BLACK BEAUTY IS A'WAITING

BLACK BEAUTY IS A'WAITING
THIS BEAUTY ROCKS!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO - MORE INSIGHTS FROM THIS GREAT BOOK

So far, we've learned that much of the Biblical "history" of the "Jews" is fiction; the supposed conquest of the area of Canaan didn't take place. The Jews were Canaanite sheep herders who peacefully built small villages next to their Canaanite neighbors.

But who were the Jews? Here's the answer to that: "....today's Jews and Palestinians  ... populations fit very closely together and that a majority of Arabs and Jews in Israel and the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza, have common ancestors who lived in the region as much as 8000 years ago."

Common Ancestors!!

Not a race set apart, conceived in the mind of their God who ordained them to conquer and occupy a "Promised Land!"

In fact, is the God of the Bible even the god that the early Jews worshipped?  Likely not, is the answer.  "...the word Israel means 'fighter for El' and El was a Canaanite god. ... the commonest religious objects found in excavations throughout Israel are small female figures. So it seems the Israelites were worshiping God, Yahweh and Mrs. God, Asherah. (emphasis added by GB) A temple from the eighth century B.C.E. .... suggest(s) that gods, not a god, were being worshipped. Since the Bible tells us that Judah was remaining faithful to the true religion, maybe the true religion at that time wasn't the one we know from the Bible."

Now, this is very interesting. We know that the Hebrew Bible - what the Christians call the Old Testament - was written within the several centuries prior to the Current Era, the stories they incorporated, and the myths they canonized, were centuries or millennia old by the time they wrote them down. Just how much liberty did the numerous writers and editors take in incorporating these tales into their written manuscript? Considering the multitudinous contradicting stories in the O.T. (you can Google 'Bible Contradictions' to see a whole sheaf of them; I won't try to enumerate them here), it is evident that the writers had multiple and conflicting stories they had heard and that had been passed along for generations.

How they canonized the myths, selected competing tales, and created "The God" that all should follow is the gist of numerous books I have on my shelf. Yes, I say "created" the God - for that is but fiction derived from the mind of ancient man.

This current book is substantiating all of that with archaeological evidence.

So, even though the Jewish Bible lies, the rocks don't lie. And therein resides the truth about the Judeo-Christian religion.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

A QUICK AND EASY, GOOD READ: IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO

Here's a recent book (Copyright 2001) by Matthew Sturgis that explores the archaeological history of the "Holy Land", exploring the dirt, the bones, the remnants left behind by the civilizations that occupied this land for the past two to three millennia, and seeking confirmation of the Biblical "history" as found in the pages of the books which supposedly chronicled the taking of this land by the early Jewish followers of Yahweh.

Not surprisingly to those of us who have been following these archaeological quests for some time (See: Reading List), his review of recent work in the area again discloses that the Bible is unreliable as an historical tool; the stories of conquest appear to be later figments of vivid imaginations; the Jews were peaceful, nomadic sheepherders who were of Canaanite stock and by no means a separate line of humanity.

And there is good reason to seek to confirm or deny the Biblical stories: after all, battle has raged in the Middle East for over two millennia over this "sacred" ground, all because the Jews have a "prior claim from God" to ownership of it. So, was it taken by Jewish warriors of old as the tales would have us believe, or not?

Well, examples abound of the error of the story as the Bible tells it. Firstly, we find this: "Is the Bible's account of events backed up in other written records? The answer, (he) soon discovered, is an emphatic 'No'. So far, only two external sources have been found that even mention Israel up to the mid-ninth century B.C.E." (Note: the stories of Joshua's Godly army destroying the walls at Jericho supposedly took place in the 10th century B.C.E.; same with David killing Goliath and establishing the capital of Israel at Jerusalem - all 10th century B.C.E.)

So, if no external written records are available (that is to say, the Egyptians who had supposedly enslaved the Jews, then lost an army in the pursuit of them at the Sea of Reeds and who kept records of Every Other Contact with a foreign nation or peoples, and of every military campaign, but kept No Record of any contact with the Jews!), what do the physical remains tell us?

Again, from the book: "When the site at Jericho was reworked in the 1950s (Kathleen Kenyon) for example, it was discovered that the walls had fallen down (most likely due to an earthquake: my comment) long before Joshua and his people were supposed to have arrived - and that at that time Jericho was almost certainly unoccupied." And further: "The fact that the archaeological evidence at Jericho - and at other sites mentioned in the Bible - refutes the conquest story, came as a shock." (Emphasis added by GB)

Now he states unequivocally: ".....not only was there no conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Children of Israel (that was all a later invention) but that the Israelites were in fact Canaanites."

Let's swallow hard and read that sentence again, putting emphasis where it belongs:
   ... THERE WAS NO CONQUEST OF CANAAN BY JOSHUA !!!
   ... THE ISRAELITES WERE IN FACT CANAANITES !!!

Yet people have, for the nearly 2500 years of the existence of the Hebrew Bible, believed these myths, preached these myths, proselytized in the Name of these Myths, and fought and died for these myths! And they continue to do so right up to this very day: November 16th, 2010!!!

The book has so much detail it would be impossible for me to summarize it all in the time I have left to live, so please - get the book, read it actively (highlighting, checking its references, etc.) and ponder just what our world might look like now if these stories hadn't been created by the spin doctors of old, hadn't been rammed down the throats of innocent children in the Middle East for two and a half millennia, and hadn't been used as a pretext for the continuing battles that rage in the "Holy Land".

It truly boggles the mind.

gb

Saturday, November 6, 2010

OP-ED PIECE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Op-Ed Columnist


Tone-Deaf in D.C.
By BOB HERBERT

Published: November 5, 2010

It would be easy to misread the results of Tuesday’s elections, and it looks as if the leaders of both parties are doing exactly that.
Damon Winter/The New York Times

Bob Herbert

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are offering voters the kind of change that they seem so desperately to want. We’re getting mind-numbing chatter about balanced budgets and smaller government and whether Mitch McConnell and his gang can chase President Obama out of the White House in 2012.

What voters want is leadership that will help them through an economic nightmare and fix a country that has been pitched into a state of sharp decline. They long for leaders with a clear and compelling vision of a better America and a road map for getting there. That leadership has long been AWOL. The hope in the tumultuous elections of 2008 was that it would come from Mr. Obama and the Democrats, but that hope, after just two years, is on life support.

Tuesday’s outcome was the result of voters, still hungry for change, who either switched in anger from the Democrats to the Republicans or, out of a deep sense of disappointment, stayed home.

It was hardly a mandate for the G.O.P.’s way of doing things. Nearly 15 million Americans are out of work. The public does not want the next two years to be a bitter period of endless Congressional investigations of the Obama administration; more tax cuts and other giveaways to the very wealthy; and attacks on programs like Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance that offer at least a measure of economic security for ordinary people.

It would also be a mistake for the Democrats, a terminally timid party, to cave in to their opponents and start embracing a G.O.P. agenda that would only worsen the prospects of ordinary working Americans and the poor.

The Democrats are in disarray because it’s a party that lacks a spine. The Republicans, conversely, fight like wild people whether they’re in the majority or not. What neither party is doing is offering a bold, coherent plan to get the nation’s economy in good shape and create jobs, to bring our young men and women home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to rebuild the education system in a way that will prepare the next generation for the great challenges of the 21st century, and to reinvigorate the can-do spirit of America in a way that makes people believe that they are working together toward grand and constructive goals.

Great challenges demand great leaders. Marian Anderson once said, “Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.”

Americans right now are riddled with fears and anxieties of many kinds. They are worried about the economic well-being of their families, the cost of securing a decent education for their children, their prospects for a comfortable retirement, the continuing threat of terrorism, and the debilitating effects of endless warfare. They worry that America’s best days may be in the past.

Neither party talked about the wars during the campaign because neither party has anything satisfactory to say about them. And there was hardly any talk about education. We know that a quality education is more important now than ever, but we are firing teachers by the scores of thousands, not because they are incompetent, but because state and local budgets have hemorrhaged.

Our leaders in Washington seem entirely out of touch with the needs, the hopes, the fears and the anxieties of the millions of Americans who are out of work, who are struggling with their mortgages or home foreclosures, who are skimping on needed medication in order to keep food on the table, and who lie awake at night worrying about what the morning will bring. No one even dares mention the poor.

What this election tells me is that real leadership will have to come from elsewhere, from outside of Washington, perhaps from elected officials in statehouses or municipal buildings that are closer to the people, from foundations and grass-roots organizations, from the labor movement and houses of worship and community centers.

The civil rights pioneers did not wait for presidential or Congressional leadership, nor did the leaders of the women’s movement. They plunged ahead with their crucial work against the longest odds and in the face of seemingly implacable hostility. Leaders of the labor movement braved guns, bombs, imprisonment and heaven knows what else to bring fair wages and dignity to working people.

America’s can-do spirit can be revived, and with it a brighter vision of a fairer, more inclusive, and more humane society. But not if we wait on Washington to do it. The loudest message from Tuesday’s election is that the people themselves need to do much more.

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Here's Gene:
I have said many times about this recent election that the Democrats didn't lose to the Republicans; they were beaten by their own party, their own lack of leadership, their lack of foresight. How many articles did I read where the Democratic loser said that he/she didn't realize what a sizable lead the Republican opponent had amassed - and THEN started to campaign in earnest.

We accomplished great things in the '08 election - and gave it all away due to what the editorialist, above, calls the spinelessness of the Democratic Party.

Perhaps if enough columns are written, if enough individual voters voice their frustration - just perhaps, the elected officials of both parties will see the light and begin to address the real problems in America.

g