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When discussing the bible, there are three types of people that you will run into:
- People who take the whole thing as unerringly depicting historical fact.
- People who see it as a mishmash of lore and loosely reported, and oftentimes strongly fictionalized, historical incidences.
- People who think the whole thing is a load of bollocks.
People in the first category have rarely read the bible cover-to-cover, book by book. Most of the time, you will find that the best you can expect from this lot is that they have memorized select passages, and any reading that they have done was with a 'study guide' in one hand and the bible in another. No meditation on what they are reading, no serious brain-stress over what the passage actually means, its historical context, or the quirks that affect its translation. Such complex questions as the trail of translation - that is, the fact that the version has been translated first from the original language, then to an intermediary language, and then finally into English (or whatever language the reader reads) - is alien territory to such individuals. They honestly believe that nobody changed a single word in all the centuries, from translation to translation, because God warned everyone not to. They want someone else to explain to them what they are reading.
The second group of individuals have done at least some of their homework. They've looked into the translation issue, understood issues of source texts, know what 'Q' means, have boned up on ancient history, learned some Hebrew, Greek, and possibly Aramaic, and wracked their brains over what they are reading. They know that most historians accept that a person known of as Jesus does exist in the historical record, but that the story of the 'exodus' is not substantiated by any historical evidence. They know about the various traditions that have been merged into biblical books such as 'Chronicles', and know the difference between the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. They know that the King James translation of the bible is not the best version out there.
The third group can be a mixed bag of simple non-believers (who still parrot the 'Jesus didn't exist' belief), and people who have gone beyond the pale of research. The problem is, the closer a person investigates scripture and digs into the historical record, the more likely they are to come to the conclusion that it's all, well, a load of bollocks.
All of which means that something very suspicious is going on.
The current belief among scholars is that the ancient Israelites were not an homogeneous people, descended from the patriarch Abraham, but rag-tag groups of indigenous Canaanites. Furthermore, they assert that YHWH is actually an agglomeration of several local Gods, including a god of war and a storm god.
Here's where the devout stick their heads in the sand. Even I want to, but the truth is, YHWH is constantly referred to as 'the God of Armies', and is described as a storm god who travels on the clouds. Why do you think Christians are so found of depicting God in their religious art as lounging on the clouds? Furthermore, there are literally dozens of names used to refer to God in the Old Testament.
If that makes a believer uncomfortable, it should! 'Lord of Hosts' literally means 'God of Armies'. Usually we try to sweep that little fact under the rug by telling ourselves that it means 'heavenly armies'. Unfortunately the biblical texts make it quite clear that YHWH is the god of human armies heading out to the slaughter.
A gazillion different names for a gazillion different attributes?
Theologians and church leaders like to attribute the many different names for what is supposedly a single God by describing them as simple attributes of that God. It does make a person feel a lot better about the schizoid naming going on in the Old Testament, as well as the contradictory twists and turns in the various story lines. God suddenly attacks Moses while the prophet in on his way back to Egypt to free his people. An angel beats up Jacob in the middle of the night. Abraham is told to sacrifice his only legitimate son, and then it turns out to be just a nasty test... .
You have to wonder just how much God actually liked these people... .
Let's apply Occam's Razor to this mess of names and behaviors. What is the most logical explanation? The one that doesn't come off sounding like a woman who, finding a pair of used panties in her husband's pant pocket, tells herself the cleaning lady at his workplace must have misplaced them and that he, being such a good guy, picked them up with the intention of returning them to that unfortunate woman.
What we appear to be looking at is a whole host of different gods, forcibly fused into the persona of a single one.
The bible actually supports this. Worship of gods other than the official YHWH is repeatedly mentioned in the 'historical' books found in the Old Testament. So we know that even the writers and compilers of these books were aware of the fact, and recorded the fact. Then, along came the idea of forming a single nation, tied together by the worship of a single God. A new state religion was formed, and the scribes of that era revised and compiled the old accounts in a way that still preserved the old stories while bringing glory to 'the One God'.
It's been done throughout history. Gods are adapted and merged according to political ambitions.
Canaanite Tribes or Children of Abraham?
As uncomfortable as it is, the bible itself seems to tell us that the worship of YHWH wasn't something that sprang from Abraham's loins alone. The passage below provides a puzzling picture of the origins of the Israelite nation. Instead of describing a pure line descended from the patriarch Abraham, it describes a mongrel race/religion that God happened upon and took under his wing; a people/religious group that had its roots in the land of Canaan.
"Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem, "Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanite, your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite."
Ezekiel 16:2-3 (New American Standard)
But there is a further wrinkle in the Abraham-fabric, one that is quite breathtaking in its implications. In order to fully wrap your mind around it, I recommend watching the video below:
The story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is passed off as the ultimate 'test of faith'. Yet, in other traditions, Isaac isn't spared. Abraham actually completes the sacrifice, and it has to be admitted that God's sudden change of heart does seem somewhat contrived and out of place in the story. So, either Isaac was sacrificed, or could it be that Abraham was following the orders of a god who wasn't the same god as the one who put a stop to it?
It is something to think about.
If Abraham did go through with the sacrifice, then the whole pure-lineage thing goes out the window ... as well as the idea of YHWH as a god who abhors human sacrifice.
That is also something to think about.
Dualism?
Dualism dictates that the God of the Old Testament is an evil god, while the God of the New Testament (Jesus) is the Good God. Certainly it is hard to reconcile the glorification of war and slaughter that is found in the Old Testament with the pacifism of the New Testament.
I suppose that that is one way to make sense of it.
The other is that the narrative is false, the Israelites were a conglomeration of Canaanite tribes, and that they worshiped various gods at various times, some of which may have been good gods, while others were definitely bad ones.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1 John 4:1 (English Standard Version)