Homepage6. Book 1. The Bible (100-200 CE) Month 3 – March
As I have been reading the bible this month I’ve really come to realise how so many atrocities in the world that are directly and indirectly influenced by the stories and the actions written about in the bible. A case in point – the current situation with Isreal and Palestine. In the Bible “God” promised the Israelites land and that he would “drive other people out”. What right does anyone have to take something that is not theirs? My whole life I have been hearing about the troubles in Israel, Palestine and Hammas and fighting, seeing news stories about people dying, groups of people being persecuted and atrocities committed – for what because they can’t share and be accepting of each other?
I wanted to understand the history Israel/Palestine so I did some research. It seems that the land was occupied by a Jewish population at the beginning of the first century until the Romans conquered the Jewish nation, destroying their holy temple in Jerusalem. They exiled a chunk of the population and renamed it Palatine.
However, before this time around 2000 BCE (before common era) as the region entered the Bronze age a Canaanite civilisation (mentioned in the Bible, particularly in accounts of the Israelites’ conquest of the land) developed towns which then became controlled by Egypt.
In the Iron Age (c. 1200 – c. 550 BC) Isreal and Judah were established. It is suggested that this was the origin of the Jewish and Samaritan peoples as well as peoples of the Abrahamic faiths (known as grouping of several religions that revere Abraham in their scripture, with the three largest and most influential being Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). It seems that over the course of recorded history that there has been a variety of conflicts and a number of ethnic groups have occupied this land.
Over the centuries a range of empires have controlled this region including the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Macedonian empires who have each conquered the region. Then the Hasmonean empire was establish and the local Jewish population was independent for around 1000 years before the takeover by the Romans. The resulted in Jewish-Roman wars and many Jews were killed, fled or sold to slavery.
Christian rule dominated for a time but with the rise of Islam under Muhammed in the 7th century the Muslim Conquest of Levant saw the area become Muslim. In the 12th and 13th centuries the land the regions in the land varied as battles occurred during the crusades. In the 13th century the Mongols conquest took hold of the land for a time until it was halted by the Mamluk Sultanate (a state that ruled Egypt, the Hejaz and the Lavant between the 13th and 16th centuries), under whose rule it remained until the 16th century. They were defeated by the Ottoman empire who controlled the region as an ottoman province until the 20th century.
I found a timeline to help understand it better and as you can see a range if people’s and religions have occupied this area over time and the therefore it seems to me that no-one group has a specific right over the other.
It seems, however that this was made more complicated by actions during the last century. Before the second world war Britain took control of the area known as Palestine following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Britain was given control by the League of nations. The area now had a larger number of Jews following the rise of the Jewish National Movement know as Zionism since the late 19th century, which saw Jewish immigration to the Land of Isreal. The British controlled Mandatory Palestine (1920-1948) committed itself to the creation of a Jewish homeland following the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Obviously Palestinian Arabs opposed this and the tensions between Arabs and Jews grew in the decades of the British administration. During this time more jews fled from persecution in Europe and arrived in this region resulting in a Jewish population of 630 000, 30% of the population, by 1947. The challenge here – as you can see – is that both groups have a claim and links to the land dating back centuries. In 1948 Britain withdrew and the United Nations voted for the Partition of Mandate Palestine and the creation of a Jewish and Arab State. The Jews agreed and the Arabs rejected this resulting in the Mandate of Palestine civil war (1947-1948) which was won by the Jews.
Following this, the Israeli Declaration of independence was signed which then sparked the 1948 war (first Arab War) where Isreal repelled the invading armies which consisted of nations in the military coalition of Arab States (Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen). This resulted in the 1948 Palestine expulsion and flight where many Arabs fled and others were forced out by Zionist paramilitaries as emigration of jews came in waves from other parts of the Middle East. Subsequently several peace treaties have been signed – Egypt-Isreal 1979 (based on Camp David Accords) Oslo I Accord 1993 creating the Palestine national Authority in 1994. Despite this, conflict continues and today 43% of the global Jewish population live in Israel.
Situation now – so all this lead up to the attacks on the 7th October 2023 despite the repeated attempts by President Bush, President Obama and their staff. Isreal was told to stop building in the West Bank, it has not. There are over 700, 000 Jews in the West bank in 150 settlements and Isreal keeps encouraging more to be built. I assume this is so they can slowly take over the land through occupation by mass of numbers. Isreal also withdrew and blockaded Gaza. People in Gaza built over 200 tunnels from Gaza into Egypt to get supplies food, medicine, fuel and of course Weapons. Hamas fired rockets at Tel Aviv on 7th October which was masterminded by one of the 1500 Arab prisoners released by Netanyahu years earlier in exchange for their 1 soldier. This obviously enraged Netanyahu
The Israeli government in 2022 were continuing to build in the West Bank and say that a Palestine state being created would be a threat to their own national security. Netanyahu remains the Prime Minister despite the fact that there is a warrant out for his arrest from the International Criminal Court which states “Charges: Allegedly responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024.”
Its continually distressing to see that both sides are committing these atrocities and that both sides are suffering awful loses. When researching this today I just saw so many images of people – on both sides – with grins on their faces, with a sole intent to kill , you could see it in their eyes. I heard the theme from “our tune” Or properly known as Nino Rotos’ Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet, on the radio (you know the one used by Simon Bates years ago for sad stories) and just cried. How ironic that I am listening randomly to music about death due to all consuming love while exposing myself to death by all-consuming hate.
Those that do survive or live in the surrounding areas to where the conflict occurs live in this constant uneasy apprehension and fear that their lives could become turned upside down – or much worse. I am no authority on this but it seems to me that neither of the sides are right and neither side are wrong in their belief for wanting to live Isreal/Palestine but they are both very wrong in their actions to achieve that. I just hope that they can finally come to a resolution. I feel so upset and angry, as do many others, that people are suffering and dying….. and for what…?!
So what have I actually managed to read this month? I have finished the old testament – Leviticus – in short is a list of laws to follow – which seem a bit simple. It talks about the different types of offering that worshippers should give to God according to their sins – Grain Offering, Fellowship Offering to basically say thank you , Sin/Guilt – burnt, restoration or purification Offering…or I’m sorry – they usually involve presenting/slaughtering some sort of livestock. Then there is clean and unclean food – i.e. what type of animals you are allowed to eat so cows allowed not pigs (again Christians do eat pig and Jews don’t – what happened here?!? (It seems this book is also in the Jewish Torah).
The most interesting part is the “discharges causing uncleanliness” and rues about how you must wash if you come into contact with blood, menstrual blood, semen, spit, disease and how you are ceremonially “unclean for 7 days”. Indeed if you touch a women during menstruation you become ceremonially unclean for a whole week! I mean were these actually followed – was it practicable to every time you have a period or had sex to be “unclean” for a week. I am so curious to know how this actually works with people of this time period
So this book in short – after the sins of Israel, Moses was not able to enter the “tent of Meeting” (first type of church) so a set of holy rules to deal the sins was created – which is what this book is. To demonstrate gods power, two of Aarons sons who entered the tent are killed by god. Interestingly this book also considers moral cleanliness and in this book there text which encourages monogamy, caring for the poor and social justice. The Day of Atonement is also detailed at length, this is a day where 2 goats are used to atones for any sin – one’s slaughtered and the other sent off to the wilderness – the scapegoat….. Now God can live with the sins of the people in peace – apparently. So do we still go to hell if we covert our neighbours big car and big screen TV…..?
I have also worked through the old testament book Numbers this month – this one also is in the Torah. I found this book quite dull to start as at the beginning it is a list of how many men “age 20 or over” are able to serve in an army with repeating text and amounts of men for each tribe – though these are surprising numbers – tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands for about 30 tribes. Their task is to take possession of the promised land. The Israelites must take possession of Caanan but refuse after hearing the conditions of Canaan travelling from Monut Sinai. God condemns them to death wondering in the wilderness of the Plains of Moab for 40 years and destroys around 15 000 of them. Eventually the descendants of this group return. Moses tries to control the people and use Gods power himself – getting water from a rock and is then sentenced to the same fate as the people. This book ultimately is the final part of the story of the exodus of the Israelites from their oppression by the Egyptians and then eventual crossing of the River Jordan.
I have also progressed through the New Testament the Gopal of Mark. It seems that the first few books of the New Testament are stories by Jesus’ disciples and their recounting of the story of Jesus. In this book, the second of the four Gospals – Matthew being the first – it’s another story of Jesus by Jonathon Mark – is Jesus the Mesiah? It also talks about him becoming the King? The first half explores who he is and how he is the son of god and will become the king by suffering and dying and coming back to life.
The second part is how he becomes the Messianic King. Being accused of claiming falsely to be king, being crucified and then dying on the cross. It finishes with Jesus’ tomb being found empty and an Angel coming to tell them that Jusus is alive and come back from the dead. I have noticed that the New Testament story repeats itself in the different books – retelling of Jesus story in different ways. It turns out that they do repeat. And the first few books of the New Testament are the retelling of Jesus story by some of his disciples. I am glad I figured this out as I was wondering why the stories in the new testament about Jesus kept repeating and were very similar.
There are some particular parts which I find challenging and these are how there is continually instructions telling of, and promoting, violence, war, death, vengeance for example “If the person is a murderer they should be put to death” – this explains the death penalty still being used in many states in the US and also other countries. But on the other had it preaches forgiveness and understanding. There are also many stories that tell how God wanted the people to “raise [a place] to the ground”, take all the goods for themselves. I can’t quite understand the continued messaging in Psalms to be good and kind, turn the other cheek, forgive thy neighbour and allow opportunities for sinners to atone for their sins. But in other parts of the book God punishes and kills people for their wrongdoing – including not following all of Gods “laws”
#bible #bookOfNumbers #christianity #gospalOfMark #israel #leviticus #palestine #zionism