Will Wiley

But much of the jewish mytholgy is about god punishing them or them being victims of someone or other, be it the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians.
All this (that you mention) might just confirm the truth of it all to some.

aupmanyav

That is 'Hare-Krishna' and not strictly hindu. The four divisions used to be according to the capabilities of individuals, brahmins for study-minded, kshatriyas (warriors) for body-minded, and vaishyas (traders and agriculturists) for money-minded. Theist hindus will say that Gods gave them these capabilities. Even later, when the castes were decided by birth, there was no sense of somebody being especially chosen. Every caste was chosen for the kind of work they were to do. The kshatriyas, vaishyas, and the shudras were no less chosen by Gods than the brahmins. These placements () also depended on the karma of a person in previous lives. If I do not live according to 'dharma' (righteous life), I, a Saraswat Brahmin, may return as a shudra in my next birth. Who knows that a shudra in this life was not a sage in his previous life and is suffering the punishment of some mistake in that life. The story of Jada-Bharata is an example. The system is absolutely fair to all people. And I am sure, Iskandar, you know it well.

Jaybees

Being at the crossroads of two populous continents should also have helped. They were along major trade routes and major invasion routes, and as a result had early contact with religions and languages millennia older than their own society.

I do have to give them credit for having come a long way from the illiterate group of desert nomads they started out as. And there's no denying that they have survived as an identifiable group (not necessarily a religious one) through horrendous times up to the present.

aupmanyav

And they were and are always proverbially poor, depending on the munificence of their clients and society with all the prohibitions. They were not supposed to have non-vegetarian food, or drink liquor, or have extra-marital sexual relations. It was/is not easy to be a brahmin. The powers were in the hands of kshatriyas (kings) and vaishyas (moneyed traders). The brahmins had powers only in name.

Lastly, who is this Dr. Chatterjee, M.A., Ph.D. (U.S.A.) and why should his word be taken as God's own word?

outhouse

Doesn't really match their known ethnogenesis

I wouldn't call them desert nomads, generally speaking of course.


Displaced Canaanites is factual when Merneptah wiped out these proto Israelites and at that time they were semi nomadic. And that is all we know.


Israelites as their own identifiable culture took a few hundred years to develop after 1200 BC. Even then during this period their culture and deities matched much of the Canaanite culture they evolved from.

semiopen

It's not clear that Jews were ever desert nomads, illiterate or otherwise. They certainly have come a long way from being the one celled organisms they started out as.

It's hard to believe that an error in your last paragraph would be the only thing wrong with such a post.

Ted's exalting of the Torah is also probably not correct.

The Torah gained it's status over time, so it is questionable to compare the Jewish attitude toward the Torah in the common era to say a religion that was much older. Also Torah means law, it seems the two meanings tend to be unclear in the prophets.

Jaybees

I don't think we differ much in speculating about Judaism's origins. While I don't buy the Exodus myth, I'm quite willing to accept the Torah view that the ancestors of the Jews, who settled in Canaan, had a long history of shuffling back and forth in the desert area of that region.

HaRaAYaH

That is incorrect. Torah means teaching.

semiopen

I thought you were right at first, but had to look deeper considering the source.

Torah

So inaccurate for some reason, according to the wiki, but not incorrect.

From BibleWorks

Law is a possible translation.

Strong's Hebrew gives

If we go to specific examples

However in honor of your return let me apologize for making such an obscene mistranslation. It's a good thing somebody with your profound knowledge was there to point this out.

outhouse

Sorry bud but there is no speculating about Jewish ethnogenesis.

Israelites factually evolved from displaced Canaanites who settled the highlands.

While proto Israelites were known to be semi nomadic, this was very short lived. The collapse of the Canaanite government left many Semitic people with no place to go, and they found the highlands of Israel as a place to settle.

Its more of a Canaanite evolution, then nomadic herders who found a place to settle and magically turn to an agrarian society out of the blue.



Im not. This doesn't reflect the truth as much as their theology.

There wasn't much shuffling at all.


Im sure there are refracted memories from certain trans-Jordan Semitic tribes built into the scripture such as Moses, that used to go in and out of Egypt during good and bad times, but even then its so late, one cannot be certain to any extent.