From: RFaussette@aol.com
Date: Fri Feb 21 2003 - 18:35:08 EST
In a message dated 2/21/03 2:58:48 PM Eastern Standard Time, jan@dekoning.ca
writes:
> At 12:26 PM 21/02/2003 -0500, RFaussette@aol.com wrote in part:
>
>
> >> I am not trying to read the Bible as a scientific book. Pastoralism began
>> in Anatolia (Asia minor) around 7000 bc. Harran, where jacob went to get
>> his wife is in Anatolia. The reputed location of the garden of eden is in
>> northeast anatolia. The Bible was probably last assembled and edited by
>> Ezra, that's at the return from exile in 539 BC, not 2000 BC. Abraham is
>> reported by the Historical atlas of the jewish people to have lived around
>> 1800BC, Moses in the same book around 1300BC. There were no Israelites in
>> 2000BC. It was Ezra who re-architected the Law and brought it back to
>> Israel from Babylon where he was a priest and scribe around 590BC.
>
> Ezra may have belonged to the priestly class, but did he have "priestly"
> duties in Babylon?
>
See Ezra 7 for Ezra's genealogy and his mission from Artaxerxes, king of
Persia who sends him with prodigious financing to rebuild the temple. I gave
the background to explain the relationship between the persians and the
Israelites. In Olmstead, "disaffected jewish captives were predicting the
fall of babylon at the hands of the warlike Medes, but as so often they were
disappointed." and again, "Jewish prophets were predicting babylon's fall and
hailing Cyrus as the Lord's anointed who would grant return to Zion." Since
the jewish captives in Babylon were the upper classes carried away by
Nebuchadnezzar, it makes sense that the reward Ezra received was for helping
the persians take babylon. There is more but that should suffice.
>
> >> The Israelites aided Cyrus in weakening babylon for persian conquest
>> (olmstead's history of the persian empire) which supports the often made
>> remark that the priestly caste in Babylon were at their origin zoroastrian
>> and the source for that religion (zoroastriansim) is certainly the rg veda
>> of the Indus Valley. The ancient priests of the indus valley sacrificed
>> cattle. They were not shepherds. It is a bull that is the customary
>> sacrifice of the priestly class in the Temple at Jerusalem, and not sheep,
>> suggesting a direct line from the most ancient priestly class in the world
>> (source of all the world's major religions) to the Levites of ancient
>> Israel. Even today, among orthodox Jews, it is the Babylonian talmud that
>> is most respected, not the Jerusalem talmud.
>
> Where do you base the above information on? I mean in respect to the
> relationship with Ezra.
>
>
I think I answered that above. The sequence from the Indus valley to Judaism
is attested by emile durkheim in his studies of the tripartite nature of the
indus valley sacrificial system which is structured essentially the same as
the Judaic sacrificial system, even to the genetic segregation from gentiles
in Judaism to sudras in the Indus valley. It is also relevant that zoroaster
modified the Indus Valley system by claiming all gods should be destroyed
other than the "true" God, a belief which emerges in Judaism. The previous
Indus Valley religion had allowed religious freedom among the lower castes,
the persian zoroaster did not and the old covenant instructs the Israelites
to destroy the sacred pillars of all other peoples wherever they are found.
>
> >> I never said anything in the Bible was no longer relevant. I say what you
>> are saying but you have come to the wrong conclusion. The Israelites were
>> pastoralists.
>> That was their livelihood. To say pastoralism is not the relevant
>> perspective from which to view the torah is to deny all of the pastoralist
>> symbols and statements throughout the Bible and the very livelihood and
>> means of survival of the people who inspired it.
>>
>>
>> Look through the Bible through the eyes of the people who inspired it, not
>> scientific eyes or any other eyes, but their eyes. That's what I'm saying.
>> That perspective does not conflict with science, suggesting our religion
>> is scientific at its core and if that is true, then the source of our
>> religion is true religion! and that's the proposition I have been trying
>> to share...
>>
>> rich
>
> Apart from the fact that the people did nor inspire the Bible, I agree as
> long as you do not take the word "scientific" to mean what most people
> think.
>
> Jan de Koning
>
>
I was not the first to use the term scientific nor did I embrace it. I would
ask you to consider that I stressed that the Bible should be read through the
eyes of a pastoralist. Since pastoralism is studied anthropologically, you
have new tools to do Biblical analysis.
That is what is so exciting in evolutionary anthropology right now. David
sloan wilson's latest book is Darwin's Cathedral. He is an evolutionary
biologist. Kevin Macdonald's trilogy on Judaism is a work of evolutionary
psychology.
rich
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