Sean O'Leary

Book of Exodus (True Scripture, #2) (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The Book of Exodus is best known as the rollicking saga of the ten plagues, the Red Sea crossing, escape from Egypt and battles in the wilderness. But there is far more to this astoundingly rich and complex piece of literature than the story line. The Exodus legend is the core of Judaism's scriptural foundation. It establishes and validates many cultural and religious principles that define the Hebrew people and its relationship with the national deity. Indeed, even before the Passover, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Calf bacchanal and the over-the-top divine extravaganza at Mt. Sinai, the reader has been given a clue concerning the metamorphosis of the ancient Canaanite god El into YHWH, the proprietary god of the Israelites.

Furthermore, the literary work "Exodus" is very much the product of the times in which it was edited into its final form: the post-exilic period from the sixth century to the fourth century BCE. The cult of YHWH was still evolving during this tumultuous period and the defeated Judeans were coming to terms with the trauma of being conquered, deported and sent back to Judea to begin a new Persian client state in Palestine. The priestly classes who edited Exodus were striving to define the nation in the context of both tradition and recent history.

Many of the key elements in Exodus and the rest of the Five Books of Moses are a reflection of the tensions resulting from the Israelites' uneven progress toward monotheism and their relationship with their monarchy. They are also indicative of current events and conditions many centuries after the ostensible dating of the Exodus.

The purpose of True Scripture is to make the Bible easier to understand and enjoy for believers and non-believers alike. Most people learn their Bible stories in Sunday School, confirmation class or weekly church service, which significantly limits the material to which they are exposed. While many take comfort in various inspirational passages and gripping narratives, very few people indeed have read the entire book.

True Scripture condenses what is actually written in the Bible into everyday prose, including all of the surprising, amusing and sometimes disturbing details found in the original. The format is based on three tiers of knowledge, to allow readers to drill down to their comfort level.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: James Moore Book Publishers
• Erscheinungstermin: 14. Dezember 2022
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9798215714768
• Artikelnr.: 66985607

Autorenporträt

I was a very religious and studious Presbyterian child with a penchant for reading everything and asking a lot of questions about it. While I doubt my Sunday School educators intended to be cruel, a scholarly kid is easily affected adversely by illustrated fairy tales told by an authority figure. In more cases than not, these adults turned out to not actually know all that much about the faith they were promoting.

So way back when, we good little children were assigned "scripture lessons." I not only read and memorized the assigned words, I kept going. This led to multitudes of questions, to which I received unsatisfactory answers from those entrusted with my spiritual development (see Introduction to the Appendices). After college, I began my own research into the Christian and Jewish source material, a process that expanded and accelerated over the years.

Combined with my observations about the human condition especially the horrendous suffering that is a large part of humanity's lot my belief in the Old Testament god evaporated rather quickly. As my faith dissolved, the inconsistency and hypocrisy of Christianity became more and more evident. I am not alone in this belief (or lack thereof). At the most fundamental level, I question why the creator of the universe needs millions of middle managers on the payroll to explain and administrate his/her/its message. The sad truth is that few people understand what they are reading in the Bible, who wrote it or what their motives were.

In case I have not been clear: I do not believe in the Bronze Age god of the Old Testament, who is also the Christian god and ultimately, the god of Islam (see Appendix C), any more than I believe in the Hindu elephant-header god or Viracocha, Lord Instructor of the Inca World. If you detect some anger, you are correct. I join hundreds of millions of former religionists who feel betrayed by the stories we were told as children, when we were unable to discern the greater context.

And yet I continue to love those stories and find endless fascination with their origins and context, even while understanding that no god wrote them. I remain amazed at how little most Christians know about the book that theoretically informs their belief system.

That is why I write these books. The hope is that this modest document will provide a fresh context for readers across the spectrum of belief.