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The purpose of this treatise is to contribute to the dispelling of ignorance among most of you regarding Israel and the Arab/Israeli conflict.
I do not use the term ?ignorance? in the derogatory sense, although undoubtedly many of you will take it that way. I can assure you however, that nearly all of you are ignorant of the Biblical and historical facts of Israel and the Jews and the Israeli/Arab conflict.
The Arabs hate the Jews. The Jews hate the Arabs. This hatred is many centuries old, and will not be dispelled by any negotiations that take place in the U.N. or with any third-party mediator or involvement. The only way to understand the conflict that currently exists in the Middle East is to understand the Jew and the Arab of the Bible. YOU may not accept the Biblical story as historical, but the Jews do. And the Arabs do. And the majority of fundamentalist Christians do, without whom the English-speaking world would have little impetus for supporting the modern-day state of Israel.
I sense that the current players on the world stage ? those who are neither Jew nor Arab ? are under the delusion that they can broker a peace settlement between the Jews and Arabs. I also sense that they have very little knowledge or understanding of the Biblical tale of Abraham and his physical descendants, without which they will never make it to first base.
Let us have no misunderstanding. I am not anti-Semitic. I grew up in the home of a fundamentalist Baptist preacher, and was taught all the requisite things regarding the Jews and the Abrahamic Covenant. I generally admire the spunk of the state of Israel. I also condemn their conquering of Arab territory and their illegal occupation of the same.
I shall begin by addressing a couple of important questions:
WHAT IS A JEW?
The term ?Jew? derives from the term ?Judah,? one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and one of twelve tribes of Israel. The kingdom of Judah, over which David and his descendants reigned, included the defunct tribe of Simeon and the tribe of Benjamin. Ergo, the descendants of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin were referred to as ?Jews.? I shall have much more to say about this later.
WHAT IS ISRAEL?
The state of Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948. I shall have more to say about that later. Most of you already have some idea of the ?Children of Israel,? as described in the Bible. I shall begin there.
IN THE BEGINNING
I should like to begin with Noah, just to keep things clean, and address another misunderstanding. Noah had three sons: Japheth, Shem, and Ham. Noah had a wife, and his three sons had wives. According to the Bible these eight persons were the only survivors of a world-wide flood.
The Bible pretty much explains where the descendants of each of the three sons settled after the flood. The descendants of Japheth settled the area described as the ?isles of the Gentiles (Gen. 10:5),? presumably northward into Greece, et al. The descendants of Ham settled Africa and Canaan (Gen. 6-20). If we agree that the Negro race originally lived in Africa, then we can assume that Ham was the father of the *Negro Race. That would mean that the original inhabitants of Canaan were Negro. Shem?s descendants settled toward ?the east (Gen. 10:30).?
According to the genealogy found in Genesis 11:10-26, Abraham (then known as Abram) descended from Shem ? not Ham. I say this because of the well-documented notion among some of our Black friends that Abraham and the Children of Israel were Negroes. They were not. Neither were they Caucasian, the presumed descendants of Japheth.
That being said, it should now become obvious that there is still this question: ?What is a Jew?? Who are the modern Jews? I know people who are blonde and blue-eyed who claim to be Jews. So do you. I also know dark-skinned people who claim to be Jews. So do you. So, this begs the question: is Jewishness an ethnic designation, or is it simply a religious or cultural one?
I would venture to say that most of my fundamentalist Christian friends would say that a Jew is anyone who is a descendant of Abraham ? a statement that is patently false. For the information of those who believe that, may I point out the salient fact that Ishmael, the so-called father of the Arabs, was Abraham?s first-born son? So to say that the Abraham?s descendants are all Jews would be to say that the Arabs are Jews, which of course is both preposterous, and is an affront to both Jews and Arabs.
The ?Children of Israel? of the Bible were, as most of us are aware, the descendants of Jacob?s twelve sons. And as has been pointed out previously, the Jews per se, were the descendants of the Kingdom of Judah, which included the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.
Insofar as those who live today who identify as Jews, how can it be positively and conscientiously determined who is and who is not a direct descendant of any of the previously named tribes? Are there any Jews today who can positively document their ancestry back to the days of the original tribes?
It must be obvious to anyone whose head is above sea level, that through the hundreds of years since the time of the Patriarchs, there has been much marriage and inter-marriage among and between the original Jews and those people who surrounded the areas where they lived. This mixing of genes surely has resulted in what must only be described as a situation that dictates that it is impossible to genetically map anyone to the original Jews of the Bible.
We must take their word for it.
That being said, I see no problem with accepting that many of those who claim to be Jews are descended from Judah. After all, all of us descended from someone who lived during that time. But undoubtedly, among the descendants of Judah, there are going to be those who also descended from Ham and from Japheth. So, there should be no surprise to find Jews who are Negroes; Jews who are Caucasian; and Jews who are Oriental. It should also come as no surprise that probably all of those who identify as ?Jew? have **genetic markers that belonged to the original three sons of Noah. For that matter, everyone on the face of the earth, with a very few exceptions, must contain genetic markers that belong to all three sons of Noah!
That, then, begs the question: ?What is so special, then, of the modern-day so-called Jew??
I have a categorical statement to make here: The Covenant that God made to Abraham regarding his seed does not apply to anyone today who calls himself a Jew.
Let me repeat: The Covenant that God made to Abraham regarding his seed does not apply to anyone today who calls himself a Jew.
And I can prove it.
Let me repeat that: I CAN PROVE IT!
Please allow me to explain something here: it is only in mathematics that a thing can be proven. Scientific theories change and evolve and cannot be proven, but a math theorem can be proven. And ?proof? implies that the theorem can never be overturned, unlike a scientific ?theory.? That having been said, please allow me to amend my assertion:
I can prove, without equivocation, that the modern so-called Jew has nothing to do with God?s Covenant with Abraham, OR THE BIBLE IS FAKE.
If one is willing to presume the veracity of the Biblical account of the origin of the Jew, I shall prove from the Bible, that Abraham?s covenant with God is not applicable to Abraham?s descendants ? those who identify as Jews.
[*I have written elsewhere that ?race? is a man-made designation. In reality everyone on the face of the earth belongs to the same race. We are all part of the same family. But for clarification, I use the monikers ?Negro,? ?Caucasian,? and ?Oriental? to explain certain misunderstandings.
**Genetic markers are mutations in our chromosomes that we pass on to our children. Geneticists use these genetic markers to trace ancestry through the DNA.]
I do not use the term ?ignorance? in the derogatory sense, although undoubtedly many of you will take it that way. I can assure you however, that nearly all of you are ignorant of the Biblical and historical facts of Israel and the Jews and the Israeli/Arab conflict.
The Arabs hate the Jews. The Jews hate the Arabs. This hatred is many centuries old, and will not be dispelled by any negotiations that take place in the U.N. or with any third-party mediator or involvement. The only way to understand the conflict that currently exists in the Middle East is to understand the Jew and the Arab of the Bible. YOU may not accept the Biblical story as historical, but the Jews do. And the Arabs do. And the majority of fundamentalist Christians do, without whom the English-speaking world would have little impetus for supporting the modern-day state of Israel.
I sense that the current players on the world stage ? those who are neither Jew nor Arab ? are under the delusion that they can broker a peace settlement between the Jews and Arabs. I also sense that they have very little knowledge or understanding of the Biblical tale of Abraham and his physical descendants, without which they will never make it to first base.
Let us have no misunderstanding. I am not anti-Semitic. I grew up in the home of a fundamentalist Baptist preacher, and was taught all the requisite things regarding the Jews and the Abrahamic Covenant. I generally admire the spunk of the state of Israel. I also condemn their conquering of Arab territory and their illegal occupation of the same.
I shall begin by addressing a couple of important questions:
WHAT IS A JEW?
The term ?Jew? derives from the term ?Judah,? one of the twelve sons of Jacob, and one of twelve tribes of Israel. The kingdom of Judah, over which David and his descendants reigned, included the defunct tribe of Simeon and the tribe of Benjamin. Ergo, the descendants of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin were referred to as ?Jews.? I shall have much more to say about this later.
WHAT IS ISRAEL?
The state of Israel came into existence on May 14, 1948. I shall have more to say about that later. Most of you already have some idea of the ?Children of Israel,? as described in the Bible. I shall begin there.
IN THE BEGINNING
I should like to begin with Noah, just to keep things clean, and address another misunderstanding. Noah had three sons: Japheth, Shem, and Ham. Noah had a wife, and his three sons had wives. According to the Bible these eight persons were the only survivors of a world-wide flood.
The Bible pretty much explains where the descendants of each of the three sons settled after the flood. The descendants of Japheth settled the area described as the ?isles of the Gentiles (Gen. 10:5),? presumably northward into Greece, et al. The descendants of Ham settled Africa and Canaan (Gen. 6-20). If we agree that the Negro race originally lived in Africa, then we can assume that Ham was the father of the *Negro Race. That would mean that the original inhabitants of Canaan were Negro. Shem?s descendants settled toward ?the east (Gen. 10:30).?
According to the genealogy found in Genesis 11:10-26, Abraham (then known as Abram) descended from Shem ? not Ham. I say this because of the well-documented notion among some of our Black friends that Abraham and the Children of Israel were Negroes. They were not. Neither were they Caucasian, the presumed descendants of Japheth.
That being said, it should now become obvious that there is still this question: ?What is a Jew?? Who are the modern Jews? I know people who are blonde and blue-eyed who claim to be Jews. So do you. I also know dark-skinned people who claim to be Jews. So do you. So, this begs the question: is Jewishness an ethnic designation, or is it simply a religious or cultural one?
I would venture to say that most of my fundamentalist Christian friends would say that a Jew is anyone who is a descendant of Abraham ? a statement that is patently false. For the information of those who believe that, may I point out the salient fact that Ishmael, the so-called father of the Arabs, was Abraham?s first-born son? So to say that the Abraham?s descendants are all Jews would be to say that the Arabs are Jews, which of course is both preposterous, and is an affront to both Jews and Arabs.
The ?Children of Israel? of the Bible were, as most of us are aware, the descendants of Jacob?s twelve sons. And as has been pointed out previously, the Jews per se, were the descendants of the Kingdom of Judah, which included the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin.
Insofar as those who live today who identify as Jews, how can it be positively and conscientiously determined who is and who is not a direct descendant of any of the previously named tribes? Are there any Jews today who can positively document their ancestry back to the days of the original tribes?
It must be obvious to anyone whose head is above sea level, that through the hundreds of years since the time of the Patriarchs, there has been much marriage and inter-marriage among and between the original Jews and those people who surrounded the areas where they lived. This mixing of genes surely has resulted in what must only be described as a situation that dictates that it is impossible to genetically map anyone to the original Jews of the Bible.
We must take their word for it.
That being said, I see no problem with accepting that many of those who claim to be Jews are descended from Judah. After all, all of us descended from someone who lived during that time. But undoubtedly, among the descendants of Judah, there are going to be those who also descended from Ham and from Japheth. So, there should be no surprise to find Jews who are Negroes; Jews who are Caucasian; and Jews who are Oriental. It should also come as no surprise that probably all of those who identify as ?Jew? have **genetic markers that belonged to the original three sons of Noah. For that matter, everyone on the face of the earth, with a very few exceptions, must contain genetic markers that belong to all three sons of Noah!
That, then, begs the question: ?What is so special, then, of the modern-day so-called Jew??
I have a categorical statement to make here: The Covenant that God made to Abraham regarding his seed does not apply to anyone today who calls himself a Jew.
Let me repeat: The Covenant that God made to Abraham regarding his seed does not apply to anyone today who calls himself a Jew.
And I can prove it.
Let me repeat that: I CAN PROVE IT!
Please allow me to explain something here: it is only in mathematics that a thing can be proven. Scientific theories change and evolve and cannot be proven, but a math theorem can be proven. And ?proof? implies that the theorem can never be overturned, unlike a scientific ?theory.? That having been said, please allow me to amend my assertion:
I can prove, without equivocation, that the modern so-called Jew has nothing to do with God?s Covenant with Abraham, OR THE BIBLE IS FAKE.
If one is willing to presume the veracity of the Biblical account of the origin of the Jew, I shall prove from the Bible, that Abraham?s covenant with God is not applicable to Abraham?s descendants ? those who identify as Jews.
[*I have written elsewhere that ?race? is a man-made designation. In reality everyone on the face of the earth belongs to the same race. We are all part of the same family. But for clarification, I use the monikers ?Negro,? ?Caucasian,? and ?Oriental? to explain certain misunderstandings.
**Genetic markers are mutations in our chromosomes that we pass on to our children. Geneticists use these genetic markers to trace ancestry through the DNA.]