Part 1: Amazing discoveries regarding the creation of the world, paradise, the flood and the Tower of Babel
We already know that the version of the biblical text that has come down to us arose relatively late, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, that is, between the sixth and fourth centuries BC. The authors of the final edition were priests. Their purpose was not to record the history of the people, but to teach. History was, in their minds, a tool that God used to express his will, punish and reward. Based on their religious and edifying considerations, they modified the traditional historical heritage, removed everything that did not suit them from there, and supplemented the text with their own fictions, emphasizing a particular religious idea.
They gave a positive assessment to the biblical heroes who, in their opinion, obeyed the law of God, and they portrayed those who, for one reason or another, violated the law as sinners who suffered a well-deserved punishment. There is no doubt that the priests were not original authors, but only compilers and editors of more ancient texts. Careful analysis of the Bible has revealed that three different layers are clearly visible in its text. The oldest part of the Bible was written in the ninth century BC Its distinctive feature is that unknown authors use the word "Elohim" to denote God. Meanwhile, in later texts dating back to the eighth century BC, God is already called Yahweh. In the seventh century BC, both parts were combined and mixed, so that in the text the names Elohim and Yahweh constantly alternate. Later, these combined versions were rewritten and edited many times.
The final version served as the basis for the priests to create the form of legends in which they entered the canonical text of the Bible. The German scholar Julius Welhausen did a lot in the field of critical analysis of the biblical text and in establishing the chronology of individual parts of the Bible. Having carefully studied the biblical text, he came to the conclusion that the history of the Jewish people, depicted in the Bible, was written not on fresh traces of events, but much later, and, therefore, the legends about the patriarchs, Moses and even judges arose relatively recently. The Welhausen school enjoyed immense popularity for a whole thirty years and has its supporters to this day.
Science, however, is moving forward. Great archaeological discoveries refute many of the conclusions of the German scientist. The vast Babylonian archives found in cities such as Nineveh, the excavation of Palestinian cities mentioned in the tales of the patriarchs, and the juxtaposition of these discoveries with biblical texts - all this irrefutably proves that the historical heritage used by the priests of the sixth century BC is much older. than Welhausen had anticipated. This historical heritage was passed down by the ancient Jews by word of mouth, from generation to generation. Thanks to the folklore nature of the transmission of stories, the true events have acquired so many legends, traditions, myths, parables and fables that it is now difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.
The priests-compilers unceremoniously remade the legends in accordance with their religious theses. But still, as a canvas for teachings, they used ancient legends, reflecting the creative imagination of the people, their thoughts, aspirations and mores. The priests, through an oversight, did not eliminate everything from the texts, which testifies to their antiquity. Genesis, for example, retains clear vestiges of polytheism and fetishism; in the legends about the patriarchs, we very often come across customs and myths of Mesopotamian origin. From the cuneiform tablets found during the excavations of Nineveh and Ugarit, we learned that the biblical legends about Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel and the Flood, to a greater or lesser extent, date back to Sumerian and Babylonian myths.and some of the customs described in the Bible were common among the peoples of Mesopotamia and even partially reflected in the laws of Hammurabi. In a word, some biblical legends go back to very distant times.
For a long time, scientists believed that folk legends were transmitted only orally. But after the discovery made in 1905 by the English archaeologist Flinders Petrie, a hypothesis arose that the authors of the most ancient biblical legends also had some written sources. In a copper mine on Mount Sinai, Petri discovered an ancient letter text carved into the rock, dating back to the fifteenth century BC. The inscription has not yet been completely deciphered, but it has already been established that it contains thirty-two signs and is made in some Semitic dialect.
It is believed that it was carved into the rock by Israeli slaves who were exiled by the Egyptians to forced labor in the mines. So, it is likely that the inhabitants of Canaan wrote down their documents already in the second millennium BC It should be remembered that the birthplace of letter writing was Phenicia, bordering on Canaan. In addition, among the documents of the fourteenth century BC found at Tel el-Amarna, there is extensive correspondence between Canaan and Egypt. All these facts give reason to assume that if not earlier, then at least in the time of Moses, the Israelites used writing.
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Why, then, are the Palestinian excavations so poor in written sources? Indeed, in Egypt and Mesopotamia, huge archives have been found that recreate the history of these countries in detail, while in Palestine only a small number of written documents have been found (for example, the famous codex from Gezer of the tenth century, records of Ezekiel of the seventh century and letters from Lakish of the sixth century). The answer is simple: in Palestine, they wrote in ink on fragile clay shards, and in Mesopotamia, cuneiform signs were hollowed out on thick plates of baked clay.
In the humid Palestinian climate, the shards crumbled, and even if some of them miraculously survived, the ink inscriptions on them are so worn out that they cannot be read. In 1960, archaeologists found an exceptionally well-preserved seventh century BC letter on a clay shard. In a letter, the peasant complains to the prince that the collector took his cloak from him on account of the allegedly unpaid tax. The letter is of great scientific importance, since it proves that in Palestine in that era, writing was used even in everyday life.
The antiquity of biblical legends is also evidenced by their very content. Abraham's lifestyle in Canaan is typical of nomadic pastoralists. At certain times of the year, the patriarch set up camp at the walls of a city, exchanging his goods - milk, wool and leather - for urban products. The camp consisted of tents in a circle. Women sat at the tents, spinning wool and singing their Mesopotamian songs. The Patriarch's large tent stood in the middle and served as a gathering place for the elders. Abraham gave orders to servants and shepherds there, resolved disputes, and received guests. These were rough times.
Among the ancient Jews, the right of vendetta prevailed, the right "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." The bloody events caused by Dina's abduction were probably no exception, although the fact of their condemnation by Jacob says that by that time these customs had already somewhat softened. The process of gradual change in social relations, the course of which can be traced in the text of the Bible, also testifies in favor of the antiquity of biblical legends.
In the tribe of Abraham, we observe typically patriarchal relations, but even there class differences are beginning to appear clearly. Abraham is a slave owner and rich man; he is separated from the rest of the tribe by a chasm, which he is trying to deepen by giving himself and his wife princely names.
We are also witnessing the gradual transition of the Hebrew tribe to settled life. Abraham is a typical Bedouin chieftain living in an atmosphere of patriarchal simplicity. He killed the calf with his own hands to treat the three mysterious travelers, and gave them milk as a drink. Isaac is already trying to take up agriculture and drinks not milk, but wine. Jacob, with all his merits and demerits, is a product of a sedentary, almost urban environment. This entire evolutionary process, so clearly visible in biblical legends, is in full accordance with what is known to modern science about primitive social structures.
From biblical traditions, we can conclude that Abraham began to profess monotheism. Through careful examination of the various editorial layers in the Bible, we have been able to establish to what extent this fact is the result of retouching by the priests in the sixth century BC It is known that in later times, the Jews repeatedly turned to the worship of the Canaanite gods and the prophets passionately attacked them for that. And most likely in the era of the patriarchs we are dealing not so much with pure monotheism as with henotheism, that is, with the conviction that, although there are many gods, only one of them should be worshiped - the patron of the tribe. The God of Abraham is devoid of universal features, he is a typical god of the tribe who cares exclusively for the welfare of his chosen people.
The idea of this god is extremely primitive. He behaves like a mere mortal, interferes in everyday affairs, argues with Abraham and even approves of his morally questionable tricks. Jacob wrestles with God all night and forces him to legitimize the birthright, fraudulently taken from Esau. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, when monotheism was finally formed under the influence of the prophets, such a religious concept was already anachronistic.
The presence of these naive and primitive ideas in the Bible can only be explained by the fact that the priests-editors included them in the text in an inviolable form, together with the most ancient folk traditions, on which they relied in their work. In the biblical legends, the reader is particularly struck by the bright and expressive characteristics of the patriarchs. Each image is individual and surprisingly realistic. How different are Abraham, Lot, Isaac, and Jacob! How convincing in their femininity are Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel or the unfortunate Hagar! And Esau, in love with hunting and free spaces and despising agricultural labor! Impulsive, quick-tempered, but at the same time good-natured and unforgettable. Significantly, the Bible speaks of him with obvious sympathy.
Even Isaac, to whom Esau must have been troublesome, has a weakness for him. Obviously, in the image of Esau, the subconscious longing of the Jews for the good old time of their great-grandfathers - free pastoralists and nomads found expression. Everything that the Bible tells about patriarchs is extremely entertaining, full of dramatic situations and adventures. A living person stands before us, close and understandable to us by his merits, demerits, conflicts. It is thanks to this that the Bible, like a miraculously survived fragment of the living life of distant eras, allows us today to look into the very depths of something truly human and enduring.
The stories about the patriarchs have all the characteristics of folk tales and reflect the thinking of primitive tribes. It is not difficult to imagine the then pastoralists who, sitting by the fire, told each other funny stories about their ancestors: how Abraham deceived Pharaoh, how Isaac's servant met Rebekah at the well, how the cunning Jacob lured his brother's birthright, and then took away almost all of Laban's property how Leah and Rachel competed in childbirth.
These were the stories of simple, primitive people who were delighted with the various tricks of folk heroes. They deeply felt the poetic beauty of their legends, but often got confused in the moral assessment of the actions attributed to their ancestors. The life of the nomads was harsh and full of danger; those who wanted to stay on the surface in that barbaric and cruel era could not be too scrupulous in matters of conscience.
In their legends, the nomads gave free rein to fantasy. Patriarchs are distinguished by unprecedented durability and fertility. Sarah, already an old woman, amazes the kings with her beauty. God and the angels intervene in everyday affairs and unravel dramatic, desperate situations. There is sometimes a lot of fabulous charm in this intervention. Recall, for example, the touching scenes in the desert when an angel convinces Hagar to return home, or when he saves her and Ishmael from death. It is completely excluded that all these details, which with such reliability recreate the life of ancient times, were composed by priests who lived in the sixth century BC, that is, in completely different social and living conditions. It was beyond the power of even a talented writer.
True, the priests, by modifying the texts, introduced some absurdities into them, but there are relatively few of them. If the priests claim, for example, that the patriarchs had camels, it is because in their time camels were encountered at every step.
Only relatively recently was it established that the camel as a beast of burden appeared on the historical arena not earlier than the twelfth century BC, that is, several hundred years later than the era of the patriarchs. The priests, in all likelihood, had at their disposal very ancient folk tales about the patriarchs, perhaps even in writing, and included them in their compilation almost unchanged, accurately reproducing the traditional text.
But it does not follow from this that the judgments of those scholars who question the very fact of the existence of patriarchs are groundless. Of course, the Hebrew tribes had their own leaders, but it is not known whether they can be identified with the heroes of biblical legends - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
New archaeological discoveries not only fail to clarify this issue, but confuse it even more. Let's try to briefly tell what science already knows on this topic. Three hundred cuneiform tablets from the fifteenth century BC were found in Tel el-Amarna (Egypt). These are letters from the Syrian and Palestinian princes to the pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. In one of the letters, the Palestinian prince reports that in his country there were Javir tribes who arrived from Mesopotamia.
Many Bible scholars assume that they are talking about the Jewish tribes. We owe this absolutely sensational discovery to the French archaeologist André Parrot. Between Mosul and Damascus, there is a hill called Tel Hariri by the Arabs. Workers, who once dug a grave there, found a strange-style statuette, belonging to some unfamiliar culture. Parro, learning about the find, hurried there and in 1934 began systematic excavations. Already in the first days, he found the figure of a bearded man with folded hands in prayer. The cuneiform text at the base of the sculpture read: "I am Lami-Mari, king of the state of Mari …"
This new find made a tremendous impression. True, the existence of the state of Mari in antiquity was known earlier, but no one was able to establish where it was. In the seventeenth century BC, Babylonian troops conquered the country and razed its capital to the ground, so that not a trace remained of it. Further searches for Parro confirmed that the ruins of the capital of Mari were under the hill. A temple, dwelling houses, fortress walls, a ziggurat and, above all, a magnificent royal palace, built in the third millennium BC, were discovered. The palace consisted of two hundred and sixty rooms and halls. There were kitchens, baths with baths, a throne room and a chapel dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. Everywhere were traces of fire and deliberate destruction - unconditional signs of the Babylonian invasion. The largest find was the royal archive,consisting of thirty-three thousand six hundred tablets with cuneiform texts. From these tablets we learned that the population of Mari was made up of the Amorite tribes. The state also included the city of Harran, and precisely at the time when the Farrah family arrived there. When scientists began to decipher the chronicles, reports and correspondence of the state of Mari, an amazing thing was discovered:
The names of the cities of Nakhur, Farrahi, Sarukhi and Falek mentioned in these documents are strikingly similar to the names of Abraham's relatives - Nahor, Farrah, Serug and Peleg. In addition, it speaks of the tribes of Avam-ram, Jacob-el and even the tribe of Benjamin, which appeared on the border and annoyed the inhabitants of Mari. There is no doubt that the names of Abraham, his grandson Jacob and the youngest of Jacob's sons, Benjamin, are directly related to the names of these tribes. By the way, it is worth recalling that Nahor's father-in-law in the Bible is called Harran; thus, here too we see a complete coincidence of the person's name with the name of the city.
As a result of this discovery, the following conclusion suggests itself: the names of the patriarchs are in fact the names of tribes or cities founded or conquered by these tribes. Thus, Abraham, for example, is the mythological personification of one of the tribes who arrived in Canaan from Mesopotamia. In his person, the people's memory embodied the history of a tribe that migrated to a new country. Linguistic analysis of the cuneiform tablets from Mari proved that the Jews were very close to the Amorites in origin and even constituted one of their ethnic branches.
In ancient times, a powerful wave of migration of Semitic tribes, known as the Amorites, moved northward from the Persian Gulf. Their unrestrained stream moved up the Euphrates, displacing the Sumerians, and occupied almost all of Mesopotamia. On the ruins of the conquered small states, the Amorites created numerous states of their own, which were eventually rallied into a single major power by the most outstanding of the Amorite kings, Hammurabi. Jews undoubtedly took part in the resettlement of the Amorite tribes. This is evidenced by the fact that initially they lived in Ur, and then moved to Harran - a city, as is known from the tables found in Mari, inhabited by Amorites.
In a later era, tribes of non-Semitic origin invaded the territory of Mesopotamia from the north. Compressed by them, the Semitic tribes retreated to the southwest. During this new migration, the Arameans occupied Syria, and the Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites settled in western and southern Canaan. A little later, the Abrahamid tribe arrived there, and it follows from the Bible that the reason for its resettlement was some kind of religious conflicts. Vague memories of these events lived among the people in the form of legends and tales, many centuries later included by the priests in the Bible.
Thanks to archaeological discoveries, we can today single out in the legends about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob specific fragments that testify to their direct connection with the Mesopotamian tradition and with the most ancient religious cults. It is necessary to dwell on some of them in more detail to make sure how correct the assumption about the antiquity of these folk legends is.
Here, for example, is the delicate question of the transfer of Sarah to the royal harems. We must not forget that this happened at the beginning of the second millennium BC, in an era when the social system of nomadic tribes was extremely primitive. A woman was considered the property of a man who could dispose of her at his own discretion. Even several centuries later, Yahweh threatens King David that as punishment he will take his wife from him and give it to a neighbor. Not surprisingly, Sarah obeyed her husband's will so unquestioningly.
Among the ancient Mesopotamian, and therefore the Jewish tribes, the relationship of a married woman with a stranger was considered a crime not because he was not her husband, but solely because the woman was the property of another. This also applied to the bride, if the future husband had already paid the ransom for her. At the same time, having a relationship with a girl for whom ransom had not yet been received was not considered particularly reprehensible. The man was only obliged to pay compensation to his parents. The wife's main business was to bear children and continue the family of her husband.
Her strict adherence to marital fidelity pursued a single goal:
ensure the legality of offspring and inheritance. In accordance with these concepts, the girlhood of unmarried women was not given any importance. The fact that Lot, in order to save his guests, was ready to give up his own daughters to mock the mob of Sodom, is explained by this very tradition. The daughters were not yet married women, mothers of the family, and, therefore, the damage caused to them would not be too great. This does not mean that the Jews approved of such actions. For example, Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, brutally avenged their sister's kidnapping. The episode with Lot is just a parable passed down from generation to generation. The people must have wanted to use this hyperbolic metaphor to emphasize how dear the law of hospitality was to Lot. And besides, it seems that in this case, the Bible is transmitting evil gossip spread among the people. After all, Lot was the ancestor of the Moabites and Ammonites, whom the Jews treated with contempt and hostility.
The customs concerning the social status of women are recorded in the Hammurabi code. According to this code, even adultery was considered permissible if the husband agreed to it for one reason or another, in particular for the sake of saving his life. Abraham twice sent Sarah to the harems of foreign kings, passing her off as his sister. This by no means testifies, as previously thought, to the perverted moral concepts of the ancient Jews. We can judge the attitude of the ancients to such actions by the fact that God clearly approves of Abraham's cunning. After all, God is not punishing him, but the kings, although they were the victims of deception. Obviously, they were to blame for the fact that in general they acted by methods of arbitrariness and violence, and therefore Abraham had every reason to fear them. However, the punishment of kings is of practical importance.
It was necessary to force them to return Sarah, who was destined to become the ancestor of the generations of Israel. Since we are talking about Sarah, it is worth dwelling on the amusing question of her beauty. She was sixty-five years old when Pharaoh took her to his harem, and at eighty years old she made a splash in the kingdom of Abimelech with her appearance. The heroes of biblical legends are generally distinguished by supernatural longevity and fertility. Terah died when he was two hundred and five years old, Abraham lived to be one hundred and seventy-five years old. Therefore, Bible lovers willingly believed that the wife of the patriarch had retained her feminine charm for so long. The biblical legend about the beauty of Sarah has passed through the entire history of the Israeli state.
In the mountain caves on the shores of the Dead Sea, scrolls with biblical texts dating back to the third century BC to the first century AD were found in 1947. The scrolls were the property of the Jewish sect of the Essenes, the center of which was the monastery in Qumran, probably built in the second century BC. One of the scrolls contains an Aramaic commentary on Genesis; there is, in particular, a description of the beauty of Sarah. In translation, it sounds like this: “Oh, how the blush of her cheeks, how captivating her eyes, how graceful her nose and how her face shines! Oh, how beautiful are her breasts and the spotless whiteness of her body!
How sweet it is to look at her shoulders and arms, full of perfection! How thin and delicate her fingers are, how graceful her feet and thighs! The sad story of Hagari is also explained in the Mesopotamian customs recorded in the legislation of Hammurabi. The law clearly defined the place of the concubine and her children in the family. The concubine had to give birth on the lap of a childless wife. This was an act of formal recognition of the son of a slave as the legal heir of the family. In the Bible, this peculiar custom is reflected in the legend of the daughters of Laban. An archive found among the ruins of a wealthy Mesopotamian merchant's house in Nuzu reveals a marriage contract of the Tegaptili family (circa 1500 BC); it contains, in particular, the following paragraph:
“If the wife has children, the husband has no right to take a second wife. If she has no children, she herself will choose a slave for her husband, and will bring up the children born of this union as her own. Now let's move on to one of the strangest and most mysterious rituals established by Abraham during his wanderings in Canaan, namely, circumcision. This is one of the most ancient rituals of primitive tribes, and its meaning is still unclear to us. We meet him at all times in all parts of the world. Herodotus explained it by concern for personal hygiene, while modern scientists tend to consider it as a magical act, symbolizing a bloody sacrifice to a deity.
Circumcision existed among some Indian tribes before the discovery of America, among the peoples of Australia, Polynesia and Africa. It is important for us that the Egyptian priests also subjected themselves to circumcision. The Jews probably became acquainted with this rite during their short stay in Egypt and, under the impression of its religious symbolism, introduced this act as an external sign of union with God. Herodotus claims that the Jews, Edomites, Ammonites, and Moabites borrowed the practice of circumcision from the Egyptians. This seems all the more probable that in Mesopotamia, from where the named tribes came to Canaan, such a rite did not exist.
The Greek historian also claims that the Egyptians, in turn, adopted the practice of circumcision from the Ethiopians. In all likelihood, the Arabs also introduced it under the influence of the Ethiopians, and even before the appearance of Muhammad. Wherever their influence spread, they introduced this custom along with Islam, although the Koran not only does not require circumcision, but generally passes this issue in silence.
If the custom of circumcision should be derived from Egypt, then Abraham's conversation with God and his attempts to save innocent Sodomites is clearly of Mesopotamian origin. In the Sumerian legend of the flood, the goddess Ishtar comes to the supreme god responsible for the flood, accusing him of injustice and even crime. In her opinion, God had no right to destroy all of humanity if innocent, pious people died along with sinners. Ishtar ends his speech with a significant phrase: "Every sinner is responsible for his sins." This Sumerian myth condemns the principle of collective responsibility. The problem of suffering and death of honest and righteous people has been worrying the minds of generations since time immemorial. Why does God allow the righteous to suffer, and the sinners to live for their pleasure? With an attempt to find an answer to this question, we are faced, in particular,in the biblical tale of the tragic fate of Job and in other ancient legends.
How deeply the stay in Mesopotamia was deeply engraved in the memory of the Jewish tribes is evidenced, in particular, by the staircase that Jacob dreamed of, with angels ascending and descending along it. It is strikingly similar to the ziggurats, that is, the pyramids in Ur and Babylon, with their stone steps, along which the priests climbed and descended. Any doubts about this dispelled the words of Jacob, said after awakening: “How awesome is this place!
This is nothing but the house of God, this is the gate of heaven. " These "gates of heaven" as applied to the stairs would be completely incomprehensible if we did not know what Babylon means in translation "the gates of God." So, there is a clear association with the Babylonian ziggurat.
In memory of his dream, Jacob set a stone and poured oil on it. This is an ancient Semitic custom. The cult of stones is the most ancient among primitive tribes.
The black stone of the Kaaba in Mecca is a monument to the ancient religion of the Arabs during the times of polytheism. The cult of stones also existed among the Phoenicians and Canaanites. In Palestine, many such stones have been found during excavations. In particular, among the ruins of the city of Gezer, eight sacred pillars were found installed on a hill.
The Semites believed that God lived there and named them Bethel, which means "the house of God." This is what Jacob called the place where he dreamed of a staircase with angels.
This episode proves that archaic fetishism was still alive in Jacob's generation.
The scene of the burnt offering of Isaac gave the researchers much trouble. This dark chapter of the Bible, where Yahweh subjects his faithful worshiper to such a cruel test, is completely incompatible with the idea of a good, merciful God.
Today we know that this episode is the last echo of a barbaric cult ceremony. Thanks to archaeological discoveries, we have also traced its origin.
In Mesopotamia, Syria, and Canaan, there was a very ancient custom of sacrificing firstborn children to the gods. During excavations at Gezer, one of the largest centers of the Canaanite cult, archaeologists found urns with the skeletons of eight-day-old children sacrificed to the gods. Children were also sacrificed on the occasion of the construction of temples and public buildings. The remains of these victims were often found buried in the foundations of houses, and in Megiddo, at the foot of the city wall, the cemented body of a fifteen-year-old girl was found.
The episode with Isaac is also associated with Mesopotamian myths. This can be judged by the mention of a ram entangled in thorns by its horns. It was probably some kind of cult symbol: the English archaeologist Woolley, while excavating Ur, found a sculpture of a ram entangled by horns in a bush. This sculpture was obviously revered by the Sumerians as a shrine. This is evidenced not only by the fact that it was found in one of the royal tombs, but also by the way it was performed. The wooden sculpture is trimmed with gold, and the ancient master made the horns of the ram and the branches of the bush from lapis lazuli.
The tribes that inhabited Canaan during the time of Abraham belonged mostly to the Western Semitic group and spoke a language very close to Hebrew. Our information about their religious beliefs has long been very scarce. Only cuneiform tablets found among the ruins of the Phoenician city of Ugarit made it possible to accurately recreate their mythology and religious rites. The supreme god of the Canaanites was El, often appearing as Dagan or Dagon. He was considered the creator of the world and was portrayed as a long-bearded old man. The most popular god was, however, Baal - the owner of thunderstorms and rain, the patron saint of farmers. Of the numerous pantheon of the Canaanites, the goddess of love Astarte should also be called.
Cult ceremonies in her honor were in the nature of sexual orgies. In addition, each Canaanite city had its own patron god. The Canaanite religion has a lot in common with the Babylonian beliefs. Some Canaanite gods have their Babylonian equivalent, and even have similar names. There is no doubt that the original, polytheistic religion of the Jews was in many ways close to Canaanite.
Biblical texts testify that the Jews often used the word "Baal" to define God. Elohim-god contains the same root as the name of the supreme Canaanite god - El, and his son, often identified with Baal, was called Yav, which is akin to the name Yahweh. The Canaanites were at a much higher level of civilization than the nomadic Jewish tribes, although they made human sacrifices. They lived in cities, were skilled artisans and were engaged in agriculture. This superiority of civilization, combined with the kinship of language and religion, could not but have a great influence on the new immigrants, nomads who lived in tents.
Abraham was probably trying to resist this influence, and his position found expression in the episode with Isaac. As usual in the Bible, the barbaric cult rite is sublimated here and becomes a symbol of deep religious thought.
In this case, the authors of the biblical text wanted to emphasize Abraham's unquestioning submission to the will of God and the significant shifts that took place in the religious beliefs of his tribe. In the book of Numbers, child sacrifice is strongly condemned as the worst of the Canaanite crimes. Thus, the case of Isaac is, as it were, an act of formal dissociation from the bloody rituals that were probably still prevalent then in Canaan. For a long time, the question of the figurines of domestic gods stolen by Rachel remained a mysterious one. The Bible Students wondered why Rachel stole the statues and why Laban gave them such importance. The answer was found only recently. In the archive of cuneiform tablets from Nuzu, a will was discovered in which the father leaves the eldest son a statuette of a domestic god and the main share of the inheritance.
The father emphasizes in his will that other sons have the right to come to the house of the main heir and make sacrifices to the god. According to the legislation of Hammurabi, a son-in-law with a statuette of a father-in-law enjoyed the right to inheritance on an equal basis with his sons.
Based on this, we can assume that Rachel was guided by purely practical considerations: by stealing the statuette, she provided her husband with the right to inherit.
Laban knew about this and that is why he so persistently sought the return of the stolen.
The custom of serving a father-in-law for a certain number of years as a bride price is also very ancient. Oddly enough, some peoples of the East have preserved this custom to this day. The Polish writer Arkady Fiedler, in his book Wild Bananas, says that he observed a similar relationship among the Vietnamese Ta'i tribe. Back in the nineteenth century, they were common among the Tatars and Syrians. The Swiss traveler Burckhardt in his book "Traveling in Syria" says: "Once I met a young man who worked for eight years on one meal: by the end of this period he had to marry the master's daughter, for which he would otherwise have to pay seven hundred piastres. When we met, the young man had been married for three years. But he complained bitterly about his father-in-law, who still demandedso that he can do the hardest work for him for free. This prevented him from getting his own household and taking care of his family. We met in the Damascus region. " How amazing this is like the relationship between Laban and Jacob!
In the chapters of Genesis that tell the story of the three patriarchs, we come across the names of cities that have long been considered legendary. But the great archaeological discoveries at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proved that these cities actually existed and that in this respect the Bible is quite reliable. This applies primarily to the city of Ur, from which Abraham's father emigrated to Harran. In 1922, a major English archaeologist Leonard Woolley undertook excavations on a hill called the Tar Mountain by the Arabs and discovered the ruins of a huge city founded by the Sumerians three thousand years before our era. At the top of the structure, which looked like a pyramid-ziggurat, stood the temple of the moon god.
Woolley excavated the house of a wealthy city dweller who lived in about the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BC, that is, at the time when the family of Farrah supposedly lived there. In this regard, the English scientist writes in his book "Ur of the Chaldees":
“We must radically reconsider our views on the biblical patriarch, after we have learned in what cultural conditions his young years passed.
He was a citizen of a large city, heir to an old, highly developed civilization. The dwellings testify to a comfortable life, even luxury."
Even more interesting is the story of Harran's discovery. According to biblical tradition, Terah's clan emigrated from Ur to Harran for religious reasons. According to the American orientalist Albright, this happened sometime between the twentieth and seventeenth centuries BC during the reign of Hammurabi. The determination of the time of the reign of Hammurabi is still the subject of controversy. Scientists name three dates: 1955-1913, 1792-1750 and, finally, 1728-1686 BC.
There is reason to believe that the lineage of Terah worshiped the god of the moon. This is indicated, in particular, by the following phrase from the Book of Joshua: “Beyond the river (Euphrates) lived our fathers from ancient times, Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, and served other gods” (Ch. 24, v. 2). We know from the biblical text why Abraham left Haran and went to the land of Canaan. The reason for emigration was his transition to henotheism, which, according to the Bible, happened back in Ur. One of the legends recorded on cuneiform tablets found in Ugarit tells of the struggle between the worshipers of the moon and the sun and the expulsion of the worshipers of the moon. In addition, traces of the cult of the moon have been found in Palestine.
Scientists suggest that the name of Abraham's father, Terah, comes from a word common to all Semitic languages for the moon. British archaeologist David Storm Raye traveled to southern Turkey in 1957 and found the ruins of Harran. It turned out that the city was located on the Nar-Bali River, a tributary of the upper Euphrates, about five hundred kilometers north of Ur. We knew from various ancient Babylonian texts that Harran was the center of the cult of the moon god and that its inhabitants were famous for their religious fanaticism. But no one suspected how much they were attached to their deity.
As a result of studies carried out by an English archaeologist, it turned out that the cult of the moon was preserved there throughout the entire existence of the Roman Empire, that Christianity was powerless in the fight against it, and even Islam was forced to put up with it for centuries. It was only during the reign of Saladin that the temple of the moon god was destroyed. A mosque was built on its foundation in 1179, which in turn was destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. Under the ruins of the three gates of the mosque, Raye found three stone slabs with carved symbols of the moon god. The slabs were laid in such a way that the worshipers of Muhammad, entering the mosque, stepped on them as a sign that the ancient religion of Harran was destroyed forever.
Based on this data, Rice hypothesized that the cult of the moon god existed in Harran until the twelfth century AD. What conclusions follow from this? If we assume that the biblical Abraham really existed, then his departure from Harran should be considered as the flight of the founder of a new cult from the persecution of fanatical worshipers of the moon god. This begs an analogy with Muhammad forced to flee Mecca. If we question the very fact of the existence of Abraham, then on the basis of the tablets found in Mary, we can consider this biblical image the embodiment of the entire history of the wanderings of one of the Jewish tribes. Recall that some biblical texts suggest that the monotheism of Abraham was not monotheism in the modern sense, but just the cult of a tribal god called Elohim. Should the hypothesis that the emigration from Harran was due to religious reasons be rejected in this regard? I think no. It is only necessary to replace the personality of Abraham with the image of the tribe, and then the whole hypothesis will seem quite probable. One of the tribes living in Harran came into conflict with the worshipers of the god of the moon, not wanting to worship anyone but the deity of their tribe, and was eventually forced to leave Harran and seek happiness in Canaan. Echoes of these events have been preserved in folk legends and tales, which were subsequently included by the priests in the biblical text.not wanting to worship anyone but the deity of her tribe, and was eventually forced to leave Harran and seek happiness in Canaan. Echoes of these events have been preserved in folk legends and tales, which were subsequently included by the priests in the biblical text.not wanting to worship anyone but the deity of her tribe, and was eventually forced to leave Harran and seek happiness in Canaan. Echoes of these events have been preserved in folk legends and tales, which were subsequently included by the priests in the biblical text.
Religion's comparative history shows that the gods underwent the same changes as their adherents. Under the influence of political catastrophes and suffering, the Jews gradually deepened their tribal religion, and finally, after returning from the Babylonian captivity, raised it to the heights of complete monotheism. Yahweh becomes a universal god who meets the requirements of a new era and civilization. It was in this spirit that the priests-editors ruled ancient legends, trying to portray Abraham as an adherent of the purest monotheism. As you know, they did not succeed completely, and in some fragments of the text Yahweh retained the features of the primitive deity of the tribe.
Archaeological excavations in Palestine are giving ever better results. Recently, the ruins of several smaller cities mentioned in the biblical history of the patriarchs have been found. So, near the modern town of Tel Balaf, the ruins of the city of King Emmor were discovered, where the sons of Jacob performed their bloody vendetta. The oldest excavation layer dates back to the nineteenth century BC. There were found the remains of a powerful fortress wall, a palace and a temple, judging by which King Emor was a powerful ruler.
And, for example, the area of Mamre, where Abraham, and then Isaac prospered in the shade of oak groves, never disappeared at all. It is located three kilometers north of Hebron. The Arabs call it Haram Ramet el-Khalil (the sacred sublimity of the friend of God, that is, Abraham). There, the oak, the well and the altar of Abraham have long been surrounded by the cult. During archaeological excavations, an ancient well and the foundation of an altar were discovered here, on which a Christian altar was subsequently erected.
In addition, many human remains have been found in the surrounding caves, testifying to the fact that in ancient times there was a large cemetery in Mamre. Above the cave in Mahpel, where, according to the Bible, the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are buried, is now one of the most revered Islamic mosques. We also know today where Gerar was, the city of Abimelech. Its ruins were found in Tel Jemla, thirteen kilometers southeast of Gaza. In 1927, an English archaeological expedition, conducting excavations, reached a layer dating back to the Bronze Age. Many scales were found among the ruins - from this we can conclude that Gerar was a large trading center during the time of Abraham.
Until now, unfortunately, it has not been possible to establish the locations of Sodom and Gomorrah, although in recent years, the opinion that these cities existed in reality has become more and more firmly established in the world of scientists. Here is a summary of the search results achieved to date. 1. Already in the middle of the nineteenth century, the British established that from the narrow Cape Lisan, on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, a high rocky ridge stretches under the water, dividing this lake into two separate basins. The southern one is very shallow, and in the northern one the bottom drops sharply to a depth of four hundred meters. It is believed that a small part was once land, flooded as a result of some kind of geological cataclysm. According to the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were located in the Siddim Valley, "where the Salt Sea is now."
(Genesis, ch. 14, v. 3). Recently, excerpts from "Primitive History" were found
the Phoenician priest Sanhunyaton, who writes: "The Valley of Siddim collapsed and became a lake …"
2. Geological surveys have found traces of sharp volcanic cataclysms in the Jordan Valley, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains, in the Arabian Desert, in the Gulf of Aqaba and off the coast of the Red Sea. Geologists have even established the date of this natural disaster.
It happened about two millennia BC, that is, during the time of Abraham.
3. In close proximity to the Dead Sea there are hills of rock salt.
Some of them, as a result of the weathering process, acquired a shape resembling a human figure. There is no doubt that this was the basis for the emergence of the legend of Lot's wife, turned into a pillar of salt.
4. Hence it follows that in the memory of the people the image of some natural disaster that happened in ancient times in the area of the Dead Sea has been preserved. Many legends and legends were born around this event, but their roots are historically accurate.
5. Pilots making systematic flights over the Dead Sea claim that they noticed the contours of some ruins, moreover, exactly in the place where Sodom and Gomorrah were supposedly located. Scuba divers tried to survey the seabed. For example, the head of the Baptist mission in Bethlehem, Dr. Ralph Banei, stated in 1958 that he got to the bottom and found traces of a dam there. But his words were treated with doubt. It is extremely difficult to descend to the bottom of the Dead Sea and make out what is there. The water contains twenty-five percent salt and is so cloudy that nothing can be seen at arm's length. In addition, the density of the water is such that a person can calmly lie down on the surface and read a book. In order to descend to the bottom, the diver must grab forty kilograms of cargo. Besides,high salt content causes painful skin irritation and lip puffiness.
Recently, an American-Canadian archaeological group has been seriously preparing for an underwater expedition. Perhaps she will be able to reveal the secret of Sodom and Gomorrah.
We still need to touch on the issue of Damascus. The Bible does not say anything about Abraham staying there on the way to Canaan. However, in describing this episode, we proceeded from specific sources and premises.
1. The Jewish historian Josephus Flavius (37-95 AD) mentions Abraham's stay in Damascus in his book "Jewish Antiquities". Obviously, he had some sources unknown to us.
2. The ancient path from Harran to the land of Canaan led through Syria and, therefore, through Damascus. There is no reason to think that Abraham took a different, roundabout and less convenient route.
3. The stay in Damascus is confirmed by the fact that a new person suddenly appears in the house of Abraham - Eliezer of Damascus. The patriarch entrusted him with responsible duties in his household and, before the birth of his own son, considered him his main heir, on the basis of the Hammurabi code, which allowed adoption in case of childlessness.
The country to which Abraham settled was originally called Canaan, only later the Greek historian Herodotus called it Palestine, after the biblical Philistines - the people who occupied the southern coast of Canaan in the eighteenth century BC. Palestine can be divided into three main areas:
lowland near the Mediterranean Sea, upland to the west of the Jordan, the so-called Prediordan, and rocky lands on the east bank of the river, that is, Trans-Jordan. In the south of the Mediterranean coast, the soil was surprisingly fertile. The Saron Valley located there was called the “Garden of Eden”. The highlands west of the Jordan were also productive. Even dates ripened there due to the hot climate.
Galilee was especially famous for its fertility, which was densely populated since ancient times. It was there that the ruins of a number of cities mentioned in the Bible were discovered. To the east of the Jordan there were also areas whose population was engaged in agriculture. But Canaan was mainly a pastoral country. The plateaus, mountain slopes and steppes were good grazing lands, although they periodically suffered from drought. In the Jordan Valley, the land was cultivated only near Lake Gennisaret, in other places the land was covered with lush vegetation, and even predatory animals were found there.
Primitive farming methods without the use of fertilizers, rapid soil depletion and periodic droughts led to the fact that famine was a frequent occurrence in the country. The Egyptians were accustomed to the sight of nomadic pastoralists who came to the border to ask for shelter. They knew that they were driven by hunger, that they were peaceful people who did not harbor hostile intentions. Therefore, they willingly allowed them to their, then still sparsely populated, territories in the Nile Delta. Of course, they demanded tribute from the newcomers for this service. The frescoes in one of the Egyptian tombs depict extremely emaciated nomads, real skeletons covered in leather. On a fresco in a tomb in Beni Hassan, we find a realistic depiction of a Semitic herding tribe, negotiating with Egyptian officials on the border.
The Egyptian border rampart, erected to protect against the attacks of the warlike tribes of the desert, existed already two thousand years BC, that is, in the time of Abraham. We learn about this from the memoirs of the Egyptian nobleman Sinukhet, who allowed himself to be drawn into some court intrigues, after which he was forced to flee abroad. Sinuhet recounts how he crossed the Princely Wall under cover of night and came to northern Canaan, where he found shelter with a tribal leader like Abraham, Isaac or Jacob. In his memoirs, Sinuhet speaks a lot about the fertility of Canaan; this is confirmed by the Bible's testimony that Canaan is a land "flowing with milk and honey." Of course, this praise could only apply to those areas where agriculture and horticulture existed. Sinuhet writes, in particular:
“It was good land. Figs and grapes grew there in great abundance, and there was more wine than water. We have never experienced a shortage of honey and oil. The trees were full of all kinds of fruits. Wheat and barley were also grown there. The cattle were innumerable. Every day I ate bread, wine, boiled meat and fried poultry. In addition, I also ate game, as they hunted for me, and I myself often went hunting with dogs."
We can also give a description of the clothes worn by the people of the tribe of Abraham thanks to the archaeological discoveries made in Egypt. In the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman at Beni Hassan (eighteenth century BC) there is a fresco depicting a tribe of Semitic nomads who arrived from Palestine. We see bearded men, women and children there. Some men wear short skirts made of multicolored striped fabric, while women and other men are wrapped in long, picturesque cloaks. The weapons of the nomads are spears, bows and slings. One of the nomads plays a small lyre, which proves that even then the Semites loved music. The predominant colors are green, red and blue. Men and women wore a variety of jewelry. We also find evidence in the Bible that Jewish tribes loved bright colors.
Continuation: Part 3 "Folk legend or truth?"
Author: Zenon Kosidovsky
