their fear of nature, the earthquakes, storms, growing desertification, crop failure, and to understand the world and live more harmoniously with each other. Reference books
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