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rachelcorrie
Registered User
(1/23/04 4:25 pm)
Reply 		BIBLICAL ORIGINS
First topic: Richard Elliot Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible

Second topic: the webite site
www.universalway.org/Fore...igins.html
in which we find:

Quote:
It is well-known to many Biblical researchers that most of the Old Testament comes from other, more ancient, writings. Even Jewish writers admit that most of the "Hebrew" writings were merely taken freely from Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and even Greek sources.


Expression of Gratitude:
Have been enjoying various discussion's in here about Elaine Pagels' book Beyond Belief ---- The Secret Gospel of Thomas

We now have a copy in our home, a Christmas present, purchased through an independent bookshop

chela2020
Registered User
(1/23/04 5:57 pm)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Dear Rachel,

May I call you that?

I have been reading the Upanishads, and every now and then I come across something that was said in the Bible. There is even a story of a man who was sacrificing his sick animals to God, until his son said for him to sacrifice him. And then I saw the word: A brahman. Put those two words together and you have Abraham. It reminded me of the story of Abraham and Issac before I even saw that.

Elain Pagel's book was wonderful. I also enjoyed "The Five Gospels." The fifth being The Gospel of Thomas.

etzchaim
Registered User
(1/24/04 8:41 am)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Yup, no one exists in a vacuum, not even Dave, who is apparently very anti-Jewish, but may not even be consciously aware of it!

According to Jewish thought, the only thing created ex-nihilo was the initial 'Point' symbolized by the use of the word "bara" in the very first line of the Torah. All other terms, in Hebrew, refer to a 'creation from' rather than a 'creation of' and use a different root word, most often stemming from Y.ZT.R, or Yetzer, 'to form'.

Here is Nachmanides on the subject:

"Now we have no expression in the sacred language for bringing forth something from nothing other than the word 'bara'(created). Everything that exists under the sun or above was not made from non-existence at the outset. Instead, God brought forth from total and absolute nothing a very thin substance devoid of corporeality but having a power of potency, fit to assume form and to proceed from potentiality into reality. This was the primary matter created by God... After the primary matter (etz's note: the 'prima materia' of the Alchemists :) ) God did not create anything, but formed and made things with it, and from this primary matter, God brought forth everything into existence and clothed the forms and puts them into a finished condition (etz's note: this, the Kabbalists state, is a constant condition - everything is continually evolving...)

"Know that the heavens and all that is in them consist of one substance, and the earth and everyting that is in it consist of one substance. The Holy One, blessed by He, created this substance from Nothing (Ayin = Nothing = one of the 'Names of God = God created the Prima Materia out of God). This alone was created, and everything else was constructed from this."

Etzchaim knows that everything is created out of One thing, that 'Heaven' and 'Earth' symbolize 'Energy' and 'Matter' and that all of the different 'cultures' are developing with each other and from each other, as well, one is not superior to the other, though they may be playing different roles in the 'Play of Maya'.

Dave/Soul Circle/Rachel Corrie appears to want to show that the Jews are 'thieves', yes, Dave? Does that suit your current anti-Israel psychological state? God bless you with wisdom and discernment.

Chela2020/Nagchampa2 and quite possibly Digeridootoo, wants to believe that the Upanishads are the source of the 'elightened' teachings of Jesus and that he couldn't have reached his "level" without the Hindus. God bless her with wisdom and discernment 2.

Etzchaim says: Shame on both of you, but wishes you internal and external peace, and freedom from harsh judgment.

Edited by: etzchaim at: 1/24/04 9:52 am
etzchaim
Registered User
(1/24/04 9:08 am)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Here's an interesting bit of info for ya, Rachel/Soulcircle:

Abraham was from Ur. Moses was from Egypt. The Jews have lived all over God's earth. We're a creative bunch, if you ask me, in the "yetzer" sense of the English word "creative".

Think about it: Einstein developed his theories based on the ideas that were extant in the world around him. He developed his ideas and understanding of the Reality from the foundation of 'thought' that existed before him and that was available to him. His ideas were unique and profound to him, as well. They have had a tremendous amount of influence. He didn't create them out of nothing.

Nachmanides returned to Jerusalem in the 1260's. The Arabs, who had taken over the land in the 700's, had killed all the Jews who had been living there previously, in one of the various 'purges' they would get into every once in awhile because of some form of Fundamentalist jag they and the rest of humanity seem to be prone to. Nachmanides built a Synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem which began another 'moment in time' when the Jews began to be able to live in that city as well as in the surrounding citys, building thriving centers in places like Haifa, Jaffa and Safed,Safed was the site of a very intense and deep mystical community during the Renaissance. When the city was divided again in the separation between the Jews and the Arabs in the 1900's, that Synagogue was attacked and destroyed, systematically, along with about 50 other synagogues in the Jewish quarter along. This is the "Old City" of Jerusalem, now under the control of the Israel, which has rebuilt Nachmanides synagogue and also allows the mosques to remain and has given control of the Temple Mount, Judaism holiest site, over to the control of the Muslims.

Peace and understanding is the answer, not blame and demonizing of either the Jews or Muslims. God bless both of them and really, we need to learn what respect is, on both sides.

Edited by: etzchaim at: 1/24/04 10:07 am
chela2020
Slow Down
(1/25/04 7:13 am)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Eztchaim,

I don't believe that Soulcircle is anti-semitic in the least. He is quoting what others have written as to the sources of the Bible. I have read the same things.

etzchaim
Registered User
(1/25/04 10:36 am)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Chela, I don't believe that many people are openly or even consciously anti-semitic. I believe that anti-Jewish tendencies are deeply rooted in our culture and activate in a mainly unconscius manner. .

I have read many of the 'sources' that the particular author that Soulcircle quotes. The Hebrew scripture has similar stories: the flood, the tower, the origin of the universe out of chaos. The stories are universal architypes, and yes, the Middle Eastern countries have all influenced each other.

The issue I am trying to point out is that IF you are actually familiar with the texts that the Jews have written (other than a translation of a translation of a book with a very anti-Jewish book attached to it's end claiming to have 'supersceded' the older text), AND to traditions that the Jews "took" (stealing?) the UNIVERSAL ARCHIYPES (found even in Native American traditions...) from you would actually see the specific contribution that the Jews have made. The Hebrew versions are VASTLY different in fundamenatal ways.

Compare the Sumerian Creation stories to the Hebrew Creation story - and PLEASE - do not limit yourself to a childish, literal, pedantic slavery to the meaning of the translated from translated words.

The reason I am pointing this out, aside from it pushing very bitter buttons I grew once I started actually studying the history of Christian/Jewish relations, as well as the Secular Western non-Jewish/Jewish relations and how people around the world have reacted to Judaism - almost always stemming from a bias caused by one of the two religions that originate out of Judaism, whether they continue to follow that religion or not. I also confronted my own fathers unconscious anti-semitism, my step-mothers fear that I was practicing somethig Satanic, and I've seen it in myself, as well. Most people who were brought up in the Western Christian culture, including many Jews, have absolutely no idea, what the Hebrew language is like (I would put it about on the same level as Sanskrit, as far as spiritual focus and usefullness). They have no idea what the Jewish tradition is like. Most people think it stopped at the beginning of the New Testament! They have no idea that the concept of "evolution" is inherent in the Hebrew text. They have no idea how Jews have actually looked at their OWN TEXT, understood it, interpreted it, used it, and evolved with their understanding, precisely because Judaism teaches an evolutionary approach and a continual influx of Consciousness (called Shefa, in Hebrew) into humanity. Most people do not put together the role that Jews have played in western tradition and other traditions with the teachings of the Jews.

Lets take a few examples:
Marx was from a long line of Rabbis. When I look at his texts, I see Jewish Messianism all the way through it. Marx made an entire system that was based on "Old Testament" dreams. When I look at the development of the market economy, I see the history of Jewish relations with Christians (can you say "money lenders"? Let's try "banks" next, and see what that brings up), and the practicality of the Torah and Talmud in dealing with everyday life matters. Judaism is non-dualist and does not see living in the physical plane as the 'sin' that Christianity turned it into. When I look at modern science, it's not just the names: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman... I also see Maimonides and Nachmanides contribution. Einsteins theory of mass-energy conversion is paralleled in Kabbalistic text after Kabbalistic text. It's bizarre. Freud's theories and much of modern Psychology have direct parallels to Kabbalistic thought and understanding of the way the mind works.

It really strikes me as odd that we all seem to have a tendency to think that there is no possible way that what is good about Christianity could have come from the Jews, that it had to come from "India". That is bizarre to me. I find it very reminiscent of the old Christian Triumphalism that claimed it had supersceded the "Old Testament". Even the name "Old Testament" produces a fundamental bias against it. This is coming from people who have no idea what the Rabbis said about anything that relates to what Jesus was saying. They only know what the NT says. It is indeed quite possible that Jesus was only reinterpreting Judaism like many Jews were reinterpreting Judaism during the intense difficulties of the Roman occupation.

Let's take the idea that Rachel Corrie (SoulCircles blatently anti-Israel use of a tragicly misguided girls name), has brought up through his quote: The idea presented is that the Jews did not produce their own scripture. The idea presented is that the Jews "took" their scripture from other people. Now, I know that you, Chela, probably agree with this! By looking at the actual texts, not in a ‘popular’ book, but in a scholarly way, the Hebrew scriptures came out of a cultural milieu that included Sumerians, Chasdians, Cana'anites, Egyptians, Hittites, and I can go on and on... which all influenced each other, just like the Dravidians influenced the Aryans and produced a vibrant culture (not without it’s racist tendencies, though... and yes the Upanishads are inspired, just like the mystical texts of most traditions are inspired.) If you read what is available from these cultures (which is very limited, aside from the Jews and the Egyptians), there are fundamental differences between the surrounding cultures and what the Jews produced. The Archetypes might be the same, the word for "horse" might be from another language, but the originality of the Jewish contribution is startling. The Torah represents a paradigm shift that has influenced most of the worlds population, who, today follows a tradition derived directly by the ancient culture of the Jews. Certain people seem to want to NOT give credit where it is due, though, and want to claim that the Jews 'stole' everything. I call this an anti-Jewish projection onto the Jews, and I am not making the claim that it is blatent or even conscious in the people who are doing it, because they cannot admit the influence the Jews have had over them. This “influence” has been twisted into things like “control of the media” a “Cabal of Jewish Elders planning on the take-over of the world” and other such BLATENT anti-semitism. Today, the people who believe that the Jews did not produce anything of value (I know you will deny you are doing this, so go right ahead!) are falling into the more subtly distructive myth that the Jews “took” everything from other people. They are projecting their own 'theft', as Christians, Muslims, Communists, Capitalists, adherents to Einsteins theories, etc., etc., etc., shall we say. It’s really time humanity got over this.

To address you statement, I know what SoulCircles political beliefs are. He is currently a devotee of Stokely Carmichael, a man who called from taking up violence to secure civil rights. I find Stokely Carmichael's 'political' approach to be as offensive as I find Yasser Arafats. They seem to be one and the same. When people will not negotiate and resort to killing, the only peaceful solution is separation. SoulCircle would call this statement of mine “racist”. I think he is very misguided and should go back
to Yoga Basics, 101 and take a good look at the practice of Ahimsa.

I am not saying that anyone is maliscious, I am saying that our culture has an inated 'construct' of understanding Judaism that is based on bias and prejudice, once deadly, now smoldering unconsciously in many of our opinions and what we take to be "truth".

etzchaim
Registered User
(1/25/04 10:37 am)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
Chela, I don't believe that many people are openly or even consciously anti-semitic. I believe that anti-Jewish tendencies are deeply rooted in our culture and activate in a mainly unconscius manner. .

I have read many of the 'sources' that the particular author that Soulcircle quotes. The Hebrew scripture has similar stories: the flood, the tower, the origin of the universe out of chaos. The stories are universal architypes, and yes, the Middle Eastern countries have all influenced each other.

The issue I am trying to point out is that IF you are actually familiar with the texts that the Jews have written (other than a translation of a translation of a book with a very anti-Jewish book attached to it's end claiming to have 'supersceded' the older text), AND to traditions that the Jews "took" (stealing?) the UNIVERSAL ARCHIYPES (found even in Native American traditions...) from you would actually see the specific contribution that the Jews have made. The Hebrew versions are VASTLY different in fundamenatal ways.

Compare the Sumerian Creation stories to the Hebrew Creation story - and PLEASE - do not limit yourself to a childish, literal, pedantic slavery to the meaning of the translated from translated words.

The reason I am pointing this out, aside from it pushing very bitter buttons I grew once I started actually studying the history of Christian/Jewish relations, as well as the Secular Western non-Jewish/Jewish relations and how people around the world have reacted to Judaism - almost always stemming from a bias caused by one of the two religions that originate out of Judaism, whether they continue to follow that religion or not. I also confronted my own fathers unconscious anti-semitism, my step-mothers fear that I was practicing somethig Satanic, and I've seen it in myself, as well. Most people who were brought up in the Western Christian culture, including many Jews, have absolutely no idea, what the Hebrew language is like (I would put it about on the same level as Sanskrit, as far as spiritual focus and usefullness). They have no idea what the Jewish tradition is like. Most people think it stopped at the beginning of the New Testament! They have no idea that the concept of "evolution" is inherent in the Hebrew text. They have no idea how Jews have actually looked at their OWN TEXT, understood it, interpreted it, used it, and evolved with their understanding, precisely because Judaism teaches an evolutionary approach and a continual influx of Consciousness (called Shefa, in Hebrew) into humanity. Most people do not put together the role that Jews have played in western tradition and other traditions with the teachings of the Jews.

Lets take a few examples:
Marx was from a long line of Rabbis. When I look at his texts, I see Jewish Messianism all the way through it. Marx made an entire system that was based on "Old Testament" dreams. When I look at the development of the market economy, I see the history of Jewish relations with Christians (can you say "money lenders"? Let's try "banks" next, and see what that brings up), and the practicality of the Torah and Talmud in dealing with everyday life matters. Judaism is non-dualist and does not see living in the physical plane as the 'sin' that Christianity turned it into. When I look at modern science, it's not just the names: Einstein, Oppenheimer, Feynman... I also see Maimonides and Nachmanides contribution. Einsteins theory of mass-energy conversion is paralleled in Kabbalistic text after Kabbalistic text. It's bizarre. Freud's theories and much of modern Psychology have direct parallels to Kabbalistic thought and understanding of the way the mind works.

It really strikes me as odd that we all seem to have a tendency to think that there is no possible way that what is good about Christianity could have come from the Jews, that it had to come from "India". That is bizarre to me. I find it very reminiscent of the old Christian Triumphalism that claimed it had supersceded the "Old Testament". Even the name "Old Testament" produces a fundamental bias against it. This is coming from people who have no idea what the Rabbis said about anything that relates to what Jesus was saying. They only know what the NT says. It is indeed quite possible that Jesus was only reinterpreting Judaism like many Jews were reinterpreting Judaism during the intense difficulties of the Roman occupation.

Let's take the idea that Rachel Corrie (SoulCircles blatently anti-Israel use of a tragicly misguided girls name), has brought up through his quote: The idea presented is that the Jews did not produce their own scripture. The idea presented is that the Jews "took" their scripture from other people. Now, I know that you, Chela, probably agree with this! By looking at the actual texts, not in a ‘popular’ book, but in a scholarly way, the Hebrew scriptures came out of a cultural milieu that included Sumerians, Chasdians, Cana'anites, Egyptians, Hittites, and I can go on and on... which all influenced each other, just like the Dravidians influenced the Aryans and produced a vibrant culture (not without it’s racist tendencies, though... and yes the Upanishads are inspired, just like the mystical texts of most traditions are inspired.) If you read what is available from these cultures (which is very limited, aside from the Jews and the Egyptians), there are fundamental differences between the surrounding cultures and what the Jews produced. The Archetypes might be the same, the word for "horse" might be from another language, but the originality of the Jewish contribution is startling. The Torah represents a paradigm shift that has influenced most of the worlds population, who, today follows a tradition derived directly by the ancient culture of the Jews. Certain people seem to want to NOT give credit where it is due, though, and want to claim that the Jews 'stole' everything. I call this an anti-Jewish projection onto the Jews, and I am not making the claim that it is blatent or even conscious in the people who are doing it, because they cannot admit the influence the Jews have had over them. This “influence” has been twisted into things like “control of the media” a “Cabal of Jewish Elders planning on the take-over of the world” and other such BLATENT anti-semitism. Today, the people who believe that the Jews did not produce anything of value (I know you will deny you are doing this, so go right ahead!) are falling into the more subtly distructive myth that the Jews “took” everything from other people. They are projecting their own 'theft', as Christians, Muslims, Communists, Capitalists, adherents to Einsteins theories, etc., etc., etc., shall we say. It’s really time humanity got over this.

To address you statement, I know what SoulCircles political beliefs are. He is currently a devotee of Stokely Carmichael, a man who called from taking up violence to secure civil rights. I find Stokely Carmichael's 'political' approach to be as offensive as I find Yasser Arafats. They seem to be one and the same. When people will not negotiate and resort to killing, the only peaceful solution is separation. SoulCircle would call this statement of mine “racist”. I think he is very misguided and should go back
to Yoga Basics, 101 and take a good look at the practice of Ahimsa.

I am not saying that anyone is malicious, I am saying that our culture has an innate 'construct' of understanding Judaism that is based on bias and prejudice, Triumphalism and Supersesionism (from the Latin 'supersedere', "to be superior to"), once deadly, now smoldering unconsciously in many of our opinions and what we take to be "truth".

Edited by: etzchaim at: 1/25/04 10:51 am
nagchampa2
Registered User
(1/28/04 12:04 pm)
Reply 		Re: BIBLICAL ORIGINS
etzchaim,

You wrote: "I don't believe that many people are openly or even consciously anti-semitic. I believe that anti-Jewish tendencies are deeply rooted in our culture and activate in a mainly unconscius manner".

So basically what I hear you saying is, because Soulcircle read the history of the Bible from a certain source, YOU THINK THAT SOULCIRCLE IS ANTI-SEMTIC-but since you can't prove this, you believe it is unconscious.

You remind me of many others groups whom I have dealt with over the years that are paranoid towards anyone who is not in their own group and thinks that everyone is racist.

I can give two examples that I have had to deal with myself:

1. I made friends with a black woman years ago. (I have had black friends all my life.) She and I used to go to the mall shopping or out to lunch. Our friendship didn't last very long, because she was constantly accusing people in public of being prejudiced. Example: we would go for lunch, and she would get into a fight with the witress, accusing her of being a racist, when I didn't see anything going on.

2. I have had many Hispanic friends in my life. I was running an RV Park, when a couple who lived there were disobeying the rules in the park. I had to ask them to leave. The young man was Hispanic. He wouldn't leave, so I called the police. Immeditately, he told them that I was a racist. I said, "There are other Hispanics in the park, and they are still here." The police officer told me to stop talking. Then he grew very angry and told him that he was sick and tired of hearing people yell racism, that he gets it all the time when he stops people. He then ran a check on him, which he may or may not have done before. This young man had many warrants out, so he arrested him. I felt sorry for him, and for his girlfriend. I also felt sorry for the fact that their trailer stayed where it was until his girlfriend could get it moved.

So it really gets to me when people call others racists and then claim it is subconscious racism.

So if us pions (that is, in this case, people who are not Jewish scholars) end up reading books by scholars and quote from them, it doesn't mean that we are anti-semitic.

Much like how people reacted when I said that Yogananda was a racist. He more than likely wasn't, just that he fell back on his East Indian beliefs when it suited him, which was in the case of Nerode's marriage to an American, which showed more of a lack of intregrity.



Edited by: nagchampa2 at: 1/28/04 5:21 pm
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