Almost all liberal Bible colleges and seminaries and, unfortunately, some institutions that openly profess conservative evangelical doctrine, favorably teach their students the "documentary hypothesis" known as the "JEDP hypothesis."
What is a documentary hypothesis?
Egyptian ruins and statues. Internal evidence in the text of the Pentateuch indicates that the author was familiar with Egyptian traditions, as one would naturally expect from Moses.
This liberal/critical view rejects the fact that Moses wrote the first five books, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. According to this hypothesis, the first five books were written by various unknown authors (like other parts of the Old Testament) who lived in the centuries of oral tradition within 900 years after Moses (if, according to this view, he even existed). These hypothetical narrators are:
J-J ahwist - (is a symbol of what the documentary hypothesis calls the Yahwist) supposedly lived approximately 900–850 BC. He/she/they allegedly collected the myths and legends of Babylon and other nations and added them to the “storybook” of the Jews, forming Bible verses using the Hebrew alphabet letters YHWH (‘ Jehovah’ - Jehovah).
E-E lohist - (Elohist) supposedly lived around 750–700 BC. in the northern kingdom (Israel) and wrote those verses where the name of God is used 'Elohim– Elohim.
D-D euteronomy (Deuteronomist) - supposedly wrote most of Deuteronomy, a book that was probably discovered in the Jerusalem temple in 621 BC. ( 2 Kings 22:8 ).
P-P riest - supposedly AND the priest (or priests) who lived during the Babylonian captivity and allegedly compiled a code of holiness for the people, the so-called priestly code.
Various editors – R- (from the German word Redakteur - Editor) presumably connected all the books together.
The idea that these books were written by more than one author was first proposed by Jean Astruc in Paris in 1753. However, the main exponent of the theory was Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918), who "reformulated the Documentary Hypothesis... from the point of view of the evolutionary view of history that was prevalent in philosophical circles at the time". He stated that those parts of the Old Testament that dealt with complex doctrine (i.e. one God, the Ten Commandments, the tabernacle, etc.) were not the truth revealed by the living God, but ideas evolved from lower levels of thought, including polytheism , animism, cult of ancestors, etc. Hence the “need” to find or invent different authors. One of The main arguments given were that writing did not yet exist at the time when Moses lived.
Thus, the documentary hypothesis undermines the authenticity of the events of the Creation/Fall/Flood, as well as the entire ancient history of Israel. She suggests that the entire Old Testament is one huge literary fraud and calls into question not only the integrity of Moses, but also the reliability and divinity of Jesus (see point 5 below). No wonder critics accepted this hypothesis with such joy!
Was Moses a Yahwist, an Elohist, a Deuteronomist, a Priest, or an Editor?
.Answer: He was none of them. Rather, Moses himself was both the writer and editor of the Pentateuch, and it was he who compiled these five books around 1400 BC, and not unknown authors from the time of the Babylonian captivity. This does not mean that Moses did not use other written sources available to him at the time (see below), or that he wrote the last few verses of Deuteronomy 34 that speak of his death. According to the Talmudic (Rabbinic Judaism) tradition, these verses were believed to have been added under Divine inspiration by Joshua.
There is no external evidence to support the authenticity of the authors J, E, D, P, or R. What were their names? What else have these supposed literary experts written? History, both Hebrew and secular, knows nothing about them. They exist only in the imagination of the inventors of the documentary hypothesis.
Evidence that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch
Clay tablets like the one pictured here were ideal for long-lasting written records. Unlike rough stones, this tablet could easily be held in one hand. The ancient records aboard the Ark could later be used by Moses to compile the book of Genesis (with God's guidance, of course).
Evidence that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which is often referred to as the "Law" (in Hebrew Torah), more than enough:
Does this mean that Moses wrote the book of Genesis without consulting any early sources of information? Not really. Genesis consists of accounts of historical events that occurred before the birth of Moses. Moses could easily have had access to ancient records and/or reliable oral traditions about these events. In this case, such records would undoubtedly have been preserved in written form (probably on clay tablets) and passed from father to son along the line of Adam-Seth-Noah-Shem-Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, etc.
In Genesis we find 11 passages that say: “Here (or “This is a book about...”) is the origin of...”. The Hebrew word toledoth translated as "origin", can also mean "beginning", "history", or even "family history", and each toledoth written immediately before or immediately after a description of historical events in which the person whose name is mentioned participated. The most likely explanation is that Adam, Noah, Shem, etc. described events that happened during or just before their lives, and Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, selected, compiled and recorded these stories - and the result was the book of Genesis in its modern and coherent form.
Genesis does not at all show a development from idolatry to monotheism, as Wellhausen's evolutionism suggests. Rather, on the contrary, it begins with the initial revelation of God, which, by the way, was later rejected by the Jewish people, as a result of which God handed them over to Babylonian captivity.
What about the different names used for God?
Let's look at this question by exploring Genesis chapters 1 and 2 . Word ’Elohim - Elohim used for God 25 times per Genesis 1:1–2:4a . This gives us an idea of a great and faithful Being, possessing creative and ruling power, greatness and omnipotence, and who is above the material world created by Him. It's very high title(= "God"), and this name is quite appropriate when Moses first used it to describe God's creative works.
In Genesis chapter 2 from verse 4, the Jews use the letters YHWH when calling God. This word, which is sometimes translated as “Jehovah,” is more often translated as “Lord,” and is the most frequently used name for God in the Old Testament (6,823 times). It means the Existent - "He who always was, is and will be", and is a very personal name for God. Therefore it is used when talking about His personal and covenantal relationship with a person. Genesis 2:4(b)ff is a detailed description of God’s creation of Adam and Eve and the place He prepared for them.13 Here they were to live and be in fellowship with the Lord14 and with each other. Therefore, it was quite appropriate for Moses to use the word YHWH when he wrote this section of Genesis. IN Genesis 2, YHWH connects with the title ‘Elohim – Elohim in order to form the compound name YHWH- 'Elohim(= Lord God). This means that God YHWH is the same as Elohim, i.e. Almighty Creator. There is no logical reason (especially based on the name used for God) to attribute this description to any other author(s).
Computer Confirms: Genesis Was Written by One Author
The following quote is from a magazine Omni for August, 1982:
“After 20,000 Hebrew words from the book of Genesis were entered into a computer at the Israeli University of Technology, researchers found many sentences that ended with verbs and numerous words of six letters or more. “Since these idiosyncratic forms are repeated again and again,” says project leader Yehuda Raddai, “it is most likely that the text was written by a single author.” A complete computer analysis carried out in Israel found that the probability that the text was written by a single author was 82%."
The same principles apply to the rest of Genesis and the rest of the Old Testament.
The JEDP hypothesis contradicts itself, since its proponents need to divide verses into sections and even attribute parts of sentences (which use more than one name for God) to different writers. Such a jumble would be strange if the texts of ancient literature of the Middle East were analyzed.
If we were talking about any other ancient book, the similar "scholarship" used to promote this hypothesis would would have been ridiculed long ago !
Conclusion:
Ultimately, the author of Genesis was God, who acted through Moses. This does not mean that God used Moses as a “typewriter.” On the contrary, God prepared Moses for this task from the moment of his birth. And when the time came, Moses had all the information he needed, and he was unerringly guided by the Holy Spirit as to what to include and what not to include in the books. This is consistent with known history and the statements and principles of Scripture ( 2 Timothy 3:15–17; 2 Peter 1:20–21 ).
On the other hand, there is no historical data and no spiritual or any theological basis for the fraudulent JEDP hypothesis. Her teaching is absolutely false; The "scholarship" that is used to promote this hypothesis is completely bogus. Supported by the theory of evolution, it exists solely for the sole purpose of undermining the authority of God's Word.
Links and notes
- Josh McDowall Irrefutable evidence, Here's Life Publishers, 1981, p. 45.
The average churchgoer is unaware of the difficult questions familiar words can raise. However, Bible scholars consider this book to be an artifact of the human race, just like any other book. Deciphering and analyzing it from this point of view became the meaning of their lives.
Based on independent study of the texts, biblical scholars have come up with many theories about who actually wrote the Holy Scriptures. And these theories pose a serious challenge to traditional assumptions about who the Bible's author is.
10. Moses did not write the Pentateuch
Jews and Christians believe that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. However, doubts about this began to arise among medieval rabbis. The first obvious fact that raises suspicion: Moses could not have written verses 5-10 in Deuteronomy 34, which speaks of his death. But this glaring discrepancy is only the beginning of the inconsistencies.
Genesis 12:6 suggests that the author was writing about a time after the Canaanites had been driven out of the region, although this was after Joshua, Moses' successor, had arrived. Likewise, the information contained in Genesis 36:31 suggests that this text was written when Israel had already become a monarchy. Genesis 24 mentions domesticated camels, but camels were not domesticated until much later. As for the trading caravan in Genesis 37:25, this type of activity flourished only in the eighth and seventh centuries BC.
One early explanation for all these textual errors was that Moses wrote only the gist of the Pentateuch, but later editors (such as Ezra) added to it. But in 1670, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza first suggested that Moses did not write any of these books at all. In the ancient East it was quite common to attribute one's work to a predecessor hero, or even to God, in order to legitimize one's message and its content. Something similar probably happened here too.
9. Documentary hypothesis
In the 19th century, scholars began to discover even more inconsistencies and errors in the Bible, causing its compositional history to be much more complex than previously thought. In 1886, German historian Julius Wellhausen proposed that the Hexateuch (the Pentateuch together with the book of Joshua) was compiled from four different documents by different authors. These documents are marked: J (Jahwist), E (Elohist), D (Deuteronomium, translated from the Latin Deuteronomy) and P (Priesterkodex, translated from Deuteronomy). with it. Priestly Code). Each of them has its own theology and purpose.
This theory explains the presence of repeated stories ("doublets"), such as two mentions of Creation and two mentions of the Flood - Genesis 7:17 describes a 40-day flood, while Genesis 8:3 says it lasted 150 days . It is assumed that later editors combined data from several sources into one narrative, sometimes interweaving two versions of the same story, and sometimes neglecting to smooth out obvious discrepancies, as seen in the story of the Flood.
In Yahwist (J), God is called "Yahveh" or "Jehovah" (Jahveh) in German, hence the name "J". His concept allows us to perceive God in an anthropomorphic concept, because he appeared to people like Abraham face to face. The book marked E calls God by the name "Elohim" and depicts Him indirectly, as in dreams. D is the source of information for Deuteronomy, as well as the Book of Joshua, the Book of Judges of Israel, 1st and 2nd Kings, and the Book of Kings. This document defines God as having no form, one that can be seen by any person. As for the Priestly Code (P), it focuses mainly on the cult around God and is fixated on his ancestry and genealogical lists.
More recently, the idea of four separate, complete, and consistent documents has been much questioned, but the complex nature of the writing of the Pentateuch still remains an undeniable fact.
8. Deuteronomy originated as royal propaganda.
Deuteronomy literally means “Second Law.” It is believed that this book was written during the reign of King Josiah in the seventh century in order to promulgate new laws that would strengthen the position of the clergy and thereby create a more distinctive religion for the kingdom of Judah.
The new set of laws rethinks the old provisions established at Mount Sinai in the light of new political and social realities. The nature of his narrative suggests that Deuteronomy will be read by residents of cities and villages oriented towards the rule of the Temple of Jerusalem. The legislation written for the Temple replaces the earlier law written in Exodus 20:24, indicating that Deuteronomy was written much later after the people of Israel had wandered through the wilderness.
In 1805, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette suggested that the "Book of Laws" discovered in the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah was in fact Deuteronomy. Proponents of this point of view believe that the document was deliberately placed so that it would be easy to discover. The commandments described in Deuteronomy are identical to the reforms carried out by Josiah, and therefore the book may have been written by royal supporters who wanted to provide God's support for the kings' actions.
There is also evidence that Deuteronomy is a composite work written at different times. The book discovered in the Temple was its main part. However, individual episodes suggest that the Babylonian captivity of the sixth century BC had already occurred at the time of their writing. These passages may have been added here many years later.
7. Daniel backdated his prophecies.
The Book of the Prophet Daniel is often compared to the Book of Revelations, because they both can point to future events that will happen before the end of the world. Many of Daniel's supposed prophecies were fulfilled, but does this prove that Daniel was an inspired seer?
Scientists see a more prosaic explanation for this fact. Daniel may indeed have been a Jew from the Hellenistic period, but he certainly was not one of the Babylonian judges. His so-called prophecies can be called "vaticinium ex eventu" or "prophecy of what happened", which were made on the basis of confirmed facts, so that he could simply pose as a genuine clairvoyant.
The book itself, apparently, was compiled by more than one author. After all, its chapters 1-6 are written in Aramaic, while chapters 7-12 are in Hebrew. Daniel makes many historical errors when it comes to the Babylonian period, the time in which he supposedly lived. For example, he claims that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, but the Nabonidus Cylinder found at Ur indicates that Belshazzar's real father was Nabonidus. Additionally, Belteshazzar was crown prince but never became king, contrary to Daniel's claims. In Daniel 5:30, Daniel tells how one Darius of Media conquered Babylon. In fact, this was done by Cyrus the Great, a Persian by origin and not originally from Media. It was he who overthrew Babylon.
On the other hand, Daniel writes about the events of the Hellenistic era with extreme accuracy. Chapter 11, presented here as a prophecy, describes literally every detail of what was to happen. This leads to the conclusion that Daniel witnessed these events, but certainly did not live during the Babylonian period, the description of which he gives is very vague and incorrect.
Thus, scholars suggest that the Book of Daniel was written in the period from approximately 167 to 164 BC, during the persecution of the Jews by the Syrian tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes. The book was written as an inspirational scripture that was supposed to support Jews during difficult life trials. Once Daniel even tried to make a real prophecy, speaking about the death of Antiochus in the Holy Land. But it turned out to be unsuccessful. Antiochus died in Persia in 164 BC.
6. The Gospel does not contain eyewitness accounts.
The four canonical Gospels in the New Testament are anonymous. The names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not attached to them until the second century.
Whoever the actual authors of one of the four gospels were, they never claimed to have personally witnessed the events they described. The Gospel is more reminiscent of religious propaganda than a biography of Jesus, because theological motivation is clearly visible here. Each of his books is a distinct interpretation of Jesus, with Jesus representing the theological position of the evangelical author.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the most Jewish of the Gospels, we hear Jesus proclaim the continued relevance of the Torah. In the Gentile-oriented Gospel of John, Jesus himself takes the Sabbath off. And the Gospel of Mark presents us with Jesus, who is in agony and suffers until his death. As for the Gospel of John, here Jesus, on the contrary, looks calm and has everything under control.
Some scholars have suggested that the Gospels were written using the technique of midrash, a Jewish method of interpretation that allows old biblical stories to be given new forms (as they would now say in Hollywood, a “remake”). Thus, Jesus' 40-day stay in the desert is reminiscent of Moses' 40-year exile in the land of Midian. That is, the story of when Jesus comes from the desert, notifying everyone about the Kingdom of God, was borrowed from the story of Moses’ return from exile and his proclamation of the imminent liberation of the Israelites from slavery. And the loud name “Twelve Apostles” was inspired by the way Elijah called Elisha. And here further you can find many similar moments, because all the Gospels were built on the remnants of old stories, but told about new participants and new places of action.
5. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke were plagiarisms of the Gospel of Mark
Most New Testament scholars agree that the Gospel of Mark was the first of all four Gospels to be written. It is short, written in poor Greek, and contains many geographical and other errors.
Rather than presenting an independent account of the life of Jesus, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from the Gospel of Mark, and in some cases even copied its text almost verbatim. The Gospel of Matthew uses about 607 of Mark's 661 verses, and the Gospel of Luke uses 360.
To their credit, Matthew and Luke improved Mark's original text. They corrected the grammar, style, correctness of data and theology.
For example, in Mark 5:1, the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee is mistakenly called the country of Gergesin, which is actually located more than 50 kilometers away. Matthew 8:28 replaces it with the more plausible country of the Gadarenes, located only 12 kilometers from the lake (note: referring to Lake Tiberias, which was previously called the Sea of Galilee). In Mark 7:19, Jesus “declares all foods to be clean,” a statement Matthew, who had read the Pentateuch carefully, apparently disagreed with, since he chose not to copy this statement into its parallel writings.
Mark erroneously attributes the quotation from Malachi to Isaiah, and Matthew 3:3 corrects this error. The more primitive teaching about Christ, which can be traced in the Gospel of Mark, allows Jesus to be called “Lord” only once and not at all a Jew. In the more developed Christology of Matthew, the word "Lord" is used 19 times, and in the Gospel of Luke it is repeated 16 times.
4. Forgotten Gospel Q
Both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke have common material not found in the Gospel of Mark. Scientists suspect that they had another document, apparently now lost, since for these statements they name the same unknown source, designated “Q” (from the German “Quelle” - “source”). We can reconstruct some of the data from Source Q by noting common quotations from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Apparently, Q included such important biblical records as the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer (Our Father).
The oral agreements between Matthew and Luke suggest that the material not taken from Mark must have been taken from a written, non-oral source. Matthew and Luke could not have copied these texts from each other because both Gospels contain conflicting stories (for example, the account of the Nativity and Resurrection of the Lord).
Q is mostly a collection of sayings rather than narratives. Matthew and Luke added separate sayings to the context of their stories, and they also used different styles in them. For example, the Gospel of Matthew includes the Beatitudes in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, while Luke chose to break up the same sermon and present separate sayings from it throughout his history.
The restoration of Q led researchers to a strange conclusion: since Q does not contain the Passion of the Lord, whoever first wrote this document must have considered Jesus to be a teacher of wisdom and nothing more. The death of Jesus had no saving significance for this writer.
3. It turns out that Simon the Magus and Paul are the same person
While some of the theories presented in this article are favored by most scientists, others may well be more speculative in nature.
One of them concerns Simon Magus. The Fathers of the Church condemned him as the creator of the Gnostic heresy, which promoted hostility towards God, Jews and the Torah. So it may come as a shock to many that Paul, the greatest apostle and author of much of the New Testament, may actually be Simon.
It is difficult to discern a consistent train of thought in Paul's letters. His writings are chaotic, incoherent and contain contradictory theology. But didn't Paul keep the Ten Commandments? Did he really not allow women to participate in worship? Was it not he who sought recognition of his gospel among men? Scholars such as Herman Detering and Robert Price have radically suggested that Paul's letters were altered and altered by later scribes to erase or soften their Gnostic content. This made it more acceptable to those from the primary orthodox Roman Catholic Church. It is assumed that the original, unforged letters were the work of Simon Magus or one of his followers.
There are some similarities between Simon and Paul. Simon was famous for his meeting with the Apostle Peter. In Galatians 2:11-14, Paul and Peter were at odds with each other. Simon was called the "Father of Heresies" and Paul was recognized as the "Apostle of Heretics." Simon pretended to be someone great, saying “the small must become great.” The Latin name "Paul" means "little". The Jewish historian Josephus tells of a sorcerer who may have been Simon, since he was called "Atomus" or "indivisible", that is, "small".
If the assumption that Paul is Simon is correct, then most of the New Testament was based on the works of the arch-heretic.
2. The Pastoral Epistles are fake.
The Epistles to Timothy and Titus differ from the writing style and biblical meaning of the original Pauline Epistles. This suggests that the Epistles were actually the work of a forger trying to gain the influence that Paul had. Most scholars, reluctant to label the Epistles as forgeries, have instead begun to label them as “pseudo-epigraphs,” which means the same thing.
Of the 848 words (excluding proper names) found in the Epistles, 306 were never used in the rest of Paul's Epistles. Their vocabulary is more similar to the language of popular Hellenistic philosophy than to the speech of Paul. The literary style also gives away the falsifier. While Paul uses dynamic and emotional Greek, the Epistles are serene and meditative. After all, these letters focus on topical issues in the developing second-century Catholicism (rather than on Paul's first-century Catholicism), such as church organization and the preservation of traditions. In the written Epistles, the emerging Church transforms Paul from the Gnostic "Apostle of Heretics" into the defender of an emerging orthodoxy.
Professor David Trobish suspects Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna of writing these forgeries. Trobisch says that Polycarp practically puts his signature on 2 Timothy 4:13: “When you go, bring the phelonion that I left at Troas with Carpus, and books, especially leather ones.” Carp's name, unlike the other names in this chapter, never appears again in the Acts of the Apostles or in Paul's earlier letters. It says here that Karp should bring a “phelonion,” that is, it means that he should take Paul’s mantle. He also used Paul's writing materials. A later verse mentions a guy named Criscent, and although he never appears anywhere in the canonical epistles, Criscent is mentioned in the Epistle of Polycarp.
1. John did not write Revelation
The traditional assumption that Jesus' disciple John wrote the Book of Revelation was challenged as early as the third century. The Christian writer Dionysus of Alexandria, using critical research methods still used by modern scholars, noticed the difference between the elegant Greek Gospel of John and the crude, illiterate prose of Revelation. These works could not have been written by the same person.
Dionysus notes that in the Revelations of St. John the Evangelist the author identifies himself in the work, while in the Gospel of John this is not the case. He argued that the two men simply had the same name.
Modern scientists have also added their own understanding of this problem. Today it is assumed that the real author was a Jew who opposed the portrayal of Christianity as Paul showed it, with its pagan elements and salvation without regard to the Pentateuch. The author calls Paul's church in Smyrna "a synagogue of Satan" and the woman steward of another church located in the city of Thyatira as "Jezebel." In short, he could not have been what we would call a Christian today.
In fact, Revelation may have been originally written before Christianity. References to Jesus Christ were inserted here many years later to make the document more Christian. They are mainly grouped in chapters 1 and 22, and only occasionally appear elsewhere. Surprisingly, these verses can be removed from here without disturbing its basic structure and the flow of surrounding verses, leaving the overall meaning of the text virtually intact. This suggests that the original Book of Revelations had nothing to do with Jesus at all.
A study of the Bible for compliance with what was stated by the church brethren, quite unexpectedly, revealed very interesting facts, many of which were known for a long time, but were carefully hushed up. The time has come for us to find out the truth...“It has served us well, this myth of Christ...” Pope Leo X, 16th century.
“Everything will be fine!” said God and created the Earth. Then he created the sky and all kinds of creatures in pairs, he also did not forget about vegetation, so that the creatures had something to eat, and, of course, he created man in his own image and likeness, so that there would be someone to dominate and make fun of at his mistakes and violations of the commandments of the Lord ...
Almost each of us is sure that this is what actually happened. What does the supposedly holy book, which is so ingenuously called, assure? "Book", only in Greek. But it was its Greek name that caught on, "Bible", from which in turn came the name of the book repositories - LIBRARIES.
But even here there is a deception, which few or no one pays attention to. Believers are well aware that this Book consists of 77
the lesser books and the two parts of the Old and New Testaments. Does any of us know that hundreds other small books were not included in this big Book only because the church “bosses” - the high priests - the intermediate link, the so-called intermediaries between people and God, decided so among themselves. Wherein changed several times not only the composition of the books included in the largest Book itself, but also the contents of these smallest books.
I am not going to analyze the Bible once again; before me, many wonderful people read it with feeling, sense and understanding several times, who thought about what was written in the “holy scripture” and presented what they saw in their works, such as “Biblical Truth” "David Naidis, "Funny Bible" and "Funny Gospel" by Leo Texil, "Bible Pictures..." by Dmitry Baida and Elena Lyubimova, "Crusade" by Igor Melnik. Read these books and you will learn about the Bible from a different perspective. Yes, and I am more than sure that believers do not read the Bible, because if they read it, it would be impossible not to notice so many contradictions, inconsistencies, substitution of concepts, deception and lies, not to mention calls for extermination of all the peoples of the Earth, God's chosen people. And these people themselves were destroyed several times at the root during the selection process, until their god selected a group of perfect zombies who very well assimilated all his commandments and instructions, and, most importantly, strictly followed them, for which they were pardoned with life and continuation sort of, and... new religion.
In this work, I want to draw your attention to what is not included in the above canonical books, or what hundreds of other sources say, no less interesting than the “holy” scripture. So, let's look at the biblical facts and more.
The first skeptic, who pointed out the impossibility of calling Moses the author of the Pentateuch (and this is what Christian and Jewish authorities assure us of), was a certain Persian Jew Khivi Gabalki, who lived in the 9th century. He noticed that in some books Moses talks about himself in the third person. Moreover, sometimes Moses allows himself extremely immodest things: for example, he can characterize himself as the meekest man of all people on earth (book of Numbers) or say: “...Israel never again had a prophet like Moses.”(Deuteronomy).
Further developed the topic Dutch materialist philosopher Benedict Spinoza, who wrote his famous “Theological-Political Treatise” in the 17th century. Spinoza “dug up” so many inconsistencies and outright blunders in the Bible - for example, Moses describes his own funeral - that no amount of inquisition could stop the growing doubts.
At the beginning of the 18th century, first the German Lutheran pastor Witter, and then the French physician Jean Astruc made the discovery that the Old Testament consists of two texts with different primary sources. That is, some events in the Bible are told twice, and in the first version the name of God sounds like Elohim, and in the second - Yahweh. It turned out that virtually all the so-called books of Moses were compiled during the period of the Babylonian captivity of the Jews, i.e. much later, than the rabbis and priests claim, and clearly could not have been written by Moses.
Series of archaeological expeditions to Egypt, including the expedition of the Hebrew University, did not find any traces of such an epoch-making biblical event as the exodus of the Jewish people from this country in the 14th century BC. Not a single ancient source, be it papyrus or an Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform tablet, ever mentions the presence of Jews in Egyptian captivity at this time. There are references to the later Jesus, but not to Moses!
And Professor Zeev Herzog in the Haaretz newspaper summed up many years of scientific research on the Egyptian issue: “It may be unpleasant for some to hear and difficult to accept, but it is absolutely clear to researchers today that the Jewish people were not enslaved in Egypt and did not wander in the desert...” But the Jewish people were enslaved in Babylonia (modern Iraq) and adopted many legends and traditions from there, later including them in a revised form in the Old Testament. Among them was the legend of the global flood.
Josephus Flavius Vespasian, the famous Jewish historian and military leader who allegedly lived in the 1st century AD, in his book “On the Antiquity of the Jewish People,” which was first published only in 1544, moreover, in Greek, establishes the number books of the so-called Old Testament in the amount of 22 units and says which books are not disputed among the Jews, for they have been handed down from ancient times. He speaks of them in the following words:
“We don’t have a thousand books that disagree with each other and don’t refute one another; there are only twenty-two books that cover the entire past and are rightly considered Divine. Of these, five belong to Moses. They contain laws and legends about the generations of people who lived before his death - this is a period of almost three thousand years. The events from the death of Moses to the death of Artaxerxes, who reigned in Persia after Xerxes, were described in thirteen books by the prophets who lived after Moses, contemporaries of what was happening. The remaining books contain hymns to God and instructions to people on how to live. Everything that happened from Artaxerxes to our time is described, but these books do not deserve the same faith as the above-mentioned ones, because their authors were not in strict succession with the prophets. How we treat our books is evident in practice: so many centuries have passed, and no one dared to add anything to them, or take anything away, or rearrange anything; Jews have an innate belief in this teaching as Divine: it should be held firmly, and if necessary, then die for it with joy ... "
The Bible as we know it consists of 77 books, of which 50 books are the Old Testament and 27 are the New. But, as you can see for yourself, back in the Middle Ages, only 22 books were recognized as part of the so-called Old Testament. Only 22 books! And these days, the old part of the Bible has swollen almost 2.5 times. And it was inflated by books containing a fictitious past for the Jews, a past that they did not have; a past stolen from other nations and appropriated by the Jews. By the way, the name of the people - Jews - carries their essence and means “cutting out the UD”, which is circumcision. And UD is the ancient name of the male genital organ, which also has meaning in words such as fishing rod, fishing rod, satisfaction.
The evolution of the Bible as a single book lasted several centuries, and this is confirmed by the churchmen themselves in their internal books, written for the clergy, and not for the flock. And this church struggle continues to this day, despite the fact that the Jerusalem Council of 1672 issued a “Definition”: “We believe that this Divine and Sacred Scripture was communicated by God, and therefore we must believe it without any reasoning, not as anyone wants, but as the Catholic Church has interpreted and transmitted it.”.
In the 85th Apostolic Canon, the 60th Canon of the Laodicean Council, the 33rd (24) Canon of the Carthage Council and in the 39th Canonical Epistle of St. Athanasius, in the canons of St. Gregory the Theologian and Amphilochius of Iconium provide lists of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments. And these lists do not completely coincide. Thus, in the 85th Apostolic Canon, in addition to the canonical Old Testament books, non-canonical books are also named: 3 books of the Maccabees, the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and between the New Testament books - two epistles of Clement of Rome and 8 books of the Apostolic Constitutions, but the Apocalypse is not mentioned. There is no mention of the Apocalypse in the 60th rule of the Laodicean Council, in the poetic catalog of the Holy Books of St. Gregory the Theologian.
Athanasius the Great said this about the Apocalypse: “The Revelation of John is now ranked among the Holy Books, and many call it inauthentic.”. In the list of canonical Old Testament books by St. Athanasius does not mention Esther, which he, along with the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Judith and the book of Tobit, as well as “The Shepherd of Hermas” and “The Apostolic Doctrine”, ranks among the books “appointed by the Fathers for reading to newcomers and those wishing to make themselves known in the word of piety "
The 33rd (24th) rule of the Council of Carthage offers the following list of canonical biblical books: “The canonical scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Kings four books; Chronicles two, Job, Psalms, Solomon books four. There are twelve prophetic books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, Ezra two books. New Testament: four Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, fourteen Epistles of Paul, two of Peter the Apostle, three of John the Apostle, one book of James the Apostle, one book of Jude the Apostle. The Apocalypse of John is one book."
Strangely, in the 1568 English translation of the Bible, the so-called “Bishops' Bible,” only two books of Kings are mentioned. And this Bible itself consists of 73 books instead 77 as currently approved.
Only in XIII century, the biblical books were divided into chapters, and only in XVI century the chapters were divided into verses. In addition, before forming the biblical canon, the churchmen went through more than one heap of primary sources - small books, selecting the “correct” texts, which later formed a large book - Bible. It is from their input that we can judge the affairs of bygone days, described in the Old and New Testaments. Therefore it turns out that Bible, which many may have read, was formed as a single book, only in XVIII century! And only a few Russian translations of it have reached us, the most famous of which is the Synodal translation.
From Valery Erchak’s book “The Word and Deed of Ivan the Terrible,” we became aware of the first mentions of the Bible in Rus', and these turned out to be just psalters: “In Rus', only lists of the books of the New Testament and the Psalter were recognized (the oldest list is the Galich Gospel, 1144). The full text of the Bible was first translated only in 1499 on the initiative of the Novgorod Archbishop Gennady Gonozov or Gonzov (1484-1504, Chudov Monastery of the Moscow Kremlin), who undertook this work in connection with the heresy of the Judaizers. In Rus', various service books were used. For example, the Gospel-aprakos existed in two varieties: the full aprakos includes the entire gospel text, the short one includes only the Gospel of John, the rest of the gospels amount to no more than 30-40% of the text. The Gospel of John was read in full. In modern liturgical practice, the Gospel of John ch. 8, verse 44, one does not read about the genealogy of the Jewish family...”
Why is the Bible called the Synodal Bible and why is it the most popular?
It's simple. It turns out that only synod The Russian Orthodox Church is a council of the highest church hierarchs, has the right at its discretion INTERPRET texts of the Bible, edit them as they please, introduce or remove any books from the Bible, approve biographies of supposedly holy church men, and much more.
So who wrote this supposedly holy book and what is sacred in it?
Only in Russian there are the following translations of the Bible: Gennady's Bible (XV century), Ostrog Bible (XVI century), Elizabethan Bible (XVIII century), translation of the Bible by Archimandrite Macarius, Synodal translation of the Bible (XIX century), and in 2011 the latest version was published Bibles - The Bible in modern Russian translation. That text of the Russian Bible, which is known to all of us, and which is called the synodal, first came out of print only in 1876 year. And this happened almost three centuries later, after the appearance of the original Church Slavonic Bible. And these, let me remind you, are only Russian translations of the Bible, and there are at least 6 known translations among them.
But the Bible has been translated into all languages of the world and in different eras. And, thanks to this, the translators have inherited, and almost identical texts of the Bible still reflect some points differently. And where they forgot to erase, for example, prohibited references to the area or descriptions of the weather, or names or names of attractions, the original texts remained there, which shed the light of truth on what happened in those not so ancient times in general. And they help a thinking person put together the scattered pieces of the mosaic into a single and complete picture in order to get a more or less complete picture of our past.
Recently, I came across a book by Erich von Däniken "Aliens from outer space. New finds and discoveries", which consists of individual articles by different authors on the topic of the cosmic origin of humanity. One of the articles in this book is called "The Original Biblical Texts" by Walter-Jörg Langbein. I would like to quote some of the facts he found to you, since they reveal a lot about the so-called truth of biblical texts. In addition, these conclusions are in excellent agreement with the other facts about the Bible given above. So, Langbein wrote that the biblical texts are filled with errors, which for some reason believers do not pay any attention to:
“The “original” biblical texts available today are filled with thousands and thousands of easily detectable and well-known errors. The most famous "original" text, Codex Sinaiticus (Code Sinaiticus), contains no less 16 000 corrections, the “authorship” of which belongs to seven different proofreaders. Some passages were changed three times and replaced by a fourth "original" text. The theologian Friedrich Delitzsch, compiler of a Hebrew dictionary, found in this “original” text only errors scribe about 3000…»
I have highlighted the most important things. And these facts are simply impressive! It is not surprising that they are carefully hidden from everyone, not only religious fanatics, but even sensible people who are looking for the truth and want to figure out for themselves the issue of creating the Bible.
Professor Robert Kehl from Zurich wrote about the issue of falsifications in ancient biblical texts: “It happened quite often that the same passage was “corrected” by one proofreader in one sense, and “transported” by another in the opposite sense, depending on what dogmatic views were held in the corresponding school ... "
“Without exception, all of the “original” biblical texts existing today are copies of copies, and those, presumably, in turn, are copies of copies. Neither copy is the same as any other. There are over 80,000 (!) discrepancies. From copy to copy, the elements were perceived differently by empathetic scribes and remade in the spirit of the times. With such a mass of falsifications and contradictions, to continue to talk about the “word of the Lord”, every time picking up the Bible, means bordering on schizophrenia ... "
I cannot but agree with Langbein, and, having a lot of other evidence for this, I absolutely confirm his conclusions.
And here I cite the fact that when and where the famous evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their new testaments. Famous English writer Charles Dickens wrote a book in the 19th century called "Child's History of England". This is translated into Russian as “History of England for young (children).” This interesting book was published in the mid-19th century in London. And it tells about English rulers whom young Englishmen should have known well. This book says in black and white that during the coronation of Princess Elizabeth I, four evangelists and a certain Saint Paul were prisoners in England and received freedom under an amnesty.
In 2005, this book was published in Russia. I will give a small fragment from it (chapter XXXI): “...The coronation went off magnificently, and the next day one of the courtiers, according to custom, submitted a petition to Elizabeth for the release of several prisoners and among them four evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, as well as St. Paul, who for some time were forced to express themselves in such a strange language that people have completely forgotten how to understand. But the queen replied that it was better to first find out from the saints themselves whether they wanted freedom, and then a grandiose public discussion was scheduled in Westminster Abbey - a kind of religious tournament - with the participation of some of the most prominent champions of both faiths (by other faith we mean , most likely Protestant).
As you understand, all sensible people quickly realized that only understandable words should be repeated and read. In this regard, it was decided to conduct church services in English, accessible to all, and other laws and regulations were adopted that revived the most important cause of the Reformation. However, Catholic bishops and adherents of the Roman Church were not persecuted, and the royal ministers showed prudence and mercy...”
Written testimony of Charles Dickens (he wrote this book for his children, and whom he clearly had no intention of deceiving), that Evangelists lived in the 16th century, published about 150 years ago in England, cannot be discarded so easily. This automatically follows the irrefutable conclusion that the New Testament of the Bible was written, at the earliest, in the 16th century! And it immediately becomes clear that this so-called christian religion based on a big lie! That “good news” - this is how the word “gospel” is translated from Greek - is nothing more than cynical fiction, and there is nothing good in them.
But that's not all. The description of the construction of the walls of Jerusalem, given in the book of Nehemiah, in all respects coincides with the description of the construction of the Moscow Kremlin (according to Nosovsky and Fomenko), which was carried out... also in the 16th century. What happens then is that not only the New Testament, but also the Old Testament, i.e. the whole Bible, was written in recent times - in the 16th century!
The facts I have given will certainly be enough for any thinking person to start digging and looking for confirmation himself, to add up his own integrity of understanding of what is happening. But even this will not be enough for false skeptics. No matter how much information you give them, you still won’t convince them of anything! For in terms of their level of knowledge they are at the level of small children, because believe mindlessly- much easier than know! Therefore, you need to speak to children in their children's language.
And if any of the respected readers has more information on this issue, and someone has something to complement and expand on the facts I have collected, I will be grateful if you share your knowledge! These materials will also be useful for the future book, the materials from which were taken to write this article.
Religious terms
GENESIS— It has been established that the whole Book of Genesis up to the death of Joseph is a barely altered version of the Cosmogony of the Chaldeans, as has now been re-proved by the Assyrian tablets. The first three chapters are rewritten from allegorical stories about... ... Theosophical Dictionary
Genesis בְּרֵאשִׁית (Be will decide “In the beginning”) Creation of light Author: Moses Genre: Holy Scripture Original language: Hebrew Series: Bible / Old Testament / ... Wikipedia
Le Livre des Mediums
- “THE BOOK OF CAUSES”, or “Aristotle’s Book of the Interpretation of Pure Good” (Liber de causis, Liber Aristotelis de expositione bonitatis purae) Latin translation of an Arabic commentary compilation from Proclus’s “Principles of Theology”, erroneously... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
From a technical production point of view, a set of handwritten or printed sheets united by one cover or binding. Usually the term is attached only to documents executed in print. Development of K. as an integral organism... ... Literary encyclopedia
Book of Genesis, see... Bible. Old and New Testaments. Synodal translation. Biblical encyclopedia arch. Nikifor.
- (Hebrew סֵפֶר הַבָהִיר, Sefer ha bahir, Book of Bright Light) the earliest work of Kabbalistic literature. Before the publication of the Zohar, the Bagir was the most influential and widely cited primary source of Kabbalah. In fact, "Bagheer" was quoted... Wikipedia
Wikisource has texts on the topic Book of Jubilees Book of Jubilees dilapidated economy ... Wikipedia
Books
- Genesis , . The Russian Bible, laid out by Dr. Francis Skorinov from the city of Polotsk. Reproduced in the original author's spelling of the 1519 edition (publishing house 'Type. Francysk Skaryna').…
- Genesis , . This book will be produced in accordance with your order using Print-on-Demand technology. The Russian Bible, laid out by Dr. Francis Skorinov from the city of Polotsk. Reproduced in…
We continue to analyze Christian teaching, their...
The third part. The First Book of Moses: Genesis
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1 section. When and where the book of Genesis was written
The Book of Genesis, which contains the story of the origin of the world and man, and the history of the primitive and patriarchal Church until the death of Patriarch Joseph in Egypt, was written after the calling of Moses at Horeb, and even after the Sinai legislation, i.e. at the foot of Sinai during his wanderings in the desert.
Section 2 Title and main subject of the book
The book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible, like all the books of the Pentateuch, is entitled with the first word with which it begins: “Bershit”, i.e. "at first". In the Greek translation of 70 commentators, the book is called “Byblos Genesis” (Book of Genesis) or simply “Genesis” (Origin). This name is borrowed from the book itself (2.4; 5.1) and indicates its content, which contains a narrative about the origin of Being (the World), man, and the main clans of patriarchal humanity.
The main subject of the book is the history of the origin of the world and man, the history of the Old Testament Church in the patriarchal period. Beginning with the story of the creation of the world, the book of Genesis ends with the story of the death of Patriarch Joseph in Egypt, i.e. covers a period of 3799 years.
Section 3 Dividing the book by content
The second part (chap. 4-11) tells about the providential actions of God in relation to fallen man in general and contains the history of the primitive Church.
The third part of the book (chap. 12-50) tells about the establishment of the Covenant by God with the fathers of the Jewish people, the providential actions of God in preserving true faith and piety in the chosen people and contains the history of the patriarchal church.
Section 4 Creation of the world and man (Genesis 1)
The first chapter of the book of Genesis can be divided in content into three parts: a) the beginning of the world (1-2), b) the six-day creation of the visible world (3-25) and c) the completion of the works of creation with the creation of man (26-31).
1st article: The word “in the beginning”, the writer of everyday life indicates that the world is not without beginning, it is called to exist in time and with time itself. Therefore, God appears, according to the expression of one church song, “above all times, as the Creator of time” (troparion for the 3rd song of the canon of the morning of Resurrection, Chapter 2).
To denote a creative action, expressed in the Slavic text by the word “create”, there are three verbs in the Hebrew language: “bara”, “asa” and “aytsar”. The verbs “asa” and “aytsar” are usually given the following meaning: asa - “to arrange, create”, aytsar - “to form”, and in both cases the arrangement and formation from ready-made material is assumed. The verb “bara”, as indicated by the Hebraists, means creation in the proper sense, the formation of something again “out of nothing.” It is this verb that is used in the Hebrew text in the first verse of the book of Genesis, which clearly indicates that the world was brought into existence from non-existence.
Initially, the author of all existence is God. In the present case in the Hebrew text the word "God" is expressed by the word "Elohim" or "Elohim", i.e. "Gods": plural noun of “Eloh” – God.
According to some interpreters, the plural “Elohim” indicates the infinite fullness of powers, the greatness, power and superiority of the Divine Being, the totality of Divine perfections. But some fathers and teachers of the Church and Christian commentators see in the word “Elohim” an indication of the trinity of hypostases in the Divine, and the verb “bara”, placed in the singular, indicates the unity of the Divine Being.
The subject of the initial creation is “heaven and earth.” By “heaven” in the present case one cannot mean heaven in the proper sense, because the firmament or visible sky appeared on the second day of creation (6-8), and the heavenly bodies on the fourth day of creation (14-19). Some interpreters by “heaven” of verse 1 mean the world of angels or disembodied spirits. This opinion is primarily based on the fact that the writer of everyday life, calling below (2) the newly created earth “invisible and unsettled,” does not say anything similar about the sky, presenting it in such a comfortable way that can only be said about the world of light spirits. On the other hand, the Lord himself in the book of Job says: “When Thou created the stars, all my angels praised me with a great voice,” indicating by this that the angels appeared earlier than the visible world, more precisely, before the fourth day of creation. Therefore, the Holy Church, calling the angels the beginning and firstfruits of creatures, sings about God: “The immaterial and intelligent angels who first formed all the visible” (Troparion according to the 8th song of the canon on Monday Morning, Chapter 3).
By “earth” you also cannot mean earth in the proper sense, for our planet appeared on the second day of creation (6-8), and land was separated from water on the third (9-10). Under the ground, according to everyday life writers, they mean the original substance, matter, from which the objects of the visible world are then formed.
2nd article: Turning to the initial state of newly created matter, the writer of everyday life calls it, firstly, “earth”, because this globe was then formed precisely from this original matter, and secondly, “abyss”, thereby indicating its boundlessness and its immensity for the human eye, and finally, “water,” thereby indicating the instability, lack of compaction of the original substance compared to the earth in the proper sense. Further, this substance is called “invisible”, in the sense of the absence of those laws that are determined by the existence of the world in the future. Above this still poor, unsettled abyss of primordial matter, from all sides, penetrating and enveloping, there was complete darkness, a complete absence of light, which was created on the first day, and concentrated in the luminaries on the 4th day of creation. But at the same time, the mood of struggle between various forces and disorder cannot be attributed to the primordial substance. The first state of matter is called unsettled only in comparison with the perfection and harmony that were subsequently imprinted in the days of creation. From the very beginning, the Spirit of God revived lifeless matter, for it is said: “The Spirit of God moved on top of the waters.” By the Spirit of God we must understand, according to the teaching of the holy fathers of the Church, the third Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity. The action of the Spirit of God (“carrying”) in the Hebrew text is signified by the word “merahefet”, which in its original meaning is applied to the action of a bird sitting on eggs, warming and thus giving life. Hence, the action of the Spirit of God in relation to unstructured matter can be imagined as a long-term force that revived the primordial matter, just as a bird sits and warms its eggs, and contributed to the long-term development of the natural forces and laws placed in it by God.
Thus, according to the legend of the writer of everyday life, God is the Creator of the World in the proper sense, when He produced “out of nothing” the very substance of the world. This is the first creation, when “alive forever having been created in common,” then from the finished first-created, but still “unorganized” substance, the second creation occurs, which took place within six days, when the omnipotent hand of God, according to the Word of the Writer of the Book of Wisdom Solomon, creates the world “ from an unimaginable substance" (11:18).
3-5 v.: “With the expression - speech,” the writer of everyday life indicates the Word of God, which brought light into being. The word “speech” can mean thought, intention, divine desire. On the other hand, in the expression “speech” one can find an indication of the participation in the work of creation of the Hypostatic Word, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, about whom St. John the Theologian says: “all things came into being, and without him nothing came into being” (John 1:3). In general, all three persons of the Holy Trinity took part in the work of creation: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of His mouth was all their power” (Is. 32:6).
The subject of the first day of creation is light. The creation of light before the sun seems to contradict the usual view, according to which light comes in dependence on the sun. But light in its essence does not depend on the sun, and therefore could appear earlier than the heavenly body.
According to the accepted scientific opinion, light is the result of vibrations of the ether - a special, subtle mother spread throughout the universe. At present, the vibration of this ether is produced through luminous bodies. Before the creation of the luminaries, vibrations could have occurred from other reasons.
Hence, in the first three days of creation, the periodic change (famous “separation between light and darkness”) of day and night could be determined not by the rising and setting of the sun, but by the vibration of light matter. The successive change of light and darkness, evening and morning is determined on the first day of creation.
6-8 v.: The subject of creation of the second day in the Hebrew text is expressed by the word “rakia”, which means: “prostration, space, tent.” In 70 interpreters this word is translated “stereoma” (“firmament”), and this word is applied to the visible sky. The very action of the Creator in creating the firmament can be put in the following form: the Lord addresses his omnipotent word to that primordial substance, which was above called “earth”, “abyss” and “water” (1-2). According to the creative word of the Lord, this substance breaks up into a countless number of individual parts, which act as centers around which others revolve. The spaces formed between these masses are “solid matter”. For in this space the movement of newly formed world bodies is based on strictly defined laws of gravity. Thus, on the second day of creation, our planet Earth appears, which in the biblical text is called “water,” “under the firmament,” and the visible sky “firmament.”
9-18 v.: The work of creation on the third day breaks down into two moments, firstly, according to the word of the Creator there is “water” and “land”, and secondly, the earth produces various types of plants.
Thus, on the third day of the creation of the earth, composed of the original unstructured substance, it receives a more definite form: “the waters under the heavens gather together their congregations,” i.e. Various containers are formed - oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and dry land with continents, islands, mountains, valleys, plains, etc. Then, according to the Lord, the earth produces plants. The writer of everyday life divides the plant kingdom into three sections: “formerly herbal” (greens and grass), plants “sowing seed according to their kind and likeness” and “fruitful trees” (the highest genera of plants).
In view of the fact that the Creator’s activity in relation to the entire universe does not end with the second day, that on the fourth day the Lord’s creation appears to be active throughout the entire universe, one might think that on the third day the Creator’s activity was not limited to the Earth alone.
* Notice that there is constant confusion about where God is and where the Lord is. Those. in the Torah it is clearly Elohim, but here it is the Lord, i.e. God's assistant, he makes something wise, creates something.
14-19 v.: “On the fourth day of creation, according to the word of God, the “celestial lights” appear. In the narrative, the writer of everyday life uses the verb not “bara” and “asa,” suggesting, obviously, that the bodies of the luminaries themselves were created earlier and existed until the fourth day. They appeared on the second day of creation, when the primordial matter disintegrated into millions of masses. On the fourth day of creation, God concentrated the light created on the first day in these masses of celestial bodies, some of them - vaporous bodies, in which the primordial light was concentrated more strongly, and became self-luminous luminaries in the proper sense. Such, for example, are the suns and the like, and fixed stars. Others, remaining dark bodies by themselves, give only light from other bodies; planets appeared.
* That is Until the twentieth century, they did not get rid of the idea that the stars were nailed to the heavens with gold and silver nails.
The luminaries, according to the providential plans of the Lord, are appointed, firstly, to illuminate the earth, to help distinguish between day and night, such as, in particular, the sun and the moon. The writer of everyday life calls these luminaries great, not according to the relative size of comparison with other bodies; in the universe there are many incomparably enormous luminaries, but considering the affairs of the creation of the earth, he believes the difference between them is based on their apparent size, and on the influence that they have on the Earth. Secondly, according to the purpose of the Creator, the heavenly bodies should serve as “signs”, i.e. indicators of certain natural phenomena and changes in nature (Matthew 16:2-3), this testifies to the ever-present power of God and signs of unusual events in the human race (Pol. 2:30-31; Acts 2:19-20; Matthew 2:9,24,29-30,27,45; Luke 21:1,25). Thirdly, and finally, the luminaries must serve to indicate times, days, years, determining by their visible movement annual, monthly and daily periods, seasons and closely related civil and sacred times, and the general and private chronology of the creation of the world and various events .
20-23 v.: On the fifth day of creation the first inhabitants of the earth appear. The creative word of the Lord addressed to the waters must be understood in the sense that the waters become the abode of living beings brought into being by a new creative act.
Here the word “bara” is used for the second time, i.e. creation without ready-made material, creation of animal life “out of nothing.” On this day, first of all, the creeping creatures appeared; the Hebrew word “sheretz”, according to the exact translation, means “multiparous” - a name applied to fish and other aquatic and amphibious animals. And also to insects. The writer of everyday life mentions great whales; by this name he denotes large and therefore especially remarkable aquatic animals. The second type of living beings that appeared on the fifth day were various species and breeds of birds.
The work of creation on the fifth day ends with a blessing pronounced by the Creator on the newly created creatures. This gives the ability and opportunity to reproduce and procreate.
24-25 v.: When creating four-legged animals on the sixth day, the Lord addressed the earth with a creative word: “let the earth bring forth the living soul.” This means that the bodily composition of the creatures of the sixth day is, firstly, four-legged animals, i.e. domestic animals, secondly, animals of the earth, i.e. animals that are not tamed, wild, and thirdly, reptiles, i.e. reptiles.
* Please note that here livestock (domestic animals) were created even before humans. And who domesticated them?
26-28 v.: The high advantages of human nature are evidenced by the fact that, firstly, the creation of man takes place after a special divine council, secondly, man is created in the image and likeness of God, and finally, he is appointed lord and ruler of the whole earth and of all created creatures. The Council of God before the creation of man, according to the interpretation of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, testifies to the special participation of all persons of the Holy Trinity in the creation of man. The words “speak God” indicate the unity of the divine nature, and the addition “let us create” indicates the number of persons. As for the image and likeness of God, differences should be established between them. The image of God, according to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, consists in the properties and powers of the human soul, in its spirituality and immortality, reason and free will, and the likeness is in the direction of improving the spiritual powers given by God to the point of becoming like the Creator (Lev. 19:2; Matt. 5 ,48).
As the image and likeness of his Creator, as the last highest creature on earth, man is above nature, the master of the earth and the entire animal world. About the act of creation itself it is said: “And God created (“bara”) man (Heb. “Adam”), showing by this that the creation of man was a new creative act: like the original creation (1) both with animal life and with dominion over the earth , completely by the birth of others like themselves.
* The question arises: how will “Adam” give birth to others like himself? This means that it is correctly said: they can be a wife as well as a husband, i.e. was a hermaphrodite, fertilized part of himself and gave birth to someone there.
29-30 v.: The Lord appoints “every seed-bearing herb that yields seed” as food for man, i.e. cereals, and every tree “having in itself the fruit of the seed,” i.e. fruits of various trees; He prescribes “all green grass” for food for animals, i.e. grass in the proper sense. Thus, only plant foods were prescribed to humans and animals. For humans, permission to eat animals came only after the flood (Gen. 9:3).
Verse 31: The works of creation every day receive the approval of the Creator, “and God sees them as good.” All creations completed on the sixth day receive the highest approval: “This is great good.”
This approving judgment of God speaks of the highest wisdom and love of the Creator for all created things. And then the Lord forever establishes the laws of nature and ensures the continued existence of creatures.
* If the Creator is so wise, and approved the entire creation, ensured the continued existence of creatures, then why then drown them?
Section 5 The blessed state of man in paradise (Genesis 2)
1-3 v.: The words of the first verse “and the heavens and the earth were created and all their adornment” means “everything that is on earth and in heaven” (St. John Chrysostom), for the Hebrew word “tzebaam” is translated as “adornment”, its more precise meaning is conveyed by the word “army,” by which name in the Holy Scriptures the heavenly armies are sometimes called, i.e. angels.
* Angels are fallen Legs.
The expression “God rested from His work” cannot be taken literally. Rest in relation to God means the end of the works of creation. But if the works of creation ended on the sixth day, then the works of God’s providence for the world did not end. Only providential divine activity is manifested not in the creation of new types of creation, but in the preservation of what was created and in the wise arrangement of its further existence.
* That is here they say that on the seventh day there is (rest), but God does not rest, but begins to improve, i.e. nothing new is created anymore.
The seventh day, the day of rest of the Creator, stands out from the others in that the Lord blesses and sanctifies it. With His favor, the Lord gives this day a particularly joyful meaning and makes it worthy of preservation for future times, as a monument to the creation of the world. By sanctifying the seventh day, the Creator made this day sacred for man, who should especially glorify the all-wise, all-good and all-powerful Creator on this day.
* Which Creator do they glorify? Which one created or which blessed? Those. in the Torah, the omnipotent Creator, Elohim (Gods), creates for six days, and when they rest, their assistant, Jehovah, works, who blesses the seventh day for himself, i.e. “While they are resting, I will begin my actions here.” That's why he celebrated the seventh day.
Art. 4-7: The writer prefaces the story of the first man’s dwelling in paradise with a brief authority and a remark about the origin of the world. The writer of everyday life dwells on the origin of the plant kingdom, which appeared on earth without the plant power of rain and without the assistance of human hands (5), and what is necessary for plant life moisture was provided by strong evaporation, rising from the ground (glorified “source” - Hebrew “steam” - 6th century).
* But we know that there were rains on Earth. This means that they are writing here not about our Earth, but about something completely different (). Those. it was closer to the Sun, around which it revolved, and there was high humidity, perhaps due to the slow rotation, and there was steam there. Greenhouse conditions, like under a dome, and there wasn’t even the concept of “rain.” Those. this was not our Midgard-Earth.
Then, in the narration of the first chapter about the creation of man (vv. 27-28), the writer of everyday life adds an indication that the Lord (approx. Jehovah), with a special action of omnipotence and wisdom, formed a human body from dust (approx. i.e. from his chest) and blew in his face is the breath of life, i.e. put into the body formed from the dust of the earth a soul with its many different abilities.
* But here there is already a free interpretation of the original text, because the Bible says: “And the Lord created man from the dust of the ground.” Ashes of the earth– this is what energy, the smallest particles, has always been called. And then the breath of life was breathed into these particles. Those. some kind of genetic experiment was carried out, an energy system was created, and the Soul was put into it. Now they are also conducting similar experiments with so-called artificial intelligence, self-developing computers, i.e. thinking.
8-14 v.: For the habitation of man, the Lord appointed a paradise, created by a special action of the omnipotence of God. The question of the location of paradise is the subject of the most contradictory guesses and assumptions. However, certain references in the Bible to two well-known rivers of the East give reason to believe that by Eden (note Eden) we must mean a country called Mesopotamia, located between the Tigris and Euphrates. Among the many beautiful trees of paradise, God planted two special trees - the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The fruits of the first tree were intended to maintain immortality in man. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was chosen by God as an instrument and means of testing and educating man in obedience to God.
* The question immediately arises: If he is all-knowing, all-seeing, why doesn’t he know what will happen? Or is there still some kind of experiment going on?
15-17 v.: A person settled in paradise had to “make it and keep it,” i.e. cultivate the land, have care for plants. This work was supposed, first of all, to develop and improve a person’s physical strength and higher spiritual values, because being placed in special proximity with objects of nature, it gave him the opportunity to study the laws of nature and thereby enrich his mind. In addition, by studying objects and natural phenomena, a person could experience the perfection of the Father, His wisdom, goodness, and thereby learn to revere Him and love Him.
*Everything is fine here, i.e. how to babysit your child: study this, this.
To exercise in strengthening moral forces in goodness, God (note - here again God, although in the Bible the Lord deals with this) gave man the commandment not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Fulfilling this commandment, a person consciously moved away from evil and strived for good. For a person, fulfilling the commandments becomes the reason and source of his bliss, but violating them entailed the punishment “on the same day you will suffer from him, you will die,” i.e. man will become mortal in body.
* Here he also did the right thing, i.e. said: study, cognize, consider, reach with your brains. But here is a tree growing, there are fruits on it, after eating which you will immediately get the answer (it’s like modern arithmetic textbooks, there are problems, and at the end of the textbook there are answers). And he puts him before a choice: either you get to know the entire Garden of Eden on your own, or there is an alternative - you can get everything at once, but at the same time you will not have experience in solving this issue. That is, here Jehovah seems to act normally, like a normal educator of his child, his creation. Those. He will immediately receive knowledge and answers, but will not gain life experience. Therefore, by fulfilling this commandment, you have an alternative, but it’s good if you develop on your own, and if you quietly peek at the answers, you will only see information, but not acquire knowledge. We already know that this is ignorance, ignorance. And information only becomes Knowledge when it passes through the mind, mind, heart, Soul and becomes a way of life.
18-20 v.: Naming the names of the animals that the Lord brought to Adam was a sign of man’s dominion over the animal kingdom.
* Why dominion? After all, when we raise a child, we do the same thing - we give him a toy or show him an animal, and we tell him who it is. And the child, observing the world around him: this is a horse passing by, and says: a little horse, or this is a cat, a dog. True, now it’s more difficult for a child to guess; they offer him incomprehensible toys (Pokemon, monsters, etc.), i.e. not a mouse, not a frog, but an unknown animal.
On the other hand, by studying the genera and properties of animals, he gave them names corresponding to their nature, Adam showed the perfection of his mind, developed his mental abilities, and laid the foundation for language as a means of communicating his thoughts to others.
* Who else, if he alone was created? Or Jehovah and others who conducted this experiment? Those. Who was he talking to? And why didn’t he talk to the Lord before, if he created him in his image and likeness? Was he deaf-blind or what?
Verse 24: The words of verse 24 establish the marriage union between husband and wife.
* The question arises: why did they skip three verses (21-23) and immediately move on to 24? And because there talks about the creation of a hermaphrodite, i.e. The Lord (Jehovah) conducted another experiment, as it is said in the Torah: “And he took part of it,” i.e. from the resulting “Adam” structure, took a part and created another “Eve” structure - these two systems are completely different in chromosome pairs. And then he brings these two systems together: “... they will be one flesh” [Genesis 2.24]. Those. male and female were united into a single system that could self-reproduce. It turned out like a chromosomal triad, i.e. with a changed chromosomal code - hermaphrodite. Under the influence of certain systems (for example, the influence of the Moon, the lunar flow), system Y is activated, it begins to suppress the other two systems: X and X, i.e. the essence acquires the qualities of a man. But a certain time passes and the second system (X) is activated and this triadic essence acquires the qualities of a woman. Some more time passes, the third system appears, X again, but in a changed quality. After a while, the entity again exhibits the masculine properties of system Y. I.e. like a triangular system, in Judaism these three parts are designated by a triangle in the center of the circle, behind the circle is Jehovah (He), and inside is a part of him, he created in his own image (see). [ Religious Studies, course 2, lesson 7]
Christ the Savior points out in the guise of the Pharisees that these words spoken by God Himself establish the indissolubility of the marriage union: “if God joins together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:3-6).
The blissful state of the ancestors in paradise, in the narrative of chapter 2, is characterized by the closest relationship between man and God. This union or covenant of a person with God is primitive religion (note - but religion is a repeated connection, i.e. as a connection as a result of an experiment). By virtue of the covenant, God directly guides man through revelations, makes him master of the animal world, settles him in a beautiful paradise and, through the fruits of life, gives him eternal, immortal life. On the part of man, only absolute obedience to his Creator was required (note - that is, not to the Supreme Creator, but to his Creator, who created him), and in particular, the fulfillment of the commandment given to him. The fulfillment of this condition gave a person the opportunity for his perfection and bliss.
* That is Elohim (Gods) created people on the sixth day in their image and likeness. And then Jehovah (Lord) decided to also try to create in his own image (now they are also trying to clone themselves), and began his experiment on another Earth - Eden.
* Continuation - Video lessons (Religious studies course 2, lessons 8-14).
Concept of the Bible
With the word “Bible” we associate the idea of one big book containing all the Holy Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments. But, in essence, this is not one book, but a whole collection of sacred books, strictly defined by the Church, written at different times, in different places and for different purposes and belonging either to God-inspired (canonical books) or only to God-enlightened men (non-canonical books).
This composition and origin of the Bible is revealed from the history of the term itself - “Bible”. It is taken from the Greek language from the word bibloV, which means “book”, and is used in the plural form ta biblia from the units, diminutive - to biblion, meaning “small book”, “little book”. Therefore, ta biblia literally means a whole series or collection of such small books. In view of this, St. John Chrysostom interprets this word as one collective concept: “The Bible,” he says, “is many books that form one single one.”
This collective designation of the Holy Scriptures by one collective name undoubtedly already existed in the Old Testament period. Thus, in its original Greek form, ta biblia is found in the first book of Maccabees (1 Mac 12:9), and the corresponding Hebrew translation is given in the prophet Daniel (Dan 9:2), where the works of Holy Scripture are designated by the term “Gassefarim” (מירפמה) , which means “books”, more precisely - known specific books, as they are accompanied by a certain member - “ha” (ה) [It is interesting to note here that both of these terms are Hebrew. "sefer" and Greek. bibloV - by their philological analysis they give us an idea of the material that was used for writing in ancient times and on which, consequently, the originals and ancient copies of sacred books were written. Thus, Jewish books were obviously written primarily on parchment, that is, peeled and smoothed leather, for the word “sefer” comes from Hebrew. the verb “safar”, meaning “to shave”, “to cleanse” the skin of “hair”. Greek authors probably preferably wrote on “papyrus,” that is, on specially processed leaves of a special Egyptian plant; the word bibloV or bubloV originally means “papyrus”, and hence papyrus scroll or “book”.].
During the period of New Testament history, at least at first, we do not yet find the word “Bible”, but we encounter a number of its synonyms, of which the most common are the following: “Scripture” (h grafh Luke 4:21; John 20:9 ; Acts 13:32 ; Gal 3:22), “The Scriptures” (ai grafai - Matthew 21:41; Luke 24:32; John 5:39; 2 Pet 3:16), “The Holy Scriptures” (grafai agiai - Rome 1:2), “The Holy Scriptures” (ta iera grammata - 2 Tim 3:15).
But already among the apostolic men, along with the names of the Holy Scriptures just listed, the term ta biblia begins to appear [See, for example, in the Greek text of the message Clement of Rome Corinthians (I ch., 43 p.).]. However, it came into general use only from the time of the famous collector and interpreter of the Holy Scriptures - Origen (III century) and especially St. John Chrysostom (IV century).
From the Greek authors, such a collective designation of the Holy Scriptures passed on to the Latin writers, and the plural form of the neuter gender ta biblia finally received the meaning of the singular feminine gender bіblіa. This last name, in its Latin form, came to us in Russia, probably due to the fact that our first collectors of the Slavic Bible were, among other things, under the influence of the Latin Vulgate.
The main feature that distinguishes the Holy Scriptures of the “Bible” from other literary works, giving them supreme power and indisputable authority, is their inspiration. By it is meant that supernatural, divine illumination, which, without destroying or suppressing the natural powers of man, raised them to the highest perfection, protected them from mistakes, communicated revelations, in a word, guided the entire course of their work, thanks to which the latter was not a simple product of man, but as if the work of God himself. According to the testimony of Saint Apostle Peter, “Prophecy was never uttered by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke it, being moved by the Holy Spirit”(2 Pet 1:21). The Apostle Paul even encounters the very word “inspired” and precisely in the appendix to the Holy Scriptures, when he says that “all Scripture is inspired by God” (qeopneustoV: 2 Tim 3:16). All this is beautifully revealed by the Fathers of the Church. Thus, Saint John Chrysostom says that “all Scriptures were written not by slaves, but by the Lord of all - God”; and in the words of Saint Gregory the Great, “the Lord speaks to us in the language of the holy prophets and apostles.”
But this “divine inspiration” of the Holy Scriptures and their authors did not extend to the destruction of their personal, natural characteristics: that is why in the content of the holy books, especially in their presentation, style, language, character of images and expressions, we observe significant differences between individual books of the Holy Scriptures , depending on the individual, psychological and peculiar literature characteristics of their authors.
Another very important feature of the holy books of the Bible, which determines the varying degrees of their authority, is canonical the nature of some books and non-canonical others. To clarify the origin of this difference, it is necessary to touch upon the very history of the formation of the Bible. We have already had occasion to notice that the Bible includes sacred books written in different eras and by different authors. To this we must now add that along with genuine, divinely inspired books, in different eras also appeared non-authentic or non-divinely inspired books, to which, however, their authors tried to give the appearance of authentic and divinely inspired ones. Especially many such works appeared in the first centuries of Christianity, on the basis of Ebionism and Gnosticism, such as the “First Gospel of James”, “Gospel of Thomas”, “Apocalypse of the Apostle Peter”, “Apocalypse of Paul”, etc. Consequently, there was a need for an authoritative voice that clearly would determine which of these books are truly true and inspired, which are only edifying and useful (without being inspired at the same time) and which are directly harmful and counterfeit. Such guidance was given to all believers by the Church of Christ itself - this pillar and affirmation of the truth - in its teaching about the so-called canon.
The Greek word “kanwn”, like the Semitic “kane” (הבק), originally means “reed stick”, or in general any “straight stick”, and hence in a figurative sense - everything that serves to straighten, correct other things, for example ., “carpenter’s plumb line”, or the so-called “rule”. In a more abstract sense, the word kanwn acquired the meaning of “rule, norm, model,” with which meaning it is found, by the way, in the Apostle Paul: "those who act according to this rule(kanwn), peace and mercy to them and to the Israel of God"(Gal 6:16). Based on this, the term kanwn and the adjective kanonikoV derived from it began to be applied quite early to those sacred books in which, according to the tradition of the Church, they saw the expression of the true rule of faith, its example. Already Irenaeus of Lyons says that we have “the canon of truth - the words of God.” And Saint Athanasius of Alexandria defines “canonical” books as those “which serve as a source of salvation, in which the teaching of piety is indicated.”
The final distinction between “canonical” books and “non-canonical” books dates back to the times of St. John Chrysostom, Blessed Jerome and Augustine. Since that time, the epithet “canonical” has been applied to those sacred books of the Bible that are recognized by the entire Church as inspired by God, containing rules and models of faith, in contrast to books “non-canonical”, that is, although edifying and useful (for which they are placed in the Bible), but not inspired by God, and “apocryphal” (apokrufoV - hidden, secret), completely rejected by the Church and therefore not included in the Bible.
Thus, we must look at the sign of the “canonicity” of famous books as the voice of the Church’s Holy Tradition, confirming the inspired origin of the books of Holy Scripture. Consequently, in the Bible itself, not all of its books have the same meaning and authority: some (canonical books) are inspired by God, that is, they contain the true word of God, others (non-canonical) are only edifying and useful, but not alien to the personal, not always the infallible opinions of their authors. This difference must always be kept in mind when reading the Bible, for a correct assessment and appropriate attitude towards the books included in its composition [The distinction between biblical books into “canonical” and “non-canonical” applies only to the Old Testament books, since the New Testament books that are part of the Bible are all considered canonical. The composition of the “Old Testament canon,” although generally established fairly consistently, varies in the sheer number of books; this happens because the Jews, wanting to adjust the number of their books to the 22 letters of their alphabet, made artificial connections of several books into one, for example, they combined the books of Judges and Ruth, the first and second, the third and fourth books. Kings and even collected all 12 minor prophets into one book. The Orthodox Church has 38 canonical books, namely: 1) Being, 2) Exodus, 3) Leviticus, 4) Numbers, 5) Deuteronomy, 6) Book of Joshua, 7) Judges 8) Ruth, 9) 1st book kingdoms, 10) 2nd book. kingdoms, 11) 3rd book. kingdoms, 12) 4th book. kingdoms, 13) 1st book Paralipomenon, 14) 2nd book. Paralipomenon, 15) book of Ezra, 16) book of Nehemiah (2 Esdras), 17) Esther, 18) Job, 19) Psalter, 20) Proverbs of Solomon, 21) Ecclesiastes is his own, 22) His own song of songs, 23) book prophet Isaiah, 24) Jeremiah with Lamentations, 25) Ezekiel, 26) Daniel and the twelve minor prophets, 27) Hosea, 28) Joel, 29) Amos, 30) Avdija, 31) ions, 32) Micah, 33) Nauma, 34) Habakkuk, 35) Zephaniah, 36) Haggai, 37) Zechariah, 38) Malachi. The remaining 9 books placed in the Slavic and Russian Bible are considered non-canonical, namely: 1) Tobit, 2) Judith, 3) Wisdom of Solomon, 4) Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach, 5-6) 2nd and 3rd books. Ezra and 7-9) three books of Maccabees. In addition, the following sections in the above canonical books are also recognized as non-canonical: the prayer of King Manasseh, at the end of the 2nd book. Chronicles, parts of the book. Esther, not marked verses, the last Psalm (after 150), the song of the three youths in the book. the prophet Daniel, the story of Susanna in the 13th and Bel and the dragon in the 14th chapter of the same book. Of the New Testament books, all 27 books. and in their entirety are recognized as canonical.].
In conclusion of the necessary introductory information about the Bible, it remains for us to say a few words about the language in which the sacred biblical books were written, about their more famous translations, and about their modern division into chapters and verses.
All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew, with the exception of only a few small sections written in the Chaldean language (Jer 10:11; Dan 2:4–7, 28; 1 Ezra 4:8–6, 18; 7: 12–26). The non-canonical books, apparently, were written in Greek, although, based on the testimony of Blessed Jerome, some think that the book. Tobit and Judith were originally written in Chaldean.
All the books of the New Testament were written in Greek, in the so-called Alexandrian dialect (which came into use from the era of Alexander the Great - koinh dialektoV), with the exception of the first Gospel - according to Matthew, written in the Syro-Chaldean dialect of the Hebrew language spoken Jews contemporary to Jesus Christ.
Since in the Hebrew letter only one consonant sounds were used, and the necessary vowel sounds were transmitted orally according to tradition, the original Old Testament text did not have vowels. They, in the form of various subscripts, were introduced quite late (approximately around the 9th-10th centuries AD) by learned Jewish rabbis-masorites (i.e., keepers of “tradition” - from the Hebrew verb “mazor”, to transmit). As a result, the modern Hebrew text is called Masoretic.
Of the various translations of the Bible, two of the most authoritative and ancient ones deserve mention - the Greek LXX and the Latin Vulgate and two later ones - Slavic And Russian, as those closest to us.
The Greek translation was made for the needs of the Alexandrian Jews in the Ptolemaic era, that is, not earlier than the half of the 3rd century. before the Nativity of Christ, and no later than half of the 2nd century. It was completed at different times and by different translators, with its main part - the Pentateuch - being the most ancient and authoritative.
The Latin translation or the so-called Vulgate (from vulgus - people) was made by Blessed Jerome at the end of the 4th century directly from the Hebrew text under the guidance and other best translations. It is distinguished by thoroughness and completeness.
The Slavic translation of the Bible was first undertaken by the holy first teachers of the Slavs - the brothers Cyril and Methodius - in the second half of the 9th century. From here, through Bulgaria, it came to us in Rus', where for a long time only separate, scattered books of the Bible were in circulation. For the first time, a complete handwritten copy of the Bible was collected by the Novgorod Archbishop Gennady, regarding his fight against the Judaizers (1499). The first printed Slavic Bible was published here in 1581 by Prince Konstantin Konstantinovich Ostrozhsky. Our Slavic Bible is based on Greek. translation LXX.
The Russian Synodal translation of the Bible was made relatively recently, in the middle of the last, 19th century, through the works of Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow and professors of our theological academies. It was based on the Hebrew, Masoretic text, which, in necessary cases, was compared with Greek and Latin translations. It was completed in 1876, when the first complete Russian Bible appeared.
Finally, it should be noted that in the ancient Church our division of biblical books into chapters and verses did not exist: they were all written in a continuous, coherent text, arranged in the form of columns (like verses) and if they were divided, then only into sections for liturgical use ( logoi, eklogadia, euaggelistarion, proxapostolon). The modern division into chapters dates back to Cardinal Stephen Langton, who divided the Vulgate around 1205. This division was completed and approved by the learned Dominican Hugh de Saint-Chir, who published his concordance ca. 1240 And in the half of the 16th century. The learned Parisian typographer Robert Stephan introduced the modern division of chapters into verses, first in the Greco-Latin edition of the New Testament (1551), and then in the complete edition of the Latin Bible (1555), from where it gradually passed into all other texts.
Main Contents of the Bible
The basic, central idea of all the inspired biblical Scriptures, the idea around which all the others are concentrated, which gives them meaning and power, and without which the unity and beauty of the Bible would be unthinkable, is the doctrine of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As the subject of the aspirations of the Old Testament, as the alpha and omega of the entire New Testament, Jesus Christ, according to the word of the Apostle, appeared to those cornerstone, on the basis of which, through the mediation of the apostles and prophets, the building of our salvation was laid and completed (Eph. 2:20). Jesus Christ is the subject of both Testaments: the Old - as His expectation, the New - as the fulfillment of this expectation, and both together - as a single, internal connection.
This can be revealed and confirmed through a range of external and internal evidence.
The evidence of the first type, that is, external, includes the testimony of our Lord about Himself, the testimony of His disciples, the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition.
Denouncing the unbelief and hard-heartedness of the Jewish scribes and Pharisees, our Lord Jesus Christ himself repeatedly referred to the testimony about him of “the law and the prophets,” that is, the Old Testament scriptures in general. Search the Scriptures, for through them you think you have eternal life, and they testify of Me.(John 5:39); for if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me(John 5:46) - said, for example, the Lord to the blinded Jewish lawyers after the famous miracle of healing the paralytic at the sheep's font. The Lord revealed this truth even more clearly and in more detail to His disciples, appearing to them after the resurrection, as the Evangelist Luke testifies to this: and beginning with Moses, from all the prophets he explained to them what was said about Him in all the Scriptures... And he said to them: this is what I spoke about while I was still with you, that everything must be fulfilled that was written about Me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms(Luke 24:27 and 44). In addition to such a general statement, the Lord often points out specific cases of Old Testament images and prophecies related to His life, teaching, suffering on the cross and death. So, for example, He notes the educational significance of the copper serpent hanged by Moses in the desert (John 3:14), indicates the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy about "favorable summer of the Lord"(Luke 4:17-21; cf. Isa 61:1-2), speaks of the fulfillment of all the ancient prophecies concerning His atoning sacrifice (Matt 26:54 and Luke 22:37) and even on the cross itself, at the moment of suffering, pronounces His deeply touching and calmly majestic: done(John 19:30), thereby letting us know that all those things which were ordained from time immemorial were spoken for many hours and in various ways through the prophets (Heb. 1:1).
Like their Divine Teacher, the evangelists and apostles constantly refer to the Bible, drawing full hand from the wealth of its messianic treasures and thereby establishing complete harmony of both Testaments, united around the Person of the Messiah - Christ. Thus, all the evangelists - these four independent writers of the lives of Jesus Christ - so often refer to the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies that they have even developed special formulas for this: and all this happened, that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet might be fulfilled, or simply: Then what was spoken through the prophet was fulfilled, so that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled, or else: and the word of the Scripture was fulfilled and a number of other similar expressions.
All other New Testament writers, starting with the book, no less often refer to the Old Testament Scripture and thereby establish its closest internal connection with the New Testament. Acts and ending with the Apocalypse. Not being able to exhaust here the entire abundance of such specific and clear references, we will indicate for example only some of them, the most characteristic: such, for example, are the two speeches of the Apostle Peter: one after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the other after the healing of the lame man, which are narrated in the second and third chapters of the book. Acts and which are full of Old Testament quotes (Joel - Acts 2:16–21; David - 2:25–28; 34–35; Moses - 3:22–23); The conclusion of the last speech is especially remarkable: and all the prophets, from Samuel and after him, as many as they spoke, also foretold these days(Acts 3:24). No less important in this regard is the speech of Archdeacon Stephen, which gives in a condensed outline the entire Old Testament history of the preparation of the Jews to accept the Messiah Christ (Acts 7:2-56). The same book of Acts contains a great many other similar testimonies: and we bring you good news that God fulfilled the promise given to the fathers to us their children by raising Jesus(Acts 13:32). We preach to you, said the apostles, bearing witness to small and great things, saying nothing except what the prophets and Moses said would happen(Acts 26:22). In a word, the entire teaching of the apostles about the New Testament Kingdom of God boiled down mainly to what they assured about Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets(Acts 28:23).
Of the many New Testament references establishing a connection with Old Testament events and prophecies contained in the epistles of the holy apostles, we will give a few examples only from the epistles of the Apostle Paul, the same Paul who, as Saul, was himself formerly a Pharisee, a zealot of fatherly traditions and a deep expert in the Old Testament covenant. And so, this holy Apostle says that end of the law - Christ(Rom 10:4) that the law was our teacher(paidagogoV) to Christ(Gal 3:24) that believers built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone(Eph 2:20) that all Old Testament types described for our instruction(1 Cor. 10:11) that the whole Old Testament with all its religious ceremonies and worship was only the shadow of the future, and the body is in Christ(Col 2:17) a shadow of future blessings, and not the very image of things(Heb. 10:1) and that, finally, at the basis of the whole history of the economy of our salvation lies Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever(Hebrews 13:8).
If we move from the sacred books of the New Testament to the ancient Jewish interpretations of Scripture, to the Targums, Talmud, Midrash and the writings of the first rabbis until the 12th century. inclusive, we will see that the constant and unchangeable common Jewish tradition of interpreting the Bible was the desire to look everywhere and find indications of the Messiah and His time. Such passion sometimes even reached the extreme, as can be seen from the following rabbinical saying: “the prophets exclusively preached about the joy of the days of the Messiah” (the idea of a suffering Messiah-Redeemer was forgotten); but it deeply correctly understood the truth that, indeed, at the basis of all Scripture lies the idea of the Messiah Christ. “One cannot wish to apply everything directly to the Messiah,” says St. Augustine, “but passages that do not directly refer to Him serve as the basis for those who proclaim Him. Just as in a lyre all the strings sound in accordance with their nature, and the tree on which they are stretched gives them its own special coloring of sound, so does the Old Testament: it sounds like a harmonious lyre about the name and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.”
The above subtle comparison of Blessed Augustine perfectly characterizes the patristic view of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Evidence of their close, inextricable connection, based on the Person of the Messiah Christ, has been continuous since the very first centuries of Christianity: the Apostle Barnabas wrote about this in his “Epistle”, Saint Justin the Philosopher in his “Conversation with Tryphon the Jew”, Tertullian in his essay “ Against the Jews,” Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in his essay “Against Heresies,” apologists Aristides, Athenagoras, etc. This connection was especially thoroughly and deeply revealed by the writers of the Alexandrian school, and Origen stood out from among them, who, for example, said that “sayings The Scriptures are the clothing of the Word... that in the Scriptures the Word (LogoV - Son of God) was always flesh to live among us.”
Of the subsequent holy Fathers, these thoughts were developed in detail in their wonderful commentaries by Saints John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, Ephraim the Syrian, Blessed Jerome, Blessed Augustine and Saint Ambrose of Milan. The latter, for example, wrote: “The cup of wisdom is in your hands. This cup is double - the Old and New Testaments. Drink them, because in both you drink Christ. Drink Christ, for He is the fountain of life." [Ambrosius, In Psalm. 1, 33.].
Moving now to internal evidence, that is, to the very content of the holy books, we are finally convinced that our Lord Jesus Christ constitutes the main point and central idea of the entire Bible. This great book, composed by so many and varied authors, separated from each other by very significant periods of time, under the influence of very different civilizations, represents at the same time a remarkable unity and amazing integrity. Thanks mainly to the gradual development in it of the same messianic idea. “The New Testament is hidden in the Old, the Old is revealed in the New,” said medieval theologians, based on the words of St. Augustine ["Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testementum in Novo patet." Wed. bliss Augustine, Question 73 on Exodus.]
That Jesus Christ and His work constitute the sole theme of all the New Testament Scriptures is self-evident and requires no proof. But that all New Testament history is based on Old Testament history is perhaps not so obvious. And, however, this is just as certain, for proof of which it is enough to refer only to two Gospel genealogies of Christ, in which an abbreviation of the entire Old Testament history is given in its relation to the person of the promised Messiah Christ (Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38 ).
But we can consistently trace the development of the messianic idea in the books of the Old Testament. The promise of the Deliverer, given to the fallen ancestors back in paradise, is the first link in that continuous chain of Old Testament messianic prophecies that began with Adam and ended with Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. That is why it is called the first gospel (Gen. 3:15). Since the era of Noah, this promise has been defined somewhat more closely and more precisely: only the children of Shem are called the seed of the woman, to whom the history of redemption is confined (Genesis 9:26). This circle narrows even more from the era of Abraham, the father of God’s chosen Jewish people, in whose seed (i.e. in Jesus Christ, according to the interpretation of the Apostle Paul - Gal 3:16) the salvation of all other nations is proclaimed (Gen 12:3; 18: 18). Subsequently, the race of Jacob was separated from the descendants of Abraham (Gen. 27:27); later Jacob himself, in the spirit of prophetic insight, gives a special blessing to his son Judah (Gen. 49:8 et seq.).
And the further time went, the closer and more honestly the various features of the Messianic ministry were defined: thus, the prophet Balaam speaks of His royal power (Numbers 24:17), Moses - about His threefold ministry: royal, high priestly and prophetic (Deut. 18:18– 19), about the origin of the Messiah from the royal family of David (2 Samuel 7:12–14), about His birth in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2) and from a virgin mother (Isaiah 7:14), about His solemn entry into the Temple of Jerusalem ( Mal 3:1), about the various, even small circumstances of His suffering and death on the cross (Isaiah 53; Ps 22:17–19; 40:9–10; 68:22; Zechariah 11:12, etc.), about His glorious resurrection (Isa 53:9–12; Ps 15:10; 19:6–7; 40:11; 47:2, etc.), the advent of His blessed kingdom (Ps 21:28–32; 44:7 , 14–17; 71:7–19; Joel 2:28; Isaiah 2; Isaiah 35:1–2, 10; 61:1–2) and His terrible second coming (Dan 7:25 and 7:7 ; Zechariah 14:2–3, 9, etc.). It can be positively said that there is not a single important feature of the era and life of the Messiah that was not foreshadowed in one way or another in the Old Testament, either in the form of a clear prophecy, or under the veil of symbols and types; and the prophet Isaiah even received the title of “Old Testament evangelist” for the amazing accuracy and completeness of his prophetic prototypes of the life of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This unity of the messianic idea is no less clear in the general plan of the Bible. By their nature and content, all Old Testament books can be divided into three main groups: legal-historical books, prophetic books and poetic-edifying books. The first class sets out the history of theocracy, that is, the rights of the Most High to rule over Israel. But for what purpose does the Lord use such different methods of educating His people? The covenant at Sinai, the Mosaic legislation, the disasters of the desert, the conquest of the promised land, victories and defeats, alienation from other nations, finally, the burden of the Babylonian captivity and the joy of returning from it - all this had the obvious purpose of shaping the Jewish nation in a certain spirit, in the spirit of preservation and the spread of the messianic idea. This motive is even more obvious in the prophetic books, where, either through threats or through promises of rewards, the Jewish people were constantly maintained at a certain moral height and prepared in the spirit of pure faith and right life, in view of the coming Messiah. As for, finally, the books of the last group - poetically edifying ones, some of them, such as the Psalms, were directly messianic prayers of the Jewish nation; others, like the Song of Songs, depicted, under the form of allegory, the union of Israel with Christ; still others, like the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiastes and others, revealed various features of Divine Wisdom, the rays of that Divine Word (LogoV) that shone among the darkness of paganism and in the pre-Christian world.
Thus, with full conviction we can say that the main and main subject of the Bible, from the first chapters of the book of Genesis (3:15) to the last chapters of the Apocalypse (21:6-21 and 22:20), is the God-man, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Old Testament
The earliest division of the Bible, dating back to the times of the first Christian Church, was its division into two, far from equal parts, called the Old and New Testaments.
This division of the entire composition of biblical books was due to their relationship to the main subject of the Bible, i.e., to the personality of the Messiah: those books that were written before the coming of Christ and only prophetically prefigured Him were included in the “Old Testament,” and those that arose after the coming of the Savior to the world and are dedicated to the history of His redemptive ministry and the exposition of the foundations of the Church established by Jesus Christ and His holy apostles, forming the “New Testament”.
All these terms, i.e. both the word “testament” itself and its combination with the adjectives “old” and “new”, are taken from the Bible itself, in which, in addition to their general meaning, they also have a special one, in which We also use them when talking about famous biblical books.
Word covenant(Heb. - berit, Greek - diaqhkh, Lat. - testamentum), in the language of Holy Scripture and biblical usage, first of all, means known decree, condition, law, on which two contracting parties converge, and from here - this very agreement or union, as well as those external signs that served as his identification, a bond, as if a seal (testamentum). And since the sacred books in which this covenant or union of God with man was described were, of course, one of the best means of authenticating it and consolidating it in the people’s memory, the name “covenant” was also transferred to them very early on. It already existed in the era of Moses, as can be seen from v. 7. Chapter 24 book Exodus, where the record of the Sinai legislation read by Moses to the Jewish people is called book of the covenant(Sefer Habberit). Similar expressions, denoting not just the Sinai legislation, but the entire Mosaic Pentateuch, are found in subsequent Old Testament books (2 Kings 23:2-21; Sir 24:25; 1 Mac 1-57). The Old Testament also contains the first, still prophetic, indication of the New Testament, namely, in the famous prophecy of Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”(Jer 31:31).
Subsequently the term New Testament was repeatedly used by Jesus Christ himself and His holy apostles to designate the beginning of the history of redeemed and blessed humanity (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6, etc.), from where he transferred to the sacred books written during this period.
Name Old Testament in the application to certain books originates from the especially clear testimony of the Apostle Paul: but their minds(Jews) blinded: for the same veil remains unlifted to this day in the reading of the Old Testament, because it is removed by Christ(2 Cor 3:14).
As part of the “Old Testament”, the Orthodox Church, as we said above, has 38 canonical and 9 non-canonical books, differing in this from the Roman Catholic Church, which has 46 canonical books in its Vulgate (they consider the canonical Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon and 2 books of Maccabees).
As for, finally, the very order of arrangement of the books of the “Old Testament”, here one notices a rather sharp difference between the Hebrew Bible, on the one hand, and the Greek translation of the LXX translators, and hence our Slavic-Russian Bible, on the other hand. To understand this difference, it is necessary to know that the ancient Jews divided their books not so much according to the homogeneity of their content (like LXX and Slavic-Russian), but rather according to the degree of their meaning and importance. In this sense, they divided all the Old Testament books into three groups: “law” (“Torah”), “prophets” (“Nebiim”) and “hagiographers” (“Ketubim”), especially emphasizing the importance of the first two groups, i.e. “law” and “prophets” (Mt 5:17; 7:12; 22:40).
We now, following the LXX translators and the Vulgate, have adopted another division, based on the nature of the very content of the Old Testament books, into the following four groups: 1) books of law; 2) historical; 3) teaching and 4) prophetic. This arrangement and division of books in the Hebrew and Slavic-Russian Bibles will be most visible from the following table: [Table omitted.]
Pentateuch
The first five books of the Old Testament, having the same author - Moses, apparently at first represented one book, as can be judged from the testimony of Prince. Deuteronomy, which says: “Take this book of the law and lay it at the right hand of the ark of the covenant.”(31:26). The same name “book of the law”, or simply “law”, was used to designate the first five books of the law in other places of the Old and New Testaments (1 Kings 2:3 pentateucoV from pente - “five” and teucoV - “volume of the book”. This the division is quite precise, since, indeed, each of the five volumes of the Pentateuch has its own differences and corresponds to different periods of theocratic legislation. Thus, for example, the first volume represents a kind of historical introduction to it, and the last serves as an obvious repetition of the law; the three intermediate the volumes contain the gradual development of theocracy, timed to certain historical facts, and the middle of these three books (Leviticus), differing sharply from the previous and subsequent ones (almost complete absence of the historical part), is an excellent line separating them.
All five parts of the Pentateuch have now acquired the meaning of special books and have their own names, which in the Hebrew Bible depend on their initial words, and in Greek, Latin and Slavic-Russian - on the main subject of their content.
Hebrew name. Greek name. Slavic-Russian name.
Bereshit (“in the beginning”). GenesiV. Being.
Ve elle shemot (“and these are the names”). ExodoV. Exodus.
Vaikra (“and called”). Leutikon. Leviticus.
Vai-edabber (“and said”). Ariumoi. Numbers.
Elle haddebarim (“these words”). Deuteronomion. Deuteronomy.
The Book of Genesis contains a narrative about the origin of the world and man, a universal introduction to the history of mankind, the election and education of the Jewish people in the person of its patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Book The Exodus tells at length about the exit of the Jews from Egypt and the granting of the Sinai legislation. Book Leviticus is especially devoted to the exposition of this law in all its particulars that are most closely related to worship and the Levites. Book Numbers gives the history of wanderings in the desert and the number of Jews who were counted at that time. Finally, the book. Deuteronomy contains a repetition of the Law of Moses
Due to the fundamental importance of the Pentateuch, St. Gregory of Nazianzus called it the true “ocean of theology.” Indeed, it represents the basic foundation of the entire Old Testament, on which all its other books rest. Serving as the basis of Old Testament history, the Pentateuch is the basis of New Testament history, since it reveals to us the plan of the divine economy of our salvation. That is why Christ himself said that He came to fulfill, and not to destroy, the law and the prophets (Matthew 5:17). In the Old Testament, the Pentateuch occupies exactly the same position as the Gospel in the New.
The authenticity and integrity of the Pentateuch is evidenced by a number of external and internal evidence, which we will only briefly mention here.
Moses, first of all, could write the Pentateuch, since he, even according to the most extreme skeptics, had an extensive mind and high education; Consequently, and regardless of inspiration, Moses was fully capable of preserving and transmitting the very legislation of which he was the mediator.
Another compelling argument for the authenticity of the Pentateuch is the universal tradition, which continuously, over a number of centuries, starting with the book of Joshua (1:7-8; 8:31; 23:6, etc.), passing through all other books and ending with testimony the Lord Jesus Christ himself (Mark 10:5; Matthew 19:7; Luke 24:27; John 5:45–46), unanimously asserts that the writer of the Pentateuch was the prophet Moses. The testimony of the Samaritan Pentateuch and ancient Egyptian monuments should also be added here.
Finally, the Pentateuch retains clear traces of its authenticity within itself. Both in terms of ideas and in terms of style, all the pages of the Pentateuch bear the stamp of Moses: the unity of plan, the harmony of parts, the majestic simplicity of style, the presence of archaisms, the excellent knowledge of Ancient Egypt - all this speaks so strongly of the Pentateuch belonging to Moses that it leaves no room for honest doubt [For more information about this, see Vigouroux, “Guide to Reading and Studying the Bible,” trans. priest Vl. You. Vorontsova, volume I, page 277 et seq. Moscow, 1897.].
Genesis
Book title. The first sacred book of our Slavic-Russian Bible is called “Genesis”. This name is a literal translation of the Greek inscription of this book. in the text of LXX, indicating the contents of the first holy book (in the strict sense - its first two chapters), inscribed in its Hebrew original with the first word of the text of the 1st verse - תיטרב - bereschith.
Origin and meaning of its name. From what has been said, it is already clear that the key to unraveling the name of the first book of the Bible must be sought in the text of its original. Turning to the latter, we see that each of the first five books of the Bible, forming the so-called Torah (“book of the Law”) or the Pentateuch of Moses, received its name from the first or two of its first words; and since the initial book in the Hebrew original opens with the words תיטרב רפמ, these were the words that the Jews set as its title.
Book 1 (or Genesis) in the Hebrew text is called bereschith ("in the beginning"); 2nd (Exodus) - elleh-schemoth(“these names”); 3rd (Leviticus) - vajigra (“and called”); 4th (Numbers) - vajedabber (“and said”; another name is bemidbar - “in the wilderness”, cf. Numbers 1:1); 5th (Deuteronomy) - elleh-haddebarim.
But although the name of the book of Genesis is of accidental origin, it surprisingly coincides with its essential content and is full of broad meaning. In the 1st book of Moses, a name synonymous with the word “Genesis” appears many times toldoth. Under the name תודלות toldoth- “generation, origin, offspring” (from the Hebrew chapter כלי “to give birth”), the Jews knew their genealogical tables and the historical and biographical records that were with them, from which their history itself was subsequently compiled. Clear traces of the existence of such “genealogical records,” corrected and consolidated by the hand of their inspired editor Moses, can be found in the book. Genesis, where at least ten times we encounter the inscription תודלות toldoth, namely, “the origin of heaven and earth” (2:4), “the genealogy of Adam” (5:1); “life of Noah” (6:9); “the genealogy of the sons of Noah” (10:1); “the genealogy of Shem” (11:10); “The genealogy of Terah” (11:27); “the genealogy of Ishmael” (25:12); “the genealogy of Isaac” (25:19); “the genealogy of Esau” (36:1); "life of Jacob" (37:1).
From here it is obvious that the first book of the Bible is primarily a book of genealogies and that its Greek and Slavic-Russian names best introduce us to its inner essence, giving us the concept of heaven as the first genealogy of the world and man.
As for the division of the book of Genesis, the most profound and correct division should be recognized as its division into two far unequal parts: one, embracing its first eleven chapters, contains a kind of universal introduction to world history, since it concerns the starting points and initial moments of the primitive history of everything humanity; the other, extending over all the remaining thirty-nine chapters, gives the history of one God-chosen Jewish people, and then only in the person of its ancestors - the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
The unity and authenticity of the book of Genesis is proven primarily from an analysis of its contents. Delving deeper into the content of this book, we, with all its conciseness, cannot help but notice the amazing harmony and consistency of its narratives, where one follows from the other, where there are no real disagreements and contradictions, and everything stands in complete harmonious unity and purposeful plan. The basic scheme of this plan is the above-mentioned division into ten “genealogies” ( toldoth), constituting the main parts of the book and combining a greater or lesser number of minor ones, depending on the importance of one or another genealogy.
The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis has both internal and external foundations. The first, in addition to all that has been said above about the content and plan of this holy book, should include its language, which bears traces of deep antiquity, and especially the biblical archaisms found in it. To the second we consider the agreement of the Bible data with natural science and ancient historical news drawn from various external scientific sources. At the head of all of them we place the most ancient tales of the Assyro-Babylonian Semites, known under the name of “Chaldean genesis,” which provide rich and instructive material for comparison with the stories of biblical genesis [See more about this Comely, "Introductio in libro V. T." II, 1881; Arco, “Defense of the Mosaic Pentateuch”, Kazan, 1870; Eleonsky, “Analysis of rational objections to the book of Genesis”; Vigouroux, “Introduction to the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament,” translated by priest Vorontsov.].
Finally, the importance of the book of Genesis is self-evident: being the oldest chronicle of the World and humanity and giving the most authoritative solution to world questions about the origin of everything that exists, the book of Genesis is full of the deepest interest and has the greatest significance in matters of religion, morality, cult, history and in general in the interests of truly human life.