Let’s start with two examples most Americans are familiar.

First: a fairy tale.

         A high social class girl loses her mother. Her father remarries a beautiful, yet jealous step-mother, overly solicitous of her own two daughters. The mother has a magic mirror which she consults daily to ask who is the fairest of all the women in the kingdom, with the identical answer: she is One day the mirror replies that her daughter is now more beautiful than she is, and in anger she consigns the girl to scullery duty. The prince of the kingdom wants to marry the most beautiful girl in the kingdom and hosts a ball to discover who to marry. The girl’s fairy godmother transforms a pumpkin into a coach, the mice into horses and the lizards into attendants, and she attends the ball. However, she forgets that the spell only lasts until midnight, and finally fleeing the hall, she loses one of her glass slippers. The prince finds it and vows to marry whoever’s foot fits the slipper.

         _ Cinderella

Second: a classic novel, published in 1919.

A man is shipwrecked on a deserted island. He manages to survive for twenty-eight years until he discovers that savages routinely visit the island, and his life may be in danger.

         _ Robinson Crusoe

Now let me walk you through my discovery journey. The only difference is that this must be a series of novels, not just a one-of. I call the series: “The Shortest Journey is a Detour.” The first two novels have been published by a traditional Christian Publisher (the imprint: Resource Publications) in 2021 and 2022.

         I need to give my genre up-front: The marketing genre is Christian Historical Fiction, sometime shelved as Biblical Historical Fiction. The content that fits most closely is a meld of worldview or action.

The Story Idea is: What would the story look like if God were raising his followers in the same method that parents raise their children? In other words, human beings mimic God’s method, although they do it in a couple of decades and God is doing it through millennia. The question is: What would that look like? Do the facts we observe fit the historical pattern? Are they faithful to the Bible?

To give a background, I have dual undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Mathematics, which explains my career as a Quality Manager for several different firms. The job requires this knowledge background. I also have a master’s degree in Organizational Development, and have used my knowledge and training to help develop several companies. One company made the expansion memory and cartridges for the old laser printers. I helped grow the company from 15 to 225 people and the second largest producer behind Hewlet Packard. I moved to a start-up on automotive radar, the same one that founded the technology used on cars today to give audio warnings of possible impending collision and proactive breaking. Last I worked for a building equipment manufacturer, helping to take it from number six in the US to the largest. In all of these, I used this same developments method to grow the different companies

I am also a retired Episcopal Priest, so I have an extensive background in religious history. I have a Masters in Divinity and a Doctorate in Theology. There are two “metaphors regarding growing to maturity and elements which militate how to govern behavior – and although they do not blend well with each other, each are vitally important in their own right:

Metaphor #1: Psychological/Moral Development

Based on Kohlberg’s Three Stages (in Six Steps) of:

Theory of Moral Development - Stage 1aPre-Conventional Morality: Step 1 - Age 3-5Command Obedience - Specific Instances Learn to Be Good to Avoid Punishment

Example Step 1Abraham: I Will be ObedientNo Matter What God Demands of MeWas Willing to Sacrifice IsaacWhy?: God Knows What is Good - I Don’tI Just Need to Be Obedient

Stage 1bPre-Conventional Morality: Step 2 – Age 5-7Generalizing Instance of Command ObedienceLearn to Be Obedient (Good) to Achieve RewardBegin Learning Individual Morality

Example Step 2Joseph: I Have a Duty to GodI will Accept What God Gives meso that He Can Fulfill His Will through Me

Stage 2aConventional Morality: Step 3 – Age 7-11Acceptance of “Social” RulesBe “Good” to Be Seen as a “Good Person” Beginning Sense of “Corporate Morality”

Example Step 3The Ten CommandmentsThese are the Rules That God has Given I will Obey - because I BelongThis Defines “Who I Am”

Stage 2b  Conventional Morality: Step 4Awareness of Social Law and OrderAct Lawfully to Uphold Social Order(Do what’s Right) & Avoid Guilt

Example Step 4612 Total Commandments (Leviticus)Three Mandatory FestivalsOther Mandates“12 Tribes’ Judges” Elaborated Requirementsto Apply to Specific “Cases”

This was the Judaism in the Time of Jesus  The Sadducees were at Step 3The Pharisees were at Step 4Jesus was Trying to Tell Them that there were More Steps that God Wanted them to Take

(Yes, obviously it wasn’t quite that simple, but the metaphor is appropriate)

Are the First 4 Steps Wrong?No!!!However, They are Incomplete“Traditional” Judaism is Frozen HereThe Mistaken Understandingwas that this is “All God Requires”   God Wants Us to Continue to GrowAs Individuals – and as a Church

Stage 3a Post-Conventional Morality: Step 5Social Contract – Justice – Individual Rights(Principles)

Stage 3b Post-Conventional Morality: Step 6Understand Universal Laws

Example Step 5The Prophets  These give Principles – not “Laws”Modern Jewish Religion Recognizes ThemBut has Never Managed to Incorporate Them Why? - They don’t Integrate WellWhy Not?

2nd Metaphor Change ManagementRobert Quinn-Scott SonensheinRational-Empirical : Head : ThoughtNormative-Reeducation : Heart : FeelingsPower-Coercive : Body : Action

Traditional and Prophetic Judaism Clash because they Emphasize Two Different Aspects of the Human Psyche  Head : Thought - Prophetic JudaismTheological ChristianityHeart : Feelings - Piety Christianity                    (Sanctity-Faith-Devotion-Reverence)Body : Action - Traditional Judaism                    (Rich Young Man: What Must I Do?)

Take-HomeGod Calls Us to be Stewards of His EarthHow can We be Faithful StewardsIf We Can’t Understand the Mind of GodJudaism Doesn’t Grow Enough to Fully Understand what God Wants Us to Do caveat: Christians shouldn’t get ConceitedWe Probably Don’t Either

         It’s time to say: theories may be right and proper in their own proper sphere of influence, but what does this have to do with a series on religious development of Judaism and Christianity?

         Abraham’s life modeled at stage 1: Rote Obedience. What God commanded him, he obeyed. We really don’t know what moral values he held beyond that, because the Bible just doesn’t venture there.

         The second novel, the story of Senenmut and Yahmose, center on duty, which is precisely the second stage of development.

         The third novel presents God’s giving the Ten Commandments – the Law. The Jewish religion in the early days of the Biblical kingdoms of Judah and Israel centered on following the law. This is the third step of moral growth.

         The fourth covers the period of the prophets in Jewish history. Boiled down to their basics, they give precisely the fourth stage of moral development - principles.

         And so on, to universal law and on to governing the body, the thoughts and the emotions.

         You can see that Jewish and Christian history closely mirror on a grand scale the growth and maturity of individuals growing up.

         This is the overarching idea of the series “The Shortest Journey is a Detour.”   

The issue: do I have the intellectual acumen and writing talent to pull it off? There is an old saying – now largely defunct: News at 11:00.

Am I now free to start writing? By no means. I am not writing Historical Fiction; I am writing Biblical Historical Fiction. I must faithfully use the real events recorded in the Bible. I am allowed to faithfully augment the Biblical record – in other words, due to the required length of a novel, I must invent words to put in the characters mouths that “supplement” the events. However, I can neither contradict or circumvent these events. There comes, at times, severe restrictions because of this requirement.

How does this requirement restrict the novels? There are two general ways to construct a novel. The first is character centered: the protagonist’s character growth arc determines the events that are used to tell the story. The events serve the requirements of the arc. The second is that the events determine the character of the protagonist and his growth arc. The requirements of being faithful to the Biblical record restricts this novel series to being plot-driven. I must select each individual character’s arc to be determined by the events; in other words, the protagonist must be plot-driven.

However, there are other requirements and restriction imposed by actual history on the content of the series. The first will likely be unexpected for most laymen and women. The devil did not appear in the Biblical record until around the time of the Babylonian exile in 596 BCE. Therefore, the modern concept of good and evil being a battle between God and the devil did not exist before then.

Many are going to say that the creation story in the first few chapters of Genesis introduces the devil, and that is, essentially, a true statement. But the question is not where the passage is placed in today’s Bible, but when was it written?

A few examples are illustrative. For these, I apologize for needing to adopt a scholarly diction, but it is required. And, after this, I will revert to normal English vernacular.

First, when discussing Biblical accuracy in English, the gold standard is the Revised Standard Version, as it is the most accurate translation from a scholarly standard. Why? Examine the King James translation of Isaiah 14:12. It reads:

    “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art

    thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

Doesn’t this by itself prove the existence of the devil? Not quite. For example, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. That was translated into Greek, which was translated into Latin, which was finally translated into English. However, the final translation was performed by English monks who were sometimes of dubious scholarly acumen, and often motivated by the need to make the translation conform to the religious beliefs of that age. (I will use transliterated Hebrew letters, since the actual ones are illegible to most readers.) The Hebrew word translated as ‘Lucifer’ is ‘yod-lamed-lamed’: ynn, which literally means ‘shining one’. Thus, the reference to “Lucifer” disappears. The RSV reads: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!”

The next reference is Job, chapter one, which specifically refers to ‘Satan’. A sample verse in Revised Standard is verse six:

    “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves    

    before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.”

         Here the transliteration is ‘shin-tet-nun’: stn. Yes, that is where we get the name ‘Satan.’ (The vowels don’t work out, but that is another story.) There remain a couple of shocks to most readers. First, due to philological clues, Job is most likely not a Hebrew story, but originated in Edom. (You will remember that Esau was Jacob’s brother (Genesis, chapter 25 and following). (According to tradition, Esau founded Edom, whose people also worshipped YHWH. However, they worshiped a pantheon of other gods as well.) Job was subsequently adopted into the Hebrew Old Testament. In Job, Satan is represented as a faithful member of God’s ‘staff’; not yet a ‘fallen angel’ who rebels against God. What is the time frame? As close as can be determined, this was composed around the tenth to eleventh century BCE.

This also places the best time frame for Satan’s fall as around the sixth century BCE – but this estimate has much less solid evidence supporting it, and so should be considered as approximate.

         What does this mean; what is the ‘take-home’? It means that, until around the sixth century BCE, there was no Hebrew word for ‘evil’ in its present context. ‘Evil’ only has meaning as an opposition to ‘good’, and there was no devil.

If there was no ‘evil’, how do I explain Isaiah 45:7? In the King James, it reads:

    I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the    

   LORD do all these things.

         The Hebrew for ‘evil’ here is transliterated as ‘resh-ayin’. In my Hebrew dictionary, ‘Evil’ is the eighth entry for a valid meaning of this word. However, now look at the Revised Standard:

    I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the

    LORD, who do all these things.

         What is going on? Examine the story of Eli in the time of Samuel. When Samuel tells Eli that God informed him that his sons would be killed in battle and his lineage end, 1 Samuel 3:18 records:

   So, Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he (Eli)

   said, "It is the LORD; let him do what seems good to him."

What is the meaning behind this passage? The Hebrew dictionary lists ‘woe’ as the first entry for this Hebrew word. This means that, yes, like all languages, meaning for wards can change over time – and, in this case, it did. In the time of Samuel and Eli, the definition of ‘evil’ did not yet exist because the devil had not fallen and there was no such thing as ‘evil’ in our modern understanding. Instead, all things - both our modern ‘good’ and ‘evil’ – came from God. In that time, they were not ‘good’ or ‘evil’, they were ‘weal’ and ‘woe’, and both came from God. The Revised standard is the more accurate translation.

Let’s cut to the chase. I’ve gone around Robin Hood’s barn to set up what I am trying to do in this series – and what is that? In theological terms, it is called the ‘Theodicy Problem’.

                       Good is All-Good

                                 │

Good is All-Knowing − ◊ − God is All-Mighty

                                 │

                 There is Evil in the World

         The question is: how do you explain all four propositions being true at the same time? We don’t. Human logic defies an explanation.

         Human logic demands that one of the four must be true:

1.   God is not all-good

2.   God is not all-knowing

3.   God is not all-mighty

4.   There is no such thing as evil

The caveat is human logic. God’s logic is undoubtedly superior to ours.

I examine all four of these postulates in the series. Additionally, as

much as I am able, I match each to their best historical era. For example, in Abraham’s era, the accepted theology was, like in Eli’s time, everything came from God, and there was no such thing as evil in our modern definition. There was only weal or woe.

         The way we practice our religion has also changed over the ages. Why? That is a direct outcome of our religious maturity level – our stages of growth. This was covered above.

I also match it with our ability to understand who God is and what he wants from us. That changes over time as our religious maturity grows.

All this is explored in the series.

Yes, it is a tall order. I am not confident that I can do a great job at this. My knowledge and skill are admittedly limited. But I pray that I can do a job good enough to help you, the reader, with your spiritual growth.