CHAPTER 1

Introduction

With this book, I will lead you where my mind and dedicatedresearch led me: to a wonderful, insightful, interesting, andfresh interpretation of the first Bible books to have beenwritten, Genesis through Kings II. While doing so, I willtransport you back in time to the ancient period and place ofthis extraordinary event, the writing of the first books of theBible. You will return to modern life with a more enlightenedunderstanding of the Bible's first books.

This book is about the Bible. Because the Bible and religionare often seemingly inseparable, one may readily jump to theconclusion that The Book: Why the First Books of the Bible WereWritten and Who They Were Written For is about religion. It isnot. It is about the Bible, its original intended purpose, andits original intended audience. It is also about history and thefascinating long-ago civilizations of the ancient Near East.More important, it's about seeing the Bible through a differentlens—one offering a fresh perspective on the Bible that is wellworth considering. What you learn by reading this book maydisturb you, or it may not. It may challenge your beliefs, orit may not. What I most sincerely hope is that this book willeducate, entertain, and enlighten you.

If ever one ubiquitous, omnipresent book has tracked ourWestern civilization from long before the fall of Rome to thepresent day, it is the Bible. The Bible, in one form or another,is the written constitution of the most venerable Westerninstitutions in history, the synagogue and the church. More so,the Bible has been revered as a personal constitution among thecountless faithful throughout the ages to this day. The Bible hasbeen printed in nearly every language spoken throughout theworld. Many have become heirlooms passed down in unbrokenchains from one generation to the next. In short, Bibles arefound all over the world and in nearly every home in the West.Just about every man, woman, and child knows what the Bibleis and something of what it's about.

Surprisingly, just a very few exceedingly rare scraps ofbiblical writings have been found on parchment in theiroriginal ancient Hebrew script. Only a few samples survived,most found among the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls at KhirbetQumran, off the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, and aneven older preserved sample located near ancient Judea. Thesescraps of writing are beyond priceless; for many, they are themost sacred items on our planet. For biblical scholars, they'resomething akin.

Given the nearly complete absence of biblical writings intheir original ancient Hebrew script, the Bible may well havebeen lost forever had it not been for a very fortuitous translationinto Greek. Consequently, this translation became legendarynot long after its completion, and indeed, biblical historianscredit the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, as oneof the greatest events of all time and consequently wrapped inlegend.

The story of the translation, as told in a book by Aristeasof Alexandria, was connected with a fanciful miracle, a literarydevice often used in ancient Hebrew writings and many beforethem. According to the legend, seventy wise and learned Hebrewscribes traveled to Egypt after Greek-speaking Jews living inEgypt convinced an Egyptian leader to include the books ofMoses in his library. When they arrived, as the legend goes, theEgyptian leader placed each one of them into separate roomsto individually translate the writings into Greek. The king thencompared the translations, and behold, not a single differencewas found among the seventy translations. The Greek word forseventy is septuagint, and the Greek translation of the Bible hasbeen known by that name ever since.

Despite the legend attached to the Greek translation, thistranslation is and always has been considered by nearly all tobe a precise and reliable duplication of the original, ancientHebrew Bible. Any translational subtleties between the originalHebrew script, the Greek Septuagint, and the subsequentKing James translation into English (yet another significantbiblical historical event) are inconsequential despite many ofthe feisty arguments made by individuals holding fast ontopure orthodoxy.

DATING THE BIBLE

Dating is a crucial part of history and historical analysis,needless to say. Many readers today are familiar with thedesignation BC, meaning Before Christ, and AD, meaningAfter Christ. The use of these religious connotations, BC andAD, is understandably a sensitive issue for many historians wholack any desire to be insensitive one way or the other towardall parties, believers and nonbelievers alike. In response to thisconcern, alternative dating designations have been developed.Some like the idea of using BP, or Before Present, meaningsimply "ago." In other words, this or that happened 40, 200,or 3,180 years ago, or BP. Of course, the obvious problem withthe BP designation is that "years ago" changes. One may reada book three hundred years after its publication that refers toan event as having occurred "300 BP," but this event wouldhave occurred six hundred years ago, or 600 BP, at the timethis individual was reading the book.

Given the sensitivities of some, and the long durationof the use of, and familiarity with, the BC and AD datingdesignations that delineate a before and after...