Nadene Goldfoot
Long ago, at the time of Abraham in about the 2nd millennium BCE which was a good 4,000 years ago, mankind was practicing human sacrifice to appease the many gods that controlled earth, so they thought. We know they did this because it is documented in our Tanakh that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac, his son. He had already come to the realization of there being only one G-d.
In some parts of the world, like South America, human sacrifice was practiced only a few hundred years ago with the Aztec and Incan Indians at the time the Spaniards discovered their land. They even ripped out the hearts of their victims, chosen as some of the best young people of the land. The jungles of Africa contained tribes that even ate people, and were called cannibals. There may have been some sort of transfer of bravery in doing such a thing in their thinking.
Abraham was stopped by an angel in our Bible and told not to sacrifice again. That was the end to such practice. Instead, he was to use a sheep or goat. That was the beginning of our use of animal sacrifice for paying for the sins they had been guilty of. They were sin offerings. A young bull was used for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering that were unblemished and were offered to G-d. A he-goat (ram), calf and sheep in their first year were also used for burnt offerings. A bull and a ram were used for peace-offerings. Meal-offering mixed with oil which was some form of cracker were also used. This was atonement for the person and their people.
In Leviticus 9 we see this performed for the first time directed by Moses and done by his brother, Aaron and Aaron's sons. Their offerings brought out the descent of a Heavenly fire which represented G-d's appearance among the people. Then Aaron's two oldest sons do more than asked by Moses using a strange incense of their choosing and are struck dead. It was the reaction of the Heavenly fire that had filtered into the son's nostrils and burned them internally, saying in the writing that it was their souls that were burned. Their bodies and clothing were not touched by any fire. Our lesson in this ordeal is that we must learn to accept G-d's justice but also mourn over the misfortunes of our fellow man. Ending of human sacrifice was not to be taken lightly. This was serious. No more human sacrifice. Our being chosen to be G-d's examples in his lessons for good behavior depended on teaching this precept now of no more human sacrifices.
The Middle East was full of temples. Phoenicians had at least Marathus (Greek: Μαραθος, Marathos), was a Phoenician port located near present-day Tartus in Syria. Founded in the third millennium BC, Marat (Phoenician: 𐤌𐤓𐤕, mrt) was the northernmost important city of ancient Phoenicia and a rival of nearby Arwad. During the 2nd century BC, Amrit was defeated and its site largely abandoned, leaving its ruins well preserved and without extensive remodeling by later generations.
Palmyra, Syria was the site of another temple where they worshipped Baal. . "Palmyra was dedicated in 32 CE to the worship of Bel, or as most Bible readers would know him, Ba’al. Lower levels of the ground underneath the Temple of Palmyra indicate human occupation that goes back to the third millennium BC. Converted into a Christian church during the Byzantine Era, parts of the structure were modified into a mosque by Muslims in 1132. It remained in use as a mosque until the 1920s. Lately ISIS has been going around destroying ancient artifacts of temples. They are erasing history, making it easier to slip back into such behavior, the proof of man's folly and learning experience.
"Yahweh, the God of Israel, continually condemned the worship of Baal, and the Lord sent His prophets to warn them of this idolatry and of the corruption of Baal's fertility rites. During the period of the kings of Israel Baal worship was prevalent, and even commanded. Queen Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of king Ahab, had 450 prophets of Baal as her court counselors. Elijah challenged them on Mount Carmel and Yahweh proved to be the true God.
At times of crisis, Baal's followers sacrificed their children, apparently the firstborn of the community, to gain personal prosperity. The Bible called this practice "detestable" (Deut. 12:31, 18:9-10). God specifically appointed the tribe of Levi as his special servants, in place of the firstborn of the Israelites, so they had no excuse for offering their children (Num. 3:11-13). The Bible's repeated condemnation of child sacrifice shows God's hated of it, especially among his people
What was going on was that our early men had to learn to substitute live people of human sacrifice with animals and that G-d would be satisfied with that. They need not worry about gigantic catastrophes happening because they didn't have this kind of protection anymore. They were living in worse times than we without knowing what to do in such events. They were facing earthquakes, floods, erupting volcanoes, droughts, animal attacks, all sorts of things our mother nature has not confronted many of us with, though today's events are bad enough. At least we are more equipped to handle it and help others.
Each time we have to actually think pretty hard to solve something, we grow dendrites in our brain. Man probably had far less of them than we do today, so this was a major obstacle to overcome. Accepting an animal to account for our sin that could bring on the death of thousands. That's why they worried about their sins. It caused bad things to happen to other good people. As we gain more and more dendrites, we can solve problems more easily. We get smarter. "Alcohol, for example, causes the dendrites to shrink, while learning appears to lengthen them. The popular idea that drinking damages brain cells, as it turns out, is correct, even if it specifically hurts the dendrites, not the whole cell. These studies have shown the very real ways in which the brain and nervous system change, a trait known as plasticity which allows the body to evolve over the course of a lifetime to meet its needs." After 3,000 years, lets hope we have evolved a bit mentally at least from experience and education.
When the Assyrians attacked Israel in 721 BCE and took away the best of the northern 10 tribes, they took them away from this newer practice and into their own polytheistic world of many gods and human sacrifice again. They didn't have the Temple to remind them of their own culture and no doubt they tried to hang on, but faced such things as Baal and other gods which overcame them with great temptations, being of awesome presentations and sexual as well. Such practices were growing in the southern kingdom. Without the Temple, they could not perform any sacrifice, animal, burnt offering or meal. I have wondered what the pull was into such Baal beliefs, and I think it was much like today's attractions, sex, drinking, entertainment, you name it.
The priests were replaced with the Cohens who now led them as rabbis and held a service in a residence of some sort which became synagogues. Synagogues were already an ancient institution by the 1st century CE, originating with the Babylonian exiles. They had adjusted and accommodated themselves to their situation. Animals do it in order to survive. We did it, too, without losing a step in the Torah. Our brains had to grow more dendrites to fit these unknown situations.
Moses had set down the holidays we were to follow. Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement was one of them. In Leviticus 16 we see that Azazel was a demon mentioned, so they did believe in such things back 3,000 years ago. The scapegoat was sent to this demon. What they did was have 2 goats as sin-offerings for the people. The high priest cast lots and designated one goat FOR THE LORD and the other FOR AZAZEL. Aaron took it in his hands and stated all the sins of the people, their iniquities, so it was carrying all the sins instead of the people. The one marked for this demon was sent into the wilderness and pushed over a precipice. In apocryphal and midrashic sources, Azazel is usually represented as a fallen angel or an arch-demon, the personification of impurity. The origin of the name is not known. The term is used in modern Hebrew as a curse. This goat carried all the sins of the people and then was killed. It was the scapegoat. Later on, a chicken was used by mothers as part of the preparation of Yom Kippur when this practice ended. The chicken's neck was wrung in the process.
We Jews have been the scapegoat of mankind ever since. Whatever happens, we are blamed. Then they also have done their best to kill us off. Whether bad things are happening in the Middle East or the Western world, Jews are blamed. Even ridiculous things such as weather is blamed on us, and shockingly, believed by the populous. In writing my 2nd book, I found such things happening in my research. It's high time for people to stop blaming Jews for their misgivings and take on their own responsibility for their failures. We're tired of it.
Animal sacrifice and the others were replaced with doing mitzvote. A mitzvah was a good deed. The mind grew and grew to accept this and a final day each year of Yom Kippur, the time of asking pardon for one's sins, a day of 25 hours of fasting. The mitzvah was an injunction found in the Torah. Writings about this Torah had been continued and we see in the Talmud 613 laws from Moses or orders decreed by the rabbis. So Jews had commandments which were good deeds to do. it was all spelled out for them. They say that knowing what is expected of you brings you more security and this it does. The 613 was the number counted in the human body of bones that we have.
In Medieval days, our scholars had divided the two between rational and revealed commandments. Others had divided them between those performed by the limbs of the body and those by the heart.; commandments regulating conduct between man and his Maker and between man and his fellows; commandments contingent upon a particular time and those permanently obligatory; commandments applicable only to Eretz Yisrael and those not depending upon being in Eretz Yisrael. Mitzvah means any good or charitable deed, and also to synagogue honors. What I know is that most of them are done normally anyway, so it's not all that difficult.
Several hundred years later the southern tribe of Judaea and some of Benjamin left with them were also taken away, this time in 586 BCE by the Babylonians who now held the older Assyrian lands as well. This time, the Jewish people were made up of a stronger minded tribe who had been close to the Temple and did not bend during the 80 some years in Babylon to strange gods. They continued to let their religion expand to fit the situation and wound up writing the Babylonian Talmud full of all sorts of advice and facts to follow. Their minds were developing as they put them to use to solve questions about the Torah and Tanakh, and in a group they could come to conclusions.
In fact, when the time came and they could return home and rebuild their destroyed Temple of Solomon, many chose to remain. They had acclimated to their surroundings and felt comfortable. So some returned, with older and wiser leadership who taught when they got back as well as get their 2nd Temple built. After all, they were going back as pioneers with much to develop from scratch again, and they were not sure of the welcome they would receive from those that never departed.
Their religion lived through the interruption of forced labor and transfer of people to new lands and loss of Temple and animal sacrifice without turning to their kidnappers' ways. Maybe by then they were just too disgusting to them to copy. Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian leader from 604-561 BCE was followed by Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to Judah while there were whole towns populated by Jews that remained.
During this Babylonian exile, we had such writers produce their work such as Hillel,, the Talmud, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Tobit. Babylon had become the center of rabbinic studies. Academies were founded by Samuel and others. Babylon had become the spiritual center for all Jewry. The Talmud was a compilation of the records of academic discussions and of judicial decisions of Jewish Law by generations of scholars and jurists from the many academies and from more than one country during several centuries after 200 CE. Each of the Talmuds came with a Mishnah and a gemara, commentaries on and supplements to the Mishnah. People in the Babylonian Talmud lived before 500 CE; the Palestinian one before 400 CE.
The Jewish Diaspora grew and looked upon Jerusalem as our spiritual center. Hellenization grew under Ptolemaic rule 312-198 BCE and then under the Seleucids in trying to establish a Greek city. Antiochus IV, all for Hellenization led to the desecration of the Temple and religious persecution against Jews that brought on the Hasmonean revolt. Judah the Maccabee restored the Temple service in 164 BCE and we added a holiday of Hanukkah to our year. In 63 BCE, Pompey the Roman General, was there at war. Herod ruled as king by 37 BCE and then in 70 CE the Temple was destroyed along with the city which was taken over by the Romans who also had influence over their religious thinking.
By 300 CE they were holding a meeting in Antioch and Constantinople about their new religion, Christianity, which had been started by a few Jewish followers of Jesus,son of Mary and Joseph, who offered some new thinking about Judaism, died as thousands of young Jewish men did on the Roman crosses put up to punish any unwanted behavior. Followers of Jesus said that Jesus had lived through his punishment. He had died and came to life. This miracle was the base of a new belief. Jews were not permitted to compete with this new Christianity. They had many laws that were created in these meetings against the Jews.
New Christians were having a hard time. As part of their civic duty, each adult was expected to sponsor a sacrifice in the Roman temple once per year. Many Christians refused to do this because it would force them to acknowledge the legitimacy of Pagan Gods. Adults were expected to acknowledge Caesar as THE SON OF GOD AND SAVIOR. Many Christians would not do this, either. To Greeks and Romans, savior had a different meaning. It was used for a Roman Emperor, and before the Greek used it in recognition of a noble action in performing deeds that safeguarded people or preserved what was precious to the people. It was a title for these special people, something like being a hero. So not only did they make their leader a god but a hero as well-the savior of the people. Preventing a war might earn them such a title.
"Notice how the word “savior” was used in connection with Julius Caesar: “In addition to these remarkable privileges they named him father of his country, stamped this title on the coinage, voted to celebrate his birthday by public sacrifice, ordered that he should have a statue in the cities and in all the temples of Rome, and they set up two also on the rostra, one representing him as the savior of the citizens and the other as the deliverer of the city from siege, and wearing the crowns customary for such achievements” (Dio 44.4.5)."
In this foreign land Jews were still outsiders and were persecuted by the natives. The position of Jews continued to be difficult until the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE. Babylonia was conquered by them in 637. What happened was that the Jews, this large and ancient Jewish community, favored and even assisted the Arab advance in the hope that it would be better than what they were living under, the Sassanid persecution.
After the Arabs occupied the land, there were Jews who had been expelled from Arabia who came in and settled in Kufa. Their land continued to be the center of Jewish life for the next few centuries. This SW Asian country, called Babylonia in the former Mesopotamia, is now considered as the land of Iraq.
How anti-Semitism worked in the Middle Ages was in accusing Jews of human sacrifice of taking a child's blood and using it in the making matzos for Passover. Part of our laws that are irrelevant to other religions is not to eat any blood of any animal, let alone the blood of a human, G-d forbid. Not wanting to know about us leads to all these distortions. The law of Kashrut-something other people also find unnecessary, covers the laws of not eating blood and how to cleanse a special section of the animal to be blood-free. It involves soaking in salt water, and choosing on certain portions of the animal to eat without arteries which supply blood to the body. It even involves how to kill an animal without causing it to feel any pain. Without that knowledge, the shekhet could not have a butcher shop.
Zionism developed because of the need of having one's own state again. Theodor Herzl was appalled at the conditions his fellow Jew had to live under for so long. Being a reporter, he was a great writer and wrote a book of his ideal, called THE JEWISH STATE (Der Judenstaat) of what it would be like in 1896. His book rallied many and they started thinking of the possibilities again that they themselves could do something about their history. The irony is that Theodor was not a religious Jew, but he had great feeling for his fellow man; his people. He knew that what was happening to them was wrong.
The Arabs' final attainment of Iraqi independence was in 1932 and was accompanied by the persecution of the Jews. Hundreds of Baghdad Jews were killed and wounded in a pogrom during the revolt of Rashid Ali in 1941, going along with WWII.
At the time, Arabs had joined the Axis group in this world war, who were the Nazis and they lost the war. Talks had been going on with the Allies as to what to do with the Middle East land, and Jewish leaders were involved. The Allies won the war and England was given a 30 year mandate to be in charge of Palestine. At the end of this period, the land would go to the Jews for a Jewish Homeland. That would solve both people's problems-of maintaining Jews in their countries that they didn't want and giving Jews their ancient land that they had lost to the Romans. Both groups should be happy with such an outcome.
The Arabs had invested their time also and had chosen the wrong side to back. They managed to finagle 80% of the land designated to go to the Jews for themselves and the Jews got the remaining 20%, mostly desert. They took it. They had had enough of the Russian pogroms; instant attacks into their villages ending in deaths and destruction. A piece of their ancient land was better than nothing, and besides, they had people there since 1880 building up land and cities for themselves during the Ottoman Empire days. No one else had done a thing with the land. It had just been sitting there going to waste.
Jews have never had much peace, nor have they always been treated like other citizens while in others' lands. The way they have had to evolve and still feel committed to their original vow to G-d to follow his instructions is to evolve and fit into their circumstances. It's given their dendrites a workout to constantly figure out how to do this. Life is still not being on Easy Street.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-dendrites.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_hise.htm
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/64582/temple-baal-ancient-idol-worshiped-biblical-times-will-stand-times-square-biblical-zionism/
https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/fertility-cults-of-canaan
Tanakh, The Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series, explanation of lines done by biblical commentators such as Rashi, as to how Jews interpret writings.
http://incamayanaztec.com/inca-human-sacrifice.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2001/cannibal.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism
http://christianmonthlystandard.com/index.php/savior-in-the-roman-world/
Long ago, at the time of Abraham in about the 2nd millennium BCE which was a good 4,000 years ago, mankind was practicing human sacrifice to appease the many gods that controlled earth, so they thought. We know they did this because it is documented in our Tanakh that Abraham was going to sacrifice Isaac, his son. He had already come to the realization of there being only one G-d.
 |
| Aztec human sacrifice to appease their gods Human sacrifice was practiced in 1400s to mid 1500's |
In some parts of the world, like South America, human sacrifice was practiced only a few hundred years ago with the Aztec and Incan Indians at the time the Spaniards discovered their land. They even ripped out the hearts of their victims, chosen as some of the best young people of the land. The jungles of Africa contained tribes that even ate people, and were called cannibals. There may have been some sort of transfer of bravery in doing such a thing in their thinking.
Abraham was stopped by an angel in our Bible and told not to sacrifice again. That was the end to such practice. Instead, he was to use a sheep or goat. That was the beginning of our use of animal sacrifice for paying for the sins they had been guilty of. They were sin offerings. A young bull was used for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering that were unblemished and were offered to G-d. A he-goat (ram), calf and sheep in their first year were also used for burnt offerings. A bull and a ram were used for peace-offerings. Meal-offering mixed with oil which was some form of cracker were also used. This was atonement for the person and their people.
In Leviticus 9 we see this performed for the first time directed by Moses and done by his brother, Aaron and Aaron's sons. Their offerings brought out the descent of a Heavenly fire which represented G-d's appearance among the people. Then Aaron's two oldest sons do more than asked by Moses using a strange incense of their choosing and are struck dead. It was the reaction of the Heavenly fire that had filtered into the son's nostrils and burned them internally, saying in the writing that it was their souls that were burned. Their bodies and clothing were not touched by any fire. Our lesson in this ordeal is that we must learn to accept G-d's justice but also mourn over the misfortunes of our fellow man. Ending of human sacrifice was not to be taken lightly. This was serious. No more human sacrifice. Our being chosen to be G-d's examples in his lessons for good behavior depended on teaching this precept now of no more human sacrifices.
The Middle East was full of temples. Phoenicians had at least Marathus (Greek: Μαραθος, Marathos), was a Phoenician port located near present-day Tartus in Syria. Founded in the third millennium BC, Marat (Phoenician: 𐤌𐤓𐤕, mrt) was the northernmost important city of ancient Phoenicia and a rival of nearby Arwad. During the 2nd century BC, Amrit was defeated and its site largely abandoned, leaving its ruins well preserved and without extensive remodeling by later generations.
Palmyra, Syria was the site of another temple where they worshipped Baal. . "Palmyra was dedicated in 32 CE to the worship of Bel, or as most Bible readers would know him, Ba’al. Lower levels of the ground underneath the Temple of Palmyra indicate human occupation that goes back to the third millennium BC. Converted into a Christian church during the Byzantine Era, parts of the structure were modified into a mosque by Muslims in 1132. It remained in use as a mosque until the 1920s. Lately ISIS has been going around destroying ancient artifacts of temples. They are erasing history, making it easier to slip back into such behavior, the proof of man's folly and learning experience.
"Yahweh, the God of Israel, continually condemned the worship of Baal, and the Lord sent His prophets to warn them of this idolatry and of the corruption of Baal's fertility rites. During the period of the kings of Israel Baal worship was prevalent, and even commanded. Queen Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of king Ahab, had 450 prophets of Baal as her court counselors. Elijah challenged them on Mount Carmel and Yahweh proved to be the true God.
At times of crisis, Baal's followers sacrificed their children, apparently the firstborn of the community, to gain personal prosperity. The Bible called this practice "detestable" (Deut. 12:31, 18:9-10). God specifically appointed the tribe of Levi as his special servants, in place of the firstborn of the Israelites, so they had no excuse for offering their children (Num. 3:11-13). The Bible's repeated condemnation of child sacrifice shows God's hated of it, especially among his people
Asherah was worshiped in various ways, including through ritual sex. Although she was believed to be Baal's mother, she was also his mistress. Pagans practiced "sympathetic magic", that is, they believed they could influence the gods' actions by performing the behavior they wished the gods to demonstrate. Believing the sexual union of Baal and Asherah produced fertility, their worshipers engaged in immoral sex to cause the gods to join together, ensuring good harvests. This practice became the basis for religious prostitution (1 Kings 14:23-24). The priest or a male member of the community represented Baal. The priestess or a female members of the community represented Asherah. In this way, God's incredible gift of sexuality was perverted to the most obscene public prostitution. No wonder God's anger burned against his people and their leaders.
Each time we have to actually think pretty hard to solve something, we grow dendrites in our brain. Man probably had far less of them than we do today, so this was a major obstacle to overcome. Accepting an animal to account for our sin that could bring on the death of thousands. That's why they worried about their sins. It caused bad things to happen to other good people. As we gain more and more dendrites, we can solve problems more easily. We get smarter. "Alcohol, for example, causes the dendrites to shrink, while learning appears to lengthen them. The popular idea that drinking damages brain cells, as it turns out, is correct, even if it specifically hurts the dendrites, not the whole cell. These studies have shown the very real ways in which the brain and nervous system change, a trait known as plasticity which allows the body to evolve over the course of a lifetime to meet its needs." After 3,000 years, lets hope we have evolved a bit mentally at least from experience and education.
When the Assyrians attacked Israel in 721 BCE and took away the best of the northern 10 tribes, they took them away from this newer practice and into their own polytheistic world of many gods and human sacrifice again. They didn't have the Temple to remind them of their own culture and no doubt they tried to hang on, but faced such things as Baal and other gods which overcame them with great temptations, being of awesome presentations and sexual as well. Such practices were growing in the southern kingdom. Without the Temple, they could not perform any sacrifice, animal, burnt offering or meal. I have wondered what the pull was into such Baal beliefs, and I think it was much like today's attractions, sex, drinking, entertainment, you name it.
The priests were replaced with the Cohens who now led them as rabbis and held a service in a residence of some sort which became synagogues. Synagogues were already an ancient institution by the 1st century CE, originating with the Babylonian exiles. They had adjusted and accommodated themselves to their situation. Animals do it in order to survive. We did it, too, without losing a step in the Torah. Our brains had to grow more dendrites to fit these unknown situations.
Moses had set down the holidays we were to follow. Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement was one of them. In Leviticus 16 we see that Azazel was a demon mentioned, so they did believe in such things back 3,000 years ago. The scapegoat was sent to this demon. What they did was have 2 goats as sin-offerings for the people. The high priest cast lots and designated one goat FOR THE LORD and the other FOR AZAZEL. Aaron took it in his hands and stated all the sins of the people, their iniquities, so it was carrying all the sins instead of the people. The one marked for this demon was sent into the wilderness and pushed over a precipice. In apocryphal and midrashic sources, Azazel is usually represented as a fallen angel or an arch-demon, the personification of impurity. The origin of the name is not known. The term is used in modern Hebrew as a curse. This goat carried all the sins of the people and then was killed. It was the scapegoat. Later on, a chicken was used by mothers as part of the preparation of Yom Kippur when this practice ended. The chicken's neck was wrung in the process.
We Jews have been the scapegoat of mankind ever since. Whatever happens, we are blamed. Then they also have done their best to kill us off. Whether bad things are happening in the Middle East or the Western world, Jews are blamed. Even ridiculous things such as weather is blamed on us, and shockingly, believed by the populous. In writing my 2nd book, I found such things happening in my research. It's high time for people to stop blaming Jews for their misgivings and take on their own responsibility for their failures. We're tired of it.
Animal sacrifice and the others were replaced with doing mitzvote. A mitzvah was a good deed. The mind grew and grew to accept this and a final day each year of Yom Kippur, the time of asking pardon for one's sins, a day of 25 hours of fasting. The mitzvah was an injunction found in the Torah. Writings about this Torah had been continued and we see in the Talmud 613 laws from Moses or orders decreed by the rabbis. So Jews had commandments which were good deeds to do. it was all spelled out for them. They say that knowing what is expected of you brings you more security and this it does. The 613 was the number counted in the human body of bones that we have.
In Medieval days, our scholars had divided the two between rational and revealed commandments. Others had divided them between those performed by the limbs of the body and those by the heart.; commandments regulating conduct between man and his Maker and between man and his fellows; commandments contingent upon a particular time and those permanently obligatory; commandments applicable only to Eretz Yisrael and those not depending upon being in Eretz Yisrael. Mitzvah means any good or charitable deed, and also to synagogue honors. What I know is that most of them are done normally anyway, so it's not all that difficult.
Several hundred years later the southern tribe of Judaea and some of Benjamin left with them were also taken away, this time in 586 BCE by the Babylonians who now held the older Assyrian lands as well. This time, the Jewish people were made up of a stronger minded tribe who had been close to the Temple and did not bend during the 80 some years in Babylon to strange gods. They continued to let their religion expand to fit the situation and wound up writing the Babylonian Talmud full of all sorts of advice and facts to follow. Their minds were developing as they put them to use to solve questions about the Torah and Tanakh, and in a group they could come to conclusions.
In fact, when the time came and they could return home and rebuild their destroyed Temple of Solomon, many chose to remain. They had acclimated to their surroundings and felt comfortable. So some returned, with older and wiser leadership who taught when they got back as well as get their 2nd Temple built. After all, they were going back as pioneers with much to develop from scratch again, and they were not sure of the welcome they would receive from those that never departed.
Their religion lived through the interruption of forced labor and transfer of people to new lands and loss of Temple and animal sacrifice without turning to their kidnappers' ways. Maybe by then they were just too disgusting to them to copy. Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian leader from 604-561 BCE was followed by Cyrus who allowed the Jews to return to Judah while there were whole towns populated by Jews that remained.
During this Babylonian exile, we had such writers produce their work such as Hillel,, the Talmud, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Tobit. Babylon had become the center of rabbinic studies. Academies were founded by Samuel and others. Babylon had become the spiritual center for all Jewry. The Talmud was a compilation of the records of academic discussions and of judicial decisions of Jewish Law by generations of scholars and jurists from the many academies and from more than one country during several centuries after 200 CE. Each of the Talmuds came with a Mishnah and a gemara, commentaries on and supplements to the Mishnah. People in the Babylonian Talmud lived before 500 CE; the Palestinian one before 400 CE.
The Jewish Diaspora grew and looked upon Jerusalem as our spiritual center. Hellenization grew under Ptolemaic rule 312-198 BCE and then under the Seleucids in trying to establish a Greek city. Antiochus IV, all for Hellenization led to the desecration of the Temple and religious persecution against Jews that brought on the Hasmonean revolt. Judah the Maccabee restored the Temple service in 164 BCE and we added a holiday of Hanukkah to our year. In 63 BCE, Pompey the Roman General, was there at war. Herod ruled as king by 37 BCE and then in 70 CE the Temple was destroyed along with the city which was taken over by the Romans who also had influence over their religious thinking.
By 300 CE they were holding a meeting in Antioch and Constantinople about their new religion, Christianity, which had been started by a few Jewish followers of Jesus,son of Mary and Joseph, who offered some new thinking about Judaism, died as thousands of young Jewish men did on the Roman crosses put up to punish any unwanted behavior. Followers of Jesus said that Jesus had lived through his punishment. He had died and came to life. This miracle was the base of a new belief. Jews were not permitted to compete with this new Christianity. They had many laws that were created in these meetings against the Jews.
New Christians were having a hard time. As part of their civic duty, each adult was expected to sponsor a sacrifice in the Roman temple once per year. Many Christians refused to do this because it would force them to acknowledge the legitimacy of Pagan Gods. Adults were expected to acknowledge Caesar as THE SON OF GOD AND SAVIOR. Many Christians would not do this, either. To Greeks and Romans, savior had a different meaning. It was used for a Roman Emperor, and before the Greek used it in recognition of a noble action in performing deeds that safeguarded people or preserved what was precious to the people. It was a title for these special people, something like being a hero. So not only did they make their leader a god but a hero as well-the savior of the people. Preventing a war might earn them such a title.
"Notice how the word “savior” was used in connection with Julius Caesar: “In addition to these remarkable privileges they named him father of his country, stamped this title on the coinage, voted to celebrate his birthday by public sacrifice, ordered that he should have a statue in the cities and in all the temples of Rome, and they set up two also on the rostra, one representing him as the savior of the citizens and the other as the deliverer of the city from siege, and wearing the crowns customary for such achievements” (Dio 44.4.5)."
In this foreign land Jews were still outsiders and were persecuted by the natives. The position of Jews continued to be difficult until the Arab conquest in the 7th century CE. Babylonia was conquered by them in 637. What happened was that the Jews, this large and ancient Jewish community, favored and even assisted the Arab advance in the hope that it would be better than what they were living under, the Sassanid persecution.
After the Arabs occupied the land, there were Jews who had been expelled from Arabia who came in and settled in Kufa. Their land continued to be the center of Jewish life for the next few centuries. This SW Asian country, called Babylonia in the former Mesopotamia, is now considered as the land of Iraq.
How anti-Semitism worked in the Middle Ages was in accusing Jews of human sacrifice of taking a child's blood and using it in the making matzos for Passover. Part of our laws that are irrelevant to other religions is not to eat any blood of any animal, let alone the blood of a human, G-d forbid. Not wanting to know about us leads to all these distortions. The law of Kashrut-something other people also find unnecessary, covers the laws of not eating blood and how to cleanse a special section of the animal to be blood-free. It involves soaking in salt water, and choosing on certain portions of the animal to eat without arteries which supply blood to the body. It even involves how to kill an animal without causing it to feel any pain. Without that knowledge, the shekhet could not have a butcher shop.
Zionism developed because of the need of having one's own state again. Theodor Herzl was appalled at the conditions his fellow Jew had to live under for so long. Being a reporter, he was a great writer and wrote a book of his ideal, called THE JEWISH STATE (Der Judenstaat) of what it would be like in 1896. His book rallied many and they started thinking of the possibilities again that they themselves could do something about their history. The irony is that Theodor was not a religious Jew, but he had great feeling for his fellow man; his people. He knew that what was happening to them was wrong.
 |
| Jews of Lebanon |
At the time, Arabs had joined the Axis group in this world war, who were the Nazis and they lost the war. Talks had been going on with the Allies as to what to do with the Middle East land, and Jewish leaders were involved. The Allies won the war and England was given a 30 year mandate to be in charge of Palestine. At the end of this period, the land would go to the Jews for a Jewish Homeland. That would solve both people's problems-of maintaining Jews in their countries that they didn't want and giving Jews their ancient land that they had lost to the Romans. Both groups should be happy with such an outcome.
Jews have never had much peace, nor have they always been treated like other citizens while in others' lands. The way they have had to evolve and still feel committed to their original vow to G-d to follow his instructions is to evolve and fit into their circumstances. It's given their dendrites a workout to constantly figure out how to do this. Life is still not being on Easy Street.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-dendrites.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_hise.htm
https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/64582/temple-baal-ancient-idol-worshiped-biblical-times-will-stand-times-square-biblical-zionism/
https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/fertility-cults-of-canaan
Tanakh, The Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series, explanation of lines done by biblical commentators such as Rashi, as to how Jews interpret writings.
http://incamayanaztec.com/inca-human-sacrifice.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2001/cannibal.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Zionism
http://christianmonthlystandard.com/index.php/savior-in-the-roman-world/
No comments:
Post a Comment