Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

The Left Hand of the Biblical Gods by Carlton Morris argues that the Bible, read through the King James text, records a history of extraterrestrial intervention and lineage management, not universal theology. Morris says that Genesis separates an unknowable creator of physical law from the Lord God and Jehovah, whom he identifies as biological beings running a mining enterprise on Earth. He supports this by treating creation days as geological epochs, attributing material needs, travel, food, and reproduction to gods, and by reading Adam and Eve as laboratory products created through genetic duplication. Genealogies, property, language, and covenants are used to show Jehovah’s ownership of a single family line from Abraham to Israel. Morris links the flood to an asteroid event ending the operation, with Jehovah remaining as administrator. He argues that later priesthoods and Paul merged distinct figures into one deity, and that Jesus functioned as a claimant whose teaching redirected obedience into belief.

“All mankind did not descend from Noah and his sons. If other gods were served, it was because they were, in fact, the owners and rulers of Man. They were, in fact, the original gods, the alien creators of man.” First of all, I have to take my hat off to Carlton Morris for what is one of the most courageous re-examinations of scripture that I've come across. He's not the first to treat Genesis as a record of humanity and advanced beings operating under universal physical law, but this is possibly the most comprehensive. The Left Hand of the Biblical Gods is written with the type of intellect and authority that only someone who can back up their ideas with solid scientific and geological evidence, and the malleability of scripture that is ambiguous enough to lean heavily into the science. The piece I found most interesting is Morris's theory on the golden calf episode, and how the construction of the calf shows that Jehovah was regarded as a physical ruler rather than a transcendent deity. This is a long book, but it is supremely interesting, and whether one agrees with every claim or not, Morris presents a tight and intuitive speculative framework, treating scripture seriously while placing humanity within a vast biological continuum. Recommended.