Contradictions in the Holy Texts

May 12, 2009, 8:39 am by dc-agape.

The Vision of Amram

The next “Last Words of…” will be from Amram.  You might be wondering who this person is, and if you follow the birth of Moses very closely you might even have a chance of remembering him.  He was the eldest son of Kohath and only mentioned in the Word of God as that and the father of Moses.  He took no actions within the history of the Jewish people, yet his clan, the Amramites, is mentioned many times.  Oddly, Amram is only mentioned twice in the Book of Exodus (Exodus 6:18-20).    So I can treat this as an opening to the book of Exodus.

Even though this Tractate in principle follows the Last Words of Levi and the Last Words of Kohath I would rather leave the Last Words of Levi to the end of this series.  All three Tractates are fragmentary, but the Last Words of Levi is the longest and most complex.  Many fragments exist, with many special topics; this may take more than one post.

The opening verses from this Tractate conflict with the Word of God.  In Exodus 12:40 the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt.  Yet the opening claims that Amram lived for 136 years and died in the 152 year of the Israelite presence in Egypt.  So that would make Moses at least 294 years old when he freed the Israelites from slavery!  Yet in Deut 34:7 Moses died at the age of 120 years.  This Tractate puts the entire Book of Exodus into question.  Which document is telling the truth?  Is either document correct?

But it gets better!  We know that Amram marries his Jochebed, aunt (Exodus 6:20), but here we have the story of how Amram gives Miriam (his daughter) to Uzziel (his brother).  So at least within the Tribe of Levi, the one’s set aside to be spiritual leaders this is Traditional Biblical Marriage.  We are supposed to marry our aunts and our nieces!  Now isn’t that a conundrum for those who take the Word of God literally!  Not only do we know that genetically this is has horrific consequences but the Word of God itself contradicts this concept in Lev 18:12-13.

The next section is where Amram prophecies about Moses’ (using the name Malachijah) and Aaron’s calling by the Angel of YHWH.  Not in the sense that they will, together, free the people of Israel from Egypt, but that only they have a special calling.  The next section explains why this text does not see the Israelite’s presence in Egypt as slavery.

Kohath, Jochebed, Amram and many other Israelites left Egypt to bury their ancestors in Hebron.  To say the least, slaves would not be allowed to travel back to their homelands to treat their dead in such respectful ways.  So in this story of Exodus, slavery was not part of the history of Israel!  This section goes on to describe the war between Egypt, Philistine, and Canaan.  Since Hebron is in Canaan this is more proof that the Israelites were not slaves to the Egyptians.  As this story goes the Egyptians lost the war and Amram was not able to return to Egypt and his wife for 41 years, even though he desired to return to the land of his slavery?

The beginning of the vision of Amram starts with his seeing two “angels”.  He discovers that he must choose between which one of the two angels will have authority over him.  One angel is hostile, frightening, and very dark.  The other was pleasant, and smiling.  Guess which one Amram chooses?  Here the evil Angel is called Malki-Resha while the good Angel is called, of all things, Melchizedek!  Malki-Resha only appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  No other religion or sect of Judaism recognizes this being.  Later in this section of the Tractate, we discover that, as you can already imagine, Malki-Resha is the evil angel and Melchizedek is the good angel. 

A conversation begins between Amram and Melchizedek.  This conversation is about the choices that future generation will have to make and the consequences of those choices.  As can be imagined, those who choice to be ruled by Melchizedek become children of the light and will live for eternity.  On the other hand those who choice to be ruled by Malki-Resha will be children of darkness and will be destined to destruction.  Notice that the evil children of darkness will not suffer for eternity, no they will be destroyed!  Hell still does not exist in this Jewish sect.

The conversation turns towards Aaron and Moses.  A promise is made that Moses (and/or Aaron) will become holy priests.  Along with this will come YHWH’s favor and all future generations will exalt him as a priest over everyone in the world.  It’s a shame that prophecy didn’t happen.  I guess some of YHWH promises just never happen!

The Vision of Amram ends when he returns to his wife-aunt and tells his entire family what he has learned.  It’s a pretty ending to a pretty story, but can we take any of it as “truth”.  It contradicts the Word of God in many ways: the Israelite slavery, the time spent in Egypt, and the marriage laws.  But it was obviously an important Tractate to the Dead Sea Scroll sect of Judaism.  Or was this just one of their entertaining books of legend and fiction that had no spiritually meaning?  But if that is the case, which books of the Old Testament may also have been stories of legends and entertaining fiction that have since become indomitable “Words of God”?

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