Posted on 03/19/2006 6:44:46 PM PST by prairiebreeze
It WAS more than that when you consider how many Jews they murdered along the way. Why did they have to do that?
The Crusades where prior to the Muslim forays into Europe.
Most folks along the way, were slaughtered or dispersed. It was about taking booty. And the Crusadering armies by necessity lived on the land. The lines of resupply were non-existent.
More crap. See the Byzantine Empire.
The leaders are well educated. That is always the case. The leaders are entreprenuers.
It was a nasty and brutish time. I just want some evenhandedness, so that the main point, "Islam attacks, Christianity counterattacks" is not transmogrified into "Christians' Murderous Crusades against the loving Muslims."
Or an Islam apology for anything, for that matter. Apology is apparently not a virture of the Islimeites.
You first have to have dialog based on facts and truth. Not propaganda. Propaganda provokes derision, as well it should.
In general I am in sympathy with the Jews and with Israel, but what happened in 1492 was far from one sided.
Ferdinand and Isabella presided over the final days of a struggle that lasted for many centuries: the Reconquista, to reconquer their country and drive the Moors out of Spain, after the Muslim invaders had conquered the entire country except for a few surviving free Spaniards in the mountains.
In 1492, Spain was still threatened by the Muslims of North Africa and by the Turkish fleets. Constantinople had fallen in 1453. Turkish pirates controlled much of the Mediterranean. The coasts of Spain and Italy were raided, and Christian slaves were taken.
Some of the Jews in Spain traded with the Turks. Some of them may have assisted the Turks in their raids and given them information. In the circumstances, a life and death struggle that had gone on for generations against terrible odds, it is understandable that the Spanish were worried about the dangers posed by a Jewish Fifth column. That was basically the reason why they expelled the Jews.
No doubt many or most of the Spanish Jews were innocent of the charge of betraying Spain. But the fears of the Spanish were understandable, I believe. I'm not altogether excusing what happened, but this side of the story is not usually told. The basic motivator was not religious bigotry or racial purity, but a well-founded hatred and fear of the Muslim enemy at the gates and an unwillingness to trust anyone who could not be absolutely relied on.
If you're trying to infer that Joseph was a pedophile, you missed the boat.
I'm not Catholic (or a Christian for that matter) but according to the church's teachings the immaculate conception refers to the conception of Mary...not to the conception of her son.
Since the church teaches that life begins at conception, Mary's life began at the time of the immaculate conception.
Fair enough. That's more history than I knew.
I'm not a believer in intergenerational guilt. I like the Spanish just fine. Our community has a bad recollection of those events which will probabaly not be overcome by historic accuracy, since even in your account, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.
Also, the Jews had money, which was confiscated by the Spanish state. That was a motivator too. The Spanish King was desperate for money.
You'll only offend your Catholic Christian friends. According to us Protestants, Joseph and Mary did indeed consummate the marriage. Jesus had at least three brothers, James, Jude and Joses, mentioned in the New Testament and the phrase 'do not his sisters live among us?' Catholics say they were cousins/relatives.
Of course, we don't think Mary was "immaculately conceived," but we do believe in the Virgin birth.
Thus the Readers' Digest version of differences between Catholics & Protestants.
Don't forget that the Orthodox agree with the Catholics.
Maybe you haven't seen that version of the story too much because it's a bunch of nonsense. Trying to say the Jews somehow brought their slaughter upon themselves is the same trash talk that's been going on for centuries. The Jews were kicked out of country after country, exploited, forced to leave without property, forbidden to own land or be in guilds in parts of Europe, and in the case of the Crusades, forced to convert or die, then becoming the focus of rage when their conversions were deemed phony (and you'd think the sword would convince them that Christianity was the best religion.) It was all so twisted and shameful. Best to face the truth of history and move on to the present day.
The history revisionists will be deeply saddened.
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