The early Christian scholar named Origen wrote a work called…Contra Celsum…

And by the way…don’t write on library books! Celsus is identified as a Greek/Roman philosopher with an interest in religion, but should not be confused with Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a Roman who wrote about medical topics…

And by the way…don’t tear library books! The prevailing view is that our Celsus was a fierce opponent of Christianity who attempted to expose the new religion as anything other than what it claimed to be. His criticisms were all over the map, so to speak, and most of them are irrelevant to this series of essays. His book was a motley collection of rumors that were in common circulation, seasoned with some rather strange observations of Celsus’s own. The book is no longer extant, though much of it appears in Contra Celsum…Against Celsus, written by Origen, who had been asked to write a refutation of it. According to Celsus, Christians always sought to…
 

Wall themselves off and break away from the rest of mankind.

That is, of course, a great exaggeration. But they did live and worship in their own communities, just as the Jews did as well. I would add to the supposed comment of Celsus that the Christians had the habit of denouncing other people’s gods as demons, and these things, among others, had engendered an intense dislike for Christians among the non-Christian population.

Not much is really known about Celsus, other than that the name of the book he wrote was called The True Logos. Actually, the whole Celsus-Thing gets a lot more interesting than that. The date of this work is uncertain. Some scholars believe that it was written around 175 B.C., indicating the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a time of considerable hostility to Christianity. Origen claimed that there were two men named Celsus, one lived during the reign of Nero, and one lived during the reign of Hadrian. Nero reigned from 54 – 68 A.D. Hadrian reigned during the years 117 – 138 A.D. And Origen claims that both men named Celsus were Epicureans. Could one of the men named Celsus to whom he refers be, in fact, as the result of confusion, Aulus Cornelius Celsus? He is dated to the period 25 – 50 A.D. That is pretty close to the reign of Nero. It is also possible that these dates, which are not precise, are off by a bit. Moreover, Origen could be wrong. Still, Aulus Cornelius Celsus was active during the reign of Nero’s foster-father Claudius. However, it would appear that Aulus Cornelius Celsus is irrelevant to our considerations. There were, it would seem, at least two men bearing the name Celsus…and possibly even…three. Origen said something interesting…

For from other treatises of his it is ascertained that he was an Epicurean; but here, because he thought that he could assail Christianity with better effect by not professing the opinions of Epicurus…

So, this is puzzling. Origen says that Celsus is an Epicurean because other writings of his betray that fact and that Celsus is hiding the fact that he is an Epicurean in The True Logos. I find that difficult to accept. I see no reason why he would hide being an Epicurean, any more than hiding that he was a Stoic, Cynic, Neo-Platonist, or a worshipper of the Man In The Moon.  And it can be assumed that if he is not showing himself to be an Epicurean in The True Logos, and can only be known to be an Epicurean based on other writings, and that there was another man of the same name who was known to be an Epicurean, presumably on the basis of his writings, then it seems to be more likely that the writer of The True Logos was, in fact, no Epicurean at all. And I will add the important fact that although Origen does give a few tantalizing details about the writer, or possible writer, or even…possible writers, who may be our Celsus…his off-hand way of dropping these details into his narrative, with a distinctly vague and highly ambivalent character of doing so, could be interpreted as indicating that, of the other written works he will make reference to, without giving titles…if they even existed…Origen does not seem to have read them. The issue here is the belief in two writers, both Epicureans, both named Celsus, who both may have written attacks against Christianity. This could indicate that there was only one Epicurean writer named Celsus, and that he did not write The True Logos.

Now, seeing how Origen brought up Hadrian, and seeing how this essay is about strange books, I thought that I might show some flexibility, and reduce the word count allowable by the topic, and allow for a much smaller document that is…highly strange.

Hadrian was famous for three things…building a wall in Britain, putting down the Bar Kokhba Rebellion carried out by Jewish rebels and lead by the Son of the Star, and being so grief stricken when his lover Antinous died that he deified him…

The means by which Hadrian became emperor are irregular to say the least. He was the favorite of Plotina…

…the wife of the emperor…

…Trajan. He was a military man, and he was the emperor who managed to defeat the Parthians, to whom I referred in a previous essay. The Roman empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan. Plotina would have been somewhat dissatisfied, shall we say, if the rumors about Trajan’s preference for male youths is true. But Trajan, to the frustration of all, would not designate a successor. Should he die without one, the empire would be plunged into civil war. Plotina was not about to let that happen, so she hyped Hadrian to her husband. He proved to be far less enthusiastic about Plotina’s favorite than she was. The normal means by which an emperor designated a successor was to adopt him and then grant him the highest offices of the Roman state. Trajan did neither. But! I’ve noted elsewhere that Esarhaddon’s mother arranged for her kid to jump ahead of his older brothers to become king of Assyria. When David lay dying, Bathsheba and Solomon entered David’s bedchamber, only to emerge with the declaration that David had chosen Solomon as his successor. In the case of Hadrian, Plotina was present at the death of Trajan. She then produced a document, signed by the emperor, adopting Hadrian. Oddly enough, Plotina dated the forgery to the day AFTER Trajan died. But creating documents is not the only way to change important things, as it were. How many commandments did Moses receive from God on Mount Sinai? Wrong! 

15 Commandments! Oops! Oh, dear…that’s a shame. Whatever will…

Part of the problem with Celsus is the fact that there are no additional, specific works attributable to him…by which I mean…titles.  However, Origen made several claims about Celsus’s writing endeavors that merit a further look. Origen makes the following general statements relevant to this point:

And thus you see that the ideas contained in his writings… (Chapter LXI)

And:

And it is owing to this cause that Celsus has said that "certain among the Christians are those called 'cauterized in the ears;' " and also that some are termed "enigmas,"--a term which we have never met. The expression "stumbling-block" is, indeed, of frequent occurrence in these writings, an appellation which we are accustomed to apply to those who turn away simple persons, and those who are easily deceived, from sound doctrine.  (Chapter LXIV)

And:

But nevertheless, since in the multitude of those who are considered believers some such persons might be found as would have their faith shaken and overthrown by the writings of Celsus (Chapter I)

So he uses the word “writings” which is, of course, plural. However, the plural may simply be, in reality, used as a singular noun.

And now is the time for you who peruse the works of Celsus (Chapter III)

More:

For from other treatises of his it is ascertained that he was an Epicurean; but here, because he thought that he could assail Christianity with better effect by not professing the opinions of Epicurus..

Treatises…the plural. But the word “works” could also be used in a singular sense…the written work of Celsus. But here is a really interesting statement…

But perhaps it was from a desire to cast reproach upon us, that this Epicurean Celsus, who is better able to judge than Plato (if it be the same Celsus who composed two other books against the Christians), called those individuals "inspired" whom he did not in reality regard as such. 

So there were 2 other books written against Christianity that were in the name of Celsus. But notice that Origen doesn’t know whether the writer of these two other books were by the same man. In fact, if Origen was familiar with these other two books, then it is odd that he does not name them, nor does he provide a title for these books. If Origen was familiar with these other books, then it is a fair expectation that he would make references to them while refuting the charges of Celsus. One permutation is that Origen did not even know that these two books actually existed…while trying to find information about Celsus, he may have simply asked around, and someone told him that two other polemical works existed that had been written by an author named Celsus. And it is undeniable that the statement Origen makes is one made from the position of total lack of real knowledge, indicated by the word…if.

Apparently, as far as I know, no other Christian writers responded to Celsus, a Celsus, or even, Celsuses, and he is not cited by any non-Christian writers in general, or non-Christian writers who undertook to attack Christianity in particular. If Origen had encountered these two other books, he certainly didn’t write of refutation of them, and it seems to be asking a lot to believe that there were three anti-Christian books in the name of Celsus that no Christian scholar until Origen even refers to. In my mind, this is very suspicious. It is clear that Origen knew about a writer named Celsus, whom he connects with the reign of Nero. And the history of the book itself is shrouded in an almost intolerable secrecy…just as the supposed Celsus himself. Origen writes that he received the work from his friend Ambrose of Alexandria. Ambrose was a wealthy convert who helped fund Origen’s constant writing projects. What we are not told is how Ambrose received the book by Celsus that he then passed onto Origen. I find myself interested in the exact history of the book itself. It seems to me that the finding of this book by a guy in Alexandria should be of interest, and indeed, investigated fully before tossing around analyses of what Celsus said, and meant by what he said.

There is no account of how Ambrose, friend and patron of Origen, came to sit down at his desk one day, with The True Logos, written by the mysterious ghost named Celsus, sitting in his in-basket. Logically, one day he knew nothing of it, then another day, he held it in his hands. So what happened between those two days? Perhaps someone found the book in a library and said, “Oh, look at this! Let’s give it to Ambrose.” Was it found in a private collection? Perhaps the fictional collection of works by Symmachus found in the home of the Fictional Virgin Juliana contained this book among them? No, of course not. Stranger still would be if someone found the book in a wine jar. And it certainly did not belong to Yeshu ben Stada, aka the Teacher of Righteousness, and deposited with the motley collection of various scrolls and documents later found at Qumran. But as much as one would like to delve into the controversial claims associated with a ghost-book written by an apparent ghost-writer, its origins should be of some interest. As I noted, Origen does state that other works of Celsus existed, but they are not named. That is strange, and telling, because Origen names many works by different writers in his response to Celsus’s claims, and he cites them by name. Clearly if they existed, Origen had not read them, and could not cite a title. This would seem to indicate, as I noted above, that Origen made only a cursory attempt to find information about Celsus, but instead pretty much stuck to asking others if they knew anything about the guy. If we are talking about Aulus Cornelius Celsus, who certainly did not write The True Logos, then Origen didn’t read anything by him. Given the topics that Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote about, I think that they would not have interested Origen in the least. Did he make a brief inquiry and receive information about Aulus Cornelius Celsus, who, he was told was an Epicurean, but Origen then hopelessly mixed up the two men? Actually, we have the title of a work purported to have been written by the pen of Enigmatic Celsus…as for the other two polemical works against Christianity said to have been written by a man named Celsus…we don’t even have the titles. So these 2 books are even more enigmatic than the Enigmatic The True Logos. But Origen gave us another clue at the end of his book, which I will note below.

The use of the Greek word…logos…is not rare by any means, but it is interesting that the Gospel of John uses the word, and applies it directly to Jesus:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was with God in the beginning.

And:

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And:

Now, Father, give me glory at your side…a glory I had with you before the world began.

These passages are enigmatic indeed. The Logos was that through which all things were made. Clearly this is a reference to creation. But is this the same view of creation as found in Genesis Chapter 1? There, the creator is Elohim…God…or…gods. The same is true of Chapter 2. A fascinating statement is made in John 8: 56-58…

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

What makes this so fascinating is the statement that before Abraham was born…I am. The Gospel of John is, of course, full of fascinating claims about Jesus, and these are, naturally, put in the mouth of Jesus himself by the writers and subsequent redactors. But the words…I am…may be a clever reference to Exodus 3:14. In this passage, God tells Moses to tell the Israelites that the name of the God who is sending him is…

God is revealing himself as…I AM WHO I AM…tell the Israelites that I AM has sent me. What an amazing name for God…even more so given the fact the normal version of the name is…

…YHWH, which is now frequently rendered as Yahweh. This is what is known as the Tetragrammaton- The Four Letters. However, that is the consonantal root…meaning without the vowels. The inclusion of the vowels in Hebrew/Aramaic, something I have written about in other essays on this website, is critical to knowing the word. Here is a good example, and particularly important in this context…

The bottom name is Jehovah, and this was the name that English speakers knew in the past. However, the prevailing interpretation is that the vowels added to the word, which produces the name…Jehovah, are incorrect Hebrew. But not an ancient typo, as it were. The consonants are YHWH, but the vowels actually belong to a different word…

…Adonai, based on the noun…adon…lord…ruler. In Jewish tradition, you do not speak the name of God. So the vowels given to the consonants…YHWH, caused the cantor to substitute ADON for YHWH. What this means is that, in fact, the actual name of the God of the Old Testament is NOT KNOWN FOR CERTAIN. And how many religions can say…we don’t know the name of our god?

In the Old Testament, YHWH is used in the place of, or alongside, the title…

…Elohim, which is a plural form of the word…

…El, who is the name of the top god in the Canaanite pantheon…

Not a particularly good-looking guy…not like the hotties in the Greek and Roman pantheons, and certainly not nearly as pretty as Antinous was! And it is strange because he kind of looks, no offence to our friend El, like a guy who has appeared mockingly…at great risk to myself seeing how he wants to the destroy the cosmos…in several essays on the subject of The Exorcist…Sutekh the Destroyer.

Still, Sutekh looks a little less weirder than…

...Cyber Controller…who looks a little less weirder than…

…the original cybermen of Mondas. But I digress. The patriarch Abraham knew his God by the name…

El Elyon…God Most High. Abraham’s God is also called…

El Shaddai…El…something. The meaning of the word Shaddai is uncertain. It has been understood to mean…El the One who Dwells in the Desert, El the Destroyer, and El of Shaddai. The latter indicates a place name. The translation…God Almighty…is not far off from El the Destroyer…no relation to Sutekh, of course. However, the English Biblical translation tones down the real name quite a bit…in a similar way to the name…

Lord of Hosts, which really means…Yahweh of Armies, with all the war-like destructive powers that go with it. Readers of the English Bible generally do not like to think of God as a Militarist Destroyer…a War-God. Still, I’m not convinced that Shaddai is meant in the sense of Destroyer. Numbers 24:4 uses the words El and Shaddai separately, in an example of Hebrew parallelism…

…the prophecy of one who hears the words of El, who sees a vision from Shaddai…

This suggests…El, who is Shaddai. Thus El Elyon is…El, who is Elyon. This would, of course, indicate that other deities from the surrounding peoples are being subsumed into the Old Testament God. By co-opting them, the pagan connotation is obscured.

The Satan…the accuser…the prosecutor, is met with in the narrative at the beginning of the Book of Job…

One day, the sons of God came to present themselves before YHWH, and The Satan was among them. YHWH said to The Satan, “Where have you come from?” The Satan said…I was on the earth, taking a walk.”

Ok, I translated the verse in a more informal manner. The English Bible will often replace…the sons of God…with…the angels. This is sneaky, and intentionally deceptive. They don’t want you to know that there was a large group of God’s sons floating around in the Old Testament universe. We know that angels inhabited the New Testament universe…Gabriel and Michael, and were very visible in some of the apocryphal works. And! The suffix on these two angelic names is…el. Indeed! That is the name we encountered a few minutes ago…

Speaking of sneaky, in the opinion of your…

…friend and humble narrator, it is also sneaky to translate The Satan as Satan. Why? Satan is a name, but The Satan is a title. By the time the New Testament era came along, Christianity decided that The Satan would be cast in the role, whether he auditioned for it or not, of the Evil Entity in the Great Cosmic War, so The Satan became Satan. Some English translations are, perhaps, attempting to prevent readers from realizing that The Satan in the Old Testament is not Satan in New Testament. They don’t think you can handle that, and even more important…it would undermine that which the Religious Establishment wants you to believe.

But what about the names AHWH and YHWH? Both are derived from the verb…

…to be…to exist…so I AM THE ONE WHO EXISTS…HE IS THE ONE WHO EXISTS. You would think that we would be sure of the name of the God of the Universe. Hmmm. It is simply true that the image of…the sons of God, should be considered as identical with…God of Armies, with the armies being the sons of God. Thus God commanded a group of lesser “gods” which included…cover your ears…The Satan. So what about John 8: 56-58?

Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

This really is quite impressive. Why? Because he used…I am…which clearly refers back to the Exodus passage. But the problem is that AHWH is used in the context of Moses’s era, which is much later than the time of Abraham. Is Jesus claiming that He existed during the time of Moses, and that this, incorrectly, was older than the time of Abraham? Abraham saw Christ? And is Christ the Logos in the prologue to John? Or is the Logos a concept highlighting the fact that Elohim’s creative power in Genesis Chapter One is the spoken word…Let there be! And so the Logos was there at the beginning, and all things that were made were made through the Logos. Allusions to Genesis chapter one continue…

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome.
 

“Life” is created in the same chapter. So too Light and Darkness…Elohim called the light…day, and the darkness He called…night. In John 8:12, Christ said:
 

I am the light of the world. No follower of mine shall ever walk in darkness; no! He shall possess the light of life.

So, this matter is uncertain. In the prologue, it is said that God was the Logos. The “life for the light of mankind” came to be in God/Logos. If Christ claimed be that light, which he calls “the light of life,” then how can Christ be the Logos itself? But the work supposedly written by the Ghost Man Celsus uses Logos in the title…The True Logos. Could this be an allusion to the Gospel of John, and Ghost Man Logoist was familiar with the Gospel of John and the interpretation of the Logos as Christ? Is he essentially implying that Christ was a False Logos, and thus John gave us…The False Logos, but Our Man Celsus was giving us…The True Logos? I’m probably wrong, but that is an interesting question. It is the case that Celsus knows some of the above noted names of God…

After this he continues: "These herdsmen and shepherds concluded that there was but one God, named either the Highest, or Adonai, or the Heavenly, or Sabaoth, or called by some other of those names which they delight to give this world; and they knew nothing beyond that."

Sabaoth is a transliteration of the word “armies” which I noted above. Adonai we recognize, and Highest…well that may be an allusion to El Elyon. So Celsus has knowledge of divine names and epithets from the Old Testament. But! And this is something I will touch on shortly, Celsus has a mortal flaw in his knowledge. His book is intended to prove that Jesus is a False Logos…he is an illegitimate child resulting from adultery, and a sorcerer on top of that. He also attacks the notion of the Virgin Birth, but the Theological Silver Bullet against this is something that I have discussed ad nauseum…the use of almah in Isa. 7:14, a Silver Bullet that Celsus should aim at the heart of the notion he so adamantly attacks. But! He doesn’t. In fact, he doesn’t mention it. The best proof that there has been a falsification of the Septuagint text of Isa. 7:14 by Christians is something that Celsus appears not to know. And that causes me to wonder if, as many have said, that Celsus really did consult Jews when he put together his Pseudo-Philosophical Attack against Christianity. I think that if he approached learned Jews and said that he was writing a book that would expose the lies of Christianity, particularly about Jesus of Nazareth himself…and even more…the Virgin Birth itself, the use of almah in Isa. 7:14 would be one of the first things they would have pointed out to him. I think that Origen, who does know about it, and does comment on it, would have nonetheless been backed into a Theological Pit of Quicksand had Celsus fired that Silver Bullet at Jesus of Nazareth. And if Celsus had been really knowledgeable, then he would have had 3 More Silver Bullets that he could have used to put the Virgin Birth out of its Hypothetical Theological Misery. What is that? Origen compiled the Hexapla sometime before 240 A.D. I’ve mentioned in previous essays that the Hexapla was a massive compilation of Biblical manuscripts, that included the Hebrew text, the Septuagint translation, and the Greek translations of the guys I call the BIG THREE TEXTUAL WARRIORS…Aquila, Theodotian, and Symmachus. The latter three translated the Hebrew text into Greek, and as I have noted before…all three translated almah as neanis…in Isa. 7:14, which clearly indicates the word almah in the Hebrew version, just as the Great Isaiah Scroll found in Yeshu ben Stada’s desert cave does as well. So! If Celsus was truly in-the-know, he could have, in a Tektonikian way, said something obnoxious like this…

Hey Origen! Check this out…the Virgin Birth of Christ is a patent falsehood. It is based solely on Isa. 7:14. The word in the Hebrew text is almah, which doesn’t mean…virgin. And before you object, I know about parthenos in the Septuagint translation of that passage. Too bad! Aren’t you the guy who put the Hexapla together? I thought so! Then I can safely assume that you know that Tektonikus’s BIG THREE TEXTUAL WARRIORS- Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotian, whose translations are in your BIG HEXAPLA, all read neanis, and not parthenos. That is 4 against 1! We could add the Apostle Paul, the Gospel of Mark, and the Primitive Gospel of Matthew, and then I’m really ganging up on you! So, you Christians colluded against the original reading in the Septuagint version of Isa. 7:14, which must have read…neanis, and not parthenos, in an attempt to back-up your superstitious myth about the Virgin Birth. Bang…bang…bang…bang…bang-bang-bang! What did you say, Origen? You want me to believe that the four colluded against the one? At the very least? The odds are against you…as is your greatest work…you are a bit of Theological Conspiracy Theorist…aren’t you?

See! I told you there was collusion! But I didn’t do it! Origen did! Why isn’t Robert Mueller investigating him?

Hmmm. Maybe we should take a look at this guy.

Finally! Trump gets a break! It would be shame if his lawyer…

I haven’t spoken with the president, so I shouldn’t say anything…but I will anyway! There’s no proof that Origen was involved.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought up Origen, after all…

Rudy never said anything about Origen! So the controversial theologian and Tipper of Wine-jars did it! You’re fake news! Besides, nobody ever mentioned Origen…and the President doesn’t know what the Hexapla is, so why don’t you report the truth for a change?

I have proof! I brought my Hexapla. And it’s right there in Isaiah 7:14! Know what it says? No collusion!

You just said the President doesn’t know anything about the Hexapla!

Did not! Did not! Besides, Regan and Pebbles did it!

Oh, I see. But what was the book that Trump was holding…

What???? That’s not the Hexapla! So who…

The Tetrarch of Galilee!

So that’s that. Any questions?

And it is interesting that if one ACTUALLY WANTED our author to be hard to identify, they chose the name Celsus, accomplishing that as early as the 3rd Century, by adopting the name of an obscure Encyclopedist. That would be a rather smart move. However…there is another possibility. Origen indicated that there were two other anti-Christian books supposedly published under the name of Celsus. But again…if one Celsus had written THREE polemics against Christianity, it just strikes me as strange that there was no mention of this guy until Ambrose found the ONE mysterious book on his desk one morning. I would have thought that some Christian writer or apologist would have encountered at least one of these books, and would have said something about this guy. The same holds true of more than one Celsus. In fact, there are at least THREE writers named Celsus…the Encyclopedist, Origen’s friend, possibly another Celsus who wrote two books attacking Christianity, and apparently, yet another…a Possible Fourth, who I will discuss shortly. Origen believed it was possible that there was more than Celsus who wrote against Christianity, which would certainly rule out Aulus Cornelius Celsus. But it seems likely that Origen made no real effort to find out who this Celsus, or Celsuses, was…or were. And that may be due to the reason he gave for not wanting to waste his time writing the refutation that Ambrose thought was so important…the work is mean, base, and not nearly on the level of reasoning that matched up to Origen. He was rightly puzzled about the intended audience of The True Logos:

…this book has been composed not for those who are thorough believers, but for such as are either wholly unacquainted with the Christian faith, or for those who, as the apostle terms them, are "weak in the faith…

This is a very good point that Origen makes. The content of the book and the poor reasoning in it is something that “thorough” Christians would simply leave aside. It is not the kind of work that Christian Heavyweights would even engage with. Why write such a book for pagans? For the most part, they already believe the worst about Christians, already accept wild and ridiculous rumors, and don’t really seem to need a work like that of Celsus to hate Christians in the first place. And as for “weak” Christians…how will they come across this book? They can’t read…and how many copies would have existed? Apparently, at least…one! Well, at least by Origen’s time…only one, and no one knew about that one until it was dropped on Ambrose’s desk. No one knew anything about the enigmatic book and somewhat enigmatic author. So I find it impossible to believe that it was written with “weak” Christians as the target audience, perhaps as a spearhead in an upcoming assault, albeit one that never happened, to drive “weak” Christians into the camp of the pagans. One would expect a literary undertaking of this kind to be intended as an attempt to attack Christianity at its highest and most learned levels. But Origen is right…it wouldn’t hold its own. It seems to me that the book had a very different target audience…an audience of two men and one woman, and the book was written specifically to be…refuted.

It seems to your friend and humble narrator that one of two situations are involved. The first possibility is what I will call the Mysterious Finding of a Mysterious Book. There would appear to be, if this is the case, a strange parallel known to us in the Old Testament. A book is found in the Temple, then it is given to King Josiah, who finds it disturbing to say the least, and seeks the opinion of a prophet about it. Finally, he has the book read aloud during a public assembly. Josiah was a king of Judah, son of Amon, and grandson of the infamous King Manasseh, considered by the Deuteronomists as one of the worst apostates in history. Amon followed in his ways, as did Josiah…until a very mysterious event happened. Josiah provided funding for repair work on the Temple. And then…

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the Lord and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple." Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.  When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 

So the idea here appears to be that the religious practices, so hated by the exilic Deuteronomists, continued into the reign of Josiah. He decides that the Temple needs refurbishing. And as the work crews tear into passages or open long-sealed doors, or remove tile from the floors or walls, or even, perhaps, poke around in old chests laid up in long-forgotten closets or grottos, they make an amazing discovery! A book. A Book of the Law…which many scholars believe was some form of Deuteronomy. We don’t know for sure that that is what it was, and we have not encountered any indication in the Old Testament that an important religious book that was known to have existed in the past, was deemed lost at any given point. Surely the loss of a known book of such importance would be known to someone, and if so, all they had to do was rout around in the Temple until they found it. Who can forget…

Indiana Jones, finding his way into some ancient religious complex and recovering…

The mysterious Golden Idol. It belongs in a museum! Still, it is a glamorized presentation of a popular idea of archaeologists digging around in long, lost locations looking for mysterious things from the past.

The story of Josiah and the book has very strange elements in it. The first person known to have had it is the High Priest Hilkiah. The account is written in such a way as the implication is that he was familiar with the book. But his reaction is bizarre if he found an important, long-lost religious book and he knew what it was. And I can not think where such a book was found in a well-known and quantifiable building. It wasn’t found somewhere else…like in a secret shrine somewhere, or a copy was discovered in some sort of long-lost library. Or even in a long-lost wine jar. If the book was lost, and in a finite building, and was only found when workmen began fixing things…it is very Indiana Jones-esque…

And so some Ancient Indiana Jones comes across a very important artifact.

It belongs in a Theological Museum!

Perhaps…and this is merely the opinion of your…

friend and humble narrator, that I think that a more appropriate archaeologist is in order…

Still, what does Hilkiah do when such a priceless artifact is found?

Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it.

One might think that the High Priest, suddenly in possession of a long-lost sacred book, could find the time to walk over to the royal palace and request a meeting with the king himself. Hilkiah was the most important religious authority in Judah, and Josiah was the most important political authority in Judah. I doubt that Hilkiah would have found it difficult to obtain an audience with the king. And although he suddenly has this book in his hands, like a Hebrew High-Priest Ambrose, and we don’t know how it got there, he seems rather unimpressed by it. All he does is give it to an accountant…Shaphan. In the narrative, Shaphan, a royal scribe, was really an accountant who maintained the records documenting the use of the money that the king was providing for a somewhat surreptitious Indiana Jones hunt for secret things. And so Hilkiah simply gives the book to an accountant, with no instructions as to how to proceed, or any apparent conversation about the book.

But if Hilkiah seems uninterested in the finding of this treasure, Shaphan seems more so.

Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the Lord and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple." Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book."

So Shaphan, who read the book, when he had his next meeting with the king, felt that a discussion of the funding of the temple repairs was more significant than a lost religious book given to him by an unimpressed High Priest. Having discussed the finances with the king, he seems to have only then, perhaps on his way out the door, turned around and looked at the king…

“Oh, by the way, I almost forgot! Hilkiah gave me this book.” And then Shaphan, an accountant with a strange set of priorities, proceeds to read from it to the king. Does that mean that Josiah couldn’t read? At any rate, the High Priest is unimpressed with the book, as is Shaphan, who doesn’t even call it the Book of the Law…it’s merely…a book. And wouldn’t reading a Most Holy Book to the king make more an impact when read aloud by a High Priest than a Shekel-Counter? Does that mean that Hilkiah couldn’t read? Maybe Shaphan was the only one in Jerusalem who could read! Read what, exactly? Hebrew, surely. But what kind of Hebrew? The Hebrew of later times is written with square, Aramaic letters. However, at the time of King Josiah, the Hebrews wrote in what is called Paleo-Hebrew. Considerably older than Josiah’s time, back in the days of King Ahab and his father, King Omri, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was constantly fighting with the Kingdom of Moab. The Old Testament refers to a Moabite king named Mesha. And, the saints be praised, Mesha was a real Moabite king and left behind the amazing…Mesha Stele. It is written in a script very similar to Paleo-Hebrew when he bragged about the fact that he had finally defeated the Israelites two generations after King Omri established dominance over Mesha’s father…Chemosh-gad. The stele is famous for many things, first and foremost is the oldest attestation of the divine name YHWH…

And that is not the coolest thing about ancient Hebrew and the name of Yahweh. Now it gets really, really strange. The weirdest is this…what was found at Kuntillet Ajrud, an excavation site in the northeast part of the Sinai Peninsula. It is dated to the late 9th century to early 8th century B.C. Two large pithoi…water jugs, were found with images and words on them. The name YHWH of Teman appears on one of the pithoi, and references YHWH’s Asherah. Put simply, Asherah was a Canaanite goddess whose worship, like that of Hadad, often called Baal, persisted well into the pre-exilic religion of ancient Israel. But…and I’m not making this up, there may actually be an artistic rendition of Yahweh of Teman, also called Yahweh of Samaria, and His Asherah, and so I provide it here…

What are the odds that God and His wife look like that? I think that God could have found a better artist to paint a family portrait! I’m somewhat reminded of an ancient copy of a Jewish kid’s writing tablet, that doubled as a sketchpad for doodles, found in the Cairo Geniza…

I really like the strange looking guy with a Star of David on his shirt at the bottom!

And I think that this kid should spend more time practicing his Hebrew letters than doodling. But when you put it together…

Now for a scroll of Habakkuk found at Qumran. As I noted before, the divine name was not to be spoken aloud, so you could say... Adonai, instead of Yahweh or Jehovah. Or you could do something really cool…

The ancient Paleo-Hebrew letters for YHWH, like those on the Mesha Stele, were substituted for the letters otherwise written in the Aramaic script. That makes me wonder…did Yeshu ben Stada write God’s name in Aramaic letters on his hand…or in Paleo-Hebrew letters on his hand? I don’t know. But I’ll bet that he could draw a better picture of God than the guys at Kuntillet Ajrud. Still, it is clear that there were still Jewish sects that knew how to write the name Yahweh in the ancient script.

Where was I before you brought up Paleo-Hebrew and Kuntillet Ajrud? Oh, yes. Of the three characters involved in the account of the Enigmatic Book of the Law, only King Josiah seems to have seen any importance in this book…

When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. 

That, of course, is a sign of mourning. He is deeply affected by what is in the book. Not from any meeting with Hilkiah or Shaphan. To continue…

He gave these orders to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary and Asaiah the king's attendant: 

“Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord 's anger that burns against us because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us." 

For the king, this book is of such great importance; indeed, he learns that God was terribly angry because no one had been obeying what was found in the book. And so he seeks a word from God as to how this will all come out. So how is it that Hilkiah, and then the king’s accountant, did not react in the same way? One disturbing possible explanation presents itself. But the story gets stranger still. The group of dunderheads…apparent dunderheads…Josiah’s Apparent Clowns, do the logical thing…they go to get the opinion of a prophet. Now, one of the greatest prophets of history was active and raising eyebrows throughout the kingdom at that time…Jeremiah. What a source for the opinion of a prophet! So they went to him…yes? No. This is what happened…

Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. 

They went to a prophetess who lived in the Second District of Jerusalem…where Josiah lived, and Hilkiah lived, and Shaphan lived. But yet more! She is the wife of the guy who supervises the king’s wardrobe! So what has happened? The Five Stooges, all associated with the Temple or royal administration, opt to consult the wife of another member of the royal administration…an official they probably all knew. And what does she say?

She said to them, "This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, 'This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and provoked me to anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.'

Ok, so that wasn’t completely encouraging. It has been suggested that what Huldah is referring to is Deuteronomy 28, which describes a series of curses that would befall the people of Israel if they were not faithful to Yahweh. This includes a devastating military disaster…

The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand, a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down.

…this is something that could easily have disturbed the king…the highest political and military official in the state. So it looks pretty bad. But it quickly became very encouraging…

Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people, that they would become accursed and laid waste, and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.' " So they took her answer back to the king.

And if Josiah would go to his grave in peace, so would all the other guys involved. And then! Josiah launches a series of religious reforms based on what was in the book. And all the king lost in the deal was a torn robe. But! Worry not! All he need do is send the prophetess Huldah’s husband to the Royal Closet, and he could bring Josiah another robe. These events can be interpreted in many ways. One possible explanation is that Hilkiah and others actually wrote this book. In it they codified religious practices they knew Josiah would be open to, but he would need more than simple encouragement from a priest and an accountant. Nothing would fit the bill better than the finding of a long-lost book. One whose provenance, and how it was discovered, was shrouded in mystery. In this one-among-many-possible interpretations of these events, the book was a forgery. And those responsible had a very particular outcome in mind. Of course, forgery may be far too strong of a word to use. It implies writing something in someone else’s name or passing it off as something that existed in earlier times. Neither of these elements are really found in this pericope. No one in the narrative actually expresses any belief that the book was something they knew had existed. And although Josiah responded strongly to the book, it was not the finding of an ancient book that got him bent out of shape…it was simply the threats of Yahweh’s judgement. It would seem that what we call Deuteronomy was, in some form, called the Book of the Law:

Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. There it will remain as a witness against you.

But the subject is very complicated. Is the reference only to Deuteronomy? There are scads of “laws” in Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus. So were all of these books lost? Then found and given to Hilkiah…who was not particularly impressed? A whole compendium of ancient, divinely given religious laws, supposedly deriving from the Great Lawgiver himself…Moses, disappeared, only to re-appear? And how did they disappear if the book sat next to the Ark of the Covenant…which belongs in a museum! Josiah’s reaction implies that the curses were applicable because the nation had not been following the laws in the book. This would seem to indicate that he didn’t know that anything was wrong until his accountant gave him Hilkiah’s mysterious book! But the things prohibited in Deuteronomy are prohibited in Exodus – Numbers, and many critical scholars believe that much of this material did not come into existence until the exilic and post-exilic period. It is certain that the writers of the Deuteronomic History, Joshua – 2 Kings, based on material in Deuteronomy, made their main condemnation of pre-exilic Israel the worship on the bamoth…hills where Yahweh was worshipped alongside other gods, such as Hadad…also called Baal….not to mention, God’s funny-looking wife Asherah! Yet it is strange that only two kings of Judah, Hezekiah and Josiah, attempted to suppress the bamoth…a totally impossible task. So where was Exodus – Deuteronomy before workmen began digging around in the Temple? When did they become lost, if they even existed at the time? Why are there simply no references to any of these books in the history of the pre-exilic Hebrew nation?

Some, such as myself, don’t like the sudden appearance of highly important things that seem to materialize out of nowhere. If I were Josiah…true, I would have read the book too…and quite possibly have been very alarmed. Eventually, I would seek the advice of a prophet…albeit not the wife of the guy who makes sure that my robes are cleaned and pressed. But I would have some serious questions. Where did this come from? Do you recognize this book? Why didn’t you tear your robes? After all, Huldah’s husband can mend them! Why didn’t my High Priest think it was important, despite the apparently dire things contained in it? Will Shaphan find that shekel that’s unaccounted for? Which workmen found it…I would like to speak with them. In short…I want a full accounting of how this book was found, how we know that it is an important religious codex, at what time in the past that this could possibly have become “lost” if it was kept in a finite religious building, sitting next to the one of the coolest artifacts in human history, since, I don’t know…Solomon built it!  Oh, and let’s find a prophet who’s a little bit higher up the food chain, please. Maybe…Jeremiah.

I can’t resist pointing out that Huldah was right, but she was also wrong. And what a bit of irony for Josiah. He reigned during a rather strange time. An Egyptian army, led by King Necho II, suddenly appeared. So Josiah took the field against him. Now it is certain that Necho II was not there to attack Josiah, and I suspect that the Egyptian king made that clear to him. In the east, a long war had raged involving the Assyrians, who had maintained a powerful empire for centuries. A Babylonian king, really the leader of a confederation of tribal groups known as the Bit Kaldu, called Chaldeans in the Bible, who was named Nabopolassar, had been wearing the Assyrians down in constant attacks. Nabopolassar was being aided by Cyaxares, king of a confederation of tribal groups known collectively as the Medes. Ashurbanipal, king of Assyria, was succeeded by his son Sin-shar-ishkun. The Babylonians and Medes launched a devastating attack against Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, and the city fell. An Assyrian general rallied the surviving elements of the Assyrian army, retreated into the fortified city Haran in northern Syria, and had himself declared King Ashur-uballit II. It was time for Nabopolassar and Cyaxares to finish off the long-hated Assyrians once and for all and plans for an assault against Haran were put together. Now Egypt and Assyria were ancient foes. So Necho II should have been rather pleased that his mortal enemy was about to be wiped-out. But he wasn’t. If he didn’t attack Josiah…then what? Well, he was taking his army north to Haran. Of course he was! He wanted to be part of the final annihilation of Assyria! No, that’s not right. He was actually heading north, attempting to bypass Josiah, so he could fight on behalf of the Assyrians. Why? Necho II figured that a Rump Assyrian State in the north would continue to keep the Babylonians and Medes busy for as long it existed. And he was right. Still, Assyria would never be resurgent, meaning that he would never see an attacking Assyrian army on his border again. But if the Assyrians fell, then it was only a matter of time before he would see Nabopolassar on his border. And so, as galling as it probably was, he would take the field, possibly attack the Babylonians from the rear, although I’m sure that Nabopolassar was figuring that the Egyptians would become involved and was probably watching out for them. The interesting thing is that I think that Josiah also wanted a Rump Assyrian State in the north, and for the same reason as Necho II…Assyria was no longer a threat to Judah either, but Nabopolassar would certainly be if he no longer had the Assyrians to brawl with. In that case, one might think that he would make no effort to keep Necho from heading north. The Egyptians defeated the army of Josiah, and then went on northward, but the Assyrians fell before he got there. So why did Josiah take the field against Necho if he wanted the same thing? Necho had nothing to fear from the Assyrians, and nothing to fear from Judah. Judah had nothing to fear from the Assyrians, but had good reason to fear the Babylonians. But with Assyria gone, he had more to fear from Egypt in the short term than he did from Nabopolassar, whose threat was still a little ways off, when his son Nebuchadnezzar II got around to attacking Judah. I think that Josiah figured…I want the Assyrians to keep the Babylonians and Medes busy for as long as possible. So does Necho. But I’m sure that he will attack me once there is no longer a threat to his northern border. If I let him pass, although I think it’s great that he wants to go north and help Ashur-uballit II, I just wish he would take a different route! Because, if I let him pass through my kingdom unopposed, then the Egyptian king will think that I am a big wimp and will launch a full-scale war against me sooner than he might otherwise if he doesn’t think I’m wimp. Nobody said that power-politics are easy! The enemy of your enemy is your friend unless he is marching through your turf to attack the enemy of your former enemy…making him the enemy of your soon-to-be-enemy which still doesn’t make him your friend because he intends to use the situation to attack you. So the enemy of your former enemy and enemy of your soon-to-be-enemy is really your enemy. Or something. And what happened to Josiah?

 And Pharaoh Necho II killed him at Megiddo when he confronted him.

 Oh, dear. I’m not the only who figured that Necho told Josiah that he hadn’t come to make war on him…the Chronicler thought so too…

 But he sent messengers to Josiah saying, ‘What have I to do with you, O king of Judah? I haven’t come to attack you! There is another I intend to attack. God commanded me to get up north quickly. So don’t meddle with God! After all, he might destroy you!

Go to the Conclusion