Book Review: The Myth of Nazareth

[kbs2244]

Or the custom for the bride to offer her virginity to the highest contributor to the temple on the night before the wedding?

“Temple prostitutes?”

In how many cultures is the classic wording at climax “Oh My God!”

[kbs2244]

“I do have difficulty with religious Muslims and Frum Jews for one and the same reason, I despise intensely their treatment of women as second class people!

And on the subject that culture runs deep Min, one of the things that most astonishes me about my previous paragraph is that, largely, the women not only accept the situation but actively support it!”

I am quite aware of this concept in some “Christian” denominations, as well as Mormonism.
The argument is not that women are “second class.”
It is that they have a different role to play.

In short, there are things men do and there are things women do.
And, just as women shouldn’t do things men are supposed to do,
so also, men are should not do things women are supposed to do.

I would have to agree though, that the idea has sometimes been pushed beyond the original idea.

But when you are raised in that environment, it becomes part of you.

[Digit]

I agree. A women who worked for me once informed that I did not agree with equality between the sexes. I agreed that she was correct for the reason you state kb. I then explained that I did support the idea of equal oportunity for both sexes.
This is what is not applied in strict Judaism and Islam, women are denied the opportunity to do certain things that they are fully competent to undertake.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Or the custom for the bride to offer her virginity to the highest contributor to the temple on the night before the wedding?

“Temple prostitutes?”

Nothing's changed:
http://www.zimbio.com/Natalie+Dylan+Vir ... +Virginity



But for the life of me I can't imagine why any man in his right mind would want a virgin! A virgin is totally, utterly useless in bed! She literally doesn't know fuck all about sex...

And those bomb-belt wearers even blow themselves up for the reward of seventy-two virgins they think they'll get from Allah when they do! That is proof (Roy!) they are raving mad lunatics.

But if Ms Dylan is a virgin, then I am too.

[Digit]

But for the life of me I can't imagine why any man in his right mind would want a virgin! A virgin is totally, utterly useless in bed! She literally doesn't know fuck all about sex...

And those bomb-belt wearers even blow themselves up for the reward of seventy-two virgins they think they'll get from Allah when they do! That is proof (Roy!) they are raving mad lunatics.

Total agreement on both points.
My belief as to why some men insist on bridal virginity is that they are scared the wife might be able to make comparisons.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Total agreement on both points.

Not on all three?
You think Ms Dylan really is a virgin...?

[Digit]

You think Ms Dylan really is a virgin...?

Being a gentleman I couldn't possibly comment!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

But for the life of me I can't imagine why any man in his right mind would want a virgin!

Some guys won't consider a used car, either. Go figure.

[Rokcet Scientist]

You think Ms Dylan really is a virgin...?

Being a gentleman I couldn't possibly comment!

I'll take that as a 'no'!

[jw1815]

P.S. I hope you're feeling better.

Much better now, thanks. Nothing more serious than a broken toe and sprained ankle. Annoying, painful, and inconvenient for getting around or sitting with the legs downward for any length of time. But it gave me some laid up time to refresh myself on the confusing complexities of Near Eastern history. Takes time to sift through and synthesize what I want to say when responding, though.

[jw1815]

What’s his basis for thinking that the returning exiles were mainly Babylonians?

Math, mainly. ...... Thus, for the most part, we are left with the grand-children of the exiles to make the return trip and they were born in Babylon and were strangers to Jerusalem.

You and Davies then are assuming that Jews in exile didn’t pass on their customs and beliefs to their children. I disagree. As Digit has pointed out, culture runs deep and it isn’t easily obliterated – especially not when the attempts are deliberate.

One recent historical example is the forced assimilation of Native Americans in the mid 19th and early 20th centuries. In Canada and the US, American Indian children from age 5 and up were forcibly removed from their homes, put into distant boarding schools, and forbidden visits with their families. Their hair was cut short, all clothing and objects related to their ethnicity were destroyed, and they were forcibly converted to Christianity and given new names. They were severely punished for speaking a word of their native tongues, or practicing anything related to their native culture. They were taught to despise the culture of their people as inferior and repulsive. They boarded at these schools until “graduation” at age 16, with only occasional holiday or summer visits with their families for those who could afford to travel home and were likely to return. (Several ran away.) Meantime, for adult Native Americans still living at home, their native languages and religions were made illegal.

Yet, under these conditions, older children contrived ways to continue some of their beliefs and customs in disguise. Adults on reservations went underground with their practices and contrived ways to continue them unnoticed. Large chunks of language and customs were lost, and the people did adopt European-American clothing, technologies, and language. But, considering the circumstances, surprisingly many traditional stories, customs, religious beliefs, and cultural attitudes survived, sometimes intact, other times as syncretisms with European-American Christian culture or with other Native American cultures.

Cultures can be altered through force or through benevolent assimilation, But, they’re not easily obliterated by either method.

[jw1815]

I posted this over at Internet Infidels on the subject. The reply is to someone who suggested that the "Jews" were slaves in Babylon
A common misconception. I quote from Amy Dockser Marcus' book The View From Nebo, published in 2000, pg 174. .

Nothing in that description of Jewish life in Babylon precludes Jews from passing on their religion and culture to future generations.

The only thing that tells us that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were "Jews" prior to 536BC is the OT itself. There is no archaeological evidence (with a special emphasis on the "no") or textual evidence to sustain that view.

Davies can’t have it both ways. He can’t claim that there was no identity before exile (who was exiled?) and at the same time claim that there was an identity that Persians took from Assyrian and Babylonian archives. Archives of what? Of whom?

The idea that Persians managed to create – from archives – the minutiae of daily life details in Biblical religious laws, customs, and names, and then fit living people into the mold, sounds incredible. It’s like saying that Persians created a novel, with characters, perspectives, and settings and then placed real people into it to live out the plot. Just creating the story (without fitting living people into it) would have required a huge undertaking of researchers and writers. Where’s the evidence that a committee of scholars and scribes was convened for such a purpose?

Maybe my skepticism about the claim could be diminished if you clarify what you mean by “Jews” when you say “nothing tells us that the inhabitants of Jerusalem were ‘Jews’ prior to 536 BC”?

What identity are you referring to in regard to Jews? Political? Religious? Tribal? Linguistic? Are you – or Davies – saying that Israel existed (as confirmed in the 9th century Mesha stele’s reference to Omri, King of Israel), but not Judah? That Israel worshipped Yahweh (as mentioned in the Mesha stele) but Judah didn’t? That there was no tribe of Judah? That there was a tribe of Judah, but its members weren’t called Jews? That the names Judah and Jews came from Israeli refugees of the Assyrian assault on Israel but that the names didn’t exist before then in Judah – or whatever it was called? That there were no cultural, religious, linguistic, or ethnic ties between Israelite refugees and the people they migrated to? That the words Judah and Jews didn’t exist prior to the captivity of whatever the people were called who lived in whatever the land was called?

What was it called? What was the name of the people and their region that the Babylonians took captive? Surely they called themselves something, and the Babylonians and neighboring nations called them something.

[jw1815]

The handful of inscriptions we have which mention Yahweh also mention his "consort" Asherah. Thus, Jerusalem seems to be indistinguishable from any of the other henotheistic cultures in Canaan at the time. Yahweh may have been the boss hooter in Jerusalem, just as Marduk was in Babylon or Baal in Phoenicia.

Yes, he might have been. He might even have been El (Asherah’s first husband) under a new name, as the Biblical accounts claim, which I suspect is the case.

I think our main point of difference is how Yahweh became the monotheistic deity of Judaism, which is also related to when it happened. You’re suggesting a foreign creation imposed on the people by Persians for political reasons. I agree that there’s a Persian religious and political influence on Judaism, but I think that there was a long cultural and religious evolution toward monotheism before then, related to conflict between nomadic cultures and settled agricultural civilizations. The Biblical stories reflect that conflict. I think the cobbling effect of the Bible comes from attempts to merge two traditions – nomadic and agricultural - into one, and a supreme deity into the only deity. The newer deity name, Yahweh, incorporates the old traditions of El.

My basic premise for looking beyond Persian influence on Judaism is that religions evolve. Constantly. They change from within as the culture of the practitioners changes. They change from without as they absorb parts of other religions and cultures they have contact with. They splinter off into various forms. I think it’s a mistake to look for a single, clear source of monotheistic Judaism. The Biblical stories show signs of merging at least two main religious traditions and names, El (and its variations of Elohim, El Shaddai) and Yahweh, and two ways of life, the nomadic and the settled, agricultural civilizations. Each one has a history of its own before being merged. So I believe that the development of Judaism and its monotheistic deity, Yahweh, is a very long evolutionary one that absorbed a number of influences from within and without.

I think that some of that long evolutionary history can be partially traced through analysis of imagery, themes, customs, and names in the Bible stories in comparison with the general history of the Near East and specific, though scant, documentary evidence.

[jw1815]

Everytime scholars examine specific OT claims they are found to be lacking evidence. Is Davies' idea that Judaism was a later literary creation and that subsequent generations of priets and kings went back and wrote it onto the legends of their past so outrageous?

I don’t think it’s outrageous to think that later generations back-wrote some of their contemporary views and stories into ancient legends because I agree that it happened and that the rewriting is part of the cobbled effect of the Biblical stories. In one part, the Bible itself practically tells us that that’s what happened when Yahweh says that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob didn’t know him as Yahweh because he didn’t reveal that name to the people until he spoke to Moses.

But, I disagree that OT claims lack evidence. I don’t think the evidence is the kind that can be stated as incontrovertible fact, but I do think that it indicates probabilities, and that’s probably the best we can get for very ancient cultural and religious backgrounds that contributed to the evolution of Judaism.

I’ll explain what I believe the Biblical stories tell us about the origins of Judaism, in the context of Near East history, but it’s going to require delving into early Near East cultures, historical events and records, and waves of religious, political, and economic changes.

[jw1815]

The Biblical stories fall into 3 general descriptions of Judaism – the Hebrew patriarchs, the nomadic Israelite tribes, and the nations of Israel/Judah. I don’t take the stories as literally, historically true and accurate, but I think there are some historical truths represented in them, even in the stories of the Hebrew patriarchs.

Most historical and Biblical scholars who reject a connection between the Hebrew name and the ancient Habiru/Apiru mentioned in historical documents (2100 BC to 1300 BC) do it because the word Habiru (Semitic) or Apiru (Egyptian) in the contexts of the records means outlaws on the fringes of society rather than a specific ethnic or tribal group. But I accept a connection between them because: 1) it fits some general history of the Near East, 2) the predominant ethnicities in the records were Hurrians and west Semitic Canaanite speakers, 3) Hurrian names and customs exist in the patriarchal stories and Hebrew is a west Semitic language closely related to extinct Canaanite languages, and 4) both the timing and the sound of it are just too damned close for coincidence.

Early Canaanite history

Back up in time to around 3000 BC or earlier, when most of Canaan was a fertile region where inland agricultural communities produced sufficient excess crops for trading with coastal Canaanite towns that later became Phoenician city states. Around 2200 BC, climate changes produced periods of drought that reduced the agricultural productivity of the region and changed the economic balance. The shepherd class, who maintained flocks and herds in the countryside for the towns and city states, resorted to year round, broad ranging nomadism to feed their herds and themselves. They became split off from attachment to city states or kingdoms, and developed an independent existence as nomadic clans. Sort of the ancient Near East equivalent of modern homelessness in bad economic times – a catch as catch can subsistence. They travelled a circuit with their flocks and herds, from Mesopotamia in the north to the Egyptian delta in the south, on the fringes of settled Near East civilizations and desert tribes.

Habiru/Apiru/Hebrew connections in historical documents

If you’re familiar with the Habiru/Apiru term, you know that it’s mentioned in ancient texts from 2100 BC to 1300 BC throughout the Near East, from Mesopotamia to the Nile Delta, and in the 18th dynasty Amarna letters of Egypt. In the contexts where the word is used it means “outlaws,” or “vagrants. From the written records, we know that they roamed the Near East doing odd jobs, accepting sheep, food, and clothing as payment. The work they were paid for ranged from being mercenaries in armies to doing construction labor, farm labor, etc., but they were always on the fringes of settled, agricultural society. Sometimes they were taken as slaves; other times they willingly indentured themselves for specific periods, but in general, preferred their roaming independence.

I think they were the dislocated shepherds of the Near East who began their year round widely travelled nomadic existence during drought-driven economic changes. The droughts and economic shifts began around 2200 BC. The first mention of Habiru outlaw bands is 2100 BC.
In the same period, around 2200 BC, large migrations of nomadic Arabian tribes went to Babylon, Syria, and parts of Canaan (which, despite droughts, might have looked good compared to an even drier Arabian desert). Hurrians from the north and east migrated down into Mesopotamia and westward to Anatolia. Amorites of the Canaanite hill country moved into Mesopotamia. Amorite migrations might have been associated with the influx of Arabian tribes.
Hurrians, Amorites, and Arabic tribes completely intermixed around Aleppo (Syria) and Canaan. Canaanite and Amorite became synonymous.
Ancient textual references to Habiru, especially the mercenaries in the Tikunani Prism, show that they were predominantly Hurrian, mixed with Semitic soldiers. A Mitanni text indicates that Hurrian and Semitic people lived together in Habiru camps.

The stories of the patriarchs, although claimed as Semitic ancestors of Jews and Muslims, also contain names and customs associated with Hurrians. I think the ancient mixture of Semitic and Hurrian people at Syria, Canaan, and Babylon is reflected in the patriarchal stories and in texts about the Habiru, making this mixture a likely source of the Hebrew name.

The OT cultural “jumble” of legends appears to have at least 2, possibly 3 origins – Hurrian, Amorite/Canaanite, and Arabic. The Arabic tribes who went to Babylon adapted to the Mesopotamian culture and later were Babylonian rulers.