Offpoint:

Yeah, and the part Lion was eating grass too

UceeGod:
I strongly believe the account of creation in Genesis, just like that of Revelation was a mixture of allegory and real characters. The garden, trees, fruits, eating of fruits, are all symbolic while satan, the man and woman are real. But let's not over allegorise these characters; we know satan didn't impregnate Eve, Adam did and they gave birth to Cain Genesis 4:1

missjo:
As stated above, this is simply a response to a topic I came across on the home page of this forum:
https://www.nairaland.com/5443357/allegory-garden-eden-account-fall

I normally do not concern myself with religious debates online or in real life conversations because it usually gets to the point where people leave the topic and try to silence me by making references to my personal choices.
However, on this, I choose to correct the pervasive thinking on that thread put forward by a user by the name Offpoint.


Below is an edited version of my response to him on the topic:

First of all, there is no sexual allegory to be seen in the story of the fall. None whatsoever.
Adam was present right there when the serpent was talking to Eve. The fruit is a very real fruit: There was a tree of life (for spiritual nourishment which could be eaten), there was also a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (not to be eaten). There were many other trees.
The emphasis on trees and fruits generally was because the first creation were all herbivores, no one ate meat not even the lions and tigers. If indeed sex is the fruit, how do we explain the fruit from the Tree of life which was also mentioned in the bible and which they were not forbidden to eat from?

Secondly, evil did not enter the world through Cain. At least not in the world as we know it now, because all of his descendants were killed by the flood. The only surviving people after the flood were Noah and his family. Noah himself is a direct descendant of Seth, the son born to Adam after Abel was killed.
Evil came into the world again after the flood through the descendants of Ham, Ham is Noah's second son between Shem and Japheth. Apparently, Noah had gotten drunk with wine and was unclothed. Ham saw his unclothedness and announced it to his siblings.
His brothers went into the tent and covered him up by carrying a cloth but walking backwards to avoid seeing their father's unclothedness.
Noah then cursed Ham and his descendants for that error.
The next time the bible mentions people who did evil in the sight of God was in the story of the tower of Babel. These people tried to build a monument towards the sky in an attempt to defy God, these people are descendants of Ham.

Lastly and about the missing books of the bible we know today.
The people who removed the books from the bible were translators because the Jewish council of Rabbis who first convened to put the complete scrolls together in what you now call the Bible refer to those missing books as UNINSPIRED works. Uninspired means they were not written through revelations, visions, or dreams from God but through the writers own will. If you have read any of these books, you would notice a subjective theme from the writer's point of view missing in most of the other books left in the bible today.
This does not mean the books are demonic or seek to distort the Christian's attitude towards God.

As at the time the Bible was being translated, the translators themselves began removing these books based off their own personal decision.
There are still Bibles with the complete books, no single book missing from them, but you have to go back to translations that were released before 1560 which is when the Geneva bible was produced. This is the first time it was divided into chapters and verses and arguably the first time The Apocrypha (Uninspired writings) were removed.



That will be all for now.

sonmvayina:
The story of Adam and eve was adapted from an old Babylonian epic about Adapa.. It tells how man lost the chance of eternal life.. The serpent of the good tree was ninghizhida and the serpent of the evil tree was inanna.. They guided Anu's gate.. It was never a literal Story.... The Torah was written by Ezra.. Possibly with Baruch and some other rabbi.. They are the ones who created Judaism as the National religion of the isrealites... They drew most of their inspiration from Babylonian epics.. Which they incorporated to their Torah....

Ihedinobi3:

Hello

1. You are right that there was no allegory going on in Genesis. It is also true that all living creatures fed on the trees and herbage in the Garden. There was no meat-eating authorized by the Lord until after the Flood (Genesis 9:3).

2. We all acquired a sin nature through Adam, not through Cain or through Ham. When Adam chose to rebel against God along with his wife, his flesh was corrupted. He was cursed with passing down that corruption to his descendants. Everyone born of male seed has the same corruption in their flesh (Romans 5:12). This is why the Savior Jesus Christ had to be born by a virgin without the involvement of any male agency.

Again, there was evil in the world right from the time that Adam sinned.

Also, the people who rebelled in the issue of Babel was not just Ham's descendants. It was everyone with the exception of a few believers who are not named (Genesis 11:1-9). It is true that the one who spearheaded that rebellion was Ham's grandson Nimrod, but it wasn't only his grandfather's line that joined him. The entire world then cooperated with him. That was why the Lord created the nations, to prevent such cooperation again until the time would be right for it at the Tribulation.

3. I lack the context of your submission about the apocryphal writings, but I can tell you that there is NO complete collection of them, on account of the fact that there are so many that it is simply impossible to collect them all. As for how the books in the Bible were selected, Scripture has a distinctive quality: it is basically alive. No one who has ever honestly read Scripture could miss its vitality. It is inspired. No other literature is. One may feel the emotion of a writer in some piece that they wrote. Homer can be captivating, for example, although it was written so many years ago. But Scripture is not merely emotionally captivating. It is alive. It is probably impossible to explain it any better.

However, it is the presence of that life in it that makes it unmistakable. So, it basically self-selects into the Canon. In other words, there has never been a council whether of Jewish rabbis or of Roman Catholic bishops that selected what belongs in the Canon of the Bible and what doesn't. That such councils existed is not being disputed. That they actually created a true Canon is a fantastic lie. They may have created a Canon that suited their own purposes, but nobody ever put the Bible together. The Bible self-selects. You can see proof of this in Peter's words about Paul's writings:

[15]and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
[16]as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
2 Peter 3:15-16 NASB

Clearly, Peter recognized Paul's writings at the time that he wrote them as Scripture. There was no council telling him or anybody else then that Paul's writings were Scripture. The first such council occurred at least a couple hundred years later.

missjo:
Muttleylaff
Budaatum

missjo:
The scrolls were not written by Rabbis, it was compiled by them into what you call the Torah which is a combination of the first five books of the Bible. They could not have drawn their inspiration from anywhere because they did not write anything. The council was formed to gather the scrolls and combine the scriptures into what we now refer to as the bible.
You can correct me where i am wrong.

MuttleyLaff:
Do you want the abridged or unabridged version of

• the first canon (i.e. Muratorian Canon), and the progressive acceptance of other books as canonical and have them make up the 66 books of the bible
• The fall of the Roman Empire in AD 476 and the rise of the Roman Catholic Church
• the Pontifex Maximus; the highest office in the state religion of ancient Rome and at the collapse of the Roman Empire, RCC popes taking on this title that had previously belonged to the Roman emperors
• the tragic compromise of believers with the introduction of pagan religions and assimilation of paganism influences
(i.e. the Romanization and paganization of Christianity and the "Christianization" of pagan beliefs)
• Apostolic succession and Pope Gregory in AD 590, upon assuming office denying any responsibility or support for any ambition to the throne of Peter
• "Church" and State fully merged as the Holy Roman Empire
• Subsequent popes exercising authority over kings and emperors, taking on imperial powers along with ecclesiastical authority (e.g. St Leo III)
• the Filioque clause/Filioque controversy and/or The Great Schism
• John Wycliffe of England, John Huss of Czechoslovakia, and John of Wessel in Germany
• Protestant Reformation; division between the Catholic Church and Protestantism over interpretation of Biblical Testaments.
• The Edict of Worms (i.e. the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V and the Pope banning all writings of Martin Luther and labelling him a heretic and enemy of the state) etc
• Calvinism (i.e. named after French reformer and theologian John Calvin, he was Martin Luther's successor during the Protestant Reformation)
• The Edict of Nantes, The Edict of Restitution.
• King Henry VIII taking over jurisdiction of the Church, after kicking RCC out of England.
• Various political and ulterior motives
(e.g. translators forbidden by King James' official order from replacing the Greek word "ekklesia" with "congregation" (i.e. the true interpretation)
Compare Psalms 22:22 with Hebrews 2:12 for more details on this, bibles translated to fit the politics or traditions of men etc)
• Evangelicalism, Revivalism, Pentecostalism, Christian science, the Charismatic Movement, Mormonism/the Latter Day Saint movement, Word of Faith movement etc
• Institutional/organised church(es); licensed or incorporated as businesses/charities etc (i.e. to gain non-profit tax-exempt status)
• Church(es) under the jurisdiction of man (e.g. unincorporated charities/church(es), unregistered/registered church(es) etc)
• details of corrupted teachings or doctrines.
• Etcetera, etcetera

If you want more info to the above,
then the below link has additional unabridged version of what's
https://www.nairaland.com/4263508/church-vs-congregation-congregation-yahshua#63812199
by MuttleyLaff: 6:00am On Jan 02 2019

Please dont again ever mistake me quizzing you to mean I am playing ignorant.

missjo:
And also, anything drawn/adapted from babylonian epics is definitely heresy because Babylon did not exist until a about a thousand or more years after the flood. And even at that it wa not referred to as Babylon, but Babel.
The location where the tower of Babel was built by Ham's descendants is where Babylon came to exist. You surely do not expect people from this place to know anything about what happened during the time of creation, do you?

MuttleyLaff:
Where are they all now?
Where is Enki now?

Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons
God has all the time in the world
and so isnt fazed or bothered that something has got a head start

Do you know how long it took God to legally come down to earth as a bonafide human being?
Yeah 4000 years

As before mentioned with the earlier reference to Exodus 33:17-23, it was as if, Moses was watching a rewound video tape

I'll like you to rewind your memory to Genesis Chapter 1, and tell, how many goodness (i.e. how many "... it was good" in there

When God said to Moses:
"I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you,
and I will proclaim the name Yahweh before you.
I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."

It was God, telling Moses about goodness #1, and checkmarking it with putting a tick mark, with, I AM, as in, its Me, who did it
goodness #1 up to goodness #7, and checkmarking each with putting tick marks with, I AM, as in, its Me again, who did those

God, showed Moses, with those series of flashbacks in Exodus 33:17-23, how He went about and did His creation

MuttleyLaff:
Having imaginary friends is not uncommon in some many growing up kid's lives, but they soon or later outlive the "usefulness and/or company" of those friends.

If you were someone that is bible literate, you would have known that:
1/ God is not an imaginary friend
2/ Religion that is true, pure and without any fault has to do with compassion. True, pure and one without any faults, has to do with having concern(s) for the sufferings or misfortunes of others and being sympathetic towards them

Legitimately laughing out loud at the emboldened. Smh.

"Nwanne, Christianity, never started in any upper room on any day of Pentencost. Christianity, as in, Constantine Christianity, in cahoot with the "church" started in Rome."
- Re: Oblate Eusebius Oguizu Is Dead: Founder Of Block Rosary Crusade In Nigeria Dies by MuttleyLaff: 8:33am On May 30

"... the catholic started Christianity, this so, because the Roman Catholic Church was formed, after shady deal(s) and/or sell-out to the State by the "Church", as it was the Roman Emperors Constantine's and Licinius' Edict of Milan in AD 313 which established a policy of religious freedom for all, as in, this was a proclamation that permanently legalised Christianity in the Roman Empire, and so paved the way for Christianity to be the official religion of the entire Roman Empire too.

The introduction of pagan religions and assimilation of paganism influences was a tragic compromise by the early believers, as this resulted in the Romanization and paganization of the early believers' faith and the "Christianization" of pagan beliefs as we not just know but celebrate then and celebrate even up until now.

Anyway, the Roman Empire, adopted the Roman Catholic Church (i.e. RCC) as "official" church during Roman Emperor Constantine's reign, and it's worth noting, that, the supremacy of the Roman bishop (i.e. the papacy or pope) was set up, put into place, aided and abetted through the support of the Roman Emperors (i.e. notably Constantine and his successors)

Recall that I earlier mentioned the Edict of Milan in AD 313, which was a letter signed by the Roman Emperors Constantine and Licinius, that proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire, well, in AD 325, Constantine called the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, in an attempt to unify Christianity when doctrinal disputes arose, like for example Arianism, all about doctrines named after Arius, a teacher in the early 4th century A.D and so Constantine presided over this first ecumenical church council

So quick recap, by the 1st century AD, ekklēsia birthed on the teachings of Jesus Christ and later founded on the day of Pentecost in the upper room with a bunch of 120 believers.

By the 2nd century AD - believers already denouncing teachings, seen as heresies, such as Gnosticism, Montanism etcetera.

In the 4th century AD - ekklēsia was transformed, emerged Christians, an evolved "church", finally gets legalized and then promoted by Emperors Constantine and Theodosius I, as the state church, of the Roman Empire and so yes also that, legendarymega is right, that the Catholics, are the original owner of your bible, because truly, the RCC are the original owner of your bible version(s), because incidentally and truly, those versions were made off the back of "The Vulgate", which was an accepted Latin translation of the original Old and New Testament texts.

Some even called, "The Vulgate", the "The Vulgar" bible. Anyway, Jerome, of RCC, was the person, who translated the original Old and New Testament texts and compiled them into a single volume of the 66 books we enjoy today"
- Re: Oblate Eusebius Oguizu Is Dead: Founder Of Block Rosary Crusade In Nigeria Dies by MuttleyLaff: 8:33am On May 30

I agree with you that Christianity was spread through violence and intolerance once Constantine and his mother Helena decided to make it the official state religion. I've on varied occassions, typed about how the churh was romanticised by Constantine and etcetera and also why I often type that, if only more christians read their bibles there'd be less christians.

Please dont be dishonest and desperate to make a point. The bible preaches passive resistance, love of peace, reconciling with adversaries, turning the other cheek, handing off the shirt on ones back etcetera

budaatum:
You seem to think it is literally and historically true.
https://www.nairaland.com/4960881/garden-eden-childs-view#74770060
Don't mention me with that fool again.

MuttleyLaff:
kkins25, fyi, notice bud fooling about.

Smh I was rubbing eyes, not believing what I was reading. I apologise for bud behaving badly at below link:
https://www.nairaland.com/5443357/allegory-garden-eden-account-fall/3#82692936

budaatum:
The fact that I mentioned him is not fyi enough for you you had to do your evil thing muttley?

Smh.

missjo:

Of course sin came through Adam, I was talking about evil. There is a difference between the sin of Adam which polluted his lineage and the evil that resulted as a consequence.
Adam's disobedience = sin
Cain killing Abel = Evil

You're right about Nimrod, but it was only Ham's descendants who were among those trying to build the tower. I say this because the curse which Noah placed on Ham and his descendants involved them becoming servants to descendants of Shem and Japheth. Nimrod tried to break from that curse by gathering his people (descendants of Ham) and moving far away from the descendants of Shem and Japheth. Nimrod was trying to be a King in his own right and not a servant to anyone as Noah cursed & God sealed.

Genesis 11:2-4 King James Version (KJV)
2 And it came to pass, as they (Nimrod and his people) journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.



I do not want to go much into the Council of Rabbis and what they actually did, but if you can just read up on The Rabbinical Council of Jamnia (about A.D 90), it would save my fingers a workout. Lol
Thanks for your contributions here, it is appreciated .

Ihedinobi3:

I'm afraid I don't see this difference you mean. Adam's eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was indeed disobedience to God, since the act violated God's Will. The same is true of Cain's murder of Abel. Both are disobedience, and both are sin. But I believe you are pointing out the difference in seriousness or degree, that would make sense. Eating a fruit against God's Will is a sin punishable by the Lake of Fire as much as murder is, but murder is a more wicked sin, obviously.

My point, however, is that the biblical position is that whatever may be considered sin or evil came into the world through Adam's disobedience. Of course, each of Adam's descendants has gone on to disobey in a way that is perhaps unique to them, with someone like Cain turning to murder, and Nimrod using politics to try to wipe out Faith in the Lord later on. But it is all sin, it is all evil, it is all rebellion. And it all has its roots in the sin nature that we acquired from Adam.

About Nimrod, I also don't quite see what you say in the Bible. The Scripture seems rather unmistakable about the fact that it was the whole world that united in the matter of Babel. Otherwise, who did God turn into nations? If it was only Ham's descendants who fomented that rebellion, are they the only ones that God created the nations out of? In fact, Genesis 10:32 and 11:1 stoutly refutes this. It was the whole world that rebelled, and they were the ones out of whom the Lord separated out the nations to prevent such madness until the time of the Antichrist.

As for the Council of Jamnia, I'm not sure what your argument here might be, but it seems clear to me that nobody could possibly decide what is Scripture and what is not. If they could, well, how on earth could anyone be sure what God is saying and what He is not? Scripture identifies itself. Not only does the Bible teach that, but it makes sense that it should. In fact, I thought that you might be saying that, so my comment was to support you and strengthen your argument, but perhaps I was wrong.

budaatum:
You seem to think it is literally and historically true.
https://www.nairaland.com/4960881/garden-eden-childs-view#74770060


Don't mention me with that fool again.

missjo:

Do you have an alternative explanation to the mystery of how humans and animals came to exist?
With evidence of course.

budaatum:

There is no evidence that I can give you missjo that you can not find out for yourself, everyone knows in their own heart how much evidence they themselves have witnessed or studied or know of. But I am an advocate of evolution, the gradual coming into being over time. A thread has been provided with very useful contributions if you don't mind digging through our usual nairaland bad behaviour.

Warning, understand!

Evolution 101

missjo:

Lol,i know about the theory of evolution and have read a bit about darwinism before now. Which is why i added 'with evidence'.
It is scientific mumbo jumbo.

The same scientific world that could not agree on an explanation as to how the universe, galaxies, and solar systems came to exist suddenly can explain human evolution.

Think about it budatuum, nothing creates itself. If cellular form is indeed the beginning of human & animal evolution, who or what created these cells?

missjo:
As stated above, this is simply a response to a topic I came across on the home page of this forum:
https://www.nairaland.com/5443357/allegory-garden-eden-account-fall

I normally do not concern myself with religious debates online or in real life conversations because it usually gets to the point where people leave the topic and try to silence me by making references to my personal choices.
However, on this, I choose to correct the pervasive thinking on that thread put forward by a user by the name Offpoint.


Below is an edited version of my response to him on the topic:

First of all, there is no sexual allegory to be seen in the story of the fall. None whatsoever.
Adam was present right there when the serpent was talking to Eve. The fruit is a very real fruit: There was a tree of life (for spiritual nourishment which could be eaten), there was also a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (not to be eaten). There were many other trees.
The emphasis on trees and fruits generally was because the first creation were all herbivores, no one ate meat not even the lions and tigers. If indeed sex is the fruit, how do we explain the fruit from the Tree of life which was also mentioned in the bible and which they were not forbidden to eat from?

Secondly, evil did not enter the world through Cain. At least not in the world as we know it now, because all of his descendants were killed by the flood. The only surviving people after the flood were Noah and his family. Noah himself is a direct descendant of Seth, the son born to Adam after Abel was killed.
Evil came into the world again after the flood through the descendants of Ham, Ham is Noah's second son between Shem and Japheth. Apparently, Noah had gotten drunk with wine and was unclothed. Ham saw his unclothedness and announced it to his siblings.
His brothers went into the tent and covered him up by carrying a cloth but walking backwards to avoid seeing their father's unclothedness.
Noah then cursed Ham and his descendants for that error.
The next time the bible mentions people who did evil in the sight of God was in the story of the tower of Babel. These people tried to build a monument towards the sky in an attempt to defy God, these people are descendants of Ham.

Lastly and about the missing books of the bible we know today.
The people who removed the books from the bible were translators because the Jewish council of Rabbis who first convened to put the complete scrolls together in what you now call the Bible refer to those missing books as UNINSPIRED works. Uninspired means they were not written through revelations, visions, or dreams from God but through the writers own will. If you have read any of these books, you would notice a subjective theme from the writer's point of view missing in most of the other books left in the bible today.
This does not mean the books are demonic or seek to distort the Christian's attitude towards God.

As at the time the Bible was being translated, the translators themselves began removing these books based off their own personal decision.
There are still Bibles with the complete books, no single book missing from them, but you have to go back to translations that were released before 1560 which is when the Geneva bible was produced. This is the first time it was divided into chapters and verses and arguably the first time The Apocrypha (Uninspired writings) were removed.



That will be all for now.

herakles:


should I say this is ignorance?! interpret the Bible literally at your own peril! you will only stumble and be derailed from the truth

budaatum:

I somehow doubt you know about evolution or read any Darwin missjo and how science works, or you would not be refering to it as "mumbo jumbo", nor would you describe evolution as "creating itself".

But, that's ok. You think what suits you.

missjo:

Lol you were not wrong.

I appreciate your responses

missjo:
As stated above, this is simply a response to a topic I came across on the home page of this forum:
https://www.nairaland.com/5443357/allegory-garden-eden-account-fall

I normally do not concern myself with religious debates online or in real life conversations because it usually gets to the point where people leave the topic and try to silence me by making references to my personal choices.
However, on this, I choose to correct the pervasive thinking on that thread put forward by a user by the name Offpoint.


Below is an edited version of my response to him on the topic:

First of all, there is no sexual allegory to be seen in the story of the fall. None whatsoever.
Adam was present right there when the serpent was talking to Eve. The fruit is a very real fruit: There was a tree of life (for spiritual nourishment which could be eaten), there was also a tree of the knowledge of good and evil (not to be eaten). There were many other trees.
The emphasis on trees and fruits generally was because the first creation were all herbivores, no one ate meat not even the lions and tigers. If indeed sex is the fruit, how do we explain the fruit from the Tree of life which was also mentioned in the bible and which they were not forbidden to eat from?

Secondly, evil did not enter the world through Cain. At least not in the world as we know it now, because all of his descendants were killed by the flood. The only surviving people after the flood were Noah and his family. Noah himself is a direct descendant of Seth, the son born to Adam after Abel was killed.
Evil came into the world again after the flood through the descendants of Ham, Ham is Noah's second son between Shem and Japheth. Apparently, Noah had gotten drunk with wine and was unclothed. Ham saw his unclothedness and announced it to his siblings.
His brothers went into the tent and covered him up by carrying a cloth but walking backwards to avoid seeing their father's unclothedness.
Noah then cursed Ham and his descendants for that error.
The next time the bible mentions people who did evil in the sight of God was in the story of the tower of Babel. These people tried to build a monument towards the sky in an attempt to defy God, these people are descendants of Ham.

Lastly and about the missing books of the bible we know today.
The people who removed the books from the bible were translators because the Jewish council of Rabbis who first convened to put the complete scrolls together in what you now call the Bible refer to those missing books as UNINSPIRED works. Uninspired means they were not written through revelations, visions, or dreams from God but through the writers own will. If you have read any of these books, you would notice a subjective theme from the writer's point of view missing in most of the other books left in the bible today.
This does not mean the books are demonic or seek to distort the Christian's attitude towards God.

As at the time the Bible was being translated, the translators themselves began removing these books based off their own personal decision.
There are still Bibles with the complete books, no single book missing from them, but you have to go back to translations that were released before 1560 which is when the Geneva bible was produced. This is the first time it was divided into chapters and verses and arguably the first time The Apocrypha (Uninspired writings) were removed.



That will be all for now.

budaatum:

I somehow doubt you know about evolution or read any Darwin missjo and how science works, or you would not be refering to it as "mumbo jumbo", nor would you describe evolution as "creating itself".

But, that's ok. You think what suits you.

sonmvayina:
The story of Adam and eve was adapted from an old Babylonian epic about Adapa.. It tells how man lost the chance of eternal life.. The serpent of the good tree was ninghizhida and the serpent of the evil tree was inanna.. They guided Anu's gate.. It was never a literal Story.... The Torah was written by Ezra.. Possibly with Baruch and some other rabbi.. They are the ones who created Judaism as the National religion of the isrealites... They drew most of their inspiration from Babylonian epics.. Which they incorporated to their Torah....

RuggedSniper:
^^WORD! PLAGIARIZED FROM THE 'EPIC OF GILGAMESH' AND OTHER ANCIENT SOURCES. I HAVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS SINCE THE 1990s. Cyrus the Great of Persia (and the anointed of the bible god)... who was a Zoroastrian and the 'King of Kings' in the book of Ezra, created Judaism via Ezra a Persian Magi... an agent of Cyrus. Magis are the chief priests of the Zoroastrian religion of PERSIA. Ezra is the allegorical Moses! The use of burnt clay tablets by the Moses is anacronistic and only used by the Babylonians, umerians, Persian Empire. Pharisees is the main branch of Judaism derived from the word Parsi or Persia or Iran!
Cyrus Cylinder burnt clay wordings are very similar to the book of Ezra. Iran is the origin of Judaism. Why did the bible God refer to Cyrus 'as my anointed?' Because Judaism is an imperfect copy of the Zoroastrian religion of Cyrus who was the colonial master of the ancient Israelites who worshipped many Gods. 'El' originally means many Gods NOT one God which was introduced by the Persians. The journey from Egypt and the 40 years in the wilderness never took place. NO grand kingdom of David or the walls of Jericho according to Prof. Ze'ev Hertzog an Israeli archaeologist... Neil Silberman in the book he co-wrote entitled The Bible Unearthed also said the same and MORE! I Hope this helps everyone reading this. Cc: missjo, budaatum