Opus 2025-075: Three Guesses

And the first two don’t count.  I kind of feel that way as I continue reading Will Durant in his history.  He’s so full of speculation and clever writing that you might miss the fact that he often doesn’t have a clue on what he’s talking about.  He gets away with inconsistencies because his book is so long.

I’m currently on the section that deals with ancient Israel and he’s dealing with where Israel came from and it’s rather fascinating.  He seems to embrace any theory that goes against what the Bible actually says.

A thought that came to my mind this morning was all of the different theories he gave about where Yahweh came from.  It seems like every page has a different theory.  At one point he had Yahweh as a local fire God living in a cave.  In had another place he speculated that the Israelites had worship a bull in Egypt, thus you have the golden calf.  At another place he had some other “scholar” saying that one of the early gods of the Hebrews was a pig which explains their ban on pork products.  Another place she talks about Yahweh being a local God, who was battling the other gods, and eventually emerged triumphant.  At no place does he accept the clear statement of the Bible that Yahweh is the only God and the creator of the universe.  He’s having fun.  I find it a bit tedious.

I can’t wait to get past the chapter on Israel when he starts dealing with Persia.  I don’t know as much about the history of Persia as I do about Israel.  I wonder if I will be able to trust what he says there anymore than I find I can’t here.

homo unius libri