AN OVERVIEW OF REBOOTING THE BIBLE, PART 2

Get ready for a Memorial Day Weekend Learning About How the Septuagint’s Chronology Alters the Timing and Meaning of the Grand Accounts of Genesis 1-11. And Why There Was a Pre-Adamic Race Evidenced by Archeology

The New Book Is Written – Rebooting the Bible, Part 2

Only waiting for a Foreword from a notable friend and creating the bibliography and an index.  The book is 150K words, before creating those items which will add another 12-15K words.  This is my magnum opus. I hope to have the book available on Amazon on or before May 25.  For Prime members, you should be able to get the book in two days time.

Stay tuned. I may be able to get Pre-Orders set up in a day or two.

——————— From the Book’s Introduction——————–

What is different in this book from Rebooting the Bible, Part 1? In this volume, I present how those stories told in Genesis 1 through 11, can be understood better as history when we add back the years the Masoretic Text left out. The corrected dates recast the account’s details enough to supply additional evidence the accounts contain some hard facts.  We can now align the biblical accounts closely with what archeologists and Egyptologists tell us regarding Mesopotamia and Egypt. This not only provides a much stronger apologetic to defend that portion of the Bible most often derided, it also elucidates details about the stories that we would not appreciate if we had the chronology wrong. With a corrected timeline (from roughly 5600 B.C. to 2200 B.C.),[1] we can demonstrate that the Bible confirms much of what archeology has found to be true – and vice versa.

The problem with the scholars of most evangelical seminaries today is they have rejected and repudiated for so long the belief that history exists within the Genesis 1-11 stories, it’s almost pointless to argue the Septuagint straightens out many of their mistaken premises about biblical chronology. Thanks to professing an exclusively mythological interpretation of the first eleven Chapters of Genesis, history has been forsaken. Nonetheless, the Septuagint chronology eliminates the need to conform the Masoretic Text to archeology, a compromise project doomed from the start since the gap between the MT and secular history based on archeology and Egyptology is just too great. These two chronologies are 1,000 years apart!  You can’t make the numbers work with a disparity that large.

As a preface to explain my approach: The book presents the material moving backward in time, from the birth of Abraham (which I calculate to roughly 2200 B.C., to Adam, circa 5600 B.C). This approach suspends the old understanding of “cause and effect” (how these events relate to one another) and opens our mind to a new way of seeing things. Additionally, I combine in a single chapter (albeit it makes the chapters long) those elements linked through the revised story arc. In some cases this broke apart topics typically combined, like the Tower of Babel and Nimrod, because the Septuagint’s chronology highlights why they should not be united.

The first character addressed is Peleg and the nature of the dividing of the nations at his birth. (Genesis 10:25) The MT implies that Peleg was born at the same time as the Tower of Babel event – and that the dispersion of all humanity was its direct result. However, when we study the chronology, the reality is that Peleg’s birth was several hundred years after the nations dispersed. That drastically changes the meaning of the story. Some archeological finds of ancient cities under water might be explained by what did divide the nations. Likewise, when we rightly understand the timing of the Great Flood (3360 B.C.) and the Tower of Babel (circa 3100 B.C.), a number of other factors are seen in a bright new light.

First, Nimrod was not the leader of the rebellion at Babel. Someone else in the biblical account was (I’ll keep you in suspense as to who it was). However, Nimrod was still the world’s first empire builder. And yet we should wonder, “What was the extent of Nimrod’s empire? Was it just the eight cities mentioned in Genesis 10, located in ancient Sumeria and Assyria?  Or did it include other major territories too?” The answer is, “Yes it did include other regions.” And archeology, with a bit of biblical help, tells us which ones.

Second, the nature of the Tower of Babel and its role in the history of the Middle East changes. Was the Tower a Ziggurat? Did its builders try to build a Tower to reach all the way into Heaven?  Was it or was it not located at Babylon? Was Babel (or Babylon) built upon the ruins of an antediluvian city?  If so, who built it?

Third, were the nations of the world all descended from the three sons of Noah?  What is the evidence for that?  If the timing of the dispersion is quite different than the usual account (and it is by several hundred years), how does that change what peoples rebelled at Babel? Was it all the earth’s population or only a subset with motive, means, and opportunity to rebel? How does that influence the development of Egypt, its culture, and its monuments? What did Abraham and later Jacob see when came into that land? The MT states that Abraham’s visit was well less than 200 years after the Tower at Babel was abandoned. In contrast, the Septuagint tells us it was nearly 1,000 years. Consequently, we can bet Egypt was unlike Abraham’s home in Ur of the Chaldees. Furthermore, Egypt’s culture was literally set in stone. Think of the Giza Pyramids and the monuments that pre-date Abraham’s visit by (at least) eight or nine hundred years. Many authorities now conclude these megalithic artifacts could not have been built after the Flood in the Bronze Age, but long before in a different epoch. We will discuss that at the end of the book.

Fourth, exactly when did the Flood of Noah occur? This book argues that the Septuagint supplies the date of 3360 B.C.; the Masoretic Text 1,012 years later – 2348 B.C. If so, how many years separated the Great Flood from the Tower of Babel event?  The MT suggests only 100 years. But could the world population have rebounded enough to make the Babylon rebellion a major event with the Tower of Babel built to reach into the heavens? The Septuagint implies the hiatus was 250 years. And subsequently, we should ask, “What caused the Flood?” “Why was the world’s destruction necessary?”  “How long had the antediluvian epoch lasted before the Flood?  Does it matter?”  Yes indeed it does – and this explains a number of things about the Flood that are obscured by the false timing proffered by the Masoretic chronology.

Fifth, the creation of Adam and Eve, the existence of Eden, the meaning of Cain and Abel and the Fall of humanity.  Did Eden actually exist? Is there any evidence where Eden was? Is there any proof which indicates the timing supplied by the LXX for the Creation (5600 B.C. instead of 4000 B.C.) improves the likelihood that Eden was a real geographical location? Does evidence exist that homo sapiens after the Flood originated there?  The answer is, “Yes” to all these questions. The reader will find these answers supplied in Chapter 8.

Beyond these biblical themes, the final chapter of the book embarks upon some “high octane” speculation as to what happened before the Garden of Eden. Was there a race of humanoids before Adam and Eve? Were the creative acts of God described in Genesis 1 actually a re-creation? If the world was destroyed and then regenerated by Yahweh, what might have caused it? Was there a great cataclysm? Are there indications that a “high culture” or civilization existed before our history commenced 7,500 years ago? Does this alter the Bible’s story?  This subject is a lengthy book in its own right; nevertheless, we will touch on these questions because the issue is an obvious one, especially if we question whether the earth is “young” or “old” (regardless of which chronology is correct, be it 6,000 years or 7,500 years when the six days of Creation commenced). After laying out the core issues involved, I chart a new course (preliminary at best) having considered the data for a “recent” mega cataclysm that may have destroyed a sophisticated human civilization preceding our own.

NOTES

[1] Rebooting the Bible, Part 1 addressed the biblical timeline from the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 586 B.C. to Abraham’s birth, approximately 2200 B.C. Secular historians are certain they have the chronological sequence nailed down from that point forward up to the birth of Christ, which does have some uncertainty (proposed dates from roughly 4 B.C. to 2 A.D.). Astronomy seems to show that a date of 1-2 B.C. is correct.