ZGram - 3/11/2002 - "Has the Revisionist Bug Bitten the Bully?"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

=1FCopyright (c) 2002 - Ingrid A Rimland

ZGrams - Where Truth is Destiny

March 11, 2001

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

If I tell you that the Revisionist Bug has Bitten the Bully, will you 
believe me?  What - you will not?  Just when you think you have seen 
it all, up comes a new surprise.  If only they knew how often we 
laugh at their verbal gyrations to get their necks out of the noose!

I am only giving you a few snippets because I want you to go and 
savor that essay for yourselves.  You will come away from it asking: 
"Are they lying now, or were they lying then?  If then - why?  If now 
- why NOW?"

Either way, it seems suicidal to me!

What's more, you are going to have to ask yourself if all good 
spirits are beginning to forsake the Chosenites - because as 
resentment worldwide about the Palestinian situation is coming to a 
boiling point, they will NEED the support of the Pat Robertson/Jerry 
=46allwell/Robert Schuller Christians - badly! - to bolster their 
so-called "claim" on the Holy Land.  I don't think they can make it 
without America's  "Amen Corner" - not in the Western World, not any 
longer, not after 9/11.  And here they are spitting the Christians 
right in the face, telling them that their Holiest of Holies is 
nothing but a fable, concocted by an earlier crop of Weasels, 
popularized by some precursor Stephen Spielberg  ancestors?

This will not go down in history as one of their smarter moves - but 
there it is, for all to see, right in the New York Times:

[START]

As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/09/arts/09BIBL.html?todaysheadlines

Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. 
The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never 
occurred.  The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. 
And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into 
a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose 
reputation was later magnified to provide a  rallying point for a 
fledgling nation.  (...)

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the 
1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a 
new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60 
years.

Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an 
interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from 
archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient 
cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of 
the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a 
view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document.  (...)

=46or instance, an essay on Ancient Near Eastern Mythology," by Robert 
Wexler, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, states 
that on the basis of modern scholarship, it seems unlikely that the 
story of Genesis originated in Palestine. More likely, Mr. Wexler 
says, it arose in Mesopotamia, the influence of which is most 
apparent in the story of the Flood, which probably grew out of the 
periodic overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates  rivers. The story 
of Noah, Mr. Wexler adds, was probably borrowed from the Mesopotamian 
epic Gilgamesh.  (...)

"There is no reference in Egyptian sources to Israel's sojourn in 
that country," (Lee I. Levine, a professor at the Hebrew University 
in Jerusalem) writes, "and the evidence that does exist is negligible 
and indirect."  (...)

Similarly ambiguous, Mr. Levine writes, is the evidence of the 
conquest and settlement of Canaan, the ancient name for the area 
including Israel. Excavations showing that Jericho was unwalled and 
uninhabited, he says, "clearly seem to contradict the violent and 
complete conquest portrayed in the Book of Joshua." What's more, he 
says, there is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence" 
backing up the Bible's grand descriptions of the Jerusalem of David 
and Solomon.

The notion that the Bible is not literally true "is more or less 
settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis," observed 
David Wolpe, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles ... in a sermon 
to 2,200 congregants at his synagogue, Rabbi Wolpe frankly said  that 
"virtually every modern archaeologist" agrees "that the way the Bible 
describes the Exodus is not the way that it happened, if it happened 
at all."

The rabbi offered what he called a "litany of disillusion" about the 
narrative, including contradictions, improbabilities, chronological 
lapses and the absence of corroborating evidence. In fact, he said, 
archaeologists digging in the Sinai have "found no trace of the 
tribes of Israel =97 not one shard of pottery."  (...)

Since the fall, when "Etz Hayim" was issued, more than 100,000 copies 
have been sold.

[END]

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Thought for the Day;

"Sounds much like their Holocaust story to me!"

(Ernst Z=FCndel)