ZGram - 3/11/2002 - "Has the Revisionist Bug Bitten the Bully?"
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Mon, 11 Mar 2002 20:42:37 -0800
=1FCopyright (c) 2002 - Ingrid A Rimland
ZGrams - Where Truth is Destiny
March 11, 2001
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
If I tell you that the Revisionist Bug has Bitten the Bully, will you
believe me? What - you will not? Just when you think you have seen
it all, up comes a new surprise. If only they knew how often we
laugh at their verbal gyrations to get their necks out of the noose!
I am only giving you a few snippets because I want you to go and
savor that essay for yourselves. You will come away from it asking:
"Are they lying now, or were they lying then? If then - why? If now
- why NOW?"
Either way, it seems suicidal to me!
What's more, you are going to have to ask yourself if all good
spirits are beginning to forsake the Chosenites - because as
resentment worldwide about the Palestinian situation is coming to a
boiling point, they will NEED the support of the Pat Robertson/Jerry
=46allwell/Robert Schuller Christians - badly! - to bolster their
so-called "claim" on the Holy Land. I don't think they can make it
without America's "Amen Corner" - not in the Western World, not any
longer, not after 9/11. And here they are spitting the Christians
right in the face, telling them that their Holiest of Holies is
nothing but a fable, concocted by an earlier crop of Weasels,
popularized by some precursor Stephen Spielberg ancestors?
This will not go down in history as one of their smarter moves - but
there it is, for all to see, right in the New York Times:
[START]
As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/arts/09BIBL.html?todaysheadlines
Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses.
The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never
occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho.
And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into
a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose
reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a
fledgling nation. (...)
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the
1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a
new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60
years.
Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an
interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from
archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient
cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of
the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a
view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document. (...)
=46or instance, an essay on Ancient Near Eastern Mythology," by Robert
Wexler, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, states
that on the basis of modern scholarship, it seems unlikely that the
story of Genesis originated in Palestine. More likely, Mr. Wexler
says, it arose in Mesopotamia, the influence of which is most
apparent in the story of the Flood, which probably grew out of the
periodic overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The story
of Noah, Mr. Wexler adds, was probably borrowed from the Mesopotamian
epic Gilgamesh. (...)
"There is no reference in Egyptian sources to Israel's sojourn in
that country," (Lee I. Levine, a professor at the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem) writes, "and the evidence that does exist is negligible
and indirect." (...)
Similarly ambiguous, Mr. Levine writes, is the evidence of the
conquest and settlement of Canaan, the ancient name for the area
including Israel. Excavations showing that Jericho was unwalled and
uninhabited, he says, "clearly seem to contradict the violent and
complete conquest portrayed in the Book of Joshua." What's more, he
says, there is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence"
backing up the Bible's grand descriptions of the Jerusalem of David
and Solomon.
The notion that the Bible is not literally true "is more or less
settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis," observed
David Wolpe, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles ... in a sermon
to 2,200 congregants at his synagogue, Rabbi Wolpe frankly said that
"virtually every modern archaeologist" agrees "that the way the Bible
describes the Exodus is not the way that it happened, if it happened
at all."
The rabbi offered what he called a "litany of disillusion" about the
narrative, including contradictions, improbabilities, chronological
lapses and the absence of corroborating evidence. In fact, he said,
archaeologists digging in the Sinai have "found no trace of the
tribes of Israel =97 not one shard of pottery." (...)
Since the fall, when "Etz Hayim" was issued, more than 100,000 copies
have been sold.
[END]
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Thought for the Day;
"Sounds much like their Holocaust story to me!"
(Ernst Z=FCndel)