The Old Testament spans several centuries and deals with diverse subjects. However, its main theme is the struggle by a succession of prophets to make Jews adhere to monotheism. The story acquires interest after Moses leads his people out of Egypt and goes up to Mount Sinai, where he has been summoned by Yahweh, to receive the Ten Commandments. The commandments that are relevant in the present context are the first two. Yahweh says, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods set against me. You shall not have a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, for, I, the Lord your God am a jealous god. I punish the children for the sins of their forefathers to the third and fourth generations of those that hate me.” [1] He does not make it clear how homage to other gods means hatred for him. He betrays the pathological state of mind in which a person feels slighted simply because some other person is praised. In any case, he goes ahead and lays down that “whoever sacrifices to any other god but the Lord shall be put to death under solemn ban.” [2] 

This was no empty threat as Moses proved soon after. While he went up to Mount Sinai for a second time his people down below melted their ornaments, made a golden calf, and started worshipping it with song and dance. Yahweh was furious. He threatened to destroy the whole lot of them, and Moses had a hard time pacifying him. Moses hurried down in order to handle the situation. "Then he took the calf they had made and burnt it; he ground it to powder, sprinkled it on water and made the Israelites drink it.” [3] Next he took his place at the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? Come here to me; and the Levites all rallied to him. He said to them, ‘These are the words of the Lord the God of Israel: Arm yourselves, each of you, with his sword. Go through the camp from gate to gate and back again. Each of you will kill his brother, his friend, his neighbour.’ The Levites obeyed, and about three thousand of the people died. Moses then said, ‘Today you have consecrated yourselves to the Lord, because you have each turned against his own son and his own brother and so have brought this blessing upon yourselves.’” [4] All ties of kinship which native cultures have prized stood dissolved in the new dispensation. A brotherhood of believers (or murderers) based on a commonly shared cult came into existence.

Yahweh made it quite clear to the Jews that if they failed to punish those among them who turned to other gods, he would take the matter into his own hands and inflict terrible calamities on the whole people. “If inspite of this you do not listen to me and still defy me, I will defy you in anger, and I myself will punish you seven times over for your sins. Instead of meat you shall eat your sons and your daughters. I will destroy your hill shrines and demolish your incense altars. I will pile your rotting carcases on the rotting logs that were your idols, and I will spurn you. I will make your cities desolate and destroy your sanctuaries… I will destroy your land and the enemies who occupy it shall be appalled. I will scatter you among the heathen and I will pursue you with the naked sword; your land shall be desolate and your cities heaps of rubble.” [5]

The march towards the promised land, which Yahweh promised to his Chosen People, was resumed. Yahweh himself led the Jews, assuming the form of a cloud. On the way he gave elaborate instructions about how he was to be worshipped. At last they were on the frontiers of the promised land. Yahweh briefed them how to proceed: “When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to occupy and drive out many nations before you: Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Cananites, Perrizites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations more numeous and powerful than you, when the Lord your God delivers them into your power and you defeat them, you must put them to death. You must not make a treaty with them or spare them. You must not intermarry with them, neither giving your daughters to their sons nor taking their daughters for your sons: if you do, they will draw your sons away from the Lord and make them worship other gods. Then the Lord will be angry with you and quickly destroy you. But this is what you must do to them: pull down their altars, break their sacred pillars, hack down their sacred poles and destroy their idols by fire, for you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God chose you out of all the nations on earth to be his special possession.” [6] The conquest of the promised land proceeded apace, accompanied by unmitigated slaughter and rapine. [7] Yahweh commanded his servants again and again not to leave alive anything that breathes." So Joshua massacred the population of the whole region, the hill country, the Nageb, the Shephelah and all their kings. He left no survivor, destroying everything that drew breath as the Lord God of Israel had commanded.” [8]

But as the Jews settled down in the promised land they reverted to their pagan ways. They intermarried with neighbouring non-Jewish tribes, defying the ban which was imposed on them. The foreign brides brought their own Gods, and also priests who tended to them. Yahweh's rage reached a new high in the reign of Solomon. He had seven hundred wives, most of them foreign princesses, and three hundred concubines whom 'turned his heart to follow other gods.' [9] Yahweh warned him twice but Solomon ignored him. The Jewish kingdom split into two after the death of Solomon: Israel in the north with its seat at Samaria, and Judah in the south with its seat at Jerusalem. The scribes who wrote the story of Solomon credited Yaweh with a curse which broke the kingdom after Solomon’s death. In any case, the worship of other Gods continued unabated. Ahab, king of Israel, had married a foreign princess, Jezebel, who was a devotee of Baal. Ahab himself paid homage to him. Elijah, a self-appointed prophet, admonished the king but was dismissed with contempt. So Elijah took resort to trickery. He invited the priests of Baal to Mount Carmel in order to demonstrate the superiority of Yahweh over Baal. His swordsmen who lay in ambush seized four hundred and fifty Baalist priests. Elijah himself “took them down the Kishon and slaughtered them in the valley.” [10]

The mantle of Elijah fell on Elisha. He earned his well-deserved reputation as a prophet by cursing some naughty children, forty-two of whom were torn to pieces by she-bears. [11] He egged on an adventurer, Jehu, who seized the throne of Israel after slaughtering the sons of Ahab, and getting Jezebel thrown out of a palace window so that “some of her blood splashed on the wall and the horses trampled her under foot.” [12] The worship of Baal, however, was far from finished in the kingdom, and many of his priests were still around. Guided by Elisha, Jehu announced that he, too, had become a devotee of Baal and was holding a great sacrifice in the big temple in the capital city. He invited all the priests of Baal and saw to it that all of them assembled. His armed guard fell on them suddenly and slaughtered them to the last man. The idols in the temple were brought out and burnt. The sacred poles were broken and the sacred pillars pulled down. The temple was turned into a lavatory. Yahweh blessed the enterprise and confirmed the kingdom in the family of Jehu for four generations. [13] Elisha lived thereafter a much satisfied man who had fulfilled his mission. And so on, the story continues through the rest of the Bible. The common people in the two kingdoms relapse into polytheism, again and again. More prophets appear on the scene and do what Elijah and Elisha had done. Each succeeding prophet turns out to be a greater butcher than the one before. They curse and torment their own people, and invoke calamites on them. But as the people remain indifferent to them, they feel utterly helpless and console themselves by praying for the 'great day' when the Lord will destroy all other gods together with those who worshipped them. [14]

Yahweh himself had always been intemperate in his language vis-a-vis those who strayed. But as he feels more and more helpless in the face of his people’s 'obstinacy', his language becomes increasingly foul and ends by being downright pornographic. He views the worship of other Gods as adultery and fornication, and denounces both kingdoms as harlots given to wilful whoredom. He addresses his prophet Ezekiel and says: “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations… And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, that thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place and made thee a high place in every street… and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed, and multiplied thy whoredoms. Thou has also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh… They give gifts to all whores: but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee from every side for thy whoredom… O harlot, hear the words of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God: Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations… I will gather all thy lovers with whom thou has taken pleasure… I will gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness… And I will also give thee into their hands… and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords. And they shall bum thy houses with fire… and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shall give no hire any more.” [15]

In another message to the same prophet, Yahweh says, “Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of the same mother. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth : there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.” [16] Turning to Samaria, he pronounces: “Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt : for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredoms upon her.” [17] Coming back to Jerusalem, his language becomes filthier. “And when her sister saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms… For she doted upon their paramours whose flesh is as the flesh [penises] of asses and whose issue is like the issue of horses.” [18]

Another self-appointed prophet named Jesus follows in the footsteps of his predecessors and harangues the Jews to repent, for the Last Day is drawing near. He shows some miracles, collects crowds, and gets picked up by the Romans as a disturber of peace. Yahweh does not lift a finger to save his son from a cruel and shameful death and Jesus is crucified. The Christians that follow beat their Lord’s record in bullshit. On the one hand, they blame the 'crime' on the Jews, so that they are subjected to repeated pogroms for two thousand years. On the other hand, they tell us that Jesus mounted the cross voluntarily to wash the sins of mankind with his own blood.  We understand now why the original 'men in black' harrass Israeli archaeologists, they're scared of what they may find if they dig too deep.

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REFERENCES:

[1]  Exod. 20.2-5; See also Exod. 20.23; 23.13,24; 34.17; Lev. 19.4; 26.1; Deut. 4.16, 23-24; 27.14-15; Jos. 24.14,23; Isa. 42.8; Ezech. 20.6-8, 15-18, 23-24, 28-31, 39.

[2]  Exod. 22.20; Lev. 20-1-5; Deut. 17.2-5.

[3]  Exod. 32.20.

[4]  Exod. 32.26-29. See also Deut. 13.6-11; 17.2-5

[5]  Lev. 26.27-33. See also Deut. 4.25-28; 6.14-15; 8.9-20; 30.17-18; 31.16-18; 32.16-17,21,23-25, 37-42; Jos. 23.16; 24,20, 1 Kings 11.1-13, 2 Chr. 7.19-20; 34,24-25; Ps. 16.4; Isa. 19.1-4; Jer. 5.19; 7.16-20; 11.9-11; 16.18-21; 17.1-4; 18.21; 44.15-27; Ezech. 6.3-7, 13-14; 8.7-18; 16.35-43; Hos. 2.4-6; 10-13; 8.3-7; 10.1-8; 11.2-6; 13.1-3; Mich. 1.6-7; 5.13-14; Nah. 1.14; Zeph. 1.4-6., Zach. 11.17; Rev. 2.21-23.

[6]  Deut. 7.1-6. See also Exod. 23.23-24, 27.32-33; 34.10, 12-17; Num. 33.50-56; Deut. 7.16. 23-26; 8.19-20, 12.1-3; Jos. 6.17; 8.1-8, 28-29; 23.7.

[7]  Deut. 13.1-5. See also Deut. 13.12-16; 18.20.

[8]  Jos. 10.40. See also Jos. 11.5-6, 8-9.

[9]  1 Kings 11.1-5.

[10]  1 Kings 18.17-40.

[11]  2 Kings 9.33.

[12]  2 Kings 9.33.

[13]  2 Kings 10.18-30.

[14]  Isa. 2.18-21; 17.7-8; 31.7-8.

[15]  Ezech. 16.2; Ezech. 16.23-25; Ezech. 16.26;  Ezech. 16.33; Ezech. 16.35-41.

[16]  Ezech. 23-2-3.

[17]  Ezech. 23.8.

[18]  Ezech. 23.11-20.

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