My question is how can Judaism and Christianity have a basis or truth to them if they just 'evolved' from oral traditions and other religions? Another thing that made me think more about the subject...he stated that in all countries/cities/organized populus in the past, religion has been the main cause of peace and stability.
Very good questions and there really isn’t a short and quick answer, so please excuse my ramblings and lack of detail.
Depending on the science that you choose to view history through, you may come up with different answers.
We can look at the Old Testament from many different angles and varying perspectives. From either a historical, Jewish or Christian view, it’s pretty safe to say that oral tradition was the means which stories were handed down until Moses recorded them (First 5
http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=29 ) (does not include Job). However, it’s pretty safe to say that the stories were learned verbatim back then and they remained intact quite well as I’ve been told.
Now, if the OT is a history of the Israelites, we need to know where Judaism came out of because the Israelites were really just another clan from the Hebrew seed to begin with. If we start with Abraham, Oral tradition reported and written by Moses tells us that God made Abraham a promise and cut a covenant (Gen 16). Between the covenant and the fulfillment of the covenant, something happens… Abraham meets Hagar and has a child. Then God gives Sari child and Isaac is born. (Gen 20?) Here, we see the beginning roots between Islam and Judaism. Judaism is from the tribe of Judah.
Isaac gives birth to Jacob and Jacob has 12 sons. You know the story, Joseph gets sold into slavery and later during the famine the 11 other brothers find him in Egypt and the whole family is saved, yada yada, yada… but they get held in captivity for 400 years until Moses comes along. You know the story, I’m sure.
Going back to the 12 tribes (12 Sons of Jacob), we see that the tribe of Levi in Moses day was assigned the duty of the tabernacle, later to become the temple.
Just before Solomon built the temple for God, God cut another covenant with David. David was from the tribe of Judah. If you go to the gospel of Luke, Luke gives the genealogy from Jesus right back to Adam. Notice about half way down you see David. Two down from David, you see Ruth and Boaz’s son.
So really, oral tradition was around for a long long time before it was ever written, but when Moses wrote it down, it pretty much stuck. If we look at ancient texts, there is little to no variation between them. Take the dead sea scrolls for example. For the most part, same books, (with a few more psalms etc) in a different order, but virtually the same words verbatim.
As far as peace and war, the Bible is a great historical record of this. Another great work is Ancient Near Eastern Texts compiled by Pritchard and from a historical perspective, complements the bible very well if you don’t mind wading through pages and pages of documents.
In closing, it is true that the Israelites were polytheistic. But this was never the intent of Yahweh. We see the Israelites before the flood worshipping other gods and we see it in Abrahams day and we even see Aaron (the high priest to be) creating a golden calf directly after the exodus. So, keep in mind that what the Israelites were, and what God wanted them to be, were often two totally different ideologies. Take notice also that Yahweh claims to have given them the land. They didn’t earn it. Furthermore, when God was with them, they won. When God said don’t do it, and they did, they lost. It’s a predictable pattern. Ever wonder why Moses didn’t make it to the promise land? Probably because God had finished his work. Secondary, the People had to know that God was delivering them, not Moses.
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