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DID MOSES
WRITE THE BOOK
OF GENESIS?

The promiscuous editing of Genesis -
Spinoza and the story of Judah


      If Moses wrote the Torah in the Bible, and if Moses was the famous author of Genesis then it must be explained why the story of Judah has obviously been edited in an awkward manner, with separate sources brought together in an arrangment that is not logical and makes no sense. Who wrote the Bible, and in particular who wrote the book of Genesis. The editing of the story of Judah in Genesis provides one of the finest examples of redaction criticism and source criticism in the Bible, and was first analyzed by Spinoza centuries ago (Spinoza often being called the father of modern Biblical analysis). The story of Judah in Genesis is just one example of so many others, which demonstrates that Moses, or no other single author, wrote the Torah, or the book of Genesis.

      There are conflicts between manuscripts and conflicts within individual works. Genesis was composed of variant source materials. Numerous doublets occur (the same story told in different versions) and there are also clear indications of the spinning together of variant traditions. For the following, I tip my hat to Spinoza. The story of Judah and Tamar is found in Genesis chapter 38, and has been inserted awkwardly into the Joseph narrative (it interrupts the flow, and the difficulties it introduces indicates that it was appended from an entirely separate body of source material and that the choice of the spot of insertion was made arbitrarily).

      Joseph was sold to the Egyptians by the Midianites.

"At about that time Judah went down from his brethen." (Genesis Chapter 38 verse 1)

      This cannot refer to what immediately precedes this statement, but something else.

      Consider the following. From the time that Joseph was sold to when Jacob went to Egypt, 22 years passed. Joseph was 17 when sold as a slave to the Egyptians and he was 30 when Pharaoh called him from prison. Add seven years of plenty, and two years of famine before Jacob arrived and you get a total of 22 years. In this brief period the following events must have taken place ...

      Judah married at the beginning of this period and had three children from one wife. The oldest then married, died, and his brother succeeded him (the famous Onan 'seed spilling' story). Then Judah had intercourse with his daughter-in-law. Having found her by the side of the road, he assumed she was a harlot. She bore twins from this union and then the oldest twin became a father, and all of this in 22 years. (Judah hypocritically decided that she should be burned to death for playing the harlot, but relented). When Jacob came to salute Pharaoh, he was 130 years old. Deduct 22 years of sorrow for Joseph, 17 years for his age, and 7 years of service for Rachel, and Jacob must have been 84 when he married Leah. Dinah would have been 7 when raped by Shechem and Simon and Levi would have been 11 and 12 when they spoiled the city in revenge. From all this Spinoza drew the OBVIOUS conclusion that the source materials were 'promiscuously' collected and tossed into a heap.


MORE PAGES LIKE THIS ONE: DID MOSES WRITE THE BIBLE?

Conflicting accounts of the Exodus

Historical contradictions in the story of Balaam

The two Abrahams

Where were the religious shrines located?

Authors Unknown

Variant traditions

The two versions of the flood story

Bizarre inconsistencies in the story of the tower of Babel

Jacob and the multiple traditions of Bethel

Conflicting Genealogies

The resurrection of the giants

The two stories of creation

Back to the future. Passages Moses could not have written.


RELATED ESSAYS

The story of the Golden calf, and the two versions of the story of the Ten Commandments

Contradictions on the inerrancy of the Bible in the Gospel of Matthew

Factions in the Levitical Priesthood

The radical prophets and the early church rejected Moses as the author of the Torah

The late dating of the composition of the Torah. When were the Torah laws composed?

Two separate traditions

For summary of what I believe and why I believe it, visit my Site Summary page...


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A Unified Field Theory

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The Unified Field Theory
is also available as a zip file -> unified.zip

Introduction :The Pioneer Effect and the New Physics. A brief description of the new physics required to explain the 'Pioneer Effect', which is the constant deceleration of space craft as they fly through space.







Principles of Evolution: A Study in the Evolution of Bedbugs


A couple of years ago my bedroom was invaded by bedbugs. There were two variant genetic lines. One type of bedbug was an enlongated, thin, tubular insect, and the second genetic line was a flat, perfectly circular insect. The result of the cross breeding of these two genetically distinct variants was the production of a bedbug with charcteristics of both, an enlongated, flat bedbug with a central bulge (such that the shape of the bedbug was somewhere between 'long' and 'circular'). The long skinny bedbugs were such strange and unfamiliar looking insects that at first I did not recognize them as being bedbugs, and considered them to be a seperate species of insect. However, as the photographs of bedbugs above indicate, enlongated and skinny bedbugs are not uncommon, and the photographs also show the variants that are produced by genetic combinations that result in an insect somewhere in between 'circular' and 'enlongated'.

Therefore it is my hypothesis that evolution occurs by means of the transfer of dominate genes, with the production of such dominant genes being the product of 'biological algorithms', a genetic software program that brings physical characteristics into harmony with behavior, such that when behavior changes, and a conflict then exists, this acts as a trigger and causes the release of dominant genes. The result is rapid evolution of species. The bedbug is a relatively new insect, not the product of millions of years of evolution but rather an insect that is evolving in real time. The newly emerging dominant form of the insect is the flat, round ciruclar insect, well adapted to living in human bedrooms (it is flat, rather than tubular, thus allowing it to hide in the smallest cracks, living a stealthy lifestyle, and it is round, which gives the insect a maximum storage capacity such that it must endanger itself only a few times a month by emerging to feed.

Other examples of rapid evolution include the development of long legs in an invasive species of toad in Australia. As the toads move into the mountainous regions of Australia, and their behvaior changes, making them 'climbing toads', over the course of just a couple of decades the toads in the highlands have grown long legs specially adapted to climbing. It is worth noting here that the toads are poisonous, and are a successful invasive species because they have no natural predators in Australia, and so it would not be the case that the toads with long legs were 'the fittest survivors', because all the toads are survivors, and therefore predation does not explain the rapid emergence and spread of such well adapted, long legged toads. Once again we see evidence for the existence of biological algorithms and the rapid spread of dominant genes through a population, which once introduced proceed to overwhelm the older genes which are being replaced (making toad long legged and a bed bug round and flat).


A Theological Experiment

My interest in pursuing the Unified Field Theory is spurred on by my need to discover the theoretical explanation of a new form of propulsion (as explained on this page: Why the Unified Field Theory?). The experiment involving the bedbugs came out of nowhere.

I also believe that it is possible to justify theological propositions using experimental methods. If a thing is an objective truth then it can be verified and proven true by means of experimentation. Such a theological proposition is of more value than a ‘divine revelation’, since such revelations depend upon nothing more than establishing authority figures which requires the creation of artificial hierarchies, for the only reason why I might be encouraged to believe an authority figure who orders me to believe unsubstantiated opinions is if I could somehow be convinced that this authority possessed a mind that was somehow superior to mine, and thus was fit to express opinions as though opinions were unquestionable facts and thus worthy of being elevated to the status of absolute dogma.

There is a self evident human inequality which is visibly apparent. Some people are ‘beautiful’ and thus are the true elite on this planet, and some people are not. It is this sexual inequality and the degeneration that follows upon beauty that is the true driving force behind all the evil that happens on earth. The need for ruthless oppression and the pursuit of wealth and the consequent creation of suffering and poverty which must follow upon this practice is for the purpose of creating an artificial alpha elite.

The true elites are the young and the beautiful. The artificial elite are the rich and the wealthy. The elite aging rich artificial alpha male has no good looks, for he is physically degenerate, but he will be found escorting beauty because he has a beautiful wallet. If he loses his wallet he will be found at home with all the other unattractive aged beta males sitting in a rocking chair watching reruns of Bonanza. No money, no sex. It is for this reason that the alpha males are found to be so ruthless and so violent in pursuit of their goal. The alpha male has fallen. The beta male has arisen and now the whole planet is full of ruinous destruction for it.

We see in religion a confused and contradictory reaction to this reality. On the one hand religion preaches a sexless heaven where castration and the clitorectomy create ‘pure spirits’. Muslims throw women under sacks. On the other hand religion supports hierarchy and is the prop of the elite alpha male. It is for this reason that religion is incoherent when it comes to speaking about sex.

Now we see this same principle at work in all of nature. Guppies dance and show off their colorful tails and the guppy who dances with the most colorful tail is the sexually successful guppy. Therefore it is the doctrine of the ruthless oppressor which teaches that the solution to human sexual violence is to be found in castration and the creation of pure ghosts. This would be equivalent to damning an aardvark for having the ‘sinful aardvark nature’ or prosecuting an anteater for the high crime of ‘ant genocide’.

Therefore it was my theological hypothesis that the correct solution to this problem is to give every guppy a beautiful colorful tail. I compare this solution to the classic religious solution which is to cut off every tail since having a tail is ‘sinful’. If having a tail is sinful then God must be sinful for no human being has any choice in deciding whether or not they would be born with a colorful tail, or whether they would not.

When I was young I was a beautiful guppy with a lovely tail. So everyone seemed to think. I am older now. My nose became very badly sunburned and destroyed. It seemed good to me to test my hypothesis by using these ‘biological algorithms’ to correct this problem. I healed half my nose as you can see by the line separating the still very dark patch on the side in the photograph below.





I documented my experiment on these pages. one two t hree four fi ve six


I have confirmed to my own satisfaction that my theological proposition is correct and that religious dogma is erroneous, being based as it was upon nothing more than ‘divine revelation’ which is just a form of opinionated speculation. For the time being I am not continuing this experiment, for I must wait until the weather on this planet improves, and the dark clouds of ruthless oppression break letting a little sun shine come through so that I can show the world the truth about God, by showing people how God goes about giving an old guppy back his beautiful colorful tail.


Until then I will have to sit on the sidelines, while all my scientific breakthroughs are deliberately ignored, while I wonder to myself what ever in the world could be wrong with the human race, because what this all will prove at the end of it all is that there definitely was something wrong with the people on this planet.