Israel completely ceased to exist thousands of years ago.
If it ever existed in the first place. Remove the Bible from the equation and there is very little if any evidence for a "Kingdom of Israel", even less so that it was ever "Jewish" outside of possibly a ruling elite.
Archeology does support many of the main historical narratives, I have little doubt that there was a kingdom.
I want to use it to ensure that people like Challenger can't erase, deny or reject the historical, spiritual and ancestral ties that the Jewish people have to the territory. You know, like he JUST did by saying that the Jewish people are not a "real" people and therefore have NO RIGHTS to the reconstitution of the Jewish nation.
I'm erasing nothing, I'm highlighting the fact that Zionist "historians" invented a "Jewish people" from assorted groups tenuously linked together by a religion. You are arguing in effect that Mormons or Moonies, or Scientologists, are an "ethnic group". If that's the case, move over, the British are coming; according to this crowd, we have more right to Palestine than " the Jewish people" do.
British Israelism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Are you saying a Jewish people did not exist prior to Zionist historians? In this area science does provide genetic evidence of close relationships among the Jewish people. A huge difference from members of proselytizing religions.
Judaism is a religion and of course there were adherants and practicioners of the religion before Zionism emerged, that has never been in doubt, but that's a religious group, not an ethenic one. Judea/Palestine in antiquity was a cosmopolitan area containing several ethicities speaking different languages and having their own customs and religions. Also Judaism
was a proselytising religion for centuries until supplanted by Christianity and was not above carrying out forced conversions, especially during the Hashmonean period. As for "genetic evidence", the jury is still out on that one, so I'll forego comment.
I've never heard it was a proselytising religion - do you have a source for these?
This is widely known in academic circles and there are several scholarly sources available, sadly not on the web unless you are a member of JSTOR or similar organisations. Look for works by Louis H. Feldman (Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World) and Theodor Mommsen, who asserted in Rome's History vol 6, "...ancient Judaism was not exclusive at all: ir was rather, as keen to propagate itself as Chistianity and later Islam would be." (page 193)
...and just so I don't get inundated with moronic accusations of "Islamo-nazism (whatever that is) and using "hate sites"...
How was the biblical “stranger” transfigured into the “proselyte”?
In the Bible, the Hebrew term
ger refers to a “resident alien,” but
ger later took on the meaning of “a proselyte” (from the Greek
proselytos ). The talmudic sages (third century C.E.) stressed the equality of the native-born and the proselyte, citing Exodus 12:49, “One law shall be to him that is home born and to the
ger, the sojourner among you,” as well as the teaching (from Mechilta Piska 15) that the proselyte was equal to the native-born Jew with respect to “all the commandments of the Torah.” Once the stranger has, by choice, become a member of the family, he/she is entitled to all its privileges (and burdens).
The rabbis also observed that the precept to love, protect, and not oppress the
ger or stranger appears 36 times in the Torah, more often than any other biblical precept. The 12th-century philosopher and talmudist Moses Maimonides thus said: “Our parents are to be honored and obeyed; our prophets are to be heeded; but the proselyte we are bidden to love with a full force of our heart’s affection” (Mishneh Torah, Book I).
This suggests that Jews must have been actively proselytizing at the time.
Yes. According to the Jewish historian Salo Baron, in great part because of proselytizing, the number of Jews grew from 150,000 in 586 B.C.E. to eight million in the first century C.E.—at which time they constituted 10% of the Roman Empire! Jews were working very hard then to convert pagans; the Gospel of Matthew reports that Jewish proselytizers traveled over sea and land to make a single proselyte (23:15).
Why, then, did Jews stop proselytizing gentiles?
The cessation was imposed by Roman edicts, not rabbinic rulings. In the fourth century C.E., after the empire adopted Christianity as the state religion, Roman emperors made conversion to Judaism a criminal offense, punishable by death of both the proselytizing Jews and the convert. The code of the Roman Emperor Theodosius declared: Any person who “betakes himself to the nefarious sect of Judaism shall sustain with them the deserved punishment of death...” (Theodosius Code 116.8.1, August 13, 339). The Holy Roman Empire hoped to dismantle the Jewish mission to be “a light to the nations” and thus drive a universal faith into a parochial tribalism.
Reform Judaism Magazine - Choosing Judaism: Judaism's Proselytizing Tradition