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BEING AN INTRODUCTION, AND A NOTE ON SKEPTICS
No people has gripped the imagination or affected the destiny of the world as surely as the Hebrews. From their lowly origin as a race of slaves, they have given the world its morals and its laws.
It is my design in this history to trace the Mosaic faith from its humble but pure origins, as the faith of a desert people, to the Dominion of the Worlds. Many of history's heroes and peoples, as familiar to the bar mitzvah as to the talmud chacham, will appear in these pages.
Yet recent scholarship has questioned their origins and disdained their achievements. It is suggested that Moshe (or in Greek, Moses), the man who gave his name to the faith of half of mankind, is a mythical figure or a half-forgotten heretical Pharaoh. It is claimed that the race of Israelites was half-pagan until after the Second Egyptian Slavery.
In defense of this theory, scholars like Shapor Daricus (whose name may alone give some hint as to his bias) cull phrases from the Tehillim (psalms) of the mighty David, such as "Who is like you, o Lord, among the gods?" and allege that this pious king, progenitor of that famous line which bears his name, recognized many gods. Our Lord, whom we would not casually name, is named in defiance of the Third Commandment and cited as only the first among the gods of the old East.
Yet, these same Tehillim make clear that David was a monotheist. Of the other gods, whom Shapor and his ilk would have us believe the Hebrews worshipped below the Almighty, David says "For they have eyes but see not, ears but hear not". In that distant day three millennia ago, the great David already knew with certainty that there was but one Lord, and that the gods of the nations were no more than lumps of clay.
Other purported scholars, like Huang Peng, refuse even to cite most of the Tanakh of the prophets as historical works. These suggest that we look only to archaeology, and the records of other peoples, in studying the ancient kingdom and the tribe that proceeded it. The claim that the Tanakh is not an account of history is insulting to any man of faith; no doubt a Serican would be insensible to such cautions, but the similar views of such authors as Avraham ben Moshe Gallicus are less forgiveable.
Nevertheless, in this account I shall attempt to rely not only on the accounts of the Tanakh but, where possible, also on the archaeological evidence and the accounts of the other peoples who so often appear as oppressors or enemies of the Hebrews in our sacred texts. I shall not hesitate to make a reasonable reliance on conjecture based on the recieved wisdom of our ancestors.
There will be those who may feel that these pages, in their reliance on philosophy and history, thus depart too far from our ancient teachings. To them, I reply that the arts of philosophy and science have long been found consistent with our faith; and those of history, should be as well. It is even possible, if our Lord wills it, that the skeptics may find in this work the tools to resist their Yetzer HaRah (evil inclination) and embrace the knowledge of our Lord and Moshe, His servant.
Betzalel ben Alexander Valentianus, Kohen Gadol of Lutetia
13th Av, 5770 since the Creation of the Worlds