Heh, heh.
It's amazing what fundamentalists (Jewish or Christian) can do with a little biblical mythology.
Let's start here: The majority of criticial biblical scholars are quite convinced that the stories of Moses, the Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, as well as the military conquest of Palestine are mythological, and non-historical. They so believe because there is no evidence - archaeological or otherwise - for any of those stories.
Fundamentalists, who believe everything in the Bible is literally true and is inerrant in all respects don't agree, of course, with the biblical scholars, because they read the Bible through the prism of their theology, and anything in the Bible that appears to contradict their theology is explained away through a series of mental gymnastics that would make Mary Lou Retton proud.
That explains why a little company down in San Antonio "has re-created, as an art form, an authentic and faithful-to-scripture set of the two stone tablets referred to in the Bible," the tablets upon which were written the Ten Commandments.
The company, HaShem Artworks, plants to display these "authentic" tablets on Feb. 8 in the Crossroads Mall in San Antonio.
The artist who did the work, A. E. Tracy Potts, well-meaning though he may be, is living in a biblical fantasy world. He claims that "Unlike some mythological artifact from pagan antiquity bearing some ancient curse by some obscure or unknown god, these Two Stone Tablets, like the ones that Moses would have carried off Mt. Sinai, bear the ancient and actual blessing promised in every Bible ever published, whether Jewish or Christians, of the Deity worshiped by its believers."
Actually, the god, who according to the Hebrew myth, "spoke" to Moses, was the tribal god of Moses' father-in-law (according to the Bible!). The Hebrews, in the myth, knew very little about this god, and weren't really too concerned with this god, and immediately ignored the "commandments" Moses had received from this god. That, of course, made the god mad and he proceeded to kill thousands of them zippy-doo! To teach them a lesson, you understand.
The Ten Commandments are the Hebrew revision of other ancient law codes, most importantly the Code of Hammurabi, Hammurabi being the sixth king of Babylon, who extended Babylon's control over all of Mesopotamia. The Code of Hammurabi is likely the first codified set of laws in the ancient world.
Hashem, by the way, is the "name" by which Orthodox Jews reference the deity.
And you might enjoy looking at these stone tablets, but don't be fooled into thinking they are rooted in history. They are not. They are rooted in ancient myths which were recast by Hebrew scholars in the 7th Century BCE in order to strengthen and nation and the temple cult.
7 comments:
c'mon Jacob - i SAW Moses part the red sea with my own two years --- but he looked so much like the guy who landed on Planet of the Apes - amazing
"like the guy on planet of the Apes?" - Mark Walberg?
Would this 10 commandments be the same one that condones slavery? I can't figure out how the right wing nuts ever figure they can legislate these 10 words. Don't look now, I think Rick Warren is coveting your horse.
or Number 4:
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Does that mean we'll be taking down all the crosses any time soon or does that mean me must stop American Idol? I understand now. We must kill Simon Cowell.
I doubt if we will see all the idols taken off dashboards, or the religious tattoos off skins. We need those symbols of faith to show others that we believe in spite of our behavior.
What idols can be taken during the Rapture? As I understand it, people of faith will be whisked out of their homes, cars, etc stripped naked and swept up thru the sky to Heaven. For those that lack sufficient faith, left on earth, it will be a wondrous sight. I am not sure that the sight of the naked, average overweight American will be wondrous but will have to wait to make a final judgment.
how does one approach Jesus?
that is a fundemental!
its all about Jesus!
either Jesus was a crazy man, telling the truth, or he was lying!
then what about the original followers of Jesus.....would they have willing died for something they knew was a lie?
not something they believed was true, but something that was fabricated, and willing died for that story that was made up? how likely would somebody die for a lie? man will roll over quickly!......i certainly would not die for lie.....and die brutal deaths at that!
its all about how one handles the man Jesus!
did Jesus really exist? what about Plato? what about King Herod? what about all the real people of Rome that we have stuff from.....were they really real people? what about the Greeks?
don't be a biggot! be open! you know theres funny stuff going on, but then your willing to believe all the stuff they tell you. how can you have both?
use your brains! nothing can come from nothing!
re-educate urselves! they have taught us crap that there is no proof for!
when will Science stick to the Scientific Method?
majority don't, and just like religion, they believe what they are taught! why do you believe what you believe? do you believe it because some one told you this, or have you drawn ur own conclusions? use ur brains and think for urselves!
think about Jesus, really consider what the truth is about him, not what a church tells you is true. its pretty serious stuff! life and death......not the physical kinda of death tho.
there is soo much we don't know, but we act like we know, but this know has been founded on theories which have no proof! and they are considered true! does truth change? on top of that, if main stream Science would open their eyes, there are so many things that should be looked into, what about Giants? what about the Megaliths all around the world, how did they get like that? how were the pyrmaids made? what about the Electric Universe or Plasma Cosmology?
Mainstream wont go there either out of ignorance, or they just can't deal with it because it would destroy what they believe!
what about the age of the Earth? is the Strata as old as they say it is? layer upon layer with no time inbetween? these strata theories have been exposed and shown in error! and thats by science and scientific expirments!
what about super large animals man has recorded seeing? the drawings, the figurines, the carvings....it goes on n on! and how in the heck could they look like what we now know as dinosaurs if they never saw these creatures? it just doesn't make any sense!
archelogy, written accounts, history, artifacts, deal with what we do know!
there really was a man Jesus, but what do you say about him, who do you say he is?
where do Jews come from? where do Arabs come from? what about Israel? where do we come from?
where did life come from? where did anything come from?
there is more faith in evolution, Jesus isn't based on faith! faith in the God of Jesus is like faith in evolution, but evolution is based on theories upon theories upon theories, and at that, they have been proven to be false, and now thats called psuedo-science. Believers in God have been servants to the people and have advanced much of what we do have today!
George Washington Carver and Nicola Tesla! i believe they are my brothers, and they have litterally revolutionized what we have today!
but most of all, Jesus......its all about Jesus! He is the Foundation we should build upon.
WHO IS JESUS?
I must be a "biggot." I don't believe in anything you said in your utterly confused and ignorant way.
Your Jesus, my friend, is a figment of your very strange imagination.
There is no proof that Jesus died and came back. His original followers continued to practice his Jewish religion. Christianity, as we know it, was created much later by Jews with a lot of rumor, stories, mythology borrowed from pagan religions, etc. One can believe in them or not. The use of the various versions of Christianity and its battling sects led to wars, killing, prejudice and discrimination and still does. The Jews continued to be the victims of enlightened Christians for centuries and still have problems all over the world.
The world has a wide variety of religions and new ones keep popping up. Apparently there is a need for them. They can’t all be the right one, so people pick and choose. Some reject them all. We will never know which the right one is unless we have some conscious thought after death. No one has ever returned from Heaven or Hell and wrote about it. We are still dependent upon a variety of voices, many with a personal stake in gaining adherents.
In the meantime, all the ills of mankind continue to cause grief, poverty killing, disease, etc while waiting for Jesus. It is now 2009 and some are still waiting. Man has created cures and solutions for many problems while waiting for Jesus. I hope Man continues as we have no idea as to the arrival date of Jesus and what will change for mankind.
Go Bob!
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