Priests and Sadducees Against the Earlier Sources

      Beyond mere differences in vocabulary and style, even deeper differences emerge among the sources - differences which concern theology and doctrine.  The most striking differences occur when the Priestly text is compared to the earlier traditions, namely the Yahwist and Elohist sources. 

      Angels are never mentioned in the Priestly text.[1]  This links the Priestly text with the Sadducees, who likewise did not believe in angels.[2]  Dreams and visions from God are never mentioned in the Priestly text.[3]  This is also similar to the doctrine of the Sadducees, about whom Josephus wrote, "they don't believe in fate at all, and suppose that God does not worry with what we do."[4]  In contrast, the earlier sources do mention angels, dreams, and visions. 

      The Priestly text emphasizes rituals, priestly orders, and the Law given on Mount Sinai.  In contrast, the earlier sources piece together a history from anecdotal stories concerning the Hebrews' ancestors.  In this, the Sadducees are like the Priestly text, and the Pharisees are like the earlier sources.  As Josephus testified,

 

The Sadducees don't keep anything except what the Law requires… (but) the Pharisees have given the masses a lot of traditions from their ancestors.[5]

 

Thus, a case can be made that the Sadducees were the spiritual descendents of the Jerusalem priests who wrote the Priestly text.  Not only did the Sadducees inherit the Jerusalem priesthood from them, they also inherited a number of doctrinal assumptions from them.  As such, there is apparently some kind of denominational continuity from the priesthood of Zadok which existed in pre-exilic times, down to the Sadducees of Hellenic and Roman times.  They retained certain similarities through the centuries, uniting them as a denomination. 

      One of the most defining doctrines the Sadducees shared with the Priestly text was the doctrine of God's nature.  They both saw God as all-powerful, all-wise, spiritual, and heavenly.  In contrast, the earlier sources had a much more down-to-earth concept of God.  The earlier sources say that God repented and changed his mind about the Flood and about wishing to destroy Israel.  He prefers to walk when it is cool outside.  He asks Adam and Eve and their son Cain some questions as if he did not know the answers. He even feels threatened by human achievements such as the Tower of Babel.[6]  In contrast to the Priestly text's view of God, the God of the earlier sources is prima facie not all-powerful, not all-wise, not spiritual, and not heavenly. 

      These factors enable us to separate the theology of Genesis 1 from that of the earlier sources, for the God of Genesis 1 is all-wise, all-powerful, and is heavenly.  Seven times Genesis 1 insists about creation that "God saw that it was good."[7]  This runs quite contrary to the Yahwist account which records that "Yahweh repented that he created Adam."[8] 

      In Genesis 1, and indeed throughout the entirety of the Priestly text, God is super-cosmic – dwelling above all creation.  When he created rainbows, he distinguished himself from "the flesh on the earth."[9]  But in the earlier sources, God takes visible form inside the cosmos, walking as a man alongside Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Jacob.[10] 

      In the Priestly text, when the Israelites suffered slavery in Egypt, God did not come down to investigate; rather, "their cry ascended to God."[11]  This is in sharp contrast to the God of the earlier Yahwist source, who actively comes down to investigate when the Tower of Babel is being built.[12]    One God observes from the heavens.  The other God observes from the earth.

      When the God of the Priestly text came to Mount Sinai, he hid himself in a fiery cloud and no one was permitted to see him.[13]  This contrasts with the earlier Elohist account where "Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God."  In the Elohist account, it is the people who choose not to meet God because they are frightened of him – God does not hide himself, rather the people hide from God.[14]  In the Elohist account, God even eats dinner with Moses and the elders while he is thundering commandments from the mountaintop.[15]

      Yet for all of his invisible heavenly glory, the God of the Priestly text still demands idols of cherubim be built.[16]  This is in sharp contradiction to the Ten Commandments, which forbid all graven images.  The Ten Commandments most likely come from the Elohist-Deuteronomist tradition with which Abiathar and Jeremiah were affiliated.[17] 

      In short, the God presented in Genesis 1 is consistent only with the God of the Priestly text, and can in no way be forced to reconcile with the God of the earlier sources.

 

The Late Date of the Priestly Text

      Because the Priestly text is of a late date, we cannot be sure it accurately represents the teachings of the Prophet Moses, nor can we assert much confidence in its historical value.  This is especially true in light of many archaeological findings, which largely prove the impossibility of the Priestly text’s chronology concerning Israel’s desert wanderings after the Exodus and in the Transjordan.[18]  But the most crushing blows against the text's antiquity and thereby also against its credibility comes from textual criticism.

      In his historic work, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, Julius Wellhausen laid out a powerful case for why the Priestly text was the latest of the four sources.  In a nutshell, he proved that the Priestly text was a forgery.  Thanks to him, the ghost of Moses, who was for so long misquoted because of the forgery, can finally rest in peace.  Wellhausen had this to say about the Priestly text: 

 

It has actually been successful, with its moveable tabernacle, its wandering camp, and other archaic details, in so concealing the true date of its composition that its many inconsistencies with what we know, from other sources, of Hebrew antiquity previous to the exile, are only taken as proving that it lies far beyond all known history…[19] 

 

In other words, the people who committed the forgery knew that the well-known traditions of the Hebrew people were contrary to their agenda, so they invented a false history about events from such a far distant past that the collective memory of the culture did not have the depth of recollection to prove it wrong.  In this manner, they managed to convince the Jewish nation that Moses had said things that he really never said.  Wellhausen adds,

 

In the Pentateuch the sacrificial ritual is indeed copiously described, but nowhere in the Old Testament is its significance formally explained.[20] 

 

This means that by the time the rituals were written down, they were so old that people had forgotten what they meant.  Hence, the authors of the Priestly text must have come long after the sacrificial system had been in place.  Therefore, although the sacrificial codes may be derived from more ancient sources, the stories together with the doctrines and theology they contain are of a much more recent date. 

      Moreover, in contrast to all the earlier sources and the Prophets, the Priestly text seldom talks of kings, wars, or politics, but rather dwells on religious issues.  This links the Priestly text to Persian times, when the protection provided by the Persian Empire allowed for this luxury.  As Wellhausen said,

 

From the exile there returned not the nation but a religious sect…[21]  In the eyes of the Priestly Code, Israel in point of fact is not a people, but a church; worldly affairs are far removed from it and are never touched by its laws.  Its life is spent in religious services.  Here we are face to face with the church of the second temple, the Jewish theocracy, in a form possible only under foreign domination.[22]

 

This explains why the Priestly text calls the Israelites "the congregation" instead of "the people."  The Priestly text was written after the Babylonian exile, that is after 539 BCE, at which time Judaism built the second temple and became a theocratic "congregation" under the Jerusalem priesthood.  They didn't need to worry with "worldly affairs" because they were under foreign domination by the Persians, who were most often a benefactor rather than an oppressor. 

      Regarding the type and number of sacrifices to be given during the Feast of Tabernacles, Numbers 29:12-38 contains one set of regulations, and Ezekiel 45:23-25 contains a contradictory set of regulations.  Interestingly, an old Kabbalist tradition comes into play here.  According to the tradition, some of the sacrifices listed in Numbers 29:12-38 are not really sacrifices to God, as the text claims, but are actually sacrifices to Satan![23]  More than likely, the two contradictory passages originally represented the divergent views of opposing factions within the Priestly sect.  In other words, it’s a case of heretics arguing with other heretics – both managing to weasel their contrary opinions into the Bible, and inventing tales of how the opposing factions were offering sacrifices to Satan.

      Based on discrepancies like this between Ezekiel and the Priestly text, Wellhausen argued that the Priestly text could not have been completed before the book of Ezekiel, and it is well established that the date of Ezekiel is no earlier than 590-570 BCE.  Ezekiel 40-48 is Priestly in nature, as everyone concurs, and it even mentions the priest Zadok four times,[24] yet it varies with the Priestly text of the Torah on minute and inconsequential details,[25] such that it could not have been copying from the Priestly text we now have in our Bible, but was rather drawing upon an earlier version of the Priestly tradition.  As Wellhausen put it,

 

Ezekiel surely could hardly have had any motive for reproducing Leviticus 23 and Numbers 28, and still less for the introduction of a number of aimless variations as he did so.  Let it be observed that in no one detail does he contradict Deuteronomy, while yet he stands so infinitely nearer to the Priestly Code; the relationship is not an arbitrary one, but arises from their place in time.  Ezekiel is the forerunner of the priestly legislator in the Pentateuch.[26]

 

Wellhausen also pointed out that the Priestly text calculated the dates of the festivals based on the phases of the moon, to which he says,

 

As harvest feasts, they are from their very nature regulated by the condition of the fruits of the soil.  When they cease to be so, when they are made to depend upon the phases of the moon, this means that their connection with their natural occasion has been forgotten.[27]

 

The Prophet Isaiah testifies to this effect:  "Your new moons and determined feasts my soul hates."[28]  This squares with the earlier Yahwist version of the feasts in Exodus 34, which does not link the timing of the feasts to the phases of the moon.

      For these reasons, the Priestly text is not authentic history; rather, it is only a late forgery, written long after the events it pretends to describe.  Insofar as the creation account of Genesis 1 is part of the Priestly text, it is part of that forgery.

 

Moses and Aaron

      The Priestly text corrupted the Exodus story to make Aaron equal with Moses.  In Exodus 7:14-18, God tells Moses to stretch his rod over the Nile River and turn it to blood.  In the next few verses, Exodus 7:19-21, the story is unnecessarily repeated, but this time it is not Moses who turns the Nile to blood, but some other guy named Aaron.[29]  This is part of a broader pattern apparent throughout Exodus and Numbers – namely, in the earlier sources Moses acts alone, but in the Priestly text Aaron is nearly equal with Moses.  When Moses strikes the rock to draw forth fresh water, he acts alone in the earlier Elohist version, but he acted with Aaron by his side in the Priestly text.[30] 

      Also, in the Priestly text, Aaron justified his priesthood over Korah's priesthood by labeling Korah a heretic.[31]  Yet the priesthood of Korah wrote no fewer than 11 hymns in the Biblical book of Psalms.[32]  We must ask, how is it that God allowed the priesthood of a heretic to write so many Psalms in the Bible?  Maybe Korah wasn't a heretic after all.  Maybe the Priestly sect unjustly ousted the sons of Korah from the priesthood, perhaps out of jealousy and competition.

 

Genealogies

The earliest humans are given two conflicting yet similar genealogies in Genesis.  Here they are:

Gen 4:17-18, Yahwist	Gen 5:1-28a, Priestly
Cain begat Enoch	Adam begat Seth
Enoch begat Irad	Seth begat Enosh
Irad begat Mehujael	Enosh begat Cainan
Mehujael begat Methusael	Cainan begat Mahalaleel
Methusael begat Lamech	Mahalaleel begat Jared
	Jared begat Enoch
	Enoch begat Methuselah
	Methuselah begat Lamech

The most striking difference between the two is that they repeatedly and consistently call God by different names.  In Genesis 4, God's name is "Yahweh;" but in Genesis 5, God's name is "Elohim."  There is no mistaking that these two genealogies are variants of a single earlier tradition, for the people who are listed in the one find a doppelganger in the other.  Cain = Cainan, Enoch = Enoch and Enosh, Irad = Jared, Mehujael = Mahalaleel, Methusael = Methuselah, and Lamech = Lamech.  Of the two, it is the Priestly text which is the most infeasible, for it records the most outrageous life spans – "And Adam lived 930 years… Methuselah lived 969 years…"[33] etc.  Insofar as such long life spans are highly improbable, it is the other account, the Yahwist account in Genesis 4, which is more likely to contain some truth to it.

 

The Prophets Against the Priests

      The Priestly text holds a most dubious place in scripture, for Jeremiah rejected it, Biblical scholarship casts doubt on it, and modern science refutes its creation myth in Genesis 1.  Moreover, the people who wrote it were the predecessors of those who have the blood of Christ on their hands – that is, the Sadducees, aka Zadokees.  Nor were Jesus and Jeremiah the only Prophets to find conflict with it.  Amos, who was the very first Prophet to make an entire Biblical book, had this to say about the priests: 

 

Woe to them that are at ease in Zion (Jerusalem)… you who eat the lambs of the flock and the calves when they are born.[34]  Even though you offer me burnt offerings and food offerings, I will not accept them… did you offer me sacrifices when you were in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?[35]

 

The question is rhetorical, and the answer is no, as Jeremiah says,

 

I (Yahweh) did not instruct your ancestors about burnt offerings and sacrifices in the day I led them out of Egypt.[36]

 

This flies in the face of the Priestly text which says that Moses did perform burnt offerings and sacrifices in the wilderness.[37]  Furthermore, a great number of Prophets disavow animal sacrifice as it was practiced in their day, including not only Amos and Jeremiah, but also David, Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Jesus Christ himself.  Here is their testimony:

 

Sacrifice and offering you did not require.[38]

 

Yahweh says, "Why do you make so many sacrifices to me?  I am sick and tired of burnt rams, animal fat, and the blood of cows, sheep, and goats… Don't pray to me.  I won't listen.  Your hands are full of blood."[39]

 

Should I come to Yahweh with burnt offerings and year-old calves?  Is Yahweh made happy with 1,000 rams and 10,000 rivers of oil?  Should I give my firstborn for my sin – the fruit of my own body for the sin of my soul?  He has shown you, O man, what is good.  Yahweh requires that you practice justice and mercy, and that you walk humbly with your God.[40]

 

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice.[41]

 

Also, we may note that the laws about the priest's consecrated bread, how only priests can eat it, are from the Priestly text.  Jesus and David both rejected these laws, as mentioned above, by saying it is lawful for non-priests to eat it.  For that matter, the true priests, Abiathar and Ahimelech, also rejected it, for it was they who gave the consecrated bread to David.[42]

 

Genesis 1 is Part of the Priestly Text

      There is a broad consensus among scholars that the creation story in Genesis 1 is part of the Priestly text.  Therefore, the credibility of Genesis 1, and indeed its very place in the Bible, is tied to the credibility of the Priestly text.  Their fate is bound together.  If one is rejected, the other must also be rejected.  Every wound inflicted upon the Priestly text is a wound inflicted upon Genesis 1, and every wound inflicted upon Genesis 1 is a wound inflicted upon creationism and its mutant clone "Intelligent Design."  We may assert this because Genesis 1 is part of the Priestly text.  The scholars testify to this as follows (emphasis added):

 

Hyers – "If the seven day account was written in the context of the dark period of the exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the deportation of the Jews to Babylonia, as most scholars concur, any points of correspondence with Babylonian cosmology take on additional meaning and power… the construction of the text as we have it strongly suggests that it is from priestly hands of the exilic period (500's BC).  It is therefore referred to as the Priestly account, reflecting a priestly style and content."[43] 

 

Wellhausen – "The Bible begins with the account of the Priestly Code of the creation of the world."[44]

 

Campbell and O’Brien – "It is thought that P (P is short for Priestly text) was composed around the time of Israel’s exile:  either in the years immediately before, when the exile was threateningly immanent; in the time of the exile itself; or shortly after the end of the exile… in this creation account, P presents a stately and ordered view of creation…"[45] 

 

Friedman – "The famous opening of P’s story in the first chapter of the Bible is: 'In the beginning of God’s creating the heavens and the earth, the earth was unformed and void…'"[46]

 

Smith – "A Priestly text, Genesis 1 shows a modification of old mythic material known from Israel and the rest of the ancient Near East.  This creation story combines two different visions of the cosmos:  the first and older view where the cosmos is the stage where divine wills engage in conflict; and the second and largely priestly notion that the cosmos is a holy place analogous to a sanctuary."[47]

 

Thus scholars agree that Genesis 1 is part of the Priestly text, and most agree that it was written about the time of the Babylonian exile, (although Friedman asserted a date circa 700 BCE[48]).  The exile occurred in the 500's BCE.  This is the time when Genesis 1 came of age.  In Biblical terms, the 500's BCE is rather late, for it came after Moses and most of the Prophets. 

      If you jumped into a time machine and went back and told the Prophets that the earth was created 6,000 years ago in just six days, they would look at you with blank stares on their faces, for they would not know what you were talking about.  The Prophets who prophesied before the exile – Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, and Nahum – these speak nothing of Genesis 1, which most likely means they had never even heard of it.  The earliest Prophet to show familiarity with Genesis 1 was Jeremiah, and he blasted it as a forgery from the pen of lying Bible copiers.

 

Ezra's Web of Deceit

      The final version of the Torah is a patchwork of discordant and often contradictory texts which were cut and pasted together by the hand of Ezra in the early to mid 400's BCE.  Ezra was not a Prophet, nor was he the high priest.  He really had no business being the final editor of Israel's sacred history.  In the book of Ezra, we learn that he was a descendent of Aaron and Zadok,[49] which associates him with the Priestly sect responsible for the Priestly text.  He was also a "scribe of the Law of Moses,"[50] which means he was experienced in hand-copying the various Bibles from which the Torah is derived – making him very familiar with them.  He was "prepared to seek the Law of Yahweh."[51]  What does the Bible mean when it says that Ezra was prepared to seek the Law of Yahweh?  Had the Law of Yahweh not yet been found?  That is to say, the Law, the Torah, had not yet been compiled from its various sources; therefore, he was "prepared to seek it."

      That the Law, the Torah, was not compiled before Ezra, is evident from the account in Nehemiah 8, wherein Ezra reads his version of the Law in front of all the people, and the people hang on his words as if it were some kind of marvelous new thing they were unfamiliar with.  We are told four times in a single passage that Ezra's reading of the Law gave them a new understanding of it.[52]  Moreover, we are told twice that "they found written in the Law" new things they had never heard of before – namely, that they should live in booths during a seven day feast, and that they should divorce their gentile wives.[53]

      It is on this second point, that Jews should divorce their gentile spouses, that we find the most glaring immorality and inconsistency of Ezra's forgery.  Ezra commanded:

 

You have sinned by marrying foreign women… divorce yourselves from the people of the land and from the foreign women.[54] 

 

The story goes on to describe how a very large number of Jews all divorced their wives at once.  This must have been a very traumatic event in Israel’s history, for Ezra and Nehemiah spill a great deal of ink describing it.  The effects to the Jewish nation must have been devastating.  In an age before gender equality and social safety nets, divorced women would have been reduced to servitude and prostitution.  Children whose fathers had disowned them would have no land to farm and thus no means to survive. 

      Possibly because of this, the Jewish nation sank into a cultural dark age immediately after Ezra's time.  Jewish literature and culture is virtually non-existent from 440 to 190 BCE.  The few scraps of literature from this period, such as Tobit, do not come from Palestine, but rather have their origin in Diaspora Judaism outside of Palestine.  We know virtually nothing about Jewish history during the late Persian and early Hellenic periods, except for a few paragraphs in Josephus – and even these are compromised by blatant chronological errors.  The dearth of knowledge is so bad, we actually know more about Israel in 1000 BCE than in 400 BCE!  There were no wars or plagues at this time that can explain this dark age.  We have only Ezra to blame – the man who ripped Jewish family life to shreds and gave us the final edition of the Old Testament Torah.

      Ezra’s mass divorce spree was inconsistent with the rest of the Bible.  The Biblical book of Ruth celebrates a romance between a Hebrew and a Moabite, and informs us even King David’s grandmother was a gentile.  Solomon married an Egyptian.  David married a Hittite.  Even the Prophet Moses himself married a Midianite.  Marriage between Hebrews and gentiles was honored, not ridiculed.

      Malachi was the last of the Prophets.  He was Ezra’s contemporary, perhaps old enough to be his father or grandfather.  Malachi stated that they should not divorce the "wife of their youth," because, "Yahweh, the God of Israel, says He hates divorce."[55]  The same concept was expressed by Saint Paul, who said, "If any brother has an unbelieving wife, and if she is happy enough to live with him, then don’t divorce her."[56]  Moreover, Jesus himself indicated that religious differences do not constitute a legitimate cause for divorce.[57]  Therefore, the Law makes it illegal to divorce because of religious differences.  We may conclude that Ezra’s policy of forcibly divorcing Jews from gentiles was inconsistent with the rest of the Bible.  Ezra had no legal precedent to legitimize the divorces.  Rather, it seems this ill-begotten doctrine was something of the Priestly sect's own invention.

      As soon as Ezra came, the Old Testament Prophets ceased.  Malachi was the last of them.  We should ask, if the God of Israel was happy with Israel's Torah, then why did he stop talking with them?  Ezra-Nehemiah is classified as Kethuvim, which means Writings.  This is the lowest and least important level of authority in the Jewish Bible.  Moreover, Ezra is represented by only one short fragment among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Nehemiah by none, in contrast to most Biblical books, which are represented by multiple and relatively complete copies.  Chronicles, which like Ezra-Nehemiah was written by affiliates of the Priestly sect, is likewise represented by only one short fragment of just a few verses, and it is not even consistent with the text we have today, which suggests they did not exert the same level of care in copying it as they did other books of the Bible.[58]  Accordingly, it is likely that these books were not even considered scripture among the Essenes.  Wellhausen writes, "Chronicles represents Israelite history in accordance with the Priestly Code."[59]  The literary works that came from Ezra's time – namely Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, and the final edition of the Torah – are not scripture.  These books wrongly weaseled their way into the Old Testament.

      Ezra’s task was to create one national religion out of a bunch of squabbling sects.  He did this by weaving together the various religious texts into the first five books of the Bible.  He intentionally cut and pasted these texts together in such a way that it would be difficult to decipher that they had once existed separately.  It has taken modern Bible scholars centuries to untangle the mess.  At the beginning of this mess stands Genesis 1. 

 

Beyond Ezra's Control

      When the Babylonian exile ended, some Jews went back to their homeland In Palestine.  These became Judean Jews, and they followed Ezra’s interpretations.  However, there were two other Jewish groups who did not live under Ezra’s jurisdiction.  They were free to continue ancient traditions which Ezra’s interpretations would not allow. 

      One group consisted of the Jews of the Diaspora, that is, those who lived abroad.  After Alexander the Great conquered the known world, the Hebrew Diaspora adopted many aspects of Greek thought and philosophy. 

      The other group consisted of a Hebrew-gentile mixture living in Samaria, which was the old northern kingdom of the Elohists.  The Samaritans continued Israelite traditions, which they claimed originated from very ancient times, and on the whole, they were friendlier toward Greek culture than were Ezra's Judean Jews to the south.

      Both groups preserved traditions that stood outside the culture of Ezra's second temple and its Priestly religion.  Over time, these traditions faded into apocryphal legends, and they mixed these traditions with Greek philosophy and myth, thus forming the foundation of what would later become known as Gnosticism.  Some very unorthodox interpretations resulted.  Among these was Apelles, who is said to have

 

Uttered slanders against the first five books of the Bible and against the prophets, alleging that the things which are written are of human origin and false.[60]

 

      Valentinus added that the prophets and the first five books of the Bible, and indeed the bulk of the Old Testament, was inspired by a stupid god who created the world – the demiurge.  And for this reason, Jesus declared in John 10:8, "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers."[61]

      Another voice of antiquity, Justinus, taught that there exists a distinction between the God Elohim and another God called "The Good One."  This hearkens back to a time in Israel’s extreme antiquity, when a distinction existed between the Father-God El or Elyon, and his son the storm God, Baal or Yahweh.  Scholars understand this from textual criticism and from the archaeology excavations at Ugarit.  Justinus also taught that the prophets were sent by these Gods; however, the prophets were deceived by an evil angelic serpent named Naas.  Naas is a derivative of the Hebrew word nachash, meaning serpent.  The same word nachash occurs in Genesis 3, and refers to the serpent who deceived Adam and Eve.  According to Justinus, after the evil angel Naas had deceived the prophets, Jesus was selected to set the record straight.  Jesus was told, "All the prophets before you were led astray."  The prophets had been deceived because the serpent interfaced with the fallible human psychology of the prophets, thus causing them to misinterpret the Father's revelation.[62]

      In other words, Satan the Devil wrote a great deal of the Old Testament!  That’s the gist of it.  Irenaeus and Hippolytus put it quite bluntly, describing even more Gnostic opinions,

 

The followers of Saturninus… hold that some prophecies were uttered by the angels who made the cosmos, and some by Satan.[63]

 

Cerdon proposed that the god spoken of by Moses and the prophets was not the same as the Father of Jesus Christ.[64]

 

Irenaeus also recorded that when the Gnostics were confronted with passages from the New Testament which refuted their ideas that they dismissed the problem saying that "the Apostles intermingled the things of the Torah with the words of the Savior," because "the Apostles were still under the influence of Judean opinions," and that therefore on this point the New Testament falls short of the truth.[65]

      One has to wonder where the Gnostics got these opinions.  The history of the Samaritans and the Diaspora Jews must be considered here.  When Ezra finalized the Torah, certain factions among the Samaritans and Diaspora Jews must have had grave reservations.  Why should they accept this new redaction of the Bible?  What made it superior to the earlier traditions?  Unfortunately, Judaism worldwide entered a cultural dark age about this time, so we know very little about the arguments which must have transpired.  What we do know is that when the dark age ended about 200 BCE, there were deep divisions within Judaism – for they had already separated into Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Samaritans, and proto-Gnostics.  Over the centuries, these conflicts were remembered – first as history, then as legend, and finally as a faint memory that Ezra's Bible was not legitimate.  In the end, they attributed the textual corruption of the Old Testament to evil forces that allegedly deceived the prophets.  This is evidence that Ezra's Bible was distrusted, and that many ethnic Hebrews who honored traditions outside of Judean Judaism believed parts of the Old Testament had been falsified by Ezra and his Judean Jews.