When Does Criticism Of Israeli Statements Become Anti-Semetic (Page 3 of 3)

cybert wrote:

I'm saying a very small people had an enormously outsized influence on later history because they could write and hold on to their writing, while often their enemies didn't. Fairy tales about golden calves are beside the point. It remains most of our history of the area is shaped by the perspective of a people whose influence was so small that they hardly come up in outside histories before Alexander's time at best.

Actually you are confusing your idea of the history with what you have been taught, or exposed to. History of the area is not only written in the Bible, but you were only taught the bible. There is a difference. Your own background, where you come from, is what shaped your knowledge of the history of the area. Remember that in addition, the Bible was sustained and taught by Christians as well.

Much of what goes on in the Old Testament doesn't seem important enough for other countries to have recorded it. According to the Old Testament, King David is supposed to have had influence on a par with Persia and Egypt, but they seem not to have heard of him. David who? From where? Now, of course, David is a name known the world over, but the name of the Pharaoh and the King of Persia at the time? Not so much...

You don't. Again, because that was what you were taught. We study the history of the civilizations in Lebanon. Phoenician, egyptian...

Have you ever been to Egypt? Now I am sure that when someone thinks about Egypt, the first thing that comes to mind is the Pyramids. Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed by them. But I would definitely recommend a visit to the National Museum. This is a part of history that will leave you in awe. The mommy room alone is amazing. 4500 years BC and still you can see the hair, the teeth, the majesty and, quit oddly, the family resemblance among all those pharaohs. They have the same nose! This was one great civilisation. Just because you were never taught about the other civilizations doesn't mean they did not write their own history.

You want a Pharaoh name. Tutankhamun. Visit his part of the museum and you will not even remember anything else about the area. They left a trace, a real tangible trace. And it teaches the little things. How they lived, how they ate, how they buried their dead. This part of the world is the heart of history. And oddly, the people who least contributed to its history are the Jews. Maybe that's why they wrote their own version of history. Because they couldn't make one.

cybert wrote:

Relative to its very small size, the Isrealites have had a wildly out-sized influence on history. See how those to clauses relate?

Now, I'm going to add another idea, k? I'll go slow. During the time of David and Solomon, the Bible claims Israel was a great and influential state. Yet, the archeological record shows that no MAJOR state around them AT THE TIME seems to have taken notice of them at all.

Now I'm going to sum it all up. Pay attention to what I'm actually saying, not what you want me to be saying. Israel has had an enormously outsized influence on global history, relative to its much larger ancient contemporaries, in spite of its small size, because their perspective has been with us continuously in writing while that of its contemporaries has not.

ooookay. I. am. going. to. speaaak. very. slowly. so. try. to. concentrate. k?

Relative to its own size, the Israelites did not have any influence, because the proximate cause for you being influenced by the book they wrote was Chris.ti.Anity. The fact that the biggest empire back then adopted christianity, and that christianity is a religion that was spread through preaching, and the fact that Christianity adopted the Old testament, and that those empires had colonies that were open to Christian missionaries who promoted that book for two thousand years , and that you are the descendant of those ancestors, that made the Bible influential in your life.

Now I am going to add another idea, k? Had the biggest empires adopted another religion that did not promote the bible, that book that shaped life as you know it would have been as unknown now as it was throughout its existence before Christianity and the jewish perspective would not have been with you continuously in writing, no more than the treasure of Tutankhamun. The difference is, the treasue of Tutankhamon would still have emerged in 1922, and we still would not have found any historical evidence of the great empires mentioned in the bible.

Let me put that yet in another way. Let Chritianity drop the old testament today, and it will be forgotten by tomorrow.

Now I am sure you are not going to get that. So I am going to make it even clearer to you. A man, who was not a king or a country leader dies on the cross and our calender today is counted from the year of his birth. 12 men (some being illiterate) start preaching his teachings after his death and influence and convert the biggest empires in history and make not one, but two books influential on your life. Now that is where you can say: Relative to their number, they had an oversized influence since their existence. 

And about Egyptian history, well what can I say. You come from a country without a history, and whose landmarks are at best a couple of hundred years old and consist of a tree and a rock and the Lincoln memorial. So you may not know that history can be written not only in books. And while it did not have a great influence on your life for the aforementioned reasons, they are proof of a real civilization and not of an influential empire no one took notice of, and no archeological evidence proves it existed, i.e. an emipre that is a figment of the imagination of a people who was thirsty for some kind of influence to raise their self esteem that they had to make it up.

Now, I'm betting you are still not gonna get it....well think of it of a student who is bad at sports, is invisible, has no popularity.... and he goes at home at night and dreams he's a super hero who saves the world every day. He writes a book about it. The Israelites are that student.

Now if you want to talk about their holy book, here is my opinion:

If someone believes that the seas open and that you can win a war by blowing horns and become the greatest king in history by defeating a giant then I have no problem with that. It's called faith (and I am a Christian, so I believe in things others might find strange too).

If someone wants to put the "fairy tales" aside, and consider that book a historical reference and let it have an oversized influence on their life, then I have to question their sanity and the level of their intellect. K? and that is why this is a conversation I am not going to continue