The Old World is a reference to those parts of Earth known to Europeans before the voyages of Christopher Columbus; it includes Europe, Asia and Africa.
Minimalist wrote:
Many people will say something akin to "why would anyone concoct a history for themselves in which they were slaves?"
Also, I think in those times for a whole nation to be enslaved was perfectly normal, so it was not a big shame in general like today, just a temporary setback. Almost a bit like the Poles saying " we were occupied by the Germans, but freed ourselves of them".
That's a very valid point, Zale. Too many people believe the bible tale that the land was desolate during the exile but it was clearly not true. The upper classes were deported but the lower classes remained...as did the Babylonian occupiers. A seal with Babylonian symbolism and a Jewish name merely looks like collaboration; something that modern fundies resist because of this vision they have of the bible as a historical document.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Lying on a densely populated slope outside the walled Old City, the area is known to Israelis as the City of David, named for the legendary monarch who ruled a Jewish kingdom from this spot 3,000 years ago. It is the kernel from which Jerusalem grew.
But Silwan is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and which Palestinians claim for the capital of a future state.
Palestinians and Israelis are trying again to negotiate a peace deal, one which must include an agreement to share Jerusalem. The collision in this neighborhood — between Silwan and the City of David — encapsulates the complexities ahead.
The organization funding the digs, the Elad Foundation, is associated with the religious settlement movement and is committed to preventing Israel from ever ceding the area in a peace deal. It says it has a yearly budget of close to $10 million, nearly all of it from donations, and is buying up Palestinian homes in Silwan to accommodate Jewish families. Around 50 have moved in so far, living in houses flying Israeli flags and guarded by armed security men paid for by the Israeli government.
At the same time, the City of David digs have expanded through the neighborhood, carried out by respected Israeli government archaeologists with funding from Elad.
Politics and archaeology are inseparable in this area of the world. The Israeli's dig to find the "City of David" while the Arabs see it as a threat to their historical claims in the city.
A rich layer of finds from the latter part of the First Temple period (8th-6th centuries BCE) was recently discovered in archaeological salvage excavations that are being carried out in the northwestern part of the Western Wall plaza, c. 100 meters west of the Temple Mount.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
According to the researchers, Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich, “In contrast with the large cluster of bullae that was found two years ago, in which all of its items contain graphic symbols (such as a boat or different animals – fish, lizards and birds) but are of an earlier date (end of the 9th-beginning of the 8th century BCE), the new items indicate that during the 8th century BCE the practice had changed and the clerks who used the seals began to add their names to them.”
I seem to recall a brief discussion about "labels" on pottery vessels. This indicates that early on, pictures were used to graphically represent the contents of a vessel but that later....as literacy became widespread?....the use of names was initiated.
What I find curious is that we are currently undergoing the reverse. Burger King and McDonalds are back to putting pictures of their products on the cash registers so the "workers" know which button to push! This does not seem like a step forward to me.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
The ‘word of God’ is a faith claim which has nothing, NOTHING to do with archaeological evidence. But this is the procedure typical of Fundamentalism; everything must be tied to ‘proof’ or ‘evidence that demands a verdict’ regarding the Biblical text and those who deny those connections or require more than the simplistic ‘this is what the bible says about this piece of pottery and that’s all there is to it’ are unbelievers. It’s a methodology that - rather than being ‘more faithful’ than an honest evaluation of the evidence - is simply inappropriate.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Obviously, the Bible is not the Word of God (even if he existed) and is not even what is meant by the phrase in the Bible.
The Word of God (as in John's "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God...") is a Greek to Latin to English translation of the Greek word Logos, which derives from a Gnostic spiritual concept taught by Philo of Alexandria (20 BC to 50 AD).
Philo used allegory to fuse and harmonize Greek philosophy and Judaism. His method followed the practices of both Jewish exegesis and Stoic philosophy. His work was not widely accepted. "The sophists of literalness," as he calls them[1], "opened their eyes superciliously" when he explained to them the marvels of his exegesis. Philo's works were enthusiastically received by the early Christians, some of whom saw in him a cryptic Christian. His concept of the Logos as God's creative principle apparently influenced early Christology. To him Logos was God's "blueprint for the world", a governing plan.
This concept of the primordial sound (e.g. the Indian Aum or Om) is at the root of all religious and spiritual traditions, and it is that the first cause of the material universe was sound or vibration, before even light. Shamans hear and feel this sound/vibration, and it is like there is a generator in the room.
Well, you know me by now. I prefer a good pottery shard to any of this "mystic" stuff but it is indisputable that this stuff did exist and had to come from somewhere.
"The Word of God" seems like a useful way for humans to define "god" according to their own petty needs and desires. If there were a god, I suspect he would be downright pissed with the way his followers misuse his "word."
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
This may be a little off the map of this thread.
And I have been a little critical of begging in the past
But I think these guys have a good point,
and they need support.
Diwaniya, Mar 18, (VOI) – An ancient archeological city dating back to the neo-Babylonian era was unearthed in Diwaniya, the province's museum curator revealed, noting the ancient wide city comprised buildings of an advanced architectural nature.
"The Babylonian city was discovered in the district of al-Shamiya, (33 km) west of Diwaniya, where 341 archeological pieces were found during the first stage of excavations that lasted for the month of February," Muhammad Yahya Radi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Most of the specialists have emigrated Iraq due to the deteriorating security conditions in the country, which causes a problem as to detect a very important epoch of the country's ancient history," explained Radi.
We found out about that because one of the bodies had its half buried in a wall and the other in a funerary urn. The other three bodies had iron nails driven into their hands, legs and necks, which indicates that there were strict laws used to be applied in that city," he indicated.
Crucifixion is first attested among the Persians (cf. Herodotus, Hist. i.128.2; iii.132.2, 159.1), perhaps derived from the Assyrian impalement. It was later employed by the Greeks, especially Alexander the Great, and by the Carthaginians, from whom the Romans adapted the practice as a punishment for slaves and non-citizens, and occasionaly for citizens guilty of treason.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
A Silver Coin That Was Used To Pay The Half Shekel Head-Tax To The Temple Was Found In Jerusalem
(Scroll down a bit.)
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like my seals belonging to biblical characters to mention the biblical character to whom they purportedly belonged. The quartz seal of present interest reads yzbl.1 Marjo Korpel divines the name ’yzbl (Jezebel), however, which the seal does not in fact read.2 She then confidently takes that unnamed Jezebel to be the biblical Jezebel, whom our modern cultural vernacular has since memorialized as a pejorative for shamelessness. Korpel has effectively taken us back in time 44 years to revisit the seal’s publication by the late Nahman Avigad, who (as the expert nonpareil of West Semitic seals) considered the biblical Jezebel connection and wisely rejected it.3
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
