Transcription
Today we do the Bible, the most influential book in human history, and we'll discuss why the Jewish people are so creative. Today, the most creative people in the world are Jews. In the past 200 years, um, there have been three extremely influential individuals. Karl Marx, Simon Freud, Albert Einstein. They're all Jews. So why are Jews so creative? And the answer is the Bible. Okay.
So um, let me provide some background as to how Israel, the nation of Israel, was first formed. So remember um, the Bronze Age, the Middle East was the center of the world. Okay? So you had Egypt, then you had the Levant. Up north is Anatolia. Across the Aegean is Minoan Greece, and this is Mesopotamia. If you look at this map, the center of the world really is the Levant. And at this time in history, the Levant is really a colony of Egypt. Okay, this place is called Canaan.
Now, um, the thing about the Egyptians is they didn't like to go outside of Egypt. So, in order to control this colony, the Levant, which is strategically very important, they use Greek mercenaries. Okay, mercenaries from abroad. Many were Greek, but there are some other countries as well. Also, at the time in history, there's a lot of religious strife in Egypt, and a lot of the priests who lost out in this struggle, they were exiled to the Levant. Okay, so you also had some Egyptian priests in the Levant. You also had the hill people of Canaan. Okay, hill people, they lived in the hills, they farmed. You also had um nomadic pastoralists, nomads, because this place was a center of trade. So you had bandits, you had people who traded, and you also had people who raised livestock. So, another way of saying this is the Levant, it is a multicultural melting pot, lots of different groups of people. And at this time in history, there's no concept of nation or race or ethnicity. It was very common for people to just intermix together. Okay.
But then what happened, of course, was the Bronze Age collapse. And what that meant was that now you have this surge of refugees coming through from Northern Europe and from um, uh, Western Europe, and they overwhelm the former empires. Okay. So Minoan Greece is destroyed. The Hittite empire of Anatolia is destroyed, and the Sea Peoples are attacking Egypt. But Egypt is pretty strong. So it's able to resist the attack. And what the Egyptians say to the Sea Peoples is, "Listen, don't attack us. We'll set you somewhere else. We'll give you land somewhere else." And so they were put in the Levant. Okay? And these people are called the Philistines, and they're in the Bible. The problem is that there are already people in the Levant. And so they are a threat. And so these people now, the mercenaries, the Egyptian priests, the hill people, the nomads, they're forced to come together as a new alliance to fend off against the Philistines. Okay? And this grouping of people will give us a new nation called Israel.
And um, at first, they have to elect a king in order to unite them against the Philistines. And they elect a king called Saul. So Saul is the first king of Israel. He has a mercenary named David. And remember, what's very common in history is for mercenaries to rebel against their king and become a king themselves. That's what David did. But now that David is now king, he has three major problems. The first problem is legitimacy. Why are you king? We elected Saul as king, but you stole the throne from him. So why are you king? So the first big problem that David faces is one of legitimacy. Second is a problem of unity, because remember, Israel at this time, it's a diverse coalition. So how do you unite these people together? Okay. Okay. And the third problem is differentiation. Why are we different from the Egyptians, the Anatolians, uh, the Mesopotamians, the Philistines? Okay.
So to um, solve these problems, what David did was three major innovations that would forever change, forever change human history. The first is the introduction of a patron god named Yahweh. Okay. So, what David says is, like, Yahweh is our God, and our God is better than the other gods. Okay. So, in what the Bible's trying to do is trying to explain who Yahweh is and trying to explain to everyone that Yahweh is a better God, a superior god than every other god that came before him. Okay, that's number one. Number two is the centralization of religion for a temple. So what David says is, "Okay, if Yahweh is our God and he's the best God, we need a house for him. So what we're going to do is we're going to build a temple in Jerusalem, and that's where he will live from now on." And by doing this, what David's really doing is centralizing the religion. When you do that, you give jobs to Egyptian priests, who will now be your main political ally. Okay? All right. And the third thing that he did that's very important, of course, is sponsor, initiate the Bible. All right. Okay. So that's where the Bible comes from. The Bible comes from the fact that the Israelite people need to create mythology that explains why they are one family, and why they're different from others, and why they're actually better than other people. Okay. So what is amazing about the Bible is that it does succeed. It succeeds because of the great storytelling within the Bible. Okay.
So, in the beginning, we have the origins of Yahweh, and the Bible begins with Genesis. The first book of the Bible is called Genesis, which means birth or the beginning. Okay. And in the beginning, God creates the universe. And he discovers that he's, he's lonely. There's no one to talk to. It's not very interesting. So, he creates man, um, Adam. But then he thinks that Adam might be lonely as well. So, he creates Eve. Okay? And that's the beginning. So, then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground. Okay? Dust. So man is made of dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and then man became a living being. Okay. So God's essence is in Adam. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So this is a garden paradise called Eden, and man was created in order to farm it, to take care of it. Okay, he's basically a servant, a slave. And in the center of the garden are two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life, as you can imagine, grants immortality, right? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil grants the ability to learn. Okay, so let me explain. Let's imagine that there's this wall in front of me. Okay, so I walk, I hit the wall. It hurts, right? But I don't know that hurting is bad. So I keep on, I keep on hitting the wall, and I keep on hurting myself. Okay, because I don't know what is good and what is bad. But now if I know what is good and what is bad, I know, "Okay, I should not hit the wall." Okay, I now have the capacity to learn, and over a lifetime, I will learn a lot. This is the secret of creativity. Right? What's really important about this idea is that you need to make a mistake for you to know what is good and evil. Okay. So that's why school is stupid, because in school, we tell you, "There's a wall, don't touch it because you will hurt yourself." And you don't touch it, you don't hurt yourself, but you never learn for yourself. Because when you hit the wall, you now are able to reflect and understand how the world works. Okay. So the secret to creativity is trying for yourself and learning for yourself what is good and evil. And what this is also saying is that these two things together, creativity plus immortality, allows you to become God. Okay, does that make sense? Because if you can live forever, but you're always learning, eventually you will absorb all the knowledge of the universe, which is what God is. Okay? God knows everything in the universe. And you can also argue that's why he created us, because once you are perfection, once you learn everything, you're no longer capable of making mistakes, of learning for yourself. What you, so what you do is you teach students, or you get students to learn for themselves, and that way your knowledge expands. Okay. So it's a really important idea is that men and women were created to be part of the creative process. Okay. That's why God created us.
Um, the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Okay, so again, the man is now basically a servant or slave. And the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely, okay, you can do whatever you want." Okay, this idea of free choice. So if you want people to be creative, you have to give people free choice. Okay, you have to give people the capacity to make mistakes for themselves, otherwise they'll never learn for themselves. [snorts] Uh, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For the day that you eat of it, you shall die. Okay.
Now, what's amazing about the Bible is that it is poetry. Like all poetry, its meaning is very complicated. Okay? There are multiple layers to the meaning here. So, "you shall die" could mean, okay, the food is poisonous. Okay, don't eat the apple. Sorry, don't, it's not the apple. It's the, don't eat the fruit because you'll eat it, it'll be poisonous, and then you'll die. Okay. But it's also could be interpreted as a >> punishment, right? If you eat it, I will have to kill you. Okay. All right. So what, so this is a very ambiguous story, and that's what makes the story so amazing, because it is uncertain to us what the true meaning of the the Bible is, and therefore we have to keep on thinking about it, discussing it, and finding out for ourselves. And at different stages of our lives, our understanding may be different. Okay.
What's also interesting is that God draws attention to one tree but not the other. That's kind of weird, right? There are two trees, the tree of immortality and the tree of learning. But God only says, "Hey, there's a tree of learning. Don't touch that." Which means now that, now that our attention is now focused on this one tree, right? So think of a metaphor. Let's just say that we go to the amusement park, okay? You're my kids, and I say to you, "You can have, you can ride any ride you want in this amusement park, but there's a ride called the Dragon Roller Coaster. >> Do not ride that, or you will die." What do you do? >> Ride that. >> You ride that stupid thing. Okay. So, it's a really strange setup where God knows everything, but he draws our attention to the one thing that he's afraid of. And it's almost like he's pushing us towards that tree. Okay? Because again, you know, if you talk to children, you'll know that if you, if you warn them not to do something, they'll go and do it. Okay? So, what's going on here? Well, again, the nature of God is up for debate. You can say that a God is uh being truthful and little and says that if you touch that tree, you will die. Okay, so he's being dishonest, basically. Okay, that's one possibility. Another possibility is that he's just stupid. He doesn't really understand how humans work. He created humans, but he doesn't really understand what it means to be a human, and he gave it, and he gave us free choice. So he doesn't really appreciate that we would disobey him. Okay, that's another possibility. Now, another, another possibility, okay, which can also be true, is that it's all part of his plan, right? If he truly wants us to understand free choice, he truly wants us to be creative, then he needs to allow us to make our own mistakes. And so therefore, he's sort of like setting us up. Okay? He's sort of like, sort of like provoking us into making a mistake. All right? Does it make sense? So, as you can see, it's only a few words, but it's so complex, and it's an entire universe onto itself. All right. Okay. All right.
Now, um, this is the story of God creating woman. Okay. Eve. [snorts] So, Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. The man is lonely, and he wants a female companion. Okay. And he slept. Then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. The man said, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called woman, for out of man this one was taken." Okay.
Now, you can make the argument that um, man is superior because man came first. But you can also make the argument that woman is superior because woman is made of higher quality. Woman is made of flesh, right? Man is made out of dust. So this is almost revolutionary the conception, because you would think that in this world, men are at the top. But this Bible is telling us, "No, women are made of higher quality material. They're made of actual flesh." Right? And that's why we think that the person who wrote this was actually a woman. And [snorts] as you read the Bible more and more, you will discover like, this genius who wrote the Bible, who first wrote the Bible, was in fact a woman. And that's revolutionary. Okay. All right. So, um, therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Okay. All right.
Let's, let's, let's continue. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?'" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'" Okay, this is really strange, okay? Because what you will notice is that the serpent chooses to talk to the woman, but not to the man. Okay. And also, what's really interesting is that they're having a debate. [snorts] But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. And then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. Okay.
This is really interesting because the woman is making this decision by herself, right? The serpent says, "Hey, why don't you judge for yourself whether whether the food is good or not?" The woman looks at the food and says, "I judge for myself it is good." Okay, this is revolutionary where the woman is making the decisions. She, like, you would think that once she, once the serpent said this to her, she would go to her husband and say, "Hey Adam, the serpent said this, what do you think?" Okay? But the woman's like, "No, I can see for myself what is true." And then so she eats the fruit by herself, and then she tells her husband, "Eat the fruit as well," and the husband falls as well. So this tells us that the real hero of the story is actually the woman. Okay. [snorts] Okay.
Then they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the God among the trees of the garden. Okay. So they know they're in trouble. They know that God will discover that they ate from a fruit. Uh, they ate from a tree, and they're they're scared. Okay. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." So he knows that being naked is wrong. Okay, being naked is bad. "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave to me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." Okay, so the man is blaming the woman. Okay, the man says, "It's not my fault. I'm just, I'm, I was just following her." Okay. So again, the woman, what's amazing about this is the woman is the hero of the story. Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent tricked me, and I ate." Okay. All right.
So at this point in the story, what can we expect? We can expect that God will have no choice but to kill Adam and Eve, right? Because God's words were, "If you eat from that fruit, you will surely die." And so even though the food, fruit wasn't poisonous, God still has a duty to kill Adam and Eve. And if we were in the Iliad, okay, then surely Adam and Eve would have died, because the gods in the Iliad, the Greek gods, most gods are vengeful. They're wrathful, right? But not this God. Okay? Yahweh is different. Okay? Look what happens next. Is the man named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them. Instead of being angry at Adam and Eve, he offers them a present. Okay. The question then is, why? Well, there are different possibilities, right? The first possibility is that God himself recognizes that, "I made a mistake here. I shouldn't have drawn attention to this fruit, right? Therefore, it's my fault." Therefore, this is a God that's capable of self-reflection and forgiveness. Okay, this is revolutionary, guys. Okay, because again, remember, gods at this time are vengeful, wrathful. You must obey them, or they will strike you down. But this God is different. This God is like, "Listen, it's, you should not have eaten from the fruit, but it was my fault as well, so I forgive you." He's capable of self-reflection. Okay. Another possibility is again, this is what God wanted all along. Okay. And we know this because the man named his wife Eve. So the man honors his wife, okay, with a name, and it's the mother of all living. Okay, you are the true goddess. Okay.
So, um, what happens next is God's like, "Okay, well, you still disobeyed me, so I will have to punish you now." Okay. So, what he does is he punishes the man [clears throat] by making him now have to toil for food. Okay? He has to be a farmer. He punishes the woman by making childbirth painful. He punishes the serpent by making him slither on the ground. Okay? So, this is all good, right? But now, what God does is this. He actually throws Adam and Eve out of the garden. Okay. Okay. So, "Why? The Lord God said, 'See the man has become like one of us.'" All right. So Eve did the right thing, knowing good and evil. And now he might reach out his hand and also take from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Okay. So that's what godhood is. God is a capacity to learn for yourself, as well as to live forever. So God's afraid, "Hey, if Adam and Eve eat that tree of life, he'll, they'll become like God as well." >> [snorts] >> Therefore the God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed a cherubim, an angel, a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. And so this is our banishment from the Garden of Eden.
Now, um, most people think that this is a bad thing. Okay? But you can also interpret this as a good thing. So God chose us to make us creative without the possibility of living forever. Why? Because if you think about it, creativity is death. Well, the concept of death, [clears throat] you cannot be truly creative. Okay? First of all, if you think I'm going to live forever, you're not actually motivated to do anything, right? You're not motivated to make the most of your life. But actually making the most of your life, you can't be creative. Also, if you live forever, your children cannot be creative. Your grandchildren cannot be creative. So for humans to be creative as a species, death must be an inevitability. Okay, does that make sense? So you can, you can say that, "Okay, God doesn't really know what he's doing. It's his first time having children. He's making a lot of mistakes." Okay. But you can also say that um, it's all part of his plan. His plan is to make us creative, because that is what's divine. Creativity is what's truly divine. Okay. [snorts] All right.
So we continue. Now that Adam and Eve are outside the Garden of Eden, they have children named uh, Cain and Abel. Okay. Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have produced a man with the help of the Lord." Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. Okay? So Cain is a farmer, and Abel, a shepherd. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain's offering he had no regard. Okay, this is a very common thing in this world where you have to make sacrifices to the gods. The gods will favor you if the if the offerings are good. Okay, and so you're God, Cain comes with some plants, and then uh, Abel comes with some meat. Okay, so you're like, "Abel, you're a better person." Okay, and this is a very common thing in this world. But Cain gets very angry. His face fell. The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door. It's desire is for you, but you must master it." Okay. A very common thing in this world where the gods are like, "This person sucks. Do better next time." Okay. All right.
But Cain gets really angry, and what he does is he kills his brother. And then um, the Lord gets angry and says, "What have you done? Your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." Okay? So, at this time, what God will could should do is just kill Cain, right? An eye for an eye. Um, but God doesn't do that. All right? God says that, "I banish you." And then Cain says, "If you do that, my punishment is greater than I can bear. I, today you have driven me from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me." Okay? So people will know that I've left my community, I must have done something wrong, and therefore they may kill me. And God says, "Okay, I'm going to put a mark on you, and this will protect you so that no one who came upon him would kill him." Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden. Okay.
So again, this is a God of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of compromise, of debate. Cain says, "Your punishment is unfair." And then most gods would be like, "Screw you, man. I can do whatever I want." But this God is like, "You know what? You make a good point. Look, I have reflected. I recognize that I shouldn't have said that your brother's better than you. Okay? I recognize that this is partly my fault. So as a compromise, I protect you." Okay, this is again a revolutionary idea. This was written 3,000 years ago. Okay, today we think, "Okay, this is a very common concept." But remember, in the Iliad, the major problem is one of forgiveness. And in the Bible, this is a God of forgiveness. Okay, he's kind of silly, but he's not perfect. And what he's telling us is that perfection is not a possibility. What is a possibility? What we should all try to do is try to reflect and improve ourselves. Okay? And this is a theme throughout the Bible.
So, as humanity continues to develop, God looks down and says, "You know what? These humans, I designed them to be creative, to do wonderful things, but they're killing themselves. They're enslaving each other, exploiting each other. This is stupid. I need to start over." Okay? So he creates a flood. But there's one person on the earth that he thinks is a noble person, Noah. Right? So he says, "Noah, build, build an ark and save yourself." So Noah builds an ark, and he saves himself. And then after the flood recedes, Noah comes and rebuilds humanity. And then God looks down to Noah and says, "You know what? I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth. Nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease." This is God saying, "Oops, I made a mistake again." Okay, I didn't like the evil that humans were creating on this earth, and therefore I want, I want to wipe evil from this earth. But, you know what? If I give them free will, if they have that fruit from the tree of knowledge, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, then yeah, some of them are going to make mistakes. Okay? Okay? And this is something that I'm have, have to put up with. So he promised Noah, "In humanity, I will never do this again. If you guys do evil, well, you're going to have to solve this problem yourself. I'm not going to come and suffer for you." All right. It was a mist, it was my mistake to, to make everyone suffer like this. I will never do this again. All right? So humanity is rebuilt. And of course, humans go back to being evil, starting wars, enslaving each other, exploiting each other.
So then God's like, "You know what? What I need to do is this. I need to build a nation that is the best nation, and which will be a great example to everyone. And this nation I will call Israel." Okay. So he looks around the earth, and he he discovers a man named Abraham. And Abraham is the patriarch of the nation of Israel. But these are also the patriarch of the religions of Christianity and uh, Islam. Okay. So Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are considered the Abrahamic faiths because they all think Abraham is their patriarch or their uh, forefather. And so, um, Yahweh says to Abraham, "I will make a covenant with you. I will make a contract with you where I will favor you, but you must swear loyalty to me. You must, you must promise me that your people will be uh, loyal to me. They will worship me only." Okay? And and that's a covenant, the Abrahamic covenant.
Now, what's interesting is the relationship between Abraham and Yahweh. Okay? You would think that Abraham would just be a slave and a servant to Yahweh, but that's not actually what happens. Okay? So, let's read the story. So, what happens is this. God promised to not destroy the earth, but then he's like, "Yeah, but then there's some places that are so evil, I need to destroy them to teach everyone a lesson." Okay? So, this place is called Sodom and Gomorrah. And Sodom and Gomorrah is known for its wickedness. So um, God sends men, okay, angels to Sodom and Gomorrah to destroy it. Abraham is shocked by this. So Abraham's like, "Yeah, but you can't destroy everyone." Okay. So what happens, and this is really interesting, is that Abraham and Yahweh start having a debate, and Abraham pleads with Yahweh to change his mind. Okay? So, yeah, Abraham says to Yahweh, "Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to say the righteous with the wicked, so the righteous fare as the wicked." Okay, he's saying, "Yahweh, you're making a mistake." Think about that. Okay, a mortal is telling a god, "You're making a mistake." But not only that, but Yahweh is like, "Yeah, I think you're right." Okay, so they agree. So Abraham says, "Um, if there's 50 people who are righteous, you cannot destroy Sodom and Gomorrah." And God says, "You're right. If I find 50 righteous, I will forgive everyone." Okay, so Yahweh agrees with Abraham. At this point, you would think that Abraham's like, "Yes." Okay? And then he would run away. But he doesn't do that. He keeps on arguing. He says, "Yeah, but let's just say there's 45. Okay, 45. Suppose five of the 50 are lacking. There's only 45. Don't you think we should still forgive Sodom and Gomorrah?" And God's like, "You know, that's a good point. Yeah." So, you know, 45 is good as well. Okay. And he keeps on going on and on until they get to 10. "For the sake of 10, I will not destroy it." Okay. This is what Yahweh promises Abraham. So, in other words, it's not that Yahweh and Abraham, it's not like master-servant. It's more like friend-friend, because what a friend does is a friend is honest with you. A friend tries you to be, to tell you the truth. A friend tries to get you to be better. Okay? So what Abraham's saying to Yahweh is like, "I know you're a virtuous God, but sometimes you make mistakes. So it's important for for me to argue with you." Okay? And that's why Judaism is such a powerful religion, because the basis of Judaism is debate and argument and questions. Okay, debate and questions. Why are you so creative? It's this simple, guys. Jews are encouraged to debate each other to figure out what is truly right. There is no absolute truth. It's always a process of asking questions, open debate, and self-reflection. Yeah. >> Okay. All right.
So eventually what happens is that um, what will happen is that Abraham will give birth, will have a son named Isaac. And Isaac will have two sons, Esau and uh, Jacob. Jacob's name will eventually become Israel. So Israel is founded by Jacob. What would happen is that um, Jacob is the younger son. Esau is the older son. So you would think that Esau would inherit everything from Isaac. But Jacob, Jacob and his mother Rebecca scheme and steal from Esau. Okay, they trick Isaac and they steal the birthright from Esau. So now Esau is pissed off at Jacob. So Jacob has no choice but to run away. Okay, he runs away and he meets a relative. Okay. And what follows next is the greatest love story in the Bible. You can also argue it's the greatest love story ever in human history. Okay. And what's amazing about the story is how simple it is. But once we start analyzing, you will discover that it's actually a very complex story. All right? It's a beautiful, complex, and sophisticated story. All right? Laban, who's a relative, says to Jacob, "You are my kinsman. um, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?" Okay. So, Jacob's um running away from his brother, and he's [music] and he finds um safety with Laban, and he offers to work for Laban. But Laban said, "Listen, I can't just um enslave you. So, you work for me, and I'll give you whatever you want." Okay? And then you take what. Says Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah. The younger was Rachel. Leah's eyes were lovely, and Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel. So he said, "I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel." Laban said, "It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to anyone else." So, yeah, I agree to this deal. Okay. It's a contract now. All right. Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed to him but a few days because of the love he had for her. Okay. So he loves her so much that seven years is nothing to him. Okay. Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife, so I may go into her, for my time is completed." So Laban gathered together all the people of the place and made a feast. But in the evening, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and he went into her. Um, when morning came, it was Leah. And Jacob said to Leah, "What is it that you have done to me? Did I not serve you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?" Leah said, "This is not done in our country. You the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years." Jacob did so and completed her week. Then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel as a wife. So Jacob went into Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. He served Laban for another seven years. Okay.
This again is a beautiful love story, and it doesn't sound like it. Okay, but let's go into the complexity, complexity of it. Okay, first of all, clearly Laban deceived Jacob, right? But did he, did he mean to in the beginning? The answer is no. Okay, the question is, why did he do so? And the answer is, Rachel and Leah are sisters, right? And therefore, they probably hate each other. They're in competition with each other. So when Jacob says to Laban, "I love Rachel, but not Leah." Leah now is pissed, right? So what do you think she did? For seven years. For seven years, she just pestered her father and says, "Hey, am I not your daughter? Am I not your firstborn? Will you let me be insulted and humiliated? If Jacob were to marry Rachel, who will ever want to marry me?" And Leah's a father, okay? And he doesn't want to deal with this crap. So he's like, "How do, how do I get out of this mess?" Well, what I'll do is I'll trick um Jacob and first give him Leah, and then I'll give him Rachel. And how does he know this? Because he knows that Jacob loves Rachel, right? Laban's able to like stand far away and look at how Jacob and looks at Rachel. So he knows that Jacob will have to endure. Okay, he'll put, he'll, he'll do this. But then the question is, does Rachel love Jacob? And the answer is yes, of course. Right? Because once um Jacob married Leah, then Rachel could have just said, "Screw this. I'm going to marry someone else." But she didn't. She had to wait seven years. And you can imagine those seven years were the longest seven years for both Jacob and Rachel. In fact, every day Leah probably said to Rachel, "Haha, okay, she was laughing at Rachel, just saying, 'You see, Jacob doesn't really love you.'" And um, Rachel had to endure. Okay, so that's this, the power of love. The way that Jacob and Rachel were able to endure all the humiliation in order to just be together. Okay, it's a beautiful love story. And this is the great thing about the Bible. The Bible written by this person, okay, who's, who's clearly a woman, right? Only a woman would write stories like this. It has both economy and irony. Economy just means that she's able to with very few words convey deep meaning. She's able to in the story, just a couple paragraphs, create an entire universe. We can see actually the movie play out. Okay, it's 14 years where in the first seven years, Jacob is really happy. But in the last seven years, everybody he's agonizing because he doesn't want to be with Leah. He wants to be with Rachel, but they can't be together, and he has to wait all these seven years. Okay, so economy, but also irony. Irony just means it's funny, guys. Okay, I know that you're taught the Bible is a religious text, but when it was first conceived, it was meant to be a funny story. Okay, this is a story of two sisters who hate each other and they're competing for the same guy. All right, and this competition continues.
When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister, and she said to Jacob, "Give me children or I shall die." Okay, you have to get me pregnant because Leah is having a lot of kids. Jacob became very angry with Rachel and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?" Then she said, "Here is my maidservant, Zilpah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and that I may have children through her." So she gave him Zilpah, she gave him her maid as a wife. And Jacob went in to her, and Zilpah conceived and bore Jacob a son. Then Rachel said, "God has judged. She has heard my voice and given me a son." Okay, this is a comedy where she's in competition with Leah. Leah has a lot of kids. So Rachel is going to cheat and give her maid to Jacob. And whenever um, a baby comes up, Rachel's like, "It's mine. It's mine." And she's going to go around and and cheer to, like um, try to outcompete Leah. Okay, this is a comedy. [snorts] Then Jacob said, "God has judged me and has heard my voice and given me a son." Uh, Rachel conceived again and bore Jacob a second, a second son. Then Rachel said, "With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed." So she knew him not to leave. Okay. All right. Okay.
So, does that make sense? And now what Zilpah is going to do is give her maid to Jacob as well, in order to continue the competition. All right. To try to outcompete uh Rachel. Okay. So, this is all just a comedy. Okay. It's meant to be beautiful stories that force you, that provoke you into deep reflection. Right? And this is why the Jews are so creative. If you look at the media, if you look at Hollywood, if you look at academia, the Jews dominate, okay? Because from the moment they're born, they're born with these stories that force them to think deeply, deeply about who they are, what it means to be human, and what life is about. Okay? And as you can understand, you can just have multiple interpretations of what's going on, but they force you to think very deeply about life, to have an inner debate with yourself. Okay. All right. Okay.
So, now we go on to David. Okay. The story of David, it's very, very um complicated. Okay. And so in the Bible, what it tells us is that um God needs a king for the nation of Israel. And he sends a prophet named Samuel to find a a king. And he goes to the house of Jesse. [snorts] And in the house of Jesse, he finds David, who's the youngest boy. He says, "You, not you, in the future, will be the favored king of Israel." Okay? And David, in his early age, does wonderful things. For example, he defeats Goliath. Okay? So you've heard the story of David and Goliath, right? But after he kills Goliath, King Saul becomes envious, jealous of David, and that forces David to run away. Eventually, Saul is killed, and David comes back and becomes king. Okay, that's that story in the Bible. Guys, as you learn in this class, this is all propaganda. Okay. What really happened is that Saul is king. David is the mercenary, and he's a very good and popular mercenary. He has a lot of soldiers who follow him, and therefore he kills Saul and becomes king himself. Okay. But now, what the Bible needs to do is legitimize David. Okay. Try to tell us that, "Oh, no, no, no, David is not ambitious. He was not ruthless. God willed him to be king." Okay. And that's why the Bible was written the way it was. So this is written um by the court historian. Okay. The person who wrote Genesis is is a person we call the Yahwist. Okay. Because for her, the God is Yahweh. The Yahwist, or J. This person is a court historian. So his job is to clean up the image of David, to tell the story of David again, but in a much more clean way that absolves him of any crimes. So, so um, where we are in the story is that Saul is dead. But Saul's family is still around, and Saul's family has a general named Abner. But after Saul is dead, Abner feels slighted by the family. So Abner's like, "Screw this. I'm going to go and support David." And David, of course, is very happy. Okay. All right. [sighs] Abner came with 20 men to David at Hebron. David made a feast for Abner and the men who were with him. Abner said to David, "Let me go and rally all Israel to you, in order that you may make a covenant with me, and you may reign over all that your heart desires." Okay. So what Abner is saying is, "Make me your general, and I will give you Israel." David dismissed Abner and went away in peace. Then the servants of David arrived with Joab from a raid. Okay, so Joab is David's general, bringing much spoil with them. But Abner was not, was not with David at Hebron, for David had dismissed him and he had gone away in peace. When Joab and all the army that was with him came, it was told Joab, "Abner came to the king, and he has dismissed him and he has gone away in peace." Now, Joab and Abner have a conflict, because Abner killed one of Joab's brothers. So Joab wants to kill Abner. Okay. "What have you done? Abner came to you. Why did you dismiss him so that he got away? You know that Abner came to deceive you and to learn your comings and goings and to learn all that you are doing." Joab came out from David's presence. He sent messengers after Abner. They brought him back from the cistern of Sirah, but David doesn't know about this. Okay. So Joab goes and kills Abner. Okay.
Now, so if you read the story, you think that David did nothing wrong. Okay, but if you think about it, there are lots of problems with this story. The first problem is that Joab, the general, is rebelling against David, right? If you're David, who, who are you more afraid of? Are you afraid of Abner, or you afraid of Joab? You're afraid of Joab, right? Because Joab has your army. >> Okay. So there's no way that David would allow Joab to rebel against him. So the only conclusion is that Joab acted with the permission of David. So David knew about this. Okay? All right. This is a lie. David knew all about this. In fact, David probably ordered Joab to kill Abner. Then the [snorts] question is, why? Well, if you're a king, you're most concerned about loyalty, right? If Abner betrayed Saul's family, there's a possibility Abner will come and betray you as well. Okay? So, this guy needs to be eliminated because he's dangerous. Okay? And it makes sense because remember, David betrayed Saul, so he's afraid that others will betray him as well. All right? So this story, even though it's a lie, it gives, it gives us enough clues to construct the truth for ourselves. That's what makes the Bible different from other religious texts. Other religious texts are sayings or truisms, but these are stories, and stories are living things that we can reconstruct in our heads. Okay. And again, this explains, helps us explain why the Jews are so creative people, because they grew up in a tradition of stories as opposed to truths or sayings. Okay. So they can constantly reimagine these stories for themselves. All right.
So now we get to the most famous story of David. All right. So in the spring of the year...
When the t when kings go out to battle, David sent Job with his officers and all Israel with him. Okay. So what's really important to know is that even though Job disobeyed David and killed Amnner, Job was never punished. Okay, which tells us that Job was probably acting on the orders of David. [snorts] Uh they reverenc the Ammonites and besieged Rabbi, but David remained at Jerusalem.
Okay, so David's in Jerusalem while the army is fighting elsewhere. It happened late one afternoon when David roasted from the couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about her. It was reported this is Bash Sheba. Okay. Daughter of Iliam, the wife of Uriah the Hitite. So David sent messengers to get her and she came to him and he laid with her. Um then she got pregnant. Okay.
Again, this is a very um problematic story because first of all, a woman doesn't sleep with you just because you ask her to. Okay? >> And Bashibba, remember, is married to Uria the Height. Okay? So, who is Uria? Yuria is the best soldier in David's army. He's very popular with the man. So, if you're David, who are you afraid of? You're afraid of your Ria. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. Yuria is the person you're most afraid of. [snorts] All right. So now he has a problem because Bashiba is pregnant. And David's like, I need to fix a problem because if you comes back and discovers that his wife got pregnant while he's away, he's going to know that I slept with her. Okay? So he has to he has to solve this problem. So David sent word to Job. Send me Yuria the Hitite. And Job sent Uria to David. when you came to him, David asks how it's going and uh David says to Uria, "Okay, you know what? You you're a great warrior. Why don't you go and see your wife?" But then Uriah doesn't go see his wife. Because Uriah says to says to David, "Listen, your army is fighting for you. I cannot go sit with my wife and feel good about myself while your men are dying. I refuse to uh uh be with my wife if the men are outside. Okay. So now David has a huge problem. So what David does is he writes a letter to Job and tells Job, "Hey, go do this. Okay, set Lura in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him so that he may struck down and die." So David orders the assassination of Uriah and Job tells David, "Your servant Uriah is dead." Okay. So I I've done what you've asked me to do. Okay.
So in the Bible, what it tells us is that David fell in love with Basheba and his heart took over him and that led him to go kill Uriah. Okay, but if you think about it, what probably happened was reverse where David becomes jealous of Uria and he becomes fearful of Uria because he's so popular with the soldiers. Okay? Because that's how David got the throne by betraying Saul. So he's afraid that Yura will betray him as well. Okay? So he probably ordered the assassination of Yuria to prevent this threat from arising. And then what do you do with what do you do to show that you're better than your worst enemy? If you have an enemy, how do you prove that you are better than he is? >> You go marry his wife. Okay. So that's the real story. Okay. The real story is that David felt that Uria was being better than him. He got very jealous and so he killed Ura and married his wife to show ha I'm better than Uria. [snorts] Okay, that's the real story. But you and you can see how the Bible framed the story in a different way. So So in other words, the Bible was written as an apology for David to disguise his crimes. And the story of Genesis was written to show that God favors David. Okay? Because if David is fallible, but what David does that's really important is that he omits his mistakes and he reflects and he improves. That's what God does as well. Okay? So David and God are the same people. And that's why Yahweh favors David above everyone else. Yahweh is looking for a friend. David is his best friend because David is most like him. Okay? All right. Let's continue.
Okay. So the wife of Uria Bashibba he she hears that her husband is dead and she cries and then when after after her morning is over David and Bashibba marry and have a son together. Okay. Then Nathan the prophet goes David and says tells him a story. There are two men in a city and one is rich and the other is poor. Okay. So there's two men, one rich, one poor. The rich had many sheep and the poor had just one. Okay. Um then a traveler comes to the rich man and um the rich man has has to have a feast for the traveler but he doesn't want to use his sheep. So he steals the poor man's sheep. Okay. Then David gets angry and says, "Hey man, that's wrong." Okay. I will find this man and I will kill him. Okay? And I will um give the poor four lamb instead of one. And then Nathan says to David, David, you are that rich man. Okay. So what Nathan is saying to David is your crime is he stole of Bashibba. Guys, that's not David's crime. Okay. David's crime is he killed Uriah. Right? So this is what we call gaslighting. You see how clever this is where the Bible set up so that you forget that David's crime is killing Yora. Okay, you think that the real crime is David stealing Bashiba. No, that's not the real crime. The real crime is murder. Okay, not adultery. All right.
So in other words, the Bible is an apology for David. But because of the nature of Israel society. Okay. So what's what's special about Israel at this point in history is that it's a very small community of people. So David can't be like I'm king. If you disobey me I'll kill you. Okay? He has to get everyone to support him. So they have to make up these stories to justify why David is a good person. Okay? David cannot say he didn't do this because everyone know knows he did this. So instead they change the story. And what they say instead is that the pro what makes David special is not that he is infallible. What makes him special is that he's a poet and he is capable of reflection and forgiveness which is what Yahweh is. Okay. So Yahweh is a poor king and so is David. All right. And this is why again the Jews are so literally so so literary and so creative. They're not great warriors, but they are tremendous intellectuals. This has been true throughout their history. They're capable of deep reflection, open debate, and argumentation. Okay? And this is and this is why the Jews are so creative. Okay? Any questions, guys? Okay. All right. Um I don't know much about Bible. So Bible is a collection of different stories and poem, right? >> Yeah. >> And so the common feature of these stories are uh are are I like I I can't really tell the common feature between this story and uh the previous story about uh Rachel and uh Leah.
>> Okay. All right. Okay. So that's a good question. Okay. So let's go over some basic introduction to the Bible. Okay. Okay. So the Bible it's a library. Okay. Bible means sorry. Okay. Bible means books in Greek. So it's a library and it's composed of um three major parts. The first is what's called the Tanakat. Sorry it's it's a Torah. Okay. So it's the first five books of the um Bible. Okay. Second is the historical books, history and then you have the writings. Okay. Which include poetry. Okay. So the problem of Bible is that it was actually constructed much later than the time of David. Okay. So David was David was about 1,000 BC around this time. Okay. And the Bible we think was construed about 400 um uh BC around this time. Okay. So there's a 600 year difference. So the Bible that we have was very different from the Bible that uh was first conceived. Okay. So the what what's the structure of the Bible? The structure of the Bible is this. It's a history of the people of Israel. Okay. Remember Israel is a fake nation. It's it's a collection of different tribes, different peoples, and they they need to make it as so it's one people. So they create a fake history. All right? So the fake history is um Adam and Eve, then uh Noah, then Abraham, then Isaac, then um uh Jacob, then Moses, then you get all the way to David. Okay? All right. So this is a cosmology, an ordering of events or a fake history. All right? And what this is doing is this. It's combining all the different tribes and groups of Israel together into one family history. Okay? So remember, you have the Egyptian priests, you have the missionaries, you have the nomads, you have the heal people. Okay? So Egyptian priests get explained away by Moses. That's why the Israelites go into Egypt because um they have the Egyptian influence. Okay. Then you have the hill people and the hill people come from different families. And what you do is you make them into one big family. So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are all different part family. And when you combine the nation together, you make it as though it's one nation together. Okay? So now rather than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are different families. It's like no, Isaac is the son of Jacob and Jacob is the son of Isaac. Okay. All right. So this is the original Bible. And then what happened later on was then they added other stuff as well. Okay. Poetry and rituals and all that. Okay. Over time. Does that make sense?
>> All right. Good. Great. Any more questions, guys? Um I I don't understand like why does the Bible kind of trying to embolish like kind of trying to make people believe that David is a very successful figure figure or something? >> Oh sorry what is the question? Uh so like um so the intention of the story about David is to use these stories to let uh the readers uh the the Israel people to understand um their their culture or or is this just uh okay um listen okay okay so the Bible will change over time okay this is really important to understand what the Bible is changes over time because Israel becomes different over time. And we'll go over this next class. Oh, sorry, not next week. Okay, not next class, next week. Okay, so what's happening now is okay. Um, you're David and you're Solomon. Okay, so Solomon is the son of David who becomes king. All right, and there are people around you. Okay, and they're gossiping. Okay, gossiping. They know what happened with Bashiba. They know what happened with Abner. They're all gossiping and that causes problems for the king. Okay? It's like being in a village and everyone's talking behind your back. So, what you do is you need to spin this. Okay? Or what we call uh public relations or media, you need to tell the story in a different way that makes the gossiping less bad. Okay? So, the gossiping right now is that David, he is ruthless. He killed Yuria because Yuria was a threat. Okay. Now, the problem with this with the story is that if people believe the story to be true, one, it's possible that Uria's friends will want revenge for what happened. Okay. It's also possible that a soldier tries to kill David. Okay? Because David is clearly ambitious. So you change the gossip to like, oh no, no, no, no. David was not ambitious. David is just a poet who fell in love with Bashiba. Okay. Now people think that David is just irresponsible. Okay. Infallible. But this is a lot better than people thinking that he's a ruthless killer. Because if you if people think that he's a ruthless killer, then I should be a ruthless killer as well. Okay. Now people are like, "Well, you know, David, he's king, but he's not perfect and he made a mistake and we should forgive him because Yahweh, remember the story of Yahweh is that he makes mistakes too and we should forgive Yahweh as well." All right, do you understand what's happening? Okay, this is what we call spin. Before it was like he killed Yuria and therefore uh we should avenge Yora or it's okay to be violent. Now you switch a story to say no it was really about Bashiba and this is just really about okay you know what people make mistakes we should forgive him. Okay and that and that's why the Bible was created in the way it was to change the gossip around so that it would it would be less harmful. They both suck. Okay, but everyone knows you killed Jaria. Now the question is why did you do so? Okay, you don't want people thinking that hey David killed Yuria because he saw you as a threat because then people will think okay then we know that David had to kill Saul as well. Okay, that' be a huge problem on your hands. So you switch like no no it was just Bashiba.
>> Okay, does that make sense? >> So Bible is used like a to Israel people uh to to like kind of manipulate their value. >> Okay. All right. Listen. All right. Very simple. We remember this. Writing. What if writing? Writing does three things. First is legitimacy. Okay. To explain that this guy should be the king because that's the will of God. Second is unity. We are one family, guys. We have the same values. The third is differentiation. We're different from other people. Okay. All right. differentiation is Yahweh is a god of forgiveness, a god of of fallibility, but a god of reflection and debate and openness. Okay? So, our god is different from other gods. The Greek gods is pure vengeance. Our god is one of forgiveness. Okay? He's he's good. Unity is we're just one family with one history. Okay? And legitimacy is that David is a poet king which is just like Yahweh. Okay? That's why Yahweh favors him. Does that make sense? >> Makes sense. >> Okay. That's what the Bible was constructed or in initially to do. But over time, its nature will change. It's something we'll discuss as we go along. But when the Bible was first constructed, it was constructed as propaganda. But Yahweh is, okay, the Yahweh or the Jay, she uses opportunity to create beautiful stories that become living entities, living memories onto themselves and they ignite the imagination of the Jewish people. And that's why the Jewish people are so creative. All right.
>> All right. So, okay. And do you have any more questions? Okay. Great. Okay, so we've done the Greeks, we've done the Jews. Next class we'll do the Persians. Okay, and these are the three most creative peoples of this period. The Jews, the Greeks, and the Persians. And you can argue that it's these three people, the Jews, the Greeks, and the Persians that have that are the pillars of Western civilization. Okay. So we will continue this next class.