SHORT When we study history, we should be skeptical and assume that many events are fabrications, and best understood probabilistically. Today, scholars believe that Moses was a mythical figure, the person who did the things recorded in the Torah may have been simply a character in a fictional story.
History is what we tell ourselves, history defines who we think we are, yet can we say history is any more than a story… thus making history very similar to how we see our future, only a scenario that could be. Just as we use our reason to predict what will happen tomorrow, we should do the same for our history.
SHORT BB-4-2 The following historical account starts by comparing similarities between the creation accounts of the Egyptian religion and Genesis. Then the Biblical Moses is re-explained in view of the Hurrian or Hyksos exodus, and a conclusion drawn that the Jewish and Egyptian governance was somehow intertwined.
Through the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and then finally the Roman conquest of the Jewish people, the common Hebrew is governed through an aristocracy, who in turn are at the service of the empire of the day. It would be significant to understand that today this aristocratic form of governance has not changed, although we pretend a democracy and equality of citizenry.
This will be a brief historical outline which will extend from the edges of prehistory into the first century. A connection between history and religion will be presented that will show many events in a new light, considering religion as a necessary and common tool for manipulating people.
I hope to present a cause-and-effect scenario of history, to demonstrate the effects religion has had on civilization, and finally I will describe a different belief which may work better.
To get a proper sense of the historic period that gave us our religion we should see humanity and its civilization as an entropic machine that is sustained by fresh water. I say entropic because all life functions by taking energy from the entropy the universe produces, humanity and the civilizations we produce are chemical reactions, all be it very complex. Look at our civilization more as you would see a chemical experiment, as deterministic given the elements and conditions of the reaction. Take into account that all of civilization is but a brief moment in the context of the universe, that the reaction we have seen these past few thousand years is almost insignificant in the expanse of time.
SHORT 4-3 As today we fight religious wars over oil resources, in the times of Moses, water was the contested resource. True power came not from the people that lived in the region, but rather the waters of principal rivers like the Nile and Tigris/ Euphrates that provided for them, for you cannot have a civilization without fresh water.
At the geographic center between the Nile and Euphrates are the people of Canaan. This region stands as the gateway to the economic power and wealth of the Nile River, the object of conquest from before the time of Moses to after that of Jesus Christ. All armies attempting to control the Nile would need to cross through Canaan and its inhabitants.
Instead of a well-intended concept for saving an enslaved people, you may consider the story of the Exodus as a brilliant plan to protect the Egyptian state. How could we overlook the benefit of moving a population, or just using the preexisting inhabitants, then instilling in them a religious requirement to defend their land, and of all lands, Canaan.
Moses
It is certainly a possibility that this promised land was promised by an Egyptian Pharaoh/God, in order to put in place a people to defend against invaders from the east, a people destined to be the gatekeepers of Egypt. A land populated by devout believers, charged with protecting a territory given to them by God. This would surely make them the most dedicated defenders of it. We certainly defend property with more vigor when we think it’s ours, and even more so if we believe God has given it to us. You may also consider today’s war in Palestine as no different, a people put in place in the precise location, to control the surrounding nations which may oppose the West. Who funds Israel? … little has changed.
Recent archaeological understanding reveals that the area of Canaan was populated by modest people with a Temple that would be destroyed or built by the dominant invading force of the time. No palaces or homes for an aristocratic class. Canaan was a land inhabited by people with simple yet comfortable lives, as those that would be afforded to military families. Contrast this to all the lavish tombs and temples found throughout its neighbor Egypt.
Today we find a similar development in Israel, populated by people who have one of the best military forces in the world.
Given this perspective, we will consider the Jewish war history up to and during the time of Jesus Christ.
By the time of Christ, Rome had put an end to the Pharaohs, destroyed the Jewish temple and made Egypt the personal property of Augustus Caesar. The greatest revolt against Rome is by the Jews, not only of Palestine or Canaan, but throughout the Roman empire. The historical account of these wars, if seen as political, describes a people in a struggle for dominance within a changing world political landscape.
Although presented as a messianic movement, this conflict must have had economic backing and what better source could there have been than the disenfranchised rulers of Egypt and its Greek counterparts. We tend to leave out the larger fact, that it’s not only the Jews that have been conquered by Augustus but the entire Hellenistic realm, the Egyptians, Persians and Greeks have now come under Roman rule.
We will look into Rome’s attempt to stop and then adopt this Christian/Political movement. From the family of the Julian rulers to the takeover in 69 A.D. by the Flavians under Vespasian, and then onto Titus. Vespasian will end the reign of the Julian Caesars and see an opportunity in adapting the Christian message to the further benefit of his authority. Finally, the firm establishment of Christianity in 325 A.D. by the Neo-Flavian, Flavius Valerius Constantinus.
This paper and project looks at Christianity, and Judaism in the context of our modern social order, using what evidence can be found to best define a Christianity which has defined western civilization these past 2000 years.
We know that it was not until the protestant reformation that we were permitted to read the Bible in our own language. We discover the New Testament is a revolutionary document which calls for the abolition of the Jewish/Roman government, foments individual personal authority, and calls for a new world order. It is understandable that the authorities and its Church would not want its people looking closely at the details of this message. There is good reason for rulers to keep the Bible, and much of history away from the eyes of the commoners who serve them.
Yet, the calming aspects of Christianity, its nonviolent selfless humility and love of neighbor are aspects that serve the more violent dominant supermen of our upper classes very well. How well would it work to be a dominant superman without the multitudes of meek to till the earth.
“There is no God, but don’t tell that to my servant, lest he murder me at night.” ― Voltaire.
History is written by the victor and information is power. Ignorance is not bliss, but a prelude to servitude. Reasonable minds would think that changes in the dogma would have been directed by those in power. A story created as the essential rule set to provide for a well-behaved population in service to a Nobility. A carefully designed algorithm for a desired social outcome.
The force that dominates and motivates us all, is what is responsible for the religious algorithm we currently operate from. From what German philosophers call “the will to life”, we developed our relation to God.
This innate set of desires, “our collective will’, is no different than those of any primate. For this reason, the biblical story we gave ourselves is no more than the projection of our natural behavior of sexual competition, the same motivation that causes the behavior of all primates and has motivated evolution from single cell life forms to modern civilization. We made a story that reflects the nature of sexual dominance that propels evolution, the desire of one troop of apes to dominate over the other, and then told a story within a theological format.
If we contrast the Biblical account against our human nature, then add to this new archaeological and historical evidence, we will see a long sad story of war and enslavement that still persists today. We can then take a sober view of religion and build a new foundation for belief.
The resulting perspective could lead us to a belief that is more realistic and practical, a belief that is based on logic, and reason. A revised Christianity which is truthful, placing the cause of suffering on human shoulders, and eliminating any spiritual aspects of good and evil. Evil or suffering must not be seen as caused by divine or metaphysical forces, but as an aspect and component in the sexual competition of evolution. Suffering is the result of ignorance, greed, and the multitude of sins that would not be so if we only educated our kin properly.
Since religion has been a creation manipulated by the political necessities of the domestication of a servant or slave class, we should take the statement “the truth will set you free” to heart. We must distinguish the trees from the forest, restructure and construct a religion based on an algorithm that is designed to improve the quality of life, rather than one which promotes superstition, serves power and enslaves others.
One of the principal points of this argument is that indeed the Bible has been tweaked over time by the self-interest of Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and later by Rome, to serve Roman aristocratic class, molded into the ideal tool for dominion.
The purpose of this essay and website is to place historical events in logical order, and then provide a guide to anyone that is perplexed by the absurdity that is discovered when comparing science, archeology, and history to the Judeo-Christian story. I hope to encourage the development of a more adequate story we can tell ourselves about who we are, and better define what our purpose for existence may be.