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.[1]  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…[2] 

 

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.[3] 

 

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…[4]  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.[5]

 

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![6]  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,[7] yet it varies with the Priestly text of the Torah on minute and inconsequential details,[8] 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.[9]

 

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.[10]

 

The Prophet Isaiah testifies to this effect:  "Your new moons and determined feasts my soul hates."[11]  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.

Return to this section's landing page:  Genesis 1 is a forgery.

The creationist narrative in Genesis 1 is contradicted by many ancient Christian texts.  Instead of an Almighty Creator God, ancient Christian texts espouse that the universe is born from blind arrogance and stupidity.  The angels caused evolution to occur from species to species.  There are many gods, (or aliens?), and the Christian God is just one among them.  Satan the Devil writes scripture, and thus the Bible was polluted with Genesis 1.  Archaeology and modern scholarship demonstrate that Genesis is indeed corrupted.  Cavemen walk with Adam and Eve.  Esoteric prophecies reveal the coming of Christ, and also reveal the dark forces that govern the cosmos.  Such are the ancient Christian writings.

Science vindicates the truth of these ideas.  Evolution often happens too fast for Darwin’s theory.  Gaps in the fossil record indicate that some kind of unnatural force acts together with natural selection.  Astrobiology reveals that intelligent life probably evolved long before us.  The fossil record reveals strange clues that aliens abducted species and transported them across oceans, and that DNA from diverse lineages was combined to spawn hybrid species.  Evidently, aliens influence evolution, and they are the gods of the world’s religions. 

This is not fiction.  All these facts are thoroughly documented in the links above.

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