The Bible is the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity which are possibly the most influential writings in Western and Middle Eastern history. For Christians and orthodox Jews the books of the Bible are sacred texts regarded by many as the “word of God.” Apart from its religious significance, the Bible is a rich source of literary treasures and is studied secularly in universities. The Bible comprises of two sections, the Old and the New Testaments.

The Old Testament is a record of Jewish history and religious, moral and secular instruction; the New Testament is an account of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and his disciples. It needs to be noted that the Roman Catholic version of the Bible contains books that are not in the Protestant version. Also there are differences between these two and the Jewish Bible which does not, of course, include in its canon the New Testament.

The Bible is neither the literal word of God translated into the various languages, nor a collection of superstitious folklore, but a Jewish and late Greek version of the archaic wisdom expressed in the ancient mystery-language.

Gottfried de Puruker in a discussion about the opening lines of Genesis drew attention to the very great difficulties faced by the early translators of the Hebrew texts. He points out that the method of writing did not include either spaces between words or any characters for vowels.

Thus it was possible to arrive at radically different interpretations according to the way in which the text was divided. He implies therefore that anyone adopting a fundamentalist stance in relation to any particular version of the Bible is on dubious ground.

Gottfried de Purucker gives as an example that the word “God,” singular, is a mistranslation occurring in the early part of Genesis and considers that the Hebrew word Elohīm should be translated in the plural as Gods.”

In another work Gottfried de Puruker states:

“As Jesus taught in parables, so the Bible was written in tropes, in figures of speech, in metaphors.”

Madame Blavatsky in an article that deals with the Bible’s extensive borrowings from other religions concludes with:

“It is a grand volume, a masterpiece composed of clever, ingenious fables containing great verities; but it reveals the latter only to those who, like the Initiates, have a key to its inner meaning; a tale sublime in its morality and didactics truly — still a tale and an allegory; a repertory of invented personages in its older Jewish portions, and of dark sayings and parables in its later additions, and thus quite misleading to anyone ignorant of its Esotericism. Moreover it is Astrolatry and Sabaean worship, pure and simple, that is to be found in the Pentateuch when it is read Exoterically, and Archaic Science and Astronomy to a most wonderful degree, when interpreted — Esoterically.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – Collected Writings

Madame Blavatsky did not think highly of the Authorized King James version of the Bible.

Regarding this She wrote:

“Add to this the fact that out of the forty-seven translators of King James I of England’s Bible ‘only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated’ (Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the Bible.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – The Secret Doctrine – Volume I

In Isis Unveiled, Madame Blavatsky also wrote:

“For years we have repeatedly noticed that the same esoteric truths were expressed in identical symbols and allegories in countries between which there had never been traced any historical affiliation. We have found the Jewish Kabala and the Bible repeating the Babylonian ‘myths,’ and the Oriental and Chaldean allegories, given in form and substance in the oldest manuscripts of the Siamese Talapoin (monks), and in the popular but oldest traditions of Ceylon.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – Isis Unveiled – Volume I

Still in Isis Unveiled we find:

“In the Bible the very opening tells us that before the sons of God saw the daughters of men, the latter lived from 365 to 969 years. But when the ‘Lord God’ saw the iniquities of mankind, He concluded to allow them at most 120 years of life (Genesis 6:3). To account for such a violent oscillation in the human mortality-table is only possible by tracing this decision of the ‘Lord God’ to its origin. Such incongruities as we meet at every step in the Bible can only be attributed to the facts that the book of Genesis and the other books of Moses were tampered with and remodeled by more than one author; and, that in their original state they were, with the exception of the external form of the allegories, faithful copies from the Hindu sacred books. In Manu, book 1, we find the following: ‘In the first age, neither sickness nor suffering were known. Men lived four centuries.’”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – Isis Unveiled – Volume II

“It is through these ‘Sons of God’ that infant humanity got its first notions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge; and it is they who have laid the first foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that puzzle so sorely our modern generation of students and scholars.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – The Secret Doctrine – Volume I

In ancient Biblical Hebrew, these sons of the Divine or sons of God are called the Benei Elohim (Sons of the Elohim) who in Genesis 6 “descend” in order to gain experience being incarnations in astral physical bodies. Elsewhere these sons of God are mystically spoken of as sons of Light, for the various hierarchies generalized under these phrases are all emanations from the manifest or Third Logos.

The pre-human races are the seeds of future humanity, these seeds being really lofty spiritual intellectual beings who had been men in a previous Manvantara. These seeds have been called Sons of God, mind-born progeny of Brahma, Rishis, Prajapatis, Manus, etc.

Esau as father of the Edomites (Genesis 36:43) and is said to represent the race between the fourth and the fifth root-races.

“The ‘Edomite Kings’ could never symbolize the ‘prior worlds,’ but only the ‘attempts at men’ on this globe: the ‘pre-Adamite races,’ of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First Root-Race, the Kings of Edom are the sons of ‘Esau the father of the Edomites’ (Genesis 36:43); Esau represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth, the Atlanteans and the Aryans.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – The Secret Doctrine – Volume II

The Bible speaks of there having been giants in an early period in the earth’s history, and theology speaks of these as pre-Adamite races.

“The fathers dreaded above all to have the esoteric and true meaning of the word Rasit (re’shith) unveiled to the multitudes; for if once the true sense of this sentence, as well as that of the Hebrew word asdt . . . were understood rightly, the mystery of the Christian trinity would have crumbled, carrying in its downfall the new religion into the same heap of ruins with the ancient Mysteries. Origen, Clemens Alexandrinus Chalcidius, Methodius, and Maimonides, on the authority of the Targum of Jerusalem, the orthodox and greatest authority of the Jews, held that the first two words in the book of Genesis — b-rasit, meaning Wisdom, or the Principle. And that the idea of these words meaning “in the beginning” was never shared but by the profane, who were not allowed to penetrate any deeper into the esoteric sense of the sentence.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – Isis Unveiled – Volume II

Madame Blavatsky classes the Bible among the largely esoteric works whose secret symbolism is found also in the Indian, Chaldean, and Egyptian scriptures. The real Hebrew Bible is to a certain extent known only in small part to its Talmudic and Qabbalistic interpreters. The primeval faith of Israel was not what it was made to be by those who would have converted the secret doctrine into a national exoteric religion — by David, Hezekiah, and later the Talmudists. To trace the steps by which the ancient Gnosis was handed down, adapted, transformed, perverted, and yet mysteriously preserved, is work to satisfy the most diligent scholar.

“The real Hebrew Bible was a secret volume, unknown to the masses, and even the Samaritan Pentateuch is far more ancient than the Septuagint. As for the former, the Fathers of the Church never even heard of it.”
― Helena Petrovna Blavatsky – Isis Unveiled – Volume II

Considered as history, the Bible is a patchwork of documents put together at different times, sometimes mere allegory, as in the creation story, or partly allegorical and partly literal, as in the story of the Flood, adapted to serve the purpose of embalming the sacred teachings. It is remarkable that Christians continue to preserve books like Ezekiel — so obviously an Esoteric work and so incomprehensible on ordinary doctrinal lines — the Psalms of David, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job.

As regards the New Testament, the Gospels are Esoteric books, in which the teachings of the ancient wisdom are built around the alleged story of the mission of Jesus, a teacher who lived at a somewhat earlier date than that assigned to him.

The epistles of Paul are the work of one with some claim to the title of an initiate, who speaks of Christ as the Logos in man, and apparently knows naught of the life story of Jesus.

The Revelation of St. John is a purely symbolic Esoteric work, of a Qabbalistic character, curiously enough still retained in the Christian canon.