Satan and Judgement Day

14 Dec 202330 Mar 2024 nivtricLeave a comment

Satan has always been God’s trustworthy servant. He began his career as a serpent in Eden and later took charge of the furnaces that burn the evildoers for eternity. His task was to make God look good. We like to believe God cares for us, but prayers often remain unanswered while bad things occur, such as misfortune and nasty neighbours. How can an almighty good God allow this to happen? The obvious answer is that there is no god, or God does not care. That is not what we like to hear. Once the Jews had done away with Baal, Astarte and the others and switched to monotheism, they had to address this issue.

Suddenly, they had no one to blame for their misfortune except themselves and their nasty neighbours, who hated Jews for inexplicable reasons. How could that happen? After all, the Jews were God’s chosen people. If things went wrong, it was time to repent, prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah claimed. There usually was some idolatry or depravity occurring in their midst. That must have made God angry, the prophets claimed. But even when the Israelites prayed relentlessly, lived according to the Ten Commandments, and did all the prescribed rituals and offerings, things often did not improve. Who was responsible?

The Jews dedicated an entire bible book, the Book of Job, to this issue, dubbed the problem of evil. Job was a particularly pious and virtuous man who was doing well. But on a fateful day, Satan challenged God by claiming that Job’s devoutness was due to his prosperity. His belief was insincere, Satan argued. God could not allow the mere possibility of insincerity and agreed to test Job and allowed Satan to ruin Job. But even after the loss of his possessions, his children, and finally his health, Job still refused to curse God. Job did everything God could expect of a faithful servant and even more, or so it seemed.

Job’s friends tried to comfort him and figure out why he was suffering and what he could do about it. They suggested Job might have done something wrong. But Job proclaimed his innocence and complained about his fate. In the end, God showed up, telling him to shut up. His sin was hubris because he thought he did not deserve to suffer. Everything happens for a reason. It probably was not a satisfactory answer, so Satan had to take up an enlarged role and do the dirty work so God’s hands could remain clean. But the contradiction remains. Nothing ever happens without God willing it.

The Quran says Satan is a fallen angel named Lucifer (Iblis) who, unlike the other angels, refused to bow for Adam. The remainder of his career path is mostly the same as in the Bible. The Quran notes, ‘The angels prostrated themselves, all together. Except for Satan. He refused to be among those who prostrated themselves.’ (Quran 15:30-31) Then follows a conversation between God and Satan (Quran 15:32-42),

God said, ‘O Satan, what kept you from being among those who prostrated themselves?’

Satan said, ‘I am not about to prostrate myself before a human being, whom You created from clay, from moulded mud.’

God said, ‘Then get out of here, for you are an outcast. And the curse will be upon you until the Day of Judgment.’

Satan said, ‘My Lord, reprieve me until the Day they are resurrected.’

God said, ‘You are of those reprieved until the Day of the time appointed.’

Satan said, ‘My Lord, since You have lured me away, I will glamorise for them on earth, and I will lure them all away except for Your sincere servants among them.’

God said, ‘This is a right way with Me. Over My servants you have no authority, except for the sinners who follow you. And Hell is the meeting-place for them all.’

Like in the Book of Job, God and Satan appear on speaking terms, or even better, work together on the grand scheme and discuss what to do. A Christian might ask why the angels should have prostrated themselves before Adam. But Jesus could be the reincarnation of Adam. In a world where nothing is real, Satan is as fake as we are or unicorns or Spike and Suzy. Satan is not the only red herring. The End Times are another. Suppose there will be an End Times. What can God reveal about it? And what is the worth of the prophecies in the Bible and the Quran?

The book The Virtual Universe addresses the consequences of predestination. A prophecy is like a premonition. Why can fortune-tellers sometimes make accurate predictions? And why are their predictions unreliable at the same time? The answer is that it is impossible to know the future, but there could be signs demonstrating someone knows. For instance, if I know I will have a car accident tomorrow, I will remain home, and the accident will not happen. Predictions can influence the future unless they are vague or hidden. In 1914, no one could have guessed that the licence plate number on Franz Ferdinand’s death car referred to the end date of the upcoming world war. It suggests that someone knew the cause and course of the coming world war before it started.

Premonitions and accurate predictions require something more than just predestination. They presuppose foreknowledge of future events, but not necessarily with the persons having these premonitions or making predictions. God knows the future and can make people make accurate guesses without knowing what will happen. And so, the prophecies of ancient Greek oracles only made sense in hindsight.

Suppose the End Times are now. Jesus prophecised there would be false messiahs before he would return. Pim Fortuyn, the Dutch maverick politician who viewed himself as the Dutch Messiah, could have been one of them. Subsequent events might shed a different light on his claim. And the loud noise of trumpets will herald the end times. The noisiest person on Earth today is Donald Trump. War criminals might face Judgment Day in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, in the Netherlands. Such parallels always exist so any time could be the End Time.

What would the Europeans have thought in 1350 AD when the Black Death decimated their numbers? Or millions of dead fish on the shore in 2015 AD? What could it mean? It cannot be global warming, for sure. It must be the End Times. And there is always famine, suffering of the faithful, and, of course, depravity in spades. But it is logically impossible for God to reveal precise information as that will change the future. Apart from that, it lowers the level of suspense. The Book of Revelation thus does not say, ‘Jesus and all the angels will descend from heaven on 31 October 2022.’ It is not that God did not know, but that we should not. Hence, the Bible and the Quran are poor guides about what will happen and when.

Featured image: Photo of sign in Hell, Norway, taken by Matthew Mayer in 2001, released under GFDL. ‘Gods’ means cargo or freight in Norwegian, while the old spelling of ‘expedition’ has since become ‘ekspedisjon’. God’s Expedition, however, is a popular reading with English-speaking tourists.

Dutch replica of Noah's Ark. By Ceinturion.

Genesis from where?

15 May 20235 Nov 2023 nivtric7 Comments

Before discussing whether Eve was the goddess who gave birth to humanity, we need to know more about where the first chapters of Genesis came from. They deal with creation, the fall, and the flood. Who wrote them? These stories all took place in Mesopotamia. It is the birthplace of several ancient civilisations, such as the Sumerians and the Babylonians. These civilisations are much older than the Jewish nation, and they had myths about creation and the flood that are at least 1,000 years older than the Jewish Bible. The Jews lived in exile in Babylon in Mesopotamia when they compiled their scriptures. Most likely, they used existing myths from the area to write the first chapters of Genesis. A Babylonian creation myth, the Enūma Eliš, is a bit like the first chapter of Genesis:

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primaeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods, none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods amid heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being.

It may not seem that obvious, but there are similarities with the first chapter of Genesis. Both begin from a stage of chaotic waters before anything comes into being. In both, a fixed dome-shaped firmament divides these waters from the habitable Earth, and both share similar descriptions of the creation of celestial objects and ordered time. The Jews wrote their own story but used existing myths to make their own. The creation of man in Genesis resembles the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. It tells that the gods became tired of working on Creation and made a man to do the hard work. They put a god to death and mixed his blood with clay to produce the first human in the likeness of the gods:

In the clay, god and man
Shall be bound,
To a unity brought together;
So that to the end of days
The Flesh and the Soul
Which in a god have ripened –
That soul in a blood kinship is bound.

In Genesis, God created humans in the likeness of the gods (1:26). God rested after six days of hard labour (Genesis 2:2-3). God then made a man to work the ground (Genesis 2:5) and made him from soil (Genesis 2:7). In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods created the first man in Eden, the garden of the gods in Mesopotamia between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The same happened in Genesis (Genesis 2:14). There is an alternative account of the creation of man in the story of Enki and Ninmah. The gods, burdened with creating the earth, complained to Namma, the primaeval mother. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.

The Mesopotamians thus had at least two creation accounts, one in which the gods created man from soil and one in which a goddess gave birth to humanity. Two themes are present. Hence, there might be more to Eve being the Mother of All the Living. There exists a duplicity indicating the tale of Eve and Adam in Genesis could be a merger of those two tales.

The epic further tells that the first man, Enkidu, was wild, naked, muscular, hairy and uncivilised. The gods sent a woman to tame him with her nakedness and love. By making love to him for a week, she turned him into a civilised man of wisdom and like a god. She gave him a meal and clothed him. In Genesis, Eve let Adam eat (Genesis 2:6) and gave him the knowledge of the gods. Eve and Adam were naked before they came to knowledge (Genesis 3:7). God clothed them (Genesis 3:21).

The Epic of Gilgamesh differs from Genesis, but the similarities are also striking. In both stories, a god creates a man from the soil. The man lives naked in nature. A woman then tempts him. In both accounts, the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and leaves his former life. The appearance of a snake stealing a plant of immortality in the epic is also noteworthy.

The flood story in Genesis also closely resembles the account in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The stories are so similar that few scholars doubt the epic is the source of the biblical narrative. In the epic, the city of Shurrupak at the Euphrates River had grown. The god Enlil could not sleep because of the sounds the city made. The gods then agreed to drown all the humans in a flood.

But the god Ea appeared to Utnapishtim, warned him and asked him to build an ark. With his children and hired men, Utnapishtim built an enormous boat, and he went on it with his relatives, animals, and craftsmen. The storm god, Adad, sent a terrible thunderstorm with pouring rains that drowned the city. Then the gods felt sorry for what they did.

After seven days, the weather calmed. Utnapishtim looked around and saw an endless sea. He saw a mountain rising out of the water. After another seven days, he released a dove into the air. The dove returned, having found no place to land. He then released a swallow that also came back. Then he released a raven that did not come back. Utnapishtim disembarked and made an offering to the gods.

The Bible tells that all the people had grown evil. Only, Noah was blameless and faithful. And so, God decided to send a flood to wipe out humanity but to spare Noah and his family. God ordered Noah to build an ark that could also harbour males and females of every animal species, and food for them all. Then the flood came for forty days. No one survived. After forty days, Noah sent out a raven. Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded. Once the waters had receded, God asked Noah to get out of the ark with his wife, his sons and their wives, and to release the animals. Noah disembarked and made a sacrifice to God. It is more or less the same story.

Latest revision: 4 November 2023

Featured image: Dutch replica of Noah’s Ark. By Ceinturion CC BY-SA 3.0. Wikimedia Commons.

My guide plausibility

8 Mar 20236 Apr 2024 nivtricLeave a comment

Plausibility is a tricky concept. If it were straightforward, we would have figured it out long ago. The plausible may appear unreal in a world where everyone holds implausible beliefs. You can easily speculate too wildly. Or you can fail to see the overall picture if you only accept what can be proven. I have tried to avoid those pitfalls while keeping plausibility in mind.

God being a woman from an advanced post-human civilisation who uses this world for Her amusement makes more sense than existing religions or the belief we are here because of some accident. And the evidence is more substantial than you would expect if that had not been so. That is as good as it can get.

Detective work is speculation. ‘Once you rule out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true,’ said Sherlock Holmes. That is not correct. After deduction, several possibilities may remain, and even what appears obvious can be incorrect. The plausible makes sense and does not contradict the evidence.

If the church fathers have gone to great lengths to obfuscate the truth, there was a truth to hide. Today, no one could guess that God married Jesus, which is telling and a reason to believe we live in the End Times. If this research says anything about the future, things unlikely will unfold as predicted in the Bible.

We might have questions. For example, how does God experience the simulation? God probably does not actively direct events. Perhaps She is in a dream state and follows a script. She might have selected it or written it when She was awake. That can raise yet another question. Does God know She is God when She is in this world?

And you can go down that road further because we can imagine gods. You can be God in reality without being God in the story. So, whose imagination is this world after all? What seems plausible or even the obvious may not be the truth. And is God humanoid? In other words, has artificial intelligence not taken over? I cannot answer these questions.

Latest revision: 22 November 2023

Feature image: Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. Petersellers.com. [copyright info]

Sarah, Mother of the Jews

5 Jun 20221 Apr 2024 nivtricLeave a comment

Weaving one tale inside another

The Jewish Bible is a great book, apart from the parts that lay out the Jewish religious law in too much detail to keep the readership entertained. It features tales about the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt to the Promised Land under the guidance of a wrathful cloud. It is nearly all made up. Writing and editing the Jewish Bible took centuries. And they wrote it for religious purposes rather than producing an accurate account of what transpired. That is how historians look at the Jewish Bible. If you believed it all, do not blame the Jews for writing good stories but for your gullibility. You also do not think reptiles live among us because scriptwriters in Hollywood made a film in which they do, or do you?

What does the almighty owner of quadrillions of galaxies have to do with the Jewish Bible, a product of the fantasies of a petty nation dwelling in a small land on a tiny planet near an insignificant star inside one of those galaxies? To answer that question, imagine you are John Ronald Reuel Tolkien writing tales about Hobbits. You can write a story about someone who makes up a story about you. Tolkien could have written about a Hobbit writing about his creator Tolkien. And by the way, the Shire might be an insignificant spot in an infinitely large universe, but Tolkien hardly cares about the rest of the universe. Only the Shire and those Hobbits have his interest.

If Tolkien can do that, God can do it too. If God is a woman and has been among us as Mary Magdalene, what roles did God play among the Jews? In other words, which women in the Jewish Bible were God in disguise? Inquiring minds want to know. Most of these stories are fantasy. Hence, the first question you should ask is: can God have played roles in stories that never happened in the story? Tolkien can write a story in which a Hobbit writes a story in which Tolkien enters the Shire disguised as a Hobbit. But that story never happened in the story Tolkien wrote. It is a story a Hobbit wrote in that story. And what about the Hobbits starting a religion with an imagined creator? And then the truth comes out, Tolkien reveals himself, and the Hobbits all laugh. So it can be done. And indeed, strong women, who could have been God in disguise, appear in the Jewish Bible.

Hiding it behind human motivations

There is another reason why powerful women appear in the Jewish Bible. The Israelites were too few in numbers and were too weak to defend a territory. They had to survive as a minority in the lands of others. Military adventurism would be fatal for them. To that aim, the authors of the Jewish Bible invented a new type of hero. Rather than valiant warriors, their heroes were virtuous people who helped others like Boaz,¹ people with weaknesses like David, and risk-averse shrewd people. Abraham was not a courageous warrior, nor was his son, Isaac. Cunning had to compensate for that. Jacob cheated on his brother Esau and took his birthright. Meet the Jewish hero. He has no honour, lacks the courage to defend his wife and defrauds his brother. But luckily, he has God on his side.

Heroes die, but the cunning and cowardly remain alive. That is why there are still Jews while other nations made a one-way trip to the dustbin of history. And so, the authors of the Jewish Bible also refashioned the role of men and women in family life. The stories of Jewish patriarchs were about family life and domestic affairs where women had a central role. And women played a crucial part in Jewish victories. That undermined male authority in war. In several cases, women achieved triumph on the battlefield or determined the fate of men.¹ Jacob defrauded Esau of his birthright and deceived his father, Isaac, with the help of his mum, Rebecca. Esther saved the Jewish people from a plot in the Persian court. The Jewish Bible does not depict events suggesting Rebecca or Esther could have been God in disguise. But there are a few other stories that catch the imagination and qualify. There was something special about Sarah, the matriarch of the Jews.

Sarah and Abraham

The Lord allegedly promised Abraham that one day, his offspring would be as countless as the stars and own the land between Egypt and the Euphrates River. But his wife, Sarah, was barren, so she ordered Abraham to sleep with her slave Hagar so Hagar would bear a child in her name. Those were the days when slavery was still legal, and you could get away with that. Once Hagar was pregnant, she began to look down on Sarah. Sarah then mistreated Hagar, and she fled. But God sent an angel, the famous Angel of the Lord, who in Christian thinking might be Jesus but did not say he was, who ordered Hagar to return and submit herself to Sarah. Hagar bore Abraham a son, Ishmael.

That could have been good enough, but the Lord chose differently and presented a covenant to Abraham. It required the circumcision of all the males. Sarah was to become the matriarch of the Jewish people. At the time, Abraham was one hundred years old, and Sarah was ninety. Abraham and Sarah laughed when they learned this. Remember, 4,000 years ago, there were no erection enhancement pills or fertility treatments. Sarah became pregnant and bore Isaac.

Like in most traditional agricultural societies, Jewish religious law prescribes that men precede women in inheritance. Daughters can only inherit if there are no sons. Nevertheless, being a matriarch of the Jewish people is most significant because you are a Jew if your mother is one. Your father is irrelevant to your Jewishness. God was particularly picky as to who was to become the matriarch of the Jews. In this sense, the Jews are not primarily children of Abraham, as the Jewish Bible says, but children of Sarah in the same way Christians are children of God.

Abraham feared for his life because of Sarah’s beauty. When the Egyptians asked if Sarah was his wife, he said she was his sister. And so, the Pharaoh’s servants took notice and informed the Pharaoh, who took her as his wife. For that reason, God inflicted severe diseases on Pharaoh and his household. That is divine justice. God punished the Pharaoh because Abraham had deceived him. With a God like that, you don’t need Satan. Not surprisingly, that horned fellow was nowhere to be found in this tale. Perhaps he enjoyed a sabbatical. The Bible does not tell. Abraham did the same in Abimelech’s kingdom, thus knowingly bringing Abimelech in mortal danger. King Abimelech then received threats from God after he planned to take Sarah as his wife. Luckily for him, God didn’t have a bad mood that day.

To us mere mortals, an intriguing question might be, what made Abraham worthy in the eyes of God? Is it that he intended to sacrifice his son when a voice asked him? If it had happened today, they might have locked up Abraham in a mental ward. If Abraham was God’s husband, it could make sense. In any case, God works in mysterious ways, and a ram presented itself, and that same voice then asked Abraham to sacrifice the animal instead. That was a narrow escape. If that ram had not been there, there would have been no Jewish people, and world history would have been entirely different. That is chaos theory at work here, or is it God?

In family matters, God sided with Sarah. The Angel of the Lord summoned Hagar to return to her mistress, Sarah. Later, God told Abraham to send Hagar away when Sarah wanted this. Sarah became the matriarch of the Jews because the Lord commanded. The Lord thus represented her well. Had this been a scrap of history, Sarah might have been God in disguise and have done an excellent job hiding that. But God can also play undercover roles in events that never took place. That is a perk of writing the story yourself. And why does God desire bits of male reproductive organs in exchange for making a covenant? That is indeed most peculiar unless the Lord is a Lady. Even then, it seems quaint to me, but perhaps I do not understand women and their fantasies well enough.

Joseph and Asenath

Jacob had twelve sons, but Joseph was his favourite. His brothers conspired against him and sold him as a slave. Joseph ended up in the household of Potiphar, an Egyptian and one of Pharaoh’s high-ranking officials. Joseph did well there and became Potiphar’s favourite. Joseph was well-built and handsome, so Potiphar’s wife wanted to sleep with him. When he refused, she accused Joseph of trying to seduce her, and Potiphar put him in prison. There, Joseph became the prison warden’s favourite. Joseph was apt at explaining dreams. That eventually brought him to the Pharaoh, whose favourite he became also. The Pharaoh made him a Viceroy and put him in charge of the granaries.

Joseph is one of the Jewish patriarchs, but he married Asenath, the daughter of an Egyptian high priest. The Jewish Bible tells us nothing about her, but people may have had second thoughts about this arrangement as marrying pagans was a controversial matter. A later story about their marriage explains how Joseph, after he escaped Potiphar’s wife, ended up in the bed of a pagan priestess. According to this tale, Asenath was proud and despised men but became impressed by Joseph’s looks.

Joseph first did not want to marry a pagan priestess who bowed before idols and did not worship the God of the Jews. Asenath showed repentance and changed her faith. An angel from heaven came to her chamber to bless the marriage. When Asenath told Joseph of the angel, he changed his mind and married her. Asenath’s change of faith appears insincere and induced by her desire to marry Joseph. Nevertheless, God blessed the marriage. Asenath might have been God in disguise if only this had actually happened.

Zipporah and Moses

A fellow named Moses allegedly led the Israelites out of Egypt. A burning bush claiming to be God commanded Moses to return to Egypt to free the Israelites. Moses then took his wife, Zipporah, and sons and started his journey to Egypt. On the road, they stayed at an inn, where that same burning bush supposedly came to kill Moses, which is a reason why you should not believe it happened. Zipporah saved Moses’ life by circumcising their son and touching Moses’ feet with the foreskin, saying he was her bridegroom of blood (Exodus 4:24-26). Later, the burning bush allegedly successfully transformed itself into an ireful cloud of fire that helped Moses lead the way into the Promised Land.

Zipporah saving Moses’ life in this way fits the supposed agenda of the authors of the Jewish Bible, which is to undermine male authority so Jewish men would not strive to posthumously get the prestigious Darwin award for their adventures and terminate the Jewish people in the process. After all, the success of Moses’ mission depended on Zipporah having rescued him from the consequences of his daring attempt to let his son remain uncircumcised. God somehow was particularly keen on that foreskin. Zipporah knew what God was about to do and the reason why. But Zipporah reading God’s mind? No mere human could accomplish such a feat, not even Jesus. Hence, Zipporah might have been God in disguise if only this had happened.

Bathsheba and David

Bathsheba, who also was the wife of Uriah, broke David and his kingdom. While Uriah served in the army to fight one of David’s wars, Bathsheba conspicuously bathed on a rooftop near the royal palace, where David could see her naked. She may have planned to seduce him. The alternative explanation, that there was no room inside the house to bathe, appears less convincing. David ordered Bathsheba to come to his place. And so She did, apparently without even saying it might be a bad idea. She became pregnant after sleeping with him. David then commanded Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, to go home, hoping he would sleep with his wife so the scandal would go unnoticed. But Uriah did not out of solidarity with his comrades on the battlefield. David then asked his commander to place Uriah on the frontline of the battle so he would die. After Uriah died, David married Bathsheba. Bathsheba turned out to be a true fate changer. She also bore the future king Solomon.

You might have heard that the Lord loved David. And if you have not, you might qualify for an ear transplant. But the subsequent course of events did not demonstrate that. From then on, everything went downhill. In hindsight, this sequence of incidents brought the son of Bathsheba to the throne. The prophet Nathan foretold David that his act cursed his house. David’s eldest son Amnon was murdered by his half-brother Absalom after he had raped Absalom’s sister Tamar. Later, Absalom declared himself king and started a revolt against David, in which David’s troops killed him. That eliminated two potential heirs to the throne. In David’s old age, Bathsheba secured the succession to the throne of Solomon. The marriage was a grave sin, but God nevertheless loved Bathsheba’s son, who was to become king. Thus, Bathsheba could have been God in disguise.

That might explain why the Lord loved David so much, as it cannot be due to his superior moral virtue. And it presents us with a reason why he could not resist Her. David is a historical figure, so there could be truth to the story. It also fits the agenda of the authors of the Jewish Bible. Even Israel’s greatest king, David, had faults and crumbled in the hands of a woman. And no one would ever have thought Bathsheba had something to do with the angry cloud dwelling in that tent. Remarkably, the name Bathsheba consists of two parts, Bath and Sheba. Bathsheba seduced David by bathing naked on a rooftop near the palace. The Queen of Sheba later visited Solomon. That is a bit odd. Hence, the Queen of Sheba may also have been God in disguise. Thus, the pun may be intentional even though the Hebrews missed it due to the constraints of their language.

Deborah, the founder of the Jewish nation

Sarah is the fictional matriarch of the Jews. The real Mother, insofar as anything is real in this fictional world, can be extracted from the texts in the Jewish Bible with the help of historical analysis. The Jewish nation gradually emerged after Egypt retreated from Canaan around 1150 BC. That left a power vacuum in which states gradually developed from tribal leadership. It corresponds with the tribal era of the judges in the Bible. The oldest part of the Jewish Bible likely is the Song of Deborah (Judges 5). Historians believe it dates from that era. As the story goes, Deborah was a tribal leader during this age.

Deborah was the fourth judge in the Book of Judges, but the remainder of the book dates from centuries later and could be largely fictional. Only Deborah may have lived in that era in that role. If you take that view, the Song of Deborah is the starting point of the Jewish Bible. The song likely did not pop up out of nowhere. Jewish tribespeople could have composed it to celebrate the victory brought by their heroine, Deborah. She could be the earliest historical person in the Bible. She attributed the triumph to the Jewish deity Yahweh, so the history of the Jews as Yahweh’s people might have started with Her.

She took part in a battle (Judges 4:8-9). As the story goes, Deborah sent for Barak, the commander of the troops, and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.'” (Judges 4:6-7) But it was Deborah who commanded Barak. And so, She might have been the God of Israel in disguise and founded the Jewish nation and religion in person.

Latest revision: 11 November 2023

Featured image: Sepphoris Mosaic. Pbs.org. [copyright info]

1. Wright, Jacob L. (2014). The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future. Coursera.

Khadijah, mother of the believers

31 May 202217 Nov 2023 nivtricLeave a comment

Bride of Muhammad

Mother of the Believers is a title Muslims give to the wives of Muhammad. It best suits his first wife, Khadijah bint Khuwaylid. According to Islamic sources, Khadijah was a wealthy widow and Muhammad’s employer. Muhammad was twenty-five, and Khadijah was forty when She proposed to him. A woman proposing the marriage was odd indeed, given the time and place where it transpired. To Muslims, it is the ultimate proof that their otherwise misogynistic religion is very woman-friendly. The marriage between Khadijah and Muhammad was both happy and monogamous. When he was without Her on one of his journeys, Muhammad never had any desire for other women. They had six children, of which four daughters survived. Only after Khadijah had died did Muhammad marry other women.

Muhammad returned home shocked after the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him for the first time. He told Khadijah what had happened, trembling in all likelihood. She comforted him like a mother and supported him from then on. Khadijah’s moral support made Muhammad believe in his mission, and Her financial support was indispensable. Apart from a wife, Khadijah was thus like a mother to Muhammad, in the likeness of Eve and Adam. She was Muhammad’s boss in more than one way. Unlike the Bride of Christ, the Bride of Muhammad is in the records and hard to ignore. Women hardly ever were boss over their husbands in seventh-century Arabia. And if you see the larger picture, it is all too clear who She was.

Quran origins

The Quran lacks chronological order and repeats itself, so if you do not know its history, you might find it hard to believe that this scratchy collection of sayings is the word of God. Muslims claim the Quran was revealed to Muhammad by God, with the Archangel Gabriel being the intermediary. The first Muslims were illiterate, so they memorised the verses and did not write them down. Memorising such a lengthy text for decades is quite challenging. And the Muslims fought battles that took the lives of those who knew the verses.

The early Muslims likely split up the task of memorising the Quran and assigned multiple men to recall the same verses. How well they did that is anyone’s guess, but the outcome was what God intended, and it explains why the Quran is the way it is. Later, those who compiled the Quran did not attempt to edit or present them chronologically because humans should not distort God’s words. If only early Christians had shown that kind of respect for their scriptures, Christianity would have been an entirely different religion.

Historical analysis suggests parts of the Quran could come from Zoroastrian, Jewish and Christian sources. But other parts seem original and could have been whispered by that supposed angel into Muhammad’s ear. The Quran also adds a few juicy details to existing stories the Jews have failed to mention in their Bible, for instance, King Solomon gathering an army of ghosts, men and birds, entering the valley of the ants, and ants talking to each other (Quran 27:15-18):

Indeed, We granted knowledge to David and Solomon. And they said in acknowledgement, ‘All praise is for God Who has privileged us over many of His faithful servants.’

And David was succeeded by Solomon, who said, ‘O people! We have been taught the language of birds, and been given everything we need. This is indeed a great privilege.’

Solomon’s forces of ghosts, humans, and birds were rallied for him, perfectly organised.

And when they came across a valley of ants, an ant warned, ‘O ants! Go quickly into your homes so Solomon and his armies do not crush you, unknowingly.’

In virtual reality, these things can happen. We have no evidence, but some things are more plausible than others. Talking ants is as believable as a serpent talking to Eve. Muslims claim Muhammad was the last prophet before the End Times and that the Quran corrects mistakes and omissions in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. At first glance, that is not particularly convincing, but the Quran contains a few discrepancies that may make sense in hindsight:

The Quran discusses Adam’s creation extensively but says little about how Eve came to be. The story of the rib is absent. Humans come from one soul, the Quran claims (Quran 39:6). The implicit assumption is this soul is Adam.
The Quran does not blame Eve for the Fall. One account explicitly blames Adam (Quran 20:120-121). That might be a crucial element in the original message of Christianity that is missing nowadays.
There is no original sin in Islam. The Quran says that Eve and Adam repented, and God forgave them (Quran 2:37, 7:23). The Quran never claims that Jesus was a redeemer for the sins of humankind.
The Quran names Jesus the Son of Mary and confirms the virgin birth, thereby implying that Jesus had no father, and because Christians call him the Son of God, it opens up the possibility that God’s name was Mary.
In the Quran, God orders the angels to prostrate before Adam, while the New Testament says that the angels must bow before Jesus, implying that Jesus could be Adam. The repeated mention could signal importance.
Finally, the Quran stresses the return to Paradise many times. Our return to Eden gets little attention in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The Quran mentions it so often that it could be of the utmost importance.

The Hidden Secret

The Quran claims that God is the greatest schemer (Quran 3:54, 7:99, 8:30, 10:21, 13:42) and capable of deception (Quran 4:88, 5:41, 11:34, 14:4). The existence of different religions and theological disputes is part of God’s plan. Otherwise, the message of Islam would have been more convincing. No one can be clever enough to uncover the underlying truth. And no one can be too dumb. After all, someone wrote the script. The Quran supposedly contains a hidden secret. Chapter 74 of the Quran is named The Hidden Secret or The Cloaked One. The cloaked man is Muhammad. The chapter further mentions that 19 angels guard hell. The conflating of cloak and hidden secret suggests a disguise. It says (Quran 74:31),

“We have made their number [that of the angels] only as a test for the disbelievers so that the People of the Book [Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians] will be certain, and the believers [Muslims] will increase in faith, and neither the People of the Book nor the believers will have any doubts, and so that those hypocrites with sickness in their hearts and the disbelievers will argue, ‘What does God mean by such a number?’ In this way, God leaves whoever He wills to stray and guides whoever He wills. And none knows the forces of your Lord except He. And this description of hell is only a reminder to humanity.”

Muslims believe it contains a clue proving the divine origin of the Quran. The verse implies that the number 19 has significance beyond the number of angels. In 1974, a guy named Rashad Khalifa claimed to have discovered a mathematical code hidden in the Quran based on the number 19. It gave rise to a numerological cult and countless films on YouTube. Numbers are usually meaningless. But the number 19 appears in the chapter named Hidden Secret. Hence, the number 19 may have significance, and the rise of the cult may not be an accident. What could the hidden secret be? Chapter 19 is named Mary, and it is about the Virgin Mary. The hidden secret may be that God’s name was Mary, something only God could know. The cloak may refer to God appearing to be a man while being a woman or the Virgin Mary being the cloak hiding the identity of God.

Virgin birth

The Quran corroborates the virgin birth of Jesus (Quran 4:171), thus implying Jesus had no father. The virgin birth is the miracle of the mother goddess. Christians might have invented that tale to refer to Adam as Eve’s son. The Quran consistently names Jesus the Son of Mary (Quran 2:87, 4:171, 61:6), while Christians call him the Son of God. The Quran claims God has no children and that Jesus was not God’s son either (Quran 6:100-102, 17:111, 18:4-5, 19:88-92). The reason likely is that the Meccan supreme deity Allah had a wife and children before God claimed this title. And the Virgin Mary was not God either. The repeating of the phrase Son of Mary suggests importance. It stresses that God is not Jesus’ father, and it may imply that God’s name was Mary.

As mentioned before, the star and crescent became the symbol of Islam. This symbol has a long history predating Islam, as it was associated with a Moon goddess. The moon represents the woman, and the star the child (Genesis 37:9). Hence, the Islamic symbol is like the Madonna with the child Jesus or the relationship between Khadijah bint Khuwaylid and Muhammad. She was fifteen years older and could have been his mother. Son of God thus means Son of Mary as Mary Magdalene was God. The picture that goes with it is the Madonna with the child, represented in the crescent with a star, the symbol of Islam.

Return to Eden

Muslims believe Jesus will return in the end times (Quran 4:159, 43:61). Even more crucial is our return to Eden, only sparsely mentioned in the Jewish Bible (Ezekiel 36:22–38) and the New Testament (Revelation 22:1-5). The Quran refers to Eden 147 times, or 3 * 7 * 7 if you’re into numbers with religious significance, using terms like Gardens and Paradise. It supposedly is the final destination of the righteous believers. It refers to Eden as the phrasing refers to providing fruits of that garden and having spouses. Genesis claims God created the woman to accompany the man and that Eve and Adam could eat all the fruits except from that one tree. For instance (Quran 2:25):

And give good tidings to those who believe and do righteous deeds that they will have gardens [in Paradise] beneath which rivers flow. Whenever they are provided with a provision of fruit from there, they will say, ‘This is what we were provided with before.’ And it is given to them in likeness. And they will have therein purified spouses, and they will abide therein eternally.

Our return to Eden is a central theme in the Quran, while the Jewish Bible and the Gospel hardly mention it. The repeating implies importance. It concerns the nature of our journey from the Garden of Eden to the Final Gardens of Paradise. The Jews wrote most of their Jewish Bible during their exile in Babylon and shortly after. They returned and interpreted their journey from the depraved city of Babylon to God’s city of Jerusalem. The Christians took over this theme, and their Babylon became Rome. If Jesus was Adam reincarnated and is to return, our final destination could be Eden, the Final Gardens of Paradise. Perhaps Eden stands for simple living, while Babylon represents advanced civilisation rather than evil.