wisdom history roots branches leaves & geopolitics

Strange,
funny and
also disturbing how
a tiny little country as Israel
could become the cradle of such a religion
as christianity inbetween judaism
and islam.

The destruction
of Yerushalayim by the Babylonian king Nebuchadretsar
was a central episode in biblical history. According to 2 Kings 24/25,
the Judaean king Yehoyakim yielded to him in 597 BCE and all but the very poorest of the land
were deported, with the Temple
also being looted.

About
eleven years
later, his successor,
Tsidkiyahu, rebelled and
Nebuchadretsar had him executed,
destroyed the city and its Temple and deported still more
of the population. This event was presented as
an exiling of "Yisrael" in punishment for its
disobedience against the divine law,
a fate that the prophets had
foretold and king Shlomoh,
at the builing of
the Temple,
reputedly
some 400 years earlier,
had anticipated according to
1 Kings 13.

It
was about
60 years [the book of Yirmeyahu
makes it around 70] before Cyrus of Persia reversed
the policy of deportation and allowed deportees to return to their ancestral lands.
Judaeans living in Babylon began to travel to Judah with money, gifts and the looted Temple
vessels, to reoccupy the land and
rebuild Yerushalayim and
the Temple.

[The names
'Judah' and 'Judaea'
derive respectively from Hebrew
{Yehudah} and Greek/Latin {Ioudaia/Judaea} as names
for the Jewish homeland, and so reflect the political
and linguistic transitions of the Second Temple
period. "Judaea" is generally used
for the Roman period ~ from
64 BCE onwards.]

The books
of Ezrah and Nechemyah tell us
of two leaders under whom Yerushalayim was,
after some delay, rebuilt and repopulated, the Temple rededicated,
the law of Mosheh read out and religious reforms instituted. From the biblical perspective
this was a divinely decreed restoration of the true Israel, even if under an imperial regime,
for the Jewish god had inspired Cyrus {as "mashiach"/'son of god'}. The return of these people,
and their desire to reclaim and rebuild this tiny province of Judah, must have been a shock to those
then inhabiting the land, who for
two or three generations
had regarded it
already as
theirs.

Many
would have
taken over property
left behind. People from across the Jordan river
and from Samaria had settled in Judah, and south of Beth Lechem nearly all the territory
had become Edomite. Thus, the population of the province was made up of groups with [very]
different interests, of whom the most influential were immigrants from Babylonia who enjoyed
the political support of the Persian regime and claimed to be
the 'only' rightful occupants of the
socalled "Promised
Land".

It
is thus
unlikely, then,
that from this time
there was a single agreed "Judaism".
There may well have been disputes between
local and immigrant priestly families as to who should officiate in the Temple,
for traces of competing genealogies and dynasties [for instance, descendants
of Aharon versus descendants of Tsa-dok] can be detected in the Bible.
To such circumstances the roots of the religious
plurality and sectarinism that underlie
the Dead Sea Scrolls
may well be
traced.

Certainly
the Damascus Document
treats the religious leadership
from this time onwards as being in error,
and, together with several other Jewish writings
[including the books of Enoch & the biblical book
of Dani'el], it regards the exile as having
effectively continued to
its own
day.

Hier hebben we
dan ook precies [alweer]
een van de kernperiodes van "Joodse"
en daarmee ook 'christelijke' & 'islamitische' "Geschiedenis":
men projecteerde lustig vooruit & achteruit heen
en weer tussen het 'ontstaan v/d mensheid'
in het verre verleden & 'n herhaaldelijk
verondersteld 'apocalyptisch
einde'!

En
tussen zo'n
"imaginair framework"
paste men eveneens allerlei
ethische morele sociale
waarden &
normen
...