Vanity: Questions about Jewish history

[rmlew]

You missed Yom Kippur:
1. You were bad.
2. We were bad.
3. Jonah was bad, got eaten, then sunburned and learned a lesson.
4. Still can't eat.
5. Mosquitoes eat us, now we can eat.
Next year again!

[rmlew]

What are the questions?

[amom]

Here’s a link to a Timeline for the History of Judasim at the Jewish Virtual Library website.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/timeline.html

[editor-surveyor]

"During and especially after the Babylonian Captivity, the exiles redefined their beliefs and practices and thus established what they believed ws the law of Yahweh."

This is, I assure you, pure drivel!

Torah ("the teaching") defined the law, from Mt. Sinai to the present.

[editor-surveyor]

"according to many historical-critical scholars, it was edited and redacted during this time"

But Nehemiah found the ancient scroll, and thus the "critical scholars" are wrong, as usual. The attack on God's word will never end.

[amom]

Nachum: I can only imagine what a trip to the Holy Land must have been like. I will have to look up the ‘tunnel tour’ I have only scratched the surface of Harod’s wall. Staggering...18 cities deep.

no more apples: I found www.askmoses.com thanks to a friend here. It might also be of some help in your quest. There is a place where you can ask a question and get an answer from a rabbi in a chat type environment.

[ChicagoHebrew]

I am very knowledgeable. Without blushing, I know few people who know more than me about Jewish history. Feel free to PM me any question you like, on two conditions:

(1) This is not an attempt to convert me (such attempts do nothing but irritate me -- I have heard and refuted every argument 1000 times before);

(2) You will not be offended by whatever I have to say about certain topics where Jewish-Christian history intertwines;

[wendy1946]

The thing I linked to presents a solid case for thinking that the Khazar kingdom actually amounted to the ten Israelite tribes which the Assyrians transported to far-off regions.

[ChicagoHebrew]

No one can understand the modern history of the Jews without having read The Thirteen Tribe by Arthur Koestler, an excellent writer, a Jew, and a reformed Communist (also read his very moving The God That Failed.

As other posters have alluded to, Koestler's central thesis (that Ashkenazim are principally descended from the Khazars) has been completely debunked by genetic evidence, which has proved that -- even after 2000 years -- Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, Romaniote and Tehemani Jews are all nearly genetically indistinguishable, at least on the y-chromosome. Koestler was creative, but you can't argue with DNA.

[LiteKeeper]

Recommend the Book of Genesis. The first 11 chapters cover the first 2000 years of human history. I have been studying and teaching the book for the last seven years. Amazing stuff there! Happy to recommend some resources, and/or dialog with you about it.

[Philo-Junius]

Except the absolute absence of any evidence of Hebrew literacy by the Khazar populace at large, or any notion by contemporary Jews that any such relationship existed.

The Khazar thesis is a story bereft of any physical or documentary evidence.

[MindBender26]

For a time, there was only one Jewish Princess in the whole of England, and she once said is remembered every Spring. So what was it she said after having sex with 7 members of King Arthur's Round Table and finding none of the Knights especially exciting or satisfying, but then, the 8th Knight, also a member of those famous Arthurian nobles, was exceptionally loving, soft and sensual, And yet I say unto you that, yeah, I say unto you he was a beautiful boffing bedspring gymnast, and he brought her to orgasms after orgasms the level of which she only heard the scullery maids gossip about with ceaseless wagging tongues.... and she now knew those wagging tongues had told it ever so true. So what is it the Princess then said in a plaintive, exhausted, satiated voice from her pillow to welcome the new dawn slipping into her bedroom window?

What was her plaintive cry, I beg of you, what?>

[MindBender26]

So if I say 5 Our Fathers, 10 Hail Marys and put $20 in the collection plate, am I Ok?

[MindBender26]

Serious question, did the lost tribe bearing the Mark of Dan end up in Denmark?

[Nachum]

Staggering...18 cities deep.

That is actually not the deepest dig. Cities built on cities many stories deep. Walking through the old city, viewing pylons 2000 years old. Walking along the Cardo on the same coblestones the greats of history tread.

Masada was also a real trip. You can see Jordan from the top. It is so dry there, that when it was first explored they found bodies of those killed by the Romans that still had skin on them. The place was so dry that bacteria could not survive to eat away at the skin of the dead.

[amom]

To have walked those same steps...truly amazing.

I didn’t know about the dryness there and the condition the bodies of the Romans were found. After looking at a few pictures (the wonders of the internet) I can see how that would be possible.

Such a wonderful experience you have had.

[Berosus]

I’m not a rabbi, but the church I attended when I lived in Florida was so pro-Israel, that I sometimes told folks my religious affiliation was “might as well be Jewish.” I’m also a history major, so I’ll be happy to help. Where do you want to begin?

[editor-surveyor]

Your modesty is duly noted ;o)

[editor-surveyor]

"Serious question, did the lost tribe bearing the Mark of Dan end up in Denmark?"

Or in Italy, as the Giordanos? Or France, as the Jordans?

[editor-surveyor]

"It is so dry there, that when it was first explored they found bodies of those killed by the Romans that still had skin on them."

Streeeeetch? A land devoid of Vultures? There are hundreds of better explanations for the presence of those bodies.