Was Part of the Torah Composed During the Videogame Era?

Evidence from the Book of Kings and Mortal Kombat

This piece is only for those familiar with the field of Biblical Criticism. If you are not, please don’t read it. You won’t get it.

The Documentary Hypothesis of the Bible has undergone a long process of evolution. Starting from Astruc, who assumed it was compiled by Moses, to later figures such as Wellhausen, who pushed it to the reign of Josiah, to modern scholarship that places it during the Persian or even as late as the Hellenistic period. The trend is undeniable. The final date of composition of the Bible has been getting later and later, and the number of alleged authors has multiplied prodigiously.

Recently, evidence has emerged that some parts of the Torah have been composed as late as the video game age (1980-2020). One outstanding example is I Kings 20:1-34, a part of greater Deuteronomy. In this narrative, King Achav goes to war with King Ben-Hadad of Aram, and emerges victorious. Several features of this tale set it apart from the rest of the Bible and indicate different authorship:

1. The idiosyncratic phrase לי כספך וזהבך is repeated nowhere else in the Bible.

2. The highly unique inversive wordplayויאמר אם־לשלום יצאו תפשום חיים ואם למלחמה יצאו חיים תפשום is jarringly out of place.

3. The phenomenon of the kings meeting each other face-to-face on the field of battle is unusual.

4. Strangest of all, after Achav scores a decisive victory, he reciprocates not with revenge, but with friendship and gifts towards his opponent. Achav's behavior is not only unprecedented in the Bible narratives, but has almost no parallel in the ancient world, where rulers regularly massacred and enslaved their defeated enemies.

This mountain of evidence proves indisputably that the author of this episode was somebody other than the Deuteronomist. The question is not who, but which time period. Following rigorous use of the scientific method, we can pin it with a high degree of certainty on the videogame era. The primary indication of this relatively late date is feature #4, the graciousness that Achav shows towards his defeated enemy immediately following the battle. Although this would have been extremely unusual in the ancient world, it is remarkably consistent with the decidedly modern "Friendship" move in Mortal Kombat II and III (1993-1995). To quote the website "Mortal Kombat Fandom":

A Friendship is a finishing move introduced in Mortal Kombat II in response to the public controversy surrounding the gruesome Fatality finishing move in the original Mortal Kombat...Friendships allowed players to perform various (and highly unlikely) acts of kindness and goodwill towards their helpless opponent instead of killing them after winning the match. This included giving a birthday present, blowing bubbles, painting a picture, ice skating, cooking food and doing a funny dance...

The comparison to Achav's gracious actions is striking and undeniable. It is evident that the authorship of this Bible segment should be attributed to either the developers of Mortal Kombat themselves, or to somebody else with an affinity for the game, especially the “Friendship” finishing move. I propose that we designate this author as Source F, for "Friendship".

Can we identify any other portions of the Bible that are the product of F? We certainly can. In II Kings 6:8-23, we are told about how the king of Aram was hunting for the prophet Elisha, and besieged his residence. Elisha used his supernatural powers to blind them and draw them into the city of Shomron, where they were held captive. At this point, the king or Israel asked permission to slay them, but Elisha instead enjoined him to provide them with food and hospitality and send them on their way. At the end of this account, the verse states (6:23)

ולא־יספו עוד גדודי ארם לבוא בארץ ישראל

Clearly, the author intended for this to be the final Aramean incursion into Israeli territory.

However, the very next verse (6:24) states

ויהי אחרי־כן ויקבץ בן־הדד מלך־ארם את־כל־מחנהו ויעל ויצר על־שמרון

that is, that the king of Aram besieged Shomron yet again. Clearly, this verse represents a completely different author. From the “Friendship” aspect of the mercy and hospitality shown to the opposing forces, it is self-evident that the first author was F.

There is at least one more place where we can identify F’s fingerprints, in the Exodus narrative. We must start with the fact that although the outcome of the war between the Egyptians and the Hebrews is left somewhat ambiguous, the preponderance of evidence points towards a firm Egyptian victory, driving the humiliated Hebrew population into a wilderness exile after brutally enslaving them for centuries. This is Egyptian historian Manetho’s version, and is attested to by several verses in the Bible itself, most notably כלה גרש יגרש אתכם, he will completely drive you out from his land (Exodus 11:1), and the numerous instances of the word שלח, expulsion. The description of expulsion is of distinctly different authorship than those verses which tell of an Israelite triumph (which are the source of the revisionist Passover holiday). The very next verse after כלה גרש יגרש אתכם is (Exodus 11:2-3)

דבר־נא באזני העם וישאלו איש מאת רעהו ואשה מאת רעותה כלי־כסף וכלי זהב

ויתן יהוה את־חן העם בעיני מצרים גם האיש משה גדול מאד בארץ מצרים בעיני עבדי־פרעה ובעיני העם

a commandment to take gifts from the victorious Egyptians, who would be expressing “Friendship” towards their defeated opponents. Once again, there is no doubt of the identity of the distinct author here, the Mortal Kombat-loving F.

At this point, some may object that we can find many of these verses in editions of the Bible or Bible commentary that apparently pre-date the videogame era, casting doubt on the entire hypothesis and the existence of F. However, those anomalies can easily be explained as later interpolations by redactors who attempted to harmonize all known versions of the Bible. This is especially the case with hareidim who are well-known for their revisionist censorship, as Dr. Marc Shapiro lays out in his seminal work, Changing the Immutable. In any case, the evidence from source criticism and unbiased historical analysis is powerful enough to stand on its own, regardless of real or imagined objections from religious corners.