A Prophet

      An ancient Prophet stood outside the temple in Jerusalem and uttered these words:

 

How can you people say "We are the experts, for we have Yahweh's Bible," when behold, like a forgery, the pen has been manipulated by dishonest Bible copiers![1]

 

This passage is from the Bible.  It is accepted as divinely inspired holy writ by Jews and Christians.  If you read this passage in most English translations, it will say that the "law" was corrupted, instead of the "Bible."  However, the word translated "law" is actually the Hebrew word Torah, which does not refer to just any old "law."  The word Torah means the "Law of God," which, in Biblical terms, specifically means the first five books of the Bible – including Genesis.  Once this is realized, the full weight of the Prophet's oracle hits us like a ton of bricks:  The Bible is polluted by forgery!  The Bible itself testifies that this is true, for this passage is from the Bible.

      The Prophet who said this was Jeremiah, who lived 600 years before Christ.  In these terms he explicitly testified that the priests of Jerusalem had polluted the Bible, that is the Torah, with a forgery.  We have seen that there are two different accounts of creation in Genesis.  Now we see why.  Jeremiah believed Genesis 1 was part of the forgery.  As Friedman pointed out, Jeremiah "dramatically dismantles" the Genesis 1 creation account[2] when he prophesies as follows:

 

I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light… they were broken down by the wrath of Yahweh.[3]

 

Remember from Genesis 1 how a god named Elohim created an "earth that was without form and void?"  And how this god named Elohim said "Let there be light?"  But Jeremiah implies that the God of Genesis 2, whose name is Yahweh, will destroy that creation with his fierce anger.  Hence there are two deities – Elohim who created the universe, and Yahweh who will tear it down because it was a failure.  In light of Gnosticism, Elohim is akin to the demiurge who created the cosmos in failure, and Yahweh is the God from above who attempts to correct the failure by destroying it.

      But why should we care what Jeremiah said?  We should care because Jeremiah is an historically proven authentic Prophet.  We know he truly existed.  The seal of his scribe Baruch was discovered by archaeologists.  So were the seals of the two scribes, Elishama and Gemariah, who served the contemporary king of Judah, Jehoiakim; along with the seal of Prince Jerahmeel.[4]  All of these people were contemporary with the Prophet Jeremiah, and all are explicitly mentioned in the Biblical book of Jeremiah.[5]

      Also, Jeremiah makes numerous references to places, nations, cities, and religious practices that would have only been known to Hebrews living before the Babylonian exile of 586 BCE, and he does so in a manner that assumes his audience is familiar with them.  Space allows for one example:  Jeremiah mentions frequently that the phrase "As Yahweh lives," was a popular expression of his time, and was spoken just before making a vow or affirming the truth by oath.[6]  This fact is verified archaeologically by the Lachish letters, which were documents written at the very same time Jeremiah was uttering his prophetic oracles.  These documents describe the desperate situation Judah was facing with regard to the imminent Babylonian captivity, and thus corroborate Jeremiah, which describes the same.  In the Lachish letters, one frustrated Hebrew military commander says to another, "As Yahweh lives, I don't need a scribe to read your orders for me!"[7]  In later times, it became customary to refrain from pronouncing the name of Yahweh; yet throughout the older parts of the Bible and in the Lachish letters, this is not the case, for the name of Yahweh is constantly pronounced by the characters in the Biblical stories, and they constantly make oaths with the phrase "As Yahweh lives," and its variants, such as "As surely as Yahweh lives."  This is a constant feature of the Biblical books written in the time of the monarchy – namely Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Amos, Hosea, and Jeremiah – and the expression appears more sparsely elsewhere.[8]  These books could not have been written at a date after the Babylonian exile, for after the exile, it was forbidden to verbalize "Yahweh," or even "God," and from this comes the practice of writing "G-d," and calling God "Father" in place of "God" or "Yahweh."  This was not the practice in the age of the Prophets, for in ancient times, the name of Yahweh was pronounced in casual conversation.  On this point, archaeology and textual criticism converge beautifully, and they prove the historical authenticity of the Prophet Jeremiah and of his book.

      Thus, Jeremiah must have written about 586 BCE or before.  Forgeries and pseudepigrapha that claim to represent more ancient times than the times in which they were actually written do not emulate the same level of familiarity with their alleged provenance, and thus demonstrate that most non-authentic authors from antiquity did not have the knowledge necessary to speak convincingly about bygone eras the same way Jeremiah does.  The best interpretation of these data is that the Biblical book of Jeremiah is authentic. 

      What's more, Jeremiah was a Prophet.  He foretold that the Hebrew people would be subjugated for 70 years.[9]  This was literally fulfilled, for the Hebrew nation lost its sovereignty in precisely 609 BCE when King Josiah was slain at the Battle of ha-Megiddo (aka – Armageddon),[10] and regained the nation precisely 70 years later in the first year of Cyrus the Persian who conquered Babylon and allowed the Hebrews to return to their native land in 539 BCE.[11]  Jeremiah also repeatedly prophesied that Israel and Judah would return and prosper in their native land – an event which truly happened long after his death.[12]

      More specifically, Jeremiah foretold that Jerusalem would be rebuilt on the very same plot of land,[13] and that the return from the exile would be limited to the southern tribal lands.[14]  This is entirely verifiable historically, for the northern lands were never fully re-occupied by Hebrews.  He also prophesied that when Israel returned, they would not forsake the covenant with the God of Israel anymore by worshipping other gods.[15]  This is also historically verifiable, for the old cults of Baal, Molech, Ashtoreth, etc, disappear from Jewish history after the return from Babylon. 

      Jeremiah also predicted that Babylon would invade and pillage Egypt, but he stopped short of saying that Babylon would actually conquer Egypt.[16]  He also said that Babylon would be captured by the Medes.[17]  These oracles are also congruent with archaeological and secular history. 

      In short, the specific and historically verifiable nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies yields a compelling case that Jeremiah could truly foretell future events.  Accordingly, it is good to listen to him when he says that other parts of the Bible are forgeries, because this man was a true Prophet if there ever was one.

      Most important for our discussion on forgery, Jeremiah foretold the violent end of Josiah’s reign and the Babylonian captivity.  He prophesied this when Josiah was still a young king.[18]  At the same time, the prophet of the Jerusalem priesthood was falsely prophesying the opposite – that Josiah would die in peace.  This prophecy, which was manufactured by the Jerusalem priests Hilkiah and Shaphan, turned out to be a failure, because Josiah actually died at a young age in battle.[19]  These false prophets and priests of Jerusalem were the same who supposedly "found" a lost copy of the book of Moses in the temple, that is the "Book of Torah."  They "found" it in the 620's BCE – at least 600 years after its alleged author, Moses, had died.[20]  Is it really possible that the holiest text of a religion can be missing for over 600 years, and then mysteriously turn up "found" in that religion's own temple?  Now we see why Jeremiah called their Bible a forgery.  Immediately after they began to worship according to this Bible they had "found" in the temple, the Hebrew nation fell under the sword of both Egypt and Babylon, and lost its sovereignty, as the Prophet says, because Yahweh was angry with them.  None of this information is contrived from apocrypha.  Rather, I derive this history strictly from the Biblical book of 2^nd Kings 22-23.   Thus, the Bible itself testifies that the Torah has undergone corruption, and that those who corrupted it were false prophets and liars, whose false prophecies and lies brought about the wrath of Yahweh, the death of the king, and the end of the Hebrew nation.   

      Jeremiah spoke with the mouth of Yahweh, repeating several times that Jerusalem suffered from false prophets and priests, and that this would lead to Jerusalem's demise:

 

An unbelievably horrible thing is committed in the land.  The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests make up their own rules.[21]

 

The prophets prophesy lies in Yahweh's name.[22]

 

"Behold, I am against the prophets" says Yahweh… "for you have perverted the words of the living God… Therefore, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you and the city I gave to your ancestors, and I will hurl you from my presence."[23]

 

Jeremiah also spoke against Jerusalem itself, saying,

 

Don't trust the liars who say, "The temple of Yahweh is here…" For the God Yahweh says "My ferocious anger will be poured out on this place…"  So cut off your hair, Jerusalem, and throw it away.  Sing a sad song on the mountain tops, for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken this generation to his wrath.[24]

 

Jeremiah was thrown in a miry dungeon and left to rot because he prophesied these things against his own nation.[25]  Every Prophet is without honor in his own nation, because the Prophet refuses to whitewash the sins of the nation.

 

O Jerusalem, Ye Who Slay the Prophets

      600 years later, another Prophet followed in Jeremiah's footsteps.  He stood outside the temple in Jerusalem and uttered these words:

 

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the Prophets and stone those who are sent to you.[26]

 

A Prophet cannot die outside of Jerusalem.[27] 

 

You say, "If we had lived in the times of our ancestors, we would not have partaken in the blood of the Prophets."  Therefore, you yourselves testify that you are the children of those who killed the Prophets.  Thus you measure up to your ancestors… and upon you shall be all the righteous blood that was ever spilled on the earth.[28]

 

The Prophet who said this was Jesus.  What is interesting about this passage is that Jesus saw heresy in Jerusalem as a centuries-old problem.  He saw it as a continuous tradition of falsehood, which started centuries earlier, and continued to his own time.  As Jesus saw it, even though he lived 600 years after Jeremiah, both he and Jeremiah were Prophets fighting the same war – a war between the true Prophets of Yahweh and the false prophets of Jerusalem.  It is a war of centuries, a war of millennia, and it will continue until the end, as Revelation says, when the abomination of desolations is erected in the city of Sodom and Egypt, which is Jerusalem.[29]

      But why should we care what Jesus said?  We should care because he, like Jeremiah, is a provably authentic Prophet.  In the book of Mark, it is recorded that he prophesied the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in these terms:

 

You see this temple building?  Not one stone will be left upon another that will not be thrown down.[30]

 

This literally happened, for when the Romans stormed the walls of Jerusalem in 70 AD, the temple was set on fire.  It burned down, and Caesar commanded his soldiers to raze it.[31]  In this manner, the words of Jesus came true.  Secular scholars believe Mark was written before this happened, meaning that Jesus' truly predicted it.  Three 2^nd century historians – Papias, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria – testified that Mark's gospel was a summation of Saint Peter's teachings.[32]  Peter was killed in Rome during Nero's reign,[33] and Nero died before the destruction of Jerusalem.  Hence, the prophecy is verifiably earlier than its fulfillment.

 

Rival Priesthoods

      We have seen that Jesus and Jeremiah were anti-Jerusalem.  But why?  And what was the origin of the Jerusalem priesthood? 

      To find out, we must consult two of the most obscure books of the Bible – 2^nd Samuel and the first part of 1^st Kings.  These two are derived from an older text which scholars call the Court History or Court Narrative of King David, of which there is no particular reason to doubt its historical veracity.  From this text, we learn that King David, in his old age, had two chief priests.  One was named Zadok, and the other was named Abiathar.[34] 

      Previously, King David had killed a man to take his wife, and from that incident he fathered Solomon.  The wife's name was Bathsheba.  Many years later, when they were old and gray, Bathsheba tried to convince David that their son Solomon should succeed him as king.  The priest Zadok joined Bathsheba and Solomon in this plot.  However, the priest Abiathar supported an elder son of David named Adonijah, born of a different wife, and Adonijah was the rightful king because all Israel looked to him as the heir to the throne.  At this time, David was old and perhaps little senile, laying on his deathbed, together with a beautiful young girl many years his junior.  So he felt obliged to acquiesce to the nagging of his former lover, Bathsheba, who was by now a scorned old woman.  It was under these circumstances that Solomon secured the throne.  All these facts come straight from the Biblical book of Kings.[35]

      Upon becoming king, Solomon killed his rival brother Adonijah.  He also exiled the priest Abiathar to a town called Anathoth, and gave Abiathar's authority to Zadok, thereby making Zadok the sole high priest.  Solomon and Zadok ruled from the city of Jerusalem.  They built the first temple of Jerusalem, which housed Zadok and his underlings.[36]  In this manner, the priests of Jerusalem became a national institution.  Before this time, Israel had worshiped at Shiloh, which was the original sacred tent of Abiathar's priestly order and indeed of all Israel.[37]  Moreover, the Prophet even records that the usurper will hold the scepter until it returns to Shiloh.[38]

      350 years later, the Prophet Jeremiah arrived on the scene.  The Biblical book of Jeremiah introduces him as coming from "among the priests of Anathoth.[39]  This links him to the exiled priest Abiathar.  Moreover, Abiathar was a Shilohite priest, and Jeremiah is the only one of the Prophets to mention Shiloh.[40]  For these reasons, which Friedman points out,[41] we may conclude that Abiathar and Jeremiah were affiliated with the same religious tradition.  This tradition apparently had been opposed to Zadok and to the Jerusalem priesthood from the days of Solomon.

      An obscure oracle from the mouth of Jesus Christ ties into this ancient web of intrigue.  Jesus said,

 

Have you not heard what David did when he was hungry and in need, and those with him, how he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest?[42]

 

The Old Testament story Jesus was recollecting tells of how King David was befriended by a father-son combo of priests named Abiathar and Ahimelech.  One was the son and the other the father, although which was which is not certain, for the Old Testament contradicts itself on this detail.[43]  Two other priests, Zadok and his father Ahitub, were also alive at this time.[44]  However, David did not go to Zadok and Ahitub in his youth.  Moreover, Jesus Christ never called them high priest.  Instead, Jesus called Abiathar high priest, thus relegating Zadok and Ahitub to something below that office.  It seems that Jesus regarded Abiathar as the legitimate high priest, and Zadok as something else.  Abiathar was the priest of Shiloh.  Zadok was the priest of Jerusalem. 

      These facts taken together indicate that there were two rival priesthoods, one of Abiathar and the other of Zadok, and that Jesus and Jeremiah regarded Abiathar as the more legitimate of the two.

 

Zadok and the Sadducees

      The 1^st century historian Josephus informs us,

 

For a long time, the Jews were divided into three schools of thought – the Essenes, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees.[45]

 

The second of these, the Sadducees, or Zadokees, were named after Saduc, or Zadok, the first high priest of the Jerusalem temple.  This is the same Zadok who helped Solomon become the king and who was the first high priest of the Jerusalem temple.  In Jesus' time, the priesthood of the Jerusalem temple was affiliated with the Sadducees, and effectively worked together with the Sadducees as the same sect.[46] 

      Josephus and the New Testament inform us that the Sadducees did not believe in angels, nor in the resurrection.  They believed in free will.  They rejected Jewish oral tradition, conforming only to the scriptures.  They were harsh in their enforcement of the criminal justice, and they quarreled amongst each other and with the Pharisees.  They were respected among the wealthy, but lacked popularity with the masses.[47]

 

Who Killed Christ?

      Who killed Christ?  According to the gospels, Jewish leaders convinced the Roman governor Pilate to kill him.  But which Jewish leaders did this?  As we have seen, there were three major denominations.  Were they all responsible, or just one of them?

      Neither Jesus nor the New Testament ever criticize the Essenes, so they can be cleared of the charge. 

      The Pharisees, for their part, were continually attempting to neutralize Jesus by interrogating him with difficult questions aimed at discrediting him.  However, the Pharisees were sometimes friendly toward Jesus.  Nicodemus praised him, and Simon the Leper had him over for dinner. [48]  When given the opportunity to kill Jesus and the Christians, they sometimes declined.  For example, they warned Jesus when Herod was trying to kill him.[49]  Also, they argued to refrain from persecuting Christians after the first Pentecost,[50] and wanted to release Paul when he stood on trial before the Sanhedrin.[51]  Therefore, although some of the Pharisees may have wanted to kill Jesus,[52] it is doubtful that the sect as a whole was fully united toward this aim.

      The Sadducees are much more to blame for Jesus' death.  It is generally agreed among scholars, particularly those who are the most skeptical, that Mark's account of the passion is the earliest and most trustworthy of the gospels.  Therefore, let us look to the events Mark records.  Mark says that it was the "chief priests, Bible copiers, and elders" who hired Judas the traitor and who arrested him.[53]  Likewise, it was the "high priest, the chief priests, the Bible copiers, and the elders" who tried him in the temple court.[54]  Again, it was the "chief priests, Bible copiers, and elders" who led him away to Pontius Pilate.[55]  And when Pilate hesitated, it was the "chief priests" who incited a riot, thus forcing Pilate to execute him.[56]  Pilate had experience with riots.  In one particular riot, he had been forced to kill a large number of Samaritans.[57]  Since killing one man was preferable to killing a whole mob, Pilate's decision was a matter of the lesser evil.  So Pilate consented to forgo the legal formalities and carry through with the crucifixion.  Hence, it was not the Romans who eagerly killed Christ, nor was it the Jewish masses, nor was it even the Pharisees.  It was the chief priests of Jerusalem and their peripherals, the Bible copiers and elders – these hold the lion's share of the blame for Jesus' death. 

      Jesus is nowhere said to have had any friends among the Sadducees whatsoever, which indicates that he didn't even care to breathe the same air with them.  This contrasts sharply with his numerous associations among the Pharisees.  The Sadducees' dislike for the Christian faith extended beyond the death of Jesus.  It was the Sadducees who put the Christians on trial after the first Pentecost, and it was the Sadducees who tried to convict Paul before the Sanhedrin.[58]  

      Therefore, those who killed Christ were the heirs of Zadok, the first high priest of Jerusalem, who was responsible for usurping the priesthood from the true priests of Shiloh and driving them into exile.  It was after Zadok, aka Saduc, that the Sadducees took their name, and it was after Zadok that they fulfilled the words of Jesus Christ – "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who slay the Prophets and stone those who are sent to you."

 

Zadok and the Damascus Document

      Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is a text entitled The Damascus Document.  It is significant to our discussion for two reasons: 

      First, it states that the Bible, the "Torah," was hidden in the Ark of the Covenant for hundreds of years, and was not revealed until Zadok arrived, and so Zadok's children are deemed the chosen ones of Israel.[59]  This sounds a lot like the experience of another Jerusalem temple priest, Hilkiah, who mysteriously "found" a Bible in the temple that had allegedly been missing for hundreds of years.[60]  With all these Bibles popping out the woodwork, one can see why Jeremiah accused the Jerusalem priests of forgery.  The priests of Zadok evidently used texts like The Damascus Document to justify their authority.

      Second, The Damascus Document is the only text among the Dead Sea Scrolls that Jesus Christ directly contradicted.  It says, "Don't eat anything on the Sabbath except what you have already cooked.  Don't eat anything out in the field."[61]  Jesus directly disobeyed this regulation when he and his disciples went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, picking up grain and eating it.[62]  The Damascus Document also says, "If an animal falls into a water hole on the Sabbath, you shall not lift it out."[63]  Jesus directly attacked this regulation also, saying, "Which of you, if your animal falls into a ditch on the Sabbath, will not lift it out?…  It is permissible to do good deeds on the Sabbath."[64]  It is unusual for Jesus to directly contradict the Dead Sea Scrolls, yet here are two places where he does, and they both concern The Damascus Document – the same document that seems intimately connected to Zadok and his Jerusalem priests. 

      The Damascus Document was the one text among the Dead Sea Scrolls that was actually friendly toward the Sadducee-Zadokee priesthood, and Jesus directly attacked it.  This is yet another subtlety that reinforces our theory that Christ was fundamentally opposed to the Sadducees and their progenitor Zadok.

 

A Den of Thieves

      In a well known story told in all four gospels, Jesus overturns the tables in the Jerusalem temple, and accuses those of the temple that they have turned the temple into "a den of thieves."  He placed himself directly in the shoes of Jeremiah when he said this, for Jeremiah also went to the gates of the temple at Jerusalem and called the temple "a den of thieves."[65]  About this there is no coincidence, for Jesus Christ saw himself as a Prophet in the tradition of those Prophets who had come before him, and he believed that every true Prophet stands against the priests and against their temple at Jerusalem.

      We have seen how there was a longstanding priestly tradition centered in Jerusalem, which had its origins with a high priest named Zadok.  We have also seen that this group of priests was responsible for polluting scripture with forgeries, exiling the true priests, usurping the throne, killing the Prophets, and ultimately killing Christ.

            More than a theory, the foregoing hypothesis rests upon the solid edifice of mainstream Biblical scholarship, as we shall see in the next chapter.