Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #22 - The Literary Genesis of the Yahwist

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #22 - The Literary Genesis of the Yahwist

Okay, so good morning. We are continuing the Hebrew Bible today. Last class, we talked about King David of Israel and how he created the Bible, the project of the Bible, in order to create legitimacy and authority. We are continuing along this theme today. So let's go over the chronology of the Bible. So in the beginning, there was God. In the Bible, his name is Yahweh. And he created the world. And then he created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

And people who took the Bible literally believe this was about 4,000 BC, okay? As we know, Adam and Eve, because they disobeyed God, they were banished from the Garden of Eden. And then they had two sons, Ken Enable, and then their family started to populate the earth. But then humans started to misbehave. We went to war. We were greedy. And so God decided to destroy the world in something called the Great Flood. And this is a story of Noah.

Noah's Ark. Remember, Noah was beloved by God, so God told him to build a great ship, and then he will be able to live. After Noah's Ark, came along a man named Abraham, and this was about 2000 BC. Abraham was born in the city of Ur, in Mesopotamia, and he was beloved by God because he was a righteous, and decent man. And God made a covenant with him. Covenant. And a covenant is a contract. It's a promise.

And the contract is this. If you, Abraham, swear allegiance to me, Yahweh, I will make you and your descendants founders of a great nation called Israel that will stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates. That's a promised land. And return as a mark of this commonant, Abraham and his ancestors will engage in circumcision. Basically, the foreskin of their penis will be surgically removed at birth.

So that's a covenant. Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob. Jacob is the younger son of Isaac. So Asaul should have inherited the birthright and the blessing from his father, Isaac. But Jacob played a trick on Azol and stole the birthright. Asa was very angry, so Jacob had to run away and live with a relative for a couple of decades. And while there, he married two sisters named Leah and Rachel. And then together, they had 12 sons.

And these became the 12 sons became the 12 founders of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob will be renamed by God as Israel. So Jacob really is the founder of the nation of Israel. Jacob's youngest son is named Joseph, and he is beloved by Jacob so much that his brothers became jealous of him and sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph was also beloved by God and he had a special gift of reading dreams. And he became a special advisor to the Pharaoh and he became very wealthy. Meanwhile, back in the land of Israel, Jacob and his sons, their family, are facing this massive famine.

So Joseph comes and rescues them, and the entire nation of Israel moves down to Egypt, where they become very wealthy and prosperous. And because they have many children, eventually, after a couple of decades, they become a threat to the establishment. So the new Therow has no memory of the contributions of Joseph enslave the Israelites. and he wants them to die so he basically forbids them to have sons and he basically tries to sanction the Israelites as much as possible eventually a man named Moses is born into the Israelites in Egypt and because he's a boy he has to be killed so his mother puts him in a basket

And then this basket drifts down the Nile and into the hands of an Egyptian princess. So Moses grows up to become an Egyptian prince. But eventually, God informs him of who he really is, and he's the prophet who will deliver the Israelites back into the promised land. The Pharaoh refuses to let the Israelites go. There's a major contest duel between Moses and the Pharaoh. And then God sends down like 10 plagues, 10 plagues, to force the Pharaoh to release the Israelites. Moses is taking the Israelites into the promised land.

And then Pharaoh has a change of heart, and he wants to destroy the Israelites before they can escape. So the Pharaoh chases them. Moses causes the seat to part. They cross the valley, and when Pharaoh and his army are about to enter, the sea, the sea closes in on them and drowns them. Okay?

And then when Moses and the Israelites are in a desert, Moses ascends the mountain to receive the law of God. And this is what we call the Ten Commandments. But while Moses away, the Israelites create an idol to celebrate Yahweh. And Yahweh hates this because Yahweh does not want to be represented on earth. So Yahweh sent him to a long exile in the desert. And he tells Moses, you will deliver the people from Egypt, and that is your mission, but you will not enter the promised land. You can see the promised land, but you will not enter the promised land.

So the mission goes to Joshua, who is Moses' disciple. And Joshua and the Israelites start a massive military campaign into the land of Canine, which is a promised land. And over the span of years, they basically massacre the people and they create the nation of Israel. And then we enter the period called the judges. And these are 12 individuals who become the tribal leaders of Israel. And Israel at this time is at war with all the neighbors, the most people. Albites the Edomites the Philistines the Canaanites and this spirit lasts for a long time until the Israelites pick a king named Saul to lead them okay King Saul and then as we know

from King Saul will come David who will use up the throne from Saul and be the great king of Israel that we remember today okay and David is considered the real founder of the state of Israel as well as the Jewish faith. So that's the chronology of the Bible. Now, because the Bible is written almost like a historical document, for most of the human history, people believe this to be literally true. But in the past 400 years, 300 years,

there are many archaeologists who have tried to prove the events in the Bible. For example, Noah's Ark. If there really was a flood, well, there will be a geological record. There would be a ship. There would be a memory of this. But there was never.

But we have never been able to found any concrete evidence to support North Arctic. How about the Garden of Eden? Well, if the Garden of Eden really existed, well, we could also find it, and we've never been able to find it. All right.

How about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Again, no evidence that any of these individuals ever existed. How about Moses? Well, we would think if Moses really did exist, there would be some records of him in the Egyptian history, right? I mean, 10 plagues is a travesty and a disaster on the Egyptian people. No record of that. the parting of the sea

no record of that the judges Joshua nothing okay it is only until we get to David when we begin to see historical records and prove that David actually existed

but before then nothing in the Bible has proven to be historical okay and so this is very confusing so So what I will show you today is, if you see the Bible as a historical record, you will only get confused.

If you see this as a chronology, this makes no sense. If you see this as a work of fiction, like a lot of people do, this doesn't make much sense either. Okay? Because when you read the Bible, these events aren't actually interconnected with each other. David has no memory of Moses, for example. That's weird. Moses has no memory of Abraham. Okay, so these stories are not interconnected.

So if this is not a historical record, if this is not a work of pure fiction, what is this thing? What I will show you today is this is not a chronology. This is a cosmology. Okay? Remember, last class, we talked about

why things are written down. things are written down in the ancient past. And as I said, King sponsor writing projects for three major reasons. The first reason is to create legitimacy and authority. The second reason is to create a national identity, cohesion among the people. The third reason is the idea of differentiation.

To tell people who they are not. Where Israelites, we're not Egyptians. We're not Canaanites. We're not Philistines. Okay? So these are the three major reasons why kings sponsor writing projects. And for the Israelites and David, these three imperatives are particular salient. They're really necessary, right?

So let me explain why that's the case. So legitimacy. Remember, David usurped the throne from Saul. Saul came from a noble family, and he was elected by the chieftains to be their king. And then David launched a rebellion, and eventually usurp the throne. So David has a major legitimacy problem. So how he solves a problem, as we discussed last class, is the Bible presents him as a poet king. This is a very important concept.

Poet king. There have been warrior kings, right? Kings who go to war and they win legitimacy by defeating all their enemies. There have been priest kings, kings who are head of a major religion. But David is the first poet king. He writes poetry. He sings songs. He's a sense of the soul.

That's what explains his affair with Shiba. And that tells us he could never have possibly been ambitious and want to kill Saul. He's the first poet king. So why is he king of Israel? Because guess why, guys? God is the poet god. Okay? Poet god.

Yahweh is the poet god. So this is a radical conception of divinity in ancient world. Gods previously have been priests or warriors. And this is the first time in human history. where God Yahweh is being presented as a poet god. When you read the Bible, it's very interesting how he creates the world. He speaks and things are created. He says, let there be light.

Let there be heaven and earth. He speaks. And when he speaks, a new world is created. And then he looked at this world and says, and this is good. Okay? So he's like a writer who speaks words and who edits his words in order to create something much more beautiful. He's a poet. And as a poet, he's very sensitive. Okay, which means he creates Adam in need because he's lonely. He wants friendship.

Okay. So in other words, the Bible is fundamentally a story of. friendship of two poets who are alone in the world who found friendship and comfort in the existence is in each other okay and the way the Bible accomplishes is through the idea of common it so in their Bible there are four covenants promises so the first covenant is between Noah and Yahweh it's what we call it Noah had covenant the noah had covenant the idea of this is this after Yahweh destroys the world he feels tremendous remorse for what he's done he promises Noah

as long as humans are not too evil I will not destroy the world okay if humans stay good I will not destroy the world the second covenant is between Abraham and Yahweh is called the Abrahamic covenant and in this covenant Yahweh says to Abraham if you and your ancestors sorry If you and your descendants stay true to me, I will create a great nation out of you. I will give you the nation of Israel. The third covenant is between Moses and Yahweh. It's called the Mosaic covenant.

And the idea is if the Israelites follow the Ten Commandments and worship Yahweh only Yahweh, then Yahweh will protect them as a nation. Yahweh will show them favor. Okay? So those are the three covenants. But when we get to David, called the Davidic covenant, something interesting happens.

All three priests are what we call conditional covenants. If you do this, then I will do this. But when we get to David, it's unconditional. Ayahu will promise that you, David, and your descendants will forever rule Israel. The House of David will forever rule Israel.

It's an unconditional covenant that shows his everlasting friendship with David. In other words, the David covenant marks the end of biblical history. Yahweh, this great god, poet god, who's such a universe for friendship. has now found his great friend in David. And so his search has ended, and biblical history has ended. So this is a radical new idea in human history, how a king and a god can be poets, and how the world, how reality can be constructed through words.

And that's why in the Bible, there's a very famous phrase called, In the beginning, there was the word. And that's why Jewish people are so literary, okay, because that's part of the tradition. If you look at some of the most famous writers, some of the most famous thinkers in the world, they're mainly Jewish. And again, a lot of it is because the Jewish faith is the first faith to focus on literary creation. So that's the idea of legitimacy. Cohesion. There's all cohesion.

Okay? The second purpose is great cohesion. And as we discussed, after the Bronze Age collapsed, the land of canine was in complete chaos. You had all these different groups within K9. You had the nomads from the desert, the Bedouins. You have the hill people of K9. You have refugees from the cities of K9, and these cities have been destroyed. You have Egyptian priests.

You have four mercenaries. And now you have four mercenaries. sea peoples these Greeks and these other people who are coming into canine because they've lost their lands back at home okay so you've got this very different group of people together they're in competition with other groups like the Philistines so now they need to create a national identity out of all this right and that's what the Bible is doing guys okay remember there's a concept we learned that's very important in class called

signalization right signalization it means when you bring different religions together and create a new religion so for example let's say my god is Zeus and your God is Hera and I conquer you and I make you part of my people okay so what we do in this instance is we marry our gods to each other so now Zeus is married to Hera and they have children like Aphrodite and Athena, okay? And this is a way to soothe the process of conquest. Because even though I've conquered you, I still have to live with you, okay? So we have to blend in our different cultures. This is also true for the idea of genealogy, family history. Every tribe has a patriarch. Okay, and the reason why that patriarch

is to tell the people we've been in this land for the longest time, and that's what we have legitimacy and control over this land because we were here first okay now when tribes get together they intermarry they form alliances what they do that's very common is their ancestors merged together and they become sons and fathers of each other so as though it's like one family history okay you take these different family histories and you merge them into one line the same process of synchronization okay so if you look at this instance, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it's basically three major tribes of Israel coming

together to form one family history. In this instance, the most powerful family is that of Jacob, because Jacob, Israel, gives his name to the new nation of Israel. The second most important person or tribe is Abraham, because he's the progenitor of this family okay and third will be Isaac and in fact in the Bible Isaac receives the least amount of attention okay but the synchronization process also helps us explain Moses because we've been looking for a hundred years and we have not found any evidence that Moses ever existed or anyone like Moses existed in

Egypt okay so what's Moses doing well what Moses is doing is explaining why there are Egyptian priests in the nation of Israel right and why are priests important because if you're David and you're now king you want to create legitimacy and you want to create authority and the best way you create authority is by centralizing your power back then the best and Jesus with a centralized power is by centralizing religious ritual. Doesn't make sense. So what he did was this.

He made his new capital, Jerusalem, and he built something called the temple of Jerusalem, which became the house of Yahweh. This is where Yahweh lived. So if you wanted to worship Yahweh, and you had to, because he was your God, you had to come all the way to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice. and who controlled the sacrifice process priests okay and why did the priests and why did the priests Egyptian priests why are they controlling the sacrifice process because they're the ones Moses who led the people Israel out of Egypt they want to deliver

the Israelites into freedom Moses is an Egyptian name it means son off okay so it's a very common Egyptian name so for example Ramses means son of Ra. So Ramsey is a very famous Egyptian Pharaoh. Ramsees means son of Ra, the Sangha. So both Moses and his brother Aaron, these are Egyptian names for Egyptian priests. So David was heavily reliant on these Egyptian priests

in order to centralize authority. Also, the idea of circumcision, it is an ancient Egyptian practice that priests specialized in right so if the new law is to be a member of Israel to be an Israelite means you have to get circumcised you have to circumcise your children you're going to go to the Egyptian priest to circumcise your children because they're good at that and they know how to do that does that make sense so by making circumcision the major mark of what it means to be an Israelite, it gives authority and power to these Egyptian priests. Does that make sense?

Okay? The judges, what we believe is the judges are these local heroes that bring in all the other tribes of Israel together. So in other words, if you are a member of this new nation of Israel, you have an deity or an ancestor within the customer. of the Bible. And this explains why the history of Israel is so convoluted, contradictory, and complex. Because it's trying to create a national identity where everyone, all tribes,

everyone is able to contribute effectively to the creation of the nation of Israel. Any questions before I continue? Is this clear to you guys? What's what's going on? Any other questions? All right, now the last question is differentiation. And this is the most important, okay?

Because remember, you have Egyptian priests in Israel. How do we know they're loyal to Israel and not to Egypt? Because the Egyptian priests went to war with a pharaoh. We have Canaanites within the state of Israel. How do we know they're loyal? Because they went to war with the Canaan. or with the Canaanites, okay? So in the Bible, what's interesting view with the Bible is,

the Israelites in their history went to war with everyone, okay? The Egyptians, the Philistines, the Canaanites, went to war of everyone. Why? Because they had members from every single geography and location in that area. And so they need to differentiate themselves. The best way you differentiate yourself

is by going to war with them. Does that make sense? Also, guys, when you use the word nation, I have to warn you, this is not the modern sense, okay? Nation, it's a loose political affiliation that is fluid. Today, the nation state, you're Chinese, you're stuck being Chinese, okay? But back then, if you're an Israelite, guess what? You could walk across the street and become a nice. moabite okay so the idea the identity back then was extremely loose and fluid so

when we use the term moabite or canaanite basically we're talking about a geographical location that has some political force but it's not a fixed identity okay the very idea of ethnicity race group identity back then was extremely fluid was basically non-existence okay so israel the very idea of it's a literary creation the idea of Israelite it is a political creation does that make sense guys any questions so far if I move on okay are you clear okay okay all right all right so this explains why the Bible is structured the way it is okay but the question then is and this is very important question is okay you know what

this was standard cultural practice back then Everyone did this to create identity. So why is it we have the Bible today and not say other texts from Egypt or Mesopotamia? Why is it that the Bible was able to conquer the world, basically? Right? Because you have two billion Christians. You have a billion Muslims. The Bible was able to conquer the world and capture the imagination of humanity.

And here I want to explain why the Bible is. Bible is so powerful it was how it was written that made it so powerful okay so last class we talked about the Apology of David about the Bersheba story about the Abner story and we believe the person who wrote those stories are what we call the court historian we have absolutely no idea who he is he's basically the official historian of the court of David And every court will have an official historian. And those stories are good, but they're not literary.

They're just propaganda and spin. But the person who wrote the Bible, especially Genesis, was a unique literary genius of the statue of Homer and Plato and Dante. The person who wrote the Bible, who first wrote the Bible, was an incredible literary genius. and we call her the Yahwehs okay what do we call her the Yahwehs it's just convention because she uses Yahweh as the name of God and other writers don't actually use Yahweh as the name of God okay so so by convention we call it the

Yahwehs another question then is who is she and we're fairly certain she's a or it's a she okay and as I will show you We're fairly certain it's a she because she focuses not on war, not on conflict, but on domestic tragedy and affairs. Childbirth, marriage, love. And this is unique in human history. So we're fairly confident it's a she. There are many who believe she is of the court of David. The reason why is, first of all,

What she writes is very favorable to the court of David. Also, back then, as you can imagine, only aristocratic woman had the privilege of reading and writing. She clearly had access to the mythology of Egypt, Mesopotania, Anatolia. She has access to a great education. So we believe she's a princess. I will further and make the argument that she must be either daughter. or the granddaughter of King of King David? Okay?

I would make this argument that she has to be the daughter or the granddaughter of King David. And the reason why is what she wrote, and I'll show you what she wrote, what she wrote was so controversial and so unique and so imaginative that the priesthood could not possibly accept what she did. If she was just a priest or if she was just in a priest, if she was just in a priest, was staccatic of low birth, there was no way her writings would become part of the Bible. So she must have been someone of high authority. And there is actually a precedent for this.

So for example, we know that in about 2000 BC, this is at least 1,000 years before the Yahwehs began to write. The Sarkhan of Akkad, who is the first great empire builder, okay? first emperor basically and this is someone that back then during the time of King David everyone knew and worshipped okay King David knew about him and he knew about his practices when he sort of Agat conquered Mesopotamia he appointed his daughter named Enho Duana to be like the high priestess of their religion but what's interesting about her is she's a poet. And she is the first name author in human history. Okay, this is 2000 BC. She wrote a lot of

poetry. So there is a history, a president, for these kings to appoint their daughters to be the official poet of their nation. So that's why I think the Yahwehs is. But honestly, we'll never know, and it's not important. We just have to know she was an exceptional literary genius who made the Bible what it is today all right so let's go over some of her literary contributions very shortly and again because the Bible has been redacted for about 2,000 years 3,000 years we've lost a lot of her original writings okay so I will analyze a couple of stories that we know for sure she wrote the first is called Adam and Eve the second is

the story of Jacob and Rachel okay all right so you think you know the story of Adam and Eve but I guarantee you it's wrong okay I guarantee you even you know the story of Adam and Eve it's wrong all right so let's go over the official or the mainstream understanding of the story of Adam and Eve God told Adam and Eve listen this is Garden Eden it's paradise you can do what you want you'll live Life is easy. Apples fall from the sky. You can pick tomatoes and carrots from the ground.

Life is easy. It's paradise for you. But there's one rule and only one rule in the Garden of Eden. And the rule is do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because it's poisonous. And of course, Adam and Eve had to disobey God. And God became so angry that he banned. banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and now see our act of disobedience.

The first act of disobedience, our first sin, the original sin that has doomed us forever until the redemption of Jesus, right? That's the story we all know. The story is completing the only wrong. That's not what it says in the Bible. So I'll explain first what the story. Bible says and now explain how we can interpret the story okay so God says to Adam and Eve don't eat that fruit okay and then Adam and Eve are curious why can't you eat that fruit and then Eve meets a serpent on the ground and Eve's and

the serpent talk and Eve says basically says we can't eat that fruit and the serpent says why if says it's poisonous the servant says no it's not poisonous you're being lied to the reason why Yahweh does not want you eat from the fruit is once you eat it you'll become like God your eyes will open you have the knowledge of good and evil and then Eve gets angry because she feels manipulated and she convinces Adam to eat the fruit as well. So they eat the fruit and their eyes are open now. They have not to good and evil. Yahweh visits them in the garden and he discovers they're hiding from him. And

Yahweh commends them to come out and he sees right away they're embarrassed about their nakedness. They're embarrassed about being confronted by Yahweh. So Yahweh knows they've eaten the fruit. Adam says to Yahweh, it's Eve's fault. Eve says to Yahweh, it's the serpent's fault. And Yahweh decides to punish all three. He says to the serpent, from now on, you will slither on the ground, and you'll be hunted by man. Eve, from now on, you and all your descendants will suffer the pains of childbirth. childbirth will be an extremely painful process and then he says to Adam from now on you must sweat

to grow food to feed yourself from now on life will be hardship it will be a it will be toil and pain and suffering okay and then he does this okay this is very interesting and this is where the Bible demonstrates its genius okay and the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife and clothe them then the lord said see the man has become like one of us knowing good and evil and now he might reach out his hand and take also the tree of life and live forever okay this is where the bible is genius because it's telling us why god is banishing adam and eve in the garden of eden it's telling us it's because there's another tree God didn't mention to them. It's called the tree of life.

And it allows you to live forever. So why is this is a problem? Well, there are two things that differentiate God from us, humans. The first thing is, God has nods of good and evil. Second thing is, God lives forever. That's it. That's the only difference. So if Adam and Eve now, now good and evil,

if they eat from the tree of life, they can live forever. So God's afraid will become like God. Therefore, to protect the tree of life, he has to banish us from the garden. Okay? Yeah? Excuse me? Yeah, exactly thing.

Okay, okay. What is good and evil? Okay. So this is what, so this is a really complicated idea, okay? But good and evil does not mean you know God and you know that, you know Satan. That's not what it means. It means you know what's good for you and what's bad for you. So for example, before I knew good and evil, I hit this table, okay?

I feel pain, right? And I'm like, what pain? What is that? Is that good or is that bad? I don't know. So I do it again. Okay? And I do it again.

I cannot learn from my mistakes because I can not differentiate what's good for me and what's bad for me. But now I know good and evil, I'm like, oh, I hit this thing, I feel pain, therefore it's evil. Therefore, I shouldn't do it again. Therefore, I should avoid this table. So knowing good and evil means you have the capacity to learn and to grow for a process of self-reflection. Once you have judgment, once you're able to differentiate what's good for you and what's bad for you, you can always grow as a person. Does that make sense?

And if you can do this forever, a tree of life and live forever, it means you become God. because your knowledge is now infinite. Does that make sense? That's what knowledge of good and evil is. The ability to differentiate for yourself what is good for you and what's bad for you. To engage in a process of reflection and self-growth. So God's afraid that if we continue to grow,

we will become as powerful as God himself. Any more questions? continue the key line is this and the Lord God made garments of skins for the men his wife and clothe them this is right after he punishes Adam and Eve this is right after he scolds them right this is God giving pitying them and giving them a present this is very strange this is paradoxical why would God do this okay there are different ways to interpret this but I think this is God showing remorse and regret.

Okay? This is a radical idea, but this is God saying to Adam and Eve, I'm sorry for this. This is God showing remorse and regret. Why is God showing remorse and regret? You show remorse and regret, you just think wrong, right? But what did God do wrong? What did God do wrong? Why is God in the wrong here? It's a radical idea. But can you figure it out? Okay. God lied to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve. God said to Adam and Eve do not eat from this tree because it's poisonous.

Right? So imagine this. Imagine you're my two daughters. Okay. And you're like six or seven years old. And you see me at night drinking whiskey or beer. I'm really happy because I'm drinking whiskey and beer. So you two are curious and you say to me, Dad, what is this? And I say, It's poison. And then you're like, why are you drinking poison, dad? Like, well, because I'm older than you are. When you're as old as I am, you can drink this poison. Okay?

You two are now curious, right? You're curious. Why is dad drinking poison? So your uncle comes to the house one day, and you ask your uncle, hey, is alcohol poisonous? Your uncle's like, of course it's not poison. What are you talking about? And so of course what you two do is you break into the alcohol cabinet, right?

And you drink whiskey and you become very happy and you throw up. I come home and I shut at you. You guys are terrible. I told you not to drink that. Go to your room and you're suspended for a month, okay? You go to a room and you cry and then I come knocking and say, hey, do you guys want to go out to McDonald's and have a hamburger together you understand the story because I know I'm not wrong I should not have said to you alcohol is poisonous okay I'm

your bad parent so what's we mark about the story is it's basically a domestic comedy you understand this is what happens among families all the time this is a power of the story of Adam and Eve it's a domestic comedy it's something we can all relate to it's something we can all understand what's also really powerful about the story is God is fallible God is made has made a terrible mistake what's important is this God understands he's made a mistake that's why he's showing remorse and regret okay so again Yawit he's a poet God he's cured

I'm curious about the world, he wants to have friends. But he's inexperienced, he's naive, he's a new father. So he's going to make mistakes. Making mistakes is the process of growing up. What makes humans exceptional, what makes humans unique from animals is our capacity to make mistakes and to learn from them because we ate from the knowledge of,

from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Okay? You see how radical all this is? These are radical new ideas in human history. God is fallible. What's important is to understand and omit your mistakes and grow from them. Okay? Okay.

The story continues because now Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden. They have two sons named Canaan Abel. Abel is a shepherd. okay and cane is a farmer but they both love God they both want the respect and the attention of God so they present they they they give presence to God Abel is a shepherd so he offers mutton okay to God and then Kane is a farmer's sweet offers I don't know like wheat or vegetables to God. God tastes both and then God's like this mutton it's tasty awesome thank you Abel and then he eats

Kane's offering and Kane's very anxious he's very excited and then Keynes like and Abel's like sorry sorry and then God Yahweh is like this food sucks man all right and this is what it says in the bible the lord had regard for abel and his offering but for kane is offering he had no regard he hated kane's present he love abel's present so kane was very angry and his countenance fell the lord said to kane why are you angry if you do well will you not be accepted okay so again it's a domestic comedy you're my girls you might you're my daughters you go to school and you work very hard on presenting a present to me right and I say to one of you oh this is

an awesome present thank you and I say to the other you suck man okay I'm being a bad parent God is being a terrible parent okay if you do well will you not be accepted you suck man the problem isn't me the problem is you you just suck okay and of course what happens next is Kane kills Abel but then what happens next is interesting is Yahweh finds out about this and he banishes Kane and then Kane says to God hey you banish me people will know I commit it wrong and therefore I will be killed by other people then Yahweh says to Kane okay I'll put a mark

on you, the mark of Cain. And if anyone touches you, then I will punish that person. I will protect you with the mark of Cain. And this is again, God showing remorse and regret for what he's done. Because God knows in his heart he's not wrong here. But what allowed God to understand he committed wrong is because Cain argued with him. okay cane argued back so this is a radical conception of faith in the in the Hebrew Bible faith love of God requires you to argue with God because it's only

for the present argument that God who's fallible will learn and grow so when you argue you fight back you're helping the other person grow okay any questions about this story before I move on as you're gonna see it's a powerful story that reveals so much about the idea of faith and justice and divinity okay any more questions before I move on okay so again the Yahwehs is a literary genius and there are two things that Mecker stand out that have that make her unique in the history of literature the first is her economy economy just means using as few words as possible to express as much as possible okay

you can see the story of Adam and Eve the story of King and Abel it's very economical she's using very few words but within these words are a universe of ideas almost infinite meaning you can interpret these stories any way you want okay The second idea is irony. Irony just means she's funny. If you tell your kids don't eat that apple, don't eat that fruit because it's poisonous, guess what, your kids are going to eat that fruit. And then you're going to look like an idiot because it's not poisonous.

So it's ironic. She's making fun of Yahweh. She's making fun of the highest authority in, the Israelite faith and again that's why if she were not the daughter of David or granddaughter daughter David there's no way this story would have gotten into the Bible okay but it's a great story that has infinite literary power does that make sense the last story I will mention is a story of Rachel and Jacob it's a very short story okay so what happens

is this. Jacob runs away from his brother, Esau, because Jacob stole Esau's birthright and blessing. And Jacob ends up with relative named Laban. And Laban has two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Leah is the eldest. Rachel is the younger one. And Jacob falls in love with Rachel right away and he says to Laban I will work for you for free for seven years and then I will want your daughter Rachel's hand in return for my for my work and Lamon says well you're a relative and it's better for me to give her to you than to complete stranger so yeah okay seven years pass and there's a wedding between Rachel and Jacob that night

Jacob has sex with a woman. He wakes up and sees it's not Rachel, it's Leah. He slept with Leah. He is now married to Leah. Then Jacob says to Laban, you've tricked me. And then Laban says, it is the custom of our people to marry the firstborn first. We have to marry Leah off first before we can marry off Rachel.

If you continue to work for me for seven years, I will give you Rachel as well. And Jake Agreeze. So it's a very short story. And there's a lot of economy and irony in this story. But again, within the short story, there is a universe of ideas and emotions. If you're able to think very clearly and closely about the story, we will discover that, A, Rachel and Leah hate each other. How do we know that?

Because Leah stole Jacob from Rachel. We can imagine that when Laban announced that Rachel would marry Jacob, Leah was very jealous. And for seven years, every night at dinner, Leah would cry and scream at her father. How could you embarrass me like this? I'm your first point. Do I mean nothing to you?

We can imagine the family drama and the comedy, right? LeBahn's like, you know what? If after seven years, Jacob, Marries, Rachel, they're going to run off together, right? And for the rest of my life, I'm being stuck with Leah screaming at me and hitting me in the head for the rest of my life, right? So he's like, I need to figure out how to get out of this deal, right? So that's why he tricks Jacob. We can also figure out that Rachel and Jacob love each other. Their love is the greatest love in the world.

Because, first of all, Jacob's willing to put up this crap for another seven years in order to be of Rachel, right? Second of all, Rachel is willing to wait for Jacob. She could at any time just run off and be able to be with him. and be with someone else but she's willing to endure she's willing to suffer okay so we can imagine the entire family dynamic in history based on just a few sentences in the Bible that's a that's the power of the Yahwehs okay the power the Yahwehs she's really writing about what it means to be human what it means of a family

and that's why the Bible endures to this day because there are these powerful stories in the Bible that tell us that reveal to us what it means to be human what it means to love what it means to forgive what it means our family and that's why the Bible has inspired people for thousands of years because in these stories you are part of the writing process it's co-creation okay your meaning co-creation, your meaning, your understanding, interpretation is what gives life to these words. There are that many words, but your understanding these words is what makes these words powerful to you.

And again, these stories are unique in human history. The story of Adam and Eve is, everyone knows the story of Adam and Eve. Okay? It's just a powerful story. You can also argue the power of Adam and Eve, is because it makes us nostalgic for the Ice Age, right? Remember in the Ice Age, we were in a egalitarian society where everyone was equal.

And the Garden of Eden is a metaphor, a symbol for that time. So it is provoking or activating our nostalgia for that time. Within each of us must be that a long-lost memory of a time when we humans, were alone in the world, there were not many of us, but life was fairly pleasant. Food was plentiful. We were all friends with each other. We didn't really struggle against each other.

We really didn't struggle against nature. We were one with nature and with each other. Any questions? Who do the Christians believe to have been in the Bible? Well, God! right this is the exact these are the words of God and so in the Bible there are people called prophets prophets and how prophets work is they visit heaven or they visit by an angel and there's one scene where the angel or God takes a parchment and puts

it into the mouth of the prophet so the prophets is speaking every word that's a direct word of God does that make sense like it's it's almost like he's just a male man I'm God I put a parchment in your mouth you come back to Earth and you basically announce the word of God okay so there are people who believe God wrote every word okay but this is only my noted of Christians most Christians believe that whoever wrote the Bible was inspired by God that these are prophets were inspired by God to write down the truths of God but if you actually try to read the Bible by yourself it's impossible okay because it's been redacted so many

times as I explained to you last class there are at least four different sources in the Bible that have been spliced together randomly and it's been edited constantly over the century Okay, but honestly, no one reads the Bible in its entirety. What usually happens is people only read sections of the Bible. Most people get their understanding from the Bible from preachers, okay? And preachers will explain to you what these stories mean, but you won't actually have to read them together.

Okay? Does that make sense? So what I'm offering you today is not a scriptural interpretation of the Bible. I'm offering you a what we're called a literary interpretation of the Bible. Okay? Any more questions? Are you guys clear about this? Okay. So we'll continue to the Bible next class.

And next class, we will look at the religion of Zoroastrianism. Because when the Persian Empire conquests the world, Zoroastrianism, their religion will start to be. merge with a Bible, which creates new ideas, that will eventually become the basis of Christianity.