Re: [asa] True Scotsman fallacy - was Of m....

In a message dated 8/1/2006 9:01:26 AM Eastern Standard Time,
rich.blinne@gmail.com writes:
The Jews did not do all that was commanded and those peoples were not
driven out were they? This promise was conditional on obedience that
was found wanting and thus "the surrounding peoples" did not "see the
work of Lord" as was intended.
What bible are you reading?

There are two biblical versions of the manner in which that conquest was
accomplished. In the Book of Joshua it is dramatic and decisive. The cities are
taken and their inhabitants put to the sword. In the other version of the
conquest of Canaan in the Book of Judges, however, the Israelites lack “chariots of
iron” and are forced to rely on cunning and strategy to gain the upper hand
over the indigenous population until the locals are eventually absorbed into the
emerging Israelite majority in a subordinate role.
 
            “…They reduce[d] them to forced labor.” Judges 1:35

From Race and Religion, A Catholic View, in Race and the American Prospect,
Occidental Press, 2006

Of course, they saw the work of the Lord. Regardless of which biblical
version of the conquest of Canaan you subscribe to, the indigenous people of Canaan
are either exterminated or subjugated.

OR don't believe there was a conquest of Canaan at all:

In that case, you can subscribe to the biblical minimalists, who say there
was no conquest of Canaan. The conquest was actually a reconquista as the
survivors of the northern kigdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah rewrite
their texts (7th century when Joshua "finds" Deuteronomy) in the hopes of
removing the foreigners and their gods placed by the Assyrians.

    "In 720 B.C., the Assyrians forever change the course of western
civilization when they destroy the northern kingdom of Israel and capture the
Israelite capital of Samaria:
 
“Then he [Shalmanaser, king of Assyria] invaded the whole country and
reaching Samaria, besieged it for three years. In the ninth year of Hosea he captured
Samaria and deported its people to Assyria and settled them in Halah and on
the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of Media.”11
“…Then the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva,
Hamath, and Sephairvaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the
Israelites; so they occupied Samaria and lived in its cities. ”12
 
The so called 10 tribes of Israel that Shalmanaser deports are dispersed
among the people of the Assyrian empire and vanish from history. Most of the
Israelite deportees are the aristocracy and the people from the main population
centers. The compliant common people of the countryside are allowed to remain and
work the land. The Assyrian conquerors then repopulate the urban centers of
the northern kingdom of Israel with foreigners who have foreign gods. These
foreigners from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sephairvaim rule on behalf of
the Assyrians. They now populate the northern kingdom’s main centers.
The population of the southern kingdom of Judah, which is poor, rural, remote
and of lesser interest to the Assyrians teems with the incoming survivors. In
time, Judah is vitalized by the Israelite survivors from the north and reacts
to the Assyrian conquest and the diversification of the northern kingdom of
Israel:
 
“… After the fall of Samaria, with the increasing centralization of the
kingdom of Judah, a new, more focused attitude toward religious law and practice
began to take hold. Jerusalem’s influence – demographic, economic, and
political – was now enormous and it was linked to a new political and territorial
agenda: the unification of all Israel.”13
 
The Israelites who survive the conquest of the northern kingdom bring
literacy and the fervent desire to recover the northern kingdom of Israel with them
to the poor, remote southern kingdom of Judah. They devote themselves to the
idea that the damage to Israel is reversible. They centralize administration in
Jerusalem and set out to remove all traces of the foreign peoples who now
populate Israel’s main centers in their place. Their aspirations are reflected in
a new theology.
 
“When Judah suddenly faced the non-Israelite world on its own, it needed a
defining and motivating text. That text was the historical core of the Bible,
composed in Jerusalem in the course of the seventh century B.C.E.”14
 
Judah begins a religious transformation that will remove the foreigners along
with their foreign gods and repopulate the northern kingdom of Israel with
Israelites.
Chief among the new policies written into the Bible is the command to remove
the religious cult centers other than Jerusalem and the prohibition against
intermarriage with non-Israelites."

From Niche Theory & Population Transfer, draft

rich faussette

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue, 1 Aug 2006 17:43:53 EDT