blambore
New Member
Greetings All,
I spent the last twelve years investigating on the origin of the Abrahamic faith and the birth of monotheism. This has led me to develop a new hypothesis that invites us to reconsider our understanding of the history of Israel. I would therefore like to humbly submit The Covenant to this forum's critical examination, as I see that there are lots of very bright and constructive minds at work. Please note that The Covenant can now be downloaded free of charge at www.earthlycovenant.com.
Overview of The Covenant:
This brief abstract might appear at odd with mainstream academic positions on first sight, but I trust that you will find that the research provides an efficient synthesis of past maximalist and minimalist positions. All the pieces of the puzzle (i.e. textual, etymological, sociological, archeological, chronological and dendrochronological) fall into place and converge to offer an overwhelming burst of evidence.
A little bit about me…
I do not believe in the Almighty God of the Bible (as direct result of my work), but I do believe that consciousness contributes to driving the evolution of the universe towards the more complex and the more beautiful. As such, one might be tempted to classify me as pantheist/panpsychisist.
I have an engineering background and was raised in a mixed family – atheist father and theist mother. After publishing a first essay on the topic in 2009, I was taken to task and decided to sign up for a Master in Theology, which helped me consolidate the case. The Covenant is the result of this effort.
The book spans nearly 500 pages, but you will get the gist of it in the introduction. If you are sufficiently intrigued, you are welcome to continue exploring...
I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and participating in a healthy dialog.
Bernard Lamborelle
I spent the last twelve years investigating on the origin of the Abrahamic faith and the birth of monotheism. This has led me to develop a new hypothesis that invites us to reconsider our understanding of the history of Israel. I would therefore like to humbly submit The Covenant to this forum's critical examination, as I see that there are lots of very bright and constructive minds at work. Please note that The Covenant can now be downloaded free of charge at www.earthlycovenant.com.
Overview of The Covenant:
The question of whether Abraham ever existed is an age-old and emotionally-charged one that is revisited in The Covenant, using a fresh and thought-provoking approach. By challenging the religious perspective of a divine lord, this book makes a solid case for a euhemeristic origin of this foundational episode of monotheism.
It was not unusual during the Bronze Age for Kings or Pharaohs to be deified as living gods. Using a holistic, literal and secular interpretation, this essay first demonstrates how the Abrahamic narrative (Ge 12-25) is far more coherent when considered from the standpoint of a mortal lord and the establishment of an earthly covenant aimed at pacifying the Valley of Siddim.
Using biblical, historical and archeological evidence, this research then shows how, through the Bronze Age nomadic practices of necromancy and the cult of the ancestors, the descendants of Abraham would have celebrated the memory of their benevolent lord, and how, through the “gift of the land” they would have adopted a sedentary lifestyle that would have led to the emergence of Baal Berith (“Lord of the Covenant”), the enigmatic pagan deity of Shechem.
By studying the evolutionary stages of devotion through a comparative analysis of Near Eastern cultual practices, The Covenant shows how each time Israel was submitted to a new foreign power its exclusive deity underwent a visible transformation. Baal Berith would have first been venerated beside the Canaanite deities inherited from the Babylonian pantheon. As Canaan became a vassal of Egypt, a nation fond of compounded deities, Baal Berith would have taken on the attributes of El, Baal and Astarte and morphed into a new super deity: Yahweh.
Initially venerated alongside the former pagan deities, theological and political struggles would have compelled the Israelites to monolatrism and the refutation of lesser Baals. It would finally be in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile, under Assyrian influence, that the religion of Yahweh would adopt its final ontological concepts. Modern monotheism would therefore be the result of this slow evolutionary process.
The quest to identify the Lord of the Covenant shows that the chronologies reported in the Bible can be surprisingly accurate, but only after the errors introduced by Nabonidus’ scribes while converting them from the Babylonian sexagesimal system are corrected. Using archeological, chronological and dendrochronological (i.e., tree rings) evidence, the lives of Abraham and king Hammurabi are correlated in order to show how the later could very well prove to be the mythical Lord of the Bible. In what is more than just a stream of coincidences, the long chain of biblical events line up with astonishing accuracy with the history of the region. The dates and events, people’s tradition and cultual practices, laws and structure of governance all come together to give this biblical story a rational interpretation. Common sense finally prevails in the meeting of myth and history.
It was not unusual during the Bronze Age for Kings or Pharaohs to be deified as living gods. Using a holistic, literal and secular interpretation, this essay first demonstrates how the Abrahamic narrative (Ge 12-25) is far more coherent when considered from the standpoint of a mortal lord and the establishment of an earthly covenant aimed at pacifying the Valley of Siddim.
Using biblical, historical and archeological evidence, this research then shows how, through the Bronze Age nomadic practices of necromancy and the cult of the ancestors, the descendants of Abraham would have celebrated the memory of their benevolent lord, and how, through the “gift of the land” they would have adopted a sedentary lifestyle that would have led to the emergence of Baal Berith (“Lord of the Covenant”), the enigmatic pagan deity of Shechem.
By studying the evolutionary stages of devotion through a comparative analysis of Near Eastern cultual practices, The Covenant shows how each time Israel was submitted to a new foreign power its exclusive deity underwent a visible transformation. Baal Berith would have first been venerated beside the Canaanite deities inherited from the Babylonian pantheon. As Canaan became a vassal of Egypt, a nation fond of compounded deities, Baal Berith would have taken on the attributes of El, Baal and Astarte and morphed into a new super deity: Yahweh.
Initially venerated alongside the former pagan deities, theological and political struggles would have compelled the Israelites to monolatrism and the refutation of lesser Baals. It would finally be in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile, under Assyrian influence, that the religion of Yahweh would adopt its final ontological concepts. Modern monotheism would therefore be the result of this slow evolutionary process.
The quest to identify the Lord of the Covenant shows that the chronologies reported in the Bible can be surprisingly accurate, but only after the errors introduced by Nabonidus’ scribes while converting them from the Babylonian sexagesimal system are corrected. Using archeological, chronological and dendrochronological (i.e., tree rings) evidence, the lives of Abraham and king Hammurabi are correlated in order to show how the later could very well prove to be the mythical Lord of the Bible. In what is more than just a stream of coincidences, the long chain of biblical events line up with astonishing accuracy with the history of the region. The dates and events, people’s tradition and cultual practices, laws and structure of governance all come together to give this biblical story a rational interpretation. Common sense finally prevails in the meeting of myth and history.
This brief abstract might appear at odd with mainstream academic positions on first sight, but I trust that you will find that the research provides an efficient synthesis of past maximalist and minimalist positions. All the pieces of the puzzle (i.e. textual, etymological, sociological, archeological, chronological and dendrochronological) fall into place and converge to offer an overwhelming burst of evidence.
A little bit about me…
I do not believe in the Almighty God of the Bible (as direct result of my work), but I do believe that consciousness contributes to driving the evolution of the universe towards the more complex and the more beautiful. As such, one might be tempted to classify me as pantheist/panpsychisist.
I have an engineering background and was raised in a mixed family – atheist father and theist mother. After publishing a first essay on the topic in 2009, I was taken to task and decided to sign up for a Master in Theology, which helped me consolidate the case. The Covenant is the result of this effort.
The book spans nearly 500 pages, but you will get the gist of it in the introduction. If you are sufficiently intrigued, you are welcome to continue exploring...
I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts and participating in a healthy dialog.
Bernard Lamborelle
Lovely to meet a pantheist. I cannot answer your question, as i am not knowledgable in The Covenant. This thread would be better suited in Religious Debates, than this one, as you are not merely introducing yourself. I suggest you give us mods permission to move it, if you would like 
