{V}ruchtbaarheid tegen de {k}lippen op

Priests
and prophets i
n Judea: development
of a democratic society?
~
The falls
of Assyria and Babylon
were only the first of a series of disasters
that were to happen to
the Semitic
peoples!
In the seventh century B.C. it would have seemed
as though the whole civilised world
was to be dominated by
Semitic rulers?
~
They ruled
the great Assyrian empire
and they had conquered Egypt;
Assyria, Babylon, Syria were all Semitic,
speaking languages
that were mutually intelligible.
The trade of the world
was in Semitic hands ...
Tyre, Sidon,
the great mother cities of the Phoenician coast,
had thrown out colonies that grew at last to even greater proportian in Spain, Sicily, and Africa.
Carthage,
funded before 800 B.C.,
had risen to a population of mote than a million.
IT was for a time the greatest city on earth!
ITS ships went to Britain and out into the Atlantic.
They may even have reached Madeira or the Americas.
We have already noted in myDi before how Hiran=m co-operated with Solomon to build ships on the Red Sea for the Arabian and perhaps also for the Indian and Chinese trade.
In the time of the Pharaoh Necho, a Phoenician expedition
sailed completely
round Africa.
~
At that time
the socalled Aryan people were still barbarians.
Only the Greeks were reconstructing a new civilisation on the ruins of the one they had destroyed,
and the Medes were becoming 'formidable,'
as an Assyrian inscription calls them,
in central Asia ........
~
In 800 B.C. no one
could have prophesied
that before the third century B.C.
every trace of Semitic dominion would be wiped out
by Aryan-speaking conquerors,
and that everywhere the Semitic peoples
would be subjects or tributaries
or scattered altogether.
~
Everywhere
except in the northern deserts of Arabia,
where the Bedoin adhered steadly to the nomadic way of life,
the ancient way of life of the Semites before Sargon I and his Akkadians
went down to conquer Sumeria.
But the Arab Bedouin were NEVER conquered
by 'Aryan' masters
{up till
2003 A.D.?}!






~

NOW
of all
these civilised Semites
who were beaten and overrun
in these five eventful centuries
ONE PEOPLE ONLY
{*Asterix/Obelix*!?}
held together
and clung to its ancient traditions,
and that was this little people, the Jews,
who were sent back
to build their city of Jerusalem
by Cyrus the Persian?!
And THEY were able to do this
because they had got together this LITERATURE of theirs, their Bible,
in Babylon ..............
IT is not so much the Jews who made the Bible
as the Bible who made the Jews!
Running thru this Bible
were certain ideas,
DIFFERENT from the ideas of the people AROUND them,
very STIMULATING and SUSTAINING ideas,
to which they were destined to cling
thru five and twenty centuries
of hardship, ADVENTURE
and oppression ...
~
FOREMOST
of these Jewish ideas
was THIS,
that their G*D was INVISIBLE
and REMOTE,
an invisible G*D in a temple
not made with hands,
a Lord of Righteousness {!}
throughout
the Earth
{Space & Time} ...
~
ALL
other peoples had national gods
embodied in home-made images that lived in temples.
IF
the image was smashed and the temple razed to the ground
that god died out .............
But
THIS
was a new idea,
this G*D of the Jews,
in the Heavens,
high above priests and {animal or human} sacrifices ...!
And THIS G*D of Avraham,
the Jews believed,
had chosen THEM to be his particular {and peculiar!} people,
to restore Jerusalem and make it the capital of RIGHTEOUNESS in the World!
THEY were a people exalted by their sense of a common destiny ...
THIS belief saturated them all
when they returned to Jerusalem after the captivity
in {'Chaldea, Haran, Egypt and'[?]} Babylon ...
~
IS IT
ANY MIRACLE
that in their days of overthrow and subjugation
many babylonians and Syrians and so forth, and later on many Phoenicians, speaking practically the same language and having endless customs, habits, tastes and traditions in common,
should be attracted by this inspiring cult
and should seek to share in its
fellowship and its
promise?
~
After the fall
of Tyre, Sidon, Carthage and the Spanish Phoenician cities,
the Phoenicians 'suddenly' vanish from history;
and as 'suddenly' we find,
not simply in Jerusalem but in Spain, Africa, Egypt, Arabia, the East,
wherever the Phoenicians had set their feet,
communities of Jews ...
And THEY were all held together by the Bible and by the READING of their 'myDi'-Bible!
JERUSALEM was from the first
ONLY
their nominal capital;
their REAL myDi-city was this myDi-BOOK of books?!!
THIS IS A TOTALLY NEW THING IN HISTORY ...
IT is something of which the seeds were sown long before,
when the Sumerians and Egyptians began to turn their hieroglyphics into writing:
the Jews were a new thing,
a people without a king and presently without a temple
{for as we saw and shall tell again Jerusalem itself was broken up in 70 A.D.!}, held together and consolidated out of heterogenous elements
by nothing but the power of
the written 'myDi'-Word!
~
engel
02 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 09 jan 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
Weet je zeker dat je dit verhaal wilt rapporteren? Ja | Nee
Profielfoto van Asih
Asih, man, 81 jaar
   
Log in om een reactie te plaatsen.   vorige volgende