A new book is available for only $35, according to The Wall Street Journal of March 12-13, 2016. The title is The Invention of God, and it follows in a long line of “scholarly” works that show no respect for the Bible as the Word of God—but quotes it as though it is true when it is convenient to do so. The author of this new book claims, among other things, that YHWH had His origin in the 13th century B.C. “among Israel’s Edomite neighbors” (C6). Yes, according to this theory, Jehovah was just a local Canaanite deity that developed into the concept of a universal, all-powerful God. Really? Think of the implications of just this one statement. It would mean that:
- Genesis 1:1 is fraudulent, since God did not, as yet, exist;
- YHWH could not have instructed Moses to go down to Egypt to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage;
- The Ten Commandments were composed by men rather than God;
- The Ten Plagues must have been The Ten Accidental Catastrophes;
- The Law of Moses was actually not the Law of God, which has been accepted as true for centuries;
- The true and Living God is a myth and there is therefore no objective morality or ethics.
Yes, all of these fundamental facts are wrong because one “scholar” did some research and has an alternate theory. But it gets even worse. According to the author (who probably would like to see his name in print), YHWH had a consort named Asherah, aka the “Queen of Heaven.” One wonders, sometimes, if “scholars” just try out the looniest thing imaginable to see how many gullible people they can sucker into their hypotheses. No one can subscribe to these fantastic views without rejecting the first five books of the Bible in their entirety, which would also invalidate the New Testament, which accepts what is written in the Old Testament as true.
Paul references Adam and Eve as the first man and woman (1 Tim. 2:11-14); Jesus bases the permanence of marriage between one man and one woman on God’s original design, which He instituted in the Garden of Eden (Matt. 19:3-9; Gen. 2:18-24). The end of the world is based on the universal Flood in Noah’s day (2 Peter 3:5-9; Gen. 6-9). Jesus is the One through whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed (Gal. 3:8; Gen. 22:18). Much more could be cited, but the one thing it is important to understand is that Jesus and the apostles supplied evidence for what they said—namely miracles—which is the reason Christianity became accepted in the first century. And the author of this book offers…speculations. No thanks; we’ll stick with the truth.