Japan was founded by Jews

They say genuine is genuine.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

What does that mean? And why anthropologists?

They didn't need to. They had a patriarchial society and like all patriachial societies, ethnicity was related to paternity, to family, to clan. Greeks are as ethnocentric as anyone else. Indians didn't know about DNA either but we can still tell ethnicity just by name. Its how we have a centuries old caste system.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

SAM: Gast = Guest; Arbeiter = Worker, in German. Germany today has lots of Gastarbeiter doing the common labors; i.e. lower-paying jobs.

In the US, the Braceros did the lower-paying jobs as gastarbeiter in the 1950s. Nowadays, it's the 'illegal aliens'.

So apparently FR believes that in the days of Egypt when the children of Abraham were present, they were gastarbeiter and not slaves. But the distinction is somewhat elusive. Does FR have any other take on whether there was an 'exodus' as recounted in the Torah/Old Testament?

 

What would be the evidence of the presence of such guest workers that could be used to verify this thesis?

I've read that they identify Jewish settlements in Palestine by the absence of pig bones. Are there such settlements in ancient Egypt?

 

Link, please.

 

Thanks for the link, I wish I'd taken notes while watching the PBS doc. Its really hard to get information [at least peer reviewed info] on some of these subjects

GeoffP:

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/news.aspx/128174

There is of course the assumption that prohibition of pork is Jewish in nature. But what do we know about the dietary laws of the Canaanites?

 

The words “Semite”, “Hebrew”, “Israelite”, and “Jew” oftentimes overlap in common vernacular, although they truly have different origins and refer at times to distinctly different peoples. The word “Semite” refers to Noah’s son, “Shem”; Shem’s son, Arpachshad, was understood to be Abraham’s direct ancestor (Noah’s other sons, Ham and Japheth, are understood to be the progenitors of the Hamites and Japhetites, respectively). Semites are thus understood to be descendents of Shem; the reason why Arabs are considered to be Semites is because Ishmael (Abraham’s son through Hagar) is understood to be the progenitor of the Arabs, a belief held by many Arabs and Jews. The Semites are the broadest of the four definitions I mentioned above.

Abraham is understood to be the first Hebrew. “Eber”, the great-grandson of Shem and thus ancestor of Abraham, is where the word “Hebrew” was formed; it was not used until much later to refer to Eber’s descendents (primarily Abraham). In this regard, although Abraham did go against idolatry in an idol-worshipping society (Abraham’s father, Terah, manufactured idols), and introduced monotheism to his people, he cannot be regarded as a Jew. The concept of “Jew” did not exist until much, much later.

The term “Israelite” is less broad than the term “Hebrew”. Abraham and Sarah produced Isaac, who produced with his wife, Rebecca, a son named Jacob. Jacob, before the birth of his son Benjamin, was renamed “Israel” by an angel; this explains why “Jacob” and “Israel” refer to the same person. It is popularly known that Jacob had twelve sons, who became the first heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. The descendents of these twelve sons (the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel) became known as the Israelites.

Finally, the word “Jew” itself comes from “Judean”, which refers to the descendents of the tribe of Judah (Judah being one of Jacob’s sons). Long after the Exodus, the Kingdom of Israel split following Solomon’s death due to a variety of political and economic disputes. After the dust had settled, the ten northern tribes formed the northern Kingdom of Israel, and the southern tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah. The descendents of the Kingdom of Judah later came to be known as “Jews”, although today we refer to all of the descendents of the Israelites (and even the descendents of the Hebrews) as Jews, even though it is not altogether appropriate to do so. To finish the story, the northern tribes became conquered by Assyrians, whereas the Judean’s eventually fell to the Babylonians. Ultimately, “Jew” did not come to mean the religion of Abraham until long after the fall of the Kingdom of Judah. To the unified Israelites, the people of the Exodus, and the legendary patriarchs, there was no such thing as a “Jew”; the term held no meaning.

The Pharisees, which you also mentioned, are a different story altogether. The Pharisees came into play at about 500-100 B.C., long after many of the important events in Jewish history had already occurred. They were essentially a faction and religious society amongst Jews (alongside the Sadducees and Essenes) under Hasmonean rule and produced a very important school of thought to Judaism which would later influence the creation of the Mishnah and the Talmud. The Pharisees believed the interpretations of the written law (Tanakh) by their rabbis to be divine and they claimed Mosaic authority (the authority of Moses), whereas the Sadducees believed the written law alone was divine and rabbinical commentary should have no place in influencing Jewish law or tradition. Jesus spent a great portion of his life strongly condemning the Pharisees and promising them Fire in the afterlife for their sins of changing God's law; as such, the Pharisees were heavily involved in the plot to kill Jesus. Interestingly enough, Saint Paul was a Pharisee himself (as was Nicodemus) at one point in time, although he later converted to Christianity and played a major role in the New Testament.

In terms of a timeline, the Torah was revealed in about 1300 B.C., although much of the written form of the Tanakh (including the Torah) was completed by about 500-400 B.C. The Old Testament varies in form (Protestant Old Testament, Catholic Old Testament, and Eastern Orthodox Old Testament). The various Old Testaments contain the books from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), but also contain different books as well which do not belong to the Tanakh. This is what separates the Old Testament from the Tanakh; as such, the Old Testament cannot be said to predate the Torah and the Tanakh, especially when there are so many different forms which saw extended periods of time in development. The New Testament contains the books which Jesus and his apostles recognized from the Old Testament, and new books as well, written by Jesus’ apostles and later Christians (especially Paul the Apostle).

As I am sure you know, the Torah is the first of three parts of the the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh (the others being The Prophets and The Writings). The Torah contains five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Genesis contains most of the popular stories and narratives we are all familiar with, the most significant being the creation of the Universe. Exodus, as its name implies, deals with the escape of Moses’ people from the Egyptian pharaohs, and states how Moses was later given the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai and how God formed a Covenant with the Hebrews (the promise of the land of Canaan in exchange for rejecting idolatry and following the one true God, Yahweh).

Specifically, the Torah states of the Exodus that Egypt’s Pharaoh feared the Hebrews’ increasing numbers, and became paranoid of the harm they could cause if they were to revolt. As such, he ordered newborn Hebrew boys to be thrown into the Nile river, and spared newborn girls. God subsequently caused ten plagues in Egypt for the sins they had committed against Moses’ people, and commanded Moses to employ the Passover sacrifice (which Jews celebrate today). When Moses and Aaron (Moses’ older brother) lead the Exodus, they found themselves pursued by the pharaoh and his people, only to witness them be destroyed by the parting and closing of the Red Sea. This is where the Torah’s description of the Exodus in Egypt ends and where descriptions of God’s gift of manna and water for the weary desert travellers, the establishment of the Covenant and pronouncement of the Ten Commandments, and creation of the infamous golden calf begin. In short, the Tanakh, the Old and New Testaments, and even the Qur’an support the story of the Exodus, and they all share very similar narratives concerning the events which took place. What these scriptures offer is our best look into the historical happenings of this region of the world for this particular era in time. Although there are many authors with many opinions, a significant portion of which never lived to see the events they became famous for writing about, they offer the most credible viewpoint available to us today.

Besides, most of history is guesswork.

 

Europe?

 

.

why the hell my posts were deleted, twice also??????!!!!!!! my posts here were deleted the first time, and again the second time!!!!

 

The spoken language have almost no relation, but the written language is very close, originated from China.

 

Mod note: Two posts of yours (made two minutes apart) have been deleted from this thread. They were deleted because they were off-topic, pointless and of no scientific value. When interesting scientific discussion is taking place (and I find this thread very interesting) I like to keep the thread 'clean' and on-topic; it’s nothing personal.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

@Slysoon:

While the Amarna letters mention hapiru they do not mention Israel and the assumption of the mentioned Israel which "emerges" in the next century has no historical evidence as far as I know. In fact, going as far back with maps as I can, I find no mention of the kingdom of Israel outside the bible. Yet everyone seems to be quite convinced that there was an Israel and there were Israelites.

Why?

 

.

ok i understand this

oh really, then why you don't want to keep it clean when it comes about my threats? always, when it is about muslim civilisation (wich it's a threat that have nothing to do with relegion!) you start making it durty, offencive, and agressive, (i don't mean you you, i just mean you in general)

 

There certainly was an Israel. Plenty of excavations have revealed fortifications which belonged to the founders of Ancient Israel and the great wars attributable to its establishment and defense, not to mention written works from neighbouring peoples which refer to them (beginning with the famous Merneptah stele of Ancient Egypt). Then there are the remains of the Temple in Jerusalem built first by King Solomon, and then its reconstruction years after it was destroyed by the Babylonians at the command of Cyrus the Great (whose Persians conquered the Babylonians), completed under Darius I. The Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, the Taylor and Sennacherib Prisms, and of course, the Tanakh, all attest to the wars many great empires shared with the Kingdom of Israel.

Of the Exodus, evidence outside of the ancient scriptures is scarce if you are searching for sources which directly refer to a people called the “Hebrews” or “Israelites”. As you mentioned, the Amarna tablets indeed refer frequently to “apiru” or “habiru”, which some scholars have postulated refers to the “Hebrews” based foremost on the similarity of the words (and the similarity of their misspellings). The “apiru” are also referred to in the works of the ancient Sumerians, Canaanites, and Hittites. The problem with the apiru-Hebrew theory is that the apiru seem to be more of a disorderly class of criminals, rebels, and conquerors (described as being composed of soldiers, highway robbers, and so on). Another problem is that the apiru do not share a language, based on the names of individual apiru we know of. They seem to have been a disorganized class of rebels and militiamen who caused unrest in various ancient civilizations.

It is interesting to note that ancient Egyptian texts and inscriptions, as well as the Amarna tablets, also refer to another peculiar people: the “Shasu” (which means, “people who move on foot”). The Shasu are written on Amonhotep III’s temple of Soleb as part of a list of enemies of the Pharaoh’s Kingdom. The Shasu (of which the Egyptians classed into six different categories, although what differentiated them I cannot say) are also described as being pastoralists, which was commonly identified as a practice of the Hebrews; the fact that there was no mention of pastoralism amongst the apiru is also a strong condition against the apiru-Hebrew theory. The most fascinating parallel in my opinion is how an ancient Egyptian text refers to how the Egyptians accepted “shasu tribes ... in order to keep them alive and in order to keep their cattle alive.”This text was found in Goshen, mentioned in the scriptures as the land Jacob’s sons (the twelve tribes of Israel) sought with their people following the terrible droughts in Israel. Fascinatingly, the timelines correspond; a temple wall image also depicts the Shasus as well. However, there are missing links and oddities surrounding the Shasu-Hebrew connection, although to me it is the most convincing of all theories proposed thus far. The Hebrews were likely some sort of a mix of both, especially when they began the Exodus.

 

@ Slysoon:

I know there was "an Israel" but was there ever a kingdom of Israel? There is no historical evidence of Solomon.

I did not realise there were remains from the first Temple. Could you point me to some non-biblical source [other than Josephus] that mentions them?

Thanks for the info on the Shasus, the Hapiru connections look more tenuous and coincidental than factual with further reading. There doesn't seem to be any evidence of nomads [even vagrant bandits] settling in, although the Negev Bedouin with 5000 year old graves make for good candidates of very ancient nomadic peoples.

 

Of the Kingdom of Israel, I am sure it existed, as my previous post explains (far too many writings on the dealings of the Kingdom of Israel with rival empires to believe otherwise, as recorded by both sides of the conflict, not to mention the archaeological remains). Surely such a Kingdom had its share of Kings over the centuries. Is there any evidence for a specific King named Saul? David? Solomon? No, there is not, just as you said.

In fact, outside of the scriptures, there is no evidence in any of the Biblical patriarchs (from Noah to Abraham to Isaac to Jacob). A similar argument can be made for Prophets who came after the patriarchs (Moses, Jesus, and to a much lesser degree, Muhammad). I personally think all of these figures existed. Would you consider me a fool for believing so?

Archaeological findings have unearthed dozens of mikveh discoveries believed to have been built alongside the First Temple. Mikveh is Hebrew for "collection", as in, a "collection of water" which Jews use for cleanliness before prayer. This is similar to the concept of ablution (wudu) in Islam and the fountains found near all mosques used by men of prayer. A physical part of the Second Temple still remains today (the Western Wall).

 

I've heard of the baths, they are not uncommon in non-Jewish sites. Pagan temples also have ablution baths. Even Hindus do it, so I am not convinced it is connected to the first temple. I was looking for specific evidence of the first temple. I think its a myth.

 

S.A.M.

Keep in mind the First Temple was not literally the “first temple” to have been built on the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount’s history goes back at least four thousand years, which loosely corresponds with Abraham’s birth. The Mount was used by Canaanites for centuries and housed many different projects during these times, although there is very little physical evidence which remains today other than the Mount itself. Remember, the First Temple, which replaced the Tabernacle, was destroyed in every sense of the word. Afterwards, other monuments and shrines found themselves to be built over the First Temple’s remains and the locations of the Mount immediately near it (the Second Temple, the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa mosque). The area of the Temple Mount itself and its momunments were reconstructed on many occasions (under Cyrus the Great, Darius I, and Herod the Great, who expanded the Mount), and destroyed again later (the Romans, especially Titus, son of Vespasian), and built upon yet again (Caliph Umar). Aside from texts which refer to the First Temple and the details of its construction, bath sites on its proposed remains which date back to its time are the best archaeological findings you could expect, even if we were to be sure the Temple actually existed.

We know the Second Temple existed. The Book of Ezra (a book of the Tanakh), which is traditionally accepted to be the work of Ezra, describes the process of how the Jews escaped Babylonian captivity, earned rights under Cyrus the Great, and convinced Cyrus to rebuild the Temple. These were either first-hand accounts of the status of the Temple’s reconstruction written by Ezra himself (which the peculiar form of narrative in the Book of Ezra would indicate) or a combination of himself and his immediate and closest disciples. You cannot rebuild a temple which never stood. It would be a miracle indeed if the highly scholarly tradition of the Jews, coupled with the physical evidence of a Temple ruined by the same people who were still harassing them (Babylonians), turned out to be a grand misunderstanding, and the long awaited rebuilding of the flattened Temple was actually the first of its kind.

Based on what physically remains of the Second Temple and the first-hand details of its reconstruction, the First Temple did exist.