The Bible has not always existed in the form in which we know it today.
The various books which comprise the Bible were first bound together as
pages in a single book in the 5th and 4th century BCE. Prior to this,
the sacred texts of Judaism consisted of a library of
separate texts, each written on a scroll of which most were rewritten by the
Prophet Ezekiel in the 6th and 5th century BCE during the captivity of the
Jews in Babylon. These scrolls made up a collection
or library of sacred texts, but different congregations had and still have
different collections of scrolls that are considered sacred.
It was not until the year 90 BCE in a council held at Jamnia (Jabneh, Palestine)
that the Jewish community achieved agreement on which works were to be considered
canon (scriptures that are binding in matters of doctrine and practice). It
was even later in the second century AD that Christian scholars decided only
writings by Apostles would be accepted as Christian scripture; an idea that
excluded the writings of other early church leaders such as First Clement which
was written in the early second century AD by the bishop of Rome to the church
at Corinth.
The formulation of the list of sacred works was not a straightforward one
or without controversy for either the Jews or the Christians, although the Torah,
the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy),
were universally accepted as sacred text by Jews.
The Book of Ezekiel was problematic for the Jews because its description
of the Temple differs from that found in the Torah, and it was not until an
agreement was achieved that Ezekiel could be reconciled with the Torah before
it was accepted. The Book of Ecclesiastes was questioned by some because they felt that
its pessimistic outlook was at variance with Judaism. The Book of the Song of Songs (The Songs of Solomon) seemed much too erotic
to be divinely inspired scripture, but eventually the viewpoint prevailed that
its overt eroticism was really an allegory for God's love of Israel. The Book of Esther was debated for well over a century after Jamnia (90
AD), because the word God did not appear in it and because it introduced the
feast of Purim, a feast that was not set forth in the Torah. There was general
agreement that inspired scripture had ceased to be written at the time of Ezra,
so (with the exception of Jonah and Daniel, which were written somewhat later)
works written after about 400 BCE and the council at Jamnia were not accepted
as inspired.
But there were more problems to be discussed. Several other books were found
in latter years of which a lot were much older than the Bible scrolls itself.
For instance the
Book of Enoch,
the Book of Jubilees,
the Book of Jasher
(this book was mentioned in the Bible in Joshua 10:13 were is written
'Is
not this written in the Book of Jasher?' and in Samuel II 1:18
'Behold
it is written in the Book of Jasher.' and many other sacred books of which
they had even more disagreement. (The
Forgotten Books of Eden, and
The Book of
The Cave of Treasures). At recent time (The Dead Sea Scrolls) has
been found evidence that the composition of the Jewish as well as the Christian
Bible was premature and should be considered for reconstruction.
Not only the Jews but also Christians had as many problems, if not more,
to contend with in establishing their list of canonized works. Full agreement
was never achieved, and the Bibles of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern
Orthodox Christianity differ in some of their contents.
Keep in mind that the Apostles (Jewish) had many arguments with Paul (Roman)
about the way to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and other subjects regarding
the way to explain the Old Testament. Paul had his own interpretation about
Jesus as the only Son of God, which was the beginning of the break between the
beliefs of the Jews and Christianity, and later on in the sixth century AD
with the Islam.
1 Esdras (Ezra), 2 Esdras (Nehemiah), Tobias (Tobit), Judith, the Book of
Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 Machabees, and 2 Machabees as part of the
canon, while Protestants consider these to be Apocrypha, books that might be
useful to read but not sacred scriptures.
The Eastern Orthodox Church includes the books 'The Song of the Three Young
Men', 'Susanna', 'Bel and the Dragon' and 'Prayer of Manasseh', books not found in
the Roman Catholic canon. Furthermore, some of the pre Christian works accepted as scriptures by both
the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches are not accepted as canon
by Judaism.
During the first and second centuries BCE, many different Jewish works were
written, some in prophetic style and others in the genre of literature or history,
books that did not become canonized by the Jewish community. Despite their not
having been viewed as scripture by the Jews, some of these books are regarded
as such within the Christian community.
For instance, eighteen of these pre-Christian books are published as part
of the Roman Catholic scriptures:
1.First Esdras, 2.Fourth Ezra, 3.Tobit, 4.Judith, 5.Additions to Esther,
6.The Wisdom of Solomon, 7.Sirach 8.Baruch, 9.Letter of Jeremiah, 10.Prayer
of Azariah, 11.Daniel and Susanna, 12.Bel and the Dragon, 13.The Prayer of Manasseh,
14.First Machabees, 15.Second Machabees, 16.Third Machabees, 17.Fourth Machabees,
18.Psalm 151.
Other Jewish texts, called Pseudepigrapha, were written during these same
centuries or even as late as New Testament times by authors who used the names
known from the earlier Hebrew sacred writings. For instance the
Books of Josephus
and Philo (both
Jews), written in the first century AD, were not accepted because they were
not written in the Hebrew language.
The Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran in 1947 proves the authenticity of most
of these scrolls.
The best known of these Pseudepigrapha scrolls, of which most belongs to
the so called Forgotten Books of Eden, are:
and several others of which most are published on this website.
'The Dead Sea Scrolls'
In these scrolls evidence has been found that most of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
books should be part of the Bible, though no one will add them in the 21st century,
because that would destroy the Jewish and Christians belief in Monotheism.
Shortly Christianity (the Pope) announced the Year 2000 as the year of Jubilee,
but it would have done better to announce the year 2001 (the first year of the 21st
century) as the start of reconciliation of the Bible and acceptance of the book
of Jubilees and other Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha books.
The Dead Sea Connection
The authenticity of the Book of Enoch and other Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
books.
Hebrew scholars had long noted the similarities between some of the reactionary
teachings in the Book of Enoch and the gospels according to the Essenes. a
fundamental, yet very righteous religious community spoken of by classical scholars
as having existed on the western shores of the Dead Sea.
This connection was strengthened after 1947 when it was realized that among
the Dead Sea Scrolls, now considered to have been written by the Essenes, were
various fragments of texts belonging to several copies of the Book of Enoch.
Up until this time the only complete manuscript copies available to the literary
world had been various copies written in the Ethiopian language of Ge'ez, the
first of which had been brought back to Europe by the Scottish explorer and
known Freemason James Bruce of Kinnaird following his famous travels in Abyssinia
between 1769 and 1772.
Not only did the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm the authenticity of the Book of
Enoch, they also showed that it had been held in great esteem by the Essene
community at Qumran, who may even have been behind its original construction
sometime after 165 BCE. More importantly, Hebrew scholars also began to identify
various other previously unknown tracts of an 'Enochian' flavor among the Dead
Sea corpus, and these included further references to the Watchers and their
offspring the Nephilim. (in the next chapters I will come back to these beings)
Many of these individual fragments were eventually realized by Dead Sea scholar
J.T. Milik to be extracts from a lost work called the
Book of Giants.
Previously this had only been known from isolated references in religious
texts appertaining to the Manicheans, a heretical Gnostic faith, that swept across
Europe and Asia, as far as China and Tibet, from the third century AD onwards.
The Book of Giants continues the story told in the
Book of Enoch,
relating how the Nephilim had coped with knowing that their imminent destruction
was due to the improprieties of their Watcher fathers. Reading this ancient
work allows the reader a more compassionate view of the Nephilim, who come across
as innocent bystanders in a dilemma beyond their personal control.
Note: Most of The Book of Giants is lost, there are
only some fragments left but I hope more will be found in the Dead
Sea scrolls in the coming years.
Consider that even at presently (2004), many translated parts of the Dead
Sea Scrolls are still unpublished due to leaders of the Roman Catholic Church
who are unwilling to publish it in its entirety; in my opinion it is due to
the fact there is evidence that monotheism is a mistake and that some scrolls
contain information about the 'real' ancient history of mankind.
More information about The Dead Sea Scrolls can be
found at:
On-Line
Primary Literature
Monotheism
Jews as well as Christians and Islam, believe in one God (Monotheism). The
reason this phenomenon has existed for almost 3,000 years is uncertain but Judaism
is well known as the source of western monotheism. But Judaism's monotheism
did not appear as a fully developed system. Rather, it developed over centuries.
To fully appreciate the origins of contemporary Jewish monotheism it is helpful
to return to the roots from which this stalk has grown.
The religion of the ancient Jews and Hebrews did not exist in a cultural
vacuum. The various religions of the Semitic and pre-Semitic Middle East were,
from the earliest recorded times, thoroughly polytheistic. It is obvious that
ancient Jewish beliefs were derived from much older religions that were ALL polytheistic.
In the first place the Sumerian and Babylonian beliefs which were on their turn
most probably derived from very ancient stories.
Most stories written in the Bible we can find on clay tablets written in
Sumerian and Babylonian language and they are at least 2,000 years older then the
first written books of the Bible, including the stories written in Genesis. (see later
chapters)
Consider that in the Holy Books of all religions there are written stories
of other races and more then one God who lived on the Earth at the same time
with both man and men, Sons of God, Watchers, Nephilim, Seraphim, Giants etc.
(see also the Apocrypha book of Enoch, the Pseudepigrapha book of Jubilees and
many others).
What is in this case the reason why most religions are still skeptical about
the contents of these books and the clay tablets, myths, sages and legends?,
if they believe unconditionally in ALL stories of their Holy Books why do they
then still believe in one God, even if their Holy Books tell another story,
and why do they not believe the other written stories of which most are much
older then their own (most of the contents of their Holy Books are based on it)
?.
A simple example in Christian belief that there is more then one God (Spirit)
is that from the New Testament on is spoken of THE FATHER, THE SON and THE HOLY
SPIRIT. There is one more reason to be skeptical and that is the fact that there
are several differences between the Jewish and Christian translations of the
original scrolls. The answer to all these questions has not been given so far.
As mentioned before, even the translations of the scrolls differs from scholar
to scholar. They have often been changed in the past and also in recent times. During the last
2,500 years the Bible has been retranslated several times from the original text,
even the translation of the word GOD is still a problem as we
will see.
Differences between the Torah and the Christian Bible starts from the
first verses in Genesis 1, in the Torah is written:
Gn:1:1:'In the beginning Elohim created the heavens
and the earth'
And in the Christian Bible is written:
Gn:1:1: In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.
Let me first explain the meaning of God (EL) and God's (ELOHIM)
Elohim
Elohim is the common name for God.
It is a plural form, but 'The usage of the language gives no support to the
supposition that we have in the plural form Elohim, applied to the God of Israel,
the remains of an early polytheism, or at least a combination with the higher
spiritual beings.
'Elohim has been explained as a plural form of Eloah or as plural derivative
of El., Eloah grows out of Alah as El springs from Alah.
Dr.
Richley H. Crapo from the University of Utah (USA) explains it as follows
:
Who were the Original Elohim?
Genesis 1:1 tells us that 'In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and
the earth.' Of all the names given to God in the Hebrew Bible, Elohim is curious
because unlike the others it uses a plural noun to identify God, while the other
names, like El or Yahweh, are singular. Just why was the Hebrew God known both
as El ('God') and as Elohim ('Gods')? El Elyon, God the Most High.
Before the Hebrew Bible was written, the Semitic religions of the Middle
East (Sumerian and Acadian) universally distinguished between El, sometimes
called Bull El to emphasize his great power and fertility in his role as the
Father of the Gods, and the Great Assembly of those other gods, His children
?. (see later chapter 8 and 9).
He was also referred to as the Father of Years, and the Father of Humanity,
names that emphasize his role the antecedent and ultimate source of all things.
This name continued to be used for the Supreme God of the Hebrew religion in
biblical times, although it had also come to be used as a generic term meaning
'(a) god' as well. This expansion of a proper name for use as a general term
of reference in biblical Hebrew after about 1000 BCE can be seen as a step in
the direction toward monotheism.
While the Hebrew term El, is best understood as a title, meaning 'God', the
Supreme God of the Hebrews also had a personal name, Elyon (which is often rendered
as 'the Most High' in English, rendering its significance as a name opaque.
The Book of Enoch was a vital source of knowledge with regard to their former
existence, but I needed less tainted accounts of this apparent race of human
beings.
In the Apocalypse of Adam we can find more Gods such as:
1.'The Eternal God', 2.'The Creator God'
In the Apocalypse of Moses we can find more Gods such as:
'JA'EL' (YAHWEH and EL), 'Eternal King' and 'Lord'.
So there are many names for the Gods and most of them are different beings
as will be proven in this book.
Note: Although the Hebrew people continued to recognize
the existence of the gods of other nations, they viewed them as subordinate
to the God of Israel, and the use of His name as a generic term subsumed and
subordinated them much as 'Xerox has come to mean 'photocopy' or as any facial
tissue might be called 'a Kleenex' today'. The conclusion should be that Monotheism
is not original the ancient belief but exists only from about 1,000 BCE.
The only problem to, eventually, reconstruct the Bible still remains and
that is the fact that many of the other authentic books as mentioned above are
polytheistic in nature and can't be reconciled as canonical. With other words,
if some or all of these books should be added to the cannon the whole Christian,
Moslem and Jewish beliefs would fall of their pedestal.
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha books
I have already mentioned that I believe that most of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
books should be part of the Bible because most of them were originally written
before the Pentateuch (Enoch and others). Even in the book of Jubilees
is written about Enoch, so I will use verses from all books, including the Bible
to explain my opinion.
In the next chapters we will read several historical books together:
THE BIBLE
To make it easier to read the Bible together click
Here to open
a new window where you will find the Bible Word Search' Tool Searches the KJV
of the Bible.
Some Pseudepigrapha books are also named The Forgotten Books of Eden or Lost
Books of Eden
1.
THE FIRST BOOK
OF ADAM AND EVE
Short description: More in-depth detail about The Garden of Eden, where it was situated and
the life and times of Adam and Eve after they were expelled from the garden
of Eden to the time that Cain kills his brother Abel. It tells of Adam and Eve's
first dwelling - the Cave of Treasures -; their trials and temptations; Satan's
many apparitions to them; the birth of Cain, Abel, and their twin sisters; and
Cain's love for his beautiful twin sister, Luluwa, whom Adam and Eve wished
to join to Abel. Parts of this book are found in the Jewish Talmud, and the Islamic Koran,
showing what a vital role it played in the original literature of human wisdom
and religion.
2. THE SECOND
BOOK OF ADAM AND EVE
Short description: The story of the grief stricken family, Abel murdered, Cain marries Luluwa
and they move away. Seth warns his children to not interfere or to have contact
with the children of Cain.
3. THE BOOK
OF JUBILEES
Short description: The Book of Jubilees is in certain limited aspects the most important book
in this volume for the student of religion. Without it we could of course have
inferred from Ezra and Nehemiah, the Priests' Code, and the later chapters of
Zechariah the supreme position that the law had achieved in Judaism, but without
Jubilees we could hardly have imagined such an absolute supremacy as finds expression
in this book.
THE BOOK OF JUBILEES was known by two distinct titles even in Hebrew; (a) Jubilees (b) The Little Genesis (c) Apocalypse of Moses and other alleged
names of the book. (c) 1 The Apocalypse of Moses. 2 The Testament of Moses. 3 The Book of Adam's Daughters. 4 The Life of Adam and others.
Note: In jubilees is spoken about weeks (7 years) and
Jubilees (7*7= 49 years), so 1 jubilee is 49 years and 1 week is 7 years, (AM
= After Creation)
4. THE BOOK
OF ENOCH
Short description by: ANDREW COLLINS with my comments
The Book of Enoch tells the story of how 200 rebel angels, or Watchers, decided
to transgress the heavenly laws and 'descend' on to the plains and take wives
from among mortal kind. The site given for this event is the summit of Hermon,
a mythical location generally associated with the snowy heights of Mount Hermon
in the Ante-Lebanon range, north of modern-day Palestine (see below for the
most likely homeland of the Watchers).
The 200 rebels realize the implications of their transgressions, for they
agree to swear an oath to the effect that their leader Shemyaza would take the
blame if the ill-fated venture went terribly wrong. After their descent to the
lowlands, the Watchers indulge in earthly delights with their chosen 'wives',
and through these unions are born giant offspring named as Nephilim, or Nephilim,
a Hebrew word meaning 'those who have fallen', which is rendered in Greek translations
as gigantes, or 'giants'.
What are we to make of the Book of Enoch?. Are its accounts of the fall of
the Watchers and the visits to heaven by the patriarch Enoch based on any form
of historical truth?. Scholars and the Church fathers would say no. They believe
it to be a purely fictional work inspired by the Book of Genesis, in particular
two enigmatic passages in Chapter 6 of the book of Enoch. (see also later chapters of my book)
5 .
The Apocalypse
of Adam
Short description: The revelation which Adam taught his son Seth
in the seven hundredth year.
6.
The Apocalypse of Moses
Short description: The story of Adam and Eve after they had gone out of The Garden of Eden and
Paradise.
7. The Book
of Jasher
Short description: This book was once the start of the original Bible and must
have been written
before the time of Joshua and Samuel because both refers to this book (Josh
10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18).
8. The book of
Giants
Short description: The Book of Giants continues the story told in the
Book of Enoch,
relating how the Nephilim had coped with knowing that their imminent
destruction was due to the improprieties of their Watcher fathers.
And the many other forgotten books.
With the above in mind we will try to figure out together the existence of
several beliefs on Earth from earliest times until today.
In this book I will try to search for relations between the God's of the
cultures from all over the world and as especially the God's of the Middle East
and Europe (Jews, Sumerians, Acadians and Babylonians), India, Greece and Egypt.
