Moses Did Not Write the "Five Books of Moses"

As listed by renowned Bible scholar, 

Richard Elliott Friedman, in his book

The Bible With Sources Revealed, HarperOne, New York, NY, 2003

the actual writers of the “Five Books of Moses” were:

J – “For two centuries (from 922 to 722 BCE) the biblical promised-land was divided into two kingdoms: the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south. A text known as J was composed during this period. It is called J because, from its very first sentence, it refers to God by the proper name of YHWH (“Jahwe” in German, which was the language of many of the founding works in this field).  … J was composed by an author living in the southern kingdom of Judah.”

(Friedman, p 3).

E – “A second text, know as E, was composed during this same period.” (from 922 to 722 BCE) “E was composed by a priest living in the northern kingdom of Israel. It is called E because it refers to the deity simply as God, which in the original Hebrew is Elohim, or by the divine name El in its stories until the time of Moses.” “…the E text developed the idea that the proper name of God, YHWH, was not known on earth until God chose to reveal it to Moses.” (Friedman,  p. 4).

RJE – “In the year 722 BCE, the Assyrian empire destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. J and E were then no longer separated by a border. These two versions of the people’s history now existed side by side in the kingdom of Judah. In the years that followed, someone assembled a history that used both J and E as sources. The editor/historian who combine J and E into a single work is known as the Redactor of JE or RJE, for short.” (Friedman, p. 4)

P – “The third main source is known as P because one of its central concerns is the priesthood.”   It is most likely  “…that P was composed not long after J and E were combined—specifically, that it was produced by the Jerusalem priesthood as an alternative to the history told in JE. (Friedman, p. 4)

Dtn – “The final main source is known as D because it takes up most of the book of Deuteronomy. More specifically, Deuteronomy comprises: (1) a law code that takes up chapters 12-26 known as Dtn. (Friedman, p. 5)

Dtr1 – The original, Josianic edition of the Deuteronomistic history is called,  Dtr1. (Friedman, p. 5)

Dtr2 – The second, exilic edition of the Deuteronomistic history is called Dtr2. (Friedman, p. 5)

R – All original sources and modifying editions were put together by an editor into the final five-book work. This final editor is known as the Redactor, or for short: R. (Friedman, p. 5)

Other – e.g. Other independent texts, e.g. Book of records used by R (Friedman, p. 32)

Christian Dogma Versus Metaphysics

1a. Dogma: God is an all-powerful being and He orchestrates all the circumstances of life then judges each human’s motives and actions.

1b. Metaphysics: God is a personification of the universal power and unknown source of being through which each human co-creates the life to which he or she aspires.

2a. Dogma: God condemns sinners to Hell for all eternity.

2b. Metaphysics: When I choose to reject my ability to express unconditional love toward others, then that can create hellish human circumstances within those moments of eternity that I live.

3a. Dogma: Jesus died for our sins.

3b. Metaphysics: Forgiveness is an inspired change of mind, heart, and life that occurs within individuals whenever, and however they open themselves up to the experience and guidance of God, the ultimate Truth and highest Consciousness of being.

4a. Dogma: Jesus and God perform miracles.

4b. Metaphysics: Experiencing the reality of knowledge and wisdom beyond the human capacity to understand will certainly appear miraculous, but that which is real, forever exists in potential and is always available for expression.

5a. Dogma: Only Christians are saved and will go to heaven.

5b. Metaphysics: Spiritual awakening is an inner, personal evolution into the understanding and demonstration of divine, immutable Truth, and is not a competition among religions.

A Trilogy Of Spiritual Thoughts

Faith

Faith is not a willingness to believe what others tell you is the truth. That is shallowness, which has no roots. Faith is the understanding of truth, personally experienced and affirmed by the observable results of what you think and do. Try resolving conflict with love, compassion, and forgiveness toward others and see what happens. Experience it. If the conflict diminishes, have faith in the process and the results. If the immediate conflict does not diminish, pray, persist, and still keep your actions centered on love and forgiveness, because ALL that you offer will ultimately determine what happens and what is returned to you. Develop faith based on what is revealed to you when acting from your highest and best intentions.

                                                                    

Truth

Truth is that which is and that which happens. The only things obscuring truth are our efforts to interpret what is and what happens in ways that force events to mean what we want them to mean rather than learning more from what they actually are. A willingness to always accept truth, just as it presents itself, is the foundation for freedom, growth, knowledge, fulfillment, justice, and happiness. As you learn truth, you grow. As you grow, you change. As you change, so does the world, because you are a part of what the world is.

Love

      The secret of life is that there is no secret. Everything is just exactly as it expresses itself. Still, how everything seems depends on how you decide to interpret life and the universe, because you will tend to draw into your experience that which you expect and deny the reality of everything contrary to your desires. However, changing your attitude to one of unconditional objectivity and love, shifts everything. Thoughts are things and they are most beneficial to you when lovingly, honestly, and rationally formed. So, when you change your mind so that love guides you to accept life just as it occurs in all its variations, you will discover that faith, truth, and love all become the same experience within every moment. Let love live through you.

Why Anger?

Even as a kid I can recall wondering why I got angry. I had two older brothers, so, of course, I directed a lot of blame their way. Maybe they wouldn’t let me do something with them because, according to them, I couldn’t keep up. That made me angry. Maybe they were going to give me something I wanted, then didn’t and I got angry.  One time I recall getting so mad at my mother I told her I was going to run away from home. I stormed out the back door, went up to the old barn that was our garage at the top of our driveway, and moped around there for about fifteen minutes then returned.  If others got angry at me, I would match them with equally angry responses. But, no matter how I got angry, it always seemed to go away pretty quickly and I would then wonder, why did that happen? Indeed, why anger?

I have no idea how old I was, but gradually I began to realize that anger didn’t really work for me, whatever that meant. I felt a sort of emptiness after being angry because it invariably created more problems than it solved.  Plus, it never did seem to solve the original problems, anyway. So, again, why anger? As a result, I decided to start ignoring opportunities I had to become angry.  I have not done it perfectly throughout my lifetime, but it has been a more satisfying journey in the trying.  

One of the reasons I decided anger was not that necessary was that all of the stories about Jesus in the New Testament usually depict him as peaceful and loving.  And, according to these same stories, Jesus experienced many opportunities in which he could have made very angry responses, but he didn’t. He always found a way to bring light into the darkness. That really impressed me and I understood it because I had felt that same urge for peace and love, no matter what. The miracle stories about Jesus were not nearly as impressive to me. Even as a young boy I knew that such stories were about something other than factual history, so the realistic depictions of Jesus’ practical and loving human attitude, got my full attention.

God is the Truth underlying all of reality and I love and honor that Truth, including, whatever that means in totality. In other words, I have complete faith in perfection even as I cannot comprehend how total perfection is made manifest. However, as I have life experiences with others and learn, practical elements of ultimate Truth become clearer to me and through that growth I have allowed anger to be less and less important in my responses to others.

One of the most astonishing results of reducing my anger responses was that the number of times I experienced conflict, in general, diminished. It is as if my response of anger to any situation marks it as a moment of conflict and the battle for the most persuasive outbursts of anger from then on, begins.  I just wasn’t interested in that, so I stopped doing it, as best I could.  Perhaps another way of saying this is that what others say to or about you in anger has no reality until you respond in anger, yourself.  I have discovered that just being myself is more persuasive than mounting an angry verbal defense of myself. Surely, that was the lesson Jesus was teaching us. Be so filled with the unconditional love of God that nothing anyone else says or does changes your commitment to expressing that love.

I am not perfect. I still have moments of anger. But now I use those moments as opportunities to look inside of myself for healing and ultimately, there are healings.  Just as Jesus taught, I continue to love God completely, and my neighbor as myself, and in so doing participate in bringing God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Amen.