Questions surrounding Writing

While sitting in class last night, my foot began to twitch, my fingers started typing faster than the speed of light and I could hardly sit still. The reason: A discussion surrounding the validity of Ancient Texts. If I, as a God believing human am going to research the beginning of faith (leading to Jesus) then my eyes need to be open to all possibilities that could have contributed to the world/ language/ texts that have helped shape the documents that have contributed to Christianity as we know it today. It is smart and necessary to inspect the origin of important texts and the purpose for which it was written.

Written documents are the backbone for which historians work. However, written Documents are problematic. They are written by people. They are not objective. They are subjective. Any written document that we chose to use must be studied methodically. We cannot just assume that the info is reliable. Where does the document come from? How did we get it? Was it an inscription found in the earth? Was it found in the earth? What was it used for? Was it a monumental inscription? Temple wall? What was the time and purpose? What language was it written in?

We are not native speakers of the languages of these inscriptions/ documents… we have put together what we think they mean… a lot of inscriptions have been misinterpreted, or misread… even if the errors are fixed… research can still be done on the originals… the correct version never catches up. The historian will read it as it was read 50 years ago.

Every spoken language as a lot of subtexts, hidden meanings, hidden references. We don’t know what they are. Even a Native Hebrew speaker today will not understand ALL biblical Hebrew because we can’t know the “insider stuff”... Ex: If you say, "Break a leg" (good luck) or "That's tight" (that's cool)... someone who is ancient won't have a clue as to what that means. When the historians come across something like that, do they use their own interpretation? Do they fill in the blanks with someone Else's thoughts on it? Do they change the wording completely to make sense in their day?

We oftentimes find inscriptions in a fragmented state. We have to reconstruct the text. We make educated guess work. Inscriptions that we have are focused… meaning, they are not all books… the person in the day knew who the inscriptions were about… we don’t . Inscriptions can be more like cell text messages, not diaries. For the person they were meant for, they are understood with ease…for anyone else who enters the equation, the code can seem like a mix of words that don't make sense; they weren’t written for us.

So far, we have only talked about texts that are found by archaeologists in the ground. What about texts that haven’t been found in its original state, but texts that are handed down from generation to generation….there are problems with those as well

1. Problems with copying… "D"odanim vs. "R"odamim…. In Hebrew the Dalet (D) and the Resh (r) look very similar. It is easy to misinterpret one for the other, as we have seen in numerous texts. Also, the scribe or copiest might skip a word or a line.

2. The copiest who didn’t have copy writes in those day could write and embellish and not get caught… he could have added a few words to help it make sense which could have “bauched the meaning”

You still have to ask yourself what kind of text you are looking at: Literary creation, royal inscription, military account, religious account, propaganda… each text has its own literary convention. Each writer will know that there are things to write and not to write. If you don’t know something, you fill in the gaps as well as you can so that your message can come across.

4 basic questions you have to ask when dealing with any text

1. Who wrote it…who is his audience? What is his context?

2. When was it written... was it written by someone who was there? Does he live several generations later which he could have pulled together more sources… or it could be false?

3. why was it written... What is the agenda? What is he trying to do?

4. What are its sources? Where is he getting his material from? Himself or from a friend of a friend?

So why am I writing this? Is Shantra questioning the bible now too? I'm writing because this makes me excited.

We have been finding texts starting with the Sumerians in 3300 BC. The first Hebrew bible (Torah, first five books of the bible) was not constructed until much later. It doesn't mean that stories were not being told orally though. The Egyptians had writing before the people in Canaan/ Israel. What does this mean? Furthermore- they had stories to explain creation, flooding, and in some cases one Deity... not too far away from the stories found in the bible. What does this mean? Did one culture borrow from the other? Did one culture start the tradition and another culture play off of it (like the telephone game)? Do all cultures have the exact same story, but explain it differently to make sense to them according to their culture? What if there is an early text in Israel and it just hasn't been found yet? Last but not least, of the texts that have been found, how correct are they? From what perspective were they written? What was the purpose? Was it to give a historical account of dates, places, and times? Was the text's purpose to tell a moral story? Was the text written in code so that someone had to look deeply to find the true meaning?

As you can see, there are so many questions surrounding our history... this is just a tiny sliver pertaining to the writings in the Ancient Middle East. There are so many more questions to be asked. I asked my Jewish professor, if any of these Sumerian or Egyptian stories that seem to parallel the Hebrew bible stories ever create angst inside of him. To me it creates a sense of "Oh crap, what does this mean?" ... coupled with excitement for what I might find around the corner. He answered, "No, no- not at all it all fits together perfectly."

I know in the upcoming weeks we will be diving into more of the details surrounding the similar stories between belief systems, especially with Egypt. Ahhh... yes! When talking with Jess on the phone last night I was telling him about all of the nuances and connections that we are learning about. He replied, "It looks like you are finally finding out some of the answers that you came to Israel in search of."

I can't wait.