Troy and Sparta In The Days of Moses

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

   Sparta in Greece (lower left) and Troy in Turkey (center)

The ancient Greeks believed that Troy was located near the Dardanelles and that the Trojan War was a historical event of the 13th or 12th century BCE, but by the mid-19th century CE, both the war and the city were widely seen as non-historical.  They must have thought it had just been a myth, as they started thinking about the Torah.  Today, excavations prove that the Torah is full of facts, proven facts. 

Troy as also been excavated.  "It is this record of a people and their city that is preserved in archaeology. Each layer of occupation, one on top of the other, represents a phase in the city's history, which archaeologists over the last 150 years have been exploring. These layers have been labelled  Troy I to IX, with Troy I being the earliest settlement and Troy IX the most recent. Much remains to be discovered, but we now know enough today to get a good sense of the city's development over time."   "Troy was situated at the entrance to the Dardanelles strait, and in ancient times lay much nearer to the sea than it does today – the coastline has changed as river deltas have silted up. Its position was key to its prosperity, as the city could trade by sea as well as by land. It may also be that ancient ships, waiting for the wind and currents they needed to pass through the straits, provided a captive market for Trojan goods and services." 

                                 Istanbul
  

The ancient, legendary city of Troy really did exist - and travelers can reach it easily with a one-hour drive from Istanbul.                            

Total War:  Menelaus, king of Sparta, and Helen's husband of Greece.  

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy of Turkey by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably Homer's Iliad. The core of the Iliad (Books II – XXIII) describes a period of four days and two nights in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the Odyssey describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes.       

     The Trojan Horse fooling everyone:  The war stirred the imagination of the ancient Greeks more than any other event in their history and was celebrated in the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer, as well as a number of other early works now lost, and frequently provided material for the great dramatists of the Classical Age. It also figures in the literature of the Romans (e.g., Virgil’s Aeneid) and of later peoples down to modern times.

Menelaus, son of the famed king Atreus, was the younger brother of Agamemnon of Mycenae and husband of Helen – the Spartan princess with which he ruled as king in Sparta. The two brothers rose to power after each married a princess of Sparta, thus securing an alliance with the Lacedaemonians.

Although not in his prime, Menelaus is still a mighty warrior who inspires awe and fear on the battlefield. Clad in heavy armour and wielding a great spear, he looks like the God of War’s equal.

Menelaus enters the Trojan War as the aggrieved party and is rightfully seeking bloody revenge on Prince Paris and his wayward wife. Even if it means bringing down the entire kingdom of Troy.    

Spear-famed Menelaus must answer the slight to his honour dealt by Paris, the Trojan prince who dared steal his wife!

This audacious deed has shaken the very foundations of Menelaus’ authority in Lakedaimon. So he must take Helen back and assert his authority once more!        

This would have happened during the lives of Amram and his wife, Jochabed, the parents of Moses, so it's going back pretty far.  Moses was born about 1391 BCE and died 1271 BCE.  They were slaves in Egypt during this period.  

It was much later in  333–332 BCE, Alexander's Macedonian forces conquered  Judea (Levant and Palestine. At the time, Judea was home to many Jews who had returned from exile  in 538 BCE in Babylon thanks to the Persians. They had been taken away in 597 BCE and then again more were taken away in 586 BCE.  At least they had had 205 years of peace in their own land before this next Greek attack.  

It was because of this Greek Attack and takeover of the Temple that we have Chanukah to remember this historic event.  

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt#:~:text=In%20333%E2%80%93332%20BCE%2C%20Alexander's,Babylon%20thanks%20to%20the%20Persians.

https://www.totalwar.com/games/troy/menelaus/

https://www.britannica.com/event/Trojan-War

https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/search-lost-city-troy

Prophet Isaiah and What He said About the End of Days and the Jewish People

Nadene Goldfoot                                                           

He will raise a banner for the nations and assemble the castaways of Israel; and He will gather in the dispersed ones of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

ISAIAH (11:12)

וְנָשָׂא נֵס לַגּוֹיִם וְאָסַף נִדְחֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּנְפֻצוֹת יְהוּדָה יְקַבֵּץ מֵאַרְבַּע כַּנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ

ישיעהו יא:יב

ve-na-SA nays la-goy-EEM ve-a-SAFneed-KHAY yees-ra-ALE oo-ne-foo-TZOTE ye-hoo-DAH ye-ka-BAYTZ may-ar-BAH kan-FOTE ha-a-RETZ  (from  Jerusalem 365).

How long ago do you think this was written?  It was written by Isaiah, a Prophet who prophesied from Jerusalem from the time of the death of Uzziah or Azariah, King of Judah c 780-c740 BCE  until the middle of Hezekiah's reign King of Judah  from 740- 701 BCE  (maybe 720 -692 BCE).  That was about 2,738 years ago.  All this has come true!  

Isaiah was of a noble family and closely connected with the royal court. He may have been a relative to King David in this case.   Under King Hezekiah's reign, he was very prominent in public affairs.  In the end he was put to death by Manasseh, the king following Hezekiah.  Isaiah had been protesting about the country's moral laxity.  Kindness, pity, justice to the poor and underprivileged were more significant to G-d than offering sacrifices, he preached.

He even felt that the hand of G-d was predominant in all historical events, and said that Assyria served only as an instrument of Divine anger.  He was one to oppose all treaties with neighboring states.  Israel as the people of G-d had to learn to trust in G-d solely.  He said that the people of Israel would be punished for its sins but not exterminated and that a remnant would return and renew the link between G-d and the Land of Israel!  The first thing I think of is the Holocaust and the return of Jews to establish Israel.

Israel is the seer of eternal peace at the end of days when the Lord's Anointed shall judge the nations.  Hasn't Netanyahu begged Abbas to come to the peace table over and over again?  Strange how just as they've sat down to talk that Syria has taken over the limelight and worry of the world again, leaving the peace talks as a forgotten goal.

Scholars have divided his book between chapters 39 and 40.  From chapter 40 on seems to be written by Isaiah writing during the Babylonian exile of 522 BCE.  The first 12 chapters are prophecies to Israel and Judah and promises of a glorious future from 761 to 740 BCE. then in 721 BCE all attacks broke out when Shalmaneser V's siege of Samaria and its capture.   Then he wrote about visions concerning other nations.  After that he gets into apocalyptic prophecies on the future Day of Judgment.  He writes about the campaign of Sennacherib, a short apocalypse taking in a vision of Edom, historical chapters in prose describing the march of Sennacherib and the mission of Merodach Baladan, then chapters of consolation and the promise of future redemption.

This line is interrupted at chapter 52 (13-53:12) by the vision of the suffering Servant which is interpreted by most Jewish commentators as referring to the Jewish people.  Indeed, we had been suffering from the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians who stole away our 10 tribes of the 12.

The Christian church, which came along after the death of Jesus, interpreted that section as foretelling the Passion of Jesus.  Isaiah's prophecies of redemption and comfort have been of supreme importance to both Jews and Christians.

The people of Judah.:  Judah was one of the 12 sons of Jacob and his first wife, Leah. Jacob's name had been changed to Israel after wrestling with an angel and overcoming it.   It was the largest tribe and the strongest of the 12 tribes.  Israel had been divided in half when King Solomon died in 933 BCE and was the southern piece of the kingdom which included Jerusalem.  Israel was also often referred to as the Kingdom of Samaria.  When Jacob and his 12 sons had entered Egypt with their group of 70 persons, they were finally taken as slaves and kept in that condition for 400 years from the time of entrance at a time of drought in Canaan.  Now it is this exact location that the Palestinians wish to make exclusively theirs and turn it all into "Palestine" the name given to Eretz Yisrael by the Romans when they conquered Jerusalem in 70CE even though we have thousands of Jews living here as well, especially since the Arab's  defunct attack of 1967.  When Israel was created in 1948, the Jews had settled mostly on the Western side of the land where Tel Aviv lies due to the Ottoman Empire's rulings of where they could settle.  Jews were given the whole shmear in 1922 in the League of Nations decision.

Aaron and Moses were the sons of Amram and Jochebed.  Jochebed was the daughter of Levi, one of the 12 sons.  Amram was the son of Kohath, son of Levi.  Levi was Abraham's 3rd son by Leah and Judah was his 4th son by her.  So Aaron and his descendants were the designated Cohens in the religious rituals that Moses was to declare. His brother,  Levi was to be the helper and teacher in the rituals with his descendants to be known as the Levites.  Cohens became the first readers of the Torah on a Saturday (Shabbat) morning and Levites were the 2nd readers.  If there was no Cohen present, then the Levite was to start.

Israelites and Judah or Jews are mentioned as being part of the in-gathering to take place which is happening and has been going on for over the past 25 years already.  Nobody has said that a Jew must have the Y haplogroup of J1c3d exclusively.

 We are a mixture of the 70 Jewish people who entered Egypt and became  slaves  for 400 years and are now all mixed up with the other slaves that joined our group to be led out by Moses.  They all accepted the contract of abiding by the Laws of Moses who received them on Mt. Sinai.  It is enough that we all feel the same about G-d. Led by the 12 tribal leaders, we had become a nation.   There are people who have maintained the customs of rituals of Judaism from these thousands of years of waiting and have been accepted as Jews into Israel's family once again.  The yearning, knowledge and feeling has been enough of a proof for our rabbis.

What other people would want to join up with Jews who have been hated and persecuted all this time unless they were Jews themselves?  We are people who are threatened by atomic bombing, chemical warfare and plain old horrible mortars, missiles and rockets that fall on us like rain in southern Israel, along with stone throwers and people who spit out their hatred  of us like a rattlesnake.

 Just ask the Anusim, Jews who have known then were Jews since 1492 of the Spanish Inquisition.  Though they have had to keep their religious practices and feelings as secret or risk the pain of death for the past 521 yearss, they did not falter in passing their religion onto their descendants.  Of all our Jews, they have been the most diligent in not forgetting and keeping the faith in my estimation.  They deserve front row seats.

 In Russia and Germany we were were exposed to other people and ideas  though in Italy we were in ghettos that locked us up at night and in Russia were kept in the Pale of Settlement which also had other people residing there as well. These Jews, of which my ancestors were a part of, were so put down and treated like drek (filth)  that when they got to the Golden Medina, America, they just lived and some forgot just who they had been.  That unfortunately was followed up and magnified by a lot of anti-Semitism.  The effect on a few was to drive them into communism with its partner,  aetheism.  For others, they just worked to be the best of whatever they had talent for so as to forestall the inevitable forced dismissal from that country.

So indeed, we are the castaways; a people who have survived the ravages of time, still believing in one G-d only.  My, how Moses impressed us!  We faltered time and again along the way, only to be pulled up by the nape of our necks to jump back on the horse and to get with the program.  But then, we've kept up this momentum for 3,283 years.  How many religions have done that, pray tell?  And now we can look back in awe at the knowledge that Isaiah had and shake our heads in wonder.  For those who do not believe in any religious stuff, see if they can explain it.  Just what is time and history, anyway?

Reference:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach, The Stone Edition, ArtScroll Series
Jersusalem 365 by Ilan Rosen http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/connecting-to-their-jewish-roots/?utm_source=Jerusalem365&utm_campaign=401e490f10-Jerusalem365&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_966f66c607-401e490f10-19584529
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaiah