Shaping The Bible

We do not have a complete copy of the Hebrew Bible (commonly called the Old Testament) that predates the return from Babylonian captivity and only fragments of Job and Numbers that date before it. The Old Testament as we know it today is based on a Greek translation of a copy of the Torah (first 5 books of the Old Testament) found in the ruins of Jerusalem as it was being rebuilt.

There is a fair question as to whether this was a bona fide relic left in the walls of the city by the original builders to bless it or a document copied down during the Babylonian exile and conveniently "found" by those returning.

The Old Testament as we know it clearly reflects the views of die hard Jewish monotheists, creating the impression of a strong monotheistic culture before the Babylonian captivity.  However, archeological evidence indicates there were a number of divergent religious practices in Israel at that time. The hard core monotheists remained faithful to their view of Judaism despite several generations of enslavement to the Babylonian empire; many other captives assimilated into Babylonian culture and abandoned their cultural roots.

The Old Testament contains books of history (the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles) that are clearly presented as condensed versions, referring the reader to now lost longer texts. There's a song book (Psalms), a book of proverbs, some poetry and philosophy, some historical fiction (the books of Ruth, Esther, and Daniel, all written long after the events occurred), and one theological comedy (Job, thought modern readers tend to interpret it in a straight forward manner instead of recognizing its tongue in cheek approach to various theological paradoxes), plus a variety of prophetic (which is not the same thing as predictive) writings.

As noted, all these are told through the filter of hard core monotheist survivors after nearly a century of captivity and exile in Babylon.  How their experiences may have influenced their view of the stories of Exodus or the Flood narrative shaped Judaism from that point onward into a single focused monotheistic religion is a valid question that needs to be asked, not simply brushed aside in the fever of fundamentalism.

It certainly hard wired the belief of Israel a.k.a. Judea a.k.a. Palestine as the God given home of the Jewish people into their culture as can be seen to this day.

History may be written by the victors, but religion is shaped by the survivors.

© Buzz Dixon