A Short History of the Bible
(The ever changing symphony of the Children of the Book)

All my life I have been involved with interesting people from all walks of life, most of them comprising a cross section of Christian, Jewish and Moslem traditions. All have one thing in common, and that is they all consider themselves the Children of the Book. The book they are referring to is the Bible which takes many forms for each tradition, and the underlying and often unspoken current that follows this book is one of correctness of the beholder's true faith, as translated for you many times by anyone who applies for an ordained minister's license for tax purposes (or other sought after perks). Both the Christian Bible and portions of the Koran are centered around the Torah (Pentateuch), which forms the basis of the Jewish Bible.

For both the Torah and the Koran, all things in reality started with a man called Abram, later to become more well known as Abraham, and God's first covenant with man by way of this famous patriarch. The Christian book really centers around Christ and God's second covenant or contract with man, but it had to go back through the Torah to prove the linage of Christ in order to make the prophesies of Moses come true. These prophesies were to prove the identity of the messiah, by way of the house of David, and were approximately 1800 years old. It must be remembered that the first Christians were a Jewish sect of so little note that if it were not for Roman records, any actual proof of the existence of the rabbi Jesus of Nazareth, or the result of his life of miracles and death, would simply be by word of mouth plus a few scattered letters written many years later. This little sect was actually dying out with unpopularity until Paul convinced the others involved to let the gentiles, or non-jewish people to participate in the religion. The one place the sect was fairly successful was amoung the Greek Jews, and the Greek people in general were very receptive to the idea of this new religion based on love and the brotherhood of man.

For the Jews, their religion really started with Moses, and for those of the Islamic world, with the Prophet Mohammed. In reality, the Prophet was far more supportive of Jesus than the Jews ever were, the latter who got around this little problem by denying Mohammed as well... The real problem with both The Prophet and Jesus seemed to be centered around money. The money lenders arranged to have Jesus crucified after his tirade against them in the temple, but by the time these crafty financial wizards realized Mohammed was of the same ilk, it was too late. The Romans legions were not around to back the powerful faction up, the Jews were too scattered to be a military force, and the Christians were still nonviolent. Mohammed kicked the Jewish tribes, money lenders and traders that were left in Arabia out of his little corner of the world, sending them packing back to Palestine or any place else that would accept them, for they still did not have a homeland. Merely consider all of the above a brief overveiw of the upcoming building of the Book ...

The farthest we can really get back to for the biblical genesis is 900-1000 years before Christ as older writings and stories which had been badly fragmented were rewritten, stories from the time of Moses and as far back as 1700-1800 B.C. (About 200 years previous in 1190 B.C. the bulk of our accumulated knowledge had been destroyed during what has been called and Invasion of the Sea Peoples, a definite misnomer if there ever was one, and a dark age existed for almost 400 years...). The first Old Testament was actually a product of the Greek Jews, and was called the Septuagint. As near as can be determined this first translation was put down as a canon, a canon being a collection of books by the same or different writers, at least 200 years before the Jews themselves did this at a council of rabbis called the Synod of Jamnia, which occurred in 90-100 A.D. In short, the first attempt at reconstruction of a religious Jewish history was not written by the Hebrews, but by the Greeks approximately in 100-200 B.C. By the time of the Synod at Jamnia, Israel had been long dispersed and the few Jewish centers left in the holy land had been crushed by the Romans, who had had enough of their trouble making. This happened long before Islam was founded.

The Christians assembled their book of the New Testament about the same time the Jews did, and again the Greeks took over, though possibly two of the books of the Christian canon were written in Aramaic and later translated into Greek. Both the Christians and the Jews relied on the Septuagint, but the Jews discarded some of the material which is thought to be related to the older religions. So did the Catholics later on in their version of the Bible called the Vulgate. This major overhaul by the Roman Church was completed by St. Jerome, (he was canonized later) having been commissioned by Pope Damasus to produce a standard text in Latin as it seems a mishmash of badly translated text had grown. It must be remembered that the letters of the apostles and disciples formed the basis of the New Testament and some were later proven to be forgeries. St Jerome threw out some of the Septuagint and referred to what was agreed upon by the rabbis at Synod at Jamnia for some of the text. It must be remembered the Jews still refused to believe Jesus was the messiah, but obviously there was hope they would ultimately come around, and it is highly speculated upon that politics was involved. This was the real primary reason the split between the Greek Orthodox (and the Slavic Orthodox churches) and Roman Catholics ultimately took place. One other thing had occured, and that was the fact the Jews would take over the finances and handling of the money for the Christians, who were convinced by someone close to the pope at the time that because of money and the way Jesus felt about it, it was unchristian to have anything to do with it. This edict was firmly in place about the time the Prophet entered the scene.

During this period of time, some of the oldest religions in the Mediterranean area were still being practiced but the old Greek and Roman gods were replaced by the current Children of the Book, who were coexisting nicely. Elsewhere in the Arabian Peninsula, old trade routes were losing trade and diminishing as the Jewish and Christian sects set up shop. The remnants of the pagan worshippers of the "Olden Gods" was living in the east, and the land had become less and less productive with the salting of the soils in these old Mesopotamian areas, (due to bad irrigation practices) something that had been happening for at least a couple of thousand years. In short, central Arabia was now a desert pagan area largely inhabited by waring nomadic tribes who began to lose what little Mediterranean trade they had left. In A.D. 570 an event took place that was ultimately going to eliminate the old religions forever, from a power standpoint. The Prophet Muhammad (also known as Mahomet or Mohammed) was born. (A.D. 570-632) His version of the Bible is called the Koran. (Quran)

Largely nomadic, one tribe called the Koreish had firmed out a power base at Mecca. One of the clans of the tribe, the Banu-Hashim (Ashimi), produced the man called The Prophet, who had began to hear voices and have visions which compelled him to tell his suddenly growing number of followers to worship the One God. In short the tribes were looking for something better then they had which was a collection of dieties that offered nothing in return. Ignored at first, the ruling faction of the Koreish suddenly became alarmed at Mohammed's growing power as the years went by, and in A.D. 622 the hegira, or migration took place. This was a very important event and the Prophet and his followers fled to what is now known as Medina. (Yathrib) This was another important center of the spice / incense trade, part of the route from India and Africa. Here he was given protection as his following grew rapidly by now. This was the year of the founding of the Muslim religion, and is more important than the actual birth of the man the called the Prophet.

The Prophet Mohammed did not claim to be the first of the Islam religion and the Koran covers this in detail. The first Muslims were Abraham, whom the Jews also claimed,the first biblical prophets which again were claimed by the Jews, along with Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles. By this time the Christians had their power base well set up in Rome as well as Greece, and the Jews were everywhere trade was located. Mohammed had to virtually start from scratch for his power base. By the time of his death, he had created an Islamic state, borrowing freely from all cultures, had broken with the Jewish tribes who refused to recognize him as a prophet, killing off the old blood feuds practiced by the Arabs by replacing existing ideology with teachings that paralleled those of Jesus. In short, love thy fellow Arab and this was done with very little bloodshed. From Medina with a sense of destiny for his people, he never lost touch with the common man. Unlike Jesus, (who was considered a prophet of Islam and not the son of God), Mohammed ruled as a beloved elder or patriarch, prophet, judge, law giver and commander-in-chief. After he died, and because he had no heirs, the power struggle commenced and the Muslim religious wars began. Previously the Christians and the Jews had discriminated against the Muslim, and now the shoe was on the other foot. The Muslim version of genesis also contains very interesting details that must be noted at another time...

At this point it would serve no purpose to speak of the wars of expansion by any of the religions. Many words have been written and many wrongs on both sides have been done for strictly political reasons. What is written here is to give you a feeling of the three religious factions that have caused more pain and suffering in 2000 years than anything seen previously in recorded history, all centered around a man called Jesus. Both Jesus and Mohammed preached a doctrine of love, and look what was done in their names. The culpret is something called power, and money had quite a bit to do with it also.

As for the "Unchanged book?"... In the tenth century A.D., Moses ben Asher rewrote the Jewish Bible as many mistakes in copying through the centuries had occurred. An Armenian version was turned out 100 years later by Rashi, complete with commentary and possible other interpretation. The Greek Orthodox steadfastly held on to the original Septuagint with few minor changes. Meanwhile as the power of the Roman Catholic Church increased, in 1592 by order of Pope Clement VIII, changes were made in the Vulgate Book of Psalms going back to the original version as compiled by St. Jerome before he bowed to the Jewish version, or so they say. Some things are lost in antiquity. In 1908 it was rewritten again and released in 1926. Meanwhile with every language translation and because of the Protestant reformation, words an meanings have been distorted. Never lose site of the fact the original writings by Moses were not even written in Hebrew, as there was no written Hebrew language at that time...

Translating language is a very intersting thing. Here is a case in point and we will do it in the english language. From the book of Matthew 6:9-13

A.D.1000 (West Saxon Gospels)
Faeder ure pu pe eart on heofonum; si pin nama gehalgod, to becume pin rice; gewwurpe din willa on coroan swa on heofonum. urne gedaeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg. forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfad urum gyltendum.ne gelaed pu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfle soplice.
A.D.1525 (Tyndale)
O oure father which art in heven, halewed by thy name. Let thy kingdom come. Thy will be fullfilled, as well in erth, as hit ys in heven. Geve vs this daye oure dayly breade. And forgeve vs oure treaspases, even as we forgeve them whych treaspas vs. Lede vs nott into temptacion, but delyvre vs from yvell. Amen.
A.D.1963 (New English Bible)
Our Father in heaven, Thy name be hallowed; Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, On earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us the wrong we have done, As we have forgiven those who have wronged us. And do not bring us to test, But save us from the evil one.

From the West Saxon version, I could not even get the proper looking letters in because they no longer exist... Now this is the English language base over 1000 years, and even then if you check out the "New Bible" and note all of the changes, and if you have ever read the Vulgate, Septuagint, Koran and Torah in the English language, you will see quite a difference. This is why the Dead Sea Scrolls are so important, because they are the oldest known Hebrew writings to date, and they are quite a mess of deteriorated fragments. After they are assembled, they have to be properly translated, and the worst people to handle the job are the people who are going to try to protect the basis of the three religions. The English version of the Lord's Prayer changed nine times in 1000 years, and I just gave you three of them. I did not personally change the Torah, nor did I change the Bible. These sacred books were changed by the very people who cry foul if such a thing is ever suggested.

Here is another much more modern example of communication problems: A woman takes her her teenager to a volcano visitor center and they watch the red lava run into the sea about dusk. In the youngster's excitement, he exclaims, "Oh wow, man! That is so cool it's gnarly!" ... First of all, his mother is a woman and not a man, second of all, by definition the volcano is hot so what does the word "cool" have to do with the scene. Thirdly, what does gnarly mean...? Then there is the word "wow"... If a tape was recorded at the time and 1000 years later with all the ensuing language changes some historian got his hands on it, and was able to decipher the label which was called "Our Volcano Trip", if the only words left on the tape was that of the youngster, what would the resulting thesis written from the tape read like?

In any case, the Bible starts with the first word and the most sacred part of the Book to the Jewish people is the Torah. We are back to The Book of Genesis, and all reputed to be written by Moses, dealing with Abraham's covenant to the Hebrews. Abram did not speak what evolved into Hebrew, he spent a goodly portion of his life in Hurran. Of the three used written languages, his choices were cuneiform, Canaanite, or Egyptian. When he beget Isaac, human sacrifice was still wide spread. Then came Jacob and Joseph, and it was he, who also lived in Egypt, that designated and named the twelve tribes. Moses was raised in Egypt and his schooling was from that country. His choice of languages, Canaanite, cuneiform, and Egyptian. The Hebrews he brought out of Egypt that could write had the same choices and it seemed Aaron and Joshua could write. The Hebrew written language that finally evolved came from Canaanite / Phoenician. The difference was the vowels were left out, a short hand so to speak. If we accept the time factors between Abraham and Moses, (B.C. 1996-1571 by Usher) language bases had 425 years to change as did writing. Now throw in the dark ages and bring on Samuel 250 years later and we have almost 700 years. Samuel did his best with what records could be found in the ashes of civilization and everything was destroyed again after the golden age of the Hebrews, the ages of David and Solomon. By B.C. 800, the Kingdom was divided into Israel and Judah, with the Assyrians crushing Israel around minus 700, and Judah falling to Babylon about 600 years before Christ. Again records were destroyed and the temple built by Solomon razed as the Hebrews trudged off into Babylonian exile.

Keep in mind the records were still not organized and were just a series of writings by this time which had been kept in the temple. About 500 B.C. Cyrus had the temple rebuilt, and he was a Persian but was said to be a friend of Yahweh, the Jewish God. The Golden Age of Greece was coming rapidly upon the scene and Herodatus, the western father of history, traveled the lands about 400 B.C. Everything was in ruins, including a good portion of Egypt, with the fabled cities of Babylon and Ur covered with sand or destroyed by war with the Persians, a mere memory, a puzzle he tried hard to piece together. Alexander the Great knocked off the Persians and his greatest goal was to rebuild what had been lost, but when he died reconstruction ceased and the next bunch that came through the door of Israel were the Romans. The Jews had quite a large colony in Greece by this time, and when the Romans annihilated the Macccabees, they did their best to destroy what remained of the many times fragmented records. This was when the Greek Jews gathered up what they could of the writings and wrote the Septuagint in Greek...

So there is your book, and it had so many disasters befall it and so many language changes as civilizations rose and fell that the overall picture is mind boggling. We did not even get into the Protestant versions which have their own tailored history. In the Lord's Prayer above, I just gave you one language to contend with a a very short paragraph to decipher over a mere 1000 years. From the time the Greeks rescued the book, the book the Jews had to use to make their own Bible, 5000 years of history had passed.

Does this mean you are not to put much faith in these various books? This is not the point! The point is to listen to the overall message. What is this thread of truth which has not been distorted, and why was the information considered important enough to die for, are the questions you should ask yourself. Do you know what really made Genesis so important? Linage! They tried to keep the family tree of the Messiah traced! Why? The Messiah has to appear in human form, by way of the man called Adam, through the path of Noah and on to Abraham and Jacob, by way of Judah, by way of House of David. The oldest prophecies called for this, and the only prophets used were those who survived the tests of long and short term predictions. All accepted were dream based predictions... One of the better places on the web to look into this is Noah's Ark. (Stan & Holly Deyo) Stan has spent years agonizing over all of the above, and he is no fool and neither is his wife. Trust his input and add it to the database of your mind... If someone scoffs at you for being "A Child of the Book" or ridicules you for receiving the "Light", merely look at it this way: At least you have something to comfort you, and they have nothing...

Modern society is relooking into the origins of man with better recovered records to draw upon, records that Abraham used, and these records were so important they were baked in clay when the Egyptians were still mere primitives. The Bible tells you right were to go to get these important records. The Bible tells you to do what Abraham did, and travel to Ur...

 

Sincerely, Allen D. Furford