Walter remarked about "'Religious Teaching', which encourages separation and exclusivity among people." Essentially, I agree. In my book, in the chapter titled "What is God?" I touch on the topic (p.309) specifically in relation to my theory which drives the work.
Life with God after death
Finally, is there “life with him after death?” Here I can only quote the famous lines in Genesis 3:19: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.” Once again, this is a matter of reading the words. We may or may not want to accept the fact that there is no heaven and hell in the Four Books, but it does make one pause to reflect.
Does God “love” us?
This is really a very difficult question to answer. There is nothing in the Four Books that says this. There is plenty in Deuteronomy that exhorts the people to love God, but only one mention of God loving His people (Deut. 7:9), and Deuteronomy was written much later.
His nature and will and role in the universe
Now searching Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers for “His nature and will and role in the universe,” it seems to me that the purpose of God from Abraham to Moses was to set out rules or laws for people to follow if they wished to live lives of wellbeing. Those rules were not only given to the Israelites; the Bible clearly states that other peoples who did not follow them were doomed to destruction.
What and who is God?
In my last chapter, “What Is God,” I call upon the findings of physics relative to the possibility put forth by some physicists that quantum particles can not only communicate their information with each other at a distance, but that they may be conscious.
In the spirit of lexical curiosity, which originally drove me to write Talking With God, I did a bit of Google research to see how people are accessing information about the same ancient words I studied. What I discovered was almost as surprising as what turned up in my primary research, namely that public discourse tends away from the words’ original, technical meanings and shifts to mystical/theological concepts.
Take Moses’ ark for example. In the Hebrew Bible, “ark of the testimony” (edut), found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, shifts to “ark of the Covenant” (b’rith) in Deuteronomy and the following books. (See two exceptions in my Appendix A.)
Donna Williams asked me to describe the long collaboration process with Janice Miller, my editor, and the hurdles we had to overcome. To me this opens a whole window into the world of creativity and how it works.
First of all I must tell you that I finished the book many years ago. I gave it to several people to critique. All of them were taken with my ideas and theory, but they also said that the work was simply too dense to be readable by the general public. I suppose you might say I created a monster that was too hard to handle. It was obvious I needed help.
A recent reader, Steven wrote:
… I am intrigued what your conclusions were for the sacrifices, especially the Day of Atonement and its ritual. If the sacrifices were to protect themselves from the “radiation” then why wouldn’t they use the Urim and Thummim instead of approaching the Ark?
Regarding the Day of Atonement, I discuss it briefly in the body of the book, but be sure to read about it in the appendix under Yom Kippur, pp. 353 ff., for my complete explanation.
Your question regarding the use of the Urim and Thummim is a good one. Again, I discuss them in various places in the book. Briefly, these objects were held in the “breastplate of judgement,” worn with the ephod by the High Priest. They are very sparsely mentioned, but I do give my opinion as to their use.
Not understanding the true meanings of the laws I discuss has led to the three religions going off on tangents that have little or nothing to do with the original intent of those laws. Whether or not one finds faith acceptable, to base it on incorrect tenets leads to obfuscation. Proper understanding is factual understanding.
Debby asks …
Why would God have demanded that his people obey certain strict rules that seemed rather “hocus pocus” and construct the strangest accoutrements when He is ordinarily so practical? Reading the Old Testament left me with more questions than answers, most relating to the reasons God would have the Israelites perform (what I saw as bizarre) rites so meticulously, usually with the punishment of death if they didn’t.
Wonderful questions.
My book may clarify some of this for you. First of all, the purpose of the book is to delineate what the words in the Five Books actually say. As I explain in the introduction, I was originally faced with an unfinished puzzle. I researched word after word, using many related ancient languages to get at their true meanings. It turns out that they each pertained to the Ark of the Testimony and critical details surrounding it. Eventually, all the pieces of the puzzle came together and resulted in a fascinating finished picture.
"You continue to confound the "biblical establishment" even as you offer creative insights into our ancient religious literature. You offer a naturalistic explanation to what others insist upon calling supernatural. Or perhaps, more accurately, your work might be described as supra-natural. At any rate, it represented innovative, if inevitably, controversial thinking. And we need that."
Robert J. Marx, Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Hakifa, Glencoe, IL, Founder and a past president of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs
"Now the 'substance' of Talking With God will be very easily understood by EVERYONE! The Golden Ark, A Pictorial History represents an excellent inventive to read Talking With God in order to fully realize in details its richness of highly scientific arguments."
Francesco Licheri, Archaeologist & Sociologist
"...it's an excellent exposition of your thesis. The text is concise and clear, the illustrations are bold and inviting."
Robert Wolf, Author and Executive Editor, Free River Press
"An enormous, imaginative work. I think I would call it a modern midrash."
The Late Rabbi Jacob Milgrom, Biblical Scholar, U.C. Berkeley Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies
"This work…represents a novel and substantive approach to biblical study and understanding."
Dr. Byron Sherwin, Distinguished Service Professor, Director of Doctoral Programs, Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies.
"Roger Isaacs has written a book that is sure to arouse controversy … but the arguments that comprise the bulk of the book have 40 years of scholarly research backing them."
Robert Wolf, Author and Executive Editor, Free River Press
"Isaacs' use of etymology to redefine many words in the Hebrew Bible has resulted in a fascinating hypothesis."
Peter Gingiss, Associate Professor of Linguistics Department of English, University of Houston
