Rewriting the Word of God

June 1, 2009, 7:32 am by dc-agape.

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Tales of the Patriarchs (Part 5)

Unsurprisingly, one more section about Noah exists in this Tractate (QapGen).  It would seem that while drunk, Noah had a vision from YHWH.  It takes an additional paragraph, also from YHWH, to explain what Noah saw.  The last part about Noah is how his sons Japheth and Shem will split the world.  Ham is left out, from the first section purposely, no fragmentation exists.  From the second, an entire Column, of a least 20 rows, is missing.  Maybe we get some information about the Canaanites in that section that is now destroyed.

In Noah’s vision he sees a cedar tree that is stripped by creatures of gold, silver, and iron.  It was also being stripped by the sun, moon, and stars.  In the end it was completely consumed.  Noah then sees an olive tree.  It is battered by the four winds (western, eastern, northern, and southern.   The leaves are stripped from the tree and scattered in all direction.  Well, if you were hoping for a proper translation of this drunken vision, you would be wrong.  As far as fragmentation goes, there really isn’t much missing.  But the interpretation is not related to what the vision was.   What is told is that the three sons of Noah will spread out, but only one will be righteous.  Most of the shoots that spring up from the scattering, both from the cedar and the olive, will apostatize and become evil.  There is something about a man of goodness coming and hurling fire at those who became apostates.  But the details are spotty at best.  It is missing a lot of words that are difficult to get the full meaning of this section.  On the other hand, Noah was drunk!  It is possible that this was just a drunken nightmare.

Now the most interesting thing about the two sections about Noah’s sons and grandsons is what is missing.  Ham is completely missing.  Do you have any idea why?  From the Book of Genesis Noah curses Ham’s descendents into slavery to his brothers (Gen 9:24-27).  But of course this did not happen.  Just to fill you in Ham’s descendents were: Babylon, Assyria, Philistines, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Hivites, and Canaanites (Gen 10:6-20).  Notice that they were all the big enemies of Israel.  So it would make sense that this was “edited”.  The Word of God had been violated and in error, so the author(s) of this Tractate attempted to correct the errors that time had proven. 

To an Atheist reading this section of the Tractate two things become extremely clear.  First, humans will always attempt to correct their “Holy Books” to fit what is happening in their lifetimes.  When YHWH makes a mistake you cover it up quickly, before anyone realizes that all religion is based on fiction.  Second, that the Bible is truly a piece of fiction and very little of it is meaningful or factual.  In an attempt to read it literally, the massive falsehoods stare out from the pages directly at you.  How anyone can pretend that the “Holy Book”, the Word of God, the Bible, can save their souls is beyond my comprehension.  If the blasted thing can’t get history right, why should we trust it to our immortal soul (and the existence of that is in question as well)?

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Posted in Genesis Material, Tales of the Patriarchs, Dead Sea Scroll, Word of God, Inerrancy - My Ass, Readings | Print | 14 Comments »