OK, so I'm lagging way behind you two, but have been attempting a re-write of the first section to incorporate some of the new information and context that was brought out, and to hopefully improve clarity. Here's what I've come up with:
_____________
This post is the introduction to a series focusing on the origins and intentions of the Old Testament (in Christian parlance), or the
Tanakh (in the Judaic). With some minor exceptions this series will generally focus on the narratives of Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon, the so-called Divided Monarchy, and the Babylonian Exile. These narratives formed the core of the transitional Judaic Temple Cult, as it was restored to Judea under the Persians. This, in turn, became the basis of manipulation for the Seleucid Greeks, and then the Romans, in their ongoing efforts to integrate a new and 'approved' Judaism into an overarching social control mechanism.
The Old Testament also forms the basis of the primary false dialectic of Western civilization, namely that of the Gentile versus the Jew. We are referring here to the continual battle between Greek, Roman, and later Christian peoples, on the one side, against the Jewish people and their later proxies, the Islamics. On the Greek and Roman side of the conflict, the defining documents were the Homeric corpus, including the tales of Castor and Pollux and their typological parallels, Romulus and Remus. These collectively formed a sort of bible to the Greco-Roman world; that is, until supplanted by the New Testament.
It is this contrived oppositional thread of tension that runs continuously through our collective historical narratives, since the time fictively attributed for Moses. This 'clash of civilizations' keeps the majority distracted from what really matters, and constantly blaming institutionalized scapegoats for real or perceived problems.
The sad irony here is that some modern day Jews complain that they have been, and still are, scapegoats for the evils of their superiors in Christian-dominated realms. We find this ironic because we assert that, within the Western schema, this was indeed the assigned role of the Jewish people from day one of their troubled existence. The responsible parties for creating this role were the 'real wise guys', the Persian 'magi' redactors of the Old Testament, and perhaps the Egyptians and Hittites going before them. In carrying out this 'assignment', the Jews have been progressively and 'romantically' encouraged by their various prophets (such as Isaiah and later rabbis) to collectively adopt the metaphoric mantle of the Suffering Servant, for atonement's sake, and for the eventual betterment of all humanity. Importantly, this same victimological mantle was claimed by Christianity for Christ.
In a nutshell, we believe that the Judaic, and then the Christian narratives, their respective theologies, and even their 'ethnic identities', have been progressively tweaked so as to continually pit two otherwise similar (or maybe even otherwise identical) groups of ordinary peasant peoples against each other, so as to profitably disguise the elite sponsors, the oligarchs
du jour. This tweaking was masterfully done via numerous figurative 'sleight of hand' techniques ranging from the literary domain to various psychological and physical brutalities, not a few of which have been put to use again in more modern times.
The contrived creation of this dialectic is initially achieved wherein we find, with the Mosaic Law and Pentateuch, a radical new society formed with hundreds of its laws and customs inverted from those of the surrounding 'heathens' such as Egypt, and even from that of the surrounding fellow Semitic tribes (Jan Assmann,
Moses the Egyptian, pp. 55-74). The combination of these new laws and customs, plus the nationalistic narrative of the Torah, plus their new god Yahweh, made this new society of transformed heathens into an exclusively 'chosen' Elect. It was this demanding and curious singular god, Yahweh, who inscrutably preferred this particular group for the revelation of his latest plan for how humans should relate to each other and to him. But such a God, with his demands for singular fealty, and his lovingly wielded carrot and his iron rod, went provocatively against the widespread grain of tolerantly syncretistic polytheism which prevailed before him.
So, let us reflect upon what happens when either one individual or an entire group is set high up on a pedestal above all others, while rejecting all others' customs and cultures. Hmmm ... How to lose friends and enrage enemies? This is not to say that many, such as women, didn't find attractive features (for instance, monogamy) in this radically new religious and social paradigm. A variety of such attractive forms of Judaism eventually came to achieve approximately 10 percent of the Roman Empire's population. But later on we'll see that the Romans also portrayed themselves as another exclusive set of Chosen people. However, they played a
seemingly (but not really) opposite game of overtly absorbing others' gods, and then even the Jews' god, who finally supplanted all the others. That is, the Homeric and Roman polytheistic religious traditions and philosophy were syncretized with Judaic monotheism to form Christianity. This, in time, became the dominant religion of the entire Empire, and remained as an heritage to medieval Europe and beyond.
And while creating Christianity, the Romans purposely left a remnant of the Jewish god's people as a controlled opposition to themselves. That is, the Romans created Rabbinical (Talmudic) Judaism, as a unified and defanged successor to the many earlier Judaic sects, some of which had become quite radical. In fact, this may have been done not only to solve the immediate challenges of the day, i.e. repressing and co-opting (supposedly organic) violent Judaic nationalism, but also because of its potential utility throughout the Roman empire, and perhaps with an eye towards manipulating circumstances yet to come. This is how elites typically and systematically co-opt and control the masses, via such tried and true human shepherding techniques.
In the Old Testament narrative, other gods were either absorbed into the one Judaic god, or the new god was equated with the Canaanite heavenly god, El. The redactors pretended that this was always the case, claiming that all other gods had always been false. Thus, we now see confusing claims that 'God' and 'Gods' mean the same thing. That is, in translations, the plural word '
elohim' for the sibling 'gods' is frequently conflated with the singular, 'El', as it is claimed that the plural form is used in context as if it were singular.
Prior to this imposition of monotheism, societies warred against each other for the vanities and ambitions of their rulers, but never because of religious problems regarding other peoples' equivalent gods. In fact, such equivalent gods from different societies were typically seen as the very same divine entities whom were simply known respectively by different culturally appropriate names. But ever since this new and supposedly benevolent and loving god, or his human creators rather, made himself the exclusive god of gods, we have had nothing but religious based rancor and strife. Except, that is, during the good ol' Dark Ages of feudalism, when a single God reigned over all Western civilization, and where everyone knew their fixed place in the Judeo-Christian caste system. (Oops, we forgot Islam.)
