In the interest of "synthesis." I apologize that the lines don't wrap well:

"The custom of looking upon the record of the experiences of the Hebrews as sacred history and

upon the transactions of the rest of the world as profane history is responsible for much of the confusion existing

in the human mind as to the interpretation of history. And this difficulty arises because there is no secular history

of the Jews. After the priests of the Babylonian exile had prepared their new record of God's supposedly

miraculous dealings with the Hebrews, the sacred history of Israel as portrayed in the Old Testament, they

carefully and completely destroyed the existing records of Hebrew affairs -- such books as "The Doings of the

Kings of Israel" and "The Doings of the Kings of Judah," together with several other more or less accurate

records of Hebrew history.

In order to understand how the devastating pressure and the inescapable coercion of secular

history so terrorized the captive and alien-ruled Jews that they attempted the complete rewriting and recasting of

their history, we should briefly survey the record of their perplexing national experience. It must be remembered

that the Jews failed to evolve an adequate nontheologic philosophy of life. They struggled with their original and

Egyptian concept of divine rewards for righteousness coupled with dire punishments for sin. The drama of Job

was something of a protest against this erroneous philosophy. The frank pessimism of Ecclesiastes was a

worldly wise reaction to these overoptimistic beliefs in Providence.

But five hundred years of the overlordship of alien rulers was too much for even the patient and

long-suffering Jews. The prophets and priests began to cry: "How long, O Lord, how long?" As the honest Jew

searched the Scriptures, his confusion became worse confounded. An olden seer promised that God would

protect and deliver his "chosen people." Amos had threatened that God would abandon Israel unless they

re-established their standards of national righteousness. The scribe of Deuteronomy had portrayed the Great

Choice -- as between the good and the evil, the blessing and the curse. Isaiah the first had preached a beneficent

king-deliverer. Jeremiah had proclaimed an era of inner righteousness -- the covenant written on the tablets of the

heart. The second Isaiah talked about salvation by sacrifice and redemption. Ezekiel proclaimed deliverance

through the service of devotion, and Ezra promised prosperity by adherence to the law. But in spite of all this

they lingered on in bondage, and deliverance was deferred. Then Daniel presented the drama of the impending

"crisis" -- the smiting of the great image and the immediate establishment of the everlasting reign of

righteousness, the Messianic kingdom.

And all of this false hope led to such a degree of racial disappointment and frustration that the

leaders of the Jews were so confused they failed to recognize and accept the mission and ministry of a divine

Son of Paradise when he presently came to them in the likeness of mortal flesh -- incarnated as the Son of Man.

All modern religions have seriously blundered in the attempt to put a miraculous interpretation on

certain epochs of human history. While it is true that God has many times thrust a Father's hand of providential

intervention into the stream of human affairs, it is a mistake to regard theologic dogmas and religious superstition

as a supernatural sedimentation appearing by miraculous action in this stream of human history. The fact that the

"Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men" does not convert secular history into so-called sacred history.

New Testament authors and later Christian writers further complicated the distortion of Hebrew

history by their well-meant attempts to transcendentalize the Jewish prophets. Thus has Hebrew history been

disastrously exploited by both Jewish and Christian writers. Secular Hebrew history has been thoroughly

dogmatized. It has been converted into a fiction of sacred history and has become inextricably bound up with the

moral concepts and religious teachings of the so-called Christian nations.

A brief recital of the high points in Hebrew history will illustrate how the facts of the record were

so altered in Babylon by the Jewish priests as to turn the everyday secular history of their people into a fictitious

and sacred history.

There never were twelve tribes of the Israelites -- only three or four tribes settled in Palestine. The

Hebrew nation came into being as the result of the union of the so-called Israelites and the Canaanites. "And the

children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their

daughters to the sons of the Canaanites." The Hebrews never drove the Canaanites out of Palestine,

notwithstanding that the priests' record of these things unhesitatingly declared that they did.

The Israelitish consciousness took origin in the hill country of Ephraim; the later Jewish

consciousness originated in the southern clan of Judah. The Jews (Judahites) always sought to defame and

blacken the record of the northern Israelites (Ephraimites).

Pretentious Hebrew history begins with Saul's rallying the northern clans to withstand an attack

by the Ammonites upon their fellow tribesmen -- the Gileadites -- east of the Jordan. With an army of a little

more than three thousand he defeated the enemy, and it was this exploit that led the hill tribes to make him king.

When the exiled priests rewrote this story, they raised Saul's army to 330,000 and added "Judah" to the list of

tribes participating in the battle.

Immediately following the defeat of the Ammonites, Saul was made king by popular election by

his troops. No priest or prophet participated in this affair. But the priests later on put it in the record that Saul

was crowned king by the prophet Samuel in accordance with divine directions. This they did in order to establish

a "divine line of descent" for David's Judahite kingship.

The greatest of all distortions of Jewish history had to do with David. After Saul's victory over

the Ammonites (which he ascribed to Yahweh) the Philistines became alarmed and began attacks on the northern

clans. David and Saul never could agree. David with six hundred men entered into a Philistine alliance and

marched up the coast to Esdraelon. At Gath the Philistines ordered David off the field; they feared he might go

over to Saul. David retired; the Philistines attacked and defeated Saul. They could not have done this had David

been loyal to Israel. David's army was a polyglot assortment of malcontents, being for the most part made up of

social misfits and fugitives from justice.

Saul's tragic defeat at Gilboa by the Philistines brought Yahweh to a low point among the gods in

the eyes of the surrounding Canaanites. Ordinarily, Saul's defeat would have been ascribed to apostasy from

Yahweh, but this time the Judahite editors attributed it to ritual errors. They required the tradition of Saul and

Samuel as a background for the kingship of David.

David with his small army made his headquarters at the non-Hebrew city of Hebron. Presently his

compatriots proclaimed him king of the new kingdom of Judah. Judah was made up mostly of non-Hebrew

elements -- Kenites, Calebites, Jebusites, and other Canaanites. They were nomads -- herders -- and so were

devoted to the Hebrew idea of land ownership. They held the ideologies of the desert clans.

The difference between sacred and profane history is well illustrated by the two differing stories

concerning making David king as they are found in the Old Testament. A part of the secular story of how his

immediate followers (his army) made him king was inadvertently left in the record by the priests who

subsequently prepared the lengthy and prosaic account of the sacred history wherein is depicted how the prophet

Samuel, by divine direction, selected David from among his brethren and proceeded formally and by elaborate

and solemn ceremonies to anoint him king over the Hebrews and then to proclaim him Saul's successor.

So many times did the priests, after preparing their fictitious narratives of God's miraculous

dealings with Israel, fail fully to delete the plain and matter-of-fact statements which already rested in the

records.

David sought to build himself up politically by first marrying Saul's daughter, then the widow of

Nabal the rich Edomite, and then the daughter of Talmai, the king of Geshur. He took six wives from the

women of Jebus, not to mention Bathsheba, the wife of the Hittite.

And it was by such methods and out of such people that David built up the fiction of a divine

kingdom of Judah as the successor of the heritage and traditions of the vanishing northern kingdom of

Ephraimite Israel. David's cosmopolitan tribe of Judah was more gentile than Jewish; nevertheless the oppressed

elders of Ephraim came down and "anointed him king of Israel." After a military threat, David then made a

compact with the Jebusites and established his capital of the united kingdom at Jebus (Jerusalem), which was a

strong-walled city midway between Judah and Israel. The Philistines were aroused and soon attacked David.

After a fierce battle they were defeated, and once more Yahweh was established as "The Lord God of Hosts."

But Yahweh must, perforce, share some of this glory with the Canaanite gods, for the bulk of

David's army was non-Hebrew. And so there appears in your record (overlooked by the Judahite editors) this

telltale statement: "Yahweh has broken my enemies before me. Therefore he called the name of the place

Baal-Perazim." And they did this because eighty per cent of David's soldiers were Baalites.

David explained Saul's defeat at Gilboa by pointing out that Saul had attacked a Canaanite city,

Gibeon, whose people had a peace treaty with the Ephraimites. Because of this, Yahweh forsook him. Even in

Saul's time David had defended the Canaanite city of Keilah against the Philistines, and then he located his

capital in a Canaanite city. In keeping with the policy of compromise with the Canaanites, David turned seven of

Saul's descendants over to the Gibeonites to be hanged.

After the defeat of the Philistines, David gained possession of the "ark of Yahweh," brought it to

Jerusalem, and made the worship of Yahweh official for his kingdom. He next laid heavy tribute on the

neighboring tribes -- the Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, and Syrians.

David's corrupt political machine began to get personal possession of land in the north in

violation of the Hebrew mores and presently gained control of the caravan tariffs formerly collected by the

Philistines. And then came a series of atrocities climaxed by the murder of Uriah. All judicial appeals were

adjudicated at Jerusalem; no longer could "the elders" mete out justice. No wonder rebellion broke out. Today,

Absalom might be called a demagogue; his mother was a Canaanite. There were a half dozen contenders for the

throne besides the son of Bathsheba -- Solomon.

After David's death Solomon purged the political machine of all northern influences but

continued all of the tyranny and taxation of his father's regime. Solomon bankrupted the nation by his lavish

court and by his elaborate building program: There was the house of Lebanon, the palace of Pharaoh's daughter,

the temple of Yahweh, the king's palace, and the restoration of the walls of many cities. Solomon created a vast

Hebrew navy, operated by Syrian sailors and trading with all the world. His harem numbered almost one

thousand.

By this time Yahweh's temple at Shiloh was discredited, and all the worship of the nation was

centered at Jebus in the gorgeous royal chapel. The northern kingdom returned more to the worship of Elohim.

They enjoyed the favor of the Pharaohs, who later enslaved Judah, putting the southern kingdom under tribute.

There were ups and downs -- wars between Israel and Judah. After four years of civil war and

three dynasties, Israel fell under the rule of city despots who began to trade in land. Even King Omri attempted

to buy Shemer's estate. But the end drew on apace when Shalmaneser III decided to control the Mediterranean

coast. King Ahab of Ephraim gathered ten other groups and resisted at Karkar; the battle was a draw. The

Assyrian was stopped but the allies were decimated. This great fight is not even mentioned in the Old Testament.

New trouble started when King Ahab tried to buy land from Naboth. His Phoenician wife forged

Ahab's name to papers directing that Naboth's land be confiscated on the charge that he had blasphemed the

names of "Elohim and the king." He and his sons were promptly executed. The vigorous Elijah appeared on the

scene denouncing Ahab for the murder of the Naboths. Thus Elijah, one of the greatest of the prophets, began

his teaching as a defender of the old land mores as against the land-selling attitude of the Baalim, against the

attempt of the cities to dominate the country. But the reform did not succeed until the country landlord Jehu

joined forces with the gypsy chieftain Jehonadab to destroy the prophets (real estate agents) of Baal at Samaria.

New life appeared as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam delivered Israel from its enemies. But by

this time there ruled in Samaria a gangster-nobility whose depredations rivaled those of the Davidic dynasty of

olden days. State and church went along hand in hand. The attempt to suppress freedom of speech led Elijah,

Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writing, and this was the real beginning of the Jewish and Christian

Bibles.

But the northern kingdom did not vanish from history until the king of Israel conspired with the

king of Egypt and refused to pay further tribute to Assyria. Then began the three years' siege followed by the

total dispersion of the northern kingdom. Ephraim (Israel) thus vanished. Judah -- the Jews, the "remnant of

Israel" -- had begun the concentration of land in the hands of the few, as Isaiah said, "Adding house to house

and field to field." Presently there was in Jerusalem a temple of Baal alongside the temple of Yahweh. This reign

of terror was ended by a monotheistic revolt led by the boy king Joash, who crusaded for Yahweh for thirty-five

years.

The next king, Amaziah, had trouble with the revolting tax-paying Edomites and their neighbors.

After a signal victory he turned to attack his northern neighbors and was just as signally defeated. Then the rural

folk revolted; they assassinated the king and put his sixteen-year-old son on the throne. This was Azariah, called

Uzziah by Isaiah. After Uzziah, things went from bad to worse, and Judah existed for a hundred years by

paying tribute to the kings of Assyria. Isaiah the first told them that Jerusalem, being the city of Yahweh, would

never fall. But Jeremiah did not hesitate to proclaim its downfall.

The real undoing of Judah was effected by a corrupt and rich ring of politicians operating

under the rule of a boy king, Manasseh. The changing economy favored the return of the worship of Baal,

whose private land dealings were against the ideology of Yahweh. The fall of Assyria and the ascendancy of

Egypt brought deliverance to Judah for a time, and the country folk took over. Under Josiah they destroyed the

Jerusalem ring of corrupt politicians.

But this era came to a tragic end when Josiah presumed to go out to intercept Necho's mighty

army as it moved up the coast from Egypt for the aid of Assyria against Babylon. He was wiped out, and Judah

went under tribute to Egypt. The Baal political party returned to power in Jerusalem, and thus began the real

Egyptian bondage. Then ensued a period in which the Baalim politicians controlled both the courts and the

priesthood. Baal worship was an economic and social system dealing with property rights as well as having to

do with soil fertility.

With the overthrow of Necho by Nebuchadnezzar, Judah fell under the rule of Babylon and was

given ten years of grace, but soon rebelled. When Nebuchadnezzar came against them, the Judahites started

social reforms, such as releasing slaves, to influence Yahweh. When the Babylonian army temporarily

withdrew, the Hebrews rejoiced that their magic of reform had delivered them. It was during this period that

Jeremiah told them of the impending doom, and presently Nebuchadnezzar returned.

And so the end of Judah came suddenly. The city was destroyed, and the people were carried

away into Babylon. The Yahweh-Baal struggle ended with the captivity. And the captivity shocked the remnant

of Israel into monotheism.

In Babylon the Jews arrived at the conclusion that they could not exist as a small group in

Palestine, having their own peculiar social and economic customs, and that, if their ideologies were to prevail,

they must convert the gentiles. Thus originated their new concept of destiny -- the idea that the Jews must

become the chosen servants of Yahweh. The Jewish religion of the Old Testament really evolved in Babylon

during the captivity.

The doctrine of immortality also took form at Babylon. The Jews had thought that the idea of the

future life detracted from the emphasis of their gospel of social justice. Now for the first time theology displaced

sociology and economics. Religion was taking shape as a system of human thought and conduct more and more

to be separated from politics, sociology, and economics.

And so does the truth about the Jewish people disclose that much which has been regarded as

sacred history turns out to be little more than the chronicle of ordinary profane history. Judaism was the soil out

of which Christianity grew, but the Jews were not a miraculous people.

Their leaders had taught the Israelites that they were a chosen people, not for special indulgence

and monopoly of divine favor, but for the special service of carrying the truth of the one God over all to every

nation. And they had promised the Jews that, if they would fulfill this destiny, they would become the spiritual

leaders of all peoples, and that the coming Messiah would reign over them and all the world as the Prince of

Peace.

When the Jews had been freed by the Persians, they returned to Palestine only to fall into

bondage to their own priest-ridden code of laws, sacrifices, and rituals. And as the Hebrew clans rejected the

wonderful story of God presented in the farewell oration of Moses for the rituals of sacrifice and penance, so did

these remnants of the Hebrew nation reject the magnificent concept of the second Isaiah for the rules,

regulations, and rituals of their growing priesthood.

National egotism, false faith in a misconceived promised Messiah, and the increasing bondage

and tyranny of the priesthood forever silenced the voices of the spiritual leaders (excepting Daniel, Ezekiel,

Haggai, and Malachi); and from that day to the time of John the Baptist all Israel experienced an increasing

spiritual retrogression. But the Jews never lost the concept of the Universal Father; even to the twentieth century

after Christ they have continued to follow this Deity conception.

From Moses to John the Baptist there extended an unbroken line of faithful teachers who passed

the monotheistic torch of light from one generation to another while they unceasingly rebuked unscrupulous

rulers, denounced commercializing priests, and ever exhorted the people to adhere to the worship of the supreme

Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel.

As a nation the Jews eventually lost their political identity, but the Hebrew religion of sincere

belief in the one and universal God continues to live in the hearts of the scattered exiles. And this religion

survives because it has effectively functioned to conserve the highest values of its followers. The Jewish religion

did preserve the ideals of a people, but it failed to foster progress and encourage philosophic creative discovery

in the realms of truth. The Jewish religion had many faults -- it was deficient in philosophy and almost devoid of

aesthetic qualities -- but it did conserve moral values; therefore it persisted. The supreme Yahweh, as compared

with other concepts of Deity, was clear-cut, vivid, personal, and moral.

The Jews loved justice, wisdom, truth, and righteousness as have few peoples, but they

contributed least of all peoples to the intellectual comprehension and to the spiritual understanding of these divine

qualities. Though Hebrew theology refused to expand, it played an important part in the development of two

other world religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism.

The Jewish religion persisted also because of its institutions. It is difficult for religion to survive

as the private practice of isolated individuals. This has ever been the error of the religious leaders: Seeing the

evils of institutionalized religion, they seek to destroy the technique of group functioning. In place of destroying

all ritual, they would do better to reform it. In this respect Ezekiel was wiser than his contemporaries; though he

joined with them in insisting on personal moral responsibility, he also set about to establish the faithful

observance of a superior and purified ritual.

And thus the successive teachers of Israel accomplished the greatest feat in the evolution of

religion ever to be effected on Earth: the gradual but continuous transformation of the barbaric concept of the

savage demon Yahweh, the jealous and cruel spirit god of the fulminating Sinai volcano, to the later exalted and

supernal concept of the supreme Yahweh, creator of all things and the loving and merciful Father of all mankind.

And this Hebraic concept of God was the highest human visualization of the Universal Father up to that time

when it was further enlarged and so exquisitely amplified by the personal teachings and life example of his Son,

Jesus."

These excerpts were delivered in the mid 1930s.