(Part 2) Best old testament bible study books according to redditors
We found 1,104 Reddit comments discussing the best old testament bible study books. We ranked the 290 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
Highly recommend this book on David and Solomon by archaeologist/academic Israel Finkelstein. Articulate and understandable outline of all relevant archaeological evidence of Judea and Israel from the 10th-6th centuries BCE. It's not the only view of such things, but it is the current consensus.
I am not going to source this extensively -I can if it causes problems - but it's common sense that there is no way two million people can cross the Sinai desert and leave no trace of their passing and there is no historical or archaeological evidence of any Exodus of that size. Certainly there is no way a group of people that size could hang out there for 40 years and leave nothing behind.
Check out the Wikipedia article on historicity, or even better, a book like this one: (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1575060256).
Kinda. Giant history lesson follows.
YEC as in "philosophical speculation about the age of the earth" is indeed from the Middle Ages. The Venerable Bede and other writers did do a lot of writing about time and calendars, where they attempted to speculate about the age of the Earth. However, their primary motivations were finding a universal way to calculate the date of Easter without using the Jewish version, which was a point of contention between the Roman and Celtic branches of the Church.
Geology (not biology) provided evidence in the 18th (not 19th) century that the Earth was far older than people had previously assumed. Nobody really knew how old, but it was pretty obvious by the time we started digging canals that there had been a succession of creatures and that these couldn't be explained by a Great Flood. Estimates in the 19th century ranged from a few million years to a few billion years to eternally old. Kelvin did the most thorough calculations based on the temperature of the Earth, but didn't know about radioactivity so dramatically underestimated.
By the start of the 20th century, this was more or less uncontroversial among most Christians, apart from those in some areas of the United States. The problem for them is that they viewed evolution as part of a societal attack on Christianity, which also included historical-critical interpretation of the Biblical texts by university seminarians.
The situation was that in the past 150 years, particularly out on the American frontiers where education was hard to come by, a new doctrine had developed called perspicuity. This doctrine asserted that any literate believer could read the Scriptures and come away with correct Christian doctrine. This doctrine is not a historical Christian doctrine and both the Catholics and the Reformers would have found the idea silly. "Of course we need trained, educated preachers," they'd have said. That's what the Church had always taught.
The American civil war threw this doctrine into crisis, because literate, honest readers of the text came away with nation-dividing views on slavery. So suddenly in the late 19th century, educated people were once again asserted that of course you need to be educated to properly interpret the Bible. It didn't help that many of those people were preaching against traditional interpretations of Christianity, including minimizing the role of miracles in the faith, etc. This offended a lot of evangelicals who still held onto ideas about perspicuity. The reaction to all of that was fundamentalism, which included the idea that the Scriptures are "inerrant".
And that led to what we call "scientific creationism", which is the idea that you should be able to read the Scriptures and, separately, "read" the world, and come up with the same set of truths. This was originally a weird Seventh-Day Adventist thing, promoted by an amateur geologist named George McCready Price. SDA is where the idea of "flood geology" originates, the idea that one can explain the observations of modern geologists using a worldwide flood.
Until the modern synthesis in the 1930s, there was controversy among biologists about whether Darwinian evolution was tenable. (Note: Evolution itself was not controversial, just evolution by natural selection.) Adventist writers were able to seize on this actual uncertainty to promote their ideas, but it wasn't particularly widespread. Adventists have always been a fringe group within Christianity, with some not even accepting them as Christian at all.
American schools mostly avoided controversy by not teaching evolution at all. Stuff like the Scopes Trial did happen and got a lot of publicity, but people need to realize that these got publicity because 1) most people, even most Christians, outside of the frontier thought the situation was stupid and 2) politicians like Bryan could use the publicity as a campaign tool.
Then something happened that led to a massive federal push for updating American schools' science curriculums. The response to this - in 1961 - was The Genesis Flood, a book by engineer Henry Morris which made those weird Seventh-Day Adventist views palatable for evangelicals, who then in the 70s and 80s were turned into a unified political force (for a variety of reasons). And again, the idea was that we should use the Scriptures to interpret scientific findings and vice versa, with the goal of coming up with a unified view of reality. After all, God's truth should be equally apparent in both places.
By the end of the 1970s, young-earth "scientific" creationism in the Price/Morris form was an article of faith for evangelicals. The same is true of the apocalyptic "End Times" stuff, which took an equally circuitous route (involving hippies) to the mainstream. By the time those of us who grew up evangelical in the 90s were born, it was a given.
So yes, when people talk about young-earth creationism, they really are talking about a weird, modern American thing. The version of YEC that was accepted by people like Bede has almost nothing in common with the modern "scientific" version. Your grandparents were probably born before the modern version became prominent.
(Edit: various)
hi /u/lenusme. this is probably not the right place for this. self promotion is generally frowned upon here, unless you have an exceptionally well researched blog post, or an actual academic paper you'd like to share. and this is a pretty surface level discussion at best, to be honest. but i'd like to discuss some problems anyways.
> Some believe that Moses wrote Genesis while was in the land of Midian. Others believe he wrote it in the desert after his encounter with God on Mount Sinai. Although there is no way to know.
in fact, modern scholarship nearly universally rejects mosaic authorship entirely. you may want to consult the popular books "who wrote the bible?" and "the bible with sources revealed" by richard elliott friedman for an introduction to the documentary hypothesis (or start with this wiki page, if you'd like).
there are a number of other notable problems with mosaic authorship too, from an archaeological/historical standpoint. for instance, the amarna letters contain a few hundred correspondences between the pharaohs at akhentaten (now el-amarna) and their vassal territories in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE, and are among many other pieces of evidence that indicate that the egyptian empire looked rather like this for most of the time between 1550 BCE and 1100-ish BCE:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Egypt_NK_edit.svg
other relevant pieces of evidence for this are the egyptian hittite peace treaty that places the border between those two empires approximately 100 miles north of jerusalem around 1259 BCE, signed by the great ramesses ii, and the stele left by his son mernepteh in 1208 BCE reaffirming conquest of canaan -- including our oldest positive historical reference to a people called "israel". there are also egyptian outposts like jaffa which persisted until about the mid 1100's BCE, when egypt begins to lose control canaan in the bronze age collapse.
you can probably see why this causes some problems; the entire historical context of the narrative is wrong. there was no free land to lead the israelites to: moses's destination in the story was egypt in history. so, who was moses, then?
> Although the Jews call it Bereshit because it is the first and means "in the beginning."
it actually means "in the beginning of." you may wish to see rashi's commentary:
>> This verse calls aloud for explanation in the manner that our Rabbis explained it: God created the world for the sake of the Torah which is called (Proverbs 8:22) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) way”, and for the sake of Israel who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) “The beginning (ראשית) of His (God’s) increase’’. If, however, you wish to explain it in its plain sense, explain it thus: At the beginning of the Creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness, God said, “Let there be light”. The text does not intend to point out the order of the acts of Creation — to state that these (heaven and earth) were created first; for if it intended to point this out, it should have written 'בראשונה ברא את השמים וגו “At first God created etc.” And for this reason: Because, wherever the word ראשית occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state. E. g., (Jeremiah 26:1) “In the beginning of (בראשית) the reign of Jehoiakim”; (Genesis 10:10) “The beginning of (ראשית) his kingdom”; (Deuteronomy 18:4) “The first fruit of (ראשית) thy corn.” Similarly here you must translate בראשית ברא אלהים as though it read בראשית ברוא, at the beginning of God’s creating. A similar grammatical construction (of a noun in construct followed by a verb) is: (Hosea 1:2) תחלת דבר ה' בהושע, which is as much as to say, “At the beginning of God’s speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea.” Should you, however, insist that it does actually intend to point out that these (heaven and earth) were created first, and that the meaning is, “At the beginning of everything He created these, admitting therefore that the word בראשית is in the construct state and explaining the omission of a word signifying “everything” by saying that you have texts which are elliptical, omitting a word, as for example (Job 3:10) “Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb” where it does not explicitly explain who it was that closed the womb; and (Isaiah 8:4) “He shall take away the spoil of Samaria” without explaining who shall take it away; and (Amos 6:12) “Doth he plough with oxen," and it does not explicitly state, “Doth a man plough with oxen”; (Isaiah 46:10) “Declaring from the beginning the end,” and it does not explicitly state, “Declaring from the beginning of a thing the end of a thing’ — if it is so (that you assert that this verse intends to point out that heaven and earth were created first), you should be astonished at yourself, because as a matter of fact the waters were created before heaven and earth, for, lo, it is written, (v. 2) “The Spirit of God was hovering on the face of the waters,” and Scripture had not yet disclosed when the creation of the waters took place — consequently you must learn from this that the creation of the waters preceded that of the earth. And a further proof that the heavens and earth were not the first thing created is that the heavens were created from fire (אש) and water (מים), from which it follows that fire and water were in existence before the heavens. Therefore you must needs admit that the text teaches nothing about the earlier or later sequence of the acts of Creation.
the simplest explanation is that rashi's first reading is correct, and the masoretes have mispointed בָּרָ֣א as a perfect verb, when is should be pointed בְּרֹ֤א (gen 5:1) as an infinitive construct, which is the same kind of grammatical construction. this construction, a complex preposition in construct form, followed by an infinitive, sets up a subordinate clause. the following statement is an aside, with the initial action taking place in verse 3:
>> When God began to create heaven and earth—
>> the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water—
>> God said, “Let there be light”;
this is actually a common structure for ancient near eastern creation myths, and you can see it again in genesis 2 -- a work by a different author:
>> When the Lord God made earth and heaven—
>> when no shrub of the field was yet on earth and no grasses of the field had yet sprouted, because the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil, but a flow would well up from the ground and water the whole surface of the earth—
>> the Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth.
subordinate clause, aside, initial action. you can see it other cultures, even:
>> When the heavens above did not exist,
And earth beneath had not come into being —
There was Apsû, the first in order, their begetter,
And demiurge Tia-mat, who gave birth to them all;
They had mingled their waters together
Before meadow-land had coalesced and reed-bed was to he found —
When not one of the gods had been formed
Or had come into being, when no destinies had been decreed,
The gods were created within them:
Lahmu and Lahamu were formed and came into being.
>> Enuma Elish, Babylon
i point this out because i see hints you're going down the wrong path here -- this first verse is not a definitive statement about anything. it merely locates the story temporally.
> The new testament begins with the words biblos geneseos
by accident. early church tradition assumed that the gospel of matthew was earliest, but based on the two source hypothesis regarding the synoptic problem, and editorial fatigue in matthew and luke, scholars mostly think that matthew and luke were copying the gospel of mark. mark, of course, begins "Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ", arxe tou euaggeliou iesou xristou uiou tou thou, the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ son of god." but there's a better candidate here. consider:
>> Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1)
>> ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν (Gen 1:1 LXX)
it's likely that john was specifically invoking genesis here. i am not sure, at the moment, when the title "genesis" was applied to the text. i suppose i could keep going, but these are some problems i see right off the bat.
if you'd like, i could talk about the function of genesis, literary style, dates of authorship, relationship to the babylonian calendar rather than the original hebrew one, the demythologization of other deities, the polytheistic background it's explicitly rejecting, etc. this is really just scratching the surface.
> I cannot reconcile it with realistic interpretations of scripture
John Walton is a very well known Old Testament scholar who has written two books on why the literalistic interpretation of Genesis is incorrect and dishonest as the proper way to read Genesis (that is, the way that the ancient Israelites would have read Genesis). Surprisingly, he also criticizes the way that scientific minded Christians have forced a reading of Genesis to automatically fit with the evolution narrative. He doesn't touch on any science at all in his exposition and sticks to the text, so I would highly recommend checking it out.
There is a great deal of extra-biblical material! If you have a large pile of money, get Hallo and Younger, The Context of Scripture: Canonical Compositions, Monumental Inscriptions and Archival Documents from the Biblical World (3 Vol Set, Brill, 2003), or follow this link. James Pritchard's The Ancient Near East (Sixth ed.; Princeton, 1973) can be had used paperback pretty cheap.
If you do not have time to read all this, there are a few books with slog through the ANE texts and apply them to the text of the OT. While others might not like Walton's faith commitments, he does a good job surveying the ANE lit and showing how the OT fits into that worldview.
John Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (Second Ed.; Baker 2018)
Peter Enns does the same sort of thing with a little less conservative faith commitment, his Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament (Second Ed. Baker 2015) was controversial in its first edition and led to him losing his teaching position at Westminster Theological Seminary.
Hey, welcome to the sub. :)
First off, you have the right attitude (more than many churchgoers, it seems). You want to understand and wrestle and have it be real. Good news: you're on the right track. Faith is hard, at least most of the time. I'm sorry others looked down on you for asking questions and trying to figure things out; they were wrong to do so.
I agree with what others here are saying: Genesis is probably not the easiest place to start, and you'll get even more bogged down in Numbers or in Chronicles. Start in one of the Gospels. I saw Luke suggested, and I'll throw in John. Luke's writing has more details, and John's might be easier to read.
Starting in the Gospels has a purpose: Jesus is really the major focus. There's a lot to gain from reading his words firsthand, and seeing his actions. You might find it a lot different from what the culture says about him. Take your time and soak it in, and I think you'll find him pretty compelling.
After that, Paul's letters are pretty great. Philippians might be a good one to read first, though they're all really short and won't take long.
I might also suggest reading a different version of the Bible. The NRSV is accurate, but can also be archaic and difficult to understand. There are a lot of debates over Bible versions, but don't sweat them for now; I'd suggest the ESV or the CEB (if you want to study deeper later, the NRSV might be better then).
You'll probably want to find a church. This can be hit-and-miss, depending on so many factors. You won't and shouldn't fit into a church that looks down on you for struggling with faith. To start, even though it might feel silly, talk to God about it. Doesn't have to be fancy, just a conversation asking him to help you find a good church. Visit a couple, and see if they try to follow the Jesus you read about in the Bible.
(And if you're in the Dallas area, let me know... you can visit ours! :D I know a couple other great churches in the area too.)
If you're looking for more resources, it depends on what you're interested in.
BUT... don't go crazy. Start with the Gospels and maybe Mere Christianity, and go from there.
If you have questions about what you're reading, feel free to come to this sub or /r/TrueChristian and ask. To be fair, there will be several opposing opinions on more controversial issues, which is a double-edged sword sometimes. But most everyone is welcoming, kind, and happy to discuss anything.
>As I said, I grew up as Catholic as one can.
You also said you attended seminary for four years. One would think that you have studied the Summa upon immediate entry into your pre-theology.
>I actually studied for a year the Acts of the Apostles.
Then surely, as a former Seminarian, you have a Reverse Interlinear and a Greek Primer to study Scripture as in-depth as possible? Because, as every good seminarian knows, Scripture is written in Koine Greek, and we need to study various facets of language to understand the full meaning of what is recorded.
>Do I try to seek answers? Everyday I do. I visit /r/Christianity to check on discussions often
I would not qualify visiting an online forum as a means of seeking answers.
>I read a lot about the history of the Bible.
Whom have you read?
Surely, as a seminarian, you have read An Introduction to the New Testament by Brown and Reading the Old Testament by Boadt. Both are standard readings in seminary.
>I would never have known that creationism is a Jewish folklore.
Eh...I wouldn't say that "creationism if a Jewish folklore." I would say that Creationism is a non-Catholic interpretation of the Genesis myth (here I do not mean today's understanding of "myth").
Slaps head Duh. The "some" who "have suggested" are, naturally,
John C. Whitcomb & Henry M. Morris - The Genesis Flood (1961).
See p. 399 of the '50th Anniversary' edition.
No, there is no record whatsoever of the Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt an no archaeological evidence of 2 million+ people wandering in the deserts of the Sinai peninsula for 40 years. Which isn't to say it didn't happen, only that we have no evidence for such events.
The ancient Israelites didn't settle in Canaan from elsewhere, there is nothing in the historical/archaeological record to suggest they were anything but Canaanites themselves. One theory is that they were tribal-hill country folk who thrived after the collapse of the economy surrounding the ancient city states.
source: Bible Unearthed, Biblical History and Israel's Past
The most apt description I've seen for how to understand the bible is to read it as political propaganda. A huge component of their religion was to separate themselves from other cultures, so it makes sense that their foundation myths would include coming from elsewhere. And having God himself promise you the land doesn't hurt your claims, either.
For HB broadly, the most accessible and standard Intro is John J. Collins.
For Canaanite Religion, I'd go with something like this volume.
For the historical side of thing for Persia, and the fallout thereafter, you could go with something like From Cyrus to Alexander.
The notion of the Trinity is something that really has no analog in our experience. I think to understand this it requires, at minimum, a shift in thinking about what it means to be God. Typically when people hear that there is one God, the implicit assumption is that God exists as a singular instance. I think the shift is to think about God not as being equivalent with an instance, but an essence which can exist in multiple instances.
To be God means to partake in the essence of God; i.e., to have the attributes of God (eternality, aseity, omniscience, omnipotence, moral perfect, etc...) If you make this shift, it becomes more intelligible how there can be one essence that is God (monotheism) yet three persons who partake in that essence (the Trinity).
Just in the same way that the color red is a singular property, yet there are many instances of things which participate in having the property of being red. If I have three red chairs of exactly the same color, I would not say there are three colors among my chairs. I would say there is one color, red, and three chairs which are red. In the same way I believe when we say there is one God, we refer to the property, or set of properties that comprise the essence of what God is. It turns out that there are three persons who hold that essence. So there is one God (the essence), but three people (the instances) who are God.
It can still be hard for us to understand precisely what this means. I think it's helpful to think of a person in terms of consciousness. So when we say there are three people who are God, we are saying something like that there are three distinct conscious beings who each share God's essential properties, such that they are unified by that same essence. They are one God in the sense that they are united by the same attributes, the same will, the same personality features of love and justice, and so on. Yet they are distinct persons in that they do not share the same subjective experience, can be in community with one another, and can interact amongst each other in a way that is not equivalent to you talking to yourself alone in a room.
Ultimately because the Trinity has no earthly analog it will always be something of a mystery. I think if we had examples of such a tripersonal being in our earthly experience it would not be so much of a paradox. I don't believe that the notion is logically incoherent but it can be difficult to apprehend due to a lack of analogs.
I recommend you read The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders.
http://www.amazon.com/Exodus-Egyptian-Evidence-Ernest-Frerichs/dp/1575060256
The book which contains this essay, among others on the subject. Unfortunately, it's a little expensive, but I couldn't find anywhere which sold the essay alone.
A bunch (but not the Gnostic stuff) of that is in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, and the best edition of that is the two volume set edited by Charlesworth. This is the standard edition for most, if not all, of these texts. It's for sure worth buying.
Academic Biblical studies encompass a very broad range of subjects, but I'll try to cover a bunch here. In my opinion, though many people who frequent this subreddit may protest, the best overall introductory text to Higher Criticism of the O.T. would be R.E. Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?. Although Friedman holds a number of fringe views and the vanilla Documentary Hypothesis has overall fallen out of favor (though there has been a recent revival of it), this is definitely the best-written and most entertaining introduction to the basic theory (I read through the entire thing in about 3 days). If you're looking for more on DH after that, Joel Baden's book, The Composition of the Pentateuch, is much more scholarly and explains the logic behind source division using numerous test cases (providing both the original Hebrew and translation).
For literary studies, just start with Robert Alter. I'm not really sure if this falls under the category of "academia" or is what you were looking for, but it's certainly an interesting analysis of how the Bible (both as a whole and by source division) tells its stories.
The only book I've read on the foundation of the Bible in the mythology of surrounding cultures is Tim Callahan's The Secret Origins of the Bible, which wasn't written by a scholar, but the author sources just about everything he writes; think of it as a Wikipedia for Biblical mythology--not entirely trustworthy, but fine for reference and finding further information. This one's also the only book on this list that has information on the New Testament as well.
Finally, make sure to check AcademicBiblical's wiki! It has tons of resources including videos, articles, etc. that can help you out.
I don't really know of any good books for Hebrew language since I've just been studying it in school my entire life. If you do seem to find a good book/course though, make sure that it's in biblical Hebrew and not modern Hebrew, as a lot of the language is very different. Having studied Arabic myself though, I can tell you that it'll give a significant leg up in learning Biblical Hebrew. For example, the way that words are constructed by fitting 3 letter roots into certain formulations is the same in Hebrew, and the vocabulary of the two languages are often close cognates. Once you've learned Hebrew, it's much easier to pick up Aramaic (I know that as well), but if you're just learning it to read Daniel/Ezra, it's not worth learning the whole language; the grammar is practically the same and the words are also similar enough, so at that point it's easiest just to fake your way through it with knowledge of Hebrew and and good translation to check against (NJPS, NRSV).
Who Wrote the Bible explores the history of the stories, explaining the competing views and how they have been spliced together as one story. Wiki has an article about the Canaanite pantheon with a fair few references, one of which might work for what you're looking for.
Genesis is not a Gospel. It's the first book of the Old Testament (and therefore the Bible). Beyond that, I don't know what a "a know-it-all/always right" is. It's certainly not something I'd write.
As for the things you quote: Genesis was written to a
bronzeiron age culture. That doesn't mean they were idiots. They could ask the exact same questions -- and certainly would have. They also had practical knowledge and common sense; they understood God wasn't telling them to eat poison berries. So Genesis is saying something else; it's not giving a play-by-play scientific description of the origins of material existence. It's very likely talking about God's establishing an order to creation and placing man in the divine economy.John Walton has two books on this idea, The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate and The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate (with N.T. Wright). I've read both, and they're a good introduction to a better contextual understanding of Genesis and its purpose as Scripture. I personally prefer something with a little more theological and (modern) cosmological depth to it, but they're aimed at a general audience and in that respect I think they're worth reading.
EDIT: bronze -> iron.
I'm not quite sure what you are looking for. A few possible options for you:
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance by Bruce Metzger.
The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce.
The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant? by Walter Kaiser
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony by Richard Bauckham
I'd skip Finkelstein and go straight to 'Exodus- the Egyptian Evidence' as the OP wants Egyptian bits.
>Islam teaches that it was Ishmael that Abraham tried to sacrifice as the first born son,not Isaac.
Well, he WAS the real first-born, after all.
...Isn't it weird how those Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) all contain unpleasant examples of human sacrifice?
May I suggest you'd gain a lot from reading about the archaeological origins of the bible? There are several good books on the subject:
http://www.amazon.com/Did-God-Have-Wife-Archaeology/dp/0802863949
http://www.amazon.com/What-Biblical-Writers-Know-When/dp/080282126X
http://www.amazon.com/David-Solomon-Search-Western-Tradition/dp/0743243633
Enjoy...
Even the stuff that is in there, doesn't completely agree. There's 3 versions of the 10 commandments. The second version is just fucking crazy and has a commandment that says 'Thou shalt not boil a kid (a baby goat, not a human child) in it's mother's milk'. It wasn't just an addendum to the first 10 commandments. It touts itself as the same commandments that Yahweh first gave Moses. Clearly they are not.
If you found that stuff interesting, I'd highly recommend Richard Elliot Friedman's 'Who Wrote the Bible?'. It has a companion that goes really well with it called 'The Bible with Sources Revealed'.
There's the whole religious reform, that was a really huge deal at the time, that probably most christians today don't even know about.
My new favorite biblical analysis book is 'How Jesus Became God'. Ehrman, I think, pretty successfully argues that the synoptic gospels and Paul's writings, don't say that Jesus was divine.
The very short version of this is that the messiah of prophecy, was supposed to be a king who would reestablish Israel as a nation, not some preacher giving good advice. He wasn't supposed to be a deity or almost anything christians say he was supposed to be. The term 'mashiach', which is the original Hebrew that 'messiah' was derived from, just meant something like 'god's anointed one'. It did not mean that that person was a deity. Even King David was considered a messiah of his time, and he wasn't considered a deity.
And while I'm thinking of it, I have to throw in this one last thing. The Book of Job doesn't say what most christians think it says. They're interpretation is that Job was rewarded for being faithful to god. Not even close. Except for a few of the opening chapters, Job is angry at how unjust god is to the innocent. His friends argue that god is just, in various different ways. Then in the final chapter, god comes in and verifies that Job was right, and his friends wrong.
The idea that Bathsheba was deliberately bathing in the sight of the king comes from very poor knowledge of the architecture of the time. people bathed outside, its where the place for bathing was located. the book "Life in Biblical Israel" does a great job of explaining the architecture of ancient Israel.
The text itself, even before we get to Nathan's story suggest that she was raped. First David spots her from the rooftop and lusts after her knowing that she is married (some translations miss this because 1-when David sends in the Hebrew there is no object of David's "sending," plus there is an interrogative 'he' suggesting that the question is actually formulated "is this not bathsheba?" the idea of a messenger responding "this is Bathsheba" simply isn't present in the Hebrew). Then later David "sends" messengers for her (שָׁלַח "to send" is used here to show an abuse of power, and it is used more in this little section than in any other place in the Hebrew Bible) and the take her and she comes to him. What is implied is that she really doesn't have a choice in her coming to David. He sent presumably armed (unarmed guards wouldn't be very effective in protecting the king) guards to collect her... it's not like she had much of a choice... already we can see that she is not really given the agency to say no.
We are then told that David sleeps with her. Then most translations include a parenthetical aside that says something along the lines of "Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness." but that doesn't actually make sense. For one this is one of two times in the Whole Hebrew Bible that קָדַשׁ "to be holy" is used in the Hitpael form (which is normally reflexive) for a single subject. The other time it is when is God displaying his holiness. Secondly קָדַשׁ is a strange verb to use in context of a period because there was a different verb טָהֵר which was used to describe purity in the context of a period. On top of that we know from Deut. 22 that if a woman does not cry out when she is raped then she is held responsible, the problem in this context is who is Batsheba going to cry out to? She's been brought to David's house by armed guards who have served her up to the king. So she cries she appeals to the only power higher than David: God. She declares herself holy (thus non-participatory in the act) before God. All of the plus the adversative Vav that begins the thought and a better translation (in my opinion) is: "So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. But she was displaying her holiness from her uncleanness." In other words the text seems to suggest the David rapes Bathsheba by giving her just enough agency for her to declare before God that she did not willingly participate, and thus she can be cleared of the charge of adultery according the the deuteronomical code.
What's this? A wild literature tip appears!
http://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869128
http://www.amazon.com/David-Solomon-Search-Western-Tradition/dp/0743243633/ref=pd_sim_b_4
Also, there is Bibeln och arkeologerna ('The bible and the archaeologists') by Hans Furuhagen but I don't think there is an English translation.
It's super effective!
You're not the first to struggle with these issues. Here are some books that helped me:
Inspired, by Rachel Held Evans
The Bible Tells Me So, by Peter Enns
The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, by John Walton
You might find this book interesting if you want to learn more about it.
Archaeological record clearly shows a diversity of deities being worshipped in the area. Inscriptions like the one found in Kuntillet Ajrud or the countless figurines that pop up in excavations confirm that polytheism was the norm pre-exilic Israel and Judah.
Whether Jewish monotheism is a development that emerged from this (and, most importantly, how and when) or if there has always been the case of a priestly caste advocating YHWH as the only true God even though the population clearly failed to adhere to it as portrayed in the Bible is where you'll find some debate. To clarify: the important distinction here is that the first view argues that deities like Asherah or Haddad were autochthonic gods that were originally worshipped alongside El/YHWH while the latter argues that they were later imports that were syncretised with the YHWH cult in popular religion.
As for the golden calf, in the book I mentioned above (forgot which article or author, it has been ages since I read it and I don't have it with me anymore), it is suggested that it is a symbol for a nameless lesser (or false) deity. In Israelite and Canaanite iconography, El/YHWH is often equated to the figure of a bull. So in that specific passage you have Moses coming down the mountain bringing the words of YHWH (the bull) only to find his people worshipping a calf.
Not a PDF, but if you ever want more a breakdown of Enoch and other Apocrypha (Which I think is essential in understanding the Jewish mystic shit), check these out. There's a lot there. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598564897/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I got kind of lazy with the links, but anyways here is my collection of Christianity related books, links etc.
Listening:
Books:
Links
Reading Genesis 1-2: An Evangelical Conversation https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598568884/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_NgCSAbS7MDR61
>Don't listen. I think I'm a fairly good writer
No doubt.
>For the OT, which isn't my wheelhouse, I'd look into ....
Thanks for the suggestion. I already have a book by Michael D. Coogan (Oxford University Press) so I think I'll stick with that one for now. Not much money :).
>For example, Yale University's course on the New Testament is available as a free recording. While that's going to be secular and focused on critical scholarship, it should give you a lot of info about the book.
Sounds great. I've downloaded iTunes U stuff on the Bible before.
> Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book, which really changed my view on a series of documents that I had devoted years to digging into. In fact, if you'd like, PM me your address and I'll Amazon you a copy.
That's incredibly kind. I'll PM if I decide to take advantage of your generous offer but I will more likely look into the other things you listed first and continue to take advantage of what is free. The Kindle version is also less expensive so I may just buy that one day. Still, thanks for offering!
If you specifically want books that will make you take Jesus seriously, I'd suggest the following to start with:
Jesus and Empire by Richard Horsley
God and Empire by John Dominic Crossan (BONUS: he's Catholic)
The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann
These are all short books, in the low 100s page count, and the authors have an easily accessible style. If you get through those, read more historical Jesus stuff by these guys. I also highly recommend Marcus Borg and Doug Oakman.
Once you've got the historical Jesus stuff down, you can move on to theology! If you want to read liberation theology, go with the original. Political theology is good, too - Moltmann's Theology of Hope and The Crucified God are must-reads. As for economic theology, I'd start with M. Douglas Meeks' God the Economist and Jeorg Rieger's No Rising Tide.
If you get through all that and find it interesting, I can recommend dozens of other books.
Outside of the obvious, what is an example of an incorrect answer?
EDIT: Link for the lazy
I live in France unfortunately, and since that kind of stuff isn't the best selling books, unless you live near a really big library, you have little chances of finding them irl. Best bet is amazon, I'm still waiting for my package of this one, but they sell a pdf version (i just like holding them okay): https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0800699106/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
The Exodus by Richard Elliot Friedman is a good moderate-liberal academic-light book on the historicity of the Exodus/Conquest. Probably can't beat Lost World of Israelite Conquest by John Walton.
For the Ancient Near East, there are pretty few sources, as scrolls are often lost due to fires and humidity. So we're left with stelae, ostraca and tablets - and of course, religious texts heavily copied by scribes.
Very interesting information can be found in the Old Testament. Richard E. Friedman's "Who wrote the Bible?" tells us what hints can be obtained from Genesis about the time when it was written, and Mark S. Smith tells us in "The Early History of God" about the various religious rituals and their existence, and how the Assimilation and Differentiation happened.
But in the 20th century, we got lucky: Old tablets were found in the ancient city of Ugarit; Among them we have a few copies of the mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh; various religious texts, e.g. Aqhat, the Baal Cycle, which can be read translated in Coogan's Stories from Ancient Canaan, and of course, several administrative documents. There's a copy of the Ugaritic Data Bank floating around in scholarly parts of the internet, but it's transliterated; You'd have to know Ugaritic to be able to read it ;-) Oh, and there are plenty of articles about Ugarit found in Google Scholar.
Speaking of Ugarit, Mark S. Smith mentions the Ugaritic tablets and how they explain confusing passages in the Bible, e.g. the "blessing from the breasts" to Abraham and how it relates to the goddess Asherah.
We also have Assyarian stelae, which we can use to correlate with the Biblical accounts, and the Amarna letters, which contain pretty interesting mail exchanges between Egypt and other states. Speaking of Egypt, we have the Merneptah Stele talks about the destruction of Israel. It's the oldest mention (and probably the only mention in the Bronze Age) of Israel found in Egyptian records.
For how to decipher Archaeological stuff, there's a pretty good detail in Israel Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed", and how the various myths of the Old Testament can be deconstructed, like dating of the various layers in Jericho; Also, we know about serial-manufactured clay pots with the seal of the king. This is a characteristic of a fully-developed state. By analysing and dating these pots we can identify when was a state developed.
Also, Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager have a book called "Life in Biblical Israel" filled with human-readable archaeological data (and nice diagrams and reconstruction pictures) that can be useful to understand much of ancient texts.
EDIT: Also there are thousands of tablets in the Assyrian state archives, which I didn't mention because I haven't studied that part yet (thanks to Daeres for that).
If you'd like to know how modern Archaeology can contribute to know the life of the ancient hebrews (and canaanites, etc), please refer to William G. Dever's "What did the Biblical writers know and when did they know it?". The first chapter gives us a crash-course on modern Biblical Archaeology. He also explains how we can get to "the history behind the history". For example, if a book in the Bible speaks against a person or a group of people, no matter what the date of the book was officially said to be, if you can infer when that book was written (by clues from the sociopolitical situations of various times), then you can know that there was a polemic against that group in that particular time.
EDIT: Grammar.
Enoch belongs to the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. I recommend the following collection: https://www.amazon.com/Old-Testament-Pseudepigrapha-set/dp/1598564897/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539063255&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=pseudepigrapha&dpPl=1&dpID=51PcAuwXt9L&ref=plSrch It’s a two volume set and for that price, it’s worth it. The remaining Apocrypha can be found in the KJV with Apocrypha and that is more ubiquitous.
>How many of you have read a holy book cover to cover?
I appreciate this question because it reminds me of homework I ought to be doing. I'm ashamed to admit I have not actually read the tanakh through and through. I've read a good amount, I've bounced around (I don't believe it needs to be read linearly) but I have not finished it. I like when good Bible questions get asked in this sub as it causes me to read things I probably haven't read before which will cause me to read more into/about it.
I recommend this book for everyone: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0688142974
Essentially, it's the bible simplified into a more readable version if you want to get an overview of the stories, events, people, etc without feeling bogged down by the boringness of the Bible. Obviously it doesn't capture everything but it's also good about not omitting irrelevant, small details. It's not a replacement for indepth study, but it's certainly a good reference.
Genesis is actually the first book of the Torah. (Torah = Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.) The Qur'an wasn't written until the seventh century AD, so it's not going to be a good resource for understanding Genesis within its own historical context.
If you want a general, basic understanding of the old testament, get this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Old-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0195378407
If you want a general, basic understanding of the new testament, get this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Historical-Introduction/dp/0199757534
If you want a specifically Christian resource on the bible as a whole, get this book: http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Bible-All-Worth/dp/0310517826
I think the Oxford Bible Commentary is a great resource in general. They publish commentary on sections of the Bible in separate volumes, including one on the Pentateuch, which includes an overview of the history of Pentateuch criticism and the development of the JEPD Documentary Hypothesis.
The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library has a lot of good resources in biblical criticism too. They recently released this hefty renewal/evaluation/overview of JEPD. It received a good review from the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, which I think is considered a respectable representative of mainstream biblical studies.
Also, Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative) is always fun to read for a fresh, literary perspective. He might have an interesting take on JEPD in his edition of the Pentateuch.
I agree that the Bible is not properly seen as a rulebook or instruction manual, but I believe your redemption-oriented definition of "Christian" is too narrow. I like the definition that a Christian is anyone who professes to follow the teachings and example of Christ.
Many Christians do indeed focus on the remission of sins through Christ, but that focuses on Christ's sacrifice at the crucifixion. Many other Christians prefer to focus on the teaching and example of Christ during his life. Nearly 30 years ago, I read a borrowed book recommended by my pastor which convinced me to take the second path -- I'm pretty sure the book was Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination.
http://www.amazon.com/Prophetic-Imagination-2nd-Walter-Brueggemann/dp/0800632877
Then I found this, which sounds interesting, but I'm not sure I want to spend $30+.
Joseph Telushkin - Biblical Literacy: The Most Important People, Events, and Ideas of the Hebrew Bible https://www.amazon.com/dp/0688142974/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_s.eNwbTXW4GCQ
Double-check the context of 2 Peter 3:8. He's not anywhere close to talking about the creation, or the time-frame of it. That's not his point at all, or even a secondary point being made. He uses that phrase as an illustration of how concrete God's promises are. Notice that he's talking about those who "forget," then turns around to emphasize that God never forgets, and always keeps His promises.
As far as the time-frame for the Creation Week, it really is an "either or or" thing. Either it's literal or literary. As others have pointed out, making the days into centuries, or even thousands of years poses significant scientific problems: many things are totally out of order. If you're looking to meet the Bible's Creation account with the current scientific models of how things came to be, I highly suggest looking into the well-documented idea that the original audience of Genesis would never have assumed that the Creation Week was meant to be taken literal, but that it was more in line with what they would have called an "Epic." And that the main force of the text isn't history, but theology to show us who God is, and where man fits.
For further reading, and a really good discussion from many different perspectives, I recommend:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1598568884/
Book recommendation: The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything by Fred Sanders (Crossway, 2010).
Here's a good resource for seeing the practical application of the doctrine. I have found that to be the most helpful for understanding some of the nuances of the doctrine itself.
If you want something more academic and historical, check out this resource.
I loved Reeves' book but I don't know that it will answer your question. It doesn't matter. Get it and read it anyway.
A slightly more technical book that might get to what you're asking is The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders
As for the Shorter, I'm sure there's a book that expounds it that might be more specifically what you're looking for.
Historians aren't merely considering the Old Testament narrative, for example, the call of Abraham, when they conclude that Yahwism (ancient Judaism) was henothesitic. The Pentateuch/Torah, while comprised of several early textual sources, did not reach its final form until late into Israel's nationhood, and maybe not until after the return from Babylonian captivity (537 BCE). So, most of what you're reading in the Old Testament was written much later than the period it depicts and that, as such, the writers/editors often shape the narrative to fit their own theological persuasions. In this case, the writers/editors would have been part of a more thoroughly monotheistic Judaism and this perspective would have shaped the way they brought the stories together.
On the other hand, earlier texts incorporated into the whole still reflect the latent henotheism of ancient Judaism, as I listed above. There's no real difference between identifying ancient Judaism as henotheistic and saying that "a lot of Israelites had a hard time holding to this concept [monotheism]." Henotheism doesn't even require worship of other deities only an assumption that other deities exist. The text assumes this (“You shall have no other gods before me”) and the common people believed it (as suggested by their frequently idolatry). You write, “…by the time Moses was on the scene, God had weaned them enough to give them the solid decree that he was the one and only God.” The only way you can draw this conclusion - since the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law do not declare that Yahweh is the one and only God; only that no other god is to be worshipped – is that you assume the Bible to be homogenous and feel free to impose the perspective of later writers onto the early Israelites.
You assume that the disparate documents compiled in the Bible are coherent, theologically consistent, and somehow point to an overarching divine plan, placing the Bible in a unique position among literature. That’s a lot to assume and awfully hard to defend. Since I consider ancient Judaism to have been henotheistic, you conclude that I “have not taken the time to really dive in and attempt to understand how it all fits together, nor understand that there were processes involved in accomplishing God's plan for the people group in question.”
If you’re interested in this, I’d suggest one or more of the following:
The Bible with Sources Revealed, by Richard Friedman
The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, by Michael Coogan
How to Read the Bible: History, Prophecy, Literature--Why Modern Readers Need to Know the Difference and What It Means for Faith Today, by Steven McKenzie
How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now, by James Kugel
> Historians look to other forms of evidence than written sources to support or deny historical assertions, and in the case of the Bible, these other forms of evidence don't always match up with the Biblical account.
One can look at K. A. Kitchens On the Reliability of the OT or Walter Kaiser's The OT Documents - Are They Reliable and Relevant? or Craig Bloomberg's The Historical Reliabilitiy of the Gospels or F.F, Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? or Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony
>...the Bible itself is sufficient proof of the claims made within it.
No one I know makes that claim, except for atheists who think that is the position of Christians. See the above works for details.
That being said if Stephen Ambrose quotes Max Hastings or John Toland and it would taken as a valid reference. So one biblical author can cite another.
For The Bible Tells Me So by Peter Enns
Inspiration and Incarnation also by Peter Enns
It's not patristic, but you should read The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann.
You are absolutely not the first to ask hard questions and there are intellectual Christians who have sought hard to answer them. There are also wacko weird stuff that isn't filtered out well. Ask away and I'll do the best I can.
https://www.gotquestions.org/global-flood.html
http://askjohnmackay.com/noahs-flood-where-did-the-olive-in-doves-mouth-come-from-if-the-whole-world-was-flooded/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/159638395X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_KUL.zbG3E5D5G
https://www.gotquestions.org/Cains-wife.html
If you're seriously considering the validity of your faith, make sure to read the best arguments in either direction. Ken ham is not that.
The New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation is probably the best, although it too has some flaws. You can find it here
 
If you're looking for a book that's meant to introduce someone to the Hebrew Bible (and not a translation per se), then check out Rabbi Telushkin's Biblical Literacy
What if I told you scriptures are not a scientific tome, but rather a generalized explanation of a relationship between a divine being and people, how we should live with one another, care for one another, and help one another?
And that study of Science is there to help us understand the world we live in, and further the aforementioned goal of living with one another, caring for one another, and helping one another?
And that Scriptures were never intended to be a scientific tome, or even be referenced as a scientific tome?
John Walton, "Lost World of Genesis.", and "Lost world of Adam and Eve"
Anyway, I'm not saying you're wrong, but suggesting that perhaps the people who do have the position you correctly point out are very confused about what they have been taught about their scriptures.
Below is a response I received in PM from /u/Joseon1, who gave me permission to repost it here. (Joseon1 couldn't reply to me in /r/AskBibleScholars where he saw my question.) I figured I would post his helpful reply in case it helps others.
----
Hi, I can't post on /r/AskBibleScholars but I can hopefully help you with your question.
About the translations you're looking at, I'd always recommend checking the publisher. If it's independently published (e.g. via CreateSpace) avoid it, this means there has been no quality control. Most independently published translations are just reprints of public-domain versions you can read for free, in fact all the 1 Enoch editions you linked to use the 1912 translation by R. H. Charles.
I wouldn't recommend Ken Johnson's translations either. Although he has a Doctorate in Theology he seems very uncritical, bordering on gullible. For example, he believes his "Book of Jasher" is the lost book mentioned in Joshua 10:13, but it's actually a medieval rabbinic document, Sefer haYashar (Yashar was misinterpreted as the name Jasher by early modern Christians).
Your list of gnostic books is good, they're all by legitimate scholars. I'd say the Meyer edition is the most bang for your buck, it has all the gnostic documents found at Nag Hammadi, not just the gnostic gospels. Plus it has extensive introductions and helpful footnotes.
So, recommendations. I'll recommend a free digital version and a paid physical version of what you're looking for.
1 Enoch
Free: R. H. Charles
Paid: G. Nickelsburg & J. Vanderkam
Jubilees and others
Free: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Vol 2
Paid: Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol 2
Gnostics
The Nag Hammadi documents were discovered in 1945, so most translations haven't passed into the public domain yet.
Free: Gnostic texts at sacred-texts.com
Paid: M. Meyer OR J. Robinson
>why wouldn't you just wholesale reject that 1% then?
Because the cultural distance and the time distance between me and the actual events lead me to tolerate a margin of error for what I can and cannot grasp about the Bible. I choose to let the clear parts enlighten the confusing ones, and I'm OK with not understanding everything. That being said, I'm a bit angry at God for how the Bible is. But while there are things in the Bible that my gut would tell me come from men, I'm still very much inclined to believe that the essence of the Bible is from God.
That being said, if God is God, then this is His world. So if he wants to kill a few thousand Egyptian babies (who were all going to be destroyed anyway), whether He does it when they're babies, or in the Last Days, it's pretty much the same to me. Also, who am I to say that my Western, 21st century view of justice and human rights is the right one?? That's where I have to trust God.
The stories about rape and other conquest collateral damage are much harder to stomach. And it's a topic that I'm about to study, after spending 3-4 years on the NT and the Historical Jesus (which takes a lot of energy, as I'm not a theologian, and I have a full-time job, kids, yadda yadda yoda). Also, Bible inerrancy is a doctrine I had to take distance from.
We're in a 21st century, post-modern world, where most of what we think is shaped by these principles. In other words, we're all wearing glasses. But we can't really understand how much these glasses affect or distort "truth". So I try to be humble. And ultimately, this leads me to trust Jesus, because he spoke like no one before or after him, and he is the center of the Bible's stories of new creation, return from exile, and redemption. He's too perfect a fit for the accomplishment of OT expectations to be just another prophet.
I'm rambling.
Anyway, if I have one book to recommend about harsh OT passages, it would be the Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, by John Walton.
I'm going based on what I read in http://www.amazon.com/dp/0664221483 p. 45: http://books.google.com/books?id=OtOhypZz_pEC&lpg=PA40&pg=PA45#v=onepage&q&f=false
Reading the Old Testament by Lawrence Boadt
> accepting evolution means accepting that there was no "Adam and Eve", therefore no "original sin",
The shortest answer is: it is metaphor, all have fallen, Adam is I.
For an overview of the numerous answers and an argument for one read: The Lost World of Adam and Eve
George W. E. Nickelsburg & James C. Vanderkam
Not sure if you can find it for free online, if you do send me a link, I'm going to search the internet tomorrow and try to find a digital copy.
https://www.amazon.com/Enoch-Hermeneia-Translation-George-Nickelsburg/dp/0800699106
There's a book I'm just about to start reading called "Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History".
It's basically an attempt to gather up all currently available pieces of archaeological information into a single coherent story, drawing both from the bible and external sources (in an attempt to validate/triangulate the narrative). I know, it's a massive undertaking.
Still, it's meant to be quite accessible to non-historians. I got it off the /r/AskHistorians recommended reading list, and can't wait to start it (after I finish what I'm currently reading).
If you want I can keep you posted when I get down to reading it.
You are correct. My understanding of the whole thing came from Stephen Harris' Understanding the Bible and other collections that I have such as The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha which may not conform to the idea that you are saying. But yes, linguistically Apocrypha are books not considered canon and Pseudepigrapha are books written pseudonymously.
I agree that because we cannot find more than a few fragments of a lot of the Gnostic gospels that they were not widely in use.
I assume that a lot of the actual events of compiling the OT and NT took many hundreds of years. The events about Ezra is just what is written in the Bible. He reads the Torah to everyone. That's the only book that they had. The rest of the bible is dated to that time. The Bible had to be compiled post-exile, obviously. But what I was referring to is that Ezra really started the beginning of the modern Jewish religion. A lot of what was written about the history of the Jews was written from the point of view of an exile as they were currently exiled by the Babylonians. Moses wasn't Jewish as Jesus wasn't Christian. So as an explanation to them for their exile, Judaism emerges as a formal idea, rather than a regional religion that is was for 1500 years.
Well thanks for enlightening me about the Council of Nicaea. I would like to think that my research brought me further than Dan Brown, but in this case I guess not. That being said, there are documentations of around that time of lists of books that should be in the Bible, like the Muratorian fragment. Now this list isn't the list that we have today, but these are the earliest versions of them. So although they were developed over hundreds of years, this time I am referring to is the time that canonicity is being addressed.
That's your opinion, but it's simply not true. El was indeed a separate Canaanite deity. The name El and the term El are very different.
Archaeologists and Israeli anthropologists have found plenty of evidence showing that they were a tribe of Canaanites worshiping the same gods and goddesses. They eventually evolved from worshiping El to worshiping tribal war god named Yahweh. Their religion was primarily monotheistic. This isn't some conspiracy theory. It's widely known among ancient anthropologists.
Theology does not automatically trump evidence from archaeology and anthropology just because you'd like it to.
It sounds like you are upset because you have some sort of opinion on how the religion developed. I don't really care about opinions. The evidence is there for all to see.
The Genesis Flood 50th Anniversary Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/159638395X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_dmaazb4GFZEHJ
Buy it and educate yourself, or don't and remain ignorant. Your choice.