http://musliminsuffer.wordpress.com/
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
The Bible Unearthed
by Larry Saltzman – The Palestine Chronicle
A revolution is happening in Biblical Archaeology. Biblical Archaeology
is critically examining the Bible against the archaeological record and
is turning everything we thought we knew upside down. It may disturb
many that hold strong political or highly conservative religious
beliefs. This will be true of Christians, Muslims and Jews who interpret
the Bible literally.
It will disturb many secular Zionists who justify modern Israel's
existence and the proposed annexation of "Judah and Samaria" based on
the Biblical Texts. You can choose to believe this research or not. But
it has profound implications for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. This
article will review the theories of one of the foremost of these
revolutionary Biblical archaeologists – Israel Finkelstein.
Professor Finkelstein is an Israeli and has received a lot of criticism
in Israel for his work from conservative elements in the society that
are aware of what it means for the Biblical underpinnings of Zionism. To
read more about the research that lies behind this summary, I refer you
to the writings of Israel Finkelstein. The most accessible book is The
Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the
Origin of Its Sacred Texts, written with Neil Asher Silberman and
published by The Free Press in 2001. Finkelstein is one of a group of
radical archaeologists that is turning the field of biblical archaeology
on its head.
Archaeologists live in a world of tells, strata, Carbon 14 dating,
Jericho IV, The Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age, Iron Age I and Iron
Age II and of course pottery shards and architectural styles. Slowly but
surely as they excavate and date the significant Archaeological sites
located in modern Israel and parts of Occupied Palestine the history of
the region as recorded in the Bible is being re-written from what the
Bible has told us. What follows is a very brief summary of that research
and an analysis of its implications.
Professor Finkelstein has not attempted himself to interpret his
research in the context of the contemporary political and diplomatic
complexities of the Middle East. He has simply presented the facts that
the archaeological record has revealed. Some archaeologists still
disagree, but his is a mainstream scientific view and not the work of a
fringe writer with a political or conspiracy axe to grind. And more and
more prominent scholars in the field are moving to something like his
viewpoint, even though they may disagree on the details.
Israel, Judah and Samaria were simply Canaanite States that arose out of
indigenous Canaanite culture and not from the invasion of a mythical
people called the Hebrews. Israel was a small Canaanite State that
briefly achieved a golden age, reaching its' height of power and glory
in the reign of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. The House of David never
ruled in Israel, it ruled over the Canaanite State of Judah.
Finkelstein is convinced that the House of David did exist. David and
Solomon were probably tribal chiefs in the hill country that became the
Kingdom of Judah. Jerusalem was the Capital of Judah not of Israel. In
the time of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was an unimportant very small
town with no great Temple. The major cult centres were farther to the
north in the cities of Israel. In fact the great cities of Canaan that
were previously attributed to the Solomon were built by Israeli Kings
like Ahab.
It was under King Josiah that the Bible was finally written and
something resembling modern Judaism begins to take shape in the 7th and
8th centuries BC. It is a political document that is designed to glorify
the Josiah and to connect him falsely with the golden era when the state
of Israel briefly rose up as a powerful and advanced civilized centre.
The Bible is essentially a work of propaganda, weaving historical
fragments and myths of various Canaanite peoples into a powerful
justification for Josiah's rule and expansionist policies.
I personally draw a positive conclusion from this research. As an
American-Jew, I have long struggled with the contradictions and problems
of Zionism and the unjust policies of the State of Israel towards
Palestinians. For those brave enough to seize this research in the right
spirit, there is a solution in it for the problems of the Middle East.
Simply stated, European Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, and Palestinians are
brothers and sisters and share a common Canaanite ancestry. There were a
small number of voices amongst the early Zionists who were against the
creation of a separate Jewish state in the region. They lost out to the
bigger faction lead by David Ben-Gurion, who suffered from the disease
of European colonialism. Ben-Gurion and those in his camp saw the
natives of the region as an obstacle to be eliminated. I believe Jews
around the world need to take pride not in Israel as a modern
colonialist State but in the entire region of Palestine as the homeland
of Canaanite and Israelite culture that we are descended from. European
Jews are simply Europeanized Canaanites; Palestinians, whether Muslim,
Christian or Jewish were simply Arabised Canaanites. Even modern genetic
research is proving that we come from the same ancestry.
Think of Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans returning to their
ancestral homelands to experience the culture and the people. They do
not think they have the right to conquer the land and dispossess those
who stayed behind. Rather they go back to re-connect with their cultural
roots from those who are part of the living culture. Because of Zionism,
Jews lost the chance to return to Palestine and re-connect with the
Palestinians who are the people that have carried forward the culture of
ancient Canaan. Viewed in that light, I see the fight against Zionism as
being as much my fight as the Palestinians fight. It is the Zionists who
created a rift between family, where there should have been friendship
and cooperation. It is modern Zionism that disconnected me from my roots
not connected me. It is that movement that even stole the spiritual base
of Judaism and associated it for the first time in two thousand years
with aggression and oppression of others. Whatever flaws my European
ancestors had, they were not the ones starting wars and building
colonial empires, as was the Christian majority in Europe.
It is the Zionists who through their acts of ethnic cleansing and on-
going violence have made enemies out of people who share a common
ancestry with me. The disease of European Colonialist thinking prevented
them from seeing how much the Palestinians had to share with us of the
ancient cultures and common heritage. Those who came from Europe may
have had the advantage of European technology, but the Palestinians had
something far more valuable that the Zionists treated with contempt and
discarded.
My hope though, is that a new vision of the common ancestry of Jews and
Palestinians can be shared and spread and used to defeat the discredited
legacy of Zionism. The ancient Canaanites had a great culture. From
their culture springs Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their culture as
expressed by the Canaanite civilizations of Judah and Israel exerts more
influence on great portions of humanity than does that of far greater
military powers and empires of the ancient world. Where the myths and
religions of other ancient civilizations of the Middle East are no
longer believed or practiced by many people, The religious heritage of
Judah is practiced in the form of Christianity, Islam and Judaism by
something approaching two billion people on every inhabited continent.
When we can recognize and accept our profound common heritage, perhaps
we can begin to overcome the suffering and warfare of the twentieth
century and move towards lasting peace and justice in the Middle East.
Larry Saltzman is an American Jew who believes that the meaning of the
Holocaust is that "never again" means that no people on the planet
should be persecuted. He is deeply involved in organic gardening and has
an orchard of some 60 fruit trees. He had been opposed to the Israeli
occupation for some time, but when he learned of the wanton destruction
of orchards and farmland by Israeli troops in the Palestinian
Territories this past year, he decided to become active. He has a B.A.
in Anthropology from UCLA but works as a computer programmer.
source:
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2554
===
-muslim voice-
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BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
