11 myths and misconceptions about biblical history

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Even if we assume that there is no God, the Bible will still remain the most important book in the history of mankind. The culture, philosophy and laws of entire civilizations relied on it. For believers, this is a sacred book, for non-believers - a fascinating and large-scale epic, a collection of ancient myths with battles, dramas and miracles.

But myths are not only within the Bible - there are no less myths around it. Popular culture, folklore and the interpretations of theologians have changed our understanding of biblical heroes and events beyond recognition. So the Bible does not at all state that …

… THE LAND IS FLAT | Myth

Unlike the mythology of the ancient Indians or Scandinavians, the Bible does not describe a fantasy world with giant elephants on a tortoise wrapping around the world with snakes or ash trees the size of a galaxy. It is only mentioned that God "sits over the circle of the Earth", which is "hung over nothing." This can be interpreted in different ways - either a disk, or a ball in outer space. Terms like "firmament" and "foundations of the Earth" that flicker from time to time are also very vague.

The Bible writers considered the question of the structure of the universe unimportant - fortunately for posterity. The vague formulation allows Christianity to remain flexible for millennia in the tricky questions of science. Is the earth spherical? So the Bible did not say otherwise.

… THE DEVIL IS A KOZLONOGY ANTI-GOD | Myth

Satan as we know it today is a mixture of several different negative biblical characters.

"Devil" is the Greek translation of the word "Satan", which in Hebrew means "accuser" or "opponent." In the Old Testament, it is used many times in these meanings, most often in relation to people.

In the Book of Job, God argues with a certain angel called "Satan", but this is not a horned supervillain, but simply an "opponent in the dispute," not at all hostile to God. Likewise, the fallen angel Lucifer is known only from angry passages about Tire and Babylon, which the Bible authors predicted a fall. The devil appears in person in the Gospels, but even there he is more of a tempter testing the will of Christ than "God with a minus sign." The red skin and horns to Satan, apparently, were presented by the Beast from the Book of Revelations. The rest, including the purchase of souls and hooves like a satyr, are folklore fantasies.

And by the way, the Serpent from the Garden of Eden, according to Genesis, is just a cunning animal. It was only later that theologians came up with the intriguing idea that the Serpent could pretend to be the main villain of Christianity.

… ANGELS ARE PEOPLE WITH WINGS | Myth

This image is a fantasy of painters and sculptors. The Bible describes God's helpers in a far more surreal way. The seraphim appearing in the Book of Isaiah do have wings - as many as six, with two of which each angel covers his face so as not to burn the others with his radiance. The cherubim (one of whom was Lucifer) have four faces - a lion, a bull, an eagle and a man, their bodies are a cross between the bodies of these animals, and their eyes are on their wings. And ofanims from the Book of Ezekiel generally look like wheels in wheels, covered with eyes all over the rim.

It is a pity that boring cupids have entered popular culture. The Real Bible is Del Toro Film Ready!

… HELL IS A TORTURE ROOM WITH BOILERS AND FORKS | Myth

The Old Testament says very little about hell and about the afterlife in general. The ancient Jews after death fell into "Sheol", the kingdom of shadows, similar to the Greek Hades. Their afterlife did not depend on their lifetime "karma". The purpose of Jesus' sacrifice, according to the New Testament, was precisely to give people the afterlife in paradise - only the righteous, of course. Sinners go to "Fire Gehenna" - the place of death of the soul. In reality, Gehenna (Ge Hinnom) is a valley near Jerusalem, considered an unclean place (supposedly there were sacrifices to Baal there in ancient times), and its name was used as a metaphor. The early Christians, who interpreted the words of Christ, decided to understand Gehenna as an anti-paradise, where the unworthy go after death.

As for devils with pitchforks, cauldrons and other popular images, we owe them mainly to folklore. And also Give, who invented the nine circles of Hell, the distribution over them

… ADAM AND EVE HAVE ONLY SONS | Myth

This statement is usually followed by the question: "And how did humanity come from Cain and the dead Abel?" But the authors of the Book of Genesis could not leave such plot holes. Adam and Eve had both sons and daughters, the exact number of which is not indicated in the Bible. Only their third son Seth, the ancestor of Noah, is named by name, from whom, according to the biblical myth, modern people originate. It's just that nothing interesting happened to Seth and the other children, unlike Cain and Abel.

… SODOM AND HOMORRA HAVE SUFFERED FOR HOMOSEXUALISM | Myth

In fact, according to Genesis. Sodom and Gomorrah received punishment for the totality of their atrocities, for which their victims complained to God. The last straw was the attempt by the inhabitants of Sodom to attack the angels (in human form) who were visiting the house of the righteous man Lot. That is, "sodomy" should not be called same-sex sex, but a violation of the laws of hospitality.

… MOSES WAS HORNED | Myth

This amusing misconception existed in the Renaissance: the Old Testament prophet was portrayed with horns like a satyr. The great Michelangelo sculpted a horned statue of Moses for the Vatican. And conspiracy theorists later built versions that Moses was from the people of horned people or that Pan was his prototype.

In fact, as the Book of Exodus says, after meeting God on Mount Sinai, Moses' face gave off a radiance. The translator of the Vulgate, the Latin version of the Bible, mistook the word "punish" - "to shine" for "keren" - "horn." Even knowing about the mistake, artists, in tribute to tradition, often depict Moses with two rays emanating from his forehead, like a horn.

Contrary to another misconception, Moses was not at all a peaceful preacher like Jesus. The Old Testament describes how he killed an Egyptian overseer with his own hands, and, becoming the leader of the Jews, often led them on campaigns of conquest against other nations. So Ridley Scott's upcoming film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, is almost no exaggeration, showing Moses as a warrior king.

BOOK OR BOOKS?

Those who think the Bible is one book are wrong. In fact, it is more of a book cycle. Both the Old and New Testaments consist of many books by different authors, sometimes living in different millennia. By the way, contrary to another misconception, Christians do not claim that God himself wrote the Bible. They only consider its authors inspired by God.

… NOY SAVED EACH CREATURE BY PAIR | Myth

The prudent Noah took on the ark not two, but seven animals of each type, except for those that the Jews considered "unclean", such as pigs. He really saved the unclean only two copies. Why this was forgotten is easy to understand: in Christianity, the idea of unclean animals is gone. And in Russian, "each creature has a pair" also rhymes.

… JESUS WAS BORN ON DECEMBER 25 | Myth

Not a single Gospel says a word about the date of Christ's birth. The midwinter festival, now celebrated as Christmas, existed in Europe before the spread of Christianity and was called Yule or Zero. The day of the veneration of Jesus was simply timed to coincide with this holiday.

By the way, there were the Magi who brought gifts to the baby Christ … who knows how many. The version about the three wise men was born because they brought three gifts: gold, incense and myrrh.

… MARIA MAGDALINA WAS A HAROT | Myth

The profession of the Magdalene is not mentioned in the Gospels. It is only known that Jesus expelled demons from her, after which Mary became his disciple and companion. Elsewhere in the Gospels, there is a story about a harlot who was wanted to be stoned by the crowd. Jesus stopped the crowd by perplexing it with the philosophical aphorism "He who is without sin, let him throw a stone first." After this, the harlot immediately reformed and began to lead a virtuous life. Only in the 6th century, Pope Gregory I decided to consider that the two legends are talking about the same woman. This version is considered canonical only among Catholics.

… JESUS NES IS HIS CROSS ONE | Myth

The image of Christ dragging a heavy cross to the place of execution has become so canonical that it has become a proverb ("carry your cross"). It is all the more surprising that three of the four Gospels describe this episode in a completely different way: the worker Simon of Kyrenian was dragging the cross to the place of execution. Only the evangelist John insists that Jesus himself carried the cross. The church tradition reconciles the dispute between the authors of the Bible: first Christ carried the cross, and Simon was called for help when he was exhausted.

Priests Rewrite the Bible

A favorite topic of conspiracy theorists and marginal historians: supposedly the original text of the Bible was completely different, but the cunning priests hid it. And the current Bible, they say, is the result of repeated rewriting by villains from the Vatican.

In fact, the oldest surviving Gospel manuscripts date back to the 2nd-3rd century AD. They are written in ancient Greek - anyone who knows this language can check what they say. The oldest copies of the Old Testament (part of the Dead Sea Scrolls) are two hundred years older than Christianity. The Bible is not a Wikipedia article that can be corrected at once for all readers. It is impossible to rewrite all handwritten copies that have been distributed over the centuries across Europe and Asia and read by thousands of people. Anyone who misinterpreted the Holy Scriptures would be caught by the owners of the old books and declared a heretic. In the Middle Ages, they burned for less. So there is no “secret real Bible”, no matter how dreamed authors like Dan Brown may.