Red Sea Scrolls

By Trebor St. Dragon

The Book is a revision to the standard Biblical Version of the Old and New Testaments. It is theoretical version of a scroll written by a long lost Hebrew tribe known as the Baabs and their work was discovered by Trebor St.Dragon and transcribed by him with some comments added by my brothers participants and with explanatory notes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493148752

Trebor St. Dragon

The author pseudonym is Trebor St.Dragon. It is an anagram for Robert Rognstad who is my brother and the primary author. I have edited his work and added some minor changes. My brother died unexpectedly in May 2004 from a complication involving a gall bladder operation. He was living in Pocatello, Idaho which is his wife’s home town. My sisters and I visited him after the operation but he never regained consciousness. My first exposure to his work was after his death when his wife showed me his work on the book. This was a retirement occupation for him since he had ceased his work in his chosen field of biochemistry research. I was captivated by the work and felt it deserved publication. I spent time editing and revising the work and working with publishers after his death. I am an architect with my own business and didn’t have the time to pursue this project until recently when I was contacted by Xliblis which renewed my interest. Jo Paul Rognstad

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Trebor St. Dragon.

Library of Congress Control Number:                      2013922024

ISBN:                  Hardcover                             978-1-4931-4874-5

                            Softcover                               978-1-4931-4873-8

                            eBook                                    978-1-4931-4875-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 03/12/2014

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CONTENTS

PREFACE

SCROLL 1: BEGINNINGS

SCROLL 1: COMMENTARY

SCROLL 2: SAUL, DAVID, and SOLOMON

SCROLL 2: COMMENTARY

SCROLL 3: MORE KINGS AND OTHERS

SCROLL 3: COMMENTARY

SCROLL 4: GREEKS AND ROMANS

SCROLL 4: COMMENTARY

SCROLL 5: EVANGELISTS AND RESERVATIONS

SCROLL 5: COMMENTARY

POSTSCRIPT

THE (PROPOSED) SUPER RICH TAXATION ACT

Dedicated to

The memorable life

of our

SAINT BABE/BOB

PREFACE

It was in the early spring of 1998 when my crew and I were taking a respite from the work at our dig at Khirbet Oranje, in the Wadi Divac, to spend a few days at Eilat. Roger Fitzanstartz, my chief assistant, had taken the Land Rover down the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, which is the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Then he noticed some native boys climbing down a rather steep face of rock and disappearing into what appeared to be an opening of a small cave. Being an avid rock climber and mountaineer, he decided to investigate, although the area was remote and appeared totally unfit for habitation.

Roger climbed up to the opening and entered the cave. About ten meters into the passageway, he heard the boys laughing, and with his torch he spotted them in a corner. Roger surprised them by speaking fluent Arabic, and they told him of some jars, which they had seen at the bottom of a deep pit, which was too steep to climb down into. Telling the boys that he would give them a good baksheesh if they would show him where this was, they took him some thirty meters down a side tunnel, which he got through with difficulty, being a much larger figure than these slight Arab boys.

But he reached the edge of the pit, which looked to be much like an old cistern, such as were found also at Khirbet Oranje. With his ropes and pitons he lowered himself to the bottom and found a number of jars, some broken but some nearly fully intact. Hauling two intact jars up with him, he paid the boys about twenty pounds each and told them to tell no one, and he would pay them more if these were useful. He knew of course that no matter what was contained in them, they would be highly valuable.

Back in Eilat, we opened very carefully one of the jars, and were stunned. It contained a scroll, nearly perfectly preserved, in an ancient Aramaic script of a cursive type that Ms. Cleo Patrika, our philologist, said appeared possibly Hebrew in origin. In few days, we collected the entire output of the deep pit, and made the Arab lads rather wealthy for this poor area. Unsure of whether the caves were in Israel or Egyptian territory, the area being so remote and inaccessible where no boundaries are marked, we notified no authorities, which led to some trouble later.

As it turned out, it was Egyptian soil, and the Archaeological Institute at our University eventually had to pay a large fine for bringing these artifacts back to America. We had to return the original scrolls to the Egyptian Archaeological Museum when we had finished the translations. Unlike the scandalous delays in the publication of the Dead Sea scrolls, we will have our entire photographic summary of these Red Sea scrolls available to all scholars within the very near future.

Five major scrolls were obtained nearly entirely intact, and these will be presented in the present text. Translation of the scrolls was led by my elder brother, Professor Joseph St. Dragon, AIA, AIA. He is an archaeologist of renown and also a fair to middling architect. Brother Joseph is also an elder of the Church of the Gospel and the head of the linguistics department of the College Of Obscurantic Knowledge. He is also the high muckity-muck of the college’s secret fraternity, known as the Skull and Kooks. Professor Joseph St. Dragon is partial to the style of the King James Version of the bible. He is insistent that the older version is far superior to modern versions (he becomes apoplectic when he hears the 23rd psalm concluded with shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long rather than the more poetic forever and ever).

My brother, the AIA-AIA and elder-elder, was greatly assisted by our sister Mary St. Dragon, a famed genealogist who has ancestral charts that reach back into biblical times. She believes she is a descendent of the biblical Mary, her namesake. The charting of biblical incest creates some weird linear linkage, sometimes with crisscross diagrams that are truly confusing. And with 900-year life spans and myriad relationships, the good old days were perplexing.

Sister Mary is an avid, or one might say rabid, basketball fan with front row seating at all NBA games. She has been known to question the visual acuity of officials and once, during a contentious playoff game with a certain Los Angeles team, confronted a famous L. A. fan (also front row) and threatened to punch him over his cookoo nest. Her knowledge of sports lore has flavored these translations with certain sports aphorisms when appropriate to improve the understandability for the average (and below average?) American reader.

Also participating in the translations is our much younger sister Syl St. Dragon who is a professor of theater arts and costume. She is an acknowledged expert on ancient and medieval clothing and fabrics and has personal experience in the veiling (and unveiling) of the seven (or more) movements of the traditional (or modern gypsy) belly dance. She was persuasively insistent that the translations incorporate more contemporary expressions to improve the readability of the scrolls for younger generations. She considers the eth suffixes as egregious as the F word and that incorporating current grammatical mannerisms and slang will allow the scrolls to attract a larger audience that would include those with non-academic backgrounds, such as teeny-boppers and hip-hoppers.

As will be seen, the writings were not of mainstream Hebrew origin, but came from a minor tribe known as the Baabs, who were related to the Hebrews, albeit not apparently always fully accepted by them. They were apparently renowned for their water management skills, and as such maintained their existence and territorial integrity by sharing these skills with their larger neighbors. They seemed to occupy a small region surrounded by Judea, Edom and Moab, in mainly hilly country, with a rainfall, which would ordinarily, support only animal grazing. Yet with a careful collection of virtually all the rainwater, and by tapping deep underground sources, they built this area into a major agricultural zone. From other less complete scrolls, there is evidence that they may have later taught the Nabatean Arabs their systems of water management, which led to the flourishing Nabatean culture, which lasted several centuries before, and after Christ. Some intermarriage between the tribe of Baab, whose scrolls these are, and their neighbors may have helped to ensure tribal independence. But they were eventually overtaken by the overwhelming power of Rome, who apparently considered them basically Hebrew, and as such prone to revolt. Nonetheless, these scrolls seem to include time periods up to nearly 150 A. D.

Although sharing the Hebrew language and some of the traditional Hebrew mythology, in altered form, they plainly had throughout much of their history a much different theological outlook. Indeed only among the ancient Greeks of this era were such skeptical attitudes to be found, as eventually developed among the elders of Baab. We know, from scattered references even in the Bible, that there were skeptics in this era. Ecclesiastics and Job, edited as they later were, are way out of tone with the fanatical Yahwist culture which predominated during most of Hebrew early history. And both Psalms 14 and 53 start off with the same line The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God, going on then of course to further deprecate such types who hold this view as abominable and filthy. So skeptics there apparently always were.

Throughout known history, the ruling theocrats have suppressed heresy, unbelief, and opposing belief systems, often with much fury and great cruelty; so that little of other philosophical outlooks survived in written records. The history of early Judaism, as well as much of the whole history of the Christian Church, is one of almost total intolerance to other beliefs. Even minor aberrations from the accepted dogmas were often treated harshly. The early Roman persecutions of Christians were occasionally savage, but they paled in comparison with the subsequent millennium and half long persecutions by Christians of their opponents, whether heretics, pagans, Jews, imaginary witches or whatever; and of course each other, in the great religious wars between Catholics and Protestants. Millions of people were killed as a result of this intolerance, some with the use of the cruelest of tortures, and by burning at the stake. The Nazi holocaust was carried out by a country at least nominally Christian and over fifty-percent Catholic.

On this perhaps jaundiced viewpoint then, it is particularly refreshing to read the story of a people without any strong religious beliefs, who were apparently friendly, peace loving, tolerant, and intelligent enough to maintain themselves in an age dominated most often by war and intolerance. No doubt they had their faults also, which are not likely to be emphasized in their own historical records; but on balance this is the record of a remarkable people who unfortunately faded from the world scene without a trace, up until now.

In the following chapters we will present the translations of these five major scrolls. Following each of these translations, we will present a discussion by a panel which I chaired consisting of four other people who had some fairly divergent philosophical attitudes. I tried without success to get some more fundamentalist figures from the Christian community or from Orthodox Judaism, but when they were given summaries of the scroll contents, they declined to participate.

This learned panel consisted of, first, Mr. Steven Jay Goody, author of many religious and philosophical treatises, including, Why the thirteenth tribe of Israel was considered unlucky. Mr. Goody is a visiting professor of the Libertarian Theological Institute and is recognized as a spokesman for positive thinking of Christian belief throughout the Western world.

Secondly, is Dwight Exxon Spickabull, an outspoken critic of organized religion and a leader of the under God excisement from the Pledge of Allegiance. Mr. Spickabull is the president of the Frenetic Heretic Society dedicated to obliterating any and all connections between church and state and boy scouts.

Thirdly, we are delighted to welcome Mrs. Hillary Kerr to our group. Hillary is a childhood friend of my younger sister who helped to persuade her to join us. Hillary is an ardent feminist and an expert theologian. She considers the Bible an androcentric text that has been unfairly distorted through the centuries by patriarchal interests.

Finally, we are fortunate to have Rabbi Asa Whinestein, from the Los Angeles City of Angels Temple. The rabbi is a noted Hebrew scholar of ancient and contemporary Jewish history.

As the leader of our translation efforts and as the chair of this learned panel, I would character myself as an agnostic, but reasonably sympathetic to liberal religious practice. As such, I tend to receive some scorn from all sides of the panel.

There will no doubt be critics, from the world of the religious true believer, who will find these scrolls offensive. Now that they no longer have the opportunity to silence and persecute these ancient writers, they may resort to charges of defamation and even blasphemy. If they are capable of any rational counter criticism, we welcome it. But they will have to accept the fact that there are different slants to be put on the historical facts, or myths, and people nowadays can freely choose whichever version they prefer.

My sibling translators and I hope you will find our interpretation of the Baab Scrolls both interesting and entertaining. We have chosen to use colloquial expressions that will have more meaning to a larger, less sophisticated audience. We have included reference notations in Italics when the Baab scrolls are similar to Biblical writings. You will also find a listing of translator notes (and confessions) that explain certain modifications made to the Baab scrolls, hopefully, to improve their readability.

As reported by yours truly,

Trebor St. Dragon

SCROLL 1: BEGINNINGS

Chapter 1:

1.   In the beginning, nothing moved. So God flung out lightning bolts; stuff went asunder and there was thunder and an omnipotent cosmic cataclysm. And the angels were sore afraid. However, the littlest angel, called Sagangel, spoke to God saying look, God—see that little blue dot out there at the edge of your swirly maelstrom. So God took an interest in this splotchy blue dot. God said to his archangel: "Archie, let’s take a week off and see what we can conjure up on that blue thingie.

2.   So God said let there be light and some sky and water and dirt. Then let’s grow some green stuff and add bugs, birds and beasts. This burst of creativity took most of the week, so God said let’s take the day off and contemplate. While pondering, God decided He needed a brand new creature that was a little less beastly and perhaps a little smarter, so he made a woman and called her Ava (sometimes mis-spelled as Eve or Eva, but properly pronounced ã-vä). Now He set Ava to tend the garden land of Eden, which was the lushest property on the blue dot.

3.   Now Ava, the gardener, was a lovely creature and the angels and lings in heaven above were smitten by this new creature. The arch ling pleaded with God to beam him down to earth so he could know Ava and forget his heavenly lings, some of whom were dinga lings and others were dump lings.

4.   So God, to quell heavenly discontentment, decided to preempt this lustfulness by creating for Ava an earthling mate of her own kind. So he took a bone from Ava (her coccyx) and made a man who he called Alpha.

5.   And Alpha approached unto Ava, who nicknamed him Alfie and while Alfie was comely enough, she found him of little sense. Ava was a thinker and wondered where did we come from? Why are we here, and what’s it all about? Alfie,—had no interest in such matters.

6.   For Alfie was wont to sit in his favorite apple tree, sipping pomegranate juice and watching the lions scrimmage with the bears. Then he would show off, jumping on the zebras and racing around. And again he approached unto Ava, who thought, what a simpleton.

7.   Surely I can do better than this, thought Ava. Then she searched the Garden of Eden from end to end, and found some huge hairy Alpha males down south but no comely men. So she took Alfie unto her and they knew each other. And afterwards, Alfie boasted wasn’t that a great new experience? Really original? But Ava thought, big deal, the toads do it, frogs do it, even birdies in the trees do it, so what’s with this original sin business?

8.   And henceforth, they begat many sons and daughters, and in due time, the world teemed with these new earthlings, by the hundreds of thousands. (1)

(1) The two somewhat different versions of the biblical creation myth are in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. One will note that in the Red Sea Scroll version of this story, woman is created before man. Presumably this implies that husbands must obey their wives, and men must not speak in church (see 1 Timothy 2:11-13).

Chapter 2:

1.   Now humankind became sometimes very good (like little girls), but sometimes they were horrid (like little boys), and God was perplexed. What hath I wrought? And the angels and the lings would ask him: But you who are all-wise and all-powerful, did you not foresee this?

2.   And God replied: I started this little world, but I cannot foresee everything, as I do not have that much working memory.

3.   And God thought, perhaps I should start all over, with this blue dot. Maybe I will make a big flood and drown every man and beast and try again. But maybe I will save one good family and his livestock so I don’t have to start from scratch.

4.   But the angels and the lings tried to dissuade Him from this harsh idea. Look, God, there are good men amongst the bad, and there are innocent babies and animals.

5.   But Yahweh said: I cannot exterminate evil without a little collateral damage so he picked out one man, who seemed to be a solid citizen, and told him to build a big boat for a huge flood was coming. And this boat is just for you and your family and your animals.

6.   So Noah built the big boat, out of gopher (cypress) wood, according to God’s detailed plans, i. e., attach beam A to post B and so