The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Qumran Texts in

Was Punt real?:
Just from the title, it should be clear that we know very little about Punt; how long did it exist? Where was it? What was its government like? What was life like there? Most importantly, we don’t know what happened to Punt. I’m sure that by now you’re probably wondering if Punt even existed, or if it was just one more addition to the long list of mythical lands. But that, to me, is the most interesting part: Punt existed. It absolutely existed. And how do we know this?
Punt and Egypt were trading partners, possibly the first in the spice route, an ancient commercial network of trade. Punt was essential to this network of trade; first mentioned in Egyptian records in 2500 BC, this relationship was maintained until at least the 11th century BC, though, based on likely Puntian goods found in earlier Egyptian tombs, this relationship may have been far older. The people of Punt were seafaring, in contrast to the primarily land-based Egyptians, and reached Egypt in large ships. After the 11th century BC, however, this trade relationship seems to have dissolved, though likely not acrimoniously. By then, Punt had advanced into myth—one Egyptian love song included the line, “When I hold my love close, and her arms steal around me, I'm like a man translated to Punt, or like someone out in the reedflats, when the world suddenly bursts into flower."
What do we know about Punt?:
The short answer is ‘not very much.’ As one historian put it, Punt is like a “void.” The best source of information comes from Deir el-Bahri, a 3,500 year old complex of Egyptian tombs and temples near Thebes. Here, in relief sculptures and paintings in the temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut—whose “divine mother” (patron goddess) is recorded as being from Punt—is an account of an diplomatic and commercial expedition to Punt, portrayed with beehive-shaped ‘pile-dwellings’ on stilts and a number of palm trees. Egypt’s ships are then shown returning with ‘marvels’ which they present to Hatshepsut; the roots of some of the frankincense trees brought back are still visible at Hatshepsut’s temple, which was modeled after the architecture of Punt. Sadly, as valuable a source of information as this is, it’s damaged and missing parts.
The final recorded expedition to Punt took place in 12th century BC—though others likely occurred after—under the reign of Ramses III. It was recorded on a papyrus scroll stating that a fleet of Egyptian ships arrived in Punt, a land “unaffected by (any) misfortune, safe and respected.” This scroll tells us a little more about where Punt was—the ships left from Saww and sailed, at least partially, on the Red Sea, which is corroborated by other scrolls. But even this is contradictory; other records indicate that Egyptians also traveled south along the Nile, through Nubia or through other routes. Some historians have suggested that routes changed as different, less friendly kingdoms took control of these various areas.
So what of Punt itself? As far as cultural practices, we—you guessed it—don’t know much. If, as the scant records have it, the people of Punt indeed lived in raised huts, it's unlikely that much would remain as far as ruins. And wherever they were, it is likely an area that is highly populated today. They were likely “cattle-herding pastoralists,” but no archaeological remains have ever been identified “even tentatively” as being Puntite, though numerous Punt goods have been found in Egypt. But interestingly, the Puntites had, according to Egyptian texts, a lot in common with the Egyptians; in Hapshephut’s temple, Punt men are described as having the “brick-red skin color” and “chin-tuft beards” of Egyptians. Fascinatingly, the classic false beard worn by Egyptians seems to have originated as an imitation of natural Punt beards. As far as the appearance of Puntites, most Egyptian art depicted only Punt’s goods, and the few depictions of its people are derivative of Hatshepsut’s Temple’s engravings, which provide few details. The two peoples also seem to have shared the art of weaving, solar calendars, carpentry, stone masonry, ship-building, and even writing with each other. These apparent similarities have led some to suggest a common origin for the two, and many Egyptian pharaohs, such as 5th Dynasty Sahu Ra En Usr and 11th Dynasty Sankh-Mentu-Hetep, agreed, calling Punt “the land of our ancestors.” The likelihood of this is debated.
There’s also a question regarding what Punt was exactly; at the time, “Kingdom” or “State” could mean any reasonably organized community. So, since we know almost nothing about how it was governed, some wonder if Punt was a kingdom, so much as a loosely-connected people, or even an ethnic group. The Egyptians seem to have considered it a viable state with concrete rulers; in Hapshepsut’s temple, a Puntite King is shown receiving a “diplomatic note… and presents.” The relationship between Punt and Egypt was indeed markedly different than Egypt’s relationship with most states; Punt was far away, and less technologically advanced, so Egyptian rulers did not view it as a threat. Instead, in every record of Punt, it's referred to as something like a sister-state.
Trade in Punt:
Before we discuss where Punt might have been, let’s talk specifically about Punt’s trade, because this forms the basis of most theories on Punt. The majority of what we know about Punt comes from Egyptian economic accounts. In the earliest known record of trade with Punt, for example, written on the Palermo Stone, it is said that King Sahure sent an expedition to Punt, which returned with 80,000 measures of myrrh. Among the many goods reported as being from Punt are myrrh, electrum, frankincense, incense trees, precious woods, spices, baboons, ostrich eggs, leopard skins, cattle, “panther” and “panther-skin,” fragrant plants, jewelry, elephants, live apes, slaves, giraffes (possibly dead), rhinoceros (possibly dead), gold, cosmetics, aromatic gum, and ivory. Puntites believed their goods were superior to Egyptian ones, and commanded favorable deals for themselves.
Most of the attempts to fix an exact location on Punt come from these exhaustive lists of goods traded with the Egyptians; ostensibly, if we can find a place that contains all of these, then we should find Punt. But there are a few difficulties here.
First, there’s the problem of language. The exact meaning of some hieroglyphs is unclear, making identifying animal and plant species beyond generalities difficult. This also forms a problem in geographic identification; one phrase from Hatshepsut’s temple, for example was translated as “by/along the sea,” but some argue that it should be “on both sides of the sea,” which would change its meaning completely. Another is the debate over “sntr” and “antyw” both of which were used interchangeably to refer to frankincense and myrrh. Then, the issue of artistic representation. How reliable is Egyptian art when depicting exotic goods and people, those that are foreign to them? But there’s another problem: how do we know just which of these goods actually came from Punt? And the truth is, we just don’t. It’s likely that Punt, as rich as it was, was engaged in trades with several states, meaning that the goods they exchanged with Egypt could just as easily have originally come from another place altogether. Gold, for example, was once thought to come directly from Punt. Later records, however, have shown it's more likely that it first came from Amu—another lost kingdom—before arriving in Punt.
Where is Punt?:
The million dollar question, and one that remains contentious among historians is where exactly Punt was. To some—particularly in the 1800s, when European egyptology was still new—the presence of aromatics suggested that Punt was on the Arabian Peninsula, probably the western portion, which was considered the “Land of Perfumes.” Most of this was built on a romanticized view of Arabia and a decidedly un-romanticized view of Africa. This began to change with several discoveries, the most significant of which was Hatshepsut’s temple and its inscriptions. The plants and animals of Punt depicted in the temple, such as giraffes, don’t match with Arabia—though the background appeared to be desert—and many began to believe that Punt was in northern Africa instead, probably between Port Sudan and Massawa, but possibly extending as far as Djibouti. As one linguist also pointed out, the only known Puntian ruler was Parehu, Chief/King of Punt; if Punt was in Arabia then, based on Old South Arabian language, he would more likely have been Farehu, Chief/King of Funt.
Today, most believe that Punt was on the Horn of Africa. One of the most suggested locations for Punt on the Horn of Africa is modern-day Somalia. Some believe that Somalia’s culture bears similarities to that of Ancient Egypt in language, dress, religion, and art that suggest a past relationship. One Somalian state is even named Puntland, though this is likely a reference to Punt rather than direct evidence of Somalia’s past as Punt.
Yet other historians have argued that so much focus on the Hatshepsut Temple inscriptions is a mistake; animals like the giraffe and rhinoceros pictured could have easily come from elsewhere, if they were even meant to depict Punt in the first place. Arguments have been made that the plants and animals believed to be Puntian might actually be a completely separate portion of the relief, meant to depict another kingdom. This, however, is unlikely, as the animals are shown with Puntian huts. But even if the animals were in Punt, they could have been transported from other places; both were common diplomatic gifts at the time. The fragmentary nature of the inscriptions also makes it difficult to tell whether the animals were pets, suggesting diplomatic gifts, or wild fauna, suggesting Punt as a habitat for them. Other possible locations are directly north of Egypt, south of Egypt along the Nile, in eastern Sudan and in northern Ethiopia. Some have even suggested locations as far-flung as modern-day Sri Lanka. And many are still unwilling to give up Arabia as a possibility, arguing that it is the only area to fulfill all the possible boundary specifications we know about Punt.
Final Thoughts and Questions:
Investigations into Punt are ongoing, and recently, compelling (though inconclusive) evidence has been found; mummified baboons brought from Punt to Egypt were analyzed, and their genetic material was found to match most closely to modern baboons in Eritrea and Ethiopia—not Somalia. If this is indicative of Punt’s location, historians may have to go back to the drawing board on Punt. The nice thing about this mystery is that I fully believe we can solve it, or at least some of it, someday. Archaeologists are constantly making new finds in Northern Africa and Arabia, and this is a pretty hot topic. There were a few questions about Punt I didn’t really address here simply because I couldn’t find anything about them, but:

Why did Egypt's trading relationship with Punt end? What happened to Punt?
What was Punt’s culture like? Did all of the goods they exchanged with Egypt come from their own lands?
Where was Punt?

Sources:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/182543?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A3ef29fa9d8c4aae15fb295228ddd38b6&seq=34#page_scan_tab_contents (this one’s great. A bit dated, but fantastic overview of Punt & Hatshepsut temple art)https://www.jstor.org/stable/44139909?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A5c5a8dbf0eb9ed33fbf741099a3d3135&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/37319898.pdf (amazing pictures, good discussion of trade)
https://wardheernews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/The-Ancient-Kingdom-of-Punt-VI_Shidad.pdf
https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=CK9JDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT100&dq=kingdom+of+Punt&ots=RMcHpJBsZV&sig=6xnFTsswysT1-Qshwkwjl-VqO3U#v=onepage&q=kingdom%20of%20Punt&f=true (really recommend this one. Not dry at all)
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/somalia-ancient-lost-kingdom-punt-finally-found-006893
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/egypt-punt/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_Punt#Proposed_locations
Reading through this, I noticed for the first time how many times I used “seems to have” :’). This also got horribly long again, but in my defense, every time I start to write one of these I think “this is going to be short” and then it's three hours later and it's not short.
Also, I might have flaired this wrong, and sorry if so, but it didn't quite seem to fit any category.

Brian Hales as of late has challenged many people to come up with a naturalistic method for Joseph Smith's production of the Book of Mormon. A group I am part of had a detailed post showing how textual study is sufficient alone . With Colby Townsend's permission I repeat his post.

Over the last few years the question about methodology and understanding the composition of the Book of Mormon has come up in several threads by a handful of members of this group. One member in particular inverts that order by not focusing on the text itself but instead by asking questions about Joseph Smith's abilities. That approach is backwards if someone is trying to understand how the BoM itself was written. I don't post here very often but I've been wanting to make this clarification about methodology for those of you who are actually interested in understanding how scholars approach the study of composition and the dating of texts. My training covers a handful of fields. I have two HBA degrees in comparative literature and religious studies (University of Utah), an MA in history (Utah State University), and am now in the PhD program in English at IU Bloomington studying transatlantic literature of the long eighteenth century. I have studied classical Hebrew, ancient Greek, German, and I'm now taking an Old English course. I have read and engaged with literature in biblical studies, Renaissance and Enlightenment history and literature, and seventeenth through the nineteenth century English literature. All of my training deals with how texts are composed and when, focuses on what was going on historically at the time they were composed, and, blended with other literary-critical observations and tools, what all of that means for a twenty-first century academic understanding of the text. When you begin to study second temple Jewish pseudepigrapha, for example, the first realization is that, like the Hebrew Bible, most of the texts are anonymous (and/or pseudonymous). We do not know who wrote them. That does not stop us from understanding how they were written and during what period. Scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, for example, were able to tell that 1 Enoch was written in Aramaic (not Hebrew), even though all that we had at the time were manuscripts in classical Ethiopic and some fragments in Greek and a few other languages. This was confirmed by the discovery of fragments of manuscripts of 1 Enoch at Qumran in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scholars had also divided up the authorship and dating of the text into five major sections and one of those they dated last was not found in any of the caves at Qumran. In other words, when it comes to language and composition scholars can be very precise if the right kind of data all comes together even before they have strong manuscript evidence. An important takeaway from this: when you see people using the phrase "naturalistic approach" as a pejorative to describe how someone is approaching the composition of the Book of Mormon that person does not understand what they are describing. A "naturalistic approach" is an academic historical approach. It would be a major methodological flaw for me to attempt an argument about the composition of 1 Enoch by incorporating anything other than standard historical data, so a "naturalistic approach" is literally just a historical approach. With these points in mind, when I study the composition of the BoM I don't need to have anything other than the text itself to understand how and when it was written. I can focus on the narrative form, the sources it uses, the version(s) of those sources, when those date to, historical allusions (both portraying accurate and inaccurate information), and so on. A book as long as the BoM carries a ton of data that can be mined by scholars if they have the right tools and know how to properly use them. Starting off by asking questions about Joseph Smith's abilities goes nowhere precisely because it focuses on things we honestly can't know unless we have data from the historical record that completely confirms those abilities. As a friend of mine once said, that method functionally argues that we can't know whether or not Joseph Smith had diarrhea as a child because no interview or publication in the historical record confirms that he did. If one is going to approach the past seriously then it is necessary to expand one's tools if actually understanding the past is the goal because we have the information available to us to understand how and when texts like the BoM were written. It just takes time, patience, and attention to detail. So, if we are going to be responsible historians and literary critics, wanting not only to understand how the BoM was written and when as well as the variety of ways that it can be read and understood, then the focus has to be on the text itself. I have written hundreds of pages on this and related questions. I have shown how the BoM explicitly recognizes that the Nephites did not have Malachi on the brass plates and yet it is formally quoted by Nephi and other BoM authors, as well as a crucial part of the composition of several other verses throughout the book (https://www.dialoguejournal.com/.../Dialogue_V51N02_14.pdf). In my undergraduate thesis I argued that the author of the BoM did not know just a "brass plates" version of Genesis 2–4 but blended verses from those chapters with other parts of the Hebrew Bible and, even more importantly, a lot of New Testament texts. I also highlighted how much of the use of biblical phrases represents updated readings of these verses in the oral culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century (https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=205723). In my master's thesis I argued that Smith, whether or not he was the author of the BoM, edited the version of Eden in the BoM into the first several chapters of the Bible only months after publishing the BoM. From my perspective he did this because throughout the text of the BoM the idea that Cain made a secret pact with Satan drives the narrative about secret combinations, and that leads to the destruction of the Nephites. Without that story in the Bible there is a strong tension between the two books. I also noted that while the connection to anti-Masonry in the BoM is warranted the focus on Masonry is too limiting. Anti-Jacobin literature of the early nineteenth century helps to better lay a foundation to understand the secret combinations and the trope about the council in heaven (https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7681/). In my recent publications I have paid similar attention to the composition of the first six chapters of Smith's bible revision of Genesis (known as the Book of Moses in the LDS church), showing how Moses 1 is structurally dependent on Matthew 4, as well as the chapter and Moses 7 are both dependent on other New Testament texts (especially the gospel of John) for the way that they rewrite the story of Moses (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/jmormhist.46.4.0045...). In another essay I questioned the idea that Smith had to know about the major English translation of the Book of Enoch in order to produce his expansion of Genesis 5 into the "Extract of the Prophecy of Enoch" and showed how broadly known and available information on 1 Enoch was in English sources between 1715–1830 (https://www.jstor.org/.../10.5406/dialjmormthou.53.3.0041...). All of this is to say that historians focus on the text when attempting to understanding how a book is written, not by asking tertiary questions about the supposed author's abilities. Once the composition history of the text is understood, if information about the author is known that information can be further help in understanding the text. But, it is not absolutely necessary to explain how the book was composed and when if you have a wealth of data within the text that has not yet been mined.

EDIT: Spelling

Warning: This is quite a long post and though it can be read partially, I would urge you to read everything.
When I was more of a babe in the faith, I happened upon the YT channel "Trustinjc" and it became a big challenge in my walk. The things presented in his videos had rattled me quite a bit and I prayed and researched so much harder than I was doing before to see if he was speaking the truth on a number of things. Since I'm not too knowledgeable in logic, debate, and biblical hermeneutics I want to get the opinions of more informed people to address what I believe are some key claims that form the foundation of the rest of his beliefs.
Please humor me if you think everything being said is a bunch of conspiracy nonsense and should just be dismissed altogether. There are a few points I can't quite wrap my head around or feel like I should have a second opinion on. I want us to approach this as open-mindedly as possible, disputing only on the basis of evidence and logic. I will be taking excerpts from the first part of a manuscript he (Laverne/Trustinjc) put out on FB which outlines his beliefs and I will link it here (Google Drive Link) so it may be looked over and hopefully shown I am not taking his words out of context. As a forewarning, the pdf is 84 pages long but as mentioned above, I'm only tackling certain issues.

Firstly, let's look at what he presents as a dilemma for the Christian (he says Protestant but afaik it is a doctrine shared by the majority of Christians) who believes in inerrancy:

As you can see, there are a number of different canons available for people to choose
from. And within the Protestant canon there are many different translations/versions. This though
presents a serious problem for Protestants. For in some cases, two different translations of the
same passage will present entirely different meanings.
When Christians make the claim then that God is capable of preserving his written word, they
must be able to prove which bible is “the one” that God protected, and which ones he allowed to
be corrupted, and why. An example of a passage given two very different translations is Jer 31:22.
The KJV reads: How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter?
For the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass (lead) a
man.
Now the same passage from the NLT: How long will you wander, my wayward daughter?
For the LORD will cause something new to happen –
Israel will embrace her God.
As you can see, there is a big difference between, “a woman shall compass a man” and,
“Israel will embrace God”. In fact, the two translations are not even in the same ball park.
Given the two very different renderings, we must conclude that one of them is in error.
And if it is in error, then that bible cannot be said to be inerrant and infallible. It follows then that
any pastor who claims the bible is infallible, and who then goes on to use a corrupt version is not
being guided by the Holy Spirit.
Knowing this, it is not enough to state the 66 books of the Protestant bible includes all of
God’s written word and that it is inerrant.
No! When making such a claim they must be able to state which translation is inerrant,
since different versions can vary greatly when it comes to the interpretation of a few select
passages. Both the NLT and the KJV, for example, cannot be considered inerrant when they give
entirely different translations of the same passage. Common sense and reason tells us that one or
both of them MUST be in error. And it is not good enough to simply state you believe such and
such a bible is uncorrupted while others have been corrupted. No. You must be able to provided
evidence to support your bold statement.
Knowing this, Protestants are faced with a very serious problem. If no evidence is
provided, their claim that the bible is inerrant must be viewed as having no more merit than the
Muslim claiming the Quran is inerrant. And if one translation is corrupt while another is not, it
means the pastor using the corrupt version lacks discernment if they have made the claim the
bible is inerrant. For if the pastor were truly connected to and led by the Holy Spirit, the Holy
Spirit would have led him/her to the uncorrupted version.

I looked at an interlinear and it seems that the verses are so different because both translations are following their own standards set for translating the original text, i.e., the KJV leans more towards translating word-for-word and the NLT leans more towards translating thought-for-thought. Though, I don't know why NLT translates like that. His logical progression seems flawed because from what I understand, it is not that the English translations are infallible, but that the original words put down to paper are infallible.

Moving on, we have an argument (not the only one but still in here nonetheless) that the DSS provides evidence that the protestant bible is missing inspired books (pseudepigraphical and apocryphal).

Since many of the prophecies I’ll be examining are found in non-canonical writings, I
feel it’s important to first explain why you should treat them on par with the bible.
In addition to Protestants arguing their OT is the same as what the Pharisees used, many
will also bring up the fact the Dead Sea Scrolls contained all the books of the OT with the
exception of Esther. But this argument is just as big a fail as believing the Hebrew canon
contains all of God’s word from the OT age. I say this because Protestants ignore the fact that the
Dead Sea Scrolls include books that their OT does not. Four examples of Old Testament age
books that are found in the scrolls but not in the bible are; 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Testament of
the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Tobit (Tobit also being in the Septuagint). As well, the
Dead Sea Scrolls refute a good number of Christian doctrine and theologies. It, for example,
clearly refutes Universalism since Hell is described as being very real and punishment eternal. If
the Dead Sea Scrolls are evidence of something/anything, then it has to be that the Protestant
bible is lacking books.
The claim by Protestants that the DSS support their canon is, unfortunately, a prime
example of how Christians try to twist and manipulate evidence to fit their particular worldview.
For clearly the DSS are not evidence for the bible correctly containing all of God’s written word,
but rather evidence for the bible lacking much of God’s inspired word.

So what about those books in the DSS? Were the ones missing from the bible considered inspired? Are these the right questions?

Several things are said here that are ripe for discourse. I'm tired right now so I'm going to continue past this one and leave it here without my input for discussion (and also because I'm sorta illiterate in bible history).

Having explained which books are included in several different bibles, let’s now compare
the reasoning behind the canons of the two most popular bibles.
Briefly, the OT of the Catholic canon is based on the Septuagint, (you can Google it)
which included the apocryphal, with the exception of 2 Esdras.
The OT of the Protestant bible on the other hand, is based on the canon of the Hebrew
bible (the Tanakh). The reason being, Protestants believe the Hebrew canon includes the same
books that the Pharisees believed were inspired.
Now there are two problems with basing the Christian bible on the Hebrew canon.
The first is that there is no real consensus as to when the Hebrew canon was finalized. Many
scholars, for instance, believe it wasn’t finalized until the 2nd century CE. And it has been argued
that it was created in an effort to combat the rise of Christianity. If this is true, (and there are
some compelling reasons to think it is true) it then follows that any books viewed as supporting
the idea of Jesus being the Messiah would be excluded. It also means any books that seemed to
either support Christ’s ministry or contradict their own doctrine/dogma would be rejected. This
seems entirely plausible and is something Protestants should consider.
Other scholars (Jewish and Protestant) argue the Jewish canon was finalized around 450
BCE. Supporters of the Protestant bible like to argue that this is the case, since it predates the
writing of the Septuagint.
And this brings me to my second point.
It really is irrelevant when the Jewish canon was created.
I mean, think about it. The people who created the Hebrew canon are the very ones who
failed to recognize Yeshua was the Son of God. And in the case of the Sadducees, are the ones
that Yeshua stated didn’t know Scripture. (Matt 22:29 “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures”)
And weren’t these the very people who opposed Christ and claimed he was in league with Satan?
Aren’t they the very people who had him crucified?
So why would anyone consider having and using only the same books they did a positive? Why
would they put this fact under the pros list when it obviously should be placed with the cons?
Do you not think it is reasonable and logical to assume one of the reasons the Pharisees and
Sadducees were so misguided was because they were lacking some of God’s inspired word?
I believe this was the case. In fact, in the next chapter I will prove with scripture that it was.
Then there is the fact that Jesus warned the apostles about the yeast of the Pharisees and
Herod. Knowing this, how could it possibly be considered a good idea to adopt the same canon
that the Pharisees used - especially when we know there were many other books that were
considered inspired by other Jews/Hebrews/Israelites?
If you are a Christian who adheres to mainstream Protestantism, (Calvinism, Baptist,
Pentecostal, Luthernism, and etc) you should also ask what, if any, are the consequences of
Protestants having the smallest canon of any bible.
While you ponder that question, consider this:
There is a direct correlation between the size of one’s bible (number of books) and the number of
different doctrines, theologies and gospels that will be taught using it. Meaning, the fewer books
you have at your disposal the more lies that will take root, and the more doctrines, theologies,
gospels, and christs that will be taught. This is one of the main reasons for Protestantism giving
birth to most of the 20-40,000 different Christian denominations.
Simply put: Fewer books equal easier deception.
Or – Less equals more when it comes to God’s Word and false doctrine.

I'm going to also do the same with the last quote for the same reason, leaving this here for discussion. Slight warning, I'm going to make this excerpt longer and with that, include more claims. As a reminder, you can always open up the Google Drive link to go over everything mentioned in this post and whatever I have left out.
If I were to suggest what you should look at if you are wanting to read some part of the original manuscript, I'd say read the things on why non-canonical books should be considered inspired and everything related to that. This claim seems to be the pivotal point on which all the other doctrines hinge. (Note: You won't find everything he has to say about the topic in the same place, but, afaik Laverne was organized enough to direct to where he would talk about the next point. Vaguely, mind you, only saying what chapter it is in or doing the "bear with me for a little longer" thing but I haven't read the whole manuscript so I don't know.)

Second generation apostles, anonymous writers, and a closed canon
Paul was not a first generation apostle. He did not walk with Christ prior to his ascension.
If we accept Paul’s writings, and believe he spent time with the risen Christ, it follows that we
must also accept the possibility that additional inspired writings came after the first generation of
apostles passed away. Otherwise you must believe Paul was the one and only person Christ
visited between 35 C.E. and 2016. This means then that God has remained silent since the last
revelation in the bible was given to Apostle John. And having closed the canon, it means
Christians have no expectation of God delivering additional inspired writings. This act of closing
the canon then presumes to know the mind of God.
Now while this may sit well with most Christians, it does not sit well with me. For who
can claim to know the mind of God? What man or group of men living between 250-450 C.E.
could say with absolute certainty that God would have nothing more to add to His inspired word?
What evidence did the Church Fathers present that would have us believe God intended to
remain silent for 1,900 yrs? And what evidence is there that God orchestrated or called for the
creation of the bible that people hold in their hands today?
Accepting Paul’s letters as being inspired should have been a reason for keeping the
canon open. For it demonstrates God’s plan to give ongoing revelation, even after Christ’s
ascension. Closing the canon though demonstrates man’s unwillingness to accept new revelation,
believing they have in their hands everything that God ever intended to reveal from the time of
Adam to the time of Christ’s return, with the last authoritive word given 1900 years ago.
The book of Hebrews also supports the notion that God intended to continue revealing
new revelations to future generations. This is explained in greater detail in chapter seventeen.
Briefly though, the author of the book of Hebrews is unknown. And of equal significance is the
fact that he tells us he heard of the gospel through people who heard it from Christ.
***Apostle Paul on the other hand tells us that he did NOT learn about Christ from the
other apostles but rather from Christ himself***
This means the writer of Hebrews is a second generation apostle who never knew Christ
personally. Yet we accept the letter as being inspired. Well, if we are willing to accept the
inspired writing of an anonymous second generation apostle, why not a third, or fourth, or fifth
generation apostle?
Isn’t God wise enough and powerful enough to protect his written word?
An argument I’m often confronted with comes in the form of a question. It goes
something like this: Is God Not wise enough and powerful enough to protect his written word?
When confronted with this argument I never know if I should laugh or cry (at the
argument, not the Christian), because there are so many assumptions being made here that its’
difficult to determine which is the most outrageous.
First off, just because God could theoretically do something, it does not mean he did it.
God could have chosen to write with his own finger the novel Gone with the Wind, or War and
Peace. But just because He could have done it, I’m not going to assume that He did. And neither
should you.
The second assumption is that the bible they hold in their hand is the one that God
decided to protect from Satan, while allowing all other bibles to be corrupted. But as I’ve
demonstrated, this includes different versions of the same bible. The fact then that there are
corrupted versions of the bible is evidence that God is not concerned with protecting His written
word in the fashion put forth by most Christians. This is obvious by the simple fact that there are
corrupted versions of the bible.
Now just in case some readers want to argue the passage I provided earlier (Jer 31:22)
was a onetime thing, I’m going to provide two more examples of different
renderings/translations between different Protestant bibles.
1) Did Paul go to the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2 NLT), or did he simply know someone
who did (KJV).
2) Did Jesus say he didn’t come for the righteous (Matt 9:13 KJV), or did he say he
didn’t come for people who THINK they are righteous (NLT)?
As there is a huge difference between the two translations, one of the two bibles must be
considered corrupt. So which is right, the NLT or the KJV? Which one did God chose to protect
and which one did God allow either Satan or man to corrupt? And if you take part in a bible
study group that allows the use of both bibles, what does this say about your study group and the
person who runs it? Why would they allow the use of a corrupt translation when the uncorrupted
version is available?
Do you see the problem with someone declaring the 66 books of the protestant bible to be
inerrant and infallible, and then going on to use different versions that contradict each other? For
the use of different versions that contradict one another shows the person does not understand
what it means to be inerrant, even though inerrancy is one of the main pillars of their doctrine. It
is either that, or they simply do not care if they stay true to the doctrine they supposedly believe
and preach. And if you are a member of a church that is pastored by someone who does this you
should be concerned, as either explanation calls into question the pastor’s ability to discern the
voice of the Holy Spirit.
My final point regarding this ridiculous argument is that it can be applied equally well to
books that are not included in the bible. For I could (and will) argue God has been wise enough,
and powerful enough to safe guard many books that are not included in the Protestant bible. And
since God has seen fit to safe guard them it is evidence that NO bible – especially the protestant
bible with the smallest canon – was orchestrated by God.
What is the historical record concerning Scripture according to Scripture?
Is there precedence for God allowing his word to be forgotten or lost in the past? Does
God allow man’s free will to play a role?
I believe scripture gives a resounding yes to both of these questions, as evidenced in the
following passages.
1) 2 Kings 22:8-13 tells the story of the book of Law being found. This means it had been
lost, or hidden. After having the book of Law read to him King Josiah tore his cloths after
learning they had not been living according to God’s law. So according to the bible, God
will allow his written word to be ignored, lost, and/or hidden.
2) The authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls expand on this idea of the law being lost. They write
that the reason King David married so many wives is because the law had not been read
during his reign.
From the Dead Sea Scrolls, Geniza A+B, 4Q266-272, the Damascus Document
Col. 5 reads:
Concerning the Leader, it is written “he shall not multiply wives to himself” (Deut.17:17);
but David had not read the sealed book of the Law in the Ark; for it was not opened in
Israel from the day of the death of Eleazar and Joshua and the elders who served the
goddess Ashtoret. It lay buried, and was not revealed until the appearance of Zadok.
Nevertheless, the deeds of David were all excellent, except the murder of Uriah and God
forgave him for that.
3) The Book of Jubilees gives us another example of instructions being lost. This time it is
not just the written word of God, but rather the entire Hebrew language. For it tells us the
Hebrew language had ceased after the overthrow of Babel. The following passage
explains how Abraham was taught the forgotten language.
Jubilees 12:25-27
The Lord God said, “Open his mouth and his ears, that he may hear and speak with his
mouth, with the language which has been revealed,” for it had ceased from the mouths of
all children of men from the day of the overthrow of Babel. And I opened his mouth, and
his ears and his lips, and I began to speak with him in Hebrew in the tongue of the
creation. He took the books of his fathers, and these were written in Hebrew, and he
transcribed them, and he began from then on to study them. And I made known to him that
which he could not understand, and he studied them during the six rainy months.
4) 2 Esdras speaks of the law being lost because it was “burnt”.
2 Esdras 14: 20-26
Behold, Lord, I will go, as thou hast commanded me, and reprove the people who are
present: but they that shall be born forward, who shall admonish them? thus the world is
set in darkness, and they that dwell therein are without light. For thy law is burnt,
therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, or the works that shall begin.
These passages clearly show there is precedence for God’s word being lost due to: man’s
free will, possibly satanic influence, and – at least in the case of the Hebrew language – by God’s
own hand.
Most Christians though, because they only read the bible, are unaware of this.
So I put to you that much of God’s word has been hidden from the Church for centuries,
with only a Readers Digest version being read and taught.
But now that we are on the cusp of the Great Tribulation a full measure of His word is once
again being made available to those with ears to hear and eyes to see. For the elect will hear and
recognize the voice of the Good Shepherd in ALL of God’s inspired word.

I know that was a lot and there is more that probably should be touched on. He expands on the referencing of non-canonical books in canonical books later in the manuscript but I need to rest. We were blessed by the Lord with critical minds, we ought to exercise them in truth and knowledge. I'm skeptical and I'm sure you are too but I wish to know the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. I pray that I am genuine in that belief; in that the Lord guides us into His truth and love and mercy.
1 Jo 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Is the Bible at all credible as a historical Text?
In this Argument for creation I am going about it differently than most. The main reason some Christians believe in Yahweh creating the universe is it says so in the Bible (Genesis 1). If the Bible is completely inaccurate and had no evidence to validate itself then, the creation account at the beginning would be greatly diminished in its strength as an answer to the beginning of this universe. The reason for testing the veracity of the claim, the Bible being a credible historical text, is to at the very least create some dialogue to if creation by Yahweh is possible. If the Bible throughout its writings has been consistently historically accurate, it is reasonable to assume the creation account has some credibility. I will be going through the Bible to see if there is any evidence to believe what the books in it say is true.
Firstly, at the end of Genesis and then continuing into Exodus, the first two books of the Bible, there are descriptions of the beginning of the Israelite nation forming. From Genesis 17 onwards a man called Abraham is promised to father the nation of Israel. At the end of Genesis two generations after him his great grandchildren are said to have resided in Egypt though this was not their promised land. According to geologies in the Bible, Abraham should have lived around 2000 BC. Then his great grandchildren descendants around 18th century BC resided in Egypt for around 400 years. The area is called Goshen and is meant to be very good land for crops and farming. After that they left because of Moses leading them to the promised land. All this comes from the book of Exodus. Now is there any historical evidence for this, outside of the Bible? In 1990 and onwards the esteemed Manfred Bietak discovered an abandonment phase in todays Tell el-Dab'a (ancient Avaris). The area discovered was a palatial district with a Royal Precinct and an Asiatic (Foreigner) district, (Page 2 of https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/16915/16645) he found in the mid-15th century BC there was a clear abandonment phase during 18th dynasty. This was an important area that had military bases and may have been used to stage naval expeditions to the Mediterranean Sea. Why would you leave this area? The sediment below the abandonment phase is most probably Semitic and seems to be Semitic for over 300 years (https://www.academia.edu/37046281/M_Bietak_The_Many_Ethnicities_of_Avaris_Evidence_from_the_northern_borderland_of_Egypt_in_J_Budka_and_J_Auenm%C3%BCller_eds_From_Microcosm_to_Macrocosm_Individual_Households_and_Cities_in_Ancient_Egypt_and_Nubia_Leiden_2018_Sidestone_Press_73_92( says “Canaanite” which is where the Israelites came from in Bible before going to Eygpt). Now this is not concrete evidence to say the exodus is true, but It does bring some weight of trustworthiness to the book of Exodus. In addition, it brings evidence for the end of Genesis as it talks of Canaanites leaving their land long before going to Egypt and this is what we see in Ancient Avaris. Canaanites resided in Egypt for several centuries.
The God of the Israelites is called Yahweh and unlike many other ancient nations around them they only had one God. For example, the Egyptians had Horus, Seth, Isis and Anubis and so on. The earliest inscription for the name Yahweh is in the Soleb inscriptions. It was found in what would have been Ancient Egypt and dated to around the early 14th Century BC to the end of the 15th Century BC and another one in the 13Th century BC. There is no debate in what they say but some secular scholars hypothesize the ancient Edomites and Midianites worshipped Yahweh before the Israelites. However, there is no historical evidence for those nations worshipping Yahweh. There is some evidence of certain people from those nations but not the whole nation. People worshipping Yahweh from other lands during the Exodus would not be a problem for the Bible. It says in Exodus Moses Father in law, Jethro, was a Midianite who helped Moses figure out the Judicial structure of Israel. Yet there is plenty of evidence to show the Israelites as a nation worshipped Yahweh. For example, the Moabite stone shows the Israelite nation worshipping Yahweh. The Soleb inscription talks about a people saying the “Nomads of Yahweh”. The people are wandering around and do not have a city to identify them, so their God is used to do this. After the Exodus of the Israelites, the Israelites wondered the desert for 40 years before starting to conquer the cities of Canaan. This would count for Nomads as they did not have a land and were wondering around. How else to define them other than by the God they worship and identify with. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07x6659z
In the book of Joshua, it talks of the conquering of many cities such as Hazor. If this were to happen the cities would likely tell their allies they were being attacked and request help. Well the Amarna Letters are Clay tablets, mostly from kings in Canaan to Egypt that they needed help as they were being attacked. These kings were subjected to Egypt. They date to the mid-14th century BC. This is quite inline with the Bible’s account. They mention the “Habiru” who were invading Canaan at the time and Habiru is very similar in sounding to Hebrew. Many scholars indicate this could be the Hebrew people. The Bible also accurately describes the conditions of the area at this time period having many city states in Canaan (https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1280&context=jats).
Finally, for this period I would like to introduce the Berlin pedestal. This is an artefact dated to mid-14th Century. It is an Egyptian name ring that lists 3 places, Ashkelon, Canaan, Israel. The ring for Israel is only around 2/3rds complete as part has broken away, however in 2001 Manfred Görg published that it should be Israel from what the rest of the symbols could be. This gives an inscription of the nation of Israel very early. This would indicate that it was not likely at all that Israel formed later in time as there is evidence to the contrary. These pieces of evidence are by no means exhaustive of an Early Israel formation date, in line with the Bible. Yet I have other periods to cover so will move on. https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/83/87
Next, I would like to tackle the next few books of the Bible. Those being Joshua, Judges and the Samuel 1-2. I have already touched upon some evidence to suggest the Biblical account is not completely made up with the structure of the Canaanite political structure being made of city states. Now I will be looking at Joshua 11. It talks of Israel’s northern conquest of Canaan against the Jobin king of Hazor. In the chapter Israel prevails over Hazor who led a coalition of kings against Israel and burns the city of Hazor. Now is there any evidence for a City called Hazor in that time and that it was burn around the early 14th Century -late 15th Century BC. Well there are some Egyptian Execration texts, which name enemies of Egypt, that mention Hazor in the 18th century BC (https://www.academia.edu/25340113/Do_the_Execration_Texts_Reflect_an_Accurate_Picture_of_the_Contemporary_Settlement_Map_of_Palestine ) Page 13. Moreover, the Mari archives mention Hazor in the 18th Century BC as an actual place and shipments of trade to “Ibni-Addad king of Hazor”. This is Accadian but in West Semitic form it reads “Yabni-Haddad”. Jabin and Yabni are the same name, just one is shortened. (https://search.proquest.com/openview/688f4758a1fb7f3a55e7c4aaef134a3e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=46246). In the Amarna Letters which I have already discussed it also talks of Hazor. Unlike many other communications in the Letters the king of Hazor does not grovel to the Pharaoh but mentions himself being a King. This aligns with Joshua as it describes Hazor’s king leading the collation against Israel suggesting he is the most powerful in that part of Canaan. Letters 227 and 228 refer to him as a king. There is also an ancient Babylonian tablet that mention Jabin and was found at Hazor in 18th century BC. So, what from these two conclusions can be surmised? Either Jabin was a title like Pharaoh or it was a name used many times such as Rameses. This all agrees with the Biblical account as it mentions Jabin twice, once in Joshua then in Judges. Judges being over 100 Years after Joshua. Joshua 11: 1 and Judges 5:6-11. The name being used for long periods of time in and outside the Bible is interesting. https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/20/5/14. Two destruction have been found at Hazor. On in the late bronze age so 1550-1400 BC and another in 13th century BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25609263?seq=1. Amnon Ben-Tor who leads digs even says this again in the Israel exploration journal 51 in 2001 page 238. There is evidence for temples being destroyed which if it were the Israelites makes sense, other religious temples were seen and unholy and would be destroyed. This does point towards this account be possibly historically accurate. Now there is a theory among secular scholars that Israel had a much later exodus date in the 13th century BC. But if that is true, Israel as a nation should only be mentioned after this time. Yet there is evidence of their God Yahweh which is written about over 6000 time in the Bible. And there is not enough time for an exodus and conquering on Canaan if the exodus is a later date. This is shown decisively with the Merneptah Stele. It is an Egyptian inscription mentioning Israel as a nation and dates to 1208 BC which means there is not enough time in those years of less than 100 years to have late exodus and the nation being established after conquering much of Canaan. This is all before 40 years wandering in the desert.
One key part of the books of Samuel is King David. In the 19th century and early 20th century secular scholars scoffed that he was historical but rather a myth like England’s king Arthur. Especially the fact that he had an empire and a dynasty that was considerable for its time. However, in 1993 the Tel Dan Stele was found. It is a victory Stele about most likely King Hazael defeating the king of Israel and his ally who is of the “house of Dave”. This is dated to around 9 century BC. This is historical confirmation that King David was indeed real, and he left a lineage. This is a largely undisputed fact that it is of the House of David. The Bible describes David’s Dynasty in it books Samuel 2 and kings 1-2 and Chronicles 1-2. This also reinforces the fact at the 9th century BC Israel indeed was a nation that its enemies had wars with. Furthermore, the Moabite stone also references David while recording the Events of 2nd Kings Chapter 3. It has been dated to around 840 BC and mentions the phrase the house of David. The Moabite stone has many alignments to the Bible. They both talk of the Moab’s God Chemosh, the tribe of Gad from Israel and the Israelite king Omri. If the Jews wrote the books of the Torah centuries after the events happened how could they know of the Centuries old Moabite god Chemosh? It is not logical to assume. https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/52/4/article-p483_3.xml . https://www.jstor.org/stable/27926300?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1357179?seq=1
The matrix of evidence really points to the Bible not being some mythical tale, that has no basis but an account that is corroborated with non-Biblical texts. If the exodus was a late date in the 13th century or after it can not fit with other timelines of artefacts. It would mean in less than 350 years Israel left Egypt and wondered for 40 some years, then started slowly taking over Canaan. After that have judges and prophets protecting Israel. After this they would get the kings of which there were many and until you get to King Ahab. In the early 9th Century BC. There isn’t enough time if you believe in the dates of the Bible.
Now I will be going into the Kings of Israel. A key piece of historical evidence for there really being kings of Israel are the Assyrian inscriptions. The Assyrians named each year after a person calling them the Limmu. They are absolute dates and even have a solar eclipse mentioned in the year 763BC. This allows Biblical scholars to give absolute dates to the Kings of Israel. This helps in dating artefacts such as the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser the 3rd who mentions King Ahab who fought against him in 853 BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27925486?seq=1 Then there is the Black Obelisk showing King Jehu giving tribute to Shalmaneser in 841 BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42613886?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Black%20obelisk%20king%20jehu&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DBlack%2Bobelisk%2Bking%2Bjehu&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A9bfe9ec30049e46ae79c452df027d1d8&seq=1 . These show that these books in the Bible are not completely made up and have some historical accuracy at the least. There are many other examples of historical evidence of other kings of the Bible, but I can focus on that in its own separate post.
After the Kings of Israel, the empires of the Persia and Babylon in the Bible are said to have taken over Israel and Judah the two nations of the Jewish people. Then In the reign of Cyrus the Great he sets the Israelites free to rebuild their temple and walls at Jerusalem. This occurs in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Many older secular scholars did not believe that any king would allows their slaves to go free as it did not make any sense. Why would you let your labour go? Well the Cyrus Cylinder which has been dated to 539BC depicts just that. It is a declaration that the exiles to go back to their settlements and rebuild their sanctuaries. This clearly aligns with what occurred in the Bible. There are also the Babylonian chronicles, which mention the sacking of Jerusalem by king Nebuchadnezzar and dates it to 597 BC. These tablets recount the History of Babylon. This is what is said in the Bible in the book of Daniel. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3268761?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Cyrus+cylinder&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DCyrus%2Bcylinder%26filter%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A43cce9af3298485f1830bcb23acd07de&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1896-0409-51
Now the book of Daniel has had secular skepticism because it is quite a prophetic book. For a Biblical timeline he would have written early to mid-6th century BC. Some disagree, arguing that he wrote in the 2nd century BC, though there is evidence to suggest he was a real person writing in 6th century BC. Jerimiah 39: 3 mentions Nebo Sarsekim who was the chief eunuch. The Nebo Sarsekim tablet writes that the pottery belonged to a man with the same name. It is dated to 595 BC. Jerimiah was said to have lived in a similar time period as Daniel. Now if these books were written 400 years later then how would Daniel or Jerimiah know someone of the court of King Nebuchadnezzar II who lived in the 6th century BC. There was no internet and information was sparsely passed down, compared to the post printing press era. So, it is nearly impossible that his name was kept in Jewish records unless written at the time. Moreover, this book was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. If you look at the Aramaic used and Aramaic from the 5th century BC it is very similar. Here is a marriage certificate from 449 BC from a Jewish colony in Egypt https://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/wgre/highlights/marriage-document-from-ananiah-to-meshullam-aramaic for an example. Language changes over time. The Aramaic of the 2nd century would be different than the Aramaic from a few hundred years before. Another problem with Daniel in the 2nd century BC is the dead sea scrolls. Part of Daniel’s book which is in some of the earlier dead sea scrolls date to 150 BC. This is a couple of decades at most from when secular skeptics say Daniel was written. This would mean that the book was written, and then became widespread and popular in a mere couple decades. This is a very serious reach which is not logical. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1541&context=jats. Lastly, in Daniel chapter 5 it talks of the King Belshazzar needing Daniel to interpret writing on a wall. Again, some secular scholars in the early 19th century did not believe that King Belshazzar was a real person, because for some time they could only find record of a man named Nabonidus as the king for this time period. It also is interesting in the chapter that Belshazzar says he will make anyone who is able to interpret the wall 3rd in command of the whole kingdom. Why would he say this if he is real and the king, why not second? Even ancient historians like Herodotus, Megasthenes, Berossus said that the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. Well discoveries found that this chapter is telling the truth. For example, the Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur which says “Belshazzar, the eldest son—my offspring”, dated to around 550BC. Vindicating Belshazzar as a real person. More evidence is seen in the Nabonidus Chronicle which describes Nabonidus being generally living far away from Babylon and Belshazzar as crown prince. It is not unusual for a crown prince or someone high up governing the kingdom day to day to be called king. For example, King Herod in the new testament was not actually king in the Roman empire but was a leader for a certain region. If this were written centuries after the 6th century BC how would Daniel know Belshazzar was a real person, as even other ancient historians did not write of him? One last point to explore is the use of the name Nebuchadnezzar as father to Belshazzar. In the Bible when the word father is used, it does not always mean literal father but ancestor or someone occupying the same office. The prophet Elisha had Shaphat as a biological father but calls his mentor Elijah as “His father” in 2 Kings 2:12. Jesus was called the son of David even though he was only his descendent. So as Belshazzar succeeded Nebuchadnezzar to the throne it is possible, he was in the Bible called father.
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=auss
Now there are many more pieces of evidence for the old testament being historically accurate, but I can make more writings on those at a later date. This is all good but how do we know the translations of the Bible over the millennium can be reliable. There are two prominent texts that I would like to explore. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls and the Dead Sea scrolls. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls reveal to be a very early piece of scripture. It was found in burial chambers and has the writings of Numbers 6: 24-26 which is the 4th book in the Bible. These date to the 7th century BC which is much earlier than some secular scholars claim the Torah was written. This would suggest that the writings occurred much earlier than the 7th century BC as they were only burial amulets. This also shows the accuracy of these verses being the same in todays Bible with something over 2600 years old. The dead sea scrolls are very important as they have basically every book in the Bible in scroll form and are dated from 3rd century BC onwards. There are 230 manuscripts that are completely biblical texts. For example, the great Isiah Scroll. Before this the earliest copy of the oldest complete Hebrew Torah was the Leningrad codex and dates to 1000 AD approximately. There is very little difference between these two writings showing over 1000 years of time not much has changed and the Biblical writings are reliable.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1647cmz?turn_away=true&Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Ketef+Hinnom+Scroll&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DKetef%2BHinnom%2BScroll&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A0bdf526ea5d91d1c248b09fe4958ae33
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20787416?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=finding%20deadsea%20scrolls&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfinding%2Bdeadsea%2Bscrolls%26filter%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A8af891fbd8ba59f31db8755999728f25&seq=1
This last section will be focusing on the latter part of the Bible the New Testament. I have often heard people scoff that the central figure of the Bible, Jesus, was even real. It shows how little people know about him. His is one of the most documented ancient figures of his era, with similar historical evidence as Julius Caesar. There are multiple accounts of him being real from Christian sources, the Bible and its accounts from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There are Jewish historians such as Josephus and roman Historians such as Tacitus who all talk about Jesus being a real person. Josephus was a Jewish historian who was not a Christian and describes that Pilate condemned Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah to a cross to die. He writes in around the year 93 AD. His book is called antiquities of the Jews. Tacitus a roman senator, also not a Christian, and historian also write of a man called Jesus who was killed on the cross by the orders of Pilate. Written in 116 AD in his book Annals. In addition, Babylonian Talmud writes about Yeshu being hanged for practicing sorcery and apostasy, Yeshu is Jesus. Lucian of Samosata also a Greek wrote of Jesus in the second century. Writing that he was a man worshipped by Christians who was crucified.
There are also many pieces of evidence that corroborate the text in the new testament. In John chapter 9 Jesus heals a blind man in the pool of Siloam. This very pool has been found to be real in Jerusalem. Pottery dated it around the pool is from old testament to new testament times. In the book of Romans 16:23 mentions a man called Erastus who in the Bible is the city’s treasurer or city official for Corinth where Paul wrote Romans. There is the Erastus inscription found in 1929 which said Erastus in return for his aedileship he paved with his own money. It is dated to 1st century BC and likely the same. There is also the Pilate stone which says Pontus Pilate, the man allowing the romans to kill Jesus, was the prefect of Judea from 26 AD to 36 AD. This is the time period when Jesus was killed. Another figure that is prominent in the death of Jesus is high priest Caiaphas. Archaeologists have probably found his Ossuary with his bones inside. Jewish Historian Josephus says high priest Caiaphas full name is Joseph Caiaphas. The box had on it, Joseph son of Caiaphas and had a 60-year-old man’s bones in it. This is another person in the Bible seen to be most likely real. In the book of Acts 18:12 describes Gallio was proconsul of Achaia. In Delphi, Claudius the emperor at the time inscribed Junius Gallio as a friend and proconsul. It is dated to 52 AD which is when the Apostle Paul would have lived. All these show the new testament to not be a fairy-tale but texts with real people in it.
https://legacy.tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/Library/TynBull_1989B_40_08_Gill_ErastusTheAedile.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/peq.1994.126.1.32?journalCode=ypeq20
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/300013.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A9c11775a00371e0feab60357dfc9cd2b page 144
The resurrection of Jesus is one of the biggest parts of the Bible. It has some evidence at the very least that people of the time claimed that it was true. Firstly, if we look at the Gospels they describe Jesus being buried in a tomb that was just for him. This was after he was crucified and was not in a mass grave for criminals. There have been a couple concrete discoveries to prove people were indeed crucified along with the many writings. The heel bone of Yehohanan is a heel with a large nail driven in it by romans to crucify. The bone was found in a family tomb like what Jesus was buried in. This shows the possibility of the Bible’s account for Jesus having a dignified burial. Furthermore, the Nazareth Inscription heavily suggests that people at the time thought he had resurrected. This is because it describes a penalty of death for people who caught robbing bodies of family tombs and dated to the first half of the 1st century AD. Its language is directed towards the Jews and not the Gentiles according to Dr. Clyde Billington. Why do people care about taking bodies, normally it was the treasure with the bodies people would steal? This what happened to the Pharaohs. In the Bible it describes that the Jewish leaders made up the story the disciples stole Jesus’ body. It seems likely that there was talk at the time that his body was stolen. It is reasonable to indicate there is a link and possibly a strong one between this inscription and Jesus. Some people may also say that he never was actually killed. If you look at who was killing him it does not make sense. The Romans we thoroughly trained and did not want to lose their job or life. They would have made sure you died on the cross, 1000s of people died during the first century from crucifixion. Even driving a spear to your side to ensure it. After that Jesus’ body was guarded by Roman soldiers who would not have let anyone steal the body. Who can survive 3 days without water, that is the length of time Jesus was dead in the Bible before he arose? In John it talks of water and blood coming from the spear hole in Jesus, which is a medical phenomenon, what would have happened to someone after taking such a beating from the floggings and other torture. Fluid would build up around the heart and lungs and come out from a hole with blood at the same time. How could someone 2000 years ago know this if they did not see it?
The Disciples themselves imply some validity of the resurrection. Not just because in their writings or their eyewitnesses who claim to have seen Jesus but for what they did after. 10 of the original disciples, after definitely knowing if it was a lie or not that Jesus was resurrected as they would know if they made up the story, all were killed brutishly for their belief in the resurrection. Some were beheaded or impaled or crucified upside-down. Why would you live your life persecuted and killed for a lie you made up? There had been many other self-proclaimed Messiahs before and after Jesus but if they got killed every time their following would either diminish or find a new leader. This is not what happened to Jesus. Paul writes that 500 people other than the disciples saw and met a resurrected Jesus.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1461138?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=heel+bone+of+yehohanan&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dheel%2Bbone%2Bof%2Byehohanan&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ac7a734f3bab60059d39f4e0540184402#metadata_info_tab_contents
About New Testament historical reliability to be the same as today I have seen a video that talks about it much better than I could. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ksvhHEoMLM&ab_channel=RaviZachariasInternationalMinistries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE&ab_channel=MrShazoolo
Finally, how does all this relate back to creation vs evolution. Well I have tried to layout a series of evidence for the Bible being historically accurate. You may disagree with a few, but I would be very hard pressed to believe everything I have said is false. With so much pointing towards this text being historically reliable it brings up the possibility that we could start believing it. Especially give some thought to the possibility of its very beginning being true. I am not writing this to tell you, you must believe every word of the Bible. Rather that people should take it more seriously than a complete fiction. I also know that for some of my evidence there are skeptics that deny links I have proposed which is their freedom. I would just ask the question is that 100% because that is what the facts are telling them or is their disbelief in God being real what drives them in a certain direction. To conclude this is not a direct argument saying evolution is incorrect but that the book from where Biblical creation comes from is worth looking at as more non-fiction than fiction. Meaning that creation does not come from a fairytale and should be looked at the very least with some possibility with the rest of the book being historically accurate.
Thanks for reading.

There have been several long-standing myths about Judeo-Christian scriptures. Many were assumed to be true for centuries. One myth regarded the Masoretic text (MT) and viewed it as the “central Scripture text” (Tov 2020). What was not acknowledged widely until relatively recently was that ancient people had a very different idea about what sacred scripture was, and it wasn't a problem for them to have multiple variants of the same text. That didn't invalidate a text as scripture.
Prior to the discovery of the DSS (dead sea scrolls) it was commonly believed that whenever the LXX departed wildly from the MT that it was just very poor translation. However we now know that the translators didn't always use the same textual variant that the MT witnesses. The MT is a very good copy and close witness for a single variant of each book that existed in the second temple period, however it doesn't necessarily represent an authoritative version as viewed by ancient Jews in the second temple period of each book.
Moreover the use and meaning of the Hebrew bible scriptures is substantially different for Jews than it is for Christians. Even the very same texts are read and understood differently from competing perspectives.
The redactional work certainly didn't end with the Hebrew bible. You probably know that 2 Corinthians and Philippians are widely believed to be composites of multiple Pauline letters. Something I didn't know until recently, because it's never talked about, is that some scholars also believe that Paul's most seminal letter Romans is also a composite from several Pauline letters.
Then we have the gospels - Matthew, Luke, and John are all composites. Mark is the only one we know almost nothing about the source material. No matter what solution you have to the Synoptic Problem, Luke and Matthew composted their source material. John too, because he's reliant on Mark's passion. Even Marcion saw these problems in the second century - he rejected Matthew and John - accepted Luke as the only true gospel whilst recognising that it was corrupted, and he created his own gospel from it.
The canonical gospels were not the only gospels used as scripture. There are over 30 Christian gospels that were used as scripture, but later not selected to be a part of the New Testament. And those are just the ones we know about, there may have been hundreds. There are specific examples we can talk about that mirror the style and form of the canonical gospels - take the Diatessaron gospel for example. A clear attempt at harmonising different Christian texts. Is this what Matthew and Luke were trying to accomplish with their gospels? Take Mark and harmonise it with Q and some other source documents? As noted by Watson 2016: “the Diatessaron treats Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as sources to be emended, co-ordinated, and elaborated, not as authoritative texts whose normativity a harmony seeks to vindicate. It is gospel rather than gospel harmony. Tatian’s treatment of his sources is on a continuum with Luke’s or Matthew’s”, and indeed Marcion’s as well. To put this another way, Matthew and Luke's use of Mark, and Marcion's use of Luke, is as a source text to be “emended, co-ordinated, and elaborated” and not as an authoritative text. Therefore what has happened with the gospels, the canonical ones that modern-day Christians consider scripture, is that they were chosen amongst many options, not as a process of inclusion but one of exclusion.
This process created the illusion that early Christian texts were more harmonious than they really were by deriding the non-canonical texts as “heresies”. The meaning of heresy in Greek is “choice” (Elaine Pagels). Texts were excluded because in the opinion of early theologians they afforded early Christians too much choice. That's very different to how most Christians probably understand the word. They were not chosen on historical merit, but on theological merit to create an orthodoxy. The great irony today of course is that modern Christians have more choice than ever in what beliefs and rituals they want to hold sacred, the modern Church is indeed heretical. The obsession that modern scholars have had over placing the canonical gospels within the first century is I think both somewhat delusional, but even more importantly - irrelevant. Just because Mark is written c. 70-85 CE doesn't mean it has more merit as scripture than a gospel written in 125-150 CE. If that were the case, most of the Old Testament can be thrown out for being written centuries after Genesis and Exodus and seeking to alter the laws, practises, and history prescribed in earlier texts - beginning with Deuteronomy. The Gospel of Thomas was not selected precisely because Jesus teaches things that theologians in the third century and later considered to be contradictory with their orthodoxy. Furthermore the insistence by some scholars that Thomas was written c. 130-140 CE whilst simultaneously insisting that Matthew and Luke were written 80-90 CE, is entirely illogical and I think betrays their motivations. The date of Mark hardly binds the dates of Matthew and Luke any more than it can bind the date of the Diatessaron gospel. What if the “most excellent Theophilus” who Luke is writing to is Theophilus of Antioch?
Charles Cutler Torrey, an excellent scholar I might add (RM Price), thought that the canonical gospels were written about 10 years after Jesus. What's noteworthy here is that Torrey advanced a hypothesis that is now largely abandoned, but one which he believed with academic conviction which is more than I can say for the scholars that write introductions for Evangelical bibles.
If we assume that when Thomas was written it was a collection of sayings all of which were authentic to the historical Jesus, then it means that over time there was suppression of certain teachings of Jesus in order to create an orthodoxy. Of course, we need not make such a bold assumption. If one assumes that the Q-source sayings are historical, or were at the very least believed by the author to be attributed to the historical Jesus, then one must accept that at least some of the sayings in the gospel of Thomas have equal historical merit, and probably most if you could get your hands on the original version. After all more than half of Thomas is paralleled in the canonical gospels. We can therefore assume that at the time Thomas was written it was a document containing sayings that the author believed to be attributed to the historical Jesus, the same assumption we make for Q. This is a problem for those who argue that “scripture hasn't changed” because it is clear evidence of suppression of heresy.
Of course the document we have today is a 4th century redacted text, translated into Coptic. It's not the original version that may have been written as early as 60-90 CE. It's widely believed that a redactor harmonised sayings with the canonical gospels (one would think if that's the case they probably harmonised some with non-canonical gospels as well). But it was still read, copied, and used as scripture at least in some Christian circles up to the 4th century.
We can see from the early theologians that they did not think that the gospels were literal history. Irenaeus in Against Heresies II.22 wrote an entire chapter under the title: “The thirty Æons are not typified by the fact that Christ was baptized in His thirtieth year: He did not suffer in the twelfth month after His baptism, but was more than fifty years old when He died.” The earliest Latin bible commentary by Fortunatianus of Aquileia, interprets the canonical gospels as a series of allegories not literal history:

There's been an assumption that it's a literal record of truth - a lot of the early scholars got very worried about inconsistencies between Matthew and Luke, for example.
But for people teaching the Bible in the fourth century, it's not the literal meaning which is important, it's how it's read allegorically.
In contemporary Biblical scholarship a lot of the gospels are written with symbolism in mind.
They are not setting out to be literal accounts but they are set out to be symbolic.
Hugh Houghton

The fact that the gospels were literalised fundamentally changes how they are read, used, and understood. Irenaeus uses the gospels in several places, alongside the Old Testament scriptures, to make his argument that Jesus was at least 50 when crucified.
This leads me to my last point. The origin and authority afforded to the Christian biblical canon fundamentally changed what Christians held to be scripture. It elevated the texts we know as the New Testament while illogically deriding the value of other scriptures - even letters of Paul in their original forms, and sayings gospels like Thomas. It changed by omission and suppression what Jesus taught, perhaps even what Paul taught as well. The canon itself implies sanctity of the Church, and its traditions and teachings - a fact that the Reformers realised and grappled with (HH Howorth 1909). The Church came first, then Scriptures came, and finally a Bible decided by the Church who declared only it as Christian scripture. I'm not sure this issue has ever been solved by any modern theologians: “If the Bible was not to be accepted and taken over on the authority of a Church which claimed to be infallible and under the continual guidance of divine wisdom, the reasons why its contents were to be accepted as inspired must be extraordinarily cogent and conclusive since the book itself was in future to become the single pedestal upon which the Christian faith was to be planted.” (Howorth 1909). Where does their elevated value - above that of all the “rejected” scriptures come from?

Is the Bible at all credible as a historical Text?
In this Argument for creation I am going about it differently than most. The main reason some Christians believe in Yahweh creating the universe is it says so in the Bible (Genesis 1). If the Bible is completely inaccurate and had no evidence to validate itself then, the creation account at the beginning would be greatly diminished in its strength as an answer to the beginning of this universe. The reason for testing the veracity of the claim, the Bible being a credible historical text, is to at the very least create some dialogue to if creation by Yahweh is possible. If the Bible throughout its writings has been consistently historically accurate, it is reasonable to assume the creation account has some credibility. I will be going through the Bible to see if there is any evidence to believe what the books in it say is true.
Firstly, at the end of Genesis and then continuing into Exodus, the first two books of the Bible, there are descriptions of the beginning of the Israelite nation forming. From Genesis 17 onwards a man called Abraham is promised to father the nation of Israel. At the end of Genesis two generations after him his great grandchildren are said to have resided in Egypt though this was not their promised land. According to geologies in the Bible, Abraham should have lived around 2000 BC. Then his great grandchildren descendants around 18th century BC resided in Egypt for around 400 years. The area is called Goshen and is meant to be very good land for crops and farming. After that they left because of Moses leading them to the promised land. All this comes from the book of Exodus. Now is there any historical evidence for this, outside of the Bible? In 1990 and onwards the esteemed Manfred Bietak discovered an abandonment phase in todays Tell el-Dab'a (ancient Avaris). The area discovered was a palatial district with a Royal Precinct and an Asiatic (Foreigner) district, (Page 2 of https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/16915/16645) he found in the mid-15th century BC there was a clear abandonment phase during 18th dynasty. This was an important area that had military bases and may have been used to stage naval expeditions to the Mediterranean Sea. Why would you leave this area? The sediment below the abandonment phase is most probably Semitic and seems to be Semitic for over 300 years (https://www.academia.edu/37046281/M_Bietak_The_Many_Ethnicities_of_Avaris_Evidence_from_the_northern_borderland_of_Egypt_in_J_Budka_and_J_Auenm%C3%BCller_eds_From_Microcosm_to_Macrocosm_Individual_Households_and_Cities_in_Ancient_Egypt_and_Nubia_Leiden_2018_Sidestone_Press_73_92( says “Canaanite” which is where the Israelites came from in Bible before going to Eygpt). Now this is not concrete evidence to say the exodus is true, but It does bring some weight of trustworthiness to the book of Exodus. In addition, it brings evidence for the end of Genesis as it talks of Canaanites leaving their land long before going to Egypt and this is what we see in Ancient Avaris. Canaanites resided in Egypt for several centuries.
The God of the Israelites is called Yahweh and unlike many other ancient nations around them they only had one God. For example, the Egyptians had Horus, Seth, Isis and Anubis and so on. The earliest inscription for the name Yahweh is in the Soleb inscriptions. It was found in what would have been Ancient Egypt and dated to around the early 14th Century BC to the end of the 15th Century BC and another one in the 13Th century BC. There is no debate in what they say but some secular scholars hypothesize the ancient Edomites and Midianites worshipped Yahweh before the Israelites. However, there is no historical evidence for those nations worshipping Yahweh. There is some evidence of certain people from those nations but not the whole nation. People worshipping Yahweh from other lands during the Exodus would not be a problem for the Bible. It says in Exodus Moses Father in law, Jethro, was a Midianite who helped Moses figure out the Judicial structure of Israel. Yet there is plenty of evidence to show the Israelites as a nation worshipped Yahweh. For example, the Moabite stone shows the Israelite nation worshipping Yahweh. The Soleb inscription talks about a people saying the “Nomads of Yahweh”. The people are wandering around and do not have a city to identify them, so their God is used to do this. After the Exodus of the Israelites, the Israelites wondered the desert for 40 years before starting to conquer the cities of Canaan. This would count for Nomads as they did not have a land and were wondering around. How else to define them other than by the God they worship and identify with. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07x6659z
In the book of Joshua, it talks of the conquering of many cities such as Hazor. If this were to happen the cities would likely tell their allies they were being attacked and request help. Well the Amarna Letters are Clay tablets, mostly from kings in Canaan to Egypt that they needed help as they were being attacked. These kings were subjected to Egypt. They date to the mid-14th century BC. This is quite inline with the Bible’s account. They mention the “Habiru” who were invading Canaan at the time and Habiru is very similar in sounding to Hebrew. Many scholars indicate this could be the Hebrew people. The Bible also accurately describes the conditions of the area at this time period having many city states in Canaan (https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1280&context=jats).
Finally, for this period I would like to introduce the Berlin pedestal. This is an artefact dated to mid-14th Century. It is an Egyptian name ring that lists 3 places, Ashkelon, Canaan, Israel. The ring for Israel is only around 2/3rds complete as part has broken away, however in 2001 Manfred Görg published that it should be Israel from what the rest of the symbols could be. This gives an inscription of the nation of Israel very early. This would indicate that it was not likely at all that Israel formed later in time as there is evidence to the contrary. These pieces of evidence are by no means exhaustive of an Early Israel formation date, in line with the Bible. Yet I have other periods to cover so will move on. https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/jaei/article/view/83/87
Next, I would like to tackle the next few books of the Bible. Those being Joshua, Judges and the Samuel 1-2. I have already touched upon some evidence to suggest the Biblical account is not completely made up with the structure of the Canaanite political structure being made of city states. Now I will be looking at Joshua 11. It talks of Israel’s northern conquest of Canaan against the Jobin king of Hazor. In the chapter Israel prevails over Hazor who led a coalition of kings against Israel and burns the city of Hazor. Now is there any evidence for a City called Hazor in that time and that it was burn around the early 14th Century -late 15th Century BC. Well there are some Egyptian Execration texts, which name enemies of Egypt, that mention Hazor in the 18th century BC (https://www.academia.edu/25340113/Do_the_Execration_Texts_Reflect_an_Accurate_Picture_of_the_Contemporary_Settlement_Map_of_Palestine ) Page 13. Moreover, the Mari archives mention Hazor in the 18th Century BC as an actual place and shipments of trade to “Ibni-Addad king of Hazor”. This is Accadian but in West Semitic form it reads “Yabni-Haddad”. Jabin and Yabni are the same name, just one is shortened. (https://search.proquest.com/openview/688f4758a1fb7f3a55e7c4aaef134a3e/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=46246). In the Amarna Letters which I have already discussed it also talks of Hazor. Unlike many other communications in the Letters the king of Hazor does not grovel to the Pharaoh but mentions himself being a King. This aligns with Joshua as it describes Hazor’s king leading the collation against Israel suggesting he is the most powerful in that part of Canaan. Letters 227 and 228 refer to him as a king. There is also an ancient Babylonian tablet that mention Jabin and was found at Hazor in 18th century BC. So, what from these two conclusions can be surmised? Either Jabin was a title like Pharaoh or it was a name used many times such as Rameses. This all agrees with the Biblical account as it mentions Jabin twice, once in Joshua then in Judges. Judges being over 100 Years after Joshua. Joshua 11: 1 and Judges 5:6-11. The name being used for long periods of time in and outside the Bible is interesting. https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/20/5/14. Two destruction have been found at Hazor. On in the late bronze age so 1550-1400 BC and another in 13th century BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25609263?seq=1. Amnon Ben-Tor who leads digs even says this again in the Israel exploration journal 51 in 2001 page 238. There is evidence for temples being destroyed which if it were the Israelites makes sense, other religious temples were seen and unholy and would be destroyed. This does point towards this account be possibly historically accurate. Now there is a theory among secular scholars that Israel had a much later exodus date in the 13th century BC. But if that is true, Israel as a nation should only be mentioned after this time. Yet there is evidence of their God Yahweh which is written about over 6000 time in the Bible. And there is not enough time for an exodus and conquering on Canaan if the exodus is a later date. This is shown decisively with the Merneptah Stele. It is an Egyptian inscription mentioning Israel as a nation and dates to 1208 BC which means there is not enough time in those years of less than 100 years to have late exodus and the nation being established after conquering much of Canaan. This is all before 40 years wandering in the desert.
One key part of the books of Samuel is King David. In the 19th century and early 20th century secular scholars scoffed that he was historical but rather a myth like England’s king Arthur. Especially the fact that he had an empire and a dynasty that was considerable for its time. However, in 1993 the Tel Dan Stele was found. It is a victory Stele about most likely King Hazael defeating the king of Israel and his ally who is of the “house of Dave”. This is dated to around 9 century BC. This is historical confirmation that King David was indeed real, and he left a lineage. This is a largely undisputed fact that it is of the House of David. The Bible describes David’s Dynasty in it books Samuel 2 and kings 1-2 and Chronicles 1-2. This also reinforces the fact at the 9th century BC Israel indeed was a nation that its enemies had wars with. Furthermore, the Moabite stone also references David while recording the Events of 2nd Kings Chapter 3. It has been dated to around 840 BC and mentions the phrase the house of David. The Moabite stone has many alignments to the Bible. They both talk of the Moab’s God Chemosh, the tribe of Gad from Israel and the Israelite king Omri. If the Jews wrote the books of the Torah centuries after the events happened how could they know of the Centuries old Moabite god Chemosh? It is not logical to assume. https://brill.com/view/journals/vt/52/4/article-p483_3.xml . https://www.jstor.org/stable/27926300?seq=1 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1357179?seq=1
The matrix of evidence really points to the Bible not being some mythical tale, that has no basis but an account that is corroborated with non-Biblical texts. If the exodus was a late date in the 13th century or after it can not fit with other timelines of artefacts. It would mean in less than 350 years Israel left Egypt and wondered for 40 some years, then started slowly taking over Canaan. After that have judges and prophets protecting Israel. After this they would get the kings of which there were many and until you get to King Ahab. In the early 9th Century BC. There isn’t enough time if you believe in the dates of the Bible.
Now I will be going into the Kings of Israel. A key piece of historical evidence for there really being kings of Israel are the Assyrian inscriptions. The Assyrians named each year after a person calling them the Limmu. They are absolute dates and even have a solar eclipse mentioned in the year 763BC. This allows Biblical scholars to give absolute dates to the Kings of Israel. This helps in dating artefacts such as the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser the 3rd who mentions King Ahab who fought against him in 853 BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27925486?seq=1 Then there is the Black Obelisk showing King Jehu giving tribute to Shalmaneser in 841 BC. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42613886?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Black%20obelisk%20king%20jehu&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DBlack%2Bobelisk%2Bking%2Bjehu&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A9bfe9ec30049e46ae79c452df027d1d8&seq=1 . These show that these books in the Bible are not completely made up and have some historical accuracy at the least. There are many other examples of historical evidence of other kings of the Bible, but I can focus on that in its own separate post.
After the Kings of Israel, the empires of the Persia and Babylon in the Bible are said to have taken over Israel and Judah the two nations of the Jewish people. Then In the reign of Cyrus the Great he sets the Israelites free to rebuild their temple and walls at Jerusalem. This occurs in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Many older secular scholars did not believe that any king would allows their slaves to go free as it did not make any sense. Why would you let your labour go? Well the Cyrus Cylinder which has been dated to 539BC depicts just that. It is a declaration that the exiles to go back to their settlements and rebuild their sanctuaries. This clearly aligns with what occurred in the Bible. There are also the Babylonian chronicles, which mention the sacking of Jerusalem by king Nebuchadnezzar and dates it to 597 BC. These tablets recount the History of Babylon. This is what is said in the Bible in the book of Daniel. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3268761?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Cyrus+cylinder&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DCyrus%2Bcylinder%26filter%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A43cce9af3298485f1830bcb23acd07de&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1896-0409-51
Now the book of Daniel has had secular skepticism because it is quite a prophetic book. For a Biblical timeline he would have written early to mid-6th century BC. Some disagree, arguing that he wrote in the 2nd century BC, though there is evidence to suggest he was a real person writing in 6th century BC. Jerimiah 39: 3 mentions Nebo Sarsekim who was the chief eunuch. The Nebo Sarsekim tablet writes that the pottery belonged to a man with the same name. It is dated to 595 BC. Jerimiah was said to have lived in a similar time period as Daniel. Now if these books were written 400 years later then how would Daniel or Jerimiah know someone of the court of King Nebuchadnezzar II who lived in the 6th century BC. There was no internet and information was sparsely passed down, compared to the post printing press era. So, it is nearly impossible that his name was kept in Jewish records unless written at the time. Moreover, this book was written in Hebrew and Aramaic. If you look at the Aramaic used and Aramaic from the 5th century BC it is very similar. Here is a marriage certificate from 449 BC from a Jewish colony in Egypt https://isaw.nyu.edu/exhibitions/wgre/highlights/marriage-document-from-ananiah-to-meshullam-aramaic for an example. Language changes over time. The Aramaic of the 2nd century would be different than the Aramaic from a few hundred years before. Another problem with Daniel in the 2nd century BC is the dead sea scrolls. Part of Daniel’s book which is in some of the earlier dead sea scrolls date to 150 BC. This is a couple of decades at most from when secular skeptics say Daniel was written. This would mean that the book was written, and then became widespread and popular in a mere couple decades. This is a very serious reach which is not logical. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1541&context=jats. Lastly, in Daniel chapter 5 it talks of the King Belshazzar needing Daniel to interpret writing on a wall. Again, some secular scholars in the early 19th century did not believe that King Belshazzar was a real person, because for some time they could only find record of a man named Nabonidus as the king for this time period. It also is interesting in the chapter that Belshazzar says he will make anyone who is able to interpret the wall 3rd in command of the whole kingdom. Why would he say this if he is real and the king, why not second? Even ancient historians like Herodotus, Megasthenes, Berossus said that the last king of Babylon was Nabonidus. Well discoveries found that this chapter is telling the truth. For example, the Nabonidus Cylinder from Ur which says “Belshazzar, the eldest son—my offspring”, dated to around 550BC. Vindicating Belshazzar as a real person. More evidence is seen in the Nabonidus Chronicle which describes Nabonidus being generally living far away from Babylon and Belshazzar as crown prince. It is not unusual for a crown prince or someone high up governing the kingdom day to day to be called king. For example, King Herod in the new testament was not actually king in the Roman empire but was a leader for a certain region. If this were written centuries after the 6th century BC how would Daniel know Belshazzar was a real person, as even other ancient historians did not write of him? One last point to explore is the use of the name Nebuchadnezzar as father to Belshazzar. In the Bible when the word father is used, it does not always mean literal father but ancestor or someone occupying the same office. The prophet Elisha had Shaphat as a biological father but calls his mentor Elijah as “His father” in 2 Kings 2:12. Jesus was called the son of David even though he was only his descendent. So as Belshazzar succeeded Nebuchadnezzar to the throne it is possible, he was in the Bible called father.
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=auss
Now there are many more pieces of evidence for the old testament being historically accurate, but I can make more writings on those at a later date. This is all good but how do we know the translations of the Bible over the millennium can be reliable. There are two prominent texts that I would like to explore. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls and the Dead Sea scrolls. The Ketef Hinnom Scrolls reveal to be a very early piece of scripture. It was found in burial chambers and has the writings of Numbers 6: 24-26 which is the 4th book in the Bible. These date to the 7th century BC which is much earlier than some secular scholars claim the Torah was written. This would suggest that the writings occurred much earlier than the 7th century BC as they were only burial amulets. This also shows the accuracy of these verses being the same in todays Bible with something over 2600 years old. The dead sea scrolls are very important as they have basically every book in the Bible in scroll form and are dated from 3rd century BC onwards. There are 230 manuscripts that are completely biblical texts. For example, the great Isiah Scroll. Before this the earliest copy of the oldest complete Hebrew Torah was the Leningrad codex and dates to 1000 AD approximately. There is very little difference between these two writings showing over 1000 years of time not much has changed and the Biblical writings are reliable.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1647cmz?turn_away=true&Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Ketef+Hinnom+Scroll&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DKetef%2BHinnom%2BScroll&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A0bdf526ea5d91d1c248b09fe4958ae33
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20787416?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=finding%20deadsea%20scrolls&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dfinding%2Bdeadsea%2Bscrolls%26filter%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A8af891fbd8ba59f31db8755999728f25&seq=1
This last section will be focusing on the latter part of the Bible the New Testament. I have often heard people scoff that the central figure of the Bible, Jesus, was even real. It shows how little people know about him. His is one of the most documented ancient figures of his era, with similar historical evidence as Julius Caesar. There are multiple accounts of him being real from Christian sources, the Bible and its accounts from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There are Jewish historians such as Josephus and roman Historians such as Tacitus who all talk about Jesus being a real person. Josephus was a Jewish historian who was not a Christian and describes that Pilate condemned Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah to a cross to die. He writes in around the year 93 AD. His book is called antiquities of the Jews. Tacitus a roman senator, also not a Christian, and historian also write of a man called Jesus who was killed on the cross by the orders of Pilate. Written in 116 AD in his book Annals. In addition, Babylonian Talmud writes about Yeshu being hanged for practicing sorcery and apostasy, Yeshu is Jesus. Lucian of Samosata also a Greek wrote of Jesus in the second century. Writing that he was a man worshipped by Christians who was crucified.
There are also many pieces of evidence that corroborate the text in the new testament. In John chapter 9 Jesus heals a blind man in the pool of Siloam. This very pool has been found to be real in Jerusalem. Pottery dated it around the pool is from old testament to new testament times. In the book of Romans 16:23 mentions a man called Erastus who in the Bible is the city’s treasurer or city official for Corinth where Paul wrote Romans. There is the Erastus inscription found in 1929 which said Erastus in return for his aedileship he paved with his own money. It is dated to 1st century BC and likely the same. There is also the Pilate stone which says Pontus Pilate, the man allowing the romans to kill Jesus, was the prefect of Judea from 26 AD to 36 AD. This is the time period when Jesus was killed. Another figure that is prominent in the death of Jesus is high priest Caiaphas. Archaeologists have probably found his Ossuary with his bones inside. Jewish Historian Josephus says high priest Caiaphas full name is Joseph Caiaphas. The box had on it, Joseph son of Caiaphas and had a 60-year-old man’s bones in it. This is another person in the Bible seen to be most likely real. In the book of Acts 18:12 describes Gallio was proconsul of Achaia. In Delphi, Claudius the emperor at the time inscribed Junius Gallio as a friend and proconsul. It is dated to 52 AD which is when the Apostle Paul would have lived. All these show the new testament to not be a fairy-tale but texts with real people in it.
https://legacy.tyndalehouse.com/tynbul/Library/TynBull_1989B_40_08_Gill_ErastusTheAedile.pdf
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/peq.1994.126.1.32?journalCode=ypeq20
https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/300013.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A9c11775a00371e0feab60357dfc9cd2b page 144
The resurrection of Jesus is one of the biggest parts of the Bible. It has some evidence at the very least that people of the time claimed that it was true. Firstly, if we look at the Gospels they describe Jesus being buried in a tomb that was just for him. This was after he was crucified and was not in a mass grave for criminals. There have been a couple concrete discoveries to prove people were indeed crucified along with the many writings. The heel bone of Yehohanan is a heel with a large nail driven in it by romans to crucify. The bone was found in a family tomb like what Jesus was buried in. This shows the possibility of the Bible’s account for Jesus having a dignified burial. Furthermore, the Nazareth Inscription heavily suggests that people at the time thought he had resurrected. This is because it describes a penalty of death for people who caught robbing bodies of family tombs and dated to the first half of the 1st century AD. Its language is directed towards the Jews and not the Gentiles according to Dr. Clyde Billington. Why do people care about taking bodies, normally it was the treasure with the bodies people would steal? This what happened to the Pharaohs. In the Bible it describes that the Jewish leaders made up the story the disciples stole Jesus’ body. It seems likely that there was talk at the time that his body was stolen. It is reasonable to indicate there is a link and possibly a strong one between this inscription and Jesus. Some people may also say that he never was actually killed. If you look at who was killing him it does not make sense. The Romans we thoroughly trained and did not want to lose their job or life. They would have made sure you died on the cross, 1000s of people died during the first century from crucifixion. Even driving a spear to your side to ensure it. After that Jesus’ body was guarded by Roman soldiers who would not have let anyone steal the body. Who can survive 3 days without water, that is the length of time Jesus was dead in the Bible before he arose? In John it talks of water and blood coming from the spear hole in Jesus, which is a medical phenomenon, what would have happened to someone after taking such a beating from the floggings and other torture. Fluid would build up around the heart and lungs and come out from a hole with blood at the same time. How could someone 2000 years ago know this if they did not see it?
The Disciples themselves imply some validity of the resurrection. Not just because in their writings or their eyewitnesses who claim to have seen Jesus but for what they did after. 10 of the original disciples, after definitely knowing if it was a lie or not that Jesus was resurrected as they would know if they made up the story, all were killed brutishly for their belief in the resurrection. Some were beheaded or impaled or crucified upside-down. Why would you live your life persecuted and killed for a lie you made up? There had been many other self-proclaimed Messiahs before and after Jesus but if they got killed every time their following would either diminish or find a new leader. This is not what happened to Jesus. Paul writes that 500 people other than the disciples saw and met a resurrected Jesus.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1461138?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=heel+bone+of+yehohanan&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dheel%2Bbone%2Bof%2Byehohanan&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5187_SYC-5188%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ac7a734f3bab60059d39f4e0540184402#metadata_info_tab_contents
About New Testament historical reliability to be the same as today I have seen a video that talks about it much better than I could. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ksvhHEoMLM&ab_channel=RaviZachariasInternationalMinistries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9CC7qNZkOE&ab_channel=MrShazoolo
Finally, how does all this relate back to creation vs evolution. Well I have tried to layout a series of evidence for the Bible being historically accurate. You may disagree with a few, but I would be very hard pressed to believe everything I have said is false. With so much pointing towards this text being historically reliable it brings up the possibility that we could start believing it. Especially give some thought to the possibility of its very beginning being true. I am not writing this to tell you, you must believe every word of the Bible. Rather that people should take it more seriously than a complete fiction. I also know that for some of my evidence there are skeptics that deny links I have proposed which is their freedom. I would just ask the question is that 100% because that is what the facts are telling them or is their disbelief in God being real what drives them in a certain direction. To conclude this is not a direct argument saying evolution is incorrect but that the book from where Biblical creation comes from is worth looking at as more non-fiction than fiction. Meaning that creation does not come from a fairytale and should be looked at the very least with some possibility with the rest of the book being historically accurate.
Thanks for reading.

DEAD PEOPLE WITH SOMETHING TO SAY 0.7
An ongoing project consisting of a collection of biographies of people that have been overlooked in the annals of history. Categorised as counterculture, pseudoscience and absolute lunacy these individuals were not listened to whilst they lived and it’s only upon re-evaluation it becomes clear that a distinct pattern of thought has been suppressed throughout history and has shaped the society we live in today.
Sub to /TheMysterySchool for daily updates of this nature.
John Dee
We can say little about modern occultism without it connecting back in some fashion to the work of Mr John Dee.

Who He Was

Born to Roland and Johanna Dee in 1527, John spent the best years of his life as the consigliere to Queen Elizabeth the 1st and coined terms such as “The British Empire” whilst using Astrology to inform the Queens expansion of the empire in the 16th century. He used to sign his name as “007” and stands as the conceptual foundation for Ian Fleming’s James Bond series, he also acts as a early example of how occult practices can inform intelligence and military excursions.
In the latter half of Dee’s life we see a decline in reputation, wealth and mental and physical health as he begins to peruse a series of conversations with angels using a young man by the name of Edward Kelley as a medium.
It’s this juxtaposition of credible claims that make the life of John Dee such a fascinating one.
As a man that definitely existed, little allegory is necessary to decipher the intentions of Mr Dee.
He spent the first half of his life directing the British Empire and then left this cause to dive head first into the world of the infallible, the ludicrous and the unknown.
Through a modern lens this decision might signify a fall from grace and many of Dee’s peers took this stance.
After Dee’s public reputation had been tarnished due to his spiritual exercises reaching the public’s consciousness, he fled in disgrace to Eastern Europe and held meetings with several members of the Polish royal family before returning home to find his house ransacked and his persona vilified. Despite this soiling of his image Elizabeth still took pity on him and made him the Warden of the Manchester Cathedral, a position he remained in till his death in 1609.
Now to a skeptical eye the tale of John Dee may come across as interesting, sure, but largely significant only for the historical impact his assistance to Queen Elizabeth had on the expansion of the British Empire but this author is willing to out on a limb and say it is the occult workings of Mr Dee that have influenced the world we live in today more than any other aspect of his life.
Conversations with angels.

What He Said

A ridiculous concept from the get go.
Angels aren’t real therefore Mr Dee was simply a sufferer of a mental alignment like Schizophrenia right?
Any writings garnered from this phenomenon should be relegated to the category of the ravings of a madman and have no bearing on the rational world of science that we live in today, if that is, we live in the world one thought we lived in that has been built upon scientific thought and rationality?
I wouldn’t be so fast to dismiss the frenzied visions of Mr Kelley or any perpetrated medium offering revelations from the astral plane.
Besides, two of the worlds most popular religions have been formed off of this basis.
The narratives that surround the origins of the Islamic and Mormon faiths both feature a very similar tale to the one of John Dee.
All three men spent time deprived from their senses, communicating with a perceived otherworldly intelligence and all three wrote volumes of writings regarding and “from” the perceived entity. Mohammed and Joseph Smith have large followings as of 2020 and Islam and Mormonism are household names so why have the writings of John Dee fly under the radar?
Maybe it had something to do with the content of what John and Edward were being told by these so called angels. The initial concept of a channeling, or mediumship or in short speaking with a deity is so knee jerking in itself that 99% of the time the baby is thrown out with the bath water.
Because the idea itself is so ludicrous we rarely get around to actually reading the information that was channeled and I believe it is here where a large amount of the skepticism developed when discussing channeled works.
To understand the angels’s dialogues one must me familiar with the biblical character Enoch) and the associated apocrypha that refers to him.
Apocrypha is simply a religious work that refers to the main doctrine of a regime on but is not considered “canon)” by the representing organisation that surrounds a religion.
From the Church’s point of view it’s fan fiction but in a case such as the Dead Sea Scrolls some of the oldest copies of the legitimate Bible books were found in a cave near the Red Sea alongside comparatively old versions of a smattering of Christian and Jewish Apocrypha, including a certain Book of Enoch..
It’s this “coincidence” that allows one to say that maybe the church’s ousting of apocrypha is motivated not but truth but by control. This implication becomes clear once one understands what the narrative of the Book of Enoch brings the table from storytelling point of view.
You may have heard the name Enoch listed in the descendants of Adam and Eve after they are kicked out of the Garden of Eden. They begat Cain, Able and Seth and started a lineage of humans that pass down the story of man in the garden with the serpent.
This tale takes place in between the expulsion of AandE from Eden but before Noah’s flood and is referred to a the Antediluvian period, the time of The War In Heaven or the Titanomachy.
These three words correspond to different cultures speaking upon the same period of time. The Sumerian’s, the Abrahamic Religions and the Ancient Greeks are the three listed here but every single religion and culture has a word to describe this period of time.
It’s seems to refer to a period of time where:

The “gods” that created humanity still roamed the earth in the fashion we do today.
Gods interfered with the affairs of man..
Man, in lieu of Science and Rationality, was subservient to a force we now refer to as “god, terms to describe this force are in the thousands and contain but are not limited to El), Ba’al, Elohim, The Watchers and their offspring the Nephillim), The Anunnaki, The Titans), The Ennead... the list goes on.
By the time big JC (Jesus) is rolling into Bethlehem, possibly by the time of Ezekiel roughly around 600 BC, this force no longer appears on the physical plane. It only appears to “chosen” individuals or mediums and a large amount of ritualistic preparation is required to initiate contact. This period of time also marks a sharp rise in divination techniques such as the casting of lots, scrying and trance states were utilised to communicate with our estranged creator.

This set up to the story of the Book of Enoch is required so one can understand what the intelligences John Dee was in communication with were trying to say in the context of the cultural period Dee lived in and the perpetrated time period these so called angels were from.
Enoch is a seventh generation descendant of Adam and Eve and great grandfather to Noah. His mentions in a bogstandard common bible are minimal and only small references his ascents to heaven occur.
One of note would be shortly before Noah’s flood and is a mere mention in the Genealogy of Adam to Noah. It simply states, like the 6 preceding ancestors on the list, that Enoch was born to Jared and was the father of Methuselah, in the same fashion as preceding entries. Enoch is significant because there is a small addition to his entry on the Birth to Birth checklist compared to his ancestors.
Each patriarch’s age is listed and in keeping with pre-flood oddities people were seemingly living to, by today’s standards, unprecedented ages.
Adam lived to 930 and his descendants fare similarly but Enoch is only reported as living for a measly 365 years by comparison and does not “die” in the traditional sense but instead is “taken by God” and is always referred to as “the one who did not see death”.
Otherwise in the basic modern version of the Christian Bible this is the full extent of the explanation of Enoch’s life and can be considered a footnote. A cryptic message to be easily brushed past. Which brings us around to the Book of Enoch. Antediluvian literature is particularly difficult to come by namely due to the ambiguity of what was actually happening. Each culture puts their own perspective lens on the situation but what can be construed from looking at a cross section of these pre-flood narratives is that this period of time represented a time when man was on the path the serpent had put us on leading to our exile from Eden of becoming gods and seeming the gods weren’t best pleased about the coming workers unionisation.
I’m going to list a few ancient tales that elude to this time period so one can really pain a picture of what the allegory for this narrative is and paint a vibrant image of the period in ones head.

It is the Sumerian tale of Enki and Enlil that provides us with our context for a War occurring within heaven.
According to Sumerian tradition humans were created to carry the workload of the gods. They were preceded by a race of smaller workers called the Igigi who revolted against upper management (their creator, the gods, Anunaki ect) and this was the catalyst for designing Humanity.
A worker that didn’t revolt.)
This is the precedent for the points listed earlier. “Gods” and man lived together and gods intervened in the affairs of man.
Some clarification surrounding the word “gods” is required here.
To understand the difference between a “god” with a small g like Zeus or Enki and the overarching architect of the universe (ie God with a big G), one must look to what Gnostic scriptures called “The Demierge”.
This concept relates to the supposed God that appeared to have built Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden and suggests that this god was a sort of self-obsessed egotistical being) that did truly believe it was the creator of the universe whilst mearly being a imposter. Christian imagery has led us into think of “God” as a bearded man in the sky that namely has our best intentions at heart but when one consults the scripture this simply doesn’t seem to be the case. In fact, our father who art in heaven actually seems quite temperamental if the Torah is anything to go by.
Man’s relationship with God in the Torah is akin to one of parent and small child.
Parent lays down law and leaves to go about errands. Child disobeys ruling. Parent “comes down” and disciplines whilst citing jealousy as the motivation for his anger.
This occurs numerous times from the Garden of Eden to Mt Sinai and loops back round to the story of Enki and Enlil.
See in the Sumerian tale Enlil and Enki have equal parts in creating humanity and each have opposing views of their creation.
Enlil sees man as subservient to Gods and has little empathy for his creation whilst Enki may be seen as the fun uncle of humanity, passing in knowledge when possible and even alerting the Sumerian Noah to upcoming flood. So we can see that the Catholic narrative seemingly is a simplification off the original Sumerian and by amalgamating all this confusing Enki/Enlil business into one simple “God” figure removes the ability for one to discern the personality and aspirations of a deity.
Quite a convenient standpoint for a religion that has used its doctrine for the mass control of the entire population to have isn’t it?
Don’t confuse yourself with all this different gods and deities business, just think of it as a big bearded man in the sky that will send you to hell if you don’t obey his rules.
That seems to be the mantra of the Catholic Church and it is for this reason that scripture like the Book of Enoch, whilst still being found with some of the oldest copies of the bible humanity has to date, get relegated to the nonsense pile.
So basically what I’m saying is, is that the Catholic Church, who’s book is mostly considered to be nonsense by most of the general public, are aware of a large amount of texts that have been discovered alongside texts they consider to be “sacred” but consider “some” of them to be pseudepigraphal in nature and it is this authors assumption that this has been done to deter the masses from understand the true nature of god.
With all this in mind we can now talk about Enoch and his role as a patriarch.
In the Book of Enoch, Enoch is known in his native land as a medium of sorts. He analyses dreams, can see the gods and brings knowledge to the physical world from heaven. It states that the things he sees and brings back from heaven will not transpire to his generation but a future generation to come. It also details the tale of The Watchers, angels that have been cast out of Heaven for disobeying god that have reproduced with earthly women to create what is known as the Nephillim, Anak or GriGori which can be imagined as Giants and Cyclopes, Sasquatch or Yeti like creatures or through a modern scientific lens Dinosaurs and Large Sea Creatures.
Basically genetic monstrosities that our creator wants destroying.
These angels or Watchers are led by Azazel who is represented in the common day bible by a Goat that has had humanity’s sins placed upon it and cast out into the desert. The very origin of the word scapegoat can be found from this tale and the origins of Satan or Baphomet having a goats head stem from this tale.
Another example of how the devils of the catholic dogma are simply well designed smear campaigns against elements of the philosophical landscape that the church wanted suppressed due to their revolutionary nature and depiction of the true nature of god.
It is useful to consult the Islamic scripture on this issue as Azazel and Enoch are both very present in the Quran along with this entire War in Heaven narrative.
In fact in the Muslim version it is God himself that challenges three angel to live as men to and try to not fall to the temptation of sin and that is how we end up with our Nephillim situation.
It also touches on the menial nature of the wants and actions of gods in comparison to the compassionate needs of humanity.
The Hindus say that what we are currently experiencing is a gods dream and Gnostic scriptures talk of a god of nothingness and order bringing about chaos and existence simply out of boredom so for Azazel being known as the scapegoat in allegorical Christian scripture begins to start to make more sense.
Enoch is also know in Islamic scripture as the angel Idris and can be affiliated with the Christian Metatron.
It is implied that the angels were sent down to teach righteousness but were tempted into sin and because of this we have the Nephillim.
Whilst all sin is said to come from Azazel, the set up for this transpiring was instigated by higher management. Azazel is said to have taught man the skills of metal work, cosmetics and deception and this is the crime that gets him banished from heaven in the first place. It is said that the learning of these facets led to bloodshed and godlessness. To be blunt, people were eating and fucking one another with no regard for respect or decency and this isn’t good for the sustainability of humanity and therefore god is angered.
Hence a flood is coming to cleanse this wrongdoing and the resulting Nephillim or offspring of this a period of godlessness are receiving nightmares regarding the upcoming rapture.
It is Enoch that is called upon to decipher the dreams and direct the giants through the use of Hekalot literature.
Hekalot and Merkaba mysticism relate to a selection of Jewish texts that have been held close to the orthodoxies chest for centuries. Kabbalah texts also fall under this bracket and all three can be described as texts that facilitate or inform one on the nature, how to communicate with and how to travel through the realm of God.

Merkaba refers to texts detailing methods of the accent through the heavens.
Hekalot refers to texts that enable the apparition of the Divine Council.
Kabbalah relates to texts that describe how god shows him self in the physical world.

All three of these categories of scripture have rules surrounding them and prior to the advent of the internet revealing these ancient topics was punishable and only a rabbi could only teach them to the most accomplished student.
Although these are fascinating points of research and well worth spending time upon, right now all you need to know is that these texts collect the information these supposed fallen angels gave to humanity and for that reason are considered highly holy and have been kept secret for centuries only to be studied by the upper echelons of the Jewish and Christian hierarchies.
As we know the flood does come and wipe clean the abominations that covered the earth leaving only Noah, being the only survivor and witness of the old way, to repopulate the world with a sustainable genealogy. The renegade angels get relegated to the fiery pits of Sheol and we move towards an era when gods are simply a word of mouth idea not something one sees.
It is only at this point, with this context now in place, that we can return to the life of John Dee for to understand the significance of the mans findings one must be aware of the above narratives.
For the angels that Edward Kelly and Dee apparently spoke to were the very same angels that led the War in Heaven and their writings provide a continuation of the narrative that begin 1,500 years or more prior.
Edward Kelly met John Dee at the age of 27, being nearly 30 years younger than Dee at the time of their meeting and was fairly instantly thrown into the world of what is known today as Enochian mysticism.
One may begin to see why the lengthy setup describing Enoch’s life was now necessary.
See Dee himself had been attempting to communicate with angels on his own for months via Crystal ball gazing to no avail and was looking for a young susceptible medium to take on the more physically demanding evocations.
It is at this point in John Dee’s tale that the author became rather perplexed at the reality of what seemed to transpire.
Seemingly Mr Kelly would meet up with Mr Dee at his house in Mortlake, Kelly would induce a trance state by either gazing into a mirror or crystal ball or by ingesting a mysterious red powder that has yet to be identified and would begin to talk to the angels. Kelly would relay what they said back to Dee and Dee would act as scribe and take down whatever was being said.
Now this could all be written off as schizophrenic ramblings but there are few points of interest that might make even the most skeptical individual raise an eyebrow.

This partnership went on for 7 years. Either party had plenty of time to either leave or contest the legitimacy of these visions.
Kelly actually did “escape” Dee’s captivity and ran away only to come back citing that the work they had been conducting was too important.
Kelly received physical damage from these angels in the form of scars, bruises and apparent blindness at one point.
An entire language referred to as Enochian as been derived from Dee and Kelly’s sessions and is still used today in the Golden Dawn and Thelemic traditions.
This endeavour tarnished Dee’s public persona and by the end of his life was living mostly off charity from others.

These three points raise large scale concern regarding the perpetrated lunacy of Dee’s occult endeavours and this is without considering what the angels were actually apparently saying.
If we consider the depictions of the angels from back in Noah’s day they do seem physical in nature and seem to have long standing effect on the physical world. Compare this to the era of Dee and Kelly and they only appear after being summoned and a medium is required to hear their message. Almost like they have been banished or relegated to a space where remote access to this plane is available to them.
From Sheol to Earth.
It seems to imply that in a roundabout sense the apocryphal narrative is correct, these intelligences are no longer physical and can only impact on humanity through an avatar so to speak.
Which speaks to the idea from the antediluvian story that angels were bound to earth until judgment day in a very literal sense at least in this authors opinion. To elaborate on what I mean one may look into the nature of the domaine as to where the angels were "bound" after the Flood, the history of the construction of transistors and the use of precious rocks in their construction.
The device you are using to read this relies on precious stones and it is that concept that one must understand to see where we are now.
If you can see the synergy between

Then you are on the right path to having a chance at understanding what is going on.
From their earthbound prison they foretold of a coming apocalypse, in the same vain as was told in the Book of Revelation and in the revelations of Enoch, although this apocalypse was a coming event not one that was currently transpiring. They spoke with a tone of contempt for humanity and preached a message of detaching from the physical world to dwell in prayer until a time when gods wrath would condemn the malevolent force back to from whence it came.
The prophecy speaks with an abundance of familiar biblical terms like Babylon, The Bottomless Pit and The Rising Dragon which all sound very dated and hard to picture but seen through the correct lens they speak upon the world we live in today. Observing the synergy between the systems of Dee and Kelly with the work of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and subsequently the works of Aleister Crowley and Jack Parsons one can see how hypothetically there is a non-visible intelligence attempting to warn humanity of an oncoming event.
Enoch’s Prophecies
To
The Book of Revelation
To
Mohammed's Cave Visions
To
Dee and Kelly’s Watchtowers
To
Joesph Smith and the Golden Plates
To
The Aeon of Horus
To
The Babalon Working
To
The Channeled Works of the 1950’s UFO Flap
We consider each of these an individual case of madness that has no baring in the physical rational world, but combine them together and you have a longstanding tradition of humanity communicating with a force of a higher nature. There would be no point in covering the above cases without prior knowledge of Dee’s attempts to commune with this intelligence and this speaks to why Dee has been covered at this juncture in this series.
The others will follow.

Why It Matters

In the interest of attempting to wrap this up, the point of this whole spiel would be to point out the lunacy that is John Dee’s entire existence.
Much like this series itself, the sum of the total parts of Dee’s existence make him worth talking about.
His entire ideology should be relegated to the realms of insanity yet his angel summoning table made entirely of beeswax is on show at the British Museum and it’s things like this that leads one to believe that somebody somewhere takes Dee’s Enochian excursions seriously.
In the public eye his efforts have been recognised by many contemporary figures such as;

Damon Alburn of Blur and Gorillaz fame, who wrote and directed an entire opera about Mr Dee titled “Dr Dee: An English Opera” displaying great knowledge of his angelic conversations.
Ian Fleming, British Spy and Author (also good friend of Aleister Crowley potentially also a British spy, more to come on this narrative shortly ;) ), wrote an acclaimed series about a British spy who worked alongside the Queen and signed his name 007 as Dr Dee did.
H.P Lovecraft name dropped Dee citing Dee as the English translator of a lost mystical book titled “Al Azif” which corresponds to the infamous “Necronomicon”. An likely allegorical concept describe a compendium of ancient scared texts, not unlike the apocryphal texts we spoke of earlier.

It is a this juncture that we begin to see the reason for entertaining the life of Mr Dee at all.
Although esoteric nature of his life’s work relegates it’s deciphering to a select group of dedicated occultists, Dee is still a household name to many for his position next to Queen Elizabeth and his contributions to the coinage and expansion of the British Empire and whilst this may be the capacity he is now most well known for as the age of information progress and characters like Crowley and Parsons have their well deserved day in the spotlight, it will be an analysis of Dr Dee’s Enochian Adventures that will really offer a fruitful bounty of first hand knowledge from the a higher intelligences itself.
Until next time here at MIPLTD, Ølund wishes you a fruitful day and restful evening 🙌

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Dead People With Something To Say 0.7: John Dee

Who He Was

What He Said

Why It Matters

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