John Hancock

Blame? he's fun and you love it.

Martin

Gurdur

Yeah, but it's so easy.

Gurdur

Yet even more archeological/historical evidence for a Canaanite origin of the Jews:

Unforgiven Too

Mark Alinsky, sphinx wui, Optional, Sauron, Gurdur and Jat. . .

Thank you thank you thank you!

I could make comment, but I'd just be saying the same things.

I'm glad to see some intelligent people still exist, not pulled in by the whole "The Holocaust with a capital H is the only significant genocide in history and its survivors' relations and descendants are sacrosanct demigods who are above and beyond reproach no matter what they do" bleeding heart crap.

Okay, it happened. It was bad. It was wrong. But it wasn't the first and it wasn't solitary either. And I am sick of seeing it manipulated by the majority of jewish people to further their own agendas, ranging from getting the final say on pizza toppings to justification for their own current ethnic cleansing of the Palastinians.

The Holocaust has been turned into an industry and I think that is an affront to the people who died.

Gurdur

I have only one question:

how the fuck did I get included in that list ?

Optional

While I agree with the rest oif what you say in principle, I would have to disagree with this statement. I don't think it's the majority of Jews who manipulate the Holocaust for their own agendas... In fact I would say the ones who do so intentionally actually make up a very small group of far right wing zionists. As for the rest of it, well, ,it's a massacre that happened to them, of course jews are going to place a lot of emphasis on it, that's just human nature.

What puzzles me is how it came to be, as you say, 'the only significant genocide in history' to a lot of people. I *don't* think it's an image deliberately perpetuated by most jews. (some do, but like I said, ,a small minority) I think it has something to do with good old fashioned american arrogance.

We've been sheltered in this country from war and the horrors of war for a long time... Most particularly from the atrocities that go along with war. The atrocities perpetuated by the nazis under hitler were witnessed first hand by most of an entire genertion of americans... And it brought home the reality of that atrocity in a way that no amount of histortical knowledge or foreign news reporting possibly could... So, since this is the only realy atrocity witnessed by americans in the past couple of centuries, obviously it is the only real atrocity that actually matters in any significant way.

At least, that's my working theory for now. As in most things, I'm still thinking about it.

-me

Celsus

Well thanks for the legwork Gurdur, I guess I don't have much to add eh? (But I will anyway, because I'm like that )

For one thing, it is puzzling why people ever believed in a genocidal campaign in the first place, because for all of Joshua's victories, the stories in Judges immediately make clear that the invasion was never the blitzkrieg it was portrayed to be. The purported time of the Exodus (in which this supposed genocide occurs is some time in the thirteenth century BCE. This was of course great help to Bible scholars who found that the evidence pointing to a massive invasion of Canaan never happened (but never did quite recover the Biblical picture). During this time, there are no traces of a distinct Hebrew culture (it is the peak of Ugaritic culture, a precursor to Hebrew), there is no distinct Hebrew people either for that matter. The Menerptah stele, of which great stock has been placed in ascribing a distinct Israelite culture, does not point to a recognisable state:

• For all the ink this [Menerptah stele] reference to "Israel" has generated, what does it really tell us about the origin and nature of the "Israel" of the Bible? Not much. The attempts by some (for example, Yurco 1997; de Vaux 1978:390-1, 490-2) to link "Israel" on the stele with the "Israel" in the Bible that supposedly came out of Egypt under Moses have been unsuccessful. Without assuming the Bible story in advance, there is absolutely nothing in the stela inscription itself to suggest to anyone that this "Israel" was ever in Egypt. All that can be reasonably inferred from it is that an Egyptian scribe at the end of the thirteenth century BC could list among the enemies defeated by the pharoah a group of people living in Canaan known collectively as "Israel" (see Miller and Hayes 1986:68).
  
  From Laughlin, J.C., 2000, Archaeology and the Bible, Routledge, p. 90 (my emphasis)

Even more damaging than this "lack" of evidence was the finds at Tell el-Armana of various tablets traded between Pharoah Akhenaten and his predecessor. The great detail of which the conflicts of the vassals in Canaan are gone into in these tablets, as well as the necessity for Egyptian intervention against Hittite incursions from the northwest (modern Turkey), lead one to a reasonable conclusion that Canaan, was in fact, under Egyptian hegemony from the 14th to 12th centuries (and Joshua's "conquest" falls smack in the middle of this, regardless of what date you attempt to squeeze out of).

Ok, so now we have no evidence that the Israelites existed as an invading people, evidence that Canaan was under Egypt, and to that we might add this: Jericho did not exist either. Its walls were destroyed c. 2300 BCE (that's a whole millenia before Joshua) and a second time, possibly as late as 1400 BCE. Again, that's a mere century before the earliest possible Joshua dates (although its more likely two centuries too early).

There was never any evidence of an Israelite exodus (consider the complete absence of finds at Kadesh-Barnea where the Israelites supposedly spent 38 of their 40 years of wandering), the hostile takeover theory has wilted for lack of evidence (see Finkelstein & Silberman, The Bible Unearthed for more theories (and their refutations)--e.g. Albrecht Alt's Migration model, Meldenhall's Peasant Revolt--as well as their own idea of coming from the hills and gradual resettlement). We've already seen the collapse of the Hapiru and Hyksos theories that were attempts to place them as coming out of Egypt. So. If there was no exodus, and the Israelites lived there all along, there would be no need for a campaign of Lebensraum. Nor would they have a technological edge (witness the Philistines who arrived from Mycenea), and no one can even prove Israelites existed at this point in time!

"Complete genocide of the Canaanites"?

I think not. Some people take their sunday school lessons too seriously. Any further questions Jat?

Joel

Edit: Disclaimer: This post should not be construed in any manner a support or attack on anything to do with the Holocaust, Palestine, American arms to Israel, etc. etc. etc.

Gurdur

OK, people, I am now taking bets on how long it will take before Celsus is told he's on a particular Ignore List.
Roll up ! Roll up ! Put your money down !

Yeah, I'm still quivering in shock about being included on that list in that context.

I can't have stored up that much bad karma, surely ?

Jat

I don't know, maybe that is how he gets his rocks off? But in the end all he is going is really just talking to himself.

Jat

[Name-calling removed]