Bible Study For Atheists interviewed David Plotz, Slate editor, about Good Book, his book on reading the Old Testament:
[Vast Left]: One thing I really wasn't prepared for was how explicit the OT was about how the Israelites were to barge into other people's land, kill them, and take it over. It seems to fulfill the worst perceptions that anti-Zionists have, no?
DP: That's an unfair conflation, because it merges an ancient religious text with modern geopolitics. There are, of course, lots and lots of Jews who justify their claims to Israel and the West Bank by using the Bible. But most Israelis don't and the Israeli government doesn't. One of the oddest realizations I had while reading the Bible is that modern Israel occupies land that was not generally Biblical Israel. Modern Israel is where ancient Israel's enemies lived. The Biblical demands to kill and occupy are horrifying, and probably the most troubling part of the Bible. (Book of Joshua is hands down the most disturbing Bible book.) But it's succumbing to the literalist fallacy to extrapolate from that that Jews inherently are genocidal and seeking to expel and murder everyone on "their" land.
I guess your question is about whether it reinforces anti-Zionist views, and I suppose you are right that it could. My answer suggests that I think that would be unfair, but it may happen anyway.
VL: I don't mean to claim a certain cause/effect. But it was striking, and IIR [if I recall correctly], you noted a time or two how the modern circumstances are reflected in the ancient text.
DP: Fair point.
I don't think it's an unfair conflation. Most of the dozen religious settlers I've met or heard speak, many of whom are subsidized by Americans, are forever citing the deed that Abraham has to Hebron, and other literalist moments. This behavior is tolerated by the Israeli gov't and has enormous geopolitical consequences: it's wrecked the 2-state solution.
Creating the Ethnicity and National Consciousness of Judonia
I agree with you completely, Phil. He thinks it's unfair "because it merges an ancient religious text with modern geopolitics." ?? We've been listening to this shit for 60 years. And it was the reason they came up to change Herzl's original location from Uganda to Palestine. It's Biblical! And anyone in the dark about it can listen to a settler here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykmv7s-Q0J8 But the really off-the-wall stuff is in the Sanhedrin text of the Talmud. It's like cavemen wrote it.
Except Herzl original location was not Uganda. Are you also intimating that cavemen were far more intelligent than you?
I don't think it was Herzl's idea, the British tried to send tne zionauts there. Could have saved shipping costs on all the Uzis they sold to Idi Amin.
Modern History Sourcebook: Theodor Herzl: On the Jewish State, 1896 http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/2/8/25282/25282...
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/2/8/25282/25282... The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jewish State, by Theodor Herzl http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/2/8/25282/25282...
First the British suggested it, then Herzl suggested it at a Zionist conference in 1903, and the org rejected the idea after Herzl died in 1904.
If the two-state solution has been wrecked that means the end of the Jewish state, as such, am I right? Just yesterday you had a quote, "The question is, in the long run, will [Israel] be a crusader kingdom or not?" It looks like that decision has already been made … and we know what happened to the crusader kindgoms.
Ugandans were lucky.
Are you also intimating that cavemen were far more intelligent than you? This is a typical example of a moronic Chris Berel scattershot insult. I don't know why he bothers to change his name, his style is so monotonously obvious.
I regard the Bible as a relatively late conflation of two separate religious myth cycles: one, the universalist, 'Abrahamic' myth associated with the worship of the regional Semitic sky-god EL; and two, the particularist, 'Mosaic' myth associated with the worship of the Israelitic (previously Midianite) volcano-god, presumably originally just JAH, but who came to be called JHVH. The conflation is so skillful, extending to the careful, selective use of the compound name "JHVH Elohim" in many but by no means all places, that it is hard to untangle it.
Considered. Nothing states or suggests that it was ever his original site. Guess you just got caught lying. And you supplied the proof.
Uganda was originally proposed by the Brits. Herzl considered all options, including Texas. Before the Balfour declaration Uganda offered the speediest Brit-aided plan. I see Chris Berel is using the pen name "jacobwolf" these days.
Interesting to note that it was early Christian Zionists (like Balfour) who first pushed the idea that Palestine would be the only acceptable location for a Jewish state. The religious settler movement's literalism was a later development–the early Jewish Zionists were secular, the early religious Zionists were Christian.
And you are qualified to make such judgments? What qualifications do you have except for altruistic hate?
What I find strange is that religious justifications for Zionism seem to ignore the whole idea of divinely imposed exile. Before the Holocaust and the official establishment of Israel, most of the religious Jewish authorities regarded Zionism as heresy. For Jews to end the exile of their own will and reestablish Jewish rule in the Holy Land before the coming of the moshiach (messiah) was an outright rebellion against God. From a realist standpoint, I don't have any problem with a Jewish state in the Holy Land as long as the Palestinian national question is resolved as well. From a theological standpoint, though, I don't see how political Zionism can be supported with Jewish scriptures.
What do you mean, "what qualifications'? Do you think you have to be an academic to study something seriously? And what on earth is 'altruistic hate'? Whom do you suppose that I 'hate'? By the way, Christianity is also the result of a conflation: of the Israelite 'Davidic' king myth with something like the sacrificial sacred king cult of Attis or Adonis. And Judaism in the practical sphere, of the Mishnaic code, is the result of a conflation of certain aspects of Zoroastrianism with the JH and EL stories mentioned above. It happens all the time; religions are protean, changing their forms and absorbing each other, over the long term.
I think that's why the secularisation of Jewish eschatology has become so important. For Kookists, there's the idea that "the Jewish people will be its own Messiah." For outright secularists, the Holocaust, and the birth of Israel three years later, play exactly the same role as the crucifixion of Christ, and his resurrection three days later. Hence the appeal to Christians. Jacob Neusner is good on this — and he is an impecably orthodox Talmudic scholar, that's why he objects to it.
"And what on earth is 'altruistic hate'" Basically your relentless hate of everything especially Jewish [except your fetish for the Jewesses{sic}] in conjunction with the inability both intellectually and emotionally to discuss a subject that your are actually challenged by so you just shut off. And what I mean by qualification is that your purview is from the outside always as you do not live any religion viscerally but take an overview with no real knowledge of any tradition from the inside and how it is practiced, the language it uses for its vehicle and the fact that there are real genetic reasons of why you are the way you are but you do not want to accept them. You see what the other has and that it is missing in you and you want to negate it in the other because of your lack. And this is the essence of anti-semitism and the reason for it. Sinai in Hebrew is a cognate of 'hate' and when Sinai [the revelation] came into the world it caused the jealousy/hatred to manifest. As it is said in the Jewish tradition that god offered the Torah to all of the peoples of the world but they refused. We must now all live according to our mythologies. And yes, there is a 'sacred drift' between religions and traditions but never enough to annihilate one from the face of the other but only to absorb what is isomorphic.
Your concept and exposure to both Kook and Neusner is comical. You take one example of a Kookist statement and make a universal out of it. "Jacob Neusner is good on this — and he is an impeccably orthodox Talmudic scholar, that's why he objects to it." How could you possibly know if he is impeccable and expecially when you don't even recognize the Talmud and distinctly that he has no regard for anything metaphysical in the Jewish tradition. You are one big contradiction. You may fool the masses but anyone who has dealt with these texts sees your opinions as totally puerile. Kisses from Zubeida-' I am dark so don't look at me for the sun has shone upon me'
"Sinai in Hebrew is a cognate of 'hate' and when Sinai [the revelation] came into the world it caused the jealousy/hatred to manifest." That sounds like a moronic Lubavitcher etymology. As to 'Jewesses,' let me offer you this delightful glimpse of the private Nietzsche. In The Cult Of The Superman, Eric Bentley quotes an originally unpublished Preface to The Birth of Tragedy written by Friedrich Nietzsche and addressed to Richard Wagner: "As to the master-classes in particular, the future of German culture is found to lie with the sons of Prussian officers. Who shall be found to be worthy mates for them? The Jews are the oldest and purest race in Europe. Their continued existence as a race after dispersion proves their health and strength. Therefore the highest beauty is found in Jewesses." Not a lot of people realise Nietzsche felt like that. This is fun ("Was Sinai a Volcano?"): http://home.att.net/~qata/index.htm
It is simple Hebraic etymology as found in the medieval lexicons and earlier sources and which goes to prove my statement above that you are not qualified scholarly to make statements in this area for lack of skills on your part and the fact that all your motives are generated by hate{altruistic}. The Lubavitcher part is yours.
Kisses returned with interest. Doubtless, thou art dark, but thou art comely.