Written by My testimony includes the history of the identity I am being asked to accept as God.
I want the chronology examined: El and the divine assembly, Yahweh’s allotted Israel, the inscriptions associating Yahweh with Asherah, and the later writings presented under the authority of earlier figures.
10. Israel appears as Yahweh’s allotted portion
Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes the Most High dividing the nations, followed by Israel’s identification as Yahweh’s portion. The Dead Sea Scrolls preserve a divine-sons reading where the traditional Masoretic text reads sons of Israel.
I read this as a surviving trace of a divine hierarchy: the Most High distributes the nations, and Yahweh receives Israel. That is the historical interpretation underlying my testimony.
I therefore question the later identification of Yahweh with the supreme source of everything. I want that identification demonstrated against the earlier evidence.
11. Yahweh and Asherah belong in the historical record
At Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, inscriptions from approximately 800 BCE associate Yahweh with “his Asherah.” This association is archaeological evidence that must be included when reconstructing the religion practiced around him.
I will keep the inscription distinct from the interpretation of the accompanying drawings. The familiar figures have been identified variously, including as Bes figures; a depiction of Yahweh as a bull beside Asherah is not an established identification. The inscription itself supplies the association without requiring that disputed picture to settle it.
For me, the historical significance remains: Yahweh’s worship existed within a religious world whose surviving evidence complicates the later presentation of an eternally exclusive monotheism.
12. Later authorship cannot become earlier eyewitness testimony
Daniel is a central example.
Its narrative setting is the sixth century BCE, while critical scholarship dates its apocalyptic chapters to the crisis under Antiochus IV, approximately 167–164 BCE. Earlier stories and traditions contributed to the book; that does not make the later visions sixth-century compositions.
My judgment is explicit: when a later writer presents himself as an earlier man receiving revelations about events already known to the writer, I consider that deception.
Calling the practice pseudepigraphy describes the literary device. It does not answer my moral objection.
If the apparent antiquity of the speaker is used to persuade readers that recorded history was supernatural prediction, then the attributed identity is doing the work of authentication. That is precisely what I object to.
I am identifying Daniel as a documented case of the authorship problem. I do not need to claim that every prophetic passage has the same composition history to make that case.
13. This history belongs beside the character evidence
My conclusion rests on the cumulative record: the divine hierarchy I read in Deuteronomy, the archaeological association with Asherah, the deception and killing attributed to Yahweh, and writings whose claimed setting differs from their historical composition.
These are the materials from which I draw my judgment.
I identify Yahweh as the father of lies because I judge the deceptive and murderous character attributed to him incompatible with the Father of cosmic Aša.
My accusation includes the use of false antiquity to authorize religious claims. I will not accept a later writer’s assumed ancient identity as proof that the ancient man foresaw the future.
I consider that a lie. That is my testimony, and I want it recorded in those words.
— Diesel the Magus