It’s worth recalling that the familiar biblical history of the Israelites’– the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land and the rise of the empire of David and Solomon – is almost entirely fiction. It’s not history but mythology.
Shaphan the scribe, a marginal figure in the Bible, was the ghostwriter who shaped the Jewish faith – and history – that we know today… Our true history is not that of the commanders and the heroes, most of whom never actually existed; it’s the history of the forgers and the copy editors who invented the story.That said, it might have been better if our scribe had forgone the story of Joshua, the conquest of the land and the eradication of the peoples of Canaan. That narrative cast quite an appalling influence on the subsequent history of Christianity and Judaism – from the annihilation of indigenous peoples in the Americas, to the crimes of the Boers in South Africa, down to the obliteration of Gaza.
Biblical scholars started to cast a critical gaze on the Old Testament, and on their composition, in the 17th and 18th centuries. Early on, European researchers and scholars were drawn to a puzzling story in 2 Kings 22: the exploits of King Josiah (Yoshiyahu) and his scribe, Shaphan.
According to the biblical account, one day the king decided to refurbish the Temple and appointed Shaphan to oversee the financial aspects of the project. Shaphan, the son of Azaliah, was not, of course, a sofer – his job description in modern Hebrew – in the modern sense of “writer” or “author.” He served as a court secretary or clerk in the royal palace.
In any event, when Shaphan reported back to the king, he showed him a scroll that he said had been found by Hilkiah, the high priest, in the Temple. The text in question is known to us today as the Book of Deuteronomy (Devarim), which contains the principal articles of faith and commandments Jewish people are required to observe. This means that until Josiah’s era, a short time before the Babylonian exile, throughout most of the history of Judah and Israel, the faith that was practiced was completely different from the Judaism we know today.
When Shaphan read the scroll aloud to the king, who was apparently illiterate, as were most people at the time, Josiah realized that the worship of God had up until that time been distorted and misguided. So thrilled was he by what he heard that he launched a sweeping reform and completely revised religious rituals – both in the Temple and in general. In effect, that moment saw the creation of a new religion – the foundation of the monotheistic religion we now call Judaism.
How did it come about that this fateful document was “found” by chance? One would be quite naïve to believe the story literally – and King Josiah appears to have been afflicted with precisely that naivete. Already during the Enlightenment period, in the 18th century, scholars suspected that the Book of Deuteronomy wasn’t actually “found.” The prevailing hypothesis was that it had been written by Hilkiah or by Shaphan – or possibly as a collaborative effort between them – in order to foment a revolution in ritual worship and politics in the kingdom. French philosopher Voltaire suggested this almost 300 years ago, as did German biblical scholars of the time. By the 19th century, this insight had formed the basis for “source criticism,” the paradigm that dominates scientific biblical research to this day: the theory that the five books of the Torah were pieced together from sources written during different eras.
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If so, could it be that behind the “Book of Books” – and monotheistic religions in general – is a conspiracy hatched by a few learned and crafty court figures? Clearly, Shaphan did not invent the Torah from scratch, let alone the entire Old Testament (or tanakh, Hebrew Bible), which includes the five books of the Torah as well as Nevi’im (Prophets) and Ketuvim (Writings)]. The texts were written throughout several periods, by multiple authors, reflecting a variety of interests.
Still, it appears that the obscure scribe of the Book of Deuteronomy had an immense impact on history, perhaps more than any other author. But like every successful schemer, he was adept at remaining in the shadows and concealing himself.
In recent years, the so-called Shaphan conspiracy theory has been promoted in Israel by biblical scholar Yigal Bin-Nun in his book “A Brief History of Yahweh” (in Hebrew). Bin-Nun describes Shaphan as the de facto ruler in Jerusalem, the regional puppet master. He argues that Shaphan orchestrated a palace coup in which the previous king, Amon, was assassinated, after which Josiah – who, according to 2 Kings was 8 years old at the time – was crowned.
In Bin-Nun’s account, in order to legitimize Josiah’s rule, Shaphan composed Deuteronomy as a sort of operating manual for the naïve young monarch. It was Shaphan who declared the other Israelite gods – of Teman and Samaria – null and void. He also recast Moses as the hero of the Exodus from Egypt (supplanting Aaron in that role) and created the brutal story of Joshua’s conquest of the land and annihilation of the Canaanites – an event that, fortunately, never happened.
Shaphan and his offspring, who were also royal scribes, redacted the books dealing with the period of the kings and recounting the events around the destruction of the unified kingdom of Israel. That’s quite a lot of influence for someone officially titled a scribe.
A postmodern hero
I was once asked to take part in a poll, ahead of Hebrew Book Week, that asked: “Who is the most important Jewish author of all time?” Without giving it much thought, I replied, in jest, “Shaphan the Scribe” – without realizing that it was not a joke: Shaphan really is the most important Jewish author. In a certain sense, he invented Judaism.
It’s hardly surprising that Shaphan’s image and the influence he has wielded on history have fired people’s imagination. Recently, his story inspired Yaron Parnas’ novel “The Sixth Scroll” (in Hebrew), and there are other examples. Thousands of years after his death, the biblical scribe has become a kind of satanic cultural hero: He is described as a wily conspirator, a figure who brought disaster on the Jewish people and on humanity in the service of certain vested interests.
But a different perspective is also possible. Above all, Shaphan’s achievement lies in creating a history for the Jewish people. It’s worth recalling that the familiar biblical history of the Israelites’– the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of the land and the rise of the empire of David and Solomon – is almost entirely fiction. It’s not history but mythology.
A visitor to Greece can see and touch the Parthenon in Athens or the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. This is not the case when it comes to the early history of the Jewish people. Serious archaeologists have long since determined that the biblical stories have no proof, on the ground; they were written hundreds of years after the period in which they ostensibly occurred. Jewish and Christian archaeologists, for example, have been excavating the City of David in Jerusalem for more than a century – and the most noteworthy find to date is a stone toilet. An inscription bearing Shaphan’s name has also been found there, so there is actual proof of his existence.
Bin-Nun and his colleagues present Shaphan as the puppet master, a dark figure in the shadows. But they, too, agree that he and his cohort created a spectacular epic unlike any that existed before. It’s difficult not to admire his audacious creativity: Shaphan was a genius creator of the greatest myth in the history of humanity – the archetype of the author in the shadows. Not a king, not a prophet, not a judge – just Shaphan, which means hyrax in Hebrew, a sophisticated ghostwriter.
But that’s what makes him a postmodern hero, a far more interesting figure than all the heroes whose image he shaped. Our true history is not that of the commanders and the heroes, most of whom never actually existed; it’s the history of the forgers and the copy editors who invented the story.
That said, it might have been better if our scribe had forgone the story of Joshua, the conquest of the land and the eradication of the peoples of Canaan. That narrative cast quite an appalling influence on the subsequent history of Christianity and Judaism – from the annihilation of indigenous peoples in the Americas, to the crimes of the Boers in South Africa, down to the obliteration of Gaza. It would have been nice if Shaphan had edited out that part.
Source: HAARETZ
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