Let me ask a question of my friends:
Do you think that Jews base their indigenous status in historic Palestine (formerly Israel) upon the stories of conquest in our ANE inherited Torah (the attributed to “Five Scrolls of Moses”)?
To answer this question, we must first answer the question: How did the entire world become so *obsessed* with historic Palestine?!
No one outside of the Levant proper today would *give a damn* about Israel, an area with little resources and always struggling in livability, were it not for two fundamentalist Common Era (A.D.) developments. The formation of European Roman Christianity in the 4th century CE, and the formation of Arabia’s Islam in the 6th century CE. Had these two non-national based developments not occured, Jews would still be an uninteresting people living in Israel-Samaria, aka Judea, to this day.
Please, understand, that *before* gentile Christianity and gentile Islam was created in this modern world, the entire planet was filled with only ethno-religious peoples. It would take the development of pure proselytizing/conquesting religions, known as Christianity and Islam, to literally change the face of our human earth! These two gentile created religions that appropriated Jewish writings, and declared themselves the true followers of certain ideals that are *within* these texts.
Had not these two “religion”-based *empires* developed, Jews would be throughout this world an uninteresting minority group like the Sikhs! Tell me honestly, how many in this world know what Sikhism is? … Don’t worry, I’ll wait! … There is only *two* reasons that ANE Israel (think Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, and Israel areas) are a subject of daily divisive conversation – and needlessly! And this fundamentally ties to Christianity and Islam.
Now, let me answer how Jews are *historically* the indigenous of the land, despite just our maintaining continuous presence in historic Israel!
Back in the ANE, the BCE period (B.C.), back in the 13th century BCE, the tribes of Hebrews, Jews, and Edomites (the much later conquesting Greeks called them “Idumeans,” – and, no, they were not “Arabs” from “Arabia”!) were all *brother* tribes that lived nexted door to the Canāanites people. The culture of these herds-people was, for the most part, the same as the agricultural people next door – to include devotion to the Canāanite patheon of gods.
Yet, due to the conquests of Egypt’s effort to expand and control the entire Middle Eastern land, these herds-people (who are known today only as “Jews”) were influenced by Egyptian culture and incorporated certain rituals from the Egyptians. Then, came the Assyrian empire, to conquest and control all of the Middle East, and Jews picked up some of *their* culture, as well. By this time, the tribes of Israel-Judea and Edomites were realizing the *necessity* for a clearly *destined* nationality – one that challenges conquesting empires upon Judean-Edomean lands.
Remember, Jews and Edomites witnessed the utter destruction of the Hebrews and assimilation of Hebrews into Assyrian culture firsthand! Hence, the lament of “the lost tribes” of Israel to full citizens of Assyria. But, wait, here came next the Persians! The Babylonian empire conquered Judea, *but* did not assimilate our ethno-religious culture into Babylonian culture. This is why we have the modern history of Jewish experience *to this day*!
When the Babylonians let us have national freedom again, as a Jewish people, we rebuilt the Temple to YHWH and solidified our first *written* account of who we are as a people, and who we are as a people from our experiences in the Middle East (the scroll of D’varim, Deuteronomy). But, more importantly, we Jews were both absorbing other cultures *and* applying our unique ethno-religious spin upon what they imparted upon us – by force, of course(!).
It was Babylonian culture that taught us as an ethno-religious nationality to embrace a *divine* vassal treaty as a way to define us, as a people, from the endless conquesters of the land! We took their vassal treaty model, made YHWH the originator of our treaty, and devoted ourselves to a *Jewish* national future. So what, if the Babylonians think that we are worshipping their national god!
Then, came the naked promiscuous Greeks to seduce us! And they sure did, for many of us! There culture was unlike any culture that Jews had encountered so far. This is when being Jewish became a *complicated* subject. Just saying! But, this is a subject of its own. Then, came the Romans, who – eventually, for internal political reasons, found us Jews as too unmanageable and, consequently, decided our national fate as a people! Jewish Israel became “Syria Palaestina,” courtesy of feuding brothers of Rome to whose going to be the emperor of the Roman empire. And, until 1948, only *conquerors* have ruled this historic “Palestinian” portion of the Levant.
I kid you not, “Palestinian” used to refer to *Jews*, before it became synonymous with “Arab.” How did this reversal happen? Historical records can *also* answer this! But, if only, you’re willing to learn from world history. After the Roman Empire’s fall, which was known as Byzantine Christianity at this point, the newly converted from paganism to Islam Arabs decided to conquest the Jewish land, as the Romans-turned-gentile-Christian had done before.
Since then, these two true and pure religions, determined to turn *all* humans into them – by *any* means necessary, so *ever* say their *most* devout, based on *scripture* – have been appropriating Jewish literatures as *justification* for their self-righteous behaviors upon this planet Earth. Worse, they think that know Jews and *how we think* based upon their religion! And, when they argue on forums such as this, with *Jews* – how dare a Jew ask them to listen to a *Jew*?!!!
We Jews *understand* the difference between cherished myths that we will faithfully teach to our children, and the historical reality of a people – in every significant historical age. I feel sorry for all humans bought into the pure “religions” of this planet Earth – because, this inflexibility *keeps us* from achieving peace upon the land*s* of this Earth!
I mean I should know! For my very Y haplogroup shared down to me by every father before me originated *in the Levant*, from “bottlenecking,” of course. And, before this, the earliest version of my Y haplogroup originated in the Levant, as well, before being shared to Europe through hunter-forager migrations (though, we are nonetheless a minority among humanity, in the Levant and also in Europe!). …
Don’t be fooled by the looks of one, based on ad-mixturing! Don’t think that Jews are a religion *only*! And, please, don’t be so quick to learn history from those who have a biased interest in rewriting it – said demonstrable history! Just saying.
For Jews, TaNaKh, most specifically Torah, is a book of laws – backed by both mythic *and* literal history – that we adhere to (embrace, struggle with, and challenge) as a method of maintaining our people’s ethno-cultural-religious survival upon this planet. We are *not* a religion!
Ahmadi Muslim and Zionist Jew talk Palestine
0 Comments