CREATED ALL HUMAN ARE EQUAL, BUT DENYING THE TRUTH IS DENYING EQUALITY
Search for Tarsis and Ophir was directly related to the “discovery” of these islands by Magellan
"Tarsis and Ofir"
During the early period of European colonization, the Biblical lands of Tarshish and Ophir, or Tarsis and Ofir, as they were called, held the imagination of
European explorers. Not only was it believed that the "lost tribes" of Israel were to be found in these lands, but also untold wealth. To these kingdoms King
Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre sent ships for trade that "brought from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and precious stones," (I Kings 10:11). Concerning
Tarshish it is written: "Fro the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Hiram:
every three years once came the shop of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes,
and peacock." (II Chronicles 9:21)
In Samuel Purchas's well-known travel compendium Purchas His Pilgrim, he devotes the
entire first chapter to a discussion of Tarshish and Ophir. In particular, he argues strenously
that it is beloved Britain and not Spain that deserved the title as the modern Tarshish and
Ophir. Curiously, in Careri's journal of his visit to the Philippines, he mentions that he would
not go into the argument raging in Europe at that time over whether the Philippines was
originally populated by the descendants of Biblical Tarshish.
In modern times, scholars have attempted to relate Tarshish and Ophir with a number of
areas, none of which include the Philippines. However, things were different in Europe prior
to the discovery of the Philippines. There, they believed that Tarsis and Ofir were some lands
far to the east of biblical Israel. Their reasoning was actually quite logical. King Solomon built
the port from which ships departed for Tarsis and Ofir at Ezion-Geber on the coast of the
Red Sea. The return journey took about three years, so obviously the location must be
somewhere far to the East. In modern times, some scholars have tried to suggest that
Solomon's navy circumnavigated Africa to reach the Mediterranean, but the seafaring
Europeans of those times would not consider such nonsense. Tarsis and Ofir were unknown
lands beyond the Golden Chersonese of Ptolemy. Their discovery would undoubtedly bring
untold wealth and great fame in the minds of the people of those times.
But what, one may ask, has this to do with the Philippines? The truth is that the search for
Tarsis and Ofir was directly related to the "discovery" of these islands by Magellan!
People of Ophir Before Magellan
Even after their discovery, many still regarded the Philippines, rich in gold and silver, to be the same as ancient Tarsis and Ofir. Father Colin, referred to them
as such in the early 1600's and even at the turn of the century, the Philippine historian Pedro Paterno, still claimed that the Philippines were really Tarshish
and Ophir! Whatever one thinks of these claims though, the search for the Biblical El Dorado appears to have played an important role in the European
discovery of the Philippines.
“Of all our languages, the Tagalog has been adjudged the best by scholars. “I found in this language,”
said Padre Chirino, eminent Jesuit-historian, “four qualities of the four greatest languages of the world
– Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish. It has mystery and obscurities of the HEBREW..”
“History of the Filipino People”, page 24, by Gregorio F. Zaide
Pangalan ng LUMIKHA na natagpuan sa Dead Sea Scroll na binibigkas na
‘YAHWEH’
PAGHAHANDOG
Inihahandog ang mga pagsasaliksik na ito sa aking mga Magulang sina Ginoong
Alberto Arcilla Tabilog at Ginang Jovita Datu-Aca Tabilog at sa aking mga anak
sina Al-Armstrong Tabilog, Mark-Anthony Tabilog, Ann-Lorraine Tabilog,
Annie-Jubilee Tabilog, Yahshua Tabilog, YahYah-Alberto Tabilog, EliYah
Tabilog, Yahuwdah Tabilog, Yahshear Tabilog, Yahshaak Tabilog, Leonido
(Junel) Tabilog III, King James Tabilog, Buboy Tabilog, MiYah-Isabel Tabilog, sa
aking mga Apo sina YahdidiYah Tabilog, Nathaniel-YahYah Tabilog, Yahzekel
Tabilog at sa mga kapatid ko sina Alfred Tabilog, Yolanda Tabilog, Alejandro
Tabilog, Emiliana Tabilog, Erlinda Tabilog, Eluminada Santos, Lilia Santos,
Encarnacion Santos na mga Nabautismuhan sa Banal na Pangalan ni Amang
at sa Banal na Pangalan ng Dakilang Yahshear-Dath Yahshu’a
Messiah. Inihahandog din ito sa lahat ng mga Apo ni Abraham na makababasa ng
mga sinaliksik na ito. Loobin ni Amang
na Pagpalain tayo ni Amang
at ingatan, hayaan ang kaluwalhatian ni Amang
sumaating lahat at kaawaan tayo ni Amang
kapayapaan.
ay
at bigyan ng
THIS IS NOT FOR SALE
Matthew 10:5-8
These twelve
sent forth, and
commanded them, saying, Go not into
the way of the Gentiles, and into any
city of the Samaritans enter ye not:
But go rather to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel. And as ye go, preach,
saying, The kingdom of heaven is at
hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the
lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils:
freely ye have received, freely give.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page no.
1………..John 14:26
1………..How Yeshu’a Become Jesus
4………..LUCOES or LEQUIOS Islands
6……….The Philippines Was indeed The Biblical Ophir
7………..Ophir Ay Nasa Biblia
8………..Ang Sampung Datu
10………Dumating sa isla ng Panay ang Sampung Datu
11……….Where is Tarshish and Ophir
11……….Magellan and the Search for Ophir
14……….Spice Routes Sanfotsi Verified by UNESCO (Gold of Ancestors & Pre-Colonial Philippines)
19……….Laguna Copperplate Inscription
24………Forgotten Philippines: Gold of Ancestors
33………Sri-Vijaya Kingdom
36………Chinese Ming Dynasty & Islamic Influences
38……….Wikang Tagalog Sina-Unang Wikang Hebreo
44……….Retracing our Past on Pandan Leaves – Pre-Colonial Cebu
48……….According to Jose Rizal
50……….Levitang Pari ang Sampung Yahshear Dath (Sacerdote) Nasa Ophir
59……….Tanging sa Pilipinas Lamang Nanatili ang Tawag na Datu
61……….Mines Dating Back to at least 1,000 B.C. during the Time of King Solomon
71……….FOLKTALES
77……….CHRONOLOGY
89……….Tamang Pagbasa ng Biblia
96……….Pundasyon Magpakailanman iniutos ni Yahweh
110………PAANONG NAISULAT ANG BIBLIA
115………New Testament ng Biblia
143………Old Testament ng Biblia
159………New Testament ng Biblia
170………PINAGMULAN NG ENGLISH BIBLE
173………J Text, E Text, P Text, D Text
225……...Sabwatan sa Golgotha
239………The Gospel Dates
250………BAKIT NAGKAIBA-IBA ANG PAGKAKA-UNAWA SA BIBLIA
251……….LEVITA LAMANG ANG HAHAWAK NG AKLAT NI MOSES
252……….DALAWANG KAHARIAN – DALAWANG ARAL – DALAWANG KLASENG PARI
253……….ANG NAKOPYA AT UMIRAL ANG ARAL MULA SA MGA PEKENG PARI
254……….Manual of Mankind is the Bible
Name of Almighty Father in Four Letters found written in Dead Sea Scrolls pronounced “YAHWEH
”
is the Name of Messiah pronounced “Yahshu‟a”
John 14:26 “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”
The HOLY SPIRIT is the Comforter is to be send by the FATHER (
) in the
NAME ―YAHSHU‘A‖ and that HOLY SPIRIT shall TEACH us ALL THINGS, and that
HOLY SPIRIT will bring to us ALL THINGS to our REMEMBRANCE to trace the
history of the Lost Sheep of the house of Israel, Matthew 10:5 These twelve
sent
forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of
the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
That HOLY SPIRIT will be send in the name YAHSHU‟A, not in any other names. Acts
4:12 ―Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved.‖
How Yeshu‟a Become Jesus
By:JOSEPH STALLINGS
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 1
Catholic Digest January 1992 vol.32,no.6
Published in Catholic Digest January 1992 vol.32,no.6 page 17
The Mystery of the Magi
We usually don‘t think about it, but our Lord‘s name was not always Jesus. It was in fact originally the
popular Aramaic name Yeshu‘a.
In first century Judea and Galilee, the name Yeshu‘a was very common and shared fifth place with Eleazar
(Lazarus) in popularity as a name for Jewish men. The most popular male names at that time were Shime‘on
(Simon), Yosef (Joseph), Yehuda (Judah or Judas) and Yochanan (John).
In the Holy Land at the time of Christ, Aramaic had replaced Hebrew in everyday conversation, but Hebrew
remained the holy language and was used in worship and daily prayers. The rabbis also used Hebrew when
instructing their disciples. The two languages were closely related, however, as close as Italian is to Spanish,
and both used the same alphabet.
Yeshu‘a was the Aramaic version of the Hebrew name Yehoshu‘a (Joshua), and means ―Yahweh saves‖.
Throughout Christ‘s lifetime in Galilee, Samaria and Judea of course the name Yeshu‘a presented no
problem for those who spoke Aramaic and read the Bible and prayed in Hebrew. But outside the Holy Land
it become a different story as Good News spread.
The Gentiles of the Roman Empire spoke Greek and Latin and simply could not pronounce Yeshu‘a. It
contained sounds that did not exist in their language. When the Gospels were written in Greek, therefore, the
Evangelists had a real problem regarding how they might render our Lord‘s name into acceptable Greek.
The initially ‗Y‘ (Hebrew and Aramaic letter ‗yod‘) was easy. The Evangelists could use the Greek letter ‗iota‘,
written ‗I,‘ since it was pronounced like the ‗y‘ in yet.
The next sound was a vowel, and that was a little more difficult. Unlike Greek, all the letters of the AramaicHebrew alphabet are consonants. The marks for the vowels were not invented until some centuries after
Christ and were simple dots and dashes, placed above or beneath the letters. At the time of Christ
apparently, the first vowel in our Lord‘s name was pronounced like the ‗a‘ in gate. And the Evangelists
believed they could approximate that sound by using the Greek letter ‗eta‘. (The capital Greek letter looks
just like our English letter H).
Then followed the first of two almost insurmountable problems with Hebrew and Aramaic pronunciation.
There was no letter for the ‗sh‘ sound in the Greek alphabet. Such a familiar name as Solomon was actually
Sh‘lomo in Hebrew, Samson was Shimson and Samuel was Sh‘mu-El. Like the Greek translators of these Old
Testament Hebrew names, the Evangelists used the Greek sigma (s) for the Hebrew shin (sh) when
rendering Christ‘s name.
The first three Greek letters ‗iota‘, ‗eta‘, and ‗sigma‘, moreover came to be used in early Byzantine religious
art as an abbreviation of Jesus name. As they look very much like the Latin letters IHS, the letters were
adapted in Western European religious paintings and church architecture as a symbol for Christ‘s name.
The next letter in the Aramaic name Yeshu‘a was the Hebrew letter ‗waw‘, which here represents the sound
‗oo‘, as in too. It was easy for the Evangelists to duplicate this sound in Greek. It takes two letters, however,
the omicron (o) and upsilon (u).
But that easy substitution was followed by the biggest problem of all: the final ‗a‘ sound. In Greek, there was
no substitute for the Hebrew letter ‗aiyin‘. Though the ‗aiyin‘ has no sound of its own, it causes the vowel that
it controls to be pronounced deep in the throat. The Greek couldn‘t do that, and neither could the Romans
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 2
when speaking in Latin. Usually, a Greek or Roman would pronounce an ‗aiyin‘-controlled ‗a’ like the ‗a‘ in
father.
A final ‗a‘ on a name however was most commonly feminine in both Greek and Latin. Thus it was decided to
drop the Hebrew ‗aiyin‘ completely and replace it with the final Greek sigma (s) which most often indicates
the masculine gender in nouns.
Throughout the Roman Empire then our Lord‘s Aramaic name Yeshu‘a, had become the Greek name Iesous,
pronounced yeh-SOOS. And this remained Christ‘s name throughout the Roman Empire as long as Greek
remained the dominant language.
But after some centuries Greek lost its favored position and Latin took its place. In the last quarter of the
fourth century, the Bible was translated from Greek into Latin by *St. Jerome who had no trouble
rendering the Greek Iesous into Latin, it became Iesus. The accent, however, was moved to the first syllable
and the name pronounced YAY-soos, since the Romans liked to accent the second from the last syllable.
In about 14th century, in the scriptoria of the monasteries where Bibles were copied by hand, Monks began to
elongate the initial ‗I‘ of the words into a ‗J‘. (The pronounciation remained the same-like the ‗y‘ in yet but
the Monks thought a ‗J‘ looked better). Probably the first Monks to do this were Germans because the letter
‗j‘ in that language sounds the same as the ‗y‘ in English. The name Iesus, consequently, evolved into the
familiar written form of Jesus by the 17th century. Everyone still pronounced it YAY-soos, however, as it was
in the official liturgical Latin.
Way back in the fifth and sixth centuries, some pagan Germanic tribes called the Angles and Saxons invaded
England. St Augustine of Canterbury came to convert them to Christianity in A.D.396. Of course St.
Augustine established Jerome‘s Latin translation as England‘s official Bible. The Anglo-Saxon learned that
our Lord‘s official Latin name was Iesus. Naturally the Germanic Anglo-Saxon converted the initial Latin ‗I‘
into the German ‗J‘. They pronounced the name, however, as YAY-zoos, since a single ‗s‘ between two vowels
is sounded like our ‗z‘ in Germanic languages.
When the Normans invaded England in A.D.1066 they brought with them the French language. Since
neither the Anglo-Saxons nor the Normans would surrender their language to the other, the two become
wedded and eventually evolved into Modern English.
The Normans did influence the pronunciation of the first letter of Our Lord‘s name, though, they brought the
French pronunciation of ‗j‘ (jh), which evolved into our English sound of ‗j‘.
When King James commissioned the first official translation of the Bibles into English in the early 17 th
century, the Latin Iesus was carried over unchanged into the new English Bible. The average English citizen
of the day probably pronounced the name JAY-zus which ultimately evolved into our modern English JEEzus.
The long process was now complete. A name that began as the Aramaic **Yeshu‟a would remain written in
English as it was in Medieval Latin, but now would be pronounced in English speaking countries as the
familiar and loving name of the One who is our Savior, JESUS.
*St. Jerome name is Eusebius Hieronymus A.D.347 – A.D.419
**Aramaic Name “Yeshu‟a” is pronounced “Yahshu‟a” in Aramaic and “Yahshu‟a” in Hebrew
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 3
(KOLEKSYON NG MGA EBIDENSYA NA NAGPAPATUNAY SA PINAGMULAN NG MGA
NINUNO NG MGA PILIPINO)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT:
MARAMING SALAMAT SA MGA NAGSULAT NG MGA IBEDENSYA NA INYONG MABABASA NA
NAGDAGDAG AT NAGPAPATUNAY SA PINAGMULAN NG LAHING PILIPINO
Luzon Empire According to Chinese Historians
Luzon Empire (1279-1571 AD) was an ancient empire once located around Manila bay region of the Philippines. Its
capital was Tondo, its territories covered most of what is now Central Luzon, extending from delta region that surrounds
Manila Bay, all the way into the interior along head waters of the surrounding rivers in the province of Pampanga, Bulakan
(covered part now Rizal).
The history of Song Dynasty was compiled under Mongol Prime Minister Toktoghan in 1345 AD. In it the Mongols recount
tha final and complete destruction of Nan song (southern song Empire) (1127-1279 AD), where in 1279 AD the Mongol
Fleet crushed the Nan Song Navy at the Naval battle of Yamen. The loyal Minister of the Left Liu Xiufu committed suicide
with last Na Song Emperor, the children Songdi Bing rather than be captured by the Mongols.
The Grand Admiral Zhang Shijie escaped with his grand armada but were later annihilated by a typhoon while crossing
the seas. Alternative source refute the accounts of the destruction of Zhang Shijie‟s grand armada as nothing more than
Mongol propaganda since there were no eyewitness accounts of its destruction nor were there traces left of its remains.
For most historians, the fate of Zhang shijie and his grand armada remains a mystery.
Contemporary Chinese historians in Guangdong are now even questioning the Mongolian accounts regarding Emperor
Bing‟s death. Even though Mongol sources claimed that the corpse of the last emperor has been found washed ashore
along the coast of Shenzen, his actual grave is yet to be found. Cantonese folklore expressed in the ttraditional
Cantonese opera narrates an alternative account where the loyal Minister Liu Xiufu tricked the Mongols by committing
suicide with his own son disguised as the young emperor. The real emperor was said to have been smuggled out of the
scene of battle by Grand Admiral Zhang Shijie, who will eventually return to redeem the empire from the invaders. The
Travel of Marco Polo also recounts the escape of the last song emperor across the ocean. Zhang Shijie‟s fleet and the
last song emperor may have escaped to pre-colonial Philippines and established the Luzon Empire or the „Lesser Song
Empire”.
Despite the conjectures regarding its origins, the Ming Annals are clear on the actual existence of the Luzon Empire. It
records that in 1373 AD, the Luzon Empire sent its first among the many succeeding diplomat mission to the Great Ming
Empire (1368-1644 AD), accompanied by the embassies of India‟s Chola Empire.
The Ming chroniclers added the character for “kingdom”of “empire” (pinyin: GuU) after Luzon (Lusong), indicating that it
was once an independent and sovereign kingdom. Her rulers were acknowledged as king and not mere chieftains. The
Ming empire treated the Luzon Empire more favorably than Japan by allowing it to trade with china once verey two years,
while Japan was only allowed to trade once every 11 years.
Luzon empire flourished during the latter half of the Ming Dynasty when China closed its doors to foreign trade.
Foreigners were forbidden to send trade missions to China. Chinese merchants were likewise forbidden to trade beyond
the borders of the Ming Empire. Yet clandestinely, merchants from Guangzhou and Quanzhou regularly delivered trade
goods to Tondo. Luzon merchants then traded them all across Southeast Asia and were considered “Chinese” by the
people they encountered.
The Portuguese who came to Asia much earlier than the Spaniards recorded their encounter with the inhabitants of the
Luzon empire and called them „Lucoes‟. The Portuguese records that the Luzon Empire played an active role in the
politics and economy of the 16th century Southeast Asia, especially in controlling the trade traffic at the Straits of Malacca.
The Luzon Empire‟s powerful presence in the trade of Chinese goods in 16th century East asia was felt strongly by Japan,
whose merchants had to resort to piracy in order to obtain much sought after Chinese products such as silk and porcelain.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 4
Famous 16th century Japanese merchants and tea connoisseurs like Shimai Soushitsu and Kamiya Soutan established
their branches here. One famous Japanese merchant, Luzon Sukezaemon, went as far as to change his name from Naya
to Luzon.
Tondo (Tungdu in Cantonese) or the „Eastern Capital‟ has always been the traditional capital of the Luzon Empire. Its
traditional rulers were the lakandula (Kapampangan: „Lord of the Palace‟). During the reign of Paduka Sri Baginda Rajah
dan yang di Pertuan Bulkiah (1485-1521) the Kingdom of Brunai decided to break the Luzon Empire‟s monolpoly in the
China trade by attacking Tondo and establishing the city state of Mainl‟l, as a Burneian satellite. Anew dynasty under tha
Salalila was established in Manila to challenge the House of Lakand‟l, in Tondo.
When the Spaniards arrived in 1571 AD, the unity of the Luzon Empire was already threatened by the uneasy alliance of
the Three Kings of Luzon: the Rajah matanda of Sapa, the Lakandula of Tondo and Rajah Suliman III, the „rajah muda‟ or
“crown prince” of Mainl‟l and „laxamana‟ or “grand admiral” of the Macabebe Armada. Powerful states like Lubao, Betis
and Macabebe become bold enough to challenge the traditional leadership of Tondo and Mainl‟l. the Spaniards took
advantage of the chaos, played favourites with one ruler and pitted them against the other.
Rumor has it that the Spaniards had poisoned the Rajah Matanda of Mainl‟l, so as to win the support of Lakandula of
Tondo. Disregarding the legitimacy of Rajah Suliman III as „rajah muda‟, the Spaniards installed the child Rajah Bago as
the new king of Mainl‟l.
In 1571, Rajah Suliman III, the „rajah muda‟ of mainl‟l and laxamana of the Macabebe armada, challenged the Spaniards
to a naval battle at the estuary of bangkusay. The Spaniards were able to crush Rajah Suliman III and his Macabebe
armada due to the lack of support from the other rulers of the empire. The Luzon Empire was quickly overtaken by the
Spaniards. Its territories were carved out and distributed as spoils among themselves. The province of Pampanga was the
first Spanish colonial province carved out of the Luzon Empire and the people who spoke one language from Tondo to the
rest of Pampanga are now called Kapampangan.
After the collapse of the Luzon empire, the Spaniards were finally able to create their first colony in Asia, the Philippines,
named in honor of Spanish King Philip II of Spain. The name Luzon was given to the entire northern Philippine island, in
memory of the former Luzon empire.
The Luzon Empire was said to have finally ended in 1571 AD according to Spanish records.Yet the fortified cities of
Lubao and Betis continued to thrive as independent principalities of the Luzon Empire till 1572 AD.
In 1575 AD,the Spaniards executed the child king Rajah Bago and his cousin Lumanlan. The Lakandula of Tondo also
died in the same year.
In 1586 AD, the Spaniards crushed the revolt of former nobles of the Luzon Empire, in the province of Pampanga. The
revolt was based in Candaba under the leadership of Don Nicolas Mananquete and Don Juan de Manila.
In 1588 AD, the Spaniards crushed the revolt of the nobles of the Luzon Empire in Tondo. It was led by the descendants
of the Lakandula and their kinsmen with the assistance of Japanese merchants. Many of them executed or exiled and
their properties confiscated.
In 1590 AD, the King Sattha of Cambodia sent two elephants to the “King of Luzon” through his Portuguese ambassador
and requested the Luzon Empire‟s assistance in their battle against Siam. In the same year the “lords” of the Luzon
Empire were said to have been corresponding with theTaikou-sama of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, begging for
assistance to help liberate the Luzon Empire from Spaniards. Hideyoshi responded by sending a letter to the Spanish
Governor of Manila, demanding that the Spaniards leave Luzon quietly or else face a full scale invasion that would force
them out. I‟ll prepared for a Japanese invasion, the Spanish Governor of Manila decided to appease Hideyoshi by sending
gift from the Americas, including the two elephants sent by the King of Cambodia. The rulers of the old Luzon Empire who
cooperated with the Spanish overlords became the principalia of the new Spanish colony. To this day, their descendants
still play an influential role in Philippine society.
The study of Philippine history has for many years been Eurocentric, most Philippine historians have gone as far back at
the earliest Spanish records but have failed to look into the archives of neighboring countries, such as Brunei, Indonesia,
Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and China. Their dependence on the English language limits the majority of
Philippine historians from accessing volumes of materials written in Chinese and other Asian languages. As a result, the
history of the Luzon empire remains mythical in their scholastic psyche and still virtually non-existent in mainstream
Philippine History.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 5
Ancient People of Ophir
People of Ophir Now
In the book entitled Collecion General de Documentos Relativos a las Islas
Filipinas, the author has described how to locate Ophir. According to the book,
particularly in Documento No. 98, Ophir can be found by travelling from the Cape
of Good Hope in Africa, to India, to Burma, to Sumatra, to Moluccas, to Borneo,
to Sulu, to China, then finally Ophir. Ophir was said to be "[...] in front of China
towards the sea, of many islands where the Moluccans, Chinese, and Lequios met to
trade..." This group of islands could not be Japan because the Moluccans did not
get there. It could also not be Taiwan since it is not composed of "many islands."
Only the present-day Philippines could fit the description. Spanish records also did
mention of the presence of Lequious (big, bearded white men, probably descendants
of the Phoenicians, whose ships were always laden with gold and silver) in the Islands
to gather gold and silver. Other evidences have also pointed out that the Philippines
was indeed the biblical Ophir.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 6
Nagsimula ang mga Anak ni Yahweh nang likhain ni Yahweh si Adan, si Enoch ang ika-pito, si Noah ang
ika-sampu nang panahong tumaas ang tubig sa mundo. Si Heber ang ika-labinglima ay nagkaroon ng mga
anak sina Peleg at Yoktam sa panahong iyon ay nagkaiba-iba ang mga wika ng mga tao. Tinawag ang
wika ni Heber na Hebrew hango sa kanyang pangalang Heber.
Ang apo ni Heber kay Yoktam si OPHIR ay tumungo sa Silangan sa Genesis 10:30. Ang apo ni Heber kay
Peleg ang naging ninuno ni Abram. Si Abram ay tinawag ni Yahweh na Abraham. Si Abraham ay tinawag
na ―Hebrew‖ sa Genesis 14:13 ay nagkaroon ng anak si Ismael sa kanyang katulong na si Hagar at si
Yahshaak sa kanyang asawang si Sarah. Si Yahshaak ay nagkaroon ng dalawang anak si Enoch at si
Yahcoob. Si Yahcoob ay tinawag ni Yahweh na Yahshear sa Genesis 32:28. Si Yahshear ay nagkaroon ng
12 anak na lalaki at isang babae si Dinah sa kanyang apat na asawa. Ang isa sa anak ni Yahshear si
Yohseph ay ipinagbili ng kanyang mga kapatid sa dumaraang Ismaelita at dinala sa Misrayim (Egypt) at
ipinagbili sa isang Egyptian. Si Yohseph ay nakulong hanggang sa makapanghula siya sa kulungan.
Ipinatawag si Yohseph ng Paraon ng Egypt upang hulaan niya ang napanaginipan ng Paraon. Nahulaan ni
Yohseph ang panaginip at ginawa si Yohseph na prinsipe ng Egypt. Si Yohseph ay binigyan ng asawa si
Azenath na lahi ni Ismael dahil ang Alipin ay ibabalik sa kanyang pinagkunang magulang kapag natapos
na ang pagkaalipin, si Yohseph ay galing sa Ismaelita na nagbenta sa kanya sa Egyptian. Dumating sa
Egypt ang kanyang mga kapatid at magulang na si Yahshear. Nang makita ni Yahshear ang dalawang
anak ni Yohseph sina Manase at Efraim ay ibinilang na sa mga anak ni Yahshear ang dalawang anak ni
Yohseph at kung magkaanak pang muli si Yohseph ay ibibilang nalang sa lahi nila Manase at Efraim sa
Genesis 48:5-6. Ang 12 anak ni Yahshear ay naging 13 dahil nadagdag si Efraim at Manase at nabawas si
Yohseph sa bilang. Nanirahan sila sa Egypt hanggang ipinanganak si Moses na apo ni Levi na naglabas sa
kanila sa Egypto. Inihiwalay ni Yahweh ang lahi ng anak ni Yahshear na si Levi upang magsilbi bilang pari
ni Yahweh Magpakailanman sa Exodus 29:1-9.
Ang Tribo ni Yahshear ay tinawag na Yahshurun na
binibigkas na Tribo ng Yisrawale (Israel) o ―prinsipe ni Sarah‖.
Sa pagkamatay ni Moses ay pinalitan siya ni Yahshua na anak ni Nun ay inihalo ang lahat ng mga Levita
sa bawat Tribo ng Israel sa Joshua 21:1-8. Ang 13 Tribo ay naging 12 Tribong muli dahil ang Tribo ni Levi
ay inihalo sa 12 Tribo. Sa bawat Tribo ay may Levita na mababasa sa Judges 17:7.
Naghangad ng Hari ang mga Yisrawale na ikinagalit ni Yahweh at ang unang naging Hari si Saul mula sa
Tribo ng BenYahmin. Sumunod si Haring David mula sa Tribo ng Yahuwdah at ang sumunod si Haring
Solomon na anak ni Haring David. Si Haring Solomon ay nagpagawa ng maraming Barko upang lumayag
at kumuha ng mga Ginto sa OPHIR at bawat ikatlong (3) taon ay dumarating na may dalang mga ginto
galing sa OPHIR sa 1 Kings 9:26, 1 Kings 10:22, 2 Chronicles 9:21. Pagkamatay ni Haring Solomon ay
nahati ang kaharian, naging Dalawang (2) Kaharian ang Kaharian ng Tribo ni Yahuwdah at BenYahmin ay
pinamunuan ni Haring Rehoboam na anak ni Haring Solomon at ang Sampung (10) Tribo ay pinamunuan
ni Haring Yeroboam na nagmula sa tribo ng Efraim at dating katiwala ni Haring Solomon sa 1 Kings 11:26.
Sa Bawat tribo ay may nagsisilbibing Levita at namamahalang Levitang Pari sa pagsamba kay Yahweh.
Ang mga Levitang Pari ay tinatawag na Yahshear-Dath o ―Sacerdote‖ o ―Pari ni Yahshear‖, ang ―Dath‖ ay
―Pari‖, ang ―Yahshear‖ ay naisalin na ―Sacer‖ na naging ―SacerDote‖. Si Haring Yeroboam ng Sampung
(10) Tribo ng Kaharian ng Yisrawale (Israel) ay PINALITAN ang mga Levitang-Pari ng ORDINARYONG
Israelita o ―Pekeng-Pari‖ sa 1 Kings 12:31-33, 1 Kings 13:33-34 at ang Sampung (10) Yahshear Dath
(Sacerdote) o mga Levitang-Pari ng Kaharian ng Yisrawale (Israel) ay PINALAYAS ni Haring Yeroboam ay
tumungo naman sa Kaharian ng Yahuwdah sa Lungsod ng Yahrusalem (Jerusalem) at nanirahan sila ng
tatlong (3) taon doon sa 2 Chronicles 11:13-17. Sa Bawat ika-tatlong (3) taon naman ay dumarating sa
Yahrusalem ang dala ng mga Barko na ipinagawa ni Haring Solomon na nanggaling sa OPHIR sa 2
Chronicles 9:21. Ang mga Levitang-Pari ng Kaharian ng Yisrawale (Israel) na tinatawag na Yahshear
Dath o ‘Sacerdote‘ ay SUMAMA sa mga Barko ni Haring Solomon na Lumalayag patungong OPHIR.
Ang tanging naiwan lamang sa Yahrusalem na mga nagsisilbi sa Kaharian ng Tribo ng Yahuwdah at
BenYahmin ay ang mga nakatalagang Sacerdote ng Yahuwdah at BenYahmin na lahi ni Kohat.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang Sampung Tribo naman ng Israel na pinagsisilbihan ng mga ―Pekeng-Pari‖ na Israelitang-Hindi Levita
sa Kaharian ng Israel ay ipinatapon sa bansang Assyria ay ―PINALITAN‖ sila ng mga taga-Limang Bansa
(1.Abba, 2.Cutha, 3.Hammath, 4.Separvaim at 5.Babylonians) sa kanilang lupain sa 2 Kings 17:23-28.
Nakasama sa naipatapon ang mga ―Pekeng-Pari‖ na Israelitang-Hindi Levita. Pinabalik ng hari ng Assyria
sa Lungsod ng Samaria ang Isa sa ―Pekeng-Pari‖ na Israelitang-Hindi Levita upang turuan ng
pamamaraan ng pagsamba ang mamayan ng Limang (5) bansa na siyang ipinalit sa mga Israelita doon sa
kanilang lupain. Sila ay pinilit na magsalita ng Aramaic at pinagbawalang magsalita ng Hebrew sa 2 Kings
18:26. Ang tawag sa mga Sacerdote ay pinalitan ng tawag na ―Kohan‖ na salitang Aramaic na wika.
Nang panahong iyon bago masakop ang mga Israelita at bago tumakas sa barko patungong Ophir ang
mga Yahshear Dath o Lehitimong Sacerdote ng Israel, ang kulay ng kanilang balat ay ―Kayumanggi‖ sa
Songs of Solomon 1:5-6. Dala nila ang Susi (Luke 11:52) na tinatawag na ―Yawe‖. Ang salitang ―wa‖ ang
ibig sabihin ay ‗wala‘, kaya ang ―Yawa‖ ay ―wala si Ya‖ kapag wala si ―Ya‖ ay ‗dimonyo‘ ang ibig sabihin sa
wika ng taga-Ophir na lugar na pinuntahan ng mga Levitang Yahshear Dath o Lehitimong Sacerdote ng
Israel. Ang ―Yah‖ ay ang pinaikling pangalan ni Yahweh sa Psalms 68:4.
Ayon naman sa Chinese at Islamic Historians ay ang Sampung (10) Datu na Pinamunuan ni Datu Puti ay
nanirahan sa isla ng Panay, si Datu Puti kasama ang dalawa pang Datu ay tumungo sa Mindoro at Taal
(Batangas). Ang Natirang pitong (7) Datu ay tumungo sa Sugbu (Cebu), Samar at Ybalon (Bicol). Ang
mga Datu ang pinaniniwalaang pinagmulan ng wikang Tagalog at wikang Bisaya (Hiligaynon sa Hebreo
ang ―Higaynon‖ ang ibig sabihin ay ―solemn sound‖) at wikang Bicol na malaking porsyento ay
magkakatulad.
Nang dumating ang mga Kastila ay pinatunayan naman ni Padre Pedro Chirino isang Kastilang Jesuit
Historian na ang wikang Tagalog ay may misteryo at pagkakahawig sa wikang Hebreo na wika ng mga
Sacerdote (Yahshear dath) ng Israel na dumating sa tawag na Datu.
Ang Sampung Datu:
1. Datu
2. Datu
3. Datu
4. Datu
5. Datu
6. Datu
7. Datu
8. Datu
9. Datu
10. Datu
Puti
Sumakwel
Bangkaya
Paiborong
Paduhinogan
Dumangsol
Libay
Dumangsil
Domalogdog
Balensuela
Dath
Dath
‫תד‬
‫תד‬
1) decree, law, edict, regulation, usage ,a) decree, edict, commission, b) law, rule
dath <1881> Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew Dictionary
Pronunciation:
Dawth (dawthu)
Definition:
1) decree, law, edict, regulation, usage
1a) decree, edict, commission
1b) law, rule
of uncertain (perhaps foreign) derivation: a royal edict or
statute:-commandment, commission, decree, law, manner.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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DaTH
I used to think of DaTH (dawth) as meaning void, since that's the way the fluffy bunny new age kabbalah books present it. I was
curious one day and decided to see if the word was in the Bible (in Hebrew version) and found that it means something like the Law
written in our hearts, a kosmic consciousness that lets us know if we are in sync with the Tao That Be (or however you want to
describe it). Here are a few of my notes on my research into DaTH.
Go on a spiritual quest to find values you can hold up as being what you stand for. You have found your inner DaTH. You have
found the law written in your heart. What is law? A king gives a decree or edict that is the expression of the king’s will. *Esther 3:14,
8:13, 9:14] There was the concept that once a king issued this DaTH, it cannot be altered or revoked. [Daniel 2:15, 6:16] DaTH is
entrusted to people. In the case of civil law, this DaTH is in the hands of judges, enforced by police, argued by lawyers, voted
upon and recorded by politicians.
The Israelites had the concept of the
ToWRaH
being the
DaTH of Yahweh. Ezra was given the title of Secretary of the
irrevocable DaTH of the Almighty of heaven. [Ezra 7:2, 1 Esdras 8:9] The irrevocability of the DaTH from Yahweh was not
questioned by Yahshua. Yahshua was not out to destroy the ToWRaH representing the DaTH from Yahweh, but to bring it to life in
the hearts of people. [Matthew 5:17] He was not getting out a giant cosmic eraser. What he
challenged was that DaTH of Yahweh was complete and contained in scriptures and traditions. He
offered that DaTH of Yahweh can be known in the heart, directly experienced, with continued
insights into this DaTH, renewed revelation, and ongoing prophecy.
This was not anti-Jewish at all. The idea was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jews continued to
redefine DaTH with the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Kabbalah, and to this day with books being
published, web sites being built, deeper insights explored and lived out.
Here is something you can count on to be true for your entire life —
CHoKMaH/Sophia and
DaTH are treasures that will be your salvation. The greatest treasure comes from uniting with
Yahweh. [Isaiah33:6].
A treasure is a reward after following a treasure hunt. A gift is never really valued as a treasure.
YAHWEH with a multitude approaches, from his right hand comes a shining
DaTH. [Deuteronomy 33:2] DaTH is the invisible
SHiPHRaH, the Law in the heart of Yahweh. DaTH is Law, but DaTH is also having an active conscious, a living Law written in the
heart. DaTH is being conscious of the will of
Yahweh, which we can concentrate upon, which we can be mindful of, which can
direct our view of what Yahweh wants in each given situation. DaTH is beyond memorizing a collection of ancient rules. DaTH is a
living part of each of us. I would dare say that people who have never heard one word of religion still know that it would be
wrong to go on a murdering spree or steal from the neighbors when they are not at home. The commandments part of ToWRaH
are not the
DaTH, but are examples of using the DaTH in specific situations. The DaTH extends far beyond the few ancient
case-by-case examples of what would not be acceptable behavior. Thus the Jewish/Kabbalist quest for the invisible DaTH is much
like the Gnostic quest for direct connect, for gnosis. Maybe it is invisible because it is from another dimension, that light trapped in
the darkness, our core Messiah’s Consciousness, our native our Nature.
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - Dath Mosha
Middle Eastern and North African Jewish community headdress may also resemble that of the ancient Israelites. In Yemen, the wrap
around the cap was called ‫ ַמ ַצַר‬massar; the head covering worn by all women according to Dath Mosha was a ‫" גַרגּוש‬Gargush"
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Dumating sa isla ng Panay ang Sampung (10) Datu Sakay ng
“Balangay” na Pinamunuan ni Datu Puti
Balangay boat dated 320 A.D. The wooden boats measured an average of 15 meters in length which said
to carry the first settlers of Butuan. To date, 9 Balangays have already been discovered in Ambangan,
Libertad sites. Aside from the remains of the Balangay boats also found the remains of the early settlers.
The Balangay is a cultural heritage that establishes the maritime activities of Butuan long before the
Chinese came to the shores of the Philippines.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang mga pulu-pulong isla sa Malayu na tinatawag ng mga
Nabigador na OPHIR ay tinawag na LUCOES o LEQUIOS ng mga
Portuguese, tinawag naman na FELIPINAS ng mga Kastila.
"Where is Tarshish and Ophir"
The truth is that the search for “Tarsis and Ofir” was directly related to the "discovery" of
these islands by Magellan!
During the early period of European colonization, the Biblical lands of Tarshish and Ophir, or Tarsis and
Ofir, as they were called, held the imagination of European explorers. Not only was it believed that the
"lost tribes" of Israel were to be found in these lands, but also untold wealth. To these kingdoms King
Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre sent ships for trade that "brought from Ophir great plenty of almug trees,
and precious stones," (I Kings 10:11). Concerning Tarshish it is written: "Fro the king's ships went to
Tarshish with the servants of Hiram: every three years once came the shop sof Tarshish bringing gold and
silver, ivory, and apes, and peacock." (II Chronicles 9:21)
In Samuel Purchas's well-known travel compendium Purchas His Pilgrim, he devotes the entire first
chapter to a discussion of Tarshish and Ophir. In particular, he argues strenously that it is beloved Britain
and not Spain that deserved the title as the modern Tarshish and Ophir. Curiously, in Careri's journal of
his visit to the Philippines, he mentions that he would not go into the argument raging in Europe at that
time over whether the Philippines was originally populated by the descendants of Biblical Tarshish.
In modern times, scholars have attempted to relate Tarshish and Ophir with a number of areas, none of
which include the Philippines. However, things were different in Europe prior to the discovery of the
Philippines. There, they believed that Tarsis and Ofir were some lands far to the east of biblical Israel.
Their reasoning was actually quite logical. King Solomon built the port from which ships departed for
Tarsis and Ofir at Ezion-Geber on the coast of the Red Sea. The return journey took about three years, so
obviously the location must be somewhere far to the East. In modern times, some scholars have tried to
suggest that Solomon's navy circumnavigated Africa to reach the Mediterranean, but the seafaring
Europeans of those times would not consider such nonsense. Tarsis and Ofir were unknown lands beyond
the Golden Chersonese of Ptolemy. Their discovery would undoubtedly bring untold wealth and great fame
in the minds of the people of those times.
But what, one may ask, has this to do with the Philippines? The truth is that the search for Tarsis and
Ofir was directly related to the "discovery" of these islands by Magellan!
Magellan and the Search for Ophir
Magellan's contemporary, Duarte Barbosa, wrote that the people of Malacca (in modern Malaysia) had
described to him an island group known as the Lequios whose people were as "rich and more eminent
than the Chins (Chinese)," and that traded "much gold, and sliver in bars, silk, rich cloth, and much very
good wheat, beautiful porcelains and many other merchandises." However, Barbosa was not the only one
to mention the Lequios during Magellan's time. About a decade after Magellan's voyage, Ferdinand Pinto
had wrote in his journal of the experience of his crew and himself after being shipwrecked on the Lequios!
Pinto was traveling through the Malay Archipelago at the time and he describes the Lequios islands (see
Luzon Empire) as belonging to large group of islands many of which were rich in gold and silver. He
mentions that at that time the Portugese were familiar with Japan and China, and also with the island of
"Mindanaus" or Mindanao, so the Lequois islands must have been somewhere between these two areas.
Furthermore, Pinto even goes as far as to give the exact latitude of the main Lequios island. He states that
is was situated at 9N20 latitude and that the island was on a merdian similar to that of Japan.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 11
Now, in Magellan's time all exploration was done by latitude sailing and dead reckoning, as no navigational
clocks were in use. Latitude sailing required fixing one's latitude precisely by means of an astrolabe.
Longitude could only be approximated roughly by using a patent log to track the distance the ship has
travelled in any particular direction. When Magellan began to suspect he was nearing the region of the
Moluccas he deliberately steered on a north course and then turned westward at a latitude of 13 degrees
North according to both Pigafetta and Albo. Pigafetta states that the reason was to get near the port of
"Gaticara" which was the Cattigara mentioned by Ptolemy. In the book, Magellan's Voyage around the
World, the author, Charles E. Nowell, offers another possible reason for Magellan steering so far to the
north of the Moluccas. He notes that Magellan himself had rewrote part of Barbosa's book referring to the
Lequios, and in his version Magellan substituted "Tarsis" and "Ofir" for the world "Lequios."
Although these lands are not mentioned in Magellan's contract, less than six years after his voyage,
Sebastian Cabot signed a contract with Spain which did have as one of its objectives the "lands of Tarshish
and Ophir." Magellan had been to Malacca himself, and probably many have heard of the community of
Filipino workers and merchants that lived there under the protection of the king of Malacca. Probably
many of you already know of the theory that Black Henry, the slave Magellan purchased at Malacca, may
have belonged to the Filipino community of Malacca as he was able to speak with the natives at Limasawa.
Whatever the case, we know from his own pen that Magellan thought the Lequios islands might be the
same as the Biblical Tarsis and Ofir, and it may be that his idea of the position of the Lequios was partly
shaped by Barbosa's book, and partly by information he may have received from Filipinos in Malacca. Was
the fact that Black Henry was able to converse with the people living at the latitude given by Pinto (but
not with the people of Samar or Leyte) a coincidence, or something planned in advance from information
gleaned in Malacca?
Even after their discovery, many still regarded the Philippines, rich in gold and silver, to be the same as
ancient Tarsis and Ofir. Father Colin, referred to them as such in the early 1600's and even at the turn of
the century, the Philippine historian Pedro Paterno, still claimed that the Philippines were really Tarshish
and Ophir! Whatever one thinks of these claims though, the search for the Biblical El Dorado appears to
have played an important role in the European discovery of the Philippines.
Ferdinand Magellan
While in the service of Spain, the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) led the first
European voyage of discovery to circumnavigate the globe. Ferdinand Magellan was born in Oporto of
noble parentage. Having served as a page to the Queen, Magellan entered the Portuguese service in the
East in 1505. He went to East Africa and later was at the battle of Diu, in which the Portuguese destroyed
Egyptian naval hegemony in the Arabian Sea. He went twice to Malacca, the Malayan spice port,
participating in its conquest by the Portuguese. He may also have gone on an exploratory mission to the
Molucca Islands (Spice Islands), the original source of some of the most valuable spices.
In 1513 Magellan was wounded in one of the many frustrating battles against the Moors in North Africa.
But all of his services brought him little favor from the Crown, and in 1517, accompanied by his friend the
cosmographer Ruy Faleiro, he went to Seville, where he offered his services to the Spanish court.
The famous Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) had divided the overseas world of the "discoveries" between the
two powers. Portugal acquired everything from Brazil eastward to the East Indies; the Spanish hemisphere
of discovery and conquest ran westward from Brazil to 134°E meridian. This eastern area had not yet
been explored by the Spaniards, and they assumed that some of the Spice Islands might lie within their
half of the globe. They were wrong, but Magellan's scheme was to test that assumption. In addition it
must be recalled that Columbus had made a terrible mistake, brought home by his "discovery" of America.
Accepting the academic errors of learned geographers, ancient and modern, he had grossly
underestimated the distance between Europe and the East (sailing westward from the former). Balboa's
march across the Panamanian Isthmus had subsequently revealed the existence of a "South Sea" (the
Pacific) on the other side of Columbus's "mainlands in the Ocean Sea." Thereafter, explorers eagerly
sought northern and southern all-water passages across the stumbling block of the Americas; Magellan,
too, sought such a passage.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 12
Major Voyage
King Charles V of Spain (the emperor Charles V) endorsed the design of Magellan and Faleiro, and on
Sept. 20, 1519, after a year's preparation, Magellan led a fleet of five ships out into the Atlantic.
Unfortunately the ships - the San Antonio, Trinidad, Concepción, Victoria, and Santiago - were barely
seaworthy, and the crews, including some officers, were of international composition and of dubious
loyalty to their leader. With Magellan went his brother-in-law, Duarte Barbosa, and the loyal and able
commander of the Santiago, João Serrão. Arriving at Brazil, the fleet sailed down the South American
coast to the Patagonian bay of San Julián, where it wintered from March to August 1520. There an
attempted mutiny was squelched, with only the top leaders being punished. Thereafter, however, the
Santiago was wrecked, and its crew had to be taken aboard the other vessels.
Leaving San Julián, the fleet sailed southward; on Oct. 21, 1520, it entered the Strait of Magellan. It
proceeded cautiously, taking over a month to pass through the strait. During this time the master of the
San Antonio deserted and sailed back to Spain, and so only three of the original five ships entered the
Pacific on November 28. There followed a long, monotonous voyage northward through the Pacific, and it
was only on March 6, 1521, that the fleet finally anchored at Guam.
Magellan then passed eastward to Cebu in the Philippines, where, in an effort to gain the favor of a local
ruler, he became embroiled in a local war and was slain in battle on April 27, 1521; Barbosa and Serrão
were killed shortly thereafter. With the crew wasted from sickness, the survivors were forced to destroy
the Concepción, and the great circumnavigation was completed by a courageous former mutineer, the
Basque Juan Sebastián del Cano. Commanding the Victoria, he picked up a small cargo of spices in the
Moluccas, crossed the Indian Ocean, and traveled around the Cape of Good Hope from the east. With a
greatly reduced crew he finally reached Seville on Sept. 8, 1522. In the meantime the Trinidad,
considered unfit to make the long voyage home, had tried to beat its way against contrary winds back
across the Pacific to Panama. The voyage revealed the vast extent of the northern Pacific, but the attempt
failed, and the Trinidad was forced back to the Moluccas. There its crew was jailed by the Portuguese, and
only four men returned after 3 years to Spain.
Magellan's project brought little in the way of material benefit to Spain. The Portuguese were well
entrenched in the East, their trans-African route at that time proving to be the only feasible maritime
connection to India and the Spice Islands. Charles V acknowledged the political and economic facts by
selling his vague East Indian rights to Portugal, rights that were later in part resumed with the Spanish
colonization of the Philippines. Yet though nearly destroying itself in the process, the Magellan fleet for the
first time revealed in a practical fashion the full extent of humanity's inheritance upon this globe. And in
this, its scientific aspect, it proved to be the greatest of all the "conquests" undertaken by the gold-,
slave-, and spice-seeking overseas adventurers of early modern Europe.
Further Reading
A primary source is the narrative of Antonio Pigafetta, principal chronicler of the expedition, Magellan's
Voyage around the World by Antonio Pigafetta, translated by James A. Robertson (2 vols., 1906). The
Pigafetta translation and other source narratives are included in Charles E. Nowell, ed., Magellan's Voyage
around the World: Three Contemporary Accounts (1962). The best works on Magellan, by Jean Denuce
and Jose Toribio Medina, are in Spanish. In English, Francis H. H. Guillemard, The Life of Ferdinand
Magellan (1890), is still good. Another study is Charles M. Parr, So Noble a Captain: The Life and Times of
Ferdinand Magellan (1953; 2d ed. entitled Ferdinand Magellan, Circumnavigator, 1964). George E. Nunn,
in The Columbus and Magellan Concepts of South American Geography (1932), shows the Magellan
voyage to have been a logical consequence of the final views of the Columbus brothers.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 13
Gold of Ancestors &Pre-Colonial Philippines
It's time we know our Lost Core Identity
These might change most people's point of view that the Pre-colonial Philippines is
like a No Man's Land in the middle of the ocean with no trade contacts with its
neighbors and that we owe to our colonizers our culture and civilization:
Map of Spice Routes or Maritime Silk route as verified by UNESCO:
He who controls the spice, controls the universe.‖ Such were the words uttered by the main character of
the movie Dune based on the Frank Herbert science fiction epic of the same name. In the story, the spice
was the lifeblood of a vast empire. For the leaders of this empire, it was essential that at all times ‗the
spice must flow.‘
The spice trade of the Dune movie was no doubt inspired by the historical trade in aromatics from ancient
times to the present. At various periods in history, spices have been as valuable as gold and silver.
According to a 15th century saying: ―No man should die who can afford cinnamon.‖
The aromatic substances were even more mysterious as they were connected in many cultures with the
idea of a faraway paradise -- Eden. The Muslim writer al-Bukhari wrote that Sumatran aloeswood known
as `Ud in Arabic filled the censers of Paradise. Ginger was the other major aromatic of Paradise in Muslim
tradition. In the Travels of Sir John Mandeville it is said that the aloeswood of the Great Khan came from
Paradise.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 14
We will show that the famed spices which traveled from Africa to the Arabian traders and from thence to
the markets of the classical Mediterranean world had their ultimate origin in Southeast Asia. The aromatic
trail known as the ―Cinnamon Route‖ began somewhere in the Malay Archipelago, romantically known as
the ―East Indies,‖ and crossed the Indian Ocean to the southeastern coast of Africa.
The spices may have landed initially at Madagascar and they eventually were transported to the East
African trading ports in and around the city known in Greco-Roman literature as Rhapta. Merchants then
moved the commodities northward along the coast. In Roman times, they traveled to Adulis in Ethiopia
and then to Muza in Yemen and finally to Berenike in Egypt. From Egypt they made their way to all the
markets of Europe and West Asia.1
The beginning of the trade is hinted at in Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions during the New Kingdom
period about 3,600 years ago. The Pharoahs of Egypt opened up special relationships with the kingdom of
Punt to the south. Although the Egyptians knew of Punt long before this period, it was during the New
Kingdom that we really start hearing of important trade missions to that country that included large
cargoes of spices. Particularly noteworthy are the marvelous reliefs depicting the trade mission of Queen
Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty
The idea of an ancient trade route to the east for spices and also precious metals like gold and silver is not
new. The Jewish historian Josephus, writing in the first century AD, offered his explanation of the Biblical
story of Solomon and Hiram‘s joint trade mission to the distant land of Ophir. In his Antiquities of the
Jews, he said the voyages which began from the Red Sea port of Ezion-geber were destined for the island
of Chryse far to the east in the Indian Ocean. Ezion-geber was near the modern city of Eilat in Israel and
the trade voyages took three years to complete according to the Old Testament account2. Where then was
the island of Chryse mentioned by Josephus? Greek geographers usually placed it east of the Ganges river
mouth. Medieval writings placed it near where the Indian Ocean met the Pacific Ocean. In modern times,
Chryse has been equated by scholars with the land known in Indian literature as Suvarnadvipa. Both
Chryse and Suvarnadvipa mean ―Gold Island.‖ The latter was also located in Indian writings well to the
east of India in the ―Southern Ocean‖ and is identified by most scholars with the Malay Archipelago (―the
East Indies‖).
Josephus‘ theory of voyages to Southeast Asia was supported indirectly about a half-century later by Philo
of Byblos who translated the History of Phoenicia by Sanchuniathon. This translation was originally
considered a fraud by modern scholars, but discoveries from Ras Shamra in the Levant indicate Philo‘s
work was authentic. They are important because they come from a different historical source than the Old
Testament account.
Philo records the Phoenician version of Solomon and Hiram‘s trade mission to Ophir. What is interesting is
how Philo‘s account allows us to interpret some arcane Hebrew passages. He outlines journeys into the
Erythraean Sea (Indian Ocean) that took three years to complete. The items brought back from the
journey were apes, peacocks and ivory all products of tropical Asia and all included along with other goods
in the Biblical account.
Philo‘s interpretation of Sanchuniathon‘s history uses words for the products of the voyages which clearly
point to tropical Asia unlike the strange terms used a thousand years earlier in Solomon‘s time. The
romantic idea of distant Ophir may have inspired the explorer Magellan on his circumnavigation voyage
around the world in the 16th century. The explorer replaced geographical locations in his reference books
with the names ―Tarsis and Ofir,‖ the equivalent in his time of Biblical ―Tarshish and Ophir.‖ 3 He actually
set a course on the latitude of one of these locations before reaching the islands of the Visayas from the
East.
In the medieval and early colonial period, commentators on classical Greco-Roman literature first began
hinting that the Cinnamon Route might trace eventually from Africa to the east in Asia. Many of the terms
used for spices in early works are obscure and can be difficult to identify. The commentators interpreted
these terms into the contemporary language at a time when the knowledge of the world had greatly
increased. In most cases, we can confidently associate these latter spice names with species that we know
today.
Thus, when the ancient writer Pliny mentions tarum as a product of East Africa we understand it as
aloeswood because later commentators translate tarum with a word that is no longer obscure: lignum aloe
―aloeswood.‖ By the time of the commentators, the source of the aloeswood was already well-known. Pliny
mentions tarum as coming from the land that produced cinnamon and cassia in Africa. But the
commentators give it an identity which clearly indicates a tropical Asian origin in their time.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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So why were these Asian products turning up in African markets? Pliny is the only writer who attempts an
explanation and the related passages have been the source of much scholarly controversy. The details will
be discussed later in this book, but the historian James Innes Miller was possibly the first modern scholar
to put on his glasses and use Pliny and other evidence to suggest that Austronesian traders had brought
spices to African markets via a southern maritime route. Miller connected the spice route with the
prehistoric settlement of Madagascar by Austronesian seafarers. spices from southern China and both
mainland and insular Southeast Asia were brought by Austronesian merchants whom he associates with
the people known to the Chinese by the names Kunlun and Po-sse.
Miller‘s book was the defining work of his time and it still has a profound influence on historians of trade
and seafaring. However, classical historians, philologists and other scholars had mixed views on Miller‘s
thesis. A number of alternative theories sprung up and Miller was criticized, sometimes rightfully so, with
using too many loosely-established ideas to support his argument. One of our main goals will be to use
newer evidence along with some apparently missed by Miller to show that, for the most part, his idea of a
southern transoceanic route was correct.
In addition to Miller‘s Cinnamon Route, there also existed a ―Clove Route‖ to China and India.
The evidence for these early spice routes comes from every available field including history, archaeology,
linguistics, genetics and anthropology. For example, we can show by a process of elimination that a
southern route for tropical Asian spices into Africa is historical. The exact details of this route are not
known to us from history but the route itself is the only reasonable conclusion given the historical sources
at our disposal. We can then bolster the testimony of history by bringing in supporting evidence from
other fields.
One way we do this is to show that certain cultural items that came from Southeast Asia, or at least
tropical Asia, were diffused first to the southeastern coast of Africa before moving northward at dates that
are supportive of our thesis. One example is the diffusion of the domestic chicken (Galllus gallus) to
Africa. The oldest archaeological remains of this species may date back to 2,800 BCE from Tanzania.4 The
earliest similar evidence in Egypt is not earlier than the New Kingdom period about 1,000 years later. To
support this finding, there is additional evidence provided by the presence of the double outrigger5,
barkcloth, various types of musical instruments6 and other cultural items present on the southeastern
African coast. Possibly also the distribution of the coconut crab7, the world‘s largest land-based
invertebrate also provides evidence for this early southern contact.
An important factor in ascertaining the old spice routes from Southeast Asia is the trail of cloves from
Maluku and the southern Philippines north to South China and Indochina and then south again along the
coast to the Strait of Malacca. From there the cloves went to India spice markets and points further west.
This north-south direction of commerce through the Philippines has recently been recognized by UNESCO
as part of the ancient maritime spice route. The Philippine-Maluku hub persisted into Muslim times and is
chronicled in Arabic historical and geographic writings.
While the clove route started in the south, cinnamon trade began in the north. The cinnamon route started
in the cinnamon and cassia-producing regions of northern Indochina and southern China and then likely
proceeded from South China spice ports southward during the winter monsoon down the Philippine
corridor. The route likely turned southeast at that point to Sumatra and/or Java to pick up different
varieties of cinnamon and cassia along with aloeswood and benzoin. From southwestern Indonesia the
voyage then took the Austronesian merchants across the great expanse of the Indian Ocean to Africa.
Linguistically the clove route is supported by the distribution of names for ginger in the Malay Archipelago.
These appear to have followed the clove route from China through the Philippines to the rest of insular
Southeast Asia.
In the medieval Chinese and Muslim texts we first get specific details about these routes although they
probably were unchanged from the ones used centuries or thousands of years earlier. The Chinese records
in particular give detailed itineraries including directions and voyage length for each stop along the way to
the southern spice markets. Of particular importance are the entrepots known to the Chinese as Sanfotsi
and Toupo. The same marketplaces were likely known to the Muslim geographers likely by the names of
Zabag and Waqwaq respectively.
Like Chryse of the Greeks and Suvarnadvipa of the Indians, these entrepots were a source of wonder and
literary romance. In the One Thousand and One Nights, Sinbad travels to Zabag on one of his voyages
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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and the islands of Waqwaq are the setting for the adventure of Hassan of Basra. Indian literature also
abounds in tales of voyages to the islands of gold by those in search of treasure, either material or
spiritual.
From the Arabic literature, we start to learn of first-hand accounts of trade and other voyages by mariners
from Southeast Asia to Africa. Previously, we had only the vague accounts of Solomon‘s journey and
Pliny‘s brief descriptions of long sea voyages from or to the cinnamon country. The Muslim works tell us of
ships and people from Zabag and Waqwaq coming to African ports for trade and even on occasion to
conduct military raids. The records give the impression of well-established trade relationships, but just
how long did these long-distance ties exist before the Muslim writings?
We believe is a strong case for this trade opening up by at least the New Kingdom period in Egypt. At that
time, voyages to the divine land of Punt became more frequent with large fleets bringing back impressive
hauls of tribute for the Pharaoh. While the hard evidence is still fragmentary, the quantity and quality of
this evidence is still comparable to those of other established theories. We simply come to the most logical
conclusions based on the historical records, and how these records should be interpreted based on the
evidence.
Rome‘s discovery of the monsoon trade winds did not have any significant impact as the Roman ships
mainly plied the waters between the Ptolemaic port of Berenike and the ports along the coast of eastern
Africa and western India. The Romans apparently did not interfere much at these ports and only
established minor trading colonies if any in these areas. The wave of Islam into East Africa was probably
the strongest factor in closing the southern spice route.
Muslim traders managed to convert the local populations, and in the process, must have greatly
complicated preexisting trade relationships. The Muslim merchants in their dhows moving eastward would
have eventually discovered the sources of cinnamon and cassia. Then it was only a matter of time before
the caliphate would be able to eliminate the African ports in favor of direct import to Arab entrepots. This
was not an immediate process though.
The Muslim geographers and historians still record trade activity between Africa and Southeast Asia in
aloeswood, tortoise-shell, iron and other products centuries after the Arabs had established themselves on
the Tanzanian coast. By the time the Portuguese reached this area though it appears this trade had
disappeared. All that was left were traces of the Austronesian contact including the local boats with their
outriggers and lateen sails made of coconut fiber.
With the end of the cinnamon route and the advent of the European control of the spice trade, the
Austronesian component of this commerce almost completely faded away. However, some three thousand
years of spice trade from the New Kingdom to the late Muslim period left a lasting legacy that reshaped
the world. The vision of an El Dorado of gold and spices tempted romantics and kings alike. For centuries,
the Arabs had controlled the Mediterranean part of the spice trade by keeping secret the monsoon sources
of the precious commodities. Eventually the Roman empire discovered the monsoon routes as opposed to
earlier costly voyages that involved closely following the shoreline. However, it took some time before
they could discover the real sources of the spices they treasured so much.
When the Alexandrian merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes ventured to find these sources in the sixth century
ACE, many of these secrets were just coming to light. However, it was a little too late. The meteoric rise
of Islam closed off any further European exploration or exploitation of the spice routes. Conversely, a
whole new world was opened up for the merchants of the Muslim world. Their newly found power allowed
them to venture deep into Asia as never before. The Islamic texts give the first detailed descriptions of the
emporiums of the East. By at least the ninth century, a massive trade ensued between the two regions
greatly enriching the the Islamic caliphate. Magnificent cities and buildings were constructed throughout
the Muslim lands at the same time that Europe sunk into the dark ages. The Arabic writers also tell of
great kingdoms and empires of the East including the fabled cities of the Khmers and the island domains
of the Mihraj (Maharaja) of Zabag.
Europe would get another chance centuries later when a charismatic leader arose out of a hitherto
unknown nomadic tribe of the steppe. Chingiss Khan, also known as Genghis Khan, rode out of the
wastelands of Central Asia with his Mongol armies on epic conquests. Among the empires destroyed in the
Great Khan‘s path was the Islamic Caliphate. The fall of Baghdad again opened the Silk Road and the
maritime spice route to the merchants and adventurers of Europe. One of the first to take up the
challenge of the East was Marco Polo. The records of his travels along with those of other Europeans who
ventured east rekindled the urge to link with the long-lost spice Eden of the east. The Portuguese were the
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 17
first to take up the gauntlet establishing bases at Goa in India and Malacca on the Malay Peninsula. Others
followed including the powerful Dutch East Indian Company.
The quest for spices and precious metals ushered in what is known as the Age of Exploration. Magellan‘s
personal documents indicated his desire to find the golden islands of Tarshish and Ophir. The explorer
Sebastian Cabot was appointed as commander of an expedition ―to discover the Moluccas, Tarsis, Ophir,
Cipango and Cathay.‖ The fight to control the flow of cloves, nutmeg, black pepper, gold, silver and other
commodities led to the circumnavigation of Africa and the world, and the exploration of the Western
hemisphere and the Pacific Ocean.
The coming of the Europeans nearly completely excluded the native Austronesian merchants from the
trade. The same people who in the Muslim annals were sailing to East Africa to engage in commerce now
where often prevented even from participating in merchant activity from city to city or island to island in
their own region. Only after Southeast Asia freed itself from Western colonialism has this ancient
wonderland of entrepots regained direct control its own trade again. Today, the nations of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have formed a unique organization designed to enhance commerce in
the region. Indeed, ASEAN is really the model for the entire Asian region. Even developed Asian nations
like Japan and South Korea have looked to ASEAN as the model for regional trade cooperation.
Today, manufactured goods from sneakers to computers are more important exports that spices or
precious metals, although these latter items continue to hold their own. The region has also come to be a
leader in a completely different type of trade – the human trade. Southeast Asia is the world‘s largest
exporter of human labor. Seafarers , nurses, doctors, domestics, constructions workers, computer
programmers and almost every other kind worker including those in illegal trades come from the
Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia or other nations in the area and can be found in almost every
country of the world.
Many analysts believe the geopolitics of the area will again bring Southeast Asia to the center of the
world‘s stage. Most of the goods shipped around the globe still travel by sea, and Southeast Asia is the
main hub for trade between Asia and the rest of the world. The volume of trade activity has been growing
faster here than any other area of the world and most expect this trend to continue. The region‘s great
natural diversity may again come into play as the ageing populations of the developed world look for new
medicines and natural cures from Southeast Asia‘s biological resources.
According to one theory, the great Austronesian migrations of prehistory began with the flooding of the
Sundaland continent, which also created the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The region‘s natural
treasures provided the wayfaring Austronesians with items of the trade that became valued in distant
lands. Then, as now, a combination of natural forces thrust the people of Southeast Asia into a crucial role
in the course of world history.
An important factor in ascertaining the old spice routes from Southeast Asia is the trail of cloves from Maluku and the southern
Philippines north to South China and Indochina and then south again along the coast to the Strait of Malacca.
From there the cloves went to India spice markets and points further west. This north-south direction of commerce through
the Philippines has recently been recognized by UNESCO as part of the ancient maritime spice route. The PhilippineMaluku hub persisted into Muslim times and is chronicled in Arabic historical and geographic writings.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Laguna Copperplate Inscription

Document written in year 900 A.D.
This was found on 1989 at the shore of Laguna de Ba'y in Laguna, Philippines is a written document
before the arrival of Spaniards in the Philippine. The size is
8 x 12 inches and now at the National
Museum of the Philippines.
Line 1:
swasti shaka warshatita 822 waisakha masa ding jyotisha. chaturthi krishnapaksha soLine 2:
mawara sana tatkala dayang angkatan lawan dengannya sanak barngaran si bukah
Line 3:
anakda dang hwan namwaran di bari waradana wi shuddhapat(t)ra ulih sang pamegat senapati di tunduLine 4:
n barja(di) dang hwan nayaka tuhan pailah jayadewa. di krama dang hwan namwaran dengan dang kayaLine 5:
stha shuddha nu di parlappas hutangda wale(da)nda kati 1 suwarna 8 di hadapan dang hwan nayaka tuhan puLine 6:
liran ka sumuran. dang hwan nayaka tuhan pailah barjadi ganashakti. dang hwan nayaka tuLine 7:
han binwangan barjadi bishruta tathapi sadanda sanak kaparawis ulih sang pamegat deLine 8:
wata [ba]rjadi sang pamegat medang dari bhaktinda di parhulun sang pamegat. ya makanya sadanya anak
Line 9:
chuchu dang hwan namwaran shuddha ya kaparawis di hutangda dang hwan namwaran di sang pamegat dewata. ini gerang
Line 10:
syat syapanta ha pashchat ding ari kamudyan ada gerang urang barujara welung lappas hutangda dang hwa ...
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Translation by Antoon Postma an expert from Indonesia
Line 1:
Hail! In the Saka-year 822; the month of March-April; according to the astronomer: the 4th day of the dark half of the moon; on
Line 2:
Monday. At that time, Lady Angkatan together with her relative, Bukah by name,
Line 3:
the child of His Honor Namwran, was given, as a special favor, a document of full acquittal, by the Chief and Commander of Tundun,
Line 4:
the former Leader of Pailah, Jayadewah. To the effect that His Honor Namwran, through the Honorable Scribe
Line 5:
was totally cleared of a debt to the amount of 1 kati and 8 suwarna (weight of gold), in the presence of His Honor the Leader of
Puliran,
Line 6:
Kasumuran; His Honor the Leader of Pailah, namely: Ganasakti; (and) His Honor the Leader
Line 7:
of Binwangan, namely: Bisruta. And (His Honor Namwran) with his whole family, on orders by the Chief of Dewata,
Line 8:
representing the Chief of Mdang, because of his loyalty as a subject (slave?) of the Chief, therefore all the descendants
Line 9:
of His Honor Namwran have been cleared of the whole debt that His Honor owed the Chief of Dewata. This (document) is (issued) in
case
Line 10:
there is someone, whosoever, some time in the future, who will state that the debt is not yet acquitted of His Honor...
Translation by Hector Santos of the Philippines
Since I first started studying this document in 1994, I have developed some ideas that are different from those first reported by
Antoon Postma. Of course, my conclusions were only made possible by his pioneering work, the initial breakthrough in our
understanding of the LCI.
Unlike traditional scholars, I divided the text into phrases, not lines, as indicated by the stop marks, large dots used by the ancients like
our comma and period of today. (See LCI graphic.) I tried to make each phrase a logical division of the structure, able to stand apart
from the others.
The three major differences from Postma's translation derive from my following conclusions:
1.
2.
3.
I believe that anakda dang hwan namwaran refers to both Angkatan and Bukah, i.e. they are children of Namwaran. The
phrase lawan denganña sanak barngaran si bukah can be literally translated as "together with her counterpart relative
named Bukah." If Angkatan were Namwaran's wife, the important relationship would certainly have been made clear in
the document as is customary. In the absence of such a mention, anak should be taken as a plural (same form as singular)
and therefore applies to both Angkatan and Bukah.
I am convinced that ganashakti and bishruta are not proper names as Postma believes. If they were, they would either be
directly preceded by personal markers such as si or pu, or by titles. Instead, they are preceded by a verb which indicates
that their literal meanings should be used in the translation.
I think barjadi simply represents the verb "to be." Postma struggled with this word in his early translations, switching
from "representing" to "represented by" and back again. There are problems with "representing" that has something to
do with correct hierarchies of the officials. Since we are not showing his early translations here, we will not discuss it
further. In his latest December 1992 translation, he gives inconsistent meanings to barjadi.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Literal Translation
We begin with a literal translation which attempts to maintain the same word order while trying to make the English text still
readable.
Phrase 1:
Blessings, Shaka-related year 822, Waisakha month, by astronomy.
Phrase 2:
Fourth day of dark half of the moon, Monday, there at that time Lady Angkatan together with her relative named Bukah, children of
the honorable Namwaran are given a wish, a gift of full clearance document by the chief, commander-in-chief at Tundun, who is the
honorable minister lord Pailah, Jayadewa.
Phrase 3:
By order, the honorable Namwaran through the scribe is cleared and forgiven of his debt and his arrears of 1 kati and 8 suwarnas in
front of the honorable minister lord Puliran, Ka Sumuran.
Phrase 4:
The honorable minister lord Pailah is source of authority.
Phrase 5:
The honorable minister lord Binwangan, who is famous, looked attentively at all his (Namwaran's) living relatives all gotten by chief
Dewata, who is chief Medang, on account of his devotion as subject of the chief.
Phrase 6:
Yes, therefore all living descendants of the honorable Namwaran are cleared, yes, of all debts of the honorable Namwaran to the chief
Dewata.
Phrase 7:
This, in case who will say in future day, sometime, there will perhaps be a man who says not yet cleared is debt of the honorable ...
Free Translation
This is easier to understand because it freely translates the original text, making it more readable in English.
Phrase 1:
Greetings! Shaka year 822, month of Waisakha, according to the stars.
Phrase 2:
On the fourth day of the waning moon, Monday, Lady Angkatan and her brother Bukah, children of the Honorable Namwaran, were
given a gift of their wish, this document of full forgiveness by the Commander-in-Chief of Tundun, represented by the Honorable
Lord Minister of Pailah, Jayadewa.
Phrase 3:
By this order through the scribe, the Honorable Namwaran is cleared and forgiven of his debt and his arrears of 1 kati and 8 suwarnas
as witnessed by the Honorable Lord Minister of Puliran, Ka Sumuran.
Phrase 4:
The Honorable Lord Minister of Pailah was the source of authority.
Phrase 5:
On account of Namwaran's devotion as a subject of the chief, the Honorable Lord Minister of Binwangan, who is known in many
places, identified all of Namwaran's living relatives who were taken by the Chief of Dewata, represented by the Chief of Medang.
Phrase 6:
As a consequence, all living descendants of the Honorable Namwaran are also cleared of all debts that the Honorable Namwaran owed
the Chief of Dewata.
Phrase 7:
This document is issued in case there is someone in the future who will allege that the debt has not been cleared yet by the Honorable .
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Translation in Tagalog
Mabuhay! Taóng Siyaka 822, buwán ng Waisaka, ayon sa aghámtalà. Ang ikaapat na araw ng pagliít ng buwán, Lunes. Sa
pagkakátaóng itó, si Dayang Angkatán sampû ng kaniyáng kapatíd na nagngangalang Buka, na mga anák ng Kagalang-galang na si
Namwarán, ay ginawaran ng isáng kasulatan ng lubós na kapatawarán mulâ sa Punong Pangkalahatan sa Tundún sa pagkatawán ng
Punong Kagawad ng Pailáh na si Jayadewa.
Sa atas na itó, sa pamamagitan ng Tagasulat, ang Kagalang-galang na si Namwarán ay pinatawad na sa lahát at inalpasán sa kaniyáng
utang at kaniyáng mga náhulíng kabayarán na 1 katî at 8 suwarna sa harapán ng Kagalang-galang na Punong Kagawad ng Puliran na
si Ka Sumurán, sa kapangyarihan ng Kagalang-galang na Punong Kagawad ng Pailáh.
Dahil sa matapát na paglilingkód ni Namwarán bilang isáng sakop ng Punò, kinilala ng Kagalang-galang at batikáng Punong Kagawad
ng Binwangan ang lahát ng nabubuhay pang kamag-anak ni Namwarán na inangkín ng Punò ng Dewatà, na kinatawán ng Punò ng
Medáng.
Samakatwíd, ang mga nabubuhay na inapó ng Kagalang-galang na si Namwarán ay pinatawad sa anumán at lahát ng utang ng
Kagalang-galang na si Namwarán sa Punò ng Dewatà. Itó, kung sakalì, ay magpapahayag kaninumán na mulâ ngayón kung may taong
magsasabing hindî pa alpás sa utang ang Kagalang-galang...
Significance
Just how significant is this incomplete document that ends in midsentence and contains only ten lines?

It means, as we have discussed earlier, that the edge of history has been pushed back 621 years, giving the Philippines a
documented existence among the ancient kingdoms of Southeast Asia like Shri-Vijaya (Sumatra), Angkor (Kampuchea),
Champa (Vietnam), Madjapahit (Java), and others that existed before the 10th Century.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 22

Ancient Chinese records with placenames like P'u-li-lu, which was thought to have been Polilio (but didn't make sense),
will have to be reevaluated. Placenames mentioned in the LCI will have to be given more importance when evaluating
ancient records that contain similar sounding names.

From porcelain finds, Manila was thought to have been settled as late as 1200. It now appears that an earlier date was
more likely. Certainly, a search for other means of dating Manila's first settlements is needed. A search for artifacts in the
places mentioned in the LCI might also prove fruitful.

Earlier historians thought that the Philippines was part of Shri-Vijaya or even Madjapahit. Their theories have been largely
discredited in recent times. It is now time to reexamine the possible connection.

Historians believe that the Muslims who ruled Manila were the first to establish more sophisticated forms of government
in the area. They also believe that the Muslims started the trade with Borneo and other points south. It is possible that
the Hindus were in Manila before the Muslims.

The Tagalog script is so rudimentary that it cannot even completely record the sounds of its own language. Three
centuries before the Tagalog script's emergence, the Manila area used a script so rich and sophisticated that great
empires were ruled through its use. How did this happen? How could a less sophisticated script have supplanted a better
one?
Many interesting scenarios can be created to explain some of the above puzzles. During the era of the LCI it was not uncommon for
settlements to disappear. They flourished for some time, even for centuries, but things like natural catastrophes, epidemics,
emigration, pirate raids, war, etc. made them disappear. It is also known that Muslim culture pushed Hindu influence in Indonesia
out of most areas, leaving Bali as the only place where Hindu culture has survived. Any one of these things could have caused the
early settlements around Manila to disappear.
The disappearance of the earlier people who settled around Manila may explain why the Kavi script was lost and a lesser one
introduced later. But how did the placenames remain? If a few people remained to maintain a continuity of their settlements
and placenames, how did they lose their knowledge of the Malay language and the Kavi script?
At this time, everything is conjecture. Many more questions will be asked, answered, and refuted; other questions will be asked again.
Little by little, we will know more about the Philippines as it was before the Spaniards came, thanks to a little piece of metal dredged
from the sand.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 23
Forgotten Philippines: Gold Of Ancestors :
THE SACRED THREAD AND THE KINARI
An interesting ramification presented by above video link if one will reflect the status
of the owner of the Sacred Thread...
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 24
The Boxer Codex is a manuscript written circa 1595 which contains illustrations of Filipinos at the time of their initial contact with
the Spanish. Aside from a description of and historical allusions to the Philippines and various other Far Eastern countries, it also
contains seventy-five colored drawings of the inhabitants of these regions and their distinctive costumes. Fifteen illustrations deal
with Filipinos.
It is believed that the original owner of the manuscript was Luis Pérez das Mariñas, son of Governor General Gómez Pérez das
Mariñas, who was killed in 1593 by Sangleys (Chinese living in the Philippines). Luis succeeded his father in office as Governor
General of the Philippines. Since Spanish colonial governors were required to supply written reports on the territories they governed,
it is likely that the manuscript was written under the orders of the governor.
The manuscript's earliest known owner was Lord Ilchester. The codex was among what remained in his collection when his estate,
Holland House in London, suffered a direct hit during an air raid 1942. The manuscript was auctioned in 1947 and came into the
possession of Prof. Charles Ralph Boxer, an authority on the Far East. It is now owned by the Lilly Library at Indiana University.
The Boxer Codex depicts the Tagalogs, Visayans, Zambals, Cagayanons and Negritos of the Philippines in vivid colors. The
technique of the paintings suggests that artist may have been Chinese, as does the use of Chinese paper, ink and paints.
Considered by many anthropological experts as one of the earliest illustrations depicting the lives and rich culture of the early Filipinos is
the manuscript known today as the Boxer Codex. This 16th century manuscript was named after Charles Ralph (C.R.) Boxer, a noted
British Army officer and historian famous for his research of the Far East, particularly the Southeast Asian region. Professor Boxer got hold
of this precious manuscript when it was auctioned off in 1947. Its previous owner was Giles Fox-Strangeways, the 6th Earl of Ilchester.
Although it was not known how the Boxer Codex came into Lord Ilchester’s possession, the old manuscript miraculously survived a
massive fire that broke out in his estate, the Holland House, during a German Military air raid in 1942. Professor Boxer later worked at
Indiana University serving as an advisor at the university’s Lilly Library. The library now owns the manuscripts and researches of Professor
Boxer related in the Far East including the renowned Boxer Codex.
It is believed that that the Boxer Codex was created on the order of Luis Pérez Dasmariñas, the 9th Governor-General of the Philippines
(1593-1596). Under his leadership, it was required for Spanish colonial governors serving on different colonized region of the Philippines to
submit written reports on the conditions, the culture, and the way of life of the territories and the constituents they governed. It was most
likely that the Boxer Codex was created to supplement this order.
Drawn on the pages of the Boxer Codex are beautiful illustrations of the early Filipinos divided into different regions (Cagayanons,
Negritos, Tagalogs, Visayas, Zambals). And based on the artistic style and painting materials used to create these drawings, it is believed
that a Chinese artist, commissioned by one of the Spanish colonial governors, rendered these illustrative creations. The Boxer Codex also
has other chapters dedicated to other regions in Southeast Asia, including parts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Southern China.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Boxer Codex
A Tagalog couple of the Maharlika nobility caste
depicted in the Boxer Codex of the 16th Century
Similar to the Boxer Codex
... is the owner a Sovereign of such a High Status, which will intimidate various rulers of other kingdoms
in Southeast Asia if they would be standing side by side by each other. A ruler wearing a golden Sash or
UPAVITA would intimidate or humiliate any Majapahit and Srivijayan royalties from neighboring kingdoms.
Imagine a Golden Rajah with his Gold warriours would surely outclass any royals and warriors. Is the
owner of that Golden Sacred thread a Srivijayan? Remember the other Golden rule: He who has the gold
makes the rules.
The maritime thalossocracy or alliance of rajanates called by the early Chinese as Sanfotsi and by the
early Arabs as Zabag which Coedes collectively called Srivijayas stemming from a Kedukan bukit
inscription found near Palembang was said to have a powerful competitor in the south called Wakwak by
the early Arabs or Toupo by the early chinese. Is the Butuan-Toubok(Cotobato)area fits the bill for the
powerful competitior of Sanfotsi-Zabag? The Tausugs of the Sulu Sultanate were said to be originally
Bisayan migrants from Butuan. The Surigao Treasures billed as Gold of Ancestors is in the area of GOLD
RICH BUTUAN.
A sword hilt from the Surigao Treasure
Philippine gold artifacts in general tend to be more elaborate and better crafted than
most from West Borneo.
Harrisson looked at the Dr Arturo de Santos collection (part of which was acquired by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) as well,
and observed that “…the range of Philippine gold jewelry…includes many pieces of a complexity and finesse that is
beyond anything attempted in Borneo” in so far as what had been found at that time (Harrisson 1968: 56).
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Throughout Indonesia there was a relationship between gold artifacts and the ruling aristocracy, in the class-power
centers which developed on the coastal plains around the middle of the 1st millenium AD (Harrisson 1968:44). Precious metals
were worked „exclusively in those areas where the influence of Hinduism was strongest‟: he includes Java, Bali, southern
Celebes and the coastal districts of Borneo. These areas developed as centers with established hierarchies, which necessitated
the conspicuous display of wealth (Harrisson 1968: 47).
There was a demand for gold, which the Philippines could have supplied. It would be reasonable to suggest that one of
the main sources of Javanese and Bornean gold was the Philippines. That trade would have been important enough to
have been direct, by-passing minor pass-on players say, in Sarawak or Sulawesi. Moreover, the early interest in gold from the
Philippines would have been in the raw material rather than wrought artifacts. In turn, local interest would have been on goods
not made of gold, which they had plenty of.
quotes Alcina, a Jesuit writing about a hundred years after Legaspi, the conquistadores of the Philippines in the 16th century:
“I do remember that once when I was solemnizing a marriage of a Bisayan principala, she was so weighed down
with jewelry that it caused her to stoop — to me it was close to an arroba or so (1 arroba = 25 lbs.), which was a
lot of weight for a girl of twelve. Then again, I also heard it said that her grandfather had a jar full of gold which
alone weighed five or six arrobas. Even this much is little in comparison to what they actually had in ancient
times.”
pupuplatter, United States says:
I doubt that the makers of what has been called the “Surigao Treasure” were Muslim. Islam came to the Philippine rather late,
less than 200 years before the Spanish conquest. We should also avoid idealizing, even as we begin to appreciate, the precolonial past: some of the pre-colonial jewelry recovered in Mindanao and elsewhere may have been hastily buried to hide
them from Cebuano, Tagalog, or Samal slave raiders and looters. And it is difficult to determine who the “original” inhabitants
of Mindanao really are. For much of the Spanish colonial period, agents of the maritime state of Sulu conducted slave raids
throughout much of the Philippines. (Bisayans in particular resented this since before Christian conversion they
claimed that they were so mighty that they would have been the ones looting, pillaging, and slave raiding their
way across the Philippine waters.) These slaves gathered pearls, bird‟s nest, wax and other products that were then sold to
the agents of the British East India Company who, in turn, sold those products to China. It‟s a complicated, global history.
The crafters of Surigao treasures were most probably Hindu Bisayans, if not, their allies. The Rajanate
of Butuan had alliance with the Rajanate of Cebu. Intermarriages of the royals between the two
rajanates were common. And so the comment of pupuplatter that the Hindu-Animists Cebuanos would
probably raid their allies, their Hindu-Animists brethren in Butuan, is most probably incorrect. While,
the Tausug Muslims of Sulu were originally Hindu-animists Bisayans from Butuan having been
proselytized by the Bruneians. And the Tausugs indeed raided their pacified Bisayan brothers only
during the time of the Spanish colonial perod as they became Muslim while the latter became
Christians.
King Humabon of Cebu, King Siaiu of Mazaua, and King Colambu of Butuan were blood kins accdg to
the history books.
If King Humabon of Cebu, King Siaiu of Mazaua, and King Colambu of Butuan were blood kins, we do not know if they‟re first
cousins, who was their common ancestry. Was their ancestor from Butuan? Or, conversely, from Cebu?
Controlling the Straits of Malacca
As evidenced by history, the country that succeeded in controlling the narrow strait between the Malay Peninsula and the island
of Sumatra would gain complete control of China's maritime silk route and thus become a thalossocracy - a trading empire. The
Srivijaya of South Sumatra did so in 670 AD, the Chola of Southeast India in 1026 AD, the Madjapahit of Java in 1343 AD, the
Sultanate of Malacca in 1400 AD, and finally the Portuguese in 1512 AD.*17
When the Portuguese arrived in Southeast Asia in 1500 AD, they witnessed LUZON's active involvement in the
political and economic affairs of those who sought to take control of this economically strategic highway. For
instance, the former SULTAN OF MALACCA decided to retake his city from the Portuguese with a fleet of ships
from LUZON in 1525 AD.*18 In 1529 AD, the Sultanate of Atjeh on the northern tip of Sumatra became powerful
enough to consider controlling the Straits of Malacca. LUZON ships formed part of the Atjehnese fleet that
attacked key settlements along the straits. At the same time, LUZON warriors formed part of the opposing BATAKMENANGKABAU army that besieged Atjeh or ACEH.*19 On the mainland, LUZON warriors aided the BURMESE
KING in his invasion of SIAM in 1547 AD. At the same time, LUZON warriors fought alongside the KING OF
THAILAND and faced the same elephant army of the Burmese king in the defence of the Siamese capital at
Ayuthaya.*20
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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The Portuguese were not only witnesses but also direct beneficiaries of LUZON's involvement. Many Lucoes, as
the Portuguese called the people of LUZON, chose MALACCA as their base of operations because of its strategic
importance. When the Portuguese finally took the MALACCA in 1512 AD, the resident Lucoes held important
government posts in the former sultanate. They were also large-scale exporters and ship owners that regularly
sent junks to China, Brunei, Sumatra, Siam and Sunda. One LUZON official by the name of SURYA DIRAJA annually
sent 175 tons of pepper to China and had to pay the Portuguese 9000 cruzados in gold to retain his plantation. His
ships became part of the first Portuguese fleet that paid an official visit to the Chinese empire in 1517 AD.
In 1591 AD, the CAMBODIAN KING Phra Unkar Langara sent a gift of two royal elephants, gems and horses to the
lords of LUZON to petition them to aid him in the war against SIAM.
Trade Missions to China:
The name Lusung(LUZON) first appeared in Chinese History in 1373 AD in the Ming Annals. In this document, Lusung was one
of the first to answer the call for tribute missions to the new Ming Dynasty [1368 - 1644]. It was Brunei who first responded in
1371 AD, followed by Liuchiu in 1372, and then by Lusung in 1373 AD*11.
Despite the fact that it made its first appearance on Chinese records as late as 1373 AD, evidences suggests that the Chinese
had long known the existence of LUZON as far back as the Sung Dynasty[960 - 1278 AD]. The presence of thousands of
recognisable pieces of Sung and Yuan Dynasty porcelains found in ancient burial sites in the Province of Pampanga and Manila
suggests an active trade with China long before the Ming period.
In the mid-1400s, the Ming Empire further limited the number of tribute missions from overseas when it did not compensate
the cost of maintaining foreign embassies and entertaining foreign envoys. In 1550 AD, the Ming Empire finally put an end to
overseas trade altogether.
The Ming Empire's ban on overseas trade ironically became a blessing to LUZON. The port cities in Fujian and Canton that had
been profiting from overseas trade since the Sung Dynasty cannot simply end its trade relations with Southeast Asia just
because the central government in Beijing does not see profit from it. Chinese ships from Fujian and Canton continue to
smuggle goods out of China. They chose the port cities of Tondo and Mainila in LUZON as a drop off point. Ships from other
parts of Asia, mostly Brunei and Malacca would then sail to LUZON to pick up their percentage of the Chinese goods.
I looked into the BUTUAN archealogical site, recognized by UNESCO as a world heritage site. I was
impressed to learn that they not only had advanced boat making and gold crafting skills, but also traded
with countries as far away as Persia.
Satements of authenticity and/or integrity
The finds were authenticated by the National Museum, and deeper studies by reputable archaeologists were
subsequently done. The oldest Chinese ceramic ware found in Butuan were the Yueh and Yueh type ware which
dated back to the Five Dynasties (A.D. 907- 960). In a quantitative survey of the ceramics discovered in Butuan,
there were representative types from various Asian realms, ranked according to volume: Chinese (10th - 15th
centuries A.D.); Khmer/ Cambodian (9th-10th centuries A.D.); Thai (14th - 15th centuries A.D.) pre-Thai
Satingpra (900-1100 A.D.); Haripunjaya (800-900 A.D.); pre-trade Vietnamese (11th - 13th centuries A.D.), and
PERSIAN (9th - 10th centuries A.D.)
I wouldn't be surprised if most of the evidence of an advanced civilized Philippine society was suppressed
and destroyed while we were conquered by Spain.
More about Prehispanic Philippines in this thread...
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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About the Three Kings
The three kings were really kings from three kingdoms in the east of Jerusalem, namely, Persia, Arabia and Saba (maybe
Sheba). Their names are Melchor, Gaspar at Balthazar.
Saba is a common place name in Southeast Asia. Saba or Sabang or Sapa means estuary is sometime
synonymous to Java. The Ancient Indians would call people living in Saba as Savaka sometimes spelled
as Javaka. Saba or Sheba or Java could mean a bigger polity encompassing the whole Southeast Asia
not just the small island of today known by that name. In medieval period, Java Major would mean
Borneo or Sabah while Java minor, the present Java island. In our prehispanic past, there was then a
Kingdom called Sapa.
The ancient Arabs during the medieval period called the empire located in Southeast Asia as Zabag
similar sounding with Saba while the ancient Chinese called the same polity as Sanfotsi which a French
historian termed as the Sri-Vijayan empire.
Where King Solomon sourced his gold, spices, etc is the same place called Sheba which is none other
than Zabag or Saba which is in Southeast Asia, which could be the true place of Tarshish and Ophir.
So the King of Seba or Saba must probably be the one who offer gold to the baby Philosopher-PriestKing.
Tarshish is most probably in the East, on the Erythrean sea or Indian ocean, seeing that "ships of
Tarshish" sailed from Ezion-geber, on the Red Sea (1 Kings 9:26; 22:48; 2 Chr. 9:21).
Unlike Columbus, Magellan seemed less concerned with his own place in prophecy, but evidence points to a spiritual goal also
for his journeys. Notes from this writings indicate he was interested in finding the Biblical lands of Tarshish and Ophir, nations
which also figured in apocalyptic thought...
Samuel Purchas writing in the early 17th century stressed the need for Britain to involve itself in the "Ophirian navigation" to
secure its own self-vision as the chosen messianic nation but with a more mercantile twist:
And this also we hope shall one day be the true Ophirian navigation, when Ophir shall come unto Jerusalem as Jerusalem then
went unto Ophir. Meanwhile we see a harmony in this sea-trade, and as it were the consent of other creatures to this consent
of the reasonable, united by navigation howsoever by rites, languages, customs, and countries separated.
Magellan appears to have placed Tarshish and Ophir near Ptolemy's Cattigara, the great ancient trading city of the
farthest East. When nearing the end of the world circuit, he deliberately set his sights for Cattigara sailing at 12
or 13 degrees North latitude, which he believed to be the proper course for that fabled city.
In its riches the scriptural land of Ophir prefigures the Indies of which Luis de Haro is chancellor, and Solomon, associated in
late sixteenth-century Spain with Philip II, is a type both of Christ and of the Spanish king.
Allegories of Kingship
"....the principle settler of these archipelagoes was TARSHIS, son of Japheth together with his brothers, as were OPHIR and
Hevilath of India..."
Philippines in Labor Evangelica, 1663.
In an interesting coincidence when Philip II, the "Second Solomon," dispatched Legazpi to occupy the Philippines, the latter
encountered and entered into alliance with one Rajah Soliman, king of Manila, during his invasion of Luzon.
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The Bible says:
Psalm 72:10 The kings of Tarshish and of distant shores will bring tribute to him; the kings of Sheba
and Seba will present him gifts.
Isaiah 60:6 And all from Sheba will come, bearing gold and incense and proclaiming the praise of the
LORD
Isa 23:6 Pass ye over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle
Isa 66:19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations,
[to] Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, [to] Tubal, and Javan, [to] the isles afar off, that have
not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles
Isa 23:1 The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no
entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
Eze 27:25 The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made
very glorious in the midst of the seas.
2Ch 9:21 For the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years once came
the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.
Psa 48:7 Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.
Isa 2:16 And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
Isa 60:9 Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far,
their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the LORD thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel,
because he hath glorified thee.
Eze 27:25 The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made
very glorious in the midst of the seas.
Eze 27:12 Tarshish [was] thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all [kind of] riches; with silver, iron,
tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs
Jer 10:9 Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the
workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple [is] their clothing: they [are] all the work of
cunning [men].
Eze 27:12 Tarshish [was] thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all [kind of] riches; with silver, iron,
tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.
BO-OL (BOHOL) WAS A LAND OF OPHIR:
What the Spaniards believed
After the death of King Solomon, Ophir was abandoned and soon forgotten. After the passage of
hundreds of years nobody would know where or what is Ophir. The other word associated with Ophir
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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is the word "Tarshish." Nobody also knew what it meant. In old translations of the Bible it was
supposed also to be a place. However, in new translations of the Bible, it is used to refer to the fleet
that went to Ophir.
What happened to the Hebrew or Jewish settlements that were established to process the gold before
they were shipped back to King Solomon? Nobody also knew. However, we knew that because of
their religious beliefs the Hebrews tend to survive as a separate enclave wherever they settled.
What the Spaniards Believed
In Spain there is a book called Coleccion General de Documentos Relativos a las Islas Filipinas. It is
found in the Archivos de Indias de Sevilla. It was reprinted in 1920 in Barcelona, Spain by the
Compania General de Tabaccos de Filipinas. Its Tomo III (1519-1522), pages 112-138, contains
Document No. 98 describing how to locate the land of Ophir.
This same volume also contains the official documents regarding the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan. It
also contains the logbook of Francisco Albo, the chief pilot of the ship Victoria. This logbook is also
one of the main references regarding the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan.
Since this book contains important documents, we can discern that the Spaniards did not really
believe that Ophir was in India. In fact the Cabot expedition that left Spain on April 3, 1526 had a
secret mission, "to search for a route to Tarsis, OPHIR, Oriental Cathay (China), and Japan."
Document No. 98 describes how to locate the land of Ophir. The travel guide started from the Cape of
Good Hope in Africa to India, to Burma, to Sumatra, to Moluccas, to Borneo, to Sulu, to China, then
finally Ophir.
Ophir was "…in front of China towards the sea, of many islands where the Moluccans, Chinese, and
Lequios met to trade…"
This group of islands could not be Japan because the Moluccans did not get there. It could not be
Taiwan because it is not "of many islands." Only the present day Philippines could satisfy the
description.
Jewish Settlements
Along the route described by Document No. 98 are locations of old Jewish settlements.
It would not be surprising for that was the procedure used by King Solomon's fleet.
Settlements were established at selected places to trade and process the gold and silver. The ships
will collect the gold and silver and bring it to King Solomon. To the credit of the Hebrew people, their
settlement remained true to the Jewish faith even for thousands of years. Settlements were found in
India, Burma, Sumatra, and Vietnam (Annam and Cochin China).
Who Were the Lequios?
Spanish records mention of a mysterious people known as Lequios. Modern historians variously
identified them as Okinawans, Koreans, or Vietnamese. They were favorite targets of Spanish ships
during the time of General Miguel Lopez de Legazpi because the ships of the Lequios were always
laden with gold and silver.
According to Documents 98, the Lequios were big, bearded, and white men. They were only
interested in gold and silver when trading at Ophir. Okinawans, Koreans, and Vietnamese people are
not big nor are they white. Their beards are just small goatees and could not satisfy the word
"bearded". Therefore they were not the Lequios. So who could the Lequios be but the remnants of
Hebrews and Phoenicians who have made some enclaves along the Southeast Asian shores?
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The Hebrew word "LEQOT" or "LIQQET" means to gather, to glean. It resembles closely the word
Lequios. It will fit the men of King Solomon's fleet who gathered gold and silver. (Note: The Hebrew
alphabet has no small letters.)
Where Was Ophir?
There is no doubt that the group of islands in front of China towards the sea is the present day
Philippines. The question is where was Ophir located in the Philippines?
Ancient Chinese records say that the ancient trading places in the Philippines were Ma-yi and Pulilu.
Dr. Otley Beyer identified Ma-yi as Mindoro. Dr. Jose Rizal, Blumentrit, Robertson, and Stangl say
that it was Luzon in part or in whole.
Dr. Jose Rizal identified "Pulilu" as . Nobody disputed Dr. Jose Rizal. So there are onlythree possible
places in the Philippines that could be identified as Ophir, they are Luzon, Mindoro, and Bohol.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Modern scholars of the 20th century re-discovered the Sri-Visjaya Kingdom
and revealed traces of the ancient origins of the Filipinos especially the
Visaya and Tagalog.
Colliers Encyclopedia
1991 Edition, vol.3, p.50
Srivijaya Kingdom. In the seventh century China was reunited under T’ang Dynasty, thus providing an
enormous market. Several port-states tried to tap the China trade, but the kingdom of Srivijaya, located
near the present city of Palembang on Sumatra, succeeded in crushing its rivals and imposing its authority
on both Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, straddling the Straits of Malacca. Through a combination of
bribery, political manipulation, and punitative expeditions the other ports were forced to submit or were
destroyed, and Srivijaya became known to the Chinese as the sole state with which they could trade.
Several extant inscriptions from the late seventh century-royal edicts carved on stones – attest to the
absolute loyalty demanded by the king of Sri-Visjaya of his servants, subjects, and vassals. Passing traders
were forced to stop at Srivijaya, where they have to pay tolls demanded by the king for passage through
the straits. From these tolls derived the royal revenues, but the tolls were kept moderate so that traders
would not consider using the more difficult land route across the Malay Peninsula. The key to Srivijaya’s
power was its navy, which was needed to destroy its rivals, Srivijayan naval expedition may even have
th
th
reached as far as Cambodia in the 8 century, and in the 11 century Srivijaya itself was raided from
Ceylon.
In dominating the Straits of Malacca, Srivijaya controlled one of the key points in the whole Asian trade
system. Through its empire passed all the wondrous goods desired by Asian kings and aristocrats-gems,
precious metals, scented woods, and even African lions to amuse the emperor of China-as well as the bulk
trade in such goods as rice. In the practice, of course, the dominance of Srivijaya and its successors was
often less than complete. Especially during periods when trade declined, vassals were likely to fall away as
the money and prestige offered by the king to entice their loyalty also declined. But the tradition of
central port on the straits dominating the trade routes and of a single supreme king survived for many
centuries.
By about the sixth century the economic role of Indonesia in the China trade was beginning to change.
Indonesia traders began to sell the natural products of Indonesia, sometimes substituting them for the
luxury goods the Chinese customarily imported from western Asia. In particular, Indonesia benzoin began
to be substituted for the aromatic gum resins. Srivijaya and its successors continued to function as
entrepot ports, where goods were transshipped, but the importance of Indonesia’s own products also
increased.
Srivijaya was a Buddhist kingdom. Indeed its religious scholarship was internationally so highly valued that
Chinese Buddhist pilgrims making the long journey to India wouldspend several years in Srivijaya. There
they studied the scriptures and rules for monks before going to India.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Srivijaya’s wealth and power, waxed and waned with changing trade condition and with the rise and fall
th
of its rivals. It was finally destroyed by the Javanese in the 14 century and the royal family and the
traders of Srivijaya moved across the straits to Malaya, where eventually they established the port of
Malacca in about 1400. Srivijaya, one of the greatest trade empires of Asia, was then so completely
forgotten that even its name was unknown until its history was rediscovered by modern scholars in the
th
20 century.
Mataram Kingdom. To the east of Sumatra lies Java, and there, too, a great kingdom emerged beginning
in about the eighth century. The Kingdom of Mataram, near the present city of Yogyakarta (Jogjakarta) in
central Java, reached its greatest power in the ninth century. The dynasty that founded Mataram took the
Sanskrit name Sailendra – the king of the mountains – and the title Maharaja, they were Mahayana
Buddhists. They left behind many famous temples, which their contemporaries, the kings of Srivijaya
seem not to have done. Among the most famous Mataram temples is Burabudur, which was built about
800. It is an enormous artificial temple-mountain, which miles of bas-reliefs depicting the life story of
Buddha. At the nearby temple of Merdut are large stone statues of the Buddha and two Bodhisattvas,
which are the most exquisite in all of Asia.
Sailendra power in Mataram was challenged by a rival royal line who were not Buddhists but followers of
the Hindu god Shiva. In 856 there was a battle between the two rivals, which the Sailendra lost. The last
surviving Sailendra prince fled from Java to Sumatra, where, for reasons that are not known, he become
the king of Srivijaya. His successors in Mataram built the very beautiful and graceful temple complex
Prambanan, just east of Yogyakarta. There, temples to the Hindu gods Brahma and Vishnu flank a high
central tower where Shiva was worshipped in four aspects. The bas reliefs depict the story of the Hindu
Ramayana epic.
Mataram was located on the plain of Kedu in central Java, one of the richest rice-growing areas of
Indonesia.
Original Sri-Visjaya Religion is Not Buddhist
This Sri-Visjaya Kingdom is one of the greatest trade empires of Asia. The Sri-Visjaya on the 7th century
when China was reunited under the T’ang Dynasty, the Sri-Visjaya become known to the Chinese as the
sole state with which they could trade. Passing traders were forced to stop at Sri-Visjaya, where they have
to pay tolls demanded by the king of Sri-Visjaya for passage through the straits of Malacca. Sri-Visjaya
controlled one of the key points in the whole Asian trade system.
Sri-Visjaya Religion
Sri-Visjaya’s religious scholarship was internationally so highly valued that Chinese Buddhist pilgrims
making the long journey to India would spend several years in Sri-Visjaya, there they studied the
scriptures and rules for monks before going to India. This may think that Sri-Visjaya’s religion is a
th
Buddhist religion. That happened when the original 7 century Sri-Visjaya king and royal families and
th
traders moved across the straits to Malaya on the 8 century where they established the port of Malacca
in about 1400 and they have trade in Borneo and Sulu ISLES AFAR OFF. A great kingdom emerged
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 34
th
beginning in about 8 century the Kingdom of Mataram in central Java. The dynasty that founded
Mataram took the Sanskrit name Sailendra – the king of the mountains – and the title Maharaja, they
were Mahayana Buddhists. They left behind many famous temples, which their contemporaries, the kings
of Sri-Visjaya seem not to have done. Among the most famous Mataram temples is Burabudur, which
was built about 800. At the nearby temple of Merdut are large stone statues of the Buddha and two
Bodhisattvas, which are the most exquisite in all of Asia. A rival royal line that was not Buddhists but
followers of the Hindu god Shiva challenged Sailendra power in Mataram. In 856 there was a battle
between the two rivals, which the Sailendra lost and the last surviving Sailendra prince fled from Java to
Sumatra, where, for reasons that are not known, he become the king of Sri-Visjaya in Sumatra. Therefore
become the new king of Sri-Visjaya in Sumatra is Sailendra. This are the reasons that Sri-Visjaya’s religion
was thought to be Buddhist.
th
The original 7 century Sri-Visjaya king and royal families and traders moved across the straits to Malaya
th
on the 8 century where they established the port of Malacca made trade in Borneo and Sulu. The second
th
Sri-Visjaya of 8 century was ruled by Sailendra a Buddhist was finally destroyed by the Javanese in the
th
th
14 century and this people of Sri-Visjaya were different religion than the original first Sri-Visjaya of 7
century. In fact the kingdom of Sailendra who become king of Sri-Visjaya were Mahayana Buddhist that
this Mahayana Buddhists left behind many famous temples, which their contemporaries the king of
th
original 7 century Sri-Visjaya seem not to have done. Therefore the Sri-Visjaya that was defeated by the
th
th
Javanese in the 14 century was the second Sri-Visjaya of 8 century who become Buddhists and ruled by
king Sailendra a Mahayana Buddhists. The first Sri-Visjaya of 7th century did not make any temples of
worship and were not Buddhists and they fled to Malacca and trade with Borneo and Sulu. The historian
th
claiming that Sri-Visjaya is a Buddhists kingdom is referring to the second Sri-Visjaya of 8 century that
th
was ruled by Sailendra a Mahayana Buddhists but not the original Sri-Visjaya of the 7 century that
th
moved across the straits to Malaya on the 8 century where they established the port of Malacca made
trade in Borneo and Sulu.
DATU from Yahshear-Dath (Sacerdote or Priest of Yahshear): Jacob named Yahshear Genesis 32:28
Bisaya and Tagalog
At the same period the well-known Maragtas in Visaya’s history claimed that ten (10) Datu lead by Datu
Puti arrived in Panay and bought the plain land of Panay island. This people were called “VISAYA” the
th
descendant of original Sri-Visjaya of 7 century from Borneo and Sulu. They carried the word “ya-we” in
Visaya which means “key”, this was mentioned in Luke 11:52 “woe unto you, lawyers, for ye have taken
away the “key of knowledge”, (the scribes took away the name Yahweh and replaced it with other name
Adonai, the key is the name Yahweh). The other three (3) Datu, Datu Puti, Datu Dumangsil and Datu
Balensusa reached Taal (Batangas) where the language of the three Datu believed to be the origin of
Tagalog language. The remaining seven (7) Datu in Panay they reached Cebu, Samar and Bicol. Datu Puti
last record is in Sulu before going to Borneo. The word Dawth in Hebrew language means royal edict or
statute, commandment, decree, law, manner. The Dawth is pronounced Datuh is the one who ruled and
make decree, law and a royal family in Filipino history. The title “DATU” from the word Yashear-Dath or
Sacer-dote or Priests of Yahshurun (Israel).
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Chronology of the "Chinese Ming Dynasty and Islamic
Influences" ni Guo Zhongli
Ang Sri-Visjaya ay makapangyarihan sa karagatan (mga barkong ipinagawa ni Haring
YahdidiYah kay Haring Huram ng Tyre upang kumuha ng ginto sa Ophir, 1Kings 9:26,
na pinamumunuan ng Sultan (Sholtan sa Hebreo ay Namumuno).
Ang pamilya (Royal Family) ng namumuno at tigasunod ng Sri-Visjaya Kingdom noong
ika-pitong siglo (7th century) ay lumisan mula sa Palembang sa Sumatra at tumungo sa
Malaya na kabila ng ―Straits of Malacca‖ at nagtatag sila ng daungan ng Malacca.
Nanirahan sila sa Bornay (Borneo) at Sulu na mga isla ng Ophir. Sa pangunguna ni Datu
Putih (sa wikang Hebreo Poothe=scatter into corner) ay ang sampung (10) Datu mula sa
Bornay ay dumating sa Aninipay ng Panay na binili nila ng ginto kay Marikudo ang
kapatagan ng Panay na tinawag nilang Madya-as o paraiso.
Ang pitong Datu ay naiwan sa Panay na pinaniniwalaang pinanggalingan ng lahi ng
Ilongo, Cebuano, Samareno at Bicolano at si Datu Putih naman kasama ang dalawa pang
Datu ay pumunta sa Mindoro sa Luzon at Taal Batangas na pinaniniwalaan na
pinagmulan ng wikang Tagalog. Ang wika ng mga Datu ng Sri-Visjaya ay
pinaniniwalaang pinanggalingan ng wikang Binisaya o tinawag na Hiligaynon (sa wikang
Hebreo ng Higaynon=solemn sound). Ang wikang Binisaya (hango sa Sri-Visjaya) ay
ang wikang Ilonggo at nagkaroon ng Sugbuano (Cebuano) at Waray. Ang wikang Tagalog
ay kahawig sa wikang Ilonggo at ang wikang Bicolano ay kahawig sa wikang Waray. Ayon
sa talaan ng ―Chronology of the Chinese Ming Dynasty‖ na ang sampung (10) Datu sa
pangunguna ni Datu Putih ay dumating sa isla ng Panay at naiwan ang pitong (7) Datu sa
Panay nang si Datu Putih at dalawa pang Datu ay tumungo sa Luzon (Khomer o mortar)
sa Mindoro at Taal Batangas. Ang huling talaan kay Datu Putih ay nang bumalik siya sa
Bornay na napadaan sa Sulu. Nang dumating ang mga Kastila sa pamumuno ni
Ferdinand Magellan (Fernado Magallanes) noong 1521 A.D., ang mga isla ng Ophir ay
tinawag sa pangalang FELIPE na hango sa pangalan ng prinsipe ng Espanya na naging
Hari si Haring Felipe II ng Espanya. Ang Felipe ay naging Felipinas na naging Pilipinas.
Naitala din ng mga Kastila ang napakaraming minahan ng ginto sa mga isla ng Pilipinas.
Ang mga naninirahan doon ay ‗pinawalang-halaga na‘ ang maraming minahan ng ginto
dahil ayon sa Kastilang si De Morga na 1,000 B.C na ang idad ng minahan na kanilang
natagpuan sa mga isla na tinawag nilang Pilipinas (ka-idad sa kapanahunan ni Haring
YahdidiYah (Solomon) na nagpagawa ng mga barko upang kumuha ng ginto sa Ophir).
Sinulat ng Kastilang si Pigafetta na ang mga naninirahan daw ay kuntento na sa
kanilang mga pag-aaring ginto na nagmula pa sa kanilang mga ninuno. Madaling
makakuha ng ginto na kasing laki ng itlog at mani kapag inihiwalay mo sa lupa ("On the
island [Butuan] where the king came to the ship, pieces of gold as large as walnuts or
eggs are to be found, by sifting the earth‖). Bago dumating ang mga Kastila ay walang
tanging talaan o ―archaeological findings‖ tungkol sa kasulatan ng sina-unang Asian
Malay kundi ang naitala sa dokumento ng mga Chinese. Ang Sri-Visjaya Kingdom na
naitala ng ―Chronology of the Chinese Ming Dynasty and Islamic Influences‖ sinulat ni
Guo Zhongli na nagpapatunay na ang Datu at Sultan ay may ginagampanang mahalang
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 36
katungkulan sa Sri-Visjaya Kingdom. Ang ―Sholtan‖ sa Lumang-Hebreo ay ang
‗namumuno‘, samantalang ang ―Datu‖ ay ang Yahshear-Dath o Seser-Dote o DATU ng
Kaharian ng Sri-Visjaya‟.
Ayon sa Historian si O.W.Wolters noong 430-475 A.D. kilala sa Chinese ang Kan-t‟o-li
na Estadong natatag sa malapit sa Palembang ng Sumatra noong ikalawang siglo (2nd
century A.D.). Noong 500 A.D. sa Sumatra, isla ng Bangka, Java at Malay Peninsula ay
may walong (8) Estado ang nangalakal sa China noong 608 A.D. hanggang 670 A.D at
tanging ang Shihlifoshih ang nanatili. Ang mga natagpuang labi na nagkaka-idad na 775
A.D. mula sa Ligor isthmus sa Malay Peninsula ay sinaliksik ng Asian History Pioneer
George Coedus na naniwala na ang Estado na kilala sa China na Shihlifoshih ay siyang
Sri-Vishaya (Sri-Visjaya). Ang Sri ay titulong pang-galang mula sa India kaya ang
pangalan ng Sri-Visjaya ay Visjaya na kilala ngayon bilang Bisaya. (Si Yahshu‘a Messiah
ay inutusan niya ang kanyang 12 desipolo na hanapin ang mga nawawalang Sambahayan
ng Yisrawale (Israel) na mababasa sa Mateo 10:5-6 at sa Gawa 13:47. Naitala na ang
desipolo ni Yahshu‘a na si Tomas ay sinibat hanggang sa mamatay ni Haring Misdeus ng
India. Ang huling Kahariang sumakop sa kanila ay ang mga Griego at naitala sa Ester 1:1
na ang India ay nasasakupan ng Kaharian ng Persia na sinakop ng Emperyo ng Griego
kaya sa India huling natagpuan ang desipolo ni Yahshu‘a sa paghahanap sa mga
Nawawalang Tribo ng Yisrawale).
Ang Sri-Visjaya ay makapangyarihan sa karagatan mula Ceylon (Sri-Lanka), Sumatra,
Java (Old Javan Kingdom of Mataram) hanggang sa Champa na pinamumunuan ng
Sultan (Sholtan sa wikang Hebreo ay ang Namumuno). Ang pamilya ng Sholtan at mga
tigasunod ng Sri-Visjaya Kingdom noong ika-pitong siglo (7th century) na may titulong
Datu at Sultan ay lumisan mula sa Palembang sa Sumatra at tumungo sa Malaya na
kabila ng ―straits of Malacca‖ at nagtatag sila ng daungan ng Malacca. Ang naiwan
namang Sri-Visjaya sa Palembang sa hindi alam na dahilan ay pinamunuan ni Sailendra
na isang Mahayana Buddhist. Si Sailendra ay nagmula sa kanyang pagtakas sa Java na
siyang nagtayo ng mga templo at istatwa ni Buddha ang Burabudur noong 800 A.D., ang
templo ni Merdut at dalawang Bodhisattvas na Hindi Ginawa ng orihinal (7th Century)
Sri-Visjaya Kingdom ng ikapitong siglo. Ang Buddhist (8th century) Sri-Visjaya na may titulo
ng Raja ay ang nagapi ng mga Javanese noong ika-labing-apat na siglo (14th Century). Ang
Sri-Visjaya Kingdom noong ika-pitong siglo (7th century) na may titulong Datu at Sultan
ay Hindi Buddhist dahil hindi sila nagtayo ng mga istatwa ni Buddha.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 37
Ang Mga Nakatira sa mga Isla ng Ophir ay Nagsasalita ng Sina-Unang
Wikang Hebreo (Ancient-Hebrew) nang Dumating ang mga Kastila
Ophir ang Dating Pangalan ng mga Isla ng Pilipinas
Sa aklat ni Gregorio F. Zaide ―History of the Filipino People”sa pahina 2, ang mga
manunulat na mga taga Kanluran ay tinawag ang ating lupain sa pangalang Maniolas, Ophir,
Islas del Oriente, Islas del Poniente, Archipelago de San Lazaro, Islas de Luzones (Isla ng
Mortars), Archipelago de Magallanes at Archipelago de Legaspi. Ang mga tawag na Maniolas,
Islas del Oriente, Islas del Poniente, Archipelago de San Lazaro, Islas de Luzones, Archipelago de
Magallanes at Archipelago de Legaspi ay ang itinawag ng mga Kastila (mapapansin na mga salita
at wikang Kastila hanggang maging Pilipinas) sa mga isla ng Ophir. Tinatawag ng mga
Nabigador ang mga isla na Ophir na nakasulat sa Biblia 1 Hari 22:48, 9:28 at 22:49, Awit 45:9,
Isaiah 13:12, Job 22:24, 28:16, 1Chron. 24:4, 1:23, Genesis 10:25-26.
Ang mga inapo ni Ophir ay ang mga Pilipino, at ang sinasalita ay ang Wikang Lumang-Hebreo
hindi ang Makabagong-Hebreo dahil nakatakas sila bago pa masakop ng Assyria ang Yisrawale
(Israel) na siyang nagbago sa wika at naging Modern-Hebreo 2 Kings 18:26. Ito ay pinatunayan ni
Padre Chirino na naisulat ni Gregorio F. Zaide ‗History Of The Filipino People‘ pahina 24 ―Of all
our languages, the Tagalog has been adjudged the best by scholars. “I found in this language,”
said Padre Chirino, eminent Jesuit-historian, “four qualities of the four greatest languages of
the world – Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish. It has “MYSTERY and OBSCURITIES of
the HEBREW”, ang wikang Tagalog ay may misteryo at pagkakahawig sa wikang Hebreo.
Si Ophir ay Apo ni Heber na pinanggalingan ng Wikang Lumang-Hebreo. Bago pa dumating sa
Ophir ang mga Sri-Visjaya sa pamumuno ni Datu Putih, ang mga naninirahan sa mga isla ng
Ophir ay nagsasalita na ng wika ni Adam dahil nang nawasak ang wika ng mga tao sa panahon ng
Tore ni Babel tanging si Heber lamang ang nakapag-ingat ng wika ni Adam na tinawag sa
pangalan ni Heber na Hebreo at si Ophir ay Apo ni Heber na nanirahan sa Silanganan. Karaniwan
noon na tinatawag ang bawat lugar sa kanilang pangalan.
Wikang Tagalog ay Sina-Unang Wikang Hebreo
TAGALOG
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
ABA
AGAM
AGAP
AHA
ALILA
ALE
ALAM
HEBREW WORD
Abah
Agam
Aggaph
Ahahh
Alilah
Ale
Alam
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
MEANING IN HEBREW
be dense
a marsh
a cover
exclamatory
to overdo
female master
concealed
Page 38
8. ALIS
9. ANAK
10.ANTIK
11. ANIYA
12. ASA
13. ASAYA
14. ASAL
15. AYAW
Alees
Anak
Anthiyq
Aniyah
Awsaw
Asayah
Azal
Ahyaw
jump for joy
to be narrow
antique
sorrow
to do or make
Yah has made
depart
screamer
1. BAKA
2. BAKYA
3. BALAM
4. BALAK
5. BAROK
6. BASURA
7. BATA
8. BATAK
9. BATAK
10. BAWAT
11. BAWAL
12. BAWAT
13. BAWAS
14. BUKID
15. BWISIT
Bawkah
Bekee-ah
Balam
Balaq
Baruwk
Besowrah
Bata
Bathaq
Batach
Baw-at
Baw-al
Bawat
Baw-ash
Bukki
Bosheth
be ready to burst
break forth in pieces
to be held in
to annihilate
blessed
reward for good news
to babble in speech
thrust through
be bold
to trample down
to be master
kick
to smell bad
to depopulate
shame, confusion
1. CUBAO
Chobawb
to hide, hiding place
1. KAANAK
2. KABA
3. KABA
4. KABARET
5. KABAYAN
6. KABOD
7. KABILA
8. KAGAYA
9. KALAM
10. KALAS
11. KALUKAW
12. KAMAO
13. KAMOT
14. KANAN
15. KANAN
16. KANILA
17. KANYA
18. KAPA
Chanaq
Chaba
Kabah
Chabareth
Chabayah
Kabod
Khav-ee-law
Khag-ghee-yaw
Chalam
Khaw-lash
Khal-ook-kaw
Khaw-mawn
Khamoth
Chanan
Khanaw
Khan-nee-ale (el)
Khan-nee-ale (el)
Kapa
to narrow
to cherish, love
to expire in heart
female consort
Yah has hidden
weight
circular
festival of Yah
to bind
to overthrown
division
image
wisdom
to favor
to in dine
favor of Yah become
favor of Yah become
to cover
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 39
19. KAPAS
20. KAPIT
21. KARIT
22. KARAS
23. KARAYOM
24. KASA
25. KATAS
26. KATAL
27. KILYA
28. KISAY
29. KUPE
Chaphas
Chaphets
Charits
Charash
Charayown
Kasah
Kathash
Chathal
Chelyah
Kissay
Khofe (kupe)
disguise self, hide
to incline to
incisure, sharf
to scratch
doves dung
to grow fat
to butt
to swathe
jewel
overwhelm
a cove
1. DAGAN
2. DALAG
3. DAMA
4. DAMA
5. DARAK
6. DATU
7. DAYA
8. DIBA
9. DODONG
10. DUWAG
Dagan
Dalag
Dama
Damah
Darak
Dath
Dayah
Dib-bah
Dowdow
Du-weg
increase grain
leap
to weep
to compare
draw
a royal edict or commandment
fly rapidly
evil report
King David - love
be afraid
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
GABAY
GALA
GERA
GIBA
GINAW
GULAT
Gabbay
Galah
Gerah
Gibah
Ghinnaw
Giylath
curve, rounded
to exile, depart
continuing, destroy
house, cup, pot
a garden
joy, rejoicing
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
HAH
HALA
HALAK
HALAL
HALIKA
HAPAK
HILIGAYNON
Hahh
Hala
Halak
Halal
Haliykah
Haphak
Higaynon
express grief
to remove
to walk, be conversant
celebrate, renowned
company, going
to change
solemn sound
1.
2.
3.
4.
IBSAN
ILAW
INDAY
ITAY
Ibtsan
Illaw
Dowdah
Ittay
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
inflammatory
to ascend
female of Dowdow -love
unadvisedly
Page 40
1. LABA
2. LABAN
3. LABAS
4. LAHAT
5. LAKAD
6. LAKAS
7. LAOAG
8. LAPAT
9. LAYAW
10. LEKAT
11. LUKOT
12. LUWA
Lavah
Laban
Labash
Lahat
Lakad
Lachash
Lawag
Laphath
La-yaw
Leh-kakh
Luchowth
Luwa
1. MAGALAW
2. MAGALAW
3. MAGARA
4. MAGINAW
5. MAGDALO
6. MAHABA
7. MAHAL
8. MAHALAL
9. MAHALAY
10. MAKALAT
11. MAKIRI
12. MALAKI
13. MALAKI
14. MALAT
15. MALAYAW
16. MALAYU
17. MALE
18. MATA
19. MATSAKAW
20. MAYKAYA
21. MINDANAO
22. MOOG
23. MULA
24. MUOK
25. MURA
Mah-gaw-law
Mah-gaw-law
Maguwwrah
Maginnaw
Migdalah
Mahavahee
Mahal
Mahalal
Mahalay
Machalat
Makiyriy
Mahlake
Malakiy
Malat
Meleah(mel-ay-aw)
Mala
Male
Mattah
Mutsa-kaw
Mayka-Yah
Mig-daw-naw
Moog
Muhlah
Mook
Morah
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Palag
Pel-aw-yaw
Pa-naw
Parah
Param
Para
PALAG
PALAYAW
PANAW
PARA
PARAM
PARA
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
to unite
white
wrap around
tower
to catch
amulet
to deride, speak
take hold
weary
to take
to glisten
swallow down
a track
to revolve
permanent residence
shield
tower
desire
to adulterate
fame
steep
sickness
salesman
walking
mininstrative
be smooth
female of Mala, abundance
to fulfilled
filling
rod
something pound out
who is like Yah
be eminent, preciousness
flow down
circumcision
to become thin
fear
divide
Yah has favored
go away, cast out
increase
to tear
to bear fruit
Page 41
7. PASA
8. PASAK
9. PASAY
10. PATAK
11. PATAW
12. PETSA
13. PILI
14. PILILLA
15. PILEGES
16. PINILI
17. PINYA
18. PISIL
19. PISTE
20. PITAK
21. PO (Po)
22. POOK
23. PUKAW
24. PUTA
25. PUTI
Pasa
Pasaq
Paw-say-akh
Pathach
Paw-thaw
Petsa
Pilee
Peliyla
Piylegesh
Peneeale
Peneeale
Pehsel
Pishteh
Pethach
Po or Hoo (1931)
Pook
Pookaw
Pothah
Poothe
1. SABA
2. SABAK
3. SABAD
4. SABAW
5. SAKA
6. SAKAB
7. SAKANYA
8. SAKAL
9. SAKA
10. SAKAY
11. SAKIT
12. SAGAD
13. SALAG
14. SALAMAT
15. SALAT
16. SALO
17. SAMA
18. SAMAR
19. SAMAT
20. SANAYIN
21. SAPAT
22. SAPAW
23. SARAT
24. SARA
25. SARAP
26. SAWA
27. SELOSA
Saba
Sabak
Zabad
Saybaw
Shakah
Shakab
Shekanyah
Shaqal
Shaqa
Zakkay
Sheqets
Saw-gad
Salga
Shalom
Shalat
Sal-loo
Shamma
Shamar
Shamat
Shenayin
Shaphat
Shawfaw
Sarat
Sara
Saraph
Shawah
Shelowshah
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
to stride
to disport
exemption, skip over
to open
persuade
wound
secret
judge,Yah has judge
concubine
face of Yah(el), Piniyah-face of Yah
Piniyah-face of Yah
carve images
stupidity
opening
derive from Hoo,third person
obtain
stumbling block
hinge or the female pudenda
scatter into corner
abundance
to intwine
to confer
old age
to roam
to lie down
Yah has dwell
to suspend
to subside
pure
abominable
fall down
be white
peace
to dominate
weighed
desolation
save yourself
fling down
to transmute
to judge
to abrade
cut in pieces
to prolong
thought
please, amuse
third wife
Page 42
28. SIBOL
29. SIBOL
30. SIKIP
31. SILAY
32. SILO
33. SITAHIN
34. SUMAKWEL
35. SUMAYAW
36. SULTAN
Zebool
Shibbol
Sheqeph
Selay
Shiyloh
Shettayim
Shemuwel
Shemayaw
Sholtan
dwelling, residence
ear of grain
loophole
be in safety
tranquil
two fold
hear intelligently, cast out
Yah has heard
ruler, dominion
1. TABAK
2. TAKA
3. TAKAS
4. TAKIP
5. TAGA
6. TALA
7. TANAW
8. TANIM
9. TAPAK
10.TAPAL
11.TAPAT
12.TATUWA
13.TAWA
14.TEKLA
15.TENA
16. TENGA
17. TERA
18. TIKOM
19. TIMPLA
20. TIRA
21. TORE
22. TUMIRA
23. TUNAW
Tabach
Takah
Tachash
Taqqiyph
Tagah
Tala
Tannaw
Tsanim
Taphach
Taphal
Taphath
Tatua
Tawah
Tiklah
Tenah
Teqa
Tera
Tiykom
Tiphlah
Tiyrah
Tore
Tiymarah
Toanaw
to slaughter
sit down, to strew
bottom
strong
slap
hang, suspended
female jackal
thorn
flatten down
stick on as a patch
a dropping
error
to cheat
perfection, completeness
fig tre
sound
adoor
middle, central
unsavoury
a wall, fortress
ring dove
be erect
purpose
1. URI
Uwriy
1. YAKAL
2. YAMAN
3. YARE
Yachal
Yaman
Yare
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
east the region of the light
be patient
right hand side
afraid, frighten
Page 43
A Rapid Journal ArticleVolume 10, No. 2
By: Celestino C. Macachor
Retracing our Past on Pandan Leaves – Pre-colonial Cebu
Legends and myth have been told about how the ancient name of Cebu City or as some old timers fondly
call Sugbo originated. None of these versions so far have held up to the scrutiny of scholars and historians
until Jovito Abellana published his book Bisaya Patronymesis Sri Visjaya where he extensively wrote
about Aginid, Bayok sa atong Tawarik (Glide on, Odes to our History). The Aginid a discovery made by
Jovito Abellana‘s great grandfather is probably the only pre-colonial chronicle of the history of Cebu
written in ancient alibata script on pandan leaves and other indigenous materials. Unfortunately most of
the materials were lost in the subsequent upheaval that followed the Spanish defeat by Cebuano guerillas
and the ensuing Filipino American War.
Amidst strong support by some scholars to institutionalize the Aginid, the Cebu Normal University
published it in 1998. Abellana wrote it in alibata (Cebuano hieroglyphic) form with an English
translation. The Aginid tells of the fiery story of pre-colonial Cebu then known as Sugbo – which means
scorched earth. This version on the origins of Sugbo, is important as it establishes the basic hypothesis why
eskrima was invented in the first place – in defense against Moro invaders. And to add credence to the
discovery of the Aginid by Jovito Abellana, other cognates of the word Sugbo can be found in the Cebuano
lexicon such as: sugba – to grill, subu‘ – to forge steel, sug-ang – set a cooking fire, sugnod – to
burn. Let us go back to the story of how Sugbo got its name. In the olden times Sugbo (now present day
Cebu City) was part of the island of Pulua Kang Dayang or Kangdaya. The ancient poem Diyandi tells us
that so many hundred years ago natives had burned the town Sugbo as a way to drive away Muslim
invaders from Mindanao. The natives would then flee to the mountains and later launch a counter
offensive against the demoralized and exhausted invaders. The first ruler of Sugbo Sri Lumay who came
from Sumatra successfully repulsed the invaders with his scorched earth tactics. Thus the place became
known as Sugbo or scorched town. Jovito Abellana translated the Diyandi which was written in ancient
alibata script and probably written during the time of Datu Tupas. It is a stirring chronicle of the story of
the rich culture and colorful history of pre-colonial Cebu.
Aginid, Bayok sa Atong Tawarik (Glide on, Odes to Our History)
Extracted from Marivir Montebon‘s book Retracing Our Roots – A Journey into Cebu’s Pre-Colonial
Past[2] are excerpts of the story of pre-colonial Cebu according to the Aginid, Bayok sa atong Tawarik
(Glide on, Odes to Our History) as translated by Jovito Abellana: ―Sri Lumay of Sumatra settled in Sugbo
with his son, Sri Alho, ruling the south known as Sialo which included Valladolid, Carcar, up to
Santander. His other son, Sri Ukob, ruled the north known as Nahalin which includes the present towns
of Consolacion, Liloan, Compostela, Danao, Carmen, and Bantayan. As a ruler, Sri Lumay was known to
be strict, merciless, and brave. He assigned magalamags to teach his people to read and write ancient
letterings. He ordered routinary patrol by boats from Nahalin to Sialo by his mangubats (warriors). A
strict ruler, Sri Lumay was a loving person that not a single slave ran away from him. During his reign, the
Magalos (literally destroyers of peace) who came from Southern Mindanao from time to time invaded the
island to loot and hunt for slaves. Sri Lumay commanded to burn the town each time the southerners came
to drive them away empty handed. Later, they fought these Magalos (Moro raiders) so that they leave the
town for good.
The town was thus permanently called Kang Sri Lumayng Sugbo, or Sri Lumay‘s scorched town. Trading
was vibrantly carried on by Sri Lumay‘s people with merchants from China, Japan, India, and Burma in
Parian, located at the northeastern part of the city. The archipelago was strategically positioned in
southeast Asia that it naturally became part of the trade route of the ancient world.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 44
Agricultural products were bartered for Chinese silk cloths, bells, porcelain wares, iron tools, oil lamps, and
medicinal herbs. From Japan, perfume and glass utensils were usually traded with native goods. Ivory
products, leather, precious and semi-precious stones, and sarkara (sugar) mostly came from the Burmese
and Indian traders. Sri Lumay was killed in one of the battles against the magalos and was succeeded by
his youngest son Sri Bantug who ruled Singhapala (Mabolo district today). Bantug carried on his father‘s
rules throughout his reign. He organized umalahukans (reporters) to urge people in Nahalin and Sialo to
obey his orders, especially on agricultural production and defense. During Sri Bantug‘s time, Sugbo,
Nahalin, and Sialo thrived on subsistence, sel-sufficient economy. He died in an epidemic which spread in
the island and was succeeded by his youngest son Sri Humabon. Under Humabon, the sibo or sibu in
Parian became more progressive. Here, the ―sinibuayng hingpit‖ (meaning a place for full trade) was
carried on. The word Cebu is thus coined from the old word sibo, an old word for barter, trade, swap.
At this time, Lapulapu Dimantag arrived from Borneo and asked Humabon for a place to settle. Being an
orang laut (man of the sea), Humabon offered the Opong island but Lapulapu was later convinced to settle
in Mandawili (now Mandaue) and make the land productive because it was impossible to cultivate food
crops in Opong because of its rocky terrain. Under Lapulapu‘s leadership, trading in Parian further
flourished because of the goods which he brought from the land and sea in northern Cebu. It did not take
long though that his relationship with Humabon turned hostile. Lapulapu eventually became a mangatang
(pirate) who ordered his men to loot ships that pass by Opong island. This had lowered the trading
transactions in Parian, thus creating tension between Humabon and Lapulapu. Opong island thus earned
the ill-reputed name mangatang which later evolved into the word Mactan.
In 1521, the Spanish conquistadors came to the Visayan shore. Humabon thought that they came to Cebu
to establish ties with his kingdom as did the other traders from Asia. The blood compact between him and
the Spaniards and later, a mass baptismal, all meant to signify goodwill as far as Humabon was
concerned. But the Spaniards did not see it that way. For them, it was the start of the colonization of the
island, signified by the planting of the cross. It was only a little later that Humabon realized this.
With the baptismal, Humabon‘s subjects embraced a religion which they vaguely understood and without
knowing that they had been converted at all, or so the Aginid said. Known to be a wily man, Humabon
encouraged the Spaniards to fight Lapulapu, his enemy. Thus the battle of Mactan.
Lapulapu proved to be a true warrior in that battle. He instructed his men not to waste their spears and
bolos on the Spaniards. Instead, he taught them to strike with pestle or with a club so that when the armor
coat of the ugis (white man) is dented, the man inside can never move. It was when they should hit hard
with their keen tools for warfare. Humabon‘s men merely observed the battle but helped in putting back
the wounded white men in their boats. Lapulapu, who was also wounded, lost 29 men. The Aginid
narrated that while the battle of Mactan raged on, the Spaniards who remained in Sugbo raped the women.
This angered Humabon but he remained outwardly polite as he carefully planned his revenge. The chief
prepared a feast for the Spaniards by the beach. When the white men were drunk enough, the natives began
to slaughter them. A few managed to escape and return to the three ships, the Concepcion, the Trinidad
and the Victoria. Since the Spaniards were considerably reduced in number, those in the Concepcion
transferred to the other two ships. Later, the natives set the Concepcion on fire off the sea of Bu-ol
(Bohol).
After the Spaniards left, the natives uprooted the cross which Magellan had planted annd returned to their
animistic religious practices. It was replanted later, upon the plea of Humabon‘s wife Juana who,
according to the poem, acted on her constant dream of a boy child who asked her to put up the cross
again. When Humabon‘s wife found out that the boy in her dreams had the same image of the infant Jesus
Christ the Spaniards gave her during baptismal, Humabon obliged to replant the cross. Thereafter, the
dream no longer recurred.
In the succeeding years, Humabon and Lapulapu rekindled their friendship. Lapulapu decided to return to
Borneo with three of his wives, 11 of his children and 17 of his men. Humabon thus ruled a much larger
area than before. After Humabon, Sri Tupas reigned. He was the son of Sri Parang, Humabons‘ elder
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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brother who could not rule because he was limp. During the time of Tupas, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi came
to Cebu, and another era of fierce battle ensued. With Legazpi at the helm, Cebu and the entire archipelago
were subdued by the Spanish crown for more than three hundred years, in the name of Christianity.‖
Postscripts on the Battle of Mactan
This excerpt from the Aginid is presented not to emphasize the battle of Mactan or the so-called ―kali‖
prowess of Lapulapu as what most of the kali advocates would want us to be believe, but rather to highlight
the narrative of Magalos (Moro) raids in Cebu and the rest of the coastal villages throughout the
archipelago in pre-Hispanic times. While indeed there is graphic description of strategy deployed by
Lapulapu, nonetheless it is not conclusive evidence to prove the existence of kali a highly sophisticated
martial art that was supposed to be the mother of modern eskrima, arnis and estokada. Moreover, of the 60
soldiers that waded ashore on that fateful day only 9 were killed alongside their leader Magellan versus
more than 1,000 men of Lapulapu. Pigafetta probably padded the figures of Lapulapu‘s strength to save
face in this debacle. Nonetheless, Magellan‘s men whether they were grossly outnumbered or not had to
maneuver the sharp coral embedded shores of Mactan, most of them malnourished and sick after several
months at sea. The arquebuses they carried were practically unreliable after prolonged exposure to the
elements - salt water, humidity, and corrosion; they would not have made an effective equalizer against the
primitive warriors of Lapulapu. To imagine that more than three quarters of them survived the ―battle‖, is
either a testament of the Spaniards‘ fighting prowess despite overwhelming odds or a proof of how sloppy
Lapulapu‘s men were? Definitely it wasn‘t a classic one on one fracas as dramatized in the annual
reenactment called Kadaugan sa Mactan (Victory in Mactan) festivities celebrated by the people of
Lapulapu City to commemorate this event. Did Lapulapu practice a martial art? Definitely, but not kali,
maybe an embryonic and primitive form of weapons combat but absolutely not a fighting art anywhere
close to present day eskrima. Eskrima, arnis and estokada that we know today will not achieve the zenith
of its technical development and sophistication until the year 1635 during the administration of Don
Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera.
Searching for the Kali Connection in Folk Epics
Aside from the Aginid other folk epics exists that left behind a rich legacy of tales that recount the
adventures and bravery of tribal heroes, customs and traditions and the practice of an earlier animist
religion. These arduously long epics are expressed in song and poetry and in some cases would take more
than a month to perform. These epics remained unwritten because chanting is the mode by which these
have been produced and passed on from one generation to the next. They portray tribal society before the
coming of the Muslims (1380) and the Christians (1521) and serve as vehicles for the transmission of tribal
customs and wisdom. Meaning if one wants to learn things in the past, like kali, these epics may provide
information. There is no mention of kali practiced by the hero in Biag ni Lam-ang. Likewise the hero
Aliguyon of the epic Hudhud did not practice kali. There is also no mention of kali in Labaw Donggon of
the Sulod (in Panay, where kali was supposed to be taught in bothoan schools- already proven a fake by
William Henry Scott), the Ulahingan of the Manobos, the Sandayo of the Subanon (Zamboanga peninsula)
and the Darangen of the Maranaos.
Like the Aginid there is no dearth of information if we are to dig deeper into pre-historic myths and legends
through these epics, in fact, the Humadapnon, one of the longer of the epics, takes two months to be
chanted in its entire length. Thus if kali really existed, then there is a high probability that one can find and
read/hear the word kali, in these many epics. There is none!
However, there is one traditional wedding dance called the Solili in the island of Siquijor (southwest of
Cebu) which dates back more than a hundred years and still performed today that incorporates certain
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elements of stick fighting in its choreography. But sorry to disappoint the kali believers, the Siquijornons
call it eskrima!
Following the battle of Mactan, textbook history later recounts that the vanquished Spaniards returned with
one ship the Concepcion with the remnants of Magellan's expedition under Sebastian del Cano, proving for
the first time, that the earth is round.
The Second Spanish Invasion – Recruitment of Cebuano warriors
―The second Spanish expedition to the Philippines headed by Miguel Lopez de Legaspi and Andres de
Urdaneta reached Cebu on 27 April 1565. As in the earlier experience, the native reception of Legaspi was
initially amiable with a blood compact with Sikatuna, chieftain of Bohol. Later, Tupas, son and successor
of Humabon, battled with the Spaniards who easily killed some 2,000 warriors, who were equipped merely
with wood corselets and rope armor, lances, shields, small cutlasses, arrows, and decorative headgear.
Their native boats "built for speed and maneuverability, not for artillery duels" (Scott 1982:26) were no
match to Spain's three powerful warships. Legaspi, accompanied by four Agustinians, built the fort of San
Miguel on 8 May 1565. This was the first permanent Spanish settlement in the archipelago. Tupas signed a
treaty tantamount to submission on 3 Jul 1565 for which he was given 13 m of brown damask. On 21 May
1568, shortly before his death, Tupas was baptized by Fr. Diego de Herrera- an event which propagandized
Spanish rule. On 1 Jan 1571, the settlement was renamed the Ciudad del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus (City
of the Most Holy Name of Jesus) in honor of the image of the Child Jesus found in an unburned house in
the wake of the Spanish invasion of 1565 (the site of the present Augustinian Church). It was believed to be
a relic of Magellan's expedition, the same one given to "Queen Juana" upon her baptism. Cebu was the
capital of the Spanish colony for six years before its transfer to Panay and then to Manila. Many Cebu
warriors were recruited by Legaspi, Goiti, and Salcedo to conquer the rest of the country. ‖[3] The
foregoing account by Gwendolyn Ting is self-explanatory if we are to find a direct link of the strong
Spanish influence on eskrima among the early Cebuano warriors. When Legaspi moved the capital to
Manila, the Moro pirate attacks on Sugbo and outlying coastal villages from Oslob and Moalboal in the
south up to the Bantayan group of islands in the north intensified. The Cebuanos sans the aid of colonial
firepower once again had to fend for themselves to protect their coastal villages against the Moros of
Mindanao. It wasn‘t until sixty years later under the command of Spanish Captain Juan de Chavez that the
Cebuanos turned the tables around as invaders when 1,000 Creole Spanish speaking volunteer warriors set
sail for Mindanao to build a permanent fortification in Zamboanga. Never in the history of Spanish
colonization had their been a recruitment of a native warrior class with such high morale motivated by only
one thing – revenge! This was to be the turning point in the innovation and development of the deadly art
of eskrima and the introduction of the Chavacano language in Zamboanga.
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According to Jose Rizal; in the past, the Malays including the Malay Pinoys and not the
Chinese dominated in the trading among the isles in Maritime Southeast Asia
And so instead of trading be done in gold as it was in the past, they traded in silver, the preferential currency of the Chinese.
quoting Rizal:
The following, among other causes, contributed to foster the evil and aggravate it: the constantly lessening encouragement that
labor has met with in the Philippines. Fearing to have the Filipinos deal frequently with other individuals of their own race, who
were free and independent, as the Borneans, the Siamese, the Cambodians, and the Japanese, people who in their customs and
feeling's differ greatly from the Chinese, the Government acted toward these others with great mistrust and great severity, as
Morga testifies in the last pages of his work, until they finally ceased to come to the country. In fact, it seems that once an uprising'
planned by the Borneans was suspected: we say suspected, for there was not even an attempt, although there were many
executions. (19) And, as these nations were the very ones that, consumed Philippine products, when all communication with them
had been cut off, consumption of these products also ceased. The only two countries with which the Philippines continued page
34to have relations were China and Mexico, or New Spain, and from this trade only China and a few private individuals in Manila
got any benefit. It, fact, the Celestial Empire sent, her junks laden with merchandise, that merchandise which shut down the
factories of Seville and ruined the Spanish industry, and returned laden in exchange with the silver that was every year sent from
Mexico. Nothing from the Philippines at that time went to China, not even gold, for in those years the Chinese traders would
accept no payment but silver coin. (20) To Mexico went little more: some cloth and dry goods which the encomendoros took by
force or bought from the natives at, a paltry price, wax, amber, gold, civet, etc, but nothing more, and not even in great quantity, as
is stated by Admiral Don Jerónimo de Bañuelos y Carrillo, when he begged the King that “the inhabitants of the Manilas be
permitted (!) to load as many ships as they could with native products, such as wax, gold, perfumes, ivory, cotton cloths, which
they would have to buy from the natives of the country ............... Thus the friendship of those peoples would be gained, they
would furnish New Spain with their merchandise and the money that is brought to Manila, would not leave this place,” (21)
The coastwise trade, so active in other times, had to die out, thanks to the piratical attacks of the Malays of the south; and trade in
the interior of the islands almost entirely disappeared, owing to restrictions, passports page 35and other administrative
requirements.
Of no little importance were the hindrances and obstacles that from the beginning were thrown in the farmers's way by the rulers,
who were influenced by childish fear and saw everywhere signs of conspiracies and uprisings. The natives were not allowed to go
to their labors, that is, their farms, without permission of the governor, or of his agents and officers, and even of the priests as
Morga says. Those who know the administrative slackness and confusion in a country where the officials work scarcely two hours
a day; those who know the cost of going to and returning from the capital to obtain a permit; those who are aware of the petty
retaliations of the little tyrants will well understand how with this crude arrangement it is possible to have the most absurd
agriculture. True it is that for some time this absurdity, which would be ludicrous had it not been so serious, has disappeared; but
even if the words have gone out of use other facts and other provisions have replaced them. The Moro pirate has disappeared but
there remains the outlaw who infests the fields and waylays the farmer to hold him for ransom. Now then, the government, which
has a constant fear of the people, denies to the farmers even the use of a shotgun, or if it does allow it does so very grudgingly
and withdraws it at pleasure; whence it results with the laborer, who, thanks to his means of defense, plants his crops and invests
his meager fortune page 36in the furrows that he has so laboriously opened, that when his crop matures, it occurs to the
government, which is impotent to suppress brigandage, to deprive him of his weapon; and then, without defense and without
security he is reduced to inaction and abandons his field, his work, and takes to gambling as the best means of securing a
livelihood. The green cloth is under the protection of the government, it is safer! A mournful counselor is fear, for it not only causes
weakness but also in casting aside the weapons strengthens the very persecutor!
The sordid return the native gets from his work has the effect of discouraging him. We know from history that the encomenderos,
after reducing many to slavery and forcing them to work for their benefit, made others give up their merchandise for a trifle or
nothing at all, or cheated them with false measures.
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Rizal remarks about the industriousness of the Malays
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Malayan Filipinos carried on an active trade, not only among themselves but also
with all the neighboring countries. A Chinese manuscript of the 13th century, translated by Dr. Hirth (Globus, Sept. 1889),
which we will take up at another time, speaks of China's relations with the islands, relations purely commercial, in which
mention is made of the activity and honesty of the traders of Luzon, who took the Chinese products and distributed them
throughout all the islands, traveling for nine months, and then returned to pay religiously even for the merchandise that
the Chinamen did not remember to have given them. The products which they in exchange exported from the islands
were crude wax, cotton, pearls, tortoise-shell, betel-nuts, dry-goods, etc.
The first thing noticed by Pigafetta, who came with Magellan in 1521, on arriving at the first island of the Philippines,
Samar, was the courtesy and kindness of the inhabitants and their commerce. “To honor our captain,” he says, “they
conducted him to their boats where they had their merchandise, which consisted of cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs,
mace, gold and other things; and they made us understand by gestures that such articles were to be found in the islands
to which we were going.”
Further on he speaks of the vessels and utensils of solid gold that he found in Butuan, where the people worked mines.
He describes the silk dresses, the daggers with long gold hilts and scabbards of carved wood, the gold, sets of teeth,
etc. Among cereals and fruits he mentions rice, millet, oranges, lemons, panicum, etc.
That the islands maintained relations with neighboring countries and even with distant ones is proven by the ships from
Siam, laden with gold and slaves, that Magellan found in Cebu. These ships paid certain duties to the King of the island.
In the same year, 1521, the survivors of Magellan's expedition met the son of the Rajah of Luzon, who, as captain-general
of the Sultan of Borneo and admiral of his fleet, had conquered for him the great city of Lave (Sarawak?). Might this
captain, who was greatly feared by all his foes, have been the Rajah Matanda whom the Spaniards afterwards
encountered in Tondo in 1570?
In 1539 the warriors of Luzon took part in the formidable contests of Sumatra, and under the orders of Angi Siry Timor,
Rajah of Batta, conquered and overthrew the terrible Alzadin, Sultan of Atchin, renowned in the historical annals of the
Far East. (Marsden, Hist. of Sumatra, Chap. XX.)
At that time, that sea where float the islands like a set of emeralds on a paten of bright page 20glass, that sea was
everywhere traversed by junks, paraus, barangays, vintas, vessels swift as shuttles, so large that they could maintain a
hundred rowers on a side (Morga;) that sea bore everywhere commerce, industry, agriculture, by the force of the oars
moved to the sound of warlike songs (8) of the genealogies and achievements of the Philippine divinities. (Colin, Chap.
XV.)
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Sino si Ophir ?
Ophir ay naisulat sa Lumang Tipan ng Biblia sa 1 Kings 22:48, 9:28 and 22:49,
Psalms 45:9, Isaiah 13:12, Job 22:24, 28:16, 1Chron. 24:4, 1:23, Genesis 10:25-26.
Sa Genesis 10:25-30 ―At si Heber ay nagka-anak ng dalawang lalaki: ang pangalan ng isa ay Peleg,
dahil nang araw na ipinanganak sila ang wika ng mga tao sa mundo ay nagkaiba-iba, at ang
kanyang kapatid ay si Yoktan. At si Yoktan ay naging anak sina Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth,
Yerah, Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, Obal, Abimael, Sheba, OPHIR, Havilah, Yobab; lahat ng ito ay
mga anak ni Yoktan. At sila ay nanirahan mula sa Mesha at hanggang sa Sephar sa kabundukan
sa Silangan.‖
CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS BASED ON HOLY BIBLE RECORDS
YEAR
REFERENCE
HEBREW NAME-MEANING-EVENTS
B.C.E. (Before Common Era)
3992 Dan.9:24-27
3862 Gen.5:3-6 Seth
3757 Gen.5:9 Enosh
3667 Gen.5:12 Cainan
3597 Gen.5:15 Mahalalel
3532 Gen.5:18 Yared
3370 Gen.5:21 Enoch
3305 Gen.5:25 Metuselah
3118 Gen.5:28-29 Lamech
3062 Gen.5:5 Death of Adam
3005 Gen.5:23 Enoch taken away
2950 Gen.5:8 Death of Seth
2936 Gen.5:28 (10)Noah
2852 Gen.5:11 Death of Enosh
2757 Gen.5:14 Death of Cainan
2702 Gen.5:17 Death of Mahalalel
2570 Gen.5:20 Death of Yared
2436 Gen.5:32 Shem
2341 Gen.5:31 Death of Lamech
2336 Gen.5:27 Death of Metuselah
2336 Gen.7:6 Ark of Noah Great flood
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Creation of (1)Adam-Awdam-to show blood in face
Sheeth-appoint
Awnash-to be frail
Kane-a nest
Halal-praise Yah
Yared-to descend to lower region
Kawnek-discipline
Methuselah
Lehmek-uncertain
Nooakh-to rest
Seem-call a name.Ham Yahpet born
Noah and 3 children, wives survived
Page 50
Archaeological Findings:
Ancient Ebla
2334 Gen.11:10 Arphakshad
2299 Gen.11:12 Selah-Shawlakh
2269 Gen.11:14 Heber
2235 Gen.11:14 (15) Peleg
2235 Gen.10:25 Tower of Babel
In 1974 at site of ancient Ebla northern Syria,
exemplify the plethora of pre-flood and post
flood writings
Rawpad-to refresh
to send away
Awba-crossover
Pawleg-to divide ( Yoktam the father of Ophir )
Migdalah Bawlal - Confounded the language of Son of
Man. Heber language was called Hebrew from name
Heber.
Ang Wika ni Ophir
Ang wika ni Heber ay kagaya ng wika ni Adam at nang magkaiba-iba ang wika ng mga tao sa
mundo, tanging si Heber lamang ang nakapag-ingat ng orihinal na wika ni Adam na tinawag sa
kanyang pangalan na Heber na naging Hebreo. Samakatwid ang naging wika ng dalawang
anak ni Heber sina Peleg at Yoktan ay Hebreo din at ang naging wika ng kanilang mga anak ay
Hebreo din. Samakatwid ang wika ni Ophir na anak ni Yoktam ay Hebreo din.
Ang Wika ni Abraham
Ang anak ni Peleg si Reu, ang anak ni Reu si Serug, ang anak ni Serug si Nachor, ang anak ni
Nachor si Thare, ang anak ni Thare sina Abram na naging Abraham, Nahor at Haran ang ama ni
Lot. Si Abraham ay tinawag na Hebreo sa Genesis 14:13, samakatwid ang wika ni Abraham ay
Hebreo.
2205 Gen.11:18 Reu
Rawaw-shepherd
2173 Gen.11:20 Serug
Sawrag-to intwine
2143 Gen.11:22 Nachor
Nakharaw-to snore
2114 Gen.11:24 Thare
Tehrakh-trembling
2044 Gen.11:26 (20)Abram(Abraham) Father to be raise of people.Covenant Gen.17:9-10
Ang Datu ay Apo ni Abraham
Nang ang salita ni YAHWEH ay dumating kay Abraham sa Genesis 15:13-14 “At sinabi ni
Yahweh kay Abraham, sinabi ko sa iyo na ang lahi ng iyong mga anak ay magsisilbi
sa ibang lupain ng mga Hentil at sila ay pahihirapan sa loob ng 400 taon, at ang
Nasyong iyon na kanilang pinagsilbihan ay aking hahatulan at pagkatapos at
ilalabas ko sila na may dalang malaking yaman”. Sa Genesis 21:12-13 ― kay Yahshaak
(Isaac) ang iyong lahi ay tatawagin at ang anak mo sa katulong ay aking gagawin din na isang
Nasyon, DAHIL SIYA AY ANAK AT LAHI MO RIN‖.
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Sina Yahshaak at Ismaale (Ismael) ay Anak at Lahi rin ni Abraham at si Ismaale ang naunang
nanirahan sa Masry (Egypt) sa Genesis 21:21 at sumunod ang mga anak ni Yahshaak kay
Yahkoob (Jacob) na tinawag ni Yahweh bilang Yahshear (Gen. 32:28) ay nanirahan din sa Masry
sa Genesis 46:3 ―Ako si YAHWEH, ang makapangyarihan ng iyong mga magulang, huwag kang
matakot pumaroon sa Masry; dahil gagawin ko kayong malaking Nasyon‖. Samakatwid ang lahi
ni Abraham sa kanyang dalawang anak sina Ismaale at Yahshaak ay naging tigapagsilbi sa lupain
na hindi kanila sa lupain ng Masry kagaya sa sinabi ni Yahweh sa Genesis 15:13-14. Ang sinabi ay
paglipas ng 400 na taon ay lalabas sila sa Nasyong iyon na kanilang pinagsilbihan at sa Exodus
12:52 ―si YAHWEH ay inilabas ang mga anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) (Tribo ng Yahshurun)
Gen.32:28 mula sa lupain ng Masry‖.
THE NAME ‘ISRAEL’ ORIGINATED FROM THE NAME (YASHAR) ‘YAHSHEAR’
yaw-shar' a primitive root; to be straight
‘yesh-oo-roon' Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel
yis-raw-ale' a symbolical name of Jacob
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew-Greek Dictionary ‘search’ for "Israel"–₃₄₇₄
Genesis 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel –₃₄₇₄ for as a prince hast
thou power with Elohim and with men, and hast prevailed.
3474 yashar yaw-shar' a primitive root; to be straight or even; figuratively, to be (causatively, to make)
right, pleasant, prosperous:--direct, fit, seem good (meet), + please (will), be (esteem, go) right (on), bring
(look, make, take the) straight (way), be upright(-ly).
3475 Yesher yay'-sher from 3474; the right; Jesher, an Israelite: -Jesher.
3476 yosher yo'-sher from 3474; the right:--equity, meet, right, upright(-ness).
3477 yashar yaw-shawr' from 3474; straight (literally or figuratively):--convenient, equity, Jasher, just,
meet(-est), + pleased well right(-eous), straight, (most) upright(-ly, -ness).
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
3478 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' from 8280 and 410; he will rule as God; Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also
(typically) of his posterity: --Israel.
3479 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' (Aramaic) corresponding to 3478:--Israel.
3481 Yisr'eliy yis-reh-ay-lee' patronymically from 3478; a Jisreelite or descendant of Jisrael:--of Israel,
Israelite.
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
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YAHSHURUN FROM THE NAME YAHSHEAR
THE 12 TRIBES OF YAHSHURUN WAS CALLED YISRAWALE IN MASRY (NOW EGYPT)
3478 from no. 8280 Yisrawale (Israel) means “Prince of Sarah” to distinguished from
Ismael means “In the name of my master Sarah” (“ale” means female master)
dath <1881> Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew Dictionary
Pronunciation:
Dawth (dawthu)
Definition:
1) decree, law, edict, regulation, usage
1a) decree, edict, commission
1b) law, rule
of uncertain (perhaps foreign) derivation: a royal edict or
statute:-commandment, commission, decree, law, manner.
DaTH
I used to think of DaTH (dawth-ho) as meaning void, since that's the way the fluffy bunny new age kabbalah books present it. I was
curious one day and decided to see if the word was in the Bible (in Hebrew version) and found that it means something like the Law
written in our hearts, a kosmic consciousness that lets us know if we are in sync with the Tao That Be (or however you want to
describe it). Here are a few of my notes on my research into DaTH.
Go on a spiritual quest to find values you can hold up as being what you stand for. You have found your inner DaTH. You have found
the law written in your heart. What is law? A king gives a decree or edict that is the expression of the king’s will. *Esther 3:14, 8:13,
9:14] There was the concept that once a king issued this DaTH, it cannot be altered or revoked. [Daniel 2:15, 6:16] DaTH is entrusted
to people. In the case of civil law, this DaTH is in the hands of judges, enforced by police, argued by lawyers, voted upon and
recorded by politicians.
The Israelites had the concept of the ToWRaH being the DaTH of Yahweh. Ezra was given the title of Secretary of the irrevocable
DaTH of the Almighty of heaven. [Ezra 7:2, 1 Esdras 8:9] The irrevocability of the DaTH from Yahweh was not questioned by Yahshua.
Yahshua was not out to destroy the ToWRaH representing the DaTH from Yahweh, but to bring it to life in the hearts of people.
[Matthew 5:17] He was not getting out a giant cosmic eraser. What he challenged was that DaTH of Yahweh was complete and
contained in scriptures and traditions. He offered that DaTH of Yahweh can be known in the heart, directly experienced, with
continued insights into this DaTH, renewed revelation, and ongoing prophecy.
This was not anti-Jewish at all. The idea was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jews continued to redefine DaTH with the
Mishnah, the Talmud, the Kabbalah, and to this day with books being published, web sites being built, deeper insights explored
and lived out.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Here is something you can count on to be true for your entire life—CHoKMaH/Sophia and DaTH are treasures that will be your
salvation. The greatest treasure comes from uniting with Yahweh. [Isaiah33:6]
A treasure is a reward after following a treasure hunt. A gift is never really valued as a treasure.
YAHWEH with a multitude approaches, from his right hand comes a shining DaTH. [Deuteronomy 33:2] DaTH is the invisible
SHiPHRaH, the Law in the heart of Yahweh. DaTH is Law, but DaTH is also having an active conscious, a living Law written in the
heart. DaTH is being conscious of the will of Yahweh, which we can concentrate upon, which we can be mindful of, which can direct
our view of what Yahweh wants in each given situation. DaTH is beyond memorizing a collection of ancient rules. DaTH is a living
part of each of us. I would dare say that people who have never heard one word of religion still know that it would be wrong to go
on a murdering spree or steal from the neighbors when they are not at home. The commandments part of ToWRaH are not the
DaTH, but are examples of using the DaTH in specific situations. The DaTH extends far beyond the few ancient case-by-case
examples of what would not be acceptable behavior.Thus the Jewish/Kabbalist quest for the invisible DaTH is much like the Gnostic
quest for direct connect, for gnosis. Maybe it is invisible because it is from another dimension, that light trapped in the darkness, our
core Messiah’s Consciousness, our native our Nature.
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - Dath Mosha
Middle Eastern and North African Jewish community headdress may also resemble that of the ancient Israelites. In Yemen, the wrap
around the cap was called ‫ ַמצַר‬massar; the head covering worn by all women according to Dath Mosha was a ‫" גַרגּוש‬Gargush"
Sa lupain ng Masry ang Tribo ni Ismaale at Tribo ni Yahshurun (mula sa pangalang Yahshear) ay
ang tanging ―Tribong Tuli‖, upang magkaroon ng pagkaka-kilanlan sa dalawang Tribong-Tuli ang
Tribong Yahshurun ay tinawag na Yisraw-ale (Yisrawale naging Israel) ibig sabihin ay ―Prinsipe ni
Sarah‖ at ang Ismaale naman ay tinawag na Ishma-ale na ibig sabihin ay ‗sa Pangalan ni Sarah‖.
‗Ale‘ ay tinutukoy ang amo ni Hagar na si Sarah. Ang 12 anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) na tinawag na
12 Tribo ni Yahshurun ay orihinal na 12, ngunit ng akuin ni Yahshear ang dalawang anak ni
Yohseph sina Efraim at Manase na kanyang anak na rin sa Genesis 48:5-6. Ang nakatalaga
para kay Yohseph ay pinalitan ng kanyang dalawang anak, samakatwid ang Tribo ni Yahshurun ay
naging 13 Tribo na lumabas sa lupain ng Masry sa panahon ni Moshe (Moses).
Ang anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) na Tribo ni Levi ay itinalaga sa Pagpapari (Priesthood o YahshearDath) sa Exodus 29, ang tatlong anak ni Levi si Yahshear-Dath Gerson, Yahshear-Dath Cohat at
Yahshear-Dath Merari o mga Yahshear-Dath o mga Saserdote ay inihalo sa 12 Tribo ng
Yisrawale upang pamahalaan ang trabaho ng Pagpapari at sa pagsisilbi sa pagsamba kay
YAHWEH na mababasa sa Joshua 21:1-8 at 1Chronicles 6:63-81.
Tatlong Anak ni Levi Itinalagang Yahshear-Dath o Saserdote o Pari ay
Inihalo sa 12 Tribo ng Yisrawale
Saserdote o Yahshear-Dath Gerson
Saserdote o Yahshear-Dath Cohat
Saserdote o Yahshear-Dath Merari
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 54
Ang mga anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) kay Leah, Rachel, Bilha, Zilpa
1. Ruben
---------- 1. Ruben (Leah)
- Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
2. Simeon
---------- 2. Simeon (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
3. Levi
---------- Levi (Leah) mga anak sina Gerson, Cohat, Merari naging Saserdote
4. Yahuwdah ---------- 3. Yahuwdah (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
5. Dan
---------- 4. Dan (Bilha-Rachel )
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
6. Nepthali ---------- 5. Nepthali (Bilha-Rachel) – Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
7. Gad
---------- 6. Gad (Zilpa-Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
8. Asher
---------- 7. Asher (Zilpa-Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
9. Isachar
---------- 8. Isachar (Leah)
–Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
10.Zabulon ---------- 9. Zabulon (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
Dinah (Leah)
11.Yohseph ---------Yohseph (Rachel) mga anak sina Manaseh at Efraim
12.BenYahmin ---------10. Manaseh-kalahating tribo - Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
Manaseh- kalahating tribo – Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
11. Efraim
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
12. BenYahmin(Rachel)
- Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
Si Yohseph ay ipinagbili ng kanyang mga kapatid sa mga Ismaalita at dinala sa Masry (Egypt) na
pinagbili naman bilang alipin at dumating ang panahon na naging tagapamahala ng Pharaoh at
naging Malaya at pinalitan ang pangalan na Zaphenath-paneah. Ang isang alipin ay ibabalik sa
kanyang magulang ngunit si Yohseph ay binili sa lahi ng Ismaalita kaya ibinalik siya sa
Ismaalita at binigyan ng asawa na pangalan ay Asenath na anak na babae ng Pari ng Ismaalita na
si Potiphera sa lahi ni Ismaale na nagkaroon ng 12 prinsesa na kagaya ni Yahshurun na
nagkaroon ng 12 anak at ang isa ay si Levi na naatasan sa pamamahala ng Pagpapari sa Exodus
29, Genesis 17:7, 17:23,16:12 ―siya ay kahalubilo ng kanyang mga kapatid‖. Nang si Abraham ay
mamatay sina Ismaale at Yahshaak ang naglibing sa kanya sa kweba ng Machpelah katabi ng
kanyang asawang si Sarah sa Genesis 25:9.
Ang anak at lahi ni Ismaale ay nadala ng dalawang anak ni Yohseph sina Manase at Efraim,
samantalang ang anak at lahi ni Yahshaak ay nadala ng 12 Tribo ng Yahshurun (Jacob tinawag ni
Yahweh na Yahshear) sa lupain ng Masry at inilabas sila ni Yahweh sa Exodus 12:51, upang
matupad ang sinalita ni Yahweh sa Genesis 15:13-14.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 55
Mga Apo ni Levi
1Chronicles 6:1
Mga Lahi ng mga Anak ni Levi:
Gerson
Libni Shimei
Jahath
Zimmah
Joah
Iddo
Zerah
Jeaterai
Cohat
Amran
Ishar Hebron Uzziel
Aaron
Korah
Eleazar Ebiasaph
Phinehas Assir
Abishua Tahath
Bukki
ZephaniYah
Uzzi
Azariah
Zerahiah Joel
Maraioth Elkanah
Amariah Amasai
Ahitub
Mahath
Zadok
Elkanah
Ahimaaz Zuph
Azariah Toah
Johanan Eliel
Azariah- Jeroham
(Priest of Elkanah
Solomon Shumuel
temple ) Joel
Amariah Heman
Ahitub
Zadok
Shallum
Hilkiah
Azariah
Seraiah
Jehozadak-captive in Babylon
Merari
Mahli
Mushi
Libni
Shimea
Uzza
Shimea
Haggiah
Asaiah
Mapapansin na ang lahi ni Cohat kay Ishar ay nagsilbi sa Kaharian ni Haring Dowdow (David).
Mapapansin na ang lahi ni Cohat kay Amran si Jehozadak ay umabot sa Pagkakasakop ng
Babylonian.
Mapapansin na ang lahi ni Gerson at Merari ay tumigil sa ika- 7th henerasyon na panahon ng
pagtakas ng Natirang-Nakatakas mula sa Assyria, Isaiah 11:11. Ang nakatalagang Pari sa Kaharian
ng Yisrawale ay sina Gerson,Merari at Cohat, samantalang sa Kaharian ng Yahuwdah ay si Cohat
lamang.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 56
Kaharian ng Yisrawale:
Ang 12 Tribo ng Yahshurun (tinawag na Yisrawale o Israel sa Egypt) ay nagkaroon ng kanilang
Hari, naging Hari si Saul mula sa Tribo ng BenYahmin, sumunod si Dowdow (David) sa Tribo ni
Yahuwdah at sumunod si Haring YahdidiYah (Solomon) anak ni David.
Si Haring YahdidiYah (Solomon) ay nagpagawa ng Mga Barko upang pumunta ng
OPHIR para kumuha ng mga ginto, 1Kings 9:26 ang paglalakbay pabalik ay
tumatagal ng tatlong (3) taon.
Dalawang Kaharian:
Lumipas ang panahon pagkamatay ni Haring Solomon ay nahati sila sa dalawang kaharian, sa
Kaharian ng Yisrawale at Kaharian ng Yahuwdah. Ang Katiwala ni Haring Solomon na mula sa
Tribo ng Efraim (1Kings 11:26) si Yeroboam ang naging Hari ng Yisrawale na sumama ang 10
Tribo ay pinagsisilbihan naman ng mga Levitang Pari (Yahshear-Dath o Saserdote) mula kay
Yahshear Dath Cohat, Yahshear Dath Gerson at Yahshear Dath Merari. Ang anak ni
Haring Solomon si Rehoboam ang naging Hari ng 2 Tribo ng Yahuwdah na pinagsisilbihan ng
mga Levitang Pari (Yahshear-Dath o Saserdote) mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat.
KAHARIAN NG YISRAWALE:
Sampung (10) Tribo ang sumama kay Haring Yeroboam ng Kaharian ng Yisrawale at ang lungsod
ay ang Samaria na pinagsisilbihan ng mga Levitang Pari (Yahshear-Dath o Saserdote) mula kay
Yahshear Dath Cohat, Yahshear Dath Gerson at Yahshear Dath Merari na mababasa
sa Joshua 21:1-8 at 1Chronicles 6:63-81.
KAHARIAN NG YAHUWDAH:
Dalawang (2) Tribo ang sumama kay Haring Rehoboam ng Yahuwdah at ang lungsod ay ang
Yahrusalem (Jerusalem) na pinagsisilbihan ng mga Levitang Pari (Yahshear-Dath o Saserdote)
mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat.
Si Haring Yeroboam ng Yisrawale ay TINANGGAL ang Pagsisilbi ng mga
Levitang
YahshearDath
o
Saserdote
sina
YahshearDath-Cohat,
YahshearDath-Gerson at YahshearDath-Merari at PINALITAN sila ng mga
pangkaraniwang tao lamang na HINDI LEVITA.
Si Haring Yeroboam ng Yisrawale ay nagtayo ng templo sa mataas na lugar at ginawang
Tigapagsilbing Pari ay pangkaraniwang tao lamang na HINDI LEVITA at itinalaga ang
Kapistahan sa ika-Walong Buwan na dapat ay ika-Pitong buwan na ginaganap ng Kaharian ng
Yahuwdah sa pagdiriwang ng mga kapistahan sa 1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings 13:33-34.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 57
Levitang YahshearDath o Saserdote mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat, Gerson at
Merari ay Tinanggal bilang Tigapagsilbing YahshearDath o Saserdote sa Kaharian
ng Yisrawale at sila ay Lumayas sa lupain ng Yisrawale na dala ang kanilang mga
ari-arian ay tumungo sa Kaharian ng YAHUWDAH sa lungsod ng Yahrusalem at
nanatili sa loob ng tatlong (3) taon:
2Chronicles 11:13-17 ‗at ang lahat ng mga Saserdoteng Pari at Levita na nasa Yisrawale at sa lahat
ng baybayin ay lumayas na dala ang kanilang ari-arian at tumungo sa Yahuwdah at sa lungsod ng
Yahrusalem: dahil si Haring Yeroboam at kanyang mga anak ay Pinalayas sila bilang
Tigapagsilbing Saserdote para kay Yahweh at si Haring Yeroboam ay nagtalaga ng mga
Saserdoteng Paring Hindi Levita sa matataas na lugar at para sa Demonyo at sa Istatwang Guya
na kanyang ginawa. Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Saserdoteng Pari mula sa tribo ng
Yisrawale, ay itinalaga ang kanilang sarili at puso na hanapin si Yahweh na Makapangyarihan ng
Yisrawale sa pagpunta nila sa Yahrusalem upang magsakripisyo para kay Yahweh na
Makapangyarihan ng kanilang mga magulang. Naging matatag ang Kaharian ng Yahuwdah at
maging si Haring Rehoboam na anak ni YahdidiYah (Solomon) ay naging matatag, sa loob ng
tatlong taon; dahil tatlong taon silang sumunod sa palatuntunan kagaya sa pagsunod ni
DowDow (David) at YahdidiYah‖.
Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Saserdoteng Pari na lahi ni Yahshear Dath
Cohat, Gerson at Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale ay hindi nagtagal sa
Kaharian ng YAHUWDAH: 2 Chronicles 20:18-19
Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Saserdoteng Pari mula sa lahi ni Yahshear Dath Cohat, Gerson
at Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale na tumungo sa Kaharian ng YAHUWDAH sa
Yahrusalem ay nawala sa kapanahunan ni Haring Yahoshaphat
(776 B.C.E. 1Kings 22:51, 62 taon mula sa paghahari ni Haring Yeroboam) sa 2 Chronicles 20:1819 ―at ang mga Levita mula sa mga anak ni (Cohat) Cohathites at mga anak ni Corhites at tumayo
upang purihin si Yahweh ang nag-iisang Makapangyarihan ng Yisrawale sa napaka-lakas na boses
na mataas.‖
Mga Barko Patungong OPHIR:
Mga Barko na ipinagawa ni Haring YahdidiYah (Solomon) ay pumupunta parin sa OPHIR para
kumuha ng mga ginto 1Kings 9:26, at nagpagawa pa ng mga panibagong Barko si Haring
Yahoshaphat sa 1 Kings 22:48 ngunit hindi na ito natuloy.
Ang mga Levitang Pari mula sa lahi ni Yahshear Dath Gerson, Yahshear Dath Cohat at
Yahshear Dath Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale na tumungo sa Kaharian ng
Yahuwdah ay hindi nagtagal sa Kaharian ng Yahuwdah, sila ay sumama sa mga barkong
ipinagawa ni Haring YahdidiYah na pumupunta sa OPHIR na naglalakbay ng
pabalik sa loob ng tatlong (3) taon, dahil tatlong (3) taon silang lumagi sa kaharian
ng Yisrawale 2Chronicles 11:13-17.
Bago pa magpagawa ng panibagong Barko si Haring Yahoshaphat sa 1Kings 22:48. Naisulat sa
2Chronicles 20:18-19 sa paghahari ni Haring Yahoshaphat na 62 taon na ang lumipas mula sa
paghahari ni Haring Yeroboan na katiwala ni Haring YahdidiYah(Solomon) sila ay hindi na
natagpuan sa Yahrusalem sa 2 Chronicles 20:18-19 .
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 58
DALAWANG HARI NG KAHARIAN NG ISRAEL AT YAHUWDAH
NAGNAIS NA MAKARATING NG TARSHISH AT OPHIR
2Chronicles 20:35-37
” At pagkatapos si Haring Jehoshaphat ng Yahuwdah ay sumama kay Haring Ahaziah ng Israel na gumawa ng mga kasamaan, at
sila ay gumawa ng mga barko upang tumungo sa tarshish, at sila ay nagpagawa ng mga barko sa Ezion-geber . Ngunit si Eliezer na
anak ni Dodavah ng Mareshah ay nagpahayag laban kay Jehoshaphat na sinabing , Dahil ikaw ay nakipag-isa kay Ahaziah, sisirain
ni Yahweh ang iyong ginawa. At ang mga barko ay nangasira kaya hindi sila nakapunta sa Tarshish.” ( And after this did
Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did very wickedly: And he joined himself with him to
make ships to go to Tarshish: and they made the ships in Ezion-geber. Then Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied
against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, Yahweh hath broken thy works. And the ships were
broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish).
Dinatnan ng Mga Levitang Yahshear Dath o Datuh sa Mga Isla ng OPHIR
Ang mga lahi ni OPHIR ay nagsasalita ng Wikang Hebreo na kagaya ng mga Levitang Yahshear Dath o
Saserdote na sumakay sa mga Barko tumungong Ophir dahil si OPHIR ay apo rin ni Heber na pinagmulan
ng tawag sa salitang Hebreo na nagmula sa pangalang Heber. Ang mga taga OPHIR ay masagana na sa
napakaraming ginto at ang kanilang sinasamba ay mga anito na impluwensya ng malalapit na bansa sa
kanila. Ang mga YahshearDath o Saserdoteng Paring Levita ay hindi kilala ng mga taga OPHIR na naitalaga
na bilang Saserdoteng Pari (Dath) ni Yahshear (Yahcoob) o Yahshear-Dath o Saser-Dothe para sa pagsamba
kay Yahweh, sa Hebreo ang Pari ay ‗Dath‘ o binigkas na ‗dawthu’.
Tanging sa Pilipinas Lamang Nanatili ang Tawag na Datu:
Recorded List of Datus in the Philippines.
Cebu

Datu Daya - Ancient ruler of Daanbantayan, Cebu
Panay





Datu Dinagandan — First ruler of Aklan, circa 1200
Kalantiao - Mythical ruler of Aklan in the late late 14th century
Datu Paiburong — Ruler of Iloilo
Datu Padojinog — Ruled in the Visayas Region with his wife Ribongsapaw. More than
seven hundred forty six years ago, around 1240, ten brave and noble rulers were
believed to have landed in our shores. They came from the kingdom of Bornay (now
Borneo), escaping the wrath of a wicked ruler Rajah Makatunao. They boarded on big
ships, called balanghays, and set out to sea to find a place where they can live in peace
and harmony. One moonless night on April 15, 1240, together with their families,
warriors, slaves and counselors, they faced the unknown in quest of the Promised Land.
Datu Padojinog was one of the said Datus.
Datus in the Maragtas epic
o Irong-irong
o Kalantiaw III /Rajah Bendahara Kalantiaw — Said to have formulated the
mythical Code of Kalantiaw in 1433 (legendary, see related article).
o Datu Puti — One of the 10 Bornean Datus to arrive in Iloilo before the Spanish
colonial period. (legendary but may be based on facts, see related article)
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 59
Datu sa Panahon ng Spanish colonization















Rajah Colambu — Chief in 1521 of Limasawa, brother of Rajah Siagu of Butuan. He met
Ferdinand Magellan and guided him to Cebu on April 7, 1521.
Rajah Humabon — Ruler of Cebu who became an ally of Ferdinand Magellan. Enemy
and relative of Lapu-Lapu. In 1521, he and his wife were baptized and renamed
themselves Carlos and Juana after the Spanish royalty, King Carlos and Queen Juana.
Sultan Kudarat - Sultan of Maguindanao.
Rajah Lakandula - Ruler of Tondo, one of the last rulers of Manila.
Lapu-Lapu - Ruler of Mactan Island. He defeated Ferdinand Magellan in April 27,
1521. He is the Philippines' first national hero.
Datu Sikatuna {also Ka Tun-as} - Ruler of Bohol in 1565. He made a blood compact
with the conquistador, Miguel López de Legazpi. His statue was erected in Bohol
where the blood compact took place.
Datu Pagbuaya - Overlord of Ka Tun-as and Gala of Bohol. He was join ruler with brother
Datu Dalisdisan of a settlement along the shorelines between Mansasa, Tagbilaran
and Dauis which was abandoned years before López de Legazpi's arrival due to
Portuguese and Ternatean attacks. He founded Dapitan in the northern shore of
Mindanao.
Datu Dalisdisan - He was join ruler with brother Datu Pagbuaya of a settlement along
the shorelines between Mansasa, Tagbilaran and Dauis. His death during one of the
Portuguese and Ternatean raids caused the abandonment of the settlement.
Mano-ok - Christian name Pedro Manuel Manooc; son of Datu Pagbuaya; subdued the
Higaonon tribe in Iligan; established one of the first Christian settlement in the country.
Rajah Sulayman - One of the last rulers of Maynila, was defeated by Martín de Goiti,
a soldier commissioned by López de Legazpi to Manila.
Rajah Tupas - Last Datu of Cebu, conquered by Miguel López de Legazpi.
Datu Lapu-lapu - Defiant chieftain who led forces that slew Ferdinand Magellan in 1521.
Datu Dinagandan -First ruler of Aklan, circa 1200
Kalantiaw - Ruler of Aklan in 1399.
Kalantiaw III /Rajah Bendahara Kalantiaw- Formulated the Code of Kalantiaw in 1433
(mythical, see related article).



Datu Paiburong - Pre-hispanic ruler of Ilo-ilo

Datu Puti- One of the 10 Bornean Datus to arrive in Ilo-ilo before the Spanish colonial
period. (mythical, see related article)

Rajah Calambu, chief in 1521 of Limasawa, brother of Rajah Siagu of Butuan. He met
Ferdinand Magellan and guided him to Cebu on April 7, 1521.


Rajah Siagu was chief of Manobo in 1521.





Rajah Suliman
Datu Sikatuna - Ruler of Bohol in 1565. Made a pact with Miguel López de Legaspi
Datu Pax S. Mangudadato - Current (Not prehispanic but a Datu) Governor of Sultan
Kudarat(2001-2004)
Raja Humabon was ruler of Cebu and became an ally of Ferdinand Magellan and an enemy
of Lapu-lapu.
Rajah Lakandula
Irong-irong
Rajah Tupas
Datu Makabulos(Macabulos) ruled with elders the town of Lubao, Pampanga around 1571.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 60
Mines Dating Back to at least 1,000 B.C. during theTime of Solomon
Masagana sa mga Ginto ang OPHIR Bago Dumating ang mga Kastila
Pinabayaan Na Ang Minahan ng Ginto sa Ophir
According to De Morga:
Mines dating back to at least 1,000 B.C. have been found in the Philippines. When the
Spanish arrived the Filipinos worked various mines of gold, silver, copper and iron. They
also seemed to have worked in brass using tin that was likely imported from the Malay
Peninsula. The iron work in particular was said to be of very high quality in some cases,
and occasionally in some areas, even better than that found in Europe.
When the Spanish arrived, the Philippines was so gilded with gold that most of the
gold mines had been neglected. "... the natives proceed more slowly in this,
and content themselves with what they already possess in jewels and gold
ingots handed down from antiquity and inherited from their ancestors. This
is considerable, for he must be poor and wrethced who has no gold chains, calombigas,
and earrings."
Pambayad ay Ginto sa Ophir
As the missionary Francisco Colín wrote in 1663:
In the punishment of crimes of violence the social rank of the slayer and slain made a
great deal of difference. If the slain was a chief, all his kinsfolk took the warpath against
the slayer and his kinfolk, and this state of war continued until arbiters were able to
determine the amount of gold which had to be paid for the killing… The death penalty
was not imposed by public authority save in cases where both the slayer and slain were
commoners, and the slayer could not pay the blood price.
Nabigador na Nagmula sa OPHIR:
Blair and Robertson, Vol. II, p. 116.
Legazpi describes one of the "Moro" pilots captured from Butuan:
"...a most experienced man who had much knowledge, not only of matters concerning
these Filipinas Islands, but those of Maluco, Borney, Malaca, Jaba, India, and China,
where he had had much experience in navigation and trade."
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ginto Ang Palamuti sa Loob at Labas ng Bahay sa Ophir ay Ipinagaya ni
Haring Dowdow (David) sa Paggawa ng Bahay Para kay Yahweh
According to Pigafetta:
However, things seem to already diminished from Pigafetta's time:
"On the island [Butuan] where the king came to the ship, pieces of gold as large as
walnuts or eggs are to be found, by sifting the earth. All the dishes of the king are of gold,
and his whole house is very well set up."
Pigafetta goes on to describe the huge gold ornaments, gold dagger handles, tooth
plating and even gold that was used to decorate the outside of houses! On the gold work
of the Filipinos is this description of the people of Mindoro: ( ginaya ng Yisrawale o
Israel naitala sa 1Chronicles 29:4 Even three thousand talents of gold, of the
gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the
walls of the houses withal)
"...they possess great skill in mixing it [gold] with other metals. They give it an outside
appearance so natural and perfect, and so fine a ring, that unless it is melted they can
deceive all men, even the best of silversmiths."
Arts of Asia, Jul-Aug 1988, p. 131
Arts of Asia 1981, no.4, p.54
Apparently, even foreigners desired Filipino gold products. Recent discoveries show that
gold jewelry of Philippine origin was found in Egypt near the beginning of the era. These
finds are mentioned in Laszlo Legeza's "Tantric elements in pre-Hispanic Philippines
Gold Art," (Arts of Asia, Jul-Aug 1988, p. 131) along a discussion of Philippine Tantric
art. Some outstanding examples of Philippine jewelry, which included necklaces, belts,
armlets and rings placed around the waist, are showcased in J. T. Peralta's "Prehistoric
gold ornaments from the Central Bank of the Philippines," Arts of Asia 1981, no.4, p.54.
Sinasabi ng Biblia Tungkol sa Ginto ng OPHIR
1Chronicles 29:4 Kahit tatlong libong talento ng Ginto, ng ginto ng Ophir at pitong
libong talent na dinalisay na pilak, upang ilapat sa dingding ng mga bahay at sa iba pa:
2Chronicles 8:18 At si Huram ay pinadalhan siya sa pamamagitan ng kanyang tagasunod
ng mga barko at ng may kaalaman sa karagatan; at sila ay sinamahan ng mga tigasunod
ni YahdidiYah (Solomon) sa pagpunta sa Ophir, at sila ay nakakuha ng apat naraan at
limampung talent ng ginto at dinala nila kay Haring YahdidiYah.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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2Chronicles 9:10 At ang tigasunod ni Huram, at ang tigasunod ni YahdidiYah (Solomon)
na nagdala sa kanila ng mga ginto mula sa Ophir, nagdala rin ng puno ng algum at mga
hiyas na bato.
Job 22:24 iyong ilalatag ang ginto parang alabok at ang ginto ng Ophir bilang bato sa
daluyan ng tubig.
Job 28:16 hindi mahahalagahan ang ginto ng Ophir ng mamahaling onyx o ng sapphire.
Psalm 45:9 mga anak na babae ng Hari ay ilan sa iyong kagalang-galang na babae: sa
iyong kanan ay nakatayo ang reyna sa ginto ng Ophir.
Isaiah 13:12 aking gagawin ang tao na mas mahalaga sa mamahaling dinalisay na ginto;
ang tao kaysa ginintuang palakol ng Ophir.
Ang Titulong Datu
Ang salitang ‗Datu‘ ay galing sa salitang Hebreo na ‗Dath‘ na ibig sabihin ay ‗royal edict
or commandment‘ na naitalaga sa anak ni Levi na namamahala sa Pag-Papari sa
pagsamba kay Yahweh ang Makapangyarihan ng Yisrawale na tinawag na Israel ngayon.
Ito ay hango sa ‗Pari ng Yisrawale‘ na tinatawag na ―SASERDOTE‖ o ‗Yahshear-Dath‘
(Saser-Datho o Pari ng Israel). Si Jacob o Yahshear na kilala sa ngayon sa tawag na
Israel ay naitalaga ang anak niyang si Levi na maging Pari. Ang salitang Yahshurun ay
hango sa pangalan ni Jacob na Yahshear. Ang Yisrawale naman ay ang itinawag sa lahi
nila doon sa Egypto upang mapagka-iba sila sa Ismaale na parehong tuli. Ang Yisrawale
ay nai-salin na Yisrael o Israel.
Ang Titulong Sultan
Ang Sultan ay hango sa salitang Hebreo na Sholtan (ruler, dominion) na namumuno na
naitalaga la lahi ni Yahuwdah.
Ang Titulong Raja
Ang Raja ay titulo ng Hari ng Buddhist sa Ikalawang Sri-Visjaya Kingdom na
pinamunuan ni Sailendra na isang Mahayana Buddhist. ( ―The second Sri-Visjaya of 8th
century was ruled by Sailendra a Buddhist was finally destroyed by the Javanese in the
14th century and this people of Sri-Visjaya were different religion than the original first
Sri-Visjaya of 7th century. In fact the kingdom of Sailendra who become king of SriVisjaya were Mahayana Buddhist that this Mahayana Buddhists left behind many
famous temples, which their contemporaries the king of original 7th century Sri-Visjaya
seem not to have done‖).
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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DATU SA MARAGTAS
Ang Titulo ng Aklat:
“Maragtás kon (historia) sg pulô nga Panay kutub sg iya una nga pamuluyö, tubtub
sg pag-abut sg mga taga Borneo nga amó ang ginhalinan sg mga bisayâ, kag sg
pag-abut sg mga Katsila”.
―Maragtas o istoryang naganap sa isla ng Panay sa mga naunang nanirahan doon
hanggang sa pagdating ng mga Datu mula sa Borno na pinagmulan ng lahi ng mga
Bisaya hangggang sa pagdating ng mga Kastila‖.
Ang Maragtas ng Panay ay pinalabas na Alamat lamang ngunit nasulat sa Chronology of
Chinese Ming Dynasty ang tungkol sa sampun (10) Datu na pinamunuan ni Datu Putih.
Noong 1200 – 1250 A.D. ang sampung (10) Datu na pinamumunuan ni Datu Putih
kasama ang kanilang mga pamilya at tigasunod ay tumakas sa masamang pamamahala
ni Sultan Makatunaw ang Sri-Visjaya Sultan ng Bornay (Borneo). Sila ay sumapit sa isla
ng Aninipay sa Panay at binili ang lupang kapatagan ng mga ginto at alahas sa
namumunong si Marikudo at tinawag nila ang lupain na Madya-as o ―paraiso‖ na
pinagmulan ng mga Ilongo na tinawag na ‗Cradle of Ancient Filipino Civilization‘.
Itinatag nila ang ‗Katiringban et Madia-as‘ o ‗Confederation of Madya-as‘ na may pinaiiral na batas ni Kalantiaw (Code of Kalantiaw).
Naisulat sa Ming Chronicle noong 1372 A.D. sa Sabah Journal si Prinsepe Sahib ul-Kahar
Ong Sum-ping na naglayag sa Sulu Archipelago hanggang Kinabatangan sa North
Bornay (Borneo) na pinagmulan ng permanenteng base ng mga Chinese. Noong 1390
A.D. si Raja Baguinda ng Sri-Visjaya ay dumating sa Sulu nagmula sa Swama Dwipa at
itinatag ang Bwansa sa isla ng Jolo. Noong 1433 A.D. Pitong (7) Datu ay itinatag ang
Code of Kalantiaw at ang Maragtas Code ni Sumakwel para sa mga taga Panay. Tatlong
(3) Datu mula sa orihinal na Sampung (10) Datu na dumating sa Panay ay lumayag sa
Batangas at Mindoro at isa dito si Datu Putih. Sa huling tala si Datu Putih ay lumayag
pabalik ng Bornay nadaan sa Sulu at wala ng tala sa nangyari sa kanya. Ang ‗Astana
Putih‘ ang luklukan ng kapangyarihan ng Sultanate ng Sulu at Umbal Duwa sa Indanan
na isla ng Jolo sa Region ng Tausug ng Sulu ay ipinangalan kay Datu Putih.
Sa pagkakapartisyon ng ‗Aninipay‘ o ang isla ng Panay na tinawag na Madya-as o
‗paraiso‘ na tribong pinamumunuan ni Datu Bangkaya, Datu Paiburong at Datu
Sumakwel, si Datu Putih ay lumayag patungong Luzon sumama ang ilan na nagmula sa
tirahan sa tabing-ilog ng Araut (Dumangas) Iloilo. Ang apo na si Datu Ram-un ay umalis
ng Dumangas kasama ang kanyang pamilya at tumira sa ‗Kaputalan‘ na ngayon ay
‗Pototan‘ sa Iloilo.
Nang dumating ang mga Kastila naitala na sa tabi ng ilog ng Taal Batangas natagpuan
ni Kapitan Juan de Salcedo noong 1570 A.D. ang naninirahang lahi ng Malay na
pinaniniwalaang lahi ni Datu Putih.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Wikang Bisaya at Tagalog
Ang Bisaya (Visaya) ay ang tawag sa lahi ng Sampung (10) Datu na pinamunuan ni Datu
Putih ay galing sa Kaharian ng Sri-Visjaya sa Bornay (Borneo). Ayon naman sa Collier
Encyclopedia na ang mga ‗Royal Families‘ na orihinal na Sri-Visjaya Kingdom noong 7th
century ay nilisan ang lungsod ng Palembang sa Sumatra at tumungo Malaya at sa
Bornay (Borneo) at Sulu.
Ang Sri-Visjaya ay makapangyarihan sa karagatan na pinamumunuan ng Sultan
(Sholtan sa Hebreo ay Namumuno). Ang pamilya ng namumuno at tigasunod ng SriVisjaya Kingdom noong ika-pitong siglo (7th century) ay lumisan mula sa Palembang sa
Sumatra at tumungo sa Malaya na kabila ng ‗straits of Malacca at nagtatag sila ng
daungan ng Malacca. Nagkaroon sila ng relasyon sa Bornay (Borneo) at Sulu na mga isla
ng Ophir
Noong 1200 – 1250 A.D. ang sampung (10) Datu na pinamumunuan ni Datu Putih
kasama ang kanilang mga pamilya at tigasunod ay tumakas sa masamang pamamahala
ni Sultan Makatunaw ang Sri-Visjaya Sultan ng Bornay (Borneo). Sila ay sumapit sa isla
ng Aninipay sa Panay at binili ang lupang kapatagan ng mga ginto at alahas kay
Marikudo na tinawag nilang Madya-as o ―paraiso‖ na pinagmulan ng mga Ilongo na
tinawag na ‗Cradle of Ancient Filipino Civilization‘. Ang ‗Katiringban et Madia-as‘ o
‗Confederation of Madya-as‘ na may pina-iiral na batas ni Kalantiaw (Code of
Kalantiaw).
Ang tatlong (3) Datu mula sa orihinal na Sampung (10) Datu na dumating sa Panay ay
lumayag patungong Luzon sa Batangas at Mindoro at isa dito si Datu Putih.
Merriam-Webster International Unabridged Dictionary
Ayon sa ‗Merriam-Webster International Unabridged Dictionary‘ na ang wikang
TAGALOG at ang wikang VISAYA ay galing sa isang grupo ng wika na tinawag na
TAGALA na kapatid ng sina-unang wikang Malay-Javanese na tinawag na KAWI na
ngayon ay wala na. Ang TAGALOG ay may 30,000 root words, 700 affixes at ang root
words na kilalang-kilala ay 5,000 salita mula sa Kastila; 3,200 salita mula sa MalayIndonesia, 1,500 salita mula sa Hebreo, 1,300 salita mula sa English, 300 salita mula sa
Sanskrit, 250 salita mula sa Arabic at kaunting salita mula sa Persia, Japanese, Russian.
Ang wikang Latin ay na-impluwensya ang Spanish at English. Ang wika ng Bisaya at ang
wika ng Tagalog ay maraming salitang magkakaparehas mahigit 3,800 na kilalangkilalang salita at parehas ng paggamit. Ang ―HILIGAYNON‖ ang tawag sa wika ng Bisaya
ay kagaya sa wikang Hebreo na ―HIGAYNON‖ na ibig sabihin ay ‗banal na tunog‘
(solemn sound).
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Salitang Lumang Hebreo
Ang salitang ―YA-WA‖ ay isang masamang salita sa Bisaya. Ang ―WA‖ ang ibig sabihin ay
―WALA‖ at ang ―YA‖ ay ang pina-ikling pangalan ng Makapangyarihan ni Abraham na si
YAH-WEH, Awit 68:4. Samakatwid ang ibig sabihin ng ‗YAWA‖ ay ―WALA si YAHWEH‖ o ibig sabihin ay ―Dimonyo‖. Ang salitang ‗Piste‘ ang ibig sabihin sa wikang
Hebreo ay ‗stupidity‘ o ‗mahina ang isip‘. Kaya ang masamang salita na binabanggit ng
mga Bisaya na ‗Piste-Yawa-ka‘ ay ang ibig sabihin ay ‗mahinang isip wala sa iyo si
Yahweh‘.
Ang salitang ―SUSI‖ sa salitang Bisaya ay YAWE o YAVE. Ang Levitang Nakatakas ay
nadala ang pangalan ng Pinakamakapangyarihan ng Yisrawale na si YAHWEH na
itinago sa tawag na ―SUSI‖. Ito ay nang ipinag-utos ng Sanhedrin (Highest or Supreme
Court) ang pagbabawal sa pagbigkas ng Banal na Pangalang YAHWEH bago pa sila
masakop ng mga Assyrian. Ang bumigkas ng Banal na Pangalan na YAHWEH sa publiko
at sa Pagsamba ay papatawan ng ‗Blasphemy‘, ngunit tanging High Priest lamang ang
bibigkas nito ng walong (8) beses sa isang araw lamang sa isang taon sa Araw ng
Pagpapasting o ‗Day of Atonement‘. Ito ay nadala hanggang sa kapanahunan ni Yahshu‘a
Messiah na mababasa sa Luke 11:52.
DINAANAN NG MGA NALABING NAKATAKAS
Hula Ni Propeta Isaiah sa mga Nalabing Nakatakas:
Isaiah 11:11 ― At datarating ang panahon sa araw na iyon na si Yahweh ay igagalaw ang
kamay sa pangalawang pagkakataon upang mabawi ang Natira sa kanyang mga Tao na
naiwan nagmula sa Assyria, at nagmula sa Egypto, at nagmula sa Pathros, at nagmula sa
Cush, at nagmula sa Elam, at nagmula sa Shinar, at nagmula sa Hammath, at nagmula sa
mga Isla sa Karagatan‖.
Isaiah 66:19 ―at ako ay maglalagay ng Senyales sa kanila at aking ipadadala silang
Nakatakas sa mga nasyon sa Tarshish, Pul, at Lud na lumalaban gamit ang sibat,sa
Tubal, at Javan, sa mga isla sa malayu, na hindi nakarinig ng aking katanyagan, at hindi
nakita ang sa aking papuri, at ide-deklara nila ang sa aking papuri sa mga Hindi-Tuli‖.
Ngunit may Nalabing-Nakatakas (Escaped Remnant) mula sa Assyria at mula sa
Babylonia (Isaiah 11:11 at Isaiah 66:19). Sa nabanggit na dalawang panahon na pagtakas
ay parehas na ang kadulu-duluhang pinuntahan nila ay ang mga ‗pulu-pulong isla sa
karagatan. Mas malinaw ang Isaiah 66:19 na bago makarating sa pulu-pulong isla sa
karagatan sa Malayu ay nagmula muna sa JAVAN na inihula ni Propeta Isaiah. Ang
JAVAN ay ang pinanggalingan ng ating mga Kababayan ayon sa Colliers Encyclopedia
ang Sri-Vijaya Kingdom at ang wika ng JAVAN na ‗Kawi‘ ang pinanggalingan ng ating
wikang Tagalog at Bisaya na pinatutunayan ni Padre Chirino na wikang Hebreo.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang aklat ni Propeta Isaiah ay binasa ni Yahshu‘a Messsiah sa Lukas 4:17-19,
samakatwid, isa sa mapagkakatiwalaang aklat ang mga sulat ni Propeta Isaiah. Sa mga
binanggit ni Yahshu‘a ang tunay na pangalan ng Messiah, ay inaasahan ng mga
nagbabasa ng Biblia at nagbabasa ng Koran na ‗Muling Babalik‘ ay nabanggit sa Biblia sa
Juan (YahYah) 21:21-23 na kung naisin niya na manatili si Juan hanggang datnan niya
sa muling pagbabalik, ay samakatwid daratnan si Juan sa pagbabalik ni Yahshu‘a
Messiah. Ang pangalang Juan ay hango sa English na pangalang John na hango sa
Semetic at Aramaic na pangalang Yahya na hango sa orihinal na salitang Hebreo na
‗YAHYAH‘. Ang pangalang Yahya ay madaling mapagkakakilanlan sa ngayon na
pangalan ng Muslim, ngunit bago pa makarating ang paniniwala ni Ahmud
(Mohammad) (Peace be upon Him) sa mga Arabo noong 622 C.E. ay pangalan na ito
noon pa ng mga Israelita o mga Hudyo. Katunayan si ZechariYah na asawa ni Elizabeth
sa Lukas 1:5 ay pinangalanan niya ang kanyang anak na YAHYAH. Sa kasalukuyan sa
Israel ang tawag nila kay YahYah ay Yochanan, ito ay isang pamamaraan sa pag-iwas sa
pagbanggit ng Banal na pangalan ni Yahweh. Katunayan maging ang pangalan ni
Yahshu‘a ay ginawang Yeshu‘a (Ezra 2:1-2). Kung Yochanan ay taliwas na sa nakasulat sa
Lukas 1:61 na wala pang ganoong pangalan sa kanilang lahi dahil noon pa man ay
mayroon ng Yochanan sa kapanahunan ni Propeta JeremiYah (JeremiYah 43:4).
Samakatwid ay YAHYAH ang tama at tunay na pangalan ni Juan. Ang ‗Sri‘ sa Sri-Visjaya
ay isang titulo na ibig sabihin ay ‗Prinsipe‘, ‗Kagalang-galang‘ at ‗Kabanalan‘ na
hanggang sa ngayon ay ginagamit pa sa India. Ito ay isang patunay na napadaan sa India
ang mga Sri-Visjaya. Ayon sa Bible Dictionary ng Holy Bible 1864 ay binanggit na sinibat
ni Haring Misdeus ng India hanggang sa mamatay ang Disipolo ni Yahshu‘a na si Tomas.
Ang India ay nabanggit sa Ester 1:1 na dulung nasasakupan ng Kaharian ng Persia na
lugar na pinuntahan ng mga Disipolo ni Yahshu‘a sa paghahanap sa mga Nawawalang
Tupa ng Sambahayan ng Israel sa pagsunod sa iniutos sa Mateo 10:5-6 ‗ hanapin ninyo
ang nawawalang Tupa ng Sambahayan ng Israel ‗. Ang ‗Vi‘ o ‗Vis‘ sa Sri-Visjaya ayon
naman sa Samsi English Dictionary ay ‗Spirit‘. Ang letrang ‗J‘ ay ang orihinal na tunog
nito ay letrang ‗Y‘, samakatwid ang Sri-Visjaya ay ang tama ay SRI-VIS-YAHYAH na ibig
sabihin ay “Prinsipe-Kabanalan-Spiritu ni YAHYAH”. Ang pagbabalik ni Yahshu‘a
Messiah ay inaasahan ng mga nagbabasa ng Biblia at nagbabasa ng Koran ay daratnan ni
Yahshu‘a Messiah si YAHYAH na nasa ngayong panahong ito ay nasa Sri-Visjaya na lahi
ng mga Kababayan natin. Ang ‗ChabaYah‘ (Kabayan) ang ibig sabihin sa Hebreo ay
‗itinago ni Yahweh‘.
Katangian ng Nakatakas Mula Yisrawale
Ang katangian ng Natirang-Nakatakas ay sila‘y nagsasalita ng Lumang Wikang Hebreo
dahil sila ay nakatakas bago maimpluwensiya ng wika ng mga Assyrian na wikang
Aramaic at wika ng mga Babylonian na Chaldean. Mapapansin na ang mga naiwan sa
Yahrusalem ay nagsasalita ng Chaldean-Hebrew o Modern-Hebrew na wika nila
hanggang sa kasalukuyan.
Ang pangalan na sinasamba ng Natirang-Nakatakas ay kapangalan ng sinasamba ni
Abraham. Ngunit dahil sa sila ay tumatakas ay itinago ang kanilang pagkakakilanlan na
pangalan na sinasamba ni Abraham na si YAHWEH ay itinago nila ito bilang ‗SUSI‖ na
mababasa sa Lukas 11:52. Ang ‗Susi‘ ay si Yahweh sa Binisaya ang YAWE ay SUSI.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang katangian ng Natirang-Nakatakas ay ang lahi ay mga ‗Tuli‘ kagaya ng
Magpakailanmang-Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh.
Ang katangian ng Natirang-Nakatakas ay ang lahi ay mga ‗Kayumanggi‘ na naitala sa
Awit ni Solomon 1:5.
Daratnan ni Yahshu‘a ang pangalan ng desipolo niyang si Juan na nakatala sa Juan
21:22-23. Si Juan na desipolo ni Yahshu‘a ay ang pangalan ay YahYah (Yahya) na
makikita sa Holy Koran.
Ang karakteristik ng Nawawalang Natirang Nakatakas sa Sambahayan ng Yisrawale ay
sila ay sampung tribo at mayroon silang mga Yahshear-Dath o mga Datu na Saserdoteng
Banal na nagtuturo at ang Sholtan o Sultan na namamahala. Sila ay taimtim na
naghihintay sa inihula ng mga Propeta sa pagdating ng Messiah na tutubos sa kanila
dahil ng sila ay nakatakas ay inihula na sa kanila ng mga Propeta ang pagdating ng
Messiah. Mayroon silang katangiang-galing sa mga bagay na kanilang ginagawa at
pinagpapala sila ni Yahweh sa kanilang gawaing kamay.
Ang lahi ng Ophir at Natirang Nakatakas na ating Kababayan ay mga Tuli, mga
makabayan, mga likas na hospitable, likas na magalang, likas na masunurin, likas na
mapayapa, likas na may takot sa Lumikha, kumidlat lang ―Dyos ko kaagad ang banggit
ng bibig.
Ang ating Kababayan ay ang Nalabing-Nakatakas (Escaped Remnant) na binabanggit ni
Propeta Isaiah sa 11:11 at Isaiah 66:19. Baka rin ang ating Kababayan ang ipinahahanap
ni Yahshu‘a Messiah sa Mateo 10:5-6 ‗Ang labing-dalawa ay isinugo ni Yahshu‘a (Jesus)
at pinagbilinan na ‗Huwag kayong gagaya sa gawi ng mga Hentil (di-tuli - Epeso 2:11) o
pumasok man sa alinmang bayan ng mga Samaritano (nagkukunwaring Israelita 2Hari17:24). Sa halip ay puntahan ninyo ang mga Nawawalang Tupa sa Sambahayan ng
Israel. Ganoon din sa ibinilin kay Apostol Saul at Apostol Bar-abba (Pablo at Barnabas)
sa Gawa 13:47 ‗Inilagay kita na maging ilaw sa mga Hentil (di-tuli), upang maibalita ang
Kaligtasan hanggang sa dulo ng daigdig‘. Mayroon bang dulo ang daigdig ? hindi kaya
ang tinutukoy ay ang dulo na pinuntahan ng mga Nalabing-Nakatakas na binanggit ni
Propeta Isaiah sa Mga Pulo-pulong Isla sa Karagatan na nanggaling sa JAVAN na
pinapupuntahan ni Yahshu‘a Messiah sa labing-dalawang Disipolo ?
Ang ibig sabihin pala ng Bahala Na ay ‗Bathala Na‘, ayon sa aklat ni Ed Lapiz pahina 64
‗Paano Maging Pilipinong Kristiano‘. Talagang maka Dyos nga ang mga naninirahan sa
Ophir na tinawag ng mga Kastila na Filipino. Sa Visaya kapag sinabi mong ‗Yawa‘ ay
dimonyo ito, kasi wala si ‗Yah‘, kasi ang ‗wa‘ ang ibig sabihin ay ‗wala‘, at ang ‗Ya‘ (Yah)
ay ang pina-ikling pangalan na sinasamba ni Abrahan na si YAHWEH, Awit 68:4 Jah o
‗Yah‘. Hallelu-Yah ibig sabihin ay ‗Purihin-ka-Yah‘. Ang kabuuang pangalan na Yah ay
YAHWEH ayon sa mga Hebrew Scholars sa Encyclopedia Judaica ay ang pinaka-banal
na nag-iisang pangalan na sinasamba ni Abraham at ng mga orihinal na Israelita ay ang
pangalang YAHWEH. Ang YA-WE naman sa Kabisayaan ay ‗Susi‘. Lukas 11:52 ―tinanggal
ninyo ang ‗Susi‘ ng karunungan‖, sa Kawikaan 1:7 ‗ang pagkatakot kay YAHWEH ay
pasimula ng karunungan‘. Ang tinutukoy na ‗Susi‘ ay si Yahweh. Bakit sa buong mundo
tanging ang mga Kababayan lang natin ang pinagkalooban na tumawag sa tanging banal
na pangalan ng Lumikha na YAHWEH na sinasamba ni Abraham at ng mga orihinal na
mga Yisrawale o Israelita.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang tawag ng mga Israelita sa ngayon na nandoon sa Middle East sa Jerusalem sa
kanilang sinasamba at tinatawag na Dyos ay ‗Adonai‘, ngunit sabi ng kanilang mga
eskolars ang YAHWEH ang orihinal at nag-iisang pangalan na sinasamba ni Abraham at
ng mga naunang mga Israelita. Sa pelikulang ‗Passion of Christ‘ ni Mel Gibson - ang
tawag ni Mirriam (Maria) kay Jesus ay ―YAHSHU‘A‖. Sa Gawa 4:12 - ‗walang tanging
pangalan na ibinigay sa silong ng langit na sukat nating ikaligtas kundi sa pangalang
Yahshu‘a pala.
GENESIS 17:11 „PAGPAPATULI AY TANDA NG KASUNDUAN SA PAGITAN
NI ABRAHAM AT SA DARATING PA NIYANG LAHI AT KAY YAHWEH‟
Ang turo ng mga hindi-tuli ay tinanggal naraw ang pagtutuli na ―Walang-Hanggang
Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh. Ang ibig sabihin ng ‗walang-hanggang tipan‘ ay ‗Forever
Contract‘ na hindi pwedeng palitan kahit-kailan at hindi pwedeng palitan ng kahit na
sino pang Apostol o si Pablo man. Dahil sa hindi naraw umiiral ang ‗walang-hanggang
tipan‘ na pagtutuli ay pwede na ngayon ang mga hindi-tuli (supot). Sa ganitong aral ay
binale-wala na nila ang Walang-Hanggang Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh (Genesis 17:710). Kasi nalito sila sa nabasa nila sa Gawa 15:1-2 na tinutulan ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) at
Apostol Barabba ang mga Hudyo na nagsasabi na ‗kailangang magpatuli sa pamamaraan
ni Moses kung hindi ay hindi kayo maliligtas‘. Ang pamamaraan ni Abraham ang dapat
ipatupad kaya tinutulan ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) at Apostol Barabba ang mga Hudyong
nagtuturo sa pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Moses. Katunayan hindi tutol si Apostol Saul
(Pablo) sa Pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Abraham. Pagkagaling ni Apostol Saul sa
pakikipag-usap sa mga Matatanda sa Jerusalem tungkol sa suliranin ng pagtutuli ay
tinuli ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) si Timoteo sa Gawa 16:3-4 at ibinalita pa sa lahat ng
lugar na pinuntahan nila ang naging desisyon ng mga Matatanda sa Jerusalem tungkol
sa pagtutuli. Ang naging dahilan ng kalituhan ay ang pagtutol ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) at
Apostol Barabba sa pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Moses at hindi sa pamamaraan ni
Abraham na orihinal na pamamaraan ng pagtutuli. Pagkatapos na makunsulta ang mga
Matatanda sa Jerusalem na huwag ng gambalain ang mga Hentil (di-tuli) na
mananampalataya dahil binabasa naman tuwing Sabbath ang mga batas sa aklat ni
Moses, samakatwid ay matututuhan din nila iyon, ay tumuloy na ng lakad si Apostol Saul
(Pablo) kasama si Silas tumungo sa Syria at Cilicia at tumuloy sa Derbe at Lystra na
nadatnan nila si Timoteo na mananampalataya kaya tinuli ni Apostol Saul si Timoteo.
Isa pang kalituhan ay ang pagkakalagay ng chapter sa Gawa 15 ay inihiwalay ang chapter
16 ni Padre Hugo noong ika-12 Siglo ng pairalin at lagyan na ng Chapter at Verses ang
Biblia. Paanong masasabi ng mga Hindi-Tuli (supot) na pwede na sila na makasama sa
Tamang Pananampalataya na may Walang–hanggang Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh
kung hindi sila magpapatuli ? Sa Genesis 17:14 ay sinabi ni Yahweh na ‗hindi kasama‟
ang mga di-tuli (supot) dahil sinira nila ang kontrata o tipan ni Abraham kay
Yahweh. Ngunit sa I Corinto 7:18-19 at sa Galatia 5:2 at sa Galatia 6:13 ang konklusyon
ni Apostol Saul ay ―dahil ang mga taong ‗tuli‘ (masasamang Hudyo) na hindi naman
sumusunod sa mga utos ni Yahweh ay hinihimuk pa silang mga (Hintil) hindi tuli na
magpatuli upang magaya sa kanilang mga tuli (masasamang Hudyo) na hindi
sumusunod sa mga utos ni Yahweh‖. Ang sinabi ni YAHWEH ang
Pinakamakapangyarihan sa lahat at sinasamba ni Abraham na ‗hindi kasama‟ ang
mga di-tuli (supot) dahil sinira nila ang kontrata o tipan ni Abraham kay
Yahweh.
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2 Corinthians 4:1-4 “samakatwid nakita natin
ang pagpapatutuo na ating natanggap ang
pagkahabag, hindi dapat tayo ay manlumo
bagkus ating tanggalin na ang mga bagay na
hindi-katotohanan na huwag manatili sa
ating mahusay na kaalaman o sundin ang
mga salita ni Yahweh na may pandaraya,
ngunit sa paglalaganap ng katotohanan na
itinatalaga natin ang ating sarili sa bawat
konsyensya ng tao na nakikita ni Amang
Yahweh. Ngunit ang Katotohanan ay itinago,
itinago ito sa mga nalito, na sa kanila ay ang
kanilang sinasambang-Makapangyarihan ng
Mundo ay Binulag ang kanilang isipan na
hindi
naniniwala,
maliban
na
ang
kaningningan ng mga aral ni Yahshu‟a
Messiah na siyang simbolo ni Amang
Yahweh ay sumilay sa kanila”.
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Sasak Folktale
DATU ACA and the MOUSE-QUEEN
(Sasak folktale in summary)
A village-chief called Datu Aca was fond of gardening. He grew all kinds of vegetables on his grounds in
the mountains, and whenever those vegetables were about to ripen, he used to pass the night there, in order
to keep watch; there he made himself a nice cottage. Once at midnight he had to make water. As he did so,
his water feil into a half coconut-shell. Then by divine will the Moüse- Queen drunk that water f rom Datu
Aca and became pregnant. She gave birth to a child which by divine will had a human shape and was a
lovely little girl. The mother took her everywhere with her in Datu Aca's garden. Nobody knew about her.
When that child-of-a-mouse was six years old, it happened that Datu Aca went to piek the pumpkins.
Seeing the child, he took hold of her, but the mother was able to get away.
Datu Aca took the child home with him and looked after her well, giving her food and clothing. The
mother, the Mouse-Queen, came to visit her child every night. Yet Datu Aca had no idea that the little girl
had a mouse as a mother. As soori as she came of age, Datu Aca married her. Soon shé became pregnant
and gave birth to a girl. The father made a cradle for the baby. Whenever he was away, the Mouse-Queen
came to see her grandchild. The mother, knowing who the mouse was, let her have her way. Once,
however, when the mother had gone to the brook to wash diapers, the father came home, and when he
noticed a mouse jumping into the cradle, he killed her. When the mother came back from the brook she did
not say a word, as she was ashamed to have a mouse for a mother.
Datu Aca threw the body of the mouse into the ravine. More and more often his wife went to the ravine to
see her mother's dear body. There she wept and lamented:
Whenever a human mother is dead, One hears the pestles stamping in the mortars; But now after my
mother has died, It is silent everywhere like an iron needie.
When Datu Aca noticed that his wife had been crying, he thought: "Why did she stay away such a long
time, and why did she cry ?" So he followed her and saw her sobbing, approach the carcass of the mouse
and then caress it. He came near and his wife told him the truth. Then he said:
"Do not cry any more; we shall give her a proper funeral with all the necessary ceremonies." And so they
did.
The story continues and tells about existing ceremonies: Today everybody in the Sasak land (Lombok) still
knows how Datu Aca acted. Therefore, whenever a mouse is killed while nibbling at the paddy, the owner
of the field visits the grave of the mouse and that of Datu Aca in the Tundung-ravine, bringing with him
various offerings. He fetches water from the grave of the mouse to use for preparing a medicine for the
young plants nibbled at by mice. If it is Allah's will, mice will eat those plants no more. It is evident that
both the Balinese and the Sasak stories are fundamentally the same: The Mouse-Queen killed; her body
thrown away, secretely lamented by her daughter with a very similar song wherein the absence of funeral
music is deplored; father notices red eyes and long absence, spies upon daughter, at the end gives complete
funeral ceremony.
It may be useful to compare the songs. In many folktales a little song is closely tied to the story and the
listeners are delighted by it.
Balinese:
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Now Mother is dead, into the field she is thrown away; when Father will die, for a funeral gong one is
going to pay. The gong {gamelan), played at cremations, gong gambang, is entirely of wood. In 1949 we
heard it still played at Sëlat (Karang Asem), before the funeral procession went on its way. It was a
perfunctory performance by some old men, which we would hardly have noticed, had we not been on the
outlook for it.
The Sasak daughter sings:
When a human mother dies, one hears the pestles in the mortars; but now after my mother has died,
it is silent everywhere like an iron needie.
What is the meaning of the stamping of pestles in the mortars? Exactly the same as is the tolling of the
church-bells with us, and with the Balinese the playing of the wooden gong gambang. It is funeral
music.
In a Balinese folktale we find the following description as a part of a funeral ceremony: At the same time a
gong gambang was played on and also the women beat the rice-stampers alternately making a loud noise
and hopping up and down, yelling. Well, you can imagine the noise.
It did not look a poor man's funeral festival As for the Sasak ceremony, Lombok being Islamised there
could be no question of cremation, but a 'holy tomb' was supposedly erected for the innocently murdered
Mouse-Queen, as well as one was ascribed to Datu Aca and offerings were brought there, When did a
Sasak peasant go to these holy tombs? Not as soon as mice damaged his fields, but after having killed a
mouse. So this was done in order to propitiate the soul of the beastie, which might have been more than just
vermin. After that he could 'ask for' water to préparé medicine and then, the story finishes, 'if it is Allah's
will, mice will no more damage the plants.' A beautif ui example of syncretism indeed!
The same story has been found with the Tabaru on Halmaheira (island between the Moluccas and the
Philippines):
A man was walking along a riverbed and there he passed water. A mouse drunk f rom it and became
pregnant. She lived in a high cave and there she gave birth to a girl who was human. As the girl grew, she
refused to eat mouse food. So the mother stole bananas for her and fed her with them till she was grown up.
Then she ordered the mother to steal a rope f or her. She said: "I cannot possibly stay here as I am a child of
a man." Then she descended by way of the rope. A young nobleman found her and wished to marry her.
She said: "I must first go and invite my mother to the wedding." She fetched her mother, but left her on the
way which led to the village: She covered her up with a half coconutshell and said: "Your outward
appearance is not the same as ours, so stay here, lest they laugh at you." When at the wedding guests were
eating and drinking, the girl thought of her mother and brought her food. So the mother got out and the cat
caught her and bit her and so she died. Her child 'bewailed her in a song: My poor mother's .tail was long,
and she was a clever thief. I lament her in this song: I came to fortune, she to grief. Here only a pleasing
story remained, free from the guilt of killing a creature which might have a soul, free from the need f or a
propitiating ceremony. The mouse is eaten by the cat as mice often are, and the daughter's song — f or a
song there should be — lost much of its sense.
In order to get to the bottom of the Balinese and Sasak ritual, one questions how those fieldmice were
considered by a people who kept their old-Indonesian heathen view of life. Then it is found that the
West-Torajas in Middle-Celebes believed that 'the fieldmice stood in close relation to the dead, indeed
were the dead who retwrned in this transformation.
Therefore it is understandable that they feared to kill them, as did the Sasak and Balinese, though the last
were not conscious any more of the reason for this fear. The West-Torajas believed that if they were much
bothered by mice, it was, because they had not celebrated sufficiant funeral ceremonies. Therefore the dead
were hungry and came to the fields for food. So, whenever this was the case, graves were cleared or
offerings for the dead were brought to the fields, and the souls of the dead were called to: "Here is your
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rice, don't take ours!" Some tribes were in the habit of yielding a part of their fields to them; they made a
fence of thorns and rushes round this part and called out: "This we yield to you, souls of the dead, giving
you much, keeping little to ourselves." When the mouse-plague was serious, a shaman was called who had
to ask the spirits thé reason for their displeasure. In some regions a sacrif icial f east was held near the
stones which were supposed to watch over the welfare of the tribe, and at night the souls of the dead were
called by the shamans. From all this it is clear that the West-Torajas considered the fieldmice as the souls
of the dead, i.e. the forefathers. The story that it was a mouse who told the sea to retire when it came tod far
inland shows us that mice were considered as gods. The Mouse and Prosperity. Were mice only malicious
spirits, stealing the food of man? Up to now we have seen ceremonies made for them and offerings given to
them with the explicit meaning: do ut abeas, I give that you may go away. Yet, like many divinities, mice
may also have their propitious side. A Toraja-legend tells that when the gods sent rice to Earth for the first
time, it was the mice who had to watch over the grain. Therefore it is possible that at the 'stones which
watched over the welfare of the people' the ceremonies were not only intended to check the mouse-plague
but also to ask for prosperity. For these stones represented the forefathers. So it is reasonable to suppose
that the people might have been expressing do ut des (I give, that you may give) and not only do ut
abeas (I give, that you may go away). When Hinduism reached Bali and a caste of priests arose who knew
about the new gods and the way to honour them, the crude, primitive idea of mice as souls of the dead had
to go, and it went underground, becoming folklore. And the same thing happened with the Sasak of
Lombok. With both peoples there remained a certain awe towards fieldmice, and whenever a man killed
one he laid himself open to its revenge unless he celebrated funeral ceremonies. The Muslim Sasak had to
bring offerings to a holy tomb, the Hindu Balinese must give a ceremonial funeral. They asked themselves
why? And their story-tellers readily found the answer.
But the Dutch missionary in the 19th century who reports that one pair of mice was dressed in white and
bowed to like gods, unconsciously hit the nail on its head: they were gods. If the cremation clearly
intended: we give, that you may go away, this adoration may have meant: do ut des (I give, that you may
give). Because these mice originally represented the forefathers and therefore were givers of prosperity.
In the case of the ceremony 'to push ofr calamities' we notice that this ceremony has been partially
Hinduised. The ancient folkpriest (pëmangku) is busy on the beach consacrating the offerings of the people
and throwing them into the sea. The brahman priest, sitting on a high balé, dedicates offerings to the Sungod and the Sea-god Baruna.
It is Baruna who is considered as Lord of the Mice, as he is supposed to send them in the disguise of fishes.
I do not know that fishes are an ordinary transfiguration of mice, but I suppose that they have become such
here only, because the Sea-god naturally had command over them. We only can guess why the ancient
priests associates Baruna with these ceremonies. He may simply have replaced another sea-deity who
of öld received the offerings thrown into the sea by the pëmangku. Maybe he was chosen as the god of
prosperity, of the same 'chthonic' forces to which the mice-souls of the dead belonged. In some Indonesian
folktales a mouse plays the role as giver of wealth: A Balinese story 12 tells how a farmer kills mice in vain.
One day he saves a little mouse, wounded by a bird of prey. This little mouse brings him grains of gold.
Another Balinese tale which is apparently borrowed f rom other Indonesian folklore 13 relates how a young
man, travelling with wicked uncles along the coasts of Hogsland, Serpentsland, Tigerland, is put ashore in
Mouseland. He settles there, killing mice in vain. He spares a large white mouse which brings him a golden
këtélla. In both stories the morale is the same: Killing of mice is of no avail, but if one wins them over as
friends, they are able to procure gold. I finish with a charming Batak folktale: There was a poor woman
with two daughters. One she married to a mouse which she had heard singing with a human voice, while
she was tafering. The mouse brought prosperity to her. When a child was born she returned to her
village. She asked the villagers never to call her grandchild son-of-a-mouse, as in that case the
mouse who was her son in law, would die.
Our final conclusions are that mice in pre-Hindu religion were ricegivers, the souls of the
forefathers and gods. That when Hinduism spread to Bali and when Lombok became Islamised,
religion became folklore. The guilt feit at killing mice could be propitiated by funeral rituals: we
give, that you go. But various folktales and the fact that God Varuna was associated with mice
might show that the Mice-gods as the givers of f ortune were not yet wholly f orgotten.
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The Pre Spanish Period
The variety and abundance of Philippine literature evolved even before the colonial periods. Some parts of the Philippine literature
are influenced by some Asian countries that first traded with the Filipinos long time ago. Folk tales, epics, poems and marathon
chants existed in most ethno linguistic groups that were passed on from generations to generations through word of mouth. Literary
works Filipinos are oral because of the reason that written literature is inaccessible. Even though Filipinos had their own system of
writing, it cannot be preserved in durable materials. They started writing on clays, barks of trees and other natural resources
available in the Pre Colonial Period.
INDIGENOUS SPIRITUAL BELIEFS
Belief in indigenous spiritual beliefs is pervasive in the olden times. This religion is also known as animism. The term animism
applies to the belief that within all creatures and all objects there exists a soul or personality. It is thus a spiritual belief, and many
scholars have offered the idea that animism was the first spiritual concept of humankind, and that it underlies all further religious
thought. Filipinos believed that there are gods and goddesses of every thing in nature.
Animism gave birth to folk narratives, riddles, proverbs, songs, ritual chants and epics. These literatures are community-bound and
rose from the experiences and observations of the community‘s people. Yet, this literary works were used more of entertainment than
that of information.
FOLK TALES
Filipino folktales ( kwentong bayan ) sprung and spread in the olden days.. Filipino folktales are stories that form part of the oral
tradition in the Philippines. They have been passed on generation to generation by word of mouth rather than by writing, and the
stories have been modified by continuous retellings before they were written down and recorded in the modern times. Folktales in
general include legends, fables, jokes, tall stories and fairy tales. Many of the folktales in the Philippines involve mythical creatures
and magical transformations.
Folktales in the Philippines are thought to show the tradition of the Philippines. Folktales can be classified into four major groups:
1. PHILIPPINE MYTHS are about the creation of the universe, God ( Bathala or Maykapal), and the origin of man, supernatural
beings and native Filipino heroes.
Example: How the World Began (A popular Bukidnon Folk Tale)
(alamat) relate the origin of local phenomena, places, plants, animals,
things and names. Legends are stories that tell the origin of certain things, places, etc.
2. FILIPINO LEGENDS
Myths and legends served to explain natural phenomena and people‘s belief so that the members of their communities would
understand mysterious things in their environment and probably become less fearful of them.
Examples: How did Kanlaon Volcano came to be; why is the Philippines made up of so many islands
3. FILIPINO FABLES are stories about animals and inanimate beings that are made to speak and act like rational beings. Filipino
fables tell moral lessons to people.
4. FANTASY STORIES are stories about the unseen world or the underworld and with odd, magical and supernatural characters.
CHANTS
Chants also refer to folk songs. Folk songs help express the feeling and reactions of Filipinos in their daily life. Folk songs touches all
aspects of life, be it love, lullaby, game, hunting, hailing, sailing, etc. The continuous celebrations gave birth to these folk songs.
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RIDDLES
Riddles also impart in the development of literature in Pre – Spanish Period . Riddles express ―talinghaga‖ , or Metaphor in English. It
shows some resemblance between two different objects. Riddles are used to entertain people. The custom, thought, everyday life, and
native environment of the Filipinos are pictured by means of riddles.
Answering riddles is a native game of the mind common in the Philippines. One good example of a tagalog riddle is, ―‖
PROVERBS
Defined interchangeably as "ornament to the language," "words of our ancestors," and "wisdom of experience," salawikain, as is
called in Tagalog, are sayings that are stepped in traditional Filipino culture and wisdom.
Here are some examples:
Kung sino ang pumutak ay siyang nanganak.
He who cackled is the guilty party.
Magsama-sama at malakas, magwatak-watak at babagsak.
United we are strong, divided we fall.
Matibay ang walis, palibhasa'y magkabigkis.
A broom is sturdy because its strands are tightly bound.
EPIC
The most substantial of Pre-Spanish Literature is the Epic. It is one of the most important literary works in Pre Spanish Period. An
epic is a long narrative poem telling heroic deeds and supernatural events that happened long time ago. Epics are tales of love and
adventures of native heroes possessing powers of gods, battling against monsters and triumphs over big armies. Usually, an epic hero
is portrayed as a man of strength, ideal, courage and wisdom. The legendary adventure of the epic hero is full of obstacles put up by
supernatural forces or by people with supernatural powers. To be able to be victor of the battle, the epic hero is aided with friendly
supernatural beings. On the epic hero‘s quest, he learns some life values. The verses of an epic were chanted or sung while being
passed from generation to generation before being written on paper. Due to continuous retells, a lot of Philippine epics survived and
have been recorded in places least colonized by Spanish and Americans.
Some of the famous epics are: Indarapatra and Sulayman; Handiong; Ibalon; Biag ni Lam-ang and Bantugan.
To show one example of an epic, here is the summary of Biag ni Lam- Ang:
BIAG NI LAM-ANG
Nine months before Lam-ang was born to a noble family, his father Don Juan left for the mountains to defeat an evil tribe of Igorots.
Unfortunately, he was beheaded, and his head was displayed at the center of the village as a prize. When Lam-ang's mother Ina
Namongan gave birth to him, she was surprised that he could talk immediately after birth. He selected his own name, chose his own
sponsor, and asked for his father‘s presence. Lam-ang promised to find out what happened to his father by going up the mountains
himself. There, helped by a good tribe of Igorots, he encountered the evil tribe and killed every one of them in vengeance, using just a
single spear. When he returned home, he was so tired that he wanted to bathe. He dipped into the Amburayan River, which was
instantly inundated with mud and blood. So filthy was the water that the fish in the river crawled out and died on its shores. The
following day, he told his mother Ina Namongan that he wanted to marry. Using his supernatural abilities, he predicted he would wed
a woman named Ines Kannoyan in a place called Calanutian. Accompanied by his pets, a rooster and a dog, he journeyed to meet her.
On the way, he encountered a man called Sumarang with very big eyes. They fought and Lam-ang won, killing Sumarang. The
beautiful Ines Kannoyan had a multitude of suitors, and they crowded her house in Calanutian. So many were they that Lam-ang had
to step on their heads and walk through a window just to enter the house. Lam-ang‘s rooster flapped its wings, and the long house
toppled. This amazed everybody, especially Ines. Then, Lam-ang‘s dog barked and the long house rose again. Ines Kannoyan was so
immediately impressed by his strength that she agreed to marry him. Nevertheless, her parents were skeptical: they needed a dowry
from his parents in return for Ines Kannoyan‘s hand. Lam-ang agreed to return in a week to bring his mother as well as wealth and
goods. Back in his town, Lam-ang prepared a gilded house filled with fruit, jewels, statues, and other amenities. When he sailed back
to Calanutian, Ines Kannoyan‘s family was stunned. The wedding was held on the spot.
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After the wedding Lam-ang was tasked to catch some fish in the Amburayan River and when he dove into the water he went straight
into the mouth of the Berkakan, a river monster. His wife was deeply anguished. The old diver Lacay Marcos was fetched to get the
bones of Lam-ang excreted by the Berkakan. When the bones were retrieved, the pets of Lam-ang performed magics and Lam-ang
was again brought to life.
GENERALIZATION
Even before the colonization of the Spaniards, Filipinos already had teir own literature. A few of them were preserved because the
materials where they kept written literature are easily to be destroyed. It has been proven that the indigenous spiritual belief gave birth
to different forms of literary works like the chant, riddles, folk tales and the folk epic. These literary works are used more for
entertainment than information. The early Filipinos used to tell their experiences to lessen their fear of objects. Early Filipinos handed
down these folktales orally, from generation to generation. Early Filipinos wanted to express their feelings through literature. They
sung chants to show celebration. The epic is one of the most substantial in the Pre Spanish Period. Myths and legends continually
spread through word of mouth.
With all the information, we have proven that the without these ancient literature, the modern literature today will be weak. And the
true Filipino literature can be seen through these works.
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CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS BASED ON HOLY BIBLE RECORDS
YEAR
REFERENCE
HEBREW NAME-MEANING-EVENTS
B.C.E. (Before Common Era)
3992 Dan.9:24-27
Creation of (1)Adam-Awdam-to show blood in face
3862 Gen.5:3-6 Seth –Sheeth-appoint
3757 Gen.5:9 Enosh-Awnash-to be frail
3667 Gen.5:12 Cainan-Kane-a nest
3597 Gen.5:15 Mahalalel-Halal-praise Yah
3532 Gen.5:18 Yared-Yared-to descend to lower region
3370 Gen.5:21 Jude 1:14 (7)Enoch-Kawnek-discipline
3305 Gen.5:25 Metuselah-Methuselah
3118 Gen.5:28-29 Lamech-Lehmek-uncertain
3062 Gen.5:5 Death of Adam
3005 Gen.5:23Enoch taken away
2950 Gen.5:8 Death of Seth
2936 Gen.5:28 (10)Noah-Nooakh-to rest
2852 Gen.5:11 Death of Enosh
2757 Gen.5:14 Death of Cainan
2702 Gen.5:17 Death of Mahalalel
2570 Gen.5:20 Death of Yared
2436 Gen.5:32 Shem-Seem-call a name. Ham Yahpet born
2341 Gen.5:31 Death of Lamech
2336 Gen.5:27 Death of Metuselah
2336 Gen.7:6 Ark of Noah Great flood,Noah and 3 children, wives survived
Archaeological Findings:
Ancient Ebla
In 1974 at site of ancient Ebla northern Syria,
exemplify the plethora of pre-flood and post
flood writings
2334 Gen.11:10 Arphakshad-Rawpad-to refresh
2299 Gen.11:12 Selah-Shawlakh-to send away
2269 Gen.11:14 Heber-Awba-crossover
2235 Gen.11:14 (15)Peleg-Pawleg-to divide (Hebrew from Heber, Peleg and Yoktam the father
of Ophir speaks Hebrew)
2235 Gen.10:25 Tower of Babel-Migdalah Bawlal = Confounded the language of Son of Man.
Heber language was called Hebrew from
name Heber. (Yoktam father of Ophir
speaks Hebrew goes to East Gen. 10:30)
2205 Gen.11:18 Reu-Rawaw-shepherd
2173 Gen.11:20 Serug-Sawrag-to intwine
2143 Gen.11:22 Nachor-Nakharaw-to snore
2114 Gen.11:24 Thare-Tehrakh-trembling
2044 Gen.11:26 (20) Abram a Hebrew Gen. 14:13 (Abraham)Father to be raise of people.
Forever Covenant is Circumcision Gen.17:9-14. Prophecy of 400 years in the
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foreign land Gen.15:13-14, Gen.21:12-13 .
Genesis 21:12 And Yahweh said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight
because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that
Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac
shall thy seed be called.
Genesis 21:13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation,
because he is thy seed.
Genesis 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a
stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they
shall afflict them four hundred years;
Genesis 15:14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and
afterward shall they come out with great substance.
Gen.15:20 Hittite Archaeological Findings:
Hittites Monuments: In 1906 excavation at Boghazkoy (ancient Hattusas, capital of Hittite History
and culture). In Carchemish, Euprates River in Syria unearthed the Hittites
th
monuments in the later half of the 19 century.
1996 Gen.11:19 Death of Peleg
1995 Gen.11:25 Death of Nachor
1986 Gen.9:29 Death of Noah
1966 Gen.11:21 Death of Reu
1958 Gen.17:25 Ismael Abraham is 86 years old when Ismael born by Hagar
1944 Gen.11:5 (21)Isaac-Tsawkhak-to laugh outright, born by Sarah
Gen.21:14 Ismael sent to Masry (Egypt)
1943 Gen.11:23 Death of Serug
1009 Gen.11:32 Death of Thare
1896 Gen.11:13 Death of Arphakshad
1884 Gen.25:26 (22)Yahkoob-Awkab-heel catcher-change to Yahshear-to be straight Gen.32:28.
Yahkoob name was changed to Yahshear
Genesis 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel –₃₄₇₄ for as a prince
hast thou power with Yahweh and with men, and hast prevailed.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew-Greek Dictionary ‘search’ for "Israel"–₃₄₇₄
3474 yashar yaw-shar' a primitive root; to be straight or even; figuratively, to be (causatively, to
make) right, pleasant, prosperous:--direct, fit, seem good (meet), + please (will), be (esteem,
go) right (on), bring (look, make, take the) straight (way), be upright(-ly).
3475 Yesher yay'-sher from 3474; the right; Jesher, an Israelite: -Jesher.
3476 yosher yo'-sher from 3474; the right:--equity, meet, right, upright(-ness).
3477 yashar yaw-shawr' from 3474; straight (literally or figuratively):--convenient, equity, Jasher,
just, meet(-est), + pleased well right(-eous), straight, (most) upright(-ly, -ness).
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
3478 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' from 8280 and 410; he will rule as God; Jisrael, a symbolical name of
Jacob; also (typically) of his posterity: --Israel.
3479 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' (Aramaic) corresponding to 3478:--Israel.
3481 Yisr'eliy yis-reh-ay-lee' patronymically from 3478; a Jisreelite or descendant of Jisrael:--of
Israel, Israelite.
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Exodus 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest
by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven,
and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it
for ever.
The 12 Sons of Yahshear (Jacob) from Leah, Rachel, Bilha, Zilpa : Gen.35:23-26
1. Ruben (Leah)
2. Simeon (Leah)
3. Levi (Leah)
4. Yahuwdah (Leah)
5. Dan (Bilha-Rachel
6. Nepthali (Bilha-Rachel)
7. Gad (Zilpa-Leah)
8. Asher (Zilpa-Leah)
9. Isachar (Leah)
10. Zabulon (Leah
Dinah (Leah)
11. Yohseph (Rachel)
12. BenYahmin
1869 Gen.25:7 Death of Abraham
1866 Gen.11:15 Death of Selah
1836 Gen.11:11 Death of Shem
1805 Gen.11:17 Death of Heber
1784 Gen.37:28 The 12 Sons of Yahshear - Yohseph sold to Ismael and sold to Masry (Egyptian)
1764 Gen.35:28 Death of Isaac
1754 Gen.47:9 Yahkoob and 11 sons enter Masry (Egypt) for 400 years
Efraim and Manaseh counted as Son of Yahshear replaced Yohseph Gen. 48:5-6
The 13 Sons of Yahshear (Jacob) from Leah, Rachel, Bilha, Zilpa & Yohseph:
1. Ruben
2. Simeon
3. Levi sons YahshearDath-Gershon, YahshearDath-Kohat and YahshearDath-Merari
4. Yahuwdah
5. Dan
6. Nepthali
7. Gad
8. Asher
9. Isachar
10. Zabulon
Yohseph
11. Manaseh (Yohseph son Gen. 48:5-6)
12. Efraim (Yohseph son Gen. 48:5-6)
13. BenYahmin
Gen.49:33 Yahkoob died in Masry (Egypt)
Gen.50:26 Yohseph died in Masry (Egypt)
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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To Distinguish Both Circumcised Tribes of Ismael and Yisrawale in Masry (Egypt)
The sons of Yahshear was called Yisrawale (Israel) and Son of Hagar called Ismael
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew Dictionary
SEC no. 3478 from no. 8280 Yisrawale (Israel) means “Prince of Sarah” to distinguished
from Ismael means “In the name of my master Sarah”.
1354 Ex.12:40-51 Exodus of Moses-Mawshaw-to pull out of water. On Passover Day Moses
brought out of (Egypt) Masry all (13 Tribes) Tribes of Yisrawale. The Prophecy of Yahweh to
Abraham in Gen.15:13-14 was fulfilled. The blood of Ismael brought by Efraim and
Manaseh and the blood of Yahshaak brought by sons of Yahshear.
Prophecy of Yahweh to Abraham in Gen.15:13-14 was fulfilled
The blood of Ismael brought by Efraim and Manaseh and the blood of Yahshaak
brought by sons of Yahshear
Genesis 21:12 And Yahweh said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and
because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for
in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
Genesis 21:13 And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.
Genesis 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is
not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
Genesis 15:14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out
with great substance.
Genesis 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a
stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they
shall afflict them four hundred years;
Genesis 15:14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and
afterward shall they come out with great substance.
Levite Aaron and his Sons Generations to come was Appointed
to Priesthood of Yahweh for Perpetual Statute meaning Forever
Exodus 29:9 And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the
bonnets on them: and the priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and
thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons.
Sons of Levi called Yahshear-Dath (Sacerdote) was distributed to 12 Tribes
The 13 Sons of Yahshear (Jacob) from Leah, Rachel, Bilha, Zilpa & Yohseph:
Joshua 21:1-8, 1Chronicles 6:63-81, distribution of Levites to 12 Tribes, Judges 17:7
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Judges 17:7 And there was a young man out of Bethlehemjudah of the
family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there.
(That Levite comes from blood of Kohath who was assigned to Yahuwdah)
12 tribes
13 Tribes
Levites Distributed to 12 Tribes
1. Ruben --------1. Ruben (Leah) ---------------1. Ruben- YahshearDath Merari the Priest
2. Simeon ------2. Simeon (Leah) –-------------2. Simeon- YahshearDath Kohath the Priest
3. Levi -----------3.Levi(Leah)sons YahshearDath-Gershon, YahshearDath-Kohat and YahshearDath-Merari
4. Yahuwdah---4. Yahuwdah (Leah) ----------3. Yahuwdah- YahshearDath Kohath the Priest
5. Dan -----------5. Dan (Bilha-Rachel ) –------4. Dan- YahshearDath Kohath the Priest
6. Nepthali -----6. Nepthali (Bilha-Rachel) –-5. Nepthali- YahshearDath Gershon the Priest
7. Gad -----------7. Gad (Zilpa-Leah) –----------6. Gad- YahshearDath Merari the Priest
8. Asher ---------8. Asher (Zilpa-Leah) –-------7. Asher- YahshearDath Gershon the Priest
9. Isachar -------9. Isachar (Leah) –-------------8. Isachar-YahshearDath Gershon the Priest
10.Zabulon -----10. Zabulon (Leah) –-----------9. Zabulon- YahshearDath Merari the Priest
11.Yohseph --- Yohseph (Rachel) sons Manaseh and Efraim
12.BenYahmin-11. Manaseh--------------------10. Manaseh half Tribe – YahshearDath-Gershon the Priest
Manaseh- half Tribe – YahshearDath-Kohath the Priest
12. Efraim –----------------------11. Efraim- YahshearDath-Kohath the Priest
13. BenYahmin(Rachel) ------12. BemYahmin- YahshearDath-Kohath the Priest
Yisrawale (Israel) asked for King
King Saul (Tribe of BenYahmin)
King David (Tribe of Yahuwdah)
King Solomon (King YahdidiYah) (Tribe of Yahuwdah)
th
874 1Kings 6:1 480 years From Exodus to 4 year of King YahdidiYah (Solomon)
1Kings 9:26 King Solomom made Navy of Ships to go to Ophir for Gold
838 1Kings 11:42 Divided Kingdom (Kingdom of Yahuwdah & Kingdom of Yisrawale)
Kingdom of Yahuwdah (Jews)
838 1Kings 14:2 King Rehoboam-Rakhobam
2 tribes City of Yahrusalem
1Kings 11:26 King
1Kings 12:31-32 /1Kings 13:33-34
=
=
=
=
=
Kingdom of Yisrawale (Israel)
King Jeroboam-Yeroboam
10 tribes City of Samaria
Jeroboam from Efraim Tribe
Jeroboam replaced Levites Priest by ordinary
Israeli to become Priest (the illegitimate, non-Levite
Priests)
2Chronicles 13:9 Have ye not cast out the priests of
, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests
after the manner of the nations of other lands? so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and
seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no elohim.
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LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE PRIESTS
2Chro.11:13-17
=
all legitimate (Sacerdote)Levite Priest
YahshearDath-Gershon, YahshearDath-Kohat
And YahshearDath-Merari left Samaria to
Yahrusalem and stay for three (3) years.
2Chro.9:21 Solomon’s Navy of Ships arrived with Golds in Yahrusalem
every three (3) years. Yisrawale (Israel) legitimate Levites Priest
YahshearDath-Gershon, YahshearDath-Kohat and YahshearDathMerari after three (3) years stay they cannot be found in Yahrusalem.
This is the FIRST TIME Yahweh recover the remnant of his people and
the SECOND TIME is in Isaiah 11:11 “And it shall come to pass in that
day, that Yahweh shall set his hand again the SECOND TIME to recover
the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from
Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from
Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea”.
821
818
816
815
792
791
787
1Kings 15:20 King Abia-AbiYah-father is Yah
1Kings 15:10 King Asa-Awsaw
1Kings 15:25
1Kings 15:28
1Kings 16:18
1Kings 16:15
1Kings 16:23
780 1Kings 16:29
King Nadab
King Baasha
King Elah
King Zimri
King Omri-bought the hills of Samaria from
Shemer later become Samaria
King Ahab-EliYah,
ObadiYah, Elisha,
MicaYah period
Archaeological Findings:
Moabite stone
-
King Mesha of Moab inscribed in stone
erected as historical record of his revolt
against Yisrawale as recorded in 2Kings
1:1,3:4-5. The name Yahweh inscribed in
ancient Paleo-Hebrew characters while the
whole text was written in PhoenicianMoabite form. Reason is that they cannot
pronounced the name Yahweh in their
Moabite language so they just copied the
name in original form of writings.
776 1Kings 22:51 King Yehoshaphat
760 1Kings 22:51
King Ahaziah
2Chro.20:18-19 Yisrawale (Israel) Levites Priest
YahshearDath-Gershon, YahshearDath-Kohat and
YahshearDath-Merari cannot found in Yahrusalem.
This is the FIRST TIME Yahweh recover the remnant
of his people mentioned in Isaiah 11:11.
2Chro.20.35-37 King Yehoshaphat and King Ahaziah
made alliance to construct fleet of ships to go to Tarshish.
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BOTH KING JEHOSHAPHAT OF YAHUWDAH AND KING AHAZIAH OF ISRAEL
WANT TO GO TO TARSHISH AND OPHIR
2Chronicles 20:35-37” And after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself
with Ahaziah king of Israel, who did very wickedly: And he joined himself with
him to make ships to go to Tarshish: and they made the ships in Ezion-geber.
Then Eliezer the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat,
saying, Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, Yahweh hath broken thy
works. And the ships were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish
758 2Kings 3:1
King Yoram
744 2Chro.21.5 King Yoraim – Yaham-people of Yahweh
744 2Chro.22:2 King Ahaziah-AwkhasYah-Yah has siezed
743 2Kings 9:24 King Yehu-he killed both kings Yoram and Ahaziah
743 2Chor.22:12 Queen Atali-Athlahee-Yah strength of Yah
737 2Chro.24:1 King Yoash-Yahaysh-Yah fired
715 2Kings 13:1
(ZechariYah stoned to death)
King Yehoahaz
700 2Kings 13:10
King Yoash
697 2Chro.25:1 King Amasiah-AwmatsYah-strength of Yah
682 2Kings 14:23
King Yeroboam
668 2Kings26:3 King Uziah-OozeeYah-power of Yah - Isaiah, Hosea, Amos
630 2Kings 15:8
King ZachariYah
629
629
619
617
2Kings 15:13
2Kings 15:17
2Kings 15:23
2Kings 15:23
616
600
588
584
2Chro.27:1 King Yoatam-Yahthawn-Yah is perfect
2Chro.28:1 King Acaz-Awkhaz-to sieze possesor
2Kings 15:30
2Chro.29:1 King Ezequiaz-ChawzkYah-strengt of Yah
578 2Kings 17:24
2Kings 17:23-28
King Shallum
King Menahim
King Pekahiah
King Pekah-Tribe of Nepthali deported
to Assyria
King Hoshea
Shalmanazer King of Assyria deported 9 tribes
of Yisrawale into Assyria. Start of Captivity.
Ezekiel period
= Israeli deported to Assyria replaced by Five
(5) Nations in the land of Israel, One (1)
ordinary Israeli Priest but Not Levite Returned
to Samaria and ordained other Priest from five
(5) Nations to be called Israel Priest.( the illegitimate,
non-Levite priest ordained non-Israeli Priests)
Five (5) Nations Replaced Yisrawale
(Abba, Cutha, Hammath, Separvaim and
Babylon)
Isaiah 11:11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that
Yahweh shall set his hand again the SECOND TIME to
recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left,
from ASSYRIA, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from
Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
2Kings 18:26 Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah,
and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rab-shakeh, Speak, I
pray thee, to thy servants in the Aramaic Syrian
language; for we understand it: and talk not with us
in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that
are on the wall.
DURING ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY THE PRIEST OF YISRAWALE WHICH
WERE NOT THE SONS OF LEVI WAS CALLED ‘KOHAN’
‘KOHAN’ MEANS PRIEST IS ARAMAIC WORD THAT REPLACED
THE FORMER LEVITE PRIEST OR YAHSHEAR-DATH OR SACERDOTE
3547 kahan kaw-han' a primitive root, apparently meaning to
mediate in religious services; but used only as
denominative from 3548; to officiate as a priest;
figuratively, to put on regalia:--deck, be (do the office of a,
execute the, minister in the) priest('s office).
3548 kohen ko-hane' active participle of 3547; literally, one
officiating, a priest; also (by courtesy) an acting priest
(although a layman):--chief ruler, X own, priest, prince,
principal officer.
3549 kahen kaw-hane' (Aramaic) corresponding to 3548:--priest.
(KOHAN IS ARAMAIC)
THEREFORE THE PRIEST BEFORE ASSYRIAN CAPTIVITY WAS CALLED
‘YAHSHEAR-DATH’ or “SACER-DOTE” AND DURING ASSYRIAN
CAPTIVITY WAS CHANGED TO ARAMAIC WORD ‘KOHAN’.
Encyclopedia Judaica
YHWH vol.7 p.680
BLASPHEMY =
The Sacred Name
pronounced
“Yah-oo-ay” was avoided to pronounced
during Assyrian Captivity but only High Priest
can utter that Name eight (8) times on the
Day of Atonement, a day of fasting on the
th
th
10 day of the 7 month. Sanhedrin (Highest
Court) ruled a decree of offense of
BLASPHEMY to whoever pronounced and
uttered that name in public or in solemn
assemblies and instead they substituted the
word ADONAI the name of diety of Canaan
where they were living.
555 2Chro.33:1 King Manases-Nawshaw-causing to forget
500 2Chro.33:21 King Amon-Awmone-skilled
498 2Chro.34:1 King Yosias-YahayshYah-fire of Yah,
ZephaniYah period
480 2Chro,35:19 King Yosias restored the Feast of Passover
2Chro.36:2 King Yoacas-EeshYah-formation of Yah
467 2Chro.36:4-5 King Yoaquim-YahkoonYah-Yah will establish
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 84
464 Daniel 1:1 King Nebuchadnesar of Babylonia Start of Babylonian Captivity464 BCE is 463
th
years BCE plus 27-28 CE the 49 year Sabbathical Year=490 years as prophesied by Daniel in 9:24-27.
Daniel 9:24-27
―Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in
everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth the commandment to restore and to
build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks:
the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in trouble times. And after threescore and two
weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the
end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one
week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for
the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and
that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.‖
490 years from Babylonian Captivity (70 x 7 = 490 years)( Sabbathical Year)
On year 0027-0028 A.D. Sabbathical year or 49th year (seven weeks Sabbathical Year)
On year 0028-0029 A.D. Jubilee year or first year or the 50th year
On year 0029-0030 A.D. second year
On year 0030-0031 A.D. third year ( and three)
On year 0031-0032 A.D. fourth year, on 14th day of the first month (Aviv) is Passover day (two weeks)
On year 1987-88 A,D. a Sabbathical Year or 49th year
On year 1988-1989 A.D. is a Jubilee Year
On year 2036-2037 A,D. a Sabbathical Year or 49th year
On year 2037-2038 A.D. is a Jubilee Year
70th Jubilee Year
In Leviticus 25 was mentioned the Jubilee year is the 50th year and the first year of the 49th year
cycle. From Exodus of Moses to start of Babylonian Captivity happened 19 Jubilee Years. From
Babylonian Captivity to Ministerial of Yahshu‘a Messiah of Nazareth in Yisrawale happened 10
Jubilee Years. From ministerial of Yahshu‘a Messiah of Nazareth in Yisrawale to year 1988-1989
A.D. happened 40 Jubilee Years. Total of 69 Jubilee Years happened from Exodus of Moses to
year 1988-1989 A.D.Jubilee Year. The next Jubilee Year on year 2037-2038 A.D. will be the 70th
Jubilee Years from Exodus of Moses.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Panahon ni Moses Hanggang sa Ngayon ay Nagmula sa Panahon ni
Yahshu‟a Messiah
Sa Leviticus 25 ay naitala ang Jubilee year na ika-50 taon at unang taon ng 49 year cycle.
Nagmula sa ika-14 na araw sa unang buwan ng taon ay ang Passover na araw na ibinayubay
ang „Anak ng Tao‟ ay mabibilang na lumipas ang sampung (10) Jubilee Years mula sa
kapanahunan ng Babylonian Captivity. Mula naman sa Babylonian Captivity hanggang sa Exodus
sa panahon ni Moses ay naganap ang 19 na Jubilee years. Samakatwid ay naganap ang 29
Jubilee years mula sa Exodus ni Moses hanggang sa paglabas ng Messiah. Ang sampung (10)
Jubilee years mula sa Babylonian captivity hanggang sa paglabas ni Yahshu‟a Messiah ay
naihula ni Propeta Daniel sa Daniel 9:24-27. Ito ay nagmula sa naisulat ni Propeta JeremiYah sa
JeremiYah 29:10 na magkakaroon ng 70 taon na pagkakapiit sa Babylonia. Si Propeta Daniel ay
nagtanong kay Yahweh sa ibig sabihin ng 70 taon (Dan.9:2-27) at siya ay sinagot na “70 at 7
ang itinalaga sa pagkawasak at sa paglipas nito ay ang pagpapatawad ng mga kasalanan na
simbolo ng Jubilee year. Mula sa Sabbathical year ay lilipas ang 3 taon at 14 na araw na simbolo
ng Passover day sa ika-4 na taon mula sa Sabbathical year, at sa kalagitnaan ng isang linggo
ang Messiah ay mapipigil ngunit hindi sa kanyang sarili. Ito ay naganap noong taon 0031 A.D.
Passover.
Daniel 9:24-27
“Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to
make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and
to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that
from the going forth the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince
shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in
trouble times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the
people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof shall be
with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall confirm the covenant
with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to
cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation,
and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.”
490 years mula sa Babylonian Captivity (70 x 7 = 490 years)( Sabbathical year)
Sa taon 0027-0028 A.D.
Sabbathical year o 49th year (seven weeks Sabbathical year)
th
Sa taon 0028-0029 A.D.
Jubilee year o unang taon o 50 year
Sa taon 0029-0030 A.D.
ika-dalawang taon
Sa taon 0030-0031 A.D.
ika-tatlong taon ( and three)
Sa taon 0031-0032 A.D.
ika-apat na taon, sa ika-14 na araw ay ang Passover day (two weeks)
Ang unang buwan ng Israel ay tinatawag na Abib na kung saan ang unang uway ng Barley ay
lumalabas at ito ay sa panahon malapit sa Vernal Equinox na pagkakapareho ng oras ng araw at
ng gabi sa bawat buwan ng Marso. Ating ibabalik ang panahon mula sa Total Solar Eclipse
noong Marso 18,1988 na araw ng Biyernes na naganap sa Pilipinas sa oras na ika-9:00 ng
umaga at sa Israel ay ika-3:00 ng umaga Marso 18,1988.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 86
Calculation:
1988-0031 = 1957 taon / 4 (leap year) = 489 days for leap years
Mar.18,0031 to Dec.31 0031=288 days
Jan.01, 0032 to Dec.31, 1987 = 714429 days (1987-32=1955 +1 (full year of 1987)=1956 x 365=713940 days + 489 =714429)
Jan.01,1988 to Mar.18,1988 = 77 days (one day for leap year not included because included already in 489 days of leap years)
288 + 714429 + 77 = 714,794 days
One Lunar Month is 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2.8 seconds is the average one lunar month in one solar year. In
numerical it will be 29.530588715 days.
1957 x 365 days = 714,305 + 489 days leap year = 714,794 days
714,794 days /29.530588715 days = 24,205 lunar mo. And 6 days, 2 hours, 24 minutes and 13 seconds
714794/29.530588715 days (one lunar mo) =24205. 20657066758379 lunar months
0. 20657066758379 x 29.530588715 = 6.100153425 days
0.100153425 x 24 =2.4036822 hours
0.4036822 x 60 = 24.220932 minutes
March 18,1988 A.D. sa ganap na ika- 03:00 ng umaga Israel time
-minus 6 days
2:24
__________________________________________________________________
March 12,0031 A.D.
+ plus (18 hours to see crescent of New Moon in Israel)
00:36 ng umaga
18:00
March 12,0031 A.D.
18:36 ng gabi ang sunset ay nakalipas na kaya
makikita sa Israel ang New Crescent ng Bagong Buwan. Unang araw ay magsisimula sa paglubog ng araw
ay makikita ang New moon sa araw ng Marso 12,0031. Samakatwid ang unang araw ay nag-umpisa sa
paglubog ng araw ng Marso 12,0031 hanggang sa paglubog ng araw sa Marso 13,0031.
Anong araw ang Marso 18,0031 A.D.?
Marso 0031 A.D.
SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAB
1st 2nd 3rd
4th
5th
6th 7th
1
30
31
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
714,794 days / 7 days = 102,113 weeks and 3 days, ang umpisa ng pagbilang ay Marso 18,1988 ay araw ng
Biyernes, samakatwid ang Marso 18,0031 ay araw ng Martes. Ang Passover na ginanap ni Yahshu’a ay
tumapat sa ika–26 ng Marso araw ng Miyerkules, samakatwid sa paglubog ng araw ng Marso 25,0031.
Pagkatapos ni Yahshu’a na mag-passover ay hinuli siya sa Getsemani ng gabing iyon at sa kina-umagahan
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 87
ng Miyerkules ay ipinadala kay Gobernador Pilato at kay Herodes at ibinalik kay Pilato at ipinarada ng
araw ng Miyerkules at ang ‘Anak ng Tao ay ibinayubay. Mapapansin na kailangang ibaba ang bangkay
dahil gaganapin ang Passover ng mga Hudyo sa kinagabihan YahYah (John)19:31. Ganoon din hindi
pumasok sa tahanan ni Pilato ang mga Hudyo dahil sila ay marurumihan sa kanilang pagtatalaga sa araw
na iyon na araw ng paglilinis, YahYah (John) 18:28, YahYah (John) 19:14. Ang Passover at unang araw ng
Pista ng Tinapay na Walang Lebadura ay sabay na ginaganap ng mga Hudyo sa ika-15 araw ng Abib ay
araw ng Huwebes Marso 27,0031, Lukas 22:1. Ang Messiah ay mapuputol sa kalagitnaan ng isang linggo at
ito ay Miyerkules ayon kay Propeta Daniel sa Daniel 9:24-27.
Mula naman sa taon 0031 A.D. ay lumipas ang 1957 taon hanggang sa Marso 18,1988 na naganap ang
solar eclipse, samakatwid ang taon 1987-1988 ay ang ika-49 na taon ay Sabbathical year at ang 1988-1989
ay ang unang taon o Jubilee year na ika-50 taon.
Ang 19 Years Metonic Cycle Calendar ni Hillel II noong 359 A.D.
Ang 19 Years cycle ni Hillel II noong 359 A.D. ay sumusobra ng 2 oras at 4 na minuto sa bawat katapusan
th
th
th
th
ng 19 years Metonic cycle at ang 13 month sa 6 year ay dapat idagdag sa 5 year at sa 17 year ay
th
dapat sa 16 year, ngunit hindi ito dahilan upang malayu sa pagkakalkula ng tamang unang buwan ng
Abib. Ang tanging palatandaan lamang ay ang Passover ay dapat hindi gaganapin bago mag-Vernal
Equinox, (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities, Book II, ch. X,5). Ang Vernal Equinox ay nagaganap sa araw ng
Marso 18 hanggang Marso 21 taon-taon. Mula sa 359 A.D. ang 1993-1994 ay ang unang taon sa 19 years
th
cycle, samakatwid ang taon 2004-2005 ay pang 12 taon ng 19 years cycle. Nagdaragdag ng 13 lunar
month sa bawat taon ng 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th at 19th na taon sa 19 years Metonic cycle. Ang fixed
point sa kalkulasyon ng Kapistahan ni Yahweh sa panahon ngayon ay ang Total Solar eclipse noong Marso
18,1988 sa ganap na ika-9:00 ng umaga sa Pilipinas, dahil ang Conjunction-time ay ang Solar-Eclipse-time
din. Sa conjunction-time ay pantay-pantay ang Mundo-Buwan-Araw sa isang imaginary straight line at
kailangang umidad ng 18 oras ang Buwan paglagpas sa conjunction-time upang magkaroon ng ‘angle’ na
makikita sa sunset point ng Mundo ang unang bumanda sa Buwan na sinag ng Araw na tinatawag na ‘First
Crescent’ ng Bagong Buwan. Sa tabing dagat at karagatan ay 18 oras ang hihintayin upang Makita ang
New crescent ng Bagong Buwan, samantalang sa lupain at bulubunduking lugar ay 22 oras ang hihintayin.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Dahil ang Banal na Pangalan ng Makapangyarihan ng Israel ay mahalaga at ganoon din ang
pangalan ng Messiah ng Nazareth ay mahalaga upang ipadala ang Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh ay
dapat na ibinabalik ang pangalan ni Yahweh at pangalan ni Yahshu‘a (Yeshua ay sa Aramaic
ang bigkas sa Hebreo ay Yahshu‘a) sa bawat pagbasa ng Biblia upang ang Banal na Ispiritu ni
Yahweh ay sumaatin at siyang Banal na Ispiritung iyan ni Yahweh ang magtuturo sa atin at
magpapaunawa sa atin ng mga nilalaman ng Banal na Kasulatan na tinawag na Biblia. Ang Biblia
ay isinulat ng mga tao na puspos ng Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh kaya ang makaka-unawa lamang
nito ay ang may Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh, 2 Pedro 1:20-21. Sa bawat nakasulat na Diyos o Lord
o God sa Lumang Tipan ay ibalik na natin ang pangalan ni Yahweh, ganoon din sa pagbasa ng
nakasulat sa Bagong Tipan na pangalang Jesus ay ibalik na natin ang tamang pangalan na
Yahshu‘a ang tunay na Messiah ng Nazareth. Sa ganoon ay makaka-iwas tayo sa mga Sumpa na
nakasaad sa Revelation 22:18-19 na ang sinuman na mag-alis ay aalisan ng karapatan sa parte ng
Aklat ng Buhay, Awit 69:28-29, at ang sinuman na magdagdag ay daragdagan ng salot na
nakasaad sa Banal na Kasulatan na tinawag na Biblia. Sa ganoon ay tiwasay tayo na malayo tayo
sa mga aksidente at sa mga salot na sakit at manatili sa parte ng Aklat ng Buhay upang
magkaroon ng Buhay na Walang hanggan.
Dahilan sa orihinal na pagkakasulat ang mga pangalan ay pinalitan ng mga ‗translators‘ ay
kailangan na ating ibalik ang mga orihinal na pangalan lalong-lalo na ang mahahalagang
pangalan na kasama ang pina-ikling pangalan ni Yahweh na ‗Yah‘ at ang pangalan ni Yahshu‘a
ang tunay na Messiah ng Nazareth. Ang salitang ‗Elohim‘ ay plural ng singular na ‗Eloah‘ na ibig
sabihin ay ‗Mighty-One‘ na nasalin bilang ‗Adonai‘ at sa Tagalog ay ‗Panginoon‘. Sa Genesis 6:4
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of Yahweh came in
unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which
were of old, men of renown. Noon nagsimula ang tawag na Elohim sa mga ‗mighty men‘. Ang
English na ‗Mighty-One‘ ay mas tamang isalin sa salitang Tagalog na ‗Makapangyarihan‘, dahil
ang salitang ‗Panginoon‘ ay nagmula sa salitang ‗Adonai‘ sa Judges 1:7 na Hari ng Canaan na
naging Palestino sa ngayon ay siyang si Baal mababasa sa footnotes ng Hosea 2:16.
Lumang Tipan:
Exodus 3:15 And Elohim said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, Yahweh the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the
Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for
ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
Tamang pagbasa:
Exodus 3:15 And Yahweh said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the
children of Israel, Yahweh Mighty-One of your fathers, the Mighty-One of Abraham, the
Mighty-One of Isaac, and the Mighty-One of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my
name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Lumang Tipan:
Genesis 2:3 ―Pinagpala ng Diyos ang ikapitong araw at itinalaga, sapagkat sa araw na ito ay
nagpahinga ang Diyos ng likhain ang lahat.
Tamang pagbasa:
Genesis 2:3 ―Pinagpala ni Yahweh ang ikapitong araw at itinalaga, sapagkat sa araw na ito ay
nagpahinga si Yahweh ng likhain ang lahat.
Bago tayo magpatuloy alam natin na bagong imbento lamang ang Letrang
“J” kaya imposibleng Jesus ang pangalan ng Messiah, ganoon din ang
pangalan ni Juan o “John” ay ang dapat ay “YahYah”. Sa Israel ngayon ang
tawag kay John ay “Yochanan” na isang kontradiksyon sa nakasulat sa
YeremiYah (Jeremiah) 43:4 at sa Luke 1:61. Tangi ang Banal na Pangalan ni
Yahweh na “Yah” sa Awit 68:4 ang may kapangyarihan na pagsalitaing-muli
si ZechariYah sa Luke 1:22, Luke 1:59-64. Ang Semetic na kapatid na wika ng
Hebreo at sa Arabic ang pangalan ni John ay “Yahya”.
Bagong Tipan:
Mateo 3:14-15 ―sinansala siya ni Juan na ang wika ―Ako po ang kailangang bautismuhan ninyo,
at kayo pa ang lumapit sa akin? Ngunit tinugon siya ni Jesus ‗Hayaan mo itong mangyari ngayon
sapagkat ito ang nararapat nating gawin upang matupad ang kalooban ng Diyos. At pumayag si
Juan.
Tamang pagbasa:
Mateo 3:14-15 ―sinansala siya ni YahYah na ang wika ―Ako po ang kailangang bautismuhan
ninyo, at kayo pa ang lumapit sa akin? Ngunit tinugon siya ni Yahshu‟a ‗Hayaan mo itong
mangyari ngayon sapagkat ito ang nararapat nating gawin upang matupad ang kalooban ni
Yahweh. At pumayag si YahYah.
Bagong Tipan:
Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his
angel unto his servant John:
Tamang pagbasa:
Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Yahshu‟a Messiah, which Yahweh gave unto him, to
shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified
it by his angel unto his servant YahYah:
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh sa YahYah (John) 14:26
―Ang Mang-aaliw na siyang Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh na ipadadala ng Ama sa aking pangalan,
siyang magtuturo sa inyo ng lahat ng mga bagay at ipa-aalala sa inyo ang bawat nasabi ko sa
inyo‖. Tanging sa nag-iisang pangalan ni Yahshu‘a (Gawa 4:12) ipadadala ang Banal na Ispiritu ni
Yahweh at iyang Banal na Ispiritung iyan ang magtuturo sa atin ng mga katotohanan at magpapaalala sa atin ng mga iniaral ni Yahshu‘a Messiah.
2 Peter 1:20-21
―Ating unang alamin na walang nakasulat sa Banal na Kasulatan sa kanyang sariling
interpretasyon. Dahil isinulat ito ng mga tao noong panahong iyon hindi sa kagustuhan ng tao
kundi mga taong pinabanal ni Yahweh na nagsalita at pinakilos ng Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh‖.
Ang Banal na Kasulatan ay isinulat ng mga tao na kinasihan ng Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh,
samakatwid ay tanging ang may Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh lamang ang makakaunawa ng Banal
na Kasulatan at ito ay sa pamamagitan ng pangalan ni Yahshu‘a ay ipadadala ang Banal na
Ispiritu ni Yahweh.
Ang Salitang Christo ay Wala sa Orihinal na Biblia
YahYah(John)1:41―Una niyang natagpuan ang kanyang kapatid na si Simon at sinabi niya
‗Natagpuan namin ang ‗Messiah‘ (sa interpretasyon ay Christo).
2 Peter 1:20-21
―Ating unang alamin na walang nakasulat sa Banal na Kasulatan sa kanyang sariling
interpretasyon. Dahil isinulat ito ng mga tao noong panahong iyon hindi sa kagustuhan ng tao
kundi mga taong pinabanal ni Yahweh na nagsalita at pinakilos ng Banal na Ispiritu ni Yahweh‖.
Christo ay interpretasyon lamang ng mga translators na mga Griyego, ngunit ang ‗Christo‘ ay
wala sa wikang Griyego. Maari nang masakop ng Griyego ang mga sakop ng Persia sa Ester 1:1 ay
nasakop nila ang bansang India na pinanggalingan ng istatwang si Chrishna ay dinudurog ang ulo
ng ahas na kagaya ng naihula sa darating na Messiah sa Genesis 3:15.
Father Emmanuel: Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, meaning ―the anointed one‖.
Srila Prabhupada: Christos is the Greek version of the word Krishna.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Krishna ng India
Exodus 23:13
―Huwag babanggitin ni mamutawi sa ating mga labi ang mga pangalan ng mga sinasamba ng
taga ibang bansa‖. Ang bansang Israel ay ang sinasamba ay si Yahweh lamang, ang ibang bansa
kagaya ng Canaan (Palestino) ang sinasamba ay si Adonai o Baal (Hukom 1:7, Adonai ay si Baal at
nasalin bilang Lord, Hosea 2:16), ang Lord ay naisalin na Panginoon. Sa katabing bansa ng Israel
ang Masry o Egypt ay maraming istatwang sinasamba at isa na dito si ‗El‘ at bawat bansa ay may
kanya-kanyang ‗El‘ o plural ay Elohim (nasalin na God). Ang bansang Griyego ang sinasamba ay
si Theos (nasalin na Diyos), ang bansang India ay maraming istatwa at isa na dito si Krishna
(nasalin na Christos). Ang Syria naman ang sinasamba ay si Gowd (nasalin na God) at sinasamba
naman ng mga teutonic–Germans. Si Zeus (pagbasa ay ‗sus‘ ay isa sa Greek Mythology God) ay
idinugtong sa pangalan ng Messiah kaya naging Yehsoos (Yeh-sus) sa Griyego at Latin.
Huwag Babanggitin ni Mamutawi sa Inyong Labi ang Pangalan ng Sinasamba ng
mga taga ibang Bansa
Amun
Anubis
Aten
Atum
Geb
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Bastet
Bes
Hapy
Hathor
Horus
Isis
Khepri
Khnum
Ma'at
Nephthys
Nun
Nut
Osiris
Ptah
Ra
Ra-Horakhty
Sekhmet
Seshat
Seth
Shu
Sobek
Tawaret
Tefnut
Assyrian Gods at Goddesses at Babylonian Gods at Goddesses
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Apsu underworld ocean; begetter of the skies and earth
Tiamat primeval chaos; bearer of the skies and earth
Lahmu & Lahamu
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Anshar
Kishar
Anu sky god, father & king of the gods
Antu(m) 1st consort of Anu
Aruru (Ninmah, Mami) mother goddess; midwife of the gods
Mammetum maker or mother of fate
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Nammu associated with water.
Ellil (Enlil) initially, leader of the pantheon
Ea (Enki, Nudimmud) god of the waters
Mummu craftsman
Qingu battle leader
Sin (Nannar) moon god
Ningal the consort of Sin
Ishtar (Ishhara, Irnini, Inanna) goddess of love, procreation, and war
Siduri barmaid
Shamash (Babbar, Utu) sun god
Aia Shamash's consort
Kakka Anshar and Anu's vizier
Ninlil Elil's consort
Nusku god of fire and Ellil's vizier
Gerra (Gibil) god of fire
Ishum god of fire
Kalkal Ellil's doorkeeper
Nash a pure goddess
Zaltu strife
Ninurta chamberlain of the war god
Ninsun great queen
Marduk supplants other Babylonian deities to become central figure
Bel (Canaanite Baal cleverest; sage of the gods
Ashur god of Assyria and war
Shullat Shamash's servant
Papsukkal vizier of the great gods
Hanish weather god's servant
Adad a storm god
Shara
Nin-ildu carpenter
Gushkin-banda creator of god and man, goldsmith god
Nin-agal patron of smiths.
Ereshkigal (Allatu) supreme goddess of underworld
Belit-tseri tablet-scribe of the underworld
Namtar(a) the fate-cutter, herald of death
Sumuqan cattle god
Nergal (Erragal, Erra, Engidudu) underworld; hunter; god of war and plague
Irra plague god
Enmesharra underworld god
Lamashtu dread female demon also known as 'she who erases'
Nabu god of writing and wisdom
Ningizzia guardian of the gate of heaven; a god of the underworld
Tammuz (Dumuzi, Adonis)**** vegetation
Belili (Geshtinanna)
Gizzida (Gishzida) consort of Belili, doorkeeper of Anu
Nissaba (Nisaba) cereal grain harvest
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Roman at Greek Gods
Roman God Kapantay sa Greek God
Roman
Greek
Apollo
Apollo
Bacchus
Dionysus
Ceres
Demeter
Cupid
Eros
Diana
Artemis
Fortuna
Janus
Juno
Hera
Jupiter
Zeus
Maia
Mars
Ares
Mercury
Hermes
Minerva
Athena
Neptune
Poseidon
Pluto
Hades
Proserpina
Persephone
Saturn
Cronus
Uranus
Ouranos
Venus
Aphrodite
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Four Perpetual Foundations said by
to keep
by very small Escaped Remnant Forever
APAT NA PUNDASYON NA SINABI NI
NA SUSUNDIN NG
MGA KAKAUNTING NATIRANG NAKATAKAS MAGPAKAILANMAN
Isaiah 1:9 ―Except
of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should
have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah‖
GENESIS 17:7-14
CIRCUMCISION
LEV. 23:1-41
APPOINTED
FEAST OF YAHWEH
EXODUS 29:1-9 AARON SON
AND LEVITES PRIEST
EXODUS 20:1-17 MATTHEW 5:17-18
TEN COMMANDMENTS
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APAT NA PUNDASYON NA
WALANG-HANGGAN (FOREVER)
APAT NA PUNDASYON MAGPAKAILANMAN
1.
2.
3.
4.
Unang Pundasyon Ang Circumcision
Ikalawang Pundasyon Ang Lahi ni Aaron at Levita
Ikatlong Pundasyon Ang Ten Commandments ni Yahweh
Ika-apat na Pundasyon Ang mga Appointed Feasts ni Yahweh
ANO ANG SINA-UNANG PANANAMPALATAYA NI ABRAHAM, NI
DATH MOSES, NI YAHSHU‟A MESSIAH?
Jeremiah 6:16 Thus saith
, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the
old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your
souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
APAT NA PUNDASYON NG PANANAMPALATAYA KAY
YAHWEH NA WALANG-HANGGAN
MGA BATAS NA MAGPAKAILANMAN NI YAHWEH
(FOREVER LAWS OF YAHWEH)
GENESIS 17:7-14
CIRCUMCISION
LEV. 23:1-41
APPOINTED
FEAST OF YAHWEH
EXODUS 20:1-17 MATTHEW 5:17-18
TEN COMMANDMENTS
EXODUS 29:1-9 AARON SON
AND LEVITES PRIEST
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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APAT NA PUNDASYON HINDI DAPAT TANGGALIN
MAGPAKAILANMAN (FOREVER)
1.
2.
3.
4.
Unang Pundasyon Ang Circumcision
Ikalawang Pundasyon Ang Lahi ni Aaron at Levita
Ikatlong Pundasyon Ang Ten Commandments ni Yahweh
Ika-apat na Pundasyon Ang mga Appointed Feast ni Yahweh
FALSE MESSIAH AND FALSE PROPHETS SHALL RISE
Mark 13:22-23'For false Messiahs and false prophets shall rise, and shall
shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect, But
take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things'.
HINDI NATIN MASISISI ANG MGA KASALUKUYANG TIGAPAGTURO NG BIBLIA DAHIL HINDI NILA
PINAGTUUNAN NG MALALIM NA PANSIN NA PAGKATAPOS NG MINISTERIAL NI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH AY
LALABAS ANG MGA BULAANG MESSIAH AT MGA BULAANG PROPETA NA MAGTUTURO NG MGA
KASINUNGALINGAN AT BABAGUHIN ANG NAITATAG NA MAGPAKAILANMANG PUNDASYON (FOREVER LAW).
1.
Unang Pundasyon Ang Circumcision
(CIRCUMCISION) WALANG-HANGGANG TIPAN KAY YAHWEH:
Genesis 17:7
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their
generations for an EVERLASTING COVENANT, to be the MIGHTY-ONE unto thee, and to
thy seed after thee.
Genesis 17:8
And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger,
all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their MIGHTY-ONE .
Genesis 17:9
And YAHWEH said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy
seed after thee in their generations.
Genesis 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee;
Every man child among you shall be circumcised.
Genesis 17:11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant
betwixt me and you.
Genesis 17:12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your
generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is
not of thy seed.
Genesis 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be
circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an EVERLASTING COVENANT.
Genesis 17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul
shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.
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MGA INA-ARAL NG MGA BULAANG PROPETA
Ang itinuturo ng mga BULAANG PROPETA ay tinanggal na raw ang pagtutuli na ―Walang-Hanggang
Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh. Ang ibig sabihin ng ‗walang-hanggang tipan‘ ay ‗Forever Contract‘ na hindi
pwedeng palitan kahit-kailan at hindi pwedeng palitan ng kahit na sino pang Apostol o si Pablo man. Dahil
sa hindi naraw umiiral ang ‗walang-hanggang tipan‘ na pagtutuli ay pwede na ngayon ang mga hindi-tuli
(supot). Sa ganitong aral ay binale-wala na nila ang Walang-Hanggang Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh
(Genesis 17:7-10). Kasi nalito sila sa nabasa nila sa Gawa 15:1-2 na tinutulan ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) at
Apostol Barabba ang mga Hudyo na nagsasabi na ‗kailangang magpatuli sa pamamaraan ni Moses kung
hindi ay hindi kayo maliligtas‘. Ang pamamaraan ni Abraham ang dapat ipatupad kaya tinutulan ni Apostol
Saul (Pablo) at Apostol Barabba ang mga Hudyong nagtuturo sa pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Moses. Ito
ang resulta ng ang mga Pare na Hindi-Levita at Pare na Hindi Israelita (1Kings 12:31-32, 1Kings 13:3334, 2Chronicles 11:13-17,2 Kings 17:24-41,Nehemiah 7:61-64)ay hindi naunawaan ang Genesis 17:9-14.
Katunayan hindi tutol si Apostol Saul (Pablo) sa Pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Abraham. Pagkagaling ni
Apostol Saul sa pakikipag-usap sa mga Matatanda sa Jerusalem tungkol sa suliranin ng pagtutuli ay tinuli
ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) si Timoteo sa Gawa 16:3-4 at ibinalita pa sa lahat ng lugar na pinuntahan nila ang
naging desisyon ng mga Matatanda sa Jerusalem tungkol sa pagtutuli. Ang naging dahilan ng kalituhan ay
ang pagtutol ni Apostol Saul (Pablo) at Apostol Barabba sa pagtutuli sa pamamaraan ni Moses at hindi sa
pamamaraan ni Abraham na orihinal na pamamaraan ng pagtutuli. Pagkatapos na makunsulta ang mga
Matatanda sa Jerusalem na huwag ng gambalain ang mga Hentil (di-tuli) na mananampalataya dahil
binabasa naman tuwing Sabbath ang mga batas sa aklat ni Moses, samakatwid ay matututuhan din nila
iyon, ay tumuloy na ng lakad si Apostol Saul (Pablo) kasama si Silas tumungo sa Syria at Cilicia at
tumuloy sa Derbe at Lystra na nadatnan nila si Timoteo na mananampalataya kaya tinuli ni Apostol Saul si
Timoteo. Isa pang kalituhan ay ang pagkakalagay ng chapter sa Gawa 15 ay inihiwalay ang chapter 16 ni
Padre Hugo noong ika-12 Siglo ng pairalin at lagyan na ng Chapter at Verses ang Biblia. Paanong
masasabi ng mga Hindi-Tuli (supot) na pwede na sila na makasama sa Tamang Pananampalataya na may
Walang–hanggang Tipan ni Abraham kay Yahweh kung hindi sila magpapatuli ? Sa Genesis 17:14 ay
sinabi ni Yahweh na ‗hindi kasama‟ ang mga di-tuli (supot) dahil sinira nila ang kontrata o tipan
ni Abraham kay Yahweh. Ngunit sa I Corinto 7:18-19 at sa Galatia 5:2 at sa Galatia 6:13 ang
konklusyon ni Apostol Saul ay ―dahil ang mga taong ‗tuli‘ (masasamang Hudyo) na hindi naman
sumusunod sa mga utos ni Yahweh ay hinihimuk pa silang mga (Hintil) hindi tuli na magpatuli upang
magaya sa kanilang mga tuli (masasamang Hudyo) na hindi sumusunod sa mga utos ni Yahweh‖, kaya
bale-wala ang kahalagahan ng kanilang pagka-tuli dahil sila ay hindi naman sumusunod sa mga utos ni
Yahweh. Nasasainyo na iyan kung gusto ninyong sumunod kay Apostol Saul ay Pauline belief kayo o gusto
ninyong sumunod kay Yahweh na sinasamba ni Abraham ay Abrahamic belief kayo. Ngunit ang sinulat ni
Apostol Saul ay malalalim kaya nagbilin ang Disipolo ni Yahshu‘a na si Pedro sa 2 Pedro 3:15-16 at si
Apostol Saul ay hindi Levita kundi mula sa lahi ni BenYahmin Phillipians 3:1-5 at galing sa paniniwala ng
mga Pariseo. Basta ang sabi ni YAHWEH ang Pinakamakapangyarihan sa lahat at sinasamba ni Abraham
na ‗hindi kasama‟ ang mga di-tuli (supot) dahil sinira nila ang kontrata o tipan ni Abraham kay
Yahweh.
TINANGAL NILA ANG ISA SA PUNDASYON
GENESIS 17:7-14 FOUNDATION REMOVED
LEV. 23:1-41
APPOINTED
FEAST OF YAHWEH
EXODUS 20:1-17 MATTHEW 5:17-18
TEN COMMANDMENTS
EXODUS 29:1-9 AARON SON AND
LEVITES PRIEST
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Those Circumcised who Do Not Keep the Law of Yahweh, even
they are circumcised, the Messiah shall have no profit on them
Galatians 6:13 For neither they themselves who are circumcised keep the law; but desire to have you
circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh.
Galatians 5:2 Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, the Messiah shall profit you nothing.
Being Uncircumcised shall be cut- off and put away from the
Covenant of Yahweh to Abraham Gen. 17:14
1Corinthians 7:18 Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called
in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.
1Corinthians 7:19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the
commandments of YAHWEH. Uncircumcised man can Keep the Commandment of
YAHWEH but he is out of the Covenant of Abraham to YAHWEH.
DECISION OF JAMES
Acts 15:19 Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are
turned to YAHWEH:
Acts 15:20 But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication,
and from things strangled, and from blood.
Acts 15:21 For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the
synagogues every Sabbath day.
The Teaching is Introductory to the Gentiles for the book of Moses being preached and read in
the synagogues every Sabbath day, they will Increased their knowledges soon and the Gentiles
can follow and keep the Laws and Statutes of YAHWEH in Genesis 17:12-14.
Genesis 17:12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your
generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger,
which is not of thy seed.
Genesis 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be
circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
Genesis 17:14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul
shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.
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2.
Ikalawang Pundasyon Ang Lahi ni Aaron lamang
ang magsisilbing Pari at Levita lamang sa
Templo ni Yahweh Magpakailanman (Forever)
TINANGAL NILA ANG DALAWANG PUNDASYON
GENESIS 17:7-14 FOUNDATION
REMOVED
LEV. 23:1-41
APPOINTED
FEAST OF YAHWEH
EXODUS 20:1-17 MATTHEW 5:17-18
TEN COMMANDMENTS
EXODUS 29:1-9 FOUNDATION
REMOVED
AARON SON AND LEVITES FOREVER (WALANG-HANGGAN):
Exodus 29:1 And this is the thing that thou shalt do unto them to hallow them, to minister unto me in
the priest's office: Take one young bullock, and two rams without blemish,
Exodus 29:2 And unleavened bread, and cakes unleavened tempered with oil, and wafers unleavened
anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them.
Exodus 29:3 And thou shalt put them into one basket, and bring them in the basket, with the bullock and
the two rams.
Exodus 29:4 And Aaron and his sons thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle of the
congregation, and shalt wash them with water.
Exodus 29:5 And thou shalt take the garments, and put upon Aaron the coat, and the robe of the ephod,
and the ephod, and the breastplate, and gird him with the curious girdle of the ephod:
Exodus 29:6 And thou shalt put the mitre upon his head, and put the holy crown upon the mitre.
Exodus 29:7 Then shalt thou take the anointing oil, and pour it upon his head, and anoint him.
Exodus 29:8 And thou shalt bring his sons, and put coats upon them.
Exodus 29:9 And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them:
and the priest's office shall be theirs for a PERPETUAL STATUTE: and thou shalt
consecrate Aaron and his sons.
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PERPETUAL STATUTE (WALANG-HANGGANG BATAS NI YAHWEH)
perpetual [pər péchoo əl] adj
1. lasting for ever: lasting for all time
2. lasting indefinitely: lasting for an indefinitely long time
3. occurring repeatedly: occurring over and over
statute [státtyoot] n
1. LAW law enacted by legislature: a law established by a legislative body, for example an Act of Parliament
2.BUSINESS established rule: a permanent established rule or law, especially one involved in the running of a company or other
organization
MGA PEKENG-PARI ( Illegitimate Priests)
1Kings 12:31 And he made an house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people,
which were not of the sons of Levi.
1Kings 12:32 And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month,
like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel,
sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the
high places which he had made.
1Kings 13:33 After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of
the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he
became one of the priests of the high places.
1Kings 13:34 And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it
from off the face of the earth.
Pinalitan ni Haring Jeroboam ng Israel ang mga Levitang Pari na Sacerdote (Yahshear-Dath) ng mga
Hindi-Levita na walang alam sa mga batas at palatuntunan ni Yahweh.
PINALAYAS NI HARING JEROBOAM NG KAHARIAN NG ISRAEL ANG MGA YAHSHEAR-DATH
(SACERDOTE) NA MGA LEVITANG PARI AT NANIRAHAN SA KAHARIAN NG YAHUWDAH SA
LUNGSOD NG YAHRUSALEM NG TATLONG TAON
2Chronicles 11:13 And the priests and the Levites that were in all Israel resorted to him out of all their
coasts.
2Chronicles 11:14 For the Levites left their suburbs and their possession, and came to Judah and
Jerusalem: for Jeroboam and his sons had cast them off from executing the priest's
office unto
.
2Chronicles 11:15 And he ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the
calves which he had made.
2Chronicles 11:16 And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek
Mighty One of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto
the Mighty One of
their fathers.
2Chronicles 11:17 So they strengthened the kingdom of Judah, and made Rehoboam the son of
Solomon strong, three years: for three years they walked in the way of David and
Solomon.
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Moses was Called Dath Mosha
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - Dath Mosha
Middle Eastern and North African Jewish community headdress may also resemble that of the ancient
Israelites. In Yemen, the wrap around the cap was called ‫ ַמצַר‬massar; the head covering worn by all
women according to Dath Mosha was a ‫" גַרגּוש‬Gargush".
Pinalayas ang mga Levitang Pari na Sacerdote (Yahshear-Dath) at tumira sa Lungsod ng
Yahrusalem ng Tatlong Taon
Bawat Tatlong Taon Dumarating Naman Ang Mga Barko Galing ng Ophir
2Chronicles 9:21 For the king's ships went to Tarshish with the servants of Huram: every three years
once came the ships of Tarshish bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and
peacocks.
PAGLIPAS NOON AY HINDI NA MATAGPUAN ANG MGA YAHSHEAR-DATH o SASERDOTE NG
SAMPUNG (10) TRIBO NG ISRAEL SINA YAHSHEAR DATH KOHAT, YAHSHEAR DATH MERARI AT
YAHSHEAR DATH GERSHON
2Chronicles 20:18 And Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground: and all Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem fell before
, worshipping
.
2Chronicles 20:19 And the Levites, of the children of the Kohathites, and of the children of the Korhites,
stood up to praise
Elohim of Israel with a loud voice on high.
ANG DALAWANG HARI NG ISRAEL AT NG YAHUWDAH AY NAIS DIN PUMUNTA NG OPHIR
2Chronicles 20:35-37 ‖And after this did Jehoshaphat king of Judah join himself with Ahaziah king of
Israel, who did very wickedly: And he joined himself with him to make ships to
go to Tarshish: and they made the ships in Ezion-geber.Then Eliezer the son of
Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat, saying, Because thou
hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, Yahweh hath broken thy works. And the ships
were broken, that they were not able to go to Tarshish‖.
Ophir
Ophir (Hebrew: ‫אֹופִיר‬, Modern Ofir Tiberian ʼÔpîr) is a port or region mentioned in the Bible, famous for
its wealth. King Solomon is supposed to have received a cargo of gold, silver, sandalwood, precious
stones, ivory, apes and peacocks from Ophir, every three years.
Ophir in Genesis 10 (the Table of Nations) is said to be the name of one of the sons of Joktan. Biblical
references to the land of Ophir are also found in 1 Kings 9:28; 10:11; 22:49; 1 Chronicles 29:4; 2
Chronicles 8:18; Book of Job 22:24; 28:16; Psalms 45:9; Isaiah 13:12.
In pre-Islamic literature
Details about the three of Joktan's sons, Sheba, Ophir and Havilah, were preserved in a tradition known in
divergent forms from three pre-Islamic Arabic and Ethiopic sources: the Kitab al-Magall (part of
Clementine literature), the Cave of Treasures, and the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan.
The Kitab al-Magall states that in the days of Reu, a king of Saba (Sheba) named "Pharoah" annexed
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 103
Ophir and Havilah to his kingdom, and "built Ophir with stones of gold, for the stones of its mountains are
pure gold."
In the Cave of Treasures, this appears as: "And the children of Ophir, that is, Send, appointed to be their
king Lophoron, who built Ophir with stones of gold; now, all the stones that are in Ophir are of gold."
The version in the Conflict of Adam and Eve says: "Phar‘an reigned over the children of Saphir [Ophir],
and built the city of Saphir with stones of gold; and that is the land of Sarania, and because of these
stones of gold, they say that the mountains of that country and the stones thereof are all of gold."
Theorized or conjectural locations
Biblical scholars, archaeologists and others have tried to determine the exact location of Ophir. Vasco da
Gama's companion Tomé Lopes reasoned that Ophir would have been the ancient name for Great
Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, the main center of sub-African trade in gold in the Renaissance period — though
the ruins at Great Zimbabwe are now dated to the medieval era, long after Solomon is said to have lived.
The identification of Ophir with Sofala in Mozambique was mentioned by Milton in Paradise Lost (11:399401), among many other works of literature and science.
On the other hand, the theologian Benito Arias Montano (1571) proposed finding Ophir in the name of
Peru, reasoning that the native Peruvians were thus descendants of Ophir and Shem.
In the 19th century Max Müller and other scholars identified Ophir with Abhira, at the mouth of the Indus
River in modern-day Pakistan. Another possibility is the African shore of the Red Sea, with the name
perhaps being derived from the Afar people of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. Most modern scholars still
place Ophir either on the coast of either Pakistan or India, in what is now Poovar, or somewhere in
southwest Arabia in the region of modern Yemen. This is also the assumed location of Sheba. Saudi
Arabia's cradle of gold, Mahd adh Dhahab.
Other assumptions vary as widely as the theorized locations of Atlantis. Portuguese mythology locates it
in Ofir, a place in Fão, Esposende. Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) adds a connection to "Sofir," the
Coptic name for India. Josephus connected it with "Cophen, an Indian river, and in part of Asia adjoining
to it," (Antiquities of the Jews I:6), sometimes associated with a part of Afghanistan.
In 1568 Alvaro Mendaña discovered the Solomon Islands, and named them as such because he believed
them to be Ophir.[1]
Proponents of pre-Columbian connections between Eurasia and the Americas have suggested even more
distant locations such as modern-day Peru or Brazil. Author on topics in alternative history David Hatcher
Childress goes so far as to suggest that Ophir was located in Australia; proposing that the cargoes of gold,
silver and precious stones were obtained from mines in the continent's north-west, and that ivory,
sandalwood and peacocks were obtained in South Asia on the voyage back to Canaan.[2]
In a book found in Spain entitled Collecion General de Documentos Relativos a las Islas
Filipinas, the author has described how to locate Ophir. According to the section "Document
No. 98", dated 1519-1522, Ophir can be found by travelling from the Cape of Good Hope in
Africa, to India, to Burma, to Sumatra, to Moluccas, to Borneo, to Sulu, to China, then finally
Ophir. Ophir was said to be "[...] in front of China towards the sea, of many islands where the
Moluccans, Chinese, and Lequios met to trade..." Jes Tirol asserts that this group of islands
could not be Japan because the Moluccans did not get there, nor Taiwan, since it is not
composed of "many islands." Only the present-day Philippines, he says, could fit the
description. Spanish records also mention the presence of Lequious (big, bearded white men,
probably descendants of the Phoenicians, whose ships were always laden with gold and silver)
in the Islands to gather gold and silver. Other evidence has also been pointed out suggesting
that the Philippines was the biblical Ophir.
Former Israeli settlement
The Israeli settlement created in the 1970s at Sharm el-Sheikh in Sinai was called Ophirah (‫)אופירה‬,
Hebrew for "Towards Ophir" - since its location on the Red Sea was on the route supposedly traversed by
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 104
King Solomon's ships en route to Ophir.
The settlement was evacuated in 1982, under the terms of the Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty, and the
name fell out of use.
References
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
^ HOGBIN, H. In, Experiments in Civilization: The Effects of European Culture on a Native
Community of the Solomon Islands, New Yprk: Schocken Books, 1970 (1939), pp.7-8
^ Pirates and the Lost Templar Fleet ISBN 1-931882-18-5
^ Tirol, Jes.Bo-ol (Bohol) was a Land of Ophir: A Theory. The Bohol Chronicle Vol.LIII No.062
December 21, 2008.
^ Philippines is Ophir. Accessed February 16, 2009.
^ Vedic Empire. Retrieved on 2008-10-11.
^ Legeza, Laszlo. "Tantric Elements in pre-Hispanic Philippines Gold Art," Arts of Asia, July-Aug.
1988, pp.129-136. (Mentions gold jewelry of Philippine origin in first century CE Egypt)
^ Peralta, J.T. "Prehistoric gold ornaments from the Central Bank of the Philippines," Arts of Asia
1981, no.4, p.54.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophir"
DAHIL SA KASALANAN NI HARING JEROBOAM NA PINALITAN ANG MGA LEVITANG PARI NG
MGA ( Illegitimate Priests) HINDI LEVITA AY IPINATAPON ANG MGA ISRAELITA SA ASSYRIA
AT PINALITAN SA LUPAIN NG MGA TAGA-LIMANG BANSA
Itinapon ang mga Israelita kasama ang mga Paring ( Illegitimate Priests) Hindi-Levita at ang isa lang
na illegitimate Priest ang pinabalik sa Samaria para magturo, samakatwid nag-ordain siya ng mga Pari
na nagmula sa Abba, Cutha, Separvaim, Hammath at Babylonia na tinawag na Paring Israelita na
hindi naman Israelita.
2Kings 17:23 Until
removed Israel out of his sight, as he had said by all his servants the
prophets. So was Israel carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day.
2Kings 17:24
And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, and from Cuthah, and from Ava,
and from Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria
instead of the children of Israel: and they possessed Samaria, and dwelt in the cities
thereof.
2Kings 17:25
And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not
therefore
sent lions among them, which slew some of them.
2Kings 17:26
Wherefore they spake to the king of Assyria, saying, The nations which thou hast
removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, know not the manner of the Elohim of the
land: therefore he hath sent lions among them, and, behold, they slay them, because
they know not the manner of the Elohim of the land.
2Kings 17:27
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry thither one of the priests whom ye
brought from thence; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the
manner of the Elohim of the land.
2Kings 17:28
Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in
Bethel, and taught them how they should fear
.
:
Isang Pari na Hindi LEVITA (Illegitimate Priest) ang pinabalik sa Lungsod ng Samaria upang turuan ang
mga taga-ibang bansa na nanirahan sa lupain ng Israel ng pananamplataya ng Israel. Ang nag-iisang Pari
na ito ay hindi Levita kaya walang maituturong tama. At nangailangan siya ng makakatulong kaya nagordain siya ng maraming Pari na hindi Israelita o mga Pekeng Pari.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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2Kings 17:29
Howbeit every nation made elohim of their own, and put them in the houses of the high
places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
Lahat ng limang bansa na nanirahan sa lupain ng Israel ay gumawa ng kani-kanilang sambahan para sa
kanilang mga sinasambang istatwa, at lahat ng bansa ay may-kanya-kanyang elohim. Dito nagsimulang
tawagin si
na sinasamba ng Israel sa tawag na ―elohim‖ dahil napabilang lamang sa isa sa mga
‗elohim‘ ng bawat bansa.
LAHI NG MGA PEKENG-PARI NA HINDI LEVITA (ILLEGITIMATE PRIESTS)
Nehemiah 7:63 And of the priests: the children of Habaiah, the children of Koz, the children of Barzillai,
which took one of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite to wife, and was called after
their name.
Nehemiah 7:64 These sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but it was
not found: therefore were they, as polluted, put from the priesthood.
ANG TUNAY NA MGA PARI (LEGITIMATE PRIESTS) AY LAHI NI AARON NA LEVITA
MAGPAKAILANMAN (PERPETUAL STATUTE)
Exodus 29:9 And thou shalt gird them with girdles, Aaron and his sons, and put the bonnets on them:
and the priest's office shall be theirs for a perpetual statute: and thou shalt consecrate
Aaron and his sons.
Si Ezra ay ang Tunay na Pari (Legitimate Priest) ay isang Levita na lahi ni Aaron. Lumitaw ang mga
pekeng-pari (Illegitimate Priests) na walang pinanggalingang lahi na maipakita na sila ay lahing
Levita.
Yahrusalem ay Probinsya ng Kaharian ng Persia
Ang mga nakabalik sa Yahrusalem ay pinamunuan ni Sheshbazzar at Zerubbabel na kapwa galing sa lahi
ng Yahuwdah. Ang gumanap na Pari ay si Ezra na galing sa lahi ni Aaron na may dalang mga aklat ni
Moses at Karapatan na ibinigay ni Artaxerxes na Emperador noon ng Persia. Si NehemiYah naman ang
naatasan ng Emperador na maging Governador at ipinatupad ang pagganap ng mga Sabbath at
Kapistahan ni Yahweh, ipinagbawal ang pag-aasawa ng mga Yahuwdah sa ibang lahi at pinahiwalay ang
mga Yahuwdah na nakapag-asawa ng ibang lahi. Ang Yahrusalem ay naging isang probinsya ng Kaharian
ng Persia, samakatwid ang umiiral na batas ay ang batas ng Persia.
Ipinatawag ni Ezra ang lahat sa Kapistahan ng Trumpeta hanggang sa Kapistahan ng Tabernakulo sa ikapitung buwan at binasa ang Torah ni Moses na napakinggan ng lahat at ang lahat ay sumumpang
susundin muli ang kontrata at kasunduan ni Yahweh at ng mga Yahuwdah.
TANGING LEVITA LAMANG ANG MAY KARAPATANG HUMAWAK
NG MGA AKLAT NI MOSES
Ang Torah ni Moses o ang aklat ni Moses ay nadala ni Ezra na lahi ni Aaron na Levita dahil tanging ang
lahi lamang ng Levita ang may karapatang humawak at mag-ingat noon. Mamamatay ang hindi Levita
na humawak noon dahil iyon ay nakalagak sa Ark of the Covenant.
2Samuel 6:6-7 And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of
Yahweh, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of Yahweh was kindled Against
Uzzah; and Yahweh smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of Yahweh.
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According to the Tanakh, Uzzah (fl. 1010 BC) was from the tribe of Yahuwdah whose death is associated
with touching the Ark of the Covenant. He was the son of Abinadab the second of the eight sons of Jesse
(1 Samuel 16:8). Jesse is the father of king David.
Deuteronomy 10:8 At that time Yahweh separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the Ark of the Covenant of
Yahweh, to stand before Yahweh to minister unto him, and to bless in his name,
unto this day.
Deuteronomy 31:26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the Ark of the Covenant
of Yahweh your Mighty One, that it may be there for a witness against thee.
Ang Israelitang-Pari na HINDI LEVITA na ipinalit sa mga Tunay na Levitang
Pari ay nagsasalita ng Aramaic
2Kings 18:26 Then said Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebna, and Joah, unto Rab-shakeh, Speak, I
pray thee, to thy servants in the Aramaic Syrian language; for we understand it: and talk
not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall.
Teksto ng LEVITANG-PARI na lahi ni Aaron, Teksto ng Israelitang-Pari na
HINDI LEVITA at Teksto ng Pari na HINDI ISRAELITA
Paglipas ng panahon ay naisulat ang mga teksto at komentaryo ng Israelitang-Pari na HINDI nagmula sa
lahi ng Levitang si Aaron, 1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings 13:33-34, at ang teksto at komentaryo ng mga
Paring Hindi-Israelita, 2Kings 17:24 - 2Kings 17:27. Sila ay walang maipakitang katunayan na lahi
silang Levita na mababasa sa Nehemiah 7:64. Ang Yahweh (J) Text at ang Elohim (E) Text at ang
Sacerdotal (P) Text at ang Deuteronomy (D) Text ay magkakasama sa nabuong mga aklat na tinawag
ngayon na Limang Aklat ni Moses. Mapapansin ang nakasulat sa mga Aklat ni Moses ay inuulit-ulit ng J, E,
P at D text. Ang J-Text o Yahweh Text ay mula sa pag-iingat ng mga Levitang lahi ni Aaron, na tanging
mga Levitang lahi sa anak ni Aaron lamang ang inatasan ni Yahweh na hahawak at mag-iingat ng mga
banal na kasulatan o mga aklat ni Moses (2Samuel 6:6-7, Deuteronomy 10:8, 31:26).
Ang E-text o Elohim Text ay mula sa mga Israelitang Hindi-Levita na itinalagang Pari ni Haring Yeroboam
(Jeroboam)
(1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings 13:33-34), sila ay hindi naatasan na mag-ingat ng mga kasulatan na
tanging Levita na lahi ni Aaron lamang ang may karapatang humawak. Ang P-Text at D-Text ay mula sa
mga Pari na nagmula sa limang bansa ng Babylonia, Cuthah, Hamath, Ava, Separvaim (Neh 7:64) na
walang talaan na lahi sila ng Levita at naturuan lamang ng isang Paring-Israelita na Hindi Naman Levita
na pinabalik ng Hari ng Assyria sa lupain ng Israel (2Kings 17:27-28).
BATAS NI MOSES NOON
Exodus 32:9 And
said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Exodus 32:10 Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may
consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.
Exodus 32:11 And Moses besought
his Elohim, and said,
, why doth thy wrath wax hot
against thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power,
and with a mighty hand?
Exodus 32:12 Wherefore should the Egyptians speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out, to slay
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 107
them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from thy
fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people.
Exodus 32:13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own
self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land
that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it for ever.
Exodus 32:14 And
repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
Exodus 32:19 And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the
dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake
them beneath the mount.
Exodus 32:20 And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder,
and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.
Exodus 32:21 And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great
a sin upon them?
Exodus 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith
Elohim of Israel, Put every man his sword by his
side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his
brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.
Exodus 32:28 And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people
that day about three thousand men.
Hindi maipatupad ang mga batas na nakasulat sa aklat ni Moses lalo na laban sa mga pandarayang aklat
na gawa ng mga Hindi-Levitang Pari sa dahilang sila ay naitalang Probisya ng Kaharian ng Persia na
nasasakupan ng kapangyarihan ng Hari ng Persia kaya ang mga kasulatang gawa ng mga Hindi-Levita ay
hindi nila maipagbawal hanggang sa dumating ang panahon ng mga Grego.
Greek Alexander The Great ay Nasakop ang Kaharian ng Persia, Itinayo ang Alexandria Library
Museum sa Egypt ni Ptolemy Soter II at Pina-salin sa wikang Grego ang Hebreong aklat ni
Moses na Tinawag na Pentateuch na nasaling muli na Tinawag na Septuagint o LXX
Inulit-ulit ang Nakasulat sa Aklat ni Moses
Genesis 1 ay Elohim (E) Text ay inulit sa Genesis 2 na Yahweh (J) Text, nadagdag ang
Sacerdotal (P) Text at Deuteronomy (D) Text
Ang istorya nila Adam at Eve at Cain at Abel ay Yahweh (J) Text ay tinutukoy ang pagiging malapit sa
anghel (tunay na anghel hindi istatwa), sa mga halaman at pakikipag usap sa ahas. Ang Sacerdotal (P)
Text ay walang kwento tungkol dito. At binangit ang henerasyon mula kay Adam hanggang kay Noah.
Ang istorya sa naganap na malaking baha sa Yahweh (J) Text ay 40 araw na umulan. Ang Sacerdotal (P)
Text ay halos isang taong delubyo. Ang Yahweh (J) Text ay may 14 na malilinis na mga hayop at 2 dimalinis na hayop. Ang Sacerdotal (P) Text ay 2 malinis at 2 di-malinis na hayop. Yahweh (J) Text ay
nagpadala si Noah ng 3 kalapati o tatlong beses na nagpalipad ng kalapati, ang Sacerdotal (P) Text ay
isang uwak ang pinalipad ni Noah.
Ang J-Text at E-Text sa Kontrata ni Abraham sa Genesis 15 ay siningitan ng ibang istorya at sa Genesis
17 naman ang P-Text, lumalabas na dalawang beses nagkita sila Abraham at Yahweh.
Mas dramatiko ang J-Text at E-Text sa Exodus 17 nang si Moses ay kumuha ng tubig sa bato,
samantalang ang P-Text sa dalawang aklat sa Numbers 20 ay lumalabas na dalawang insidente sa
dalawang magkaibang pankakataon o panahon samantalang naganap iyon sa isang lugar sa Meriba at sa
isang pagkakataon. Ang Ten Commandment ay inulit- muli sa Deuteronomy 5 kahit ito ay magkaiba sa
Exodus 20.
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Sa Exodus 20:8-11
Remember the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . because in six days Yahweh
made the heavens and the earth, the sea and ail that is in them, and
he rested on the seventh day Therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day
and sanctified it.
Sa Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Ngunit sa Deuteronomy, nang inulit ni Moses :
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . and you shall remember that
you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought
you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. There'
fore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
Ang unang bersyon galing sa P-text, ang dahilan sa pag-iingat sa Sabbath:
‗because God rested on the seventh day‘.
Ang ikalawang bersyon mula sa D-Text, ang dahilan sa pag-iingat sa Sabbath:
‗because God freed you from slavery‘.
Sa Natagpuang Dead Sea Scroll
Sa Dead Sea Scroll na natagpuan noong 1947 A.D. ay parehas na hindi itong dalawang bersyon ang
dahilan sa pag iingat sa Sabbath: ‗ Sa lahat ng ito ay walang pamamaraan na nag-uutos na pamahalaan
ang pag iingat ng Sabbath‘. (In all of this, no one method governs the process). Itong naisulat at
iniaral ng P at D Text ay itinuwid ng Messiah na mababasa sa Matthew 12:1-12.
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PAANONG NAISULAT ANG BIBLIA?
Alexander The Great Nasakop Ang Kaharian ng Persia
Itinayo ang Alexandria Library at Museum sa Egypt
Nasakop ni Alexander the Great ang Kaharian ng Persia na pinaghaharian noon ni Darius III. Nasakop din
ni Alexander the Great ang Syria, Egypt, Mesapotamia, Bactria at ang India. Itinatag niya ang Alexandria
sa Egypt na sentro ng kanyang kaharian, at ang pumalit sa kanya bilang Pharaoh ay si Ptolemy II Soter ay
itinayo naman ang Museum at Library ng Alexandria. Ang kanyang mga General si Ptolemy at Nearchus,
Aristobulus at Onesicritus. Siya rin ang naging dahilan ng paglaganap ng mga Grego. Ang mga
dokumento mula sa Assyria (kasama ang mga dokumento ng naipatapon noon na mga Israelita sa
Assyria), Greece, Persia, Egypt, India at maraming nasyon ay nakalagak sa Alexandria Library at Museum.
Maraming scholars ang tumira sa Museum upang mag-saliksik, magsulat, magsalin at maglimbag ng mga
dokumento.
Greek Pentateuch
Si Ptolemy II ay nagpatawag ng 72 Hebrew scholars at nag utos na isalin sa wikang Grego ang mga
Kasulatan ng mga Hebreo ang limang aklat ni Moses na tinawag sa Grego na ‗Pentateuch‘. Sinulatan ni
Ptolemy II si Eleazar ang Punong Pari sa Yahrusalem upang maglagay ng anim (6) na Hudyong
Tigapagsalin na nanggaling sa bawat Tribo ng Israel (12 x 6 = 72). Tinawag ang unang limang aklat ni
Moses na ‗Pentateuch‘ na ibig sabihin ay Limang- aklat.
ROMAN TIME
Nasira ang Alexandria Library sa Egypt
Tinalo ng mga Romano ang mga Grego at nasira ang Alexandria Library sa pag-kubkub ng mga Romano
sa Alexandria na sentro ng mga Grego.
GREEK PENTATEUCH NAGING LATIN SEPTUAGINT
Ipinagpatuloy ni Ptolemy ang pagsasalin ng 72 Hebrew scholars ng limang aklat ni Moses sa Hebrew ay
isinasalin sa wikang Grego at ang iba pang mga Kasulatan ng mga Hebreo ay idinagdag dito.
Paglipas ng panahon nadagdag na ang iba-iba pang mga aklat sa Hebreo ay ipinasalin na rin sa wikang
Grego at maraming beses itong neribisa sa pagkakasalin sa wikang Grego at ang ‗Pentateuch‘ na
nakasama na ang iba-iba pang aklat na Hebreo naisalin sa Lumang-Wikang Grego ay isinalin muli sa
Makabagong-Wikang Koine Greek. Ang Lumang-Wikang Gregong ‗Pentateuch‘ (ibig sabihin ay Limang-
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Aklat) (Pinaka-lumang Greek Septuagint bersyon Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s bersyon) ay naisalin naman
sa wikang Latin at tinawag na Septuagint sa Latin o LXX (dahil hindi na ito Limang Aklat kundi marami
na) na siya namang pinagbasehan ng mga bersyon ng Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian at
Coptic na bersyon. At ito rin ang mga pinagbasehan ng mga Apostolic Fathers at Christian New
Testament. Samantala ang Makabagong -Wikang Koine Greek bersyon ay nirebisa at isinalin sa ‗Aquila‘ ng
Sinope‘s Greek bersyon.
Ang Septuagint o LXX ay ang pinagbasehan na ―PINANIWALAAN‖ (canon) at ang iba pang aklat na
idinagdag na mga sulat ng mga Propeta kagaya ng aklat na Maccabees, Wisdom of Ben Sira, Daniel at
Esther ay mas mahaba pa sa Masoretic Text. Ang ilan na bagong dagdag, ang aklat na Wisdom of
Solomon, 2 Macabees at iba pa ay galing sa orihinal na Gregong pagkakasulat. Hindi naisama sa
Septuagint ang sikat na mga aklat na ‗Enosh o Jubilees‘ at iba pang mga kasulatan. Ang Septuagint ay
galing sa salitang Latin na ibig sabihin ay ‗pitumpong tigapagsalin‘ o LXX.
Sumunod na panahon ay masusing nirebisa at isinalin sa Makabagong Greek bersyon na tinawag na
‗Aquila, Symmachus at Theodotion. Ang tatlong ito ang Mas-makabagong Greek bersyon ng kasulatang
Septuagint na hango sa Pentateuch na hango sa aklat ni Moses sa Hebreo at iba pang nadagdag na mga
aklat sa Hebreo at Grego.
ANG MGA PINANINIWALAAN NG MGA GREGO AT ROMANO NA
MGA ALAMAT BAGO REBISAHIN ANG PENTATEUCH GREEK O
SEPTUAGINT LATIN OLD TESTAMENT NG MGA GREGO AT
ROMANONG MANUNULAT
ALAMAT NI MYTHRA
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Mythra ng Persia ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at ‗Nabuhay Na Muli‘ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI ATTIS
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Attis ng Gresya ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at ‗Nabuhay Na Muli‘ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI KRISHNA
(900 B.C.E.) Si Krishna ng India ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at ‗Nabuhay Na Muli‘ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI TAMMUZ
Ezekiel 8:14 (597 B.C.E) Si Nimrod II ay tinawag naTammuz ng mga Babylonia, Azur naman ang
tawag ng mga Asyrian, at Osiris naman ang tawag ng mga Egyptian. Si Nimrod II ay napatay at ang
kanyang asawa ay nagbuntis sa ibang lalaki at pinalabas na ang bata ay si Nimrod II na „NABUHAY NA
MULI‟. Mula noon ang Alamat na ito ay naging bantog sa mga Alamat ng Griyego at Romano kahanay nila
Jupiter at Zeus.
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ALAMAT NI HORUS
(300 B.C.E.) Si Horus ng Egypt ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa ikatlong araw.
NAKILALA SI YAHSHU‟A ANG MESSIAH NA MAY 12 DISIPOLO
Ang pangalan ni Yahshu‘a ang Messiah ng Nazareth ay pangalang Hebreo ay isinusulat sa Aramaic na
Yeshu‘a na ang pagbigkas ay Yah-shu‘a. Ang Aramaic ang umiiral na pangkalahatang wika sa Yahrusalem
noong panahong iyon. Mula sa Aramaic ay isinalin ito sa wikang Grego na IESOUS na binibigkas na ‗Yehsoos‘ at nang maisalin ang Gregong pangalan sa Latin ay naging IESUS na binibigkas sa Latin na ‗Yaysoos‘. Nang maimbento ang letrang ‗J‘ ay naging JESUS na bigkas ay ‗Jey-zus‘.
MARAMING BESES SINIRA ANG ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY
Si Theophilus ay Patriarka ng Alexandria noong 385 hanggang 412 A.D. ang mga Hudyo, Christian at
pagano ay sama-samang naninirahan sa Alexandria. Nagkaroon ng pagkaka-alitan sila-sila at nawasak na
naman ang Alexandria.
Ang huling sinisisi sa pagkakasunog sa Alexandria ay si Moslem Caliph Omar noong 640 A.D. pagkatapos
na malaman niya na nasa Alexandria ang lahat ng kasulatan at talino sa mundo na kumokontra sa Koran
ay lahat ng aklat sa Alexandria ay sinunog na tumagal ng halos anim na buwan.
EGYPT ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY
The Burning of the Library of Alexandria
by Preston Chesser
The loss of the ancient world's single greatest archive of knowledge, the Library of Alexandria, has been lamented for ages.
But how and why it was lost is still a mystery. The mystery exists not for lack of suspects but from an excess of them.
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Alexandria was founded in Egypt by Alexander the Great. His successor as Pharaoh,
Ptolomy II Soter, founded the Museum or Royal Library of Alexandria in 283 BC. The
Museum was a shrine of the Muses modeled after the Lyceum of Aristotle in Athens. The
Museum was a place of study which included lecture areas, gardens, a zoo, and shrines for
each of the nine muses as well as the Library itself. It has been estimated that at one time
the Library of Alexandria held over half a million documents from Assyria, Greece, Persia,
Egypt, India and many other nations. Over 100 scholars lived at the Museum full time to
perform research, write, lecture or translate and copy documents. The library was so
large it actually had another branch or "daughter" library at the Temple of Serapis.
The first person blamed for the destruction of the Library is none other than Julius Caesar
himself. In 48 BC, Caesar was pursuing Pompey into Egypt when he was suddenly cut off by
an Egyptian fleet at Alexandria. Greatly outnumbered and in enemy territory, Caesar ordered the ships in the harbor to be
set on fire. The fire spread and destroyed the Egyptian fleet. Unfortunately, it also burned down part of the city - the area
where the great Library stood. Caesar wrote of starting the fire in the harbor but neglected to mention the burning of the
Library. Such an omission proves little since he was not in the habit of including unflattering facts while writing his own
history. But Caesar was not without public detractors. If he was solely to blame for the disappearance of the Library it is
very likely significant documentation on the affair would exist today.
The second story of the Library's destruction is more popular, thanks primarily to Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire". But the story is also a tad more complex. Theophilus was Patriarch of Alexandria from 385 to 412 AD.
During his reign the Temple of Serapis was converted into a Christian Church (probably around 391 AD) and it is likely that
many documents were destroyed then. The Temple of Serapis was estimated to hold about ten percent of the overall Library
of Alexandria's holdings. After his death, his nephew Cyril became Patriarch. Shortly after that, riots broke out when Hierax,
a Christian monk, was publicly killed by order of Orestes the city Prefect. Orestes was said to be under the influence of
Hypatia, a female philosopher and daughter of the "last member of the Library of Alexandria". Although it should be noted
that some count Hypatia herself as the last Head Librarian.
Alexandria had long been known for it's violent and volatile politics. Christians, Jews and Pagans all lived together in the city.
One ancient writer claimed that there was no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Immediately after the
death of Hierax a group of Jews who had helped instigate his killing lured more Christians into the street at night by
proclaiming that the Church was on fire. When the Christians rushed out the largely Jewish mob slew many of them. After
this there was mass havoc as Christians retaliated against both the Jews and the Pagans - one of which was Hypatia. The
story varies slightly depending upon who tells it but she was taken by the Christians, dragged through the streets and
murdered.
Some regard the death of Hypatia as the final destruction of the Library. Others blame Theophilus for destroying the last of
the scrolls when he razed the Temple of Serapis prior to making it a Christian church. Still others have confused both
incidents and blamed Theophilus for simultaneously murdering Hypatia and destroying the Library though it is obvious
Theophilus died sometime prior to Hypatia.
The final individual to get blamed for the destruction is the Moslem Caliph Omar. In 640 AD the Moslems took the city of
Alexandria. Upon learning of "a great library containing all the knowledge of the world" the conquering general supposedly
asked Caliph Omar for instructions. The Caliph has been quoted as saying of the Library's holdings, "they will either
contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous." So, allegedly, all the
texts were destroyed by using them as tinder for the bathhouses of the city. Even then it was said to have taken six months
to burn all the documents. But these details, from the Caliph's quote to the incredulous six months it supposedly took to burn
all the books, weren't written down until 300 years after the fact. These facts condemning Omar were written by Bishop
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Gregory Bar Hebræus, a Christian who spent a great deal of time writing about Moslem atrocities without much historical
documentation.
So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar)
to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop
Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased.
Probably everyone mentioned above had some hand in destroying some part of the Library's holdings. The collection may
have ebbed and flowed as some documents were destroyed and others were added. For instance, Mark Antony was
supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library long after Julius Caesar is accused of burning it.
It is also quite likely that even if the Museum was destroyed with the main library the outlying "daughter" library at the
Temple of Serapis continued on. Many writers seem to equate the Library of Alexandria with the Library of Serapis although
technically they were in two different parts of the city.
The real tragedy of course is not the uncertainty of knowing who to blame for the Library's destruction but that so much of
ancient history, literature and learning was lost forever.
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PAANONG NAISULAT ANG NEW TESTAMENT?
Si Origen noong 235 A.D. na isang Christian scholar ng Alexandria ay binuo ang ‗Hexapla‟ na binubuo
ng anim na hanay na sa unang hanay ang bersyong Hebrew Text. Sa unang hanay ay Hebreo at sa
ikalawang hanay ay Hebrew sa Greek bersyon at ang ikatlong hanay ay ang Makabagong Greek bersyon
na Aquila ng Sinope‘s Greek bersyon, ika-apat ang Pinaka-lumang (Pentateuch) Greek Septuagint bersyon
Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s bersyon, ang ika-lima ay ang LXX o Septuagint na pinagsama-sama ang lahat
ng Greek bersyon na may mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon ito nagmula. Ang ika-limang hanay na
kumbinasyon ng pinagsama-samang bersyon ng Greek ay kinopya ng marami beses at isinalin muli ngunit
tinanggal ang mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon nagmula, at ang Lumang Greek bersyon ng Septuagint
ay hindi isinama sa pagkakasalin. Ang pang-anim ay ang Theodotion bersyon. Itong mga pinagsamasamang mga teksto ay naging unang paniniwala ng mga Christian rebisyon ng Septuagint na tinawag na
“HEXAPLAR RECENSION”.
Origen
Origen (Greek: Ὠπιγένηρ Ōrigénēs, or Origen Adamantius, c. 185–254[1]) was an early Christian scholar and theologian, and one
of the most distinguished writers of the early Christian Church despite not being a Church father.[2] According to tradition, he is
held to have been an Egyptian[3] who taught in Alexandria, reviving the Catechetical School of Alexandria where Clement of
Alexandria had taught.[4] The patriarch of Alexandria at first supported Origen but later expelled him for being ordained without the
patriarch's permission.[5] He relocated to Caesarea Maritima and died there after being tortured during a persecution. [6]
Using his knowledge of Hebrew, he produced Hexapla and corrected Septuagint.[7] He wrote commentaries on most of the books of
the Bible.[7] In De principiis (On First Principles), he articulated one of the first philosophical expositions of Christian doctrine.[7]
He interpreted scripture allegorically and showed himself to be a Neo-Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonist.[7] Like Plotinus, he wrote
that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God.[7] He imagined even demons being
reunited with God. For Origen, God was the First Principle, and Christ, the Logos, was subordinate to him.[7] His views of a
hierarchical structure in the Trinity, the temporality of matter, "the fabulous preexistence of souls," and "the monstrous restoration
which follows from it" were declared anathema in the 6th century.[8]
His Greek name, Ōrigénēs (Ὠπιγένηρ), probably means "child of Horus" (from Ὡπορ, "Horus", and γένορ, "born").[9] His nickname or
cognomen Adamantius derives from Greek ἀδάμαρ, which means "unconquerable" or "unbreakable".
Origen was educated by his father, Leonides, who gave him a standard Hellenistic education, but also had him study the Christian
Scriptures. In 202, Origen's father was killed in the outbreak of the persecution during the reign of Septimius Severus. Origen
wished to follow in martyrdom, but was prevented only by his mother hiding his clothes. The death of Leonides left the family of nine
impoverished when their property was confiscated. Origen, however, was taken under the protection of a woman of wealth and
standing; but as her household already included a heretic named Paul, the strictly orthodox Origen seems to have remained with her
only a short time.
Since his father's teaching enabled him also to give elementary instruction, he revived, in 203, the Catechetical School of Alexandria,
whose last teacher, Clement of Alexandria, was apparently driven out by the persecution. But the persecution still raged, and the
young teacher unceasingly visited the prisoners, attended the courts, and comforted the condemned, himself preserved from harm as if
by a miracle. His fame and the number of his pupils increased rapidly, so that Bishop Demetrius of Alexandria, made him restrict
himself to instruction in Christian doctrine alone.
Origen, to be entirely independent, sold his library for a sum which netted him a daily income of 4 obols, on which he lived by
exercising the utmost frugality. Teaching throughout the day, he devoted the greater part of the night to the study of the Bible and
lived a life of rigid asceticism.
Eusebius reported that Origen, following Matthew 19:12 literally, castrated himself.[10] This story was accepted during the Middle
Ages and was cited by Abelard in his 12th century letters to Heloise.[11] Scholars within the past century have questioned this,
surmising that this may have been a rumor circulated by his detractors. [12] The 1903 Catholic Encyclopedia does not report this.[13]
However, renowned historian of late antiquity Peter Brown finds no reason to deny the truth of Eusebius' claims.
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During the reign of emperor Caracalla, about 211-212, Origen paid a brief visit to Rome, but the relative laxity during the pontificate
of Zephyrinus seems to have disillusioned him, and on his return to Alexandria he resumed his teaching with zeal increased by the
contrast. But the school had far outgrown the strength of a single man; the catechumens pressed eagerly for elementary instruction,
and the baptized sought for interpretation of the Bible. Under these circumstances, Origen entrusted the teaching of the catechumens
to Heraclas, the brother of the martyr Plutarch, his first pupil.
His own interests became more and more centered in exegesis, and he accordingly studied Hebrew, though there is no certain
knowledge concerning his instructor in that language. From about this period (212-213) dates Origen's acquaintance with Ambrose of
Alexandria, whom he was instrumental in converting from Valentinianism to orthodoxy. Later (about 218) Ambrose, a man of
wealth, made a formal agreement with Origen to promulgate his writings, and all the subsequent works of Origen (except his sermons,
which were not expressly prepared for publication) were dedicated to Ambrose.
In 213 or 214, Origen visited Arabia at the request of the prefect, who wished to have an interview with him; and Origen accordingly
spent a brief time in Petra, after which he returned to Alexandria. In the following year, a popular uprising at Alexandria caused
Caracalla to let his soldiers plunder the city, shut the schools, and expel all foreigners. The latter measure caused Ambrose to take
refuge in Caesarea, where he seems to have made his permanent home; and Origen, who felt that the turmoil hindered his activity as
a teacher and imperilled his safety, left Egypt, apparently going with Ambrose to Caesarea, where he spent some time. Here, in
conformity with local usage based on Jewish custom, Origen, though not ordained, preached and interpreted the Scriptures at the
request of the bishops Alexander of Jerusalem and Theoctistus of Caesarea. When, however, the confusion in Alexandria subsided,
Demetrius recalled Origen, probably in 216.
Origen’s Activities
Of Origen's activity during the next decade little is known, but it was obviously devoted to teaching and writing. The latter was
rendered the more easy for him by Ambrose, who provided him with more than seven stenographers to take dictation in relays, as
many scribes to prepare long-hand copies, and a number of girls to multiply the copies. At the request of Ambrose, he now began a
huge commentary on the Bible, beginning with John, and continuing with Genesis, Psalms 1-25, and Lamentations, besides brief
exegeses of selected texts (forming the ten books of his Stromateis), two books on the resurrection, and the work On First Principles.
About 230, Origen entered on the fateful journey which was to compel him to give up his work at Alexandria and embittered the next
years of his life. Sent to Greece on some ecclesiastical mission, he paid a visit to Caesarea, where he was heartily welcomed and was
ordained a priest, that no further cause for criticism might be given Demetrius, who had strongly disapproved his preaching before
ordination while at Caesarea. But Demetrius, taking this well-meant act as an infringement of his rights, was furious, for not only was
Origen under his jurisdiction as bishop of Alexandria, but, if Eastern sources may be believed, Demetrius had been the first to
introduce episcopal ordination in Egypt. The metropolitan accordingly convened a synod of bishops and presbyters which banished
Origen from Alexandria, while a second synod declared his ordination invalid.
Origen accordingly fled from Alexandria in 231, and made his permanent home in Caesarea. A series of attacks on him seems to have
emanated from Alexandria, whether for his self-castration (a capital crime in Roman law) or for alleged heterodoxy is unknown; but
at all events these fulminations were heeded only at Rome, while Palestine, Phoenicia, Arabia, and Achaia paid no attention to them.
At Alexandria, Heraclas became head of Origen's school, and shortly afterward, on the death of Demetrius, was consecrated bishop.
At Caesarea, Origen was joyfully received, and was also the guest of Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and of the
empress-dowager, Julia Mamaea, at Antioch. The former also visited him at Caesarea, where Origen, deeply loved by his pupils,
preached and taught dialectics, physics, ethics, and metaphysics; thus laying his foundation for the crowning theme of theology.
He accordingly sought to set forth all the science of the time from the Christian point of view, and to elevate Christianity to a theory
of the Universe compatible with Hellenism. In 235, with the accession of Maximinus Thrax, a persecution raged; and for two years
Origen is said, though on somewhat doubtful authority, to have remained concealed in the house of a certain Juliana in Caesarea of
Cappadocia.
Little is known of the last twenty years of Origen's life. He preached regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and later daily. He
evidently, however, developed an extraordinary literary productivity, broken by occasional journeys; one of which, to Athens during
some unknown year, was of sufficient length to allow him time for research.
After his return from Athens, he succeeded in converting Beryllus, bishop of Bostra, from his adoptionistic (i.e., belief that Jesus was
born human and only became divine after his baptism) views to the orthodox faith; yet in these very years (about 240) probably
occurred the attacks on Origen's own orthodoxy which compelled him to defend himself in writing to Pope Fabian and many
bishops. Neither the source nor the object of these attacks is known, though the latter may have been connected with Novatianism (a
strict refusal to accept Christians who had denied their faith under persecution).
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After his conversion of Beryllus, however, his aid was frequently invoked against heresies. Thus, when the doctrine was promulgated
in Arabia that the soul died and decayed with the body, being restored to life only at the resurrection (see soul sleep), appeal was
made to Origen, who journeyed to Arabia, and by his preaching reclaimed the erring.
There was second outbreak of the Antonine Plague, which at its height in 251 to 266 took the lives of 5,000 a day in Rome. This
time it was called the Plague of Cyprian. Emperor Gaius Messius Quintus Decius, believing the plague to be a product of magic,
caused by the failure of Christians to recognize him as Divine, began Christian persecutions.[14] This time Origen did not escape.[15] He
was tortured, pilloried, and bound hand and foot to the block for days without yielding.[dubious – discuss][original research?][citation needed][16]
Though he did not die while being tortured, he died three years later due to injuries sustained at the age of 69. [17] A later legend,
recounted by Jerome and numerous itineraries place his death and burial at Tyre, but to this little value can be attached.[18]
Origen's Hexapla
Although most of his writings have disappeared, Origen's literary productivity was enormous. The Hexapla was the first attempt to
establish a critical text of the Old Testament.
Hexapla
Hexapla was the name given to Origen's edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek, the most colossal critical production of
antiquity. This work was urgently demanded by the confusion which prevailed in Origen's day regarding the true text of Scripture. The
Church had adopted the Septuagint for its own; this differed from the Hebrew not only by the addition of several books and passages
but also by innumerable variations of text, due partly to the ordinary process of corruption in the transcription of ancient books, partly
to the culpable temerity, as Origen called it, of correctors who used not a little freedom in making "corrections", additions, and
suppressions, partly to mistakes in translation, and finally in great part to the fact that the original Septuagint had been made from a
Hebrew text quite different from that fixed at Jamnia as the one standard by the Jewish Rabbis, under Akiba the founder of Rabbinical
Judaism. Aquila, a proselyte from Christianity, gave (c. A.D. 130) a very accurate translation of this text, aiming above all at being
literal; still he borrows quite freely from the Septuagint when its rendering is consistent with his own chief aim.
Symmachus and Theodotion both flourished towards the end of the second century, but it is uncertain which had priority as translator.
Symmachus, who was an Ebionite according to Eusebius and Jerome, a Jewish proselyte from Samaritanism according to Epiphanius,
gave a new translation which was to a considerable extent a more idiomatic and elegant rendering of Aquila. It was followed
extensively by Jerome in his own work as translator of the Old Testament. Both Aquila and Symmachus produced two editions to
which Jerome refers. Theodotion, who was an Ebionite or a Jew, and perhaps had been a Christian, gave a version much closer than
the others to the Septuagint.
The circulation of these versions, each so insistent in its claim to superiority, in so many instances differing from the Septuagint and
yet so close to it in many others, made a comparison between them and the Septuagint imperative for a knowledge of the true text of
Holy Scripture. The Hexapla, the concept of a great genius executed with unexampled patience and industry, is Origen's attempt to
show the exact relations of the Septuagint to these versions and especially to the Hebrew text. The work itself has perished; its
character, however, has been pretty well known to scholars through statements in early Church writers, through scholia on numerous
manuscripts of the Bible, and through chance quotations found in the works of certain Fathers. Quite recently (1896 and 1900)
fragments of the Hexaplar Psalms were fortunately discovered, which give us our only specimens of connected portions of Origen's
work and afford a good idea of its general appearance. Our earliest authorities, Eusebius of Cæsarea, St. Epiphanius, and St. Jerome,
agree that Origen made a collection into one work of texts and versions of the entire Old Testament, arranging them in parallel
columns according to the following order: First, the Hebrew text in Hebrew characters; second, the Hebrew text transliterated into
Greek characters; third, the version of Aquila; fourth, that of Symmachus; fifth, the Septuagint; sixth, the version of Theodotion. The
recovered fragments corroborate this testimony, though they lack the first column. Aquila's version was placed next to the Hebrew,
most probably because it was the most literal rendering; Symmachus next to Aquila, because his version was largely a revision of the
other; for a similar reason, Theodotion's version came after the Septuagint. To these six columns, according to the same testimony,
Origen added, but for certain books only, a seventh and an eighth column containing two more Greek versions, which were called
respectively the Quinta and the Sexta, because they were the fifth and sixth versions in Origen's arrangement. Eusebius and Jerome
mention a seventh Greek version, however nothing seems to be known of the character of the Septima. It may have been a very
fragmentary version, a collection of variant readings which later editors did not consider worth preserving. Concerming the Quinta and
Sexta, St. Jerome tells us that their authors were Jews. Field finds traces of the Quinta not only in Psalms, Job, Proverbs, and the
Canticle of Canticles, but also in the Pentateuch and 2 Kings, though, in regard to 2 Kings, Burkitt has advanced good reasons for
considering the Quinta a collection of variant readings, probably rejected from the Septuagint. The Sexta is quoted for Exodus, 1
Kings, Psalms, Job, Canticle of Canticles, Amos, and Habacuc.
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The presence of these two additional versions in the Hexapla has led to a discussion of that term and of others applied to Origen's
work. By some the "six-fold" Bible was considered so called because it contained six Greek versions of certain books; but the
common opinion has been that the name designates probably the six columns (the two of Hebrew and the four of the chief Greek
versions, which consititute the bulk of the work), and came to be extended to the entire work. The terms Pentapla, Heptapla, Octapla,
were also used of Origen's work, according as it contained five, seven, or eight columns. Since the six or seven columns, as the case
might be, were visible at every opening of the Hexapla, each column must have been quite narrow. The fragments show, in fact, that
one or at most two Hebrew words were placed on each line, with the transliteration in the adjoining column and the various renditions
in the succeeding columns, all on the same level. This arrangement would naturally necessitate, at times, a shifting of the Greek words
from their proper order, although this was not always done. An arrangement so minute and liberal must produce a work of enormous
bulk. Swete estimated 3250 leaves, or 6500 pages, but Nestle considers 6000 leaves not far beyond the number. In addition to these
columns of texts and versions, Origen copied out on the margins or between the lines other readings which he cited as given by ‗o
‗Ebrâios, ‗o E&úros, tò Samareitikón, the meaning of which is obscure. Field considers "the Hebrew" to be the Hebrew author of a
Greek version, otherwise unknown, of certain books; "the Syrian", the author of another Greek version made in Syria; while "the
Samaritan" gives Greek readings taken, not from the current Hebrew text, but from the Samaritan Pentateuch (thirty-six out of fortythree readings agree with that text). Loisy's opinion, not the mention many others, is that "the Hebrew" denotes citations from a
Targum, "the Syrian", from the Peschito.
Origen's purpose, as regards the Septuagint, was to indicate very clearly its exact relation to the Hebrew text, and incidentally to the
other Greek versions. With this in view, he adopted (and placed in the Septuagint column only) the symbols used by Aristarchus in his
edition of Homer. "As employed by Origen in the fifth column of the Hexapla, the obelus was prefixed to words or lines which were
wanting in the Hebrew, and therefore, from Origen's point of view, of doubtful authority, while the asterisk called attention to words
or lines wanting in the Septuagint, but present in the Hebrew. The close of the context to which the obelus or asterisk was intended to
apply was marked by another sign known as the metobelus" (Swete). The fifth column, therefore, contained not the mere text of the
Septuagint only, but in addition a translation taken generally from Theodotion (occasionally from Aquila) of these words or lines of
the Hebrew which were lacking in the Septuagint. In certain instances, where the Septuagint translation differed widely from the
Hebrew meaning, Origen inserted the true rendering (from Theodotion or Aquila) alongside the false; he deleted nothing from the
Septuagint text. By this arrangement and these symbols, any reader, even if ignorant of Hebrew, could generally tell at a glance the
exact relation of the Septuagint text to the Hebrew.
The principles which guided Origen in his work as textual critic are partly explained by Origen himself. He began by assuming the
correctness of the current Hebrew textus receptus, and considered the Septuagint as more or less pure according to the degree in which
it approximated to the Hebrew. He frequently changed the spelling of proper names to conform with the Hebrew. The symbols were
intended not only to indicate a difference between the two texts, but to mark a departure from the Hebrew verity or genuine text.
These principles are rightly discredited by modern scholars, who recognize that the Septuagint often bears plain witness to a Hebrew
original different from the textus receptus and older than it in some parts. Moreover, of two readings, one a free, the other a literal,
translation of the Hebrew, the free is more likely to be the original rendering of the Septuagint translator, while the literal is more apt
to represent the effort of correctors, who very frequently endeavoured to bring the Greek into greater conformity with the Hebrew.
Origen's critical principles were at fault, then, but his use of symbols ought to have guarded others from being led by his work into
error. Unfortunately, the symbols were not reproduced in many copies which were taken of the fifth column - the Septuagint together
with the readings from Theodotion and Aquila.
After the completion of the Hexapla, Origen prepared a minor edition, or extract from it, consisting of the four principal versions,
Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion; this is the Tetrapla. It has been sometimes maintained, however, that the
Tetrapla is the earlier work and was expanded into the Hexapla, principally on the ground that the Hexapla, which in a few instances
has a superior reading, as at Ps. lxxxvi, 5, presents light missing to Origen when he composed the Tetrapla, a very unstable ground, we
judge, for the Hexapla did not leave the hand of Origen as a printed work becomes independent of a modern author, but received
occasional additions and corrections with the progress of his knowledge. The language of Eusebius implies that the Tetrapla was the
later work. The dates of the two works, however, cannot be definitely fixed; all we know, says Field, is that the Hexapla or the
Tetrapla was composed before Origen's letter to Africanus (c. 240).
No copy of the entire Hexapla, on account of the immense labour and expense involved, seems ever to have been made, but the
Psalter, minus the first column, was copied, as the two fragments prove. A reading in Isaias is quoted from the Pentapla, which
possibly (though very doubtfully) implies the existence of a similar copy. Shortly after the beginning of the fourth century, Pamphilus,
the martyr, and Eusebius, Bishop of Cæsarea, gave out an edition of the fifth column of the Hexapla, containing the Septuagint, the
insertions from Theodotion and Aquila, and the symbols, together with variant readings on the margin, in the belief that they were
bestowing on the Church the purest text. It was through the reproduction of this edition by later scribes, without Origen's critical signs,
that arose the Hexaplar text which so greatly increased the confusion of Septuagint manuscripts. However, it hardly circulated outside
of Palestine. It was translated into Syriac, "with the Origenic signs scrupulously retained", by Paul, Bishop of Tella, in Mesopotamia,
who accomplished the work at Alexandria about 616-17. Several books and large portions of this Syro-Hexaplar text survive, and are
the source, in a very great measure, of our knowledge of Origen's work. The Hexaplar text also influenced St. Jerome very strongly in
his first two translations of the Psalter into Latin, the Psalterium Romanum and (particularly) the Gallicanum. Saint Jerome also
followed the Hexaplar text, for which he had a very high regard, as the basis of his translations, no longer extant, of other books. The
same influence is further seen in the Coptic (Sahidic), the Arabic, and the Armenian versions. If the original Septuagint text be taken
as the standard, it is unquestionable that Origen's influence, both upon the Septuagint and its daughter versions, ultimately availed,
through the negligence of copyists, to remove them further from the pristine purity of the Biblical text; but by all those who regard the
Hexaplar text, by reason of its insertions and corrections from the textus receptus, as nearer to the original Hebrew than is the
Septuagint, his influence must be judged to have worked, on the whole, for the spread of a truer text. The Hexaplar manuscript was
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kept at Cæsarea in Palestine, where it was consulted by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome; it disappeared from sight shortly after the
beginning of the seventh century.
The first attempt to collect its disjecta membra, scattered over Biblical manuscripts and patristic writings, was made by Drusius
(Driesch) in his work "In Psalmos Davidis Veterum Interpretum quæ extant Fragmenta", Antwerp, 1581 (so Mercati). Additions were
made by Peter Morin in his notes to the Greek Bible authorized by Sixtus V (158), as also in the posthumous work of Drusius (1622),
and the monumental work of Montfaucon (1713). The publication of the Syro-Hexaplar text by Ceriani and others gave back to the
world a great part of Origen's work. Frederick Field in his "Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt … fragmenta" (Oxford, 1875)
collected into one grand work the results of two centuries of investigation and discovery. Since his day, Pitra's "Analecta Sacra", III
(Venice, 1883), Klosterman's "Analecta zur … Hexapla" (Leipzig, 1895), and Dom Morin's "Anecdota Maredsolana", III, i, have
given the world further discoveries. Add to these, to complete the history of the Hexapla's recovery, the palimpsest fragments of
several of the psalms discovered by Mercati in the Ambrosian Library of Milan (1896), and the palimpsest fragment of Ps. xxii
recovered from a genizah of Cairo (1900), which reproduce almost the exact form of Origen's work. Though much has been lost,
including most of the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, still, by these patient, untiring labours, vast materials have
been gathered for the reconstruction of a purer Sacred Text. [See MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE; ORIGEN; SEPTUAGINT;
VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE Greek)].
Hexapla
The Hexapla is an edition of the Old Testament prepared by Origen in the third century. The Hexapla was
prepared in six (hence the name) columns containing different versions of the Scriptures. These included a
Hebrew (probably the Masoretic) text, four different Greek versions (a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew
text and versions by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion), and the Septuagint:
1. Hebrew
2. Hebrew transliterated into Greek characters
3. Aquila
4. Symmachus
5. Septuagint
6. Theodotion
During the second and third centuries a number of versions of the Old Testament were available each
having variations in texts. This created confusion about what was the true text of Scriptures. While the
Church had chosen the Septuagint as its own, it differed from the Hebrew version of the second century
that was the standard prepared by Jewish Rabbis under Akiba the founder of Rabbinic Judaism. In the
interim many textual changes had occurred through corruption during transcriptions, additions and
deletions, and mistakes through translations since the Hebrew text used when the Septuagint was
prepared.
During the second century Greek translations of the Scriptures were made by Aquila of Sinope,
Symmachus the Ebionite, and Theodotion. Each had its own characteristics and variations from the
Septuagint and each claimed to be superior. Origen attempted to reveal the true text of the earlier
Hebrew Scriptures by establishing the exact relations of the Septuagint to the then current Greek and
Hebrew versions. This he did by presenting side by side each version of the Scriptures in six columns in
what became called the Hexapla. Origen‘s arrangement placed in the first column the Hebrew text in
Hebrew, in the second column the Hebrew text transliterated in Greek characters, in the third column
Aquila‘s Greek version, in the fourth Symmachus‘ Greek version, in the fifth the Septuagint, and in the
sixth Theodotion‘s Greek version. Origen apparently added a seventh and eighth column for certain books
of the Scriptures containing other Greek translations. These were called Quinta and Sexta as they were
Origen‘s fifth and sixth versions, or editions, of his studies. Origen apparently produced also five, seven,
and eight column arrangements of versions of the Scriptures that were called Pentapla, Heptapla, and
Octapla.
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The Hexpla was a work in progress for Origen, and a complete copy of the entire Hexapla may never have
been produced, given the very large amount of labor and costs involved in doing so. Fragments of portions
of the work have been found as well as quotations and translation of portions that appear in various other
works by later scribes.
While the original work is lost, the fragments have been collected in several editions over the past few
centuries. Recently, these fragments with other materials that have been discovered in the last hundred
years are being re-edited by an international group of Septuagint scholars. This work is being carried out
as The Hexapla Project under the auspices of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate
Studies, and directed by Peter J. Gentry (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), Alison G. Salvesen
(Oxford University), and Bas ter Haar Romeny (Leiden University).
Hexapla
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | Copyright
Hexapla [Gr.,=sixfold], polyglot edition of the Hebrew Bible prepared by Origen (c.185-c.255). It was mainly in six columns—a
Hebrew text (probably the Masoretic), a Greek transliteration of it, and four Greek versions (those of Aquila, Symmachus, and
Theodotion, and a revised version of the Septuagint). For certain sections of the Hebrew text, three further Greek versions were
added. Some fragments survive.
Polyglot Bible
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | Copyright
"Polyglot Bible." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Encyclopedia.com. 6 May. 2010
<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.
Polyglot Bible , Bible in which different texts, often in different languages, are laid out in parallel columns. Polyglot Bibles serve as
tools for textual criticism. Origen's Hexapla was the most famous ancient example. More recent Polyglot Bibles include the
Complutensian Polyglot, which contained the first printed Greek New Testament (prepared at Alcalá, Spain, 1514-17); the
Antwerp Polyglot (1571-80); the Paris Polyglot (1629-57); and the London, or Walton's, Polyglot (1654-57). The latter is the most
elaborate and contains—besides the usual Hebrew and Greek—the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Aramaic, Latin, Ethiopian,
Syrian, Arabic, and Persian biblical texts.
Jewish Encyclopedia
Origen
Christian theologian; born in Alexandria about 185; died in Tyre about 254. Trained in the study of the Bible by his father, and in philosophy
by the Neoplatonist Ammonius Saccas, he early devoted himself to the philosophical study of religion, and became an influential Church
teacher and the founder of a school. His broad treatment of Christian doctrine exposed him to the charge of heresy; and his writings gave
rise to prolonged controversies. Of his numerous works a few only have survived. Of these the most important are: the commentaries on
the Gospels of Matthew and John; the great theological treatise "De Principiis" (Περὶ Ἀρχῶν); and the "Contra Celsum," a reply to the attack
of the philosopher Celsus on Christianity (see Celsus).
His Exegesis
Origen's allegorical and spiritualizing interpretation of Scripture and conception of the Logos are similar to those of Philo; but his precise
relation to the latter can hardly be definitely determined. It is uncertain whether he drew directly from Philo's writings or derived his
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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hermeneutical method and his Logos doctrine through his teacher from the Alexandrian grammarians and philosophers. It is probable,
however, that he, like his older contemporary Clement, was influenced by the Philonic doctrine. His works abound in explanations of Old
Testament and New Testament passages. Though he had public disputations with Jews, his personal relations with them appear to have
been friendly. In a number of places he speaks of consulting learned Jews on the meaning of Old Testament words and passages (see, for
example, "De Principiis," i. 3, § 4). In the "Contra Celsum" he throughout defends the Jewish faith against the philosopher's attacks.
His "Hexapla."
Origen was, so far as is known, the first Christian scholar to undertake the study of Hebrew. It is not likely that he had a thorough
knowledge of the language; though he in many places cites and explains Hebrew words, his Old Testament quotations are from the
Septuagint, which he seems to have regarded as not less authoritative than the Hebrew text. There is no indication that he was acquainted
with the Midrash. His chief contribution to Biblical science was his attempt to establish the true text of the Septuagint, his object being to
define the exegetical relations between Jews and Christians. To this great work—the foundation of the science of Biblical text-criticism—he
devoted twenty-eight years, collecting materials from all parts of the Christian world. He arranged his texts in six columns: Hebrew in
Hebrew characters; Hebrew in Greek characters; Aquila; Symmachus; Septuagint; and Theodotion. Passages in the Septuagint not in the
Hebrew he marked with an obelus (a horizontal line), Hebrew passages not in the Septuagint with an asterisk, the defective Septuagint
passages being filled out, mostly from Theodotion. The resulting work, the "Hexapla," was deposited in the library at Cæsarea (in
Palestine), was never transcribed, and perished, probably in the seventh century. Omitting the first two columns, Origen edited also the four
Greek versions in parallel columns (the "Tetrapla"), but this edition seems likewise to have perished. He added in some places two other
Greek versions (the "Quinta" and the "Sexta"); and Jerome (on Hab. ii. 11) mentions a seventh, of which, however, nothing more is known.
Excerpts from the "Hexapla" are preserved in the writings of various Christian authors, particularly in those of Jerome. These have been
collected by Montfaucon ("Hexaplorum Origenis Quæ Supersunt," Paris, 1713) and Field ("Origenis Hexaplorum Quæ Supersunt," Oxford,
1875). Field's edition contains all the material accessible at his time for the elucidation of the "Hexapla"; and nothing of importance has
since been brought to light.
The Septuagint column of the "Hexapla" (with the critical marks and marginal notes) was transcribed by Eusebius and Pamphilus, and was
widely circulated (Jerome, Preface to Chronicles). From it was made a Syriac version (the "Hexaplar Syriac"), which has preserved the
critical marks, and is therefore useful for the establishment of Origen's Greek text. The outcome of Origen's gigantic labors has been very
different from what he intended. The carelessness of copyists, who often neglected the diacritical marks, has introduced foreign elements
into his Septuagint text, the true form of which it is in many cases impossible or difficult to determine. Nevertheless the disjecta membra of
his great work contain much of value furnishing no little material for fixing the Hebrew and Alexandrian Greek Old Testament texts of his
time. A new critical edition of his work is being brought out by a commission of the Berlin University (Berlin, 1899 et seq.).
In all probability Origen was on terms of personal acquaintanceship with R. Hoshaiah, the head of the school of Cæsarea (see Bacher, "Ag.
Pal. Amor." i. 92), and he was also, as he himself says, acquainted with a patriarch Ἰοῦλλος, a misreading of the name of Judah II. (see
Jew. Encyc. vii. 338).
Origen's Hexapla—which was his study of the Septuagint version of the Hebrew Scriptures—is not a part
of the textual literature used per se in studying the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
Nonetheless, because the Watch Tower Society uses the Hexapla as evidence for the Tetragrammaton in
the Christian Greek Scriptures, we have included this evaluation in the appendix.
Because of the comprehensive nature of the Hexapla, Origen's work gives us valuable information
regarding the state of the Septuagint and related textual problems in the first two centuries C.E. From this
study we can learn much about the use of the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Scriptures.
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The man and the Hexapla
Origen was among the most prominent of the early patristics. He was probably born in Alexandria
about 182 C.E., and died in Caesarea not later than 251 C.E.
As a young man, he was given the best scholarly education possible through the efforts of his father. In
202 C.E. his father was martyred for his Christian faith—an end Origen himself ideally wished to pursue by
accompanying his father. He was spared, however, through his mother's intervention. He spent his early
life in Alexandria as an impoverished but highly respected teacher of the Scriptures. He then moved to
Palestine where he spent much of the remaining years of his life in teaching and producing voluminous
writings. (He is credited with over 6,000 written editions, each consisting of a completed scroll.)
Throughout his lifetime, Origen did extensive work on the Septuagint, producing several variations of a
similar study. The most complete, however, was the Hexapla in which he compared the Septuagint with
three parallel Greek translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. The work was organized in six columns. [1] (The
name Hexapla is derived from hex- meaning six.) The columns were arranged as follows: In the first
column (headed The Hebrew), Origen wrote the verse in Hebrew characters as it appeared in the Hebrew
Scriptures. This column was written from right to left. In a second column (headed "ÔEbr," with the full
heading translated as The Hebrew [in] Greek Letters), the Hebrew words were transliterated with
Greek letters. The second column has no meaning as written Greek, but the letters could be read to
reproduce the Hebrew pronunciation of the words. (Since written Hebrew during Origen's day had no
vowel markings, only a fluent speaker of Hebrew could read the characters with proper pronunciation.
Thus, the Greek transliteration column provided the vowel pronunciation for a Gentile reading the Hebrew
characters.) This column read from left to right as Greek is normally written. In the remaining four
columns, Origen reproduced four Greek versions of the Hebrew Scriptures. The first version was by Aquila
in the column headed "ÔA." The second was a translation by Symmachus in the column headed "S." The
third was the Septuagint in the column headed "OV." The fourth column contained a version by
Theodotion in the column headed "Q." A final column was occasionally used for variants or notations
concerning any one of the versions, though it is not counted as a true column. Figure 11 is a typeset
reproduction of the actual arrangement of the original Hexapla. Note that each row represents a word-byword transcription of the entire Hebrew Scripture text. The original Hexapla is thought to have consisted
of nearly fifty volumes, with each volume in the form of a scroll equivalent in length to a Gospel or the
book of Acts.
Each of the three supplementary versions represented a unique translation style. Aquila's translation,
made in the first half of the second century C.E, was extremely literal. Symmachus' translation, made in
the later second century C.E., was more free. Theodotion's work, also made in the second century C.E.,
was a free revision of the Septuagint.
The Hexapla was the crowning work of Origen's life, yet nothing is known of its destruction. In all
likelihood, the original was the only complete copy ever made. From the writings of Eusebius [2] and others,
we know that the original was housed in a library at Caesarea for many years, where it was probably
destroyed in 653 C.E. when Caesarea was burned by the Saracens (Arabs).
[2] Eusebius of Caesarea—generally referred to simply as Eusebius—made an immense contribution to our
understanding of the early congregations, its personalities, its disputes, and its writings. He was born
sometime between 275 and 280 C.E. and died circa 339. In his own right, he was not an original thinker,
but he became a prodigious and exacting copier and recorder of others' works. Much of what is known of
certain early writings has been preserved only through the copies of Eusebius. Eusebius was particularly
interested in Origen and the textual problems of the Septuagint (as found in the Hexapla), and was thus
responsible for much of the preservation of the work which exists today.
Had the Hexapla survived, its value in the field of Hebrew Scripture textual criticism would have been
enormous. Origen was an exacting student and had extensively researched the transmission of the
Hebrew text. We must remember, however, that the focus of his attention was not the Hebrew text per
se. His primary concern was an accurate reconstruction of the text of the Septuagint. His purpose was to
give the Greek-speaking world of his day a Hebrew Scripture version of the greatest fidelity.
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Figure 11. The column arrangement of Origen's Hexapla from
Psalm 25:6 and 7.
The reconstructed Hexapla
The original Hexapla has been entirely lost. Furthermore, because it was apparently never reproduced
in its entirety while it was still housed in the library at Caesarea, copies of complete portions do not exist
today. However, because the Hexapla was so widely quoted by others before its destruction, substantial—
though fragmentary—portions can be found scattered throughout the writings of the early patristics.
Fortunately, a copy of the corrected Septuagint column which was made by Eusebius and Pamphilus has
survived.[3]
[3] For a complete (though dated) discussion of both Origen and the Hexapla, see these two headings in
McClintock & Strong's Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature.
Because the Hexapla offers such important insights into the Septuagint and other Hebrew Scripture
literature in both the Hebrew and Greek languages, attempts have been made to reconstruct the work by
searching the writings of the early patristics for citations of the Hexapla.
The most complete reconstruction of the Hexapla available today is contained in a volume entitled
Origenis Hexaplorum published with Latin historical and textual comments by Fridericus Field. It was first
published by Field in 1867-74. The edition available for our study was republished in 1964 by Georg Olms
Verlagsbuchhandlung, from Hildesheim, Germany. The reconstructed material is so extensive that this
particular edition is bound in two volumes with each 81/2 by 11 inch page divided into two columns. Just
the text and critical apparatus (apart from the introductory commentary and historical notes by the
editor), contains 806 pages in Volume I and 1,095 pages in Volume II.
In contrast to the original six columns used by Origen, Field grouped all entries for a given word or
phrase into a single paragraph with each entry identified by Origen's original column headings. The
complete entry for Malachi 2:13 as shown in the Origenis Hexaplorum is reproduced in Figure 12. All the
Hebrew and Greek entries are reproductions of the work of Origen himself. The Latin explanations in
either the main entry or the notes are the work of the modern editor of this volume. The notes in Greek or
Syrian are presumably the textual apparatus which identifies the editor's sources of textual information.
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Figure 12. The complete entry for Malachi 2:13 reproduced from a reconstruction of Origen's Hexapla.
Origen's entries ‫יהוה‬, Κύριος, and PIPI are circled. His headings are octagonally boxed.
A comment should be made regarding the incomplete nature of the Hexapla and its effect on a study of
the Tetragrammaton. By carefully examining Figure 12, the reader will notice that even though verse 13 is
complete, there is no entry for verse 14. Verse 14 has been entirely lost, and the entry for verse 15
includes only a portion of the verse. The last two verses of Malachi 2 (verses 16 and 17) are also lost.
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Chapter 4 has only single Hebrew word entries for verses 1, 3, and 5. Two word entries have survived for
verse 2. Verses 6 and 7 have been entirely lost, while verse 8 has a high degree of completeness. Notice,
however, that even when there is some completeness for a verse, not all of the material is present. For
example, the single word entry for chapter 3 verse 1 contains data for the Septuagint as well as the
translations by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. However, the single word entry at verse 3 contains
only the material from the Septuagint (though it includes a critical note by Origen himself).
Available Hexapla materials
Initially, our study of the Hexapla text was done in Field's Origenis Hexaplorum (Origen's Hexapla).
However, it has one critical shortcoming for any study of the divine name in the Hexapla. Field apparently
had access to ancient manuscripts which used only the word Kyrios (Kuvrio~) in columns 2 through 6.
(Entries copied from the Hexapla would likely have been subject to the same influence we discovered in
Chapter 13.) The Origenis Hexaplorum does not use the Tetragrammaton in any column entries other than
the Hebrew language column. Thus, in our initial study, we were left with the false impression that Origen
did not use ‫ יהוה‬anywhere other than in his first column.[4]
[4] For obvious reasons, our search of Field was not comprehensive, even though over 1,000 pages were
scanned for ‫ יהוה‬in the latter columns. Nonetheless, we can safely say that the Tetragrammaton was not
noticeably used.
Following more detailed research, however, we found recent reference to extant manuscripts containing
the Tetragrammaton in Origen's original Hexapla.[5] The Ambrosiana palimpsest, a manuscript identified
by Giovanni Mercati, was published in 1958 giving new insight into the original form of the Hexapla.[6]
[5] Reference is made to the Ambrosiana palimpsest in Paul E. Kahle, The Cairo Geneza, 1959, p. 163,
Bruce M. Metzger, Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, 1981, P.E. Kahle, "The Greek Bible Manuscripts used by
Origen," Journal of Biblical Literature, Ixxiv (1960), pp. 111-18, and J.A. Emerton, "A Further
Consideration of the Purpose of the Second Column of the Hexapla," Journal of Theological Studies, n.s.
xxii (1971), pp. 15-29.
[6] Psalterii Hexapli Reliquiae…, Pars Prima; Codex Rescriptus Bybliothecae Ambrosianae O 39, Vatican
City, 1958.
In 1894, Mercati was studying a 13th or 14th century C.E. service-book of the Greek Orthodox Church
which was housed in Milan's Ambrosian Library. It was a palimpsest, meaning that an older book had been
erased, and a liturgical text had been written over the faint early manuscript. Mercati's discovery gave
biblical scholarship the earliest example of Origen's Hexapla. Though the manuscript itself was from the
ninth or tenth century, it was a faithful copy of a much earlier form. The manuscript contained
approximately 150 verses from the Psalms, it was organized in Origen's original word-for-word
arrangement, and, most notably, it used the Tetragrammaton in all six columns. (See Figure 11 for a
partial reproduction of Psalm 27 (28):6-7.[7])
[7] The English Bible does not always divide the Psalms the same as the Septuagint. This Psalm is number
28 in the English Bible.
This document firmly established that Origen used the Tetragrammaton in all columns of his Hexapla.
Further, it verified his use of the square Hebrew characters ‫ יהוה‬rather than the paleo-Hebrew characters
‫יהוה‬. The photo-reproductions of the pages in Mercati's text are often difficult to decipher because of the
over-written text. However, because of the placement of margins (which contained no writing), five
Hexapla columns are clearly discernible across two pages. (The five columns on a single page of the
original book occupy the space of two opened pages of the latter text.) Verse 6 is at the top of a page and
clearly displays ‫ יהוה‬at the head of several columns. In their appropriate spacing, one can again see ‫יהוה‬
heading verse 7. (Because verse 7 was inadvertently copied twice, a ‫ יהוה‬heading appears in both places.)
This plate (from which Figure 11 is taken) shows careful formation of the Hebrew characters by the
original scribe.[8] Clearly, the copyist transcribing the Hebrew characters was familiar with Hebrew script.
The characters are properly formed and are not a crude representation as one would expect to find in poor
transcriptions containing PIPI (PIPI).[9]
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[8] A better photograph of this page appears on plate 30 of Bruce Metzger's Manuscripts of the Greek
Bible.
[9] This graphic representation contains the two Greek letters pi (P) and iota (I) written in duplicate.
(They may either be written in upper-case as PIPI or lower-case as pipiŸ.) This letter combination allowed
the Greek writers to represent the four Hebrew letters of the Tetragrammaton (‫ )יהוה‬with common Greek
letters. PIPI was a known Scripture notation of the time and was not confined to Origen's writings.
On page 108 of Manuscripts of the Greek Bible, Metzger says,
[The photographic reproduction shows] palimpsest parchment leaves, originally measuring about 15
3/8 X 11 inches…containing in the under-writing about 150 verses of the Hexaplaric Psalter, written in a
hand of the ninth or tenth century. In the thirteenth or fourteenth century the codex was dismantled and
the parchment reused for another book. The leaves were (partially) erased and cut in half laterally, each
half making two leaves and four pages of the new codex. The Plate [which is reproduced in the book]
shows one such leaf (formerly the upper half of a page of the original codex), the under-writing, in five
columns, giving for Psalm 27(28):6-7 the transliteration of the Hebrew text and the translations made by
Aquila, Symmachus, the Seventy [Septuagint], and, instead of Theodotion as might have been expected,
the Quinta…. The first column of the Hexapla, giving the Hebrew text…is lacking.
By oversight ver. 7 is repeated. Iota adscript occurs [on two separate lines]; accent and breathing
marks are provided even for the transliteration of the Hebrew. The Tetragrammaton is written in square
Hebrew letters, followed, in the Septuagint column, by the contraction for Κύριος (in ver. 8 on the next
page k-"- is followed by pipi…).
The Watch Tower's representation of the Hexapla
With this background, we can turn to the Watch Tower Society's use of the Hexapla in its
documentation of the Tetragrammaton in the Christian Greek Scriptures. On page 310, the writers of "All
Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" say:
It is of interest that the divine name, in the form of the tetragrammaton, also appears in the Septuagint
of Origen's six-column Hexapla, completed about 245 C.E. Commenting on Psalm 2:2, Origen wrote of the
Septuagint: "In the most accurate manuscripts the name occurs in Hebrew Characters, yet not in today's
Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones." The evidence appears conclusive that the Septuagint
was tampered with at an early date, Ky'ri.os (Lord) and The.os' (God) being substituted for the
tetragrammaton.
When we evaluate the most recent manuscript information for the Hexapla, the Watch Tower's claim
that Origen used ‫ יהוה‬is fully vindicated. We can now carefully study the Ambrosiana manuscript and
determine exactly how Origen treated passages in those Psalms which used the divine name.
We were able to locate a copy of Mercati's Psalterii Hexapli Reliquiae in a well-stocked theological
library. This large volume photographically reproduces all of the Ambrosiana manuscript. The original
manuscript pages are grouped in sets of either two or four on the left-hand page. The complete Hexapla
text as found in these ancient manuscript pages is typeset on the right-hand facing page. (There are over
forty pages of photographs alone.) From the typeset text, we reproduced Origen's complete six-column
entry in each instance in which ‫ יהוה‬occurred in the Hebrew language column. The result is the information
given in Table 11. As far as can be determined today, this is an exact reproduction of Origen's original
entries for these verses. This table represents only the ‫ יהוה‬entries from the other-wise Greek language
text.
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Table 11: Origen's entries for the divine name as found in the extant Psalms portion of the Ambrosiana,
O 39 Sup. manuscript.
Note: This table contains only the ‫ יהוה‬entries; all Greek entries were omitted.[10]
[10] General notes to the material in Table 11:
a. The above entries represent a comprehensive citation of the Hexaplaric Tetragrammaton from Psalm
17:26-38:53. These entries are extracted from a complete text. However, as given here, each individual
entry is complete as found in Giovanni Mercati (ed.), Psalterii Hexapli Reliquiae…, Pars Prima: Codex
Rescriptus Bybliothecae Ambrosianae O 39 sup., Vatican City, 1958.
b. The figures <> enclosing a Hebrew character indicate that the character was omitted in the original
transcription. Two asterisks (**) indicate an indecipherable entry in the original manuscript which could
not be supplied with reasonable certainty by the editor. Letters included in parentheses (…) indicate an
indecipherable entry in the original manuscript which were supplied with reasonable certainty by the
editor.
Now that we understand exactly how Origen made his entries in each column, we can make the
following observations based on these verses from the Psalms:
1.
2.
3.
4.
As we expect, at each occurrence of the divine name, the Tetragrammaton was written in square
Hebrew characters in the Hebrew language column.
Further, with only the exception of an incomplete text at Psalm 17:29, Origen used the
Tetragrammaton in the Greek transliteration column. (Refer to Figure 11 where it is more obvious
that the second column was in Greek letters. The Tetragrammaton in Hebrew characters was the
exception to the Greek of the second column.)
We then discover that Origen transcribed ‫ יהוה‬into the Greek text of columns 3 (Aquila's
translation), 4 (Symmachus' translation), and 6 (Theodotion's [or the Quinta] translation).
Though we find occasional Greek lettering which Origen included with the Tetragrammaton, we
discover that these are merely articles meaning "the" (tou`, tw`i [a scribal error which should
read tw`/], and toŸn), prepositions (ejpiŸ meaning "upon," and ejn meaning "in") or a further
elaboration of the divine name in the Psalms 45 and 88 entries.
When we look at the Septuagint column, however, we make an unexpected discovery. In all
cases but Psalm 17:29, Origen recorded the divine name as ‫יהוה‬. In addition, however, he also
used the surrogate forms k-"-, k-e-, k-n-, k-w-i-[11] and k-u-. These are abbreviations for Kyrios
(Kuvrio~). Thus, Origen also identified "Lord" as an alternate reading for the divine name in the
Septuagint. (He made similar entries at 28:1 for Symmachus, at Psalm 29:13 for Aquila, and at
Psalm 30:6 for Theodotion.)
[11] The final letter iota should be written under the omega as k-w-/ rather than after the omega
as k-w-i-. This error is attributed to the scribe making the copy.
5.
6.
Even more surprising, however, is Origen's entry in the Septuagint column at Psalm 17:8. In this
verse he recorded the Septuagint as using either ‫ יהוה‬or one of the Greek forms k-"- or pipiŸ.
Finally, at Psalm 28:1, we notice another unexpected variation which Origen recorded for the
Septuagint. He first recorded tw`i ‫ יהוה‬as we would expect. (He has included the article which
means "The Jehovah.") He then recorded the alternate form uivoiŸ q-u- ejnevgkate which uses
the surrogate q-u- (from Theos) meaning "God." It is his final alternate reading for this verse
which surprises us. He used the abbreviation i-w-/ k-w-/. The initial letter combination i-w-/ is
the Greek surrogate for ‫יהוה‬. The second entry is k-w/- which is the Greek surrogate for Kyrios
(Kuvrio~). Thus, Origen used the Greek surrogates for "Lord God" as his final alternate reading
for the Septuagint in this verse.
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What is the meaning of the multiple entries ‫יהוה‬/k-"-/pipiŸ at Psalm 17:8, or tw`i ‫יהוה‬/uivoiŸ q-uejnevgkate/i-w-/ k-w-/ at Psalm 28:1? Origen was an exacting analyst. Consequently, he had access to
numerous copies of the Septuagint and other Hebrew Scripture Greek translations. When there was
agreement between the copies of any given translation he was using, he made a single entry. When there
were variations between the copies of the same translation, he made multiple entries. Thus, at Psalm
17:8, we can presume that Origen was referring to copies of the Septuagint which used the
Tetragrammaton written as ‫ יהוה‬in Hebrew characters. For the same verse, however, he also had at least
one copy of the Septuagint which used k-"-, and another which used pipiŸ. Though less frequently, we
encounter the same pattern for Aquila's translation at Psalm 29:13 or Theodotian's translation at Psalms
17:42 and 30:6.
We will return to the importance of this discovery at the end of the appendix. It must be obvious,
however, that Origen did not attempt to correct the variant "Kyrios." He did not recognize ‫ יהוה‬as the only
appropriate form in which the divine name could be written in the Hebrew Scriptures. He may have had a
preference for the Tetragrammaton (though his order of k-e-/‫ יהוה‬for Aquila at Psalm 29:13 is interesting)
but he does not avoid using Kyrios or its abbreviated forms, nor does he make any comment that such a
use is inappropriate. (It must be remembered that Origen used critical notations where he found textual
errors. He conspicuously used the symbol ì throughout the Hexapla for this purpose. Yet, he does not use
it here.)
Origen's Commentary on Psalm 2
The quotation found on page 310 of "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" also says:
Commenting on Psalm 2:2, Origen wrote of the Septuagint: "In the most accurate manuscripts THE NAME
occurs in Hebrew Characters, yet not in today's Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones."
Through personal correspondence, the Writing Department of the Watch Tower Society provided the
author with further information concerning the recorded source of this quotation. It appears in a Latin
work entitled Patrologiæ Cursus Completus (Complete Writings of the Church Fathers), edited by J.P.
Migne, Volume 12 Origenis Opera Omnia (The Complete Works of Origen), arranged by Caroli and Caroli
Vicentii Delarue, published in 1862. The quotation below comes from page section 1104. The complete
surviving work of Origen is preserved in these volumes as he wrote them in Greek.
In order to understand precisely what Origen was saying, both the sentence quoted by "All Scripture Is
Inspired of God and Beneficial" and its surrounding context are given below. (Each portion of the English
translation[12] is followed by the Greek text from Origen's original commentary on Psalm 2. The Greek text
is taken directly from Patrologiæ Cursus Completus; the breathing marks as given may differ from current
usage. A vocabulary of the key words is given in the footnote for each Greek paragraph. Both the English
quotation from page 310 of "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" and the corresponding Greek
text are enclosed in double bullets as oo … oo.)
[12] A published English translation of Origen's commentary on the Psalms could not be found. Therefore,
this translation was done by a colleague of the author. Though we believe it to be carefully and accurately
translated, the reader must be aware of this limitation.
Wherefore it is said that these things have been done "against the Lord [Kyrios] and against his Anointed
[Christ]."[13] It is no secret that one pronounces the name in Greek as "Kyrios," but in Hebrew as "Adonai."
God is called by ten names in Hebrew, one of them being "Adonai," which is pronounced [14] in Greek as
"Kyrios."
[15]
Dio; levgetai tau`ta aujtou;" pepoihkevnai <<kata; tou` Kurivou kai; kata; tou` Cristou` aujtou`.>>
Oujk ajgnohtevon de; peri; tou` ejkfwnoumevnou para; me;n "Ellhsi th/` <<Κύριος>> proshgoriva/,
para; de; ÔEbraivoi" th/` <<?Adwnai?.>> Devka ga;r ojnovmasi par? ÔEbraivoi" ojnomavzetai oJ Qeo;",
w\n ejstin e}n to; <<?Adwnai?,>> kai; eJrmhneuvetai <<Κύριος.>>
[13] Psalm 2:2.
[14] Metzger (op cit. p. 35) says, "Likewise Origen, in commenting on Psalm 2:2, says expressly that
among Greeks Adonai is pronounced Κύριος." His footnote cites this same Greek sentence in full, leaving
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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no doubt that we are examining the same citation. With this authority, we know that the emphasis is on
the pronunciation and not the mere written translation.
[15] The partial vocabulary for each Greek paragraph is given as follows: Each key Greek word is
identified from the paragraph in which it first occurs. The vocabulary entry is identified by the form of the
word in which it is first encountered, rather than by its normal root (lexical) form. Successive forms of
either verbs or nouns found throughout the entire passage are placed within parentheses after the first
occurrence. Verbs are identified only by their English infinitive form. In some instances, the primary
definition of a word differs from that of the word used in the translation. The sense of the translation,
however, is consistent with the Greek word's allowable range of meaning.
levgetai = to say; Kurivou (Kuvrio~, Kuvrionv) = Lord; Cristou` = Anointed [Christ]; [oujk] ajgnohtevon
= [not] a secret; ejkfwnoumevnou (ejkfwnei`tai) = to pronounce; {Ellhsi= Greek; ojnovmasi = name;
ÔEbraivoi" = Hebrew; ?Adwnai? = Adonai; oj Qeo;" = [the] God; ojnomavzetai = to be named;
eJrmhneuvetai = to translate.
And where it says "Adonai" in Hebrew, or "Kyrios" in Greek, they both proclaim the wording which was
written in Scripture. This wording is found in [the writings of] Iae,[16] where the name "Kyrios" is
pronounced in Greek, and not in Hebrew, as in: "Praise the Lord [Kyrios-Kuvrion] with a good psalm."[17]
So Kyrios is used in this Psalm earlier than the writer Iae where the psalm begins in Hebrew with
"Alleluia."
[18]
Kai; e]stin o}pou levgetai to; <<?Adwnai?>> parj ÔEbraivoi", kai; parj "Ellhsi <<Κύριος,>> th`"
levzew" th`" gegrammevnh" ejn th/` Grafh` tou`to ajpaggellouvsh". 'Esti de; o{te to; ?Iah; kei`tai,
ejkfwnei`tai de; th/` <<Κύριος>> proshgoriva/ parj "Ellhsi, ajll? ouj parj ÔEbraivoi", wJ" e;n tw`/:
<<Aijnei]te to;n Kuvrion, o{ti ajgaqo;" yalmov".>> Kuvrion ga;r ejnqavde ajnti; tou` ?Iah; ei{rhken.
Kai; e[stin hJ ajrch; tou` yalmou` parj ÔEbraivoi" <<?Allhlouvi>a:>>
[16] Presumably Iae was an earlier writer known to Origen and his readers.
[17] Psalm 146:1
[18] levzew" = wording gegrammevnh" (ajpaggellouvsh" ajnagevgraptai, gegrammevnou) = to write;
Grafh` = [Hebrew] Scripture(s); Aijnei]te = praise; yalmov" (yalmou`) = psalm; ?Allhlouvi>a =
hallelujah.
Though the unpronounceable name of the Tetragrammaton is not said, it was also written upon the high
priest's gold diadem, and the name is pronounced as "Adonai." By no means is the Tetragrammaton
pronounced, but, when said in Greek, it is pronounced "Kyrios." o o In the most accurate manuscripts, the
name occurs in Hebrew characters-yet not in today's Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones. o
o
[19]
e[sti dev ti tetragravmmaton ajnekfwvnhton parj aujtoi'", o{per kai; ejpi; tou' petavlou tou' crusou' tou'
ajrcierevw" ajnagevgraptai, kai; levgetai me;n th/' <<?Adwnai?>> proshgoriva/, oujci; touvtou
gegrammevnou e;n tw/' tetragrammavtw/: para; de; "Ellhsi th/' <<Κύριος>> ejkfwnei>tai. o o Kai; ejn
toi'" ajkribestevroi" de; tw'n ajntigravfwn ÔEbraivoi" carakth'rsi kei`tai to; o[noma, ÔEbrai>koi`" de; ouj
toi'" nu'n, ajlla; toi'" ajrcaiotavtoi". o o
[19] tetragravmmaton (tetragrammavtw/) = Tetragrammaton; ajnekfwvnhton = unpronounceable;
petavlou tou' crusou' = [holy] golden diadem [see Exodus 29:6 note, NWT Reference Edition]; ajrcierevw"
= high priest; ajkribestevroi" = most accurate; ajntigravfwn = manuscripts; carakth'rsi (carakth`ra") =
characters; toj o[noma = the name (‫ ;)יהוה‬nu'n = present [in time]; ajrcaiotavtoi" = ancient.
For Ezra says in the captivity that different characters besides the original ones had been transmitted. But
these are the ones we will remember, since the Tetragrammaton as "Kyrios" is found in "But in the law of
the Lord [Kyrios-Kurivou]…"[20] and in "For the Lord [Kyrios-Kuvrio~] knows the way of the righteous…"[21]
and in the present text: "Against the Lord [Kyrios-Kurivou] and against his Anointed[22] [Christ]…"[23]
[24]
Fasi; ga;r to;n "Esdran ejn th/' aijcmalwsiva/ eJtevrou" aujtoi`" carakth`ra" para; tou;" protevrou"
paradedwkevnai. Touvtwn de; uJpemnhvsqhmen, ejpei; to; tetragravmmaton wJ" <<Κύριος>> kei`tai
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e;n tw`/: <<?All? h] ejn novmw/ Kurivou:>> kai; e;n tw`/>: <<"Oti ginwvskei Kuvrio~ oJdoŸn
dikaivwn:>> kai; nu`n: <<Kata; tou` Kurivou kai; kata; tou` Cristou` aujtou`.>>
[20] Psalm 1:2
[21] Psalm 1:6
[22] The Greek word cristo~ (Kristos-Christ) is not a proper noun (name). It means [the] Anointed [one]
when translated into English.
[23] Psalm 2:2
[24] "Esdran = Ezra; aijcmalwsiva/ = captivity; protevrou" = former; paradedwkevnai = to transmit;
This is observed in the Septuagint and Theodotion, both in the past age, Aquila [also] in the past, and
Symmachus coming later, all arranged in chronological order.[25]
[26]
Tou`to de; parathrhtevon, o{ti oiv me;n ?Ebdomhvkonta kai; oJ Qeodotivwn pavnta eij" to;n
parelhluqovta crovnon, ?Akuvla" de; a{ me;n eij" to;n parelhluqovta, a{ de; eij" to;n mevllonta,
Suvmmaco" de; pavnta eij" to;n ejnesthkovta e[taxan.
[25] At this point, Origen specifically identifies the Septuagint (?Ebdomhvkonta) and the three Hebrew
Scripture Greek versions of Theodotion (Qeodotivwn), Aquila (?Akuvla"), and Symmachus (Suvmmaco"),
all of which he used in his Hexapla. Note that Origen specifically says these four Hebrew Scripture Greek
translations used Kyrios.
[26] parathrhtevon = to carefully watch; ?Ebdomhvkonta = Septuagint; Qeodotivwn = [the Hebrew
version by] Theodotion; crovnon = time (era); ?Akuvla" = [the Hebrew version by] Aquila; mevllonta = to
be about to; Suvmmaco" = [the Hebrew version by] Symmachus; ejnesthkovta = to stand close, to be
present; e[taxan = to arrange.
From this extended quotation, it becomes evident that Origen acknowledged that Kyrios was fully
acceptable as a (pronounceable) translation in the Greek text of the Hebrew Scriptures when he said,
It is no secret that one pronounces the name in Greek as "Kyrios," but in Hebrew as "Adonai." God is
called by ten names in Hebrew, one of them being "Adonai," which is pronounced in Greek as "Kyrios."and
when he again said,
And where it says "Adonai" in Hebrew, or "Kyrios" in Greek, they both proclaim the wording which was
written in Scripture. and, finally, when he said, By no means is the Tetragrammaton pronounced. Rather,
when said in Greek, it is pronounced "Kyrios."
On the other hand, we do not wish to minimize the importance of Origen's comment when he said,
In the most accurate manuscripts, THE NAME occurs in Hebrew characters—yet not in today's Hebrew
[characters], but in the most ancient ones.
Origen was clearly drawing the reader's attention to the fact that the divine name was held in the highest
esteem—so much so, that it was written with paleo-Hebrew letters within what Origen identified as "the
most accurate manuscripts." In these instances, Origen was telling us that the divine name appeared as
‫( יהוה‬in paleo-Henbrew characters) rather than ‫יהוה‬. (This is corroborated by seven Hebrew Scripture scrolls
and two apocryphal scrolls from the Dead Sea which used ‫( יהוה‬in paleo-Henbrew characters) rather than
‫יהוה‬i. )[27]
[27] Metzger, op cite, p. 33 footnote. These scrolls are identified as 2Q 3, 3Q 3, 4Q 161, 1Q 14, 1QpHab,
1Q 15, 4Q 171, 1Q 11, and, 11QPsa.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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This quotation must not be construed as saying that the most reliable translations must read ‫( יהוה‬in paleoHenbrew characters) . What is not clear (at least in our English translation) is whether Origen was
identifying ‫( יהוה‬in paleo-Henbrew characters) within early Hebrew language texts or later Greek
translations of the Hebrew Scriptures. There are examples of both within Hebrew Scripture
manuscripts.[28]
[28] On page 886 of Aid to Bible Understanding, a clear illustration (albeit typeset) is given of the paleoHebrew characters ‫יהוה‬embedded in Aquila's Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
It is clear from Origen's statement that he recognized that the Tetragrammaton was embedded in certain
Septuagint texts. However, we must be particularly careful that we do not make the mistake of
identification-by-association. We cannot take this brief quotation from Origen's commentary on Psalm 2
out of its context and allow ourselves to believe that Origen was saying that the earliest copies of the
Christian Scriptures used the Tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew characters.
In no way was Origen reporting that the Tetragrammaton was found in "the most accurate manuscripts"
of the Christian Scriptures. We must only read the context of this quotation which was discussing a
Hebrew Scripture passage to realize that this was not Origen's intent. Surprisingly, we also see that
Origen fully accepted Kyrios as an appropriate translation of the Tetragrammaton when the Hebrew
Scriptures themselves were translated into Greek.
An interesting contrast
In our first section dealing with Origen's Hexapla, we concluded that he wrote the Tetragrammaton in
square Hebrew letters. In his commentary on Psalm 2, however, Origen clearly states:
For Ezra says in the captivity that different characters besides the original ones had been transmitted. But
these are the ones we will remember, since the Tetragrammaton as "Kyrios" is found in "But in the law of
the Lord [Kyrios-Kurivou]…" and in "For the Lord [Kyrios-Kuvrio~] knows the way of the righteous…" and
in the present text: "Against the Lord [Kyrios-Kurivou] and against his Christ…" This is observed in the
Septuagint and Theodotion, both in the past age, Aquila [also] in the past, and Symmachus coming later,
all arranged in chronological order.
In spite of the paleo-Hebrew characters referred to by Ezra, in this passage, Origen identifies the Greek
word Kyrios as replacing the Tetragrammaton in the Septuagint, Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus.
We can reconcile this apparent discrepancy in only one of two ways. First, we could argue that the Hebrew
characters found in the Ambrosian manuscripts were not the work of Origen, but were inserted by later
scribes. This would seem difficult to explain, however, in light of what we now know of textual history. It is
unlikely that Gentiles would introduce ‫ יהוה‬into a Gentile text. We know, rather, that it was the Gentiles
who changed ‫ יהוה‬to Kyrios in Hebrew Scripture manuscripts.
We could not attempt to reconcile this discrepancy by explaining that Origen's comments in the passages
we have quoted were originally written with-and referring to-the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew characters.
He was obviously giving a contrast between the Tetragrammaton and the Greek word Kyrios in the same
Hebrew Scripture passages. There would be no logical reason for these comments if these passages
contained only ‫יהוה‬.
Consequently, we are left with the second-and the only logical reconciliation-of the Ambrosian manuscripts
which contained Origen's use of ‫ יהוה‬in the Hexapla, and his reference to the Septuagint, Theodotion,
Aquila, and Symmachus as all containing Kyrios. In all likelihood, Origen possessed multiple copies of
these Hebrew Scriptures which had been translated into Greek. Some contained ‫יהוה‬, while others
contained Kyrios for the same passages. In light of his statement in the Psalm 2 commentary, this is the
only way we could make allowance for Origen's use of ‫ יהוה‬in the original Hexapla.
Present knowledge of available manuscripts verifies this last conclusion. Though fewer in number, Hebrew
Scripture translations containing the Tetragrammaton are now coming to light. We could certainly imagine
that Origen possessed some copies with the Kyrios translation as well as other copies with ‫ יהוה‬embedded
in the text.
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Origen's view of the first two centuries
No individual is better placed than Origen to report on purported changes in the use of the
Tetragrammaton in the first two Christian centuries.
First, Origen lived during this period of time and would have reported the controversy. Irrespective of his
personal position, either a defense of the Tetragrammaton or an argument supporting the change to
Kyrios would have been discernible in his writings. Though we have examined only a small amount of his
work in the Hexapla and one of his Commentaries, we discover that he argued for neither. He freely used
‫ יהוה‬when he was transcribing the Hebrew text. On the other hand, he used Κύριος (Kyrios) and its two
derivative forms k-~- and PIPI (PIPI) without encumbrance when he was working in the Greek language.
In his commentary on Psalms, he openly acknowledged the propriety of translating the Tetragrammaton
with Kyrios. (During the research for this book, many pages of Origen's preserved Greek writings were
evaluated from J.P. Migne's Origenis Opera Omnia [The Complete Works of Origen]. From first-hand
observation, it can be stated that Origen universally used Kyrios—and not ‫—יהוה‬in his commentaries and
homilies from the Hebrew Scriptures. His use of Kyrios in the Psalm 2 commentary is no exception.)
Yet, Origen was not a casual observer. He passionately defended the fidelity of the Septuagint. He
devoted years of his life to the development of a textual tool which would aid in the transmittal of a
faithful translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language. Nonetheless, in spite of his intense
concern, he was content that Κύριος (Kyrios) appropriately represented ‫ יהוה‬in the early part of the third
century.
The statement from "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" which says,
It is of interest that the divine name, in the form of the tetragrammaton, also appears in the Septuagint of
Origen's six-column Hexapla,
is completely true. But this statement must not be used to imply that Origen used the Tetragrammaton to
the exclusion of other Greek forms of the divine name. Origen's transcription of the Septuagint—as well as
his representation of three other translations—unmistakably used surrogate forms of Κύριος (Kyrios) (and
infrequently PIPI) to represent the divine name.
The further statement from "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" which says,
Commenting on Psalm 2:2, Origen wrote of the Septuagint: "In the most accurate manuscripts the name
occurs in Hebrew Characters, yet not in today's Hebrew [characters], but in the most ancient ones,"
is at best unclear. In the context of the quotation, Origen clearly identified the Septuagint (as well as
Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus) as using Κύριος (Kyrios). Origen then commented that ancient
manuscripts supported by Ezra did use paleo-Hebrew characters. However, he immediately reminded his
readers that the Tetragrammaton would be remembered as Kyrios when he said,
…since the Tetragrammaton as "Kyrios" is found in "But in the law of the Lord [Kyrios]…" and in "For the
Lord [Kyrios] knows the way of the righteous…" and in the present text: "Against the Lord [Kyrios] and
against his Anointed [Christ]…"
Finally, the statement from "All Scripture Is Inspired of God and Beneficial" which says,
The evidence appears conclusive that the Septuagint was tampered with at an early date, Ky'ri.os (Lord)
and The.os' (God) being substituted for the tetragrammaton,
is untraceable to either the Hexapla or Origen's Commentary on Psalm 2. Origen did not make any
mention in this passage of a deliberate change of the Tetragrammaton to Kyrios. The only evidence which
"appears conclusive" is that Origen recognized and used both the Tetragrammaton and Kyrios. He used
‫ יהוה‬when he wrote in Hebrew. He used Κύριος when he referred to (or translated) the same passages in
Greek. Origen raised no objection to Kuvrio~ as an appropriate translation of ‫ יהוה‬for the Greek reader.
As we saw earlier, Origen lived between approximately 182 and 251 C.E. The Apostle John wrote the book
of Revelation in 96 and the Gospel in 98 C.E. Origen would certainly have known of the original contents
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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of John's writing. He would most certainly have known of an effort by Christian heretics to alter the
wording of the Septuagint because the purpose of his Hexapla was to ensure the true wording of the
original Septuagint.
On what basis can the Watch Tower Society say that "The evidence appears conclusive that the
Septuagint was tampered with at an early date," wherein Kyrios and Theos were substituted for the
Tetragrammaton? There is no evidence of any kind found in Origen's commentary on Psalm 2:2 to indicate
that he felt that "the Septuagint was tampered with." To the contrary, Origen readily affirmed the use of
Kyrios as the proper Greek translation for ‫יהוה‬.
Is it possible that an accommodation to national and linguistic heritage was all that occurred in the second
and third centuries C.E.?[29] For those with a Jewish heritage, a Septuagint version was produced which
transcribed the Hebrew characters of the Tetragrammaton as ‫יהוה‬, whereas for the Gentile readers, the
Septuagint version translated the Tetragrammaton as Κύριος. Is it possible that this alteration was
perceived by neither Jew nor Gentile as divisive or heretical, but as a mere choice between transcribing or
translating, depending on the cultural background of the reader? As the Christian church grew, Septuagint
copies which contained the Tetragrammaton became less available. In successive generations, the Gentile
Christian church possessed a Septuagint which contained only Κύριος. After the Roman conquests of
Palestine-when Messianic Jews were expelled from synagogue worship and consequently amalgamated
with the Gentile church-Septuagint copies solely for Jews ceased to exist.[30]
[29] Chapter 13 fully develops this possibility.
[30] In an attempt to remove the offensive Christian Kyrios in the second and third centuries C.E., Greek
translations of the Hebrew Scriptures for Jews characteristically embedded ‫ יהוה‬in the Greek text. After
Christianity became state-sponsored in Constantine's reign in the fourth century C.E., Jews systematically
destroyed their Greek translations and reinstated their Scriptures in the Hebrew language.
How else could we explain why Origen used both ‫ יהוה‬and Κύριος in his writing while giving neither
explanation nor defense of his action?
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The Grouping of the Codices in the Greek Joshua:
A Preliminary Notice Author(s): Max L. Margolis Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review,
New Series, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Oct., 1910), pp. 259-263 Published by: University of
Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1450920
THE GROUPING OF THE CODICES IN THE GREEK JOSHUA
A PRELIMINARY NOTICE WHILE engaged in a study of the transliterations occurring in the Greek Old
Testament (the material consisting of 1200 words is all collected and almost ready for publication), I deemed it
advisable to include geographical terms (like "Ashe-doth", "Gai", "Emek", "Negeb", etc.) and names of places
for which a perspicuous etymology is available (comp. "Bethaven", "Bethel", Beth-hammarcaboth", etc.),
especially as in some of these cases translation alternates with transliteration. This additional material being
particularly abundant in the Book of Joshua, my attention was caught by the frequently recurring collocation of
certain sigla in the apparatus of Holmes-Parsons. In one instance where an entire verse had to be investigated,
the grouping was unmistakable. With the key found, I set about working up chapters 15 and 19 which are
replete with place-names, but also other passages, covering in all one half of the book. My key proved to work;
of course, as my range of observation widened, slight rearrangements in detail ensued which, however, left the
general grouping intact. I am aware that Hollenberg was once engaged in a similar occupation (for Joshua and
Judges); his one short article in Lne ZAW., I (1881), 97-105, deals with the matter only casually. In addition to
Holmes-Parsons, my apparatus includes Swete's manual edition, Field's Hexapla, Lagarde's Lucian and
Syrohexaplaris, Ciasca's edition of the Sahidic fragments, Dillmann's edition of the Ethiopic version, Eusebius'
Onomasti-con in the editions of Lagarde and Klostermann, and, thanks to the liberality of the Dropsie College,
the Leiden publication of the Codex Sarravianus-Colbertinus (G) and Tischendorf's 259
THIEJ EWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
Monumenta Sacra. My results, while at present naturally only tentative (especially with regard to the subgroups), go to reveal the following six groups: (1) The Complutensian Group (c) = 108. Compl. 19 requires a
renewed examination; to judge from sil-ence, it often deviates from c in favor of b. The Complutensian
occasionally exhibits readings of its own. In the middle part of the book there is a remarkable agree-ment
between Lucian (= 19.108. Compl.) and Hexapla (G for instance), even if the points of difference which are
constant (comp. the Greek for "south") are had in mind. (According to Hautsch, Der Lukiantext des
Okatateuch, 1910, the Lucianic (Antiochene) recension is related to group h, specifically to 54.75. Thus 19.108.
Compl. represent a recension whose affinity is de-cidedly with the Hexaplar text. In some cases, indeed, readings
of the Syrohex. are found exclusively in 19.108. Compl.) Accord-ingly I include under c as a sub-group FG. 58
Syrohex. Euseb. (2) The Aldine Group (a) = 15. 64; 18. 128; Ald. The latter is an eclectic text and occasionally
deviates in favor ofl 121 or some other source. (3) The Oxford (Grabian) Group (o) = A. 29. 121 (.82); N. 56. 71
(.59). Of these, some (esp. 82) often go with b. Accord-ing to Parsons, 72 agrees with 29. M probably belongs
here; but a more detailed examination is requisite. (4) The Hesychian (?) (see Swete, Introduction, 482) Group
(h) - 44. 106; 54. 75. 118; 74. 76. 84. 106. 134. 44 and '106 go together principally in orthography; practically
only two sub-groups result: 54. 75. 118 over against the remainder. (5) The Catenae Group (n) = 16. 30. 52. 53.
57. 77. 85. 131. 144. 209. 236. 237. Cat-Nic. Of these, 53. 85. 144 constitute a sub-group; 30 and 209 also
occasionally separate from the rest, but do not always go together. (6) The Sixtine Group (b) = B. 55. 63. 120.
Sahidic. Ethiopic. Cyr-Alex.; readings also in Euseb. The relation of 55. 63 to the correctors of B and the
Ethiopian (fh) remains to be investigated; codices eg of the latter version exhibit read- 260
CODICESIN THE GREEK JOSHUA
MARGOLIS ings taken from the Hebrew (probably through the medium of a non-Greek translation). When we
come to arrange these six groups (Lagarde's "manipuli") into larger divisions (Lagarde's "legiones"), the test of
Hexaplaric additions or omissions proves of less value than the criterion of transliteration. For it is all the
difference in the world whether the Hexaplaric (the term should be, taken cum grano sals) diaskeue was applied
to a text of the one divi-sion or of the other. Thus, from the point of view of trans-literation and its close
approach in consonants and vowels to the received Hebrew text, there practically result two main divisions
which group themselves respectively about the Vatican (B) and Alexandrine (A): the one consisting of the groups
bnh, the other of oac. I designate the latter division as the Palestine-Syrian (P), and the. former as the Egyptian
(E). The Alexandrine codex reveals itself as the Palestino-Syrian text minus the Hexaplaric additions. In the
division E, the Vatican codex represents the purest text, so far as Hexaplaric additions are concerned, but is
exceedingly corrupt in its proper names. In other words, Hexaplaric corrections (of a tacit character; from
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Theodotion? the same source used by Lucian?) which are embodied in the Alexandrine and its satellites have on
the whole been kept out of the groups related to the Vatican (bnh), though some of them indulge in Hexaplaric
additions. More-over, the Hexaplaric additions found in the Egyptian codices sometimes differ from those in P
(from Aquila and Symma-chus?). Hexaplaric additions, on the other hand, are confined in the groups oa to
individual codices or sub-groups. A critical edition of the Greek text of the Book of Joshua thus becomes a
matter of realization within sight. For with a knowledge of the grouping as above outlined, the process of
collation is reduced to utmost simplicity. In each case, one representative (for each group or sub-group) will
serve our purposes. New material not made use of in Holmes-Parsons may be found to fall in with the groups
recognized or, as the case may be, serve to reveal new groups, though hardly a new main division. The text
should be printed in two columns 26r
THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
Corresponding to the two forms which it assumed in Palestine and Syria on the one hand and in Egypt on the
other. For the Palestino-Syrian text the Alexandrine should form the basis; it should be freely emended from the
groups belonging to the P division. For the Egyptian division which alone leads the way to the original
Septuagint the Vatican should be made the foundation; but it again must undergo judicious correction on the
basis of its satellites. Errors which at first sight appear hopeless lend themselves to correction when the cognate
groups are consulted. And it must be borne in mind that, whereas A stands related to its peculiar groups only, B
dominates the entire range of codices. For P is but E corrected and adjusted to the Masoretic Text. Moreover,
with the eclecticism of some of our codices, Egyptian readings appear sporadically in P texts. Below each column
there should be a double set of notes: one embodying Hexaplaric matter, and the other the critical grounds for
the reading adopted in the text. When this work shall have been done, it will be found that, barring omissions
and additions, the emended Vatican codex, even in the proper names, does not deviate very considerably from
the consonants of the received Hebrew text, while in point of pronunciation (treatment of the laryngals,
vocalization) it represents a tradition antedating the masoretic. In this, of course, lies the supreme importance of
the Egyptian text for determining the pronunciation of Hebrew in pre-Christian times. The tripartite reference
to Septuagintal transliterations in the current commentaries and lexica (to B, A, and Lucian) is certainly
convenient, obtained as it is from the handy volumes of Swete and Lagarde, but is unscientific and should make
way for a bipartite: to post-Christian P, and pre-Christian E. I intend to follow up the present preliminary
notice with a detailed presentation of my entire investigation which I ex-pect to complete shortly. Naturally the
determination of the sub-groups and of much else besides will become more accurate as the complete induction
becomes ready for tabulation. A 262
CODICES IN THE GREEK JOSHUA-MARGOLIS 263 part of my future work will be devoted to an edition of the
group h on the basis of all the nine or ten manuscripts consti-tuting it (Cod. Suppl. Gr. 609 of the National
Library at Paris may have to be included) photographs of which have been made accessible to me by the
authorities of the Dropsie College; with the aid of photographs similarly obtained, I expect to edit codex 55
which shows marked relation to MSS. fh of the Ethiopic Ver-sion, as well as the Hexaplar recension. Ultimately
I expect to print a critical edition of the Book of Joshua in Greek in the manner indicated above. If such an
edition can never be final, an attempt at least may be made. By the time I am ready for it the larger Cambridge
Septuagint may have advanced as far as Joshua; from the accurate collations incorporated therein much help
will naturally be forthcoming. Dropsie College MAX L. MARGOLIS
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Hexapla
Name given to Origen's edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek
* Published by Encyclopedia Press, 1913.
Hexapla, the name given to Origen's edition of the Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek, the most colossal
critical production of antiquity. This work was urgently demanded by the confusion which prevailed in
Origen's day regarding the true text of Scripture. The Church had adopted the Septuagint for its own; this
differed from the Hebrew not only by the addition of several books and passages but also by innumerable
variations of text, due partly to the ordinary process of corruption in the transcription of ancient books,
partly to the culpable temerity, as Origen called it, of correctors who used not a little freedom in making
"corrections", additions, and suppressions, partly to mistakes in translation, and finally in great part to the
fact that the original Septuagint had been made from a Hebrew text quite different from that fixed at
Jamnia as the one standard by the Jewish Rabbis, under Akiba the founder of Rabbinical Judaism. Aquila,
a proselyte from Christianity, gave (c. A.D. 130) a very accurate translation of this text, aiming above all
at being literal; still he borrows quite freely from the Septuagint when its rendering is consistent with his
own chief aim. Symmachus and Theodotion both flourished towards the end of the second century, but it
is uncertain which had priority as translator. Symmachus, who was an Ebionite according to Eusebius and
Jerome, a Jewish proselyte from Samaritanism according to Epiphanius, gave a new translation which was
to a considerable extent a more idiomatic and elegant rendering of Aquila. It was followed extensively by
Jerome in his own work as translator of the Old Testament. Both Aquila and Symmachus produced two
editions to which Jerome refers. Theodotion, who was an Ebionite or a Jew, and perhaps had been a
Christian, gave a version much closer than the others to the Septuagint.
The circulation of these versions, each so insistent in its claim to superiority, in so many instances
differing from the Septuagint and yet so close to it in many others, made a comparison between them and
the Septuagint imperative for a knowledge of the true text of Holy Scripture. The Hexapla, the concept of
a great genius executed with unexampled patience and industry, is Origen's attempt to show the exact
relations of the Septuagint to these versions and especially to the Hebrew text. The work itself has
perished; its character, however, has been pretty well known to scholars through statements in early
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Church writers, through scholia on numerous manuscripts of the Bible, and through chance quotations
found in the works of certain Fathers. Quite recently (1896 and 1900) fragments of the Hexaplar Psalms
were fortunately discovered, which give us our only specimens of connected portions of Origen's work and
afford a good idea of its general appearance. Our earliest authorities, Eusebius of Caesarea, St.
Epiphanius, and St. Jerome, agree that Origen made a collection into one work of texts and versions of
the entire Old Testament, arranging them in parallel columns according to the following order: First, the
Hebrew text in Hebrew characters; second, the Hebrew text transliterated into Greek characters; third,
the version of Aquila; fourth, that of Symmachus; fifth, the Septuagint; sixth, the version of Theodotion.
The recovered fragments corroborate this testimony, though they lack the first column. Aquila's version
was placed next to the Hebrew, most probably because it was the most literal rendering; Symmachus next
to Aquila, because his version was largely a revision of the other; for a similar reason, Theodotion's
version came after the Septuagint. To these six columns, according to the same testimony, Origen added,
but for certain books only, a seventh and an eighth column containing two more Greek versions, which
were called respectively the Quinta and the Sexta, because they were the fifth and sixth versions in
Origen's arrangement. Eusebius and Jerome mention a seventh Greek version, however nothing seems to
be known of the character of the Septima. It may have been a very fragmentary version, a collection of
variant readings which later editors did not consider worth preserving. Concerning the Quinta and Sexta,
St. Jerome tells us that their authors were Jews. Field finds traces of the Quinta not only in Psalms, Job,
Proverbs, and the Canticle of Canticles, but also in the Pentateuch and IV Kings, though, in regard to IV
Kings, Burkitt has advanced good reasons for considering the Quinta a collection of variant readings,
probably rejected from the Septuagint. The Sexta is quoted for Exodus, III Kings, Psalms, Job, Canticle of
Canticles, Amos, and Habacuc.
The presence of these two additional versions in the Hexapla has led to a discussion of that term and of
others applied to Origen's work. By some the "six-fold" Bible was considered so called because it
contained six Greek versions of certain books; but the common opinion has been that the name
designates probably the six columns (the two of Hebrew and the four of the chief Greek versions, which
constitute the bulk of the work), and came to be extended to the entire work. The terms Pentapla,
Heptapla, Octapla, were also used of Origen's work, according as it contained five, seven, or eight
columns. Since the six or seven columns, as the case might be, were visible at every opening of the
Hexapla, each column must have been quite narrow. The fragments show, in fact, that one or at most two
Hebrew words were placed on each line, with the transliteration in the adjoining column and the various
renditions in the succeeding columns, all on the same level. This arrangement would naturally necessitate,
at times, a shifting of the Greek words from their proper order, although this was not always done. An
arrangement so minute and liberal must produce a work of enormous bulk. Swete estimated 3250 leaves,
or 6500 pages, but Nestle considers 6000 leaves not far beyond the number. In addition to these columns
of texts and versions, Origen copied out on the margins or between the lines other readings which he cited
as given by o Ebraios, o Suros, to Samareitikon, the meaning of which is obscure. Field considers "the
Hebrew" to be the Hebrew author of a Greek version, otherwise unknown, of certain books; "the Syrian",
the author of another Greek version made in Syria; while "the Samaritan" gives Greek readings taken, not
from the current Hebrew text, but from the Samaritan Pentateuch (thirty-six out of forty-three readings
agree with that text). Loisy's opinion, not to mention many others, is that "the Hebrew" denotes citations
from a Targum, "the Syrian", from the Peschito.
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Origen's purpose, as regards the Septuagint, was to indicate very clearly its exact relation to the Hebrew
text, and incidentally to the other Greek versions. With this in view, he adopted (and placed in the
Septuagint column only) the symbols used by Aristarchus in his edition of Homer. "As employed by Origen
in the fifth column of the Hexapla, the obelus was prefixed to words or lines which were wanting in the
Hebrew, and therefore, from Origen's point of view, of doubtful authority, while the asterisk called
attention to words or lines wanting in the Septuagint, but present in the Hebrew. The close of the context
to which the obelus or asterisk was intended to apply was marked by another sign known as the
metobelus" (Swete). The fifth column, therefore, contained not the mere text of the Septuagint only, but
in addition a translation taken generally from Theodotion (occasionally from Aquila) of these words or lines
of the Hebrew which were lacking in the Septuagint. In certain instances, where the Septuagint translation
differed widely from the Hebrew meaning, Origen inserted the true rendering (from Theodotion or Aquila)
alongside the false; he deleted nothing from the Septuagint text. By this arrangement and these symbols,
any reader, even if ignorant of Hebrew, could generally tell at a glance the exact relation of the Septuagint
text to the Hebrew.
The principles which guided Origen in his work as textual critic are partly explained by Origen himself. He
began by assuming the correctness of the current Hebrew textus receptus, and considered the Septuagint
as more or less pure according to the degree in which it approximated to the Hebrew. He frequently
changed the spelling of proper names to conform with the Hebrew. The symbols were intended not only to
indicate a difference between the two texts, but to mark a departure from the Hebrew verity or genuine
text. These principles are rightly discredited by modern scholars, who recognize that the Septuagint often
bears plain witness to a Hebrew original different from the textus receptus and older than it in some parts.
Moreover, of two readings, one a free, the other a literal, translation of the Hebrew, the free is more likely
to be the original rendering of the Septuagint translator, while the literal is more apt to represent the
effort of correctors, who very frequently endeavored to bring the Greek into greater conformity with the
Hebrew. Origen's critical principles were at fault, then, but his use of symbols ought to have guarded
others from being led by his work into error. Unfortunately, the symbols were not reproduced in many
copies which were taken of the fifth column—the Septuagint together with the readings from Theodotion
and Aquila.
After the completion of the Hexapla Origen prepared a minor edition, or extract from it, consisting of the
four principal versions, Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion; this is the Tetrapla. It has
been sometimes maintained, however, that the Tetrapla is the earlier work and was expanded into the
Hexapla, principally on the ground that the Hexapla, which in a few instances has a superior reading, as at
Ps. lxxxvi, 5, presents light missing to Origen when he composed the Tetrapla, a very unstable ground, we
judge, for the Hexapla did not leave the hand of Origen as a printed work becomes independent of a
modern author, but received occasional additions and corrections with the progress of his knowledge. The
language of Eusebius implies that the Tetrapla was the later work. The dates of the two works, however,
cannot be definitely fixed; all we know, says Field, is that the Hexapla or the Tetrapla was composed
before Origen's letter to Africanus (c. 240).
No copy of the entire Hexapla, on account of the immense labor and expense involved, seems ever to
have been made, but the Psalter, minus the first column, was copied, as the two fragments prove. A
reading in Isaias is quoted from the Pentapla, which possibly (though very doubtfully) implies the
existence of a similar copy. Shortly after the beginning of the fourth century, Pamphilus, the martyr, and
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Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, gave out an edition of the fifth column of the Hexapla, containing the
Septuagint, the insertions from Theodotion and Aquila, and the symbols, together with variant readings on
the margin, in the belief that they were bestowing on the Church the purest text. It was through the
reproduction of this edition by later scribes, without Origen's critical signs, that arose the Hexaplar text
which so greatly increased the confusion of Septuagint manuscripts. However, it hardly circulated outside
of Palestine. It was translated into Syriac, "with the Origenic signs scrupulously retained", by Paul, Bishop
of Tella in Mesopotamia, who accomplished the work at Alexandria about 616-17. Several books and large
portions of this Syro-Hexaplar text survive, and are the source, in a very great measure, of our knowledge
of Origen's work. The Hexaplar text also influenced St. Jerome very strongly in his first two translations of
the Psalter into Latin, the Psalterium Romanum and (particularly) the Gallicanum. Saint Jerome also
followed the Hexaplar text, for which he had a very high regard, as the basis of his translations, no longer
extant, of other books. The same influence is further seen in the Coptic (Sahidic), the Arabic, and the
Armenian versions. If the original Septuagint text be taken as the standard, it is unquestionable that
Origen's influence, both upon the Septuagint and its daughter versions, ultimately availed, through the
negligence of copyists, to remove them further from the pristine purity of the Biblical text; but by all those
who regard the Hexaplar text, by reason of its insertions and corrections from the textus receptus, as
nearer to the original Hebrew than is the Septuagint, his influence must be judged to have worked, on the
whole, for the spread of a truer text. The Hexaplar MS. was kept at Caesarea in Palestine, where it was
consulted by Eusebius, Epiphanius, and Jerome; it disappeared from sight shortly after the beginning of
the seventh century.
The first attempt to collect its disjecta membra, scattered over Biblical manuscripts and patristic writings,
was made by Drusius (Driesch) in his work, "In Psalmos Davidis Veterum Interpretum quae extant
Fragmenta", Antwerp, 1581 (so Mercati). Additions were made by Peter Morin in his notes to the Greek
Bible authorized by Sixtus V (1587), as also in the posthumous work of Drusius (1622), and the
monumental work of Montfaucon (1713). The publication of the Syro-Hexaplar text by Ceriani and others
gave back to the world a great part of Origen's work. Frederick Field in his "Origenis Hexaplorum quae
supersunt ... Fragmenta" (Oxford, 1875) collected into one grand work the results of two centuries of
investigation and discovery. Since his day, Pitra's "Analecta Sacra", III (Venice, 1883), Klosterman's
"Analecta zur . . Hexapla" (Leipzig, 1895), and Dom Morin's "Anecdota Maredsolana", III, i, have given the
world further discoveries. Add to these, to complete the history of the Hexapla's recovery, the palimpsest
fragments of several of the psalms discovered by Mercati in the Ambrosian Library of Milan (1896), and
the palimpsest fragment of Ps. xxii recovered from a genizah of Cairo (1900), which reproduce almost the
exact form of Origen's work. Though much has been lost, including most of the versions of Aquila,
Symmachus, and Theodotion, still, by these patient, untiring labors, vast materials have been gathered for
the reconstruction of a purer Sacred Text. (See Manuscripts of the Bible; Origen and Origenism;
Septuagint Version; Versions of the Bible, Greek.)
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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HEXAPLA
1st Column
2nd Column
Hebrew Version Hebrew to
(Old)
Greek
Version
3rd Column
Modern
Greek
Version
(Aquila)
4th Column
5th Column
6th Column
Old
Pentateuch, LXX in Theodotion
Samaritan
all Greek Versions
version
Pentateuch,
with footnotes
Old Greek
where version was
Septuagint
taken from
Versions
Hebrew,Pentateuch,
(Symmachus)
LXX, Old Greek,
Modern Greek,
Latin
Ang New Testament o Tinatawag na Greek New Testament o Greek Scriptures
Ang orihinal na indibidwal na aklat
ay naisulat noong 45 A.D. sa Koine Greek dahil iyan ang
pangkalahatang wikang umiiral noong panahong iyon sa Emperyo ng Roman. Nagmula ang ilan sa Hebreo
at Greek na sulatin. Ang Rylands Papyrus 52 ay pangkalahatang tinanggap na pinaka- unang naitalang
New Testament na umiidad noong 117 A.D at 138 A.D.
The Rylands Library Papyrus P52, also known as the St John's fragment, is a fragment from a
papyrus codex, measuring only 3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 by 6 cm) at its widest; and conserved with the
Rylands Papyri at the John Rylands University Library (Gr. P. 457), Manchester, UK. The front (recto)
contains lines from the Gospel of John 18:31–33, in Greek, and the back (verso) contains lines from
verses 37–38.[1] Since 2007, the papyrus has been on permanent display in the library's Deansgate
building.
52
Although Rylands
is generally accepted as the earliest extant record of a canonical New Testament
[2]
text, the dating of the papyrus is by no means the subject of consensus among critical scholars. The
style of the script is strongly Hadrianic, which would suggest a most probable date somewhere between
117 CE and 138 CE. But the difficulty of fixing the date of a fragment based solely on paleographic
evidence allows a much wider range, potentially extending from before 100 CE past 150 CE.
The fragment of papyrus was among a group acquired on the Egyptian market in 1920 by Bernard
Grenfell.[3] The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by
Colin H. Roberts.[4] Roberts found comparator hands in papyri then dated between the mid first and mid
second centuries, with the closest match of Hadrianic date. Since this gospel text would be unlikely to
have reached Egypt before circa 100 CE[5] he proposed a date in the first half of the second century. Over
the 70 years since Roberts' essay, the estimated ages of his comparator literary hands have been revised
(in common with most other undated antique papyri) towards dates a couple of decades older; while other
comparator hands have subsequently been discovered with possible dates ranging into the second half of
the second century.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Jacob Tinawag ni Yahweh na Yahshear sa Gen.32:28
Sina Yahshaak (Isaac) at Ismaale (Ismael) ay Anak at Lahi rin ni Abraham at si Ismaale
ang naunang nanirahan sa Masry (Egypt) sa Genesis 21:21 at sumunod ang mga anak ni
Yahshaak kay Yahkoob (Jacob) na tinawag ni Yahweh bilang Yahshear (Gen. 32:28).
THE NAME ‘ISRAEL’ ORIGINATED FROM THE NAME (YASHAR) ‘YAHSHEAR’
yaw-shar' a primitive root; to be straight
‘yesh-oo-roon' Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel
yis-raw-ale' a symbolical name of Jacob
Genesis 32:28 And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel –₃₄₇₄ for as a prince hast
thou power with Elohim and with men, and hast prevailed.
Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew-Greek Dictionary ‘search’ for "Israel"–₃₄₇₄
3474 yashar yaw-shar' a primitive root; to be straight or even; figuratively, to be (causatively, to make)
right, pleasant, prosperous:--direct, fit, seem good (meet), + please (will), be (esteem, go) right (on), bring
(look, make, take the) straight (way), be upright(-ly).
3475 Yesher yay'-sher from 3474; the right; Jesher, an Israelite: -Jesher.
3476 yosher yo'-sher from 3474; the right:--equity, meet, right, upright(-ness).
3477 yashar yaw-shawr' from 3474; straight (literally or figuratively):--convenient, equity, Jasher, just,
meet(-est), + pleased well right(-eous), straight, (most) upright(-ly, -ness).
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
3478 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' from 8280 and 410; he will rule as God; Jisrael, a symbolical name of Jacob; also
(typically) of his posterity: --Israel.
3479 Yisra'el yis-raw-ale' (Aramaic) corresponding to 3478:--Israel.
3481 Yisr'eliy yis-reh-ay-lee' patronymically from 3478; a Jisreelite or descendant of Jisrael:--of Israel,
Israelite.
3484 Yshuruwn yesh-oo-roon' from 3474; upright; Jeshurun, a symbol. name for Israel:--Jeshurun.
Nang ang salita ni YAHWEH ay dumating kay Abraham sa Genesis 15:13-14 “At
sinabi ni Yahweh kay Abraham, sinabi ko sa iyo na ang lahi ng iyong mga
anak ay magsisilbi sa ibang lupain ng mga Hentil at sila ay pahihirapan sa
loob ng 400 taon, at ang Nasyong iyon na kanilang pinagsilbihan ay aking
hahatulan at pagkatapos ay ilalabas ko sila na may dalang malaking yaman”.
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Sa Genesis 21:12-13 ― kay Yahshaak (Isaac) ang iyong lahi ay tatawagin at ang anak mo sa
katulong ay aking gagawin din na isang Nasyon, DAHIL SIYA AY ANAK AT LAHI MO
RIN‖.
Genesis 46:3 ―Ako si YAHWEH, ang makapangyarihan ng iyong mga magulang, huwag
kang matakot pumaroon sa Masry; dahil gagawin ko kayong malaking Nasyon‖.
Samakatwid ang lahi ni Abraham sa kanyang dalawang anak sina Ismaale at Yahshaak ay
naging tigapagsilbi sa lupain na hindi kanila sa lupain ng Masry kagaya sa sinabi ni
Yahweh sa Genesis 15:13-14. Ang sinabi ay paglipas ng 400 na taon ay lalabas sila sa
Nasyong iyon na kanilang pinagsilbihan at sa Exodus 12:52 ―si YAHWEH ay inilabas ang
mga anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) (Tribo ng Yahshurun) Gen.32:28 mula sa lupain ng
Masry‖.
Sa lupain ng Masry ang Tribo ni Ismaale at Tribo ni Yahshurun (mula sa pangalang
Yahshear) ay ang tanging ―Tribong Tuli‖, upang magkaroon ng pagkaka-kilanlan sa
dalawang Tribong-Tuli ang Tribong Yahshurun ay tinawag ng mga nagsasalita ng
Aramaic ng ―Yisraw-ale‖ (Yisrawale naging Israel) ibig sabihin ay ―Prinsipe ni Sarah‖ at
ang Ismaale naman ay tinawag na ―Ishmael‖ na ibig sabihin ay ‗sa Pangalan ni Sarah‖.
Ang ‗Ale‘ sa wikang Hebreo ay ‗Among-Babae‘, tinutukoy ang amo ni Hagar na si Sarah.
13 TIBO NG YAHSHURUN
Ang 12 anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) na tinawag na 12 Tribo ni Yahshurun ay orihinal na 12,
ngunit ng akuin ni Yahshear ang dalawang anak ni Yohseph sina Efraim at Manase
na kanyang anak na rin sa Genesis 48:5-6 ay naging 13 ang Tribo ng Yahshurun. Ang
nakatalaga para kay Yohseph ay pinalitan ng kanyang dalawang anak, samakatwid ang
Tribo ni Yahshurun ay naging 13 Tribo na lumabas sa lupain ng Masry sa panahon ni
Moshe (Moses).
1. Ruben
2. Simeon
3. Levi
4. Yahuwdah
5. Dan
6. Nepthali
7. Gad
8. Asher
9. Isachar
10.Zabulon
Dinah (Leah)
Yohseph anak sina Manaseh at Efraim
11. Manaseh
12. Efraim
13. BenYahmin
Dath
Dath
‫תד‬
‫תד‬
1) decree, law, edict, regulation, usage ,a) decree, edict, commission, b) law, rule
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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dath <1881> Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Hebrew Dictionary
Pronunciation:
Dawth(Dawthu)
Definition:
1) decree, law, edict, regulation, usage
1a) decree, edict, commission
1b) law, rule
of uncertain (perhaps foreign) derivation: a royal edict or
statute:-commandment, commission, decree, law, manner.
DaTH
I used to think of DaTH (dawth) as meaning void, since that's the way the fluffy bunny new age kabbalah books present it. I was
curious one day and decided to see if the word was in the Bible (in Hebrew version) and found that it means something like the Law
written in our hearts, a kosmic consciousness that lets us know if we are in sync with the Tao That Be (or however you want to
describe it). Here are a few of my notes on my research into DaTH.
Go on a spiritual quest to find values you can hold up as being what you stand for. You have found your inner DaTH. You have
found the law written in your heart. What is law? A king gives a decree or edict that is the expression of the king’s will. *Esther 3:14,
8:13, 9:14] There was the concept that once a king issued this DaTH, it cannot be altered or revoked. [Daniel 2:15, 6:16] DaTH is
entrusted to people. In the case of civil law, this DaTH is in the hands of judges, enforced by police, argued by lawyers, voted
upon and recorded by politicians.
The Israelites had the concept of the ToWRaH being the DaTH of Yahweh. Ezra was given the title of Secretary of the
irrevocable DaTH of the Almighty of heaven. [Ezra 7:2, 1 Esdras 8:9] The irrevocability of the DaTH from Yahweh was not
questioned by Yahshua. Yahshua was not out to destroy the ToWRaH representing the DaTH from Yahweh, but to bring it to life in
the hearts of people. [Matthew 5:17] He was not getting out a giant cosmic eraser. What he challenged was that DaTH of Yahweh
was complete and contained in scriptures and traditions. He offered that DaTH of Yahweh can be known in the heart, directly
experienced, with continued insights into this DaTH, renewed revelation, and ongoing prophecy.
This was not anti-Jewish at all. The idea was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Jews continued to redefine DaTH with the
Mishnah, the Talmud, the Kabbalah, and to this day with books being published, web sites being built, deeper insights explored
and lived out.
Here is something you can count on to be true for your entire life — CHoKMaH/Sophia and DaTH are treasures that will be your
salvation. The greatest treasure comes from uniting with Yahweh. [Isaiah33:6]
A treasure is a reward after following a treasure hunt. A gift is never really valued as a treasure.
YAHWEH with a multitude approaches, from his right hand comes a shining DaTH. [Deuteronomy 33:2] DaTH is the invisible
SHiPHRaH, the Law in the heart of Yahweh. DaTH is Law, but DaTH is also having an active conscious, a living Law written in the
heart. DaTH is being conscious of the will of Yahweh, which we can concentrate upon, which we can be mindful of, which can
direct our view of what Yahweh wants in each given situation. DaTH is beyond memorizing a collection of ancient rules. DaTH is a
living part of each of us. I would dare say that people who have never heard one word of religion still know that it would be
wrong to go on a murdering spree or steal from the neighbors when they are not at home. The commandments part of ToWRaH
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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are not the DaTH, but are examples of using the DaTH in specific situations. The DaTH extends far beyond the few ancient
case-by-case examples of what would not be acceptable behavior.
Thus the Jewish/Kabbalist quest for the invisible DaTH is much like the Gnostic quest for direct connect, for gnosis. Maybe it is
invisible because it is from another dimension, that light trapped in the darkness, our core Messiah’s Consciousness, our native our
Nature.
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - Dath Mosha
Middle Eastern and North African Jewish community headdress may also resemble that of the ancient Israelites. In Yemen, the wrap
around the cap was called ‫ ַמ ַצַר‬massar; the head covering worn by all women according to Dath Mosha was a ‫" גַרגּוש‬Gargush"
Yahshear-Dath o (Sacer-dote)
Ang anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) na Tribo ni Levi ay itinalaga sa Pagpapari (Priesthood o
Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote) sa Exodus 29. Ang tatlong anak ni Levi si Yahshear-Dath
Gerson, Yahshear-Dath Cohat at Yahshear-Dath Merari o mga Yahshear-Dath o mga
Sacerdote ay inihalo sa 12 Tribo ng Yisrawale upang pamahalaan ang trabaho ng
Pagpapari at sa pagsisilbi sa pagsamba kay YAHWEH na mababasa sa Joshua 21:1-8 at
1Chronicles 6:63-81.
Tatlong Anak ni Levi Itinalagang Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote o Pari ay
Inihalo sa 12 Tribo ng Yisrawale (Israel)
1.Sacerdote o Yahshear-Dath Gerson
2.Sacerdote o Yahshear-Dath Cohat
3.Sacerdote o Yahshear-Dath Merari
Ang mga anak ni Yahshear (Jacob) kay Leah, Rachel, Bilha, Zilpa:
1. Ruben
---------- 1. Ruben (Leah)
- Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
2. Simeon
---------- 2. Simeon (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
3. Levi
---------Levi (Leah) mga anak sina Gerson, Cohat, Merari
4. Yahuwdah ---------- 3. Yahuwdah (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
5. Dan
---------- 4. Dan (Bilha-Rachel )
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
6. Nepthali ---------- 5. Nepthali (Bilha-Rachel) – Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
7. Gad
---------- 6. Gad (Zilpa-Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
8. Asher
---------- 7. Asher (Zilpa-Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
9. Isachar
---------- 8. Isachar (Leah)
–Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
10.Zabulon ---------- 9. Zabulon (Leah)
– Yahshear Dath Merari ang Pari
Dinah (Leah)
11.Yohseph ---------Yohseph (Rachel) mga anak sina Manaseh at Efraim
12.BenYahmin ---------10. Manaseh-kalahating tribo - Yahshear Dath Gerson ang Pari
Manaseh- kalahating tribo – Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
11. Efraim
– Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
12. BenYahmin(Rachel)
- Yahshear Dath Cohat ang Pari
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Si Yohseph ay ipinagbili ng kanyang mga kapatid sa mga Ismaalita at dinala sa Masry
(Egypt) na pinagbili naman bilang alipin at dumating ang panahon na naging
tagapamahala ng Pharaoh at naging Malaya at pinalitan ang pangalan na Zaphenathpaneah. Ang isang alipin ay ibabalik sa kanyang magulang ngunit si Yohseph ay binili sa
lahi ng Ismaalita kaya ibinalik siya sa Ismaalita at binigyan ng asawa na pangalan ay
Asenath na anak na babae ng Pari ng Ismaalita na si Potiphera sa lahi ni Ismaale na
nagkaroon ng 12 prinsesa na kagaya ni Yahshurun na nagkaroon ng 12 anak at ang isa ay
si Levi na naatasan sa pamamahala ng Pagpapari sa Exodus 29, Genesis 17:7, 17:23, 16:12
―siya ay kahalubilo ng kanyang mga kapatid‖. Nang si Abraham ay mamatay sina Ismaale
at Yahshaak ang naglibing sa kanya sa kweba ng Machpelah katabi ng kanyang asawang
si Sarah sa Genesis 25:9.
Ang anak at lahi ni Ismaale ay nadala ng dalawang anak ni Yohseph sina Manase at
Efraim, samantalang ang anak at lahi ni Yahshaak ay nadala ng 12 Tribo ng Yahshurun
(Jacob tinawag ni Yahweh na Yahshear) sa lupain ng Masry at inilabas sila ni Yahweh sa
Exodus 12:51, upang matupad ang sinalita ni Yahweh sa Genesis 15:13-14.
YISRAWALE (ISRAEL) KING
1Samuel 8:5 And said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a
king to judge us like all the nations. 1Samuel 8:6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us
a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto
. 1Samuel 12:19 And all the people said unto Samuel,
Pray for thy servants unto
thy Elohim, that we die not: for we have added unto all our sins this
evil, to ask us a king.
King Saul (BenYahmin) Kohath ang Pari
King David (Yahuwdah) Kohath ang Pari
King Solomon (Yahuwdah) Kohath ang Pari
DALAWANG KAHARIAN
Lumipas ang panahon pagkamatay ni Haring Solomon ay nahati sila sa dalawang
kaharian, sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale at Kaharian ng Yahuwdah. Ang Katiwala ni Haring
Solomon na mula sa Tribo ng Efraim (1Kings 11:26) si Yeroboam ang naging Hari ng
Yisrawale na sumama ang 10 Tribo ay pinagsisilbihan naman ng mga Levitang Pari
(Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote) mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat, Yahshear Dath
Gerson at Yahshear Dath Merari. Ang anak ni Haring Solomon si Rehoboam ang
naging Hari ng 2 Tribo ng Yahuwdah na pinagsisilbihan ng mga Levitang Pari
(Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote) mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat.
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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King Jeroboam sa Tribong Efraim ---- King Rehoboam sa Tribong Yahuwdah
YISRAWALE (ISRAEL)
King Jeroboam (Efraim)
10 tribo ng Yisrawale (Israel)
Samaria City
YAHUWDAH (JEWS)
----------------------------- King Rehoboam (Yahuwdah)
----------------------------- 2 tribo ng Yahuwdah at
BenYahmin (Jews)
----------------------------Jerusalem City
Nakatalagang Sacerdote:
---------------------------- Nakatalagang Sacerdote:
Sacerdote o Yahshear Dath Merari ----------------------- Sacerdote o Yahshear Dath
ang Pari ng Tribo nila Ruben, Gad,
Kohath ang Pari ng Tribo nila
Zabulon
Yahuwdah at BenYahmin
Sacerdote o Yahshear Dath Kohath
ang Pari ng Tribo nila Simeon, Dan,
½Manaseh, Efraim
Sacerdote o Yahshear Dath Gershon
ang Pari ng Tribo nila Nepthali,
Asher, Isachar, , ½Manaseh
KAHARIAN NG YAHUWDAH
Dalawang (2) Tribo ang sumama kay Haring Rehoboam ng Yahuwdah (Yahuwdah at
BenYahmin) at ang lungsod ay ang Yahrusalem (Jerusalem) na pinagsisilbihan ng mga
Levitang Pari (Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote) mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat.
KAHARIAN NG YISRAWALE
Sampung (10) Tribo ang sumama kay Haring Yeroboam (Jeroboam) ng Kaharian ng
Yisrawale at ang lungsod ay ang Samaria na pinagsisilbihan ng mga Levitang Pari
(Yahshear-Dath o Sacerdote) mula kay Yahshear Dath Cohat, Yahshear Dath
Gerson at Yahshear Dath Merari na mababasa sa Joshua 21:1-8 at 1Chronicles
6:63-81.
Si Haring Yeroboam ng Yisrawale ay TINANGGAL ang Pagsisilbi ng
mga Levitang YahshearDath o Sacerdote sina
YahshearDath-Cohat,
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
Page 148
YahshearDath-Gerson at YahshearDath-Merari at
ng mga pangkaraniwang tao lamang na HINDI LEVITA.
PINALITAN
sila
Si Haring Yeroboam ng Yisrawale ay nagtayo ng templo sa mataas na lugar at ginawang
Tigapagsilbing Pari ay pangkaraniwang tao lamang na HINDI LEVITA at itinalaga ang
Kapistahan sa ika-Walong Buwan na dapat ay ika-Pitong buwan na ginaganap ng
Kaharian ng Yahuwdah sa pagdiriwang ng mga kapistahan sa 1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings
13:33-34.
Tatlong (3) Taon
Levitang YahshearDath o Sacerdote mula kay YahshearDath Cohat, Gerson
at Merari ay Tinanggal Bilang Tigapagsilbing YahshearDath o Sacerdote sa
Kaharian ng Yisrawale at sila ay Lumayas sa lupain ng Yisrawale na dala
ang kanilang mga ari-arian ay tumungo sa Kaharian ng YAHUWDAH sa
lungsod ng Yahrusalem at nanatili sa loob ng tatlong (3) taon
2Chronicles 11:13-17 ‗at ang lahat ng mga Sacerdoteng Pari at Levita na nasa
Yisrawale at sa lahat ng baybayin ay lumayas na dala ang kanilang ari-arian at tumungo
sa Yahuwdah at sa lungsod ng Yahrusalem: dahil si Haring Yeroboam at kanyang mga
anak ay Pinalayas sila bilang Tigapagsilbing Sacerdote para kay Yahweh at si Haring
Yeroboam ay nagtalaga ng mga Sacerdoteng Paring Hindi Levita sa matataas na lugar at
para sa Demonyo at sa Istatwang Guya na kanyang ginawa. Ang mga Levitang
YahshearDath o Sacerdoteng Pari mula sa tribo ng Yisrawale, ay itinalaga ang kanilang
sarili at puso na hanapin si Yahweh na Makapangyarihan ng Yisrawale sa pagpunta nila
sa Yahrusalem upang magsakripisyo para kay Yahweh na Makapangyarihan ng kanilang
mga magulang. Naging matatag ang Kaharian ng Yahuwdah at maging si Haring
Rehoboam na anak ni YahdidiYah (Solomon) ay naging matatag, sa loob ng tatlong
taon; dahil tatlong taon silang sumunod sa palatuntunan kagaya sa pagsunod ni Haring
DowDow (David) at Haring YahdidiYah (Solomon)‖.
Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Sacerdoteng Pari na lahi ni Yahshear
Dath Cohat, Gerson at Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale ay
hindi nagtagal sa Kaharian ng YAHUWDAH: 2 Chronicles 20:18-19
PILIPINAS ANG OPHIR 2004
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Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Sacerdoteng Pari mula sa lahi ni YahshearDath
Cohat, Gerson at Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian ng Yisrawale na tumungo sa Kaharian
ng YAHUWDAH sa Yahrusalem ay nawala sa kapanahunan ni Haring Yahoshaphat.
(776 B.C.E. 1Kings 22:51, 62 taon mula sa paghahari ni Haring Yeroboam) sa
2Chronicles 20:18-19 ―at ang mga Levita mula sa mga anak ni (Cohat) Cohathites at mga
anak ni Corhites ay tumayo upang purihin si Yahweh ang nag-iisang Makapangyarihan
ng Yisrawale sa napaka-lakas na boses na mataas.‖
Mga Barko Patungong OPHIR Naglakbay ng Pabalik sa loob ng Tatlong Taon
Mga Barko na ipinagawa ni Haring YahdidiYah (Solomon) ay pumupunta parin sa
OPHIR para kumuha ng mga ginto 1Kings 9:26, at nagpagawa pa ng mga panibagong
Barko si Haring Yahoshaphat sa 1 Kings 22:48 ngunit hindi na ito natuloy.
Ang mga Levitang YahshearDath o Sacerdoteng Pari mula sa lahi ni YahshearDath
Gerson, YahshearDath Cohat at YahshearDath Merari na pinalayas sa Kaharian
ng Yisrawale na tumungo sa Kaharian ng Yahuwdah ay hindi nagtagal sa Kaharian ng
Yahuwdah. Walang tanging pupuntahan sila kundi ang sumama sa mga
barkong ipinagawa ni Haring YahdidiYah na kanilang nadatnan sa
Yahrusalem sa pagtigil nila ng tatlong (3) taon dahil tatlong (3) taon din ang
paglalakbay ng mga barko patungong Tarshish at Ophir pabalik sa
Yahrusalem na mababasa sa 2 Chro.9:21 at 2Chronicles 11:13-17.
Bago pa magpagawa ng panibagong Barko si Haring Yahoshaphat sa 1Kings 22:48,
naisulat sa 2Chronicles 20:18-19 sa paghahari ni Haring Yahoshaphat na 62 taon na ang
lumipas mula sa paghahari ni Haring Yeroboan na katiwala ni Haring YahdidiYah
(Solomon) sila ay hindi na natagpuan sa Yahrusalem sa 2 Chronicles 20:18-19.
MGA NAGANAP SA MGA NAIWAN SA SAMARIA AT SA YAHRUSALEM
KASALANAN NG SAMBAHAYAN NI HARING JEROBOAM NG YISRAWALE
1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings 13:33-34
Si Haring Yeroboam ng Yisrawale ay nagtayo ng templo sa mataas na lugar at ginawang
Tigapagsilbing Pari ay pangkaraniwang tao lamang na HINDI LEVITA at itinalaga ang
Kapistahan sa ika-Walong Buwan na dapat ay ika-Pitong buwan na ginaganap ng
Kaharian ng Yahuwdah sa pagdiriwang ng mga Kapistahan ni Yahweh.
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1Kings 13:33 Si Jeroboam ay Hindi nagbago sa kanyang Masamang Ginagawa,
patuloy parin siyang nagtatalaga ng mga Pari na Hindi Levita kundi pangkaraniwang tao
lamang na kanyang naisin.
1Kings 13:34 At ito ang naging kasalanan ng sambahayan ni Jeroboam, kaya‟t
pinutol ito at winasak sa buong lupain.
LIMANG (5) NASYON ANG PINATIRA SA LUPAIN NG
ISRAEL SA SAMARIA KAPALIT NG MGA ISRAELITA NA
IPINATAPON SA MGA LUNGSOD NG ASSYRIA
Yisrawale (Israel) 2Kings 17:23 Hanggang inalis sila ni Yahweh sa Kanyang paningin
kagaya ng ipinasabi Niya sa mga Propeta. Ang mga Israelita ay Dinalang Bihag sa mga
lupain ng Assyria.
2Kings 17:24 At ang Hari ng Assyria ay nagdala ng mga tao mula sa Babylon, at mula sa
Cuthah, at mula sa Ava, at mula sa Hamath, at mula sa Sepharvaim, at pinatira sa
lungsod ng Samaria kapalit ng mga Anak ni Israel: at kanilang inangkin ang Samaria at
tuluyang nanirahan doon. 2Kings 17:27 Ang hari ng Assyria ay nag-utos na dalhin
pabalik sa Samaria ang isang Pari na dinalang bihag sa Assyria at manirahan na sa
Samaria upang siyang magturo ng pamamaraan sa Sinasamba sa lupaing iyon. 2Kings
17:28 At isa nga sa mga Pari na dinalang-bihag sa Assyria ay dumating at tumira sa
Beth-el ay nagturo kung paano sila magkakaroon ng takot sa Sinasamba ng lupaing iyon.
Ang Pari na dinalang pabalik sa Beth-el na lupain ng Israel ay ang Pari na
itinalaga ni Haring Yeroboam (Jeroboam) na pangkaraniwang tao lamang
na HINDI LEVITA.
2Kings 17:24 Ang limang nasyon na pinatira sa Israel, ang bawat nasyon ay gumawa ng
kani-kanilang istatwang sinasamba na kanilang inilagay sa mataas na sambahan sa
kani-kanilang lungsod. Ang taga Babylonia ay gumawa ng istawa ni Succoth-benoth, ang
taga Cuthah gumawa ng istatwa ni Nergal, ang taga Hamath ginawa ang istatwa ni
Ashima, ang taga Ava ginawa ang istatwa ni Nibhaz at Tartak, ang taga Separvaim ay
nagsusunog naman ng kanilang anak para sa kanilang istatwang si Adrammelech at
Anammelec.
2Kings 17:24 Sila ay may takot sa Makapangyarihan ngunit pinagsisilbihan nila ang
kani-kanilang istatwa. (Dito nagsimula na hindi na tawagin ang pangalan ni Yahweh
kundi pinalitan ng El na naging Elohim). Ang mga Tunay na Levitang Yahshear-dath
(Sacerdote) ang may hawak ng mga aklat ni Moses kaya ang HINDI-LEVITANG PARI ay
kumatha rin ng kanilang sariling kwento patungkol sa mga naganap noon. Dahil hindi
nila alam ang kahalagahan ng Banal na Pangalan ni Yahweh ay pinalitan nila ito ng ‗El‘ o
‗Elohim‘ upang maintindihan ng mga taga Babylonia, at taga Cuthah, at taga Ava, at taga
Hamath, at taga Sepharvaim. Ang ‗El‘ o ‗Elohim‘ ay ang pangkaraniwang tawag sa mga
istatwa ng mga bansang ito.
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Ang mga Tunay Na Israelita na Ipinadalang Bihag sa mga lupain ng Assyria
ay nagpalit ng wika mula sa Hebreo ay napilitang magsalita ng AssyrianAramaic.
2Kings 18:26 ‗At nagsalita sina Eliakim na anak ni Hilkiah, at Shebna, at Joah kay Rabshakeh, magsalita ka sa wikang Assyrian-Aramaic dahil naiintidihan namin at huwag
kang makipag-usap sa amin sa wika ng Hudyo na Hebreo na naririnig ng maraming tao
sa tabi ng pader.
ANG MGA LEVITANG PARI AY TINATAWAG NA SACERDOTE O
YAHSHEARDATH SA WIKANG HEBREO, ANG MGA HINDI LEVITANG
PARI AY TINAWAG NA „KAHEN‟-3549 SA WIKANG ARAMAIC
3547 kahan kaw-han' a primitive root, apparently meaning to mediate in religious services; but
used only as denominative from 3548; to officiate as a priest; figuratively, to put on regalia:--deck,
be (do the office of a, execute the, minister in the) priest('s office).
3548 kohen ko-hane' active participle of 3547; literally, one officiating, a priest; also (by
courtesy) an acting priest (although a layman):--chief ruler, X own, priest, prince, principal
officer.
3549 kahen kaw-hane' (Aramaic) corresponding to 3548:--priest. (KAHEN IS ARAMAIC)
Kaharian ng Yahuwdah Ay Hindi Rin Sumunod sa mga Utos
ni Yahweh kaya Ipinagapi sila sa Kaharian ng Babylonia
Yahuwdah (Jews) 2Kings 17:19 Ganoon din ang Yahuwdah ay hindi rin sumunod sa
mga kautusan ni Yahweh na kanilang Makapangyarihan, sila ay gumaya sa pamamaraan
ng mga Israelita.
Daniel 1:1 Sa ikatlong taon ng paghahari ni Jehoiakim Hari ng Yahuwdah ay dumating
sa Yahrusalem si Nebuchadnezzar na Hari ng Babylonia at sinakop ito.
Jeremiah 44:2 Sinabi ni Yahweh na Makapangyarihan ng Israel, nakita ninyong lahat
ang kasamaan na ipinadala ko sa Yahrusalem at sa lahat ng lungsod ng Yahuwdah at
ngayon lahat ng lugar doon ay walang tao na tumitira.
Jeremiah 44:7 ‗Nagsalita si Yahweh na Makapangyarihan ng Israel, dahil ginawa ninyo
ang nakakamanghang kasalanan laban sa inyong kaluluwa samakatwid tatapusin na
mula sa lalaki at babae at bata at pati sumususo pa ay aalisin sa lugar ng Yahuwdah
upang wala ng matira Kahit-Isa‘.
Jeremiah 44:11 ‗At sinabi pa ni Yahweh ang makapangyarihan ng Israel, aking ihaharap
ang aking mukha laban sa inyo para sa Kasamaan at Puputulin lahat ang mga
Yahuwdah‘.
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Jeremiah 44:12 ‗at aking kukunin ang mga NATIRANG TAO ng Yahuwdah na tumungo
sa Egypto upang tumira at lahat sila ay lilipulin sa itak at kalamidad at mangamamatay
mula sa mababa hanggang sa mataas at sila ay magiging sumpa at kamangha-mangha at
isang kapulaan‘.
Jeremiah 44:28 ‗Ngunit may Kakaunting-Nakatakas sa itak ang babalik mula sa lupain
ng Egypto patungo sa lupain ng Yahuwdah, at lahat ng Natira ng Yahuwdah ay
malalaman kung kaninong salita ang mananaig, ang salita nila o ang Aking Sinalita‘.
Kaharian ng Babylonia ay Nagapi ng Kaharian ng Persia
Naka-ukit sa kabundukan ng Iran ang Behistun Rock kung paano ang Kaharian ng Persia
ay nagapi ang Kaharian ng Babylonia kasama ang Egypt at kasama ang Yahuwdah ay
naging parte ng Kaharian ng Persia. Ang namumuno sa Kaharian ng Persia ay si Cyrus ay
nag utos sa isang Royal Decree na pinayagan ang mga Yahuwdah na Bumalik sa
Yahrusalem upang itayong muli ang kanilang mga tahanan at ang Templong Sambahan.
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Pagbabalik sa Lupang Pangako
Ang mga nakabalik sa Yahrusalem ay pinamunuan ni Sheshbazzar at Zerubbabel na
kapwa galing sa lahi ng Yahuwdah. Ang gumanap na Pari ay si Ezra na galing sa lahi ni
Aaron na may dalang mga aklat ni Moses at Karapatan na ibinigay ni Artaxerxes na
Emperador noon ng Persia. Si NehemiYah naman ang naatasan ng Emperador na
maging Governador at ipinatupad ang pagganap ng mga Sabbath at Kapistahan ni
Yahweh, ipinagbawal ang pag-aasawa ng mga Yahuwdah sa ibang lahi at pinahiwalay
ang mga Yahuwdah na nakapag-asawa ng ibang lahi. Ang lupain ng Yahuwdah ay naging
isang probinsya ng Persia. Ipinatawag ni Ezra ang lahat sa Kapistahan ng Tabernakulo sa
ika-pitung buwan at binasa ang Torah ni Moses na napakinggan ng lahat at ang lahat ay
sumumpang susundin muli ang kontrata at kasunduan ni Yahweh at ng mga Yahuwdah.
LIMANG AKLAT NI MOSES
Ang Torah ni Moses o ang limang aklat ay nadala ni Ezra na lahi ni Aaron dahil tanging
ang lahi lamang ni Aaron ang may karapatang humawak at mag-ingat noon. Paglipas ng
panahon ay nakasama ang mga teksto at komentaryo ng mga Pari na hindi nagmula sa
lahi ng Levitang si Aaron, Nehemiah 7:64. Ang Yahweh (J) Text at ang Elohim (E) Text
at ang Sacerdotal (P) Text at ang Deuteronomy (D) Text ay magkakasama sa nabuong
mga aklat na tinawag ngayon na Torah ni Moses. Mapapansin ang nakasulat sa Torah ni
Moses ay inuulit-ulit ng J, E, P at D text. Ang J Text o Yahweh Text ay mula sa
pag-iingat ng mga Levitang lahi ni Aaron, na tanging mga Levitang lahi sa
anak ni Aaron lamang ang inatasan ni Yahweh na hahawak at mag-iingat ng
mga banal na kasulatan o mga aklat ni Moses (2Samuel 6:6-7, Deuteronomy
10:8, 31:26). Ang E text o Elohim Text ay mula sa mga Israelitang Hindi Levita na
itinalagang Pari ni Haring Yeroboam (Jeroboam) (1 Kings 12:31-32, 1 Kings 13:33-34),
sila ay hindi naatasan na mag-ingat ng mga kasulatan na tanging Levita na lahi ni Aaron
lamang ang may karapatang humawak. Ang P Text at D Text ay mula sa mga Pari na
nagmula sa limang bansa (Neh 7:64) na walang talaan na lahi sila ng Levita at naturuan
lamang ng Paring Israelita na Hindi Naman Levita na pinabalik ng Hari ng Assyria sa
lupain ng Israel (2Kings 17:27-28).
Inulit-ulit ang Nakasulat sa Torah ni Moses
Genesis 1 ay Elohim (E) Text ay inulit sa Genesis 2 na Yahweh (J) Text,
nadagdag ang Sacerdotal (P) Text at Deuteronomy (D) Text
Ang istorya nila Adam at Eve at Cain at Abel ay Yahweh (J) Text ay tinutukoy ang
pagiging malapit sa anghel (tunay na anghel hindi istatwa), sa mga halaman at pakikipag
usap sa ahas. Ang Sacerdotal (P) Text ay walang kwento tungkol dito. At binangit ang
henerasyon mula kay Adam hanggang kay Noah.
Ang istorya sa naganap na malaking baha sa Yahweh (J) Text ay 40 araw na umulan. Ang
Sacerdotal (P) Text ay halos isang taong delubyo. Ang Yahweh (J) Text ay may 14 na
malilinis na mga hayop at 2 di-malinis na hayop. Ang Sacerdotal (P) Text ay 2 malinis at
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2 di-malinis na hayop. Yahweh (J) Text ay nagpadala si Noah ng 3 kalapati o tatlong
beses na nagpalipad ng kalapati, ang Sacerdotal (P) Text ay isang uwak ang pinalipad ni
Noah.
Ang J at E Text sa Kontrata ni Abraham sa Gnesis 15 ay siningitan ng ibang istorya at sa
Genesis 17 naman ang P Text, lumalabas na dalawang beses nagkita sila Abraham at
Yahweh.
Mas dramatiko ang J at E Text sa Exodus 17 nang si Moses ay kumuha ng tubig sa bato,
samantalang ang P Text sa dalawang aklat sa Numbers 20 ay lumalabas na dalawang
insidente sa dalawang magkaibang pankakataon o panahon samantalang naganap iyon
sa isang lugar sa Meriba at sa isang pagkakataon. Ang Ten Commandment ay inulit muli
ni Moses sa Deuteronomy 5 kahit ito ay magkaiba sa Exodus 20.
Sa Exodus 20:8-11
Remember the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . because in six days Yahweh
made the heavens and the earth, the sea and ail that is in them, and
he rested on the seventh day Therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day
and sanctified it.
Sa Deuteronomy 5:12-15
Ngunit sa Deuteronomy, nang inulit ni Moses :
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . and you shall remember that
you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought
you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. There'
fore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
Ang unang bersyon galing sa P text, ang dahilan sa pag-iingat sa Sabbath:
‗because God rested on the seventh day‘.
Ang ikalawang bersyon mula sa D Text, ang dahilan sa pag-iingat sa Sabbath:
‗because God freed you from slavery‘.
Sa Dead Sea Scroll na natagpuan ay parehas na hindi itong dalawang bersyon ang
dahilan sa pag iingat sa Sabbath: ‗ Sa lahat ng ito ay walang pamamaraan na nag-uutos
na pamahalaan ang pag iingat ng Sabbath‘. (In all of this, no one method governs
the process). Itong naisulat at iniaral ng P at D Text ay itinuwid ng Messiah na
mababasa sa Matthew 12:1-12.
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Alexander The Great Nasakop Ang Kaharian ng Persia
Itinayo ang Alexandria Library sa Egypt
Nasakop ni Alexander the Great ang Kaharian ng Persia na pinaghaharian noon ni
Darius III. Nasakop din ni Alexander the Great ang Syria, Egypt, Mesapotamia, Bactria
at ang India. Itinatag niya ang Alexandria sa Egypt na sentro ng kanyang kaharian, at
ang pumalit sa kanya bilang Pharaoh ay si Ptolemy II Soter ay itinayo naman ang
Museum at Library ng Alexandria. Ang kanyang mga General si Ptolemy at Nearchus,
Aristobulus at Onesicritus. Siya rin ang naging dahilan ng paglaganap ng mga Grego.
Ang mga dokumento mula sa Assyria (kasama ang mga dokumento ng naipatapon noon
na mga Israelita sa Assyria), Greece, Persia, Egypt, India at maraming nasyon ay
nakalagak sa Alexandria Library at Museum. Maraming scholars ang tumira sa Museum
upang mag-saliksik, magsulat, magsalin at maglimbag ng mga dokumento.
Greek Pentateuch
Si Ptolemy II ay nagpatawag ng 72 Hebrew scholars at nag utos na isalin sa wikang
Grego ang mga Kasulatan ng mga Hebreo ang limang aklat ni Moses na tinawag sa Grego
na ‗Pentateuch‘. Sinulatan ni Ptolemy II si Eleazar ang Punong Pari sa Yahrusalem
upang maglagay ng anim (6) na Hudyong Tigapagsalin na nanggaling sa bawat Tribo ng
Israel (12 x 6 = 72). Tinawag ang unang limang aklat ni Moses na ‗Pentateuch‘ na ibig
sabihin ay Limang- aklat.
ROMAN TIME
Nasira ang Alexandria Library sa Egypt
Tinalo ng mga Romano ang mga Grego at nasira ang Alexandria Library sa pag-kubkub
ng mga Romano sa Alexandria na sentro ng mga Grego.
GREEK PENTATEUCH NAGING LATIN SEPTUAGINT
Ipinagpatuloy ni Ptolemy ang pagsasalin ng 72 Hebrew scholars ng limang aklat ni
Moses sa Hebrew ay isinasalin sa wikang Grego at ang iba pang mga Kasulatan ng mga
Hebreo ay idinagdag dito.
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Paglipas ng panahon nadagdag na ang iba-iba pang mga aklat sa Hebreo ay ipinasalin na
rin sa wikang Grego at maraming beses itong neribisa sa pagkakasalin sa wikang Grego
at ang ‗Pentateuch‘ na nakasama na ang iba-iba pang aklat na Hebreo naisalin sa
Lumang-Wikang Grego ay isinalin muli sa Makabagong-Wikang Koine Greek. Ang
Lumang-Wikang Gregong ‗Pentateuch‘ (ibig sabihin ay Limang-Aklat) (Pinaka-lumang
Greek Septuagint bersyon Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s bersyon) ay naisalin naman sa
wikang Latin at tinawag na Septuagint sa Latin o LXX (dahil hindi na ito Limang
Aklat kundi marami na) na siya namang pinagbasehan ng mga bersyon ng Slavonic,
Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian at Coptic na bersyon. At ito rin ang mga
pinagbasehan ng mga Apostolic Fathers at Christian New Testament. Samantala ang
Makabagong -Wikang Koine Greek bersyon ay nirebisa at isinalin sa ‗Aquila‘ ng Sinope‘s
Greek bersyon.
Ang Septuagint o LXX ay ang pinagbasehan na ―PINANIWALAAN‖ (canon) at ang iba
pang aklat na idinagdag na mga sulat ng mga Propeta kagaya ng aklat na Maccabees,
Wisdom of Ben Sira, Daniel at Esther ay mas mahaba pa sa Masoretic Text. Ang ilan na
bagong dagdag, ang aklat na Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Macabees at iba pa ay galing sa
orihinal na Gregong pagkakasulat. Hindi naisama sa Septuagint ang sikat na mga aklat
na ‗Enosh o Jubilees‘ at iba pang mga kasulatan. Ang Septuagint ay galing sa salitang
Latin na ibig sabihin ay ‗pitumpong tigapagsalin‘ o LXX.
Sumunod na panahon ay masusing nirebisa at isinalin sa Makabagong Greek bersyon na
tinawag na ‗Aquila, Symmachus at Theodotion. Ang tatlong ito ang Mas-makabagong
Greek bersyon ng kasulatang Septuagint na hango sa Pentateuch na hango sa aklat ni
Moses sa Hebreo at iba pang nadagdag na mga aklat sa Hebreo at Grego.
ANG MGA PINANINIWALAAN NG MGA GREGO AT ROMANO NA MGA
ALAMAT BAGO REBISAHIN ANG PENTATEUCH GREEK O SEPTUAGINT
LATIN OLD TESTAMENT NG MGA GREGO AT ROMANONG MANUNULAT
ALAMAT NI MYTHRA
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Mythra ng Persia ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong
December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa
ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI ATTIS
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Attis ng Gresya ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong
December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa
ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI KRISHNA
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(900 B.C.E.) Si Krishna ng India ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong
December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa
ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI TAMMUZ
Ezekiel 8:14 (597 B.C.E) Si Nimrod II ay tinawag naTammuz ng mga Babylonia, Azur
naman ang tawag ng mga Asyrian, at Osiris naman ang tawag ng mga Egyptian. Si
Nimrod II ay napatay at ang kanyang asawa ay nagbuntis sa ibang lalaki at pinalabas
na ang bata ay si Nimrod II na „NABUHAY NA MULI‟. Mula noon ang Alamat na ito
ay naging bantog sa mga Alamat ng Griyego at Romano kahanay nila Jupiter at Zeus.
ALAMAT NI HORUS
(300 B.C.E.) Si Horus ng Egypt ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong
December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa
ikatlong araw.
NAKILALA NG MARAMING TAO SI YAHSHU‟A ANG MESSIAH NA TAGA
NAZARETH NA MAY 12 DISIPOLO
Ang pangalan ni Yahshu‘a ang Messiah ng Nazareth ay pangalang Hebreo ay isinusulat
sa Aramaic na Yeshu‘a na ang pagbigkas ay Yah-shu‘a. Ang Aramaic ang umiiral na
pangkalahatang wika sa Yahrusalem noong panahong iyon. Mula sa Aramaic ay isinalin
ito sa wikang Grego na IESOUS na binibigkas na ‗Yeh-soos‘ at nang maisalin ang
Gregong pangalan sa Latin ay naging IESUS na binibigkas sa Latin na ‗Yay-soos‘. Nang
maimbento ang letrang ‗J‘ ay naging JESUS na bigkas ay ‗Jay-zus‘.
MARAMING BESES SINIRA ANG ALEXANDRIA LIBRARY
Si Theophilus ay Patriarka ng Alexandria noong 385 hanggang 412 A.D. ang mga Hudyo,
Christian at pagano ay sama-samang naninirahan sa Alexandria. Nagkaroon ng pagkakaalitan sila-sila at nawasak na naman ang Alexandria.
Ang huling sinisisi sa pagkakasunog sa Alexandria ay si Moslem Caliph Omar noong 640
A.D. pagkatapos na malaman niya na nasa Alexandria ang lahat ng kasulatan at talino sa
mundo na kumokontra sa Koran ay lahat ng aklat sa Alexandria ay sinunog na tumagal
ng halos anim na buwan.
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Si Origen noong 235 A.D. na isang Christian scholar ng Alexandria ay
binuo ang ‗Hexapla‟ na binubuo ng anim na hanay na sa unang
hanay ang bersyong Hebrew Text. Sa unang hanay ay Hebreo at sa
ikalawang hanay ay Hebrew sa Greek bersyon at ang ikatlong hanay
ay ang Makabagong Greek bersyon na Aquila ng Sinope‘s Greek
bersyon, ika-apat ang Pinaka-lumang (Pentateuch) Greek Septuagint
bersyon Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s bersyon, ang ika-lima ay ang LXX
o Septuagint na pinagsama-sama ang lahat ng Greek bersyon na may
mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon ito nagmula. Ang ika-limang
hanay na kumbinasyon ng pinagsama-samang bersyon ng Greek ay
kinopya ng marami beses at isinalin muli ngunit tinanggal ang mga
paliwanag kung saang bersyon nagmula, at ang Lumang Greek
bersyon ng Septuagint ay hindi isinama sa pagkakasalin. Ang panganim ay ang Theodotion bersyon. Itong mga pinagsama-samang mga
teksto ay naging unang paniniwala ng mga Christian rebisyon ng
Septuagint na tinawag na “HEXAPLAR RECENSION”.
Ang New Testament o Tinatawag na Greek New Testament
o Greek Scriptures
Ang orihinal na indibidwal na aklat ay naisulat noong 45 A.D. sa Koine Greek dahil iyan
ang pangkalahatang wikang umiiral noong panahong iyon sa Emperyo ng Roman.
Nagmula ang ilan sa Hebreo at Greek na sulatin. Ang Rylands Papyrus 52 ay
pangkalahatang tinanggap na pinaka- unang naitalang New Testament na umiidad
noong 117 A.D at 138 A.D.
NAKILALANG MGA CHURCH FATHERS:
Ang mga Church Fathers ay ang mga naunang maimpluwensyang manunulat sina
Clement ng Rome, Ignatius ng Antioch at Polycarp ng Smyrna. Ang kasulatan na
Didache at Shepherd of Hermas ay kasulatan ng mga Church Fathers ngunit hindi lang
alam kung sino ang sumulat.
Si Clement ng Roma ay sinulat ang 1 Clement noong 96 A.D., siya ay nanawagan sa
mananampalataya ng Corinto.
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Si Ignatius ng Antioch ay istudyante ng Desipolong si John (YahYah) ay sumulat sa mga
naunang Christians bago siya patayin sa Roma. Binanggit siya sa mga sulat ni Apostol
Pablo.
Polycarp ng Smyrna ay isang Bishop ng Smyrna (ngayon ay Izmir, Turkey). Siya ay
Desipolo ni John (YahYah) na anak ni Zebedee na pinaniniwalaan na sumulat ng ikaapat na Gospel. Samantalang si Eusebius na ipinagpipilitan na si Polycarp ay kasama ni
John the Evangelist. Si Polycarp ay pinakiusapan si Anicetus na Bishop ng Rome na
ipagdiwang ang Easter sa 14 Nisan ay hindi siya pumayag, kahit sa paggamit sa
kalendaryo ng mga taga Kanluran. Si Polycarp ay pinatay ng mga taga Smyrna noong
155 A.D. Hindi siya nasunog sa apoy na pinaglagyan sa kanya, kaya siya ay sinaksak
hanggang mamatay at dahil sa dugo niya ay namatay ang apoy sa kanyang paligid.
GREEK FATHERS:
Clement ng Rome, Irenaeus ng Lyons, Clement ng Alexandria, Athanasius ng
Alexandria, John Chrysostom, Cyril ng Alexandria ang Cappadocian Fathers (Basil ng
Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzus, Peter ng Sebaste & Gregory ng Nyssa), at Maximus ang
Confessor.
Irenaeus ng Lyons
Saint Irenaeus, (b. 2nd century; d. end of 2nd/beginning of 3rd century) ay
bishop ng Lugdunum sa Gaul, sa ngayon ay Lyons, France. Siya ay disipolo
ni Polycarp. Siya ang unang tumanggap na ang apat na Gospel ay katanggaptanggap na piliin, noon nagsimula ang pagkalikha ng New Testament noong
180 A.D.
Clement ng Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens) (c.150-211/216), ay kaanib ng iskwelahan
at simbahan ng Alexandria. Sinulat niya ang Clement of Alexandria.
Origen of Alexandria
Origen, o Origen Adamantius (c 185 - c254) isa sa mga naunangChristian eskolar at
isang Egyptian na nagtuturo sa Alexandria kung saan nagturo rin si Clement. Ang
Patriarka ng Alexandria una ay sumusuporta sa kanya ngunit siya ay tinanggal dahil
naordinahan ng walang permiso ng Patriarka. Sa kanyang kaalaman sa Hebreo itinuwid
niya ang Septuagint at sumulat ng mga komentaryong napasama nang isalin sa mga
aklat sa Biblia. Sa kanya si Yahweh ay hindi makapangyarihan kundi isa lamang Unang
Prinsipyo at ang antas ng Messiah ay mas mababa, ang kanyang pagkaka- unawa sa
Trinity ang pre-existence ng kaluluwa ay idineklara na isang paglait. Sumulat siya ng
mahigit 6,000 aklat.
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Si Origen noong 235 A.D. na isang Christian scholar ng Alexandria ay binuo ang
‗Hexapla‟ na binubuo ng anim na hanay na sa unang hanay ang bersyong Hebrew Text.
Sa unang hanay ay Hebreo at sa ikalawang hanay ay Hebrew sa Greek bersyon at ang
ikatlong hanay ay ang Makabagong Greek bersyon na Aquila ng Sinope‘s Greek bersyon,
ika-apat ang Pinaka-lumang Greek Septuagint bersyon Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s
bersyon, ang ika-lima ay ang LXX o Septuagint na pinagsama-sama ang lahat ng Greek
bersyon na may mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon ito nagmula. Ang ika-limang hanay
na kumbinasyon ng pinagsama-samang bersyon ng Greek ay kinopya ng marami at
isinalin muli ngunit tinanggal ang mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon nagmula, at ang
Lumang Greek bersyon ng Septuagint ay hindi isinama sa pagkakasalin. Ang pang-anim
ang Theodotion bersyon. Itong pinagsama-samang mga teksto ay naging unang
paniniwala ng mga Christian rebisyon ng Septuagint na tinawag na “HEXAPLAR
RECENSION”.
Si Philo at Josephus ay nagtiwala at pinagbasehan ang Septuagint sa kanilang mga
sinulat na patungkol sa mga kasulatan ng Hudyo.
The term "hexapla" signifies "six-fold" or "six-columned", and describes the
arrangement of the six English versions underneath the Greek text in the book.
The term "hexapla" is also applied to Origen's 3rd century edition of the Old
Testament, which present six versions of the old testament, in Hebrew, Hebrew
in Greek letters, Aquila of Sinope's Greek version, Symmachus the Ebionite's
version, the LXX or Septuagint, and Theodotion's version.
MGA AKLAT NG NEW TESTAMENT
Maraming aklat ang unti-unting nakolekta upang maging isang aklat ang Greek New
Testament na binubuo ng 27 aklat. Ang pinagbasehan nito ay ang ―Hexaplar Recension‖
na Greek bersyon, Apat na aklat ay ang Gospel, isa dito ay salaysay ng sina-unang
paniniwala ng mga Apostol na sinulat ni Luke na isa sa gumawa ng Gospel, 21 sulat at
Apocalyptic prophecy.
Gospels
Bawat isa sa Gospel ay nagsasalaysay ng naging takbo ng buhay ni Iesous ( Jesus) ng
Nazareth. Ang mga nagsulat ay inakala na sina:
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Ang Gospel ni Matthew, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle Matthew, anak ni
Alphaeus ayon kay Papias, ( Gospel according to the Hebrews) Clement ng
Alexandria, Irenaeus at Eusebius.
Ang Gospel ni Mark, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Mark the Evangelist, na sumulat
sa mga koleksyon ni Apostle Simon Peter ayon kay Papias, Clement ng
Alexandria, Irenaeus, Eusebius.
Ang Gospel ni Luke, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Luke, isang Doktor at nakasama ni
Apostle Paul ayon kay Clement ng Alexandria, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Canon
Muratori.
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
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Ang Gospel of John, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle John, anak ni Zebedee
ayon kay Papias, Clement ng Alexandria, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Canon Muratori,
Codex Vaticanus Alexandrinus.
Book of Acts of the Apostles
Ang aklat ng Gawa ng mga Apostol (The book of Acts of the Apostles), ay kadugtong ng
Gospel ni Lukas ayon kay Clement ng Alexandria, Eusebius, Canon Muratori.
Mga Sulat ni Paul
Ang mga sulat ni Paul (or Corpus Paulinum) ay tradisyon na sinulat ni Paul.).
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Epistle to the Romans
First Epistle to the Corinthians
Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Epistle to the Galatians
Epistle to the Ephesians
Epistle to the Philippians
Epistle to the Colossians
First Epistle to the Thessalonians
Second Epistle to the Thessalonians
First Epistle to Timothy
Second Epistle to Timothy
Epistle to Titus
Epistle to Philemon
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Epistle to the Hebrews – sinabi ni Origen (254 A.D.) "ang mga tao noon ay
ibinigay kay Paul ang epistle na ito ngunit ang sumulat ay ang Lumikha lamang
ang nakakaalam) ngunit maraming eskolars ang naniniwala na sinulat ito noon
ni Paul.
General Epistles
Kasama ang mga sulat sa mga simbahan,(catholic ang ibig sabihin ay universal).
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Epistle of James, sa tradisyon sinulat ni James, kapatid ni Iesous (Jesus ) at Jude
Thomas.
First Epistle of Peter, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle Simon, tinawag na Peter.
Second Epistle of Peter, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle Simon, tinawag na
Peter.
First Epistle of John, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle John, anak ni Zebedee.
Second Epistle of John, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle John, anak ni Zebedee.
Third Epistle of John, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle John, anak ni Zebedee.
Epistle of Jude, sa tradisyon ay sinulat ni Apostle Jude Thomas, kapatid ni
Iesous(Jesus) at James.
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Revelation
Ang huling aklat ng Biblia sa New Testament ay ang Book of Revelation, sa tradisyon ay
sinulat ni Apostle John of Patmos, ang aklat na ito ay hindi binabasa ng Eastern
Orthodox church.
PAGKAKAAYOS NG MGA AKLAT SA NEW TESTAMENT
Ang mga aklat ng New Testament ay iba ang pagkakaayos sa bawat religion. Sa
Protestant Bibles ay gumaya sa Roman Catholic na pagkakaayos ngunit ang Lutheran ay
iba ang pagkakaayos. Sa labas ng Western European Catholic/Protestant ay iba rin ang
pagkakaayos sa Slavonic, Syriac at Ethiopian Bibles (Gospels, Acts, Catholic epistles,
Pauline epistles, at Apocalypse).
Apocrypha
Ang mga Apocrypha na mga aklat ang Gospel of Thomas ang Epistle to the Laodiceans.
Ang 4th century Codex Sinaiticus ay isinama ang Old at New Testaments ang Epistle of
Barnabas at The Shepherd of Hermas.
Ang Pinagtatalunang Sulatin, ang Epistle of James at kay Jude, at second epistle of Peter,
at lahat ng second at third of John, nagdududa sila kung ito ay ginawa niya o ng ibang
tao na parehas ang pangalan. Ang Acts of Paul, at ang Shepherd, at ang Apocalypse of
Peter, at ang epistle of Barnabas, at ang Teachings of the Apostles. Ang Apocalypse of
John, at ang Gospel according to the Hebrews... ay ang mga pinagtatalunang mga aklat.
Ang mga aklat na Gospels of Peter, ni Thomas, ni Matthias, at ang ilan at ang Acts of
Andrew at John at nang ibang Apostoles ay napatunayan na mga kathang isip lamang
kaya hindi sila naisama sa New Testament.
Noong 1611 A.D. King James Version sa English New Testament ay naisalin mula sa
Textus Receptus, texto mula sa bagong edisyon ni Erasmus' na nailathala sa Greek New
Testament na lumalabas na binasehan ay ang tipo ng Byzantine text.
Karamihan sa modernong English bersyon ng New Testament ay binase sa kritikal na
pagbuo ng Greek text, kagaya ng Nestle-Alands' Novum Testamentum Graece o Greek
New Testament o United Bible Societies'.
Mga Bagong Idinagdag na Texto sa New Testament
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Matt 16:2b-3
Mark 16:9-20
Luke 22:19b-20,43–44
John 5:4
John 7:53-8:11
1 John 5:7b–8a
Romans 16:24
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Christian New Testament
Sa sumunod na panahon dalawang
pangunahing pinag-ingatang rebisyon ang
pinagbasehan ni Lucian at Hesychius, ito ay pinatunayan ni Jerome. Ito rin ang
pinagbasehan at palaging binabanggit sa Christian New Testament.
Masoretic Text ay Hebrew text na siyang Biblia (Tanakh) ng mga Hudyo na naisulat
noong 700 A.D. hanggang 1000 A.D. Ito rin ang pinagbasehan ng mga Protestanteng
Biblia at ganoon din ng mga Katolikong Biblia.
Pope Theonas of Alexandria ay ang Punong Papa ng Alexandria na naging Coptic
Church at ang Greek Church ng Alexandria noong 282 hanggang 300 A.D.
Pope Achillas of Alexandria ang pang 18 Papa ng Coptic Orthodox Church at ng
Greek Church ng Alexandria noong 312 hanggang 313 A.D.
Si Achillas naman ay inordinahan na Pari ni Pierius, at naging lider ng Catechetical
School of Alexandria sa pagkawala ni Pierius na naging martir ng Alexandria. Siya ay
kasing galing sa Greek philosophy at theological science kapantay ni Athanasius ng
Alexandria at tinawag siyang "Achillas the Great". Siya ang pumalit pagkamatay ni Peter
ng Alexandria sa kapanahunan ng Pagpapahirap ni Diocletian . Minana niya ang mga
problema ng simbahan kagaya ng Meletian heresy at ang patuloy na alitan sa Arianism.
Sa pamumuno ni Achillas bilang Patriarka, siya ay naimpluwensyahan ng mga
sumusuporta kay Arius upang tanggalin ang suspensyon kay Arius. Sa resulta nito ay
ibinalik si Arius bilang Pari sa Bucalis na isang pinakamatanda at maimpluwensyang
simbahan sa Alexandria.
EMPEROR CONSTANTINE
Caesar Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus (27 February c. 272 –
22 May 337), commonly known in English as Constantine I, Constantine the Great,
or (among Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Byzantine
Catholic Christians) Saint Constantine (pronounced /ˈkɒnstɛntaɪn/), was Roman
emperor from 306, and the sole holder of that office from 324 until his death in 337A.D.
Kilala bilang kauna-unahang Roman Emperor na naging Christian , at binigyang laya
ang mga religion sa kanyang nasasakupang emperyo. Ginawa siya at ang kanyang ina si
Reyna Helena bilang Santo ng Eastern Orthodox Church at Eastern Catholic Churches of
Byzantine. Sa Latin Church kahit hindi siya ginawang santo ngunit siya ay tinawag nila
na ―Constantine The great‖ sa kanyang kontribusyon sa Christianity.
Si Constantine ay ginawa ang sina-unang Greek colony ng Byzantium bilang bagong
imperial residence ang Constantinople na nanatiling kapital ng Byzantine Empire sa
loob ng 1,000 taon.
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50 KOPYA NG BIBLIA NI CONSTANTINE
Noong 322 A.D. inutusan ni Emperor Constantine si Eusebius na gumawa ng 50 kopya
ng Banal na Kasulatan na ginawa ng Kilalang-Manunulat at isulat na maliwanag na
madaling maintindihan at sa tatlo o apat na kopya ay ihatid sa kanya upang siyasatin at
gamitin ang dalawang karwahe ng kaharian sa paghahatid. Si Eusebius ay kumuha ng
mga aklat sa kanyang lugar sa Caesarea ng mga bagong-salin na mga aklat mula sa
Hexaplar Recension na nagmula sa sulat ni Origen na ―Hexapla”. Ang 27 aklat na
pinagbasehan ay ang rebisyon ng ―HEXAPLAR RECENSION”.
The Bibles of Constantine
There is another piece of evidence that bears on the subject of the canon - even though we may not
know how to interpret it. About the year 322 CE, the emperor Constantine, wishing to promote and
organize Christian worship in the growing number of churches in Constantinople, directed
Eusebius to have 50 copies of the sacred Scriptures made by practiced scribes and written legibly
on prepared parchment. At the same time the emperor informed him, in a letter still preserved to us,
that everything necessary for doing this was placed at his command, among other things two public
carriages for conveying the completed manuscripts to the emperor for his personal inspection.
According to Eusebius:
Such were the emperor's commands, which were followed by the immediate execution of the work
itself, which we sent him in magnificent and elaborately bound volumes of a threefold and fourfold
form. (Vita Const. 4.36.37)
The exact meaning of the concluding words has been taken in a half dozen different senses. Two of
the most popular are, that the pages had 'three or four columns of script', or that as the copies were
completed, they were sent off for the emperor's inspection 'three or four at a time'. The astonishing
thing is that Eusebius, who took care to tell us at some length about the fluctuations of opinion in
regard to certain books, has not one word to say regarding the choice he made on this important
occasion. Of course, 50 magnificent copies, all uniform, could not but exercise a great influence on
great influence on future copies, at least within the bounds of the patriarchate of Constantinople,
and would help forward the process of arriving at a commonly accepted New Testament in the
East.
Some have suggested that the codex Sinaiticus is one of the 50 bibles commissioned by
Constantine, but its Alexandrian type of text makes this unlikely.
Around AD 235, Origen, a Christian scholar in Alexandria, completed the Hexapla, a comprehensive
comparison of the ancient versions and Hebrew text side-by-side in six columns, with diacritical markings
(a.k.a. "editor's marks", "critical signs" or "Aristarchian signs"). Much of this work was lost, but several
compilations of the fragments are available. In the first column was the contemporary Hebrew, in the
second a Greek transliteration of it, then the newer Greek versions each in their own columns. Origen also
kept a column for the Old Greek (the Septuagint) and next to it was a critical apparatus combining
readings from all the Greek versions with diacritical marks indicating to which version each line (Gr.
στἰχος) belonged. Perhaps the voluminous Hexapla was never copied in its entirety, but Origen's
combined text ("the fifth column") was copied frequently, eventually without the editing marks, and the
older uncombined text of the LXX was neglected. Thus this combined text became the first major Christian
recension of the LXX, often called the Hexaplar recension. In the century following Origen, two other
major recensions were identified by Jerome, who attributed these to Lucian and Hesychius.
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Alexander Bishop ng Alexandria
Alexander ng Alexandria ay pang 19 na Patriarka ng Alexandria mula 313 A.D.
hanggang pagkamatay niya noong 326 A.D. siya ang nagtala ng Easter, siya ay ang lider
na kontra sa Arianism sa First Council of Nicaea. Siya rin ang adviser ni Athanasius ng
Alexandria na pumalit sa kanya bilang lider ng Church fathers.
Athanasius ng Alexandria
Athanasius ng Alexandria (c 293-2 May 373) isang theologian, pumalit kay Bishop
Alexander ng Alexandria, Pope ng Alexandria, ay isang Egyptian. Siya ay kilala sa aral
niyang Trinity.
Arius
Arius (AD ca. 250 or 256 - 336) isang Paring Christian mula sa Alexandria, Egypt ang
nagpasimuno ng Arianism. Siya ay mula sa Libya na sakop pa ng Egypt, ang kanyang
ama ay si Ammonius. Si Arius ay estudyante ni Saint Lucian ng Antioch. Siya ay na
excommunikado ni Bishop Peter ng Alexandria sa kanyang pagsuporta sa paniniwala ni
Meletius. Si Bishop Peter ay pinalitan ni Bishop Achillas ay muling tinanggap bilang
Pari si Arius sa simbahan ng Baucalis sa distrito ng Alexandria.. Noong 318 A.D.
nakipagtalo siya sa kanyang Bishop si Alexander ng Alexandria na pumalit kay Bishop
Achillas. Ipinilit niya na si Iesous ( Jesus) "ang Son of God," ay hindi katulad o hindi
parehas na mananatili magpakailanman (co-eternal) kagaya ng God the Father, at
minsan binanggit niya na hindi tutuo ang Iesous (Jesus). Si Arius kasama ang kanyang
tigasunod na mga Pari ay na excommunikado, ngunit ang debate ay nagpatuloy sa
Eastern Roman Empire. Maraming bishops lalo na ang mga nakapag-aral kay Lucian ng
Antioch ay naniwala kay Arius. Sa panahong iyon si Constantine I ay ang naging
Emperador ng Silanganan noong 324 A.D. at ang mga debate ay matitindi sa panahong
iyon.
Maraming sinulat si Arius ngunit walang natira, inutos ni Emperor Constantine ang
pagsunog sa lahat ng sulat ni Arius at ang mga natira sa sinulat ni Arius ay sinira ng mga
nakalaban ni Arius.
Ang tatlong natira sa sinulat ni Arius ang sulat niya kay Alexander ng Alexandria na
naitago ng mga Athanasius, On the Councils of Arminum and Seleucia, 16; Epiphanius,
Refutation of All Heresies, 69.7; and Hilary, On the Trinity, 4.12), Ang sulat niya kay
Eusebius ng Nicomedia (as recorded by Epiphanius, Refutation of All Heresies, 69.6 and
Theodoret, Church History, 1.5) . Ang kanyang kumpisal kay Constantine (as recorded in
Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 1.26.2 and Sozomen, Church History 2.27.6-10).
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COUNCIL OF NICAEA
Noong 325 A.D. si Emperor Constantine ay binuo ang Council of Nicaea . Sa 1,800 na
Bishop na imbitado, 318 na Bishop lamang ang nakadalo. Natalo sa debate si Arius at si
Athanasius na ipinadala ni Bishop Alexander ng Alexandria ang pinanigan ni
Constantine na ang itinuturo ay ang Trinity.
Ang pananatili ni Athanasius ay hindi tumagal nang namatay si Bishop Alexander sa
Alexandria noong 327 A.D., pinalitan siya ni Athanasius bilang Bishop. Si Eustathius ng
Antioch na sumusuporta kay Athanasius ay natanggal dahil sa pakikipagtalo ka Eusebius
ng Caesaria. Si Marcellus ng Ancyra na isa pang kakampi ni Athanasius ay kinasuhan ng
Sabellianism sa kanyang pag-depensa sa Nicene Christology ay tinanggal noong 336 A.D.
Si Eusebius ng Nicomedia naman ay pinagbuntunan ng galit, si Athanasius ay sumulat
kay Emperor Constantine at pinabalik ni Emperor Constantine si Arius na nagtatago sa
Palestine. Inutusan din ni Constantine si Athanasius na tanggaping muli si Arius sa
komunyon, ngunit hindi pumayag si Athanasius kaya si Athanasius ay na exile sa Trier.
Ipinatawag si Arius ni Constantine upang husgahan at inutusan si Alexander ng
Constantinople na muling tanggapin si Arius sa komunyon, ngunit sa huling araw na
dapat magkomunyon si Arius ay bigla itong namatay. Ang sinabi ng mga kalaban ni
Arius ay ‗himala o miracle‘, samantalang sinabi ni Constantine ay ‗pinaslang o murder‘
dahil si Arius ay nilason ng kanyang mga kalaban.
Ang mga panig kay Arius sina Eusebius ng Nicomedia at Eusebius ng Caesarea ay
maimpluwensya ay ipinaglaban ang mga doktrina ni Arius.
Doktrina ni Arius
Na ang makapangyarihan (God) ay hindi laging ang Ama (Father) kundi may panahon
na hindi siya Ama, at ang mga salita ng Makapangyarihan (God) ay hindi
Magpakailanman (Eternity) kundi galing lang sa wala. Dahil ang Nananatiling
Makapangyarihan (Existing God) sa (‗the I AM‘—the eternal One) ay ginawa dahil hindi
siya dati nang nag- e-exist. (made him who did not previously exist) na nagmula sa wala,
at ang Anak ay Nilikha o isang ginawa. Hindi siya ang Ama kundi isa lang na Nilikha ng
Kanyang gawa at mali na tawaging Salita at Talino dahil isa rin siyang Nilikha ng Salita
ng Maykapal, na kung saan ay nilikha ng Ama ang lahat kasama siya. Kaya sa kanyang
natural na pagkatao ay makadadanas ng pagbabago kagaya ng lahat ng nilikha. Ang
Salita ay iba sa Ama at ang Ama ay hindi kayang ipaliwanag ng Anak at hindi niya
nakikita at ang Salita ay hindi kilala ang Ama at di nakikita. Ang Anak ay hindi alam ang
natural na pagkakakilanlan ng kanyang sarili dahil siya ay nilikha dahil sa atin upang
likhain tayo sa pamamagitan niya, kagaya ng instrumento. Nilikha Siya ng Ama dahil
ninais ng Ama na likhain tayo.
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Emperor Constantine Nagpabautismo sa Arian Priest
Ang asawa ni Constantine si Constantina ay naniniwala sa aral ni Arius. Si Emperor
Constantine ang kauna-unahang Roman Emperor na naging Christian. Siya ay
nabautismuhan ni Eusebius ng Nicomedia na isang Arian Priest.
Eusebius of Nicomedia (died 341) was the man who baptised Constantine. He was a bishop of
Berytus (modern-day Beirut) in Phoenicia, then of Nicomedia where the imperial court
resided in Bithynia, and finally of Constantinople from 338 up to his death.
Ang Mga Sumunod na Mga Bishop ng Alexandria
Cyril ng Alexandria
Cyril ng Alexandria (ca. 378 - 444) ay Bishop ng Alexandria sa kapanahunan ng
kasikatan ng Emperyo ng Romano ".
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom (c 347– c 407), Pangunahing Bishop ng Constantinople, sinulat niya
ang Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom .
Cappadocian Fathers
Ang mga eskolar sina Saint Macrina the Younger , Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa at
Peter of Sebaste na naging Bishop ng Sebaste. Ang mga eskolar kasama ang kanilang
kaibigan si Gregory Nazianzus ay ipinakita na ang mga Christian ay kayang makipag
usap sa mga mataas ang aral na nagsasalita ng Grego kahit na ang kanilang paniniwala
ay talihis kay Plato at Aristotle at iba pang Pilosopong Grego ay nakapag-dagdag ng
malaki sa pagkaka-kilala sa Trinity na tinapos sa First Council of Constantinople noong
381 A.D at ang pinal na bersyon ng Nicene Creed.
Mga Latin Fathers
Ang mga sumulat sa wikang Latin ay ang tinawag na Latin Fathers sila Tertullian, si
Cyprian ng Carthage, si Gregory the Great, si Augustine ng Hippo, si Ambrose ng Milan,
at si Jerome.
Tertullian Promotor ng Tawag na Old Testament at New Testament
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c 160 - c 225), ay naging Christian noong 197
A.D. ay isang manunulat at theologian ay isang anak ng Romanong Centurion. Siya ay
isang abogado sa Roma at binansagang ―Father of the Latin Church‖. Siya ang nag
lunsad ng salitang ―Trinitas‖ ng Christian Devine Trinity sa wikang Latin kahit na nauna
ng naisulat ni Theophilus of Antioch (c. 115 - c. 183) na nagmula sa Koine Greek at ang
―vetus testamentum (Old Testament) at "novum testamentum" (New Testament). Siya
rin ang nauna na tumawag ng "vera religio", na naging sistema ng Religion ng Roman
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Empire at iba pang tinanggap na Kulto na tinawag na "superstitions". Sa sumunod na
panahon sumali siya sa sektang Montanists na kontra sa umiiral na paniniwala.
Cyprian ng Carthage
Saint Cyprian (Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus) ay bishop ng Carthage ay isang
importanteng manunulat na ipinanganak sa Carthage na naging Bishop noong 249 A.D.
Ambrose ng Milan
Saint Ambrose (c. 338 – 4 April 397), ay bishop ng Milan na naging maimpluwensya at
isa sa apat na orihinal na Doctors of the Church.
Jerome of Stridonium
Saint Jerome (c 347 – September 30, 420) ay kilala na translator ng Biblia sa Latin mula
sa Grego at Hebreo na gumawa ng Vulgate Bible na ginagamit ng Roman Catholic
Church. Siya ay tinawag na Doctor of the Church.
Augustine ng Hippo
Saint Augustine (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), ay ipinanganak sa Algeria ay
naging Bishop ng Hippo, isang philosopher at theologian ay isang Latin Father at Doctor
of the Church. Siya ay importante sa paglaganap ng Western Christianity. Siya ay
naimpluwensyahan ng Platonism. Ang mga ginawa niya ay ipinagpatuloy ni Pope
Gregory the Great.
Gregory the Great
Saint Gregory I the Great (c. 540 – March 12, 604) ay ang pope mula September 3, 590
A.D. hanggang mamatay. Kilala rin siya bilang Gregorius Dialogus (Gregory the
Dialogist) sa Eastern Orthodoxy ay Doctor of the Church at pang apat sa great Latin
Fathers of the Church (ang ibang Latin Fathers sina Ambrose, Augustine, at Jerome).
Apologetic Fathers
Sina St. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Athenagoras of Athens, Hermias at Tertullian.
Ang Pangalawang Council of Nicea noong 787 A.D.
Ang ika-pitong Economical Council ng Roman Catholic sa Nicaea (Iznik sa Turkey) ay
ibinalik ang pagpuri sa mga imahen na pinatigil noong panahon ng Byzantine Empire sa
panahon ni Leo III.
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Modern positions
Sa Roman Catholic Church, si St. John ng Damascus, na nabuhay noong ika-walong
siglo ay ang pinaka-huling Church Fathers at ang una sa susunod na Church writers,
scholasticism. Si St. Bernard ay isa pa rin sa huling Church Fathers.
PINAGMULAN NG ENGLISH BIBLE
Mula sa Hexaplar Recension ay isinalin ito sa English Hexapla na New Testament ng Wiclif's
Bible noong 1380 A.D., William Tyndale's Bible noong 1534A.D., Cranmer's the Great Bible
noong 1539 A.D., ang Geneva Bible noong 1557 A.D., Rheims Bible noong 1582 A.D., at ang
Authorised, o King James Bible noong 1611 A.D., at naisalin na sa kasalukuyang New King
James Bible, NIV Bible, Holy Bible, Catholic Bible.
Hexapla (Ἑξαπλά: Gr. for "sixfold") is the term for an edition of the Bible in six
versions. Especially it applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by Origen
of Alexandria, which placed side by side in six (6) columns:
1. Hebrew Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language
2. Hebrew transliterated into Greek characters
3. Aquila of Sinope native of Pontus in Anatolia known for producing an exceedingly
literal translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek around 130 CE
4. Symmachus the Ebionite (fl. late 2nd century) was the author of one of the Greek
versions of the Old Testament
5. Septuagint 72 Jewish scholars first translated the Torah into Koine Greek in the third
century BC
6. Theodotion (d. ca. 200 A.D.) was a Hellenistic Jewish scholar
The English Hexapla is an edition of the New Testament in Greek, along with
what were considered the six most important English language translations in
parallel columns underneath, preceded by a detailed history of English
translations and translators by S. P. Tregelles.
The six English language translations provided are Wiclif's (1380), William
Tyndale's (1534), Cranmer's (the Great Bible 1539), the Geneva Bible (1557),
Rheims (1582), and the Authorised, or King James Bible, (1611).
The term "hexapla" signifies "six-fold" or "six-columned", and describes the
arrangement of the six English versions underneath the Greek text in the book.
The term "hexapla" is also applied to Origen's 3rd century edition of the Old
Testament, which present six versions of the old testament, in Hebrew, Hebrew
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in Greek letters, Aquila of Sinope's Greek version, Symmachus the Ebionite's
version, the LXX or Septuagint, and Theodotion's version.
The English Hexapla was published by Samuel Bagster and Sons, of Paternoster
Row, London, who are described on the title page as being a "warehouse for
Bibles, New Testaments, Prayer-books, Lexicons, Grammars, Concordances, and
Psalters, in ancient and modern languages." It was published in 1841
Protestant
Ang Protestant religioun kahit na nagbase sa Sola Scriptura (the principle that the Bible itself is
the ultimate authority in doctrinal matters), ang unang Protestant reformers, kagaya ng Catholic
at Orthodox churches, ay nagbase sa theological interpretations ng scripture na itinatag ng mga
naunang Church Fathers. Ang orihinal na Lutheran Augsburg Confession ng 1531 A.D. at ang
Formula of Concord ng 1576-1584 ay kagaya ng doktrina ng First Council of Nicea. Ang John
Calvin's French Confession of Faith of 1559 A.D. ay naglahad ng mga naitatag na ng sina-unang
council. Binigyan nila ng importansya ang Tradisyon at ang Interpretasyon ng mga sina-unang
Fathers kagaya ng Paleo-Orthodoxy.
Ang American Protestant ay ang United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, Episcopal
Church, at ang Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, ay iba ang doktrina at nag ordina ng
babaeng pastora at pati homosexual. Sila ay di naniniwala sa mga naunang simbahan at
naniniwala na ang lahat ay pwedeng dumerekta sa Maykapal kaya hindi na kailangan ng guidance
o doktrina ng simbahan.
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Latter-day Saints
Ang mga kaanib ng The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (o Mormons) ay tinatanggap
ang Biblia kasama ang New Testament bilang salita ng Maykapal kung ito ay naisalin ng tama.
Messianic Judaism
Messianic Judaism ay kagaya ng pagkilala ng maraming evangelical Protestants sa atoridad ng
New Testament.
Dead Sea Scroll
Ang natagpuan noong 1947 A.D. na maraming kasulatan sa Dead Sea Scroll lalo na ang mga
nakasulat sa Aramaic ay mas malapit at mas pumapabor sa Septuagint kaysa Masoretic text.
Sa simula noong 200 A.D. ang mga Hudyo ay maraming dahilan kaya hindi ginamit ang
Septuagint, dahil ang mga naunang mga Hentil (hindi tuli Epeso 2:11) na Christian ay
pinaniniwalaan at ginagamit ang Septuagint dahil hindi sila nakaka- intindi ng wikang Hebreo
kundi ng wikang Grego lamang.
Si Jerome ay isinalin ang Septuagint na wikang Latin (Vulgate Bible) ay napatunayan niya na ang
Hebrew text ay mas maraming nagpapatunay tungkol sa Messiah kaysa sa Septuagint kaya siya ay
Lumabas sa Tradisyon ng Simbahang Katoliko at isinalin niya ang Old Testament mula sa Hebreo
sa tinawag na Vulgate Bible. Ang kanyang pagpuna sa Septuagint ay pinulaan ng mga Augustine
at pinalabas na si Jerome ay isang (Forger) mandaraya ng kasulatan ngunit sa paglipas ng
panahon ay ang kanyang Old Testament na Vulgate Latin Bible ay sinapawan ang Septuagint.
Sa aklat ng Septuagint ay maraming aklat na hindi makikita sa Hebrew Bible. Marami sa mga
biblia ng Protestante ay sumunod sa Jewish canon at hindi isinama ang ibang aklat. Ang
Simbahang Katoliko naman ay isinama ang mga aklat na iyon, samantalang ang Simbahan ng
Eastern Orthodox ay ginagamit lahat ang mga aklat sa Septuagint, ganoon din ang Anglical
maliban lang sa Psalm 151. Ang King James Version naman ay isinama lahat ng nadagdag na aklat
at inilagay sa isang seksyon na tinawag na ‗Apocrypha‘.
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JULIUS WEELHAUSEN
Julius Wellhausen (May 17, 1844 – January 7, 1918), was a German biblical scholar and orientalist, noted particularly for his
contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/Torah (the first five books of the Bible).
Born at Hamelin in the Kingdom of Hanover, the son of a Protestant pastor,[1] he studied theology at the University of Göttingen
under Georg Heinrich August Ewald and became Privatdozent for Old Testament history there in 1870. In 1872 he was
appointed professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Greifswald. He resigned from the faculty in 1882 for reasons of
conscience, stating in his letter of resignation:[2]
I became a theologian because the scientific treatment of the Bible interested me; only gradually did I come to understand that a
professor of theology also has the practical task of preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and that I am not
adequate to this practical task, but that instead despite all caution on my own part I make my hearers unfit for their office. Since
then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience.
He became professor extraordinarius of oriental languages in the faculty of philology at Halle, was elected professor ordinarius at
Marburg in 1885, and was transferred to Göttingen in 1892 where he stayed until his death.
He is best known for his Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prologue to the History of Israel), a detailed synthesis of existing views
on the origins of the first five books of the Old Testament: Wellhausen's contribution was to place the development of these books into
a historical and social context. The resulting argument, called the documentary hypothesis, remained the dominant model among
biblical scholars until later in the 20th century.
Israel and Judah
The similarity of the two kings' names, Rehoboam and Jeroboam; is no coincidence. Both names in Hebrew
can mean that the people should become numerous or widespread. Each king apparently chose a throne name
that suggested his interest in the expansion of his portion of the once-united nation. Rehoboam ruled from
Jerusalem, the City of E)avid. Jeroboam made Shechem the capital of the new northern kingdom. The political
division of the country into two had enormous implications for the religion. Religion was not separate from
state. Jerusalem had been both the political capital and the religious center of the country. Jeroboam, king of
Israel, therefore was in an extremely difficult position. Israel and Judah might have become two separate
countries, but they still shared a common religion. Both worshiped the God Yahweh. Both held beliefs and
traditions about the patriarchs, the slavery and exodus from Egypt, and experiences at a mountain in the Sinai
wilderness. The Temple, the ark, and the chief priest of that religion were all located in Jerusalem. This meant
that at least on holidays, and on various other occasions as well, masses of Jeroboam's population would cross
the border into Judah, taking a sizable portion of the country's livestock and produce with them for sacrifices.
They would go to the City of David, pray and sacrifice at the Temple of Solomon, and see King Rehoboam in
the center of the activities. This scenario could hardly have filled Jeroboam's heart with feelings of stability.
Jeroboam could not just make up a new religion to keep the people from going to Jerusalem. He could,
however, establish for his new kingdom its own national version of the common religion.' And so the kingdom
of Israel, like the kingdom of Judah, continued to worship Yahweh, but Jeroboam established new religious
centers, new holidays, new priests, and new symbols of the religion. The new religious centers that were to
substitute for Jerusalem were the cities of Dan and Beth-El. Dan was the northernmost city in Israel, and BethEl was one of the farthest south. Beth-El was in fact only a short distance north of Jerusalem on the IsraelJudah border, and so any Israelites who might have thought of worshiping in Jerusalem would be inclined to
stop at Beth-El rather than make the additional travel—uphill—to Jerusalem. Jeroboam's new national
religious holiday was celebrated in the fall, one month after the major fall holiday of Judah. His new symbols
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of the religion, instead of the two golden cherubs in Jerusalem, were two molten golden calves. The word
"calves," which appears in most translations, is, by the way, misleading. The word in the Hebrew text means a
young bull, which is a symbol of strength, rather than the weaker images that the word "calf" usually connotes.
The calf, or young bull, was often associated with the god El, the chief god of the Canaanites, who was in fact
referred to as "Bull El." We therefore have some reason to believe that Jeroboam's version of the religion
somehow identified Yahweh with El. The idea that Yahweh and El were one would have the added value of
further uniting the Israelite population with the still large Canaanite population in Jeroboam's kingdom.
Jeroboam set up one of the golden calves in Beth-El and one in Dan. This was impressive because the calves,
like the cherub^ were not statues of gods, but only the pedestal of the invisible God Yahweh. Thus God may
have been pictured in Israel as enthroned over the entire kingdom, from the northern border to the southern,
rather than as enthroned only in the Temple as in Judah.
King Jeroboam's Priests
Jeroboam's choice of priests for the new kingdom was crucial. The northern Levites had suffered badly under
Solomon. Many had been residents of the twenty cities that Solomon gave to Hiram, the Phoenician king.
Those who came from Shiloh suffered the most. In the days of the judges, Shiloh had been the location of the
Tabernacle and ark, the people's central shrine. The priest-prophet-judge of Shiloh, Samuel, had designated
and anointed the first two kings, Saul and David. Abiathar, from the priests of Shiloh, had been one of the two
chief priests under David. Then Solomon expelled Abiathar for supporting the losing brother in the fight for
the succession, and the priests of Shiloh were out of power in Jerusalem. These members of the old priestly
establishment of Israel had as much reason as anyone, or more, to feel betrayed and excluded by the royal
house in Jerusalem. It is therefore interesting and hardly surprising that the prophet who instigated the
secession and designated Jeroboam as king was a man called Ahijah of Shiloh. The priests from Shiloh soon felt
betrayed and excluded 'again. Jeroboam did not appoint them either at Dan or Beth-El. At Dan there was an
old, established priesthood, founded by Moses' grandson according to the book of Judges. It probably
continued to function there. At Beth-El, Jeroboam was appointing new faces, including individuals who were
not Levites, to function at the altar of the golden calf. According to one biblical text, the new criterion for
appointment to the priesthood under Jeroboam was not whether one was a Levite, but whether one would "fill
his hand" with a young bull and seven rams. The priests from Shiloh had no place in Jeroboam's new religious
structure. They condemned the golden calves, which were the symbols of the religion, as heresy. Ahijah of
Shiloh, the same prophet who is credited with having designated Jeroboam as king, is said later to have
prophesied the fall of Jeroboam's family on account of the heresy. Since the tribe of Levi had no territory of its
own as the other tribes had, the Levites of Shiloh and elsewhere in Israel had only two choices: they could
move to Judah and try to find a place in the priestly hierarchy there, or they could remain in Israel and make
whatever living they could, perhaps performing various religious services outside of the two major religious
centers, perhaps depending on others' generosity. If the priests of Shiloh were indeed descendants of Moses,
their present status, or lack of status, in both kingdoms must have been bitter for them. They had fallen from
leadership of the nation to poor, landless dependency.
The Fall of Israel
The nation itself was now two nations, related but divided. They had a common language, a shared treasury of
traditions, and similar but not identical forms of religious expression. The total area that the two kingdoms
occupied was still quite small. The other areas that they controlled diminished considerably. Syria and Phoenicia
had already broken free of the empire in Solomon's time. After the division of the kingdom, Judah controlled
Edom, on its eastern border, for about a century, and then Edom rebelled and broke free. Israel controlled Moab
for about the same length of time, and then Moab, too, rebelled and became independent. Israel and Judah were
left as two small kingdoms, vulnerable to powerful nations like Egypt and Assyria. (See the map, p. 302.) In Israel
the monarchy was unstable. No family of kings ever held on to the throne for more than a few generations. The
kingdom lasted two hundred years. Then the Assyrian empire conquered it in 722 B.C. and ended its existence as a
nation. The population was dispersed. The Assyrians deported many Israelites into exile in various sections of the
Assyrian empire. The exiled Israelites have come to be known as the ten lost tribes of Israel. Presumably there
were also great numbers of refugees who fled from Israel south to Judah to escape the approaching Assyrian forces.
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In Judah the monarchy was extremely stable, one of the longestreigning dynasties in history. Judah survived for
over a hundred years past the destruction of Israel. During the two hundred years that these two kingdoms existed
side by side, there lived two of the writers we are seeking. Each composed a version of the people's story. Both
versions became part of the Bible. With this picture of the early years of the biblical world, we are now ready to
identify these two of the writers of the Bible.
J and E
Two Clues Converge
Two and a half thousand years after the events that I described in the last chapter took place, three
investigators of who wrote the Bible each independently made the same discovery. One was a minister, one
was a physician, and one was a professor. The discovery that they all made ultimately came down to the
combination of two pieces of evidence: doublets and the names of God. They saw that there were apparently
two versions each of a large number of biblical stories: two accounts of the creation, two accounts of each of
several stories about the patriarchs Abraham and Jacob, and so on. Then they noticed that, quite often, one of
the two versions of a story would refer to God by one name and the other version would refer to God by a
different name. In the case of the creation, for example, the first chapter of the Bible tells one version of how
the world came to be created, and the second chapter of the Bible starts over with a different version of what
happened. In many ways they duplicate each other, and on several points they contradict each other. For
example, they de- scribe the same events in different order. In the first version, God creates plants first, then
animals, then man and woman. In the second version, God creates man first. Then he creates plants. Then, so
that the man should not be alone, God creates animals. And last, after the man does not find a satisfactory
mate among the animals, God creates woman. And so we have:
1
Genesis 1
Plants
animals
man & woman
Genesis 2
man
plants
animals
woman
The two stories have two different pictures of what happened. Now, the three investigators noticed that the
first version of the creation story always refers to the creator as God—thirty-five times. The second version
always refers to h im by his name, Yahweh God— eleven times. The first version never calls him Yahweh; the
second version never calls him God. Later comes the story of the great flood and Noah's ark, and i t , too, can
be separated into two complete versions that sometimes duplicate each other and sometimes contradict each
other. And, again, one version always calls the deity God, and the other version always calls him Yahweh.
There are two versions of the story of the convenant between the deity and Abraham. And, once again, in one
the deity introduces himself as Yahweh, and in one he introduces himself as God. And so on. The investigators
saw that they were not simply dealing with a book that repeated itself a great deal, and they were not dealing
with a loose collection of somewhat similar stories. They had discovered two separate works that someone had
cut up and combined into one.
1
The group of biblical stories that referred to the deity as God "E," because the Hebrew word for God is El or
Elohim. He called the group of stories that referred to the deity as Yahweh "J" (which in German is
pronounced like English Y). The idea that the Bible's early history was a combination of two originally separate
works by two different people lasted only eighteen years. Practically before anyone had a chance to consider
the implications of this idea for the Bible and religion, investigators discovered that the first five books of the
Bible were not, in fact, even by two writers—they were by four. They discovered that E was not one but two
sources. The two had looked like only one because they both called the deity Elohim, not Yahweh. But the
investigators now noticed that within the group of stories that called the deity Elohim there were still
doublets. There were also differences of style, differences of language, and differences of interests. In short, the
same kinds of evidence that had led to the discovery of J and E now led to the discovery of a third source that
had been hidden within E. The differences of interests were intriguing. This third set of stories seemed to be
particularly intersted in priests. It contained stories about priests, laws about priests, matters of ritual,
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sacrifice, incense-burning, and purity, and concern with dates, numbers, and measurements. This source
therefore came to be known as the Priestly source—for short, P. The sources J, E, and P were found to flow
through the first four of the five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. However, there
was hardly a trace of them in the fifth book, Deuteronomy, except for a few lines in the last chapters.
Deuteronomy is written in an entirely different style from those of the other four books. The differences are
obvious even in translation. The vocabulary is different. There are different recurring expressions and favorite
phrases. There are doublets of whole sections of the first four books. There are blatant contradictions of detail
between it and the others. Even part of the wording of the Ten Commandments is different. Deuteronomy
appeared to be independent, a fourth source. It was called D. The discovery that the Torah of Moses was really
four works that had once been separate was not necessarily a crisis in itself. After all, the New Testament also
began with four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—each of which told the story in its own way. Why
then was there such a hostile reaction, among Christians and Jews, to the idea that the Old Testament (or
Hebrew Bible) might begin with four "gospels" as well? The difference was that the Hebrew Bible's four
sources had been combined so intricately and accepted as Moses' own writing for so long, about two thousand
years; the new discoveries were flying in the face of an old, accepted, sacred tradition. The biblical
investigators were unraveling a finely woven garment, and no one knew where these new investigations would
lead.
The Story of Noah—Twice
These first books of the Bible had as extraordinary a manner of composition as any book on earth. Imagine
assigning four different people to write a book on the same subject, then taking their four different versions
and cutting them up and combining them into one long, continuous account, then claiming that the account
was all by one person. Then imagine giving the book to detectives and leaving them to figure out
(1) that the book was not by one person,
(2) that it was by four,
(3) who the four were, and
(4) who combined them.
For those readers who want to get a better sense of how this tooks, I have translated the biblical story of
Noah's ark, as it appears in Genesis, with its two sources printed in two different kinds of type. The flood story
is a combination of the J source and the P source. J is printed here in regular type, and P is printed in boldface
capitals. If you read either source from beginning to end, and then go back and read the other one, you will be
able to see for yourself two complete, continuous accounts, each with its own vocabulary and concerns:
The Flood—Genesis 6:5-8:22
(Priestly text in boldface capitals, J text in regular type)
GENESIS 6:
5 And Yahweh saw that the evil of humans was great in the earth, and all the inclination of the thoughts of
their heart was only evil all the day.
6 And Yahweh regretted that he had made humans in the earth, and he was grieved to his heart.
7 And Yahweh said, " I shall wipe out the humans which I have created from the face of the earth, from human
to beast to creeping thing to bird of the heavens, for I regret that I have made them."
8 But Noah found favor in Yahweh's eyes.
9 THESE ARE T H E GENERATIONS OF N O A H : N O A H WAS A RIGHTEOUS MAN, PERFECT I N HIS GENERATIONS. N O A H
WALKED W I TH GOD.
10 AND N O A H SIRED THREE SONS: SHEM, H A M , A N D JAFHETH.
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11 AND THE EARTH WAS CORRUPTED BEFORE GOD, A N D THE EARTH WAS FILLED W I T H VIOLENCE.
12 AND G O D SAW T H E EARTH, A N D HERE I T WAS CORRUPTED, FOR ALL FLESH H A D CORRUPTED ITS WAY O N T H E
EARTH.
13 AND G O D SAID T O N O A H , " T H E END OF ALL FLESH HAS COME BEFORE ME, FOR THE EARTH IS FILLED W I T H
VIOLENCE BECAUSE OF THEM, A N D HERE I A M GOING T O DESTROY T H EM W I T H THE EARTH.
14 MAKE YOURSELF A N ARK OF GOPHER WOOD, MAKE ROOMS W I TH THE ARK, A N D PITCH I T OUTSIDE A N D INSIDE
W I T H PITCH.
15 AND THIS IS HOW YOU SHALL MAKE I T : THREE HUNDRED CUBITS THE LENGTH OF THE ARK, FIFTY CUBITS ITS WIDTH,
A ND THIRTY CUBITS ITS HEIGHT.
16 YOU SHALL MAKE A WINDOW FOR THE ARK, A N D YOU SHALL FINISH I T TO A CUBIT FROM T H E TOP, A N D YOU
SHALL MAKE A N ENTRANCE TO THE ARK I N ITS SIDE. Y O U SHALL MAKE LOWER, SECOND, A N D THIRD STORIES FOR I T
17 AND HERE I A M BRINGING THE FLOOD, WATER OVER THE EARTH, T O DESTROY ALL FLESH I N WHICH IS THE BREATH
OF LIFE FROM UNDER THE HEAVENS. EVERYTHING WHICH IS O N THE L A ND WILL DIE.
18 AND I SHALL ESTABLISH MY COVENANT W I T H YOU. A N D YOU SHALL COME TO THE ARK, YOU A N D YOUR SONS A N
D YOUR WIFE A N D YOUR SONS' WIVES W I T H YOU.
19 A N D OF A L L THE LIVING, OF ALL FLESH, YOU SHALL BRING TWO TO THE ARK T O KEEP ALIVE W I T H YOU, THEY
SHALL BE MALE AND FEMALE.
20 OF THE BIRDS ACCORDING TO THEIR KIND, A N D OF THE BEASTS ACCORDING T O THEIR KIND, A N D OF ALL THE
CREEPING THINGS OF THE EARTH ACCORDING T O THEIR KIND, TWO OF EACH WILL COME TO YOU T O KEEP ALIVE.
21 AND YOU, TAKE FOR YOURSELF OF ALL FOOD WHICH WILL BE EATEN A N D GATHER I T TO YOU, A N D I T WILL BE
FOR YOU A N D FOR THEM FOR FOOD."
22 AND N O A H D I D ACCORDING TO ALL T H A T G O D COMMANDED HIM—SO H E D I D .
GENESIS 7:
1 And Yahweh said to Noah, "Come, you and all your household, to the ark, for 1 have seen you as righteous
before me in this generation.
2 Of all the clean beasts, take yourself seven pairs, man and his woman; and of the beasts which are not clean,
two, man and his woman.
3 Also of the birds of the heavens seven pairs, male and female, to keep alive seed on the face of the earth.
4 For in seven more days I shall rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and I shall wipe out all the
substance that I have made from upon the face of the earth."
5 And Noah did according to all that Yahweh had commanded him.
6 A N D N O A H WAS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD, A N D T H E FLOOD WAS ON THE EARTH.
7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him came to the ark from before the waters of
the flood.
8 OF THE CLEAN BEASTS A N D OF THE BEASTS WHICH WERE NOT CLEAN, A N D OF THE BIRDS A N D OF ALL THOSE
WHICH CREEP UPON THE EARTH,
9 TWO OF EACH CAME TO N O A H T O THE ARK, MALE A N D FEMALE, AS G O D HAD COMMANDED N O A H .
10 And seven days later the waters of the flood were on the earth.
11 IN T H E sue HUNDREDTH YEAR OF NOAH'S LIFE, I N T H E SECOND MONTH, I N THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE
MONTH, O N THIS DAY ALL T H E FOUNTAINS OF T H E GREAT DEEP WERE BROKEN UP, A N D T HE
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WINDOWS OF T H E HEAVENS WERE OPENED.
12 And there was rain on the earth, forty days and forty nights.
13 I N THIS VERY DAY, N O A H A N D SHEM, H A M , A N D JAPHETH, THE SONS OF N O A H , A N D NOAH'S WIFE A N D H I S
SONS* THREE WIVES W I T H THEM CAME TO T H E ARK,
14 THEY AND ALL THE LIVING THINGS ACCORDING TO THEIR KIND, A N D ALL THE BEASTS ACCORDING T O THEIR KIND,
A N D ALL THE CREEPING THINGS THAT CREEP O N THE EARTH ACCORDING TO THEIR KIND, A N D ALL THE BIRDS
ACCORDING TO THEIR KIND, A N D EVERY WINGED BIRD.
15 AND THEY CAME TO N O A H TO THE ARK, TWO OF EACH, OF ALL FLESH I N W H I C H IS T H E BREATH OF LIFE.
16 AND THOSE WHICH CAME WERE MALE A N D FEMALE, SOME OF ALL FLESH CAME, AS GOD HAD COMMANDED H I M .
And Yahweh closed it for him.
17 And the flood was on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and the waters multiplied and raised the ark,
and it was lifted from the earth.
18 And the waters grew strong and multiplied greatly on the earth, and the ark went on the surface of the
waters.
19 And the waters grew very very strong on the earth, and they covered all the high mountains that are under
all the heavens.
20 Fifteen cubits above, the waters grew stronger, and they covered the mountains.
21 AND ALL FLESH, THOSE THAT CREEP ON THE EARTH, THE BIRDS, THE BEASTS, A N D THE WILD ANIMALS, A N D A L L
THE SWARM' I N G THINGS THAT SWARM O N THE EARTH, A N D ALL THE HUMANS EXPIRED.
22 Everything that had the breathing spirit of life in its nostrils, everything that was on the dry ground, died.
23 And he wiped out all the substance that was on the face of the earth, from human to beast, to creeping
thing, and to bird of the heavens, and they were wiped out from the earth, and only Noah and those who were
with him in the ark were left.
24 A N D T H E WATERS GREW STRONG O N THE EARTH A HUNDRED FIFTY DAYS.
GENESIS 8:
1 AND G O D REMEMBERED N O A H A N D ALL T H E LIVING, A N D ALL THE BEASTS T H A T WERE W I T H H I M I N T H E
ARK, A N D G O D PASSED A WIND OVER THE EARTH, A N D T H E WATERS WERE DECREASED.
2 A N D T H E FOUNTAINS OF THE DEEP A N D T H E WINDOWS OF THE HEAVENS WERE SHUT, and the rain was
restrained from the heavens.
3 And the waters receded from the earth continually, A N D T HE WATERS WERE ABATED A T THE END OF A
HUNDRED FIFTY DAYS.
4 A N D THE ARK RESTED, I N T H E SEVENTH MONTH, I N THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF T H E MONTH, O N T H E
MOUNTAINS OF ARARAT.
5 A N D THE WATERS CONTINUED RECEDING UNTIL THE TENTH MONTH; I N T H E TENTH MONTH, O N THE FIRST OF THE
MONTH, THE TOPS OF T H E MOUNTAINS APPEARED.
6 And it was at the end of forty days, and Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made.
7 AND HE SENT OUT A RAVEN, A N D I T WENT BACK A N D FORTH UNTIL THE WATERS DRIED U P FROM THE EARTH.
8 And he sent out a dove from him to see whether the waters had eased from the face of the earth.
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9 And the dove did not find a resting place for its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for waters were on
the face of the earth, and he put out his hand and took it and brought it to him to the ark.
10 And he waited seven more days, and he again sent out a dove from the ark.
11 And the dove came to him at evening time, and here was an olive leaf torn off in its mouth, and Noah knew
that the waters had eased from the earth.
12 And he waited seven more days, and he sent out a dove, and it did not return to him ever again.
13 AND I T WAS I N THE SIX HUNDRED AND FIRST YEAR, I N THE FIRST MONTH, O N THE FIRST OF THE MONTH, THE
WATERS DRIED FROM THE EARTH. And Noah turned back the covering of the ark and looked, and here the
face of the earth had dried.
14 AND I N THE SECOND MONTH, O N THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY OF T H E MONTH, T H E EARTH DRIED UP.
15 AND GOD SPOKE TO N O A H , SAYING,
16 "GO OUT FROM THE ARK, YOU A N D YOUR WIFE A N D YOUR SONS' WIVES W I T H YOU.
17 ALL THE L I V I N G THINGS THAT ARE W I T H YOU, OF ALL FLESH, OF THE BIRDS, A N D OF THE BEASTS, A N D OF ALL
THE CREEPING THINGS THAT CREEP ON THE EARTH, THAT GO OUT W I T H YOU, SHALL SWARM I N THE EARTH A N D BE
FRUITFUL A N D MULTIPLY I N THE EARTH."
18 AND N O A H A N D HIS SONS A N D HIS WIFE A N D HIS SONS' WIVES WENT OUT.
19 ALL THE L I V I N G THINGS, ALL THE CREEPING THINGS A N D ALL THE BIRDS, ALL T H A T CREEP O N THE EARTH, BY
THEIR FAMILIES, THEY WENT O U T OF THE ARK.
20 And Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took some of each of the clean beasts and of each of the clean
birds, and he offered sacrifices on the altar.
21 And Yahweh smelled the pleasant smell, and Yahweh said to his heart, " I shall not again curse the ground
on man's account, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from their youth, and I shall not again strike
all the living as I have done.
22 All the rest of the days of the earth, seed and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day
and night shall not cease."
Each in Its Own Words
The very fact that it is possible to separate out two continuous stories like this is remarkable itself, and it is
strong evidence for the hypothesis. One need only try to do the same thing with any other book to see how
impressive this phenomenon is. But it is not only that it is possible to carve out two stories. What makes the
case so powerful is that each story consistently uses its own language. The P story (the one in boldface)
consistently refers to the deity as God. The J story always uses the name Yahweh. P refers to the sex of the
animals with the words "male and female" (Gen 6:19; 7:9,16). J uses the terms "man and his woman" (7:2) as
well as male and female. P says that everything "expired" (6:17; 7:21). J says that everything "died" (7:22).The
two versions do not just differ on terminology. They differ on actual details of the story. P has one pair of each
kind of animal. J has seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. ("Clean" means fit for
sacrifice. Sheep are clean; lions are unclean.) P pictures the flood as lasting a year (370 days). J says it was forty
days and forty nights. P has Noah send out a raven. J says a dove. P obviously has a concern for ages, dates, and
measurements in cubits. J does not. Probably the most remarkable difference of all between the two is their
different ways of picturing God. It is not just that they call the deity by different names. J pictures a deity who
can regret things that he has done (6:6,7), which raises interesting theological questions, such as whether an
all-powerful, all-knowing being would ever regret past actions. I t pictures a deity who can be "grieved to his
heart" (6:6), who personally closes the ark (7:16) and smells Noah's sacrifice (8:21). This anthropomorphic
quality of J is virtually entirely lacking in P. There God is regarded more as a transcendent controller of the
universe. The two flood stories are separable and complete. Each has its own language, its own details, and
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even its own conception of God. And even that is not the whole picture. The J flood story's language, details,
and conception of God are consistent with the language, details, and conception of God in other J stories. The
P flood story is consistent with other P stories. And so on. The investigators found each of the sources to be a
consistent collection of stories, poems, and laws.
The Doorstep
The discovery that there were four separate, internally consistent documents came to be known as the
Documentary Hypothesis. The process was also called "Higher Criticism." What had begun as an idea by three
men of the eighteenth century came to dominate investigations of the Bible by the end of the nineteenth
century. It had taken centuries of collecting clues to arrive at this stage which one could regard as fairly
advanced or really quite minimal, depending on one's point of view. On the one hand, for centuries no one
could easily challenge the accepted tradition that Moses was the author of the Five Books, and now people of
acknowledged piety could say and write openly that he was not. They were able to identify at least four hands
writing in the first five books of the Bible. Also, there was the hand of an extremely skillful collector known as
a redactor, someone who was capable of combining and organizing these separate documents into a single
work that was united enough to be readable as a continuous narrative. On the other hand, what these
detectives of biblical origins had arrived at was only the doorstep. They were able to see that a puzzle existed,
and they were able to begin to get an idea of how complex the puzzle was going to be. True, they could
identify four documents and a redactor, but who wrote those documents? When did they live? What was their
purpose? Did they know each other's work? Did any of them know that they were writing a Bible, a work to be
held as sacred and authoritative? And the mysterious redactor: was it one person, or were there several? Who
were they? Why did they combine the documents in this complex way? The answers were buried in the pages
of the Bible and in the soil of the Middle East. By digging into both, my predecessors and I found out how the
stories in those pages were connected with that world.
4
Two Countries, Two Writers
The first two sources, J and E, were written by two persons who lived during the period that I described in the
last chapter. They were tied to the life of that period, its major events, its politics, its religion, and its
catastrophes. In this chapter I intend to demonstrate this and to identify the persons who wrote them. First,
the author of J came from Judah and the author of E came from Israel. A number of biblical scholars before me
have suggested this, but what is new here is that I mean to present a stronger collection of evidence for this
than has been made known before, I mean to be more specific about who the two writers were, and I mean to
show more specifically how the biblical stories actually related to these two men and to the events of their
world. The mere fact that different stories in the first books of the Bible call God by different names of course
proves nothing in itself. Someone could write about the queen of England and sometimes call her the queen
and sometimes call her Elizabeth I I . But, as I have said, there was something more suspicious about the way
the different names of the deity lined up in the first few books of the Bible. The two different names, Yahweh
and Elohim, seemed to line up consistently in each of the two versions of the same stories in the doublets. If
we separate the Elohim (E) stories from the Yahweh (J) stories, we get a consistent series of clues that the E
stories were written by someone concerned with Israel and the J stories by someone concerned with Judah.
J from Judah, E from Israel
First, there is the matter of the settings of the stories. In Genesis, in stories that call God Yahweh, the patriarch
Abraham lives in Hebron. Hebron was the principal city of Judah, the capital of Judah under King David, the
city from which David's Judean chief priest, Zadok, came. In the covenant that Yahweh makes with Abraham,
he promises that Abraham's descendants will have the land "from the river of Egypt to t h e . . . river
Euphrates." These were the nation's boundaries under King David, the founder of Judah's royal family. But in a
story that calls God Elohim, Abraham's grandson Jacob has a face-to-face fight with someone who turns out to
be God (or perhaps an angel), and Jacob names the place where it happens Peni-El (which means "Face-ofGod"). Peni-El was a city that King Jeroboam built in Israel. Both sources, J and E, tell stories about the city of
Beth-El, and both kingdoms, Judah and Israel, made political claims on Beth-El, which was on the border
between them. Both sources, J and E, tell stories about the city of Shechem, which Jeroboam built and made
the capital of Israel. But the two stories are very different. According to the J story, a man named Shechem,
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who is the original prince of that city, loves Jacob's daughter Dinah and sleeps with her. He then asks for her
hand in marriage. Jacob's sons reply that they could not contemplate this or any intermarriage with the people
of Shechem because the Shechemites are not circumcised and the sons of Jacob are. The prince of Shechem
and his father Hamor therefore persuade all the men of Shechem to undergo circumcision. While the men are
immobile from the pain of the surgery, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, enter the city, kill all of the men,
and take back their sister Dinah. Their father Jacob criticizes them for doing this, but they answer, "Should he
treat our sister like a whore?" And that is the end of the story. This J story of how Israel acquired its capital
city is not a very pleasant one. The E story, meanwhile, tells it this way: And [Jacob] bought the portion of the
field where he pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for a hundred qesita.
How did Israel acquire Shechem? The E author says they bought it. The J author says they massacred it .
1 0
The Origins of the Tribes
In the stories of the birth of Jacob's sons and grandsons—each of whom becomes the ancestor of a tribe—
there is usually a reference to the deity as they name the child. The group of stories that invoke Elohim are the
stories of:
Dan
Naphtali
Gad
Asher
Issachar
Zebulon
Ephraim
Manasseh
Benjamin
12
In short, the Elohim group includes the names of all of the tribes of Israel. The group of stories that invoke the
name of Yahweh are the stories of:
Reuben
Simeon
Levi
Judah
The first three of the four names on this list are the names of tribes who lost their territory and merged into
the other tribes. The only name of a tribe with existing territory in the Yahweh narrative is Judah. The J story
goes even further to justify the ascendancy of Judah. According to the story, Reuben is the firstborn son,
Simeon is the second, Levi the third, and Judah the fourth. In the ancient Near East, birth order was extremely
important, because the firstborn son was entitled to the birthright, which meant the largest portion of the
father's inheritance (generally double the other brothers' inheritances). We should therefore have expected
Reuben, the oldest son, to have the birthright. But there is a story that reports that Reuben sleeps with one of
his father's concubines, and his father finds out. The next two sons in line for the birthright would be Simeon
and Levi. But in the J Shechem story they are the ones who massacre the city and are criticized by their father.
And so, in J, the birthright comes to the fourth son: Judah! In Jacob's poetic deathbed blessing of his sons, here
is what he says about Reuben:
Reuben, you are my firstborn,
My strength and the beginning of my power, Preeminent in dignity and preeminent of might. Unstable as
water, you shall not be preeminent Because you went up to your father's bed.
And here is what he says about Simeon and Levi:
Simeon and Levi are brothers, Implements of destruction are their tools of trade. . . . In their anger the} killed a
man, And by their will they houghed a bull. Cursed is therr anger, for it is fierce, And their wrath, for it is harsh.
I shall divide them in Jacob, And I shall scatter them in Israel.
But he says about Judah:
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Judah, you are the one your brothers will praise. ..Your father's sons will bow down to you.Judah gets the
birthright in J.
Who gets it in E? In the E version of Jacob's deathbed scene, Jacob bequeathes the double portion to Joseph,
announcing that each of Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, will receive a full portion, equivalent to
the portions of Reuben, Simeon, and the others. Why did the author of E favor Joseph and his sons? The
answer lies in one more detail of E's story. When Jacob is giving his deathbed blessing to Joseph and his sons,
Joseph sets his sons in front of Jacob in such a way that Jacob will put his right hand on the head of Manasseh,
the older son. The right hand is the sign of preeminence. But Jacob crosses his arms, so his right hand is on
Ephraim's head. Joseph protests the reversal, but Jacob insists that Ephraim will become greater. What is it
about Ephraim? Why does the author of E develop the hierarchy to culminate not in any of Jacob's sons, but in
one of his grandsons who is not even a firstborn? Was there anything historically significant about the tribe of
Ephraim in the writer's age? Answer: Ephraim was King Jeroboam's tribe. Jeroboam's capital city, Shechem,
was located in the hills of Ephraim. Ephraim, in fact, was used as another name for the kingdom of Israel.
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19
Evidence from the Stories
The J stories fit the cities and territory of Judah. The E stories fit the cities and territory of Israel. I found that
other details of the stories consistently fit this picture as well: Both J and E have versions of the story of Joseph.
In both, Joseph's brothers are jealous of him and plan to kill him, but one of the brothers saves him. In E it is
Reuben, the oldest, who saves him. But in J it is Judah who saves him. The E story of Jacob's deathbed
testament has a pun in the Hebrew. In creating portions for Ephraim and Manasseh, Jacob tells Joseph, " I have
given you one portion more than your brothers." The Hebrew word that is translated here as "portion" is
sekem, or as we pronounce it in English, Shechem. Telling the father of Ephraim that he is getting an extra
Shechem is like telling the governor of Michigan, " I have given the other states some trees, but I have given
you an arbor."
2 1
2 2
23
The J stories meanwhile seem to be punning on the name of the first king of Judah after the division:
Rehoboam. The Hebrew root of the name Rehoboam (r-h-b) occurs six times in the J stories, usually
suggesting, as does the king's name, the expanse of the country.
24
The root never occurs in E.
According to an E story, Joseph makes a deathbed request in Egypt that someday his bones should be carried
back to his homeland for burial. A t the end of the E story of the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites do carry his
bones back with them. * This concern for the burial of Joseph only occurs in E. Where was the traditional
location of the tomb of Joseph? In Shechem, capital of Israel. Both J and E have stories of the enslavement of
the people in Egypt. The J source usually refers to the Egyptians who oversee the slaves as "taskmasters," but in
a passage that appears to be E they are called "officers of misstm. " Recall that missim was the term for King
Solomon's forced-labor policy, a policy that was one of the main reasons for the secession of the northern
tribes of Israel. The E wording appears to be an insult to Judah and its royal family. The insult may be a double
one, because the most prominent of Solomon's wives was the daughter of the pharaoh of that period.
25
2
27
28
The book of 1 Kings lists her first among his wives. Such a marriage would have been a notable one, further,
because the kings of Egypt disdained marrying their daughters to foreigners. There is no other case recorded
in the ancient Near East of a marriage of an Egyptian princess to a foreign ruler.
2 9
In E, Moses' faithful assistant is Joshua. Joshua leads the people in battle against the Amalekites; he serves as
watchman inside the Tent of Meeting whenever Moses is not meeting with the deity there; he is the only
Israelite who is not involved in the golden calf incident; and he seeks to prevent the misuse of prophecy. In J,
on the other hand, Joshua plays no role. Why the special treatment of Joshua in E but not in J ? Joshua was a
northern hero. He is identified as coming from the tribe of Ephraim, Jeroboam's tribe; Joshua's tomb is in the
territory of Ephraim, and, according to the last chapter of the book of Joshua, Joshua's work culminates in a
covenant ceremony at Shechem.
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According to a J story, Moses sends a group of spies from the wilderness into the promised land. A l l but one
of the spies report that the land is impregnable because its inhabitants are so huge and fierce. The one spy
who challenges this report and encourages the people to have faith is Caleb. In the story, the spies travel
through the Negev (the southern desert of the land), the hill country, as far as Hebron, then to the Wadi
Eshkol. A l l of these places are in Judah's territory. In J, the spies only see Judah." As for the hero of the story,
Caleb, he is the eponymous ancestor of the Calebites. The Calebites held territory in the hill country of Judah.
The Calebite territory in fact included Hebron, Judah's capital.The cumulative, consistent conclusion from all
of this evidence, it seems to me, is: (1) the early investigators were right about the existence of the two sources,
J and E; (2) the person who wrote J was particularly concerned with the kingdom of Judah, and the person who
wrote E was particularly interested in the kingdom of Israel. Still, as I said in the introduction we are
interested in more than the authors' real estate preferences. The question is, why did they write these stories?
What was happening in their world that prompted them to write these things?
The Twins
Take, for example, the biblical stories about the twins Jacob and Esau. In these stories, Abraham's son, Isaac,
marries Rebekah, and she gives birth to twin sons. The first to come out of his mother's womb is Esau. The
secondbom is Jacob. While they are still in Rebekah's womb, Yahweh tells Rebekah:
Two nations are in your womb, And two peoples will be separated from inside you; And one people will be
stronger than the other people, And the greater will serve the younger.
The boys grow. On one occasion, Esau comes back from the field famished. His brother, Jacob, is making red
lentil stew. Jacob tells Esau that he will give him some of the food only if Esau swears to give him his birthright
in return. Esau capitulates.
5
More time passes. Their father, Isaac, intends to give his deathbed blessing to Esau. Rebekah, however,
encourages Jacob to pose as his elder brother and thus deceive his weak-eyed father into giving him the
blessing instead. Jacob does it. He wears his brother's clothing, and he puts goat skins on his arms because his
brother is "an hairy man." Isaac gives Jacob the blessing, which includes dominion over his brother. When Esau
arrives, Isaac tells him that the blessing has already gone to Jacob. Esau asks for a blessing as well. His father
gives him the following:
By your sword you will live And you will serve your brother. And it will be, when you are brought down, That you
will break his yoke from your shoulders.
Why did someone write these stories, with these details? The answers are tied to the life of the writer's world.
Why red lentil stew? Because, the story says, Esau became known after that as "Red." The word for "red" in
Hebrew is Edom. That is, Esau is traditionally regarded as the father of the Edomites.
Why twin brothers?
Because the people of Israel-Judah regarded the Edomites as kin, as related to them ethnically and/or
linguistically (as opposed to, say, Egyptians or Philistines, who were regarded as "outsiders").
Why the revelation to Rebekah that her younger son's descendants would dominate her older son's? Because
the young kingdom of Israel-Judah, under King David, defeated the older kingdom of Edom and dominated it
for two hundred years.
Why does Jacob get the birthright (a double portion) and the blessing (prosperity and dominion)? Because
Israel-Judah became larger and more prosperous than Edom and dominated i t .
Why does Esau/Edom get a blessing that "you will break his yoke from your shoulders"? Because Edom finally
broke free and achieved its independence during the reign of the Judean King Jehoram (848-842 B.C.).
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These stories all refer to the deity as Yahweh or show other signs of being part of J. Why do stories about
relations with Esau/Edom occur in J and not in E? J is from Judah. Judah bordered Edom, Israel did not. On
each point, the details of the stories correspond to the histori cal record. The J author composed the stories of
his people's ancestors with an eye to explaining and justifying the world situation in which he lived. Sunday
school versions of this story often try to vindicate Jacob. With slight changes or reinterpretations, they make
Jacob the good son and Esau the bad one. But the J writer was more sophisticated then his later interpreters.
He told a story in which Jacob was courageous and clever, but also dishonest. He did not make his heroes
perfect (any more than the Court History of David made David perfect). His task was rather to compose a
story that reflected and explained the political and social realities of the world that he knew. Anyone who
reads the stories of Jacob and Esau can see how well he succeeded.
Two Kingdoms also Two Writers
THE Bible's stories have proved to be a chain of clues to the identity of their authors, and at the same time
they have proved to be windows into that ancient world. The J stories reflect conditions in the time and place
in which their author lived, and they show where some of this writer's interests lay. The E stories reveal more
about their author's identity than the J stories do about theirs.
The Golden Calf
The most revealing of all is the E story of the golden calf, which I summarized briefly in the Introduction.
While Moses is getting the Ten Commandments on the mountain of God, Aaron makes a golden calf for the
people. They say, "These are your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt." Aaron says, "A
holiday to Yahweh tomorrow!" The people sacrifice and celebrate wildly. Meanwhile, God tells Moses what is
happening below, and God says that he will destroy the people and start a new people descended from Moses.
Moses pleads with God to be merciful, and God relents. Moses comes down from the mountain with his
assistant Joshua. When he sees the calf and the condition of the people, he smashes the tablets in anger. Then
the tribe of Levi gather around Moses and carry out a bloody purge among the people. Moses makes a plea to
God to forgive the people's offense and not destroy them. The story is all questions. Why did the person who
wrote this story depict his people as rebellious at the very time of their liberation and their receiving the
covenant? Why did he picture Aaron as leader of the heresy? Why does Aaron not suffer any punishment for
it in the end? Why did the author picture a golden calf. Why do the people say "These are your gods, Israel...,"
when there is only one calf there? And why do they say " . . . that brought you up from the land of Egypt" when
the calf obviously was not made until after they were out of Egypt? Why does Aaron say "A holiday to Yahweh
tomorrow" when he is presenting the calf as a rival to Yahweh? Why is the calf treated as a god in this story,
when the calf was not a god in the ancient Near East? Why did the writer picture Moses as smashing the
tablets of the Ten Commandments? Why picture the Levites as acting in bloody zeal? Why include Joshua in
the story? Why depict Joshua as dissociated from the golden calf event?
1
2
We already have enough information from our acquaintances with the world that produced the Bible to
answer all of these questions. We have already seen considerable evidence that the author of J was from Judah
and the author of E from Israel. We have also seen evidence that suggests that the Israelite author of E had a
particular interest in matters that related to King Jeroboam and his policies. E deals with cities that Jeroboam
rebuilt: Shechem, Penuel, Beth-El. E justifies the ascendancy of his home tribe, Ephraim. E disdains the Judean
policy of missfm. E gives special attention to the matter of the burial of Joseph, whose traditional gravesite was
in Jeroboam's capital, Shechem. Further, E is a source which particularly emphasizes Moses as its hero, much
more than J does. In this story, it is Moses' intercession with God that saves the people from destruction. E
also especially develops Moses' personal role in the liberation from slavery, in a way that ] does not. In E there
is less material on the patriarchs than on Moses; in J there is more on the patriarchs.
Let us consider the possibility that the person who wrote E was a Levitical priest, probably from Shiloh, and
therefore possibly descended from Moses. Such a person would have an interest in developing these things:
the oppressive Judean economic policies, the establishment of an independent kingdom under Jeroboam, and
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the superior status of Moses. If this is true, that the author of E was a Shiloh Levite possibly descended from
Moses, then this answeis every one of the questions about the golden calf story. Recall that the priests of
Shiloh suffered the loss of their place in the priestly hierarchy under King Solomon. Their chief, Abiathar, was
expelled from Jerusalem. The other chief priest, Zadok, who was regarded as a descendant of Aaron,
meanwhile remained in power. Northern Levites' lands were given to the Phoenicians. The Shiloh prophet
Ahijah instigated the northern tribes' secession, and he designated Jeroboam as the northern king. The Shiloh
priests' hopes for the new kingdom, however, were frustrated when Jeroboam established the golden calf
religious centers at Dan and Beth-El, and he did not appoint them as priests there. For this old family of
priests, what should have been a time of liberation had been turned into a time of religious betrayal. The
symbol of their exclusion in Israel was the golden calves. The symbol of their exclusion in Judah was Aaron.
Someone from that family, the author of E, wrote a story that said that soon after the Israelite's liberation from
slavery, they committed heresy. What was the heresy? They worshiped a golden calf I Who made the golden
calf! Aaron! The details of the story fall into place. Why does Aaron not suffer any punishment in the story?
Because no matter how much antipathy the author may have felt toward Aaron's descendants, that author
could not change the entire historical recollection of his people. They had a tradition that Aaron was an
ancient high priest. The high priest cannot be pictured as suffering any hurt from God because in such a case
he could not have continued to serve as high priest. Any sort of blemish on the high priest would have
disqualified him from service. The author could not just make up a story that the high priest had become
disqualified at this early stage. Why does Aaron say "A holiday to Yahweh tomorrow" when he is presenting
the calf as a rival to Yahweh? Because the calf is not in fact a rival god. The calf, or young bull, is only the
throne platform or symbol of the deity, not a deity itself. Why is the calf treated as a god in this story?
Presumably because the story is polemical; the writer means to cast the golden calves of the kingdom of Israel
in the worst light possible. In fact, we shall see other cases in which biblical writers use the word "gods" to
include the golden calves and the golden cherubs; and in those cases, too, the text is polemical.
Why do the people say "These are your gods, Israel..." when there is only one calf? Why do they say " . . . that
brought you up from the land of Egypt" when the calf was not made until they were out of Egypt? The answer
seems to lie in the account of King Jeroboam in the book of 1 Kings. It states there that when Jeroboam made
his two golden calves he declared to his people, "Here are your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land
of Egypt." The people's words in Exodus are identical to Jeroboam's words in 1 Kings. It would be difficult for
us to trace the textual history of these two passages now, but at minimum we can say that the writer of the
golden calf account in Exodus seems to have taken the words that were traditionally ascribed to Jeroboam and
placed them in the mouths of the people. This made the connection between his golden calf story and the
golden calves of the kingdom of Israel crystal clear to his readers.
3
Why did the writer of E picture the Levites as acting in bloody zeal? He was a Levite. He wrote that Aaron had
acted rebelliously while the other Levites alone acted loyally. Moses tells the Levites there that they have
earned blessing by their actions. The story thus denigrates the ancestory of the Jerusalem priests while
praising the rest of the Levites.
What is Joshua doing in this story, and why is he singled out as being dissociated from the heresy? Because, as
we know, Joshua was a northern hero. His home tribe was the same as King Jeroboam's: Ephraim. His
gravesite, like Joseph's, was in Ephraim. He is credited with having led a national covenant ceremony at
Shechem, the place that was later to become Jeroboam's capital. The E writer therefore was adding to the
golden calf story an element of praise for a northern hero who was associated in the tradition with the capital
city and the preeminent tribe. The dissociation of Joshua from the golden calf heresy also explained why
Joshua later becomes Moses' successor.
Why did the writer picture Moses as smashing the tablets of the Ten Commandments? Possibly because this
raised doubts about Judatis central religious shrine. The Temple in Judah housed the ark that was supposed to
contain the two tablets of the Ten Commandments.
According to the E story of the golden calf, Moses smashes the tablets. That means that according to the E
source the ark down south in the Temple in Jerusalem either contains unauthentic tablets or no tablets at all.
The author of E, in fashioning the golden calf story, attacked both the Israelite and the Judean religious
establishments. Both had excluded his group. One might ask, why, then, was this writer so favorable to
Jeroboam's kingdom in other stories? Why did he favor the cities of Shechem, Penuel, and especially Beth-El?
Why did he favor the tribe of Ephraim? First, because Shiloh was in Ephraim, and its great priest Samuel was
4
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from Ephraim. Second, presumably because the kingdom of Israel remained his only hope politically. He could
look forward to a day when the illegitimate, non-Levite priests of Beth-El would be rejected, and his Levite
group would be reinstated. Judah and Jerusalem offered no such hope at that time. The priests of the family of
Aaron had been firmly established there since King Solomon's time. They were Levites and therefore no less
legitimate than the priests of Shiloh. They were closely tied by bonds of politics and marriage to the royal
family. The only realistic hope for the Shiloh priests was in the northern kingdom. The E source therefore
favored that kingdom's political structure while attacking its religious establishment.
5
6
Symbols of Faith
The golden calf story is not the only instance in which the author of E may have been criticizing both the
northern and southern religious establishments. In the J version of the commandments that God gives to
Moses on Mount Sinai, there is a prohibition against making statues (idols). The wording of the J
commandment is: You shall not make for yourself molten gods.
7
The ] command here forbids only molten statues. The golden calves of Jeroboam in the north were molten.
The golden cherubs of Solomon in the south were not molten. They were made of olive wood and then goldplated. The J text thus fits the iconography of Judah. It may imply that the golden calves of northern Israel are
inappropriate, even though they are not actually statues of a god; but it does not leave itself open to the
countercharge that Judah's golden cherubs are inappropriate as well. Meanwhile, the E source's formulation of
this prohibition reads: You shall not make with me gods of silver and gods of gold. You shall not make them
for yourselves.
8
Perhaps this command refers only to actual statues of gods, but if it casts doubt on the throne-platform icons
as well then it casts doubt on both the molten golden calves and the plated golden cherubs. The relationship
between the J and E sources and the religious symbols of Judah and Israel respectively is evident elsewhere as
well. In a J text at the beginning of the book of Numbers the people set out from Sinai/Horeb on their journey
to the promised land. According to the description of their departure, the ark is carried in front of the people
as they travel. Another J text also mentions the ark as important to the people's success in the wilderness. It in
fact suggests that it is impossible to be militarily successful without i t . The ark, as we know, was regarded as
the central object of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that it is
treated with such importance in J, but it is never mentioned in E. E rather attributes much importance to the
Tent of Meeting as the symbol of the presence of God among the people. The Tent of Meeting (or Tabernacle),
according to the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, was a primary site of the nation's worship until
Solomon replaced the tent shrine with the Temple. The Tabernacle, moreover, was associated originally with
the city of Shiloh. Given the other evidence for connecting the author of E with the priesthood of Shiloh, it
should come as no surprise, therefore, that the Tent of Meeting has such importance in E, but it is never
mentioned in J. The ark does not appear in E. The Tabernacle does not appear in J. This is no coincidence. The
stories in the sources treat the religious symbols of the respective communities from which they came. Now
we can also turn back to the beginning of the book of Genesis and appreciate the fact that at the conclusion of
the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, which is a J narrative, Yahweh sets cherubs as the guardians
of the path to the tree of life. Since cherubs were in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, it is only
natural that an advocate of Judah's religious traditions should picture cherubs as the guardians of something
valuable and sacred. The golden calf story reveals more about its author than probably any other story in J or
E. In addition to all that it tells us about its author's background and about its author's skill in fashioning a
story, it conveys how deep his anger was toward those who had displaced his group in Judah and in Israel. He
could picture Aaron, ancestor of the Jerusalem priesthood, as committing heresy and dishonesty. He could
picture the national symbols of Israelite religion as objects of idolatry. He could picture the nation who
accepted these symbols as deserving a bloody purge. What he pictured Moses doing to the golden calf was
what he himself might have liked to do to the calvesof Dan and Beth-El: burn them with fire, grind them thin
as dust.
9
10
11
1 2
Snow-White Miriam
There is another story in E that reflects the depth of the antagonism between the priests who identified with
Moses (either as theirfounder or as their ancestor) and those who identified with Aaron.In this story, Aaron
and his sister Miriam speak against Moses with regard to Moses' wife, and God personally reprimands them. It
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is worth reading this short, unusual story as it appears in the book of Numbers. It is usually left out of the
Sunday school curriculum:
Snow-White Miriam, Numbers 12
E text in italics
J And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on account of the Cushite wife he had taken, for he had taken a
Cushite wife.
2 And they said, "Has Yahweh indeed only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?" And
Yahweh heard.
3 And the man Moses was very humble, more than any human on the face of the earth.
4 And Yahweh" said suddenly to Moses and to Aaron and to Miriam, "Go out, the three of you, to the Tent of
Meeting." And the three of them went out.
5 And Yahweh went down in a column of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent, and he called Aaron and
Miriam, and the tu>o of them went out.
6 And he said, "Hear my words. If there will be a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, shall make myself known to him
in a vision; in a dream I shall speak through him.
7 Not so my servant Moses, most faithful in all my house.
8 Mouth to mouth I shall speak through him, and vision, and not in enigmas, and he will see the form of Yahweh.
And why were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?"
9 And Yahweh's anger burnt against them, and he went.
10 And the cloud turned back from on the tent, and here Miriam was leprous as snow. And Aaron turned to
Miriam, and here she was leprous.
11 And Aaron said to Moses, " In me, my Lord, do not lay upon us the sin that we have done foolishly and that we
have sinned.
12 Let her not be like someone who is half dead, whose flesh is half eaten when he comes out of his mother's
womb."
13 And Moses cried out to Yahweh, saying, "God [El], heal her." 14 And Yahweh said to Moses, "And if her father
had spit in her face, would she not be shamed for seven days? Let her be shut away for seven days outside the
camp, and afterwards she will be restored."
15 And Miriam was shut away outside the camp seven days, and the people did not travel until Miriam was
gathered back.
Aaron and Miriam speak because of Moses' wife. What is it about Moses' wife that bothers them? The text
does not say. It only states that she is Cushite. Since Cush is understood to mean Ethiopia in the Bible, the
issue may be that Moses' wife is black. The difficulty is that there is also a place called Cushan in the Bible,
which is a region of Midian; and Moses' wife Zipporah has already been identified as Midianite. It is therefore
uncertain whether the text here refers to Zipporah or to a second wife. In either case, the most likely reading
of the text is that Miriam's and Aaron's opposition is based on Moses' wife being different, whether that
difference be racial or ethnic. It is also psychologically interesting that their actual complaint never refers to
the wife. That is, they do not complain out loud about the thing that is really bothering them. Rather, they
direct their criticism at Moses himself. They question whether Moses has any status beyond their own with
regard to revelation.
("Has Yahweh indeed only spoken through Moses? Has he not also spoken through us?")
This proves to be an error. Yahweh informs them that Moses does indeed stand out from all other prophets in
the degree of his intimacy with the divine. A l l other prophets only have visions, but Moses actually sees God.
The deity is described as angry at Aaron and Miriam, and Miriam is stricken with a kind of leprosy in which all
the pigmentation of the skin disappears, leaving her "snowwhite." If the issue here is that Moses' wife is black,
then the punishment to suit the crime in this case is singularly suitable. As in the golden calf episode, Aaron
does not suffer any punishment. Aaron had come to be known in the tradition as a priest, and a person who
has had leprosy is disqualified for the priestly function thereafter. The writer therefore could not portray
Aaron as sharing his sister's punishment. Still, it remains clear in the story that Aaron has offended, that God
is angry at Aaron (verse 9), and that God states explicitly that Moses' experience of God is superior to Aaron's.
This, too, fits the E interest in belittling the Aaronid priesthood in Judah. Also, both here and in the golden
calf story Aaron respectfully addresses Moses as "my lord," acknowledging Moses as his superior. A story of a
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rebellion is a particularly useful means of making a point. The writer portrays a person or group as attacking
the rightful authority or as being flagrantly disobedient—and then he portrays that person's or group's demise.
The E stories of the golden calf and of snow-white Miriam accomplish this.
Reverence for Moses
We have covered a large amount of territory in this pursuit of two of the authors of the Bible. In story after
story, we have been able to find clues connecting the story, the writer, and the writer's world. I have drawn on
so many stories and pointed out all of these clues, first, simply to familiarize readers with the J and E sequence
of stories. Second, it was important to demonstrate the strength of the cumulative argument. Any one of these
examples might have been interesting and worth discussing, but not necessarily a compelling proof of
anything in itself. The extent to which so many aspects of so many narratives converge and point in a common
direction, however, is a compelling support of the multi-author hypothesis in general, and of this
identification of the authors of J and E in particular. The more one reads these stories, the more one gets a
sense of their authors, each in his world, and the more this explains. When we identify the author of E as a
Shiloh priest who possibly thought of Moses as his own ancestor, we are not just saying something about his
pedigree. We are pursuing an understanding of why he wrote what he wrote. It helps us to understand why
the E stories offer more development of Moses' personality than those of J—and not just more development,
but more sympathetic development. There is nothing in J to compare with Moses' speech to God in an E
account in Numbers 11. There the people complain that there is no meat for them to eat in the wilderness, and
they speak nostalgically of the good food they had in Egypt, temporarily disregarding the fact that they had to
work as slaves for that food. A t this point, Moses apparently can no longer bear the burden that God has given
him, to manage this entire community singlehanded. His plea to Yahweh is extraordinary for its anguish and
for its intimacy with the deity. He says:
Why have you injured your servant, and why have I not found favor in your eyes, to put the burden of this
entire people on me? Did I conceive this entire people? Did I give birth to it, that you say to me, "Carry it in
your bosom," the way a nurse carries a suckling, to the land that you swore to its fathers? From where do I
have meat to give to this entire people, that they cry to me, saying, "Give us meat, and let us eat"? I am not
able, myself, to carry all of this people, for it is too heavy for me. And if this is how you treat me, then kill me,
if I have found favor in your eyes, and let me not see my suffering.
14
E here is more than a source. It is a powerful composition reflecting a special interest, sympathy, and affection
for Moses. The E writer emphasizes the Mosaic covenant at Horeb and never refers to the Abrahamic
covenant. The E story of the exodus from Egypt places more emphasis on the extent to which Moses himself is
acting to free the people, while the J version focuses more on God as bringing the liberation about. In J,
Yahweh says:
And I am coming down to save them from Egypt's hand and to bring them u p . . . .
15
In E, he says:
And now, go, and I shall send you to Pharaoh. Take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
16
There is a difference of emphasis between these two. The E writer is focusing on Moses' crucial personal role.
This is consistent with this writer's treatment of Moses throughout his work. For him, the arrival of Moses is
the great moment of history, the time of the covenant, the time of the birth of the nation, the time of the
Levites' first act of loyal service to God. And it is the time of the world's first acquaintance with God by
name.
The Name of God
I have pointed out two places where the name Yahweh occurs in E stories. Until now, I have said that the
name of God was a key distinction between J and E. Now let me be more specific. In J, the deity is called
Yahweh from beginning to end. The J writer never refers to him as Elohim in narration. In E, the deity is called
Elohim until the arrival of Moses. From the first time that Moses meets God, this changes. In the famous E
story of the day that Moses meets God—the story of the burning bush—Moses does not know God's name,
and so he asks.
17
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And Moses said to God [Elohim], "Here I am coming to the children of Israel, and I say to them, 'The God of
your fathers has sent me to you,' and they will say to me, 'What is his name?' What shall I say to them?"
The deity first gives the famous response " I am what I am." (The Hebrew root of these words is the same as
the root of the name Yahweh.) And then he answers:
18
Thus shall you say to the children of Israel, "Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is my name forever: By this I shall be remembered from
generation to generation.
19
In E, Yahweh reveals his name for the first time to Moses. Prior to this scene in Exodus, he is called El or
Elohim.
Why did the writer of E do this? That is controversial. Some think that this story reflects the religious system
in the northern kingdom of Israel. In choosing the golden calves (young bulls) as the throne platform, King
Jeroboam was perhaps identifying Yahweh with the chief Canaanite god, El. El was associated with bulls and
was known as Bull El. Jeroboam was thus saying that Yahweh and El were different names for the same God.
The E story would then serve this merger of the deities. It would explain why the deity had the two different
names: he was called El at first, and then he revealed his personal name Yahweh to Moses. This explanation of
the name change in E is attractive in that it shows another logical tie between E and the kingdom of Israel.
This fits with all the other clues we have seen that E was from Israel. However, there is a problem with this. In
Judah, King Solomon used golden cherubs as the throne platform. And the god El was not only associated with
bulls, but with cherubs as well. The statues that each kingdom used, therefore, do not make good evidence for
explaining why E has the name revelation to Moses. Besides, all the other evidence we have seen indicates that
the author of E was against the religious system that Jeroboam started in Israel. The E author depicted Moses
destroying the golden calf. It is difficult, therefore, to argue that this author followed that religious system's
theology on the identity of God. Some investigators doing research on early Israelite history have concluded
that, historically, only a small portion of the ancient Israelites were actually slaves in Egypt. Perhaps it was
only the Levites. It is among the Levites, after all, that we find people with Egyptian names. The Levite names
Moses, Hophni, and Phinehas are all Egyptian, not Hebrew. And the Levites did not occupy any territory in
the land like the other tribes. These investigators suggest that the group that was in Egypt and then in Sinai
worshiped the God Yahweh. Then they arrived in Israel, where they met Israelite tribes who worshiped the
God El. Instead of fighting over whose God was the true God, the two groups accepted the belief that Yahweh
and El were the same God. The Levites became the official priests of the united religion, perhaps by force or
perhaps by influence. Or perhaps that was their compensation for not having any territory. Instead of land,
they received, as priests, 10 percent of the sacrificed animals and produce.
This hypothesis, too, fits with the idea that the author of E was an Israelite Levite. His story of the revelation of
the name Yahweh to Moses would reflect this history: the God that the tribes worshiped in the land was El.
They had traditions about the God El and their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then the Levites arrived
with their traditions about Moses, the exodus from Egypt, and the God Yahweh. The treatment of the divine
names in E explains why the name Yahweh was not part of the nation's earliest tradition. This is in the realm
of hypothesis, and we must be very cautious about i t . The important thing for our present purpose is that, for
E, Moses has a significance far beyond what he has in J. In E, Moses is a turning point in history. E has much
less than J about the world before Moses. E has no creation story, no flood story, and relatively less on the
patriarchs. But E has more than J on Moses. This is perfectly understandable from a Levitical priest. Also
consistent with the priestly origin of E is the fact that E contains three chapters of law.' J does not. Legal
material elsewhere in the Bible is by priests—as we shall see.
0
The overall picture of the E stories is that they are a consistent group, with a definite perspective and set of
interests, and that they are profoundly tied to their author's world. Likewise with the author of J, the more we
read his stories the more we can see their unity and their relationship to his world. We can understand, for
example, why he did not develop the distinction between the names of God before and after Moses. For him,
something extremely important had happened before Moses. This writer was concerned with the ruling family
of Judah, David's family. He therefore emphasized the significance of God's covenant with the patriarchs. It
was tied to the city of Hebron, David's first capital. It promised inheritance of the land from river to river. In
other words, it promised what was realized under King David. For this purpose, the revelation to Abraham was
itself a turning point in history. It was not to be regarded as inferior to the revelation to Moses or to the people
at Sinai. To depict the Sinai revelation as the first covenant sealed with the name of God would be to diminish
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the importance of the covenant between God and the patriarchs. J therefore uses the name Yahweh
throughout.
The Similarity of J and E
The question remains as to why so many similarities exist between J and E. They often tell similar stories. They
deal largely with the same characters. They share much terminology. Their styles are sufficiently similar that
it has never been possible to separate them on stylistic grounds alone. One possible explanation of this is that
one of them is based on the other. Perhaps J, for example, was the Judean court account of the sacred national
traditions, and so the northern Levites felt that it was necessary to produce their own national account
because a legitimate kingdom should not be without such a document. Alternatively, the E document may
have existed first, and the Judean court felt that it was necessary to produce its own version because the E
treatment of Aaron, for example, was unsatisfactory. The point is that the E stories could hardly have been
welcome in Judah on any one of a number of points; and the J stories, favoring Judah as they did, would hardly
have been Israel's cup of tea either. The existence of either version in either kingdom would be likely to
encourage the production of an alternative version in the other kingdom.
The two versions, nonetheless, would be just that: versions, not completely unrelated works. They would still
be drawing upon a common treasury of history and tradition because Israel and Judah had once been one
united people, and in many ways they still were. They shared traditions of a divine promise to their ancestors
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They shared traditions of having been slaves in Egypt, of an exodus from Egypt led
by a man named Moses, of an extraordinary revelation at a mountain in the wilderness, and of years of
wandering before settling in the promised land. Neither, author was free to make up—or interested in making
up—a completely new, fictional portrayal of history. In style as well, once one version was established as a
document bearing sacred national traditions, the author of the second, alternate version might well have
consciously (or perhaps even unconsciously) decided to imitate its style. If the style of the first had come to be
accepted in people's minds as the proper, formal, familiar language of recounting sacred tradition in that
period, it would be in the second version's interest to preserve that manner of expression. In the same way, the
language and style of the United States Constitution are often imitated in the constitutions of the individual
states because that language is understood to be the accepted, proper form in which to compose such a
document. Another possible explanation for the stylistic similarity of J and E is that, rather than J's being based
on E or E's being based on J, both may have been based on a common source that was prior to them. That is,
there may have been an old, traditional cycle of stories about the patriarchs, exodus, etc. which both the
authors of J and E used as a basis for their works. Such an original cycle would have been either written or an
orally passed-down collection. In either case, once the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established, the
authors of E and J each adapted the collection to their respective concerns and purposes.
How Many Authors?
We can still be more specific about who these two persons were and when they lived. First there is the
question of whether they really were only two persons. I have spoken of only one author of E and one author
of J. Some scholars see J and E as each having been produced by groups, not individuals. They speak of J , J , J ,
etc., or they speak of a J school and an E school. I do not see how the evidence compels us to this analysis. On
the contrary, J and E each appear to me to be unified and consistent in the texts as we have just reviewed
them. Certainly an editor may have added a word or phrase or verse here or there, and the J or the E author
may have inserted a received text occasionally. The author of J, for example, may not have written the
deathbed Blessing of Jacob poem in Genesis 49. This author may simply have learned it, judged it to be
suitable for the purpose, and inserted it into the J work. The overall J and E narratives, nonetheless, do not
appear to me to require subdivision into even smaller units.
1
J
3
The Sex of the Authors
The author of E was almost certainly a male. We have seen how strong its connection is to the Levite priests of
Shiloh. In ancient Israel the priesthood was strictly male. It is perhaps possible that a Levite wife or daughter
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could have shared these interests and written about them, but the dominantly male perspective and the
concentration on male characters still suggests the likelihood of male authorship. Also, given that it was a
patriarchal society and a male priesthood, it is doubtful that a document that was to have formal, sacred status
would have been either commissioned or accepted at the hand of a woman. The case is much harder to judge
with regard to J. Originating at—or at least reflecting the interests of—the Judean court, it came from a circle
in which both men and women had a certain status. That is, even in a male-led society, women of the noble
class may have more power, privileges, and education than males of a lower class. The possibility of J's being
by a woman is thus much more likely than with E. More important, the J stories are, on the whole, much more
concerned with women and much more sensitive to women than are the E stories. There really is nothing in E
to compare with the J story of Tamar in Genesis 38. It is not just that the woman Tamar figures in an
important way in the story. I t is that the story is sympathetic to a wrong done to this woman, it focuses on her
plan to combat the injustice, and it concludes with the man in the story (Judah) acknowledging her rights and
his own fault. This does not make the author a woman. But it does mean that we cannot by any means be
quick to think of this writer as a man. The weight of the evidence is still that the scribal profession in ancient
Israel was male, true, but that does not exclude the possibility that a woman might have composed a work that
came to be loved and valued in that land.
21
When Did They Live?
When did these two people live and write? Since the J narrative refers to the dispersion of Simeon and Levi but
not to the dispersion of the other tribes, its author almost certainly wrote it before the Assyrians destroyed
and exiled Israel in 722 B.C. It might conceivably have been written as early as the reign of David or Solomon,
but the emphasis on the importance of the ark and the command against molten gods sound like polemic
against the kingdom of Israel. That means composition after the division of the kingdoms.
Also, the J stories of Jacob and Esau reflect Edom's independence from Judah ("You shall break his yoke from
your shoulders"). That occurred during the reign of the Judean king Jehoram, 848-842 B.C. This would put the
author of J between 848 and 722. The author of E composed in Israel, which stood from 922 to 722 B.C. It is
difficult to narrow it much further within this period."
22
The most important point is that both J and E were written before the Assyrians destroyed Israel. At that time,
the Assyrians carried out a deportation of the Israelite population. Also, there would of course have been many
Israelites who fled south to Judah as refugees. The City of David archeological excavations in Jerusalem
confirm that the population of Jerusalem grew substantially in this period. The likely historical scenario is that
the E text came to Judah in this flow of people and events. Levites fleeing the Assyrians would hardly leave
their valuable documents behind. The assimilation of recently arrived Israelites into the Judean population
after 722 B.C. need not have presented insurmountable difficulties in itself. The Israelites and the Judeans were
kin. They spoke the same language: Hebrew. They worshiped the same God: Yahweh. They shared ancestral
traditions of the patriarchs and historical traditions of exodus and wilderness. But what were they to do with
two documents, each purporting to recount sacred national traditions, but emphasizing different persons and
events—and occasionally contradicting each other? The solution, apparently, was to combine them.
The Combination of J and E
One might ask why the person or persons responsible for this did not simply exclude one or the other. Why
not just make E, or more probably J, the accepted text and reject or ignore the other version? A common
answer to this question is that the biblical community had too great a respect for the written word to ignore a
received document that bore the stamp of antiquity. The problem with this view is that neither J nor E is
complete in the text as we have it anyway. The editor(s) clearly were not averse to applying scissors and paste
to their received texts. It is therefore difficult to argue that they retained texts that they did not want simply
out of reverence for documents that had been passed down. A more probable reason why both J and E were
retained is that both of them may have become sufficiently well known that one simply could not get away
with excluding one or the other. One could not tell the story of the events at Sinai without referring to the
golden calf incident, for example, because someone in the audience (especially a former northerner) would
remember the story and protest. One could not tell the story of Abraham without telling the story of the
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events at Hebron, because someone else in the audience (especially someone from Hebron) would object. To
whatever extent J and E narratives had become known by this time, to that extent it was necessary to preserve
both. One may ask then: why combine them at all? Why not just preserve both ] and E separately? Why were
they cut and combined in the manner that we observed in, for example, the flood story? Presumably, because
preserving J and E separately would challenge the authenticity of both. If both were to be kept side by side on
the same shelf, that would be a reminder of the dual history that produced two alternate versions. And that
would diminish the authoritative quality of each of them. In short, the editing of the two works into one was
as much tied to the political and social realities of its day as the writing of the two had been in their days. The
uniting of the two works reflected the uniting (better: the reuniting) of the two communities after two
hundred years of division. There is still much to be discovered about who wrote J and E. We do not know the
precise dates when they lived, and we do not know their names. I think that what we do know is more
important. We know something about their world and about how that world produced these stories that still
delight and teach us. Still, we may be dissatisfied until we can be more specific about the writers. So let me
turn to source D. We can know even more about the person who assembled it than about those who wrote J
and E—perhaps even his name.
Change
WHEN the Assyrian empire destroyed the kingdom o f Israel in 722, the world that had produced ] and E ended
forever. Judah, now left without its sister-companion-rival, changed. The political change also meant economic
and social change and, as always, religious change. And that meant changes in the way the Bible would come out
as well. The land and the people were different after 722. The land was smaller. The kings of Judah ruled a
territory that was about half the size of the united Israelite kingdom that David and Solomon had ruled. There was
a different sort of international politics. Judah now operated from a position of weakness. It was an age of great
empires in Mesopotamia: first Assyria and then Babylonia. And these empires were capable of, and interested in,
conquest in the west. Subjugating Judah meant income (spoils initially, tribute thereafter), control of a trade route
between Africa and Asia, and strategic placement on Egypt's doorstep. (See the map, p. 303.) The new
international politics had an impact on religion as well. When a small kingdom became a vassal to a large
empire, the vassal state might place statues of the empire's gods in their temple. It was a symbol of the vassal's
acceptance of the empire's hegemony. In modern times, the equivalent would be that a small subject nation
would have to fly the flag of a nation that subjugated it. But an idol is not quite the same as a flag. Periods
when Assyria dominated Judah often meant religious conflict in Jerusalem. The king of Judah would honor a
pagan god in the Temple, and then Judean prophets would attack him for promoting idolatry. A modern
historian would say that the Judean king was accepting Assyria's suzerainty. But the biblical historian, who
told history from a religious point of view, would say that the king "did what was bad in the eyes of Yahweh."
Another difference in life in Judah was that the fall of Israel was a fact, a specter to be reckoned with. Different
Judeans (and refugee Israelites) may have interpreted it in different ways, but no one could ignore its
implications, politically or religiously. To some, the fact that Israel fell and Judah stood showed that Judah was
better, ethically or in terms of fidelity to Yahweh. To others, it showed that it was possible to fall, and this was
a warning to Judah. Presumably, it would be harder to laugh off a prophet who predicted the fall of Judah after
the catastrophe of 722. The king's power and stature were diminished. David's descendants on the throne in
Jerusalem were, most of the time, vassals to the emperors of Assyria or Babylonia. They were at all times
dependent on the flow of events among the great powers—Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt—rather than being major
political forces in their own region, much less in the ancient Near East as a whole. Even during the days of the
divided kingdoms, Judah and Israel had each seen periods of strength in the region, but very little of that
remained now that Assyria's shadow extended to the Mediterranean Sea. Other roles changed. There was no
more role at all after 722 for tribal leaders. For virtually all intents and purposes, there were no more tribes. As
for the priests, it is difficult to say if there was rivalry among priestly groups in Judah (like the rivalry in Israel)
prior to 722. After 722, though, any influx of northern Levites would have brought new issues, balances, and
competitions among the priestly houses. There was one more new factor after 722: the presence of JE, the
combined narrative of the nation's sacred recollections. This work itself was to play a part in the creation of
other works. There was also one other book in Judah now that was going to play a part in this story.
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King Hezekiah
Political events and religious events continued to have an impact on one another. King Hezekiah ruled Judah
from around 715 to 687. According to the biblical books of Isaiah, 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles, he carried out a
religious and political reform. We have archeological evidence that confirms and adds to this picture.
Hezekiah's religious reform apparently included the elimination of various forms of religious practice other
than the sanctioned worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. The political reform included rebellion against
Assyria and an attempt to extend Judah's control over areas that had been part of the now defunct kingdom of
Israel and over Philistine cities. Both the religious and the political actions had enormous consequences for
the country's historical fate and for the Bible. The religious reform meant more than breaking idols and
cleansing the Temple. It also meant destroying the places of worship of Yahweh outside of the Temple in
Jerusalem. In addition to the Temple, there had been various local places where people could go to sacrifice to
God. These places of worship in the local communities were called "high places." Hezekiah eliminated them.
He promoted the centralization of the religion at the Temple in Jerusalem. In order to understand why this
made such a big difference, one must know something about sacrifice in the biblical world. The function of
sacrifice is one of the most misunderstood matters in the Bible. Modern readers often take it to mean the
unnecessary taking of animal life, or they believe that the person who offered the sacrifice was giving up
something of his or her own in order to compensate for some sin or perhaps to win God's favor. In the biblical
world, however, the most common type of sacrifice was for meals. The apparent rationale was that if humans
wanted to eat meat they had to recognize that they were taking life. They could not regard this as an ordinary
act of daily secular life. It was a sacred act, to be performed in a prescribed manner, by an appointed person (a
priest), at an altar. A portion of the sacrifice (a tithe) was given to the priest. This applied to all meat meals
(but not fish or fowl). The centralization of religion meant that if you wanted to eat lamb you could not
sacrifice your sheep at home or at a local sanctuary. You had to bring the sheep to the priest at the Temple
altar in Jerusalem. This also would mean a sizable gathering of Levite priests at Jerusalem, which was now the
only sanctioned location where they could conduct the sacrifices and receive their tithes. It also meant
considerable distinction and power for the High Priest in Jerusalem and for the priestly family from which he
came. This idea of centralizing religion around one temple and one altar was an important step in the
development of Judah's religion, and over two thousand years later it became an important clue in unraveling
who wrote the Bible. There was one more item in Hezekiah's religious reform worth special mention.
According to the book of 2 Kings, there was a bronze snake in Judah that was reputed to have been made by
Moses himself. This corresponds to a story that appears in the E source. In that story, the people speak against
God and Moses in the wilderness. God sends poisonous snakes that bite and kill many of the people. The
people repent. God tells Moses to make a bronze snake and set it on a pole. Then, whenever an Israelite is
bitten by a snake, he or she is to look at the bronze snake and will be healed. The association of Moses and the
snake in E is doubly interesting because recently a small bronze snake was uncovered archeologically in
Midian. Midian is Moses' wife's home, and he is associated with the Midianite priesthood through his fatherin-law, Jethro, the M i - dianite priest. Now, according to 2 Kings, King Hezekiah smashed the bronze snake
that Moses had made, because the children of Israel were burning incense to it until those days. How could
Hezekiah dare to destroy a five-hundred-year-old relic that was regarded as having been made by Moses
himself? If the people were acting improperly by burning incense to i t , why could he not forbid them to do
so, or put it away in the Temple or palace? The answer to this will be tied to the search for two of the authors
of the Bible.
1
2
Hezekiah's political action, rejecting Assyria's suzerainty, brought a massive military response. Assyria's emperor,
Sennacherib, brought a huge force to bring Judah to its knees. He was largely successful, but not entirely. The
Assyrians captured the Judean fortress of Lachish in a powerful military assault that was not unlike the famous
Roman capture of Masada eight hundred years later. Lachish was situated on a high mound commanding the area
(see the map, page 302), and the Assyrians constructed a ramp out of huge stones leading up the side of the mound
to the very doorstep of Lachish. The excavations of Lachish which are now in progress tell part of the story.
The other side of the story comes from the excavations of Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian empire. The
Assyrian emperor decorated the walls of the palace there with depictions of the battle of Lachish. The wall
depictions, which are impressive both in size and in artistic skill, are among the few known depictions of what
Jews looked like in biblical times. They are now located in the British Museum, and there are casts of them in the
Israel Museum. Together these two archeological sources, Nineveh and Lachish, tell of the Assyrians'
extraordinary might and determination. Nevertheless, the Assyrians failed to bring down the kingdom of Judah as
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they had brought down Israel. The showdown between the Assyrians and Judeans (or Jews) at Jerusalem is of
special interest because it is one of the very rare cases in which we have both biblical and archeological witness to
the same event. The biblical account of what happened appears in three places in the Bible.' The Assyrian account
appears in a document that was found in the excavations of Nineveh, the Prism Inscription of Sennacherib. It is
called the Prism Inscription because it is an eightsided clay stele. On its eight sides, Sennacherib inscribed his
account of his military campaigns. The inscription is in Akkadian, the dominant language of Mesopotamia in that
era. It is written in cuneiform script. It is now located in the British Museum. We are thus in the very rare position
of having each side's version of what happened: the Judean view from inside the besieged walls of Jerusalem, and
the Assyrians' view from the other side of the walls. The biblical report concludes: And it was, that night, that an
angel of Yahweh went out and struck one hundred eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp, and they rose in
the morning and here they were all dead corpses. And Sennacherib traveled and went and returned, and he
lived in Nineveh.
4
Thus the Bible reports that Jerusalem, under King Hezekiah, was saved from Assyrian capture and possible
destruction. Now here is a translation of the relevant portion of the Sennacherib Prism Inscription:
5
And Hezekiah the Judean, who did not submit to my yoke: I besieged and captured forty-six of his strong
walled cities, and the small cities of their environs which were without number, by the spanning of a ramp, the
approach of siege machines, the battling of infantry, breaches, breaks and stormladders. 200,150 people, small
and great, male and female, horses, asses, mules, camels, oxen, and sheep and goats without number I brought
out from them and I counted as spoil. Himself, I locked him up like a caged bird in the midst of Jerusalem, his
royal city. I connected siegeworks against him so that I turned those going out of his city gate into a taboo for
him. I cut off" the cities that I despoiled from the midst of his land, and I gave them to Mitinti King of Ashdod,
Padi King of Ekron, and Silli-Bel King of Gaza, so that I diminished his land. To the former tribute I added and
fixed against him the giving of their annual tribute, greeting-gifts of my lordship.
The fear of the splendor of my majesty overcame Hezekiah, and the Arabs and crack troops that he had
brought in for the strengthening of Jerusalem his royal city ceased working. He sent a heavy tribute and his
daughters and his harem and singers, together with thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver,
choice antimony, blocks of stone, ivory couches, ivory armchairs, elephant hides, ivory, ebony, boxwood, and
all sorts of things to the midst of Nineveh, my lordly city, and he sent his ambassadors for the giving of tribute
and the performance of vassal service. On the face of i t , these two reports from the ancient Near East sound
as contradictory as reports from the modern Near East. The Bible says that the Assyrians went home after an
angel struck much of the army dead. The Prism Inscription says that the Assyrians were victorious and took
home a handsome tribute. What can we do to get at the event behind these two versions?
We are not in a position to determine the historicity of a report of the activity of an angel. Nor is the Assyrian
spoil available for us to count. We can, though, examine what the two reports share. Sennacherib claims in the
first two sentences that he captured many of the fortified cities of the Judean countryside. The biblical account
acknowledges this in 2 Kings 18:13. It says:
And in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib King of Assyria went up against all the fortified
cities of Judah and captured them.
There is no contradiction here between our sources regarding the initial military successes. The question is
what happened in the siege of Jerusalem. The key line in Sennacherib's inscription is his claim that he kept
King Hezekiah "locked up liked a caged bird in the midst of Jerusalem his royal city." This wording is
suspicious. The function of a siege elsewhere (such as at Lachish) is not to keep one's enemy "locked up." The
idea of a siege, rather, is to get in. The fact is that Sennacherib does not claim to have captured Jerusalem. He
rather appears to be saving face by the "caged bird" image and by concentrating on the quantity of tribute
paid. Perhaps the siege was a standoff in which the Assyrians were unable to take the city and the Judeans
were unable to leave i t . The Judeans paid a sum that the Assyrians extracted as the price of their withdrawal.
The book of 2 Kings in fact reports that Sennacherib had initially demanded a sum of thirty talents of gold and
three hundred talents of silver, and the biblical text is not completely clear as to whether Hezekiah was in fact
able to raise the full amount. This is close enough to Sennacherib's claim of receiving thirty talents of gold and
eight hundred of silver that we can believe that some such transaction took place. Jerusalem's ability to
withstand the siege owed partly to its excellent strategic position on a hill looking down over a valley from
6
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which the Assyrians would have to attack up. Another crucial factor for siege warfare was the water supply.
Hezekiah constructed a tunnel under the city to provide water from the spring below. Hezekiah's tunnel, an
important architectural achievement in its time, is now open to the public as part of the City of David
excavations in Jerusalem The point of this is that the reign of King Hezekiah in Judah was a turning point in
history. In the face of Assyria's power, Israel had fallen and Judah had survived—albeit as a tributary to
Assyria. Though the Judean countryside had suffered, Jerusalem had withstood Assyria's siege. Jerusalem's
population grew in this period. It became the only sanctioned religious center in the country. From all
of Judah, people had to bring their sacrifices there, and so there would have been a great flow of livestock and
produce to the city.
7
The End of the Reform
Hezekiah's son and grandson who ruled after him in Jerusalem did not follow in his footsteps. Perhaps they
were not able to. Assyrian forces returned to Judah during the reign of Hezekiah's son Manasseh. According to
biblical reports, the Assyrians even imprisoned King Manasseh for some period of time in Babylon. (The
Assyrian emperor's brother ruled Babylon at that time.) Whether because of Assyrian insistence, domestic
pressures, or religious conviction, Manasseh and his son Amon reintroduced pagan worship in Judah,
including pagan statues in the Temple. They also rebuilt the high places, the sacrificial locations outside of
Jerusalem, thus ending Hezekiah's religious centralization. King Amon's reign was cut short by assassination.
He became king at the age of twenty-two and was murdered at twenty-four. His son Josiah became king of
Judah. Josiah was eight years old.
King Josiah
We do not know who governed the country or who influenced the king until he came of age. Perhaps a
member of the royal family or a priest acted as regent. According to the reports of the books of Kings and
Chronicles, in an earlier case of an underage king (King Joash, who became king at the age of three), the High
Priest served as regent. There may well have been priestly influences in Josiah's case as well, because when he
became old enough to rule he did a turnabout from his father's and grandfather's religious policies. He
behaved more like his great-grandfather Hezekiah. Like Hezekiah he instituted a religious reform. Like
Hezekiah he smashed idols, cleansed the Temple, and extended his sphere of influence into the territory that
had been the kingdom of Israel before 722. Like Hezekiah he centralized the religion at Jerusalem. Once again
the local high places were destroyed. The people were required to bring all sacrifices to the one central altar at
the Temple. The priests from all the high places were brought to Jerusalem to work at second-level jobs beside
the Temple priests. In addition to the human influences on Josiah—including the court and priestly circle, the
domestic and international political forces around him—there was one other thing that influenced his reform:
a book. According to the biblical historians, in the eighteenth year of Josiah's reign, 622 B.C., Josiah received
word from his scribe Shaphan that the priest Hilkiah had found a "scroll of the torah" in the Temple of
Yahweh. When Shaphan read the text of this book that Hilkiah had found to the king, King Josiah tore his
clothes, a sign of extreme anguish in the ancient Near East. He consulted a prophetess concerning its meaning,
and then he held a giant national ceremony of renewal of the covenant between God and the people.
According to one of the biblical sources, Josiah's destruction of the high places followed the reading of this
book. Josiah also destroyed the altar at Beth-El where one of King Jeroboam's golden calves had once stood.
This religious act was also a political act. It blatantly expressed the Judean monarch's interest in the land that
had once been the kingdom of Israel. What was this book? Why did it inspire acts of religious reform? Who
was the priest Hilkiah? Where had the book been before he found it? The identity of that book and its author
is the subject of the next chapter. First, though, it is necessary to know more about the world of King Josiah
and his successors on the throne of David. An important change was taking place in international politics. The
Assyrian empire was weaker, and Babylon was threatening to replace it as the major power of the Near East.
Perhaps it was As- Syria's weakness that made it possible for Josiah to behave so independently. Egypt,
meanwhile, became an ally of its old rival Assyria against the rising power of Babylonia and others. When the
Egyptian army passed through Judah on its way to support the Assyrians, Josiah went out to confront the
Egyptians at Megiddo. A n Egyptian arrow killed him. He was only forty at the time.
8
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The Last Years of Judah
Josiah's early death meant an early end to his country's political independence and religious reform. The high
places were rebuilt. Three of his sons and one grandson ruled in the next twenty-two years. A l l started young
and did not reign for long. The first, Jehoahaz, ruled for three months. Then the Egyptian king overpowered
him, dethroned him, carried him to Egypt, and placed his brother, Jehoiakim, on the throne in his place.
Jehoiakim, an Egyptian vassal, ruled for eleven years. Then the Babylonians, who had meanwhile brought the
Assyrian empire to an end, overpowered him. He died during the Babylonian campaign against Judah. His son,
Jehoiachin, succeeded him and ruled for three months, long enough to be captured and dethroned by the
Babylonians. The Babylonian emperor, Nebuchadnezzar, exiled Jehoiachin to Babylon along with thousands of
other Judeans: the upper class, military leaders, artists; i.e., those who could be threatening in Judah or useful
in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar placed another of Josiah's sons, Zedekiah, on the throne. Zedekiah, a Babylonian
vassal, ruled for eleven years. Around his ninth year, he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonian
army returned and destroyed Jerusalem. They exiled thousands more of the population to Babylon. The last
thing that Zedekiah saw was the death of his children. Nebuchadnezzar executed Zedekiah's sons in front of
him and then blinded him. In this horrible manner, King David's family's rule in Jerusalem ended.
Nebuchadnezzar placed no more members of this family on the throne. Instead he appointed a Jewish
governor, Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan. Note that he is the grandson of Shaphan, the man who had
reported to King Josiah the finding of the "scroll of the torah" years earlier. Josiah was a king who had opposed
the Assyrians and the Egyptians, which is to say that he would be perceived as pro-Babylonian. The Shaphan
family, too, had a record over at least three generations of being part of a pro-Babylonian party in Judah. This
party included the famous prophet Jeremiah as well. The biblical book of Jeremiah speaks well of King Josiah
but not of his successors on the throne. Shaphan, Jeremiah, or Gedaliah might have described themselves
simply as pro-Judah, but the fact remained that they favored an anti-Assyrian king and spoke against opposing
the Babylonians. And so Nebuchadnezzar would have perceived them as pro-Babylonian. Nebuchadnezzar
therefore made Gedaliah, a member of this party, his local governor. This was an overwhelming affront to the
house of David. Two months later, a relative of that family assassinated Gedaliah. This left the remaining
population of Judah in an impossible position. Nebuchadnezzar, the great emperor, had left his handpicked
governor in charge. His governor had been assassinated. The people of Judah could only feel terrified at the
emperor's possible response. There appeared to be only one place where they could go that was outside his
grasp: Egypt. The books of 2 Kings and Jeremiah report that virtually the entire population that was left in
Judah fled as refugees to Egypt. It was an extraordinary and ironic fate for a people who, according to their
own traditions, had started as slaves there. The year in which Nebuchadnezzar captured and burned Jerusalem
was 587 B.C. That year therefore stands as another turning point in the destiny of the people of Israel-Judah.
The city was destroyed, the population was exiled as captives in Babylonia or as refugees in Egypt, their
Temple was destroyed, the ark was lost, which is a mystery to this day, their four-hundred-year-old royal
family was dethroned, and their religion was about to face perhaps the greatest challenges it had ever known.
The biblical world's landmarks seem to be its disasters. The historical junctures that begin and end this
chapter are the fall of Israel in 722 and the fall of Judah in 587. Perhaps this tells us more about the perceptions
of modern historians than about the biblical world. Or perhaps it tells us that great historical crises played
critical roles in the formation of the Bible. In any case, we should still note that the years between 722 and 587
were not unceasingly bleak. These were times of powerful persons and great events, of the rise and fall of great
empires. This period included times of hope and vision, especially, it appears, during Hezekiah's and Josiah's
reigns. These times produced an Isaiah, a Jeremiah, and an Ezekiel. Precisely in this age of empires in conflict,
of rebellions, of violence, and of cruelty, a man conceived of an era when They witt beat their swords into
plowshares and their spears into pruning'hooks. A nation will not raise a sword against a nation, and they will
not learn war anymore.
9
In this age, among these persons and events, a biblical writer would be expected to conceive of his kings, his
people, and his God differently from the way writers saw these things in the days of David, Solomon, and
Jeroboam. One writer who lived in this age assembled a history of his people form Moses to the writer's own
day. As with the authors of J and E, the world in which this writer lived had an impact on the story that he told
and on the way in which he told i t .
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D
WE have learned that someone fashioned Deuteronomy and the next six books of the Bible as one continuous
work. And we have learned that the person who fashioned this work was someone who lived during the reign
of King Josiah. The original edition of the work told the story from Moses to Josiah. In order to figure out who
this author-editor of Deuteronomy and the next six books of the Bible was, it is necessary to look at what this
person's work contained. It included, first of all, the code of laws at the core of the book of Deuteronomy.
The Contents of the Law Code
The law code takes up about half of the book, chapters 12-26. Its first law is the law of centralization of
worship. It tells the worshiper that if he wants to eat meat he is not free simply to slaughter his sheep or cow
himself. Rather, he must take the animal to the one approved place of worship, the "place where Yahweh sets
his name," and there a consecrated priest will perform the slaughter at the altar. The only exception to this
rule, according to Deuteronomy, is when someone lives too far from the official place to bring the animal
there. Then he may slaughter the animal at home as long as he spills the blood onto the ground.
1
The Deuteronomic law code also contains the "Law of the King." It requires that the king must be chosen by
Yahweh (which presumably means designation by a prophet), that the king must not be a foreigner, that he
must not acquire large numbers of horses, that he must not have many women (wives and concubines) nor
great quantities of silver and gold, and he must write a copy of this law in front of the Levites and read it
regularly.
2
Deuteronomy's code of laws also contains prohibitions against practicing pagan religion. It contains
instructions concerning prophets, especially false prophets. It deals with charity, justice, laws of family and
community, holidays, dietary laws, laws concerning war, and a variety of laws on a wide range of matters from
the treatment of slaves to agricultural matters to the practice of magic. Also, it regularly refers to the wellbeing of the Levites; it instructs the people to provide for the Levite.
When it was Baruch Halpem's turn to present a paper to the Harvard Near East Department seminar in 1974,
he presented research in which he attempted to find out from where this law code came. He asked first: did it
come from someone in the royal court? Did Josiah or some other king have it written to serve his own political
purposes? This seemed unlikely. After all it contains the Law of the King. This law says that the king "shall not
multiply silver and gold for himself very much." Why would a king who is establishing a "pious fraud" law code
for his own political advantage include a law saying that he cannot have a lot of money? The law also prohibits
him from having many women or from acquiring many horses, and it requires him to write out a copy of the
law in front of the Levite priests. Why would a king want to encumber himself with all these restrictions? The
law code of Deuteronomy does not have the look of a book that was produced at the court. In fact, it contains
material that relates to conditions that existed before there were any kings in Israel or Judah. An example of
this is the group of laws of war that appears in Deuteronomy 20 and 21. These laws are concerned with the
summoning of the people to battle. Before going into battle, judges are to make an announcement to the
people: any man who has built a house but has not yet dedicated i t , or who has betrothed a woman but has
not yet married her, should go home to his house or to his wife. He should not have to risk dying in war and
leaving his new wife or his new home to be taken by someone else. It also exempts from conscription any man
who is afraid. The man who is frightened should go home rather than weaken the spirit of others as well. The
laws of war also state that after a military victory an Israelite is forbidden to rape a captured woman. The
women of the group that has been defeated must be given time to mourn their lost family members, and then
they may be taken as wives, or else they must be set free. Now, this group of laws of war assumes universal
military conscription— i.e., a draft. It is referring to ordinary citizens who are being gathered into an army.
There was in fact such a system of mustering the Israelite tribes' forces in the country's early years. In times of
emergency, the Israelites were drafted for military service. With the rise of the monarchy, however, this sort of
conscription was replaced by professional armies. The kings wanted to have standing professional forces who
were responsible to the king, rather than to be obliged to turn to the tribes for support. The laws of war in the
book of Deuteronomy, therefore, do not reflect the kings' interests. These laws rather suggest an early,
nonmonarchic point of view. There are instructions regarding lawsuits in this law code that likewise appear to
come from somewhere other than the palace. They give jurisdiction in legal matters to the Levites, not to the
king or his appointees. The Levites, Israel's priestly tribe, seem to be a more likely group in which to look for
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the author of Deuteronomy than the royal courtiers. The book appears to be written in their interests at many
points. It opens with the religious-centralization laws, which prohibit lay persons from doing their own
sacrificing. It repeatedly requires the people to care for the Levite. It includes laws of religious tithes and
offerings. It requires that the king write his copy of the law in front of the Levites. It declares the Levites to be
the rightful priestly tribe. It regularly deals with this group's concerns. Most investigators, therefore, have
related Deuteronomy's law code, in one way or another, to Levites.
Which Priests?
But which Levites? There had been several different priestly circles in Israel and Judah. In Jerusalem there was
a priesthood that was identified as descendants of Aaron. At Beth-El there had been priests whom King
Jeroboam had appointed. There were the Levites of the northern kingdom who had functioned at Shiloh.
There were the rural Levites, local clergy who functioned at the various high places for most of Israel's and
Judah's history. Halpern asked, to which priestly house and to which period could the search for the author of
Deuteronomy's law code be narrowed down? It was not likely that the author would be found among the
Jerusalem Temple priests. True, this group might have liked the idea of centralizing the religion at their
Temple; but this group also was Aaronid. They traced their lineage to Aaron, and they distinguished between
Aaronids and all other Levites. The law code in Deuteronomy, however, makes no such distinction between
Levite families, and it never even mentions the name Aaron. It also never refers to the ark, the cherubs, or any
other religious implements that were housed in the Jerusalem Temple. It also never refers to the office of High
Priest, and the High Priest of Jerusalem had been Aaronid ever since the day when King Solomon expelled the
priest Abiathar and made the Aaronid priest Zadok the sole High Priest. The law code of Deuteronomy thus
does not represent the point of view of the Aaronid priests of any period.
The laws do not reflect the views of the priests who functioned at Beth-El during the two hundred years
between Jeroboam and the fall of Israel in 722 either. Those priests were not Levites. Deuteronomy's laws favor
the Levites and regard only Levites as legitimate priests. The author of the Deuteronomic law code did not
come from the rural Levites either. The first and perhaps foremost law of the code is the centralizatipri of the
religion, the requirement that all sacrifices be brought^toone central altar. This was the law that put the rural
Levites c>ut of business. It meant the destruction of the high places at which they functioned. The
Deuteronomic law code shows concern/ for such Levites; it instructs the people to care for them. But it does
not enfranchise them. That is, it does not allow them to be official priests, presiding over the sacrifices at the
central place of worship. The person who wrote Deuteronomy's laws certainly did not represent this group's
interests.
The Priests of Shiloh
The place to look for the author of Deuteronomy, therefore, was in a group
(1) that wanted centralization of religion, but not tied to the ark or to the Jerusalem priesthood;
(2) that cared about all Levites' livelihood, but would enfranchise only a group of central Levites;
(3) that accepted having a king, but wanted limitations on his rule;
(4) that had a premonarchy approach to matters of war.
This sounds like the priests of Shiloh—the same group that produced E. The priests of Shiloh believed in
centralization of worship, because Shiloh had once been the national religious center, in the days of Samuel.
They did not relate centralization to the ark or to the Jerusalem priesthood, because their leader Abiathar had
been expelled from Jerusalem by Solomon, and ever since then the Jerusalem priesthood had been Aaronid.
They insisted that only Levites were legitimate priests, for they themselves were Levites, and they had been
preempted by non- Levites at Beth-El. They had good reason to urge the people to care for needy Levites,
because they were needy Levites, without land or employment. They accepted having a king, since their leader
Samuel had designated and anointed the first two kings of Israel. They wanted limitations on royal rule, since
Samuel's acceptance of the monarchy had been reluctant, and King Solomon and King Jeroboam had treated
them badly. They took a premonarchy approach to war, preferring the tribal musters to a professional army,
because it was with the rise of professional armies that the kings had become independently powerful and no
longer had to depend on the people for support. At least the law code of Deuteronomy, then, was probably
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written by someone connected to the priests of Shiloh. It need not have been written as a pious fraud shortly
before its discovery by Hilkiah. It reflected the interests of the Shiloh priests at just about any time after the
division of Israel and Judah. Other investigators before Halpem had said that Deuteronomy might have been
written in Israel before the Assyrian destruction of the kingdom, and then brought south to Judah in 722. But,
Halpern asked, what did "brought south to Judah" mean? If the law code of Deuteronomy was really written by
an out-of-power group of priests in a kingdom that was then destroyed, how did this document find its way
into the Temple in Judah? How did it become the law of the land? It was necessary to trace the fate of this
scroll and to see what was done with it. It turned out that the Shiloh connection was strengthened by
investigation of how the law code came to be in the middle of Deuteronomy. This also led to discovering the
identity of the Deuteronomist himself.
The Shiloh Connection
The Deuteronomistic historian took the law code and added an introduction. The introduction, Deuteronomy
1-11, says that this is the last speech of Moses. It then pictures Moses as reviewing the main events of his forty
years with the people. Then the Deuteronomistic writer pictured Moses as giving them the law code,
euteronomy 12-26, and added a list of blessings and curses, for fidelity or infidelity to the code respectively, in
Deuteronomy 27-28. Then he added a conclusion, picturing Moses' last words and acts. Moses encourages the
people. He writes "this toran" on a scroll. He gives it to the Levites. He tells them to put it next to the ark. And
then he dies.
The Deuteronomistic historian writer then set Deuteronomy at the beginning of the history that flows through
the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. And then he wrote the climactic finish: the priest Hilkiah
finds the scroll, and King Josiah fulfills it. How did this strengthen the Shiloh connection? Because the
Deuteronomistic historian turned out to be connected with the priests of Shiloh himself.
First, the Deuteronomistic historian seems to have had the same unadmiring attitude toward the Aaronid
priesthood that the Shiloh priests had. In his introduction and conclusion to the book of Deuteronomy, he
mentioned Aaron only twice: once to say that he died, and once to say that God was mad enough to destroy
him in
the matter of the golden calf. The Deuteronomist also added a gratuitous allusion to the case of snow-white
Miriam, another story in which Aaron had acted badly and God had been angry at h i m .
3
4
5
Second, the Deuteronomist—and his hero King Josiah—shared the Shilonite priests' antipathy toward
Solomon and Jeroboam, the two kings who had removed the Shilonites from authority. In the case of
Solomon, the historian said that Solomon went wrong in his old age, that he turned to pagan religion, that he
followed the Sidonian goddess Ashtoreth, the Moabite god Chemosh, and the Ammonite god Milcom, and
that he built high places to these deities on a hill opposite Jerusalem. Then the historian reported at the end of
the history that part of Josiah's reform was to eliminate these very high places. His language made it clear that
he meant to picture Solomon's acts in the worst light possible. He wrote that Josiah defiled the high places
that were opposite Jerusalem... that Solomon King of Israel had built to Ashtoreth, the Sidonians' disgusting
thing, and to Chemosh, the disgusting thing of Moab, and to Milcom, the Ammonites' abomination.
6
7
So much for Solomon. The Deuteronomist also wrote critically about Jeroboam's religious building activities,
namely the golden calf high places of Dan and Beth-El, and he reported that Josiah destroyed at least the BethEl high place as well.
8
The priests of Shiloh could not have asked for more from Josiah. He was righting the wrongs that had been
done to them three centuries earlier. And the Deuteronomistic historian was picturing this king as the
culmination of three centuries of history.
Jeremiah
There was one other person who was connected with King Josiah and with the Deuteronomistic history. This
person's association with them further confirmed the Shiloh connection, and it brought us a step closer to
knowing the Deuteronomist's identity. The person was the prophet Jeremiah. According to the book of
Jeremiah, this prophet admired King Josiah and began his ministry as a prophet during Josiah's reign.
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According to the book of Chronicles, Jeremiah composed a lamentation for Josiah when he was killed.
Jeremiah was connected with Josiah's counselors who were involved with "the book of the torah." Recall that
Hilkiah the priest had discovered the book, and Shaphan the scribe had carried it to King Josiah and read it to
him. When Jeremiah sent a letter to the exiles in Babylon, it was delivered for him by Gemariah, son of
Hilkiah, and by Elasah, son of Shaphan." When Jeremiah wrote a scroll of prophecies against Josiah's son
Jehoiakim, it was read at the chamber of Gemariah, son of Shaphan. Gemariah, son of Shaphan, stood by
Jeremiah at critical moments in his life, as did Ahikam, son of Shaphan, who saved Jeremiah from being
stoned." And Gedaliah, son W Ahikam, son of Shaphan, when he was appointed governor of \ludah by
Nebuchadnezzar, took Jeremiah under his protection, y Jeremiah was somehow tied to Josiah and to the book
of the torah. What does this have to do with the Shiloh connection?
10
12
First of all, Jeremiah is the one prophet in the Bible to refer to Shiloh (four times).
15
Second, he calls Shiloh "the place where I [God] caused my name to dwell," which is the Deuteronomic term
for the central place of worship.
16
Third, the last thing that we heard about the Shiloh priesthood was that their leader, Abiathar, who had been
one of David's two chief priests, was expelled from Jerusalem by Solomon. Solomon banished Abiathar to his
family estate in the town of Anathoth, which to this day is a small village outside of Jerusalem. In Anathoth,
Abiathar presumably could be observed and kept out of trouble, because it was a town of Aaronid priests.
17
What is jhe connection between the last Shiloh leader's ending up in Anathoth, on the one hand, and Jeremiah
and the book that Hilkiah found, on the other? The first verse of the book of Jeremiah is:
The words of Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth. Jeremiah, the prophet who favored
Josiah, and who was close to the people who discovered the torah, and who referred to Shiloh as the great
central place of old, was a priest from Anathoth. And his father was a priest named Hilkiah. (Not to overstate
the case, we do not know if Jeremiah's father was the same priest Hilkiah who found the book.) And the
residents of Anathoth, an Aaronid city, were hostile toward Jeremiah.
18
Jeremiah is a priest, but he never sacrifices—which is also consistent with the position of the priests of Shiloh.
Also, he is the only prophet to allude to the story of Moses' bronze snake. The story of that snake comes from
E, the Shiloh source. King Hezekiah had smashed that snake. His destruction of an old relic that was
associated with Moses himself was probably a blow to the priests of Shiloh. They were the ones who told its
story, they held Moses in particularly great esteem, and they may have been Moses' descendants. King Josiah,
on the other hand, who was the darling of the Shiloh priests, had a different record on the bronze snake. The
term in Hebrew for the bronze snake was "Nehushtan." Josiah married his son to a woman who may have been
connected with the Shiloh circle, because she was named Nehushta. I would add to Halpern's observations
that not only is Jeremiah the only prophet to refer to Shiloh and to allude to Moses' bronze snake; he is also
the only prophet to refer to Samuel, the priestprophet- judge who was the greatest figure in Shiloh's history.
Jeremiah speaks of Samuel alongside Moses as the two great men of the people's history.
19
20
21
There is one more thing connecting the prophet Jeremiah to Deuteronomy and the events surrounding it, and
it is probably the strongest evidence of all. As many readers, both traditional and critical, have observed, the
book of Jeremiah seems to be written, at several points, in the same language and outlook as Deuteronomy.
Parts of Jeremiah are so similar to Deuteronomy that it is hard to believe that they are not by the same person.
Just to give a few examples:
Deuteronomy
And it will be, if you really listen
to Yahweh's voice... (Deut
28:1)
Jeremiah
And it will be, if you really listen
to me, says Yah w e h . . . (J er
17:24)
Circumcise the foreskin of your
heart... (Deut 10:16)
Be circumsised for Yahweh and
take away the foreskins of your
heart... (Jer 4:4)
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. . . to all the host of the . . .
heavens... (Deut 4:19; 17:3)
to all the host of the
heavens... (Jer 8:2; 19:13)
. . . and he brought you out of
the iron furnace, from Egypt
. . . (Deut 4:20)
. . . in the day I brought them
out from the land of Egypt,
from the iron furnace... (Jer
11:4)
With all your heart and with
all your soul... (Deut 4:29;
10:12; 11:13; 13:4)
. . . With all my heart and with
all my soul... (Jer 32:41)
On the weight of this collection of evidence, Halpern concluded that Deuteronomy's law code came from the
Levitical priests of Shiloh. The evidence also indicated that this group was connected with the full
Deuteronomistic history, comprising seven books of the Bible, as well as the book of Jeremiah—or at least part
of i t .
E a n dD
Halpern's investigations on D and mine on E came out complementing one another. We each had identified a
biblical source with the same group: the priests of Shiloh. And the fact is that these two sources, E and D, have
many things in common. They both refer to the mountain where Moses and the people go in the wilderness as
Horeb (as opposed to J and P, which call it Sinai). They both use the crucial expression "place where Yahweh
sets his name" (or "causes his name to be mentioned," or "causes his name to dwell"). (The expression does
not occur in J or P.) They both regard Moses as good, and more than good. He is at a turning point in history
and singularly crucial to it. His personality is carefully and extensively developed. (There is nothing
omparable inJorP.) They both place great emphasis on the role of prophets—which makes sense, given that
their heroes included such figures as Moses, Samuel, Ahijah, and later Jeremiah. (The very word "prophet"
occurs only once in P and never in J.) They both favor and support the Levites. (In J. the Levites are dispersed
as recompense for Levi's having massacred the people of Shechem; in P, the Levites are separate from, and
lower than, the Aaronid family of priests.) They both regard Aaron as bad, referring to his role in the golden
calf episode and to the snow-white Miriam episode. (Neither of these is mentioned in J or P.)
22
2 3
The Priests of Shiloh
The laws and stories of D, therefore, were as tied to the life of the biblical world as J and E were. They
expressed the convictions and the hopes of an old and distinguished priestly family through generations of
frustration. And, in the later parts (Dtr ) , they reflected a happy day when, through King Josiah, some
members of that family finally returned to positions of authority and respect. One might ask: could the
Shilonite priests really have maintained their identity through three hundred years of being out of power and
without a major religious center? Answer: yes. This has happened with families, especially politically active
families, in many countries at various times in history. Indeed, there are families who trace their lineage to the
biblical priests or Levites to this day, even though these groups have been out of power for nineteen hundred
years. I f anything, the priestly families of biblical Israel and Judah would have been even more conscious of
lineage^ecause the priestly role itself was hereditary. M o r e o ^ ^ j l j e ^ h i l o h priests were very possibly
Mushite—i.e., descended from Moses—and a family with such a famous, noble ancestor would be even more
likely to be conscious of its heritage. \ Further, the particular fate of the Shilonite priests over those centuries
can account for peculiarities of the sources. For example, the ark is not mentioned in E or in the
Deuteronomic law code, both of which were written when the Shilonite priests did not have access to the ark.
But the ark is mentioned in the parts of Deuteronomy that were written during the reign of Josiah (Dtr ) ,
when the Shilonites did have access to the ark. The priests of Shiloh were apparently a group with a continuing
literary tradition. They wrote and preserved texts over centuries:laws, stories, historical reports, and poetry.
1
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They were associated with scribes. They apparently had access to archives of preserved texts. Perhaps they
maintained such archives themselves, in the same way that another out-of-power group of priests did at
Qumran centuries later. The Qumran archives, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, were the Qumran group's
collection of laws, stories, and poetry; and i t , too, included a code of laws that would apply at such time that
the Qumran group would return to a position of authority in Jerusalem: the Temple Scroll, which the
archeologist Yigael Yadin recovered and published in 1977.
The Creation of the Deuteronomistic History
The Deuteronomistic historian, in the days of King Josiah, assembled his history out of the texts available to
him. The beginning of his history was the book of Deuteronomy, and the conclusion was the story of Josiah.
The way he handled the texts that came in between these also demonstrates the impact of the events of the
ancient world on the way that the Bible's story came to be written. He took texts that told the story of his
people's arrival in the land—the stories of Joshua, Jericho, and the conquest—and he added a few lines at the
beginning and at the end to set the story in a certain light. This became the book of Joshua. He did the same
with the next set of texts, which told the story of the people's early years in the land: the stories of Deborah,
Gideon, and Samson. This became the book of Judges. Next he placed the stories of Samuel at Shiloh: the
stories of Saul and of David, the first kings. This became the book of 1 Samuel. After that he set the Court
History of David. That became the book of 2 Samuel. Then he took several texts that told the stories of the
kings who came after David, and he assembled one continuous history out of them that went down to the time
of his own king: Josiah. And that became the books of 1 and 2 Kings. I was able to establish this picture of his
work by isolating the lines that he added to these archive texts. It is only possible to find them in the puzzle
now by careful examination of wording, grammar, syntax, theme, and literary structure. I refer here only to
those lines about which there is a relatively high degree of certainty. As a general rule we do not rush to call a
line an insertion unless two or more of these clues are present. It is impressive to read these lines and see how
he gave a shape and direction to six hundred years of history with just a few short insertions—short, but
carefully worded and artfully inserted. The insertions in the book of Joshua are in God's first words to Joshua
when he replaces Moses, in a passage concerning a national covenant ceremony that Joshua leads at Mt. Ebal,
and in speeches that Joshua makes to the people at Shiloh before he dies. A l l of the inserted lines refer to the
torah of Moses. They point out that Joshua read every word of it to the people and carved it in stone. They
warn that the people's destiny in the land depends on how carefully they observe it.
24
25
The insertion at the beginning of the book of Judges says that the people often failed to follow Yahweh, that
they would turn to other gods, that Yahweh would then allow other peoples to overpower them, that they
^woujd then be sorry for their infidelity, and that Yahweh would then forgive them and provide a judge to
save them. This pattern of infidelity-qefeat-repentance-forgiveness became a Leitmotif into which all the
stories of the book of Judges then fit. The Deuteronomistic historian then added other short notices at
subsequent locations in the book of Judges that demonstrated that this pattern was operative in history. That
is, he noted that misfortunes that the people suffered were the result of their infidelity. * Thus the
Deuteronomistic historian made it clear with only a small quantity of writing in Deuteronomy, Joshua, and
Judges that (1) God had given the people instruction, (2) they had been warned that their fate depended on
their fidelity to this instruction and (3) their subsequent history was the record of how well they fared when
they heeded or failed to heed this warning. The Deuteronomist's insertions into the book of 1 Samuel were few
but important. As in the book of Joshua, he placed them in communications that were made at important
moments in history: in Samuel's speech to the people after the establishment of the ark, in Yahweh's
instructions to Samuel to give the people a king, and in Samuel's speech to the people on the day of the
inauguration of the monarchy. Each of these insertions involved the issue of the people's faithfulness to
Yahweh alone.
2
27
In 2 Samuel he made only one insertion, the promise of the Davidic covenant, that David and his descendants
after him would hold the throne, eternally and urwonditionally. * In the books of Kings, his task was more
complicated. He was not just inserting occasional lines into an otherwise continuous text. Rather, he had to
fashion this section of his history out of several different texts from his archive. Apparently there was no single
history of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There were only histories of one kingdom or the other. The
Deuteronomist took one history of the kings of Israel and one history of the kings of Judah, and he sliced them
up and wove them in between each other. For example, he tells the story of Asa, king of Judah. A t the end of it
he turns to Israel and says, "Ahab, son of Omri, became king over Israel in the thirty-eighth year of Asa, king of
Judah." Then he tells the story of Ahab, king of Israel, and at the end of it he turns back to Judah and says,
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"Jehoshaphat, son of Asa, became king over Judah in the fourth year of Ahab, king of Israel." And so on. He
united the stories by beginning each with the formula "He did bad in the eyes of Yahweh" or "He did what was
right in the eyes of Yahweh." And he only gave information that he regarded as relevant to his story about each
king. For those readers who might want more facts, he referred them back to his sources, saying, for example,
"And the rest of the acts of Ahab and all that he d i d . . . are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of
the Kings of Israel?" He was therefore not just recording annals. He was fashioning a history of his people, a
history with a purpose and a message. He made the message clear with a few more insertions in these books.
He inserted several more references to the Davidic covenant, some of which I quoted at the beginning of this
chapter. They reemphasized the eternal and unconditional promise of this covenant, that David's family would
always have a "holding" to rule, even if they did wrong. This was an important point for the Deuteronomist to
develop. It enabled him to criticize the kings of Judah for wrongdoing and still be able to account for the
historical fact that their family remained on the throne for hundreds of years.
3 0
31
The Covenant
Modern investigators were confused over these insertions about the Davidic covenant. Sometimes the
insertions reiterated this promise that the Davidic kings would rule forever, even if they sinned; but
sometimes they seemed to be saying just the opposite, that the kings could rule only if they^id not sin. For
example, the covenant promise in 2 Samuel 7 says explicitly that even if the king does wrong he keeps the
throne: I shall chastise him with the rod of people and the lashes of humans if he does wrong, but my fidelity
will not turn from h i m . . . . Your house and kingdom will be secure before you forever. Your throne will be
established forever. But the covenant promise in 1 Kings 8:25 says that th£ king's tenure on the throne does
depend on his behavior: There will not be cut off from you a man before me sitting on the throne of Israel only
if your sons keep their way, to go before me as you went before me. How could the Deuteronomist insert lines
that blatantly contradicted each other? Was the covenant conditional or unconditional? If we examine all of
the passages that mention the Davidic covenant, we will find that all of the conditional passages spoke of the
kings' holding the throne of Israel. A l l of the unconditional passages spoke of the kings' holding the throne.
This petty difference of wording was not so petty to the writer. He had to deal with the historical fact that
David's family started out ruling the whole united kingdom of Israel, but that they had lost all of i t except
their own tribe of Judah. He therefore pictured the covenant promise to David to be partly conditional and
partly unconditional. The throne of Judah in Jerusalem was unconditional. It was to belong to David's descen
dants forever. But the throne of all Israel was to belong to them only if they were worthy. Which they were
not. And so they lost i t . The Deuteronomistic writer added a slight, enigmatic twist on this point. When he
pictured the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh taking the throne of Israel away from the Davidides and giving it to
Jeroboam, he wrote that Ahijah says to Jeroboam: I shall give Israel to you. And I shall humble David's seed on
account of this, but not for all time. Ahijah seems to be saying that the Davidic kings' loss of Israel will not last
forever. And in fact King )osiah attempted to take back the northern territory of Israel. Again the events of the
biblical world had an impact on the way a biblical author told the story. In this case, the political fortunes of
the country affected the writer's formulation of the covenant between God and his anointed king, his
messiah—which became one of the central elements of Judaism and Christianity. The man who assembled the
Deuteronomistic history, like those who write J, E, and the Deuteronomic law code, was inextricably tied to
the issues of the world around him, its moments of joy and its catastrophes. And those issues and events had
an impact on the way he pictured God and history. Some would say that this makes this writer guilty of "pious
fraud," making up a covenant between God and King David and concocting its terms to fit later events in
history. It does not seem that way to me. The Deuteronomistic writer did not make up the Davidic covenant
tradition himself. He only wrote about it. The tradition was much older than he was. Davidic covenant
traditions appear in some biblical Psalms that were composed before the Deuteronomist ever picked up his q
u i l l . Also, it is hard to imagine that the Deuteronomist could have gotten away with making up a Davidic
covenant in 622 B.C. and claiming that it had been around for four hundred years without anyone's having
heard of it. Who would have believed him? Rather, the process of writing history was more complex than that.
The Deuteronomistic writer was governed by both events and tradition. His task was both to record history
and to interpret history in the light of tradition.
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33
Giving Shape to History
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The Deuteronomistic historian developed other matters in the books of Kings besides David's covenant. A t
several junctures he identified Jerusalem and its Temple as^the "place where Yahweh causes his name to
dwell"—which is to say, ne, used the language of Deuteronomy's law code. In the law code the, expression "the
place where Yahweh causes his name to dwell" refers to the one central place where all sacrifice is supposed to
take place. The Deuteronomistic historian made it clear that the Temple m Jerusalem had become that place.
He also added more references to the torah. And so he shaped his history of his people around the themes of
(1) fidelity to Yahweh, (2) the Davidic covenant, (3) the centralization of religion at the Temple in Jerusalem,
and (4) the torah. And then he interpreted the major events of history in light of these factors. Why did the
kingdom split? Because Solomon had forsaken Yahweh and his torah. Why did David's descendants retain
Jerusalem and Judah? Because God had made an unconditional covenant promise to David. Why did the
northern kingdom of Israel fall? Because the people and their kings did not follow the torah. Why was there
hope for the future? Because the torah had been rediscovered under Josiah, and now it would be fulfilled as
never before. All of the Deuteronomist's major themes—fidelity, torah, centralization, Davidic covenant—
culminated in Josiah. And then Josiah died from an Egyptian arrow.
A Priest in Exile
JOSIAH, the culminating hero of the Deuteronomistic history, had died. The Deuteronomistic history looked
ironic, even foolish, twentytwo years later. The Babylonians had destroyed and exiled Judah. The "eternal"
kingdom had ended. The family that would "never be cut off from the throne" was cut off from the throne. The
place "where Yahweh causes his name to dwell" was burned down. And the things that were said to exist "to
this day" did not exist anymore. What was to be done with the positive, hopeful history book that culminated
in Josiah? Someone decided to make a second edition of it. Probably the nearest modern analogy would be if
someone who admired the American President John Kennedy assembled a history of the United States from
George Washington to Kennedy, constructing the story to climax in Kennedy's presidency as a culmination
of things past and as the beginning of something new and hopeful. And then the president's early death left
that history ironic and obsolete, even painful to read. It would not be enough just to add a chapter or two at
the end, briefly describing the next few presidencies. Rather, someone would have to go back through the
work and make changes at critical points so that it would no longer point so specifically to Kennedy. The
changes would have to prepare the readers for the new ending and provide a context in which to understand
the new events. Such was the task of this person whcHasijioned the second edition of the biblical history. He
could not just addSa summary of the last four kings' reigns. He had to explain why the dream had failed.
Reshaping History
Clues in the text reveal how he did it. They were the same sort of clues that other investigators and I had used
to find the hand of the creator of the first edition of the history (Dtr ): grammatical breaks (for example, when
a text that has been speaking in the singular suddenly shifts to plural), special terminology (terms and phrases
that occurred only in passages that were also suspected to be additions on other grounds), theme (destruction
and exile), syntax, and literary structure. The clues were harder to trace in the case of the postdestruction
writer than they had been with the Josiah writer because the postdestruction writer imitated the language and
style of the earlier edition perfectly. (I shall discuss how he was able to do it later.) Also, he only added
occasional paragraphs here and there to the Josiah edition. He was not writing a whole new version. Therefore,
there were no obvious doublets or contradictions like those of J and E. In order to identify a line as a Dtr
insertion, it was necessary to find converging lines of evidence, such as grammar, theme, and terminology,
all pointing in the same direction. Just because a passage predicted an exile, that did not mean that one could
conclude that it had been inserted by the exiled writer to explain his current situation. On the contrary, exile
was a known and feared reality in the ancient Near East, and it could have been threatened at almost any
time. But if a passage that predicted exile also broke the context in which it appeared, and there was a shift in
grammar, and it used phrases that appeared only in other suspected passages, then the converging evidence
was strong. Identifying Dtr insertions in this way, and using considerable caution, I uncovered the following
picture of how the exiled writer reshaped the history.
1
z
1
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Exile
First the writer developed the idea of exile itself. He was not prepared just to add a statement at the end saying
that the Babylonians conquered and exiled Judah—which would have been an unexpected, unrelated finish.
Rather, he inserted references to the possibility of exile in various places in the history, so that conquest and
exile now became a fundamental part of the story, a threatening sword hanging over Israel's and Judah's heads
for centuries:... you will perish quickly from the l a n d . . . (Deut 4:26; Josh 23:16) Yahweh will scatter you
among the nations... (Deut 4:27) Yahweh will drive you and your k i n g . . . to a nation that you have not k n o
w n . . .(Deut 28:36) You will be lifted off the l a n d . . . (Deut 28:63) Yahweh will scatter you among all the
peoples from one end of the earth to the o t h e r . .. (Deut 28:64) You will not lengthen days on the l a n d . . .
(Deut 30:18) I shall cut off Israel from the face of the land that I gave t h e m . . .(1 Kings 9:7) This writer was
not merely listing facts of history. He was producing an interpretive history. In it, exile was not just a one-time
event. It was a theme.
Other Gods
Then the writer developed the reason for the exile. Why had this calamity happened? Answer: because the
people had worshiped other gods. On this point he only had to emphasize what was already written in Dtr .
The worship of Yahweh alone was the first of the Ten Commandments in Dtr (as it was. in the E Ten
Commandments and the J Ten Commandments ), and it was called for in every book from Deuteronomy to 2
Kings. The exiled writer added ten more references to the command against apostasy, and he tied every one of
them to a reference to exile. He placed them at significant points in the story: in God's last speeches to Moses,
among Joshua's last words to the people after settling in the land, in God's words to Solomon after building the
Temple, and in the chapter describing the fall of the northern kingdom. Strongest of all, he made this the
point of God's last words to Moses before summoning him to his death. This is the last prophecy that Moses
hears:
When you are lying with your fathers, this people will rise and will whore after alien gods of the land into
which they are coming, and they will leave me and break my covenant which I have made with them.
And my anger will burn against them in that day, and I shall leave them, and I shall hide my face from them,
and they will be devoured, and many evils and troubles will find them. And they will say in that day, "Is it not
because our God is not among us that these evils have found us?" But I shall hide my face on that day because
of all the wrong that they have done, for they turned to other gods. The scene was set. God had commanded the
people not to worship other gods, and he had made destruction, exile, and abandonment—" hiding the face"—
the penalty for breaking this command.
1
1
2
1
4
Manasseh
Next, the exiled writer looked back through the history for some possible explanation, already existing in the
story, for the kingdom's fall—something that had happened before Josiah, something that had been so terrible
that Josiah's attempt at reform was not enough to counterbalance it. He found it in the story of King
Manasseh, Josiah's grandfather. According to the Dtr story, Manasseh had undone all the good things that his
father, King Hezekiah, had accomplished. Manasseh rebuilds the high places, he sets up a statue of the
goddess Asherah, and he builds altars to pagan gods in the Temple precincts. In Dtr this had set up the story
of Josiah nicely, because in the next two chapters Josiah sets all of this right again. He tears down the high
places, burns the statue of Asherah, and smashes the pagan altars. But the person who produced the new
edition, Dtr , now elaborated upon Manasseh's crimes and on their consequences. He added these words:
Manasseh instigated them to do wrong, more than the' nations that Yahweh had destroyed before the children
of Israel. And Yahweh said by the hand of his servants the prophets, "Because Manasseh King of Judah has
done these abominations... he has caused Judah to sin by his idols. Therefore I am bringing such evil on
Jerusalem and Judah that the ears of whoever hears about it will tingle... I shall wipe Jerusalem the way one
wipes a plate and turns it over on its face. And I shall reject the remnant of my possession and put them in
their enemies' hand, and they will be a spoil and booty for all their enemies, because they have done
wrong in my eyes and have been angering me from the day their fathers went out of Egypt to this day."
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Manasseh had been so bad, and he had caused the people to be so bad, that he had brought about a prophecy
that the kingdom would fall. X The person who inserted these remarks about Manassehk crimes then turned
back to end of the scroll. It had concluded that "no king ever arose like Josiah," but he now added these words:
\ But Yahweh did not turn back from his great fury which burned\ against Judah over all the things in which
Manasseh had angered ) him. Without taking anything from Josiah, the Dtr historian had explained
why Judah was still due to fall: the crimes of the past outweighed the good of the short-lived reform. He then
added two short chapters describing Judah's last four kings, noting in the manner of Dtr that each "did what
was bad in the eyes of Yahweh." The reform was over, and the country was back on the road to disaster.
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The Two Covenants
But there was still the matter of David's covenant. According to the Dtr history, it was eternal and
unconditional. No matter what Manasseh or any other Davidide king did, the throne and the royal
city were supposed to be secure forever. The person who was now redoing that history was apparently not
willing to cross out that promise as if it had never been there—which is another indication that he was not
simply committing pious fraud. How then was he to explain the fall of the kings, the Temple, and Jerusalem?
He did it by drawing his readers' attention to another covenant: the Mosaic covenant. This covenant that
Yahweh had made with the people in the wilderness, according to tradition, was definitely conditional. It
required the people to obey God's commandments or else suffer severe consequences. The Dtr writer added
several lines to Deuteronomy, emphasizing that destruction and exile were among these consequences.
This pulled the carpet out from under the Davidic covenant. The fate of the nation ultimately depended on the
people, not on the king. The Davidic family's rule was assured, yes, but if the people's own actions brought
about the destruction of the country, then over whom was this family to rule?! The Davidic covenant thus
logically came second after the Mosaic covenant. The first question was whether the nation was going
to survive. Only after that came the question of who was going to govern it. There was a similar problem
awaiting the exiled historian in the story of King Solomon. According to the Dtr account, God appears to
Solomon after he finishes building the Temple, and God repeats the Davidic covenant promises, adding that
the Temple will last forever. He says: I have sanctified this house that you have built to set my name
there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there all the days. The exilic historian again was not prepared
to cross out this eternal promise even though it obviously had failed—the Temple was lying in ruins. Instead,
he buried it in the folds of the conditional Mosaic covenant. He added four sentences in which he pictured
God as now speaking not only to Solomon but to the entire people. God warns the people that if they do not
keep the commandments he has given them he will exile them and reject the Temple. He says: I shall cut off
Israel from the face of the land that I gave them, and 1 shall cast out the house that I sanctified to my name
from before my face. Notice the difference between the two quoted sentences on this page. They both refer to
the Temple as the place sanctified to Yahweh's name. But the second one, the exilic one, leaves out the word
"forever." Again the events of the biblical world had enormous impact on the way the Bible was developing—
and the form that the Bible took ultimately was also to have enormous impact on the character of Judaism and
Christianity. In this case, the fall of David's family after centuries of rule resulted in an increased emphasis in
the Bible on the covenant that Moses mediated between God and the people. The historical reality—now
reflected in the wording of the Deuteronomistic history—was that any hopes the people might have for
security could no longer be based on the Davidic covenant. Their survival and well-being depended not on a
promise to a king of an eternal royal holding and Temple in Jerusalem, but on their fidelity to their own
covenant with God. The Davidic covenant, therefore, became a promise only that the throne was eternally
available to David's family. Even if it was unoccupied at the present, there was always the possibility that a
descendant of David, a messiah, might come someday and rule justly. The implications for Judaism and
Christianity were, of course, tremendous.
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From Egypt to Egypt
It remained for the exiled Deuteronomist to write the finish: the people's fate. He reported that the
Babylonians deported the last kings and several thousand of the people to Babylonia. He reported
last that the Babylonian emperor's appointed governor, Gedaliah, was assassinated and that the entire people
then fled to Egypt. He did not add any interpretation of these last events, no summation, long or short, saying
something like "And so Judah was exiled from its land because they worshiped other gods." This unelaborated
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finish was possible precisely because the exiled Deuteronomist had already prepared the way for it. In his
carefully placed insertions he had told his readers that worshiping other gods was the worst possible
offense, that it would lead to defeat and exile, and that the kings, particularly Manasseh, had caused the
people to go wrong. The short, straightforward report of the kingdom's calamity, in the light of this
preparation, was powerful. The end of the kingdom had been predictable—and predicted. One of the exiled
writer's insertions in particular prepared the way for the terse conclusion. He added a curse to the text of
Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy already contained a horrifying list of curses in the Dtr version. This list of
consequences of not keeping the covenant is still terrible to read: diseases, madness, blindness, military
defeats, destruction of crops and livestock, and starvation to the point that people will eat their own children.
The exiled Deuteronomist added references to exile in general, and he added one more specific curse to the
end of the list. What is the worst possible thing that could be said to an Israelite as a threat? The last curse of
Deuteronomy is: And Yahweh will send you back to Egypt... in the road that I had told you that you would
never see again; and you will sell yourselves there to your enemies as slaves, and no one will buy. Back to
Egypt! The ultimate curse for the people who started out as slaves there. The exiled writer then simply
reported the people's fate at the end of 2 Kings. The Babylonian emperor appointed Gedaliah as governor of
Judah. Gedaliah was assassinated. The people fled in terror of the Babylonians' reprisal. The last sentence of
the story is: And the entire people, from the smallest to the biggest, and the officers of the soldiers, arose and
came to Egypt, because they were afraid of the Babylonians. The exilic writer had made the new edition of the
history into the story of the people of Israel from Egypt to Egypt. He had given a whole new shape and
direction to the story without, apparently, deleting a word of the original edition.
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The Mercy of Yahweh
Was this the end of the story then? Did this as yet unnamed person see the people's exile to Babylonia and
Egypt as the termination of the covenant and the demise of the people? Definitely not. He left open a channel
of hope. His insertions into the text included a reminder that Yahweh is a merciful God, compassionate and
forgiving. This was hardly a new idea in the biblical world. Both J and E had pictured the God of Israel as
merciful and long-suffering. So had Dtr in Josiah's days. The person who produced Dtr now emphasized
to his readers that if they would turn back to Yahweh, repent, and give up other gods, then their God would
forgive them. Thus\he designed his history not only to tell the past, but to give hope for the future. \
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The Same Man
Who was he? How did he come to have a copy of the original version of the history? How was he able to
imitate the language and style of that earlier edition so perfectly? Why did he choose to produce
a new version of an old history in the first place, instead of writing an all-new work? The most likely answer to
all of these questions is that both editions of the Deuteronomistic history were by the same person.
He had a copy of Dtr because he wrote it. He chose to build on the earlier edition instead of writing an all-new
work because he had created that earlier edition, and he was still able to be satisfied with all but a few
sentences of his original work. (And, besides, what writer was ever eager to throw out a seven-book work he
had produced and write a new one from the beginning?) The language and styles are similar because the same
man wrote them. Biblical scholars argue generally that, rather than one man, it was a "school" that produced
the Deuteronomistic material. They suggest that there may have been a circle of people who shared a articular
outlook and set of interests, and that various Deuteronomistic sections of the Bible were produced by various
members of this group. The various members of the "Deuteronomistic school," they suggest, wrote in similar
styles and language because of their common membership in a group. Now it is true that different members of
a common school of thought may write in quite similar styles. (The Pythagoreans in Greece are cited as an
example.) Still, in the case of the Deuteronomistic history, the degree of similarity of Dtr and Dtr is
phenomenal. Further, there is no compelling reason why we should hypothesize the existence of an otherwise
unknown "school" when it was perfectly possible and logical for a single person to have done it. The first
edition of the history, Dtr , had to be written before Josiah died in 609 B.C. The second edition, Dtr , had to be
written after the Babylonian destruction and exile in 587 B.C. That is only a difference of twenty-two years.
One person could easily have been alive and writing from the time of Josiah to the exile.
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The Identity of the Deuteronomist
It is time to name that person. In the first place, we know of a man who was alive and writing in precisely
those years: the prophet Jeremiah. He was in the right places at the right times. He was a priest, of the priests
of Shiloh-Anathoth. He was in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah, when Dtr was produced. He was in Egypt
after the destruction and exile, when Dtr was produced. His book is filled with the language of the
Deuteronomistic history, the same favorite terms and phrases, the same metaphors, the same point of view on
practically every important point. He was quite possibly the son of the man who unveiled the law
code of Deuteronomy. He favored Josiah but not his successors on the throne. The book of Jeremiah, further,
is filled throughout with the language of both Dtr and Dtr . How could phrases that are typical to Dtr appear in
the book of Jeremiah, regularly intertwined with phrases that are otherwise unique to Dtr , unless all three
came from the same source? To call it the result of a "Deuteronomistic school" of persons who all drew on a
common bank of terminology is to ignore all of the evidence associating Jeremiah with this history. And,
again, where is the evidence for the existence of such a literary school? What we have in the text of the book of
Jeremiah, rather, is only a picture of the prophet Jeremiah associated with a particular scribe, named
Baruch son of Neriyah. We have an explicit portrayal of his dictating prophecies to Baruch, who writes them
on a scroll. The ancient Jewish traditions concerning who wrote the Bible are reported in a volume of the
Talmud. According to that work, recorded some fifteen hundred years ago, the author of the Five Books of
Moses was Moses, and the author of the book of Joshua was Joshua. That view comes as no surprise in a pious
work of that period. What is intriguing, however, is that in that discussion the author of the books of Kings is
identified as Jeremiah. Either the rabbis who produced the Talmud had a tradition that associated Jeremiah
with the history, or they assumed the association because of the obvious similarity of language and outlook of
the two works. Either way, the fact is that the association of Jeremiah with at least a large part of the
Deuteronomistic history is an ancient one. There are numerous scholarly hypotheses regarding the authorship
of the book of Jeremiah. The book is partly the oracles of the prophet, which are mostly in poetry, and partly
the stories about the prophet's life, which are in prose. Some suggest that Jeremiah himself composed the
poetry and that the scribe, Baruch son of Neriyah, was the composer of much of the prose. Baruch is
mentioned numerous times in the book of Jeremiah. He is described as writing documents for Jeremiah. And it
is reported that he went into exile in Egypt with Jeremiah." If it is true that Baruch wrote much of the prose of
the book of Jeremiah, then he would presumably be the author-editor of the Deuteronomistic history
as well. In the first edition of Who Wrote the Bible? I raised the possibility that Jeremiah might be the
Deuteronomistic historian. I now admit that I was wrong and that such a speculation is extremely unlikely. It
is far more probable that the author of the prose history in the book of Jeremiah was also the author of the
Deuteronomistic history, whose prose resembles it so strikingly. What I do retain from my earlier views is
the idea that it may be best to think of the Deuteronomistic writings as a collaboration, with Jeremiah, the
poet and prophet, as the inspiration, and Baruch, the scribe, as the writer who interpreted history through
Jeremiah's conceptions. Whether Baruch son of Neriyah was the recorder, the author, or the collaborator, it is
important to take note of a fabulous archeological find concerning him which was made very recently. In 1980,
the archeologist Nachman Avigad published a clay seal impression which he had acquired (see photograph
below). In biblical times, documents were sometimes written on papyrus scrolls, which were then rolled up
and tied with string. The string was then pressed into a ball of wet clay, and then someone would press his or
her seal from a ring or cylinder into the clay. We can date the seals and the clayimpressions by the script. The
seal impression that Avigad published is in a Hebrew script of the late seventh and early sixth century B.C.
It reads: Ibrkyhw bn nryhw hspr In translation, this means "belonging to Baruch son of Neriyah the
scribe." It was the first archeological discovery ever of an object that was identifiable as having belonged to
someone who is mentioned in the Bible. It is, in effect, his signature. It is now located in the Israel
Museum. It means that we have the signature of the recorder—and possibly the author/editor—of eight books
of the Bible.
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(photo)
Located now in the Israel Museum,
this clay stamp reads "Belonging to Baruch
son of Neriyah the scribe"—possibly the
author/editor of eight books of the Bible.
If we are right in identifying Baruch and Jeremiah with the fashioning of these books, then we not only have the
connection between the biblical world and the formation of these books, as we had with J and E, but can also have
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some sense of the man who played a part in giving birth to them, his personality and his life story. One gets an
impression of Jeremiah from the book that is called by his name—both from the text and from between the lines.
It is quite often an impression of a tortured man, spiritual, bound to his mission, rejected by humans, persecuted.
He gives the impression that he would rather be doing anything else than his appointed task, that he wishes that
he could not see the future, and that he could escape his present, even by death. He must tell the truth no matter
what the consequences. People fear him. He is profoundly solitary.
One thing that Jeremiah does not appear to be is a fraud. And indeed he and Baruch were no frauds, pious or
otherwise. The Deuteronomistic historian built his history around the Deuteronomic law code, which
was an authentically old document, and which he may well have believed to be by Moses himself. He used other
documents as well, and he fashioned a continuous history out of them. His own additions to that history gave it
structure, continuity, and meaning. His last chapters told of events that he had witnessed personally. There need
not be anything fraudulent in any of this. Quite the contrary. I t rather appears to be a sincere attempt, by a
sensitive and skillful man, to tell his people's history—and to understand it. The historian painted his people's
heritage. The prophet conceived of their destiny.
The Least-Known Age
T H E period that followed the disasters of 587 B.C. is the hardest for us to know. Even though it is more recent
than the other periods I have described, it is the hardest to write about. There are two reasons for this. The
first is simply the lack of sources. Neither the Bible nor archeology has told us very much. There is very little in
the narrative books of the Bible that tells us about what happened to the generation of exiles and refugees
from Judah. The story ends in the books of Kings and Chronicles with the fall of the kingdom, and the next
books of historical narrative in the Bible (Ezra and Nehemiah) pick up the story fifty years later. A small
portion of the book of Daniel deals with those years, but it refers only to a few events in the lives of Daniel and
his friends. It does not deal with the fate of the nation. Probably our best means is deducing information from
parts of the books of the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Archeology, too, has revealed little about the fate of
the exiled community in Babylonia or about those in Egypt. We are not even sure about what was happening
back in the land of Judah itself. We have some evidence that Judah's old neighbor Edom had not been
very neighborly, but had shared in the Babylonian conquest of Judah and was encroaching on Judah's territory.
And we know that the Samaritans continued to occupy the northern territory that had once been the kingdom
of Israel. But we know hardly anything about how many of the Jews were able to remain in Judah or about
what their lives were like there. The second reason why it is so difficult to talk about this period is that, for
most of us, it is barely possible to know how it felt. Outside of those of us who have actually had the
experience of being an exile or refugee, it would take an enormous leap of sympathy (in the true Greek sense
of the word syra-pathos, "to feel with") to know what the exiles felt. We would have to imagine seeing the
defenses of the city where we have lived all our lives torn down. A l l the public buildings and all the most
beautiful homes are burned. The religious leaders of our community are executed. The national leader's
children are butchered in front of him, then his eyes are put out, and then he is led away in manacles. We are
carried away in a group of thousands, probably never to see our country again. And then we live as outsiders in
our conquerors' country. I t is a horror. What were the exiled people of Judah to do? How were they to
maintain their identity as a national group and not simply be assimilated into the mass of the Babylonian
empire? Or to put it more practically, what did they have to hold on to?
Religion
Probably the most important single thing was religion. Other countries that the Babylonians conquered also
had their own particular national religions, but one of the remarkable characteristics of pagan religions in the
ancient world is that they were all extremely compatible. The god who was identified with the wind may have
been called Marduk in Babylon and Baal-Haddad in Canaan and Zeus in Greece, but he was still essentially the
same god. He was the wind. The Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar was essentially the same as the goddess
Ashtoreth in Canaan and Aphrodite in Greece. She was fertility. And so on. The interchangeability of the
pagan deities made it possible for a conquered people to assimilate to their conquerors' religion. But the
religion of the people of Judah was different. There was no god in the pagan pantheon who corresponded to
Yahweh. Scholars still debate the specific character of Judah's religion in this period. Was it completely
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monotheistic in the modern sense? Was Yahweh believed to be all-powerful? Were other lesser deities
tolerated? But, whatever Judah's religion was, it was not compatible with pagan religion. Yahweh was not a
force in nature. He was outside the natural realm, controlling its forces. And so, by holding on to their
national religion in exile, the people of Judah, intentionally or not, reinforced their ethnic identity.
Life in Exile
Were they content in exile? Whatever tranquillity or acceptance they found in Babylonia, the community still
expressed longing for home. They instituted five annual fast days to commemorate their misfortune. And they
expressed their feelings in literature, which is preserved in several places in the Bible. The literature of the
exile includes Ps^lm 137 and the book of Lamentations, as well as several sections from the prophets: the last
part of the book of Jeremiah, reflecting the refugees' life in Egypt; and the entire book of Ezekiel and the latter
part of the book of Isaiah, reflecting the exiles' life in Babylonia. It is not happy literature. Some of it expresses
bitterness. Much of it expresses guilt. (Why did this happen to us? It must be that we did something wrong.)
Just about all of it expresses sadness. Psalm 137, written by a Judean poet and preserved by the community
among their psalms, is one indicator of the experience of exile:
By the rivers of Babylon
There u/e sat
Also, we wept
When we remembered Zion
1
By the willows in her midst
We hung up our harps
For there our captors required of us words of song
And our conquerors, joy
"Sing us a song of Zion"
How shall we sing a song of Yahweh on foreign soil?
If I forget you Jerusalem
Let my right arm forget
Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
If 1 don't remember you
If I don't hold up Jerusalem
Over my highest joy
Remember, Yahweh, the Edomites
With the day of Jerusalem
Who said, "Tear up, tear up
To the foundation of it"
Despoiled daughter of Babylon
Happy is he who pays you back
Your payment
As you paid us
Happy is he who takes hold and smashes
Your suckling babies
Against a rock
The poem does not exude affection for the Babylonians. And it takes bitter note of the Edomites, Judah's kin
and neighbor who abetted the conquering enemy. As for those of Judah who fled to Egypt, things did not go
well for them either, because nineteen years later the Babylonians invaded Egypt. We only know of a colony of
Judean mercenaries at Elephantine, which was located at the first cataract of the Nile. This fits with the report
in Kings and Jeremiah that it was the Judean army that led the community to Egypt.
God, Temple, King, and Priest
How were the exiles and refugees to relate their fate to God? Questions of theology were not matters of purely
theoretical speculation in this moment. Theology and history were now on a collision course. The way in
which one understood God made a difference to the way in which one understood the situation in which the
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exiles found themselves. Is Yahweh a national God? If so, he is left behind j n Judah, and the people are cut off
from him in exile. This very question is asked by the author of Psalm 137, translated on the previous pages:
"How shall we sing a song of Yahweh on foreign soil?" Or is Yahweh a universal God? And if so, why did he let
this disaster happen? That is, if Yahweh is the one true God of the whole world, why did he allow the
Babylonians to destroy his Temple, carry off his anointed kings and priests, and exile the people? Since the
exiled community was hardly likely to believe that the Babylonians were stronger than Yahweh, the answer
that was regularly suggested to them was that it was their own fault. The} had failed to keep their covenant
with Yahweh. They had worshiped other gods. The Babylonians were merely Yahweh's tool, which he was
using to fulfill the covenant curses because Judah had broken its contract. One of the logical consequences of
monotheism is guilt. There were also practical problems. Now that the Temple was destroyed, how were the
people to worship God? The Egyptian group at Elephantine actually built a Temple there—which was clearly
against the law of centralization in Deuteronomy. The extraordinary thing about the Elephantine Temple is
that they worshiped Yahweh and two other gods, one male and one female, there. The Jews in other parts of
the world apparently were not happy with this development, because when the Elephantine Temple was
destroyed in the fifth century they would not help rebuild it. As for the Babylonian community, the prophet
Ezekiel, who was one of the Babylonian exiles, envisioned a plan for a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem. He
described the new Temple in detail, including its measurements in cubits, but the Temple that he pictured
was never built. The other practical and pressing problem was: now that the monarchy was gone, who was to
lead the people? King Jehoahaz was imprisoned in Egypt. He died there. King Jehoiachin and King Zedekiah
were imprisoned in Babylon. We do not know what happened to Zedekiah, but, according to the very last
sentences of the book of 2 Kings, Jehoiachin was released from prison thirty-seven years after his capture. Still,
that did not mean that he was reinstated as king. The priests, too, had lost their center, the Temple, and that
meant that there were no more sacrifices to perform. It meant that their authority, their income, and most of
their functions were threatened. It also meant that the rival priesthoods, the Mushites (those who traced their
ancestry to Moses) and the Aaronids, did not have much left to fight over. In short, the Babylonian destruction
of Judah had brought horrors and tremendous challenges and crises to this nation. They were forced to
reformulate their picture of themselves and of their relationship with their God. They had to find a way to
worship Yahweh without a Temple. They had to find leadership without a king. They had to learn to live as a
minority ethnic group in great empires. They had to determine what their relationship was to their homeland.
And they had to live with their defeat. And then, after only fifty years, the impossible happened. The exile
ended, and they were allowed to go home.
2
The Persian Empire: The Age of Mysteries
In 538 B.C. the Persians conquered the Babylonians. Babylonia, Egypt, and everything in between, including
Judah, now were part of a tremendous, powerful Persian empire. The ruler of this empire was Cyrus the Great.
In the same year that he took Babylon, Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Judah. By royal decree, Cyrus
permitted the exiles to rebuild their homeland and their Temple. The precious implements of the Temple,
which the Babylonians had carried away, were returned—with one exception: the ark. For some reason, the
biblical sources do not tell what happened to the ark containing the tablets of the Ten Commandments.
Archeology, too, has shed no light on this at all. The disappearance of the ark is the first great mystery of this
period, and it remains one of the great mysteries of the Bible. There is no report that the ark was carried away
or destroyed or hidden. There is not even any comment such as "And then the ark disappeared, and we do not
know what happened to i t , " or "And no one knows where it is to this day." The most important object in the
world, in the biblical view, simply ceases to be in the story. Did it ever really exist? For the purposes of our
search, it is necessary to recognize at least that the earlier historical books portray it as existing, enshrined in
the Temple. The books of Kings and Chronicles say explicitly that the ark was placed in the inside room (the
Holy of Holies) of the Temple on the day that King Solomon dedicated the Temple. It then ceases to figure in
any direct way in the story, and there is no report of what happened to it when the Temple was destroyed. And
now, in the report of the exiles' return to Judah, it is not mentioned, while the less important Temple utensils
are. The community that returned to Jerusalem rebuilt the Temple, but this second Temple did not contain
the ark. Nor did it have cherubs, the giant golden statues of winged sphinxes whose purpose, after all, was at
least partly to spread their wings over the ark. The second Temple's Holy of Holies apparently was an empty
room. All of this will be relevant to the search for who wrote the Bible. The second great mystery of this period
is the disappearance of the Davidic dynasty. According to the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah, those who
returned from Babylonia were led by two men named Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel. Both of these men were
from the royal house of David. They were descendants of King Jehoiachin. Zerubbabel is also mentioned in the
3
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biblical books of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, who prophesied in this period. But Sheshbazzar and
Zerubbabel cease to be mentioned after the fifth chapter of Ezra. There is no report of the disappearance of
these men, no explanation of what happened to the royal family. Rather, as with the ark, the monarchy simply
ceases to be mentioned. Neither the biblical nor the archeological sources indicate what happened to the
family of the messiah, the descendants of David. Also, prophecy diminishes, and perhaps disappears, in this
period. The age of the great prophets is past. The prophets Haggai and Zechariah preached at the time of
Zerubbabel, but as the kings disappeared, so did the prophets. The fifty years of exile in Babylonia and Egypt
are not described. The nation's most sacred object and its royal family disappear. Prophecy diminishes. And
there are more unknowns. The entire period seems to be an age of mysteries. How many of the people who
were in Babylonia actually took advantage of the opportunity to return to Judah? Did the majority stay or
leave? The Bible's figures are confusing. According to the book of Jeremiah, 4,600 had been deported from
Judah to Babylonia in 587; according to the book of 2 Kings, it was 11,600. But according to the book of Ezra,
42,360 returned just fifty years later. That is a very prolific community. I t is possible that this number of
returnees includes some who came from Egypt. Or it may include people from the northern tribes of Israel
who were deported to Mesopotamia by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and who were now reunited with the exiles
from Judah. We just do not know. We also do not know who was already in the land of Judah when the new
returnees arrived. Had everyone left the land for Babylonia or Egypt? Probably not. But who—and how many—
stayed?
4
5
6
Back in the Promised Land
We do know something about how life developed in the land as the exiles returned and began to rebuild. They
completed building the second Temple, and it was dedicated on Passover, 516 B.C. This was seen, at least by
some, as the fulfillment of a prophecy of Jeremiah's. We do not know the size of the second Temple, whether
it was the same as the first Temple or not. We do know that it did not have the ark, the cherubs, or the Urim
and Thummim. (The Urim and Thummim were sacred objects that were used by the High Priest, apparently
to obtain oracles.) We know that it had a High Priest. We know that the High Priest was an Aaronid, not a
Mushite. Most important, our sources indicate that the entire Temple priesthood was Aaronid at this time. A l
l other Levites were not recognized as legitimate priests. Levites were regarded as secondary clergy, assistants
to the/Aaronids, who alone exercised the priestly prerogatives. The struggle between the Mushite and Aaronid
priests was over. Somehow, the Aaronids had won completely. Their old claim that they alone jvere the
legitimate priests was now the accepted view. The triumph of the Aaronid priesthood in this period was to
have tremendous implications for the formation of the Bible. How did the Aaronid priests come to be so
completely in control? Perhaps i t was because they were the priesthood in power at the time of the fall of the
kingdom. Since the Babylonians took the upper classes into exile, it would thus be the Aaronid priests who
would have been carried off to Babylon. For example, the prophet Ezekiel was an Aaronid priest, and he was
among the Babylonian exiles. The Mushite priests, meanwhile, would have been more likely to be among the
refugees in Egypt. For example, the prophet Jeremiah, who was apparently a Mushite priest, was among the
Egypt refugees. Since it was now the Babylonian group that was leading the return and governing the new
community (initially under Sheshbazzar and Zerubbabel), the Aaronid priests would be, at the very least, in a
position to dominate, and perhaps in a position to define who was a priest and who was not. Another reason
why the Mushite priests lost to the Aaronids in this period may be that Mushites, notably Jeremiah, had been
perceived to be pro-Babylonian. Now that the Persians had conquered the Babylonians, the Persian authorities
might well have preferred to empower the Aaronid priests. The Aaronids had been anti-Babylonian, as
indicated by the fact that the Babylonians had executed the chief priests in 587. There is one more reason to be
taken in to account to explain the success of the Aaronid priests in rebuilt Judah. That is the influence and
power of one man: Ezra.
7
Ezra
In the entire Bible, two men are known as lawgivers: Moses and Ezra. Ezra came from Babylon to Judah eighty
years after the first group of exiles returned, in 458 B.C. He was a priest and a scribe. The biblical record states
explicitly that he was an Aaronid priest. It also indicates that he was no ordinary scribe. His writing skills were
associated with one document in particular: "the torah of Moses." Ezra arrived in Jerusalem with two
important documents in his hand. One was this "torah of Moses," and the other was a letter from the Persian
emperor, Artaxerxes, giving him authority in Judah. The emperor's authorization empowered Ezra to teach
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and to enforce "the law of your God which is in your hand." The enforcement powers included fines,
imprisonment, and the death penalty. What was this "torah of Moses," this "law of your God which is in your
hand"? References to it in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah include material from JE, D, and P. It is
therefore likely that the book that Ezra brought from Babylon to Judah was the full Torah—the Five Books of
Moses—as we know it. Ezra's political authority was somehow shared with a governor, Nehemiah, who also
was appointed by the emperor. With the backing of the emperor, who was perhaps the most powerful man in
the world, Ezra and Nehemiah wielded considerable authority. They rebuilt the city walls of Jerusalem that the
Babylonians had torn down. They enforced the observance of the Sabbath. They forced intermarriages
between Jews and others to be dissolved. In the absence of any Judean kings, these two men were the leaders
of the people. Judah was not an independent country. It was now a province of the Persian empire. And Ezra
and Nehemiah were the emperor's designated authorities.
8
Temple and Torah
In the second Temple period, centralization was achieved. There apparently was no competition from any
other religious center in Judah. What Hezekiah and Josiah had tried to do was now actually achieved. One
God, one Temple. The Elephantine Temple was far away, and in any case it was destroyed around the time
that Ezra was in Jerusalem. Ezra called a public assembly at the water gate of Jerusalem. He held it on the fall
holiday, when the people would come from all over Judah to Jerusalem. On that occasion he brought out the
scroll of the Torah and read it to the assembled mass. This was followed by a covenant ceremony in which the
people renewed their commitment to their God and to their pact with him as written in this Torah. The period
of restoration, the age of the second Temple, appears from biblical and postbiblical sources to have been a
time of dedication to the book as never before. Why? Presumably because political authority was now more in
the hands of the priests, who had more of an interest in it than the kings had had. Perhaps, also, the book
came to be especially treasured by the people at this time because it was a link to the past. It was the
connection that meant for the ex-exiles that this was a rebuilding, not just a new start. As a work of history, it
gave a feeling of heritage from an extraordinary past. As a work of law, it showed a way to participate in the
covenant— which is to say, in the heritage—in the present. How did Ezra come to have a copy of this book?
How did it come to have all the sources combined? How was he able to promulgate it successfully as "the
torah of Moses," which was then accepted for two and a half millennia? When we know who produced P and
who combined all the sources into one work, we shall know the answers to these questions, and much more.
A Brilliant Mistake
U N T I L now I have spoken almost exclusively in terms of the facts themselves—meaning the evidence from
the text and from archeology— and not of the history of how we found out what we know. I took this
approach because I wanted this to be a presentation of evidence and conclusions rather than a history of
scholarship. But now I must tell about one wrong turn that was taken in the search for who wrote the Bible,
because it dominated the investigation for a hundred years. The great majority of biblical scholars, myself
included, accepted it. Most still accept it, at least partly. This is the most controversial part of the story, for,
from this point on, the controversy is not just with religious fundamentalists but with other critical
investigators as well. Also, it is necessary to tell the story of this wrong turn because it played a part in arriving
at what 1 believe is the solution. Oddly enough, it is sometimes necessary to go through a mistake to get to a
discovery. Or to put it more in terms of the respect I hold for the great biblical scholars of the past: even when
we think that we see farther than our predecessors, we should remember that it is only because we are sitting
on their shoulders. The central and most controversial question in this search all along has been over when P,
the Priestly source, was written. It has been generally accepted that J and E came from the early period— the
days of the two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. And it has been even more universally accepted that D came
primarily from the middle period—from Josiah's time. But finding the writer (or writers?) of the P laws and
stories has proved to be the hardest task. P is the largest source, about the size of the other three put together.
It includes the creation story in the first chapter of the Bible. It includes the cosmic version of the flood story,
the version in which the windows of the heavens and the fountains of the deep are opened to flood the world.
It has stories of Abraham, Jacob, the exodus, and the journey through the wilderness, most of which are
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doublets of stories in J and E. (The differences are extraordinary, but more on that later.) And it contains a
tremendous body of law, covering about thirty chapters of Exodus and Numbers and all of the book of
Leviticus. And so this is no minor question. Simply put, the search for the writer of most of the Five Books of
Moses begins with a mistake.
The Mistake
It began in a lecture in Strassburg in 1833. Professor Eduard Reuss told his students that the biblical prophets
do not refer to the Priestly (P) law. The prophets do not quote P, nor do they even give the impression that
they are familiar with it. He concluded that the law was later than the prophets. P was written when prophets
were no longer prophesying; in other words, in the days of the second Temple. The law was later than the
prophets. That was the first step of the mistake. Reuss was actually afraid to state his critical views in print at
that time. He waited forty-six years before publishing a long work on the subject, in 1879, but by then one of
his own students had already developed and published the idea independently. The student, Karl Graf, was
convinced by his teacher's arguments, and in his own investigations he developed them further. By that time,
scholars had already concluded that D was from Josiah's time, and Graf accepted that as a starting point. Then
he scrutinized sections of J, E, and P in order to see which of them came before D and which came after. He
concluded that J and E were written before D, which, as we know, became the general view to the present day.
But, following his teacher Reuss, Graf claimed that the great P corpus of law was written after D, late in the
biblical world, in the days of the second Temple. Graf was suggesting a whole new picture of the history of
biblical Israel, in which the elaborate legal and ritual system and the centrality of the priests and the Temple
to thelife of the people were developments of the end of the biblical period, not of its beginning. There was
one particularly serious problem with this idea that the person (or persons) who wrote P came from the postexile community. True, it was a time when priests were in charge and a time of centralization of the religion
around the Temple. But the question was: if P was written by someone from the time of centrality of the
Temple, why is a Temple never mentioned once in P? Yahweh never commands Moses to tell the people to
build a Temple when they get to the land. There is not one law whose fulfillment requires the presence of a
Temple. Priests, yes. An ark, an altar, cherubs, Urim and Thummim, and other sacred instruments, yes. But
not a single reference to a Temple. Graf's solution to the problem of the missing Temple was critical to his
analysis. He argued that the Temple was mentioned in P, many times, but in disguise. It was not called the
Temple; it was called the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is the tent that Moses builds in the desert to house the
ark. In the E source it is mentioned only three times. In J and D it is not mentioned at all. P, on the other hand,
mentions it over two hundred times. P gives elaborate information on its materials and construction and the
laws relating to it. It figures regularly in P's stories. In P, all assemblies of the people take place at the
Tabernacle. The Tabernacle is simply essential to P. According to Graf (and then others) the Tabernacle never
existed. Graf concluded that the Tabernacle was a fiction, made up by someone living in the days of the second
Temple. This second Tern pie writer wanted to establish a law code that was in the interests of the Temple
priests of that time. In order to give such laws a claim of antiquity, and thus give it authority, this writer
wanted to claim that this was the torah that God gave to Moses at Mount Sinai. In short, it was another case of
"pious fraud." But this presented a problem. How could this writer compose a story in which God gives Moses
laws about a Temple when no Temple was actually built until over two hundred years after Moses was dead?
In order to make anyone believe that the Priestly laws came from Moses' quill, the second Temple writer had
to invent some device that would connect the era of Moses with the era of the Temples. The Tabernacle was
that device. And so, in this writer's conception, Moses built the Tabernacle and gave the laws concerning it.
Then, after Moses' time, the Tabernacle continued to serve as the people's central shrine until the Temple was
built as its successor. Then the ark was transferred from the Tabernacle to the Temple, and the laws that
required the presence of the Tabernacle now required the presence of a Temple instead. The Priestly
Tabernacle was thus a literary and legal fiction created by the post-exile author (or authors) of P to support
the rebuilt Temple and the reestablished priesthood in Jerusalem of their day. One of the arguments given in
favor of this idea was that the Tabernacle, as described in the book of Exodus (chapter 26), was too big for the
Israelites really to have carried through the desert during their forty years of wandering there with Moses. A
second argument came from comparing the measurements of the Tabernacle with those of the Temple.
Scholars determined that, according to Exodus 26, the Tabernacle was thirty cubits long and ten cubits wide.
According to 1 Kings 6, the Temple was sixty cubits long and twenty cubits wide. The two structures thus have
the same proportions, the Tabernacle being half as long and half as wide as the Temple. Investigators thus saw
the Tabernacle as a fictional miniature of the Temple. The Tabernacle was a fiction, a symbol of the second
Temple. That was the second step of the mistake. And then came Wellhausen. As Freud is to psychology or
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Weber to sociology, Julius Wellhausen stands out as a dominant figure of modern biblical scholarship. Much
of what Wellhausen said came from those who preceded him. He took and used conclusions from Graf, De
Wette, and others. His own contribution does not so much constitute a beginning as a culmination. He
brought all the pieces together, along with his own investigations and arguments, into a clear, organized
synthesis. His books were extremely influential. Across Europe and England, people who had not accepted the
critical investigation into who wrote the Bible began to be persuaded. Wellhausen's reputation was
tremendous. He actually resigned his academic position in Greifswald partly because of the impact he was
having on his students. In his letter of resignation he said: I became a theologian because I was interested in
the scientific treatment of the Bible; it has only gradually dawned upon me that a professor of theology
likewise has the practical task of preparing students for service in the Evangelical Church, and that I was not
fulfilling this practical task, but rather, in spite of all reserve on my part, was incapacitating my hearers for
their office. What was he saying that was so powerful? He identified the sources J, E, D, and P, and he laid out
a neat scheme of the history of the biblical world in which each found its place. And that scheme culminated
in the laws and stories of P. Once Wellhausen accepted Reuss' claim that the law was later than the prophets,
and he accepted Graf's claim that the Tabernacle was nothing more than a symbol of the Temple, the scene
was set. Wellhausen took the case one step further. For him, the Tabernacle was the key to the whole puzzle.
The history of the centralization of the religion around the Tabernacle (meaning around the Temple) was the
clue to the history of the writers: In the stories and laws of J and E, there was no idea of centralization. Why?
Because they were written in the early days of Israel, when anyone could sacrifice anywhere. In D,
centralization was strictly demanded: "You must only sacrifice at the place where Yahweh causes his name to
dwell." Why? Because it was from the time of King Josiah, a time when centralization was first introduced and
needed firm insistence. In P, Wellhausen said, centralization was not demanded. It was assumed. Over and
over in the laws and stories of P, it was simply understood that there was only one place on earth where one
could sacrifice, and that one place was the Tabernacle (meaning the Temple). Why? Because it came from the
time of the second Temple, a time when it was an accepted fact that people were supposed to sacrifice only at
the Temple. The laws and stories of P take centralisation for granted. That was the third step of the mistake.
There were other arguments for this, of course. In the P list of different kinds of sacrifices there is one called a
"sin offering" and one called a "guilt offering." There are no such sacrifices mentioned in J, E, or D. Wellhausen
reasoned that it was only logical that sin and guilt sacrifices would be instituted after the experience of exile. It
was then that the people felt guilty, believing that the destruction and exile were punishment for their own
sins. And so this was another proof that someone wrote P in the second Temple days. Also, in the P list of
holidays there is a holiday that has come to be known as the Fall New Year, followed by a Day of Atonement
ten days later. These holidays also are not mentioned in J, E, or D; and these extra two holidays also involve
atonement for sin. Wellhausen argued that this, too, reflected the days when Judah felt guilty in the wake of
the destruction and exile. There was one more piece of evidence for looking for the writer of P in the days of
the second Temple. That evidence was the book of the prophet Ezekiel. Like the prophet Jeremiah, Ezekiel was
a priest. Unlike Jeremiah, Ezekiel was an Aaronid priest. Like Jeremiah, Ezekiel went into exile. Unlike
Jeremiah, Ezekiel was exiled in Babylonia. There he produced his book. That book, the book of Ezekiel, is
written in a style and language remarkably similar to P's. It is almost as much like P as Jeremiah is like D; there
are whole passages in Ezekiel that are nearly word-for-word like passages in P. For Wellhausen, one passage in
Ezekiel was particularly important. Ezekiel declares that, in the future, only certain Levites may be priests. A l l
others are disqualified from the priesthood because of their past transgressions. The only Levites who may
function as priests are those who are descendants of Zadok. Zadok was David's Aaronid priest. And so,
according to Ezekiel, only Aaronid priests are legitimate. A l l others are excluded. And this, Wellhausen said,
is just the point of view in P. It is quite clear in P that only Aaronids are priests. Several P stories (which I shall
tell below) and many P laws make this point crystalclear. P simply does not recognize Moses' descendants or
anyone else as legitimate priests. Wellhausen concluded that P was written in the days of the second Temple,
when the Aaronid priests came to power. They took Ezekiel's prophecy as their inspiration, and, once and for
all, the competition between the priestly families was over. The Aaronids had won, and one of them wrote a
"torah of Moses" that reflected their victory. Wellhausen's picture was very attractive. It placed a priestly
source in a priestly period. It identified guilt sacrifices and holidays of atonement in a period of guilt and
atonement. It placed Ezekielian ideas in the period that came right after Ezekiel. It explained the
concentration on the Tabernacle in P in terms of the period of concentration on the Temple. It was logical,
coherent, persuasive— and wrong.
1
1
What is Wrong with This Picture?
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Reuss simply was mistaken. Prophets do quote P. Notably, Jeremiah quite plainly alludes to it. The famous
opening of P's story in the first chapter of the Bible is: In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the
earth, the earth was unformed and v o i d . . . . And God said, "Let there be light." In one of Jeremiah's
prophecies, he refers to a coming time of destruction. He speaks poetically of a time when nature will be
turned upside down.
3
He begins with the words: I looked at the earth,
And here it was unformed and void,
And to the heavens,
And their light was gone.
4
The two are too similar for coincidence. And it hardly seems likely that the P story of the creation of the
universe was based on a line from a destruction prophecy in Jeremiah. It is rather Jeremiah who is dramatically
dismantling the picture that is found in P. Jeremiah in fact seems to enjoy such reversals on P's language. P
several times uses the expression "Be fruitful and multiply," and P emphasizes the ark, which the Tabernacle
houses. But Jeremiah prophesies:
5
6
It will be, when you will multiply and be fruitful in the land in
those days, says Yahweh, that they will no longer say, "the ark of
the covenant of Yahweh," and it will not come to mind, and it will
not be made anymore.'
Recall that Jeremiah is from the priests of Shiloh, who brought us E, the source that never mentions the ark,
and D, the source that mentions it rarely (only in chapters 10 and 31). Then it is not surprising to find Jeremiah
eschewing the ark in a twist of P's own language. P in Leviticus begins with seven full chapters of rules of
sacrifices. It lists kinds of sacrifices, it tells which animals to sacrifice, and it tells when and how to sacrifice
them. It concludes:
This is the torah of offering, grain offering, sin offering, trespass offering, installation offerings, sacrifice, and
peace offerings which Yahweh commanded Moses in Mount Sinai in the day that he commanded the Israelites
to offer their sacrifices to Yahweh in the wilderness of Sinai.
8
But Jeremiah says:
For I did not speak with your fathers and I did not command them in the day that I brought them out of the
land of Egypt about matters of offering and sacrifice.
9
Why is Jeremiah hostile to P? Let me get to that later. For now, the important thing is that he knows P.
Jeremiah is not the only prophet who knows P. Ezekiel knows i t , quotes i t , and bases prophecies on i t . Take
Ezekiel 5 and 6.
In these chapters, Ezekiel indicts his people for not keeping their covenant with God. This sort of prophecy is
known among biblical scholars as a "covenant lawsuit." The prophet acts as a prosecuting attorney in a divine
court, accusing the people of breach of their contract with God. In the case of Ezekiel 5 and 6, the contract in
question is a chapter in P (Leviticus 26). There, the P record of the covenant between God and Israel gives a
list of blessings and curses. It says that the blessings will come:
If you walk according to my statutes and you keep my commandments and do them.
And the curses will come: If you despise my statutes and disdain my judgments so as not to do
all my commandments. Those are the words of the covenant. The words of the indictment
in Ezekiel's covenant lawsuit are: You did not walk according to my statutes, and you did not do my
judgments.
10
11
12
The P covenant curse says:
You will eat the flesh of your sons. Ezekiel's covenant lawsuit includes the judgment:
Fathers will eat sons in your midst.
The P covenant curses say:
And I shall send the wild beast among you, and it will bereave
y o u . . . . And I shall bring the sword over you.. . . And I shall send
pestilence in your midst.
Ezekiel's covenant lawsuit includes the judgment:
And I shall send hunger and evil beast over you, and they will
13
14
15
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bereave you, and pestilence and blood will pass through you; and I
shall bring the sword over you.
16
And so on. Ezekiel's indictments and judgments of the people appear to be based nearly verbatim on the
words of the P text— which is exactly what one would expect a covenant lawsuit to do. But investigators
following Reuss, Graf, and Wellhausen concluded that P was written after Ezekiel. How could they explain the
fact that this meant that a contract had to be based on the lawsuit of that contract? Most said that this
particular portion of P (Leviticus 26) must have been written earlier than the rest of P. But Ezekiel quotes
other portions of P as well, notably the P version of the story of the exodus from Egypt. In the P story, God
tells Moses:
I shall bring you to the land which I have lifted up my hand to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I shall
give it to you.
17
In Ezekiel, God says to Ezekiel:
I brought them to the land which I lifted up my hand to give to them.
18
There are numerous other parallels of wording between P's exodus story and Ezekiel's review of the story. It
appears that Ezekiel's source for the exodus event is P. But, again, investigators since Reuss, Graf, and
wellhausen concluded that P was written after Ezekiel. How can they explain the fact that this meant that the
telling of the story in P had to be based on the retelling of the story in Ezekiel? I do not think that they can
explain it. It seems to me that what we would naturally expect is that a prophet would quote the torah, not the
opposite. (And Ezekiel does quote torah explicitly. ) We would naturally expect the retelling of a story to be
based on the telling, and not the opposite. We would expect a contract litigation to be based on its contract,
and not the opposite. The biblical investigators of the nineteenth century were attributing enormous influence
to the prophet Ezekiel. Yet all sorts of crucial matters in Ezekiel are ignored or even contradicted in P.
Notably, Ezekiel gives a plan for the rebuilding of the Temple in elaborate detail, but the P Tabernacle-Temple
does not correspond to Ezekiel's model at a l l . I believe that new methods of linguistic analysis now put any
last arguments on this point to rest. In 1982, Professor Avi Hurvitz of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
demonstrated that P is written in an earlier stage of biblical Hebrew than Ezekiel. Of course, one might argue
that perhaps Jeremiah did not write Jeremiah and Ezekiel did not write Ezekiel. But that is not the defense that
the Wellhausen proponents have made. Rather, there is a tremendous investigation of the books of the
prophets to determine exactly what portions were written at which point in history. The texts that I have cited
here from Jeremiah and Ezekiel seem to me to resist cutting and reassignment; and, in any case, the linguistic
evidence does not only place P before the prophets in relative chronology, it places it before the time in which
Wellhausen pictured it. Besides Hurvitz's book, five other scholars in recent years, two in Canada and three in
the United States, have uncovered linguistic evidence that most of P is written in the biblical Hebrew of the
days before the exile to Babylon. Reuss' claim, that the P law came after the prophets, was simply wrong. The
evidence from the prophets rather indicated that the author of the P laws and stories was to be sought before
the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel—i.e., before the Babylonian exile.
1 9
2 0
21
22
23
Wellhausen's claim, that P assumes centralized religion, was also wrong. P constantly commands that
sacrifices and other religious ceremonies must take place at the Tabernacle—or the Tent of Meeting, as it is
also known. Just as D regularly commands the people to come to "the place where Yahweh causes his name to
dwell," P regularly commands them to come to the Tabernacle. The point is the same. They are only using
different euphemisms for the same idea: there can be only one approved religious center. P commands this
repeatedly in the early chapters of Leviticus and Numbers. P says it especially clearly-in Leviticus 17: Any man
from the house of Israel who slaughters an ox or sheep or goat, in the camp or outside the camp, and does not
bring it to the Tent of Meeting to offer it as a sacrifice to Yahweh before the Tabernacle of Yahweh,
blood[guilt] will be reckoned to that man. He has spilled blood. And that man will be cut off from his people.
24
If you do not come to the central place, you will be cut off. It is as if you have committed murder (spilled
blood). That hardly assumes centralization. It demands it. How did Wellhausen explain this? He said that this
section of Leviticus was not really part of P. It had much style and language in common with P, but it was an
older, originally separate work, called the Holiness Code, which was edited into the P law code later. But that
answer does not really solve the problem. Wellhausen still said that this "Holiness Code" was written by
someone after Ezekiel, so it is still part of the world of the exile and second Temple period. And, in any case,
there are still all the other commands about the Tabernacle mall through P. P by no means takes centralized
religion for granted. And that means that P does not have the comfortable fit in the days of the second
Temple—the days of successful centralization of religion—that Wellhausen pictured. Wellhausen's other
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interpretations of the evidence are not compelling arguments either. He related P's sin and guilt sacrifices to
the days after the exile, when the people of Judah felt guilty about their fate. That is a dangerous kind of
reasoning. It is extremely precarious to date a piece of literature based on a guess as to when the author's
community felt a certain way. It is especially precarious when the feeling in question is guilt. People, whether
as individuals or communities, can feel guilt at just about any moment in history. It is easy to imagine Judean
priests adding guilt sacrifices to the ceremonies in Jerusalem, say, in 722 B.C., after the northern kingdom of
Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians. At that time there would have been Israelite refugees in Jerusalem
who could have felt at least as guilty as the Judeans did after 587. The same goes for the addition of holidays of
atonement in P. In fact, the period after the fall of Jerusalem is, if anything, the hardest time to imagine the
creation of such a holiday, because there is a matter of promulgation. If the Day of Atonement was made up
because of the people's feelings of guilt after their fall, how could the writer of P's laws possibly have hoped to
convince anybody that it was an ancient law? Who would have believed that it was written by Moses but
somehow unknown to anyone until after 587 B.C., just when they happened to be feeling guilty? It is easier to
picture successful promulgation of new laws in the days of the first Temple, when religious reforms such as
those of Kings Hezekiah and Josiah were presenting new laws and newly discovered documents. The prophets
do quote P, and the Priestly laws and stories do not take centralized religion for granted. This seriously
weakens the see nario pictured by Reuss, Graf, and Wellhausen. We cannot confidently look for the writer of
P—of the majority of the Five Books of Moses—in the days of the second Temple. But this does not tell us
where we should look for this person either. The third part of the structure of the brilliant mistake, however,
holds the clue to where to look for this writer. Wellhausen was right about one thing: the key to the whole
puzzle was the Tabernacle.
The Great Irony
THE combination of P with J, E, and D was even more extraordinary than the combination of J and E with each
other had been centuries earlier. P was polemic—it was an answer-torah to J and E. JE denigrated Aaron. P
denigrated Moses. JE assumed that any Levite could be a priest. P said that only men who were descendants of
Aaron could be priests. JE said that there were angels, that animals occasionally could talk, and that God could
be found standing on a rock or walking through the garden of Eden. P would have none of that. D, meanwhile,
came from a circle of people who were as hostile to P as the P-circle were to JE. These two priestly groups had
struggled, over centuries, for priestly prerogatives, authority, income, and legitimacy. And now someone was
putting all of these works together. Someone was combining JE with the work that was written as an
alternative to it. And this person was not merely combining them side by side, as parallel stories. He or she
was cutting and intersecting them intricately. And at the end of this combined, interwoven collection of the
laws and stories of J, E, and P, this person set Deuteronomy, the farewell speech of Moses, as a conclusion.
Someone was merging the four different, often opposing sources so artfully that it would take millennia to
figure it out. This was the person who created the Torah, the Five Books of Moses that we have read for over
two thousand years. Who was this person? Why did he or she do it? This was the first question of this book: if
Moses did not produce these books, who did? I think that it was Ezra.
An Aaronid Priest
The person who assembled the four sources into the Five Books of Moses is known as the redactor. The
redactor is harder to trace than any of the authors of the sources. For the most part, the redactor was
arranging texts that already existed, not writing very much of his or her own, and so there is little evidence to
shed light on who he was. We do not have whole stories or long groups of laws to examine in order to deduce
where he came from, what his interests were, or whom he opposed. Still, we do know a few things about this
person. To start with, the redactor came from the circle of Aaronid priests. Either he was a priest himself, or he
was aligned with them and was committed to their interests. There are several reasons for this conclusion. In
the first place, he began the major sections of his work with P stories or laws, never with J or E. What are now
the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers all begin with Priestly texts. Second, he used Priestly
documents as the framework for the work. The first document he used was the Book of Generations, better
known as the list of "begats" to readers of the Bible, most of whom find it one of the most tedious things in the
Bible. It begins: This is the Book of Generations of humans. Then it lists the generations of humans from Adam
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to Jacob, telling who begat whom and giving the ages of the people on the list. Frank Moore Cross
demonstrated that the Book of Generations was originally a separate document. The person who assembled
the Torah cut it into several parts and then interspersed the parts through the book of Genesis. This
arrangement gave the stories from the different writers organization and continuity. The redactor took the
part of the document that covered the ten generations from Adam to Noah and placed it between the Adam
story and the Noah story, then he took the part that covered the ten generations from Noah to Abraham and
placed it between the Noah story and the Abraham stories, and so on. This gave the stories of Genesis a
sensible framework, setting all of them into a flow of history. The Book of Generations was a Priestly
document. Like the P stories in Genesis, the Book of Generations refers to God as Elohim, not as Yahweh. Like
the P creation story, the Book of Generations says that humans are created in God's image. Like many P stories
and laws, the Book of Generations is concerned with repetitious details of names and dates. That is, the
redactor used a Priestly document as the structuring text of the book of Genesis. The redactor also used a
Priestly text as the structure for the next fifteen chapters of the Bible—the stories of the enslavement of the
Israelites and the exodus from Egypt. The text he used was the P version of the plagues that Yahweh inflicted
upon the Egyptians. Simply put, he used the language of the P version to give unity to the different sources. In
the P version, each of the plagues on the Egyptians was followed by the words: But Pharaoh's heart was
strengthened, and he did not listen to them, as Yahweh had spoken. The redactor inserted words similar to
these following plagues in the JE stories as well. Then, when he combined the P plague stories and the JE
plague stories, the common endings gave the whole combined story a unity. The point is that the redactor was
using Priestly documents as the governing structure of the work. Third, he added texts of his own, and these
new texts were in the typical language and interests of P. I shall refer to some of these texts below, and I have
listed all of them in the Appendix. For now, let it suffice to say that they are so much like the P texts in their
language that for a long time investigators thought that they were part of P itself. Professor Cross went even
further. He concluded that P and R (redactor) were virtually the same thing. He argued that there were major
gaps in the flow of the P story. Since the P story was incomplete, and the structure of the work came from
Priestly documents, Cross concluded that there never was a separate P source. Rather, he said, a single person
(or circle) wrote the P portions of the Pentateuch around the JE portions in the first place. This same person
fashioned the framework that held all the stories together. The redaction and the Priestly writing were all one
process. On this point I have disagreed with my teacher. As indicated in the preceding chapters, the P
narrative appears to me to be a continuous, consistent story. If J and E are separated from it, we can read this
story with hardly a gap. Where the gaps do occur, they are explainable in terms of the priestly author's
interests, as I described in the last chapter. If we look at the biblical flood story with the two sources
separated, we can see that each story is complete. Likewise with the rebellion story (Korah, Dathan, Abiram).
Likewise with the two stories of the splitting of the Red Sea, and with the two stories of the event at Mount
Sinai. In each case, the Priestly story is not written around the J or E story. It rather appears to be an originally
separate, continuous, consistent story, which someone else has combined with the earlier version. Also, there
is the matter of the P stories being alternative versions of the ] and E stories. What would have been the point
of the P author's writing these alternative presentations of the stories if he was combining them with the very
texts to which they were alternative? Still, even though I was persuaded by the evidence that the Priestly
writer and the redactor were two different persons, I was also persuaded by Professor Cross that the redactor
was himself from the Aaronid priestly family, using priestly documents and priestly terminology. There is a
way of distinguishing the original P texts from the Priestly redactor's insertions, which I shall discuss below.
But, again, the point for now is that the redactor came from the same group as the P writer. His work explicitly
expressed a priest's concerns and interests, he used P language, he started each major section of his work with
a P text, and he framed the work with priestly documents. It is not really surprising to find that the redactor
was a priest. The majority of the stories and all of the law that we have looked at so far have turned out to be
by priests (E, P, and D). Priests had access to documents and the religious authority to promulgate the
documents. Part of the priests' official function was to teach law and tradition. It is only natural that the
priests who produced P and them Deuteronomistic history (which probably included JE) should have passed
their works along to other priests, and that these documents should have been preserved in priestly circles.
Then a moment in history came when a priest saw value in putting them together.
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In the Days of the Second Temple
That moment had to be in the days of the second Temple. The sources—J, E, P, and D (Dtr and Dtx )—were
not all completed until shortly before that time. Also, if we look at what this priest added to these sources, we
can see clues pointing even more specifically to the moment of creation of the final work. For example, he
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added chapter 15 of the book of Numbers. I t is a chapter of laws that is separated from all the other priestly
laws. For some reason it was inserted between chapters that contain stories, rather than among the other laws.
It is in between the spy story and the rebellion story. I t is written in typical priestly language, and i t is about a
typical priestly concern: sacrifice. It is too typical. It deals with regular sacrifice, holiday sacrifice, sacrifices of
vows, and individual sacrifices for sin through error. These are all things that were dealt with already in P. This
chapter is largely a doublet, repeating things that have already been said, while adding some offerings to the
list. But there is one striking difference: Numbers 15 never mentions the Tabernacle. The absence of any
mention of the Tabernacle in a text that,duplicates priestly laws of sacrifice is no coincidence. Elsewhere in P
mit is emphasized over and over that the Tabernacle is crucial to sacrifice. There cannot be any sacrifice except
at the entrance of the Tabernacle. This other text, Numbers 15, appears to come from a time when priests
could no longer insist on the presence of the Tabernacle for sacrifice. It fits the days of the second Temple,
when the Tabernacle no longer existed. The second Temple had no Tabernacle, no cherubs, and no ark. Yet
sacrifices were made there. Numbers 15 appears to be the text that created a link between the old days and the
new, between the first Temple and the second. It had to be written either in Jerusalem as a second Temple
law, or while still in Babylonian exile, as a program for the future. There is another insertion that is more
revealing. The P source gives laws about holidays in Leviticus 23. The text there lists the three main holidays—
the feast of Passover, the feast of Weeks, and the feast of Booths—and also the new year and Day of
Atonement holidays. This holiday list is plainly marked. It begins (verse 4) and ends (verse 37) with the words
"These are the holidays of Yahweh." But then, two verses after the end of the list (verse 39), suddenly there is
another law about one of the holidays: the feast of Booths. This additional law, which is disconnected from all
the other holiday laws, says that on this holiday which is called "Booths" (Hebrew: Sukkot) the people are
actually supposed to build booths (i.e., huts or tents) and live in them for a week. The text says that this
practice is to remind the people that their ancestors lived in temporary structures in the wilderness after they
left Egypt. The text lists species of trees that are to be used on this holiday. What is this all about? Why does
this one law about one particular practice on one holiday appear separately, after the end of the holiday
section? The answer lies in the days of the second Temple. According to the book of Nehemiah, when Ezra
gathered the people at the water gate to read the Torah to them, they found something in the Torah that
apparently was brand-new to them: a law that prescribed actually living in booths on the feast of Booths. The
text is explicit that this law had never before been observed in the entire history of the country. It says: The
children of Israel had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. Now, this event in the
days of Ezra refers to the passage in Leviticus about the booths. It even mentions the same species of trees that
are listed in Leviticus. And so we have an oddly placed law in Leviticus, and we have a report that this oddly
placed law was never part of the people's life or tradition until the days of the second Temple. This fits with
the other evidence that the final stage of the formation of the Five Books of Moses was in the days of the
second Temple. This makes perfect sense. The second Temple days were the time when the Aaronid priests
were in authority. There were no more kings. Rival priesthoods had been superseded. It is really no surprise
that an Aaronid priest of the second Temple days should have been the redactor of the final work. This was
the time, as never before, that the priests had the authority to promulgate the work—and to enforce it.
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Ezra
One Aaronid priest in particular had all this power: Ezra. He had the backing of the emperor. He had
enforcement powers. Even though he was not the High Priest, he had enormous authority. And his authority
was directly linked to a scroll that he brought to judah, a scroll that is identified as "the Torah of Moses which
Yahweh God of Israel gave. " As I said in Chapter 8, in the entire Bible only two men are known as lawgivers:
Moses and Ezra. Ezra was a priest, a lawgiver, and a scribe. He had access to documents. And the biblical
biography of Ezra is explicit about which documents interested him. It says: Ezra had set his heart on seeking
out Yahweh's T o r a h . . . . It also says: He was a ready scribe in the Torah of Moses. It also reports that the
emperor authorized him to teach and enforce the law of your God which is in your hand. The first time that
we find the full Torah of Moses in Judah, it is in Ezra's possession. He sought it out, he was a scribe who
worked with it, he personally carried it to Jerusalem, and he personally gave it its first public reading. And
when he read it to the people, they heard things that they had never heard before. This does not prove that it
absolutely had to be Ezra who fashioned the Five Books of Moses. But he was in the right priestly family, in the
right profession, in the right place, in the right time, with the authority, and with the first known copy of the
book in his hand. If it was not Ezra himself who composed the work, then i t was someone close to him—a
relative, a colleague in the priesthood, a fellow scribe—because it could not have been produced very long
before he arrived with it in Judah. The Temple had been standing for only about one generation when he came
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to Jerusalem. In light of all this, it is fascinating that there actually was an ancient tradition about Ezra and the
Torah of Moses. The tradition says that the original scroll of the Torah (and other books of the Bible) was
burned up in the fire that destroyed the Temple in 587 B.C. but that Ezra was able to restore it by a revelation.
This tradition is preserved in a work called the Fourth Book of Ezra. This book is not part of the Bible. It is
rather part of the collection known as the Pseudepigrapha, which are works written by Christians and Jews
between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. The Fourth Book of Ezra comes from around 100 A.D. In i t , God speaks to
Ezra from a bush. Ezra says: The world lies in darkness, and its inhabitants are without light. For your law has
been burned, and so no one knows the things which have been done or will be done by you. If then I have
found favor before you, send the Holy Spirit to me, and I will write everything that has happened in the world
from the beginning, the things which were written in your Law. Ezra then recites the lost texts for forty days.
Not to overstate the importance of this relatively late text, the point of this is simply that already in early times
Ezra was associated with the production of the sacred text. Even Jerome, in the fourth century A . D., said: . . .
whether you choose to call Moses the author of the Pentateuch or Ezra the renewer of the same work, I raise
no objection. Modern investigators, too, have occasionally expressed the suspicion that Ezra was the man who
fashioned the Five Books of Moses. In the present state of our knowledge, the evidence seems to me to point
with high likelihood to Ezra, the priest, scribe, and lawgiver who came to the land with the Torah of Moses in
his hand.
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The Combination
And so the nineteenth-century investigators who said that the Priestly writer came from second Temple days
were partly right. The final Priestly hand on these texts was from those days. His Priestly source (P) was from
earlier (Hezekiah) days. Why did he do it? Why commit this extraordinary irony, combining texts that were
diametrically opposed to each other? He did i t , presumably, for the same reasons that J and E had been
combined about 250 years earlier. By this time, all of his source texts were famous. J and E had been around for
centuries and were quoted in D. P had been around since Hezekiah's days, it had been associated with a
national reform, and it had the support of the priesthood that was in power. D had been read publicly in the
days of Josiah, and it contained a law requiring that it be read again publicly every seven years. How could the
redactor have left any of these out? The issue again was successful promulgation. Who would have believed
that it was the Torah of Moses if it did not include the famous stories of Adam and Eve (J), the golden calf (E),
Phinehas (P), and Moses' farewell speech (D)? Besides, there were groups who supported these various texts.
The Shiloh Levite priests who had produced E and D may not have been in priestly power in the second
Temple days, but that did not mean that they did not exist. They could still raise their voices and protest the
authenticity of a Torah that did not include their texts. Indeed, the combination of all the sources in this
period may have been precisely as a compromise among various factions of Israelite-Judean society. The
question still remains as to why the redactor had to mix them all together. Why not just preserve them all side
by side like the four Gospels of the New Testament? The difference was that by Ezra's time all of the sources
apparently had come to be attributed to Moses. What was the redactor to do? He could not have two or three
different texts all be by Moses, especially when they sometimes contradicted each other. And so he took on
the enormous, intricate, and ironic task of combining these alternative versions of the same
stories into one work.
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Method
How does one set out on a task like that? It could not be done according to any existing guidelines, because i t
was a one-time effort, unique, a response to a very specific need at a particular moment in history. It could not
be done in any systematic way, because the source texts were so diverse. They were in prose and poetry. They
included stories, laws, lists, and architectural instructions. The person who set out to assemble them had to
have exceptional literary sensitivity and exceptional skills. He had to have a sense of which contradictions
were tolerable to readers and which were not. He had to make the jagged edges smooth, to make pieces of
stories that were never meant to go together flow comfortably. His only guideline seems to have been to retain
as much of the original texts as possible without intolerable contradictions. The evidence of this is that when
we separate JE from P in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, each flows sensibly on its own with very
few gaps in its story. There are few signs of the redactor's having cut anything. He had to solve problems
involving different sorts of contradictions and repetitions at each new turn. He could not start with a single
overarching decision of method. There was no one critical decision to be made. He had to make hundreds of
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correct decisions in order to turn his diverse sources into a flowing, sensible narrative. His first decision was
what to do with two creation stories. He chose to keep them both, back to back. The first one, Genesis 1 (P),
had a broader, more cosmic perspective, and the second one ( ]) had a more earthly, human-centered
perspective. Placed beside each other, they simply appeared to be a broad presentation of the major acts of the
creation followed by a more specific focus on particular aspects of it. The fact that the order of events changed
and that the name of the deity changed apparently did not trouble him. That is not an indictment of his logic
or of his skill. He simply was able to live with these sorts of developments, as were his readers for the next two
millennia. Next came the J stories of Adam and Eve and of Cain and Abel. These stories involved close
personal contacts with the deity, plus cherubs (real ones, not statues), powerful plants (tree of life, tree of
knowledge of good and bad), and a talking snake. P had no equivalents of such stories, and so the redactor was
free simply to place the J texts after the two creation stories. Then he inserted the first ten begats from the
Book of Generations, which ended with Noah. At that point, the redactor came to the first real challenge of his
unique task. He had two flood stories. They were both complete. They had definite similarities and blatant
differences. The J flood story was about forty days of rain. The P flood story was about a year-long cosmic
crisis. The J story had fourteen of the clean animals and two of the unclean. The P story had two of each. The J
story had Noah sending out three doves (or one dove three times) at the end. The P story had one raven. There
was no way that the redactor could place these two back to back as he had done with the creation stories. But
apparently he was not prepared to discard one or the other either. And so he attempted to combine them into
one story that would still make sense—and still be a good story. His final product was the first text I used in
this book (Chapter 2, pages 54-59). He cut the two stories up and wove the corresponding pieces together
perfectly. Now the rain in ] appeared to be nothing more than another reference to the waters that were
spilling through the cosmic firmament of P. Now the "two-of-each" animals in P were understood to mean that
the fourteen of each of J's clean animals came to the ark "two by two." Now the raven from P was understood
to have flown away from the ark and not returned, so that Noah had to send out doves to see if the
floodwaters had subsided. It was a brilliant synthesis of the two stories, all apparently without deleting a word
of either of the original texts. And it worked for two and a half millennia. This method of segmenting the
stories and weaving the corresponding parts together worked so well that the redactor used it to assemble the
P story of Korah with the JE story of Dathan and Abiram. He also used it to fashion the spy story, the story of
the plagues in Egypt, and the story of the splitting of the Red Sea. But he was not bound to this method. In
some cases he chose to cut the P story into several small pieces and distribute these pieces through several JE
stories. In this manner, he scattered the P components of the Jacob-and-Esau story through the much longer
JE account of the twin brothers. He did the same with the short P record of the migration to Egypt, spreading
its pieces through fourteen chapters of the JE story of Joseph. In the case of the story of the rebellion at Peor,
as we saw, he cut off the beginning of the P story and the end of the JE story to create the continuity he
sought. Did i t boiher him that the seductive women were Moabite in the first half of the story and Midianite
in the second half? Apparently not. In other cases, he chose to separate the two versions of doublet stories,
thus depicting them as separate events. For example, he placed the JE story of the covenant with Abraham at
Genesis 15 and the P story of this covenant at Genesis 17, with another story in between the two. And so now
the two versions of the Abrahamic covenant appeared to be picturing two separate meetings between God and
Abraham. Even more dramatic was the redactor's separation of the two stories of Moses' getting water from
the rock. The JE version now is located at Exodus 17. The P version comes two books later, in Numbers 20.
Separated, they appear to tell about two different incidents, separated by years and distance, even though they
both occur at places with the same name. Thus some repetitions and contradictions were tolerable to him, and
some were not. He was not prepared to have two floods that each destroy all the world except for a man
named Noah. But he was willing to have Moses strike two rocks at two places called Meribah. He was willing
to have Moses repeat the Ten Commandments in his farewell address in Deuteronomy 5, even though they
came out differently there from the way they appeared in Exodus 20. In Exodus 20, the fourth commandment
is:
Remember the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . because in six days Yah'
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weh made the heavens and the earth, the sea and ail that is in them, and
he rested on the seventh day Therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath day
and sanctified it.
But in Deuteronomy, when Moses repeats the commandment, he
says that it was:
Keep the sabbath day to sanctify i t . . . and you shall remember that
you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh your God brought
you out from there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm. There'
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fore Yahweh your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day
The first version is from P, and it quotes the P creation story for its
reason for keeping the sabbath: because God rested on the seventh
day. The second version is from D, and it gives a common D reason
for keeping commandments: because God freed you from slavery. To
the redactor, and to his readers, the two different wordings of the
same commandment were compatible. (It is interesting to note that
one of the Dead Sea Scrolls collapses these two texts and simply lists
both reasons for keeping the sabbath side by side. )
In all of this, no one method governs the process. The redactor's
texts were diverse and complicated, and he was wise enough and
skillful enough to handle each case according to his judgment of
what it needed.
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Continuity
The redactor still had to give the entire collection of pieces a meaningful organization. There had to be
continuity. In part, the continuity was provided by the nature of the texts themselves. What made all of the
stories naturally fit together was that they were all set in history. A l l of the texts pictured events in the order
in which they were understood to have occurred in historical sequence. That may seem so obvious as to be
petty to us. But that is only because we live in a postbiblical (and post-Greek) world. The Bible was the first
attempt at writing history. We may argue about whether it is good history-writing or bad—I would say that it
is mostly very good—but the fact remains that it is the first history writing. The only things that come close to
it in the ancient Near East are royal annals like the Sennacherib Prism Inscription, which record the kings'
military campaigns, naming places conquered and spoils taken. But these are more like reports or lists than
actual history. The first known extensive works of national history were precisely the sources that this redactor
was assembling. The redactor organized these sources into the flow of history by using three documents. The
first was the Book of Generations. He cut up its long record of who begat whom, and then he distributed the
pieces at the appropriate points in the stories from Adam to Jacob. By doing this, he gave a historical
continuity to the entire book of Genesis. The second document he used was the P plagues narrative. He used
its language of "Pharaoh's heart was strengthened" as a framework that united the various JE and P stories of
the exodus from Egypt. The structure covered the first twelve chapters of the book of Exodus, up to the
moment of the people's departure from Egypt. His third document was a list of the stops that the Israelites
made during their forty years in the wilderness. This itinerary list is now located in the book of Numbers,
chapter 33. It begins with the explicit statement: These are the journeys of the children of Israel who went out
from the land of Egypt.... Then it goes on to list each of the places they went, starting with the city of Rameses
in Egypt, continuing through all their encampments in the wilderness, and ending with their arrival at the
Jordan River, the doorstep of the promised land. Most biblical scholars had thought that this list was merely a
summary of all of the places mentioned in the stories up to that point, but Frank Cross demonstrated that the
list was originally an independent document like the Book of Generations. The redactor used this list as a
framework for the wilderness stories, just as he had used the Book of Generations for the Genesis stories and
the P plagues narrative for the Egypt stories. He distributed the pieces of the list of the people's journeys
through the text, setting each of his stories in its appropriate place. This gave the same sort of continuity to
the books of Exodus (starting at chapter 12), Leviticus, and Numbers that he had given to Genesis.
Deuteronomy was already a continuous unit, depicting the last words and actions of Moses. A l l that the
redactor had to do to fit it in was to move the JE and P stories of Moses' death to the end of Deuteronomy. The
last chapter of Deuteronomy (chapter 34) is now a combination of all three versions of Moses' death (JE, P, and
D ) . The redactor's contribution also included his adding occasional verses to enhance the transitions and
combinations of his sources and to clarify or emphasize points that were especially important to him. He also
added a few passages that were important in his own day, including the sacrificial laws in Numbers 15, the law
about booths, a passage emphasizing the sabbath, and a passage about returning from exile. This redactor
was an Aaronid priest like the person who produced P. But, ironically, his task was the exact opposite of that
earlier person's. The person who produced P was fashioning a work that was an alternative to earlier sources
(JE). The redactor was fashioning a work that reconciled opposing sources. This was the key I found which, I
believe, along with other supporting evidence, made it possible to separate P and the redactor's work from
each other. The P texts struggled with the other sources. The redactor's text embraced them.
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The First Bible
When the redactor included Deuteronomy among his sources, he achieved an additional effect which he may
not even have intended. Deuteronomy was now both the last book of the Torah and the first book of the
Deuteronomistic history. There was now a natural continuity from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings. The
American biblical scholar David Noel Freedman has called this eleven-book continuous story the Primary
History (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings).
He has also referred to it as "The First Bible. "That really is a useful way to look at it. The Primary History
formed the core around which the rest of the Bible was built. It told the stories of the events that set the stage
for everything that was to happen later: the creation, the birth of the people, the settlement in the land, the
establishment of the messianic line. It contained the four major covenants (Noah, Abraham, Sinai, David). The
various prophets could be understood against the background of the history it told. Isaiah could be
understood better when seen against the background of the reign of Hezekiah, in which he lived. Jeremiah
could be understood better against the background of Josiah. The rest of the books of the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament) and the New Testament likewise came to be understood by the communities who preserved them
in the context of the central events of the Primary History. That is why I chose to concentrate on these
particular books here, and that is why the redactor's work was so important to the formation of the Bible.
Artistry Upon Artistry
The redactor, whom I identify as Ezra, has been the least appreciated of the contributors to the Five Books of
Moses. Usually, more credit is given to the authors of the stories and the laws. That may be an error. The
redactor was as much an artist, in his own way, as the authors of J, E, P, and D were in theirs. His contribution
was certainly as significant as theirs. His task was not merely difficult, it was creative. It called for wisdom and
literary sensitivity at each step, as well as a skill that is no less an art than storytelling. In the end, he was the
one who created the work that we have read all these years. He assembled the final form of the stories and
laws that, in thousands of ways, have influenced millions. Is that his influence? Or is it the influence of the
authors of the sources? Or would it be better to speak of a literary partnership of all these contributors, a
partnership that most of them never even knew would take place? How many ironies are contained in this
partnership that was spread over centuries? How many new developments and ideas resulted from the
combination of all their contributions? In short, the question for the last chapter of this book is: is the Bible
more than the sum of its parts?
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Kilala mo ba si YAHSHU‟A ang pangalan ng Messiah na nagturo sa Israel 2,000 taon na ang nakakalipas ?
Ang pangalang itinawag sa kanya ng kaniyang Hebreong magulang ay pangalang Hebreo na Yahshu‟a na
isinusulat sa wikang Aramaic na YESHU‟A. Ang Aramaic na pangalang Yeshu‘a ay isinalin sa pangalang
Greek na Iesous na binibigkas na Yeh-sous, at isinalin sa Latin na Iesus na binibigkas na Yay-sus at ng
maimbento ang letrang „J‟ noong 1633 A.D. ay naisalin sa English na Jesus, mababasa sa ‗How Yeshu‘a
Become Jesus‘ sa pahina ―o‖.
Mas Mahalaga ba ang pangalang Yahshu‟a kaysa Jesus ?
Sa YahYah (Juan) 14:26 ―ang Mang-aaliw na siyang Banal Na Ispiritu ay ipadadala ng Ama sa pamamagitan
ng Aking Pangalan, at iyang Banal Na Ispiritung iyan ang siyang Magtuturo sa iyo ng lahat ng bagay at
Magpapa-alala ng lahat ng sinabi ko sa iyo‖.
Ang pangalan niya nang binangit sa YahYah (Juan) 14:26 ay Yahshu‘a, hindi pa na-iisalin ang pangalan niya
sa Iesous o Jesus, samakatwid ipadadala ng Amang Yahweh ang Banal Na Ispiritu sa pamamagitan ng
Pangalang YAHSHU‘A.
Bago tayo magpatuloy alam natin na bagong imbento lamang ang Letrang ‗J‘ kaya imposibleng Jesus ang
pangalan ng Messiah, ganoon din ang pangalan ni Juan o ‗John‘ ay ang dapat ay ‗YahYah‘. Sa Israel ngayon
ang tawag kay John ay ‗Yochanan‘ na isang kontradiksyon sa nakasulat sa YeremiYah (Jeremiah) 43:4 at sa
Luke 1:61. Tangi ang Banal na Pangalan ni Yahweh na ‗Yah‘ sa Awit 68:4 ang may kapangyarihan na
pagsalitaing-muli si ZechariYah sa Luke 1:22, Luke 1:59-64. Ang Semetic na kapatid na wika ng Hebreo at sa
Arabic ang pangalan ni John ay ‗Yahya‘.
Si Yahshu‟a ang Messiah ay ANAK NI YAHWEH o ANAK NG TAO ?
Noong kapanahunan pa ni Emperor Constantine na nagtatag ng Romano Katoliko ay pinagtatalunan na
kung ang Messiah (na naisalin na sa pangalang Latin na ‗Iesus‘) ay ‗Anak ng Kataas-taasan‘ o ‗Anak ng Tao‘.
Nang ipatawag ni Emperor Constantine noong 325 A.D. ang 1.800 na Bishop na ang dumalo ay 318 Bishop
lamang sa Council of Nicea, ang pinagkatiwalaan ni Bishop Alexander na si Athanasius ay ipinipilit na si
Iesus ay ‗Anak ng Kataas-taasan‘ at ang Banal na Ispiriti at ang Ama ay iisa o ang ‗Paniniwala sa Trinity‘. Si
Arius naman ay ipinagpilitan na si Iesus ay ‗Anak ng Tao‘.
Si Yahshu‟a ay Anak Ni Yahweh:
Sa geneology sa Luke 3:23-38 ―Si Yahshu‘a ay magtatatlumpong taon na ay anak ni Yohseph na anak ni…….
si Seth na anak ni Adam na Anak ni Yahweh‖.
Si Yahshu‘a raw ay anak ni Yohseph na ang ninuno ay si Adam na Anak ni Yahweh. Sa Genesis 6:2-4 sa
kapanahunan ni Adam ―At nakita ng mga ‗Anak ni Yahweh‘ na magaganda ang mga babaeng ‗Anak ng
Tao‘ at pumili sila ng kani-kanilang mapapangasawa‖. May mga higante sa mundo ng kapanahunang iyon,
at ang naging supling ng Anak ni Yahweh sa mga babaeng Anak ng Tao ay naging Magigiting (Mighty
men) o tinawag na Elohim.
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Nalito ang mga Translators kung Sino ang Anak ni Yahweh at Sino ang Anak ng Tao:
YahYah (Juan) 12:32-34 ―at Ako, kung Ako at maitaas na, ilalapit ang lahat ng tao sa akin (and I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me)‖. YahYah (Juan) 12:33 ay komentaryo ng Translators. YahYah
(Juan) 12:34 ―Ang mga tao ay sumagot, ‗narinig namin sa batas na ang Messiah ay lalagi magpakailanman,
bakit sinasabi mo na ang Anak ng Tao ay kailang maitaas, sino ba itong Anak ng Tao ? (―The people
answered him, We have heard out of the law that Messiah abideth forever, and how sayest thou, The Son of
Man must be lifted up ? who is this Son of Man ?).
Wala naman binanggit sa YahYah 12:32 ang Translators na Anak ng Tao ay kailang maitaas, bakit sa isinagot
ng mga tao at nagtatanong sino ba itong Anak ng Tao ? Samakatwid sa YahYah 12:32 ay ang binanggit ni
Yahshu‘a ay HINDI „Ako‟ KUNDI „Anak ng Tao‟ ay maitaas na. Bakit nalito ang mga Translators ?
Si Yahshu‟a Messiah ay Anak Ni Yahweh na Buhay:
Mateo 16:13-17 ―Nang dumating si Yahshu‘a sa lupain ng Caesaria ng Filipos, tinanong niya ang kanyang
mga Alagad. Sino raw ang Anak ng Tao ayon sa mga tao? At sumagot sila na sabi po ng ilan ay si YahYah
(Juan Bautista), sabi naman ng iba ay si EliYah, at may nagsabi pang si YeremiYah o isa sa mga Propeta‖.
Kayo naman ano ang sabi ninyo ? sino ako ? tanong niya sa kanila. Sumagot si Simon Pedro, ―Kayo po ang
Messiah, ang Anak Ni Yahweh na Buhay‖. Sinabi sa kanya ni Yahshu‘a ―mapalad ka Simon na Anak
ni Yonas sapagkat ang KATOTOHANANG ITO‟Y HINDI INIHAYAG sa iyo ng laman at ng dugo (ng
sinumang tao) kundi nang aking Ama (Amang Yahweh) na nasa langit‖.
Tanging si Simon Pedro na anak ni Yonas ang pinahayagan ni Amang Yahweh ng KATOTOHANAN na si
Yahshu‟a ay ANAK NI YAHWEH NA BUHAY. Ang mga Translators ay nalito dahil hindi sila
pinahayagan ni Amang Yahweh ng katotohanang ito kaya inakala nila na si Yahshu‘a ay Anak ng Tao
kagaya ng ayon sa mga Tao.
Ano ang Inihayag ni Amang Yahweh kay Simon Pedro na Anak ni Yonas na Hindi inihayag sa sinumang tao ?
Marcos 4:11 ‘sa inyo’y ipinagkaloob na malaman ang lihim tungkol sa paghahari ni Yahweh, ngunit sa iba ay ang lahat
ng bagay ay itinuturo sa pamamagitan ng talinghaga’. Kung inihayag din sa inyo ito ay matatanggap ninyo ang
mga SUSI sa Kaharian ni Amang Yahweh na nasa Mateo 16:19 at maiintindihan ninyo ang nangyaring
sabwatan sa Golgotha.
SABWATAN SA GOLGOTHA
ANG BULAANG PROPETA NA SI CAIPAS:
YahYah 11:51 ‘sinabi niya ito hindi sa ganang kanyang sarili lamang, bilang punong Seserdote ng panahong iyon,
hinulaan niyang mamamatay si Yahshu’a dahil sa bayan’.
YeremiYah 23:31-32
‘ako’y laban sa mga propetang kumakatha ng sariling pangitain saka sasabihing iyon ay
ang sabi ni Yahweh. Ako’y laban sa propetang nagsasalaysay ng kasinungalingan upang dayain ang aking bayan,
hindi ko sila sinugo at wala silang kabuluhang idudulot sa bayang ito’.
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Deuteronomo 18:21-22 ‘upang matiyak ninyo kung ano ang sinasabi ng propeta ay kung galing kay Yahweh o
hindi, ito ang palatandaan: kapag hindi nagyari o hindi nagkatutoo ang sinabi niya, yaon ay hindi mula kay
Yahweh, sariling katha niya iyon, huwag ninyo siyang paniwalaan’.
Si Caipas ay isang bulaang Propeta at hindi karapat-dapat na maging punong Seserdote dahil hindi siya
nanggaling sa lahi ni Aaron na Levita. Samakatwid hindi mula kay Yahweh ang kanyang inihula. Bakit ang mga
tigapagturo ng Jesús ay naniniwala sa hula ng bulaang propetang si Caipas, at pati na ang mga naniniwala sa
tunay na pangalan ni Amang Yahweh at Yahshu’a Messiah ay pinaniwalaan din ang hula ng bulaang propetang si
Caipas at naniniwala sa Hindi Seserdote ni Amang Yahweh.
PINANGGALINGAN NG BULAANG SESERDOTE NA KAGAYA NI CAIPAS
1 Hari 12:31
‘nagtayo pa sila ng mga sambahan sa burol at naglagay ng mga Seserdote na hindi mula sa lipi ng
Levita, kundi pangkaraniwang tao lamang (NehemiYah 7:63-65)’.
1 Hari 13:33
‘sa ginawang kasamaang ito ni Yeroboam, hindi siya tumigil sa paggawa ng kasamaan,
patuloy parin siyang nagtatalaga ng mga Seserdote na hindi lahing Levita kundi pangkaraniwang tao
lamang’.
Si Caipas ay hindi nanggaling sa lahi ni Aaron na Levita, samakatwid si Caipas ay hindi tamang Seserdote.
ANG TAMANG SESERDOTE
Lukas 1:5
‘Nang si Herodes ang hari ng Judea, may isang Seserdote na ang pangalan ay ZechariYah sa
pangkat ni Abias, at mula rin sa lipi ni Aaron ang kanyang asawa na si Elizabeth’.
NehemiYah 12:4 ‘mga Seserdote’ na Levita, ‘Iddo, Ginetoi, Abias’.
Exodus 29:1 ‘Ganito ang gagawin mo sa pagtatalaga kay Aaron at sa kanyang mga anak na lalaki bilang Seserdote’.
SINO ANG NAGPLANO NA IPAPATAY ANG MESSIAH?
YahYah 11:45-54 ‘marami sa mga Hudyong dumalaw kay Maria ang nakakita sa ginawa ni Yahshu’a at nanalig
sa kanya. Ngunit ang ilan sa kanila’y pumunta sa mga Pariseo at ibinalita ang ginawa ni Yahshu’a, kaya’t tinipon
ng mga punong Seserdote at ng mga Pariseo ang mga Kagawad ng Sanhedrin. ‘Ano ang gagawin natin’? Wika
nila, gumagawa ng maraming kababalaghan ang taong iyon, kung siya’y pababayaan natin mananampalataya
sa kanya ang lahat, paparito ang mga Romano at wawasakin ang Templo at ang ating bansa. Ngunit ang isa
sa kanila si Caipas ang pinaka-punong Seserdote noon ay nagsabi ng ganito, ‘Ano ba kayo, hindi ba ninyo
naiisip na mas mabuti para sa atin na isang tao lamang ang mamatay alang-alang sa bayan, sa halip na
mapahamak ang buong bansa. (sinabi niya ito hindi sa ganang kanyang sarili lamang bilang punongSeserdote sa panahong iyon – hinulaan niya na mamamatay si Yahshu’a dahil sa bansa – at hindi lamang sa
bansang iyon lamang kundi upang tipunin ang nagkawatak-watak na mga Anak ng Maykapal). Mula noon ay
binalangkas na nila kung paano ipapapatay si Yahshu’a. Kaya’t siya’y hindi na hayagang naglakad sa Hudea. Sa
halip, siya’y nagpunta sa Efraim, isang bayang malapit sa ilang at doon siya nanirahan kasama ng kanyang mga
alagad’.
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BINALAK NA IPAPATAY NA RIN SI LAZARO
YahYah 12:10-11 ‘Binalak ng mga punong Seserdote na ipapatay din si Lazaro, sapagkat dahilan sa kanya’y
maraming Hudyong humihiwalay na sa kanila at nananalig na kay Yahshu’a’.
IBIG IPAPATAY NI HERODES SI YAHSHU’A
Lukas 13:31 ‘Dumating noon ang ilang Pariseo, sinabi nila kay Yahshu’a, ‘umalis ka rito, sapagkat ibig kang ipapatay
ni Herodes’.
Lukas 3:6 ‘umalis ang mga Pariseo at nakipagsabwatan sa mga kampon ni Herodes upang ipapatay si Yahshu’a’.
ANAK NI YAHWEH AY IBA SA ANAK NG TAO
Genesis 6:2 ‘ang mga Anak ni Yahweh ay nakita ang mga babaeng ‘Anak ng Tao’ na magaganda, kaya pumili sila ng
kani-kanilang mapapangasawa’
ANAK NG TAO
Genesis 11:5 ‘bumaba si Yahweh upang tingnan ang lungsod at ang toreng itinatayo ng mga Anak ng Tao’.
SI YAHSHU’A HANGGANG SA NINUNO NIYANG SI ADAN AY MGA ANAK NI YAHWEH
Lukas 3: 23 – 38 ‘ si Yahshu’a ay mag-tatatlumpung taon na ng magsimulang magturo, na anak ni Yahseph, na
anak ni Heli,………38..na anak ni Enos, na anak ni Seth, na anak ni Adan na Anak ni Yahweh’.
SINO ANG ANAK NG TAO, SINO AKO? SI YAHSHU’A AY ANAK NI YAHWEH NA BUHAY
Mateo 16:13-17 ‘Nang dumating si Yahshu’a sa lupain ng Caesaria ng Filipos, tinanong niya ang kanyang mga
alagad, ‘sino raw ang ‘Anak ng Tao’, ayon sa mga tao? At sumagot sila, ang sabi po ng ilan ay si YahYah Bautista,
sabi naman ng iba ay si EliYah, at may nagsabi pang si YeremiYah o isa sa mga propeta. Kayo naman, ano ang sabi
ninyo sino ako? Tanong niya sa kanila. Sumagot si Simon Pedro, ‘kayo po ang Messiah ang Anak ni Yahweh na
buhay’, sinabi sa kanya ni Yahshu’a, mapalad ka Simon na anak ni Yonas, sapagkat ang katotohanang ito’y hindi
inihayag sa iyo ng sinumang tao kundi ng aking Ama na nasa langit’.
ANO ANG KATOTOHANAN NA HINDI INIHAYAG NG SINUMANG TAO KUNDI ANG AMANG YAHWEH LAMANG?
Na makilala na BUHAY si Yahshu’a ang Messiah na ANAK NI YAHWEH
SINO BA ANG ANAK NG TAO?
YahYah 12:32-34 ‘at kung ako’y maitaas na, ilalapit ko sa akin ang lahat ng tao’, sumagot ang mga tao, ‘sinasabi
sa Kasulatan na ang Messiah ay mananatili Magpakailanman, sino ba itong Anak ng Tao?’
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Samakatwid, ang binanggit ni Yahshu’a ‘at kung ako’y maitaas na’ ay ang tamang pagkakasulat ay ‘at kung ang
‘Anak ng Tao’ ay maitaas na’. Ito’y mapapansin sa kasagutan ng mga tao sa pagtatanong ng ‘sino ba itong Anak ng
Tao?’
Ang Translators ay hindi “Mapalad’ na kagaya ni Simon na anak ni Yonas na pinahayagan ni Amang Yahweh na si
Yahshu’a ang Messiah ay BUHAY na ANAK NI YAHWEH
NAGPAKILALA SI YAHSHU’A NA ANAK NI YAHWEH
YahYah 10:36 ‘ako’y hinirang at sinugo ng Ama,
Yahweh sa sinabi ko na Ako ay Anak ni Yahweh’.
paano ninyong masasabi ngayon na nilalapastangan ko si
KINILALA SI YAHSHU’A
Mateo 3:17 ‘ito ang minamahal kong Anak na lubos kong kinalulugdan’.
SINO BA ANG BINANGGIT NI YAHSHU’A NA KAILANGANG MAMATAY?
Markos 8:31 ‘Anak ng Tao’ ay dapat magbata ng maraming hirap, siya ay itatakwil ng Matatanda ng Bayan, ng mga
punong Seserdote at ng mga Eskriba at ipapapatay. Ngunit sa ikatlong araw muli siyang mabubuhay’.
Lukas 9:21-22 ‘Anak ng Tao’ ay dapat magbata ng maraming hirap at itatakwil ng Matatanda ng Bayan, ng mga
punong Seserdote at ng mga Eskriba, ipapapatay nila siya, ngunit sa ikatlong araw siya ay muling mabubuhay’.
MULING IPINAHAYAG NI YAHSHU’A ANG KAMATAYAN NG ANAK NG TAO
Lukas 9:44-45 ‘ipagkakanulo ang Anak ng Tao’, ngunit ito’y hindi nila maunawaan sapagkat inilihim ito sa kanila’.
Markos 9:31 ‘Ang Anak ng Tao ay ipagkakanulo at papatayin, ngunit muling mabubuhay sa ikatlong araw’.
Mateo 17:22-23 ‘sinabi sa kanila ni Yahshu’a na ang Anak ng Tao ay ipagkakanulo at papatayin, ngunit muling
mabubuhay sa ikatlong araw’.
IKATLONG BESES NA INIHAYAG NI YAHSHU’A ANG KAMATAYAN NG ANAK NG TAO
Markos 10:33-34 ‘ang Anak ng Tao ay ipagkakanulo sa mga punong Seserdote at sa mga Eskriba, siya’y kanilang
hahatulan ng kamatayan at ibibigay sa mga Gentil, siya’y tutuyain nila, luluraan, hahagupitin at papatayin,
ngunit muli siyang mabubuhay pagkaraan ng tatlong araw’.
Mateo 20:18 ‘aakyat tayo sa Yahrusalem. Doo’y ipagkakanulo sa mga punong Seserdote at sa mga Eskriba ang
Anak ng Tao, hahatulan siya ng kamatayan at ibibigay sa mga Gentil. Siya’y tutuyain, hahagupitin at ipapako sa
krus, ngunit muli siyang bubuhayin sa ikatlong araw’.
Lukas 18:31-34 ‘tandaan ninyo ito pupunta tayo sa Yahrusalem at doo’y matutupad ang lahat ng sinulat ng mga
propeta tungkol sa ‘Anak ng Tao’. Ipagkakanulo siya sa mga Gentil, tutuyain, dudustain at luluraan siya ng
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mga ito. Siya’y hahagupitin at papatayin nila, ngunit sa ikatlong araw ay muling mabubuhay. Subalit wala silang
maunawaan sa kanilang narinig, hindi nila nakuha ang kahulugan niyon, at hindi man lamang nalaman kung ano
ang sinabi ni Yahshu’a’.
Samakatwid ay tinutukoy ni Yahshu’a ay ang ‘Anak ng Tao’ ay dapat magbata ng maraming hirap, siya ay
itatakwil ng Matatanda ng Bayan, ng mga punong Seserdote at ng mga Eskriba at ipapapatay. Ngunit sa ikatlong
araw muling mabubuhay’. Si Yahshu’a ay ‘Anak ni Yahweh’ na inihayag kay Simon Pedro na anak ni Yonas, ito ay
hindi inihayag ng tao kundi tanging si Amang Yahweh lamang ang naghayag nito.
UNANG ITINURO NI APOSTOL SAUL (PABLO) NA SI YAHSHU’A AY ANAK NI YAHWEH
Gawa 9:20
‘Una niyang itinuro sa mga sinagoga na si Messiah Yahshu’a ay siya’ng Anak ni Yahweh
BAGO MAGBAUTISMO SI FELIPE NA DISIPOLO NI YAHSHU’A
Gawa 8:37 ‘at si Felipe ay nagsabi ‘kung ikaw ay naniniwala ng buong puso, maniwala ka’, at siya’y sumagot,
‘naniniwala ako na si Yahshu’a ay Anak ni Yahweh’.
PINANGGALINGAN NG ALAMAT NA ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’
ALAMAT NI MYTHRA BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Mythra ng Persia ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang
mamatay at ‘Nabuhay Na Muli’ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI ATTIS BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH NG NAZARETH
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Attis ng Gresya ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang
mamatay at ‘Nabuhay Na Muli’ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI KRISHNA BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH NG NAZARETH
(900 B.C.E.) Si Krishna ng India ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang
mamatay at ‘Nabuhay Na Muli’ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI TAMMUZ BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH NG NAZARETH
Ezekiel 8:14 (597 B.C.E) Si Nimrod II ay tinawag naTammuz ng mga Babylonia, Azur naman ang tawag ng mga
Asyrian, at Osiris naman ang tawag ng mga Egyptian. Si Nimrod II ay napatay at ang kanyang asawa ay nagbuntis sa
ibang lalaki at pinalabas na ang bata ay si Nimrod II na ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’.Mula noon ang Alamat na ito ay naging
bantog sa mga Alamat ng Griyego at Romano kahanay nila Jupiter at Zeus.
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ALAMAT NI HORUS BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH NG NAZARETH
(300 B.C.E.) Si Horus ng Egypt ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang
mamatay at ‘Nabuhay Na Muli’ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI DIONYSUS BAGO LUMITAW SI YAHSHU’A MESSIAH NG NAZARETH
(200 B.C.E.) Si Dionysus ng Gresya ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus hanggang
mamatay at ‘Nabuhay Na Muli’ sa ikatlong araw.
Mapapansin na ang mga unang nagsalin (translators) ng Biblia ay nanggaling sa bansang naimpluwensyahan ng mga
Alamat na ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’. Mapapanood sa Google video clipping ‘Part 1 The Greatest Story Ever Told’.
NADALANG PANINIWALA NI HERODES
Markos 6:14-16, Mateo 14:1-22 ‘nakarating kay Haring Herodes ang balita tungkol kay Yahshu’a, sapagkat
bantog na ang pangalan nito. May nagsabi, siya’y si YahYah Bautista na muling nabuhay, kaya nakakagawa siya
ng mga himala. May nagsabi naman na siya’y si EliYah, siya’y propeta, katulad ng mga propeta noong una anang
iba. Sinabi naman ni Herodes nang mabalitaan niya ito, ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’ si YahYah Bautista na pinapugutan
ko’.
Mapapansin na dati nang pinaniniwalaan ang alamat na ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’ ay sikat na sikat na paniniwala ng halos
lahat ng Paganong Bansa bago pa magturo si Yahshu’a Messiah.
ANO BA ANG TALINGHAGA SA NABUHAY NA MULI?
Lukas 15:32
‘ngunit dapat tayong magsaya at magalak, sapagkat ‘NAMATAY NA’ ang kapatid mo, ngunit –
‘MULING NABUHAY’, ‘NAWALA’ ngunit muling nasumpungan’
Epeso 2:5
‘tayo’y ‘BINUHAY’ niya kay Messiah kahit noong tayo’y mga patay pa dahil sa ating mga pagsuway’.
Lukas 9:60 ‘ipaubaya mo sa mga patay ang paglilibing ng kanilang mga patay’.
Marcos 4:11 ‘sa inyo’y ipinagkaloob na malaman ang lihim tungkol sa paghahari ni Yahweh, ngunit sa iba ay ang
lahat ng bagay ay itinuturo sa pamamagitan ng talinghaga’.
PANALANGIN NI YAHSHU’A
Lukas 22:42 ‘Ama’, wika niya, ‘kung maaari’y ilayo mo sa akin ang sarong ito, gayunma’y huwag ang kalooban ko
ang masunod kundi ang KALOOBAN MO’.
DININIG ANG PANALANGIN NI YAHSHU’A
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Hebreo 5:7-8
‘Noong si Yahshu’a ay namumuhay rito sa lupa, siya’y nanalangin at lumuluhang sumamo kay
Amang Yahweh na makapagliligtas sa kanya sa kamatayan, at DININIG SIYA dahil sa lubusan siyang
nagpakumbaba’.
KALOOBAN NG NAGMAMAY-ARI NA MAKAKUHA NG PRUTAS HINDI ANG MAPATAY ANG KANYANG ANAK
Mateo 21:33-41 Pakinggan ninyo ang isang Talinghaga: May isang nagmamay-ari ng pataniman ng ubasan at
tinayuan niya ng gawaan ng alak at tore at iniwan niya sa kanyang mga Magsasaka at siya ay pumunta sa ibang
bansa. Nang dumating ang panahon na malapit ng magbunga ang mga pananim ay ipinadala niya ang ang kanyang
mga Tagasunod sa Magsasaka upang makatanggap ng mga prutas. Ang Tagasunod ay binugbog at pinatay at ang
iba ay pinagbabato. Muling nagpadala ng iba pang Tagasunod at ganoon din ang ginawa ng Magsasaka. Ngunit sa
huli ay ipinadala ang kanyang anak sa paniwalang kanilang igagalang ang kanyang anak. Ngunit ng makita ng mga
Magsasaka ang anak ay nagkaisa sila na sinabing “ito ang Tigapagmana, atin siyang Patayin at ating angkinin ang
kanyang pagmamanahan” At ang Anak ay kanilang kinuha sa Pataniman ng ubas at kanilang Pinatay. Ngayon kung
dumating na ang Nagmamay-ari ng pataniman ng ubas, ano ang kanyang gagawin sa mga Magsasaka? At sumagot
sila na matinding sisirain ang mga masasamang tao at ibibigay ang kanyang pataniman ng ubas sa ibang Magsasaka
na magsusukli sa kanya ng mga Prutas sa Tamang Panahon”.
KALOOBAN ba ng Nagmamay-ari ng ubasan na mapatay ang kanyang Anak o ang KALOOBAN niya ay Makakuha ng
Prutas?
INILAGAY SA KANILANG ISIP NA AKO’Y PATAY
Awit 31:12 ‘ako ay kinalimutan nila at inilagay sa kanilang isip na ako ay patay’
Awit 118:17-22 ‘hindi ako mamamatay kundi mabubuhay, ihahayag ang kagila-gilalas na ginawa ni Yahweh.
Kinastigo ako ni Yahweh, ngunit hindi ako ibinigay sa kamatayan’. 118:22 ‘ang batong inayawan ay siyang naging
pinaka-saligang bato’
Ito ay naisalin sa Gawa 4:11-12 ‘ang batong inayawan ay naging pinaka-saligang bato, walang kaligtasan sa
kaninuman, dahil walang tanging pangalan sa silong ng langit na ipinagkaloob sa mga tao kundi sa pangalan ni
Yahshu’a Messiah’.
Lukas 24:44 ‘ito ang tinutukoy ko ng sabihin ko sa inyo noong kasama-sama pa ninyo ako, ‘dapat matupad ang
lahat ng nakasulat tungkol sa akin sa Kasulatan ni Moses, sa Aklat ng mga Propeta, at sa mga Aklat ng Awit ni
David’.
ANG MGA NAKASULAT SA MGA KASULATAN NI MOSES, AKLAT NG MGA PROPETA AT SA AKLAT NG AWIT NI DAVID
Deuteronomo 18:15 ‘si Yahweh ay magtatalaga ng Propeta sa kalagitnaan ninyo, na kalahi ninyo, na kagaya ko (si
Moses ay Levita rin), sa kanya kayo dapat makinig’.
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Awit 118:17-22 ‘hindi ako mamamatay kundi mabubuhay, ihahayag ang kagila-gilalas na ginawa ni Yahweh.
Kinastigo ako ni Yahweh, ngunit hindi ako ibinigay sa kamatayan’. 118:22 ‘ang batong inayawan ay siyang naging
pinaka-saligang bato’
Daniel 9:26
‘at paglipas ng animnapu at dalawang linggo ang Messiah ay mapuputol, ngunit hindi para sa
kanyang sarili’: Mapuputol ngunit hindi sinabing mamamatay.
Isaiah 53:8 ‘siya ay inilabas sa kulungan at sa paghatol: at sino ang makakapagsabi sa kasama niya sa kanyang
henerasyon na siya ay pinutol sa lupain ng mga buhay? Dahil sa kasalanan ng kanyang bayan siya ay
nagdalamhati’.
Si Propeta Isaiah ay sumulat ng pangsubok na katanungan na sino sa kanyang kapanahunang ka-henerasyon na
makakapagsabi na siya ay naputol sa lupain ng mga buhay. Dahil sa kasalanan ng kanyang bayan siya ay
nagdalamhati (stricken).
WALANG NAKASULAT SA MGA KASULATAN NG MGA HUDYO NA ANG MESSIAH AY MAGBABATA NG HIRAP. ITO AY
DAGDAG NG NAGSALIN NG SULAT NI MATEO NA ANG MESSIAH AY MAGBABATA NG HIRAP
Mateo 26:27-28 ‘NAGPASALAMAT’. Tingnan ang Mateo 15:36 ‘ibinigay niya sa kanila – LAHAT KAYO, kagaya
sa Markos 14:23-24, sa sunud-sunod na ulat ni Markos ang mga Disipolo ay UMINOM at pagkatapos ay sinabi ni
Yahshu’a ang salitang ito. Sa Mateo ay PINALITAN ITO at ginawang pautos na INUMIN NINYO sinundan ng
salitang ‘AKING DUGO’, tingnan ang Leviticus 17:11 dahil ang dumanak na dugo ang dahilan ng buhay at
kung ilalagay ito sa altar ay MAKAKAPAGPATAWAD ng mga KASALANAN na may relasyon sa Huling
Hapunan. Sa mga salita na nasalin sa Griyego, tingnan ang Markos 14:24 ‘MARAMI’, tingnan ang Mateo 20:28,
dahil sa ‘KAPATAWARAN NG KASALANAN’ AY IDINUGTUNG SA AKLAT NI MATEO. Parehas na salita ang nasa
Markos 1:4 sa pagbabautismo ni YahYah Bautista ngunit sa Mateo ay INIWASAN ITO (Mateo 3:11). Ginawa ito
maari dahil ‘NAIS NIYANG IPALAGAY NA ANG PAGSASAKRIPISYO NG MESSIAH SA KAMATAYAN AY
ANG MAGBIBIGAY NG KAPATAWARAN NG MGA KASALANAN’.
Maliwanan na IDINAGDAG lamang sa Mateo na ang ‘KAPATAWARAN NG MGA KASALANAN AY ANG KAMATAYAN
NG MESSIAH’. Ano ba ang KAPATAWARAN ng mga kasalanan?
JUBILEE YEAR Ang Kapatawaran sa Mga Kasalanan
Leviticus 25:8-55, ang Jubilee Year ay ang KAPATAWARAN sa mga materyal na mga pagkakautang, ngunit ang
espiritual na utang ay mga kasalanan na katulad sa Jubilee Year na PINATATAWAD ang materyal na utang ay
ganoon din PINATATAWAD ang espiritual na utang na mga kasalanan.
Lukas 4:19 ‘upang ituro ang Katanggap-tanggap na Taon ni Yahweh’. Ang tinutukoy na Katanggap-tanggap na Taon
ni Yahweh ay ang Jubilee Year. Lahat ng mga Escolar ay naniniwala na ang Katanggap-tanggap na Taon ni Yahweh
ay ang Jubilee Year.
Lukas 7:36-50 ‘si Yahshu’a ay inimbitahan ni Simon na isang Pariseo upang kumain sa kanyang tahanan, at ang
isang masamang babae ay hinugasan sa luha at pinunasan ng kanyang buhok, nilagyan ng pabango at
hinalikan ang mga paa ni Yahshu’a. Ang mga nanduroong Pariseo ay nagsabi na kung talagang Propeta si
Yahshu’a ay makikilala niya agad ito na isang masamang babae. Ngunit tinanong ni Yahshu’a si Simon (na
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Pariseo) tungkol sa dalawang tao na may pagkakautang na 500 Dinaryo at 50 Dinaryo, Nang hindi
parehong makapagbayad ay agad na pinatawad sa pagkakautang ang dalawa. Ngayon sino sa kanila ang higit
na magmamahal sa nagpatawad sa utang? Sumagot si Simon na ang mas Malaki ang pagkakautang ang mas
higit na magmamahal. Sa ganitong sagot ni Simon ay itinuro ni Yahshu’a ang makasalanang babae (Lukas 7:47)
at sinabi na kahit Marami o Malaki ang kasalanan ng babae ay PINATAWAD NA dahil Malaki rin ang isinukli
niyang pagmamahal. At sinabi ni Yahshu’a sa babae ‘Ang iyong mga kasalanan ay PINATAWAD NA’ (Lukas
7:48). At ang mga kasalo sa pagkain ay nagsimulang magtanong sa sarili, ‘sino ba ito na pati pagpapatawad ng
kasalanan ay pinanga-ngahasan? Ngunit sinabi ni Yahshu’a sa babae ‘INILIGTAS KA NG IYONG PANANALIG,
YUMAON KA NA AT IPANATAG MO ANG IYONG KALOOBAN’.
Samakatwid ang may malaking pagkakautang na pinatawad ay kagaya noong babae na may malaking kasalanan,
ito ay ang ibig sabihin ng Jubilee Year, na mas-Malaki ang halaga na maisasanla ang ari-arian kung Malaki pa ang
panahon bago dumating ang Jubilee Year, at mas-Maliit naman ang halaga kung maliit na ang panahon bago
dumating ang Jubilee Year. Ang Jubilee Year ay nagpapatawad sa mga utang na materyal, samantala ang
utang na espiritual ay ang mga kasalanan ay ganoon din ay PINATATAWAD sa Taon na Katanggap-tanggap kay
Yahweh . Ang pananampalataya ng babae ang nagligtas sa kanya, ito ang pananampalataya sa itinuro ni Yahshu’a
sa Lukas 4:19 na Jubilee Year. Kung ang pananampalataya sa Taon na Katanggap-tanggap kay Yahweh (Jubilee Year)
ay isang daan sa IKAPAPATAWAD sa mga utang na kasalanan, Bakit kailangan pang mamatay ang Messiah
sa ikapapatawad ng ating mga kasalanan?
IMBISTIGASYON SA MGA NAGANAP:
SINO ANG NAGPLANO NA IPAPATAY ANG MESSIAH?
YahYah 11:45-54 ‘marami sa mga Hudyong dumalaw kay Maria ang nakakita sa ginawa ni Yahshu’a at nanalig
sa kanya. Ngunit ang ilan sa kanila’y pumunta sa mga Pariseo at ibinalita ang ginawa ni Yahshu’a, kaya’t tinipon
ng mga punong Seserdote at ng mga Pariseo ang mga Kagawad ng Sanhedrin. ‘Ano ang gagawin natin? Wika
nila, ‘gumagawa ng maraming kababalaghan ang taong iyon, kung siya’y pababayaan natin mananampalataya sa
kanya ang lahat, paparito ang mga Romano at wawasakin ang Templo at ang ating bansa. Ngunit ang isa sa
kanila si Caipas ang pinaka-punong Seserdote noon ay nagsabi ng ganito, ‘Ano ba kayo, hindi ba ninyo naiisip
na mas mabuti para sa atin na isang tao lamang ang mamatay alang-alang sa bayan, sa halip na mapahamak ang
buong bansa. ( sinabi niya ito hindi sa ganang kanyang sarili lamang bilang punong-Seserdote sa panahong iyon –
hinulaan niya na mamamatay si Yahshu’a dahil sa bansa – at hindi lamang sa bansang iyon lamang kundi
upang tipunin ang nagkawatak-watak na mga Anak ng Maykapal). Mula noon ay binalangkas na nila kung
paano ipapapatay si Yahshu’a. Kaya’t siya’y hindi na hayagang naglakad sa Hudea. Sa halip, siya’y nagpunta sa
Efraim, isang bayang malapit sa ilang at doon siya nanirahan kasama ng kanyang mga alagad’.
IBIG IPAPATAY NI HERODES SI YAHSHU’A
Lukas 13:31 ‘Dumating noon ang ilang Pariseo, sinabi nila kay Yahshu’a, ‘umalis ka rito, sapagkat ibig kang ipapatay
ni Herodes’.
Lukas 3:6 ‘umalis ang mga Pariseo at nakipagsabwatan sa mga kampon ni Herodes upang ipapatay si Yahshu’a’.
BLASPHEMY
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Noong kapanahunan nang ang Israel ay masasakop na ng Bansang Assyria ay naglabas ng Batas ang Sanhedrin, sa
sinumang bumanggit ng Banal na pangalang Yahweh ay magkakasala ng ‘Pamumusong’ (Blasphemy). Ito ay
mababasa sa Encyclopedia Judaica sa Titulong ‘YHWH”. Kahit na ang pinaikling tawag kay Yahweh na ‘Yah’ ay
binibigkas na ng ‘Ye’ (Ezra 2:2) sa pag-iwas sa pagbanggit ng pangalang Yahweh. Sa kapanahunan ni Yahshu’a
Messiah ay pinatawan siya ng pagkakasala ng Blasphemy.
Mateo 26: 64-65
‘sinasabi ko sa inyo na ang ‘Anak ng Tao’ ay uupo sa kanan ng ‘Makapangyarihan’ at
darating sa mga alapaap ng kalangitan’ sa ganoon ay pinunit ng punong Seserdote ang sariling kasuutan at
pinatawan ng kasalanang ‘Kapusungan’ (Blasphemy) si Yahshu’a. Ang ‘Blasphemy’ ay pagkakasala sa pagbigkas
ng Banal na pangalang Yahweh, kaya hindi ‘Makapangyarihan’ ang binanggit ni Yahshu’a kundi ang pangalang
Yahweh kaya siya ay pinatawan ng pagkakasala ng “Pamumusong’ (Blasphemy).
Si Yahshu’a ay dinala ng mga tauhan ng punong seserdote kay Gobernador Pilato at ipinadala naman ni Pilato si
Yahshu’a kay Tetraikang Herodes, ngunit hindi hinatulan ng Kamatayan ni Herodes si Yahshu’a, at si Yahshu’a ay
ibinalik kay Gobernador Pilato. Naging magkaibigan tuloy sila na dati’y magkagalit. Sa ganiton pananaw ay hindi
sasalungatin ni Pilato ang naging desisyon ni Herodes na kabago-bago palang niyang kaibigan, (Lukas 23:13-15).
Si Gobernador Pilato naman ay pinagsabihan ng kanyang asawa na huwag pakialaman si Yahshu’a dahil pinahirapan
siya sa panaginip sa nakaraang gabi. Sa ganito ay hindi nanaisin ni Pilato na hindi pagbigyan ang kahilingan ng
kanyang asawa, (Mateo 27:19).
Dahil lamang sa pangangailangang pagbigyan ang mga tao na alam ni Pilato na sinuhulan ng mga punong Seserdote ay
kinailangang baguhin ang una niyang desisyon na ‘walang kasalanan si Yahshu’a at kanyang palalayain, (YahYah
18:38, Luke 23:4, Luke 23:13-16, Luke 23:20).
ANO ANG UGALI NI GOBERNADOR PILATO?
Paanong maging sunod-sunuran si Pilato sa kagustuhan ng mga tao lamang, kung ang ugali niya ay ganito, ‘ ang
naisulat na niya’y hindi na pwedeng baguhin? Samakatwid, ang unang desisyon ni Pilato na si Yahshu’a ay walang
kasalanan at palalayain ay hindi pwedeng magbago. Ngunit dahil sa pagnanais ng mga punong Seserdote (na mas
mababa ang kapangyarihan kaysa kay Gobernador Pilato) na maipapatay si Yahshu’a, kinakailangan pulungin ni
Pilato ang lahat ng kanyang batalyon. Pinapasok niya ang mga ito sa kanyang palasyo at doon ay sila-sila lamang ang
nag-usap na paanong ipatupad ang kagustuhan ng mga tao na sinuhulan ng mga punong Seserdote at ang pagsunod
sa unang desisyon ni Pilato na palayain si Yahshu’a. (Hindi nakapasok sa Palasyo ang mga Hudyo dahil maituturing
silang marumi at hindi karapat-dapat sa Hapunang pang-Paskua, (YahYah 18:28, YahYah 19:19-22).
Lumabas ang Batalyon na kasama si Yahshu’a na may buhat na kahoy (krus). Nang makita nila si Simon na tagaCyrene (Libya sa ngayon), kanilang ipina-buhat kay Simon ang kahoy na buhat ni Yahshu’a at si Yahshu’a ay
inilagay sa likuran. Ang kanilang dinaanan ay pasilyong makitid na daanan lamang, kaya sa susunod na pagliko ay
ang nakita na ng mga tao na may buhat ng kahoy ay si Simon na. Mapapansin na sa ika-labingdala ng tanghali
hanggang sa ikatlo ng hapon ay nagdilim sa kapaligiran. Mapapansin din na walang nakasulat sa Bagong
Tipan na ‘isinauli ni Simon kay Yahshu’a ang kahoy kaya ng siya ay sumigay ng ‘Ama, patawarin mo sila dahil
hindi nila alam ang kanilang ginagawa’. Si Simon na taga Cyrene ay nagsasalita ng Griyegong wika. Sa Cyrene
hanggang sa ngayon ay marami pang lahi ng mga Griyego sa Susa, sa Shihat, sa Beda at sa iba pang lugar sa Libya.
YahYah 8:29 ‘at kasama ko ang nagsugo sa akin, hindi niya ako iniiwan sapagkat lagi kong ginagawa ang
nakalulugod sa kanya’. Paanong si Yahshu’a ay magsasalita ng ‘Ama, Ama bakit mo ako pinabayaan? o ang ‘Eli, Eli
lama Sabacthani’ kung hindi naman siya iniiwan ng nagsugo sa kanya?
Ayon sa Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Hebrew Bible Chaldean Hebrew at Greek Dictionary:
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Greek Dictionary:
2241 (Greek) ELI = my God – in Hebrew (EL) ‘Ale’ = mighty, Almighty
1682 (Greek) ELOI = my God
2982 (Greek) LAMA = why – in Hebrew 4100 MAH = why
In Hebrew 3027 YAD = Thou
4518 (Greek) SABACTHANI = thou has left me – in Hebrew 7662
In Hebrew 7662 SHEBAQ = allow to remain
‘Ama, Ama, Bakit Mo Ako Pinabayaan’ ay salitang sumisisi sa Ama.
Yob (Job) 1:22 ‘sa kabila ng mga pangyayaring ito ay hindi nagkasala si Yob, hindi niya sinisi si Yahweh’.
Hindi maaring sisihin ni Yahshu’a ang Ama sa Langit dahil ito ay kasalanan. Si Yob ay hindi nagkasala dahil hindi niya
sinisi ang Ama sa Langit.
MGA SAKSI
May mga saksi na ang taong nakabayubay sa kahoy (krus) ay sumigaw ng Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani na isang salitang
Griego. Hinintay ng mga saksi na baka dumating si Propeta EliYah na tinawag ng nakabayubay sa kahoy.
SI YAHSHU’A AY HINDI NAGSASALITA NG SALITANG GRIYEGO KUNDI SALITANG HEBREO LAMANG
Gawa 10:28, Gawa 26:14 ‘alam ninyo na ang isang Hudyo ay pinagbabawalan ng kanyang pananampalataya na
makisama o dumalaw sa isang hindi Hudyo’.
‘ Nakarinig ako na nagsasalita sa wikang Hebreo’
KASABWAT SI PILATO SA SABWATAN SA GOLGOTHA
Markos 15:44
‘hindi magugulat si Gobernador Pilato at magtatanong pa, ‘kung may napatay’ at kung tutuo na
desisyon ni Pilato na ipapatay si Yahshu’a.
ANG DECOY
YahYah 19:39 ‘sumama sa kanya si Nicodemus, may dalang pabango, mga 100 libra ng pinaghalong mira at
aloe (si Nicodemus ang nagsadya kay Yahshu’a isang gabi).
Mateo 27:62-65‘kinabukasan, pagkatapos ng Araw ng paghahanda, sama-samang nagpunta kay Pilato ang mga
punong Seserdote at mga Pariseo. Sinabi nila ‘Naaalala po namin na sinabi ng mapagpanggap na iyon noong
nabubuhay pa na siya’s muling mabubuhay pagkaraan ng tatlong araw. Baka pumaroon ang kanyang mga alagad
at nakawin ang bangkay at sabihin nila sa mga tao na siya’y muling nabuhay. At ang pandarayang ito ay magiging
‘MASAHOL PA SA NAUNA’
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Mateo 28:65 ‘ dahil sa ang napatay ay nagsasalita ng wikang Griyego na Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani ay pinuntahan
kaagad ng mga punong seserdote si Gobernador Pilato upang matiyak nila kung sino ang talagang napatay.
Nagdahilan pa sila na baka mabuhay muli ang napatay ayon sa sinabi nito ng nabubuhay pa at baka nakawin ng
kanyang alagad at palabasing nabuhay na muli. Ito ay mababaw na dahilan dahil kakailanganing maipakita ang taong
napatay na ito ay buhay.
Kaya sinabi sa kanila ni Gobernador Pilato na mayroon silang sariling kawal (kawal ng punong Seserdote na dumakip
kay Yahshu’a) kaya sinabihan sila ni Pilato na ‘bantayan nila ang libingan’ (Mateo 27:65)
Mateo 28:14-15 ‘bukas na ang libingan ng datnan ng mga kawal at ipinakita sa mga punong Seserdote.
Inakala naman nila na makakarating sa Gobernador na pinakialaman nila ang libingan na buksan upang masiguro
kung sino ang nailibing doon, ngunit wala silang natagpuang bangkay, kaya nagkatha sila ng salita at sinuhulan ang
mga kawal ng punong Seserdote na palabasin na kinuha ang bangkay ng mga alagad ni Yahshu’a.. ‘Sinabi ng mga
Seserdote na ‘huwag kayong mag-alala, makarating man ito sa Gobernador ‘KAMI ANG BAHALA’.Tinanggap ng mga
bantay ang salapi at ginawa ang bilin sa kanila – hanggang sa ngayon ito parin ang sabi ng mga Hudyo’.
MGA SAKSI NA SI YAHSHU’A AY BUHAY
Si Gobernador Festo at Si Apostol Saul
Gawa 25:19 ‘ ang pinagtatalunan lamang nila ay tungkol sa kanilang pananampalataya at sa isang tao na ang
pangalan ay Yahshu’a, patay na ang taong ito ngunit ipinipilit naman ni Saul (Pablo) na siya’y SIGURADONG
BUHAY. Si Gobernador Festo ang pumalit kay Gobernador Felix at nang dumating si Haring Agrippa upang
bumati kay Festo, inilahad ni Festo kay Haring Agrippa ang tungkol kay Pablo, at sa kanyang salita sa Hari
ay nabanggit niya na ipinipilit ni Saul na SIGURADONG BUHAY si Yahshu’a. Sa pagsasalita sa kagalanggalang na Hari, ang isang Gobernador ay magsasalita ng tamang salita, at si Gobernador Festo ay nakapag-aral
na tao at alam niya ang salitang ‘RESURRECTION’ o nabuhay na muli, ngunit bakit hindi niya ginamit ang
salitang ‘NABUHAY NA MULI’ kundi ang kanyang tinuran ay ‘ipinipilit ni Saul na si Yahshu’a ay SIGURADONG
BUHAY’.
Anghel ni Yahweh
Lukas 24:5 ‘bakit ninyo hinahanap ang BUHAY sa gitna ng mga patay? Ito ang tinuran ng Anghel ni Yahweh na
sinabing si Yahshu’a ay ‘BUHAY’ at hindi ang ‘Resurrection o Nabuhay na Muli’. Ang isang Anghel ni Yahweh ay
hindi magsasalita ng mali, sa Lukas 24:23 ‘mga Angel na nagsabing ‘BUHAY SI YAHSHU’A’.
Si Yahshu’a na mismo ang Saksi
Lukas 13:31-33
‘dumating doon ang ilang Pariseo, sinabi nila kay Yahshu’a na ‘umalis ka dito sapagkat ibig kang
ipapatay ni Herodes’. At sumagot si Yahshu’a, ‘sabihin mo sa kanya na nagpapalayas pa ako ngayon ng mga
demonyo at nagpapagaling, bukas ay ganoon din, at sa ikatlong araw tatapusin ko ang aking gawain. Ngunit dapat
akong magpatuloy sa lakad ngayon, bukas at sa makalawa sapagkat ‘IMPOSIBLENG MAMATAY ANG ISANG
PROPETA SA LABAS NG YAHRUSALEM’. (Hosea 6:2). Si Yahshu’a narin ang nagsabi na imposibleng mamatay ang
propeta na tinutukoy niya ang sarili niya (Deoteronomo 18:15).
Sa Awit ni Haring David
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Awit 118:17-22 ‘hindi ako mamamatay kundi mabubuhay, ihahayag ang kagila-gilalas na ginawa ni Yahweh.
Kinastigo ako ni Yahweh, ngunit hindi ako ibinigay sa kamatayan’. 118:22 ‘ang batong inayawan ay siyang naging
pinaka-saligang bato’
Sa Isinulat ni Lukas
Ito ay naisalin sa Gawa 4:11-12
‘ang batong inayawan ay naging pinaka-saligang bato, walang kaligtasan sa
kaninuman, dahil walang tanging pangalan sa silong ng langit na ipinagkaloob sa mga tao kundi sa pangalan ni
Yahshu’a Messiah’.
HINDI PWEDENG PATAYIN ANG ANOINTED NI YAHWEH
1 Samuel 24:4-7 “Ang mga tauhan ni David ay sinabihan siya, dumating na ang araw sa sinabi ni Yahweh na aking
ipagkakaloob sa iyong kamay ang iyong kaaway upang gawaan mo siya ng iyong ikatutuwa. At si David ay pinutol
ang laylayan ng damit ni Saul ng palihim”. Sa puso ni David ay pinatay na niya si Saul dahil pinutol niya ang laylayan
ng damit ni Saul. At sinabi ni David sa kanyang mga tauhan “patawarin ako ni Yahweh sa ginawa kong ito sa aking
amo na ‘Anointed ni Yahweh’ na lumaban ako sa kanya na alam nating siya ay Anointed ni Yahweh”. Sinabihan ni
David ang kanyang mga tauhan na huwag silang gagawa ng masama kay Saul. At si Saul ay nagising at lumabas ng
kweba”.
1 Samuel 24:10 “Ngayong araw na ito nakita ng mga mata mo sa loob ng kweba ay ipinagapi ka sa akin, ang iba ay
sinabihan ako na patayin ka, ngunit sa aking mata ay iniligtas kita at sinabi ko na hindi ko gagamitin ang aking
kamay laban sa aking amo DAHIL SIYA AY ANOINTED NI YAHWEH”.
2 Samuel 1:14-16 “sinabi ni David ‘Hindi kaba Natakot na ginamit mo ang iyong kamay upang wasakin ang
Anointed ni Yahweh?, at tinawag ni David ang isang kabataang lalaki at ipinapatay ang Amalekita. At sinabi ni
David ‘ang dugo mo ay sumaiyong ulo dahil sa iyong labi ay sumaksi ka laban sa iyong sarili nang sinabi mong
‘Pinatay Mo ang Anointed ni Yahweh’.
Natagpuang aklat ni Pedro sa isang Libingan sa Egypto
Bible Dictionary of the Holy Bible
Natagpuan sa isang libingan sa Egypto noong 1886 A.D. ang ‘THE GOSPEL OF PETER’ at nailathala noong 1892
A.D. ay maaaring DOCETIC GOSPEL at mahalagang katibayan sa istorya na CRUCIFIXION at RESURRECTION kahit
na ito ay may halatang BINAGO sa pag-pabor sa mga HERESY na iyan.
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The Gospel Dates
"It's important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are
anonymous."
Dr. Craig L. Blomberg, The Case for Christ (26)
Because of the lack of original texts, it has been very difficult to date the canonical
gospels as to when they were written or even when they first emerge in the
historical record, as these two dates may differ. The
gospels have been dated variously from shortly after
the crucifixion, traditionally placed around 30 AD/CE,
to as late as a century and a half afterwards.[1] The
currently accepted dates are as follows, from the
earliest by conservative, believing scholars to the
latest by liberal and sometimes secular scholars:
Matthew: 37 to 100 AD/CE
Mark: 40 to 73 AD/CE
Luke: 50 to 100 AD/CE
John: 65 to 100 AD/CE
Many reasons have been given for these dates, from
one end of the spectrum to the other, the earliest
dates being based on the events recounted in the
gospels themselves. The later dates are based also
on this timeframe, but the difference is that they
account for the mention of the destruction of the
Jerusalem temple, which occurred in 70 AD/CE.
According to this scholarship, the gospels must have
been written after the devastation because they refer to it. However, conservative
believers maintain the early dates and assert that the destruction of the temple and
Judea mentioned in the gospels constitutes "prophecy," demonstrating Jesus's divine
powers. The substantiation for this early, first-century range of dates, both
conservative and liberal, is internal only, as there is no external evidence, whether
historical or archaeological, for the existence of any gospels at that time.
Nevertheless, fundamentalist Christian apologists such as Norman Geisler make
misleading assertions such as that "many of the original manuscripts date from
within twenty to thirty years of the events in Jesus' life, that is, from contemporaries
and eyewitnesses."[2] Scrutinizing the evidence forensically, however, it is
impossible honestly to make such a conclusion.
Moreover, even the latest of the accepted gospel dates are not based on evidence
from the historical, literary or archaeological record, and over the centuries a more
"radical" school of thought has placed the creation or emergence of the canonical
gospels as we have them at a much later date, more towards the end of the second
century.
Anonymous and Pseudonymous Authors
Based on the dating difficulties and other problems, many scholars and researchers
over the centuries have become convinced that the gospels were not written by the
people to whom they are ascribed. As can be concluded from the remarks of
fundamentalist Christian and biblical scholar Dr. Craig L. Blomberg, the gospels are
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in fact anonymous.[3] Indeed, the belief in the authorship of the gospels by
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is a matter of faith, as such an opinion is not merited
in light of detailed textual and historical analysis. In reality, it was a fairly common
practice in ancient times to attribute falsely to one person a book or letter written by
another or others, and this pseudepigraphical attribution of authorship was especially
rampant with religious texts, occurring with several Old Testament figures and early
Church fathers, for example, as well as with known forgeries in the name of
characters from the New Testament such as the
Gospel of Peter, et al.
In actuality, there were gospels composed in the
name of every apostle, including Thomas,
Bartholomew and Phillip, but these texts are
considered "spurious" and unauthorized. Although it
would be logical for all those directly involved with
Jesus to have recorded their own memoirs, is it not
odd that there are so many bogus manuscripts? What
does it all mean? If Peter didn't write the Gospel of
Peter, then who did? And why? Is not the practice of
pseudepigraphy—the false attribution of a work by
one author to another—an admission that there were
many people within Christianity engaging in forgery?
If these apostles themselves had gospels forged in
their names, how can we be certain that Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John did not likewise have gospels
falsified in their names?
According to Whom?
What we do know for a fact—admitted even by the
Catholic Encyclopedia—is that the titles attached to the gospels, "The Gospel
According to Matthew," etc., are not original to the texts but were added later.
Indeed, the term "according to" in the original Greek—kata—could be interpreted to
suggest that the texts were understood to be relating a tradition of these individuals,
rather than having been written by them. In reality, none of the evangelists
identifies himself as a character in the gospel story. As one glaring example of this
detachment, it is claimed that Matthew was recording events he himself had
witnessed, but the gospel attributed to him begins before he had been called by
Jesus and speaks of Matthew in the third person….
This subject of attribution is extremely important, because, as Tenney asserts, "if it
could be shown that any of the books of the New Testament was falsely attributed to
the person whose name it bears, its place in the canon would be endangered."[4]
"Back in the Day…"
Furthermore, there are places in the New Testament that imply the books were
written long after the purported events, such as when the text reads, "In the days of
John the Baptist," which indicates that the writer is set far ahead in time and is
looking back. As another example, regarding Jesus's body being stolen, Matthew's
gospel claims that "this story has been spread among the Jews to this day." The
phrase "to this day" indicates that the writer is talking about a significant length of
time, not shortly after the resurrection as some have attempted to place the
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composition and emergence of this gospel. In fact, we do not have any mention in
the historical record of the story of Christ's body being stolen having been spread
among the Jews until the second century. It is possible that this particular verse was
not added until that time, which means that it is not original to the gospel and that
Matthew certainly is not its author. Also, Luke's gospel discusses an apparent myriad
of preceding gospels written "by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses…"
The phrase "from the beginning" likewise implies a passage of time, as does the fact
that there were "many" who preceded Luke in writing gospels.
Irenaeus, "Father of the
Catholic Canon."
In addition to the issues already discussed in
support of the later dates is the important fact
that the four canonical gospels were not
mentioned or named as such by anyone until
the time of Church father Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lyons (c. 120/140-c. 200/203 AD/CE). In
Against All Heresies (III, 11.8), written around
180 AD/CE, Irenaeus is the first to name the
canonical gospels and give reasons for their
inclusion and number in the New Testament…
The remarks by Irenaeus represent the first
mention of all four canonical gospels together.
In fact, prior to the end of the second century,
there is no clear evidence of the existence of
the canonical gospels as we have them.
Church Father and Bishop
Papias
Christian apologetics for the early gospel dates rely on the slimmest of evidence,
including a very late third-hand testimony of a late second-hand testimony that
"Mark" had written a narrative, supposedly based on the experiences of Peter as
related by the apostle himself. In the fourth century, Church historian Eusebius
quoted early Church father and bishop Papias of Hierapolis (c. 70?-c. 155? AD/CE) as
referring to the "presbyter John"…
Regarding the bishop of Hierapolis, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, "Of Papias's life
nothing is known."[5] In other words, we do not even know who this person is whom
Eusebius is allegedly quoting regarding these purported earlier texts. According to
Eusebius—in disagreement with Irenaeus, who suggested Papias had known the
apostle John—Papias had no direct acquaintance with any of the apostles:
…Papias himself in the preface to his work makes it clear that he was never a
hearer or eyewitness of the holy apostles, and tells us that he learnt the
essentials of the faith from their former pupils.[6]
The assumption that the "presbyter John" with whom Papias apparently had a
relationship was the same as the apostle John is evidently incorrect….
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…Many of Papias's remarks, according to Eusebius, involved miracles, such as the
raising of the dead, which stretch the credulity. Are we supposed merely to take
Papias's word on what else he was told by these "former followers?" Moreover, even
Eusebius does not think highly of Papias, remarking, "For he seems to have been a
man of very small intelligence, to judge from his books."[7]
… Papias is one of the only pieces of evidence Christian apologetics offers as to the
dating of the gospels—yet, his testimony concerning these writings of Mark and
Matthew is not only second-hand but also too late to possess any value as concerns
the earliest of the gospels dates. Moreover, Papias only speaks about a narrative by
Mark, which by no means conclusively refers to the canonical Mark as we have it.
Nor, as we have seen, is the Aramaic gospel of Matthew the same as the canonical
Matthew….
Justin Martyr
As proof of the existence of the gospels prior to the end of the second century, it is
claimed that Church father Justin Martyr (c. 110-c. 165 AD/CE) included 268
"quotations of the New Testament" in his writings, an extraordinary figure from a
chart in Josh McDowell's book New Evidence that Demands a Verdict.[8] However,
the various assertions regarding "quotes" from biblical texts in early Christian
writings rank as highly misleading. In the first place, there appears nothing prior to
Justin Martyr (c. 150 AD/CE) that we can point to as real evidence of the existence of
the canonical gospels, which is why Justin Martyr heads the chart in McDowell's
book. In fact, virtually all of the numerous quotes purportedly from the New
Testament listed in the Catholic Encyclopedia,[9] for example, as found in earlier
Christian writings constitute sayings that may have been transmitted orally or in
other source texts such as the Aramaic Gospel of Matthew or Q. Next, upon close
inspection, the material from Justin Martyr—such as the "Memoirs of the Apostles"—
does not correspond well enough to that found in the canonical gospels and is likely
from another common source text or texts. Indeed, renowned biblical scholar
Tischendorf only managed to find two pertinent quotations in Justin Martyr's works
that could possibly come from the gospel of Matthew, for example.[10] Again, these
miniscule passages could very well come from a shared source text.
(For more on this subject of Justin Martyr‘s value in establishing the existence of the
canonical gospels, see my book Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled.)
The Rylands Papyrus
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Aside from various sayings
within the writings of the
Church fathers that resemble
those found in the gospels but
may well come from common
source texts, the only widely
accepted evidence that places
the emergence of any of the
canonical gospels before the
end of the second century is a
small scrap of papyrus called
the "Rylands fragment" or P52,
which contains several dozen
letters scattered across four
verses of John's gospel (18:3133). The dates for this tiny
fragment—the provenance of
which is unknown and the
authenticity of which has been
disputed—are by no means set
in stone and have been posited
from the "wishful thinking" of
90 AD/CE all the way to the end
of the second century. The
presumed dating of P52 to the
first half of the second century
has been called "sensational"
and seems untenable. One
significant argument against
the early dating of P52 is that
the fragment was part of a
codex, or book, rather than a
scroll, and there are few
examples of such books in
existence at such an early
date. Moreover, in a fairly recent paleographical study published in the Archiv für
Papyrusforschung 35 (1989), German scholar Andreas Schmidt suggested a date for
P52 of 170 AD/CE +/- 25 years….
The same may be said of the other early papyri fragments, P90 (Jn 18:36-40; 19:17), P98 (Rev 1:13-20) and P104 (Mt 21:34-37; 43, 45?), speculatively dated to the
middle of the second century +/- 50 years….
Late Dating of the Gospels?
It is not within the scope of this present work to examine thoroughly the alternative
argument for a late dating of the gospels. This important scholarship is based
principally on a close examination of the most ancient Christian texts,[11] as well as
archaeological evidence—or lack thereof—and various anachronisms. The result is
that there is good reason to include these late dates in our investigation, and doing
so may yield some surprising results concerning the authorship of the gospels.
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To demonstrate how alternative dating of at least one of the gospels may provide
solutions to outstanding problems, we will take as an example the gospel of Luke,
particularly since it is asserted that "the key to dating the Gospels is the Book of
Luke."[12]
In dating Luke's gospel, which
is addressed to "most excellent
Theophilus," it should first be
noted that nowhere does the
author identify himself as the
Luke who was a companion of
Paul, mentioned in three
Pauline epistles. In fact, other
than the title "the Gospel
according to Luke"—which is
admitted by all authorities to be
an addition and not original to
the text—Luke's name does not
show up in any gospel. Despite
outward appearances, it is by
no means certain that the
author of Luke, who was neither
an apostle nor a known disciple,
was anywhere near in time to
the events he is recording.
When we factor in the Acts of
the Apostles, which is widely
regarded as having been
written by the same person as
the gospel of Luke and which
likewise addresses
"Theophilus," a whole new can
of worms is opened, as there is
also no record of that book
having been written or existing
before the end of the second century. Furthermore, other than the Jewish high priest
Theophilus (37-41 AD/CE) briefly mentioned in Josephus (Ant., XVIII, 5, 3)—a highly
unlikely candidate for Luke's pen-pal, particularly since Josephus certainly says
nothing about what would constitute a stunning conversion to Christianity—there is
no appearance in the historical record of any other "Theophilus" earlier than the
bishop of Antioch (fl. c. 168-c. 181/188 AD/CE). Thus, the identity of Luke's
Theophilus has never been explained adequately in terms of the purported era of
Christ's advent.
Some scholars and apologists have sought to explain this name "Theophilus" as more
of an epithet, meaning "Lover of God"; hence, it has been suggested that Luke was
addressing his text to "God-lovers" in general. Among other reasons, the fact that
Acts also begins with a greeting to this "Theophilus" makes it more likely that it is a
name of an individual, not simply a title. In the original Greek, Luke calls Theophilus
"kratistos," a term used biblically with the following meaning, per Strong's Biblical
Concordance (G2903):
1) mightiest, strongest, noblest, most illustrious, best, most excellent
a) used in addressing men of prominent rank or office
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In discussing the word "Theophilus," Strong's asserts that it is a single individual to
whom Luke is addressing his gospel and Acts. In addition, someone with the title
kratistos is likely not to be an obscure, lower-class individual but, rather, a person of
rank.
Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch
Concerning Theophilus, Christian biblical commentator David Brown remarks, "It is
likely 'Theophilus' was chief magistrate of some city in Greece or Asia Minor." Could
not this "chief magistrate" be a bishop, and this "city in Asia Minor" be Antioch?
Especially since it was asserted by ancient authorities that Luke himself was from
Antioch? And that the Christians were first so-called at Antioch?...
In any event, with the reference in his apology and a purported text of commentaries
on the gospels, Bishop Theophilus becomes the first Church father clearly to discuss
the canonical gospels!...
Why, then, is this important Christian authority rarely discussed? Is it because,
perhaps, Theophilus represents a "smoking gun" when it comes to unraveling the era
of the canonical gospels' composition?...
Who are the "Many?"
The fact that Luke is superseding "many" narratives also fits in with the idea that his
gospel was composed at the end of the second century, as there were many gospels
by that time.[13] Trying to fit Luke into the middle or end of the first century,
however, is an endeavor rife with problems, including that there certainly were not
"many" gospels in circulation or even in existence by that time. This suggestion also
presents us with some clarity on the tradition
beginning in the late second century that
Luke's gospel supposedly had been corrupted
by Marcion during the middle of the second
century. In reality, it seems the author of
Luke may have based his gospel on Marcion's
"Gospel of the Lord," rather than vice versa.
Furthermore, in determining which texts
Luke may be referring to, a number of
Church fathers, including Origen, Epiphanius
and Jerome, as well as other Christian
authorities such as the Venerable Bede (8th
cent.), evidently named books from authors
of the second century such as the Gospels of the Egyptians and the Twelve Apostles,
as well as the writings of the Gnostic-Christian heretic Cerinthus.[14]
In reality, the earliest mentions of the Gospel of the Egyptians appear to be in the
writings of Church fathers at the end of the second century to the fourth century,
such as Clement Alexandrinus, Origen, Hippolytus and Epiphanius. But, even the
earliest of the dates for this gospel and that of the Twelve Apostles would place the
composition of Luke at the end of the first century at the very earliest. Moreover,
Basilides supposedly thrived during Hadrian's reign, which ended in 138 AD/CE. Any
work of Basilides would date to no earlier than the first quarter of the second
century.
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From translations of the original Latin, it appears that Jerome, for example, is stating
that the texts of the "many" to whom Luke refers include the gospels of the
Egyptians and the Twelve Apostles, as well as those of Thomas, Matthias,
Bartholomew, Basilides and Appelles. With this evident validation, Jerome dropped a
bombshell which might have shaken the foundations of the Church but which has
apparently been ignored, with translations omitting this part of the saint's Preface,
and the original Latin of which possibly difficult to track down outside of a major
university. Whether or not Luke used these particular texts is immaterial, as what is
important is that, in referring to these writers at all, Luke must have composed his
gospel after these heretical books already existed. Like those of the Egyptians and
Twelve Apostles, none of the gospels of Thomas, Matthias and Bartholomew can be
placed earlier than the second century, although there are "wishful-thinking" firstcentury arguments for Thomas, evidently the earliest of the three….
Luke's Use of Josephus?
Another longstanding argument for a later date for Luke's gospel is that the
evangelist used the works of Jewish historian Josephus to pad out his history.
Although Christian apologetics argues for the opposite influence, when the most
scientific criteria are applied to the investigation, Josephus comes up first, with Luke
following. These arguments are lengthy but include Luke's inclusion of the following
episodes found in Josephus:








The census under Quirinius/Cyrenius
The three Jewish rebel leaders
The death of Herod Agrippa
Various aspects of Felix's life
The tetrarch Lysanias
The "parable of the hated king"
The famine during the reign of Claudius
Pilate's aggressions[15]…
In this scenario of Luke using Josephus, the earliest time for the composition of
Luke's gospel would be the last decade of the first century. However, as we have
seen, there is reason to suspect that it was composed much later, nevertheless using
possibly the best known history of that era, the works of Josephus.
There are thus several good and valid reasons to suspect that, despite current beliefs
regarding its date, the gospel of Luke as we have it represents a late second-century
creation.
John's Gospel
The first notice of John's gospel emerges around the
time of Bishop Theophilus, who, while he does name
a "John" as the author of verses seemingly from the
first chapter of the gospel of John, does not identify
the author as a direct apostle or disciple of Christ.
Other mentions of John's gospel occur around the
same time by Clement Alexandrinus (d. c. 215), as
well as commentary by Tatian (fl. 160-185), and then
a grandiose and strident apology by Irenaeus, from
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whose pen it has been suspected the gospel originally emanated, as a defense
against the "heretical" but powerful Gnostic sect of Docetism…. The argument for this
assertion that Irenaeus himself authored John includes the fact that the Church
father was provoked passionately to defend the gospel, which he does with a fervor
that often accompanies a "pet project." Even if John were composed by another's
hand, this abundance of defense suggests that the gospel had not been in existence
for a long time, as has been claimed, but had only recently emerged in the literary
and historical record, leading to the gospel immediately being attacked and
dismissed….
Gospel Anachronisms
In addition to these profound reasons for a later dating of the canonical gospels as
we have them, some of the variant readings and assorted other anachronisms within
the gospels tend to confirm these late dates in terms of words used, writing style,
and politics of the day as well. As examples of terms anachronistically used that
indicate a late dating for at least parts of the gospels, a number of word usages
supposedly articulated by Jesus were not "in vogue" until after the destruction of the
Jewish temple in 70 AD/CE. These terms used anachronistically in the gospels include:
1. "Gehenna" (Hell) as a place of punishment; 2. "synagogue" as concerns a place of
prayer; 3. "sanhedrin" as referring to the Jewish court; and 4. "mammon" as
meaning "money."[16] In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus is represented
as assailing prayer in public, as in the synagogues, when in reality synagogues were
never used as houses of prayer until after the temple was destroyed. Hence, this
part of the Sermon could not have been written until after that time… As Jewish
scholar Gerald Friedlander states in The Jewish Sources of the Sermon on the Mount,
"Four-fifths of the Sermon on the Mount is exclusively Jewish."[17]
Another similar anachronism in the gospels appears in the description of the
"disciples of the Pharisees," as at Mark 2:18 and Luke 5:33. Since the Pharisees
were technically not "priests" per se but pious, unlearned laymen, it would be
unusual for them to have "disciples" in the clerical sense.
This phrase may not have come into use until after the destruction of the temple in
70 AD/CE, which would mean that the writers were distanced from the events by a
considerable amount of time.[18]
The Canon: A Second-Century Composition
With such remarkable declarations of the Church fathers, et al., as well as other
cogent arguments, we possess some salient evidence that the gospels of Luke and
John represent late second-century works. In fact, all of the canonical gospels seem
to emerge at the same time—first receiving their names and number by Irenaeus
around 180 AD/CE, and possibly based on one or more of the same texts as Luke,
especially an "Ur-Markus" that may have been related to Marcion's Gospel of the
Lord. In addition to an "Ur-Markus" upon which the canonical gospels may have been
based has also been posited an "Ur-Lukas," which may likewise have "Ur-Markus" at
its basis.
The following may summarize the order of the gospels as they appear in the
historical and literary record, beginning in the middle of the second century:
1. Ur-Markus (150)
2. Ur-Lukas (150+)
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3.
4.
5.
6.
Luke (170)
Mark (175)
John (178)
Matthew (180)
To reiterate, these late dates represent the time when these specific texts
undoubtedly emerge onto the scene.[19] If the canonical gospels as we have them
existed anywhere previously, they were unknown,
which makes it likely that they were not composed
until that time or shortly before, based on earlier
texts. Moreover, these dates correspond perfectly
with Theophilus's bishopric of Antioch, which has
been dated from about 168 to either 181 or 188 and
during which the first definite indications of the
canonical gospels begin to materialize. After this
time, in fact, the floodgates open up, with Irenaeus's
canon, followed by gospel commentaries of all
manner by Irenaeus, Tertullian (c. 160-?; fl. 197),
Origen, Eusebius, Chrysostom, Jerome and
Augustine, et al. At least three Church fathers, as we
have seen, pointed to Gnostic heretics of the second
century as some of the "many" in Luke's prologue,
also verifying a late second-century date for the
emergence of that gospel.
When one considers the amount of time, effort and resources put into New
Testament studies and criticism over the centuries, it is understandable that the
wagons would circle whenever someone comes along with suggestions seemingly out
of the ordinary, such as asserting late dates for the canonical gospels. One must ask,
however, if there is no clear scientific evidence for the existence of these gospels
before that time, would it not be more honest to entertain at least the possibility of
their having been composed at a later date? One reason why considering this
possibility is so important is precisely because there have been so much time, effort
and resources put into NT studies. Some of the hardest nuts to crack exist largely
because of the early dates attached to these texts, without valid scientific evidence.
Without proper dates for these gospels, we will have little luck in establishing who
Jesus was.
[1] See "The 'Historical' Jesus?" chapter in my book Suns of God for more discussion
of the scholarship over the centuries regarding the dating and order of the canonical
gospels.
[2] Geisler, CA, 327.
[3] Strobel, 26.
[4] Tenney, 402.
[5] CE, "St. Papias."
[6] Eusebius (III, 39:2), 101-102.
[7] Eusebius (III, 39), 103.
[8] McDowell, 43.
[9] CE, "Gospel of St. Matthew."
[10] See also Suns of God for a thorough discussion about the value of Justin Martyr
as well as other Christian and non-Christian evidences.
[11] The minutiae of this subject can be studied in Walter Richard Cassels's
exhaustive analysis Supernatural Religion, an comprehensive survey of all of the
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early Christian writings in the original Greek and Latin, with English translations and
commentary.
[12] Geisler, CA, 312.
[13] Waite notes that the German critic Schleiermacher determined Luke's gospel to
have been compiled from 33 different manuscripts, and he shows the very divisions
upon which these are delineated (Waite, 379-380). According to Waite's
survey of Church fathers and other Christian authorities, "It is the universal
conclusion, that the author of Luke does not here refer to any of the canonical
gospels." (385)
[14] Waite, 385-6.
[15] Carrier, "Luke and Josephus."
[16] Friedlander, xii, xviii, xxx-xxxi.
[17] Friedlander, 266.
[18] Meier, II, 442-443.
[19] See Waite for arguments supporting this dating and order.
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BAKIT NAGKAIBA-IBA ANG PAGKAKA-UNAWA SA BIBLIA?
Hayaan natin ang Biblia ang sumagot, sa John 14:26“Ngunit
ang Mang-aaliw na siyang Banal na Ispiritu, na ipinadadala ng
Ama (Yahweh) sa aking pangalan (Yahshu‟a), ay siyang
magtuturo sa iyo ng lahat ng mga bagay, at siya rin ang
magpapa-alala sa atin sa lahat ng itinuro ko sa inyo”
Ang Banal na Ispiritu ang Tigapagturo sa atin, at ang Banal na
Ispiritu ay ipinadadala ng Ama (Yahweh) sa pangalang
Yahshu‟a.
Ipadadala ba ang Banal na Ispiritu sa ibang pangalan, o sa
pangalang Iesous, sa pangalang Iesus, sa pangalang Jesus , sa
pangalang Hesus?
Ito ang dahilan ng pagkaiba-iba ang pagkaka-unawa sa Biblia
dahil walang Banal na Ispiritu ang mga nangaral sa pangalang
Iesous, Iesus, Jesus o Hesus.
Tandaan natin na Tanging sa Pangalang Yahshu‟a lamang
ipadadala ang Banal na Ispiritu at iyang Banal na Ispiritung
iyan ang siyang magtuturo sa atin at magpapa-alala sa mga
itinuro ni Yahshu‟a.
Acts 4: 12 “ walang tanging pangalan ibinigay ni Yahweh sa
silong ng langit na sukat nating ikaligtas, at ang nag-iisang
pangalang iyan ay Yahshu‟a ang tunay na pangalan ng
Messiah.
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UNA TANGING LEVITA LAMANG ANG MAY KARAPATANG
HUMAWAK NG ORIHINAL NA KASULATAN NI MOSES.
TANGING LEVITA LAMANG ANG MAY KARAPATANG HUMAWAK
NG MGA AKLAT NI MOSES
Ang Torah ni Moses o ang aklat ni Moses ay nadala ni Ezra na lahi ni Aaron na Levita dahil tanging ang
lahi lamang ng Levita ang may karapatang humawak at mag-ingat noon. Mamamatay ang hindi Levita
na humawak noon dahil iyon ay nakalagak sa Ark of the Covenant.
2Samuel 6:6-7 And when they came to Nachon's threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of
Yahweh, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of Yahweh was kindled Against
Uzzah; and Yahweh smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of Yahweh.
According to the Tanakh, Uzzah (fl. 1010 BC) was from the tribe of Yahuwdah whose death is associated
with touching the Ark of the Covenant. He was the son of Abinadab the second of the eight sons of Jesse
(1 Samuel 16:8). Jesse is the father of king David.
Deuteronomy 10:8 At that time Yahweh separated the tribe of Levi, to bear the Ark of the Covenant of
Yahweh, to stand before Yahweh to minister unto him, and to bless in his name,
unto this day.
Deuteronomy 31:26 Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the Ark of the Covenant
of Yahweh your Mighty One, that it may be there for a witness against thee.
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DALAWANG KAHARIAN – DALAWANG KLASENG ARAL –
DALAWANG KLASENG PARI
Two Countries, Two Writers
The first two sources, J and E, were written by two persons who lived during the period that I described in the
last chapter. They were tied to the life of that period, its major events, its politics, its religion, and its
catastrophes. In this chapter I intend to demonstrate this and to identify the persons who wrote them. First,
the author of J came from Judah and the author of E came from Israel. A number of biblical scholars before me
have suggested this, but what is new here is that I mean to present a stronger collection of evidence for this
than has been made known before, I mean to be more specific about who the two writers were, and I mean to
show more specifically how the biblical stories actually related to these two men and to the events of their
world. The mere fact that different stories in the first books of the Bible call God by different names of course
proves nothing in itself. Someone could write about the queen of England and sometimes call her the queen
and sometimes call her Elizabeth I I . But, as I have said, there was something more suspicious about the way
the different names of the deity lined up in the first few books of the Bible. The two different names, Yahweh
and Elohim, seemed to line up consistently in each of the two versions of the same stories in the doublets. If
we separate the Elohim (E) stories from the Yahweh (J) stories, we get a consistent series of clues that the E
stories were written by someone concerned with Israel and the J stories by someone concerned with Judah.
J from Judah, E from Israel
First, there is the matter of the settings of the stories. In Genesis, in stories that call God Yahweh, the patriarch
Abraham lives in Hebron. Hebron was the principal city of Judah, the capital of Judah under King David, the
city from which David's Judean chief priest, Zadok, came. In the covenant that Yahweh makes with Abraham,
he promises that Abraham's descendants will have the land "from the river of Egypt to t h e . . . river
Euphrates." These were the nation's boundaries under King David, the founder of Judah's royal family. But in a
story that calls God Elohim, Abraham's grandson Jacob has a face-to-face fight with someone who turns out to
be God (or perhaps an angel), and Jacob names the place where it happens Peni-El (which means "Face-ofGod"). Peni-El was a city that King Jeroboam built in Israel. Both sources, J and E, tell stories about the city of
Beth-El, and both kingdoms, Judah and Israel, made political claims on Beth-El, which was on the border
between them. Both sources, J and E, tell stories about the city of Shechem, which Jeroboam built and made
the capital of Israel. But the two stories are very different. According to the J story, a man named Shechem,
who is the original prince of that city, loves Jacob's daughter Dinah and sleeps with her. He then asks for her
hand in marriage. Jacob's sons reply that they could not contemplate this or any intermarriage with the people
of Shechem because the Shechemites are not circumcised and the sons of Jacob are. The prince of Shechem
and his father Hamor therefore persuade all the men of Shechem to undergo circumcision. While the men are
immobile from the pain of the surgery, two of Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, enter the city, kill all of the men,
and take back their sister Dinah. Their father Jacob criticizes them for doing this, but they answer, "Should he
treat our sister like a whore?" And that is the end of the story. This J story of how Israel acquired its capital
city is not a very pleasant one. The E story, meanwhile, tells it this way: And [Jacob] bought the portion of the
field where he pitched his tent from the hand of the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for a hundred qesita.
How did Israel acquire Shechem? The E author says they bought it. The J author says they massacred it .
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ANG NAKOPYA AT UMIRAL ANG ARAL MULA SA MGA PEKENG
PARI.
The Gospel Dates
"It's important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are
anonymous."
Dr. Craig L. Blomberg, The Case for Christ (26)
ANG MGA PINANINIWALAAN NG MGA GREGO AT ROMANO NA MGA ALAMAT BAGO REBISAHIN ANG
PENTATEUCH GREEK O SEPTUAGINT LATIN OLD TESTAMENT NG MGA GREGO AT ROMANONG
MANUNULAT
ALAMAT NI MYTHRA
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Mythra ng Persia ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI ATTIS
(1200 B.C.E.) Si Attis ng Gresya ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI KRISHNA
(900 B.C.E.) Si Krishna ng India ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa ikatlong araw.
ALAMAT NI TAMMUZ
Ezekiel 8:14 (597 B.C.E) Si Nimrod II ay tinawag naTammuz ng mga Babylonia, Azur naman ang tawag ng mga
Asyrian, at Osiris naman ang tawag ng mga Egyptian. Si Nimrod II ay napatay at ang kanyang asawa ay nagbuntis sa
ibang lalaki at pinalabas na ang bata ay si Nimrod II na „NABUHAY NA MULI‟. Mula noon ang Alamat na ito ay
naging bantog sa mga Alamat ng Griyego at Romano kahanay nila Jupiter at Zeus.
ALAMAT NI HORUS
(300 B.C.E.) Si Horus ng Egypt ay ipinanganak ng inang Birhen noong December 25, ipinako sa krus
hanggang mamatay at „Nabuhay Na Muli‟ sa ikatlong araw.
Si Origen noong 235 A.D. na isang Christian scholar ng Alexandria ay binuo ang ‗Hexapla‟ na binubuo ng anim na
hanay na sa unang hanay ang bersyong Hebrew Text. Sa unang hanay ay Hebreo at sa ikalawang hanay ay Hebrew sa
Greek bersyon at ang ikatlong hanay ay ang Makabagong Greek bersyon na Aquila ng Sinope‘s Greek bersyon, ika-apat
ang Pinaka-lumang (Pentateuch) Greek Septuagint bersyon Symmachus ang Ebionite‘s bersyon, ang ika-lima ay ang LXX
o Septuagint na pinagsama-sama ang lahat ng Greek bersyon na may mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon ito nagmula. Ang
ika-limang hanay na kumbinasyon ng pinagsama-samang bersyon ng Greek ay kinopya ng marami beses at isinalin muli
ngunit tinanggal ang mga paliwanag kung saang bersyon nagmula, at ang Lumang Greek bersyon ng Septuagint ay hindi
isinama sa pagkakasalin. Ang pang-anim ay ang Theodotion bersyon. Itong mga pinagsama-samang mga teksto ay naging
unang paniniwala ng mga Christian rebisyon ng Septuagint na tinawag na “HEXAPLAR RECENSION”.
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We were taught by unlearned teachers in the past and the continuation of their teachings, still indoctrinating
the mind and belief of our society especially of our youth. What will be the result? The continuations of
indoctrination of wrong and false teaching into our youth will result to our future leaders and people will
depend and relies on the falsehood and will no longer accept the truth as what is going on now. As I
remember my poem when I was in my grade schools, the poem is ―We are what we are today, because You
our Elders have made us this way, We are what we are, because we had become a victim, an endless victim
of your bungler and smugness, your incompetence …‖ Now this time the elders I am talking is I myself and
you my dear intellectuals, will we not stand to correct the wrong, will we not move our hands to change the
falsehood into truth? When I will start to move, this is the same question I asked myself when I found the
falsehood, maybe I will move if I am now old, yes I will move when I am no longer active in my
organization, or I will move to correct the falsehood when I am no longer here in this world. Remember our
life is so short, how many more years I will live, how many more years you will live? Lets move now and
correct the falsehood in ourselves and specially in our belief and everything will follows, our family and
relatives will follow, our friends will follow, our society will follow, our politics of course will follow, our
life style or way of life will be corrected and the economy will follow, regional and global understanding
will based on our basic foundation that is the TRUE and CORRECT FOUNDATION that can only be
found in the
MANUAL OF MANKIND THE BIBLE.
How the Falsehood in Religion Interact with Regionalism and Globalization
Because of very fast communication and bulks of information in the internet, this falsehood will be
revealed and those hiding in white garments will be unmasked and people will no longer believe in their
teaching that will turn away from the Faith and will betray and hate each other, and because of increased in
wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. There will be no more Good Samaritans in the road, their will
be no more alms-givers, their will be no more philanthropies, everything will be with price, there will be no
more free in this world even the basic needs, as we are experiencing now. You have to pay when you use
the comfort room, you have to pay when you enter the park to relax your eyes, and time will come that we
need to pay to have fresh air to breath. As what is going on now in Europe, church-goers are becoming
lesser and lesser and priesthood is no longer popular professions. Churchianity in particular will loose their
grab to their members and loose their importance to the society. There will be tremendous effect in our
politics. The lawmakers will no longer be influenced by Churchianity and the laws will favor the fast
growth of globalization in expense of the basic human right needs. Because of the revelations of falsehood,
many will turn away from Churchianity and will betray and hate each other, and because of increased in
wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. This is because there were no teachers of the TRUTH, there
were no GOOD Examples, and there is no TRUE and CORRECT FOUNDATION. Teachers of the
TRUTH, how can you teach the TRUTH if you did not study and learned what you are teaching? Teachers
based their teaching in the teaching of Man. Teachers teaching Darwin‘s theory of Evolution, ―You know
students MAN came fromMonkey‖. Evolution is a continuous process, where can we find a man now
saying his father is a monkey? But most of our Elders now knew more on Monkey business. There were no
GOOD examples, as a leader you must be a good example. But leaders is the one who were corrupt, leaders
were the one doing vises, leaders were the one showing correct is wrong and wrong is correct. The leaders
is not limited to government officials only but also in show business society and also those famous. Being
famous you must show the correctness in you into our society. They married and divorced and married and
divorced, having children with different partners, are they good example to our society? Why this is
happening, because we have no law that restricts this wrong attitude of our society? We have law that
restricts Jaywalkers but we cannot restrict Famous People. Yes we have many laws to restrict them but it
was not applied for them. The leaders are not only limited to famous and government official but also all
matured individual father or mother or brother or sister of individual family and organizations. As a leader
we have to show GOOD Examples to others, but what is that good example? This is the problem, we don‘t
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know the good example to others because we been incorrectly doctrinated by the movies we idolized. As an
example when I was in my youth, I was punched in my face and what comes immediately into my mind, I
remember the movie I saw when the actor was punched, the actor immediately retaliated with a fist to show
that he is a tough guy. But this is wrong; correcting the wrong by applying wrong action is not the solution.
If they throw you stone throw them bread.
All seven of the great religions of the world have Golden Rules:
The Hindu: "The true rule is to guard and do by the things of others as you do by your own."
The Buddhist: "One should see for others the happiness one desires for oneself."
The Zoroastrian: "Do as you would be done to you."
The Confucian: What you do not wish done to yourself do not do to others."
The Mohammedan: "Let none of you treat your brother in a way he would dislike to be treated."
The Jew: "Whatever you do not wish your neighbor to do to you, do not unto him."
The Christian: "All things whatsoever ye would that men do unto you, do you even so to them."
All of this golden rules are good to the sight of men but Without TRUE and CORRECT Foundation, in
Proverbs 14:12, it is good to the sight of man but will lead to death” How can we have foundation if no
one knows what is right or wrong. No one read the correct foundation that only can be found in the Manual
of Mankind the Bible. Now I challenges every one of us here as a pilot project, all of us read the Bible and
we come back and meet again, there will be big difference in you, each and everyone of us here will have
different understanding from the present, in opinion and in deeds. But how we read the Bible? In John his
name is YahYah not John because there was no letter J in his life time. YahYah 14:26 of the New testament
„ The Holy Spirit will be send by the Father in my Name, and that Holy Spirit will be the one to teach
you all things and remind you of everything the Messiah thought”. Our teacher is the Holy Spirit and that
Holy Spirit will be send by the Father Yahweh in Heaven thru the name YAHSHU‘A only, not on Jesus
name or any other name. Therefore when we read the Bible we have to restore the correct name of
Yahshu‘a whenever we find in the Bible the name Jesus. Also in Old Testament and in New Testament
whenever we find God or LORD we have to replace it by the correct name of the Father in Heaven which is
YAHWEH. In doing this the Holy Spirit will come to us to teach you of all and everything‘s Yahshu‘a
thought. Bare in mind the reminder in Revelation 22:18 ―………‖ we will not be included in the plagues
and curses because we restore the correct name of Yahweh and Yahshu‘a. Remember we are not nor
removing anything from the Bible, we are only restoring the correct name that the writers removed from
the original copy, Jeremiah 8:8.
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