Tag: Priests
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Noah’s Flood
Five centuries before Israel appeared, along with the tales that form its national epic, a story was told by the Sumerian people in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). The gods created humans to do the heavy work, like digging drainage ditches, harvesting crops, and animal husbandry. They multiplied too rapidly, however, becoming obstreperous, ‘bolshie’ nuisances. “The country…
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Genesis One – Its ‘Beginnings’
The Book of Genesis is neither a science book, nor a history book. It’s a story book, containing some of the world’s most memorable tales. In its final form, involving the work of one or more editors, it’s a collection of traditional stories, originally shared by word of mouth, before being written down. These stories…
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Exodus – A God who Mugs and Kills People
Some people have a simple approach to the Bible. If you want to know what God is like, the Bible will tell you all you need to know. There’s a problem with this approach. On some occasions. what we’re told about God is unacceptably shocking. For example, he kills people. At a global level, in…
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Genesis 1 – from a Different Angle
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was compiled, over several centuries, using earlier materials, oral and written, from 4 different main sources, the latest one representing the interests of the Israelite priesthood. The 1st section of Genesis comes from this priestly source, and runs from 1:1 to 2:4a. The bible wasn’t divided into chapters until the middle…
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What do we owe the first philosophers?
We owe the very first Greek philosophers a debt of gratitude. It’s true that they learned much, in the way of mathematics, from the ancient civilisations of Egypt and Babylonia – geometry from the Egyptians and arithmetic from the Babylonians – but the Greeks introduced something new and different. What contributed to its emergence? The…
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