The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
rgprice
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The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by rgprice »

The majority of scholars view works like the stories of Enoch, Jubilees, and Gnostic accounts of the creation as later interpretations of Genesis, that essentially take Genesis as their starting and then develop new ideas from what they found in Genesis. However, there are reasons to think, instead, that Genesis along with these other works, are all drawing on a common mythology and that Genesis is a censored interpretation commonly held Semitic traditions. In such a view, Enoch, Gnosticism, etc., are not "radical reinterpretations of Genesis", rather, Genesis is a radical reinterpretation of Semitic tradition, while Enoch, etc., may be seen as corrections to the radical nature of Genesis.

I think this is very important for understanding the origins of Christology.

When we compare Genesis with works like Enoch, Jubilees, etc., what we find are many examples where it appears like some very short passage in Genesis was greatly expanded upon by some later writer. But is this really what was happening, or is what we find in Enoch, Jubilees, etc., a fuller account the original story, which Genesis has redacted?

Example:

Genesis 6:
6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.


Jubilees V:
And it came to pass when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them, that the angels of God 186  saw them on a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look upon; and they took themselves wives of all whom they chose, and they bare unto them sons and they were giants.187   2. And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way,188  alike men and cattle and beasts and birds and everything that walketh on the earth-all of them corrupted their ways and their orders, and they began to devour189  each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and every imagination of the thoughts of all men (was) thus evil continually.190  
3. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, and all flesh had corrupted its orders, and all that were upon the earth191  had wrought all manner of evil before His eyes. 4. And He said: "I shall destroy man and all flesh upon the face of the earth which I have created." 5. But Noah found grace before the eyes of the Lord.192   6. And against the angels whom He had sent upon the earth, He was exceedingly wroth, and He gave commandment to root them out of all their dominion, and He bade us to bind them in the depths of the earth, and behold they are bound in the midst of them, and are (kept) separate. 7. And against their sons went forth a command from before His face that they should be smitten with the sword, and be removed from under heaven. 8. And He said "Thy spirit will not always abide 193  on man; for they also are flesh and their days shall be one hundred and twenty years."


Enoch 6:
1 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto 2 them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men 3 and beget us children.' And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not 4 indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations 5 not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.' Then sware they all together and bound themselves 6 by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn 7 and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And these are the names of their leaders: Samlazaz, their leader, Araklba, Rameel, Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqijal, 8 Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaqiel, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, Sariel. These are their chiefs of tens.

7:
1 And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms 2 and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they 3 became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells: Who consumed 4 all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against 5 them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and 6 fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.

...
10:
Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted 9 through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.' And to Gabriel said the Lord: 'Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in 10 battle: for length of days shall they not have. And no request that they (i.e. their fathers) make of thee shall be granted unto their fathers on their behalf; for they hope to live an eternal life, and 11 that each one of them will live five hundred years.' And the Lord said unto Michael: 'Go, bind Semjaza and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves 12 with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is 13 for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and 14 to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all 15 generations. And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because 16 they have wronged mankind. Destroy all wrong from the face of the earth and let every evil work come to an end: and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear: and it shall prove a blessing; the works of righteousness and truth' shall be planted in truth and joy for evermore.

And on Enoch goes with more about all this.

The point here is that in Genesis, repeatedly, blame for sin is placed squarely on humans, in both the story of Eden and the Flood. We see throughout the Torah, blame being put on women in particular for various ills. Yet, in Jubilees, Enoch, Gnostic literature, and other apocrypha, we find often that blame is instead put on heavenly beings. The sources of sin and temptation in many apocryphal works are angels, demons, spirits, etc. yet these are almost entirely absent from the Torah.

But in many places, such as this example, the story in Genesis looks incomplete. The tradition view is that Genesis was a full accounting or was the point of origin at least, for the apocryphal accounts, i.e. that writers or theologians read Genesis, got their ideas from Genesis, and then expanded upon what Genesis said, developing new ideas.

But the more I read all of the material the more I do not think this was the case. It seems to me that Genesis is actually the radical divergence from what was a more broadly known mythology, and that what we find in Enoch, Jubilees, etc., reflects older traditions that pre-date Genesis. It may be that Enoch, Jubilees, etc. were written after Genesis, but it seems to be that those writers were trying to "set the story straight" by recording the original mythology from which Genesis diverged.

In so many places in Genesis the story looks redacted and shortened, like it is leaving out many details and glossing over what must have been some longer narrative. Many points are left unsaid, and much needs to be inferred. Yet we get details in the apocrypha, and those details seems to make logical (theologically) sense in ways that the Genesis account actually doesn't.

If this is the case, then movements like the Gnostics and the Pauline ministry have to be understood in this context. And when we read the Gospels, we also have to understand them in the context of these disputes. This is particularly true of Mark.

In the Gospel of Mark, for example, women are portrayed particularly positively, Satan and his minions are trivialized, and blame is placed on the temple priests (who were men). The male disciples are also portrayed negatively.

In much of the apocryphal literature, such as Enoch, Jubilees, etc., there are parallels drawn between the origin and the end. It is clear that understanding the origin is essential for understanding the end and vice versa. Accounts of the origins of the world and sin shape the understanding of the ultimate fate of mankind. Likewise, accounts of the end necessarily imply a model of origins.

So what does Mark tell us about origins? The Gospel of Mark implies a certain model of origins. The Gospel of Mark does not accept the Genesis account of origins. Women are not the source of sin. But Mark also rejects Enoch. Satan is not the problem either. The blame falls on the men. The "teachers of the law" are the ones in error, they receive the blame.

Now, Martyrdom of Isaiah falls in line with Jubilees. In MoI Satan/Belial is the source of the problems and is the adversary that Jesus must defeat. This is certainly much more traditional. But in Mark, which I think was written after MoI, the writer has gone out of his way to demonstrate that Satan and his minions were not the problem. Likewise the writer goes out of his way to show that women were not the problem. The problem is the Jewish leadership in the end, which implies that the Jewish leadership are also the origin of sin. I think the writer of Mark was intentionally addressing these concepts of the origin of sin.
rgprice
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by rgprice »

I'd like to get some feedback on this, as this is going to be a major point in the book I'm working on.

The way I see it, the theological problems we find in first century Judaism, such as conflict over who the "lord of this world" really was (God or Satan), whether there were two powers or just one, the need for a "holy spirit" or "presence" of God that could act on his behalf, the origins of sin, attitudes toward prophecy, the status of the law, etc., all of which we find in the various conflicts between the factions, such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, people like Philo and the Gnostics. All of this emanates from the fact that the Torah and Temple Judaism were in fact relatively recent reforms of originally more diverse Semitic religious traditions.

The Deuteronomist version of Judaism that we find in the Jewish canon wasn't actually some ancient religion that had been established for thousands of years, it was something that was invented in the 4th or 3rd century BCE. The Deuteronomist reformers who created the Torah and established the particular brand of Judaism that was associated with the Temple had a specific agenda and they put forward what was at that time a radical and narrow reinterpretation of Semitic religion. This coincided, no doubt, with Alexander's conquest of the Persian empire, when things were in turmoil and the priesthood that was in power under the Persians sized an opportunity to take broader control of the region as Persian authority crumbled and left a power vacuum that wasn't really dealt with until the so-called Maccabean revolt.

At any rate, the point is that all of this conflict and diversity that we find in early Judaism was a product of the fact that Judaism wasn't actually an ancient well established religion. These various different movements and interpretations that we see were likely not all simply divergent from "true Judaism", but rather, they were remnants of pre-Deuteronomist/Temple Judaisms.

What we find in works like Jubilees and Enoch are not simply re-imaginings of the Torah, they are actually records of traditions that pre-date the Torah. They are recordings of the original traditions that the Deuteronomist reformers revised. Likewise with the Gnostics. Gnosticism very likely draws upon pre-Deuteronomist Semitic religious traditions, and makes the claim that the Deuteronomistic Jews had developed a set of falsehoods that misrepresented the truth about the story of Creation and the origin of sin. This is, in fact, true, because the Deuteronomist reformers took polytheistic Semitic traditions in which sin and death originated from the gods themselves, and changed the stories to place the blame for sin and death on humans, particularly women.

I think it is within this context that we have to read the Pauline letters. The original version of the Pauline letters, what appears to be the actual core of the works, is likewise operating within this framework, where the writer is working from a non-Deuteronomist version of Judaism.
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John T
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by John T »

rgprice wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:20 am I'd like to get some feedback on this, as this is going to be a major point in the book I'm working on....

...The Deuteronomist version of Judaism that we find in the Jewish canon wasn't actually some ancient religion that had been established for thousands of years, it was something that was invented in the 4th or 3rd century BCE. ...

...What we find in works like Jubilees and Enoch are not simply re-imaginings of the Torah, they are actually records of traditions that pre-date the Torah. They are recordings of the original traditions that the Deuteronomist reformers revised....
I don't see where you factored in the Essenes.
You should reconsider and factor in the influence of the Enochic Jews with known history. Tiglat-pileser III Assyrian campaign in 734 BCE turned Israel into a vassal state. People were taken from Israel and transplanted (lost ten tribes) to Media and people from the Euphrates region were moved in to replace them. The diaspora Jews became the Enochic Jews a.k.a. Essenes. Upon their return after the Maccabaean revolt, the Essenes attempted reconciliation with the Sadducee's but failed under the wicked priest of the Hasmonaean monarchy of 134-63 BCE.

The Rabbinic Jews created Jubilees in direct competition with the Enochic Jews account regarding Genesis. Upon the extermination of the Essenes by the Romans in 68 CE, the writings of the Northern Tribes all but vanished. The Old Testament was not canonized by the Rabbinic Jews until after the New Testament was in wide circulation.

Once again, failure to factor in the Essenes is like painting a portrait without a full pallet of primary colors. :cheers:
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by Giuseppe »

curiously, also the mythicist Samuel Lublinski thought that the speculations about Genesis were at the origin of the Christian myth. In particular, the 'heretical' Book of Baruch (see pseudo-Hyppolitus for references) preserves what was probably an old myth where Jesus was tempted (without success) by the Genesiac Serpent and crucified directly by him. Lublinski's views are available here. In whiletime, Neil will digitalize another Lublinski's book I have sent him.
rgprice wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 5:42 am The problem is the Jewish leadership in the end, which implies that the Jewish leadership are also the origin of sin. I think the writer of Mark was intentionally addressing these concepts of the origin of sin.
I also would insist very much on Mark being decisive in the so-called parting of the ways. In addition to be separationist, Mark's supercessionism woud have the exact potential to justify the mention of Pilate.
Giuseppe
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by Giuseppe »

The Fall of the first man was an accident, according to Genesis: the creator had not predicted the bad choice of Adam.

Also the death of Jesus was an accident in Mark, since even God himself is portrayed deliberately as a failed prophet :

Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will RESPECT my son.’

(12:6)
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Leucius Charinus
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by Leucius Charinus »

rgprice wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 5:20 amI'd like to get some feedback on this, as this is going to be a major point in the book I'm working on.
The scope referenced in the first two posts covers practically all of Christian and Jewish biblical literature from the Torah to Enoch to the "Old Testament Apocrypha" to the letters of Paul and finally to the "Gnostics" and the "New Testament Apocrypha" like the "Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah". That's ambitious and potentially covers more than six centuries of ancient history. With the exception of "Ecclesiastical History" this is all of Christian and Jewish literature from antiquity.

As feedback I'd have questions:

(1) In response to:
What we find in works like Jubilees and Enoch are not simply re-imaginings of the Torah, they are actually records of traditions that pre-date the Torah. They are recordings of the original traditions that the Deuteronomist reformers revised.
Russell Gmirkin's books and thesis concern the creation of the Genesis accounts. Do you accept this thesis or do you accept some variation of the documentary hypothesis? I could not determine your position on the beginning of your study.


2) Where does your roadmap start and end? It seems that at least part of your focus is on "the theological problems we find in first century Judaism". The letters of Paul most likely fit in here somewhere should you be following traditional Pauline chronology.

3) With the "Gnostics" you are dealing with a time span that must lead you into the 4th century where the physical production of codices (exemplified by the NHL and the earliest Greek NT codices) was a technological reality.

4) Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier have made much of the role of the "Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah" in their reconstructions of Christian origins. What will be your approach to the role of this text?
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by schillingklaus »

Of course only in profoundly Judaized myths, the serpent is an enemy of the saviour; whereas in the original version, the serpent is exactly the saviour. In pre-gnostic Judaism, the serpent is just a ill-behaving natural animal, as still the case for Flavius Josephus. Only in reaction to gnosticist ophiolatry did the serpent become associated with supernatural evil.

Traditional Pauline chronology is absurd, whence only superstitionists still believe in authentic epistles.

Genesis is more original as it knows no named angels but only anonymous sons of God.
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John T
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by John T »

Again, to dismiss the Dead Sea Scrolls is to misunderstand the relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts.
Which came first, the book of Jubilees or Amram?

Amram the father of Moses saw the devil in the form of a serpent.

The Testament of Amram. 4Q545

(I saw Watchers) in my vision, a dream vision, and behold two (of them) argued about me and said...and they were engaged in a great quarrel concerning me. I asked them: "You, what are you...thus...[about me?'] They answered and [said to me: 'We have been made m]asters and rule over all the sons of men.' And they said to me: 'Which of us do you [choose...']
I raised my eyes ans saw one of them. His looks were frightening [like those of a vi]per, and his [ga]rm[en]ts were multi-coloured and he was extremely dark... And afterwards I looked and behold...by his appearance and his face was like that of an adder, and he was covered with...together, and his eyes...this [Watcher]: 'Who is he?' He said to me: 'This Wa[tcher]...[and his threee names are...]and Melkiresha'.'...
rgprice
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by rgprice »

Leucius Charinus wrote: Sat Aug 20, 2022 6:10 pm (1)
Russell Gmirkin's books and thesis concern the creation of the Genesis accounts. Do you accept this thesis or do you accept some variation of the documentary hypothesis? I could not determine your position on the beginning of your study.
Yes, I agree with Gmirkin's thesis. I also add in the thesis of Margaret Barker in her The Great Angel. I think both scholars are essentially correct. The Torah, and hence Judaism as we know it, was created after the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander. This is really when what we call Judaism was "invented". Prior to that, there were descendants of Israelites living in under Persian rule, who worshiped Yahweh exclusively. Prior to the Persian conquest, however, nothing resembling Judaism existed. The Persians are the one that essentially cultivated the monotheistic cult of Yahweh, which fit with Zoroastrianism and served to limit the voices potential opponents. With only one God, whose priests were subservient to the Persians, the number of religious leaders could be kept under control, without opposing priests to potentially promote alterative political positions.

But when the Persians fell, there was need for the Judahite priesthood to establish credibility among their new masters, the Greeks. And they wanted as much autonomy as possible, which required convincing the Greeks that they were an ancient nation whose roots extended far back in time, with ancient laws and an ancient royal line. All of these things could be used to support the claim that as a group they were capable of self-administration, and thus could be granted some level of autonomy as opposed to simply being fully integrated and re-educated into Greek life.

But the priesthood that created the Torah at this time did draw upon real Israelite and Canaanite religious lore. The Israelites were, it seems, a tribe of Canaanites. But the Israelites were not actually Jews, they knew nothing about Moses or 12 tribes or anything like that.

Now, it seems to me that when the Torah was created, the Torah itself put forward a very radical interpretation of Israelite religion. And knowledge of the older traditions would have persisted for some time outside the bounds of official temple Judaism.
2) Where does your roadmap start and end? It seems that at least part of your focus is on "the theological problems we find in first century Judaism". The letters of Paul most likely fit in here somewhere should you be following traditional Pauline chronology.
It starts in the 13th century BCE and covers Canaanite and Israelite religion and archaeology. I then go into the development of Judaism under Gmirkin's model, pulling in many more resources than what Gmirkin himself puts forward and going into other details he doesn't consider. I talk a lot about the relationship between El the Father and and the sons of El, particularly Yahweh as a son of El. I address the way that Jews such a Philo and others Jews were struggle to interpret the Jewish scriptures that still contained vestiges of polytheism and how they tried to deal with the many aspects of the Jewish scriptures that hinted at the fact that "God" was composed of two entities, because the God of the Jewish scriptures is in fact an amalgamation of El the Father and Yahweh the Son. Philo evidently had some understanding of this, though he didn't really know the root causes. But Philo could see that the God of the Jewish scriptures was really two entities, which he describes as God the Father and the Logos his Son. Other Jews used terms like the Memra of God and the Angel of Yahweh to separate out the roles that were originally distinguished between El and Yahweh. The Pauline letters, I believe, originated from someone who was re-establishing the distinction between God the Father (El) and his son the Lord (Yahweh), whom Paul calls the Lord Jesus.

In the original Israelite mythology, El remained in high heaven, while Yahweh came down to earth to act on behalf of his father. Yahweh fought for the Israelites. Yahweh came down to actually punish people. Yahweh negotiated with people on his Father's behalf, etc.
3) With the "Gnostics" you are dealing with a time span that must lead you into the 4th century where the physical production of codices (exemplified by the NHL and the earliest Greek NT codices) was a technological reality.
Yes, I do go into the 4th and fifth centuries, but I place the origin of the "Gnostics" in the first century, perhaps following the First Jewish-Roman War. I think there is ample evidence to indicate that the origins of Gnosticism lie in the first century. I think Gnosticism originated among disenchanted Jews who had knowledge of Israelite traditions that pre-dated the Torah. They concluded that the Torah was misguided propaganda, and that in fact Yahweh was a liar, who wasn't actually the only God. Either Yahweh was himself a fool who thought he was the only God or Yahweh lied, knowing that he wasn't the only God. He tricked Moses into believing that he was the only God. This view may have originated in God-fearing communities of mixed Jewish and Gentile congregations or scriptural study groups. Regardless, Yahweh is the one that created the world, but his creation is flawed, either out of ineptitude or malice. Either way he is not worthy of worship.
4) Earl Doherty and Richard Carrier have made much of the role of the "Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah" in their reconstructions of Christian origins. What will be your approach to the role of this text?
Yeah, I think Ascension of Isaiah records a narrative that pre-dates any of the canonical Gospels. Whether Ascension of Isaiah itself was written down prior to the Gospels is a different matter, but I think it is record of a narrative that pre-dates any other Gospels. And I think the writer of the first recognizable Gospel, whether that be Mark or Marcion or something else similar, knew the narrative from Ascension of Isaiah and was working from it.

I think the original writer of the first Pauline letters knew of a narrative very similar to Ascension of Isaiah.

But here is the thing I'm driving at in this post.

Genesis 6:1-8 looks like a truncated version of a longer story. It is clearly glossing over many details. Even my Harper Collins Study Bible says, "It seems that an older traditional story has been truncated by J to serve as another step in the spread of chaos and transgression that gave rise to the flood."

Indeed, this does very much appear to be the truncation of a longer traditional story. BUT, we have two longer versions of this story, the ones from Jubilees and 1 Enoch. This would then indicate that the writers of Jubilees and Enoch had knowledge of traditional stories that the writers of the Torah had intentionally modified. Thus, the writers of Jubilees and Enoch were "setting the record straight", providing details that the writes of the Torah had intentionally omitted. This is very different from thinking that the writer of Jubilees and Enoch were just makin up new details on their own to fill out the story from the Torah.

And this gets directly at the issue of Gnosticism. Because if the writers of Jubilees and Enoch were filling in details that they knew were part of the original story, but had been left out, then that means the Gnostics also could have been working from an understanding of the "original mythology" that they knew had been misrepresented by the writers of the Torah and was being misrepresented by Temple Judaism. This is, in fact, what Margaret Barker proposes.
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John T
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Re: The relationship between Genesis and apocryphal accounts...

Post by John T »

rgprice wrote: Mon Aug 22, 2022 11:31 am
Yes, I agree with Gmirkin's thesis. I also add in the thesis of Margaret Barker in her The Great Angel. I think both scholars are essentially correct. The Torah, and hence Judaism as we know it, was created after the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander. This is really when what we call Judaism was "invented".
Thank you for your honesty.

John T is done with this thread.
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