Time Frames and Taboo Data Blog

In the priest-written version of the chosen people’s “history,” the first city to fall to the Israelites in their invasion of Canaan was Jericho.  Basically the plot-line of Joshua’s leading Israelites into the “Promised Land” is strangely similar to the Moses tale.  The differences are in minor details that reveal major fabrication.  The parting of the waters of the Red Sea (Sea of Reeds) by Moses is echoed in Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan River (symbol of the flow of life).  Remember, parting waters is the opening scene of scriptural Creation myths.  There is, however, a big inconsistency with the Moses/Joshua episodes: it is the crafty upsetting of time frames.

Archaeology has shown conclusively that the fall of Jericho did indeed occur c. 1400 BCE, so the Joshua character has to be placed at c. 1400 BCE.  On the other hand, the Moses tale is commonly accepted as having occurred in the general time of Rameses II, c. 1300-1224 BCE—which means the Moses tale used events that happened from one hundred to two hundred years after the events used to fashion the Joshua tale.  Only holy priests could make time turn backwards.

As mentioned, the little town of Jericho did fall: and it did fall to vibration.  In the explanation given in the book of Joshua we are told (6:3-4), “And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once.  Thus shalt thou do six days (echoing the six days of Creation).  And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of ram’s horns…and the priests shall blow the trumpets.”  Of course after the seventh traipsing around the perimeters of Jericho while tooting ram’s horns the walls came tumbling down.  The priest-authors, as usual, take credit for doing what god could have done with a mere sigh.  Not content with destroying Jericho, the priests then placed a curse upon it.  The only person saved in Jericho was the harlot, Rahab, who lived in the wall of Jericho.  (The reason for and the meaning of this is explained in The Celestial Scriptures.)  In typical priestly compassion the story relates, verse 21: “And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”

Wait a minute, dude!

Rationality falls flat with the walls.  Didn’t Joshua and his holocaustic hoard just come out of the wilderness?  Hadn’t they been starving and emaciated?  Wouldn’t they not only want  life-supporting things, but desperately need them to survive?  If we are to believe scripture, however, “…the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron…” were more important!  The reason?  To “consecrate unto the Lord…”  Like, maybe the Lord was running a pawn shop?

No: this is another take on the Creation myth, so the precious metals are symbolic of the mineral and chemical elements through which life is to be made manifest (just as in the Genesis account where gold, bdellium and the onyx stone are said to be in Eden even before biological life is created: see earlier post Inner Relationship of All Things, July 27.)

Anyway, according to priest-authors, the walls of Jericho fell flat (much like the priestly rationality for Joshua’s heartless carnage); and the priests could not  legitimately take credit for the earthquake that did actually rumble through the area.  In fact, the Israelites could have been nowhere in the vicinity when it happened either.  Even more damning to the story,  archaeological research has shown irrefutably that villages or cities of Canaan did not have fortifying walls.  Furthermore, extensive archaeology research has shown that in thirteenth century BCE there would have been, at most, only an insignificant settlement at that location.

The tragedy of such holy stories is the encouragement of hatred and inhumane behavior toward others that they have inspired and which now roils through the species of  life called man.

This entry was posted on August 6, 2009 at 7:03 pm and is filed under Atheist, belief, Bible, culture, faith, history, humanity, random, religion with tags archaeology, Canaan, Jericho, Promised Land. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.