The nice thing about not having letters before or after my name is the freedom to think outside the box. I do not have any formal theological training, and any scientific knowledge I have has come from books and online. Those of us with inquisitive minds who lived BI (before internet) have a deep appreciation for the information available online. The time it takes to research a question AI (after internet) is measured in minutes, not hours. I could never have written this book in the olden days.
The theory I am proposing will answer many questions you may have wondered about. Questions like “What was Moses doing on the mountain for forty days and nights?” and “Why did God write the Ten Commandments with his own finger?”, “What were the Israelites doing in the desert for forty years?” and “Why were they grumbling against Moses if all he was doing was telling them where to camp?”
My theory is that when Israel left Egypt, they were an illiterate people. They had been slaves for hundreds of years, and it is unlikely many of them could read or write. If they could, it would likely have been Egyptian, not Hebrew. It is improbable that the Hebrew language had even been written down.
So when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, God had to write them down himself. This is one of the reasons Moses spent so much time on Mt. Sinai: God was literally teaching him to read what he had written. God would have been the one who transcribed the Hebrew language into its written form and then taught Moses how to write and understand the symbols.
When the Israelites went into the desert, there was no work for them to do. God provided their food with manna and quail, and their clothing never wore out. They had literally nothing to do but sit on their couches and eat potato chips (I think they invented them).
This is a recipe for disaster and makes no sense. God gave them the command to work six days a week and rest on the seventh, so he must have given them something to do. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and see if we can figure this out.
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
It is interesting to note that the people were to tie them as symbols on their hands and foreheads, and write on the doorframes of their houses and gates. Saying this to an illiterate people makes no sense. It would do no good. Why scratch symbols on a door frame or gate that no one could read? Let’s look at one more passage:
“Then the Lord told Moses, ‘Go up to me on the mountain and stay there. I’ll give you stone tablets with the instruction and law that I’ve written to teach the people.’” (Exodus 24:12)
If the people were illiterate, the tablets would be nothing more than scribbles on a rock. But God instructs Moses to teach the people, and I believe that is what he did.
The years Israel spent in the desert are often considered wasted years. I believe nothing could be further from the truth. It was during this time that Moses taught them to read and write. If they were to obey God and write his commandments on their gates and doorposts, they had to learn how to write.
This is why they were grumbling against Moses. This is why they wanted to return to Egypt. They hated school and their schoolmaster, Moses.
I believe these forty years in the wilderness set the course for the Jewish people, which they are still on. Jews have always been overachievers, often thriving in hostile cultures. The reason is that the wilderness wanderings instilled a love for learning in their children, which continues to this very day. Parents taught their children how to read and write, and being literate gave them a competitive advantage over native peoples. They were not seen as simply a workforce, but as an educated people who could be useful to those who ruled over them.
This is why the Babylonians took Daniel, Shadrack, Mishack, and Abednego into the King’s court. Later, we find Ezra and Nehemiah serving in the King’s court. These were valuable men because they could communicate with letters alone, and not just symbols. They likely taught this to the wise men of their conquerors, and were held in high esteem by them.
Of course, I could be wrong. But if I am right, then it makes the Genesis narrative even more powerful. These are literally God’s words, down to the individual letters. That makes them the most powerful and impactful words ever written, right alongside the Ten Commandments. It is with this as a backdrop that we now proceed to the Creation story.