The storytellers from the twelve tribes dictated their sacred legends to scribes.

Wednesday, 2/15/17

We want to take another look at how the Old Testament got written, but we must first look at its religious beauty.

At a time when the other races worshipped gods corresponding to the winds and the stars, God made himself known to the Israelites. For them he was all good and all wise, and they delighted in knowing they were made in his own likeness.

Our appreciation of the Bible could be enhanced by our knowing something of how it came to be written. After all, God is Truth, and the closer we come to the Truth, the closer we come to God.

While, for centuries the Israelites had been using the Hebrew language for keeping lists and accounts, they had not come to use it for their histories and legends. For transmitting such, they had families of storytellers who reliably passed on their associations with God.

But then, after 587 B.C., when the whole people were led off to slavery in Babylon, they came to appreciate the written legends of Mesopotamia.

For two weeks every year, those people celebrated their Enuma Elish holiday when everyone, even the Israelite slaves, took time off to hear pagan priests loudly reading their Creation Legends.

It soon occurred to the Israelites that their own Creation Legends were far superior to that of Babylon; and that had them putting the storytellers from the twelve tribes at work, dictating Genesis to their own scribes.